Sunday Post September 6, 2020/It's Monday! What are You Reading? Plus Mailbox Monday September 7, 2020

I am linking with Sunday Post at Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading now at The Book Date (at Wordpress)?

What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

Work continues at a steady pace. I have another client getting ready for a big purchase. I have  a dozen commercial leases (20+ pages each) to review in the next two days. I do two at a time then give my eyes a break.

Hubby decided he wanted to clear out the deadwood from our back yard.
Here is a before picture with the yellow excavater peeking through the trees,

and the after picture for this section of the yard.

The weather has been in the 90s and should be nice, but hot, for Labor Day. I see the days growing shorter as it is beginning to get dark earlier - shortly after 7pm now.

I have been enjoying reading/listening. I finished four audiobooks and one ebook (finally). I posted three reviews and my usual memes.

I visited 17 blogs last week.
Shout Out this week to A Book Wanderer - "Traveling through books one page at a time." Dedra has an interesting explanation of her name. Her blog is celebrating her one year anniversary this week so stop by and say hello and congratulations.

Don't forget- Audible is offering free children's titles during these days at home.
Audiobooks.com is also offering free listens for children.

These were last week's posts:

• Sunday Post August 30, 2020/It's Monday! What are You Reading? Plus Mailbox Monday August 31, 2020.

• ATBR- Audio Book Review: Woof by Spencer Quinn; Genre: Animals, Kids, Middle Grade, Mystery; My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0 Overall; Story 4.0; Narration 4.0.

• A2020- Audible Book Review: Rocky River Bridge, A Grower's War Prequel by D. J. Molles; Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi; My Rating: 4.0 of 5.0 Overall; Story 4.0; Narration 4.0.
  

• Martha's Bookshelf***Friday Pick Giveaway September 4, 2020. Open Worldwide. Ending 9/10/2020.

• ATBR0- Audible Book Review: Prominence by A.C. Hadfield; Genre: Alien Invasion, Colonization, Military Sci-Fi; My Rating: 3.75 of 5.0 Overall; Story 3.75; Narration 4.0.

• Sharing Beyond Books #403 Comment Giveaway September 5, 2020. Open Worldwide. Ending 9/19/2020.

• Sunday Words of Encouragement September 6, 2020.

Finished Reading:

1. Audible/Smartphone (ATBR)

Agent 355
By: Marie Benedict
Narrated by: Emily Rankin
Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
Release date: 07-02-20
I liked this historical short.
Source: July 2020 Free Audible Original.
Click on book title for full description.

2. Audible/Smartphone (ATBR)

Machine World
Undying Mercenaries, Book 4
By: B. V. Larson
Narrated by: Mark Boyett
Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
Release date: 05-12-15
This is another good installment of this military sci fi series.
Source: 5/12/19 Audible April Credits.
Click on book title for full description.

3. Audio/Smartphone (ATBR)

Hunted
By Meagan Spooner
Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld, Will Damron
Duration: 9 h 20 min
This is a creative Beauty and the Beast retelling!
I was impressed.
Source: March 2019 TWO FOR ONE Fairy Tale Fantasies with my February Audiobooks.com credit.
Summary:
New York Times bestselling author Meagan Spooner spins a thoroughly thrilling Beauty and the Beast story for the modern age, expertly woven with spellbinding romance, intrigue, and suspense that readers won’t soon be able to forget.
Beauty knows the Beast's forest in her bones—and in her blood. After all, her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering its secrets. So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters out of their comfortable home among the aristocracy and back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas . . . or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. The Beast.
Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange creature back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of magical creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin, or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

4. Audible/Smartphone (ATBR)

Snowflakes
Hush Collection
By: Ruth Ware
Narrated by: Jess Nahikian
Series: Hush Collection
Length: 57 mins
I snagged this as I thought this was a good way to try Ware as a new-to-me author. It is an engaging story.
Source: August 2020 Free Audible Plus.
Publisher's Summary
When a barrier between truth and illusion grows stronger, a family’s trust crumbles in this arresting short story by the number one New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10.
Leah has spent her formative years isolated on a remote island with her family. But their quiet existence, far from the devastated mainland, is cracking. Father, sensing a coming threat, demands that a wall be built. As the stone blockade rises, Father’s paranoia escalates. So does Leah’s dread that the violence the family left behind has found its way to their sanctuary.
Ruth Ware’s Snowflakes is part of Hush, a collection of six stories, ranging from political mysteries to psychological thrillers, in which deception can be a matter of life and death. Each piece can be read or listened to in one truly chilling sitting.
©2020 Ruth Ware. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

5. eBook/Kindle (NG2019)

Honor in an Age of Metal and Men
by Anthony W. Eichenlaub
This was slower reading on my phone but it is a good conclusion to the series. There are lots of twists.
Source: 2019 NetGalley.
Click on book title for full description.

Currently Reading:
1. Audible/Smartphone (ATBR)

Open Season
By: C. J. Box
Narrator: David Chandler
Duration: 7 hrs and 49 mins
I was in the mood for a mystery this time. I like how this has started.
Source: August 23, 2017, Audible Daily Deal $2.95.
Publisher's Summary
Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police.
As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear.
©2001 C.J. Box (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

2. eBook/Kindle (NG2020)

Kit and Elizabeth
by Karen Tuft
This sounds like a Regency romance I will like.
Source: NetGalley (2019 request received 2020).
Lady Elizabeth Spaulding’s world has fallen apart. Despite living her entire life to please her demanding parents, the Duke and Duchess of Marwood, she has little to show for it. After Elizabeth’s second failed betrothal, her father’s debts and appalling acts of retaliation force him to flee the country, consigning Elizabeth and her bitter mother to a life of poverty and exile. But Elizabeth’s fortunes change one day when an elderly acquaintance makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
Lady Walmsley, widowed and childless, is in need of a lady’s companion—and who better than the lovely Lady Elizabeth? Determined to rescue Elizabeth from her dreary life in the country, Lady Walmsley secures the help of Kit, the dashing Earl of Cantwell, in her quest. But the young woman they find is a ghost of the charming girl they once knew. Taken in by Lady Walmsley, and with Kit’s enthusiastic encouragement, Elizabeth finds herself pushed further and further from her empty solitude as she discovers the joy of truly living. Now, for the first time in her life, she must decide for herself who she is and if she deserves to be loved.

I expect to get to another audio and I'll pick when I get there. :-)

I'm keeping track of my Alphabet here as I finish the books. These are the letters that remain:
NETGALLEY:  H  M  U X  Y and Z
AUDIO:             X  and  Z

September 6, 2020 - I got behind and had to catch up again. Lack of discipline on my part. I need to do better.
I am again enjoying the devotions and readings with the One Year Bible plan through You Version App. I considered changing but this is the reading group that is closest to my husband's reading so we can sometimes discuss the same passages.
I will be doing a 3-day study this week: Even Now From Life.Church Worship.

I completed five books and posted three reviews; again remaining up to date.
My NetGalley shelf is at 6, two current and the four titles from 2012-13 which I still hope to read this year.
I have added no new author review titles this week. I still have one carry over author ebook left. I have two audiobooks from authors. I feel good getting caught up on these books.
Still many titles through InstaFreebie and many new author requests I haven't replied to.

Welcome to Mailbox Monday.

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. This Meme started with Marcia at A Girl and Her Books (fka The Printed Page) and after a tour of hosts has returned to its permanent home at Mailbox Monday. Thanks to the ladies sharing hosting duties: Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit and (yours truly). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.
No new review titles this week.
Someday I'll check the email requests I have been receiving. {Sigh.}
I added more free Audible Plus titles - 5 titles this week! Now Audiobooks.com has a new program they call Audiobook Clubs which allows you to use a credit for a club grouping and you can listen to any of the books in that group for that month. I may do this soon as even if I only get to listen to two or three a month, it is still a value gain.
Only one free Kindle titles this week.
(Note these are in my Amazon library, NOT on my Kindle until I download and transfer them.)  
Are your mailbox and TBR piles blooming?

Review Titles

NONE

Won

NONE

Purchased

NONE

Free

More free Audible Plus titles.

Snowflakes
Hush Collection
By: Ruth Ware
Narrated by: Jess Nahikian
Series: Hush Collection
Length: 57 mins

Let Her Be: Hush Collection
By: Lisa Unger
Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
Series: Hush Collection
Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins


Solar Storms: Orbs, Book 0.1
By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
Series: ORBS, Book 0.25
Length: 53 mins


The Upheaval
By: Erica Stevens , Claire Bloom
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Series: The Survivor Chronicles, Book 1
Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins


Black Virus: Black Rust, Book 1
By: Bobby Adair
Narrated by: Tristan Morris
Series: Black Rust, Book 1
Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins




Just One free Kindle title this week:
Honeysuckle Season
Mary Ellen Taylor
Free titles often found at Bookbub, Bookfun, Ereader News Today, Free Par-tay, Ignite Your Book, Inspired Reads, Pixel of Ink or Kindle ebooks.