By Blood Written by Steven Womack

I got By Blood Written when I was at the bookstore just looking around. The cover grabbed me, so I picked it up. The premise sounded really, really good and something totally different then anything else I have read. I give it an A-.
From Amazon:

At first, it was only research . . .

Author Michael Schiftmann has received resounding critical acclaim for his novels that few people buy or read. The sad truth is that readers aren't interested in great literature—they only want glitz and violence. So that's what Michael intends to give them—shocking stories of a blood-chillingly efficient serial killer that are filled with gore and horror. And to ensure that his books are impeccably realistic in every aspect, he plans to try his own hand . . . at murder.
Soon his fictional killer is a sensation, and Michael is a rich, sought-after celebrity—and his beautiful, rising-star literary agent, Taylor Robinson, is falling in love with him. But there is one serious problem: Michael Schiftmann has discovered that bloodletting feels good . . . and he can't seem to stop.

This is a chilling suspense novel that has such an interesting premise. I was able to learn about the publishing business while reading a wonderful written suspense novel. I have never heard of Mr. Womack before, but I can tell you positively that I will be checking out his backlist. In this story, we always know who the bad guy is, but there is a lot of suspense that goes on in the story. I really enjoyed Taylor and I was even doubting myself that Michael could be a killer. Mr. Womack did an absolutely wonderful job in creating his characters into very realistic people. As I mentioned, I will be getting more of his books.

I didn't meet my goals from last year except to keep my reads documented in here. I was one book short of 100 while it was a disappointment, I am impressed with the amount of reading I was able to get in. Between my rough time this summer, graduating in December, and working full time while going to school full time in the winter my reading was pretty good. This year I am going to try and read 115 books and keep up with this blog. I probably won't be participating in many challenges because I hate to feel stuck to something and I hate not completing something I start. I will try and get the books in my TBR shelves read more than I did last year. I have quite a bit of gift cards for the bookstore but I will try and save those and spread them out over time. I love utilizing my local library, but do want to read from my shelves. For every book I buy or get from the library, I am going to read one from my bookshelves. That being said, the next book I am going to read is Beach Road by James Patterson. I started listening to it on my IPod but there is a problem with finding where I left off, so I stopped listening. Hopefully I will fly through this one pretty quickly since listening to part of it earlier. I hope everyone else had a wonderful New Years and Happy Reading!