Looking Ahead – This Month’s TBR List (December 2017)

Before we get to today’s post, I just want to let you all know about my Twitter hiatus – I’m currently in “Twitter Jail.” Basically, Twitter thinks my account is a spam account due to the number of posts I’ve shared featuring links, so to combat this problem – I won’t be sharing any posts to Twitter for a while, until my account is back to normal.

Now that all my reviews for books read in November have been published, I’m linking up with Tina @ Reading Between the Pages to Look Ahead at the books I hope to read in December. This is a new monthly meme showcasing your monthly TBR and if you head over to Tina’s blog, you can submit your blog post link and see what others are reading and discover new blogs/books.

Already Read…

Reviews for The Foster Child by Jenny Blackhurst, The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor and Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan will be up on the blog this week.

Currently Reading…

I’m currently reading NOS 4R2 by Joe Hill in a group readalong on Instagram. It’s my first ever Joe Hill book and I’m enjoying it so far.

Summer. Massachusetts.

An old Silver Wraith with a frightening history. A story about one serial killer and his lingering, unfinished business.

Anyone could be next.

We’re going to Christmasland…

NOS4R2 is an old-fashioned horror novel in the best sense. Claustrophobic, gripping and terrifying, this is a story that will have you on the edge of the seat while you read, and leaving the lights on while you sleep. With the horrific tale of Charles Manx and his Silver Wraith, Joe Hill has established himself as the premiere horror and supernatural thriller writer of his generation.

I’m also reading my November Kindle First purchase – The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone’s on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to… Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.

The Rest of the Month – book clubs…

Babbling Book Club(Instagram book club) – The Cremator by Ladislav Fuks

A psychological horror story about a worker in a crematorium, who, through the influence of Nazi propaganda and oriental philosophy, becomes a maniac, and murders his entire family to “cleanse them” by death.

Black Heart Reads(Instagram book club) – The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schauffhausen

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She’s an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years–all around her birthday–Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he’s washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them…with a killer who can’t let go.

Criminally Good Book Club(Instagram book club) – Abandon by Blake Crouch

On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman, and child in a remote gold-mining town disappeared, belongings forsaken, meals left to freeze in vacant cabins—and not a single bone was ever found.

One hundred sixteen years later, two backcountry guides are hired by a history professor and his journalist daughter to lead them to the abandoned mining town so they can learn what happened. Recently, a similar party had also attempted to explore the town and was never heard from again. Now the area is believed to be haunted. This crew is about to discover, twenty miles from civilization with a blizzard bearing down, that they are not alone, and the past is very much alive.

The Book Bum Club(Goodreads Book Club) – The Theme for this month is ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ – read any book set in a cold, winter, or Christmas setting! I’ve chosen to read The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens – the cover alone is a perfect fit for the theme (not sure about the plot though, haha.)

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe’s life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl’s life, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Aided by his skeptical neighbor, Lila, Joe throws himself into uncovering the truth. Thread by thread, he begins to unravel the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

Salt Water Reads(Instagram book club) – I also want to read Little Broken Things by Nicole Baart but it’s sold out everywhere! Hopefully I can get a copy in time to join in but we’ll see.

The Rest of the Month – review copies & owned books…

**may change at any time dependent on my mood.

Ambitious, I know, but I’m nothing if not positive! Are we reading any of the same books this month? Look Ahead will be back in January with my TBR that I plan to kickstart the new year with.