Finishing the Series Reading Challenge 2013

Hello my lovely readers!

Because life is so incredibly busy, I hadn’t been planning on participating in any of the many wonderful reading challenges in existence around the book blogosphere.  (Beyond hosting my own, the Mental Illness Advocacy Reading Challenge, of course.)  But when I received a GoodReads invitation to Socrates’ Finishing the Series Reading Challenge, I couldn’t resist because it fits in so well with my already established (in my head) reading goals for 2013.  It’s incredibly simple. Choose a single (or multiple) book series you’ve previously started to finally finish reading during 2013.  I already have a GoogleDoc of all the series I’m reading and was saying to myself, “Amanda, finish at least a few of these in 2013,” and doing that in the context of the fun that is a book blog reading challenge just makes me happy.

I’m currently reading 26 series. I know, I know.  I’m not going to challenge myself to all of those, because then I’d only be reading series books all year.   But I am signing up for the highest level of the challenge: Level 3: 3 or more series.

So what am I pledging to finish?

1. Georgina Kincaid series by Richelle Mead
   #3 Succubus Dreams review 1/31/13, 5 stars
   #4 Succubus Heat
   #5 Succubus Shadows
   #6 Succubus Revealed
2. Y: The Last Man series by Brian K. Vaughan
   #8 Kimono Dragons
   #9 Motherland
   #10 Whys and Wherefores
3. Riders of the Apocalypse series by Jackie Morse Kessler
   #3 Loss
   #4 Breath
4. John Cleaver series by Dan Wells
   #3 I Don’t Want to Kill You review , 3/2/13 3.5 stars
5. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
   #2 Children of God
6. Katherine “Kitty” Katt series by Gini Koch
   #3 Alien in the Family
   #4 Alien Proliferation
   #5 Alien Diplomacy
   #6 Alien vs. Alien
   #7 Alien in the House
   #8 Alien Research

For the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series, it is not yet finished, so I’m only pledging to books that are projected to be published before the end of 2013.

I also reserve the right to give up on a series if it starts nose-diving before the end.

Phew! That’s a lot of books…but it would also make a serious dent into my series list.  So fingers crossed that I have good luck with it.

If the challenge sounds like a good match for you, be sure to check out the official challenge page!

Book Review: Succubus on Top by Richelle Mead (Series, #2)

Summary:
Georgina Kincaid, the succubus that wishes sex with hot men didn’t always steal their life energy, has held up her side of the bargain with her demon supervisor.  She’s been going after quality men in exchange for him not wiping the memory of her human boyfriend, the hot writer Seth.  Of course, they can’t have sex together without yanking some years off his life, so when they sleep together, it’s literal sleeping.  But life continues in spite of boyfriends and job accolades.  Georgina finds herself caught up in helping an old incubus friend, as well as trying to find out what has her coworker, Doug, so full of energy.

Review:
Ahhh, Georgina.  You are quite possibly my favorite urban fantasy heroine, although your fixation on Seth kinda bugs me.  Anyway, everything that made Succubus Blues so fun is back with a bang this time around.  We’ve got crazy sex scenes, paranormal mystery, and an every reluctant succubus.

The story itself is a bit more predictable than the first one, but that’s ok.  I may have known right away what was up with the incubus’s project as well as what was wrong with Doug, but it’s so much fun to be in Georgina’s world that I honestly didn’t care that I knew.  I mostly delighted in this new version of Seattle that Mead has created.

Georgina is complex and so well-rounded.  We constantly learn little snippets of her long life, this time around focusing in more on her succubus years than her human ones.  She may have sex down pat, but she still doesn’t have relationships figured out, which is part of what makes her character work.  Men can still surprise her sometimes. Especially Seth.

There is honestly not that much else to say about this book.  The world is delicious, the plot predictable, the heroine delightful.  It’s drizzled in intelligent wit and topped off with some red hot sex scenes.  This series is definitely remaining my go to for urban fantasy.  Fans of the first won’t be disappointed, and anyone with even an inclination toward the genre should definitely check it out.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Public Library

Buy It

Previous Books in Series
Succubus Blues (review)