2017 Reading Challenge

[onceuponwednesday]

I'm going for a steady 35 books this year. I doubled it last year, but with the inclusion of multiple graphic novels and audio books. What with all the hard-to-listen-to news flinging around the radio, I've a much more pleasant commute with a carload of interesting authors.

[cjr1977]

Book 1 complete.
Rick Riordan's "The Red Pyramid"

As with all of Riordan's books it was fast paced and hard to put down, I stayed up an extra hour last night just to finish it. That is one of the things I love about YA and middle grades fiction.

[hammer]

1. The Perfect Girl - by Gilly Macmillan ***
Somewhat predictable, but written well enough to still work through.

[DrG2]

3. As I slept. another Beta read.

[Oldtimer]

2. The Rule of Three Part 2 by Wednesday Once. Five stars
When Part 2 opens, The-Unnamed-Feminine-Rule-Of-Three-Applier (or Tufrota, as I am going to call her) huddles in her bed, listening to the police investigating Jack's apparent suicide on the floor below, and wondering what master detective, Francis Bernard, will make of it all. She is scared. Will Bernard connect the dots, the way he always does, and conclude that she helped to bring about her landlord's demise?

She can't dwell on that, though. Not when she needs to execute another villain after eleven factory workers die. That's three sets of three, with two over. The third person to satisfy her Rule-of-Three must be Samuel Johns, because he owns the factory. He must die. Applying Tufrota's twisted sense of justice almost drains her strength and ingenuity before she basks briefly in the hungered-for weight that drives her to kill.

Another case captures her attention. Harvey has killed two females who 'serve' at the local pub, and has hospitalized Lucy, whom he claims to love. Tufrota is determined that the badly-injured barmaid will not be the third to die. No, it has to be Harvey. While planning his death (never 'murder' because a third person must die due to the golden Rule's tenet), Tufrota chances on another uncompleted trio when she visits the local hospital to see how Lucy is faring. She comes across Father Matthew who had been naughty, very naughty when he was at the Orphanage. Finding a connection between him and two other deaths was difficult but resolved when she remembers that an old couple, both eighty-one, froze to death. Father Matthew is eighty-one. That is a pretty tenuous connection but sufficiently strong for Tufrota's purposes.

After disposing of Father Matthew, Tufrota returns to the matter in hand, i.e., Harvey's death. She has to be careful. That darned expert detective has her in his sights. One false move and she'll be dead in the water.
Also, she berates herself for being so stupid as to warn the Headmistress. Now the tables are turned and the Headmistress is warning her.

This creepy tale of a crazy serial killer is not my normal bedtime reading, but it has me in its thrall, and I can't wait to see who Tufrota triangulates next.

[onceuponwednesday]

Tufrota! That made me laugh like a fool. A completely crazy name. Thank you for spending the time to read it, Dorothy. Are you sure you want to be reading that kinda thing so close to bedtime?

[Oldtimer]

[Noizchild]

I found a way to fix the formatting.

[cjr1977]

Book 2 finished a couple days ago.
Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. On to book three.

[hammer]

2. Horns - by Joe Hill *****
Excellent book. Man wakes up to find he has grown horns, and now has everyone he comes into contact with telling him all kinds of horrendous secrets.