Wow! I didn't even know it was Columbus Day until I glanced at the calendar. I caught a cold over the weekend, which probably had a little to do with rainy weather, so I accidentally slept in this morning. Yes, I'm well aware that it's no longer in the morning, but I wanted to get this "news" post written and published for all my followers.

The Book Blogger Hop is going really well, despite the fact that I haven't been participating much in my own meme. Hopefully, that's going to change. I spent some time on Saturday visiting everyone's blogs and replied to my blog's comments (more on the comments later in this post). I believe there are three or four more participants, so I'll try to get to those blogs sometime today.

There have been quite a few new questions sent in for 2019. However, there are still several weeks that needs to filled, especially for next's year's "Halloween Edition." So, make sure to send in your questions.

Each week's hop question will now be located in the top of the sidebar. Or you can just visit the Book Blogger Hop page or my weekly post. 

If you're wanting to comment on the Book Blogger Hop post from last week, you can't anymore. All previous comments on all posts are no more. Starting yesterday, all new posts will now use the InstenseDebate comment box! Why the change? Well, I get way too much spam in the old comment system and I just didn't like the layout. To use the InstenseDebate comment system, you can either make an InstenseDebate profile or sign into your Wordpress account, or sign in as a guest by using your email.

(Well, actually you can still comment on last week's post, but all previous posts have been removed. You now have to use the InstenseDebate comment system.)

It seems my blog designer disappeared last year, so I made some much need fixes to my blog! Three of the social icons next to the "Contact Me  →" area no longer exist, so I had to learn how to make three replacement icons. And I believe I did a pretty good job. I now have icons for YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest! 

Also, I have made brand-new post headers for Fall Reads, Winter Reads, Spring Reads, Summer Reads, DVD Reviews, Blu-ray Reviews, Music Reviews, and Monday Morning Madness. I made the headers with the Canva Graphic Design. Considering I know very little about graphic design, I think the headers look really good.

Starting yesterday I am now participating in the weekly meme called Sunday Post! You can read my first post here. And beginning today, I'm rejoining the weekly meme, It's Monday! What are you reading?, and you can read that post here.

I started reading A Willing Murder by Jude Deveraux on Friday. I meant to finish reading it yesterday, but due to the season premieres of Doctor Who and The Walking Dead, I didn't get very much reading done. Plus, I wasn't  feeling my best yesterday, which I blame on the rainy weather. (FYI: It's still raining as I'm writing this!) Hopefully, I will have some free time to read today. Maybe, I'll even finish it.

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

Fox; Not Rated; 437 mins; Amazon

Now available from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is 9-1-1: The Complete Season One, featuring all ten episodes. There are no special features or bonus extras on the 3-disc set.

Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear (American Horror Story), the series stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Connie Britton, Oliver Stark, Aisha Hinds, Kenneth Choi, and Rockmond Dunbar.

9-1-1 centers around the lives of Los Angeles police officers, paramedics, firefighters, and 911 operators. An 911 operator named Abigail "Abby" Clark (played by Connie Britton) must find a way to take care her mother, who has dementia, along with dealing with the daily stress that comes with her job.

 LAPD patrol sergeant Athena Grant who is one of the first to arrive at an emergency. Despite the chaos of her job, Athena's home life is a complete mess, especially after husband, Michael (played by Rockmond Dunbar), announces that he's always been gay, even before they were married. To make her life even worse, her daughter tries to commit suicide.

Robert "Bobby" Nash (played by Peter Krause), the LAFD station 118 captain, is probably the most stressed of the first responders. With every 911 call, he makes it a personal mission to save everyone. However, this isn't an easy thing to do when he doesn't have faith in his firefighters, especially when cocky Evan "Buck" Buckley (Oliver Stark) has his mind getting laid instead of saving people's lives.

Episodes on the DVD set include

• Pilot
• Let Go
• Next of Kin
• Worst Day Ever
• Point of Origin
• Heartbreaker
• Full Moon (Creepy AF)
• Karma's a Bith
• Trapped
• A Whole New Year

• Grab a book, any book.
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
• Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it).
• Post it.
•  Add your (url) post below in the Linky at: www.fredasvoice.com
• Add the post url, not your blog url.

Many people will probably find it a bit weird for a man to like reading Harlequin-type novels, as romance novels are targeted towards women and not men. Personally, I do like reading romance novels, which was a habit I picked up during my teenage years. Growing up in a small town with very tiny library/city hall with 30+ year-old reject books, I didn't have much to read unless I went to the next town's library. I had already read most of the books in my school's library, so I eventually started reading the romance books (Jude Deveraux, Johanna Lindsey, etc.) that my mother owned. Yes, some of those books were a little erotic, but to me a book was a book.

Anyhow, I was around 19 or 20 years-old when I stumbled upon a thrift store, where I found $.10 Harlequin paperbacks and, of course, I purchased many of them. The those type of books are fast-paced, guilty pleasure reads. Some of them are written really well, while others aren't very good. Nevertheless, I was crazy about them at that point in my life.

Over the years, I have continued to read a few Harlequin novels here and there, though not as many as I did when I was younger. My reading tastes have expanded, so I now read other genres, such as Amish fiction, crime novels, supernatural romances, mysteries, etc..

Honestly, I don't know why romances appeal to me. Maybe it's because I like the thought of romance in general. Well, at least in the last year or so romance has been on my thoughts. Being single at 37 is not a fun thing. If you are a follower of this blog, then you would already know about my thoughts on online dating. I still haven't actually gotten the nerve to join a dating site yet due to my fear of being rejected.

Tyndale Fiction; 408 pages; $14.99; Amazon

I believe The Promise Of Breeze Hill has been sitting on a shelf for nearly year before I finally got around to reading it. It's was published by Tyndale and written by Pam Hillman. I'm not for sure it's book one in a series or not, but the "A Natchez Trace Novel" on the cover makes me believe that it's part of a series.

Set in Natchez near the Mississippi River in 1791, the novel centers around Isabella Bartholomew, a young woman who has taken the responsibility of rebuilding her family's home, Breeze Hill Plantation. A fire had destroyed their crops, damaged their home, and killed loved ones. With her father not in good health, Isabella is given the task of recruiting a carpenter to help rebuild their home and their lives.

That carpenter happens to be Connor O'Shea, a man who had came to America to work as a carpenter for Master Benson for seven years without wages in exchange for his four brothers passage from Ireland. The work was hard, but the thought of being reunited with his family kept him going. However, things don't go as planned when Master Benson dies and Connor is put up on the auction block. This is when he meets Isabella, who buys him at the auction. In exchange for rebuilding the Breeze Hill Plantation, Isabella promises him her family will pay for his brothers' passage to America.

Thanks to the fire that almost destroyed the plantation, the Bartholomew family is in dire need of money. They are barely scrapping by as it is when Connor takes it upon himself to hire a man, his pregnant wife, and their many many children. Despite not being able to give them anything but a roof over the heads and a little food, Isabella's father approves of the decision, as the man and his children can help in the fields.

Isabella must find a way to save Breeze Hill Plantation, but it's a little difficult to do when someone is threatening them. And this someone might be responsible for starting the fire that took her brother's life.

Scholastic; 154 pages; $6.99; Amazon

For the last "Back to School Reads" post this year, I'm featuring Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween - Movie Novel, which was recently released by Scholastic. It's the novelization of the upcoming movie Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, which will be released to theaters on October 12th. The movie is a sequel to 2015 horror-comedy Goosebumps, which was inspired by a series of books of the same name by bestselling author R.L. Stine. I'm not for sure who wrote the sequel novelization, but it's based on the screenplay by Rob Lieber. R.L. Stine edited the book and wrote the introduction.

Set in Wardenclyffe, New York, Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween centers around two seventh-graders, Sonny Quinn and Sam Carter, who are starting their own business called Junk Bros. After being hired to clean out an old abandoned house, they stumble upon an old locked book and the key to go with it. The kids unlock the book, which unleashes the ventriloquist dummy, Slappy.

That was their first mistake. The second mistake was reciting the words "Karru Marri Odonna Loma Molonu Karrano" that were written on a scrap of paper that was poked in the dummy's mouth. What they don't know is the words are magical and they just brought Slappy to life!

The only person who can help them is Sonny's older sister, Sarah. On Halloween Night, Slappy uses his magical words to bring to life all the Halloween decorations in town, which includes zombies, jack-o-lanterns, gnomes, witches, and the Headless Horseman. Sarah, Sonny, and Sam must work together (along with a little help from R.L. Stine himself) to find a way to stop Slappy from taking over the entire town.

Fox; 569 mins; Amazon

Available now on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is The Gifted: The Complete First Season, featuring all 13 episodes from the 2017-2018 series.

Created by Max Nix, The Gifted is set in the X-Men film universe, but in an an alternate timeline where the all of the X-Men have vanished. All that is left is an underground network of mutants, who are being chased down by the Sentinel Services agency.

The series stars, Stephen Moyer (True Blood), Amy Acker (Suits), Natalie Alyn Lind (The Goldbergs) and Percy Hynes White (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb) as the Strucker family. Also featured in the series are Sean Teale (Voltron) as Eclipse/Marcos Diaz; Jamie Chung (Gotham) as Blink/Clarice Fong; Emma Dumont (Pretty Little Liars) as Polaris/ Lorna Dane; Blair Redford (CSI) as Thunderbird/John Proudstar; and Coby Bell (The Game) as Sentinel Services Agent Jace Turner.

The Gifted centers around Reed and Caitlin Strucker, a husband and wife who are trying to protect their mutant children, Lauren and Andy, from being taken by the Sentinel Services, which is lead by Jace Turner. The Strucker family takes refuge with an underground network of mutants, which consists of Sonya Simonson (Dreamer), John Proudstar (Thunderbird), Marcos Diaz (Eclipse), Lorna Dane (Polaris), and Clarice Fong (Blink).

While the mutants aren't outrunning the Sentinels and their robots, they must find a way to stop Roderick Campbell (played by Garret Dillahunt), a military researcher who is obsessed with capturing the Strucker children. To make matters even worse, the Hellfire Club is slowly rebuilding their mutant army against humanity.