Progress Post: Week 33

Sorry I didn’t do a post last week. I was feeling like road kill and curled up on my couch with my tablet and dog.

Anyway, I finished episode 9 of Fated Mates. It’s scheduled on Ream and I’ll schedule it on the free sites soon. I also started scheduling on Wattpad. Who knew they finally created a scheduling option? I found reddit posts and stuff from only a few months ago saying it still wasn’t an option, and that was the main reason I’d given up on Wattpad back in 2020 or so.

I made pretty good progress on Alien Captain the week before (almost 4k words), then last week was a short week and only got 391 words done (I was focusing mainly on keeping Fated Mates on schedule.

I didn’t do anything for YouTube last week, so I’ll be playing catchup a little this week.

I created a shipping station in my living room for doing direct sales and (eventually) physical goods tiers on Ream.

And… I read a lot in the last two weeks, so that’s going to be most of this post today…

Recent Reads

The Purchased Alpha by Hawke Oakley: This book was… inconsistent. That’s the only way I can describe it. And some things just didn’t make any sense. Like, you have an alpha who hates omegas, who claims he’ll never be an omega’s “plaything,” but he signed a contract promising he would do just that. And the big bad? Literally impossible. Like it was literally impossible that the person who is supposed to be the enemy could have done what the author says he did. He’s not old enough. It makes no sense.

The Morning Wood Tree by Siggy Shade: I discovered this book through an Instagrammer I follower. I couldn’t resist. I did find it amusing that I caught the reference to Scheherazade right before the author explicitly mentioned it. I think it was worth a read. A little excessive. Very weird, but worth it.

Noxx by Tasha Black: Not much really to say here. It was good. Not sure there was anything exceptional, though. Just good.

Xul by Jennifer Julie Miller: I completely forgot how gruesome this series gets. I wasn’t prepared for it. Also, while she’s not in the story for very long, I found the mother creepily overprotective. Like the FMC treats her like the perfect mom, but she just sort of comes across as stifling and cringy when she was in scene. Also, this book is terribly edited. I don’t remember that in the first book.

Dragon Fire and Phoenix Ash by J Thompson and Mina Carter: This is at least my third time reading this book. Enough said.

Alien Pilot Needs a Nanny by Tasha Black: I related so hard to her fear of heights. I don’t consider myself afraid of heights, but there are absolutely instances when I can’t bring myself to do anything but crawl (like glass floors…). I love how she pushes back when he tries to protect her or do things for her. One thing I didn’t like was this narrative throughout the book about moving to the countryside. It directly contradicts the direction of other parts of the narrative, where both main characters are strengthening their ties to their current location. It feels like loose ends that were never tied up at the end and makes me question the relationship because there’s no talk about HER dreams when they discuss moving to the country, only his job offer.

Alien CEO Needs a Nanny by Tasha Black: Him being upset with her for being “late” makes no sense. It’s clear the placement was rushed. Why would he expect an off-world nanny to show up on such short notice? Also, the way he schedules the baby’s time makes me wonder if he knows ANYTHING about scheduling period. You don’t schedule that tightly, ever. You invariably end up constantly behind, never catching up, in which case he would NEVER know where the baby was (his whole point behind the scheduling in the first place). Also, his aversion to doing the basics to keep in good standing with the community seems so strange. Like, there’s no reason for it. He’s rich, he could hire someone to do all this shit, but he just stubbornly decides hiring lawyers would be cheaper if it came to that? I also find his repeated apologies to be a red flag. Someone who has to apologize that much over such a short period of time is probably not a good employer or partner. They probably think an apology fixes anything and they don’t have to do anything to change. Anyway, it just felt like a red flag to me. I loved the FMC helping him to change, but I’m not sure he deserves her, even in the end. She was too good for him, and I don’t think that ever changed. His one saving grace is how much he cares for his son. End of story.

Alien Rules Needs a Nanny by Tasha Black: See a pattern here? lol. Anyway, I found the very premise of the story a bit weird. He’s not allowed to date offworlders, but there are no women from his planet who are his age, so who’s he supposed to date? See? Makes no sense. He also yells at her a lot early on, which doesn’t bode well. Then, 91% into the book (when he asks her to marry him), I left this comment: “There’s really not a lot of lead up to to this there’s almost no romance. It just kind of comes out of nowhere. I mean, it’s a good story I enjoy the story, but the romance kind of feels jammed in there like a square peg in a round hole.”