Author: Erika K

Top 10 Tuesday – Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday they post a new Top Ten list prompt. This week’s list is the Top Ten books I plan to have in my beach bag this summer.

I’m not much of a beach person since I don’t like the heat, but these are the books I’m looking forward to reading on vacation this year.

I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to reading this summer too! Let me know in the comments, and if you have a blog, why not write your own Top Ten list? Just be sure to link back to The Broke and the Bookish, and feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments here, too.

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Beautiful Blogger Award

~ Erika K ~ 6 Comments

Mollyeyablog has been kind enough to nominate me for the Beautiful Blogger Award. 🙂 Stop by and check out her blog!

Beautiful-Blogger-Award

The rules are as follows:

Link back to the blogger who took the time to nominate you.
List seven random things about yourself.
Nominate seven creative, beautiful bloggers.
Notify the amazing people that you nominated for the award.

Here are seven random things about me:

1. My favorite pets are cats, but I have had cats, dogs, fish, a bird, a pony, an iguana, and several small reptiles and amphibians at one time or another.

2. I took psychology and sociology courses in college, but work in IT support.

3. I like cilantro.

4. I hate spiders. More than almost anything.

5. I prefer Android / Windows over Apple.

6. Rosemary is my favorite herb – I love the aroma and the taste.

7. I spent my junior year in high school living in Chile as a foreign exchange student. (7.5 – I speak both English and Spanish.)

I know some people love this type of post, and others would rather not do them, so instead of nominating 7 people, I’ll just invite anyone reading this post to share their own list if they are so inclined!

What are you reading Wednesdays – 5/20/15

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

What are you reading Wednesday – 5/20/15

whatareyoureadingwed

What Are You Reading Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Its A Reading Thing. To participate, pull out your current book and answer these questions. If you have a blog, feel free to leave a link to your post so others can visit. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your answers in the comments below.

The Questions are:
1. What’s the name of your current read?

2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share one complete sentence.

3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

My Answers this week:

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1. Same as last week!! I had just started Eden at the Edge of Midnight by John Kerry when I posted last Wednesday, and haven’t quite finished yet.

2. So that I’m not completely repeating myself, here’s something from page 134 instead of 34:
“You look shattered,” he said. “You should get an early night and some sleep.” He didn’t look much better himself.

3. The story is getting really interesting now, but I don’t think I would want to live there. Visit yes, just for the adventure of seeing someplace new, but I would not want to find myself stranded in this world like Sammy (the protagonist) does.

Top Ten Tuesday – Favorite Childhood Books

~ Erika K ~ 15 Comments

5/19/15 – Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday they post a new Top Ten list prompt. This week’s list is a freebie – post your Top Ten anything you like! 🙂

I’ve chose to list my 10 favorite (I should say 10 of my favorite…) childhood books. Some of these I’ve re-read since and loved just as much. Others I only vaguely remember the plot but get a warm, happy feeling whenever I see the cover. I know this is a Top Ten list, but these are in no particular order…

Do you have any childhood favorites you would add to this list? Let me know in the comments, and if you have a blog, why not write your own Top Ten list? Just be sure to link back to The Broke and the Bookish, and leave a link to your post in the comments here, too.

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Audiobook Review – The 6th Extinction by James Rollins

~ Erika K ~ 8 Comments

The 6th Extinction
by James Rollins

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Sigma Force #10
Genre: Thriller
Audiobook read by Christian Baskous
My Rating **** (4 of 5 stars for the story, 2.5 out of 5 stars for the narration!!)

I just finished this audiobook, and while I love James Rollins and the Sigma Force series, I did not care for this narrator. His voices and accents were strange, and he does not pronounce some words the way I would pronounce them. He also made some of the dialog seem stilted and unnatural. Having read all of the previous Sigma Force books in print, I’m sure it wasn’t written that way!

Narration aside, I still enjoyed the story and the exotic locations – the story takes place across the globe from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, to the remote tepuis of Brazil, and all the way to Antarctica. It was a very fast-paced thriller, with less investigation and more “diving-right-in-and-doing” than some of the other books in this series. The returning characters from previous novels were a nice surprise, but I won’t names in case you are a fan of the series and haven’t read this one yet. Jenna, Nikko, and Drake were nice additions to the team, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them pop up again in future volumes. I do wish that Seichan had a bigger part in this one though.

As always with James Rollins’s books, be sure to read / listen to the Notes to the Reader at the end of the novel. He always explains what out of the book is science, and what is fiction. In this novel particularly, that is the scariest part of all.

What are you reading Wednesday – 5/13/15

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What are you reading Wednesday – 5/13/15

whatareyoureadingwed

What Are You Reading Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Its A Reading Thing. Be sure to stop by and visit them! To participate, just answer these three questions about what you are reading this Wednesday. If you have a blog, feel free to leave a link to your post, or just leave your answers in the comments below.

The Questions are:
1. What’s the name of your current read?

2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share one complete sentence.

3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

My Answers this week:
1. Eden at the Edge of Midnight by John Kerry
Eden at the Edge of Midnight

2. She’d seen nothing to indicate that there was life on this jungle planet, so she took a break at an outcrop of rocks that loosley resembled the Sydney Opera House.

3. That would depend….the story goes back and forth between modern day England and another world. England, yes. The other world, I don’t think so! 🙂

Forsaken by J.D. Barker

~ Erika K ~ 6 Comments

Forsaken
by J. D. Barker

Forsaken (Shadow Cove Saga, #1)

Genre: Horror
My Rating **** (4 of 5 stars)

***NOTE: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

Book 1 of The Shadow Cove Saga

Forsaken is a book partially based on characters and events from the Salem witch trials. Some of these events find their way into the latest novel by best-selling novelist Thad McAlister.

Synopsis from Goodreads:
From the witch trials of centuries past, an evil awakens.

Inspired by Actual Events
Excerpt from the Journal of Clayton Stone – 1692
She was examined today without torture at Shadow Cove township on the charge of witchcraft. She said she was wholly innocent of the crime and has never in life renounced God. I watched as they brought her out. A poor, sickly thing, worn by her time behind the walls of her prison. Her bared feet and hands bound in leather, her clothing tattered to that of ruin. Despite such condition, her head was held high, her eyes meeting those of her accusers. She still refuses to provide her name so we remain unable to search baptismal records, nor has her family stepped forward to claim her as their own. We have no reason to believe she is anything but an orphaned child. I find myself unable to look at her directly in the moments preceding her trial. She is watching me though; with eyes of the deepest blue, she is watching me.
Thad McAlister, Rise of the Witch

When horror author Thad McAlister began his latest novel, a tale rooted in the witch trials of centuries past, the words flowed effortlessly. The story poured forth, filling page after page with the most frightening character ever to crawl from his imagination. It was his greatest work, one that would guarantee him a position among the legends of the craft. (read more) 

Throughout the story, the author allows you glimpses into the past via excerpts from Clayton Stone’s journal, showing you important events that happened in 1692. These journal entries give you just enough information to keep you guessing and add to the suspense when you are reading about the present. There were some good twists and a nice salute to Stephen King (one of my favorites) that made this even more fun to read. This was a great stay-up-all-night-reading type of spooky story, and I recommend this book to any fans of horror novels, witches, or things that go bump in the night. I will also be on the lookout for book #2 of the Shadow Cove Saga, to find out what happens to Ashley and Rachael!

Visit J.D. Barker’s webpage

Purchase Forsaken at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Review – The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy

~ Erika K ~ 1 Comment

The Dead Lands
by Benjamin Percy
The Dead Lands

***NOTE: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***

Genre: Horror / SciFi / Fantasy
My Rating **** (4 of 5 stars)

The Dead Lands is at its core a story of survival in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles – survival not just of a few individuals, but of humanity itself.

Synopsis From Goodreads:
In Benjamin Percy’s new thriller, a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga, a super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary-the remains of St. Louis-a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders.  (read more)

The story starts out in Sanctuary, and then hops back and forth between there and the group of escapees who have set off in the hopes of discovering something better. Each member of the scouting party has his or her own personal reason for fleeing Sanctuary. For some, the struggle with their decision to leave causes them almost as much grief as the monsters, inhospitable climates, and other people they meet along the way.

This book had both the horror-road-trip feel of The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and the find-other-survivors-and-keep-the-human-race-going vibe of The Passage, by Justin Cronin. (Both of which I highly recommend if you have not already read them!) It was a suspenseful, thought-provoking tale and I really enjoyed it.

I do think that the way the story wrapped up, there might be a possibility of a little more Lewis and Clark (not to mention Gawea) in the future. I’m not sure that’s what the author was getting at, but I can hope….

Visit Benjamin’s Percy’s website
Connect with Benjamin Percy on Facebook

Purchase from Amazon
Purchase from Barnes and Noble

What Are You Reading Wednesday 5/6/15

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

What are you reading Wednesday – 5/6/15

whatareyoureadingwed

What Are You Reading Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by Its A Reading Thing. Just answer three little questions about what you are reading this Wednesday, then head on over to their blog to add a link to your own post, or leave your answers in the comments below.

The Questions are:
1. What’s the name of your current read?

2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share one complete sentence.

3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

My Answers this week:

1. I’m currently reading The Dead Lands, by Benjamin Percy
The Dead Lands

2. If Lewis was the type to share, the type who offloaded all his aches and worries and displeasures onto others, then he might complain about the dreams that bother him nightly.

3. I would most definitely not like to like in this fictional future. The world has been devastated by an outbreak of a deadly flu virus, and the survivors are few and far between, scattered into small communities across the USA. Technology is nearly non-existent, and the climate is extreme. Life here is hard, uncomfortable, and dangerous.

Can’t wait to hear what everyone else is reading today!