What the Wenches are Reading

There’s a lot of holiday reading either going on right now or coming up soon for the Wenches. A few lucky Wenches are rereading one of our favorite series, Chicagoland Vampires, to prepare for meeting the amazing author herself! (The rest of us must be content to stay home and turn green with envy!) A few of us have a new release that we’ve been anticipating, namely the next Immortals After Dark installment; others are preparing for the new Charley Davidson book due out today!! (We’ll be sharing our thoughts on all the releases with you of course, Saucy Readers!) And some of us are resisting all this temptation and savoring old favorites.

Click through to see what we’ve been up to!




Anne: I’m still ensconced in the lovey Cut & Run world, but I’m vacation this week so I’ll be getting a LOT of reading done!

Angela: Well, on holiday in lovely, sunny Australia I read Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep, and it wasn’t that great. I had actually read it previously, and obviously first time around it wasn’t memorable, as I didn’t remember the author or book from last time. I would definitely give this series a miss; it was just plain boring to me. Given it was meant to be a book about an assassin, I thought I would enjoy it.

Barbara: I’m still reading House Rules, in anticipation of the release of Biting Bad in one month! I also had a road trip this weekend and listened to the first half, or so, of the audiobook for 77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz. I found my mind wandering over the events of the weekend and could not concentrate enough to listen on the way home, but I’ll be listening during my commutes until I finish it.

Donna: I’ve taken a break from the Elemental Assassin series. I was getting tired of Gin using her ice talent as a parlour trick. I can only read about her making her own ice cubes and frosting people’s milk glasses so many times, ya know? Kresley Cole’s MacRieve (Immortals After Dark series) was released this week, and it was a nice change of pace. It’s the story of Uilleam (Will) MacRieve, half of the Hot and Hotter Twins, who finally finds his one-and-only mate after many centuries alone. Naturally, there are lots of hurdles to overcome.

Kathi: This is so embarrassing I almost pretended I didn’t read anything. Finished The Unwinding, which as I said last week was absolutely stunning but serious nonfiction. I knee jerked right into First Grave on the Right because I needed something light and humorous, and it was perfect. For a couple of nights. I got about halfway through. Then I didn’t have time to read for a few days. And then...drumroll...Starz announced it had cast the role of Jamie Fraser for its upcoming Outlander tv series. And Diana Gabaldon gushed about the actor’s audition on her Facebook page. And I watched his showreel on YouTube, and wonder of wonders I could finally start putting a face on Jamie Fraser. So I started reading Outlander again. I never had found an audio book to read while gardening this summer, so now I have. (I was supposed resume my series reread with book 4, *after* a respectable period of time had elapsed. *hangs head in shame, secretly smiles shamelessly* But all the talk about young Jamie made me go back to the first one.)

Merit: Skimming back through the Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones while waiting for book 5, Fifth Grave Past the Light. The book will be released while you read this post (July 9). This is such a fun and entertaining series. Good story, great characters, and sizzling romance. “Never knock on death’s door. Ring the doorbell then run. He totally hates that.”

Natalie: Sadly, I’ve not been reading or getting the chance to read lately. I am going to try to make some headway in Dragonfly in Amber and maybe restart my Chicagoland Vampires in prep for seeing Chloe Neill in August.

Veronica: I’ve been marathoning Supernatural and reading some really great fanfic this week, but I also read Texts from Bennett by Mac Lethal; Mac is an underground rapper who is something of a grammar freak (he wrote a song about using “your” vs “you’re”) and his first book is about his aunt and cousin coming to live with him. The book is hilarious, not exactly what I was expecting, and was a really good read.

Zee: Starting Neil Gaiman’s American Gods again. Unfortunately, have had a hard time sitting down and reading lately, so it might take me a while!