Sunday Summary: 23 November 2014

This past week was pretty good in terms of reading. I completed three books, wrote and posted three reviews, and didn't buy a single book! As usual, I'm linking up with The Sunday Post, hosted by Kimba @ The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on the blog, showcase books and things received. Share news about what is coming up on the blog for the week ahead.

Where I've been reading

I had another wonderful week at home. It's unusual for me to be at home for two weeks in a row, and with the holidays coming up this next week, I'll wind up at home for three full weeks. The weather in Texas was really cold—unseasonably cold—at the beginning of the week, but started warming up by Wednesday.

What I've been reading

Format: eGalley
Source: review book from NetGalley
Completed: 17 November

★★★☆☆

Tagged for Death is the beginning of a new cozy mystery series by Sherry Harris. Sarah Winston is recently divorced and struggling to decide what to do with herself. Torn from the familiar life on a US military base, she resorts to her usual source of comfort—checking out garage and tag sales in and around her New England community. There's a murder. Sarah's ex-husband is a suspect. As with all cozy mysteries, the non-professional (Sarah) inserts herself into the investigation and uncovers essential evidence.

Since the majority of the books I read each year are mysteries, I was interested in reading and reviewing this book. I finished it on the 17^th and posted my review a couple of days later. I did enjoy this book and would enjoy reading more in the series

Format: Kindle
Source: freebie from Amazon.com
Completed: 19 November

★★★☆☆

Hugh Howey set everything in motion with his Silo series: Wool, Shift, and Dust. It tells of 50 survival silos deep underground. Residents of each silo have been told that they are all that remains of the human race after a apocalyptic war. But that's not true. Silo 1 is overseeing everything that happens in all the other silos—not always to the benefit of the other silos and their population.

In Silo 49: Going Dark, the situation is rapidly deteriorating with virulent cancers and a reduced birth rate dropping the population numbers to a critical level. Fearful that Silo 1 is going to order the termination of Silo 49, the managers in charge decide to break all connections to Silo 1—“Going Dark”.

As an avid fan of Howey's Silo series, I'm tickled pink to see an an active fan fiction community springing up. Ann Christy is the author of a series of books set in Silo 49, and this first book—a long novella or very short novel—is offered for free at Amazon.com. I enjoyed the book and I am definitely interested in reading more books in this series. My only complaint is that the book needed editing. There were grammar errors and typos, which I've come to expect in every published book.

Format: eGalley
Source: review book from NetGalley
Completed: 22 November

★★★★☆

Ann Brashares, known primarily for her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, turns her considerable talent to science fiction with a premise that is timely and entirely believable. Prenna is a young teen immigrant to the US, living in a reclusive community of other immigrants. What sets these people apart is not the fact that they come from another country or culture, but that they come from the future. Living in the 2090s, they are faced with environmental collapse and deadly mosquito-borne plagues, and they escape into their past arriving in 2014. Although the reason they gave for attempting the time jump was that they would work to prevent the global warming which has crippled their own time, Prenna only sees her leaders hiding their origins.

Teens from the future are not immune to rebellious behavior and Prenna finds herself drawn to Ethan, a forbidden relationship. A homeless man tells her and Ethan that a murder in May 2014 is what sets in motion the sequence of events that results in the plagues of her own time, and sends them out to save the world.

When I accepted a review copy of this book, I saw that its publication was scheduled for the first of January, 2015. But it was actually published in April 2014 in the US. The January publication date is for the UK release. So, I can tell my friends in the US to go ahead and get a copy of this book—it's really good and they will enjoy it. For my UK friends, just hang in there. It will be available soon.

I've been reading these two books this week, but have not yet finished them. I spend most Saturdays with my grandson, so I get about two hours of audiobook listening each week as I drive to and from his house. This week I'm listening to Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. I received this book as one of the free audio books during the SYNC 2014 give-away. And, the book I'm reading simply for pleasure is A Rising Thunder by David Weber. It's the 17^th and penultimate book in Weber's Honor Harrington military SciFi series. (Well, so far!)

This Week on the Blog

For the first week in a couple of months, I don't have a Stacking the Shelves post because I did not receive a single new book this week. This seems amazing to me since I tend to acquire books faster than I can read them. I set myself a book buying moratorium at the beginning of the year. Except for spending gift cards, I'm not buying any books. (Well, there have been a couple of exceptions such as the audio CDs of Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers I ordered from England in September.) And, lately, I've been trying to stay on top of the books that I've agreed to read and review, so I've not been asking for new books from NetGalley and I've avoided checking any books out from the library. But...there's a long holiday weekend coming up and I'm going to go all out with reading—and reading for pleasure instead of for review!

However, in the absence of the Stacking the Shelves post, I did prepare and post three reviews.

1. Review: The Oblate's Confession
2. Top Ten Tuesday: 18 November 2014
3. Review: Tagged for Death
4. Review: Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers