{Sunday Post]—The Expanse, In the Blood, and The Witcher

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

Weekly Tidbits 

• Since I hit a creative stumbling block with a book review, I've set it aside to work on my Sunday Post on a Friday night. After that, I'll return to the review—or reviews—because I have more than one to do tonight. 

• I won't go into too many details, but my stress level is at an all-time high. Part of it is related to the holidays, family obligations, and the recession, er, inflation. Seriously—the price of a half-gallon of egg nog has nearly tripled since last year, and our government maintains that the economy is continuously improving. That must explain why my weekly food bill has more than doubled recently, and I'm buying less and less.

What Am I Currently Reading?

I finally started reading Jude Deveraux and Tara Sheets' Thief of Fate, and my goal is to complete it by Monday. I'll then swiftly read Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune: The Heir of Caladan. By the end of the week, I aim to have reviews published for both of these novels.

Recent Reviews

Ticket to Paradise
★★★✰✰

Star Trek: Harm's Way
★★★★★

Honor's Refuge
★★★✰✰

What's New on the Shelf?

At some point during the week, I bought Jack Carr's In the Blood at Walmart. 

This week, I had no intention of visiting a thrift store but ended up going there with my mother. Most of the bookshelves were once again empty, but one table had a tall, rectangular plastic box filled with paperback novels sitting underneath it. I bought Night Probe!, Blue Gold, and Inca Gold, three Clive Cussler novels, for ten cents each.

There are a good number of fresh books on my Kindle. Let's begin with Star Trek: The Next Generation—The Stuff of Dreams by James Swallow. No, the eBook wasn't on sale. It's an 88-page novella that costs $3.99. Eventually, it'll undoubtedly be on sale for 99 cents, but I needed it to complete my post-Nemesis collection. Between what I already have on Kindle and the books I recently purchased on eBay, I should now have all the post-Star Trek: Nemesis novels. When those "books" come in the mail, I'll talk more about them.

Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher novels 4–7 (The Time of Contempt, Baptism of Fire, The Tower of Swallows, and The Lady of the Lake) were on sale for $4.99 each for a short period. I've never seen these titles on sale before, so while $5 per piece may not seem like a fantastic value, it is. It's always the first three novels on sale, which I do have. All I need now is book eight.

James S. A. Corey's The Expanse has received many positive reviews, but I haven't read the books or watched the television series. I talked myself into purchasing books 7-9 (Persepolis Rising, Tiamat's Wrath, and Leviathan Falls) because they were on sale for $2.99 each. It's the first time I've seen the latter titles on sale; however, I've seen a few of the earlier books on sale several times, which I don't own.

In addition, I purchased The Narrows by Michael Connelly for $3.99 and 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke for $1.99.