prosnewsletter | Member Posts

about my 2025 books:

i read 323 books this year, 11 more than last: 280 fiction & 43 nonfiction

55 of the 280 fiction books were novellas or short stories

female / other gender authors:

fiction: ♀ 246 books by 112 authors
fiction: other gender: 34 books by 27 authors

nonfiction: ♀ 33 books by 31 authors
nonfiction: other gender: 10 books by 11 authors

total: ♀ 279 books by 143 authors
total: other gender: 44 books by 38 authors

some books are collaborations w/ more than 1 author, all of whom are counted

includes 31 fiction & nonfiction anthologies w/ multiple authors of which only the editors or translators are counted

most books read by a single author:

fiction: 15 by 🇨🇦♀ karin lowachee - includes some short stories

nonfiction: 7 by 🇨🇦♀ naomi klein

any translated books?

fiction: 15 total - 1 each from chinese, german, icelandic, japanese, norwegian, old english, polish, & russian | 2 each from korean & spanish | 3 from arabic

nonfiction: 5 total - 1 each from german, japanese, polish, russian, & spanish

longest title:

🇬🇧♀ natasha bache - 12 ways to kill your family at christmas: bloody gripping story for fans of crimes & dark humour for the 2025 festive season (2025)

shortest title:

🇬🇧 john wyndham - web (1979)

1st book read in 2025:

🇨🇦♀ premee mohamed - siege of burning grass (2024)

last book read in 2025:

🇳🇴♀ ingvild rishøi - winter stories (2025)

1st book finished in 2026:

🇷🇴♀ ioana visan - broken people 0: nightingale circus (2014)

( 3-star books - 2025 - fiction )

⭕️⭕️⭕️

( 3-star books - 2025 - nonfiction )

previous reading memes: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

kitarella_imagines

Snowflake Challenge: A mug of coffee or hot chocolate with a snowflake shaped gingerbread cookie perched on the rim sits nestled amidst a softly bunched blanket. A few dried orange slices sit next to it.

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Post your answer to today's challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

~~~~

I'm introverted and cautious, creative and imaginative, well past middle age. I've always been obsessed with writing stories and won't ever stop. I'm just doing the Snowflake Challenge to entertain myself in this cold, dull time of the year. I hope to enjoy some nice chats with people.

I tend to throw myself into fandoms, write a lot of fics, then move onto the next one. The only fandom that endures with me is Motorcycling RPF, I love those guys!

Other fandoms I have dabbled in are:

• Bergerac
• Blake's 7
• Bridgerton
• The D Train
• Downton Abbey
• Formula 1
• Glee
• It Ain't Half Hot Mum
• Men's Football RPF
• Neighbours
• Our Flag Means Death
• Plebs
• The Professionals
• Vikings Valhalla
• We Are Not Alone
• The Witcher

I also run my funny fic challenge for this grim time of year called Funuary, obviously a play on the word January. See my posts on my journal page. ANYONE is welcome to join in and write a funny fic, of any length, any fandom.

Current Mood: calm

gilda_elise

It’s the near future, 2025. Climate change, ignored by too many, left unaddressed or under-addressed by the world's nations, has grown worse at speeds far beyond our most dire predictions. World-wide destruction is now unstoppable. Monster storms rage across the planet, giant wildfires reduce forests, cities, and towns to ash.

In the second story, an ancient virus released from the thawing tundra lays waste to humanity.

Lonely survivors of the imagined apocalypse tell their stories of Earth’s last days.

The book is divided into two stories, both of which focus on one survivor. As far as they know, there are very few others left.

The first story Alone, takes place after a pandemic kills the vast majority of the human race. A survivor wanders through what is left. I really liked how it’s presented; there are no monsters, only a lone man trying to figure out how he’ll live out the rest of his days. With nothing but time, he creates a place for himself. Though civilization, and most of mankind, is gone, his life is still fulfilling.

The second story, Tipping Point, is more frightening. The survivor’s father tried to warn people, but was basically ignored. So he turned his efforts to making sure that he and his son would survive. Though they have tools and a safe harbor, much of the earth is dying. By the end of the story the survivor is alone. His fate is uncertain.

Both stories are haunting and well told. They’re fiction that could easily be non-fiction.

This is actually my last book review for 2025. And I managed to fulfill all my book challenges:

( Mount TBR 2025 Book Links 1-55 )

56. Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack by F. Paul Wilson
57. Followed Home (Exalls Attacks, Book 1) by Andre Gonzalez
58. The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman
59. One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky
60. Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
61. A Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins
62. X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II by Leah Garrett
63. Strange Stories II: The Empty Earth by Roger Mannon

kitarella_imagines

I really hope 2026 is a much better year for the world.

But I really, really want to wish my friends on Dreamwidth a great year ahead. May all your problems be solved, and you find friends and fun to make you happy. 🥂🍾

(photo by Cody Chan)

Current Mood: grateful

kitarella_imagines

Happy New Year!

Funuary is here again! I will be posting in the collection on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Funuary

And the specific Funuary 2026 series on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/5574396

I decided to post most of the fics on AO3 this year as 7/8 of them are Motorsport RPF and no one on Dreamwidth is particularly interested in that fandom.

But if you fancy a laugh, do take a look on AO3 as the fics are VERY silly and rated T so should not offend anyone.

Current Mood: mischievous

gilda_elise

The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now

June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad.

Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.

Given how much print and film has been given to the Holocaust, I’m surprised that I’d never heard of this unit. Because it’s a story that truly should be known. Boys, and they were boys when their journeys began, give up their identities in order to fight against the Nazi regime. Most do not know what has happened to the families they left behind, but they are willing to do just about anything in order to help bring down the people who destroyed their world.

Many would die, But many of those who survived would never go back to who they had been. Oddly enough, it would mostly be those who emigrated to the US who would take back their original names, become Jewish again. But many would become thoroughly British.

For the first time I could actually follow the battles, these men coming alive as they made their way from Normandy beach and across Europe. Theirs is truly an amazing story.

( Mount TBR 2025 Book Links 1-55 )

56. Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack by F. Paul Wilson
57. Followed Home (Exalls Attacks, Book 1) by Andre Gonzalez
58. The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman
59. One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky
60. Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
61. A Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins
62. X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II by Leah Garrett

X Troop

kitarella_imagines

We just went to our local motocross track for a couple of hours watching the racing! Well, the riders were just practising as a special Christmas session.

A man online said 'if you like watching motor racing, go to your local track and support them.' So we did! I found the nearest track, a 10 minute drive away, and had a bit of fun watching the riders. It was very cold though so we didn't stay long.

And it was all free! Free parking, free spectating. We paid nothing! Which was a huge attraction.

We are experienced enough to know what to wear by now however. It is 5 or 6 layers, FYI. I had 2 layers of underwear, t-shirt, cardigan, thick coat with a hood. Knee socks, wellies, woolly hat, woolly tube scarf, gloves. If you go watching motor racing in any sort of cold season (i.e. September to April in Britain), that is what you need.

So we'll definitely do that again! We thought, even if we go and it's not fun, it was only a 10 minute drive. But it was fun, parking was easy and although we tried to be too clever finding a short cut back home that was down tiny country lanes, we made it there and back safely.

Current Mood: jubilant

kitarella_imagines

My fourth update of the year.

Just a reminder:

The Maiden or Goddess season is January, February, March.
The Mother or Nurturer season is April, May, June.
The Wild or Queen season is July, August, September.
The Wise or Crone season is October, November, December.

Well no fics to report this year, apart from the Funuary fics I've been writing during this season, which of course I'll post in January. I started out thinking I could write one or two but then inspiration struck, the characters started trying to get my attention...and EIGHT fics arrived.

However, seven of them are MotoGP RPF, so I decided I'm just going to post them on AO3 as there's no MotoGP fandom on Dreamwidth. The other Funuary fic is not RPF and a secret, so I'll be posting it here!

Happy New Year, too!

Current Mood: happy

gilda_elise

The acclaimed author of AMERICAN DIRT reveals the devastating effects of a shocking tragedy in this landmark true crime book: the first ever to look intimately at the experiences of both the victims and their families.

A RIP IN HEAVEN is Jeanine Cummins' story of a night in April, 1991, when her two cousins Julie and Robin Kerry, and her brother, Tom, were assaulted on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River just outside of St. Louis.

When, after a harrowing ordeal, Tom managed to escape the attackers and flag down help, he thought the nightmare would soon be over. He couldn't have been more wrong. Tom, his sister Jeanine, and their entire family were just at the beginning of a horrific odyssey through the aftermath of a violent crime, a world of shocking betrayal, endless heartbreak, and utter disillusionment. It was a trial by fire from which no family member would emerge unscathed.

I can’t begin to imagine what the author and her family went through, having two members of their family murdered. But what probably made more of an impression on me is what happened afterwards. How did someone who had escaped this nightmare end up having to live through another? It says a lot, and none of it good, about our legal system.

The murder was done by four men with little or no conscience, four men who had little regard for life or the truth. But what was done to Tom afterwards was done by men who were supposed to be society’s protectors. Maybe Tom did say some things that I never would have in the same situation, but that doesn’t let the police off the hook. They lied, misled him when it came to his rights, and only stopped harassing him after the true perpetrators were practically handed to them.

Was the writer being so close to the crime a detriment when it came to telling the story? Did she bend the story too much to one side? Maybe, but I can’t say that I blame her. The men who were found guilty of her cousins’ murders did not deny most of their actions; they just blamed each other for the murders.

gilda_elise

An original short story anthology based on master storyteller Stephen King’s #1 New York Times bestselling classic The Stand!

Since its initial publication in 1978, The Stand has been considered Stephen King’s seminal masterpiece of apocalyptic fiction, with millions of copies sold and adapted twice for television. Although there are other extraordinary works exploring the unraveling of human society, none have been as influential as this iconic novel—generations of writers have been impacted by its dark yet ultimately hopeful vision of the end and new beginning of civilization, and its stunning array of characters.

Now for the first time, Stephen King has fully authorized a return to the harrowing world of The Stand through this original short story anthology as presented by award-winning authors and editors Christopher Golden and Brian Keene. Bringing together some of today’s greatest and most visionary writers, The End of the World As We Know It features unforgettable, all-new stories set during and after (and some perhaps long after) the events of The Stand—brilliant, terrifying, and painfully human tales that will resonate with readers everywhere as an essential companion to the classic, bestselling novel.

I’d already read reviews of this book, a lot of them not very good, when I finally got around to reading it myself. Turns out I have to agree with those who found the book to be something of a disappointment. While there are good stories, they don’t balance out those that aren’t.

I think my biggest disappointment was how so many of them had little to do with the original story, other than the Captain Tripps pandemic. And even that felt like an afterthought. Even worse, so many of them are without hope. They end has come. Period.

There are a few stories that I liked. I think my favorite was The Mosque at the End of the World and Make Your Own Way. I felt I really got to the characters and came to care what happened to them. I can almost add Lenora to that list except that it took an unexpected turn.

I’m not a great fan of short stories, so that might have had something to do with the low rating. I much would have preferred a handful of novellas. Or maybe I’ll just reread The Stand. Sounds good.

Goodreads 70.1

Black, gray, orange, or red cover
1. The Fireman by Joe Hill
2. The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand by Christopher Golden

Let It Snow - 1st Three.jpg

kitarella_imagines

So today we have the final chapter AND a missing scene from Chapter 4! As a Christmas treat.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! 🎅🎁🎄

Too Many Of You Fellas Are Bent

Chapter 7 – The Unprofessionals

A revelation of truth.

***

It was no good keeping secrets from Doyle, though, he always knew when Bodie was hiding something from him. The next day in the car, he barked, “come on. Out with it.” He was driving and looking at the road, so Bodie couldn’t really see his expression.

“Okay then…erm—well—turns out the operators have got money riding on when Lucas, McCabe and us two are going to be found out.” Bodie watched him carefully for signs of an impending explosion of rage.

When they stopped at a traffic light, Doyle stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

Bodie stared at him in surprise. “Glad you’re taking it so calmly.”

“Well, you know…for some reason…I feel more relaxed these days.” He patted Bodie’s thigh.

“Aww…But…shall we tell Lucas and McCabe about the betting?”

“Erm…yeah. Wouldn’t be any fun playing against them if they don’t even know the game.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Ray?”

They both laughed this time.

So after telling their friends the situation, for the next week both couples competed with each other as to who could be the least affectionate and most business-like with their partner. They were growling and snapping or ignoring each other at every possible opportunity, and then of course making up when they thought they were alone.

***

Then one day Cowley called all four of them into his office. “Gentlemen,” he said, as they sat there looking like schoolboys who had been hauled in to see the headmaster. “Your behaviour with your work colleagues is going beyond the limits of professionalism.”

The agents exchanged glances, wondering if he meant they'd been too surly with each other? Or the opposite and they’d been caught canoodling too much?

( Read more... )

Current Mood: giggly

kitarella_imagines

So a couple of months ago the huge tree overhanging our garden was cut down AT LAST. Now via Freegle I've given away a shrub that was in a pot, but grew through it and is now 7 feet tall!

Removing it has made our garden so much lighter and larger. Well it was that size anyway, but now we can see the whole garden clearly. There is one other plant to give away, much smaller but we'll see if that is claimed.

As ever, my mum decided that we should do what she wanted, so she bought and planted this shrub for us. That was 20 years ago, then I had a baby and was far too busy to worry about the garden, and the plant just grew and grew!

So now it's gone to a good home. A nice young guy came and cut it out of the ground and took it away to his garden where he has some more plants of the same species to make a screen or something.

It was slightly sad to see the shrub go but it was necessary. Now if/when we move house, prospective buyers will see the full size of the garden!

Current Mood: thankful

kitarella_imagines

Just wanted to say Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Festive Greetings to all my friends on Dreamwidth and anyone else reading this!

May you have a wonderful, peaceful festive season and a great 2026. I hope next year is better for the world in every way.

I am very glad I met you all in the virtual world, I've enjoyed our chats this year.

(photo by Clint Patterson)

As an extra bit of fun, here are my MotoGP guys trying to decorate cookies 🤣

www.youtube.com/watch

Current Mood: excited

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Page generated Jan. 4th, 2026 12:47 am

pros newsletter

a digest of all things pros

Member Posts

reading meme

Snowflake Challenge

Strange Stories II: The Empty Earth by Roger Mannon

Happy New Year 2026

Funuary 2026

X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II by Leah Garrett

Motorsport Day Out

Seasonal update 2025 #4 Wise/Crone Season

A Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand by Christopher Golden

Monday Storytime- The Professionals

More Garden Changes

Happy Holidays!

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December 2025

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