Talking about books, food, and life in general…
While the above picture is not the exact view I will be having for the coming week, it is very close 🙂
I’m off to Florida for the next week. It’s a much-needed vacation/babymoon!
When I get back I will get everything together for my end of the year stats/favorite reads. I know everyone is starting to do this now. I’m a slacker and won’t get mine done for a while 🙂
See everyone next year!
Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful day filled with family and friends!
Kill Alex Cross
by James Patterson
Copyright: 2011
Pages: 364
Rating: 5/5
Read: Dec. 19 – Dec. 24, 2011
Challenge: No challenge
Yearly Count: 64
Format: Print
Source: Library Copy
Blurb: Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest casee he’s ever been part of. The president’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want him too close.
A deadly contagion in the DC water supply endangers the capital, and Alex sees the looming threat of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes him completely over the edge.
With each hour that passes, the chances of finding the children alive diminish. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. Even the highest security clearance doesn’t get him any closer to the kidnapper – and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes. A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patters has ever written.
Review: Oh how I do love a good Alex Cross book! This is one of the very few book series that I am actually caught up on. And considering I haven’t really been reading (this is the first book I’ve finished in December), I *knew* Mr. Patterson’s Alex Cross would not disappoint me!
As usual this book sucked me in from the first page. It brought flashes back to me of the very first Alex Cross book, Along Came a Spider, where Alex is involved in a high-profile kidnapping. The terrorist portion of the storyline was very interesting as well, especially considering *SPOILER*: one of the terrorists gets away *END SPOILER*
Let’s just face it, I’m a huge fan of the Alex Cross series. I have nothing bad to say about this book. All I can do is recommend this series and this book to every single one of my readers.
*Clicking on the image will take you to the information page on Book Chick City’s site.
This is always my favorite reading challenge! Mystery and Suspense books are my absolute favorites! So naturally I’m always looking forward to this book year after year! This year there’s a slight change, there has been two levels added. Any other year I would probably choose to go with the second level (24), but since 2012 is likely to be insane for me with Baby Boy due in June, I’m just going to stick with 12 books. Read on for what the instructions are:
*Clicking on the image will take you to the information page on Bookish Ardour’s site.
This will be my final challenge for 2012. And this is one that I need *desperately*. I have way too many books on my shelves, I need to either purge them or start reading them … and I’m not a purger! This challenge requires us to choose a participation level. I am going to go with Making a Dint – 30 books, even though I know that this is a stretch for me for 2012 … but this is a *challenge* and I need to challenge myself 🙂 However, I’m not going to do the extra challenges.
Here’s the details as posted on Bookish Ardour’s site:
If you feel like that extra kick to your reading challenges here’s a couple you can choose from.
*Clicking on the image will take you to the information page on Book’d Out’s site.
This is the first challenge that I am signing up for in 2012. This challenge will force me to expand my horizons (fantasy and science fiction will be a challenge for me), but it is still open enough that I am confident I can be successful. I’m definitely looking forward to this challenge!! Below you can find the instructions as found on Book’d Out.
Select, read and review a book from each genre listed below during the year for a total of 12 books.
* You can choose your books as you go or create a list in advance. You may combine this challenge with others if you wish.
* Where a book is identified by more than one genre eg historical romance, it may only count for either the historical fiction or romantic fiction genres – not both.
Mailbox Monday is on tour, with December’s location being at Let Them Read Books.
I actually received these books last week, but I never got around to creating a post, so I’m sharing them now. The first was a book I got from Bookmooch, the second was a win from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.
During a crowded service at a cathedral in Germany, armed intruders in monks’ robes unleash a nightmare of blood and destruction. But the killers have not come for gold; they seek a more valuable prize: the bones of the Magi who once paid homage to a newborn savior … a treasure that could reshape the world. With the Vatican in turmoil, SIGMA Force leaps into action. An elite team of scientific and Special Forces operatives under the command of Grayson Pierce and accompanied by Lieutenant Rachel Verona of Rome’s carabinieri, they are pursuing a deadly mystery that weaves through sites of the Seven Wonders of the World and ends at the doorstep of an ancient, mystical, and terrifying secret order. For there are those with dark plans for the stolen sacred remains that will alter the future of humankind … when science and religion unite to unleash a horror not seen since the beginning of time.
Nashville private investigator Jared McKean has a son with Down’s syndrome, a best friend with AIDS, an ex-wife he can’t seem to fall out of love with, and a weakness for women in jeopardy – until one frames him for murder. His DNA and fingerprints are found at the murder scene. his voice is on the victim’s answering machine, and the victim was killed with a bullet from his gun. To make matters worse, his teenaged nephew comes out of the closet and runs away to join a dangerous fringe of the Goth subculture. Now Jared must find a way to clear his name, hold his family together, and solve a case that could cost him his life.
….2012 is going to be an unbelievable year for my family and I. It’s also going to impact what happens here on the blog. So I thought I would sit down and try to lay out what I want to happen in 2012.
First and foremost, as things continue with my pregnancy, I feel like I should warn my readers that this blog is going to continue to evolve. It will no longer be strictly a book blog. I have already been posting updates about my doctor appointments and what I’m going through. Expect to see a lot more of that. And when June rolls around and our little *boy* bundle of joy is welcomed into our lives, expect to see a lot less of me as I adjust to being a first-time mommy. But I won’t be giving up my blog completely. Just be patient with me 🙂
I am stepping away from accepting books to review from publishers/authors/publicists. I think it’s time to for me to end this completely. In 2011, I took a step back and evaluated where I was and how I felt about accepting books for review. I took a break from accepting books, but I ended up breaking my own vow. This time I’m completely done with it. With the baby coming it’s going to be hard enough to read, the last thing I’m going to need is a responsibility to read something by a certain date. That’s just not going to work out for me. I will end up not reading at all and I don’t want that to happen, ever.
Challenges. I’m torn on my feelings about these. I have already been through the Novel Challenges blog and picked out 6 challenges that sound good to me for 2011. However, I know that this is not going to be in the realm of possibilities for me. So I have decided instead that I’m going to limit myself to only 3 challenges. I will be posting about those in the coming days.
I am determined to make the most of what I can do in 2012. I know that come June my life is going to enter into a whirlwind. I’m ready for it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared, nervous, excited, etc. If I read 10 books in 2012, I will be happy. If I read 5 books in 2012, I will be happy. If I read like a mad woman and read 25 books before June (kind of my goal), I will be ecstatic! Because after June, well, who knows.
It also doesn’t help that I have actually not finished a single book in the month of December! Eek! I’ve picked up numerous books and just haven’t been able to finish them. I haven’t posted a DNF post about these books, because they are books that I intend to come back to at some point in the future. It may be weeks, months or years from now. But they are all books I intend on finishing one day.
So reading back over this post it sounds so disorganized. I apologize for that. That’s kind of how my brain is working these days. But I hope I got my point across and to briefly recap in case I didn’t…..
In 2012 you will see:
I just wanted to let all of my readers know that I’m being spotlighted today over at Kittling: Books as part of her Scene of the Blog series.
To go directly to the post where I’m spotlighted at please go here.
I hope you’ll go over to her blog and check her place out and find out a little more about me!
So I seem to not be posting a whole heck of a lot. I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse from here on out. I’m just not reading. I have two books checked out from the library (one that’s due back next week, the other one due back the week after), I’ve got another book on the waitlist at the library and I’m already #1 on the list, and I’m also trying to read an e-book somewhere in the middle of all that. And, oh, did I mention – I’m just not reading? Yeah. I’m really not.
But I don’t care, I’ve got too much other stuff going on in my life. Like the ultrasound that we had today that showed … a BOY! I had this feeling that I had a boy inside there, and I knew that I had a 50/50 chance of being right, but I never guessed I would actually be right! As much as I wanted a girl deep down (because, seriously, what woman doesn’t want a baby girl?), I haven’t stopped smiling since we saw the evidence on the ultrasound. And he was more than happy to show us his goods! It didn’t take long at all to spot, and even I with my untrained eye was able to tell immediately that it was a boy. I actually saw the privates before the ultrasound tech asked if we really wanted to know, lol.
Now I just have to hope that we don’t have an experience like one of the girls I went to high school with. She went to the hospital to deliver her little Chloe only to come home with a little Dominic. I know it’s rare, but it obviously does happen. So when I go back for my anatomy scan (sometime in January) I will make sure that they double check, because we did find out a little early (15 weeks).
Everything at the doctor’s office looked good. The ultrasound was strictly for a sneak peek at the gender. But the heartbeat is still perfect and the measurements are right on track. Believe it or not, I actually lost a pound. So I am back to my normal pre-pregnancy weight. Of course when you can hardly stomach food, this really isn’t surprising. I also got the green light for our quick trip to Florida at the end of this month. I just have to make sure I get out and walk around every few hours during the drive. Not like that will be a problem, I have to pee every 2 hours. My next appointment is on January 9th. At that appointment they will schedule me for my anatomy scan.
On a happier note, I am starting to feel more normal again (whatever normal is when you’re pregnant). I can actually open the recipe emails that I get daily from allrecipes.com without wanting to upchuck. And the grocery store, oh how I have missed going to the grocery store – I actually was able to stand it long enough to buy real food! And I’ve been cooking. Yep … I think my appetite has returned. I still get a little nauseous every once in a while, but for the most part it’s past me. Thank goodness, I was about to go crazy.
Latest craving – orange sherbet.
So that’s my big news for today. I did receive a couple of books in the mail last week, but I failed to get a Mailbox Monday post up today. Maybe I’ll just save it for next week. Knowing me it’ll never get done.
Tales of a Book Addict 