{Sunday Post}—Anything but Plain, Kingdom of the Feared, and Terminator Salvation

The Caffeinated Book Reviewer's Kimberly hosts a weekly meme called "The Sunday Post"! 

Hello, fellow bloggers!

• I have the strangest musical preferences. I go between listening to AC/DC one day and Sara Bareilles the next. Everything is subject to my mood.

• With four games left in the season, the KC Royals have a 64-94 record. They performed very well this year. LOL!

• I've rediscovered my love for Star Wars. I watched The Mandalorian in one week. I'm really anticipating the start of the third season in February.

• Although Hocus Pocus 2 exceeded expectations, it wasn't as good as the first movie.

• I watched "Blonde," a nearly 3-hour Netflix movie, over the course of two sittings. Although I didn't hate it as much as almost everyone else did, I still won't watch it again and don't suggest you do either. 

 

What Am I Currently Reading?

I've got a lot of reading planned for this next week, including Melissa Koslin's Dangerous Beauty, which I previously discussed. I should have read at least 75 pages by the time this post was published. I'll also be reading Richard Charles Cobb's On the Trail of Jack the Ripper, which I've already read 23% of. The book was supposed to be released at the end of September, but Amazon has it listed for October 31st. If so, be prepared to read my review on Halloween. 

I'll be listening to the James Dashner sequel to The Maze Runner series, The Maze Cutter, which I recently got through NetGalley. Although Amazon lists the publication date as November 1st, NetGalley appears to have this week as the release date. I'll need to confirm the publication date with the publisher.

I got a press release from Gallery Books regarding Eden's Children, the newest novel by V.C. Andrews and... (cough) Andrew Neiderman. I downloaded the eBook from NetGalley rather than hold out for a printed ARC. Although I hadn't intended to, I read the prologue out of pure boredom. Either there is a new ghostwriter, or Andrew Neiderman is once again making an attempt to write. This narrative has a Gothic feel to it with genuine and precise descriptions, in contrast to the barrage of his most recent V.C. Andrews works. For the first time in a very long time, I'm eager to read one of his books. 

As if that weren't enough, I borrowed Tim Lebbon's eBook Alien: Out of the Shadows from Libby on Saturday, so I'm going to attempt to fit in one more read.

Recent Reviews

Big Bad
★★★★✩

The Munsters
★★½✰✰

Treasure State
★★★★✰

What Has Arrived in the Mail?

I'm not sure if you can see from the picture, but the USPS gave my copy of Anything but Plain by Suzanne Woods Fisher a few scrapes and bruises. The book is bent out of shape, but it is still readable.

What is New on the Shelf?

I bought Kingdom of the Feared, the most recent book by Kerri Maniscalco. Yes, this is the "Walmart" version. And no, it wasn't purchased at my local Walmart since, once again, they were lacking any new titles. Nothing shocking there.

The young adult book Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia and the western Bad Apple by Lancaster Hill were the two books I purchased at a neighboring Dollar Tree on Wednesday. As you might expect, Lancaster Hill isn't a real person; it's the pen name of Jeff Rovin, a former DC Comics editor and author of several titles in the Tom Clancy: Op-Center series.

I grabbed Surfacing by Katheleen Jamie, The Retreat by Sherri Smith, and The Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger at my local Dollar Tree. I believe I bought these titles on Monday. There were other errands I ran there over the week, and now my days are starting to blend together. The oddity of this trio is Surfacing. I'm not even sure why I picked it up.

I discovered that Mondays are the best days to thrift since, as I was looking through the books, the local Salvation Army was physically stocking the shelves with new titles. After purchasing a few books, I returned on Thursday or Friday to check if anything new had been released. (As I already stated, my days are fusing together.) And I picked up The Classic Fantasy Collection, a book I had purchased earlier in the year. No, there was no error here. I couldn't remember if I had the science fiction or fantasy anthology. The last time I visited Half-Price Books, I saw both the fantasy and science fiction volumes, and that was after I had already purchased the Fantasy Collection earlier in the year. As a result, I knew in the back of my mind to look for the other book, but when I spotted the Fantasy Collection in the thrift store, I experienced a brain freeze and forgot which volume I possessed. I went ahead and bought it because it was just 25 cents. So I now have two copies.

The Mayan Secrets by Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry is the other hardback shown in the image. Recently, I've discovered quite a few Cussler books, and I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have time to read them this winter.

Let's move on to the 10-cent paperbacks: Alan Dean Foster's Terminator Salvation, Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness, Michael Connelly's Lost Light, and Karen Rose's Closer Than You Think. I once saw Terminator Salvation and didn't care for it. I only purchased the novelization because Alan Dean Foster is a talented author. Both Terminator Salvation and The Fifth Witness have some minor damage, but I've already made repairs.

The Closer by Michael Connelly, Plague Ship by Clive Cussler and Jack Du Brul, Flood Tide by Clive Cussler, and Phantom by Terry Goodkind were among the books I purchased on my last trip. On Monday, I was about to purchase Plague Ship but decided against it because of water damage, even though none of the pages have adhered together. Since the book was just ten cents, I was sorry I had passed it up. I was happy it was still there on my return visit. "Phantom" has been gathering dust in the store for some months. There are some dog-eared pages and a practically ripped cover. For no other reason, than to try to fix it, I convinced myself to buy it.

Since it's a new month, there are new Star Trek ebooks available for 99 cents. Although Simon & Schuster won't update their sale page until Monday or Tuesday, there are 13 Star Trek books available in the Kindle Monthly Deals. I grabbed six: Voyager: Protectors by Kristen Beyer; Spock's World by Diane Duane; Vulcan's Forge; Vulcan's Heart; Vulcan's Soul: Exodus; and Vulcan's Soul: Epiphany, all by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz. 

Exiles, the second novel in the Vulcan's Soul series, is also available. Why didn't I buy it, you ask? A few years ago, I found a hardcover copy in a used bookstore. I'm happy I was able to get books one and three for just 99 cents each because they had been on my want list for a while. I didn't acquire the other sale titles because I already have them in print or eBook form.