Jax > Recent Status Updates

Started my holiday reading off by revisiting 2 of my favorite Josh Lanyon Christmas stories, Lone Star and Icecapade. Comfort reads.

The 'Heated Rivalry' series based on the book by Rachel Reid is now on HBO Max. I loved these characters so I'm excited to check it out but I'm nervous that the show won't live up to my expectations. Fingers crossed....

Bought a book from Amazon (not 3rd party) & there's a page cut out. It’s very neatly done, not torn, about 1/4” from the binding. It may be the publishing info page because there is no date published or ISBN etc. Any idea why this would be removed?

I was curious about the ‘Secrets and Scrabble books’ from Jack’s POV (available direct from Josh Lanyon’s store at Fourthwall, https://shorturl.at/4MPs5). They’re a little pricey because they were meant to be a Patreon exclusive. I thought I saw somewhere in the buying process that Sea Change is 110 pages tho can’t confirm that anywhere now. Feels about right tho; it was a decent length. (1/2)

Revisited Sam & Jason from Josh Lanyon's Art of Murder series while on vacation by listening to the audiobooks. Really wish the 5th had been done as an audiobook too. Really, really wish the 6th book would come out soon.

I'm struggling with this. The world building is incredibly detailed and extensive. I keep wondering if we really need to know all this. And plot progress is moving very slowly. Each percent read takes about 8 page turns so I've read approximately 400 pages at this point. If it was anyone but Hale I would've DNFed long ago. So I'm going to try putting this aside for awhile & hopefully come back to it later.

After taking way too long to look over my way too long kindle wish list to take advantage of these 3x kindle reward points days (nothing appeals these days, where my auto-buy authors at??), I finally chose one and it turned out to be free. :/

Here we go again. Another batch of books reposted by GR as if they were just read. I'm now up to 24 books that have double entries when they were in fact only read once long ago. Why can't the administrators fix this problem?

What's going on with all these random books that I shelved years ago showing up again as if I just read them? I filed a report with GR but after providing all the info they asked for (a lot!), I just got a generic 'working on it' reply. I hope they really are. It's annoying to have my book data screwed up with false entries. They better not count toward my 2024 totals.

So disappointed to learn they stopped printing John Connolly's Charlie Parker series in mass market paperback (in English) after book 12. I associate police/detective books with that size & buy them that way whenever possible. Now deciding whether I like the US (Atria) or UK (Hodder) trade paperbacks better.

What happened to the monthly email from GR with new releases "from authors on your shelves"? Now it's not useful at all. Mostly authors I don't know.

Sarah Black had a new book come out on April 12 - her first in six years - and I'm just hearing about it?!

Non-book update: I'm in the path of totality of the eclipse in the U.S. today but unfortunately we are socked in with clouds. Very sad. Especially since the last two days were full sun.

Question for anyone w/knowledge of book publishing: Ordered a book pub'd by Mulholland Books, which I thought was a good name, but it's apparently a print on demand edition?? Has that waxy kind of cover & is very heavy. How would I know that's what I'm getting when I buy from Amazon? I usually check dimensions & weight but thought good pub+Prime shipping meant I was safe. Thanks.

Does anyone have socials that show updates from Harper Fox recently? I'd only ever see the very occasional post on twitter from her, usually a surprise announcement that a book was released, but the last post was Aug of last year. I'm not a subscriber but it looks like her last Patreon post was Sept of '22 and her website is gone. I'm very concerned something has happened. Would love any info. Thanks.

Sorry for being even less active than usual on here. I had knee replacement surgery last Monday and as with my other knee last year, I've been unable to read. Just sleepy or zero attention span. So the days are pretty monotonous with PT exercises and watching TV. It's unfortunate as you'd think this would be the ideal time to read. I think I can get back to it a bit now so hopefully will have things to post soon.

I was going to revisit Rachel Reid's Game Changers series but OMG I just listened to the sample for book 1 and the voice for Kip is so, so bad. He sounds like he's intellectually disabled. It's ridiculously wrong. I can't believe that was approved by the author.

I just caught up on all the special treats in Josh Lanyon's Advent Calendar. Anyone interested in some snippets & codas involving favorite Lanyon characters should check it out: https://joshlanyon.blogspot.com/2022/...

Anyone familiar with Josh Lanyon's patreon? I'm guessing she doesn't provide a file of the completed book after it's been serialized so you have to read each part as it comes, right? Are all installments available indefinitely so you can wait to read after completion? Thanks.

It kills me that I can't jump on Josh Lanyon's new releases. Her Patreon serial Hide and Seek is only in print & I've never had a good experience w/those 9x6 self-pub/POD books, much less @ $20. That's $3 more than I've ever paid for paperback. Then she's releasing #7 of Secrets & Scrabble before #6. I had assumed (hoped) that personal developments progressed in each book so order would matter; I'm going to wait.

FYI for people who may not know this (like me): Lately I've been unable to use the 'Look Inside' feature @ Amazon (went to blank white page). I tried clearing cookies/data. Didn't help. Then I told my ad blocker to trust that site. It worked! But it didn't work when I went thru the link for a book on its GR page. I realized they go to amazon.com while I use smile.amazon.com. Had to clear the blocker in both.

I need back all the time I've spent checking a book's blurb & reviews only to find out I did all that before and it's already on my kindle or wishlist.

Does anyone save their Alexis Hall newsletters? Can you tell me if he's done more than the first installment of his WIP, 'Gay Bought By The Billionaire', that was back in January? I may have trashed some w/o reading, forgetting that the WIP was being posted. Or maybe he hasn't done them monthly?? Anyway, if you have installments to share, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

A little announcement to explain my absence on here: I'm recovering from a total knee replacement done 5 days ago. I had planned to do a lot of reading & streaming tv shows but turns out I'm too sleepy (in between exercises) to pay attention to anything I care about so I've mostly been watching reruns & junk. Everything has gone really well so far so hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

In case you're not following Josh Lanyon's yearly Advent Calendar, here's a snippet of Fatal Shadows' first chapter from Jake's POV. https://joshlanyon.blogspot.com/2021/...

I always revisit Josh Lanyon Xmas stories at this time of year. I just reread The Dickens With Love, Icecapades, and Lone Star. Major comfort reads. And short, like I prefer holiday books.

So, good news/bad news. Bad: Vaughn R. Demont has officially thrown in the towel on the Broken Mirrors series & tweeted a brief explanation of the planned ending. Good: He's worked on some mental health issues that had him badly blocked & is writing again! New books coming soon apparently. Yay!

I'm way behind on posting my reads. My son - w/an unvaxed 2-year-old & a wife w/hip replacement surgery scheduled - got Covid. We had also been w/him the day b4 symptoms. Panic time! He had a mild case & his 10-day isolation is now done. His wife continued to test negative so she kept her surgery date. We tested negative & have been helping with baby care during rehab. Tired!

Does anyone know what's happened to author J.L. Langley? Looks like her website & twitter account are gone. The last blog post on her Amazon page was seven months ago but the link goes nowhere. It's always concerning when an author disappears but after this past year it's especially worrisome. Hope it's just a temporary glitch.

It just popped into my head that I'm missing Archie Sheridan from Chelsea Cain's Heartsick series so I go looking for any sign that the series will continue (put on hold when she changed pubs & started a new series) and the latest entry on her blog, 3/24/21, is 'Tiny excerpt of Faint of Heart' (Archie & Gretchen): "Hurt me," he whispers. "Not yet." Yay! I really hope that's a flashback, but that's great news!