Sapphireddragon (Nikk) gets her reading Mojo back

Welcome to my 2015 75 books challenge thread. I am brand new this year so am still exploring thus I have yet to nail down the challenges I will be participating in this year but I have planned the first few books to I plan to try to read in January/February:

Ravencliffe
Trial by Fire
Waistcoats & Weaponry
Leaving Time - For my local book club
Mime Order - reviewing for my blog
+ a couple more specifically for review

After a lack lustre reading effort in 2014, I am keen to get my reading mojo back in 2015!

Welcome! Looks like a good start to the year.

Hi Nikk. I'm looking forward to seeing what you read in 2015!

Welcome to the group! Looking forward to what you are reading - I thought about waistcoats and weaponry but wasn't sure let me know how you like it :)

Yay! I started my first book for 2015 this morning at 12:05 am Trial by Fire. Mind you I read about 4 pages before promptly falling asleep. It was after midnight after all :- p I picked it up again whilst my daughter napped briefly and I am really enjoying it so far.

>4 lovelyluck: I really liked the first two books and I have her adult series also so it was a no brainer I would order it shortly after it came out but I will let you know what it is like :-)

>3 Kassilem: I have starred your thread also as it looks like we have some similar tastes in books :-)

>2 drneutron: Thank you! I am enjoying being here so far :-)

Books Read in 2015

January

1. Trial By Fire - See review Here


2. The Mime Order - review Here


3. The Wells Bequest - See review here


4. Shadow Study - see review Here


5. The Winner's Curse - review Here


6. Night School - see review Here


7. Night School Legacy - 3 1/2 stars


February


8. Red Queen see review Here


9. Seeker see review Here


10. wait for you - see review Here


11. The ruby circle - 5 stars - see review Here


12. Lola and the boy next door - 4 stars - review to come


13. Haunted by Lyn Carthage - 3 1/2 stars - see review Here


14. The Assassin's Blade - 4 stars - review to come


15. wayfarer: A Tale of beauty and madness - 4 stars


16. Kin (Tales of beauty and madness #3) - 4 stars - See review Here


17. gathering frost - review to come


18. Throne of Glass - 4 stars


19. vision in silver - 5 stars - review to come


March

20. Crown of Midnight - 5 stars


21. The Lightning Thief - 3 stars


22. The raven Boys - 4 stars


23. Be With Me - 4 stars


24. the lost hero - 3 stars


25. weightless - 4 stars - review to come


April

26. Heir of Fire - 4 1/2 stars - review to come


27. stay with me - 4 stars


28. A Thousand Pieces of You - 4 stars - review to come


29. Eleanor And Park - 4 stars - review to come


30. Ugly Love - 4 stars - review to come


31. fall with me - 3 3/4 stars - review to come


32. nobody's goddess - 4 stars - >45 SapphiredDragon:


33. the sea of monsters - 3 stars


34. a court of thorns and roses - 4 stars - review to come


35. After by Anna Todd - 4 stars - review to come


36. The Titan's Curse - 3 stars


May

37. Talon - 4 stars


38. Rogue (talon #2) - 4 stars - see review here
    
39. cold burn of magic - 3 3/4 stars - see review Here


40. Saint Anything - 4 1/2 stars - see review Here


41. son of Neptune - 3 1/2 stars


42. battle of the labyrinth - 3 stars


June

43. Nowhere but here - 4 stars - see review Here


44. Finding Mr Darcy: High School Edition by erin butler - 3 stars (barely)


45. rebel belle - 3 3/4 stars - review to come


46. pivot point - 4 1/2 stars - review to come


July

August

September

October

November

December

Hi Nikk, welcome to the 75 group. It is nice to see a fellow Australian in the mix. I look forward to seeing your reading progress over the course of 2015. Maybe we can get our reading mojo back together :)

Hi, and welcome to the group!

Woohoo first read of 2015 finished - see list above. Next up mime Order on kindle and either Shadow Spell (Cousins O'Dwyer) or waistcoats and weaponry in print book depending on my mood in the morning :-)

Congrats on the first read of the year!

You did it!

So I may have fallen a little behind but my second read of the year is done and dusted and I am currently powering through read number 3. I have had a nice cross section of (well of urban fantasy types I guess - they each demonstrate a different aspect of the genre really)so far with an urban fantasy then a paranormalish/science fictiony urban fantasy and now a middle grade urban fantasy the wells bequest. All three books have had quite different feels to them which is great. My next read will either be a review read seeker or my book club read leaving time though I got approved for shadow study this week and am a little excited so may try and squeeze it in first :-)

Book number 3, The Wells Bequest, dine and dusted and about to start on number 4 which I have decided will be Shadow Study as I picked it up from the post office this morning and cannot wait :-)

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Australia due to Australia day so I took the chance to get my reading on getting through books 4 Shadow Study, 5 The Winner's Curse & 6 Night School for January :-)

I have posted links to all I have reviewed so far in my yearly read so far except for the two reviews that ahve yet to appear on the blog but I wil say that I absolutely ADORED Shadow Study and enjoyed Night School also.

I have now started reading Leaving Time in print book and Night School legacy in e-book format so all in all loks like I have gotten off to a good start to my challenge in january :-)

I finished Night school legacy last night and really enjoyed it. I now have the next two books in the series reserved at the library and am hoping they become available soon.

I started on an e-ARC of Red Queen this morning and i am hooked! I am loving it so far and whilst I doubt I will finish it before midnight tonight, I daresay it should be finished by tomorrow and be my first read of February.

How is everyone else going?

Hi Nikki, my January reading seems to be buttoned up now, except for one review to write. I have February sorted and ready.

Can't spend too much time typing, since my left wrist is still healing. I do a lot of lurking. ;-)

Red Queen is on my TBR list.... when we were ordering books for our branch the other day Red queen was on there but I couldn't order it for my branch because I know it would not circulate... most of our readers are Urban Fiction readers.... luckily another branch ordered it and I will be able to place a hold on it and get it as soon as we get it.... hope it is GOOD!

>17 lovelyluck: I am really enjoying it. I am about 3/4 of the way through and would be finishing it right now if I didn't 300,000,00 things I need to do before i go to bed and read some more. I have scheduled my review of it to go on the blog on Thursday so i will need to have finished it by then :-P

3 books reads so far this month: Red Queen, Seeker and Wait For You and I have enjoyed all three. I even managed to read Wait for you in one sitting :-)

I have started reading The bargaining this week and hope to have it finished and review written by Thursday as The Ruby Circle comes out this week and should be arriving on my door step any day now and I pan to read it as soon as it is in my hot little hands.

I also bought my first audio book The Assassin's Blade last week and am listening to it at work each afternoon. I am slowy gettiung through it and should be finished by the end of the week maybee sooner. I have decided to listed to the whole throne of glass series this way so have bought the next two this way also.

I ahve quite a lot to read this month as my review schedule is very busy this month and early ext month so I am pleased with my pace so far :-)

Pushing through the bargaining but am struggling and not even half way. I want to but am not sure I am goign to be able to finish so I am taking a break as The Ruby Circle arrived last night and that is begging to be read right away. I really really wanted to start it last night but by the time i got everything done it was time to go to bed. If I ever get some down tije today, I will definitely be starting it and with a little luck should be done by tomorrow :-)

Do you ever have those days where all you want to do is read and the universe seems determinednot to let you??

>20 SapphiredDragon: I'm so excited for the ruby circle.... i will be picking up my copy on friday pay day :) i need to know what happens i'm dying

>21 lovelyluck: I know I am the same. I managed to squeeze in a chpater at lunch time and all it did was make me want more. Now I am counting down the hours until work finishes - Only 2 hours 45 minutes to go :-P

i need an adrian fix..... he has always been my favorite..... please let me know if you stayed up all night reading LOL I think that is what I will be doing friday night since I won't have work in the morning :)

>23 lovelyluck: It's 12.21 am here and i just finished... and I want more :-( I can't believe its all over :-( I loved it!! i just finished writing my review in my new reading journal that arrived this week and will post my review on the blog on Monday. Now i really need to go to bed and catch up on all the sleep I seem to have missed this week

>24 SapphiredDragon: :( so sad it is over for you... I will begin mine tonight :) and then experience my disappointment in it being over sometime tomorrow :( do you have a link for your blog?

>25 lovelyluck: Here is a link to my blog : Realm of the Sapphired Dragon

So even though it wasn't on my february reading schedule, given it was valentines day, I decided to squeeze in Lola and the Boy Next Door. I just finished it and am so glad I decided to squeeze it in :-) Will post a review in the next few days

>26 SapphiredDragon: great :)

Hi! Welcome to the group. Just stopping by to leave my mark. :)

I finished up Haunted last night. I can't touch stone it as it doesn't currently seem to be in library thing. Anyhew it is due to be released on the 24th February and I will be posting my review on the blog on 19/2/15. That being said, whilst i did enjoy it, it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping so I have given it 3 1/2 stars.

Now I have started on Wayfarer: A tale of beauty and madness in preparation to read and review Kin (Tales of beauty and Madness #3) for my blog as it is due to be released 3rd March 2015

Just finished Wayfarer: a tale of beauty and Madness . I have marked it as four stars beacsue i enjoyed it but I may not review it straight away as i want to think about it some more first. Now on the the next book in that series Kin

So its after midnight, and I just finished wtiting the review for Kin (tales of beauty and Madness #3) which i finished earlier today. I will post a link once it goes live in about 8 hours. next up is Gathering frost which is yet another fairy tale retelling but set in a completely different world. I am reading this for a blog tour stop early next week. however right now I am off to bed :-p

Been in a bit of a reading slump this past month. I would love to put on all the blame on the fact that i ahve just moved house and it was a nightmarish move so I felt guilty doing any reading whilst packing and moving and there's the fact that all my books are packed up. And that probably is part of it, but I think with the amoun t of books i read in February, I may have burnt myself out a little too because i completely went off everything in the read and review for blog pile, was not in the modd for any of my e-books on ibooks or kindle ( and trust e both are full of books on my TBR list).

Thankfully I have moved up the street from my local library and they have a pretty good range so i ahve been reserving and reading the few books I have read from there until I get back in the mood to read review ARCs again.

That being said, my reading moods have been all over the place lately veering from middle grade Percy jackson the lightning thief reads to new adult reads Be With Me and my current read Ugly Love. I have also gone off e-book reads in general and really only reading print books at the moment. I am also listening to Heir of Fire at work which I am really enjoying and am considering listening to The Selection next as its another series I own but keep not getting around to reading and I think it might lend itself well to audio books. No idea what I am going to read once I finish Ugly Love though. I guess I will see how I feel :-)

Sorry you're in a reading funk. I was like that myself when I moved too. I just finished listening to Crown of Midnight and will want to get to Heir of Fire soon too. I'm stocked that you're enjoying it; means it keeps on being a good series.

>34 Kassilem: I am still enjoying the Throne of Glass series. There seems to be a lot more going on in Heir of Fire than in the previus couple of books and we follow a few more characters, some of which I am not entirely sure how they will connect to the main plot just yet but I am enjoying it enough to keep listening to find out :-)

I also started The Lost hero book one of Rick Riordan's heroes of Olympus series. In some ways this is spoiling me a little for the Percy Jackson series which I am currently in book 2 sea of monsters so this is set after the Percy jackson series but still I am enjoying it none the less. I like stories about Gods and mythical heroes and this is a nice simple read which helps :-)

Also excited because I am picking up stay with me, book3 of the wait for you series from the library this evening which I am eager to read and will prbably read once I finish the lost hero but before I finish ugly love LOL if that makes sense.

As I said my reading moods are all over the place at the moment and literally changing on a dime :-P

I was once reading five or six books at a time because I couldn't just read one for more than a hour or so. It was a weird reading funk. I haven't read any Rick Riordan, although I also love stories about gods and mythical heroes. I might have to try one out.

>36 Kassilem: Bear in my mind they are more middle grade than YA and this often shows in the story line. That being daid, its a fun series and I ahve fun reading it.

Sometimes those's books don't do it for me, but sometimes they do. I'll just have to try it out :)

So i have been really good at upldating my reading list above but not so much on adding to this thread.

My reading has gotten a little better these last few weeks now that we are settling in to the new house. I am still making good use of the library down the street and I try to make it in at least once a week to change books.

I am way behind on review both on the blog and here and am thiniking of maybe posting a shortened review here as well even if its just a few notes as I go.

I actually bought a reading journal for that purpose but even that seems to have fallen by the way side recently especially since I still have no internet at home and I am not entirely happy with my current computer set up at the new place and may yet change it before internet is finally installed on Monday.

I borrowed eleanor and Park from the library last night which i am starting today and I plan on starting on a court of thorns and roses on the weekend. I also need to read nobody's goddess byAmy McNulty for a blog tour I am participating in at the end of the month.

I am still in a print book phase tending to stay away from e-books unless i don't have a choice which is problematic with most of my review books being e-books but i know its just a matter of sitting down and starting them because once i am in the story it will be a whole lot easier

So April has already been a better reading month with me only 1 book behind my March total and we are not even half way through the month. I started on book number 31 today fall with me as it arrived this morning as I was waiting for my internet to be installed.

Yes! I finally have internet., very excited about this as it has now been over a month without internet at home and I was going slowly crazy LOL!

However I made the mistake of finishing of Ugly Love whilst the wormen were there this morning and as I finished it crying bnig ugly tears, of course that was the moment they needed tp ask me questions about the installation. I must seriously have looked a sight! LOL!

But yes back to Fall With Me Have already started reading this on the train into woirk and I fully expect to finish it either tonight or early tomorrow (after all who needs sleep??) :-P

Though it is entirely possible some reading time may be sacrificed as I enjoy being able to surf the internet mindlessly again.

What are you reading today?

I'm about to get on an airplane for a business trip, so I'm starting Foxglove Summer, the fifth in a really good series by Ben Aaronovitch if you like urban fantasy sorts of things, and The Fifth Heart, new from Dan Simmons (one of my favorite authors).

I'm glad you're having a better month for reading in April!

>41 drneutron: I received the first book in that series rivers of london through Christmasthing 2014 and though I have yet to have a chance to read it i have heard good things about it and the series in general. I hope you enjoy it :-)

>41 drneutron: its been a while ( read about 10-15 years LOL) since I read a Dan Simmons book and mostly I have read his more science fictiony things hyperion etc but The Fifth Heart looks really good and right up my alley in terms of things i like to read so I may look it up :-)

You should definitely read Rivers of London. It's fantastic.

Yeah, it's good!

Read #32 Nobody's Goddess



Blurb:

In a village of masked men, magic compels each man to love only one woman and to follow the commands of his “goddess” without question. A woman may reject the only man who will love her if she pleases, but she will be alone forever. A man must stay masked until his goddess returns his love—and if she cannot or will not love him, he remains masked forever. Where the rest of her village celebrates this mystery that binds men and women together, 17- year-old Noll is just done with it. She has lost all of her childhood friends as they’ve paired off, but the worst blow of all came when her closest companion, Jurij, finds his goddess in Noll’s own sister. Desperate to find a way to break this ancient spell, Noll instead discovers why no man has ever loved her: she is in fact the goddess of the mysterious lord of the village, a Byronic man who refuses to let Noll have her right as a woman to spurn him and who has the power to fight the curse. Thus begins a dangerous game between the two: the choice of woman versus the magic of man. The stakes are no less than freedom and happiness, life and death—and neither Noll nor the veiled man is willing to lose.

Review:

I really enjoyed Nobody’s Goddess. More so, even, than I was expecting. At the first it was not quite the story I expected it to be but this, in the end proved to be one of the things I loved most about it.

For a start I really liked the premise of this novel. As I began the novel I thought the rules surrounding every man finding their goddess, such as men wearing masks so women could not look upon them, and women not being able to look at the Lord’s castle were more to do with custom. I soon realised that this world built by Amy McNulty was full of magic, and that magic truly did govern every aspect of these characters lives and this made me want to read further and learn more. There was an air of mystery from the first and my mind was full of questions. Who is the Lord of the Castle, why all these rules? What happens if they don't follow them? Why are they there in the first place?

In some ways as I read further, I thought this might be a variation on a Beauty and the Beast kind of idea, but this was a mistake on my part as this was oh so much more and to my delight went of in such an interesting and intriguing direction. In her acknowledgements, Ms McNulty describes her novel as 'sometimes off the beaten path' and it was this characteristic of her tale that really made it the spellbinding and engrossing tale that it is as I truly did not know where the tale would lead me and this just pulled me in further. The way Ms McNulty weaves this tale with its mystery and slowly revealed truths is just perfect both in its pace and the threads that she weaves,

I found the main character Noll, a little irritating and frustrating at times in the decisions she made though ultimately I understood them in the end.. She is a strong character who chafes at the rules that govern her life and that of her family and community. Having slowly lost all her childhood friends as each found their goddess, she feels isolated and rebellious but she also questions things are as they are this and it is this stubborness that sometimes causes her to make decisions she does.

Overall this is a spellbinding and engrossing tale that leaves you wanting more. As this is marked as the instalment number 1 of the Never Veil series, I hope to learn more in future instalments about the world as I slowly fell in love with the characters over the course of the novel and am extremely eager to find out what happens next.

A thoroughly satisfying tale. I give this story 4 stars!

SapphiredDragon xx

Happy weekend!