Happy Monday!

It’s been a crazy week at my house. Hubby is still recuperating and I’m still taking care of him. My youngest then got sick on Saturday with a high fever, vomiting and a bad cold. Oy. I think I need a caretaker for the caretaker. lol Other than that life is good. I got a lot of reading done this week…especially this weekend taking care of my youngest. She just wanted me to hold her while she stared at the wall so I read. Poor thing.

At one point this week I was trying to think of the name of a book. I had to go back through my blog to find it since I could remember the premise but not the character names. I found the book but discovered that I really have been slacking on the book descriptions and just telling how I felt about the book. I will endeavor to do better with this. If I start slacking off you can give me a cyber slap. 🙂

Book Giveaway winner!  I used my high tech name generator (aka put names in a basket and have my friend Shannon draw one out) and the winner of Catch Me If You Can by LB Gregg is:

Now – on to what I read:

First up for the week was The Truth About Lord Stoneville by Sabrina Jeffries. This is book one in the Hellions of Halstead Hall series about 5 siblings who were more or less raised by their grandmother. Said grandmother, who is a wealthy woman due to her husband’s brewery has said that all of the siblings must marry within a year or they will receive no money. Since none of them are flush by any means and depend on her they are not happy about this turn of events. The Marquess of Stoneville – the oldest son – decides to thwart his grandmother by bringing home the most unacceptable bride he can find…one straight from a brothel. Except he runs into Maria Butterfield and due to crazy circumstances pretty much bribes her into being his pretend bride. They of course fall in love cuz this is a romance, after all. I really liked this book a lot. I thought Maria and Oliver played off each other very nicely and it just gave me the warm fuzzies. lol 4.25 out of 5

The next book was Trouble in Mudbug by Jana Deleon. This was a recommendation from the lady at New and Recycled Romance but I just couldn’t get into it. I may go back and finish it sometime but IDK. I got about 100 pages into the story – a botanist in Louisiana who was being investigated, but we don’t know why – and she inherits an entire preserve from her dead m-i-l who in life hated her – Oh, and said m-i-l is now haunting her and she’s the only one who can see her ghost – and I just couldn’t read any further. When the heroine of the story kept saying that she was doing things that she would never in a million years do…like breaking and entering…I just couldn’t keep reading. DNF

The Bliss Factor by Penny McCall was next and again I had to put the book down for lack of interest. Again, got about 125 pages in and had to put it down. A woman is asked by her hippie-like parents to “watch” a friend of theirs. Only the man was hit on the head and since he was working the renaissance fair he thinks that’s his time period and doesn’t understand this strange new world. Not my thing, unfortunately. DNF

 

Next up was Bareback by Chris Owen. I read this one for my m/m challenge. I really liked it. You can read my review here. 4 out of 5

Remember I said that I had a lot of books to read for The Book Binge? Well, I tried to get through a bunch of the ebooks this week. All but two were novellas so it made for fast reading. It looks like I read a lot but really when you think about it the 3 novellas and 1 short equal 1 full length novel. 🙂 

1) The first was Hidden Desires by Elizabeth Lapthorne. A woman goes to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and not only picks up a magical mask but meets the man of her dreams. 3.25 out of 5 Review here
2) The next was Mardi Gras by Lacey Alexander. The story of a woman who is crazy about her boss that she’s known since she was about 12. She puts on a costume during Mardi Gras so she can finally do him like she wants because she knows she can never have his heart. Things don’t always work out as planned though. 4 out of 5. Review here
3) Pet Me by Amarinda Jones. Drusilla goes to a pet store to find a replacement fish for the one she’s accidentally killed. She meets Cormack who’s fighting her for the fish and they find instant lust and eventually love. A very funny novella that I enjoyed. 4.25 out of 5. I’ll let you know when my review posts.
4) Heart of Gold by Riley Ashford. This is the story of a woman who buys an abandoned, supposedly haunted plantation in the south. She meets ghosts, learns its history and meets a very alive descendant that turns her heart and her body upside down. 3.75 out of 5. I’ll let you know when my review posts.
5) Master of Fire by Angela Knight. This is book 11 in the Mageverse series. I’ve been waiting impatiently for another addition to this series for about 2 years. It was a good one. Arthur and Gwen’s son Logan is being targeted by an assassin so they send a witch to guard him with strict instructions not to tell Logan what she is and definitely not sleep with him (doing so 3 times will turn him to a vamp). Yeah, things don’t always go as planned – with the relationship or the assassin. 4 out of 5. I’ll let you know when my review posts.

Next was the book for my DIK Reading Challenge. I chose Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts for this month’s read. The story of Emma and Jack and their friendship turning into much, much more. You can read my review on Wednesday. 4.25 out of 5

Lift Me Up by Rayne Auster was the following read. This novella is the story of Avery who has a heart wrenching experience in the elevator of his apartment building. He is so distraught he can’t quite make it into his apartment. His new neighbor, Dylan, accidentally trips over him and it’s a match made in heaven. Well, almost. It was a cute story. The telling in first person was a little odd at times but it was good. 3.25 out of 5

And last but not least was my Tracy’s TBR Challenge read (actually 3 of the books I read this week I’ve had for more than 3 months, but who’s counting?) was It’s In His Kiss by Julia Quinn. I had read the first 6 Bridgerton books fairly quickly but I think I’d gotten a little burned out on them. This is book 7 and follows Hyacinth who is helping Gareth St. Clair interpret his paternal grandmother’s diary. This leads them to spending more time together but also to start looking for some diamonds that are supposedly hidden in the St. Clair home. It’s a very cute love story that I very much enjoyed reading. Hyacinth had kind of bugged me in previous books but she really didn’t in this one which I was really surprised about. I liked her spunk in this book where in previous books her mouth just annoyed me. 4.25 out of 5

Happy Reading!