2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Edited message #35.
1/22: Gingerbread cookie murder (I've read 112 pages)
(A murder and yummy recipes, who wants more?)

Update to message 15: 2/27

I started with All Out. Day 1 was a story by Anna-Marie McLemore. Day 2 was a story by Natalie Parker. I'm looking forward to discovering some more new-to-me YA authors through this collection.

Update to msg 32: 2/24.

Day 1: The husband Stitch in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 2: Inventory in: Her Body and Other Parties

Upade to msg#22:

2/24

message #35 edited.
2/22 Gingerbread cookie murder finished.

Update message #23. 2/24

3 of 24 done I picked a good book each chapter is long so i get some quiet time

For Day 2 I've read from

Wayfinder - 5 stars

Sabin, a practical and pragmatic young woman remembers one night that she had forgotten her jacket out on her uncle's sloop, on which she was helping out for the summer. The jacket can't be spared as Sabin has only the one, so she goes out to the beach to fetch it.

But what starts out as a simple walk in the stormy night, down to the harborside, becomes a turning point in Sabin's life.
She seems to see great herds of white horses galloping in the sea. Of course she must be daydreaming again, because even "the village idiot knows horses do not run in the sea"! And just when Sabin decides to pull herself together and stop being silly, a mysterious stranger catches her eye. Injured, tattered and clapped in chains, he is about to drown.

A good deed on a stormy shore provides a young girl with the opportunity to discover herself and may be, just may be, the chance of doing more than just stringing the looms in her father's craft shop for the rest of her life.


"Poseidon's Gift" by Kim McElroy.

I've been trying to find some pics on the net to match those wonderful horses! This is as close as I could get.

Update to msg 32: 3/24.

2/24
I missed posting yesterday. I reading Kite runner. It has 25 chapters. Chapter 1 is short so I read that with Chapter 2
Day 1-Chapter 1&2 12/2/18
Day 2 Chapter 3 12/3/18

Updated to here!

Caro, how do you like Her Body and Other Parties? I feel like I've seen it recommended everywhere.

Day 1: The husband Stitch in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 2: Inventory in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 3: Mothers in: Her Body and Other Parties

Message #35 updated: 3/22

As H. Poirot and S. Holmes would be the first to tell you, crime-solving is a grueling business. A person can work up a real appetite sifting through suspects.
(The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies by Laura Levine)

For Day 3 I've read from

The Antagonist - 4.5 stars

A great SF story by a brilliant fantasy writer!

Michael Christopher Jensen Jr desperately wants promotion, accolades and a reputation of undeniably proven merit. And above all, he wants to be granted the command of a ship with armament, instead of his present one ferrying dispatches.

Catching the infamous space-pirate MacKenzie James, wanted on no less than 86 Alliance planets is just the right thing to make it all happen. But sometimes things don't go quite as planned and the relationship between the hunter and the hunted may just leave you wondering who the real villain is.


Art by Don Maitz

Update msg 4: 4/24
✔️ Story 2: Christmas in the sun by Lotte & Søren Hammer

Update to msg 32: 4/24.

Day 1: The husband Stitch ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 2: Inventory ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 3: Mothers ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 4:Especially Heinous ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties

Message #35 updated: 4/22
The dangers of gingerbread cookies by Laura Levine finished.

Updated msg 41: 4/24

Day 4 From

Tale of the Snowbeast- 5 stars but I wish I could give it 10!!
This little story had me from the very first line and I simply adore it!!

The elves in the holt are starving. The season of cold is worse than anyone can remember. With the storage nooks empty, the tribe is in desperate need of game. But not even the wolfriders with their companion wolves are able to find it anymore. Their only hope rests on a hunting party venturing deeper into the forest than elves have ever gone, to look for stag.

Huntress Skyfire and her companion wolf Woodbiter make sure they are a part of it. After all, their skills are the best! But things don't always go as planned and Woodbiter goes missing. As Skyfire rushes to his rescue, because she knows he is in pain and afraid, she stumbles upon the tracks of a huge beast.
Who the beast is? That you'll just have to see. :) I sure as hell didn't see it coming!


Skyfire and Woodbiter - this is how I see them! (pic from pinterest.com "Female wood elf with wolf")

Update to msg 32: 5/24.

Day 1: The husband Stitch ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 2: Inventory ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 3: Mothers ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 4:Especially Heinous ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 5: Real Women Have Bodies ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties

Update to msg 23: 5/24

Message #35 updated: 5/22
Gingerbread and gunshots by Leslie Meier (I read 100 pages)

Edited message #43. Days 1-6 done. Austen's Sense and Sensibility is really an excellent choice for the advent calendar book. <3

Update msg 4: 6/24
✔️ Story 3: The Basement by Susanne Staun

Update to msg 32: 6/24.

Update to msg #4:
Progress: 6/24

The Stand
(Finished Chs 1-6 in November, ending at page 76)
✔️Day 1: pg 131 (ch12)
✔️Day 2: pg 185 (ch 18)
✔️Day 3: pg 236 (ch 24)
✔️Day 4: pp 287 (ch 27)
✔️Day 5: pg 340 (ch 33)
✔️Day 6: pg 396 (ch 36) [25% of 24 days]

Well, I definitely enjoyed King's The Eyes of the Dragon more as it's a fantasy novel, while The Stand is in the horror genre.
Lots and lots of dying, but I'm almost a 1/3 of the way done so I will finish reading this book.

Day 1: The husband Stitch ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 2: Inventory ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 3: Mothers ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 4:Especially Heinous ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 5: Real Women Have Bodies ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties
Day 6: Eight Bites ★ ★ ★ ★ in: Her Body and Other Parties

Karina wrote: "Updated to here!

Caro, how do you like Her Body and Other Parties? I feel like I've seen it recommended everywhere."

Is really good so far I really like almost all the stories. It let you thinking for a while. I also listen that they are going to make one anthology of Black Mirror based in it. I can easily imagine some of them going to these series. Two more to go but is a pretty good book. No wonder why had so many recommendations

Message #35 updated: 6/22

6/24 complete

Update to msg 32: 7/24.

Message #35 updated: 7/22

Update to message #7, 14 of 56 done.

I have to add that In the manger: 25 Inspirational Selections for Advent is a very good collection of meditations for the Advent season. Max Lucado is generally very good at helping poeple see things in a different way, and this book is no exception.

For people of faith, this is an excellent book to help focus on the true meaning of Christmas!

A little late here with the updates as I've read my share the last 2 days but didn't get to write the reviews. So here we go

Updated msg 41: 5/24

Day 5 From

The Crash - 4 stars
Did you ever wonder how a child would perceive the crash of a UFO in the backyard, without a grown up's intervention or influence? Read this and see for yourself how children sometimes prove to be the best of us.


Janny Wurts - Wizard of the Owls - Sci-Fi-O-Rama - Dean Ellis (5) High Wire Act

Update msg 4: 8/24
✔️ Story 4: Fairytale of Copenhagen by Annika von Holdt

I forgot that I bought Poirot book lately so I'm reading Poirot's Early Cases: 18 Hercule Poirot Mysteries

8/24

Laura, your book looks so really interesting!

Reija wrote: "I forgot that I bought Poirot book lately so I'm reading Poirot's Early Cases: 18 Hercule Poirot Mysteries

8/24

Laura, your book looks so really interesting!"
It is really interesting. :) The stories are so very different and even though they are short, the feelings and emotions in them run very high. This writer is able to make you see her characters end even live through the story with them. And each and everyone of them delivers a small message or gives a little food for thought. I love the way she writes. :)

How about your book? How is it?

Updated msg 41: 6/24

Day 6 From

The Firefall - 5 stars

Alone on board the Quest III Probe launched without authorization from the Station, Ataine is trying to flee the sector. She's got a late model Sabre hard on her tail, who resorted to weapons and tried repeatedly to cripple her. But she's determined not to let herself get caught. The sophisticated chunk of technology she just stole enables Ataine to enact a desperate and crazy plan that allows her to escape and destroy her pursuer at the same time.

Except that the pursuer is someone that she cares about. And when Ataine discovers his identity she has to choose between her freedom and the life of the man she left behind in more than dire straits.

In a profoundly sensitive manner Janny makes us consider here the consequences of strong emotions left unchecked, as well as that of truths left unsaid.

Assault on Pell Station - by Janny Wurtz

Update to msg 32: 8/24.

Update to msg #22

08/24

Update to msg 23: 8/24

Been reading and updating msg 45 dilligently. 9/24

Updated msg 41: 7/24

Day 7 From

Silverdown's Gold - 5 stars

Trionn the scullion could never pause anywhere for more than a minute without attracting a heap of cats. It did not matter wether his clothes reeked of the midden on those days when he raked out the garbage, or if he was simply sitting, huddled against the wind, awaiting his turn at the privy. The cats always found him. It had been that way since he was a baby in the cradle and nobody could guess why.

Trionn is quiet and speaks very less, so everyone's shrugged him off as dimwitted. He smartly makes use of that to skirt his duties, especially when he is required to help slaughter a new pig for the Lord's table. For you see, the suffering of any animal makes Trionn sick. And his favourite place of hiding while skirting those duties is the neglected field of a blue dun stud, a stallion that was a killer and hated everything alive - except cats that is. He always kept his distance from cats and Trionn was safe on the mad stallion's turf with all his cats around him.

A new Lord had inherited the rule of Silverdown and a feast was gracing the tables every night, despite of Silverdown's empty treasury. Everyone knew the new Lord was trying to get his hands on a lass with a good dowry to save his estate. The stallion was the means. Wild and hateful, he was a magnificent beast and if the Lord managed to break him, Silverdown's treasury would be full again.

And here is where this little story begins, with a so called dimwitted scullion who cannot stand any animal's pain, a magnificent but killer horse full of hatred and a choice that both of them will have to make, to save Silverdow's gold.


Ragtime Dun D stallion owned by Mountain Home Morgans - pic from Morgan Colors I've searched online to find out how a real dun looks like, because I had to be able to picture him after reading this story.

Update to msg 32: 9/24.

Update to message 15: 9/27.

This challenge has been such a nice way to read an anthology.

Updated message 9:

9/24

Message #35 updated: 8/22

I'm finally reading the 2nd book in the Phineas Poe trilogy Penny Dreadful.

I've split the chapters to have it done in 24 days. I have completed 9/24.