My August 2026 Reads
It’s the last day of August and it’s time to share what I read this month! This month’s post will be a little different as I am choosing to NOT have a ‘top rated read’ or ‘lowest rated read’. The reason is because of what I read this month. I listened to three audio books, which were a series, and after way too long, I finished a book I was sent by another author. The #4MK trilogy was basically a continuous story and the first two books I had read back in 2017 and 2018. These were read again as the first in a prequel trilogy is being released in September and J.D. Barker and his publisher sent the original trilogy AND an arc of the upcoming prequel! Many thanks to them for sending me those books!
And I also received Aoh by Jennifer Renson earlier in the year. But thanks to The Crash on Netflix, I have been watching a lot of True Crime documentaries. And this is interfering with my reading! Many thanks to Jennifer for sending me the book and her wonderful patience in me for finally completing it!
Let’s see if I can get my reading mojo back/watch less documentaries and get The First Scarlet Door read before publication day on September 22nd! This it the title of the first of the prequel trilogy to the #4MK trilogy!
Here is what I read in August:
The #4MK trilogy by J.D. Barker:
The Fourth Monkey- 5 stars
The Fifth to Die- 4.5 stars
The Sixth Wicked Child- 4.5 stars
Aoh by Jennifer Renson- 4 stars
What was your August reading month like? Let’s see what September and the Fall brings us! Fall is my favorite season and I am ready for it to cool off as it has been super hot this summer!
Cover Reveal: Flesh Endures by Sue C Bentley
Today I am helping in the cover reveal for Flesh Endures by Sue C Bentley. It comes out on October 28th in the UK, but I can not find it anywhere on Amazon US. Be sure to check out the cover for this one, it’s a pretty one!
Book Description:
Lord Karolan, endowed with an arcane knowledge of alchemy, knows immortality comes at a price, for any lover perishes at his touch. His only companion is his ‘familiar’ – a greedy, wanton spirit that attached itself to him during his transformation and feasts on his fleshly desires as it yearns to become human.
Karolan saves Garnetta from the plague sweeping through early gothic Europe, by bestowing the ‘dark gift’ upon her, but without her permission. A bond of desire develops between the two, and a future for them seems possible. Until Garnetta learns the shocking truth about what Karolan’s laboratory holds, and what he has done to her.
Fleeing in horror, she unwittingly falls into the hands of the inquisition. Found guilty of heresy, she is to be subject to a fate even she cannot survive. Dare she open her heart to Karolan now she knows what he is? All while risking attracting his ‘familiar’ – now attached to her also and eager to inhabit her enticing female form.
Karolan is desperate to find the woman he has grown to love, knowing that only a leap of faith can lead him to her, before time runs out.
Now….. What does the cover look like?????? Keep scrolling to find out!!
Almost there!!!
Here it is:
Pre-Order Your Copy Here:
Amazon UK
Waterstones
Troubador
About the Author:
Sue’s first love is gothic fiction, both to read and to write. Her books for adults are inspired by classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake, Victoriana, and the dark fairy tales and folklore of the British Isles. She has published a number of novels using pen names, notably for Virgin Publishing’s Black Lace imprint – erotic fiction for women, written by women. And for LittleBrown’s, XLibris list. She is also the author of a Sunday Times, worldwide bestselling children’s series for Penguin Random House. During recent years she has returned to writing for adults, exploring her favourite themes with two dark fantasy novels for JoffeBooks. Her short stories have also been published in a number of anthologies. Flesh Endures is the product of her latest journey into the dark underworld of her imagination.
Contact Sue:
Instagram @therealsuebentley
TikTok @suebentley09
Audiobook Review: The Fifth to Die by J.D. Barker
The Fifth to Die
Series: 4MK #2
Author: J.D. Barker
Narrators:
Edoardo Ballerini
Graham Winton
Published: July 10, 2018
Audiobook: 15 hours 7 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: August 5-16, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4.5 stars
Book Description:
Detective Porter and the team have been pulled from the hunt for Anson Bishop, the Four Monkey Killer, by the feds. When the body of a young girl is found beneath the frozen waters of Jackson Park Lagoon, she is quickly identified as Ella Reynolds, missing three weeks. But how did she get there? The lagoon froze months earlier. More baffling? She’s found wearing the clothes of another girl, missing less than two days.
While the detectives of Chicago Metro try to make sense of the quickly developing case, Porter secretly continues his pursuit of 4MK, knowing the best way to find Bishop is to track down his mother. When the captain finds out about Porter’s activities, he’s suspended, leaving his partners, Clair and Nash, to continue the search for the new killer alone.
Obsessed with catching Bishop, Porter follows a single grainy photograph from Chicago to the streets of New Orleans and stumbles into a world darker than he could have possibly imagined, where he quickly realizes that the only place more frightening than the mind of a serial killer is the mind of the mother from which he came.
Jessica’s Review:
J.D. Barker is back with the second 4MK novel The Fifth to Die. Fifth picks up four months after the ending of Fourth and this time we have more gruesome deaths, multiple storylines, multiple povs (which you know by now that I love!), and even better: multiple bad guys! And an addition which could be just as frightening as 4MK himself: None other than Bishop’s mother! We really can see how the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with her added to the mix. We learn more about Porter in Fifth and he is determined to find Bishop’s mother. He actually goes rogue with this determination. We have two police storylines, one for each killer.
There is a lot going on in this novel and it is just as fast paced as Fourth and you just wonder HOW did some of these things with the missing girls happen when it doesn’t seem plausible? But yet these things DID in fact happen. Yes, we do get answers.
This new killer is just as frightening and messed up as Bishop. They are fabulous villains, but I always enjoy the villains! It makes you wonder just what does that say about me? I thank my dad for not restricting my reading as a teen (unlike my tv and movie viewings) and as a 14, 15, and 16-year-old I was reading Stephen King. Of course my love of thrillers started with the Fear Street books by RL Stine when I was younger. I am on the tail end of Gen X, and this is just how we grew up and we would not change it for anything!
This was my second reading of Fifth and this time I listened to the audiobook. Both Edoardo Ballerini and Graham Winton return as narrators and once more they are superb! I am happy to share that they narrate the final book in this trilogy! And speaking of the final book, Fifth ends in a cliffhanger, but readers are fortunate now to not have to wait for the final in this trilogy.
Many thanks to JD. Barker and his publisher for sending me paperback copies of this trilogy!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK