Month: January 2021

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What This Writer Read in January 2021

Avery Hemlock

Welcome to my January 2021 Reading Wrap Up Blog! Don’t worry – I know this is a lot of books, but I’ve still managed to get a lot of writing done on my WIP Guardians of Glitter Bomb (Book 5 of the Love by Glitter Bomb Series.) I’m at 27/39 chapters written. Barring any super long chapters like a few which came up last week I normally manage 3 chapters throughout the day from writing sessions. So, sometime this week I should be wrapping up the first draft and moving into polishing it up a bit before I send the guys off to play with my editor.

Now – onto what you really came here for. Yes, I read 20 books this month. Well, I read 14 and listened to 6 books this month. Though, since I count them for my GR challenge I’ll talk about them here too. This blog is just a short list of the books I read this month and what they’re about. I’ll be doing another post soon about my favorite books of January.

Stay by Catherine Ryan Hyde: A young man’s life changes as his brother returns from the Vietnam war with a drug habit and he begins caring for a hermit’s dogs.

This Close to Okay Leesa Cross-Smith: Woman saves man’s life by lying to him about not being a therapist. He lies about who he is. A doomed romance ensues wrapped in beautiful life altering moments. I received an early release of this book through the Book of the Month Books Box.

Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton: (Book 7 in the series) Anita Blake once again works with the police and ‘monsters’ to save the city from a boogeyman between balancing her supernatural love and sex lives.

My Name is Anton by Catherine Ryan Hyde: After losing his brother to suicide a young man aids an older woman in escaping domestic violence. In the meantime, they fall in love, but she still leaves. Years later they run into each other again and have a second chance romance.

Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks: Two high school sweethearts are brought together by the death of a mutual mentor. Reconnecting isn’t easy because the things standing between them have only grown and since this is a Nicholas Spark book, we all know not everyone gets out of his stories alive.

Elanor Oliphant is Just Fine by Gail Honeyman: A woman with CPTSD, Alcoholism, and maybe DID loses control of her life and the past and present blend together for her – even though she can’t remember the past. With the introduction of a new friend life starts to look up.

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch: A young man rapes his friends and makes excuses as to why he can’t be a rapist. I’m not one to usually say bad things about books – but this one left a horrible taste in my mouth. I would not recommend it.

Have You Seen Luis Velez? By Catherine Ryan Hyde: A young man stumbles onto a mysterious disappearance after his best friend moves away and he begins to help an elderly blind neighbor.

Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman: First in the series of The Walking Dead novels. It’s basically what you’d expect from TWD. Gore and humans sucking more than zombies.

Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton: (Book 8 in the series) In this one, Anita’s on again/off again werewolf boyfriend Richard is caught up in a lying scheme and falsely charged with ‘accused rape.’ She and some others make their way to Tennessee to rescue him and manage to piss off the local Master Vampire and the human police in the process.

Heretic’s Anonymous by Katie Henry: A high school kid who has spent most of his life moving around because of his dad’s job starts Catholic School as an atheist and makes some unlikely friends as he falls in love and figures out who he really is.

I Am Watching You by Teresa Driscoll: This one a slow burn mystery/thriller where in a woman finds herself wrapped up with a young girl’s disappearance and under threat because whoever killed her believes she knows a lot more than she does.

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.: This is a stunning historical fiction novel that explores the beautiful and forbidden love story between two young men in the south. As slaves on a plantation dubbed “The Empty’ all hell breaks loose as everyone turns on each other. The writer does a beautiful (if haunting and heartbreaking) job of spinning the web of intricacies. I don’t think I’d ever have the words to do this one justice. This book was another one from the Book of the Month Box.

Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies by Hayley Nolan: This is an Anne Boleyn biography written by a mental health specialist and it’s like no other Tudor bio I’ve ever read before.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: If you don’t know what this one is about; we can’t be friends.

Pyotra and the Wolf by Elna Holst: This is a queer retelling of Peter and the Wolf.

Coming Clean by Kimmie Rae Miller: This is a memoir of growing up with hoarders for parents. It was heartbreaking and insightful.

Quiet by Susan Cain: This is about how introverts both struggle and fit into the world. It’s well written and well researched. I’d recommend this one to any introvert looking for validation that they’re not crazy and extroverts really do go out of their way without realizing it to drive us crazy.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier: After Mary Ellen’s mother dies, she goes to live with her aunt and uncle. One of whom is part of a notorious smuggling scheme. Gothic and gritty at heart this book is adventurous, mysterious, and a tad bit romantic all at once.

Winter of the Wolf by Martha Hunter Handler: A young girl is determined to prove her brother did not take his own life.

How’s your 2021 reading year treating you? Any good books you read this month you wanna recommend?

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Hemlock Mpreg Universe Boxset Master List

Avery Hemlock

This morning I received a message on Facebook asking if I had a master list somewhere of all my boxsets. Up until point I did not – unless you counted what Amazon or GoodReads put together on the pages they keep for authors automatically. But still there are a lot of books to sort through to find the boxsets. So, I put together this page to keep them sorted out and hopefully I remember to update this as boxsets are added.

Hemlock Wolf Pack Saga Box Sets

Love By Glitter Bomb Boxsets

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A Year of Poe

Avery Hemlock

With the world looking a little bright today and the last bit of work done on Stay with Us (book 4 of Love by Glitter Bomb) I took today off from writing and work. I’m about 20k words into book 5 already and needed a day to clear my mental space.

So, I thought I’d talk more about my reading for this year. I bought a lot of books during lockdown and I always by a lot of books, yeah, yeah. I know. lol It’s a cycle of buying and reading which never quite match up. One of the books I bought was The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. It was a great find on ThriftBooks. If you haven’t heard of ThriftBooks it’s an online book store for new and used books. I’ve found some great deals there including one which will be with my for most of the year.

This big boy comes in at just under 1100 pages. I’ve never been one to sit and read a lot of poetry and short stories back to back, but I do want to finish this book in 2021. So my plan is to read about 90 pages a month and that will put me over the finish line in December. I’ve already marked out my monthly sections and am 50 pages into the book. Conveniently, the poetry section is first and is about 90 pages. So, in February I’ll be onto his tales.

In high school I was the kid who read a lot of creepy stuff and have read a lot of Poe since then too, but I’m finding poems I haven’t read before. I love how haunting his ‘writer’s’ voice is.

Pre-order your copy now!

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2021 Reading Goals: The Year of Talking About More Books

Avery Hemlock

For the last few years I’ve tracked me reading on GoodReads. It took me a while to come around to the idea of counting books. Not because I was afraid my numbers wouldn’t be as high as I thought. Reading is reading and as we all know life kicks up the dust from time to time. I worried that tracking would make me more focused on the number than the books. Which wasn’t the case.

As you can see COVID19 assisted my reading in 2020.

My original goal for last year was 100. I thought it was ambitious and I only bumped it up to 100, because towards the end of 2019 I discovered that audiobooks worked really well for me while I cleaned the house or crocheted or played HearthStone (later on I’d play Stardew Valley while listening too). But eh… 2020 the year I really don’t want to talk except for the books and well the places I talked about books. Because that’s something else 2020 changed for me.

book lover images 26 (1)

Let’s get one thing out of the way – between CPTSD and introversion I’m pretty much a solitary being. I have friends – none that live close by where I live now, but I stay in touch with them a lot. I have a cousin I enjoy hanging out with – COVID19 took that away. COVID19 took a lot of things a way from a lot of people so I’m not going say more. What I will say is something lacked in my adult life – friends and acquaintances to discuss books with. There was a definite lack before 2020. I’m a writer! How did that happen? I honestly have no idea! Sure, I talked about the books I wrote and I talked about other LGBT+ romances with my readers at various times. But as my reading will show this year I’m a true Gemini and I need some variety in my life – and since books probably make up 80% of my life between writing and reading. I need a lot of it. I love reading, but to confine myself to one genre (I know there’s a lot of LGBT+ fiction out there that has nothing to do with romance) but I can’t just read romance. I digress, back to the subject.

Even before COVID19 lockdowns began I decided I needed to fix the lack of bookish friends in my life. I needed more people to talk about books with. I needed to make new connections and after 2019 I needed a place where I felt normal. For those of you who don’t know in 2019 I was physically assaulted by a family remember who I never thought would betray my trust. That was August 2019 (It feels like 3 lifetimes ago after 2020) and by January 2020 I knew something had to change. I was becoming a literal hermit after moving again and that wasn’t me.

So, where did I turn? A place I already sorta hung out to find penpals- Reddit. I know a lot of folks have a love/hate relationship with Reddit. I always say Reddit is a place where you mostly curate your experience by choosing the communities you participate in. Yeah, you’ll still see trolls – it’s the damn internet! For me, I found my ‘internet reading home’ on r/52book and r/bookclub.

r/52book is a sub-Reddit for folks participating in the 52 books a year challenge BUT they welcome everyone with a reading goal over there. I’ve found some really good books through talking to other users and I’ve even made a few friends along the way. They have a weekly check-in thread which I adore, because it doesn’t only give me a place to talk about what I’m reading, but to discuss those books and books others are reading. It’s part of my Sunday morning routine that I always look forward to.

r/bookclub is a sub-Reddit book club just like the name says. As much as I love r/52book – r/bookclub would be my real reading home. Sure, discussions are more limited to books that have been or are currently being read by the sub, but I’ve met so many wonderful people on that sub and I’ve even hosted a few reads. It’s given me a real sense of belonging and I really care about the community. I’ve read at least one of their picks every month since April 2020 (except for September when I moved). I’ve discovered books I’d never have read on my own and met some great folks along the way.

So, in the spirit of keeping the book conversation alive I thought along with my normal blogs (I’m hoping to get them up regularly again) I’d talk more here about what I am reading. I’ve not done this as much as I wanted in the past, because I always feel like someone will point out I read outside of ‘my genre’ so much that I’m not supporting it. Which is BS, but you know, anxiety is real even in writers. Maybe more so in some of us.

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So my goal for 2021 is to read 104 books. 2 books a week. I kept it lowish (compared to last year) because if 2019 and 2020 taught me anything it’s that you never what’s just around the bin and in recent years it’s mostly crap. Lots and lots of crap. When I reach 104 I’ll adjust accordingly to how much of the year is left. I’ve already read 13 books. So, I know I’ll be adjusting it at some point.

So what do I count for my goal?

I could sum this up and say anything on GoodReads, but for the sake of clarity:

  • Novels
  • Novellas
  • Short stories – if they’re published on their own and I read them in that format.
  • Books I write – yep, I read them so many times in editing/rewriting that I count them. My writing to reading ratio is low enough that I don’t think it makes that much of a difference.
  • Books I’ve written that I need to reread for the current book I’m writing at the time.
  • Audiobooks
  • Graphic novels (I didn’t read a single one in 2020, but in 2019 I read a few.)

This year I want to spend more time talking about books – not just because I love them and think everyone should read in one way or another, but because with all the horrible things going on (and will continue to go on I think even with a real president) I believe we’ll all need something positive to focus on. For me – that’s my friends, my cat, and my books.

I look forward to 2021 being a year of bookish conversations and hope you’ll all join me here as I read my way through another year. Stay safe and healthy out there!

Oh – and because it’s habit. Stay with Us is up for pre-order on Amazon.

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Stay With Us – Book 4 of Love By Glitter Bomb Pre-Order

Avery Hemlock

Ty and Feral are ready to settle into their new lives as true-mates and live out their happily ever after with their friends and their soon to be hatched baby. Their claiming vows hang in the balance of Feral’s trauma and everything conspires to keep him from finding out what exactly his dragon is hiding from him. When a threat from beyond the gateways of the Other World threaten one of the other members of their group Feral knows he must face his past and see what he doesn’t want to remember before it’s too late. He’d do anything to keep his friends and family safe, but as the memory leads to a bigger threat and everything leads back to Bram Valen – it’s Ty’s turn to step up and protect his family. He’s willing to die to keep them safe if that’s what it takes. Bram Valen will be the last monster he hunts down, but he knows all too well how the old saying goes.

If Feral and Ty are to defeat Bram Valen and come out of the battle alive, they’ll have to pull their friends and family closer than ever. Some threats are too big to face alone.

Pre-order yours today!

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Reading as a Writer

Avery Hemlock

I’d like to say that I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since October but the truth is I can believe. 2020 sucked. We can all agree on that and in someways 2021 is off to a dumpster fire of a start too. So, as most writers and readers do I turn to stories for comfort, hope, and good ole fashion escapism. I hope for this to be the first in a line of blogs about writing and books and how they intertwine and maybe even a bit about what I’m reading.

As a lot of my longtime readers know I was an avid reader long before I was a writer or I should say professional writer. As a kid I ate up books and got age inappropriate books tossed at me by my negligent mother. (Other blogs talk about her and my CPTSD at length. No need to go into here.) But needless to say like most self-described readers stories fueled my soul. For me it was a natural progression from reader to writer. I never imagined doing it professionally as a kid. It seemed like a long shot for me, but here I am paying my bills with romance novels. While I’m far from fame and fortune I’m more than making due most of the time.

I guess that qualifies me to answer a question a lot of younger or new writers ask me. Recently, this question has hit my inbox a lot.

Maggie, what books should new writers read?

I know they want books about writing and crafting plots and characters and yeah, I read a lot of those as a teenager, but you can study something in theory forever and never get it down.

My suggestion is to just follow Stephen King’s advice – read everything. Literally, read all the time. In the supermarket line (Wear your damn mask!) and while the water is boiling for the pasta or the chicken’s in the oven. Read while you’re waiting for that Zoom call for work. Wake up in the middle of the night stressed out by the state of the world? Read a few pages until your brain shuts up. And no you won’t still other people’s ideas. You’re researching. You’re experiencing what you want to do (if you want to write a book that is.) There are some things you can only learn as a reader in my humble opinion.

I was about 14 when I let an adult friend of the family read the start of a story I was working on. I knew she was only reading the seven pages front and back written by hand on lined notebook paper torn from a spiral notebook to humor me. I watched her – holding my breath – yeah, she was humoring but maybe she had some insight too. Well, I watched her there at her kitchen table – nervously sipping sweet tea as she read the start of a story that I never finished writing. It wasn’t important that I finished it. What was important was the feedback she gave me. She read it – taking her time and turning through the pages carefully as if they were a sacred document. Then when she finished she set them aside and took a drink of her tea.

“You know, this actually reads like a book.”

That line would stand out to me for the rest of my teens as I scribbled stories I never finished. As I wrote a complete novel – and started a sequel by hand. I mean, I figured I knew what I was doing (not as much as I thought, but I knew how to make it sound like a book. lol) but hearing that kept me reading. No one told me how to write a book. I hadn’t read any fancy writing advice books by then. I learned from reading.

So, that’s my best advice for new writers – read the books you enjoy. You’ll learn more than you realize as you go along. Of course, there are some books on writing I’ll recommend because most people don’t like the above answer.

On Writing by Stephen King : I find myself returning to this book every few years. I can quote some of his advice by heart but I still enjoy reading it. Sometimes reading this book reminds me of what I love about writing. If you haven’t read it and you’re into the written word – check it out.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. : Yes, I see all of you rolling your eyes at me! It’s an older book, but if you want to know the nitty-gritty of writing you could start in worse places.

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler: Yes, this is another older book, but it covers the hero’s journey wonderfully.

Happy reading and happy writing and until next time stay safe and healthy out there!