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About West Of Sundown, Vol. 1 

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

Weekly Tidbits

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer!

Good Morning, Everyone! 

• I caught a summer cold. My fever was up to 102.6 on Friday afternoon. Thank God for NyQuil and Vicks cough drops. 
• It finally rained. 
• It's weird not to get mail for four days in a row. 
• The cable/internet continues to flip flop on and off. 
• The KC Royals' pitching continues to suck. Their now 26 - 44. 
• Holy bats! Ozzy Osbourne dropped a brand new single, Patient Number 9, from his new album that releases on September 9th, two days after my birthday. 

 

What Am I Reading? 

Before my cold, I finished reading Open Season and read James Patterson: Stories of My Life and Goosebumps SlappyWorld: Slappy in Dreamland. Today, I'm going to attempt to read to Sands of Dune. It's a short read at under 200 pages. I would like to have it read and reviewed by its release date, June 28. Afterward, my next read will be The Songs That Could Have Been by Amanda Wen.  

Recent Reviews

I posted no reviews this past week for good reasons - the internet connection has been crappy, and I caught a nasty cold. I've started the reviews for Spiderman: No Way Home, Shadow's Reel by C.J. Box, and Goosebumps SlappyWorld: Slappy in Dreamland. I just need to finish them. The review for Offseason will be published as a Midnight Horror post - whenever I get around to writing it.

What's in the Mail?

According to Walmart's crappy app, James Patterson's newest thriller, Escape, was in stock at my local Walmart. Escape was nowhere in their so-called book department when I got to the store. An employee attempted to help but concluded that either the app was wrong or the book was somewhere in a box in storage, and she had no intention of looking for it. This store never got in the last four James Patterson books, so it wasn't a surprise that Escape wasn't there. (FYI: I looked at the monthly Harlequin paperbacks, and they're all from April, so that's probably the last time the book department got stocked.)

Anyhow, I ordered Escape from Amazon and it arrived on my doorsteps on Saturday.

What's New on the Bookshelf?

On Tuesday, I found a nearly brand-new copy of Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell at a thrift store. Walmart has had this book on its shelf for 3-4 years, and nobody has ever bought it. It was still three collecting dust on Thursday afternoon. I've read the blurb a few times but never had the urge to get it. Well, that is until I picked it up for 10 cents. Additionally, I also got The Thief of Always by Clive Barke for 10 cents.  

About the Book 

Can this undercover agent save the woman he loves—or is her heart as counterfeit as the money he’s been sent to track down? 

Caffeinated Delight At Night 

For me, there's nothing better way to cap off of the end of the week than drinking a smooth cup of coffee. More specifically, I'm referring to Verena Street's Cow Tipper, a bag of ground coffee that's been sitting on the coffee bar since the tail end of 2021. I grabbed a bag while shopping at Price Chopper in a nearby county, and if my memory serves me correctly, it was on sale. I don't know why I was saving the Cow Tipper back. Tonight was a good of a night than any to try it out. 

Something's wrong with the children. They're murdering classmates, torturing parents, speaking in tongues, drinking human blood, and practicing black magic. Your offspring is on the rise, their blood no longer innocent. There will be casualties, and you may be among them.

Why do I waste my time reading reviews written by the mainstream media? I rarely read other reviews before writing my own, but tonight I found myself reading a few for the vampire-flick Jakob's Wife. I usually don't care what a critic thinks of a horror film, but a specific Variety review from March ticked me off. The critic, who I won't name, stated Jakob's Wife is nothing more but "a cheap and cheerless vampire movie knock-off." Why does a vampire movie have to be cheerful? I take it this so-called critic has never watched a vampire movie? And, no, the Twilight Saga doesn't count. Cheap? It's a low-budget, B-grade horror film, enough said. A knock-off? Of what? Sure, the vampire looks a hell of a lot like Count Orlok from Nosferatu and Kurt Barlow from Salem's Lot, but I would never call it a knock-off. Good grief! Ever heard of a homage?!

How is everyone doing on this rainy Monday? Yes, I said rainy! If you live in the midwest, like me, you know it has been a rainy summer. I planned on mowing the yard today, but that's not going to be happening. It rained just enough in the early morning hours to ruin my day. According to the local news, Tuesday will be cloud-free with warmer temperatures. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? Lol!

It's another sleepless night for me for many reasons I will not go into, and, no, it doesn't have anything to do with my caffeine intake, though I did brew a cup just a few minutes ago. Once again, my mind is practically running on a different cylinder than my usual norm and listening to Taylor Swift's Fearless rerelease. (Yes, I am a Taylor Swift fan. Enough said.) There are too many things I need to catch up on and several new ideas I would like to focus my attention on. If there were only more hours in a day, then maybe I could get more things accomplished. Or if I would solve my procrastination issues then, I would have plenty of time to do all things I want to do.

Thanks to a lack of sleep and drinking a bit too much caffeine, my mind is currently running on totally different cylinders tonight. Instead of writing reviews and articles, I'm watching clips and interviews of older actresses on Youtube. Yes, I know that might sound a bit weird, but I sort of having a reason for it. I've been a Hammer Films fan since I was a little bitty kid, but my fascination with these gothic films has increased ever since I got my hands on the Hammer Films: The Ultimate Collection Blu-ray set from Mill Creek Entertainment. And I cannot exactly explain it, but a chain reaction took place. I bought several Hammer movies on DVD and Blu-ray from Scream Factory and Warner Archives and several VUDU digitals. Then I ordered the books "The Art of Hammer: Posters From The Archives of Hammer Films" and "Hammer Glamour: Classic Images From The Archives Of Hammer Films." The latter title is all about the gorgeous actresses who appeared in those films. I'm not naming names, but I have developed an infatuation with at least three of these women, even though they are all old enough to be my grandmothers.

I cannot believe it's been nearly five months since my last Monday Morning Madness post. If you've followed any of my Sunday Posts, then you would know I have had many ups and downs over the past year that are not related to the pandemic. I'm not going to go into details here, as I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing me talk about it. However, I want to say that I'm doing well and trying my best to deal with things.

For those who participate in the weekly Book Blogger Hop every Friday, you would've noticed a new look for the logo and prompt image. While I love the previous logo, the cream colors didn't blend well with my blog's design. Therefore, I had to make a change, and hopefully, everyone will like it. If not, feel free to use one of the previous logos or your own.  

Speaking of the Book Blogger Hop, I would like to apologize for not posting the prompt questions in our Facebook group. I'm not a big fan of social media, and if I didn't have this blog, I probably wouldn't be on Facebook or Twitter. It's just too time-consuming, and at times it can be a bit stressful.
 

I'll be bringing back The Midnight Horror Review posts sometime soon. I'm trying to figure out a different way to write the reviews, so they'll sound independent from my regular DVD/Blu-ray reviews. They might be more of a respective than a review, though I haven't made my final decision on it. The one thing I do know is I want to make those posts stand out more.

There will be a few other changes to this blog. It's just small things, such as changing past posts titles and spelling and grammar checking on old posts. The changes are nothing major, and I doubt anyone will be able to notice anything. These things have been bugging me for a while, and I need to fix them to save my sanity.

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer!

2/4/20 - Yeah, it's been several weeks since my last Sunday Post. For the past month, I've been removing carpet from my parent's house. It all began with me helping my mom put up new curtains in a bedroom, which somehow lead to me pulling up the carpet. Surprisingly, there were finished hardware floors underneath. 

Believing the floor was the same in the hallway, I went ahead and pulled up the carpet. The good news is the hallway has hardwood flooring. The bad news it's unfinished. I spent the majority of November removing staples and nails, filling/repairing holes, scrubbing/sanding, and staining the floors and the stairs.  

Tomorrow (Saturday), I'll be removing carpet from an office/sewing room. I've already pulled up a corner, and the floor looks good. And there's no tack strips to remove. Taking out the carpet will be the easy part. Moving all the furniture is what's going to kill my back. Yes, I have a furniture dolly, but maneuvering things out of the rooms will be a challenge. 

The keyword is "rooms." 

My mom wants to switch her sewing/office room with the big spare bedroom. So I plan to move the mattress and box springs into another room, take apart the bedroom and move it out of the way. I'll lift the heavy desk onto the dolly and carefully roll it into the bedroom where the bed used to be. (FYI: A lot of my mom's sewing stuff has already been moved temporally to the bedroom closet.) Once I get the carpet pulled and the floors cleaned. Then I'll set up the bed and move in the chest of drawers and nightstand from the other room. And I've been informed I'll be putting up new curtains in that room. The bigger room does have carpet, which I've already removed room the closet. If everything goes as planned, I'll work on the floors in that room on Monday, which is going to be so much fun because I get to move the desk again!

Thanksgiving was the bare minimum. And, no, I'm not referring to the turkey, stuffing, and pecan pie. The only people there were my parents, my uncle, and myself. My grandma couldn't be there because she's at a nursing home. She's doing well, besides the fact that they moved her to a smaller room on the other side of the building. Why? Well, so they could shut off the heating to several wings to save money. The nursing home didn't inform us of the move. We found out from my grandma over the phone. They claimed the TV she had on the wall was there before she moved into her previous room, and they were refusing to move it. I bought the TV for her and made sure the maintenance man installed it when they switched her rooms last year. Let's say my mom was more than mad when she talked to them. I had kept the feet for the TV and dropped them off at the nursing home. Eventually, they did move the TV to my grandma's new room, which we haven't seen because they still don't allow visitors there because of the virus.

Speaking of the virus, my aunt (who's only six years older than me), her husband, and their three kids didn't come to Thanksgiving dinner because their oldest son tested positive for COVID-19. He caught it from his 6th-grade teacher, which I'm guessing there were other students infected, too. He quarantined for two weeks and had no symptoms. Even though he returned to school on Nov. 23rd, we all thought it was best not to gather for Thanksgiving.

What Am I Reading?

 

I didn't have much free time to read in November, so that means I never got around to reading Bird Box by Josh Malerman and its sequel, Malorie, which I had borrowed the latter from OverDrive. I had to return the book before I ever got a chance to read it. It's no big deal. I have a feeling Amazon might have Malorie on sale for the holidays. If so, then I'll buy it.

 

The last I checked, I'm on chapter 7 in Goosebumps SlappyWorld: My Friend Slappy by R.L. Stine, which I'm hoping to finish over the weekend and get the review posted next week. Then I'll be reading Rebekah's Quilt and Rebekah's Dress by Sara Harris for an upcoming book tour on December 10th. No, I'm not waiting until the last minute to read these. I just received the review copies two days ago.

Also, I'll be reading the following books in no particular order The Noel Letters by Richard Paul Evans, Weeks: Book 2 by Jasyn T. Turley, Whispering Hearts by V.C. Andrews, and Writers of the Future, Volume 36. The latter is a book that I've had in my possession for many months and have never finished reading it. I'm determined to get it read and reviewed before Christmas.

Additionally, I received word from OverDrive that the book I had on hold, The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson, was available, so I checked it out. When am I going to read it? I don't have a clue, but it's there on my Kindle, if I have the time.

Tremors: Shrieker Island

What's in the Mail?

The 2067 Blu-ray is the only newish thing received in the mail. I've already watched and reviewed it.

 

There are a lot of new books on my bookshelf. I picked up two new James Patterson titles - Deadly Cross and Three Women Disappear. I cannot explain this, but I bought Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline, despite the fact I never finished reading Ready Player One. Now I'm going to have to give the first book another go at it before reading the sequel. I found Fear Street: The Fire Game by R.L. Stine at a thrift store, which is one of the rare Fear Street titles not in my collection. At Dollar Tree, I picked up The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco and The Killing Forest by Sara Bladel. I had ordered Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco because I couldn't find it in stores. Lastly, I bought the paperback The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis after watching the limited-series on Netflix. 

Recent titles on Kindle are Star Trek: A Choice of Catastrophes by Steve Mollmann and Michael Schuster, Star Trek: DS9: Millennium by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Star Trek: Infiltrator by W. R. Thompson, Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame by Diane Carey, Star Trek: The Final Reflection by John M. Ford, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth, Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare, Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Star Trek: Voyager: The Farther Shore by Christie Golden, Star Trek: DS9: Unity by S. D. Perry, Star Trek: Crisis of Consciousness by Dave Galanter, Star Trek: TNG: The Light Fantastic by Jeffery Lang, and Star Trek: The Face of the Unknown by Christopher L. Bennett.

Yes, I also bought the Kindle version of The Queen's Gambit. After I had purchased the paperback, the eBook went on sale, so I got it. I probably won't have time to read it until after the holidays.