Tag Archives: reading challenge

wolf marked challenge

A new reading challenge: Wolf Marked

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Oh you guys, I found a new reading challenge. You know how much I love to build little reading challenges for myself!

I generally keep See Sadie Read and Sadie’s Spotlight fairly separate, so that promoting books won’t compromise the integrity of my reviews (or even give the impression of it). But lets be honest, I find a lot of new books over at Sadie’s Spotlight and end up reading and reviewing them here. I mean, give an obsessive reader access to tons of new book posts and she’s bound to find a few (hundred) that interest her.

Well, that’s what is happening now. The idea actually started as a joke. I noticed that there had been three different books with the same title on Sadie’s Spotlight within a short time of one another.

wolf marked calendar

So, I took to Twitter to share the fun. And to my delight I wasn’t the only one who was amused.

Well, when @rhoderedpvd agreed, seeing them “duke it out” seemed like an excellent idea after all…and feasible.

wolf marked covers

I already had a copy of Veronica Douglas‘ Wolf Marked, as Xpresso Book Tours included a copy with the tour material, and I was able to buy a copy of Alexis Calder’s Wolf Marked. That only left Harper Brooks’ Wolf Marked as a hold out. It isn’t actually released until Sept. 9. But, Lady Amber’s PR came through with a review ARC. So, this reading challenge is on.

Here’s how they break down. All are in the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance arena. Calder’s calls itself New Adult, while the other two don’t. But Books’ heroine appears to be in her twenties. So, it very easily could be, and Douglas doesn’t specify in the blurb. But I’m anticipating a lot of early twenties female leads and growly wolf love interests. (We’ll have to wait and see if I’m right or not.)

To be a little more detailed, here are the actual blurbs:

Wolf-Marked harper brooks

Description:

The cycle of the moon can bring love… or death.

Time is running out for Astrid. If the wolf-shifter doesn’t find her soul’s mate before her twenty-fifth Blue Moon rises, the consequences will be fatal. With only three weeks left, things aren’t looking good… until Erec, a smooth-talking rogue wolf, lands at her feet.

The strange spark between them leaves Astrid wondering if this mysterious man could be the one meant to break her curse. But can she trust him?

From the moment Jerrick killed the only man Erec ever looked up to, Erec vowed to stop the crazed wolf. Partnering with the west-side pack seemed the logical move to accomplish that goal. But he never expected to fall for the alpha’s beautiful daughter, and now this lone wolf is wondering if she could be the one to save him from the curse.

With imminent dangers looming and the swirling patterns on their skin marking them for death, can Astrid and Erec save the west-side pack from the encroaching pack before their last Blue Moon rises in the sky?

Wolf Marked Alexis Calder

Description:

They tried to break me. Now I’m going to break them.

Cursed to never shift, the only thing I was looking forward to about the First Moon Ceremony was that the magic sealing me into Wolf Creek would break, and I could finally leave.

Instead, the ceremony reveals my true mate: Tyler Grant, future leader of my pack and the man responsible for my most recent concussion and black eye. He’s as brutal as he is handsome and fate is a bitch to put us together.

There’s a rumor that a mating bond could break my curse and just as I’m getting my hopes up, Tyler destroys them all.

Instead of bonding with my mate, I’m beaten and left for dead.

A hot-as-sin feral shifter finds me and helps me back on my feet. But his help comes with a cost and I’m not sure I’m willing to pay the price.

With my former pack hunting me down, even an enemy might be a better ally than trying to stay alive on my own.

wolf marked veronica douglas

Description:

Werewolves are hunting me down.

I was just an ordinary girl working tables in small-town Wisconsin. I had no idea magic was real. That was, until I backed my car over a werewolf a couple times.

In my defense, the wolf was trying to murder me, and I was all out of mace.

Now I’ve got a pack of rogue wolves on my heels, and the only one who can protect me is Jaxson Laurent—the Chicago Alpha. He suspects I’m special and can’t take his eyes off me, but the problem is—he’s the sworn enemy of my family and every time we get close it feels like something is going to rip out of my soul.

With danger around every corner and wolves howling in the night, I need to master my magic and stand my ground, or I’ll be dead before the next moon rises.

Stay tuned to see how it all plays out!may the best wolf marked win

icanvas art

New art and a new reading challenge

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I got a new stretched canvas for my office. The office is the only place in the house that I let myself put anything I choose on the walls, theme, coordination or quality be damned. If I like it, I’ll have it.

Not to suggest that this Icanvas print isn’t quality of a sort, but the rest of the house tends to run toward large, heavily framed prints. It’s not a great photo, but Mizuki by Audrey Kawasaki is what’s above the bed for example:

Though I’ve shrunk it so it doesn’t compete for attention with the canvas that is the point of this post, that frame is almost 30×30 inches (please never let it fall on us in our sleep). So, an unframed whimsical print of science fiction books is a departure from the norm. But I so loved it when I saw it that I insta-bought it, even though I didn’t really have a place for it. (In fact, I wish I’d bought the bigger size.)

After I moved Kawasaki’s Where I Rest out of place (this* one –>), I sat staring at the books and telling my husband how happy I was to see Binti and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet included among such giants as Asimov and Le Guin. But also how I was distressed that Martha Well’s All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries) isn’t included. It 100% deserves to be. In fact, once noticed, its absence sapped a little of my love of the print away. I mean, look, I even tweeted at Icanvas about it.

Hey @icanvas_art, if you’re going to include #Binti and #thelongwaytoasmallangryplanet in this stack of classic sci-fi (which I totally agree with) you gotta get #Murderbot in there too! I’d even buy a second copy. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/aaEuuR7Pzu — @rbnsnzsr

This led me to a second thought. If I was so happy to see Binti and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet included, and was desperate to get Murderbot added, why no excitement for The Martian? It was published in 2014, so it’s basically just as contemporary as the others. Part of it might have been that it’s written by a man and I’m always rooting to see women included. But Dune, by Frank Herbert, is one of my all-time favorite books (even if it by a man). So I decided it wasn’t the gender issue. It was simply that I haven’t read it!

All of the books included here are well known, familiar to me, science fiction. Suddenly I had to stop and think how many of them I love by virtue of being sci-fi cannon and how many I had actually read. Before that very moment I’d have told you of course I’ve read all the classics. But once I was really thinking about it, I realized that couldn’t be true. I hadn’t read The Martian, for example. So, off to Goodreads and my reading list I went. And shock followed.

I started Left to right:

  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: a favorite, read
  • The Martian Chronicles: Ray freaking-Bradbury, NOT READ read
  • Brave New World: read in high school
  • Binti: started this whole process, obviously read
  • The Martian: NOT READ
  • The Left Hand of Darkness: read it last year when Le Guin died
  • The Diamond Age: What!? owned but NOT READ
  • Solaris: also NOT READ
  • The Foundation Trilogy: thank god, read the whole series
  • The Time Machine: Wells. freaking Wells, and NOT READ read
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: NOT READ
  • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: read
  • Hyperion: read
  • Neuromancer: read and loved
  • Dawn: by Octavia Butler! NOT READ
  • Dune: a favorite, read
  • Starship Troopers: read
  • Ender’s Game: read
  • Childhood Ends: NOT READ

Eight—almost half of the books—I discovered that I’ve not read. This is a travesty that cannot be allowed to stand. I mean, for one, If I’m going to hang the picture on my wall (even if just my office wall), I should be able to point to it and know I’ve read them all, but also I’m a sci-fi/fantasy junkie and THEY’RE SCI-FI CLASSICS. How did I let this happen? Obviously, I’m going to fix it. It’s July. I have five months until the end of the year, and by that point I will have read these eight books that I have somehow grievously neglected in my life.

I don’t think I’ll bother coming back and linking reviews here. But I am setting it as an official reading challenge for myself. I do so love to have a plan. Wish me happy reading.

*
Yes, I'm totally vain enough that I spread out those two in the back so they could be seen, and there is another on the wall above. They'd been stacked together to be re-hung. I have a new one at the framer's (and a small one waiting to be framed by me) and I'm going to make a collage wall of them. I'll add a picture when it's done. But, though you can probably guess Kawasaki is my husband and my favorite artist, she's not the point of this post. But once I'd posted one, I just ran with it.