Short Stories (As Companions To A Series)

Periodically, I like to participate in the Friday Feature & Follow that is hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read. As you may have noticed, it's been a while. They have also just returned with this link-up after a two-month hiatus, so we're in similar boats! This week's prompt is:

Short Stories (as companions to a series):

What do you love about them and hate about them?

I am a huge fan of authors using short stories to complement their series, especially if they actually add substance or background to the characters instead of just being used as filler. In fact, some of my favorite series have great short stories that excite me as much as the full novels do! 

There's just something about discovering an amazing new series, with a detailed world and many characters to love, that makes you want as much of that world to hold on to as possible. This is why fan-fiction is so popular. Who says the story has to end? We are a consumer population, and we can't help but want to consume more of what we love - reading does not escape this. 

Besides, novellas are fun, and as long as my favorite authors continue to write them, I will continue to read them. A few of my recommendations include:

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyer wrote enough short stories to go with her series, The Lunar Chronicles, that she released a bound collection of them, called Stars Above. I fell in love with all of her characters in the series, and love that I got to learn more about them from the novellas that were released.

The Syrena Legacy by Anna Banks

   

I like this series enough that I enjoyed reading more stories that had to do with the underwater world created by Anna Banks. It was fun to read the stories, and it helped ease the wait in between books.

Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

 

This series was soooo freaking good that the wait in between novels was utterly agonizing! Luckily enough, Veronica Rossi released these two novellas, which are both stories that I feel are pertinent to the central story, and were actually both stories on characters I found myself wanting to know more about while reading the main series. These are definitely not to be missed!

What do you think? Are there any series you love that you feel benefit from having companionable short stores to go with them? Please let me know in the comments below!

Notes On My Unexpected Hiatus (or, Surprise! I'm Still Alive)

Wow. I never intended to go on such a long hiatus, especially without any notice to y'all, but I have really just been doing my best to keep myself together. I had an unexpected family emergency which suddenly left me caring for my young nieces, and took up all of my free time. I can't go into too many details, out of respect to the people involved, but I do want to apologize for taking so long to at least inform you of my absence. On the plus side, things have finally (maybe) started sorting themselves out in some areas, and I may once again finally have time to continue with this blog.

Between you and me, I normally read about 60 or more books in a year, but so far, this year, I haven't even read one. In fact, I am still at the beginning of a book that I actually started reading at the very end of 2015. Don't get me wrong - All The Light We Cannot See is an incredibly well-written and engrossing story, I've just had too much on my mind to concentrate on it, and too much to deal with to make the time to do so.

On a lighter note, I decided to read something a bit faster paced to see if I can at least get out of this slump, so this week I started reading Rainbow Rowell's Carry On. Also, thanks to a very long and tedious task at work this week that required very minimal brain function, I was able to get back into the Books on the Nightstand podcast, which excited me because it helped to ease me back in the book world, both by catching me up on the latest book-related news and by giving me some awesome new releases to add to my TBR.

Once again, I truly am sorry for leaving you all in the dust, but I've just had way too much on my plate. It is my hope that now that things have started turning themselves around, I might have more time to devote to this blog, and to my favorite pastime, reading.  Once a reader, always a reader...

Be on the lookout for some new content coming soon, as well as a giveaway (once payday arrives) to celebrate reaching 1,000 likes on Facebook! Yay!

Thank you all for sticking with me!