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Felicia Fredlund

Writer. Editor. Reader.

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romance

Reader Report: October, 2019

Posted: November 13, 2019

Here comes what I read and watched in October this year. I also wanted to mention that I am very much still playing with this format. I’m not sure exactly what it will look like going forward, but I have a feeling it might change.

Just wanted to let you all know, but it’ll stay this way at least until the end of the year.

Bring on the Dusk cover imageFirst up is Bring on the Dusk by M.L. Buchman. A military romance that is oh so good. Matt is an extremely talented writer and his romances are excellent. I’ve read a lot of his romances and most of his thrillers.

This one is a part of a series called Night Stalkers, but considering they are romances you can read them out of order. Although if you enjoy this one, I’d go ahead and get them all.

In fact, as I double-checked some info when writing this I realized I still had one novel left in the main part of the series and I went ahead and bought it.

I look forward to reading it soon!

Next up a bit of non-fiction, Deep Work by Cal Newport. This books talks about concentration as a skill, about being able to do work that needs a lot of focus, and also talks about different practices that are needed or can be used to achieve this focus.

Deep Work cover imageA concept that some would know by the name of flow, rather than deep work.

As someone who grew up with technology close at hand, although I actually had a couple of cellphones that weren’t smartphones because smartphones didn’t exist yet. So I didn’t grow up with tablets, and a computer in my pocket.

I grew up with Nintendo consoles, GameBoys and then migrated to stationary computers, until my late teens when I got my first laptop.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get across is the fact that I’ve spent a large part of my life online. In fact, I have at times felt locked to my devices as if without them I wouldn’t know how to live.

And if I suddenly had to live without a lot of them, I would be at a loss. So many hours of my day is taken up by a computer. I’d also be devastated at the loss of my ebook library which contains all my favorite books and a long to-be-read pile.

The book Deep Work isn’t about giving up technology or anything like that, but is about reducing the impact of certain things online (social media, for example) to create space and focus enough to do complicated work. And complicated work tends to be a lot more reward in the long run than reading another blog post.

I quite enjoyed the book and it helped me renew my commitment to spending more of my off time away from the computer. There are so many things I enjoy that doesn’t need an internet connection and a screen, and I’d really like to spend more time doing them.

This book helped. I also think it will help me craft good work habits so that I can get what I need done in less time, thereby having more free time to do those fun non-screen activities.

Good Omens TV Show promo imageSince that recommendation was a tad bit long, let’s move on to the last one: Good Omens the TV-show. Last month I mentioned Good Omens the book (buy link). A book that I usually call my favorite if pressed to just pick one book.

I didn’t know if the TV-show would be any good, but a friend of mine watched it and said it was.

I can only agree. It was excellent!

It followed the book closely, which didn’t surprise me since Neil Gaiman (one of the authors of the book) was very involved in its development. The script for one thing was written by him. And the TV-show even elaborated on some points from the book.

Crowley and Aziraphale were so much fun to watch. Very well acted, and I also loved the additional scenes for them that aren’t in the book.

I can highly recommend the TV-show even if you haven’t read the book. I think it is only available with Amazon Prime right now (part of their Prime video collection), but it is well worth a watch.

Those are my top recommendations from October. I hope there was something you enjoyed in the bunch.

Filed Under: Reader

Reader Report: August, 2019

Posted: September 13, 2019

Here we are again, this is what I have read, played, seen, and experienced in August that stuck with me. (Yeah, I don’t mention everything, only things I finished that I thought were great.)

Subsurface Circular is a very short game. Took me about 2 hours to play. It is a mystery game where you are stuck in one place (a subway car), and you talk to the people who get on. And try to solve a mystery.

Short and charming. I enjoyed my time with it. Although it doesn’t really have replay value from what I could research (I haven’t replayed it myself), it is possible to just replay certain sections.

I read a great historical romanced called Someone to Love by Mary Balogh. It was a little confusing in the beginning for me. I haven’t read a Regency romance in a while, so I needed to get used to that time period, but beyond that there were a few too many characters to keep straight for the first couple of chapters. (More name dropping than characters showing up, but still.)

However, I figured I’d get it straightened out eventually, and I did. (Plus there is a family tree at the start of the book, at least the ebook.) And even with that confusion I couldn’t stop reading because it was so much fun.

I throughtly enjoyed the whole book. And the premise is handled really well, in my opinion.

I’ll most likely pick up the rest of the series eventually. (This was the first book.)

Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson (aka Kristine Kathryn Rusch) is on this list because I really enjoyed it, but it was a bit slow to start for me. Still not so slow that it let me go. Charming Blue is part of a world of stories from Kris, all of them very good (I can only speak for the ones I’ve read, but still). Some more fluffy than others, some really good young adult stories. If you like charming (yes, charming) contemporary romance with fairy tale and/or greek mythology magic, then this series is for you.

I particularly like it when I need some light reading in my life. Although it can get serious too.

To finish of this month’s reader report I want to point to two different YouTube channels I enjoy a lot. One of them I only recently discovered, and the other I discovered a few months ago, but I’ve been binging both although I have not seen every video on either channel because there are a LOT of videos.

WeezyWaiter, aka Craig Benzine. I’m not even sure how to describe this channel. Whatever it is, it is usually funny, has great video editing, and also sprinkles in some wisdom. Recent videos are mostly about different monthly challenges Craig Benzine (and sometimes his wife Chyna) have tried and how they went. Pretty hilarious.

The channel has been around for a long time so it has changed in content over time, so there is a lot to see. And a lot of laughs to have.

I actually found WeezyWaiter from watching older videos of Vlogbrothers. The Vlogbrothers are John and Hank Green. (John Green wrote the rather famous book: The Fault in Our Stars, which I haven’t read.) That channel started because the two brothers apparently wanted to do an experiment by only communicating through video for a whole year (or that is how I understand it begun).

And then it went on and on and many things have come from it like these YouTube channels: 100 Days (John and his best friend have a very fit mid-life crisis)—I really enjoyed watching this a couple of years ago—and Crash Course—I have watched several of the courses.

In fact, I think the first Vlogbrothers related YouTube content I consumed was The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is a hilarious modern remake of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet have a vlog. I can very much recommend this!

(Actually, now that I think about it. I probably watched something from Crash Course first. But still a good segue to talk about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.)

And that will be all for this month. Just the YouTube content would keep you entertained for way more than a month, especially if you get into all the Vlogbrother things. My top recommendation is the historical romance Someone to Love by Mary Balogh though. Enjoyed that one a whole lot.

Filed Under: Reader

Reader Report: July, 2019

Posted: August 13, 2019

Since this is my first reader report, let me explain what it is. This is a non-exhaustive list of stuff I read, saw, played, and experienced in the past month. A bit like my Great Entertainment posts. But instead of writing up reviews of each item separately, this is a list of highlights from the past month.

Cover image of Storm Cursed by Patricia BriggsRight on, let’s start with books I read.

Top of my mind is Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs, book 11 of the Mercy Thompson series. This book was sooo good, but not a good starting point for the series/world.

Read my post on the Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega books to find a good starting point.

I recommend every book and story set in this world. Obviously some are more to my taste than others, but if you fall in love of the world, I have still liked all stories I’ve read.

Japanese fairy tales. If you enjoy fairy tales, I can definitely recommend Japanese ones if you haven’t read those. I do not know if the ones I’ve reading are sanitized (like Disney did with the Grimm fairy tales), but I’m enjoying them nonetheless.

I am reading them in Japanese though, in simplified versions written for Japanese learners, so no reason to link them here. (Any Japanese learners out there can contact me through the contact page if interested in them.)

My suspicion is that my versions are sanitized because all fairy tales I’ve read in original form tends to be more gory, but maybe that is just a European thing and I need to read more fairy tales from more cultures.

If you have any good recommendations of books with fairy tales from other cultures, or even from European ones that aren’t Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. I’m interested in reading them. (I do know of Arabian nights and Aesop too.)

Lastly I’ve been rereading the In Death series by J.D. Robb (pen name of Nora Roberts). I’m almost back to the latest book. The characters, the mysteries, and the relationships are all soooooo good. I really love this series and it will hit 50 books next year. Just wow!

The characters grow/change, but still remain true to themselves; their changing however does shift the feel of the series a bit. Just like happens in many long series.

Rereading the whole series is a huge reading commitment, so maybe it is obvious just how much I love it. (I also wrote a Great Entertainment post on it, read it here.)

Cover image of Blue Smoke By Nora RobertsAnd while I wrote about the books above, I remembered another new-to-me book I read this month. Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts. Romance, with a bit of detecting in it (aka romantic suspense). Modern day for when it was written. *Goes to look it up* Published in 2005. Which made me realize it did have cellphones towards the end of the book. (It spans quite a bit of time.)

I enjoyed reading this. While I am a bigger fan of Nora Robert’s J.D. Robb books, aka the series I mentioned above, I certainly tend to enjoy the NR books too. And this was no exception.

Now on to other things!

I visited Nijo castle (二条城) in Kyoto. You can walk around the inside of some of it, and that was amazing. Unfortunately you can’t take photos, so I can’t share any. It showed a lot of the old woodwork details, painted ceilings and wall paintings. Some amazingly beautiful rooms.

Then there was the garden around it. It is a huge complex. There is even a very small Japanese garden right by a tea house were you can get tea and sweets, and some food.

I had some matcha with traditional Japanese sweets. So very good.

Promo image of the game Cadence of Hyrule

I played a Switch game that was recently released. Cadence of Hyrule is a rhythm and rogue-lite game. A Zelda themed version of Crypt of the Necrodancer. I never played the original game, but I really enjoyed Cadence of Hyrule. In fact, I finished my first play through after only a couple of weeks of owning the game. (That is unusually fast for me.)

That is it for July. What did you read/consume in July? Something old (but new to you)? Something new? An old favorite?

Filed Under: Reader

Great Books: In Death series by J. D. Robb

Posted: January 13, 2019

This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.

They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.

They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.

Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci

In Death series by J. D. Robb

Edgy crime with a dose of romance.

That is how I’d describe the In Death series by J. D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts). This series is over 40 books long and the first one is called Naked in Death.

I love the protagonist in this one. Tough, kickass, and used to bulling her way through her emotions and her free time. She’s a NYPD detective and head of the homicide squad.

Man, just writing these few words of it has me excited to reread the whole series and I did that last year, all 40+ books of it.

This one for me is what I really look for in crime/mystery novels. I’ve previously mainly gotten my crime fix on TV with shows such as NCIS, Criminal Minds, Person of Interest, Elementary and more. I’m sure I’ll have a couple of posts covering some of those shows.

This series have that crime of the week with great characters and a dark edge (that sometimes goes very dark). Unlike some crime of the week though, the main detective and everyone around her keeps growing and changing with all the things that happen to them.

I go to this series when I want that dark edge, but with the safety net of knowing it is a mystery novel so the crime will be solved.

Filed Under: Reader

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About Felicia Fredlund

Felicia Fredlund writes in multiple genres and for both adults and young adults. Her quest is to entertain, offering her readers exciting adventures and emotional … Read More about About Felicia Fredlund

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