Jacquelyn Dohoney
Monthly Reads!
Monthly Reads!
Hello and welcome to my bookish little section of the internet! Here is where you'll find all of my reads by month! The title of each book includes a link to buy it, so make sure you do! I love sharing books with people! And now, on with the show!
January 31, 2025
Hello everyone! This month has been go go go with writing this thesis novel, so let’s jump right into it! As you can see, I have an interesting mix of books for January. Both volumes of Cops and Writers by Patrick J. O’Donnell, FBI: Myths and Misconceptions by Jerri Williams, and Advanced Interviewing Techniques by Jack Shafer and Joe Navarro were fantastic resources for my thesis. It’s part crime thriller, part speculative. We’ll see how well I can make those two genres work! Red Queen (my favorite read of the month) and Black Wolf by Juan Gómez-Jurado were AMAZING, I will accept no arguments to the contrary. I originally hoped they might be good comps, but it turns out they were too old. They were originally published in Spain a few years ago. But the good news is that Amazon made the first book into a series that I will definitely be diving into after this thesis madness is over! In the meantime, go read them!
The rest of the month’s reads were ARC reviews, and what a great collection! The Rising was a delightfully dark collection of zombie tales by one of my favorite horror authors, Brian Keene. He is a master of all things zombie, but if that doesn’t convince you, there’s also a tough little chihuahua who does some surprising things along with some killer artwork to boot! (Sorry not sorry). I was stoked to snag a copy of Isabella Maldonado’s A Killer’s Code because I love her books, but also because she’s one of my comps. Five stars all the way around for this series! At the Bottom of the Garden was a solid paranormal read with an incredibly satisfying ending. If you’re looking for a revenge read, this is a good one. Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson was a fantastic read, and I also got the bonus of a lightbulb moment while reading it that helped me get rid of one of those pesky plot holes. (So thank you Carter!) Stone Certainty was a super fun read by legendary author, Simon R. Green. Mr. Green, I’m still mourning the loss of the Nightside series. I’m begging you to bring it back!
The Vanishing Wife by Nichole Severn is the second book in the Leigh Brody series, and let me tell you, this one had me heated! It’s always a great sign when a book is written so well it gets you right in the feels! And last but certainly not least, Cold as Hell by one of my all time favorite authors, Kelley Armstrong. Yes, I know you already know because I’m always singing her praises. What can I say, I’m a fan. This book is a five star read as is the rest of the series, so do yourself a favor and go buy it because it’s incredible!
That’s it folks! I somehow managed to read 13 books while still writing my thesis. How? When you figure it out, make sure to let me know. Catch all of my in-depth reviews on my Goodreads links at the bottom of the page and see what else is on my TBR list!
December 31, 2024
Happy holidays everyone! Wow, what a year this has been! Not only did I manage to have a very productive reading month, I also officially finished my core MFA classes! That doesn’t really mean much of anything for you, but for me it means I’m ready to enter a whole new chapter. (See what I did there?) In just a few days, I’ll be starting my thesis classes. Eight long months of writing and editing an entire novel. I apologize in advance because I’m going to be absolutely insufferable. In the meantime, how about some book talk!
Take a look at those numbers! Eleven books, and 9 of them were ARCs! Which one was my favorite for the month? I bet you’re going to guess it was Strategic Social Media by Mahoney and Tang. Not a bad guess because the book is pretty interesting if social media marketing is important to you. (It probably should be, but I digress). My favorite for the month was hands down Memorials by Richard Chizmar. It had those eighties horror vibes that I can never get enough of! Worth the read for sure if you’re a horror lover, so make sure you go get your hands on a copy when it comes out!
I was also super excited to get a chance to read ARCs of the next two books in the Bishop Smoky Mountain series, The Company You Keep and One by One by Lauren Street. I love this series (clearly because I’m still holding strong and we’re at ten books now). The Killer Instinct by Kate Wiley is part of another great series that I can’t get enough of, so it’s a good thing I got an ARC of this bad boy too because I’ve been climbing the walls waiting for it to come out! Definitely a five star read! Speaking of five star reads, Five Names by Adam Lyndon was another one, and I’m so sad this is the last book in the series! I’ve gotten quite attached to Detective Rutherford Barnes!
I also received an ARC for Shadow Lab, an amazing anthology of short stories. I got my first introduction to the Helldivers with one of these shorts and immediately went and downloaded the first Helldivers book after reading it because how could I not?! There were some serious Alastair Reynolds vibes going on that I absolutely loved! Leave the Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz was not exactly what I was looking for (it read more like a young adult mystery than an adult thriller) and was very much a slooooooooooooow burn. But if that’s your jam, you may want to try it.
And now for the final three! Robin Cook treated us to something very much out of his norm with Bellevue. Honestly, I think it got a bad rap. It’s one of his worst reviewed books, but I dug it. If it were written by anyone else, I think it would have done much better in the review department. If you’re looking to mix your medical thriller with some paranormal action, I definitely recommend it. Head Cases by John McMahon is the first in a very cool new series. I was hooked instantly. If you like FBI thrillers with a different angle than the norm, this is a must read. And finally, Anatomy and Embalming by Albert John Nunnamaker. This one was research for my thesis. I’m not going to give it away, but let’s just say this was a fantastic read and very useful in the research department! Want to read the full reviews? Click the link for my Goodreads at the bottom of the page to get access to all of my reviews!
November 30, 2024
¡Feliz Dia de Los Muertos, friends! This was a busy month! Did you check the graphic? This one was so much fun to make! These pictures came from actual Dia de Los Muertos celebrations I was lucky enough to attend in my second home, Progreso, Yucatán! (That’s me at the cemetery!) That month, we rode our motorcycles from Salt Lake City to Belize and back in 30 days. We took part in celebrations in Progreso, Mérida, and Córdoba! So much fun!
In any case, this isn’t just about celebrating. Or maybe it is! I finally got to catch up a little on my massive TBR list! 9 out of these 10 books were ARC reviews and they were all very different but very cool! I’m betting you can guess which one was for school! All joking aside, if you’re a writer, you should definitely check out Everybody Writes by Anne Hadley. It was a really nice change from the same old dry as hell book marketing books!
And now, for my favorite read of the month. I’m going to have to go with (you guessed it!) Schemes and Scandals by Kelley Armstrong! And not just because she’s one of my favorite authors. Even though this story is a bit shorter than what I normally read, I loved it. This whole series is fantastic. Time traveling detectives, body swapping, and murder?! Yes please! This little novella was a great taster for book four in the series, Death at a Highland Wedding, which is coming up in just a few months! And do I have the ARC already? Why yes, I do! So, you can expect a review of that one soon! As always, you can click the link at the bottom of the page to get the full list of all of my reviews, and all of these books are on there!
October 31, 2024
Hello ghouls and gals! I’m really excited to share my newest blog post with you! This one is going to be a little different than my other posts! A lot of my followers ask what I read, so I figured it was time to share that beyond my GoodReads account! Let me welcome all of you to my Monthly Reads blog post! I will be updating this blog every month so you can see what I’m reading, and hopefully I can get some great reccs from you all as well!
My first post is very fitting for me, it’s my Halloween reads! (Check out my husband’s sweet costume!)
This month I was a little light on what I wanted to read because school was… well, school. But I did get my spooky on! Now, I wouldn’t call The Language of Fiction spooky, but it was my second time reading it. That may put some writerly fear into some of you! But this month was full of amazing reads, all of which were five stars in my humble opinion.
I got some serial killer action with Fatal Intrusion and Exposure. I got some absolutely incredible dark academia with Hell Bent. And I got a really unique dark fantasy with Selene Shade: Resurrectionist for Hire. I capped the month off with horror by reading Sleep Tight and The Devil by Name. And that, my friends, is where the prize was. If you haven’t read Keith Rosson’s duology (Fever House and The Devil by Name), I highly recommend you do so! I absolutely could not put it down! It was creepy in all the best ways and rocketed to my number one pick of the year. So, if you want a book that really crawls under your skin and scares the bejesus out of you, go pick it up! I guarantee, you won’t be disappointed! What are your thoughts?
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