It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (Jan 6, 2014)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. 

Ok, I have FINALLY posted all of the challenges (though who knows which ones could pop up at any time).  I have created new bookshelves for each challenge at Goodreads and have even added some books to the bookshelves that I would like to read for the challenges - so now I should actually start reading, right? 

Temperature check at 2pm: -12/Feels Like -39 degrees.

Currently reading:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

by Elizabeth George Speare

This won the Newbery Medal in 1959.

Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

Bathroom Book:

Agent of Influence

by David Aaron

Not sure that I like this - but am far enough into it that I want to know what happens.

Written by the author of "State Scarlet", this thriller is set in Washington, Moscow and Wall Street. A media conglomerate has been targeted for takeover but the more Lyman learns, the more shady the deal seems. He is convinced that America's huge press empire could end up under Soviet control.

Books I plan to start this week:

The Shade of the Moon

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

This is the fourth book in The Last Survivors series.  I have read the rest of the series and just learned recently that another book had come out last year.  I have to reread through some of my reviews to familiarize myself with the characters again!

It's been more than two years since Jon Evans and his family left Pennsylvania, hoping to find a safe place to live, yet Jon remains haunted by the deaths of those he loved. His prowess on a soccer field has guaranteed him a home in a well-protected enclave. But Jon is painfully aware that a missed goal, a careless word, even falling in love, can put his life and the lives of his mother, his sister Miranda, and her husband, Alex, in jeopardy. Can Jon risk doing what is right in a world gone so terribly wrong?

Through the Ever Night
by Veronica Rossi

This is book two in the Under the Never Sky series.  I finished the first book last month.

Now Aria and Perry are about to be reunited. It's a moment they've been longing for with countless expectations. And it's a moment that lives up to all of them. At least, at first. 

Then it slips away. The Tides don't take kindly to former Dwellers like Aria. And the tribe is swirling out of Perry's control. With the Aether storms worsening every day, the only remaining hope for peace and safety is the Still Blue. But does this haven truly exist?

Threatened by false friends and powerful temptations, Aria and Perry wonder, Can their love survive through the ever night? 

In this second book in her spellbinding Under the Never Sky trilogy, Veronica Rossi combines fantasy and sci-fi elements to create a captivating adventure-and a love story as perilous as it is unforgettable.

Last Night at the Blue Angel
by Rebecca Rotert

Random Choice Read.

Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s Chicago jazz scene, a highly ambitious and stylish literary debut that combines the atmosphere and period detail of Amor Towles' Rules of Civility with the emotional depth and drama of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, about a talented but troubled singer. precocious ten-year-old daughter, and their heartbreaking relationship.

It is the early 1960s, and Chicago is a city of uneasy tensions-segregation, sexual experimentation, free love, the Cold War-but it is also home to one of the country's most vibrant jazz scenes. Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. Finally, her big break arrives-the cover of Look magazine. But success has come at enormous personal cost. Beautiful and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet extremely self-destructive woman whose charms are irresistible and dangerous for those around her. No one knows this better than Sophia, her precocious ten-year-old daughter.

For Sophia, Naomi is the center of her universe. As the only child of a single, unconventional mother, growing up in an adult world, Sophia has seen things beyond her years and her understanding. Unsettled by her uncertain home life, she harbors the terrible fear that the world could end at any moment, so she compulsively keeps a running list of practical objects she will need to reinvent once nuclear catastrophe strikes. Her one constant is Jim, the photographer who is her best friend, surrogate father, and protector. But Jim is deeply in love with Naomi-a situation that adds to Sophia's anxiety.

Told from the alternating perspectives of Sophia and Naomi, their powerful and wrenching story unfolds in layers, revealing Sophia's struggle for her mother's love with Naomi's desperate journey to stardom and the colorful cadre of close friends who shaped her along the way.

Sophisticated yet poignant, Last Night at the Blue Angel is an unforgettable tale about what happens when our passion for the life we want is at sharp odds with the life we have. It is a story ripe with surprising twists and revelations, and an ending that is bound to break your heart.

Working on:

Ok, I know it doesn't look like much right now - but it is going to be a little snowman.  Felt like a good day to work on it!

What are you reading on this cold Monday?