I got more books in one week than I’ve ever gotten before. Due to the sheer volume of books I acquired at ThrillerFest, I’ve decided to double my blog. Instead of just posting once a week, I’ll up my game to twice. On Wednesdays, I’ll continue to post my series about ThrillerFest, then go back to life stories, short stories, and updates about upcoming works. But on Saturdays, I’ll post book reviews.

As my first Saturday blog, I’m throwing out a request for requests. Do you see a book on my list that you’d like me to review? I’ll order my upcoming reviews if people ask for them. If you want me to read your book for my blog--and it's not here on my list--you can email me at author@janellesamara.com to arrange how I’ll get it.

At this moment, as I tap-tap-tap away and slur out this blog, I’ve only received some of my books that I shipped home from New York. I hope to receive the rest before Saturday morning, but in case I don’t, I didn’t want to wait. There are so many books to link, and many authors to tag.

It must begin here.

It must begin now.

The new books I’ve unpacked so far—in descending order of height—are as follows:

“Dying Breath” by Heather Graham (signed)*

"The One Man" by Andrew Gross (signed)*

“Final Girls” by Riley Sager

“Revelation” by Carter Wilson

“You’ll Never Know, Dear” by Hallie Ephron

“Matchup” an anthology, edited by Lee Child (signed by all attending authors)

“Blame” by Jeff Abbott

“The Blind” by A.F. Brady (ARC)

“The Marriage Pact” by Michelle Richmond (ARC) (signed)*

“The Dark Lake” by Sarah Bailey (ARC)

“One Among Us” by Paige Dearth (signed)*

“The Undertaker’s Daughter” by Sara Blaedel (ARC)

“The Woman in the Window” by A.J. Finn (ARC)

"The Girl Who Lived" by Paul Dale Anderson (signed)*

“Colorblind” by Sheila Sobel (signed)*

“No Middle Name” a collection of Jack Reacher short stories, by Lee Child (signed)*

“Crawlspace” by Lori M. Myers (signed)*

“Two Days Gone” by Randall Silvis (signed)

“Find Her” by Lisa Gardner (signed)*

“Mister Tender’s Girl” by Carter Wilson (ARC) (signed)

“In the Clearing” by Robert Dugoni

“The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena

“The Shattered Tree” by Charles Todd

“Chaos” by Patricia Cornwell

“Make Them Pay” by Allison Brennan (signed)*

"Accused" by Lisa Scottoline

The authors indicated above with an asterisk (*) are people whose books I'm immensely excited about because the authors themselves are amazing people. Either through our few brief encounters or our many lengthy discussions, they've made such a good impression on me that I must buy their books and read them. By being so nice, and so real, they've gained a new fan. While I'm sure the others are nice people, too--everyone at ITW has always been so friendly--I did not get a chance to hang out with them.

So which of these books do you want me to read?

Honestly, I’m probably going to review “No Middle Name” next Saturday since I’m halfway through it already. (Tiny Jack Reacher, tiny Jack Reacher!) After that, I’ll start in on “Matchup” because I’m just squirming in my seat in anticipation for that one. Due to the sheer volume of authors in that anthology, I’ll likely split that book into multiple blogs. (Also because I need time to write, work, and maintain my household. How I envy Lee Child for having the time to write full-time and read a whole book almost every single day.)

If requests don’t come rolling in, I’ll work my way through the ARCs in order of their impending releases. Because I need some kind of structure.

I suppose I could just read from tallest to shortest. Then I'd get to read Heather's book first. Oh, but there are so many good books! There are at least a dozen of them that I want to read first! I met so many fantastic people at ThrillerFest and I want to read books by all of them. Aside from missing one more box of the books I did buy, trade for, or get gifted, I'm also missing a long list of books that I want to buy, like books from many of the debut authors from this year.

Sweet Cheesus... I need to organize my Goodreads.