Recent Reads ... First in a Series

I've been getting a LOT of reading in recently! Most of it while on the stationary bike. Last week, I did 30minutes of reading/riding on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (in addition to my elliptical and Zumba).  I haven't been back on the bike since. I miss my reading/riding, I've just been filling my time with other stuff I guess.

As I read my books, I try to make sure I update my Goodreads account with a quick rating and review. This is more for me then for anyone else, but hopefully it might help others too. I know I appreciate all the ratings and reviews out there! I don't always get to my review immediate upon finishing my book, but I've tried to make it a habit to review any books I've finished during the week over the weekend. I've done well lately, and I've been reading so much, I was often reviewing 2-3 books a week!

I just looked back and several of my recent reads and realized many were all the first book in a series. Another common feature, I enjoyed them all (a nice change after the "blah books" from my last Recent Reads post). I plan on reading the next book in all my recent reads!  I thought I'd feature five of them here for my monthly book report. 

• Son of War. Daughter of Chaos: I picked this up for my April Kindle Prime borrowed book. While I want to continue on with the series, book 2 isn't written yet ...
• Mila 2.0: I quite liked this story, and the sequel was available immediately from the library ... but I did decide to deviate and pick up another book and come back to this one. I will in the very near future, but a couple of the other book sequels do have dibs.
• Bloodlines: I read the entire Vampire Academy series a couple years ago and really enjoyed them. This spin-off series was available back then (at least the first couple books) but I decided to wait. I've now started up again (and am currently reading book 2).
• Marked: This is available as a FREE Kindle download. Many authors (especially independent ones) will do this to introduce readers to a series and get them hooked. This one did that for me! Luckily I don't have to buy (I'm SO cheap!) as the sequels are available in the Kindle Lending Library. I'll grab book 2 as my borrowed book for May. **Parental perspective, this is an adult book (sexual content and language).
• Grasping at Eternity: I paid $.99 for this book, but I see as I'm writing this that it is also available as a free Kindle download (probably temporary though, grab it while you can). I quite liked it ... and its sequels are not available in the lending library, or my local library, so I may have to actually shell out some money to read them (they aren't very expensive at least, about $3 each). 

Back when I was reading growing up, there were several series out there. The Dragonriders of Pern, Anne of Green Gables, All Creatures Great and Small ... these were some of my favorites. I actually LOVED finding a series,  because then I KNEW what I'd be reading next. Now though ... it seems like there are so few stand alone books! Everything is a series. Sometimes I'm not sure I want to commit myself to reading several books back to back ... but waiting and reading others in-between often ends up with me forgetting storylines and characters.

With the exception of the first book I listed, I do believe the other series are complete (with three or more books to the series). I do want to read them, maybe in a future blog post I'll revisit and write about how it goes ... :)

You can check out my GoodReads account for full reviews/ratings of these five books.