It’s Monday, What Are You Reading?

With summer almost over here in Utah, I can hardly believe how quickly it flew by! I promised myself at the beginning of May that I would play more with my kids this summer and work on being more present-minded. They’re getting older and I won’t have many care free summers left hauling them to the splash pad and the park. I’m painfully aware that future summers will involve more time with friends and less time with dear old mom. 

Summer A to Z blog event took a nose dive and I think maybe both Tanya and I decided that that was okay this time. In a couple weeks here I’ll be getting back to a more structured daily schedule and that will mean more planned time for blogging. Plus, we’re moving into Spooky Season! My favorite time of year to blog!

Also, I had someone message and ask about plans for 2022 reading challenges already! It makes me happy that so many readers love our challenges and look forward to them every year. They are a lot of work and I always wonder if it’s time to retire them. But then someone asks about future plans and I get excited again. It’s always a reminder that even when life gets busy, the book community is my home away from home so to speak. I’m very grateful for that. 

Anyway, enough chatter. Here are a couple of things I’ve been reading lately…

The Chain, Adrian McKinty

Wow! What a thrill ride this was. The premise of this was scary. Some kind of twisted organization that has started a chain of kidnapping and ransom collecting. A fast paced and great read. 

Rachel Klein’s daughter has been taken and the only way Rachel will see her again is to follow her kidnappers instructions exactly: pay a ransom, and find another child to abduct. This is no ordinary kidnapping: the caller is a mother herself, whose son has been taken, and if Rachel doesn’t do as she’s told, the boy will die. Rachel is now part of The Chain — an unending and ingenious scheme that turns victims into criminals — and is making someone else very rich in the process.

The Extraordinaries, TJ Klune

After reading, and loving, The House in the Cerulean Sea, I was eager to read more of Klune’s work. I picked up The Extraordinaries which is a YA book about hidden heroes and teenage love. I found the super hero angle really fun and the relationship angle very sweet and innocent. 

Some people are extraordinary. Some people are just extra. Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?
After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life). What he discovers in the process will make him question everything he thought he knew. 

Winter Counts, David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Another mystery thriller with some dark moments peppered throughout. You can barely see it in my stack below but I enjoyed this novel. (Surprisingly,  Middlegame was a DNF for me. I may try it again at a later date. Just wasn’t feeling it.) Vigilante driven books always blur the lines when it comes to morals and really make me think. Winter Counts was no different. 

Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His method of justice is not always legal but usually deserved. When heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop. He soon finds himself neck deep in terrifying drug cartel inner circles.

I’m really happy with the amount of reading I’ve managed this summer. I haven’t been great at keeping up with my reading challenge books but I haven’t given up on them yet. What have you been reading lately? 

(Linking up with The Book Date for IMWAYR?)