In case you are wondering where I am......

I'm having internet issues at home. I can't seem to get online. And as I feel very guilty/scared doing this at work, there are those emergencies when I simply MUST risk getting busted . Once things get fixed at home, I'll be back.

Recent Read

The Sergeant’s Lady by Susanna Fraser

Why this one: I loved the cover, I heard good things about it and the price, coming from Carina, was excellent.

Steam Level: Nice and Steamy

Blurb: Highborn Anna Arrington has been "following the drum," obeying the wishes of her cold, controlling cavalry officer husband. When he dies, all she wants is to leave life with Wellington's army in Spain behind her and go home to her family's castle in Scotland.

Sergeant Will Atkins ran away from home to join the army in a fit of boyish enthusiasm. He is a natural born soldier, popular with officers and men alike, uncommonly brave and chivalrous, and educated and well-read despite his common birth.

As Anna journeys home with a convoy of wounded soldiers, she forms an unlikely friendship with Will. When the convoy is ambushed and their fellow soldiers captured, they become fugitives—together. The attraction between them is strong—but even if they can escape the threat of death at the hands of the French, is love strong enough to bridge the gap between a viscount's daughter and an innkeeper's son?


My thoughts: There are some similarities with this book to the one I recently read and reviewed, Sing my Name in that the hero and heroine come from different social backgrounds. This is an English Historical rather than a Western, but other than that they were two different stories.

This one starts out with our hero Will, trying to help a friend who’s in labour while on the move in Spain during the English/French war. The heroine, Anna, comes along to offer her assistance, but it’s soon clean she is married to a real jerk when he rides up and orders Anna away from the ‘riffraff of the common soldier. But Anna has spunk and refuses to leave, instead staying to assist Will, even though neither have participated in a birth before. During this time, a bond is established. Anna admires Will and Will admires Anna, at the same time, recognizing that Anna is married to a very difficult man. Though both fully admit to themselves any kind of relationship is impossible, still, neither can forget the either. When Anna’s husband meets his demise, Anna’s plan is to return to her home in the Highlands of Scotland and Will is part of the regiment that escorts her and a number of wounded soldiers to the coast. They are thrown together again when they are captured by the French and then forced to flee. Their attraction grows but even though Anna’s husband is out of the picture, their different stations in life are still a real barrier.

Like Sing my Name, I found this one to be a poignant story of two people who want to be together, who aren’t quite complete without the other, but who are kept apart due to society. Both are people to be admired. Will is a simple man, yet one to be admired. He entered the army in his youth to seek out adventure and has been quite happy doing what he’s doing. He’s a rifleman in the army and of course while reading I kept thinking of Sean Ben in Sharpe’s Rifles, not a bad picture to keep in mind.

For her part Anna is also a good heroine. She realizes fairly early into her marriage that she has made a huge mistake, but she is doing the best that she can. She is compassionate to others, brave when called for. As with Sing My Name, there is a bit of a road story when Anna and Will are travelling back to his regiment. When they reach it and are forced to remain apart, there is such palpable longing in each of them for the other. If I had any wishes, it would just be that it was longer. I hated to finish this one so soon. But I hasten to add that it was because I was enjoying it; not that I felt it was lacking in any way.


This book was a treat to read and I hope the author has more books coming.

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

Hello There!! It's been a while hasn't it

You have probably noticed a certain lack of presence from me lately. There are a few reasons for a lack of blogging. I don’t like this time of the year. I think I’ve blogged about it in the past, but I just find the ‘Christmas Season’…..difficult. Having said that though, I had a wonderful one this year as opposed to previous years. My sister and I were invited to spend Christmas Eve with Ryan’s fiancés parents home about an hours drive away. I met them briefly when, we shall call her Kay, was trying on wedding dresses. I had a nasty cold that day and wasn’t playing with a full deck so I didn’t catch their names. It was hilarious when I realized the day before that I was going to be spending the night with people whose names I couldn’t remember. It was a long story, including the fact that one of the Case Managers I work for, inadvertently requested to be friends with the OS on Facebook in order to find out the names of K’s parents – you had to be there. Anyway, Lisa and I had a great time and Christmas wasn’t nearly the horror it could have been. But I tend to hunker down and draw in the covers around this time of year.
I’m still wanting a cigarette at times – badly – and never more it seems than when I’m sitting in the computer room. I do have a laptop that I have in the kitchen, but the OS was constantly taking it and it got to be such a pain to keep asking him to bring it back. But now that he’s gone, I have the laptop at my disposal all the time.

And the third main reason I’ve been so scarce is I just haven’t been able to think of much of anything to blog about. Just as most of us go through reading slumps, I’ve been going through a blogging slump. But hopefully it will come to an end soon. In all the time I’ve been blogging this has never happened for this length of time. But a couple of things have occurred to me.
I think my experiment with longer hair is going to be coming to an end. I don’t know if it’s because it’s longer or I’m getting older, or the trauma my body went through when I broke my leg, or something seriously is the matter with me or my mind is playing nasty games on me; I’m hoping it’s the last one. But I seem to losing hair at an ALARMING rate! And I’m starting to get paranoid. Every day in the morning when I brush it, it seems chunks are coming out. You should see it when I wash my hair. I look at my scalp – half afraid to really look at it in case there are large hairless spots on it. I try telling myself that because it’s longer than it’s been in YEARS it’s just the length that makes it seem like I’m losing so much – but I think I’ll go back to short hair – just to ease my mind.

And yet another reason – I have excuse after excuse don’t I? – is sometimes I almost have too much to say and while my motto is why say in 10 words what you can say in 100, I am reminded by those around me who love me to ‘hurry up and get to the point!’ It may take a while to ‘get to the point, but I do try and make the journey most amusing. When I have too much, I’m not sure where to begin and I don’t want to scare visitors away by the ……length …. Of my posts. So I’m a tad afraid of scaring people with the length I can get too

And further to that piece that I didn't quite get around to posting, an update. I did indeed get shorn. And I LOVE it. It's supereasy to take care of and best of all I'm not freaking out every morning when I see the amount of hair that's fallen out.

Other random thoughts. One of my favourite shows these days until the return of SYTYCD just happens to be Hawaii Five O. And the actor who plays Steve McGarrett Alex O'Loughlin - well he sure does put Jack Lord (for anyone who remember the original show) to shame. I guess he was on another show a few years ago, Moonlight where he played a vampire. If I knew then when I know now - or rather saw then what I see now, I just may have watched that show. But I was wathcing another Vampire show at the time. And since I loved it, well, it would have been a very tough choice.

Anyway, the character he plays on Hawaii Five O is very intriguing, a former Navy Seal (a vampire and a Navy Seal - is it any wonder he seems to be the romantic hero typey *g*) But I was channel surfing the other day and saw he was in a movie with Jennifer Lopez, the back-up plan. *shudder That just seemed so wrong, rough tough Steve McGarret being the love interest of a pregnant J-Lo. That's just a random thought that's been going round my head lately.

In book news - I really need to do a summary of last years reads. Hopefully I won't take weeks to get around to it!