Finished Reading “You Can Hide” and Back at Writing

Since Alien Desires is with my editor, I have been able to get back to The Alien’s Change of Heart. I made a lot of changes to Book 1 which made a lot of what I had previously started in Book 2 obsolete. But I’m having fun coming up with new stuff. It’s been so long since I actually wrote something new. I forgot how much fun it could be. Well, until I hit a dead end. At least that hasn’t happened too much this go round. But the book is young…

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 6

Dates read: March 8 – 24, 2025
Title: You Can Hide
Year of publication: 2022
Author: Rebecca Zanetti
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series:  Laurel Snow #2
# of Pages: 341
Paper or plastic: Mass market paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Calling Laurel Snow’s relationship with her newly discovered half sister challenging is an understatement. Not only does Laurel suspect Abigail is behind the mysterious disappearance of their father, but her erratic behavior also makes life in Laurel’s small hometown interesting, to say the least. Still, when Abigail claims someone is now out to kill her, Laurel’s instinct to protect her sister goes into overdrive. Then things get even more dicey as dead bodies start turning up in the icy waters of the Sauk River and there’s only one connection among them: Abigail…
    Having Fish and Wildlife Captain Huck Rivers bringing in those bodies with his dive team only complicates matters. Huck is as impulsive and fiery as Laurel is coolly analytical, which makes their alliance risky at best. But standing up to such a demonically brilliant killer is going to take all the help Laurel can get. Because Laurel’s attempt to save her troubled sister’s life might cost her own…
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: Parts of this dragged on a little, which made it easy for me to put down at times. I still enjoyed it, though. I like the characters very much. And while the romance is barely there, it is there, which is fine by me!

Some days interesting ideas run through my head and I think, “I should write a blog about that. Maybe after I finish the book I’m reading.” Thing is, I don’t write ANYTHING down, thus forgetting the interesting idea. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever learn!

I must remember to WRITE IT DOWN! Do you have this same problem? It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

Happy Reading!

Stacy

Finished Reading “Starter Villain” and … My Normal

For having metastatic kidney cancer, I’m one of the lucky ones. My disease seems to be in remission and the treatments to keep it that way haven’t given me horrible side effects (like losing hair). But the disease DOES kind of tie me to the oncology clinic. Every four weeks, at least.

It also comes with quarterly CT scans and the occasional MRI. And those can be a nuisance. It’s not just having the scans; it’s having the contrast with the scans. I have to drink something prior and then have some dye injected via an IV during.

I was supposed to have my last CT scan on Tuesday. I drank the contrast two hours before and checked in at radiology 15 minutes before my scheduled scan. Except the system was down. They could conduct the scan, but they didn’t have access to my lab work to see if they should DO the scan. It got so late, that the stuff I drank was no longer viable and they had to reschedule.

So now I gotta repeat the process on the 11^th. I can’t imagine drinking that stuff is all that healthy. Or even getting injected with the dye. But there’s not much I can do about that.

Like I said, it’s a nuisance. It hasn’t gotten me sick…yet. Same with the hormone-therapy pills I have to take for my breast cancer. I have some side effects, but they aren’t debilitating. Thank goodness!

I guess this is what normal is for me now. Just like getting old!

Here’s what I read since my last update:

Book 5

Dates read: February 26 – March 7, 2025
Title: Starter Villain
Year of publication: 2023
Author: John Scalzi
Genre: Humorous
Series:  N/A
# of Pages: 262
Paper or plastic: Trade paperback
How obtained: Purchased from B&N
Blurb from Book: Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.
    Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
    Then his long-lost uncle, Jake, dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
    But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
    It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
    In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.
Recommend: Yes
My thoughts: This was an interesting story and I enjoyed it. Certainly different than what I normally read. But I follow John Scalzi on social media and he lives in Ohio, so I just had to try him out and that cover is kind of what hooked me. If you like humorous stories with a bunch of weird stuff, give it a try.

I finally finished watching Star Trek: Voyager. I’m still surprised at how I knew all the characters, but it was like watching the series for the first time. Bizarre, huh? Now I’m starting Quantum Leap (w/Scott Bakula). I loved that show when it aired, but I’m guessing my re-watching will be like Voyager: seeing it for the first time. I just don’t know if I can blame my lack of memory on old age or the cancer drugs. Heck, it might be both!

Happy Reading!

Stacy