Monday, December 20, 2010

Monday's Beginnings (69)

How are you faring in reading at the beginning of this week?  Are you starting a new book or finishing one up?

Well, I'm still desperately trying to get internet/cable/phone hooked up at our new home.  This has really turned into a huge fiasco!  I hate the cable company we have!  I know hate is a strong word, but the have just played with me long enough.  And we are stuck with them as no one else is in our area yet, and they know it.  They are just to big for their own britches and their hats are 10 sizes to small for their heads.

Well, now that I have that out of my system... I have got some reading done but not nearly as much as I wanted to.  This holiday season is really putting a cramper on my reading time.  I started reading Finders Keepers by Russ Colchamiro this week and was hoping to be done by now.  Ha!  It's the holidays girl! What was I thinking?  So, I am still working on it.  I need to get my review for Bone Gods by Caitlin Kittredge done and posted yet too.

It looks like I will be starting the first section of Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry at the end of this week for our chat discussion starting January 6th.  If you would like to see the schedule for the read, CLICK HERE.

I have to mention as well I have a giveaway going on!  Its an interview with Margaret Ronald and she has graciously offered to give away the first two books of her Evy Scelan Series, and maybe - just maybe - if she has them she will throw in the third one thats coming out on December 28th. CLICK HERE to go enter!

As for my WANT list... I've added 10 more books!  Oh... these books are new series and part to series I have already been reading.  I just can't seem to get enough of the books out there. :)  All the authors should be proud of themselves and you all for introducing me to them all.

Received Last Week:
For Review:
I have received these two Young Reader books from the publisher and will be reviewing them in the spring time.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Zan-Gah, seeking his lost twin brother in a savage prehistoric world, encounters adventure, suffering, conflict, captivity, and final victory. In three years hero passes from an uncertain boyhood to a tried and proven manhood and a position of leadership among his people. Themes include survival, brotherhood, cultures, gender roles, psychological trauma, and nature's wonders and terrors. This is the electronic version of Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure, which has been awarded Mom's Choice Gold Medal for Series, the Eric Hoffer Notable Book Award, and was a finalist for ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The prehistoric saga continues in Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country, the sequel to the award winning Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure. In this story, Zan s troubled twin brother, Dael, having suffered greatly during his earlier captivity, receives a ruinous new shock when his wife suddenly dies. Disturbed and traumatized, all of his manic energies explode into acts of hostility and bloodshed. His obsession is the destruction of the wasp men, his first captors, who dwell in the Beautiful Country. When he, Zan-Gah, and a band of adventurers trek to their bountiful home, they find that all of the wasp people have died in war or of disease. The Beautiful Country is empty for the taking, and Zan s people, the Ba-Coro, decide to migrate and resettle there. But the Noi, Dael s cruelest enemies and former tormentors, make the same migration from their desert home, and the possibility develops of contention and war over this rich and lovely new land.

Purchased:
After reading and enjoying Geist, I looked around Philippa Ballantine's blog and site.  I found I wanted a few more of her books, including the new series she is working on with Tee Morris - Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (CLICK HERE TO SEE COVER AND SUMMARY)
One of the books I did go ahead and purchase, as I was able to order it from the author for she had a whole book of them to sell. It is:
Good Reads Synopsis:
He is born into the human world with a gift; a gift that brings him to the attention of powers both dark and light from the World of the Fey. Sive, the goddess of battle, hopes that he may be able to change the fate of her people.


The Fey are dying, killed by something beyond the boundaries of worlds, and Sive will do anything to save them. So she enlists the help of her trickster cousin Puck to guard the child, and watch him grow into his gift. But a dark power imprisoned by human and Fey, plots to destroy both worlds, and unmake all that they have created.


Can one boy stop the destruction, even if he is William Shakespeare?

Gifts:
I have to mention this gift I received from a very great friend and blogger, Chasity at LovLivLife Reviews.  She is a great person to chat with and always has wonderful reviews and many other posts.

She has made these covers by her own hands.  I have one other one I won on her blog along with this one.  And I love that the protect the outsides of my paperback books so wonderfully!  This one has a book mark attached.  That is a wonderous addition!  So, Thank you Chasity for the beautiful gift. :)  Wishing you all the best!

So, how are you faring this week?  Does it look like a good reading week?

I'm not sure about me.  With Christmas this coming weekend...we have lots to do to prep (like my elvin' duties that I've been laging on) and house work for family and friends to visit.  And its still early in the day for me, although with all that's planned to be done by Friday... I probably wont get much reading done today either.

Here's to wishing you all the best in words and pages!

Don't forget you can join in on Monday's Beginnings now too! Just link up and I'll stop by along with others that have joined in sharing. :)

8 comments:

  1. I read the Zan-Gah books a while back, and while I'm not a fan of the covers at all, the author is a great writer! I hope you have better luck with your cable etc. soon, Melissa! That's always the worst! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you can get the internet to work properly. I do hate when it doesn't work, such an addict

    ReplyDelete
  3. We had that situation with the cable company a while ago. They even teased the dogs which I promptly yelled at them about. Jerks. Luckily we now have a few options and I refuse to use the old cable company at all. :P

    Great books and you have the same cover fabric as I do! I picked the purple one tho. :) Chas is great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I got offered the Zan Gah books awhile back but I turned them down since I'm overwhelmed enough- but really the covers turned me off (shhhh, don't tell anyone). But I have heard that the writing is actually quite good so we'll see if some reviews convince me yet!
    Love the book cover! That would be great for romance books!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Melissa - I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the books. The covers are really not the best. I was hoping to read these with my 11 year old son as they seem like something interesting and easy to get into together. :) Thank you!

    Blodeuedd - Thank you for stopping by. The company is scheduled for Wed. We shall see what happens, but I will move on slow motion for now. ;)

    Melissa (Books&Things) - That is wrong of them to tease the dogs! I would let the scary girls loose on them, okay so it would be more like the scared girls would run from them. ;) But they shouldn't torment the animals. My Rott would not have delt with that in her hay day. She would have taught them a lesson or two. ;D oh, I love Chasity's cover fabric! I need to have more still too.

    Candace - Hi! thanks for stopping by. I really pondered on these books. But figured I could read them with my son and all. They are shorter reads, so why not. But these covers are not very good. Thank you! Chasity is great at creating these book covers. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cable companies can be such a pain! I hope things start to go smoother for you.

    The holidays have me busy at work, but soon I will be back down to part time and my time will again open wide up. I'm desperately trying to get full time at my job but I have to sit back and bide my time. So soon I will have lots of reading time, now whether I actually get a ton of reading done remains to be seen. Always seem to be one thing or another around to distract me =)

    I just got a holiday book to review so I've put my current reads down to get that one done. It's a short book only 150 small pages so with any luck I will have it done by Thursday.

    I hope you and your family have a fantastic Christmas!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Zia - Hi! Sorry it took so long to respond to your comment. Its been crazy all last week with prepping for Santa. ;) Hope you get your full time at work. :) Maybe that will come for you in the new year. Hope you had a great week and an amazing holiday. :) Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey Melissa, Heck I am sooo late to post! But thank you for everything. I love to sew and glad I could share!!=)

    ReplyDelete

Sorry, got 106 spam comments in less than 24hrs. Had to turn on again.

I love comments! Please share your thoughts. I will respond here in the comments back to you.

Thank you for visiting!