Howdoo!
How are you all? I certainly hope you had a great week last week. Mine was damned busy but then I got 4 days off so I’ve had time to recover. I took today off as I knew I’d be busy with family yesterday for Easter. The girls had a great time at church yesterday and hunting for eggs after. They never get too old for that, do they? Lol
Oh – and fyi – my non mechanical hubby made me proud, hooked up the water in the fridge and now I have water and ice – yay!!!
Not much else to say so I’ll get right to what I read…
I started off the week with a book that I read for The Book Binge called Romancing Olive by Holly Bush. This is a western historical which normally isn’t one of my go-to locations/times but the blurb sounded intriguing enough that I decided to go for it. I was glad I did. Puckered up 35 year old spinster Olive heads from Philadelphia to Ohio to get her niece and nephew after her brother and his wife are killed. What she finds when she gets there is pretty shocking and the kids have no desire whatsoever to go with Olive…ever. The kids were taken in by a neighbor, Jacob (age 25) and his three kids. Jacob offers a place for Olive to stay while she gets to know the kids until they are comfortable with her enough to head back to her home. They story follows Olive’s discovery of life and love and it’s a pretty darned good book. You can read more review here. 3.75 out of 5
Next up was Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann. The first in the Fighting Destiny series. It takes place in the not too distant future but the world has changed dramatically. You can read my review here. 3.75 out of 5
Next up was The Duke’s Perfect Wife by Jennifer Ashley. Another one I read for The Book Binge and it was wonderful. This is Hart’s story and reunites him with his first love, Eleanor, who is a calming force in Hart’s uber-controlled world. It was a great love story and really showed a great side of Hart that we hadn’t seen before. Good stuff. 4.75 out of 5
Having Faith by Nancy O’Berry is the first novella in the Sweetbrier series and was my Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week. The series is about a place that is basically a high class brothel but the girls are educated and looking for protectors – the 3 books cover the “best” 3 girls. This story was about Faith and how she is up for grabs in a poker game – for the night with the option to continue the relationship long term. She really is hoping that one man will win her as she really likes him. The book, to me, was completely unrealistic. The way the story is set up really made me feel that Faith was completely snobby except when she was with Thaddeus, the man she hopes will win her. I know it’s a high class place but I felt like I was in the middle of a girls finishing school than a brothel. While the second half of the book was better it still was just an ok read for me. 2 out of 5
College Boys by Daisy Harris was my next read. This is set at Holsum College and has Chris finding out a huge fact about himself that he’s never known before – he’s gay. I’ll post my review this week.
Whitetail Rock by Anne Tenino is a free read on Goodreads and was great. The story is about a guy going home from graduate school for his break and meeting a butch cop. Despite the fact that Nik tries to get under Jurgen’s skin, Jurgen doesn’t give up pursuing Nik. It was a great story and definitely worth the read. 4 out of 5
Last for the week was Catch Me A Cowboy by Katie Lane. This is book 3 in the Deep in the Heart of Texas series. I did read book 2 but was a little lost because I hadn’t read book 1. This was better as I knew background and pretty much knew most of the characters going in. I’ll post my review later this week.
My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
Romancing Olive by Holly Bush
Happy Reading!
Glad you had a nice Easter. I loved Whitetail Rock there were some really funny parts with Nik's friend and it was pretty steamy.
I'm in laundry mode today. Ugh. My own fault for not doing it yesterday, or Saturday, or Friday. Sigh.
Holly Bush? Wowzers.
Kudos to your husband! 😀
I liked Whitetail Rock, too. There are some great quotes from it on GRs. 😀
Tam – There were some funny parts in it. I love the humor and emotion all rolled into one book.
I was in laundry mode yesterday as well – all the stuff that didn't get done on Sunday. What a way to spend your day off. lol
Rowena – LOL
Chris – Yeah, the old man came through for me. lol
There ARE some good quotes. I'll have to go back and make sure I read them all.
They never came back to hook the water or you didn't call them back? If your husband was able to do it though, that's better 🙂
Another good week for you 🙂 Glad you enjoyed The Duke's Perfect Wife so much. I need to read it… and too bad about Born to Darkness.
So glad you all had a lovely Easter and YAH for water and ice!
Ohhh, I like the sound of Romancing Olive (I haven't read a western in aaaages 🙂 and Whitetail Rock! *off to GoodReads*
Nath – They did come back but it was a fiasco. They didn't have the correct part and when they finally got it there was a problem with the water hook up under the sink. Needless to say they didn't hook up the fridge so hubby worked his magic. 🙂
I loved Hart's book. He just loved Eleanor so much. *sigh*
Orannia – I don't normally read a lot of western historicals so it was different – but good. 🙂
Enjoy Whitetail Rock!
Hey Trace, so glad you had a great Easter, mine was quiet.
Romancing Olive sounds really interesting, I might give it a shot.
I'm so glad you enjoyed The Duke's Perfect Wife. I'm still loving the series, but there were some snags in that story for me. Even so, I agree with your comments to Nath that Hart's love for Eleanor and vice versa provided some beautiful sigh-worthy moments. *g*
Hilcia – Quiet Easters are good too. My family's very loud so my dad had to go hide in the office for a while. lol
I read your review for TDPW and can see some of your points. Yes, I would have liked Hart's "desires" to be more fully explored. I thought though that Eleanor's reasoning was solid for why she broke the engagement off originally. I think we have to take in her age as well as the fact that she feared being treated as his mistress had been treated. Glad you liked it too! 🙂
Trace, I think for me Eleanor's youth was precisely the reason I didn't buy her reasons for ending the engagement. And unfortunately later, they never really speak openly about Mrs. Palmer or that part of their/his past in any real depth.
Now Hart? I didn't need a bedroom scene to explain his dark side. But a few conversations with Eleanor explaining preferences (maybe why he liked suffocation during sex, that was never even mentioned in this book), a hint of whether this was acceptable to Eleanor or not and whether he would need this type of sexual gratification in the future. Anything would have helped a little in that respect. But there's very little there when it comes to the Hart we met in Ian's book.
But you know what? I still loved them, and can't wait for Daniel's story. And it's weird but I'm really curious about the next book too. 🙂
Hilcia – Yes, I did think Ashley would delve deeper into Hart's preferences – too bad. 🙂
I'm curious about the next book too! Glad the series is still going.