What I've Been Reading: April

Hi! As I warned earlier today, I've changed the name of this series and unfortunately, there's not too much on it this month. I started out well enough, but when I started on the last book in the list, I just lost interest in reading anything else. lol I'll get to that later. Next month may not be too much better; I'm about to get pretty busy with a new series you should be seeing this weekend and probably won't have much time again until June, but that'll be when my SUTS prep will officially begin so who knows, really. lol Anyway, let's get to this month's books. 

Epiphany by Gemma James

I downloaded this book I think in February, couldn't wait to get around to it in March, read it the first week in April and then promptly forgot I read it. lol Not because it was forgettable, but it wasn't unforgettable for me either, if that makes any sense. In this book, our heroine is a psychic of sorts, able to see the actions of a serial killer and the horrors he visits upon his victims, including their deaths, in her dreams shortly before they happen. A mysterious man she'd been dreaming about suddenly pops up in real life and unbeknownst to her, is more connected to the serial killer and his victims than she knew. The two of them reluctantly join forces and fight off their attraction to the other as they get to the bottom of the murders afflicting a small town. I liked the book, so I don't really have an explanation for why I forgot about it so quickly. The mystery in the book was explored from a psychic angle but not in the typical fashion; our heroine was unaware of the meaning of her dreams nor how they connected with anything until a character close to her ends up dead and she bumps into the figure from her dreams. I also liked that minor characters weren't safe in this book; it added an unpredictable facet to the plot that was fun to read. The author can spin a good tale and I liked both the hero and heroine of the book. She did a great job at creating this web of sexual tension that wasn't acted on right away but was worth it once they finally gave in. I love my smut but I also love a good build-up. There was meat in the plot with different angles and characters to consider as possibilities for the killer and I liked that I didn't immediately figure out who the killer was. It wasn't terrible by any means; the more I write about it the more I remember how much I liked it so even though I forgot I read it, I'd still recommend it. LOL

Triple Beat by Mari Carr

Triple Beat is my 'tame' book of the month despite being a menage romance. In it, a trio of friends make up a band on the cusp of hitting it big, when the lead singer mysteriously runs off to places unknown without telling her bandmates. When they figure out where she is and come to the conclusion that she's going through something intense, they fly to her, resolving not to let her go through it alone. While she battles whether or not to tell them the real reason for her going MIA, they discover that they have feelings for each other and tentatively test out a menage. I'm paraphrasing and glossing over a bunch of stuff, but that's the gist. I consider it a tame book despite its contents because while I enjoyed it, it wasn't a super heavy read. The heroine of the book is an abuse survivor, something she neglected to tell her friends/bandmates, and her reason for going home was to confront her past, namely her father, who is stalking her after his release from prison. Her bandmates fell a little flat for me in terms of personality; while I understood a bit about the heroine and why she was the way she was, I didn't feel like her friends/lovers were quite as fleshed out. Other than that, I don't have any real complaints with the book. It was a good read, explored the menage angle in a way that I enjoyed, and if there was another chapter about the trio I'm open to reading it. 

17 Deadly Women Through the Ages by True Crime Bus Stop Reads

17 Deadly Women is a book I found late last year and wanted to learn more about, mainly because I was looking for Octoberfest material again. lol Through the years I've been doing the series, I've found more female killers than male, even though statistics show that most serial killers are male. I wanted to see if there were any I could use for this year's series so I checked out this book. I'm not finished with it yet; actually haven't gotten too far into it but so far I'm enjoying it. The stories aren't super long or detailed, but they give a pretty good rundown of events and a general listing of the womens' crimes so it'll help you with your research if you decide to find more information on your own.

Wrath: The Lieutenant Harrington Series 1 by E.H. Reinhard

This is actually the book I was reading when 12 Rules was suggested to me, which I'm going to talk about in a minute, so I haven't gotten to finish Wrath yet. From what I've read so far though, it's going to be a good read. A detective has to piece together the separate murders of a man and woman who, at first glance, have no enemies. Upon finding out that the woman is married, however, the hunt for the killer is on. The detective investigating the murders is a bit closer to the killer than he thinks; someone in his close circle has ties with the man that he was not aware of before. I was a little more than a quarter through the book when I stopped and so far it's been a page turner. The reader knows who the killer is right off, but the other characters in the book don't and I kinda like that. I'll update in next month's WIBR once I've finished it. 

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

I was bullied into reading this book a few weeks ago and like I said earlier, it is the main reason why there aren't too many other books on the list this month. It's not a super long book, but because its a non-fiction, there's no dialogue to skip through and I want to absorb as much of what I read as I can. I don't normally read or recommend self-help books, I honestly try to stay away from the majority of books in that genre lol, but there are some that cut through the bullshit and 12 Rules is one of those books. It's blunt, so much so that you come away from multiple chapters with hurt feelings, but you can't help but come back and finish it out. Jordan Peterson encourages you to take a hard, honest look at your life, the people in it, how you respond to situations--both good and bad but mainly bad because duh, it's a self-help manual lol--and how to break free of the chaos cycle in order to have more day-to-day peace. It's not full of the fluff or typical vague statements you find in these books; it cuts through all of that and tells you where you're going wrong, what you can do about it, and how in the long run it'll help. I want to say I'm about halfway through the book but there are a lot of statements and sometimes entire pages that have resonated with me so deeply that I already feel a shift in how I look at or respond to certain situations. I'm withholding the rest of my judgment until I'm finished reading, but so far I've enjoyed the hell out of it.


What am I currently reading? 12 Rules for Life, Wrath