Team Sherlock Holmes

[Shannon]

Finished The Hunt

Characters -- Claire St. James, Malachi Wraythe, Roman DeAngelo

[ClaireB]

I finally decided !
I'm reading Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey
Series: Heralds of Valdemar
Characters: Queen Selenay

There is also a horse which apparently plays a major role in the book. His name is Rolan. Can we count an animal as a character?

[Sunshine✰✰✰]

I got burnt out on vampires and the last couple of month have been doing a good job of checking out other genres and have settled on cozy mysteries and zombie books as my favorites. LOL. Now you tell me zombies are cool? :D

[Jaclyn]

I still need to make a few updates for books currently being read, but I'm at work and can only do it on my phone. So I'll do the rest later. I did move stuff around and we now have completed our 1st spell out! :)

[Heather]

I think paranormal is over vampires too, so they're branching out, which is nice. Werewolfs have been picking up, aliens was new to me, zombies started getting big a couple years back. It's good for the genre I think. Always good to branch out and see what's new. Did anyone do anything with ghosts that wasn't YA yet?

[Shannon]

Finished The Vampire King

Author Heather Killough-Walden
Characters -- Roman D'Angelo, Claire St. James, Ophelia

[Shannon]

I too am pretty much over vampires, etc at the moment. Probably because so many of the freebie short KU books I've been reading for this challenge have primarily been paranormal. I usually split my time with fantasy, but those tend to be pretty long so I've been abstaining. I've found a few gems, but mostly not. I did download a couple of fantasy novels for later this week, as well one or two just plain fictions. Y'all have sparked my interest in those alien novels ... So I'm going to be checking those out too!

[Jaclyn]

I'm going to start Going, Going, Ganache. It fits M for author and character and also O for character Oz and H for character Ian Hannigan.

[Jaclyn]

I don't think I'm necessarily over vampires. But I do think that authors have kinda run out of ways to make them original or interesting. I haven't read any zombie books yet, but I have read some werewolf ones, which unfortunately, weren't very good. I have read some decent fae ones though. The Lux series is pretty good. I don't think I've read any non-YA ghost novels...

[Heather]

Have you read Anne Rice's newest werewolf series? The Wolf Gift Nikki reads paranormal too and she is enjoying the series. The only ghost books I can think of offhand are the Anna Dressed in Blood series.

[Shannon]

Finished Visions

Characters -- Olivia Taylor-Jones, Ricky Gallagher, James Morgan

[Shannon]

Heather wrote: "Have you read Anne Rice's newest werewolf series? The Wolf Gift Nikki reads paranormal too and she is enjoying the series. The only ghost books I can think of offhand are the [book:..."

I've got "Anna" on my TBR list.

I've been a bit leary of reading Rice. I read the Mayfair witches books -- loved the first one then as it progressed it got a bit a wonky for me. I've read so many reviews about how her writing has seemed to not be at the same level as it was for say "Interview..."

[ClaireB]

I'm finished with arrows of the queen.
I'm now reading the second in the series, Arrow's Flight.
author: Mercedes Lackey
Series: Heralds of Valdemar
Characters: Queen Selenay

and then I'll read Arrow's Fall, the last of the trilogy.

[Sanskriti]

Finished reading Jamaica Inn.


H: Harry (char)
M: Maurier, Daphne du (author)
R: Richard (char)

After reading Daphne du Maurier's, Rebecca and now Jamaica Inn, I think I'm warming up to the genre of gothic. Maurier's stories have the ability to give you the creeps, without having any horror characters, they just bring out the evil in humans. I think she's made a fan out of me.

[Shannon]

Finished The Phantom King

Author Heather Killough-Walden
Characters -- Siobhan Ashdown, Roman D'Angelo, Marius, Ophelia

[Jaclyn]

Heather wrote: "Have you read Anne Rice's newest werewolf series? The Wolf Gift Nikki reads paranormal too and she is enjoying the series. The only ghost books I can think of offhand are the [book:..."

No, but I think my friend Nancy read the first one and liked it. I'm pretty sure it's the same one. I may need to look into it :)

[Jaclyn]

I finished Going, Going, Ganache and am starting Unwind to have another U as we are heading into our 4th spell out (almost done with 3!)!! Great job team!!!!!

[Sarah]

Finished Unhinged. I'm gonna take a look at what we need and what I have before deciding what to read next :)

[Shannon]

Finished The Warlock King

Author Heather Killough-Walden
Characters -- Miliani Noe, Chloe Septeran, Ophelia, Roman D'Angelo

[Heather]

I can't say much having only read one of the Interview series, and none of her other work, but Nikki says she really likes the Wolf Gift books. It's everyone's own preference anyway.
I finished The Tropic of Serpents and am starting up Elantris by Brandon Sanderson which has characters including Prince Raoden, and High Priest Hrathen.

[ClaireB]

finished arrow's flight. I'm now reading the last of the trilogy Arrow's Fall. still the same;
author: mercedes Lackey
series: Heralds of Valdemar
characters: Selenay

[Shannon]

Finished "Carry the One"

Author Carol Anshaw
Characters -- Maude, Olivia, Heather, Rob, Shanna

[ClaireB]

Finished arrow's fall

[Jaclyn]

Updated to here. Good work! I didn't get much reading done today because I had a really lousy day at work. So now that I'm at home, I'm going to relax and read. Hopefully I can finish Unwind tonight.

[Heather]

Sounds like Unwind is a good title for you for tonight then. I finished Elantris and I still love it as much as when I read it back in 2006. Ugh, I love that feeling when you reread a book you love so much and find it has stayed just as good as you remember. Not sure what I'm going to next, but I'm thinking maybe a reread of Sanderson's Warbreaker? I'm such a devotee. But a nap first and then I'll see how I feel.

[Heather]

Also, is it bad that I am really happy you picked Hrathen for the letters? I just really love his character so when I saw it I got all excited. I'm such a nerd.

[Jaclyn]

Heather wrote: "Also, is it bad that I am really happy you picked Hrathen for the letters? I just really love his character so when I saw it I got all excited. I'm such a nerd."

That's actually really funny. And I think I'd be the same way with a favorite character. His name just called to me more than the others :)

[Heather]

As well it should have, I have really strong feelings about him as a character. If there is one thing I love most it is a 'bad' character who is not evil, but completely understandable, complex, and one you semi-cheer for along with the actual 'heroes' of the book. It makes everything so much more engaging and interesting.
And yeah, I'm going to reread Warbreaker. Nikki got called in, she works in an ER, so my nap is postponed for 7 hours, just enough time to finish a 600 page book, and I am in the mood to keep up with my reread of Mr Sanderson's bibliography. This was published in 2007 so we'll see how this one holds up to my idolized memory. And his last name should fill in the S.

[Shannon]

Finished Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Author JLMurray

Characters -- Niki Slobodian, Robert Gage, Hugh Perry, Philip Morales

[Sunshine✰✰✰]

I finished Ocean Isle

[ClaireB]

I'm reading The Truth about Vampires by Theresa Meyers
Series: Sons of Midnight
characters: Kristin Reed

[Shannon]

Finished The Devil Is a Gentleman

Author JLMurray
Characters -- Niki Slobodian, Robert Gage, Hal Dorrance, Olivia Bradley

[Shannon]

Put me down for Under the Final Moon

That should help with the 4th spell-it-out so we can get points in the 5th

We are only 10 points behind the 4th place team so it'd be awesome if we could get around 400 again. I'm going to be gone most of tomorrow so I'm going to try to squeeze as much as I can in today.

[Shannon]

Finished Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Author JLMURRAY
Characters -- Robert Gage, Niki Slobodian, Michael, Henry Robinson

[Lilac]

I have a little problem with this week's book. I'm reading Winter of the World and I think I'll finish it in time but tomorrow I'm going out at lunchtime and won't be back till probably lunchtime Sunday (BST time). The thing is I'll still be reading and probably finishing the book tomorrow night but won't have any internet to mark the book as read and let you know when I finish. Don't know how to make this work without breaking rules. Anyway, here's what the book fits for if we're able to use it.

H - Hermann Braun
U - Ursula Dewar
M - Marga
O - Olga Peshkov
R - Robert Von Ulrich
O - Olga Peshkov
U - Ursula Dewar
S - Sergeant Schwab

[Jaclyn]

Lilac wrote: "I have a little problem with this week's book. I'm reading Winter of the World and I think I'll finish it in time but tomorrow I'm going out at lunchtime and won't be back till prob..."

If you are pretty sure you are going to finish it in time, why don't you mark it as read and put the date as tomorrow. If on Sunday, you come in and report that you didn't finish it on time after all, I'll let the mods know and they can deduct the 10 points from this weeks' score, and we'll add it to next week.

I've asked the mods if that will be okay for us to do. I'll let you guys know what they say.

[Jaclyn]

I finished Unwind and am going to read Sugar and Iced for the character Oz.

I agree with Shannon, we really need to hustle so we can slip into 4th place! Let's go Team Sherlock Holmes! We can do this! :)

[Sunshine✰✰✰]

Finished The Gunslinger

[Shannon]

Finished Under the Final Moon

[Shannon]

Finished The Goblin King

Author Heather Killough Walden
Characters -- Roman D'Angelo, Ophelia, Selene Trystaine

[ClaireB]

I'm finished with the truth about vampire.
To finish our last spell-it-out I'll reread Undead and Unwed

[Heather]

I finished Warbreaker. Don't know if I'll be able to get anything in before the deadline but I'll look at my library and see.
*EDIT* YeahI've been up almost 24 hours, it's been awesome, but I'm going to be useless before the new theme reveal. Here's hoping for some fun letters to play around with, and good luck to everyone!

[ClaireB]

finished with undead and unwed

[Jaclyn]

Lilac, the mods said we can count your book as read, but I noticed that you don't have it under your challenge bookshelf. As soon as you get internet access, please add it to your shelf. They will not let us count it otherwise.

[Jaclyn]

I finished Sugar and Iced and am working on Evanescent. I will finish by the deadline. But, if they don't count Lilac's book (since it's not on the challenge shelf), then mine won't count either (since our last spell out won't be complete). Hopefully it all works out! Is anyone else reading anything that I need to add?

[Shannon]

I've got about 20 min left before I finish "The Goblin King", but I'm wondering if I should wait or go ahead?

[Shannon]

Oops! I meant "The Seelie King"

[Jaclyn]

I'm not sure! We could definitely use the points, but I'd hate for it not to count. I'll leave it up to you!

[Jaclyn]

We got our next genre already! And our last genre of the competition is.....(drumroll please).....Chick Lit!

[Shannon]

I'm going to wait -- got tons going on with an 8th grd dance tonight