What I Read Last Week

It was a relatively quiet week last week for me.  I had a migraine for daaaaays but unfortunately life doesn’t change all that much for me even with the headache from hell. lol

I’m really excited that GayRomLit is only a month away!  Yay!  I can’t wait to head to New Orleans and see all those lovely bloggers and authors.  It will be great to see Tam, Chris and Kris again and I’ll get to meet Janna, Leontine and Kassa as well as others, I’m sure.  The event itself sounds to be freakin awesome and I’m really excited.  I was looking at the author list a while back and figured out that of the 67 authors they had on their list of attending authors (I’m sure there are more that aren’t on the list) I’ve only read 20 – yikes.  I have books by 4 others that I haven’t read yet but that’s not all that much, now is it?  I should probably make an effort to read more of those authors…we’ll see how that goes. lol

And let’s see…oh, I looked at my Goodreads challenge today.  I signed up for the reading challenge at the beginning of the year and I put how many books I wanted to read for 2011.  I put 400.  I know, was I on dope at that time or what?  I apparently just pulled a number out of my ass and typed it in.   So I looked this morning after not paying it any attention for the past month and as much as I read I realized that I’m 4 books behind!  Yes, behind.  Seriously, what was I thinking? 400? I know no one but me is paying one iota of attention but still – I feel bad for falling down on the job.  Did any of you sign up for it?  If so how are you doing on the challenge?

Ok – what did I read last week?

I stared off the week with Just A Little White Lie by Lynnette Hallberg.  This was a cute contemporary about a woman who finds her fiance at the church on the day of her wedding making out with his ex-fiance.  Nice. Not.  She takes off but breaks down on the side of the road and is saved by a guy who then thinks to use her for his own purposes – namely he wants her to be his fake fiance.  It was a cute book that I had a few issues with – but good. You can read my review here. 3.5 out 5

Next was Breathe Again by Bonnie R. Paulson.  This was a really good book that had Maggie who was trying to deal with her husband’s suicide meeting 2 brothers that help her deal with it all.  They have their own issues as well so the three of them end up helping each other.  You can read my review here. 4.25 out of 5

Next was Romancing the Countess by Ashley March. The story followed Leah who is married to Ian – but Ian dies in a carriage accident along with his best friends wife.  Well, well – what were they up to I wonder?  If you’re thinking that they were having an affair you’d be right.  Leah’s not all that crushed over her husband’s death as she knew about the affair.  Then there’s Ian’s best friend, Sebastian, who’s devastated by the loss of his wife and all he knew about her.  Many things happen and Leah and Sebastian fall in love – but they don’t tell the other.  Can they be together or will ghosts of the past haunt them? A really good story that was on the darker side – not a lot of humor.  4 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

It Happened One Bite by Lydia Dare was my Tracy’s TBR Challenge read.  This is the start of a new trilogy about vampyre’s in regency England but it has a continuation of characters from the authors previous werewolf stories. This book was Blaire’s book and has her in the Highlands awakening a vampyre who was put under a spell by the previous coven 20 years prior.  This is a good historical paranormal and that had great humor. 3.75 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

After that was a short called The Wild Side by Janey Chapel.  This was about Ryan who’s normal guys are either jocks or jarheads.  He heads off to work at The Wild Side for Valentines day and finds himself enamored with Nick who is the opposite of his “type” – but that turns out to be a good thing.  Good story.  4 out of 5

In the Heat of the Bite by Lydia Dare was next.  Another story in the regency vampyre trilogy.  This was Rhiannon and Matthew’s story.  I really liked Matthew but Rhiannon was kind of blah for me.  Rhiannon had Matthew pretending to be courting her so that she could have more respectability and of course they fall in love.  The story was a bit different from the previous book and while still good had too many similarities to the previous book for my liking.  3.5  out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

In the Crease by Stephani Hecht was a complete impulse buy on my part. We have those from time to time, don’t we?  Don’t deny it! lol  The story was about Cole who heads to his hometown to try to talk his sister out of marrying her fiance who was, with his brother, his archnemesis.  Of course he’s trying to do this 24 hours before the wedding so it’s not all that easy.  What ends up happening is that he gets together with the brother, Andy, and the pair find they’re quite compatible.  A very cute story.  A little bit of insta-love but hey, it was only 45 pages!  3.5 out of 5

Another impulse buy – Confessions of a Rentboy by TR Verten.  I read a review for this book on Jenre’s blog, Well Read, a while back and it really appealed to me.  The story is told by Andy and has him telling us about his time as a rentboy in London. He tells us of how he got into the business, some of his clients and experiences as well as his time after the man he falls in love with marries someone else.  It’s a very good book that had me smiling as well as tearing up a time or two while reading. Well written and definitely worth the read. 4 out of 5

And last on the list for the week was Demon Marked by Meljean Brook.  Another fantastic book by one of my favorite authors.  I seriously love this series and will cry huge crocodile tears when it comes to an end.  Can’t it go on forever? Please?  No?  Dammit.  In this book we have a halfling demon who has no memory meeting up with a man who was raised by a demon who had taken over the role of his mother.  He has serious issues and doubts everything a demon says as he thinks it’s a plot.  Not the start of a great romance, I’d say.  But Ash and Nicholas are so good together it’s amazing.  Then there’s the continuing story of Taylor and Michael and them working on getting him out of the frozen field in Hell and wow.  The story is so good and has so many twists and turns I couldn’t stop turning pages.  Just an excellent read as far as I’m concerned! 5 out of 5

My Book Binge Reviews that posted last week: