So I went to my local used book­store this week­end. All I have to say is that you know your genre has arrived when it gets it own shelves in the used book­store. I was thrilled to see some new shelves devoted exclu­sively to urban fan­tasy this time around, and the para­nor­mal romance sec­tion had taken over some new shelves as well.

As a result, I came home with sev­eral books.

I picked up Kiss of a Demon King by Kres­ley Cole; Exit Strat­egy by Kel­ley Arm­strong; Rachel and the Hired Gun by Elaine Levine; and Storm Born by Richelle Mead, along with a few others.

Which, of course, means that my TBR pile is now push­ing 20 books again. But there’s just some­thing about all those glossy cov­ers together in one place that I can’t resist. Hello, my name is Jen­nifer, and I’m a book addict …

What about you guys? What have you been read­ing lately? Share in the comments.

Fin­ished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is the first book in her young adult trilogy.

In this one, 16-year-old Kat­niss Everdeen lives in a postapoc­a­lyp­tic ver­sion of the United States — one where once a year, 24 chil­dren are trained as glad­i­a­tors, thrown into a harsh envi­ron­ment, and forced to kill each other in a tele­vised event called the Hunger Games. When Kat­niss’ younger sis­ter Prim is picked for the Games, Kat­niss vol­un­teers to take her place instead. Going with her is Peeta, the son of a local baker. Kat­niss likes Peeta, but she knows that she can’t let her­self get too close to him, since she’ll have to kill him in the end if she has any chance of win­ning the Games and return­ing home alive …

I absolutely loved this book. Seri­ously. This is one of the best books I’ve read all year long. It was that good.

Let’s start with Kat­niss, who is such a great char­ac­ter. Kat lives in a coal-mining region that’s sim­i­lar to Appalachia. (Being from the Appalachian region myself, I can relate). She’s pretty much been tak­ing care of her mother and younger sis­ter Prim since her father died. Kat hunts, fishes, gath­ers berries, and does what­ever she has to in order to sur­vive — all skills that come in handy dur­ing the Games. But she’s also vul­ner­a­ble too, espe­cially when it comes to Peeta and whether she thinks she can actu­ally kill him if it comes down to that. Kat’s voice is what really makes the book.

Then, there’s the story. Yeah, it reminded me of the movie Glad­i­a­tor. But it’s so well-written, and Collins really makes the story her own, as Kat has to face every­thing from fire to mutated crea­tures dur­ing the games. Beyond the enter­tain­ment value, there’s a lot of things in the story to think about — the impact of pop cul­ture on soci­ety, what real beauty is or isn’t, what true human­ity is, etc.

If you haven’t read this one, do your­self a favor and go buy it or request it from your local library. You’ll be glad you did. Big thumbs up.

Up next: The Rustler by Linda Lael Miller.

Books in my TBR pile: About 14.

Fin­ished Magic Lost, Trou­ble Found by Lisa Shearin. This is the first book in her Raine Benares epic fan­tasy series. Note: In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure, Lisa recently gave me a cover blurb for Spider’s Bite, the first book in my new Ele­men­tal Assas­sin series.

Raine is an elf and a sor­cer­ess who spe­cial­izes in find­ing things that are lost for peo­ple. But she’s the one who finds her­self in trou­ble when she comes into pos­ses­sion of a mag­i­cal amulet which is the key to find­ing a very old, very pow­er­ful mag­i­cal arti­fact. The amulet makes Raine more pow­er­ful her­self, but there’s one small prob­lem — every­one and his brother want to get their hands on it and the only way that Raine can get rid of the amulet is to die. Some­thing that a par­tic­u­larly nasty gob­lin shaman who’s hunt­ing Raine doesn’t have a big prob­lem with …

I spot­ted a blog post on this series a while back and thought that it sounded cool. So I decided to check it out. I’m glad I did. What I liked most about the book was Raine. She’s a great char­ac­ter — smart and capa­ble but some­one who still knows her own lim­its and isn’t afraid to ask for help when she needs it. Also, it was refresh­ing to see a first-person, kick-butt, female hero­ine in an epic fan­tasy, instead of your usual farmboy-with-a-great-destiny type of character.

I also liked the fact that Shearin did some dif­fer­ent things with her fan­tasy world, like make her gob­lins sexy instead of the slob­ber­ing green mon­sters that they’re usu­ally por­trayed as. And she did a lot with her magic/world build­ing with­out going on about it for pages and pages. (As a side note, that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. As much as I like epic fan­tasy, I think a lot of books in the genre could use some trim­ming when it comes to their world build­ing, espe­cially peo­ple like Robert Jordan).

Over­all, if you’re look­ing for a new fan­tasy series to try, espe­cially one with a female lead char­ac­ter, check this one out. Thumbs up.

Up next: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Books in my TBR pile: About 14.

Fin­ished With­out Fail by Lee Child. This is the sixth book in his Jack Reacher action-adventure series.

In this one, ex-military police­man Reacher is called in by the Secret Ser­vice to fig­ure out who’s got their sites set on assas­si­nat­ing sen­a­tor Brook Arm­strong, the new vice president-elect. Reacher finds him­self work­ing on the puz­zle, along with a woman who used to be involved with his dead brother. The sen­a­tor seems like a nice guy, but Reacher thinks there’s more to Arm­strong than meets the eye, espe­cially since some­one is so deter­mined to kill him …

Reacher is his usual clever, tough-guy self in this one as he hunts down the bad guys. There’s a lit­tle some­thing for every­one in this book — action, adven­ture, chase scenes, and even a lit­tle romance. My only real quib­ble was the bad guys and what their moti­va­tion is revealed to be at the end of the book. I thought it was a lit­tle weak for all the trou­ble that they went to.

Still, if you’re look­ing for a page-turning thrill ride, you should check out this series. Thumbs up.

Up next: Magic Lost, Trou­ble Found by Lisa Shearin.

Books in my TBR pile: About 14.

Fin­ished Dirty Money by Richard Stark (aka the late, great Don­ald E. West­lake). This is the lat­est book in his long-running series about thief and anti-hero Parker.

This book picks up where the last one, Nobody Runs For­ever, left off. In that book, Parker and some of his ruth­less asso­ciates stole upwards of $2 mil­lion from an armored car. In Dirty Money, Parker and his fel­low thieves are try­ing to fig­ure out how they can get the money and get away from the police, who are method­i­cally search­ing the Mass­a­chu­setts coun­try­side for the miss­ing money. The usual sorts of com­pli­ca­tions and dou­ble crosses ensue.

I love crime books, and this is one of my favorite series. Parker is one cool cus­tomer, as he demon­strates once again in this book. Even when the cops are breath­ing down his neck, Parker never wavers in his deter­mi­na­tion to get the money and get out of town.

Stark (aka West­lake) died in 2008, so I don’t know if there will be any more books out by him or not. But he’s left read­ers some real trea­sures with the Parker series, along with his Dort­munder comic crime capers (writ­ten under the West­lake name). West­lake and his alter-ego as Stark will be greatly missed by this reader.

Thumbs up.

Up next: With­out Fail by Lee Child.

Books in my TBR pile: About 14.