CHALLENGE: Long Awaited Reads Month

Nymeth and Iris are hosting a Long-Awaited Reads Month for January 2014. It's quite perfect, because I often have books in my head that I'm saving for January to read - to start the year off right. I didn't post last year which books I had Long-Awaited, but I'm starting to read them now.

First up, Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indridason.  How is this a Long-Awaited Read, since it was only released in September 2013? I'm really impatient and can only wait a few months? partially. I bought it in November, and held off reading it until January once I realized it was the last book in the series. Although it was only recently released, I've been waiting to read this book for the last two editions of the series, Outrage and Black Skies. At the end of the previous book, Hypothermia, Erlendur left for one of his treks to the east of Iceland where he grew up. It is also where his younger brother disappeared in a blizzard and was never found. Outrage and Black Skies occured while Erlendur was away. Each of his partners, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg got a book focused on them. Each time I read one of those books, I was waiting for the conclusion to Erlendur's adventure, over two years.

It was a fitting ending to the Reykjivik Murder Mysteries, a wonderful, bleak series that makes a person want to visit Iceland.

Other Long-Awaited Reads I Might Get To: 

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy - also a recent acquisition but long waited in terms of series and last book
Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear. The next book in the Maisie Dobbs series
The Long Song by Andrea Levy. I read Small Island last January and loved it, so let's try another Levy to start the year.
Cockroach by Rawi Hage. Loved, loved DeNiro's Game when I read it in 2009 and always meant to read another book by Hage. Now Cockroach is a Canada Reads 2014 book, and I got in early on the list at the library so expect to read it in January.

Really, nearly anything I read in January will be long-awaited.