Author Archives: Dee

Hours 21-24 Update

I DID IT! well, almost…aside from my unplanned nap this afternoon (pretty much all i remember was reading and then I was out of it) and a slight doze around 6:45 (maybe 15 min or so) – I read or listened to books for the entire day. I honestly never thought I’d be able to do that, but I guess if there is a will (and lots of coffee, chocolate and soda), there is a way! I had a great time participating and can’t wait for the April one to roll around – my goal is to try and do with NO naps – so we’ll see 😉

I’m going to post more of a summary post tomorrow when I do my “It’s Monday, What Are You Reading?” update; but here is the end of event survey – so you guys can see how much fun I had (and decide if you want to play along in April when the next one is held!)

End of Event Survey
Which hour was most daunting for you? I think end of hour 22 and 23 were the hardest for me – so the 6:45 to 7:15am time period…I’m actually normally up then (since I get up at 4:45 most days) – but the being awake and not being asleep kicked my ass. I think I dozed off for a few minutes here and there towards the end.
Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? I didn’t have any of them this time, since I’m waiting on his new book to be released but Matt Reilly’s military thriller books would be great read-a-thon reads because they are literally a continual roller-coaster. Unfortunately, I likely won’t get my hands on his new book until Christmas and will probably have it read before the April read-a-thon and i’m not a re-reader (or very rarely am I a re-reader)
Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next season? I wanted to cheer people on more, but found the mobile version of the website, where the participations were listed to be really hard to use – I couldn’t easily access the table on my phone which was how I did the majority of my cheering/participation (aside from my periodic blog posts).
What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Last time i did the read-a-thon, I tried to update every hour, but I was spending more time updating than reading; this time I opted for every 2 hours (most of the time) and even had some 4 hour updates. i think the 4 hour updates worked the best for me and that’s probably what I’ll use next time
How many books did you read? I finished 9 books during the read-a-thon; 3 of them I had read portions of prior to starting and a 4th, I had read a chapter of the night before; 5 of them were completely new during the read-a-thon
What were the names of the books you read?
Why Do You Say It? – Webb Garrison – non fiction
A House Without Windows – Nadia Hashimi – cultural fiction
The Sweetness of Honey – Alison Kent – women’s lit/romance
Rescued – Stephanie St. Klaire – romantic suspense
Sweet Possession – Maya Banks – erotic romance
All About Seduction – Katy Madison – historical romance
Perfectly Ms Matched – Tamra Baumann – contemp romance
Worth the Risk – Jamie Beck – contemp romance
Welcoming the Bad Boy – Annie Rains – contemp romance
Which book did you enjoy most? It took me a while to get into it, but I ended up enjoying A House Without Windows; as well as Worth the Risk.
Which did you enjoy least? Rescued – it had really high ratings on Goodreads but just didn’t work for me.
How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? heck yeah, i’ll be back in April 🙂
What role would you be likely to take next time? I think I’d like to cheer lead a bit more and maybe come up with a mini-challenge – but folks are so creative with the ones that were posted that I don’t know if i could do the same…

Hours 17-20 Update

So i opted to not do an update at the 18hour point because I hadn’t finished any books in the preceding two hours (although I had made some pretty significant headway) – but I have good news to report now, I just finished (like maybe 5 minutes ago) – the one book that I had made it a goal to finish during this Read-a-thon – A House Without Windows – written by Nadia Hashimi.

I read one of Dr Hashimi’s books a few months ago (she is a pediatrician that works in DC), and so when I was looking at the list of authors who would be attending the National Book Festival in DC and saw her name on the list – I thought it was a good opportunity to read another of hers. Set in Afghanistan, A House Without Windows is a book with the main thrust of the story is the criminal case surrounding an Afghani woman accused of killing her husband and the Afghani born, US trained lawyer who is hired to defend her. Before the beginning of the readathon, I’d read about 100 pages of it, so I was hoping to be able to finish it – but realized quickly that it wasn’t going to be a book that I could easily binge read – it was one that was better read in segments throughout the day (in fact, I just had just finished reading a part of it when I took my unanticipated nap this afternoon). I’ll be posting a review later on, but I can safely say, this was a 4 star read for me and one of my favorite of the read-a-thon.

As well as finishing up this book, I started yet another one by a new to me author, Annie Rains – Welcoming the Bad Boy – which I picked up on Amazon the other day during a sale (thank you book bub for letting me know about it being on sale!) I also started reading an autobiography of one of the top triathlon coaches in the US, Surfacing by Siri Lindley – I haven’t gotten far into it yet, in fact, barely touched on her athletic potential and she definately had a lot of drama in her family life, so I’ll be interested to see where it goes.

The Final Stretch:
My next blog update will be at 8am and the completion of the read-a-thon – when I’ll do a summary of everything that I read and listened to over the previous 24 hours. But my goal for these next 4 hours is to finish up at least 1 of the 3 books that I’m currently reading and then hopefully for my last push, read The Curse of Tenth Grave which is the book I’ve been keeping off to the side as my reward for doing well during the Readathon!

Hours 15-16

Whoo-hoo – this is the first time in my attempts at the RAT that I’ve made it to hour 15-16, although, since I did take a nap this afternoon, I’m not sure if that actually counts…anyways – thanks to said nap this afternoon, I’m feeling strong and with 8 hours left – maybe I’ll make it to 8am, who knows…

Hours 15 and 16 saw me finish up two more books – one a non-fiction and the other a contemporary romance. I found the non-fiction etomology book to be interesting (and since it fit a challenge I needed to finish it) – but i don’t know if I would rush out to read more books by the author in the future. But I do know for sure, that I’ll be reading other books by the contemp romance author (Tamra Baumann). I really enjoyed Perfectly Ms Matched by her – it was a solid second chance romance, although I will say, I think Chad needed to grovel a bit more 😉

The next 2 hours:
I’m giving myself the goal to finish up A House Without Windows by the end of the read-a-thon – so I did some quick math and I need to read 3-4 chapters each hour in order to finish it – which is totally doable (and I did knock out 8 chapters in the previous 2 hours). Its not a book that I can easily sit and binge read because it requires thought/processing – so i’m content with taking my time on the read.

Hours 13-14

I think that so far, the last 2 hours (hours 13-14) have been my most productive reading ones, since the first couple this morning. And even though its 10pm and i’m normally curled up in bed legitimately sleeping, not just reading – i’m looking forward to seeing how long I can actually last through the night 😉

In these last 2 hours, I finished up my fourth book of the read-a-thon – Rescused by Stephanie St. Klaire – although i have to say that I was pretty much disappointed in it. On goodreads, this book has a 4.5 rating with over 90 ratings – so i was expecting to be blown away, but yeah – that wasn’t the case…I ultimately gave the book 2 stars because it was just ehhh…so in true fashion, i’m moving on to a tried and truth author with one of her new releases (also borrowed from Kindle Unlimited) – Tamra Baumann; with her new book – Perfectly Ms Matched. I’m about 5 chapters in when I put it down to write this post but looking forward to curling up and finishing it up.

Coming Up:
I have 3 chapters (if you can call them that) in the non-fiction etomology book that i’m reading – so i should finish that up in the next couple of hours, as well as Perfectly Ms Matched. I’ll admit that I’m getting a bit snackish, so I might make a midnight run for coffee and snacks (with my trust audiobook in hand)…but I’m not sure yet (thankfully, I have multiple gas stations – WaWa – that are open 24 hours when I need all kinds of goodies!)

Hours 11-12

This last two hour period, brought dinner time (yay Pizza!) as well as me attempting to try and convince the dog that he didn’t need to eat what was left of my pizza…and if you’ve ever tried to convince a german shepherd why he doesn’t need to do something…they are only partially less stubborn that teenagers…

I finished up reading The Sweetness of Honey (Alison Kent) which is book 3 in a series in books i’ve been reading via Kindle Unlimited – small town contemporary romance – three of the main charaters in a series are 2 brothers and a sister. I have the 4th book on my kindle waiting to be read – hopefully, i’ll get a chance to pick it up during the read-a-thon. I also started reading another book by a new to me author, Stephanie St. Klaire – a romantic suspense called Rescued – I’m kind of ambivalent right now on what I think…its ok but nothing that is blowing my mind. I’m alternating Rescued with Malicious Intent which is a mystery/crime thriller set in Australia. This is a book that has been on Mt TBR for several years, so i’m glad i’m finally reading it.

Mid-Event Survey:
How many books have you read so far? I’ve finished 3 books so far – one I was about halfway through when I started, and the other two were from the beginning (or very near to the beginning).
What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I’m not sure yet – maybe The Curse of Tenth Grave – Darynda Jones – I had this reserved at the library for a while and it just came in.
Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Most of my interruptions have been from the fur-baby realm…because you know, puppy mom’s can’t just lay in bed and read without giving puppy scratches (or sharing food!). I’ve gotten quite good about reading my kindle with one hand to make sure that netierh of the dogs feel too neglected
What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How tired I ended up being this afternoon while I was reading – normally I can read for hours on end, but today – as I was reading, all I wanted to do was take a nap (and I did!)

Coming Up:
My goal for this next 2 hour period is to finish up Rescued and continue to read Malicious Intent and A House without Windows – but it is starting to get late in the evening and even with my nap i took this afternoon, I may need to switch to more of a comfort read genre or something hot/spicy to keep me awake 😉

Hours 4-8
So the last four hours definitely weren’t the most productive…I got home from running errands, listened to my audiobook for a little bit more and went to curl up in bed to read and….promptly fell asleep…

I remember thinking it was 1:10 and I’ll take a 20min nap…so I set the alarm…then when the alarm went off, I thought I snoozed it but rather turned it off and kept sleeping, waking up just now…sooo yeah…there is something to be said for curling up with the pups on the bed (even if my big white goofy one did try to steal the Cheetos that I was snacking on).

I did manage to read a little bit in those 4 hours (I think maybe about 100page between 2 books), but not enough to really report on (so make sure to check out my Hour 9-10 blog post for more updates)

Coming Up:
I’m going to continue to work on the 2 books I was reading when I fell asleep – a fiction book set in Afghanistan and an erotic romance (two totally different types of books to be sure!)

here’s hoping the next couple of hours are more productive 😉

Hours 3 and 4

So at noon today, we are 4 hours or 1/6 of the way through the read-a-thon – in the last two hours – I’ve been focusing more on my audiobook listening, so that I could run some errands and stuff like that. So far i’ve listened to 105 minutes of Lothaire – and I have 7hrs 25min to go (so the likelihood of finishing is fairly slim, but you never know).

I did read a chapter of Why You Say That? – Webb Garrison – non-fiction/etomology – this is one of those books that I can just use chapters here and there to fill in minutes during the day – its like reading the dictionary, but instead of word definitions, its more focused on what different works/sayings we use mean and how they came to be. Its interesting, but not a book that I can read in large segments.

Coming Up:
I just finished running my errands and being (in general) a responsible adult…the two dogs are currently outside playing (otherwise, we play let’s jump on mom while she is trying to read…) and I’m looking forward to settle down with the next book on my pile – A House Without Windows (Nadia Hashimi) – but in the little bit i’ve read so far, its a pretty deep(ish) type book, so i’m probably going to alternate with something else on my kindle

What about you?

Hours 1 and 2
So my plan for kicking off this read-a-thon was simple…my local start time was 8am on a Saturday morning and since it’s no longer triathlon training season and I only have Marine Corps Marathon lurking on the horizon, I could sleep in. I set my alarm for 7:55 (about 5 min) before the kick-off – just enough time to let me get up, let the dog’s out, gather the first hour supplies and crawl back into my nice warm bed.

Funnily enough in my intro post I listed a bunch of the books I had in progress, and yet the first book that I picked up to read at 8am, wasn’t any of those books. It was a book that I had read a chapter or so of last night before I fell asleep and since it was in my comfort genre (historical romance) – I figured that it was a good way to kick off this read-a-thon. It was a quick read (even though it was 370-ish) pages because the author (Katy Madison – new to me) had a way of writing that just sucked me in.

I took a couple of breaks during those first two hours – to tweet a bit; catch up on Goodreads and prep this blog – but i’m continuing my “reading” with listening to my current audiobook (Lothaire – Kresley Cole, narrated by Robert Petkoff).

The next couple of hours
Unfortunately, real life is going to get in the way for the next couple of hours…I have some errands to run, and need to go out and get life’s nectar (also known as coffee)…but I have both my audiobook and the kindle app on my cell phone, so I can keep reading even while i’m out and about

How about you – how are you doing so far?

Are you ready to rumble? Or maybe, curling up with a good book(s) and read for a solid 24 hours (or at least attempt to read for 24 hours!)

I first found out about Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon a couple of years ago, but unfortunately, it never seems to work with my schedule (although I try to be a cheerleader when possible) – so I’m excited to take a stab at actually reading this time 🙂 (ok, well, maybe I lied – I think I tried it in either 2013 or 2014 but only made it to about 16 hours before I passed out…).

All this week, I’ve been reading the various warm-up posts on the websites, where veteran read-a-thon’ers (is that an actual word) provide advice on how to tackle this 24 hour period – with advice on how to pick what books to read? what to do if real world gets in the way? or if you just need a break? so i’m curious to see which of these various tactics (if any), I opt to use.

But to kick it of, I figure I’m going to try and finish up one (or more) of the many books that I have in progress…

Destiny – Alex Archer – mystery/adventure/urban fantasy
The Sweetness of Honey – Alison Kent – romance/women’s lit
Malicious Intent – Kathryn Fox – mystery/crime
Why You Say That? – Webb Garrison – non-fiction/etomology
A House Without Windows – Nadia Hashimi – literary fiction/afghanistan/legal fiction

While I have my stack of books, I know that I’m going to have to venture out of the house occasionally…but that’s ok, because I have my trusty Apple iTouch with audiobooks on it.

So in audio, I’m working on Lothaire which is the 12th book in Kresley Cole’s Immortal’s after Dark series and narrated by the fabulous Robert Petkoff (and since I have like 8 hours to go, I likely won’t finish it up during the read-a-thon…).

So let’s get this show on the road!!