Monday, January 1, 2018

Books Read - December 2017

Adams, Ellery
The Secret, Book & Scone Society **
Fiction.  First in the Secret, Book and Scone Society cozy mystery series.  Nora and three of her new friends band together to solve a murder.

Blake, Deborah
Circle, Coven, and Grove *****
Non-fiction.  A month by month journal of rituals and suggestions for running magickal groups.

Dangerously Divine *****
Fiction.  Second in the Broken Riders urban fantasy series.  Gregori Sun is lost and is seeking balance in his life.  He applies to join a Buddhist monastery in Minnesota, where he is also doing research at the local library to find  his shamaness mother, hoping that she can help him find himself again.  The librarian helping him has secrets of her own, and though they try to ignore their growing feelings toward each other, the connection has been made and might save their lives.

Burke, Aliyah
Black Sand ***
Fiction.  Novella in the Lei Crime Kindle World.  Natasha is called to Hawai’i when her best friend, a treasure hunter, has been found dead.  Natasha and the local dive shop owner try to find out who killed her friend and why.

Calverley, J.M.
Moana’s Secrets *****
Fiction.  Reef Kahili’s young friend is kidnapped, and when his girlfriend also goes missing, Reef dives into the mystery headfirst to find them.

Evanovich, Janet
Hardcore Twenty-Four ****
Fiction.  Twenty-fourth in the Stephanie Plum cozy mystery series.  Stephanie and Lula are on the hunt for a zombie, and Stephanie is babysitting a giant boa who likes pizza.  If Morelli and Ranger aren’t enough, Steph has to contend  with Diesel crashing at her apartment and in her bed.

Galenorn, Yasmine
Witches Wild *****
Fiction.  Seventh in the Bewitching Bedlam urban fantasy.  Holly and Sandy are being joined by their old friend Fata Morgana, but Fata has changed since they last saw her two hundred years before.  She’s almost become one with the Ocean Mother and is ruled by her emotions.  Before she destroys Bedlam, the witches need to find a way to deal with her, while at the same time facing an evil vampire out to kill Holly.

Garrett, Danielle
Ghosts Gone Wild ****
Fiction.  Third in the Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries series.  Scarlet is busy with preparing floral arrangements for a fancy wedding, when suddenly the bridezilla shows up in her shop dead and demanding the Scarlet return her to her body.  Ghosts are going missing in town, and Scarlet and Lucas are on the hunt to figure out what’s happening to them.

Lucky Witch ****
Fiction.  Seventh in the Beechwood Harbor Magic Mystery series.  Holly is on the hunt for a leprechaun who rearranges lawn gnomes and leaves shamrock clues around town to a supposed stash of gold.  But rogue werewolves are stalking the woods behind the manor, and Holly’s friend is in their sights.

Gibson, Mira
Motive ****
Fiction.  Lei Crime Kindle World book.  Vera is missing her older sister, Kira, who died when Vera was thirteen.  Now she’s a lifeguard, trying to keep the beach safe so no one dies like Kira did.  But finding the body of a young woman on the beach keeps her thoughts of Kira alive, and when she finds out the two deaths might be connected, she starts investigating on her own.

Hiestand, Heather
Blood Ties ****
Fiction.  Lei Crime Kindle World book.  Roselyn has had her DNA tested, and when her relatives start showing up online, she contacts one of them.  Her new boyfriend is helping her get to know her Hawaiian roots, but she suspects him of being involved in what seems to be drug-related attacks on her.

Jaffarian, Sue Ann
Too Big to Die ****
Fiction.  Twelfth in the Odelia Grey cozy mystery series.  Odelia and Greg save a small dog from an overheated car, when the owner arrives demanding to know what’s going on.  To Odelia’s chagrin, the owner is the wife of one of the big clients of Odelia’s law firm, and her husband is out to see Odelia fired.  

Keefer, Dylan
Demon’s Match **
Fiction.  Lei Crime Kindle World book.  Raine is still being chased by Eli, but when he involves another woman in his games and kidnaps her fiancĂ©, Raine is determined to fight back.

Kuhn, N. 
Ghostly Paradise *
Fiction.  Lei Crime Kindle World book.  Woman sees ghosts, ghosts lead her to body, she becomes suspect, bad guy found.  Not edited.

Llewellyn, A.J.
Mercury Gold ****
Fiction.  Lei Crime Kindle World book.  Mercury has been hired by a former girlfriend, now an elementary school teacher, to track down a family that has gone missing.

MacInerney, Karen
Mistletoe Murder ****
Fiction.  Fourth in the Dewberry Farm cozy mystery series.  Lucy is busy with the Christmas Market, but a man is murdered, and his wife is depending on Lucy finding the murderer.

Manning, Fiona
Sunflower *****
Fiction.  A Lei Crime Kindle World novella.  A young girl’s skeleton is found in the cane field, and Tiare is taken back to when her best friend was abducted when they were both children.  The man suspected of being the kidnapper was innocent of the crime, so the perpetrator is still on the loose, and now he’s after Tiare.

Neal, Toby
Wired Dawn *****
Fiction.  Fifth in the Paradise Crime mystery series set in Hawai’i.  Sophie Ang is incognito on Kaua’i, trying to find balance in her life after the supposed death of her boyfriend Connor.  She knows he is still alive, but she never wants to see him again, so she and her dog Ginger are hiking through the valley looking for peace and quiet.  What she finds is a crazed woman yelling that her son has been kidnapped.  When Sophie locates the boy, she needs her ex-boyfriend, Alika, to help her pull him from the lava tubes.

Simons, Kat
Once Upon a Tiger ****
Fiction.  First in the Tiger Shifters series.  Alexis wants no part of the Mate Run, but the elders have set her up this time.  When the males come sniffing around her, only one comes to her defense, the man who has her heart, Victor.

Welling, ReGina
Spells and Jinglebells ***

Fiction.  Anthology of witchy Christmas stories.

Reading Challenges 2018

Reading Challenges 2018


Total books for the year

2018 - 339/100 completed
2017 - 347/100 completed
2016 - 136/100 completed
2015 - 276/100 completed
2014 - 206/100 completed
2013 - 134/100 completed
2012 - 104/100 completed
2011 - 156/100 completed

*****

2018 My Ancestry Around the World 32/32 (DONE)

I always choose four or five reading challenges for the year, but this year I decided to combine several and to also do something different.  I’m fascinated by genealogy and DNA and studying different cultures, so I’ve chosen twenty cultures that my own ancestors lived in to read about.  A fictional book set in each location, as well as a non-fiction to learn more about the cultures.

Gaoshan - Aboriginal Taiwan
F - Ghost Month by Ed Lin
NF - Gaoshan by Fmprc Seac

Hawai’i - 
F - Kaiulani: The People's Princess by Ellen Emerson White
NF - Ancestry of Experience by Dr Leilani Holmes

Spain - Andalucia/Sephardic
F - Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
NF - Andalucia: A Cultural History by John Gill

Portugal -
F - The Virgin of the Wind Rose by Glen Craney
NF - Portugal - Culture Smart by De Quieroz & Sandy Gueses

Norway - Viking
F - Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
NF - Happy Times in Norway by Sigrid Undset

French Pyrenees - Basque
F - Biarritz Passion by Laurette Long
NF - The Basque Country by Paddy Woodworth

Basque Spain - 
F - Guernica by Dave Boling
NF - A Basque Diary by Alex Hallatt

Cuba - 
F - The Distant Marvels by Chantal 
NF - Cuba - Culture Smart by Russell Maddicks

Puerto Rico - 
F - The Coqui and the Iguana by Alidis Vicente
NF - Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know by Jorge Duany

Taino - 
F - Taino: The People Who Met Columbus by Donald H. Sullivan
NF - The Tainos: The People Who Welcomed Columbus by Francine Jacobs

West Africa - Yoruba/Nigeria
F - The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka
NF - The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts by Baba Ifa Karade

North Africa - 
F - The Magician’s Wife by Brian Moore
NF - Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King

Northern/Southern Han - southern China
F - Lady of Chi’ao Kuo by Lawrence Yep
NF - Han by Luc Guo & Fmprc Seac

Siberia - Koryak/Chukchi/West Beringian
F - Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
NF - The Shaman’s Coat by Anna Reid

Filipino - Cebu
F - The Tesseract by Alex Garland
NF - The Forgotten Children of Maui by Lain Wilcken

Neanderthal - 
F - The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
NF - Them + Us by Danny Vendramini