A busy, busy week here in Tracyland. Lots of stuff happening but mostly busy stuff.
My youngest did go for her next belt (which really wasn’t all that different from her last test) on Saturday so she is now a brown 2 which means she has a brown belt with 2 red stripes on it. Her next belt will be red. She did a pretty good job and was happy with her test. She passed! That was the important part. 🙂 Here she is showing off her trophy. lol
In reading it was a slower week…
I started off the week with The Dragon Who Loved Me by GA Aiken. This is book 5 in the Dragon Kin series and it was another good one. In this book there was lots of stuff happening. We had wars on 2 different fronts – lots of family love as well as disputes and lots of different events happening simultaneously. This was Rhona the Fearless’s story (a cousin of the Royal family) and how she fell in love with a Northland dragon, Vigholf the Abhorrent. Their love story was central to the locations in the book for the most part but the romance itself kind of took a back seat, I felt, to the overall story arc – which actually worked in this book. Would I have liked more romance, yes, but since these are warriors that are falling in love I’ll take what I can get in the romance department. lol A really good book. 4.25 out of 5
Next was Clear Water by Amy Lane. I really liked this book as well – and the story of Whiskey and Patrick meeting and falling in love. You can read my review here. 4.25 out of 5
Next was Unclaimed by Courtney Milan. This book 2 in the Turner series and was Mark Turner’s story. He is a man who has written a book about Chastity that has gotten blown so out of proportion he’s a bit overwhelmed. He just wants to go somewhere where he can be himself and not have to worry about fawning women…and men. He thinks he finds it in Shepton Mills where he grew up but when it comes down to it the woman he finds that doesn’t fawn is actually out to seduce him for money. It was a good book but for some reason I had a really time sticking with the story until the last half of the book. I liked Mark a ton but I think I really wanted him to be with someone other than Jessica until almost the very end of the book. She just really didn’t rub me the right way for some reason. 3.5 out of 5
Honor’s Splendour by Julie Garwood was my next book. Holly told me I had to read this one and I’m so glad I did. It’s a long ass medieval romance that I adored. The story of warring barons and one takes the others sister for revenge but ends up falling in love with her. Yes, the same time of story has been told many times but it was oh so good! My review will go up over at the Book Binge eventually. 5 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge Read for the week was Jacob’s Ladder by ZA Maxfield. After reading Physical Therapy I couldn’t wait too long before I had to read JL. It was really good. This was about Jacob who is thrown off his bus in St. Nacho’s because the passenger’s are afraid of getting the swine flu (he’s just got the regular old flu, people!) and finds he likes it there. He also likes EMT JT but JT is pretty deep in the closet. I liked that the pair got together in the end but I had a hard time seeing in JT what Jacob saw in JT. I guess the heart wants what the heart wants. There was also a great part of the story about domestic abuse and I really liked the soul searching that went on in the book – very good. I really like this series and in fact came to work this morning and immediately bought book 4 – The Book of Daniel. Can’t wait! 4 out of 5
My Book Binge reviews that posted this past week:
Happy Reading!
Congrats to your youngest! 🙂
When do you start The Book of Daniel? 🙂
Yay brown two! 🙂 She's blazing through.
You had a couple of good m/m's this week, hopefully next week is equally successful.
Hey, for a slow week, you still did better than I do on most good weeks! 😀 Lol. Tons of great reads on your list, a few (G.A. Aiken, Garwoods, and Milan) are all on my list already. The others I've never heard of–mostly since I'm not a big reader of m/m romance. Still, perhaps one day I'll look into them. 🙂
Enjoy,
TBQ
Yep, yep, your daughter is climbing the ranks!! Congrats to her 🙂
How's the G.A. Aiken's series, Tracy? I'm starting to get curious and wonder if I should give this series a try…
Chris – Thanks!
I'll try to start The Book of Daniel next week. I'm really behind on my reading obligations at the moment so who really knows! lol
Tam – Yep – trying to catch up on my m/m reading!
TBQ – It was a good week – that's for sure. Thanks for stopping by.
Nath – She's a go-getter! 🙂
I really like the Aiken series. Her heroines are tough and most don't take any shit which I really like. 🙂 I really liked book 1 but they got better from there, imho. 🙂
Congrats to your daughter!
Yay! Glad you enjoyed Jacob's Ladder, and hope you like Book of Daniel, too. They both rocked! 🙂
Your youngest is blazing through those grades! Congrats!
And I'm hoping to read Physical Therapy this weekend – I can't wait! must read more ZA Maxfield 🙂