Book Blogger Hop & Reading Challenge Recap

Book Blogger Hop is a weekly BOOK PARTY, hosted by Crazy-For-Books, where book bloggers and readers can connect to find new blogs to read, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It also gives blog readers a chance to find other book blogs that they may not know existed!

Head on over to Crazy-For-Books to sign up and discover some new blogging friends!

It's been a few weeks since I last participated in the hop and since I've spent the last week doing some catch-up work, I'm ready to party again! This week's question:

Who is your favorite new-to-you author so far this year?

JR Ward. I've become addicted to the Black Dagger Brotherhood. I've got two more to go in that series and then I'm starting her Fallen Angels series. She is one heck of a storyteller. I love the world she's created and the characters that live in it and she has a knack for writing unputdownable books!

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2010 Reading Challenge Recap

It had been a while since I'd calculated where I was on the reading challenges I signed up for this year and I was worried that I'd fallen behind. After spending a little time sorting through my reviews I'm actually quite pleased with my progress!

Read and Reviewed:

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

Through A Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen

Watermark by Vanitha Sankaran

Status:  Halfway there

3 more to go and I'm reading one right now:
The Count of Monte Cristo.

Read and Reviewed:

The Tudor Rose Trilogy by Susan Wiggs
The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne
Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer
The Drifter by Susan Wiggs
Outlaw by Lisa Jackson
The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy by Nora Roberts
The Chief by Monica McCarty
Dark Lover by JR Ward
The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley

Status:  3/4 completed
I signed up at the Addicted level, 12, so I have 3 more to go.
(I've read more romances than these but I didn't review them.)

Read and Reviewed:

The Adventures of Alianore Audley by Brian Wainwright
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
Watermark by Vanitha Sankaran
The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick
For a Queen's Love by Jean Plaidy

Status: Completed!
Turns out I'd only signed up as a Peasant to read 3 books!
Looks like I'm an overachiever :)

Read and Reviewed:

Pendragon's Banner by Helen Hollick

Midnight Fires by Nancy Means Wright
The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick
Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati
Lake in the Clouds by Sara Donati
The Outer Banks House by Diann Ducharme
Captivity by Deborah Noyes
My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
Shadowbrook by Beverly Swerling
The Adventures of Alianore Audley by Brian Wainwright
The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
Through A Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
Now Face To Face by Karleen Koen
Fire Along the Sky by Sara Donati
Queen of Swords by Sara Donati
Watermark by Vanitha Sankaran
For A Queen's Love by Jean Plaidy
Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt
The Wives of Henry Oades by Joanna Moran

Status:  Completed! And with 5 months left, to boot!
Of course, I will read many more historicals this year and I will post reviews of the best ones to the challenge review board, but now the pressure is off! Whew!


I'm also issuing a NEW challenge to myself:
I have way too many unread review copies from publishers sitting on my shelf. I have neglected my duty to these publishers to read and review the books they have so generously sent to me and so I am devoting the month of August to these books. I'm challenging myself to read and review SIX of them, which is actually only about half of them, but if I can knock out half of them I'll feel so much better!