Jen’s Monthly Glom- January 2014

My reading habits are notoriously random.  One week I will decide to read only Urban Fantasy and the next week I will shun that genre.  There will be times where every book I read stinks and times where I love everything and everyone.  One thing that also holds true is my love of the glom.  Merriam-Webster defines glom as: to take or get (something), glom on to:  to grab hold of :  appropriate to oneself.

My gloms almost always revolve around an author.  I find an author that is new to me and I go buy their entire backlist and spend a week or two reading it.  Nothing can stop me until I am fully glutted on that author’s work.  I decided to share my monthly glom will y’all in hopes that:

1) you might find a new to you author like I did and you can glom also
2) you can share your glom habits so I don’t feel so lonely and cray-cray
3) maybe you can steer me towards my next new-to-me author that I will glom on

January- Carolyn Crane

Right now everyone is thinking, who hasn’t read Carolyn Crane?  Well, I hadn’t and that was a gross oversight on my part.  Back in mid-December Off the Edge was offered for review and I knew that was my chance.  I loved the story.  Loved it so much that I went out and bought book 1 of the series, Against the Dark.  The new series by Ms. Crane is called The Associates and is about a bunch of yummy, alpha, badass men (and some women) and how they save the day.  I can’t wait for more.

I wasn’t done with Ms. Crane though.  Two books can never satisfy a glom.  From there I went on to the shining star of the month for me,  Ms. Crane’s Disillusionists series.  This is an Urban Fantasy series with the much-dreaded-by-me, love triangle.  I can honestly say I have never looked at a love triangle quite like I viewed this one.  To use the word conflicted would be putting it mildly.

I listened to the books on audio and there might have been times where I took the long way to work because I couldn’t stop listening.  The books are narrated by Rebecca Wisocky and she does an excellent job.  Between the sheer uniqueness and quirkiness of the storyline and the wonderful narration, I was hooked mere pages into book 1, Mind Games.

Books 2 and 3, Double Cross and Head Rush only served to suck me further under Ms. Crane’s hypnotic writing spell.  The concept of her Disillusionists series is a fascinating one and unlike any other story I have read.  UF fans will devour the series and likely end up just as confused as I was about certain resolutions and how they made you feel.

My reading binge of Carolyn Crane ended at 5 books for the month of January.  I have one more, Mr. Real, sitting on my kindle and then two from her alter ego, Annika Martin, waiting also.  I have been told the Annika Martin books are funky and super sexy so I am anxious to get to those also.  Plus is seems there is a Disillusionists short story and some other anthologies I cannot miss.

January’s monthly glom ended up giving me an author that I will happily follow (stalk) for a long time.  If you are looking for excellent romantic suspense or Urban Fantasy, go forth and glom with me on Carolyn Crane.