It's Monday, What Are You Reading? July 26, 2010

It's Monday, What are you reading is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.


It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.


I had a pretty good reading week this week. And I had time to go visit two different casinos. It was a really nice week.


These are the books I read and reviewed last week:

I hauled out my Kindle and immersed myself in the world of Shelly Laurenston's shifters. These are both erotic and funny.

The Mane Event - contains two short novels. The first is a romance between a lion shifter and a normal human. They knew each other as kids but now they have reconnected. The second is a romance between a lion shifter and a wolf shifter. Talk about "men are from Mars, women are from Venus". These people are different species.

The Beast in Him - Bobbie Ray Smith, a wolf shifter, left pretty little Jessie Ward behind when he joined the Navy. When he gets out he runs into her in New York. She is now the confident Alpha of her pack of wild African dogs and not the picked on victim she was as a child. The attraction between them rekindles but Jessie is going to make Bobbie Ray really work to win her this time.

The Mane Attraction - Sissy Mae and Mitch are best friends but when lion Mitch is the target of a killer wolf Sissy Mae takes him home with her to Tennessee to keep him safe. There they discover that best friends can fall in love. Of course, they also have to deal with Pack politics and the killer. This is another sexy shifter romance.

Beast Behaving Badly - Blayne is a hybrid - a wolfdog. She is also everybody's friend and determined to help everybody. Bo is also a hybrid - a polar bear-lion - and he doesn't think he needs help. He is OCD, lives by his schedule and time; she is random, messy, and easily distracted. She is also chronically late and can never follow a schedule. She is also the target of the full humans who are collecting hybrids for fight clubs. They fall in love. This was the funniest of the series.

The Mane Squeeze - Gwen has come to New York to start her own business and get away from her mother's circle of influence. However, she still has to deal with her two large overprotective brothers. She is a hybrid - a tigon - and not accepted in her mother's pride. She meets a grizzly named Lock and they fall in love. The story also has roller derby which is a whole different sport when played by shifters!

Then I set my Kindle aside and grabbed a couple of the books that I am reading for the 2010 YA Debut Author Challenge. These will be donated to my HS Media Center when school resumes this fall.

Shadow Hills by Anastasia Hopcus - This is a boarding school paranormal. Phe comes to the school because her dead sister was planning to go. She wants to find out why both she and her sister are plagued with disturbing dreams. She meets a boy and finds out that things are odd in Shadow Hills. She gets involved when she overhears some things and starts investigating. Good debut!

The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride - This book is about a child abduction from the perspective of the best friend who was left behind. Tessa was the shy, quiet one; Noelle was the bolder. But Noelle was snatched just before 8th grade. Tessa put her life on hold and concentrated on her photography. But now Noelle is back. She is greatly changed and Tessa wants to help but doesn't know how. Tessa is also conflicted because she has her first boyfriend and is torn between the needs of her best friend and the new relationship. Good story!

I am currently reading:

Cast in Chaos by Michelle Sagara - Kaylin Neya is a Hawk, part of the elite force tasked with keeping the City of Elantra safe. Her past is dark, her magic uncontrolled and her allies unpredictable. And nothing has prepared her for what is coming, when the charlatans on Elani Street suddenly grow powerful, the Oracles are thrown into an uproar and the skies rain blood….


The powerful of Elantra believe that the mysterious markings on Kaylin's skin hold the answer, and they are not averse to using her—how ever they have to—in order to discover what it is.


Something is coming, breaking through the barriers between the worlds. But is it a threat that Kaylin needs to defend her city against—or has she been chosen for another reason entirely?


What's up for this coming week?


I don't want to get locked in (in case something exciting arrives in the mail) but these are near the top of the TBR stack.


These YAs:

Sisters Red by Jackson Pierce

Siren by Tricia Rayburn

Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James

These Adult books:

Dark and Stormy Knights edited by P. N. Elrod

Dark Embers by Tessa Adams

The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King

Those are my plans. What was your week like?