Musing Monday 1/9/17

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ___, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

Random little vent me and WordPress need to have a talk about it missing scheduled posts times, lol sorry it is a few hours behind what I planned this week!

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: What do you think about books being made into movies or tv shows and do you always read the book first?

With award season being upon us and as watching an interesting Golden Globes had me thinking about just how many movies and shows are made from books. The Night Manager took several awards (well done too) but the book was awesome. The Night Manager is one of those for me that it was really cool to see characters I already enjoyed coming alive. Jonathan Pine was such a complex character and Tom Hiddleston really did bring him to life for me. I was pleased to see he won a Golden Globe for it too, as did Hugh Laurie and Olivia Coleman.

So I know I have rambled on a little bit here, but I actually like most book to screen translations. Not all the time, of course, because sometimes they really do screw it up, but in general I do. I always try to read the book first there have been a few times I didn’t know it was based on a book until after so I went back and read the book. How about you?

 

Sunday Salon 1/8/17

 

Another Sunday and another week is at a full close, while we get ready to start fresh. A clean slate with a new week ahead that looks like it could be a better one. This week for me has been a tough one, the new year gave me a blow that I have not yet recovered from. I want to say sorry to my Teaser Tuesday participants for airing out my grief in that post, but it felt like the thing I needed to do at the time. I will of course give another apology directly in the next Tuesday Post so I can ensure readers will see it. While I am still dealing with my grief, this week has had some interesting bright spots as well.

It would seem my Pash pash is still overlooking me and sending me things to keep my mind at least a little bit occupied. I have had more orders this week alone in my shop than I had for the entire first 4 months of last year alone. I have been slowly working on building the shop up, taking my time and making sure I do it right, so I give people quality handmade goods and useful tool items. I like to think that hard work is paying off given the amount of orders I have had this week alone. Granted, this week also served me up with my first negative feedback. This was from a client that never even gave me the chance to make things better and her first mention of anything wrong with the item was over a week after she had me ship it to a different address than hers. I don’t like to call people out on things, I don’t like to point fingers, but in this situation, it all seemed a little bit odd to me. I still would have been more than willing to do something to make things better ask any of my friends and family, they will tell me I always do my level best to provide ace customer service even on the, smallest orders. This week, however, also saw me get a firm collaboration order out of the blue and I am very excited about what it means for me and the shop. It really does mean I could see more orders coming in. I wish I could go into more detail about it, but I can’t at least not yet.

Now straying away from that and getting back the relevant things for this blog. The books. I am almost fully caught up on writing my reviews for 2016 which makes me happy. There are some books I decided were so terrible they weren’t even worth writing a review for the blog. One of those man I do not want to dedicate another single second to that book then I need to. One of them was so full of typo’s it was nearly a different language. I will never understand why someone can’t take the time to proof read what they have written, especially for a published book and double especially if it is 5,000 words. I mean, come on just because you are an Indie writer does not mean you shouldn’t put some work into it. I know you can’t catch all the mistakes and I know I myself make plenty of grammar and format mistakes in blog posts and other places as well. But come on. Really?

On the upside, I am on track so far for my challenge this year ha ha ha, I know one week in  is pretty hard NOT to be on track. I am taking it as a win, however, because of everything that has happened. I am very happy to have been given the chance to read A drop of ink as an Arc and so far I am enjoying every word of it! I had planned on reading it myself, you know with my eyeballs from my kindle. Alas, thanks to all the sock orders my fingers need to be working on crochet, even taking the time to type up the Sunday Salon reminds me how much more work I have to do on socks. So when in doubt, hit that text to speech button and let Kindle do the reading for you. What happened to Brian the British man’s voice though? I liked him. I have the British girl reading to me for now, lol. Yes, I know I am an Anglophile.

I have also been pondering some more on the Challenge I want to host next year (and maybe this year as a test) I am pondering doing different royal families as a start. It needs to be fleshed out a lot more, but there are a lot of great books set in specific royal times and moving around those courts. Various ones in Italy, Spain, France and England of course. Clearly the idea is still very lose and need some polishing, but I am open to suggestions about it.

For now I am going to sign off. I hope others had a less mixed bag kind of  week, then I did and I hope this coming week is going to be a good one as well.

 

 

Book Review: Soul Mates Kiss (Witching Call #1) by Sandra Ross

Iliana Ravensworth was a reluctant but powerful witch while Marcus Swan was an orphan who knew there was something different about him but didn’t know about his warlock bloodline.

And Iliana was about to find him so she could bring him to the Council of magical beings where he could be educated about his powers. Although she did not regularly mingle with other covens or witches except her mother, she has no choice but to follow this directive.

So she went to New Orleans to find this Marcus and hopefully be back to New York on her birthday in Samhain. But the weather did not permit her to leave after finding Marcus and his awesome castle. He was not what she expected–handsome, young, filthy rich and obviously drawn to her, too. And on the eve of Samhain, they shared a kiss.

And that first explosive kiss revealed everything.

Can’t stand the suspense? Download and find out what happens next!

READER ADVISORY: HOW PLEASUREFUL DO YOU LIKE YOUR STORIES? This story contains content that some readers may find objectionable. This includes sex, extended orgasms, and erotic themes. All of the characters are 18 years of age or older.

I was closing out 2016 I was trying to read shorter stories that had been on my TBR pile for a while. This was another short freebie and I thought it would be fun. I really find myself enjoying paranormal romance more lately. So this book looked like it would be a hit for me on every side. Sadly, I was left wanting. The biggest problem with this book is that it is way too short for any real development, and it really does not deal with the paranormal much it is more of a standard Erotica.

The premise of the book is great, two characters bound together and trying to find one another, one a witch the other a warlock. All the ingredients were once again in place, but they just did not seem to come together to make the yummy dish I was hoping for. Sadly, that seemed to be how I was destined to finish my 2016 reading. While I understand this book was meant to be short, even shorter books can make things come together. I wish the writers of these shorter books would give it a little more of a try, make the books a little longer and give the characters a little more time to develop. Overall, it just seems to be a wham bam thank you ma’am situation. They meet they are in bed and that is pretty much the end of it. This book gets two instead of 1 because I did feel there was a huge amount of potential there and I really wanted it all to come together well. Sadly, it didn’t, but it was a freebie so I can’t complain too much.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Bewitching the Werewolf (Megan Stephens #1) by Caroline Hanson

When witch for hire, Megan Stephens, is assigned to help the local werewolf pack leader find a mate, she thinks the job will be easy. Get in, get him up and get gone. But when she meets Zack Connor, she realizes her future might have a lot more dog jokes in it than she ever imagined.

This is a short story– approximately 40 pages in length– and includes an excerpt from Love is Darkness, the first book in the Valerie Dearborn series.

**Please be aware that this book contains sex. And not in a fade-to-black-sort-of-way but an-OMG-that’s-in-public-sort-of-way**

Okay, first I have to say I can’t help but giggle a little bit at the fact that I am finding more and more erotica/romance books with the beware of sex in this book listed on the description. Okay, that is just a personal little giggle of mine.

On to the review, I got this as a free book and honestly I am glad that it was free. The premise of this book is good, the idea and the basic components of something that should be a riveting read is all here. It just seems to have all gone sideways somehow. Like a perfectly prepared souffle that then just falls flat. The book is extremely short and all very slap dash put together honestly. You get no depth to the characters of the book, no real plot development and what little plot there is felt very convoluted. It felt like the author just did not know where to put ideas and thought they all needed to be shoved into the smallest shortest group of chapters possible.

I gave a two gem/star rating because the heroine was sassy and what development of her was there was enjoyable. I also gave it that extra star because I really did want to like it. I really wanted everything to come together in a fun fast read. You can of course try it for yourself and perhaps you will like it a bit better then I did.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: The Princess Bride by William Goldman

What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be…well…a lot less than the man of her dreams?

As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad’s recitation, and only the “good parts” reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He’s reconstructed the “Good Parts Version” to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What’s it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it’s about everything

What is there to day about this classic? I have always loved the Princess Bride both the book and the film. The characters come alive and seem to leap off the page when you read this book. I for one make a point to come back every few years and re-read this favorite. I feel a little silly making such a short review, but really what is there to say about such a classic? It is wonderful, there is everything you could want in a book so it has a wonderful pace. You have action, romance and of course a great deal of humor. Bottom line if you are a rare person who has not read this book yet, well what are you waiting for?

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Bah, Humbug! (Christmas Street #1) by Heather Horrocks

Lexi Anderson is an up-and-coming, Martha Stewart-type TV hostess whose two kids love the Jared Strong adventure novels, which happen to be written by their new neighbor, Kyle Miller.

For the first time in his writing career, Kyle has writer’s block – until he sees the snowman on his lawn and realizes this is the perfect place for his villain to hide the weapon. He digs into the snowman to discover two things: the weapon fits int he body just under the head, and the snowman was supposed to be the back drop for Lexi’s next show.

From this improbable beginning comes friendship. Can there be more for a woman who is afraid to get close again and a man who has shadows from his childhood?

Families join together and hearts are healed as this couple goes walking in a winter wonderland.

I do not usually get into Christmas or Holiday books in general, but this year I was making an effort to be a little bit more Holiday feeling and I had Bah humbug on my TBR so why not? The editing work on this book was not done very well and in all honesty, I am getting a little tired of so many books with typos and issues. I know small indie authors do not make huge sums, but I feel if you are going to publish a book you should proof read very well! Ask a friend! No ones perfect I know that, I know I am not perfect when I post my reviews but GAH! Okay little rant over and moving on.

This book is a fast cute little read overall and it was a fairly quick one as well. Lexi Anderson our female character reminded me a lot of Brie from Desperate Housewives and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The best way she thinks to get new neighbor and author to get over being a Christmas Grinch is to essentially present to him Christmas on steroids. That may not work in the real world with most people (would not work on me!) but who knows in books things happen. I don’t want to give away the plot, of course, but what would Chic lit/Romance be without a little bit of rivalry in it as well right? Enter Author Kyle’s brother. Of course he shows up as Kyle is falling in love with Lexi.

The long and short of this review (many pardon’s if I am a little jumpy with this, post holiday cold requires lots of nyquil!) is that while it isn’t a particularly deep book it is fun. If you want something easy, cute and fitting for the holidays next time they come around you would probably be happy by picking up this little Novella.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Teaser Tuesday 1/3/17

Teaser Tuesday

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the weekly Meme that wants you to add books to your TBR, or just share what you are currently reading. It is very easy to play along:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! Everyone loves Teaser Tuesday.

I am sorry that I am a little behind on the teaser Tuesday post this week. Sadly we suddenly lost one of our sweet fur babies Pasha yesterday, so been in a little bit of a fog.

This weeks teaser is from a NetGalley Arc

“I didn’t know which was more annoying, his smugness or his certainty. It hardly mattered – his tone made it clear he didn’t need or want my help.” ~ A drop of Ink by Megan Chance

Book Review: The Big, Not-So-Small, Curvy Girls Dating Agency (Plush Daisies #1) by Ava Catori

Becky Holgate’s lost her focus. It’s complicated…she didn’t mean to fall in love with another woman’s guy. How could she be a matchmaker for other people if all she could think about was her own heart? Determined to ignore her growing infatuation, she set her sight on building her career. Only Reed Amwell was making it hard to concentrate; every encounter left her breathless.

Reed didn’t mean to fall for the curvy girl, but she was carefree, silly, and fresh. Her soft curves and playful heart had him questioning his current relationship. Could he be with the wrong girl? He needed to figure it out fast, because his wedding day was getting closer by the minute.

With a laugh-out-loud best friend, an insane cat, and a business to run, Becky Holgate didn’t have time for guys like Reed Amwell…until time was running out.

This was a fun read, short but very fun. I can’t say that it was a super deep book but cute fast reads generally aren’t all that deep. There are a fair amount of grammar errors in this one and that made it a little tough, but overall it was just a little enjoyable read. Sometimes you just have to enjoy what is going on around you and accept its just something simple.

The heroine is not very deep but I like that she is different from the traditions. Sadly our heroine was not confident at all. She was rather insecure at every turn. That happens and real life can be that way of course, but sometimes you just would rather dive in away from the world. The long and short of things this is an alright book to read but it might not be for everyone.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Musing Monday 1/2/17

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

I’m currently reading…
Up next I think I’ll read…
I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
I can’t wait to get a copy of…
I wish I could read ___, but…
I blogged about ____ this past week…

 

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Have you joined any challenges in reading for the new year? Do you have any general goals book or even not book related for 2017?

Welcome to the new year. I hope that everyone reading this will have a great year for this coming year. I know personally 2016 was a bit of a stinker for me.

I did manage to just barely hit my reading goal for 2016, but I did not end up posting all of the reviews for the books that I did read. Honestly, some of them were such stinkers they aren’t even worth the review, lol. I also managed to meet several of my other challenges, but I did not finish the Alphabet soup challenge or the British challenge.

I have joined several challenges again in 2017 and I am really hoping to hit them all this year. One of my goals in general for 2017 is to allow myself to be more rounded in how I spend my time. I used to have no problem hitting more than one book per week goals, but then I started to crochet and for the last several years have basically been doing crochet all the time. My Kindle can read to me and my audio books have been nice, but I need to start reading with my eyes again this year. So big goal is to make more time for other things again.

The 2017 reading challenges for me include:

52 books for the year
Witches and Witchcraft challenge
British book challenge
Alphabet soup challenge
Paranormal challenge
Mount TBR challenge
Historical reading challenge
YA reading challenge

I know this is a lot of challenges I am an addict, luckily I always make sure to join the ones that allow crossovers into other challenges. I am also giving some serious thought into creating my own reading challenge. I started thinking about it far too late to hit a 2017 challenge, but once I work through the details in my head, I might launch a “half year challenge” in the summer as a test to see if there is any interest for 2018.

The Sunday Salon 1/1/17

I used to take part in the Sunday salon long ago when I was new to book blogging. Alas, as things went on I very slowly started to stop doing the Sunday Salon. In fact, that last time I actually took part in this meme was 2014. As one of my goals this year is to get back into the blogging, I enjoy which of course includes my book blog so what better time than to resurrect the Sunday Salon on this New Years day. In all honesty, I have missed this meme.

I have also truly missed my wonderful book blogging. I know if you have just started reading this blog you will say, but what do you mean you have been blogging all the time lately! I can see it right here! That is of course true as in the last few weeks of December I made some big changes and got a jump start on dedicating myself to my 2017 goals. May I also say that I am SO glad we said goodbye to 2016. A dear friend of mine said that most accurate thing about 2016 that I have heard. Because there are some good things that did come in the year, but for the most part it was a year that really stunk. 2016 was like a movie where all the good things about it was in the trailer, lol. That is so very accurate I could not have said it better myself.

2017 however, has all the promise in the world to be a great year. Of course we still have many of the problems that occurred in 2016, it is not like they go away just because the calendar changes over. However, we can embrace the new year. We can do our best to think positive thoughts and we can do our best to effect change in the world and our lives.

On that note, I am going to be striving to effect change in my reading life. I did manage to complete my main challenge of 2016 from good reads and I read 50 books. I did this by the skin of my very teeth. It was very close and I do mean very, hours close! But after being so far behind for so long I did manage it. Not only that, but I managed to complete several other challenges that I had entered. I am very proud of this because I really did not think that I would manage to do it. I thought for sure that I would be behind by over 20 books as I started out. Sure, many of the last books I read were freebies, short and honestly not very good. However, they were books I picked up some time ago, they were on my TBR and I did push my way through them finally. For this simple fact I am very proud of myself. You have to enjoy the small steps along with the big ones after all.

You can check out my challenge page if you would like to see what I am going to be doing this year. I have added a new one with the YA challenge. I find I like to read YA when I am a bit over stressed. Simple, fun plots can be fantastic. I am still working on a plan for a 2018 challenge to host myself that I might start out as a half challenge this year. So you never know.

Happy 2017 everyone here is hoping this is a good one.

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