Greetings my friends. How the heck are ya?

Things here are good. The kids are on Fall break at the moment (all week for the youngest and just Mon. & Tues. for the oldest) so I’m trying to find activities to keep them occupied. I don’t get the week off so that makes it a bit difficult.

My youngest daughter had her first promotion test in her quest for her 2nd Dan in Taekwondo. She did great, of course. She doesn’t actually get a different belt, just a white star that gets sewn onto her black uniform. I’m not sure how many stars she needs before she can test for her 2nd Dan but I’m sure it’s a boatload. 🙂 Here’s a vid that I put together of the various parts of her test. There were a couple of things I left out because people were blocking my taping. WE know what they are but everyone else would have looked at it and said, “what the hell is that?” lol

At my church this weekend we had the Blessing of the Animals service. We had church in the courtyard instead of indoors and there were lots of cats and dogs, a bunny and a bearded dragon. Very cool. Our cat, Echo, is not really a people person. She loves HER people but when a visitor comes over she’ll run and hide and stay there for hours until the person leaves. She also loves to look out the windows in our house but doesn’t like it when we take her outside – she also doesn’t like her carrier so taking her to the blessing was interesting. She was very vocal on her way to church and when I told my daughter to take her out of the carrier for the blessing she didn’t want to for fear that Echo would jump out of her arms and run away. She didn’t – yay! and was actually pretty darned calm. She was still meowing pretty loudly when we took her to the blessing but other than that she did wonderfully. She even let people come up and pet her! I kept trying to take a picture of her and every time I did she’d hide her face. OMG it was hilarious. So, this is what I got…shy kitty. Yes, that’s Echo’s face hiding in my daughter’s armpit lol

Giveaways!  (Yikes, almost forgot completely!)
Winner of the Steam Bath: Sweaty Gay Erotica giveaway is ELF.
Winner of My 2013 5 Star Reads (so far) giveaway is Timitra.

Congrats to both of you!

Anyway, on to what I read this past week:

First for the week was The Christmas He Loved Her by Juliana Stone. The story is about a man and woman who have been friends forever but she was once married to his twin who has since died. He’s been in love with the woman for forever but obviously never acted on those feelings since she was unavailable. The couple deals with their feelings for each other as well as guilt and depression. I’ll post my review for this one later this week.

Next up was Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha (aka Moira Rogers) that I picked at All Romance eBooks as a freebee recently. The story is set in dystopian world where there are sectors outside of the city, i.e. rebels and/or those that got kicked out of the city for one thing or another. Noelle is a councilman’s daughter but after two arrest – 1 for drinking and 1 for fornication she’s kicked out of the city. She gets taken in by the O’Kane gang who runs Sector 4. There she meets Jasper and has to learn to get past the shame of enjoying those things that she’s been told all her life are wrong. This was a really good book. I very much liked the story and am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. This is an erotic novel so there was an abundance of sex but I thought it worked in well with the story. 4 out of 5

Next up was Long Shot by Hanna Martine. This is a friends to lovers/reunited love kind of story. Jen used to spend every summer in Breann, New Hampshire starting at 8 years old. That summer she met Leith and they continued to be friends every summer she arrived from Iowa. When she was 18 she showed up and their friendship became much more. Leith asked her to stay with him but she was off to college. Now it’s 10 years later and Jen is back in Breann to help plan their Highland Games for them. Jen and Leith meet once and they soon discover that the passion they shared hasn’t died with a 10 year separation. The story was really good and I loved so many things about this book. 4 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

Taming the Alpha by Adriana Hunter was the story of Nikki who is a stripper and meets Jax when he is desperate to find a mate (he’s a werewolf) and decides to hit the strip joint. They have a connection and hit it off but he’s not sure how the pack will accept her. To say he was ashamed of her would be putting it mildly as he never introduced her to anyone the entire book. He doesn’t even tell her he’s a werewolf until the last few pages and then she’s all, “I don’t care, I love you!” Ahem. Yeah, ok. Then there’s his strange reaction to her best friend (and we never find out why) and the completely unsolved murders that occur in the book. The novella was just the first part of the series but I felt like I should have gotten a whole lot more info by the end of the book. 2 out of 5 

Duke of Midnight by Elizabeth Hoyt was last for the week and it was a good one. The story is the love story between the Duke of Wakefield and the companion of the woman he’s courting. Messed up much? Artemis is actually a wonderful character with just not much going for her in life. She has a brother in Bedlam who was accused of murder and has barely a penny to her name, not to mention her love of a Duke who refuses to marry her. sigh I’ll post my review of this one next week. 4 out of 5

 
My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
crickets

Happy Reading!