2016 Reading Challenge - Book Scrabble - May

I read seven books in May.  I started off strong, but then slowed down toward the end of the month.  I finished the Queen's Blade series by TC Southwell quickly and then had to take a bit of a break.  I'm not going to write about them individually because I don't want to get so detailed that I give anything away.  :)

Amazon link to author page HERE

(so I don't have to link each individual book hehe)

I wasn't going to read the two prequels to the Queen's Blade because I thought I wouldn't want to, but by the time I finished the first six books I had to read the last two.  I'm glad I did!! It filled in so much of the back story and I loved them just as much as the original series.  I'm normally not too big on prequels, but these were very accurate (a lot of times they have major discrepancies) and just as enjoyable.  I will say it again.. I LOVED this series.  It seriously has made it onto my top favorites list (along with other fantasy favorites like Wheel of Time, Sword of Truth, the Pern books, etc.).  I have no idea why I loved them so much... my husband didn't enjoy them nearly as much as I did.  I think because he's read similar stuff before, so to him the ideas in it are old.  These were different from anything I've read (main character is an assassin) so they were new and exciting to me.  I normally don't like war or politics based books and these had both, but it didn't bother me or take away from the story at all.  These were very well fleshed out and interesting, with great characters.  There were a few times when I thought things were going to get repetitive and annoying (e.g. the dancing), but they didn't.  The author managed to keep the story interesting to the very end.  To me anyway.  Opinions are subjective obviously.  :)  I'm glad I bought the whole series because I will definitely read these again.  If you're the type who gives up quickly if the beginning of the book isn't interesting, please don't give up on these too soon!! The first book starts off a bit slow, but it's worth it in the end.  If you aren't hooked by the end of the first book don't bother buying the rest of them though.  Those five books gave me 10 points (S=1, M=3, L=1, C=3 and G=2).

Amazon Link

November's Past was recommended to me by a friend.  It's about a detective that doesn't like being a detective and a murder case.  It was really good.  I like murder mysteries so it was right up my alley.  It felt a little slow paced after the Queen's Blade series, but I'm always like that after finishing a really good series (I'm one of those weirdos who feels sad that a series ends lol).  By the end of the book I was definitely interested in reading the next book (not out yet), but it didn't end on a cliffhanger so it didn't bother me to move on to something else.  It's probably because each book is a different mystery all wrapped up neatly by the end of the book (or so I assume since that's how the first one is).  I didn't guess who the killer was by the way!  Good twist at the end.  :D  This book was 1 point.

Amazon Link

I chose Zombie Fallout simply because it's a Z title that earns me ten points on the Scrabble scoring system lol.  I'm glad I did though!  This book really surprised me.  It was the first zombie book I've ever read and I actually really loved it.  It's in first person and is different because it's basically journal entries about a man and his family surviving the zombie apocalypse.  I think what makes this so different and surprising though is the humor in it!  He's very sarcastic and I love it.  :D  One thing that was annoying and hilarious all at the same time is that it never failed I would get to the gross parts of the book when I was eating!!!  Every time!  Of course that probably has something to do with eating on lunch breaks and reading while eating supper, but still the coincidence was funny.  When I was reading while not eating I wouldn't get to anything gross.  Some of the descriptions are kind of gross if you haven't guess that already.  The funny thing is I accidentally bought the second book in the series (that dang one click to buy pop up in the Kindle app is dangerous!!!) so I'm reading that now.  If I had hated the book I'd be pissed and try to get it returned, but since I enjoyed it I figured why not?  It's only a few dollars.  So look forward to the review on the second one next month.  :)

That's all for May.  That is a total of 21 points. For those of you just joining, the points are not my rating system or anything.  I'm scoring the books I read this year on the Scrabble score system below.

(1 point)-A, E, I, O, U, L, N, S, T, R
(2 points)-D, G
(3 points)-B, C, M, P
(4 points)-F, H, V, W, Y
(5 points)-K
(8 points)- J, X
(10 points)-Q, Z

I will add them up at the end of the year and see how many points I earn.  :D  I'm not scoring the individual books because to me they are either 5 star or 1 star.  I'm not very good at subjectively scoring books haha.   A book rarely falls in middle ground for me.  Until next month, happy reading!