✦ The Naan - Stop Readers ✦🫓📚| BT Reading Challenge || September '25

Hello Book Lovers!

Welcome to the September 2025 Edition of the Reading Challenge

missFiesty_69

minakrish

foreverlazy

ssttuuttii

Clochette

DMGThings

Leprechaun

OfTheHeart

sambhavami

CID-fan-394

LadyWhistledown

Team, please reserve a post for your page logs and log your books in the excel as well!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oz1iTNcjYEu3WMlxMevt2boyVpyByzbnNPHBSPT0Y5s/edit?usp=drivesdk

Tags : oh_nakhrewaali

Log only the books you finish or DNF from September 1, 2025 to September 30, 2025. The logging will start and end at midnight whatever time zone you're in. The logging will officially stop at midnight PST September 30. (Pacific Time).

Log books within 3 days of finishing / DNFing them. Please DO NOT log pages that you intend to read or page counts of books that are in your TBR. ONLY FINISHED PAGES SHOULD BE LOGGED!

Add the book title/ author/ format and page count to the post you have reserved in your team’s thread (which will be posted by your captain). You will edit this post as you keep reading. You will also be adding the same page counts in the Google sheet that will be shared in your team’s thread.

Wherever possible, please use Amazon’s page counts for logging pages. For ebooks and audiobooks, use Kindle page counts. For paperbacks and hardcovers, use paperback page counts. If you cannot find the book on Amazon, you can use other legitimate sources.

For online fiction, use word count divided by 300 to log pages.

If you DNF, or if you are continuing a book from June, log only the pages you’ve read. You can use percentage read (at the point of DNF) for ebooks, actual page numbers for paperbacks and for audiobooks, log pages based on number of hours read (40 pages per hour at normal speed)

You are responsible for tracking your own reading. Please keep an accurate log of the books you finish. We trust you to be honest. And while we understand the spirit of competitiveness, please also remember that the Reading Challenge is designed to motivate you to read more and beat your own personal counts, so you are competing with yourself!

Lastly, have fun! This is not meant to stress you out, or cause a burn out, it's meant to nurture a love of reading. Read what you can, how much you can, when you can!

IMPORTANT!!!! We are noticing that some members sign up and then do not complete their logs and then it’s up to the captain or the organizers to chase them to get it done. Hence we are making it mandatory that logs need to be completed in both excel sheet and the Team threads LATEST BY OCT 1st, 11:59 PM IST for your pages to be counted! If there is a discrepancy, your logs will not be counted and you will not receive the participation badge either.

My book log

Post reserved

.. res

sambhavami's reading list

- Beerangana Kavya - Michael Madhsudan Dutt - Bengali - 77

- Krishna Vaasudeva - Bani Basu - Bengali - 378 (265 pages read previously)

ssttuuttii Page Log for September 2025

Four audiobooks in a row...that's what Jeffery Deaver has achieved – with his new 'hero' Colter Shaw. Colter and his two siblings were influenced in their youth and still are in their current actions by their father's upbringing. Single, a professor, and more of a cerebral person, he taught them all kinds of survival techniques. Rightly so – as the volumes published so far demonstrate. While the adult Colter is the main character, his youth and, in particular, the questionable death of his father play a significant role in his career. He specializes in finding missing people for a fee yet Colter insists he's not a bounty hunter or bail bondsman... he searches for missing children, elderly people with dementia, but also prison escapees. The variety of his assignments and the resulting tense – sometimes fatal – situations not only require Colter to be physically fit and think logically, but also put a strain on his emotions, which he consciously tries to keep out of play. Colter is by no means always a sympathetic character, but he is comprehensibly portrayed. He's also a good and intelligent observer and problem solver. The suspense in the books naturally comes from the villainous side, with deadly violence, nasty maneuvers, selfish motives...and many surprising twists and turns.

1. The Never Game (413 p.) : Sophie is locked inside a derelict warehouse. Henry is abandoned in remote woodland. Elizabeth is trapped inside a sinking ship. They are alive, but don’t have much time to live when not playing the killer's game according to the rules... which he is changing at will… it's a video-game turned into something else. Colter is assigned to find one of the three. ... There are a lot of suspects, constantly new findings and one gets to know the world behind the scenes of video games.

2. The Goodbye Man (430 p.): In the wilderness of Washington State, expert tracker Colter Shaw has located two young men accused of a terrible hate crime. But when his pursuit takes a shocking and tragic turn, Shaw becomes desperate to discover what went so horribly wrong and if he is to blame. Shaw's search for answers leads him to an organization that bills itself as a grief support group. But is it truly a community that consoles the bereaved? ... The story has entertaining and diverse moments of suspense that are compelling. These include dialogues, as well as the portrayal and interpretation of the characters. The second volume featuring tracking expert Colter Shaw didn't bore me one bit.

3. The Final Twist (415 p.): Just hours after the harrowing events of The Never Game and The Goodbye Man, Colter Shaw finds himself in San Francisco, where he has taken on the mission his father began years ago: finding a missing courier bag containing evidence that will bring down a corporate espionage firm responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths. Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Colter plays cat and mouse with the company's sadistic enforcers. Suddenly, the job takes on a frightening urgency: Only by finding the courier bag can he expose the company and stop the murder of an entire family—slated to die in 48 hours. Yet with the help of an unexpected figure from his past and with the enforcers closing the net, Colter narrows in on the truth. ... The story is very action-packed creating atmosphere and suspense, and I was captivated from beginning to end.

4. Hunting Time (431 p.): Allison, a brilliant engineer designing revolutionary technology, is on the run with her teenage daughter. Colter has been hired by her eccentric boss to find and protect her. Allison is being stalked by her ex-husband Jon, newly released from prison and fueled by blinding rage, whose former profession as a police detective makes him uniquely suited for the hunt. And he’s not alone. Two hitmen are also hot on her heels. ... Various narrative threads, some of which were very exciting to follow, led me to an ending that I hadn't expected.

5. South of Nowhere (414 p.): This time, Colter's task isn't to 'hunt' for a missing person but to help his sister who works as a disaster response specialist...and a disaster happened – the question is: sabotage or 'natural' causes? Time is crucious because of many people threatened to die... twists and turns and more than one story is told. … a good and easy read again...I like the way Colter's family comes together.

It was a good idea to first read the novels and the short stories then (although the author alternates short story and novel). There are now 4 short stories, the first introducing the character of Colter Shaw. Three of the short stories are less about a missing person but deal more with investigation. Nevertheless, they are thrilling quick reads.

6. Captivated (41 p.): A somewhat down-and-out businessman offers Colter $10,000 if he finds his missing, younger wife. At first, things develop rather routinely for Colter, who travels across the USA in his RV, working wherever his services are needed or the job takes him. But when he finds the woman, an artist, there's an unexpected twist.
7. The Second Hostage (53 p.): The search for a mother's runaway daughter takes a back seat when Colter encounters a hostage situation while on the move. Colter's unique mindset and exceptional attention manage to bring the situation to a close within a few hours (much to the delight of the somewhat helpless police officers).

8. Forgotten (58 p.): This time, Colter is tasked with helping the parents of a convicted son. They believe the boy is wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of a drug dealer, where his life is threatened by the murdered man's friends. Colter has a heart and trusts that the boy is truly innocent.

9. The Deadline Clock (54 p.):If Colter doesn't manage to pay a kidnapper the ransom in a good five hours, then the kidnapped woman will die. Not really a lot of time... a new—deadly?—game with multiple puzzles. Short, but again intelligent and exciting. I like the guy.

That's all from Jeffery Deaver about his new protagonist Colter Shaw until date. So, now to other 'Fall' books

10. False Witness – Karin Slaughter (491 p.): Not a book with a continuous arc of suspense, not a book for the faint of heart, not a book that only offers thrills... It's about two sisters, living apart but inextricably linked – by their childhood, a crime, and burdening repression. The latter is shattered when the older of the two – a criminal defense attorney at a prestigious law firm – is assigned to a defendant who expressly wants her to defend him in a case of aggravated rape. Client and lawyer know each other, and the latter would like to get out of the case, but unfortunately, that's not possible, because the client has the power to destroy her sister's life and her own if she doesn't do everything in her power to obtain a 'not guilty' verdict. ...I enjoyed it as an audiobook... but I doubt whether I would have done so in the same way as a reader.

11. Amok – Sebastian Fitzek (429 p.): Criminal psychologist Ira Samin has carefully prepared her suicide. The death of her eldest daughter weighs too heavily on her conscience. But then she is called to a horrific hostage crisis at a Berlin radio station. While the broadcast is running, the hostage-taker calls random people. If they answer the phone with a specific password, a hostage is released. If they don't, one is shot. But what is he trying to achieve? He wants his fiancée to come to the studio. But she's officially declared dead since six months ago. ... One of the German thrille authors who got also known in USA makes one guessing — who can you trust? Jan May, the hostage-taker, is also a renowned psychologist — he knows exactly what he's doing. Very gripping tale.

12. Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone – Benjamin Stevenson (384 p.): I liked Knives Out, and when I encountered this murderously nice Cunningham family in audiobook form, I was eager to get to know them better.... A family reunion in a snowy, isolated hotel in the mountains... and then the first body is discovered... I love detective stories... and dark humor. The initially slow narrative flow inexorably approaches a thrilling waterfall as the 'speed' increases.... It's a puzzle to be played along with.

13.

Page count 1. - 12. = 3613 p.

minakrish’s page logs

Prags' September 2025 Log