Monthly Update: August 2017

This year has flown by, and August was no exception!

After reading less in June and July, which is normal for me, I read extra in August. I had a personal goal of trying to finish one book per day, and I think I did pretty well overall.

I put some reviews up, and also put out a few new features of the website that I'm excited about. Going forward, weeklies are combined in a monthly update form, with the exception of the occasional Top Ten Tuesday list. Mailbox Mondays, Tune-In Tuesdays, and Sunday Salons have been merged into this monthly update.

What I Read This Month

Reviews will be coming soon. I read more than normal this month to make up for reading less in June and July, but also was just in a big reading mode. I started my re-read of the Alex Delaware series and Fever series. Read a few classics. Did not read Clash of Kings by George RR Martin fully this month, but ended up finishing it in August (good books but I am so slow with these!)

New Bookish Buys

A large amount of these were e-books (those Goodreads daily deals have become addicting!), but I also ordered physical copies of Terms of Endearment, which is a movie I've always loved, and the new two Pepper Martin books I didn't own. Wildfire by Ilona Andrews was finally released - so nice to have two book releases this year for the series!

What I'm Watching

I started watching Kitchen Nightmares and America's Got Talent. For classics watched Newhart on Hulu, which is funnier than I remembered. I haven't been watching too many serialized TV shows other than some competitions with cooking. My son got me into the older Law N' Orders and we've been marathoning them.

What I'm Listening To

Growing Up from JCFantasy23 on 8tracks Radio.

Random songs - from harder and softer rock, to oldies and modernish - for aging and growing up. Sometimes looking back in time and remembering bittersweet memories, and other times through the stages of life and looking forward to the future that's yet to come.

Website Progress

Created and revamped a Genre Page for Paperbackstash

http://www.paperbackstash.com/p/blog-page_17.html

Organized and links for the new Horror Zone, Mystery Categories, themes and other links.

Themes that are coming soon but in progress are also listed. Included is the older Urban Fantasy page, which has also been updated with What Series has what? being published (but still a work in progress)

The new Horror Corner is a revamped section just for horror reviews and horror related features with the website.

Shows the categories that are linked by Anthologies, Creature Features, Children, Human Killers, Non-Fiction, Psychological, Sci-Fi Horror, Shapeshifters, Supernatural, Vampire and Zombies.

Also includes any horror related website links and most read authors by adult and young adult.

The new Mystery Corner also breaks down reviews by sub-genre type much like the horror corner does, by Golden Age, Noir and Hard Case, Cozies, Psychological and Thrillers, Gothics.

Also includes any Cover Crush features that focus on mysteries, as well as other articles and features. Lists favorite detectives and 5 star mysteries (still a work in progress)

Finally finished the page, Women of the Otherworld, which is under the Urban Fantasy Chronicles for the Special Genres page. Shows each novel in the series with reviews links, star ratings, and information about each short story that takes place in the range of the book's plot progress. Over 13 books and 4 anthologies.

Updated to current month: Review by Author and Review by Genre

Participated in the week long Bout of Books Read-a-thon - see progress post here.
Participated in the week long RainbowAThon - see progress here.

Reviews Posted