It’s Monday: What Are You Reading?—December 30th, 2024

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, or anything in those genres – join them.

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Personal

• We had a good Christmas. The kids got presents they loved, and we got to spend quality family time together.
• Other than that, nothing too much happened last week.

Blog/Reading/Gaming

• Still deciding about doing those reviews. I go back and forth on it. I don’t want to be stressed out about reviews, but at the same time, I actually miss writing them. I’ll work it out.
• I have loaded all my reading challenge books onto my Currently Reading shelf on Goodreads.
• I didn’t finish any reading challenges I signed up for on The StoryGraph. But I plan on finishing them this year (I did say that last year, but here we are….lol).
• I finished my Tiaga biome on Planet Zoo and have moved on to the Temperate biome. I have alpacas, alpine goats, American alligators, American Bullfrogs, American standard donkeys, Bactrian camels, and Baird’s tapirs in my zoo. The next exhibit I need to build is a Bengal tiger.
• I am still playing Infinity Nikki. A huge update is supposed to be released today, and I can’t wait to log on to see the changes.

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What I am Reading Now

Intent on proving her brother was murdered a decade ago, Ensley Cartier returns to the one place she vowed to never set foot in again. With the whole town against her, she finds an ally in Levi McGannon. He loves the land and the ranching way of life, but they quickly discover Cattle Cove isn’t the innocent town he once believed and somebody wants Ensley buried along with their secrets.

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What I plan to read later this week

All’s fair when you’re in love with War.

For seventeen-year-old Mia Ahlström, a world ruled by order is the only world she allows. A lifetime of chore charts, to-do lists and study schedules have helped earn her a spot at Redwood State University’s engineering program. And while her five year plan includes finding her very own happily-evah-aftah, years at an all-girls boarding school left her feeling woefully unprepared for keg parties and co-ed extracurricular activities.

So nothing surprises her more than catching the eye of Tyr Fredriksen at her first college party. The imposing Swede is arrogantly charming, stubbornly overprotective, and runs hot-and-cold in ways that defy reason… until Mia learns that she’s fallen for the Norse God of War; an immortal battle deity hiding on Midgard (Earth) to protect a valuable Asgardian treasure from a feral enemy. With a price on his head, Tyr brings more than a little excitement to Mia’s rigidly controlled life. Choosing Tyr may be the biggest distraction — or the greatest adventure — she’s ever had.

Abandoned at birth, Sophie Shields grew up in abusive foster homes, escaping into books and computers for solace. When the constant danger became too much to bear, she ran away, thinking she could survive on her hacking skills alone.

That was until she met Cole Hunter. He became the only person she could trust: her family, her friend, her partner-in-crime. Her everything. After struggling through college and starting their lives together, she believed that nothing could ever tear them apart.

Until it did.

When news of a brutal murder reaches Sophie, she’ll do everything in her power to fix what is broken. If it isn’t too late…

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When Cole was nine years old, he watched his whole family burn to death in a house fire. Fueled by years of obsession, he started one of the world’s leading architectural firms, with a mission to design homes resistant to fire, earthquakes, floods, and every threat known to man.

Sophie was his secret weapon. She was his purpose. Since they were teenagers, he was determined to build a better life for her, so she could finally be safe, and they could be together.

But disaster has always followed Cole around, ripping away everything he loves. This time, if he isn’t careful…

His enemies might just take him down.