This is a really happy Monday in Tracyland as it is my youngest’s 11th birthday!! Woohoo! I can’t believe that she’s anywhere near that OLD but alas, she is. This is the crazy kid:

and just think, this is how she looked when I first started the blog: 

I know! 

She’s so funny. This weekend she was going to go somewhere with me and she was wearing a decent top but was wearing her dance shorts. Normally around the house it’s A-OK that she does that but it was just inappropriate for where we were going. I asked her to change her shorts and she whined and didn’t want to.

I said, “Come on chick, just humor me.”
She said, “OK. Did you hear the one about…”

OMG I just started laughing…and then pushed her into her room to change. 🙂

We had a good Independence Day – just hung out and watched movies and then my hubs and youngest went to watch fireworks.

My oldest got home from her week long mission trip stinking, with paint in her hair and more tired then I’ve ever seen her. She slept for 12 hours straight then woke up, ate and went back to bed. lol She had a great time though so it’s all good.

Ok – on to what I read last week: 

I started off the week with Lover Reborn by JR Ward. This is Tohrment’s story. If you’ve read the books you know that his love died and he’s still torn up about it but he’s told that Wellsie is in the In-Between and the only way she can get to the Fade (heaven) is for him to truly let her go. Now this is not a horrible scenario but when they said that it had only been 14 months since she died I was a bit put off. I think that was just too soon for him to be pushed, but whatever. His love interest was a woman named No’One who is actually Xhex’s mother. The story was decent but not fantastic. It was good to catch up with the past characters and of course to see what Blay and Qhuinn were up to. 3.25/3.5 out of 5 

Next up was Codename: Autumn by Aubrey Ross. The story is set on Earth but it has been taken over but aliens. The humans have either been killed or forced into prostitution or to work in the mines. Autumn chose to be a prostitute as the female mine workers got raped repeatedly. She figured it she was going to have to give up her body she might as well have a choice about it. Anyway, she gets into a bad sitch with a fellow prostitute and is saved by a commander, Ra’jen. He doesn’t pay for sex but they manage to work things out and next thing you know she’s his woman exclusively. The story also has a rebellion in it that Ra’jen is a part of and he brings Autumn into it as well. While this story has somewhat of an HFN ending the rebellion story is on-going and that was a bit frustrating. 3 out of 5 

The Switched Baby Scandal by Theresa Meyers is the story of single mom Taylor who finds out that her daughter is not the one she actually gave birth to. Her baby was switched with another at the hospital. Taylor isn’t willing to give up her child even though she’s not the one she carried for 9 months. She does want to meet her biological child though. Unfortunately when they contact the other family they find out that the other mom and Taylor’s real child were killed in an auto accident a year earlier. The story then covers Taylor’s interactions with her daughter and the father of the deceased child and how they fall in love. It was a decent story but the heroine kind of drove me nuts with her ups and downs and the hero with his survivors guilt. 3 out of 5 (read for Book Binge) 

The Week Before the Wedding by Beth Kendrick was next and follows Emily the week before her wedding to Grant at a destination in Vermont. Her mother is nuts, her fiancé is just about completely absent, her ex-husband shows up and Grant’s family is so prim and proper it drives her a bit crazy – even though she’s longed for prim and proper most of her life. This was an amusing story and it made me laugh on more than one occasion. The secondary characters almost ran the novel but it was still good. Emily was a bit wishy-washy but I loved Ryan and his quiet steadfastness. 3.5 out of 5 (read for Book Binge) 

Up next was What the Duke Desires by Sabrina Jeffries. The story is about the bastard daughter of a viscount, Lisette, who is trying to help a duke, Max, find her brother who supposedly has info on Max’s brother. Max wants the info and Lisette wants to make sure that Tristan is safe from their hal-brother who wants Tristan arrested. It’s mostly a romance that takes place while traveling and I always love those. It had Jeffries great writing and it was a decent read. 3.75 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

Pieces of Dreams by Jennifer Blake is a novella about a woman who is supposed to marry Caleb but is actually in love with his twin Conrad who has been at sea for years. Conrad shows back up and things get a bit hairy between the brothers. It was a good story except for the sex scene where “he drew off more layers of clothing like shucking an ear of corn to reach the tender kernels.” Oy. It kind of went on like that. It honestly almost was like someone else wrote the sex scene because the rest wasn’t like that at all and that really ruined it a lot for me. 3 out of 5 

From This Moment On by Bella Andre was my next read and is the story of Nicola who is a pop star and Marcus Sullivan who is 11 years her senior. They head off for a one night stand that doesn’t actually happen until much later but they both realize that one night isn’t enough and decide to spend time together until she leaves San Francisco. Of course they fall in love but it’s much more complicated than that. This was MUCH better than book 1 and I really enjoyed it. 4 out of 5 (read for Book Binge) 

The Savage King by Michelle M. Pillow is about a race on another planet, the Var – a race of large cat shifters, who are at war with the Draig, who are a race of dragon shifters. Ulyssa is sent to the planet from Earth to investigate a doctor but by the time she gets there the doc is dead. She has 3 months to wait for her ride off the planet and plans to camp – until she’s taken by the King of the Var. He dies like a day or so later and she ends up with his son, Kirill, and they fall in love, but not before they have lots of misunderstanding, arguments, and attempts at escape. There’s also a who part of the story that has to do with the late king and his plan for biological warfare. It was a decent read for a fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal. I don’t normally read this kind of thing but I liked it. 3.5 out of 5 

Last for the week was The Care and Feeding of an Alpha Male by Jessica Clare. This story has Beth Ann out in the forest looking for her sister. The rain causes flooding and an evacuation but Colt who is volunteering see’s Beth Ann’s car and decides that he’s going to play a trick on her and tell her they can’t get out. It was only supposed to be for one night but Colt is surprised at the spine that Beth Ann shows and the next thing you know they’re sleeping together. The relationship moves from there but Beth Ann’s first requirement in a relationship is honesty and she has to trust her partner. Yeah, you can see where that’s going. The story was a good one though and I really liked both Beth Ann and Colt. I do wish that Beth Ann would have stood up for herself a bit more and MAN was there a lot of sex in the book, but I still really liked it. 4 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
One Night Rodeo by Lorelei James
Finding Billie by Priscilla Brown

Happy Reading!