It’s Monday! What are you reading? (27)

This Monday meme is held by the The Book Journey. Feel free to join in and tell us what you’re reading!

Title: Days of Blood and Starlight

Author: Laini Taylor

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes and Noble

From Goodreads:

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster’s apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

I thought this book would get me out of my reading slump and it kind of did, but I’ve been really busy! I just haven’t had time to read. My weekend was jam-packed. Plus I was too sick to read last week. Hopefully I’ll be better this week. Although I feel like I’m still recovering from the weekend, it might take me a bit to get back into the groove of things.
I am really enjoying Days of Blood and Starlight. Some of the story is told in emails back and forth between Zuze and Karou and I’m really getting a kick out of Zuze. In fact I think she’s stealing the show.

Title: Cat Bearing Gifts

Author: Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes and Noble

From the Publisher:

The confusing events that early fall in Molena Point began perhaps with the return of Kate Osborne, the beguiling blond divorcée arriving in California richer than sin and with a story as strange as the melodies spun by a modern Pied Piper to mesmerize the unwary. Or maybe the strangeness started with the old faded photograph of a child from a half-century past, and the memories she awakened in the old yellow tomcat. Perhaps that was the beginning of the odd occurrences that stirred through the coastal village, setting the five cats off on new paths. . . .
On the way home from visiting their friend Kate Osborne in San Francisco, tortoiseshell Kit and her elderly housemates, Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw, are hurt in a terrible car crash on a winding coastal road. The accident is terrifying enough, but then two dangerous men steal the Greenlaws’ town car, making off with a secret hoard of jewels and gold—a gift bestowed from Kate’s newfound treasure—carefully hidden inside its doors. As paramedics rush the Greenlaws to the emergency room, a badly shaken Kit hides from hungry coyotes in the forested hills above the highway, waiting for Joe, Pan, and their human companions, Ryan and Clyde Damen, to rescue her.

Back home in Molena Point, yellow tomcat Misto, discovering a faded photograph of a child living fifty years ago, becomes lost in his memories of that past century—while Joe Grey and his tabby lady prowl an abandoned stone cottage where they’ve discovered two rough-looking men hiding. The cats smell mildewed money, and soon smell human blood, too, and they wonder: Could these unsettling incidents be tied to the injury of the Greenlaws and to the theft of their car and treasure? Could they be, as well, part of the larger mystery involving the very source of the cats’ magical powers?

Misto and his unfailing memory might provide some answers, but his feline detective efforts are nearly derailed when Misto’s son, Pan, the bold red tomcat, led on by the Greenlaws’ exotic treasure and by his taste for adventure, drives a painful wedge between himself and Kit, just when their romance feels so filled with joy.

But Kit is busy with other matters, too, as she follows the two housebreakers, one badly injured and the other eager to end his partner’s misery, as they make off with more wealth than even they realize. Though the cats know more than the thieves about the unique items stolen, their investigation is still in trouble. Only slowly, and after two sudden murders, do they at last claw their way to the truth, examining more intently the source of the gold and jewels, understanding more clearly, as well, the secrets of the moldering treasury bills—the mystery of their source, generations past, when Misto lived another life.

I’ve been reading Joe Grey books forever so I have to read the newest when it comes out this week. In fact, it comes out tomorrow. This is one of the few mystery series I actually read. The cats aren’t too cute just because they talk. They retain their dignity and their catlike nature. Cats aren’t very cute all the time when you get right down to it. They’re ruthless and predatory. Rousseau manages to convey that while still maintaining their compassionate and quirky, endearing sides. That’s why I appreciate this series so much. I’m really looking forward to reading this book and I hope it doesn’t disappoint.

I also hope I can get through two books this week. I was such a prolific reader earlier this year. What happened to me?

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans!

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