Good morning!
Not much happened this past week until Saturday when some of the So Cal Bloggers got together. Wendy, Renee, Nikki, Judith and I met at Renee’s house and then moved over to the Covina Bookstore. For an independent bookstore it had a great romance section. We then went for lunch and then over to Barnes and Noble to check out their shelves. It was a lot of fun and always wonderful to see friends and talk BOOKS! lol I got some great recommendations from Renee and bought a book from a new-to-me author (whose name I can’t remember at the moment. lol). Here we are outside if B & N.
Diet and Exercise – Oy it’s gone to the dogs completely. I’m starting again today with being diligent about the exercise and eating right. I did get on the scale and am up a bit. I had lost a total of 4 pound – which has now only 2.4 *sigh* ah well – just goes to show I can’t fall off the wagon. This proves that left to my own devices I will eat the house. lol
Reading…(if only I was as good about exercise as I was about reading! lol)…it was a good week. I read some good stuff:
First up was Big Bad Beast by Shelly Laurenston. I really like Laurenston’s heroine’s and the men who love them. This story was about Dee-Ann who is one bad ass mofo who you do not want to mess with. Restaurant owner Ric wants nothing more than to mess with her in many different ways. The book is a combination of Rick and Dee-Ann’s relationship, a story of Dee-Ann and 2 others working on a case for The Unit that involves a dog-fighting type setup only with hybrids and a small story of Ric’s father who’s a complete bastard. It was a good story but I had some issues with it. You can read my review over at The Book Binge if you’re interested. 3.5 out of 5
Next was the novella Unlocked by Courtney Milan. What a great story! Evan had a thing for Lady Elaine Warren and wanted him to notice her. He went about it all wrong, however, and ended up making her someone that was laughed at and ridiculed and ended up making him feel like a horrible person. Evan leaves and doesn’t return for 10 years. He’s become a completely different person and would like nothing more than Elaine to forgive him. He knows this isn’t possible but it doesn’t stop him from trying. Such a great novella. Smexy’s review of this book is what got me hooked. 4.5 out of 5
More Than Words Volume 7 by Carly Phillips, Donna Hill and Jill Shalvis is a Harlequin anthology that has stories that are based on amazing women. Three really good stories make up this anthology and it’s just a fun romantic book. You can read my review here. 4 out of 5
Kathry, the Kitten by Lavinia Kent was my next read. This is a novella that starts The Real Duchesses of London series. This was the story of the Kathryn, the Duchess of Harrington, who seems to have the perfect life except she doesn’t actually sleep with her husband any longer. She loves him and wants him back in her bed. She asks a friend for help but there are many other things happening that Kathryn doesn’t know about. This was a great little novella and one I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ll post a review next week. 4 out of 5 (This is an Avon Impulse that releases on the 28th of this month)
After that I went on a little Anne Brooke spree with the Delaneys. I started off with The Delaneys and Me which is a story about Liam who breaks up with his boyfriend and says some things that put his ex-boyfriends cousins (The Delaneys who are crime bosses) hackles up. He knows he has to pay for what he’s said and what the Delaneys come up with is scary but doable. They tell him that he can get his balls shot off or have sex with them. Yeah, which one do you think he chose? lol This was a short story (35 pages) that was so cute. I really liked the writing and the humor in the story was right up my alley. Yes there are twins in the story but no twincest. 4 out of 5
Next was Entertaining the Delaneys by Anne Brooke. The twins are contacting Liam a few weeks after their first encounter and want Liam to entertain one of their guests. He’s up for it as long as the twins are involved. Again, a funny story that’s quite short (also 35 pages) and pretty darned hot. Same fun humor as the first story which I love. 4 out of 5
The third story in the Delaney series (so far) was The Art of the Delaneys by Anne Brooke. In this story (42 pages) Liam and his boss are helping the Delaneys with a little art scam their running. The twins and Liam get up to a little fun in the gallery and make some decisions about their strange but compelling relationship. Another cute story and I can’t wait to read what’s up next with the threesome. 3.75 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week was Seducing the Duchess by Ashley March. The story is about a duke who kidnaps his own wife. You see he married her for revenge and when she found out – the day after he wedding 3 years earlier – she decided to do everything she could to force the duke into divorcing her. She wasn’t actually as bad as rumor had it and despite her dislike of duke she couldn’t stop loving him. He’s decided he loves his wife and wants her back and with him only. I liked the story a lot but had some issues with the heroine. She wanted her freedom from the duke but it was because of the situation, at least that’s how I was reading it. But when they express their love for each other and he says he won’t divorce her she’s upset that she won’t have her freedom. Why would she still want it? 3.75 out of 5
Getting Off the Ground by LA Witt was a great novella that I very much enjoyed. Elliot is at the airport in Seattle waiting for the planes to get off the ground and in a freak blizzard. He’s going on his honeymoon to Hawaii by himself after he was stood up at the altar. He meets Derek in the airport who’s also heading to Hawaii but he lives on the islands. Derek and Elliot get to know each other and end up spending the night in a hotel room together that’s just amazing. But then it had to end because they’re going different places – or does it? I was little leery of Derek and Elliot’s getting together – even for a night – because of Elliot having just come out of this very long relationship where he was prepared to marry his partner. As the story moves on Witt explained Elliot and his ex-partners relationship in a way that I could accept Derek and Elliot together. I have the next book in the series or I might have been upset at the ending which was a bit abrupt. I’ll dig into book 2 this week. 4 out of 5
Collide by Megan Hart was my next read and it was so good! This book comes out on the 21st and I recommend it. The story of a woman who has the hots for an ex-independent film star-turned-artist-turned-gallery owner but he seems to not want to have anything to do with her. Then she starts having hallucinations about the man but it’s when he was 30 years younger. I’ll post my review this week and tell you more. 4.25 out of 5
Last on the list was a short novella I read for The Book Binge called When, Were and Howl by Jeanette Raleigh. This was the story of a woman who is a shifter but she turns into a mouse when she shifts – the rest of her family are wolf shifters – talk about different. She’s got it bad for her wolf shifter boss and wants more than anything to be able to shift to something besides a mouse. She gets an amulet that allows her to shift into a wolf but then she can’t get back to human. Is it all she’d hoped it would be? It was a cute story but left me hanging at the end of the story which I didn’t care for. I’ll probably read the next novelette just so I can see what happened! 3 out of 5
My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
Happy Reading!
It was so nice to see everybody – as usual 🙂 And I survived my babysitting gig that evening.
Glad you guys had a great time!
Yeah, I had to wait a few weeks for the second LA Witt book. *sigh* I think Jen might've talked her into writing more about those two!
Keep on keepin' on with the diet and exersize. I haven't been to the gym in weeks and have been watching what I eat, but not counting calories. That leaves me on a plateu. Time to get back into it! LOL
Oh, I really enjoy the Megan Hart books, even though she tends to make me angry at some point. I'm going to keep my eyes open for Collide.
When Were & Howl sounds super cute! But maybe I will wait to read it until the next one is out. I dislike cliffhangers too.
Glad you enjoyed the Delaneys, Tracy, and lovely to be in such great company there – many thanks! :))
Anne
xxx
Great picture!
Ha – if I were as good about exercising as reading I'd have the figure of a swimsuit model. LOL Which I don't cause I like to read far more than exercise. 🙂
I need to get the Hart book – love her stories. 🙂
Those So-Cal Blogger catch-ups sound (and look) amazing!
WRT the healthy eating/exercise? *hugs* I know sometimes life just happens, and it's stressful, and being strict with healthy eating and exercise at such times is hard. Really hard. But, my nutritionist said that it's OK to have the odd treat. If you didn't treat yourself occasionally then you'd be more likely to…give it all up completely. And you're not. All the best 🙂
OOPS! Forgot to talk about the books. Some good ones this week. And I do like the sound of Getting Off the Ground 🙂
Wendy – It was so good to see you again. Glad to hear the babysitting went well. 🙂
Chris – I'm anxious to dive into Infinity Pools. Good to hear there might be more – I've really liked the characters so far.
SVZ – Ug I hate to exercise but know it's a necessity. Hopefully this week will be better. 🙂
The Megan Hart was good! If you like her books you'll like this one I think.
I think the second book is already available from Amazon and B & N Nook for the Wolf and Mouse series. Wait…yep, only .99!
Anne – You're welcome! I really liked the books and can't wait to read where the trios relationship heads next.
Leslie – OMG YES! lol That's too funny. If I got off my ass and exercised as much as I read I would look friggin awesome! 🙂
Hart=good!
Orannia – Thanks the get together was fun!
Thanks for the info about the diet and exercise. It's so easy for me to blow off the healthy eating when there's so much crap around! lol I'm trying to be good and just have a little treat here and there to off set the cravings so we'll see how that works.
Getting off the Ground was great.