I’m so far behind on my blog reading (I know, again!)!! I hope everyone will forgive me while I try and catch up!
I wanted to post though about the books I’ve read most recently. In fact, I’ve read quite a few books lately that have been pretty good.
- One Silent Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon – this is her latest book in her Dark-Hunters series (Sci Fi Romance). This series of books is one of my all-time favorites. I devoured this book! I started it when I got home from work last night and didn’t stop reading until I finished it – five hours later. And it is probably my least favorite of the series! Simply because I wasn’t overly fond of the main characters.
- The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling – a short book of wizard fairy tales as referenced in the final Harry Potter book. It was a cute, quick read. It only took me about 45 minutes to read the whole book, if that.
- Princeps’ Fury by Jim Butcher – the latest Codex Alera book by one of my often-mentioned favorite authors. Each one of his books in this series just gets better and better. I met him at a book signing back in April (picture here) and he explained that he created this series on a dare. I believe he had to come up with a story idea that crossed lost roman legions with Pokemon. The result is this amazing fantasy/adventure series.
- Just After Sunset: Stories by Stephen King – the master of horror is back with a new book of short stories. While I thought some of the stories in this book were interesting, I found several of them kind of slow and on the boring side. The most interesting story in the book is the last one, “A Very Tight Place,” and it is also probably one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever read. Ugh.
- Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh – to be honest, I had never heard of this author before and had not read any of the previous books in this series. This book was on the new fiction shelf at the library when I was there a few weeks ago and I picked it up because of the cover. The jacket sounded interesting, so I checked it out and was extremely pleased with my decision. I adored everything about this book. It is a historical romance, but as I recall, it is definitely not on the graphic side like some others have been known to be (no bare-chested men or women busting out of their dresses on the cover, sorry). I really enjoyed all of the characters and will have to check out the rest of the books in the series at some point.
- The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts - this is the last book in the Sign of Seven trilogy by my favorite author. I love Nora Roberts (and her series under the name of J.D. Robb – see below). I loved this book as well, and while I didn’t finish it quite as quickly as I did One Silent Night, I did finish it fairly fast.
- The Seeing Stone (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 2) – I wrote before about starting this series after watching the movie. It is a very charming series.
- Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb – this is about the gazillionth (I may be exaggerating a bit) book in J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts’ In Death series. These books are kind of like mini episodes of CSI that take place in New York City in the future (Something like 2050-2060, I think). But they have much more interesting characters than CSI. Or at least I think they do.
- Backup by Jim Butcher – a short novellette in my favorite book series ever – The Dresden Files. This is a story from Thomas’ point of view. Thomas (the kind-of vampire) is the half-brother of Harry Dresden (the wizard). Talk about a messed up family tree. The novellette was really good, but I think it could have been made into a full-length novel and it would have been better. I would have liked to have learned more about Thomas.
- The Heir by Barbara Taylor Bradford – I got hooked on this series with the first book “The Ravenscar Dynasty.” I thought it was an extremely interesting historical novel, but I do have some reservations about Ms. Bradford’s writing. In both of these books, the first 2/3 of the book seems to go at a regular pace, but then the last 1/4 of the book seems to fly. For example, if I remember correctly, in this book, the first 2/3 of the book took place all within a few years. The last 1/4 of the book took place over several decades. I may be getting it mixed up with the first book in the series, but they both seemed to have this element. It made the end of the books seem rushed to me.
As you can see, I’ve been extremely blessed recently with lots of new books from some of my favorite authors and I have a few more waiting to be read. Christmas came early! 
