It's 2019 & It's Back to Business!

2018 Is OVER! 

I don't know about you, but I am so thrilled to be starting a brand new year with a brand new attitude. I had fallen into a of pit of despair these past few months over real life setbacks and things going on in the US that are totally beyond my control and it resulted in a lack of focus and constant state of anxiety for me. I'm going to refocus on my health, yoga/T25/better diet and shut off the terrible news, stop scrolling Twitter for hours on end and instead I plan to better use my time by setting up a blogging and reading schedule to keep myself focused and on track. I even have a nifty spreadsheet created by Reader Voracious to help keep on track. Check it out, it is seriously amazing. My goal for 2019 is to read and review at least 100 books and I'm determined to make at least half of those ladies of horror fiction, if not more. Speaking of LOHF . . . 

Ladies of Horror Fiction Mini Challenge

The Ladies of Horror Fiction are starting off the new year with a new look and a mini challenge. Click on the banner above to read more about our plans!

As for the mini challenge, if you'd like to participate, simply use the hashtag #LadiesFirst2019 on Twitter and Instagram and share a photo of your first horror read of 2019 written by a Lady of Horror Fiction.  We hope you'll be joining us!

Here's my first book of the year. I'll be reading it as soon as I hit publish on this post:

The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

This book has received nothing but raves and all the stars from my reading friends and I hope I feel the same!

Here's the blurbage:  Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.

Does that not sound fantastic?!  What's your first read of 2019?