Vanessa’s Comments (group member since Jun 15, 2017)

Vanessa’s comments from the Read, Reading, Planning to Read and More group.

Hi All! Just popping in to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I have never had a new car. I usually drive pick-up trucks and have had a couple of Suburbans in between. My last Suburban had 300,000 miles on it and I gave it to one of my husband's former employees and 2 years later he is still driving it. Because of current situations it isn't possible now, but I purchased a 1 year old Ford truck from Enterprise in 2019 and paid a lot less than I would have at a dealership. I was looking for a truck and the 3 year old one, (at the dealership), was listed as $6,000. more than my 1 year old one. I just can't see wasting my money on new.

Kristi... That sounds like a great trip. Any chance that you would include New England in your tour?

I have been listening to books almost exclusively. I finished all of the Mrs. Pollifax series that is on audible, for some unknown reason the final book in the series isn't recorded.
I finished the final Alex Verus book, Risen I am sad to see this series end. I get the feeling that it might continue with one of the younger characters, Luna and perhaps Sonder, or the latest character added to the series for this final story. (Sorry I can't begin to remember her name).

I read a couple of Loretta Chase books, A Duke in Shining Armor and Ten Things I Hate About the Duke

I'm back listening to the Joe Pickett series, Out Of Range This is an excellent series set in Wyoming and the writing takes me there every time I listen to one of these books.

I read the latest Lady Sherlock book, Miss Moriarty, I Presume? This is another historical mystery series that seems to be getting better and better.

I am working on the west half of our state and the almost 2 hour drive is feeding into my listening time.

I don't know about anyone else, but my book total on GoodReads is a total disaster. None of my audio books registers and I just don't have the time to update my lists. Sadly a lot of books won't be listed this year, oh well there's always next year!

I will be doing the A-Z challenge if only to try and keep tract of my books.

This is a link only available today, 12/30, for free books... it's for any device that you use.

https://www.romancebookworms.com

Sadly I wasn't able to do the live Q& A w/Ilona Andrews. I would love to know the spoilers also.
I've been listening to something a bit different. it's David Sedaris' book Calypso. This is a collection of short stories & some live recordings of his comic/satirical writings. He is the brother of Amy Sedaris the comic actress. This book is a bit darker than some of his other works. He talks a lot of a recently departed relative. So far it is very good & a respite from all of my recent reads.

Paula wrote: "OK, so I am covered for KU until 2025. I keep getting the best deal. I better slow down or I might be dead before I finish. lol"

Thanks Paula, I couldn't find the KU deal. I am ok until June of 2024, so not too bad. I think, (hope), that I have enough time left to complete my KU membership.

For anyone interested in a clever, witty, who done it series, the Mrs. Pollifax series is great. I listen to this series. The actress who does the Mrs. Pollifax part makes her sound a bit too craggy for my taste, but I can live with it. All of the supporting characters have consistent narrations and I can tell immediately which character is speaking.
The other thing that I like about this series is that it changes all of the time, not just the locales, or the dates, (70's and 80"s), but the adventures are all unique. Characters pop in from time to time and she even gets to fall in love with a smart, happy man who isn't intimidated by her "work". Each adventure usually has a very innocent start, (deliver these papers, take a picture of everyone in this group, etc), but by chance or because their intelligence, (the CIA), is lacking vital information she finds herself in a bind. She doesn't over react she takes a second to think matters through. The young people in her travels all learn from her and she has a connection with all in her circles. Intelligently written, humorous, and oftentimes sentimental and sweet, this series is a treasure that I try to savor a book or two at a time.

Was there any KU renewal deals today?
Late to the party, but I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving.
I've been listening to the Mrs. Pollifax series, I like these on audio, and kind of "savor" them.

I read the throne of glass series. I enjoyed the series for the most part. I agree that the first book was rather weak. I'm not a regular reader of ya series, but this is one of the series that I read to the end.

Congrats melindeeloo retirement!! Mine is a somewhat distant future. Silly me I married a man 7 years younger than me and a self employed one at that. Oh well, maybe someday he'll be able to afford his own health care. That's my biggest worry, his health care.
Happy Reading!!! :-)

Lisa... Wow 6 grandbabies! This must be so exciting for you. Best Wishes for the expectant family!! :-)

I feel that we have fallen down a really funny rabbit hole. :-)

Wow Demetra thanks for the recap. I think that I have been over her books for a while. Like pretty much everyone else, I used to auto buy and auto read asap. A few of us even got together in NYC to go to a book signing when Heart of Obsidian came out. Sadly I'm not sure that I have much interest in the GH books or the psy/changelings spinoffs.

TINNGG... I hope that FIL finds his way and the stress on you will chill out. My step Mom passed away in January and we just had her memorial service a week and a half ago. My Dad used to be pretty self sufficient. He cooked, cleaned, & worked in the yard. I know that he exhibits signs of depression, but he doesn't cook, won't vacuum or dust, but he still mows the yard. When she was ill, my Dad was convinced to get antidepressants because he couldn't focus. He no longer takes them because "he takes enough medicine" . After this long ramble just know that we share your pain.

I have been reading a wonderful series set in rural modern day Wyoming. It's been mentioned here by HappyBookWorm, (I believe), and it's the Joe Pickett series. Joe is a happily married game warden who just happens upon dead bodies in the course of his work. He has a rather contentious relationship with the local sheriff and solves the murder mysteries with steady logic. Which irritates the above mentioned sheriff.
He's a genuine good guy, even to his own detriment, (he even reports his own stupidity). The descriptions of the locales are realistic, the characters develop and evolve as the series goes on. I listen to these and the narrator David Chandler has a pleasing voice and has quite distinctive characters. I don't generally read a lot of contemporary westerns, or even contemporaries but I find that I want to get back to these stories as soon as I can. They're very addictive.

frisco... I am so sorry for your loss. One of the older ladies in my church said to me that getting older isn't easy that's why people need a lot of experience to be able to do it. She also said "These are supposed to be my Golden years, but they seem more like my Rusty years". She was a great character, (RIP Tanya!) I am so glad that you were there to see not only the bad moments, but the good ones too.

I've been popping in and reading posts but I haven't had much time to post. Hi All!!

LAB... I am so excited for you. Cathy (you met her @ Mohegan Sun), and I are planning a girl's trip to Vermont in January and maybe we can add a trip to your bookstore on the way. I hope to get there before then if I can. Congrats again, it sounds like you have a great store in the works. :-)

Demetra... You will be happy to know that Jane is in a happy/healthy relationship. There were reasons that Ric did some of the things that he did, but they doesn't forgive everything.

Doud... I agree with you about the cast of characters she has now. Way too many that have a more prominent position in the storyline that were minute characters previously. I am still loving the series though.

TINNGG... I can feel your pain. Since my step-mom died in January my Dad has become quite the ogre. Nothing my sister or I do is good enough but anything my brother does is incredible. Both my sister & I have gone down to his home in Georgia and spent weeks there helping him. He was on medication because he is so very anxious but he took himself off of it because "he takes enough medication and he doesn't want to take any more".
My Dad was a very self sufficient person all of his life, he can cook, clean, do the bills, etc. Now he just throws up his hands & says that it's too much for him. I would have never guessed that he would have turned into this person. He was always pretty self serving, but now all he thinks about is himself. He even forgot my birthday, I'm his first born. Sorry about the rant, but I think that grief affects people in different ways. I wish you luck, and again condolences.

I still balance a checkbook & have a written record of our bills. I have paid everything online for years, but I have had to look up payments that I have made & it's easy to see at a glance. I should convert to a program, maybe next year. I can hardly keep up with my books on GR. I wish that my audio books would auto-sync with my account. That would be some much easier.

I'm hopelessly behind this year but I am resigned to attempting to list all of my books anyway.
There's always next year! :-)

I'm so sorry for everyone's loss TINNGG, my condolences.

Well Doug I would venture that I'm as old as dirt too. I didn't make it through but the first few books, and that was ages ago. I noticed that the kindle price of book 1 is more than the MMP version. Boo, hiss! The demand is probably up, so the kindle price is too?

Did anyone else see that Amazon Originals is doing the Wheel of Time series? it starts November 19th. I wondered if they would give it a shot. It's "based on the series " so that gives them poetic license.

Paula wrote: "lol, I've just discovered the author Camille Douglass and her series Peg Darrow. I stayed up until 3 in the morning to finish the second book. I don't know what book to read after the fourth in the..."

Paula... Thanks for the rec on the Peg Darrow series. I'm really loving these stories.

Doug... Ditto what Demetra said. I used to look up Scott Lynch's posts to see if the next Gentleman Bastards book was coming out but sadly I think that he has lost interest in completing the book. Same goes for George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss and his Kingkiller Chronicles series. All of these authors have written highly popular books and all used to attend lots of "cons", but we've had probably 1 1/2 years of no live appearances and still no "epic" novels.

Carol wrote: "Did anyone read JR Ward's werewolf book ? It looks interesting... was it good?"

Hi Carol... Yes I did read it. It has nothing in common with the Prison Camp books,(yet), but it does have a link to Xhex. (view spoiler)[ She has been very restless, and appears to have something in her background that she needs to reconcile with. (hide spoiler)] The main characters have secrets that are not revealed until the end, and I would call it a HFN rather than a HEA. It was not my favorite, but I was anticipating a book about someone from the prison camp so that may have colored my view.

Demetra... Are the billionaire book stand alone reads? I tagged them as a want to read series. Also, I downloaded the first Alien Abduction book & am loving it. Thanks.
Melindeeloo I tagged the Grimoire for gamblers book too.

Was Goodreads offline last night? I couldn't get on @ around 8p.m.(ish) EST.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up here.
Demetra, I don't think that the heroine in The Jackal was TSTL. I think that she wanted to find her sister, (she has a very small family,) and had a lead that she wanted to follow. Once committed she just followed through. Was she a bit naive, yes. She thought that she could sneak into a hidden prison and rescue her sister, who was overdue to leave after her sentence was served. I would call her more determined, rather than TSTL. Both in this story and in future Prison Camp novels, I would guess that probably many of the characters have a back story that crosses the older BDB guys. I agree with Lisa, I enjoyed this book and I thought that Ward added a great new direction in her BDB focus.

I have been listening to a great series, Murder in an Irish Village. I like the main character, Siobbhan O'Sullivan. She is smart and intuitive. One of 6 siblings who lost their parents in a tragic accident, Siobbhan wrestles with trying to do what is best for her family, and with her natural curiosity as to why a certain individual was found dead in their family Bistro. Interspersed throughout are "wise sayings" that her parents had given her. I like the accents and funny sayings. Her siblings act like the youngsters and teenagers that they are. If anyone wants to try this series on audible, some of these books, (not all surprisingly), are free on KU and you have the option to add the audible for $7.49, which is less than a credit.

Lisa - (Aussie Girl) wrote: "I finally finished . I guess you guys won't be surprised that I gave it 5 stars. 😁 Love this series and [spoilers removed]"

I'm glad that you finally got a chance to finish The Jackal As I stated before I was a little bit surprised that Ward didn't return to the prisoners for her latest book, Claimed .
Ward has another book coming out in mid-November, where she is returning to the prison camp with... The Wolf . I can't wait, I love this character, (Lucan). I have to say it, He's such a dog! ;-)