With it being October, I’m looking at my reading challenges to see where I was at and it’s not as bad as I thought it was.  I really thought I’ve been slacking on a lot of these, but if I don’t use the list I came up with when I decided to join and actually go with the ones I’ve read this year, I’m pretty far along.  Of the six challenges I committed myself to, I’ve managed to finish four of them already.  I did forget the end date on one, but I still did pretty good.

I am still working on my own challenge, the New Authors, but that is to be expected.  Fifty new authors in a year is pretty much one a week, but I’m not doing too badly.  At last count, I’m up to 28 new authors this year. While I was hoping to be farther along, there is still a ton of time left. Thankfully, I have a bunch of new authors sitting in my review stack that will help with this challenge – Kelly Meding, Leigh Bridger, Stefanie Worth, Nicole Kimberling, Ginn Hall, Joey W. Hill and Alexandra Ivy to name a few.

Overall, I don’t think I’ve done too bad with my challenges this year.  The only one I have left to really worry about is my own and if I don’t finish it, oh well.  But like I said, I did finish a few so here’s the rundown on those.

Completed Challenges

R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril IV Challenge

The Details: Hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings – (Sept 1st – Oct 31st). As you can tell by the dates, this one hasn’t begun yet and won’t for a few months.  Stainless Steel Droppings hosts it for the Halloween season and he’s been doing it for the past three years, so I have every hope that there’ll be another one this year.  This is my intent to take part once it does.  The idea behind this challenge is to read either 1, 2, or 4 (depending on your level of participation) novels from one of the following genres: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Supernatural – and then post a link to your review at Post links to your reviews the R.I.P. IV Review Site.  Here’s my acknowledgment post that gives an idea of what I’ll be reading.

Ending Result: As is always the case, I didn’t stick to the original list of novels I was going to read, but I did get some goods ones included.  Something I didn’t realize was that I finished this one with a couple of weeks to spare, but that just means I get to continue adding to the list.  ;)  I will admit that one of my books was a children’s story that I came across at Barnes & Noble.  Seriously, Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex is a great novel and a must have for anyone who reads Goodnight Moon to their kids.  In addition to that one, here are the other books I’ve read.

• Must Love Hellhounds (Anthology)
• Blood Promise by Richelle Mead (review pending)
• On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
• Spider-Touched by Jory Strong
• Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

Support Your Local Library

The Details: Hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog (Jan 1st – Dec 31st). Another rather simple challenge. The idea is to borrow books from your local library. What better way to support your local free lending institution? There are three different levels of participation – 12, 25, 50 – and since I’m also doing the 50 New Authors, I have a pretty good idea that I’ll make the third level. Since I’m not entirely sure which books I’ll be getting at the library, I’ll add to the list as I get them. Here’s my acknowledgment post that gives an idea of what I’ll be reading.

Ending Result: So I originally thought I was going to be able to participate in this challenge at the third level – 50 books – but that’s not going to happen. Its still quite possible that I will, but I’m trying to clear through my TBR stack, so I’m not planning on getting any more books right now. However, up until this point, I have been using the library quite a bit. I still have one book waiting for me to pick up – Finger Lickin’ Fifteen – so that can be added to the list.  Plus, if I can count his, my son has been getting at least 2-3 books (if not more) from the library at every visit.  So while they are not MY books, I have probably borrowed 50 books from the library over the course of the year.

1st in a Series

The Details: Hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog (Jan 1st – Dec 31st).  This will be my second year participating in this challenge and I had a blast with it last year.  The idea is to read the 1st novel in 12 different series, which went very well with the New Author Challenge. I tried to pick series that had authors that were new to me, since I was looking for new authors, so I found a bunch of really good series.  I have a bunch more that I want to try, so finding 12 for this year does not seem like a problem.  Here’s my acknowledgment post that gives an idea of what I’ll be reading.

Ending Result: I’ve completed a challenge! At first I didn’t think I would get to finish it, but then once I got rid of the series I was expecting to read and actually inserted the ones I had read, I came up with 12 different series. This actually makes me really happy as I was afraid I wasn’t going to finish any challenges this year. On the plus side, all of these series are by new-to-me authors!  Here are the books I read:

• Dakota Cassidy – Accidental Friends – the Accidental Werewolf
• Gena Showalter – Alien Huntress – Seduce the Darkness
• Amber Benson – Calliope Reaper-Jones – Death’s Daughter
• Candace Havens – Caruthers Sisters – The Demon King and I
• Chloe Neill – Chicagoland Vampires – Some Girls Bite
• Jory Strong – Ghostworld – Ghostland
• Meljean Brook – Guardians – Demon Angel
• Linda Wisdom – Hex – 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover
• Judi Fennell – Mer – In Over Her Head
• John Marco – Sky Lords – Starfinder
• Annette McCleave – Soul Gatherers – Drawn Into Darkness
• Richelle Mead – Vampire Academy – Vampire Academy

2nds Challenge

The Details: Hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog (Jan 1st – Dec 31st). The idea of this one is to read a novel from an author you’ve only read once. This one is a great one to do along with the 1st in a Series challenge and requires the same number of books – 12. I don’t think I’m going to do the same 12 novels as the 1st in a series list, simple because I tend to read the entire series, or as many as I can, at the same time. Here’s my acknowledgment post that gives an idea of what I’ll be reading.

Ending Result: This was another one that surprised me that I had finished.  It seems like I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, but mainly with authors I already know, so the fact that I did manage to get a second novel in by some new authors was a great shock.  And you’ll notice not all of them were mentioned in the 1st Series challenge, so I actually tried more series than I had originally thought.  Here are the books I read:

• Curveball by Kate Angell
• Rogue by Cheryl Brooks
• Demon Moon by Meljean Brook
• Wild Blue Under by Judi Fennell
• Evil Ways by Justin Gustainis
• A Knight’s Reward by Katherine Kean
• Frostbite by Richelle Mead
• Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill
• Spider-Touched by Jory Strong
• Fallout by CL Talmadge
• Chains by Shiloh Walker
• Hex Appeal by Linda Wisdom

Paranormal 999 Challenge

The Details: Hosted by LibraryThing with a Yahoo Group (Jan 1st – Sept 9th). The idea is to read 9 different books in 9 different paranormal categories, all read in 2009. Sounds easy enough, but reading 81 novels for one challenge in a year is a little intimating for me since this isn’t my only challenge.  So I’m going to limit myself to 3 books in the 9 different categories just so I have a chance of completing this challenge and still be able to keep up with the other novels I need to read and review.  Here’s my acknowledgment post that gives an idea of what I’ll be reading.

Ending Result: I so totally forgot this one ended in September, which means I didn’t get it finished.  However, I did manage to read more novels than I originally thought.   As previously stated, I wasn’t going to do 81 books for one challenge, but I did manage to read 23 out of the 27 I originally agreed to.  We were able to chose our own categories, which made it a little easier in finding books, but out of all of mine, there was only one I didn’t get to, so I’m pretty impressed with myself.  Here are the books I read: