It's Monday....and I'm back - sort of.

Here we are again - it's a Monday.  I've never been crazy about Mondays, even during the summer on my work "vacation" (in this case, meaning two months without pay, meaning we don't actually get to go anywhere...{boohoo} would be nice to be able to afford to go even on a small trip.  I'm hoping to make a day trip to the beach soon).  Because even during the summer, each Monday brings me closer to the start of another year of working - which I used to love, but now the only thing I like about it is the kids - definitely, I haven't been enjoying one of my supervisors.  But then - at least I get to do some things that are fun.  The library work is fun.  Lunch duty - while frustrating at times, can still be fun, especially when the kids are all playing and enjoying the day.   I know I'm sounding a little em0 about things - but it's a passing thing.

I missed the last Monday post because of some emotional dips - I lost a grandfather (he was 106 years old), who I was only able to see a few times - and even then only because other people paid for me to fly to Panama twice.  For that I'm completely grateful.  But it's kind of sad to know he's gone, and to know that my mom has taken it very hard.  But life goes on for the rest of us, so far anyway.  So we all need to make the most of our lives, which is something I've been trying to do - and trying to remind my husband for at least 25 years (we've been married for 34 years, but he's turned into a bit of a bitter guy when life gets tough-and that's hard to live with - shit, now I'm sounding bitter, damnit!)

So let's get to it! Enough with the Emo Nemo shit.

But now - it's time for...  It's Monday, What Have You Been Reading? hosted by Sheila of Book Journey.  Unfortunately, I can't link yet to a Monday post for Book Journey, so I'll temporarily link to the Book Journey site.

In the last two weeks I finished reading: 

**remember - click on covers for excerpts or website**

Sabaska's Tale

by J.A. Campbell

teen fantasy (with the coolest horse ever).  At first available as an e-book, you can now purchase this in print, via CreateaSpace.  Worth buying people, especially if you AND any teens in the family like horses! (and good writing)

On Basilisk Station

by David Weber

SciFi (the first Honor Harrington novel)

I enjoyed it - even with the occasional lengthy explanations of...stuff. ;)

Pretty Sacrifices

by Devin O'Branagan

Y/A,UF (post pandemic plot)

Show Dog Sings the Blues

by Devin O'Branagan

(What if your show dog gets mixed up with her sister, the working ranch dog?) A fun novella.

at website (remember to click on cover) scroll down for the excerpt

Roil

by Trent Jamieson

fantasy (OMG - what a strange world!)

What a strange, weirdly good book.

My Current Reads:

I'm currently reading a book on my Kindle - the second Honor book, The Honor of the Queen, which seems to be slower going than the first...Just when I thought I was done....here comes more.  Which is okay - because it's pretty interesting.

I'm also working on another David Weber book - one in print, called In Fury Born - it's a book and a prequel all packaged into one thick novel.  Unfortunately - THIS one seems to have way more lengthy

info dumps for such things as weapons, military positioning, political background, the inner thoughts of Alicia's pleasure or displeasure of her weapons, etc.  That makes it hard for me to keep going, but I want to -because I know if I can get through that, there's action coming up.  I finished the prequel part, and that was pretty good....but I just keep dozing off when I'm reading those damned pesky info-dumps.  Damnit! Weber - ease up on those, huh?  Click on the cover for the prologue - this is why I want to keep reading....

One more book that I'm taking in smallish doses - 
The First Casualty
by Mike Moscoe aka Mike Shepherd
Interesting SciFi, telling a story from two main character's pov.
No excerpt from Shepherd's website - which needs to be updated.  According to his book page this is out of print, and yet I just bought it recently at a bookstore - brand new, not used. 

Well - that's enough for now.  I'm tired, frankly.

It's Monday, .... and I'm late at this post

I've pretty much been living a nocturnal life - but then I always seem to do that over the summer.  Ever since I was a little kid, I was happy staying up as late as I could.  I didn't want to go to sleep - that prayer that people make kids say at night - "...If I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take..." - might have something to do with it. When you're little, and you're not quite sure about who the "lord" is, and why they want your soul, or even why you want them to take it....and why a kid might die before THEY'RE AWAKE... it's scary stuff.  Made me nervous anyway.  That was just the beginning.  Spending school vacations with a father who mainly worked night shifts had another part to play in this....as well as me later getting jobs that had night shift availability.  I always seem to be more alert and awake from the hours between 4 p.m. and 6 a.m. - but if I have to wake UP at 6 a.m., I tend to feel sullen, resentful and just plain angry at life.  :)  At least until around 4 p.m. 

So now it's summer and even though I spend 8 months or more trying to adjust to a day time schedule for my current work life, it takes mere days to slip right back into the night life.....

So it's time for a Monday post - only I'm very late to it this week.

It's Monday - hosted by Sheila of Book Journey - is where we all get together, or rather, visit other blogs and see what we're all reading.

What I finished reading....

I didn't get a lot of reading done this week.  I feel like I might have forgotten about finishing a book, but of course, can't remember which one.  

The one I do remember is.........

Sabaska's Tale

by J.A. Campbell

This is an e-book, YA/fantasy about a very special horse, a young girl who has recently lost her grandmother, and how she deals with sudden danger and comes out a stronger person in the end.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Any one who loves horses will enjoy this, as the horse is a strong character in this book.   There is travel between worlds, other worlds and being, and some fun mythical creatures....and danger - there is DANGER.   And Campbell writes great fiction! And just look at that beautiful cover - that's the real life Sabaska pictured there.

BTW - there is a contest going on right now for swag to celebrate the release of this novel.

Current Reads

There's one main book that I've been reading, and there's a couple that I've started in my usual book A.D.D. fashion (B.A.D.D.)

The current read is from reading another person's blog, where they (she - why do we do that?  change a single person to 'they' when referring to a blogger or someone we really don't know in person...) had mentioned the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.  I went ahead and picked up the first of the series, luckily they had at B&N, and I bought it before I became irritated enough to impose a book buying ban from B&N - which makes it hard for me to shop since they are the one bookstore that stays open after 6 p.m. in my area - and they're the largest bookstore around.  I'll have to get creative and become for loyal to home-grown bookstores, which while they may be wonderful indie bookstores, don't usually carry a huge variety of novels, especially UF or SciFi, and they aren't open when I feel like moving around (see the nocturnal lifestyle note above, heehee)

Back to the book - I grabbed a copy of...

On Basilisk Station 

by David Weber, 

the first Honor Harrington novel.

Even though there are a few spots here and there where he goes on about politics, or a bit of info-dumping, it's not enough to turn me off from reading, and the rest of the story so far, is interesting enough to keep me engaged - though Honor is almost too perfect.....almost.

Of course, after I buy a print copy of this book, I THEN look it up on the Baen website, where it's available as a free download - the entire book.  Baen does this thing where they offer quite a few of their publications for free downloads.  It bypasses the

whole pirating issue - offering it up.  they also put up a donation button, so if you're feeling like you can, you can offer up some $$ for reading.  I'm going to take advantage of their free library when I'm ready to read the second book.  Then I think I'll keep my future purchases to their website - as far as SciFi novels.  Why pay stores like B&N - where all they care about is selling you a card you can use to save money yet don't actually care about you as a customer (sorry, mini-rant) - when you can buy directly from a company that has been offering free e-copies of their books way before Amazon began offering free downloads?  Sounds like a good company to support.

The next book in the Honor series is The Honor of the Queen, which is also available as a free book.  

Other current/coming reads:

                                           

Pretty Sacrifices by Devin O'Branagan (sequel to Glory)

novella - Show Dog Sings the Blues by Devin O'Branagan

This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova

haha - I wish I had come up with this caption, but I didn't.  It's funny - love it.