Happy New Year!

Yeah, so I haven't written a blog post since the election.  Social media has been nearly unbearable for me, and my reading has been divided between diving into my favorite escape, reading think-pieces on politics, and mindlessly playing solitaire puzzle games on my phone.

So I've been reading, a lot, but I have not been very present in the online community.  Ramping back into that always takes a bit of energy. But I'm going to try!

A few highlights - my favorites from the last couple months:

✽I have a big (for me) home project in process: I'm switching my office for my daughter's bedroom. That might not sound like much, but my office is packed full of 10 years worth of partially finished craft projects, girl scout projects, scrapbooking and quilting supplies. Both rooms needed painting, and finding space to hold all the STUFF while the swap is in progress has been painful. Bottom line is, I figured it was a good time to try audio books. I went with a YA series, thinking my daughter might like to listen along, and chose Kresley Cole's Arcana series. OMG this is good. I started it around Thanksgiving and yeah, something post-apocalyptic seemed just right. It verges on too violent for me, with some really f*cked-up torture scenes, but the story is like, steel bear-trap gripping, and I love the characters. I'm caught up in the series; the next isn't due out until next summer, and I can't get it out of my head. It's a very compelling love-triangle premise, so if you hate those, this is going to be a conundrum for you.

✽I figured that I owed it to myself to read a few sure things, so I grabbed books in Chloe Neill's Chicagoland Vampires, and Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series. I am not caught up there yet which makes me happy in a weird sort of way, because I can pick up another EXCELLENT book any time I want.

✽Last year about this time, I got my first taste of a Rachel Caine series, and it was awesome, so I decided to dive into the Weather Wardens. Well, I read the first book and loved it. Hmm, picking up the next book in that series might be just the thing for my first 2017 read.

✽Amid my towering stacks of book swag from RT16 and other cons, I found two Rebecca Zanetti titles, from two different series. I am on a bit of a post-apocalyptic kick right now, so I gotta say, the Scorpius series is hitting all the right notes for me. Forgotten Sins was also really good, but I have to say the hero skirted the alph-hole line pretty close for me.

✽Last for today, J. R. Ward's Blood Vow lived up to all my expectations. I'm really happy with the spinoff series.

Look at that -- all my favorites were paranormals. I do have a few contemps and historicals I could talk about, but I'll save those for another time.