Author: Ambrosia

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

- Ambrosia Leave a comment

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

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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

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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

- Ambrosia 39 Comments
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

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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

- Ambrosia 9 Comments

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

- Ambrosia 2 Comments

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.

Book Review: A Shade of Vampire (A Shade of Vampire #1) by Bella Forrest

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On the evening of Sofia Claremont’s seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake.

A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood.

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine.
An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains.

Sofia’s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince.

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? …or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks

I wish I could say this was the first book of the new year right on New years day, alas it isn’t. I am going to post the rest of my reviews from 2016 before diving in and hopefully keeping up on my reviews as I read the books this year!

Ah a new vampire story to sink my teeth into (pun fully intended) and I have to say, although this one has been on my TBR for a long time once I did pull it up I was very excited about it. Sadly. I should not have gotten my hopes up about it. I should have been wary when I heard some of the buzz around it (when I first got it as a freebie), and those who liked it were calling it better then Twilight. Honestly, it is not that hard to be better than Twilight and I say that as someone who actually LIKES Twilight.

While at first look the idea of this book looks very different and unique, once you actually start reading you will end up seeing most of the typical tropes. Maybe if you like that sort of thing you will enjoy it more than I did. Alas, as I went through this fairly short read I just sighed a little. Honestly, I got bored enough at one point I nearly decided to mark it down as a DNF, and I try very hard never to do that.

Now, with all of those complaints stated it is not the worst book I have ever read. There is some potential in the characters and if they were a little more fleshed out the book might actually hold my interest more. It is a YA book so some of those tropes should be expected. My biggest issue with the story is that within only a second of seeing our heroine, Derek the old vampire who just woke up falls in love. Yeah, you read that right, and yes, I know YA has a lot of nearly instant love stories, but this truly was instantaneous and frankly, I thought a vampire who is older than 400 years (he has been asleep for 400) would have more sense than that. The girl I would expect it from but him? Come on now. Of course, his instant love means he won’t feed from her and all of that.

Maybe it gets better, there are a lot more books in the series. Alas, I don’t think I will be reading them, it is very short and the POV switches without warning which just kinda makes for a headache. So I am going to end this review with a GIF I took off another review from good reads. I tried, I really did I wanted to like this book I wanted another Vampire series I could love. Alas, back to the drawing board I will go with that.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Happy New Year, Welcome 2017

- Ambrosia Leave a comment

A warm welcome to 2017 a very happy New year to all. I hope that whomever sees this will have a good year ahead. I think we can all agree that 2016 was not the best of years. There was so much loss! 2017 is a clean slate, a new chapter and can be truly fantastic. As the Doctor says, we are all stories in the end so let’s make it a good one. Let’s make 2017 a good one!

I never tend to make resolutions for the year. I feel that when you do that you tend to set yourself up for failure, there is just something about that phrase New Year’s resolution. I do, however, choose to make goals for the year. Things I want to accomplish and truly have a plan towards doing, all reasonable ones. Goals for reading this year can of course be checked out on the reading challenge page. I have signed up for several challenges and the main Goodreads one this year will be for 52 books one per week seems manageable this year, my hopeful year of balance.

Book Review: The Secret Healer (Die heimliche Heilerin #1) by Ellin Carsta, Terry Laster (Translator)

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In the fourteenth century, opportunities for women are limited to the home. But spirited young Madlen finds her calling as assistant to the city’s trusted midwife, Clara. Working alongside Clara, Madlen develops a surprisingly soothing technique and quickly becomes a talented healer.

After Clara’s tragic death, Madlen alone rushes to assist the birth of a local nobleman’s child. But rather than the joy of birth, Madlen walks into an accusation of murder and witchcraft because of her extraordinary gifts. Forced to flee her own town, she establishes a new identity in the home of her aunt. Yet even though it endangers her life, she cannot resist the urge to help the sick patients who seek out her miraculous treatment. When she meets handsome Johannes—an investigator hired by the Church to bring her to justice for sacrilegious acts—she becomes drawn to the very man who could destroy her.

Will Madlen’s gifts bring about her downfall? Or can love and reason prevail in a time of fearful superstition?

I love a good historical fiction that has a healer in it. This was a fun and fast paced read. The only thing that kept it from being a full 5 gemstone rating for me was that a few of the characters could have used a little more rounding, they were a little bit flat. Overall, however, this was a great read and that flatness could just be something lost in translation.

You can’t help but feel sorry for a wonderful woman like Madlen, especially as things like this did actually happen often back in these times. A woman who knew how herbal medicines worked, how to help calm people while sick and bring them through a bad fever among other things. They were the ones who could help the most and yet they were treated the worst, so many of them killed purely for having knowledge. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but Madlen certainly goes through the ringer. Each and every time that she thinks she has finally found a way she can enjoy life, be happy for a while things turn terrible for her. I know not everyone will agree with me, but I think this book is certainly worth your time to read it.

My Gemstone Rating:

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