I have no idea if this is something that only really happens to me, but for whatever reason I have purchased or borrowed many books that I later found out were sequels to another book. Sometimes I find out I was midway through a series by complete accident! Normally lists on the internet have a number attached, but I'm just going to list all of the examples I can remember, and I don't know the number just yet myself! All pictures will be pulled from the website Goodreads, which is fitting as Goodreads is the site that helped me discover the sequel-status of several of these books. Be prepared for me to state several times that some of these books still felt self-contained, and I will be praising the authors when that happens.

Okay, onto the list!

I picked up The Vault at a local library's book sale. Being a local library, all books were a dollar, so I picked it up with some others, but I felt I had to read through this one first. After some research I discovered Morrison worked at NASA and was a Jeopardy! champion, both of which are proudly mentioned on the inside book sleeve. The book very much reads like, well, something written by a Jeopardy! champion. There are countless historical facts, geography facts, science facts, and it manages to stay interesting the entire time.

The characters are not flat, but they have more backstory than personality, which works for the author's style. Boyd Morrison is clearly a fact man, and plays to his strengths. The pacing is also fast, I was breezing a hundred pages or so every time I picked it up, and it did not manage to lose steam, which are essential for a thriller that is more action based. Versus say a thriller that is more mystery or horror based.

I often get curious what reviews will say about a book I've never heard of, but I save them for after I read it myself. Once I did, I saw in parenthesis "(Tyler Locke, #2)". Discovering male lead Tyler Locke is in fact the main character of about four books, and I just started on the second. I'm a little curious to see how the ending of this book and it's consequences carry into the next one, but for now, I know I was satisfied by this historical-thriller. I also looked up Morrison himself and he gives solid advice for upstarts like he was once, so I have to give him credit for caring. Not everyone knows who to say it, no matter how much they may want to.

Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who Saw Red

You may be asking yourself why this book counts when the cover clearly tells you it is within a series. It's the fourth entry too, for those interested. Well, the truth is, I sort of walked into a Goodwill store buzzed off a pineapple juice and rum, and some other drink I can't remember. I bought this, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Cocaine Blues (which has it's own funny story behind the time I finally read it) and the PC game Tuneland, altogether for about three dollars. I was too buzzed to read anything but the title, and I figured I may as well buy two more mystery books as I'd already decided on Dragon Tattoo.

A few years later I actually bothered to read the book, and I know this series is pretty well beloved, but I barely remember it. I think this was one of those times were I jumped ahead too far and really needed to read past installments to understand everything. Which explains why this one openly states being a sequel on the cover while a lot of the others on this list don't feel the need. I don't remember any of the characters, except for a vague recollection of the main character (Qwilleran) and the eponymous cat. The cat is not the detective, which admittedly disappointed me. That's not a joke. I also remember how the protagonist approached the villain in the end when he figured it all out, it was exactly like how it happens on Murder, She Wrote, except that the villain actually decided to attack the protagonist after he was done explaining.

This was an old lady book. Like, the kind of book you see old ladies read in waiting rooms. That's not to say it's bad, I've enjoyed old lady books before. This one left no impression on me, but again, you can chalk that up to reading book 4 first instead of knowing anything ahead of time. I do remember the author not characterizing the protagonist or the cat that much, but doing so with the other characters, so it was clearly expecting that I knew them before going in. And I didn't.

Once upon a time there were 9 Hellraiser films and I watched all of them in the span of a week. I liked 4 of them. The best were easily the first two, which both had the most involvement from writer, director, and author of the original book Clive Barker.

Yes, you heard me right, Hellraiser is based on a book. A damn great book too, named The Hellbound Heart. I put it and the first movie on the same pedestal, as so much of them are still the same and yet the differences in both are just as good.

So, if I read the first book, why does this count?

Well for one, this isn't actually a sequel to Hellbound Heart, if anything this book feels more like a spiritual successor to what was attempted in Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, where Pinhead lost all of his humane traits and became as evil as say Freddy Kreuger or Charles "Chucky" Lee Ray (A NIghtmare on Elm Street and Child's Play, respectively). It's funny how I don't like Hellraiser III but I did like how this book took that concept, even from the first few pages.

After those pages, I was introduced to Harry D'Amour, and I had no idea he was another one of Clive's preexisting characters. The book is a spiritual successor, but it's of two properties. And I had no idea until something was nagging the back of my head after having D'Amour after so many chapters.

I'm actually surprised this book exists, I thought Clive sold the Hellraiser license. He did, if I'm not mistaken, but I apparently am mistaken on my assumption that he couldn't do anything with the material. Apparently he's also worked on some of the comics (which I've been meaning to read), and Pinhead is still called Pinhead in this book as an insult, mimicking Barker's feelings on the name. I kind of agree it's a silly name, but it caught on better than Lead Cenobite, or the new name, Hell Priest.

Many reviews are claiming this is not as good as expected, as it was Barker's return to the horror genre after decades. Even still, those reviews are mostly positive, and while I had some problems there were bits I loved and I quite like the book as a whole. I just had to take a minute to say this:

If this is Clive Barker at his worst, he is still miles better than many other best-selling authors at their best. Obviously this is only my opinion, but it feels right to say. Also, yes I know there's a tenth movie now, I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. I don't have Netflix right now so maybe I'll Redbox it or something.

Kerrelyn Spark's All I Want For Vampire Is A Christmas

For all of the flak they undeseredly (and sometimes very deservedly) get, I love me some cheesy romantic novels. I even partnered up with Erika Ramson to do artwork for her indie book The Romance Novel, which you can buy here if you'd like to support us both.

Being involved in the project made me want to do some research, so for a while in 2017 I was reading several romance novels back-to-back, one of which was All I Want For Christmas Is A Vampire. Which I read in June, the official month of Christmas.

I liked the characters, the romantic subtext between Ian and and Toni seemed natural and something to root for. The villain was a complete monster without being too flat, something that shockingly pops up often in romance novels. I'm not joking, I could do another list like this one on the depths of evil for romance villains. Harlequin alone could easily have their own complete monster section on TVTropes.

There were other characters, and some of them did not get as much character development as others. I didn't notice that too much, until I went on Goodreads and saw "(Love at Stake #5)". Book 5 into a series I'd never heard of, and I just leaped right in.

Unlike with The Cat Who Saw Red, this wasn't a problem. This book works as a stand-alone. It probably would have been better if I had a bit more history with the series, and maybe in the future I will. My business partner Erika Ramson also enjoyed this book, even getting the chance to tell Kerrelyn Sparks on Twitter. The romance genre doesn't get enough credit, the authors who pop up can be incredibly talented.

If you look closely at the cover, you'll notice the words "A Meg Langslow Mystery" and "Author of the Award-winning Murder With Peacocks". Unlike with The Cat Who Saw Red, I did actually see this ahead of time, because I wasn't almost drunk that time. I found this in Sherman's Book Store, a chain of bookstores only found in Maine. Maine is a little too proud of itself (but name a state that isn't), and this book takes place in Maine, so they had this book but not the first. I tried looking for it, and came up with nothing. I figured since I already had this one in my hand, I would just buy it. So yeah, cheating on this one a little, but hey, the last book doesn't count at all either but we'll get to that when we get to that.

So this book reads pretty quick, isn't too long, and is not meant for you to think too hard about the mystery. Apparently these are called "cozies", which is a pretty prefect name. On the one hand, I want to say it was just okay, but the truth is that I also read the whole book in one sitting, so there must be something about it. I actually missed an event I wanted to go to because I was so busy reading this I forgot the time, thankfully the friend hosting said event wasn't too concerned and I think it was taped anyway.

This is only the second Meg Langslow book, and I think there's well over ten of them now. The book spoils the culprit of the first book if I remember correctly, so know that going in. All-in-all, yeah, sometimes it's good to lay back and read a whole book, and this one did it just fine without having to read the first one.

Okay, so like I said, this last one is different:

At that same Sherman's book store, I found this staring me down. Blood Of My Blood. There was something about the repetitive title that at first make me giggle, and then quite quickly unironically love. The book proudly calls itself the end of a trilogy, lets me know the stakes from the past two books are put to the final test, and that answers would be given.

When I found this book, I had already read some of the books in my list. Reading sequels with no knowledge of the previous installments was nothing new to me. I also often say that a sign of a good sequel is not having to know the one that came before it, that it should stand up on it's own two feet as well.

So I bought it fully well knowing this was the climactic conclusion to a story I knew nothing about. At the time, I thought it would be funny. Also, the book sounded like my jam anyway.

I was very much right, this is a great book. Jasper Dent is well-written, as are his friends and the villains the story revolves around. Straight-up evil is encountered, no punches pulled by some of these monsters, and the book is all the better for it.

Also, Lyga is great at giving exposition. It reads naturally, so people who jumped in late can get the details they need, and people who read the earlier installments can get a quick reminder in case they need it that doesn't overstay it's welcome in case they don't need. This one is my favorite from the list, and that's why it needed to be on it. I don't know if I would have read it if reading later installments first hadn't been such a common occurrence to me.

I enjoyed this book so much, I have every intention of reading the other two. And I am going to go in complete reverse order. 3, 2, then 1. Oh there's also some digital-only spin-off books and I plan on reading those too.

And that's that. 4 books I later found out were sequels, 1 book I couldn't find the first installment of, and 1 book that I knew would be the end but still worked as my beginning into the series. Thank you for reading, and don't forget to support any of the authors mentioned by finding these books for yourself, whether through money or going to a library. That counts for the one I was directly involved with too. :)