Fare thee well, 2014. It's been swell reading!

I did okay in December.  4 books, 1649 pages.  So let's get to it!

The Kill Order by James Dashner (338 pages).  This was the prequel to the Maze Runner series.  Mark and Trina are teenagers when the Flares decimate the earth.  Separated from their families, they end up meeting Alec and Lana, both veterans from the Army.  They finally find a new settlement in North Carolina and are somewhat happily living there.  Until one day a Berg shows up and opens fire with darts.  The next thing they know, people are getting sick and dying from a virus.  A virus that starts mutating.  They head off to find out what is happening in the world and find Deedee, a five year old girl who had been infected but showed no signs of the virus.  Mark and Alec eventually learn the truth and find a way to send the immune Deedee to safety.  Deedee, who is eventually renamed Teresa by the people at WICKED.  The people who created the Maze.  This one was both my least favorite and the one I liked the most because it gave some good background information of the dystopian world Dashner created.  I read most of it in November, but left the book at the office over Thanksgiving.  Oh well.  It ended up taking me 16 days to read because of the unexpected break.  But I did read the last 100 pages in one day!

Somerset by Leila Meacham (607 pages).  The prequel to Roses, which I loved.  The story of how the town of Howbutker came into existence.  The background of the Tolivers, Warwicks and DuMonts told in far more detail than Roses could have.  This is the story of the grandfathers of the main characters in Roses.  Silas Toliver is the second son of a wealthy plantation owner, left with no inheritance when his father dies.  So he and his best friend Jeremy Warwick decide to travel to Texas, where they know their fortune lies.  Each of them will carry with them the roses of their family- the red Lancaster roses of the Tolivers and the white York roses of the Warwicks.  Jessica Wyndham has just returned home to South Carolina from school.  She and her maid, who is truly her best friend, enjoyed the freedom of Boston and its abolitionist thinking.  Jessica doesn't really fit in with the society in which she grew up; she's a little too forward thinking.  Silas is engaged to the beautiful Lettie and ready for her to be the stepmother to his son.  But a change in finances leaves him indebted to Jessica's father and he finds himself married to the young woman.  Before their wedding, Silas' mother tells him that there will be a curse on his family if he goes through with this marriage.  Nonetheless, the marriage happens and the wagon train leaves South Carolina.  They travel to New Orleans, where Silas and Jeremy meet Henri Dumont, the son of a merchant.  Henri wants to join them and, after leaving several of the women and children in New Orleans, they head to Texas.  They stay closer to the east than anticipated, but when Silas asks Jeremy, "how about here," they know they have found what they are looking for.  Silas purchases Somerset, Jeremy turns to lumber, Henri opens a store, and the town of Howbutker (short for "how about here") is born.  Jessica and Silas truly fall in love.  Jeremy and Henri each find wives.  Then the Civil War breaks out.  Silas has already begun agreeing with Jessica's stance against slavery (some of the events actually brought me to tears).  And the outbreak of war (with its threat of taking the life of his last remaining son) is too much for Silas.  He worries that his mother's threat might finally come true.  His son, and most of the other founding sons, make it home from war.  But life is forever changed for everyone.  The Toliver line eventually suffers more loss.  But the families persevere, their traditions intact.  I loved this book just as much as Roses and Tumbleweed- Leila Meacham is a fantastic author.  You become completely enthralled in her stories.  I technically started this book at the end of November, but didn't get most of it read until the end of December.  I actually read about 300 pages in one day.  The lack of TV shows during Christmas is fantastic for reading!

Winds of Salem by Melissa de la Cruz (306 pages).  The third book in the Witches of East End series.  It's been a while since I've read the books.  But I enjoyed the TV show (until it bit the dust).  The problem is that the show and the books are so different that I couldn't remember which storyline I was supposed to be following!  In this book, Freya (former goddess of love and modern day witch) has been transported back to Salem Village in 1692 (you know, not a very good time for witches, either real or fake).  She has no memory of her life.  But she should have known that Killian, her true love, would find her in any century.  And that his troublemaking brother Loki, her other true love, would be there too!  Eventually she remembers who she really is and from where she really came.  Meanwhile, back home in North Hampton, her sister Ingrid, twin Freddie and parents Joanna and Norman are doing everything in their power to rescue her.  But their powers are dwindling, as something has shifted within the magical world.  Will they rescue Freya before she is hanged as a witch (again)?  Because this time, she will not be resurrected.  Once I got back into remembering the differences between the books and the show, this one sped along.  I finished it in 3 days.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult (398 pages).  I've loved Picoult since the very first book of hers that I read (The Pact, btw).  And she's only had one misstep as far as I'm concerned (Songs of the Humpback Whale- it was torture, y'all!)  Yes, she can be a little predictable.  But lately, her novels have been a little less typical that her earlier ones.  Her most recent, The Storyteller, was AMAZING!  And so different that what she normally does.  In this book, Jenna Metcalf was three when her mother, the famous elephant scientist Alice, disappeared after a freak accident on the family's elephant sanctuary that left one of the caregivers trampled to death.  Ten years later, with her father in a psychiatric hospital, Jenna decides that she is going to find her mother.  She enlists the help of former a-list and now powerless psychic Serenity and Virgil, the cop who had been on her mother's case.  In typical Picoult fashion, the story is told through different characters' eyes.  Jenna, Serenity, Virgil and Alice.  Alice's chapters told the story that led up to the fateful night, while everyone else's focused on modern day.  I especially loved the elephant facts that were interspersed in Alice's chapters.  Also, in typical Picoult fashion, the ending wasn't what I expected.  But it was absolutely perfect.  It only took me 4 days to read it and I read over half the book on the last day of 2014- hurrah for no plans on NYE!

So there you have it- 2014 is over.  Another year's worth of reading is done.  All together, I read 45 books (which is way below my monthly average) and 16,593 pages.  But considering the fact that there are some people in this world who don't even read one book a year, I guess I did okay.  I need to read at least 50 books next year.  I can totally read 4 books a month!