Books I've Read this Month

I hope everyone is having a Happy Monday! So, I was doing Meme Monday, but I'm not crazy about keeping that going. Instead, I decided that since I want to do more reading this year, that maybe the last Monday of the month I can talk about the books I've read in that month. So, here goes!

First of all, this has been an odd month for me. Normally, I don't read this many books in a given month, but it just turned out that way, and I've really enjoyed the time spent reading.

1st book - Stolen by Kelley Armstrong (Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge): Wow, I only read Bitten last month, and I adored it. So I grabbed it the next book as soon as I could. I love Elena and Clay. I'm looking forward to more information on Paige, but the werewolves rock in this! This book was action packed, and I seriously wondered on occasion how Elena would ever get herself out of her predicament. I really enjoyed it. (Side note: I did start it at the end of December, but since I finished it in January it counts. lol) 5 stars.

2nd book - Fool Moon by Jim Butcher (Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge): I love Harry Dresden. I wish the TV show wouldn't have been cancelled before it had gotten off the ground, but ah well... I thought the first book was amazing. This book was really cool as well, but I thought it wasn't as awesome as the first one. Still gets a 4 star rating though. I love that it dealt with werewolves since I'm totally a werewolf fan.

3rd book - Dark Lies by Vivi Anna (Speculative Romance Challenge): I have to be honest. With this book, I've had it for a while and when I picked it up, I didn't realize it was book 2 in a series. I'm a stickler for reading series in order. If I haven't read the first one, etc., I won't read a book even if I want to unless I'm caught up. I didn't track down the first book here, I decided to pick it up and read it since I'd started it a few years ago and then got sidetracked. I didn't feel like I was lost having not read the first book here. I appreciated that. It also had an interesting plot. Although, the villain isn't handled fully but a minor villain is, so I think he's either in all the books or some more. I'm not sure. It was a good book though. I'm glad I finally read it. 4 stars.

4th book - Hexed Anthology (Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge): I read Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews and Ice Shards by Yasmine Galenorn in this book. I'm not going to read the other novellas, yet at least. I'm in the process of reading the Anna Strong books (just picked up book 2 from the library), so I'd prefer to read it when I get to that point in the series.

Magic Dreams by Ilona Andrews - 5 stars. I absolutely loved it! I love Ilona Andrews, but I wasn't completely sure how I would like a Dali/Jim story since I adore Kate/Curran. But this was SO good. I'd totally want to read a full Dali/Jim novel now.

Ice Shards by Yasmine Galenorn - 4 stars. I really enjoyed this story. I mostly read it because it had the Finnish element to it, and I love Finland. This was different than something I would normally read. Felt very fantasy-ish. I hadn't read the other books in the series, but I didn't feel clueless about what was going on. In fact, it made me want to read the other books.

Overall, I'd give the book 4.5 stars. Easy to figure out since I'd read two of the stories. lol

Currently Reading - Touch of Darkness by CT Adams and Cathy Clamp (Speculative Romance Challenge): I started this book in June of last year, but my time with it since I checked it out at the library expired, so I decided recently to get it off my "Currently Reading" and finally finish the series (hence I re-checked it out). I'll tell what I think about it next month since that's most likely when I'll have finished reading it. :-)

So, what have you read this month?