Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

Team Minna




⚔ Jenny (Captain)
⚔ Angie (Co-Captain)
⚔ Claire
⚔ Silje
⚔ Vicki
⚔ Linda C
⚔ Imke
⚔ Paula
⚔ Sunshine
⚔ Andy




Team Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

Challenge Status Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

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Team Wheel Shelves-

⚔️ Jenny (Captain) https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Angie (Co-Captain) https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Claire https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Silje https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Vicki https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Linda C https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Imke https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Paula https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Sunshine https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
⚔️ Andy https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Tracking Spreadsheet- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Link to rules- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Link to Wheel chat- Medford House-https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

AR Bookfinder-
https://www.arbookfind.com/UserType.a...

TinEye-
http://labs.tineye.com/color/36c8a13a...

res

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START of Wheels 11 ~ Monday, August 31, 2026 @ 9pm UTC
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown...

Time in main cities ~ August 31, 2026 ~ 9pm UTC:
(view spoiler)[
Phoenix ~ 2pm MST
San Francisco ~ 2pm PDT
Chicago ~ 4pm CDT
New York ~ 5pm EDT
Santiago, Chile ~ 5pm CLT
Limerick, Ireland ~ 10pm IST
Bergen, Norway ~ 11pm CEST
Brussels ~ 11pm CEST
Rotterdam, Netherlands ~ 11pm CEST
Check other cities here:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldcloc... (hide spoiler)]

Only books STARTED after the challenge begins will count.

ROUND 1
🎯Word:
⏳Starts: August 31 ~ 9pm UTC
⏳Ends: September 14 ~ 9pm UTC

ROUND 2
🎯Word:
⏳Starts: September 14 ~ 9pm UTC
⏳Ends: September 28 ~ 9pm UTC

ROUND 3
🎯Word:
⏳Starts: 28 September 9pm UTC
⏳Ends: October 12 ~ 9pm UTC

ROUND 4
🎯Word:
⏳Starts: October 12 ~ 9pm UTC
⏳Ends: October 26 ~ 9pm UTC

BOOK OF THE MONTH (BOM)

Don't forget - EXTRA points for participating in the BOM discussion or for writing a day's discussion questions.

Participating in current BOM discussion (3 days minimum) = 20 points.
Writing a day's worth of discussion questions (randomly chosen volunteers) = 40 points

Don't be shy! Volunteer - the more, the merrier! - if you can't manage the day assigned another volunteer can help you out!

📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚 📚

September
The Frozen River ~ Discussion Sept 2 - Oct 2
Backroom BOM - Queens of the Jungle ~ Discussion Sept 10 - Oct 10
Blood Over Bright Haven ~ Discussion Sept 16 - Oct 16

October
Skyward ~ Discussion Oct 2 - October 26 ~ Tie with August BOM ~ Bonus!


October Nominations for BOM are Open!
Nominations will be open until 27 August, UK evening.
Anyone can nominate a book; try your luck!

October 2nd Themed BOM - Deep Clean - Nominations
October General BOM Nominations


Polls for voting for October BOMs will be added when available!

Mini Challenge Important Info

             

          Are you ready to start this adventure through Elan with Royce and Hadrian??

Let’s kick it off with a little trival info...

Riyria is a fictional, two-man rogues-for-hire enterprise from a popular high-fantasy book series written by Michael J. Sullivan.
In the world of the books, "Riyria" is an Elvish word that means "two".

The Main Characters
⚔ Royce Melborn: A cynical, sharp-minded ex-assassin and master thief.
⚔ Hadrian Blackwater: An idealistic, skilled ex-mercenary and swordsman.

Why the Name Was Chosen
⚔ The Founders: The word was chosen by the series' protagonists, Royce Melborn and Hadrian Blackwater, to serve as the name for their two-man criminal enterprise.
⚔ The Reputation: Because the word is from an archaic tongue, most regular humans in the world do not know what it means. Instead, it functions as a mysterious brand name that strikes fear into nobles and corrupt officials, signaling that a highly skilled pair of thieves is targeting them.

Finally, about our Mascot - Minna - she has some scars; so she fights for what is hers. (If you enlarge the pic you can see them.) She is a wolf that accompanies Suri and is considered her sister, best friend and the wisest of the Wolves. Minna is fierce when necessary, but her fierceness is driven by an intense, protective loyalty rather than a naturally aggressive or predatory nature.

               So, our team of wolves, how do you want to play this one?!

         

Riyria Books - How to Understand the Series and recommended reading order.

Info on the Riyria books from a fan and someone who has read them all. (our lovely Judith)

(view spoiler)[
Michael J. Sullivan (the author) recommends publishing order.
(List of books in this order will be on our Tracking SS)

Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, Heir of Novron to start. In these Royce and Hadrian's relationship as friends and business partners is established already. And in these you get references to The Crown Tower or Drumindor (and the others in this series).

So I found it fun after I read the main series to then read The Crown Tower (this is where they meet). Some of it I found more entertaining because you know where they end up and it's kind of amazing that they manage to get there.

However, if you start with The Crown Tower, you don't spoil anything for yourself. Drumindor is actually the most recent publication out of all of the entire list.
The Crown Tower
The Rose and the Thorn
The Death of Dulgath
The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter
Drumindor

The Legends series (all the books that start with "Age of"). These take place 1000 years before Royce and Hadrian's story. And is really the story of how the empire of man came to be and characters and places in this series get referenced in the other books but almost a myths and fables. In these you get the "real" story. You could start with these if you wanted to as well.

I actually read Age of Myth first because of an audible sale, then jumped to Theft of Swords because of a TT7 task and realized I loved Royce and Hadrian so did their books and then went back to the other series.

What I will say is Nolyn, Farilane, and Esrahaddon should be read last. These are almost stand alone books about important characters from the series but you will spoil a lot if you read these first. And will not understand a lot background things going on.

That's probably more than you wanted to know . . . (hide spoiler)]

Welcome to Wheel!!!!

I am Jenny, one of the captains alongside Angie, and we are planning and hoping to provide a fun time for all!
I live in the southwest, in the US, where we are enjoying many many days of over a hundred degree temperatures. Fahrenheit, of course. I am so ready for other weather. Football season is underway (American football), and in my mind, once that starts, I should be able to wear a sweater and not die of the heat. Yes, sometimes I live in a different reality.
Anyway, I am a book addict, like the rest of you, I have two wonderful kitties as roommates, I love a good single malt whiskey, I’m a bit of a theater geek, and will read anything for a challenge.

As ever, if any of you are new to Wheel, or challenges in general, fear not. You are among seasoned professionals, who are willing and happy to answer any and all questions you may have. We will be using a tracking spreadsheet to log our books read or planned, so if you have any issues using a spreadsheet, let us know.

Team challenges are much more fun when everyone is chatting away, so please plan to check in on this thread often. Since GR got rid of direct messaging, we have no way to give a gentle prod if someone goes missing for a while. If you have a vacation coming up, or a real world issue happens such that you will not be posting for a while, it is important that you let us know. We do need weekly check-ins at least, so we know you are still playing.
There will be links to important things in message 4 in this thread. Rules, ARBookfinder, tracking spreadsheet, etc.

With that bookkeeping out of the way, I would love to get to know you all. When you check in, feel free to post pictures of your pets, or your houseplants or whatever, and let us know what kind of books you like, or if you just read the best ever 5 star book that we all need to add to our TBRs, etc.

Looking forward to some weeks of fabulous reading and odd tasks to complete!

Hello my lovelies!
Welcome to team Minna and Wheel 11!!

I'm Angie, one of your captains (along with Jenny) for this round of Wheel. I see some familiar names in our team and about the same number of new names . Looking forward to playing again with old friends and meeting and getting to know new ones!

I love team games, seeing all the books that the team reads, and then adding them to my TBR! Looking for that perfect book that fits those obsure tasks the Mods come up with!! I know, I know; I'm a little on the crazy side, but in a fun way! 🤣

Jenny and I have captained together for many team challenges. You will see us answering questions at the same time and usually with the same comment! I won’t say you’ll get used to it, but I bet you notice and chuckle!! We will try to keep you engaged and having fun as we navigate through the spell-outs and mini challenges. Help us out by chatting and cutting up with us -- that is half the fun of these team challenges!! At the very least, PLEASE, remember to check in on the team thread at least once per week.

Without DMs any longer, it is really hard to stay in touch! If you have a Discord account, please message me there just in case we need to get in touch with you somewhat quickly.
(My Discord profile is https://discord.com/users/81795369959...)

Good morning and YIPPEE!!!

Good morning to all my teammates, amazing captains, and our mascot, Minna! I am so excited to be in this challenge but even more so on this specific team! I've been on teams when Jenny and Angie were the captains and it's always organized, fun (and I mean FUN!), never boring, and usually we get competitive.

Angie asked how we want to play this. My answer is competitively! I will literally read anything for a challenge, but I do try to make the books ones I think I'll like; however, if I need to take one (or two) for the team points I absolutely will.

Since we have so many newbies (to me) on this team I'll give a mini-autobio of myself. I'm married, have 5 grown kids, 22 grandkids, and I'm expecting my 9th great (it's a girl) in January. I'm a retired high school teacher of English (25 years) and I taught yearbook (18 years). I had the pure pleasure and fun teaching multicultural literature to seniors for 5 years. I learned so much from them. Other than that, I taught freshmen all 25 years and I loved it so much...except for all the red tape.

I'm looking forward to meeting several new people to me and making some new friends this round of Wheels. And to anyone new to this challenge, it's so fun! Get involved in the mini-challenges too...my favorite!

How did I know you would be the first to check in?

Good morning to you!

Lol Right now I'm reading the thread and then I will add to my comment. You know that I don't do short and sweet, I do novellas! lol

Hey, captains, for the BOM if we've already read a book (Frozen River) can we still do the BOM discussion questions or just the answers as long as it's been 6 or more months?

It would have to have been 6 months since you last read it, AND you'd have to read it again to participate.

For any that you haven't read, if you read them after the start of wheels, but before the BOM dates, you can still participate by writing or answering the discussion questions.

Thanks, Angie.

I read it two years ago and LOVED it, so no problem reading it again!

Hi, Linda C here,

I live in Upstate New York on the shore of Lake Ontario near Rochester. I am a retired college librarian with an enormous book collection - both print and kindle. I can usually find something to fit any challenge.

I am married with 1 daughter, who's married with 1 son - pretty piddly next to the family Vicki has generated! But we are all readers and share books and have great family discussions on them. We are all on GR.

I also have already read Frozen River (which I gave 5 stars) but I have too many books to do rereads. I want to shrink my pile with this challenge 😉

I read in most genres of fiction but am very selective in horror and vampires. I also read non-fiction but to a much smaller level. I tend to read it slower and so it doesn't do well for competitive team challenges.

I will probably be on here every day and often multiple times.

Hi Linda!
Happy to have you with us!!

Hi Linda! 👋 It's good to see you again. I also read non-fiction but much fewer than other genres for the same reasons as you. I do enjoy non-fiction books that read like a novel, but usually I won't know that until I read the book. I don't do a lot of re-reads, but I will for challenges, especially one like Frozen River. The end of the book really brought it together for me! I won't say much about it here in case there are those on our team who haven't read it. I will say this to those of you who haven't read it, it will be well worth your time!

Perusing the rules carefully, I see that we get extra points for reading a book in Elan's world...aka. Michael J. Sullivan's Riyria books. I realized that I did read The Crown Tower back in 2021. I don't remember it, but according to my review I loved it! So I still have that book and decided to look at it to see if I could remember it and the author had notes in the front of it that basically explained the difference between The Riyria Revelations and The Riyia Chronicles. I've decided to read Theft of Swords which is the first book in The Riyria Revelations and over 600 pages, which will give me a good start for the challenge. I'm posting this here because it says that only one person per team can get the extra points for reading a particular book. I plan to read it even if someone else wants to and gets to it first, but thought I'd let the team know just in case someone plans to read it for the points but doesn't really want to. I will earn those points for this book if nobody else does. I hope I've understood the rules correctly.

Jenny and Angie, sorry but you know me...when I looked to see how many books were in The Riyria Revelations series, I noticed that books 1-2 are in Theft of Swords. The actual first book (of 6) is The Crown Conspiracy. So is it better to read one instead of the other? Obviously, one has a lot more pages, but I guess if I read them in a shorter page count we could get more points for reading two of his books. I think I'm all over the place right now but trying to figure out how to best read that series for this challenge.

Am I making any sense???

Hello from Team Alurya!

Jenny, I may have dropped something into our thread for you... 😉

Hello captains ! I'm so glad to be with you again Jinny and Angie <3

Hello team !
My name is Claire. I'm from little Brussels, Belgium. Nice to meet you all.

I generally like to read a bit of everything, although lately I read mostly romance, romantasy, MM romance, all kinds. I like reading High Fantasy too, some classics here and there.

I'm a wheelathon veteran. I've been playing this challenge for years. in fact, I think my first ever group challenge was the wheelathon. It's always a lot of fun, and I join every time if I can.

Hi Linda!
Hi Claire!

We are assembling the cool team pretty quickly and i love it!!!!

Vicki, you are correct. We as a team will get extra points for each Riyria title (there is a list of them somewhere that I will link later) read by the team, but only once.

Vicki wrote: "Jenny and Angie, sorry but you know me...when I looked to see how many books were in The Riyria Revelations series, I noticed that books 1-2 are in Theft of Swords. The actual first book (of 6) is The Crown Conspiracy. So is it better to read one instead of the other?..."

We don't have the answer about the combined editions versus the single editions yet. It is being discussed by the creators!

Will update you and the team once we know which are included for the bonus points.

Oh great, thanks!

Sammy wrote: "Hello from Team Alurya!

Jenny, I may have dropped something into our thread for you... 😉"

....ahem....
I saw that little something something.

I might be jealous.... lol

Hello Clarie!
Welcome and it's great to have you with us for another challenge!

Captains, here is my shelf : challenge-wheelsXI

Thanks Claire!

Oh, and taking a peek at a lovely picture of Keanu is always a good way to spend some time.

Vicki wrote: "Good morning and YIPPEE!!!

Good morning to all my teammates, amazing captains, and our mascot, Minna! I am so excited to be in this challenge but even more so on this specific team! I've been on t..."

Hellooooo Vicky, nice to see you here with us again :) It's going to be great.
And I agree with you. Let's play competitively !!

Jenny wrote: "Vicki, you are correct. We as a team will get extra points for each Riyria title (there is a list of them somewhere that I will link later) read by the team, but only once."

Oh well, I may have a couple of the books on my shelves, ready to be read. hehe

Vicki wrote: "Perusing the rules carefully, I see that we get extra points for reading a book in Elan's world...aka. Michael J. Sullivan's Riyria books. I realized that I did read The Crown Tower..."

I haven't read any of the series before and I just found The Crown Tower available on Amazon for kindle for $1.99 right now, so I got it and will read that for bonus points. So that one is also claimed now.

Don't you love it when a sale works for a task?

Angie ☯ wrote: "Sammy wrote: "Hello from Team Alurya!

Jenny, I may have dropped something into our thread for you... 😉"

....ahem....
I saw that little something something.

I might be jealous.... lol"

We're currently all about the Canadians... Any of those you are particularly fond of? 😉

Happy Sunday everyone!!!!!

I just finished the NYT Sunday crossword, and am moving on to the Acrostic. Anyone know the body of water on which Scheveningen and Zandvoort are situated?
Geography is not my forté.

Never mind! I worked around it.

Jenny wrote: "Happy Sunday everyone!!!!!

I just finished the NYT Sunday crossword, and am moving on to the Acrostic. Anyone know the body of water on which Scheveningen and Zandvoort are situated?
Geography is ..."

They're on the Dutch coast along the North Sea 😉

Yup. The North Sea was the answer!

I have been to both. The water is bloomin' cold, even in summer 😆

Good morning everyone! I've been updating my challenges today and writing reviews for my NetGalley books. I am SO behind but getting caught up! I'm using this time prior to Wheels wisely. :)

Today I am going to my daughter's in Hilmar (a 45 minute drive) for a swim party for my grandson Jake who's turning 16 and 7 of his friends will be there. There'll also be family there, so it should be a fun day and a cooler one at "only" 98 degrees Fahrenheit. But at least California heat isn't also humid! lol Plus we get FREE In-N-Out burgers! Woo hoo!

Have a fantastic day and I'll be back later today after the party to see if we have anything additional on this thread. A SS for example. lol

I've heard that the spreadsheets are-a-comin', but I don't know when.

Have fun at your party!
I have to say that In-n-Out burgers are pretty good. But, their fries are terrible.
There are a couple of indie burger joints near my house that are amazing, so when I get that unstoppable craving, I don't have to go to a fast food place.
I feel you with the heat thing. Today is supposed to get to 110 degrees. Needless to say, I am staying mostly inside.

Hi everyone I am Imke and I am from Rotterdam, The Netherlands

I read pretty much read anything, but my favorite genres are fantasy and thrillers. My least favorite is non-fiction. My shelf is wheelxi

I have already volunteered for the two BOMs in September and the extra one that's planned in October. So those are planned books. For the rest I am open to read anything from my shelves that can fit a task/mini challenge.

That's what I love to hear!!!

Hi Imke! Welcome to team Minna.

Hi Imke!!