Tag Archives: Shelly Laurenston

Looking Back at 2018

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Today I’m taking a look back on what I did in 2018. It’s mostly about my reading stats, but there’s some other info, too.

I worked as a precinct inspector for three elections this year. The last two elections I had really awesome clerks. As much as this introvert hates dealing with that many people, I love working the elections. I love seeing all these people come out and participate in the system, and I especially love watching new voters vote for the very first time.

This is my Instagram Top 9. As you can see, there’s a lot of my Wonder Woman scarf. And, my favorite, is Jo and I during the trip to San Diego right in the middle. It’s mostly knitting-related photos, which is funny because I didn’t knit much this year.

A collage of 9 pictures. Left to right and top to bottom: Wonder Woman scarf completed on a black table; Wonder Woman Scarf on a white comforter; A repost of JustRunKnit's photo of a blue shawl; A repost from O_wow_Waite of author Jess Russell at the RWA Rita awards wearing a skirt with the image of every nominated book printed on it; Me and Jo in San Diego; Wonder Woman scarf in progress; A close up of my face with the Welcome to Stitches sign; A collage of various pics of my mom; Figure skaters with the woman spinning in the air parallel to the ice and the text "So you catch Footballs in your sport? Aww. That's cute."

Speaking of what I knit this year, I only finished 4 things this year. My Antarktis shawl, Wonder Woman scarf, Honey cowl, and my Find Your Fade shawl. I wear my fade shawl A LOT. It’s pretty much with me everywhere. Because I did the scarf pattern, but used a lot more yarn, mine is more shawl-like than scarf-like.

A collage of 4 pictures. Clockwise from top left: Antarktis shawl folded and knit in a bright blue yarn with some purple specks; Honey Cowl in a multi-colored yarn; Wonder Woman scarf which looks like the Wonder Woman symbol. Knit with red on the top, then yellow W logo, and blue on the bottom; Find your Fade shawl knit in 10 miniskeins of a rainbow colors with black.

Here are a few of the things I’ve started knitting this year and are still languishing on the needles. And of course my Citron is still in progress. I’d knit on it more, but the rows are SO DAMN LONG at this point. Ugh.

A collage of four pictures. Clockwise from top left: The cuff of a ribbed mitt in blues and purple; the start of a hot pink shawl; the start of a purple shawl in a half moon shape; and the another purple and black shawl about halfway a long

I also did some cross stitch at the end of the year. Just a couple ornaments, and I can’t find the Santa I finished, darn it! It’s really cute, too.

A square with four images, but it's the same two pictures are repeated in alternate corners. Upper left & bottom right is a cross stitched snowman with a hat and scarf stitched on a wooden ornament; Upper right and lower left is a Christmas tree with blue, pink, and green striped "leaves" and at the bottom it says "Merry & Bright"

Professionally, I edited/proofed 479,269 words. And for series bibles it was 772,287 words. Which means for work I read 1,251,556 words. That…seems like a lot. But really it wasn’t. I’m shooting for more for next year.

SHAMELESS PLUG: I have openings for edits in February, or if anyone needs a series bible done, e-mail me for rates and info.

As for my reading, I have a bunch of interesting stats. At least they’re interesting to me. LOL. I read 228 books this year. My original goal was 250, but sometime in September I knew I wouldn’t hit that, so I changed my goal to 200. Out of the 228 books, 104 were new reads and 124 were re-reads. I knew it would be close between new and re-reads, but I think this is the first year I re-read more than read new.

38 books of the 228 were from authors of color. There may have been more, but those are the only authors I know for sure. I wish I could say I read more individual authors, but really most of those were me glomming Shelly Laurenston and Holley Trent. And now I have Farrah Rochon’s backlist to go through in 2019.

I read 42 audio books, 182 digital books (mostly Kindle and the rest ARCs/manuscripts), and 4 physical books which total over 64,000 pages.

My shortest book was Tabula Rasa by Ophelia Bell (30 pages) and my longest is the Desert Guards compilation by Holley Trent (1,175 pages). The oldest book I read was The Vow by Dallas Schulze, which is a Silhouette Intimate Moments from 1989. The most popular book I read was Becoming by Michelle Obama. No surprise there. LOL. According to GR, 45,850 other people also read it.

The books I’ve read twice this year are:

Kristen Ashley: Rough Ride, Rock Chick Reawakening, and The Hookup

Shelly Laurenston: In a Badger Way, Beast Behaving Badly

Dana Marie Bell: Sorry, Charlie

Lila Rose: Breakout

Suzanne Wright: Lure of Oblivion, Wild Hunger

 

Shelly Laurenston, The Unleashing

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I’m not a big Paranormal Romance reader. I’ve always liked psychics, but things with witches and vampires and shape shifters were never really my thing. Luckily I have good friends who give EXCELLENT book recommendations, and I got hooked on Shelly Laurenston’s shifter books. When I received the ARC I was both excited and trepidatious. The good was YAY! New Shelly Laurenston book! The bad was Hmm. Birds? Really?

I’m not a fan of birds. They creep me out. And they’re pretty evil, but that theory could be because I saw The Birds when I was young and impressionable. *shudder*

I finally had the time and the inclination to read this one and see what it was about. I was as surprised as anyone when I discovered I really enjoyed myself. Kera was the typical Laurenston heroine: Snarky, funny, and not about to take anything from anyone. She’ll stand on her own, thankyouverymuch, and if someone doesn’t like it, there’s the door. It was interesting to see a woman who was, more or less, a total loner adjust to living in a house full of women. Not to mention adjusting to becoming a Crow.

As for Vig, our hero, he was adorable. Quiet and strong and willing to do what was necessary to help Kera become everything he always knew she could be. He is gruff and scary to everyone but her, and he’s been lusting after her for AGES. He is her stability and safety in a world gone mad, and he helps her figure out her place in it. He’s got his “brothers” and she has her “sisters” and watching the two of them deal with it all was fun to watch.

I also LOVED the little bits with Kera’s dog, Brodie Hawaii.

The one complaint I had is there is a lot of world building in this book. I mean A LOT. While it is interesting and cleverly done, this book is obviously a set up for her new series, and even though there IS a HEA for Vig and Kera, there are threads and plots running through The Unleashing which are left unresolved and will be picked up in the next book. I’m looking forward to that one, as hopefully we’ll get more time with the main couple (whoever they may be) and less world building.

Still, all in all, I enjoyed it and will happily pick up book 2.

Rating: 3 Stars

Lynda the Guppy