New-to-me authors read in January 2015 = 9 authors

• Maggie Kavanagh (MM)
• J. Roman (MM)
• Heidi Belleau and Rachel Haimowitz (MM)
• V.B. Kildaire (MM)
• Jessica Lemmon (MF)
• MJ Pearson (MM)
• Daniel José Older (UF)
• Nikki Godwin (YA)

Theme: First book in a series = 6 books

• Sparrow Hill Road (Ghost Stories, #1) by Seanan McGuire (UF) (Will I continue the series? NO)
• Make it Count (Bowler University, #1) by Megan Erickson (NA) (Will I continue the series? YES, I finished the whole trilogy actually)
• Served Hot (Portland Heat, #1) by Annabeth Albert (MM) (Will I continue the series? YES)
• Bringing Home the Bad Boy (Second Chance, #1) by Jessica Lemmon (MF) (Will I continue the series? Maybe)
• Half-Resurrection Blues (Bone Street Rumba #1) by Daniel José Older (UF) (Will I continue the series? NO)
• Trowchester Blues (Trowchester Blues, #1) by Alex Beecroft (MM) (Will I continue the series? YES)

Theme: Book with one word title = 1 book

• rock by Anyta Sunday (MM)

I was inspired by Tracy's post about her reading challenge in 2015. See, this year, when I realized that I had been slightly losing my interest in M/M genre -- which has been my pillar of reading since 2008 -- I needed to find ways to read as many as I did. So I decided to make personal reading challenges. I made the challenge by month, the theme I decided on a whim. I was only able to keep it until June 2014 but I thought it was a good start.

For 2015, I decide to do it all over again. But this time, I want to state my challenge upfront. That way, I can keep track on it by the end of year. I take a peek of reading challenges all over the Internet, including Pop Sugar 2015 Reading Challenge, and made the list of my own.

Throughout the Year Challenge
- Goodreads Reading Challenge
- New-to-Me Authors Challenge

And each month I will attempt to at least read ONE BOOK based on the monthly themed challenges below. No DNF-book will be counted in this challenge, of course.

Monthly Themed Challenge

January
- First book in a series
- Book with one word title

February
- Book released in my year of birth (1979) (Most probably use this list or Google-it
- Young Adult/New Adult

March
- Book released in 2014
- Book in a series I've postponed

April
- Book from Self-Published Author
- Book that has been in my (virtual) TBR > 3 years

May
- Mystery/Detective/Thriller
- Collaborative fiction (written by at least two authors)

June
- Book with a name on the title
- Travel Books (most probably from This List)

July
- One book from NYT Bookseller List (from Jan - June 2015)
- Non fiction

August
- Book that turns into a movie
- Recommended to me (either through GR or through friends)

September
- Book I start but never finished (not the DNF ones, the everlasting postponed ones)
- Book that is longer than 400+ pages

October
- Foreign book translated to English (will probably use This List)
- Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Fairy Tales

November
- Anthology (and read ALL the stories in the anthology. No DNF allowed)
- Out of My Comfort Zone (can be sci-fi, threesome, incest, BDSM, F/F, est)

December
- Holiday-Themed Novel/Novella
- One book from NYT Bookseller List (from July - December 2015)


Let's see how successful I am at the end of December 2015 :)

CHEERS

AMI

My personal reading challenge theme for May was "URBAN FANTASY WITH MALE PROTAGONIST". This was proven to be a success -- maybe because I love Urban Fantasy in the first place and always love to be able to find good ones with male protagonist. Duly noted that I only discovered four new authors, but in total I read 10 books with this theme and loving each and everyone of them.

Here they are:

01) Nicholas Kauffman - Dying is My Business : 4 stars
02) Lish McBride - Hold Me Closer, Necromancer: 4 stars
03) Lish McBride - Necromancing the Stone : 4.5 stars
04) M.L. Brennan - Generation V : 4 stars
05) M.L. Brennan - Iron Knight: 4 stars
06) Glenn Bullion - Demonspawn: 4 stars
07) Glenn Bullion - A Witch to Live: 4 stars
08) Glenn Bullion - Jack Kursed: 4 stars
09) Glenn Bullion - Demon's Doorway: 4 stars
10) Glenn Bullion - Witch's Kurse: 4 stars

So what's in it for me in June? Well, the M/M Romance Group's Love's Landscape Event officially started. So I'll make it easy for myself as well. June will be all about this event. Will try to at least catching up with 2 - 3 LL stories a week.

Sadly I have to say that my April challenge was a total bust . To recap, my theme for April was MF romance steampunk. Apparently, the combination of sci-fi/technology and historical was not a good thing for. I DNF’ed few that I tried. In fact, the only books made it for this one were all written by one author as part of a series. So yeah, April challenge suck big time.

Here are the books I read for April challenge:

1.Kiss of Steel (London Steampunk #1) by Bec McMaster: 4 stars
2. Tarnished Knight (London Steampunk #1.5) by Bec McMaster: 4 stars
3. Heart of Iron (London Steampunk #2) by Bec McMaster: 5 stars
4.My Lady Quicksilver (London Steampunk #3) by Bec McMaster: 5 stars

Since my mood seems to be working against me, I decide to go easy for my May reading-challenge theme. There will be Harry Dresden #15 released at the end of this month, which I love, and I will go with THAT one as the basis. So I decide that my May reading challenge theme will be

URBAN FANTASY WITH MALE PROTAGONIST

The challenge is to find new urban fantasy series / book that I have not yet read of course, haha.

Urgh, the language style just throws me off. I'm NOT a fan of this advanced English of the yesteryear, since I'm not an English native. Also the know-it-all narration makes me feel distant from the characters. BUT, I'm trying to power through. It is a challenge after all

*Personal Reading Challenge Romance/Steampunk #1*"