Edward has left, leaving Bella to pine for him and find new ways to fill the hours. She takes new risks to feel alive, including getting closer to Jacob.
What I Liked
While it is obvious to the reader from the beginning that Jacob is a werewolf, the slow “build” that all the young guys that he hangs out with are a pack is fun. While it is commonplace for so many books now, it was great to re-read the twist that Meyer put on the franchise back in ’06. It’s fun to see the family worry about the connections, and even her dad and mom chiming in.
What I Didn’t Like
The trip to Italy is a bit over the top in places, while fascinating. The Discovery of Witches series does something similar, and is better handled than the excess shown here.
I feel like I don’t prioritize reading as much as I should. Reading gives me great joy, and yet I default to TV watching, doom scrolling, and silly things like work, eating, chores, etc. My wife gave me the book, BR00283 Everyone in my family has killed someone by Benjamin Stevenson, for Christmas and I went deep down the enjoyment rabbit hole. It was unique, it was unusual, it was delightful.
I have also been reading Elizabeth Wheatley’s Tears of the Wolf and Oath of the Wolf. They have also been excellent. I haven’t reviewed them yet, and therein lies a source of consternation for me.
Book reviews. I could have said B was for the book reviews as they go hand in hand, do they not? If you’re anal-retentive like me, yes, they do. I read it, I review it.
Except I am way behind on book reviews. I’ve done 283, which is amazing to me. I remember when I was back at 25 and 50. Now, how many are in the backlog, let’s see…there are 27 books on my Kindle in the “READ” collection, but I won’t review all of those, probably 22 or so (others were DNF’s or just reference materials I was looking at). Then I have another 31 that are relatively “recent reads” in the last year or so. Still fresh in my mind. Then another 63 from the previous year or two, and then another 186 that are sitting there. Taunting me from years gone by. So, that makes, lemme see, carry the one, and ummm…302 pending review. More than I have accomplished in the last ten years combined.
But I digress. I’ll make progress on that “backlog” this year, but it is a digression. The real question is…
What will I read this year?
I fear that I do not read enough non-fiction. I have about 150 books on my Kindle that are non-fiction, although some are more for browsing than complete reading. I put them there so I would remember I had them, like a Chair Yoga book. It isn’t the type of book you “read” so much as open on the desktop perhaps and apply part of it to a routine. But I threw it on the Kindle so I can flip through and see what’s there. My biggest challenge for NF reads is that I often feel like I want to highlight as I go. Except the Kindle is designed to save those highlights in a separate file (MyClippings). Which means even if I synch the book back over to the PC, the highlights are still ONLY on the Kindle in a separate file.
I’ve been experimenting and I came up with a couple of options. If I read it on my PC, and make highlights there, they stay with the file. Alternatively, if I do it on my Kindle, I can run a plugin to Calibre that will lift “annotations” from the MyClippings file and put them in an extra field in Calibre. Either or both would work. It’s “easier” if they’re just in the file itself, if I go back later, but harder to find perhaps; alternatively, the annotation highlights in a separate file make it really easy to write a review and lift stuff out, but often out of context.
I’m leaning toward setting aside 30 minutes every day to just read non-fiction. I’m currently working my way through a Harvard Business Review collection about toxic workplaces (I know, riveting, right? I like it, though, seeing how academics and other experts approach issues that I myself face as a manager, and how they explain their views) and highlighting as I go on the Kindle. If it works, I’ll stick with that method as the Kindle is portable; if it doesn’t work for my subsequent review and blogging, I’ll likely open the file directly on my desktop. I tried to get it to an old iPad 2 that we have, but alas, not quite the tool I wanted.
But I think I can at least categorize the main areas of Non-fiction that I’ll delve into this year, and I’ll push myself to do 14 books. I should have a biography in there somewhere but maybe I’ll count that instead in the fiction category (there’s a few options below where a person could show up in rebel, for example).
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Non-Fiction
R
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A
D
I
N
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Writing
Astronomy
Exercise
Mental Health
Retirement
Finances
Career
Goals
Business
Women
Recipes
AI
Creativity
Software / Tools
I’ll come back to the non-fiction side of things again when I get to my L is for Learning post. 🙂
Let’s talk fiction
My goal is 50 fiction books a year, although if I was totally honest with myself, 300 would be my real goal if I thought it was attainable. 🙂 I am struggling with how to read established series, to be honest. So many different books out there by different authors, all of which interest me, and yet I also want to read series. The only series I feel “finished” on probably is Sue Grafton — all 25 of her Kinsey Milhone alphabet series (A is for Alibi, …) plus two of her older books that nobody ever mentions, both of which were quite good and I’m glad I chased them down.
But I would love to read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, plus a full-on deep dive into a year of Sherlock Holmes and all the new books — they may not be canon, but they are often fun. Or I could go “legal” (Grisham, Berhnardt, O’Shaugnessy, Gardner), sagas (Archer), fantasy (P.C. Cast, Jordan, Wheatley), action (Child, DeMille, MacDonald), forensics (Cornwell, Reichs), light (Evanovich), British sleuth (Francis), procedurals (Jennings, ), westerns (Butcher, L’Amour), etc. And I’m not even talking hundreds of sci-fi books in the Star Wars and Star Trek universe, cozies, other types of detectives and sleuths, etc. It’s a lot.
Huh, I just realized that my latest review isn’t even complete — I forgot to code it properly in the HTML file, so that it will show up in the indexed pages. Sigh.
But where was I? Oh, yeah, deciding what to read this year between established series and new authors or standalone books. Obviously, duh, the answer is both! 🙂
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Fiction
R
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A
D
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N
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Banned book
Childhood favourite
New release (2026)
Best of 2025
Infrequent genre
Canadian author
Canadian setting
Award winner: 1950s
Award winner: 1960s
Award winner: 1970s
Award winner: 1980s
Award winner: 1990s
Award winner: 2000s
Award winner: 2010s
Classic
Bestseller list
Legal
Police
Amateur sleuth
P.I.
Vampires
Fantasy creatures
Romance
Science fiction
Star Wars
Star Trek
Time travel
Fantasy adventure
Personal discovery
Rebel
Serialized novel
Western
Edith Wharton
Writing under an alias
Brothers
Sisters
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Humour
History
Women
Mystery
Geography
Indigenous
Series
Gift / Loan / Recommended
Holiday themed
Some resources that I’ll draw upon from earlier Reading Challenges:
Ernest Cunningham, a writer who specializes in books on how to write, joins his family at a snowy retreat to welcome his brother home from jail. After he turned him into the police and sent him there.
What I Liked
The main character, Ernest aka Ern, breaks the fourth wall every page or two. Sometimes it’s foreshadowing, sometimes it’s narration, sometimes its commentary on himself, his life, the rest of the family, past events, future events, etc. It should be ANNOYING but is somehow delightful. Each section of the book is devoted to one family member, combining the current timeline with the past timeline where they killed someone (no, not all murders — car accident, patient dying on an operating table, etc.). And yes, even the narrator. When the first body shows up in the current timeline, things start to unravel in the family too.
What I Didn’t Like
There is a plot hole in the story, and not the one the narrator mentions (he mentions there is a giant plot hole big enough to drive a truck through, kind of as a literary joke), but it IS still there. Potential spoiler, but someone needs to be identified and conveniently, two people in particular who COULD identify him never see the picture. Normally, that would negate a star or even two, but the pieces hang together so well otherwise, I had to let it pass.
The Fellowship is running around trying to reunite in Salidar while Rand starts to marshal his forces against the Forsaken and the men they lead.
What I Liked & Didn’t Like
The book includes a lot of travel from point A to B, with not a lot happening in between that matters too much to the overall story. Siuan, Leane, Min, and Login are trying to travel to Salidar to meet the self-exiled Aes Sedai, with numerous minor incidents, including an encounter with Gabriel Bryne, who begins to follow them. Meanwhile, Nynaeve and Elayne are running and hiding, running and hiding, and end up working for a travelling circus (aka a menagerie) doing high-wire work and acting as the target for knife-throwing and arrow-shooting. However, while they travel, they also hunt at night in the Dream World where they encounter Moghedien, Lanfear and Birgitte. Two battles with Moghedien end up about as good as one can hope when facing a Forsaken, and even Birgitte is returned to the living realm.
Meanwhile, Rand leads the Aiel to Cairhien to face Sammael and the Shaido Aiel. Moiraine starts listening to Rand and obeying him, in exchange for talking his ear off all day long, sharing info and advice that he’ll need for the future. Sammael escapes but the large battle is magnificent, with a reluctant and departing Mat turning into a massive tactician who faces superior forces, unrelenting odds, and wins three major victories. So much so that men start to follow him, even if he isn’t a Lord. The info in his head gives him insights into battles he was never part of in his life, hundreds of years of history that gives him a tactical advantage, whether he wants it or not. However, it doesn’t help him understand how Melindrha, the woman sharing his bed, is — spoiler alert #1 — revealed to be a Darkfriend in the end.
However, the real climax is seeing Rand go supernova on Rahvin in Andor after he hears of the apparent murder of Morgase. He burns the castle corridors with Balefire while running through traps and other realms. Nynaeve joins him for the final battle, and — spoiler alert #2 — three more Forsaken seem to be addressed — Rahvin by Rand, Moghedien by Nynaeve, and Lanfear by Moraine.
Brad Shade is a former professional hockey player turned low-level scout for an NHL team from LA, scouting the European leagues and the Canadian minors. He plays in an old-timers game in Peterborough just before the coach and the team doctor get murdered in the parking lot.x
What I Liked
When I started reading the book, I had no memory of how I had found it or added it to my TBR pile. A hockey scout playing sleuth, with the murder set in Peterborough and the OHL? How could I NOT read it? I assumed I read that it was set in Peterborough and so I snagged it. Turns out that I had looked it up because it is the basis for the TV show Private Eyes set in Toronto with Jason Priestly as the lead character, Brad Shade. It ran for a couple of seasons, and I tripped over it on a bingefest. The show is watchable, if not high quality, so I grabbed the book to give it a go.
I should have started by saying that I’m not really a sports nut. I read mysteries set in and around sports, but it’s not really about the sports for me. About 20 years ago, I read Alison Gordon’s Kate Henry mystery series about a former Toronto sportswriter turned sleuth, and quite enjoyed them. I interacted with her a few times online through a discussion forum, which blew a friend of me away — I had actually CORRESPONDED with Ms. Gordon? Wow, he said. I had no idea who she was, I just bought her books as I liked the way she approached things in the forum. I feel like Brad Shade is what Kate Henry would have been if Alison had followed hockey instead of baseball.
I like Brad and the story for the most part. He’s trying to get a handle on a rising star in the OHL, and whether LA should draft him or not. If you’ve watched Kevin Costner in the movie Draft Day, or any episode of Friday Night Lights, you’ll understand a bunch of the concerns that Brad is looking at are designed to make sure their draft choice is solid not only for the hockey side of things but also the character side of the player. Brad figures out the full mystery and ties it all up in a nice bow at the end.
What I Didn’t Like
There are four things that took away from the writing for me. First and foremost, it is painfully obvious almost from the outset what the problem is with the player, and what the motive is that accompanies it, if not all the details. Yet it seems like for 80% of the book, Brad is in the dark. And while he should be in the dark about murder, this isn’t his first rodeo for a draft cycle. If it were set back in the 70s or even 80s, I might let some of it slide, but in 2012, it was hard to see how any part of it was supposed to “stay hidden”.
Secondly, even if the main “mystery” worked, the writing has some glaring red flags for point of view shifts and terrible foreshadowing. In at least four or five places, the “reveal” from Brad figuring something out is an opening line or closing line of a chapter where he says something along the lines of someone in the Star Wars universe saying, “If I had known Darth Vader was Luke’s father, I would have handled it differently.” They are these “exposition” dumps that just throw out a major plot point like he had no idea how to reveal it more subtly.
Thirdly, I started the book cold, so I had no idea what it was about. It took me three or four chapters in, something like 14% of the book on my Kindle to get out of exposition and into the mystery. There was a huge backstory about him having problems with customs in Europe that ate up the opening chapter that had NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING. I don’t know how an editor didn’t cut all that or tell him to remove it. It was a giant dumping of backstory.
Lastly, I had a problem with the plot and pacing. Something semi-significant happens a week or two after the murder, and Brad doesn’t seem to twig to why it’s important. There are reasons to hide stuff, but not all of it. Then something HUGE happens, it reveals 100% of the answer to the mystery of who killed the Coach and 98% of why…dun dun dun…and Brad sits on it for two months so that it can all be revealed at draft day. But — spoiler alert — he’s fake blackmailing the killer who is UNSTABLE but Brad believes that he’ll do what he says for the two months. Huh? And the whole point of waiting is so that they can do something that makes them look good at the draft, and saves their job with the owner, while screwing someone else aka the real Code that anger in hockey dies slow. But he lets the unstable psychopathic murderer wander around for two months, some other bad people involved keep doing their thing, never tells his girlfriend who it was who tried to kill her, etc. It is freaking weird. The timelines could have EASILY been adjusted to line up properly with draft day, but instead, there’s this late lull in Act III. SMH.
Going back again for a moment, I grabbed the book because it’s based on the TV series. But as I read it, I didn’t even remember, because the book is so different from the series. However, I found myself excited that it was set in Peterborough…yet no mention of Peterborough’s actual team name (the Petes), which he probably couldn’t do, and the name of the arena is changed too, of course. But even for the setting in Peterborough, where he could have referenced more local stuff, there are literally only two references to Peterborough street names. Including one street name that he uses to suggest someone has an expensive house on the street — except there are almost NO expensive houses anywhere on that street. And there are any number of streets that could have been mentioned instead. Which made me realize that if he had set it in Oshawa or Ottawa or anywhere else, and changed three details, it would have been GenericCityAnywhereOntario. Not something to mark the story down, but the other issues dropped it down from a good four stars to three.
The Bottom Line
Very different from the TV show, but sports sleuths are fun
