The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for the ‘On My Bookshelf’ Category

On My Bookshelif is my own little spin on In My Mailbox started by Kristi at The Story Siren. In this weekly meme, readers post books and book goods they got the previous week. The books can be ones you bought, got from the library, got for review, you get the point.

This week was a great week for me in quantity and quality, now I just have to find the time to get them all read!!

Starting from the left, we’ll start with the book I bought. Last week I went and saw the Hunger Games in the theater. One of the previews was for The Lucky One. It is about a soldier who survives a blast that kills the rest of his troop. The only reason he survives is because he is distracted by a picture he finds of a woman. When he comes home, his goal is to find this woman, who he credits for saving his life. The book is by Nicholas Sparks. I haven’t read one of his in years and actually have another that has been on my bookshelf for several years and I haven’t gotten to. But you know me, I like to read the books before I see the movies and this movie is a must-see for me!

In the middle is The Mine Fields. I got this book for review. It is a MadMen inspired novel about life in the business world and the rise and fall of one family’s empire. I’m not normally huge on business books, bu this one intrigued me, so I am giving it a chance.

On the right is Cloaked by Alex Flinn on Twitter. It’s described as a fairy tale mashup. Here’s the summary: I’m not your average hero. I actually wasn’t your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all. It all started with the curse. And the frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission. There wasn’t a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I’ve ever heard. Because before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Keys. Don’t believe me? I didn’t believe it either. But you’ll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked.

My next batch of books are audio books that I got from the library. I normally get one or two, but this week when I stopped by, I found so many that I thought sounded good, I had to get three. I know there is no possible way for me to get through three audio books in two weeks. I have spent seven hours on the road since I got them and am still less than halfway through the first one. I just knew if I didn’t get them while I had them in my hands, I’d forget what I liked. I’ll return them as I finish and renew the ones I need to keep a little longer.

I have already started listening to Beauty Queens and it may be my favorite audio book I’ve listened to. It’s so creatively put together. Very awesome!

Click the title to read more about the book:
Home Front by Kristin Hannah
I’ll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

I also got a couple of books for review this week. One is Fly Away Home by Maggie Myklebust and the other is Hunted by Cheryl Rainfield.

So obviously, I have quite a bit of reading and listening to do very soon.

Did you get any goodies this week?

On My Bookshelf is a weekly meme that was started as In My Mailbox by Kristi at The Story Siren. I just changed the title a little bit to match my reading tastes. I have an itty bitty mailbox and have things sent to work, so they aren’t technically given to me in my mailbox. I’m a little strange, I know! Anyway, the meme is to show the goodies you’ve gotten the previous week, whether you buy them, win them, borrow them, or someone sends them to you for review.

I normally download or get a book or two a week. This week, I went a little overboard. I am leaving for NYC on Thursday evening and although I know I won’t be sitting around much with time to read, I always like to go prepared, so I downloaded several books to my Nook from NetGalley in case I need to read. It is a long drive…..

If you’d liked to read the Goodreads.com summary of each of the books above, just click on the book cover. I am really excited about all of these and have already started I’ve Got Your Number. I’ve never met a Sophie Kinsella book I didn’t love.

I also got a book for review this week. My review for Dead Tease will be up on March 16. Until then, here’s a preview:

A hot August afternoon and Midwest Clinic CEO John McNeil has been working late. Working on his latest conquest, that is. Jen Williams is twenty-six, in charge of graphics for the hospital’s PR division–and quite attractive in a healthy, athletic kind of way. She is quick to laugh and a little too quick to fall for guys. She is no virgin. And she is one of three women–including his wife–intimately familiar with McNeil.

When Jen’s youthful body is found with a single stab wound through the heart, suspicion falls on both McNeil’s wife, who insists she is being stalked, and the striking hospital physician with whom he had just ended an affair. Pressure to find the killer falls on Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn “Lew” Ferris and Dr. Paul “Doc” Osborne, the retired dentist and forensic dental expert whom she has deputized to help with the investigation–when they are not taking a break for fishing and other personal pursuits. When the mayor demands Lew take early retirement–and Doc has to babysit his teenage granddaughter who won’t stop texting–the frustrations mount.

Desperate for a few hours off–and persuaded by Ray Pradt (a fishing guide who wears a stuffed trout on his head, so they should have known better)–to try fly fishing from kayaks, Doc and Lew find themselves in life-and-death straits on the river. This leads to an unexpected and macabre discovery that just may break the case.

Did you get any good reads this week that you can’t wait to crack open??

On My Bookshelf is a weekly meme where you show off the goods you get each week. These can be books you bought, you borrowed, you got from the library, you downloaded, you won, you got from review. I think that covers it all. This meme was started by Kristi at The Story Siren. She actually calls it In My Mailbox, but I have an itty bitty mailbox and my things always get wet, so I ship them to work, so I renamed it because I’m compulsive like that.

Anyway, I got some goodies this week. The first two I downloaded on NetGalley after being contacted by a publicist. I am halfway through one and hope to buckle down and finish it today. The other, I have started, but put it aside when I realized which one I needed to review first.

From Goodreads.com:
The sausage maker’s youngest daughter is heading for the fight of her battle-scarred life. It’s the era of the counterculture and Vietnam. But twenty-four-year-old Kip Czermanksi is nowhere near her home in California. She’s in a jail cell in her hometown in Wisconsin awaiting a court appearance in the mysterious death of her ex-lover, who happened to be her brother-in-law. Given her father is the small town’s leading citizen; Kip isn’t overly worried, at first. But the personal grudge the DA holds for all the Czermanskis is about to find a foil Kip. What follows is a wild ride through Kip’s present predicament and her past. She’ll come to regret leaving her life in LA, regardless of the good reason for which she returned, when family dynamics and sibling rivalries, magnified by her counterculture attitudes and feminist beliefs, lay Kip’s life bare before the courtroom. Distrusting her legal team, her rebellious history well known, things both personal and legal spiral out-of-control. It doesn’t look good for Kip Czermanski.

 
In a time of hardship and heartbreak, sometimes, reality just isn’t enough. Slipping Reality is the story of fourteen-year-old Katelyn Emerson, who, when faced with the glaring reality of her brother’s illness, rebels against the truth by slipping away into the depths of her own imagination. There, she finds the kind of support and comfort she feels she deserves. There, she does not have to feel so alone. And yet, as Katelyn’s grasp on reality begins to unravel, so too does the story of a girl who grew up too fast and fell apart too soon. Emily Beaver’s debut novel is a coming of age story that deals with the trials of young grief, insight, and growth where it’s least expected.

I also had to get a new audio book this week from the library. Although  I have fallen in love with Mary Higgins-Clark’s mysteries, I needed something different. I have listened to three of hers in a row now. So, instead, I got something fun and light. This is The Full Box by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes. This is the complete “Full” series that the duo wrote. I listened to the first book, Full House , and really liked it and decided I’d just get the whole set and finish the series. I am almost done with Full Tilt and it is just as fun and action packed as the first book.

Did you get any goodies this week?? If so, what are they?

I think this is the most consistent I have been with this weekly meme since I started blogging a few years back. The good thing about this is that I am getting some awesome new books. The bad part, I need more time to read all these awesome new books. Oh but I am not complaining!

On My Bookshelf is a slight variation of In My Mailbox by Kristi at The Story Siren, a weekly meme to show off the good books you got the previous week, whether from the library, bought, borrowed, won from a giveaway, downloaded…you know the drill!

This week, I had my eye on a book I’ve been seeing all over Twitter and blogs and HAD to get my hands on it. Thanks to a gift card by one of my husband’s friends, I am considering it a late Christmas gift.

Yes friends, I got Cinder this week and I am PUMPED!!! But, as you can see, that’s not all I got, I also got a new notebook. It’s a canvas material and has an elastic band to keep it closed and a marker inside to let you know where you left off. I get one of these a year to keep track of the books I’ve read, days I’ve written and which agents I have sent letters to. A new notebook always gives me inspiration to do more work so I can fill it up and not waste my pages.

In case you have been living under a book rock, here is the description of Cinder from Goodreads.com:

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Did you get any goodies this week???

On My Bookshelf is my own little deviation of In My Mailbox by Kristi at The Story Siren. The only thing that’s different is the title because I am super OCD and since I don’t get my books in a “mailbox” I had to change it up a little. I know, I’m a freak!

Anyway, I got this book last week, but wasn’t at work to pick it up, so we’re posting it this week. And I’m really excited about it.

It’s A Perfect Storm by Lori Foster. It’s the fourth book in the Men Who Walk the Edge of Honor series. I read Trace of Fever for review last year and loved it. I am normally very strict about reading all the books in order, but ended up skipping 1 and 3 and I liked the one I read so much, I don’t care. These men are very swoon worthy and I can’t wait to read this one.

From Goodreads:

He never saw her coming…

Spencer Lark already knows too many secrets about Arizona Storm, including the nightmare she survived and her resulting trust issues. But in order to expose a smuggling ring—and continue avenging his own tragic past—the bounty hunter reluctantly agrees to make Arizona a decoy. Yet nothing has equipped him for her hypnotic blend of fragility and bravery, or for the protective instincts she stirs in him.

Arizona wants to reclaim her life, which means acting as bait to lure the enemy into a trap. Sure it’s dangerous, especially with a partner as distractingly appealing as Spencer. But as their plan—and their chemistry—shifts into high gear, Arizona may discover there’s an even greater risk in surrendering her heart to a hero…

Yes, if you can tell from the picture, I did get this book as part of a blog tour and got a cool badge to go along with it. I love these little guys and am trying to find a place to show them off. I may get a cork board and start sticking them on there.

The only bad thing about this…if you are looking forward to this review, you are going to have to wait a while. The book doesn’t come out until April and my day on the tour isn’t until April 5. I know I won’t be able to wait that long to read this book. I may have to drop a hint or two, or use this as teaser Tuesday for the next few months to give you guys a preview!

This is kind of off base with this post, but since I went and grabbed the link to Lori Foster’s website (above), I’ve been reading her FAQ section. If you are an aspiring author, let me suggest reading about her. She has published 100+ books. She wrote several in the five years between when she started and when she got published. It’s very inspiring. Lately, I’ve been feeling the itch to write and wanting to get back into it, and I need to just sit down and do it and quit talking about it. Even if it’s not a full-time profession for me one day (which I’m still not giving up faith on), I still would love to have my writing out there. The ideas are swirling around in my head and it’s time to get them on paper. For some, it comes quickly and easy, but for Lori, it took some time and she never gave up. I could continue gushing about Lori, but I’ll let you head to her website and read for yourself!

Did you get any goodies this week?