A little bit of this and a little bit of that

I'm starting to do much better now.  I'm on a different medication and it's finally starting to kick in.  I'm back to car dancing again when a song I like comes on the radio.  That's where the upper half of me moves to the beat of the music when stuck at a traffic light.  I think people in cars around me wonder at the crazed woman next to them, but I have fun.  My coworkers are starting to notice a change.  I'm back to being the 'fun' one again.  I really missed being me.
 I did do myself no favours though when I started running real low on the new medication and rather than going back and getting my prescription renewed, I started taking less, missing a day here or there and/or taking the medication I was taking.  But they say we learn more from our mistakes and I learned a LOT from that STUPID mistake.  If I didn't know how much better I was doing before that I certainly found out then.  So a very strong word of advice from those who suffer from depression.  Medication really does work and DO NOT be afraid to take it.  I know part of our brain will tell us it's all in our head - and while technically it is, the right medication can really make a difference is us being the people we are supposed to be rather than the person that depression makes us.

I would say I'm at least 80% back and the difference between where I am now and where I was even a month ago is like night and day.

*******~~~~~~~*******

One of the things I'm working on is slowly getting all my most favourite books downloaded to either Kindle or Kobo or IBooks - I do a lot of comparison shopping and whichever deal is best.  Many of them are older books and good luck in finding some at reasonable prices or even at all.  Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas for example is $9.17 for the Kindle book, $8.99 for the Kobo and $8.99 on IBooks.  Hell will freeze over before I EVER pay that much more for an ebook then a print copy.  At this point I will state categorically that I HATE what Random House is doing.  They may have lowered their prices in the US, but it hasn't made it's way north of the border.

I will go looking for my favourite books only to be disappointed again and again thought I have managed to get quite a few.  But every once in a while it's like I get the best gift in the whole world when I find an ebook I've been wanting ever since I joined the world of ereading.

Such is the case with Justine Davis.  I've enjoyed many, many of her books but two stand out a bit more that the others, Lord of the Storm and Skypirate.  I've  blogged about them before and they are two of the best SciFi/Futuristic books I've read and I have read a GREAT number of them.  And in particular, the hero of Skypirate has THE best name of a hero I've every come across - Dax Silverbrake.   I mean is that a cook name or what????   I thought it was the best name ever when I first read the book in 1995 and I still haven't come across a hero's name that beats it. 

I check every few months, hoping either or have been reissued as ebooks and I did so again a week or so ago.  I was ecstatic, ecstatic I tell you to discover that yes indeed, they have been reissued as ebooks.  And not only that - I'm almost giddy with this news - Ms. Davis is planning on bringing out a whole new book in the Coalition series.  I remember reading years ago that she had plans on writing more in this series but the publishers weren't interested.  I've already bought and read Lord of the Storm and Skypirate just came out Oct 16 and you can bet the bank that it will be loaded up onto my tablet very shortly.  The only hitch at the moment is I have Lord of the Storm on my Kobo but Skypirate is only on Amazon at the moment and I kind of want to keep them on the same reading device instead of one on Kobo, the other on Kindle.  Thank the stars that the wonderful *happy dance* world of self-publishing and ebooks has changed the game.  And in many cases the author and the readers are the winners

Ponderings

As my mood is down in the dumps – so is a lot of my television viewing.  I confess to watching TMZ.  I was watching the clip yesterday they had of Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens knocking his then fiancé out cold then dragging her out of the elevator like a bag of garbage.  I, along with any who has seen the video was horrified watching it.  That a man could do that kind of thing to a woman is frightening and no excuses, he should go to jail and he should be banned.

But in all honesty, what I found equally horrifying is that since that incident, she MARRIED him. OMG!  What kind of fool is she?  They guy is obviously a thug who should be doing time and rather than getting far, far away from that animal, she MARRIES him.  I do not understand why she would do such a thing.  No way can I believe it’s because she looooooves him.  One would have to have zero self-respect to claim that and I’m just not buying it.  All I can think is it must be the money.  And what a sad thing is that.  If he did something like that even before they were married when life was good, what on earth will happen now that his life is deservedly falling apart, what can she expect now?  Whatever it is, I am sad to say she won’t get sympathy from me.  I am in no way shape or form excusing him – AT ALL – but what does it say about her?

 

I also have been watching Big Brother.  Never really watched it before but hey – I’m living in the basement of life these days so its basement TV.  I don’t get this show.  I don’t get that people are such big fans they want to be on it.  I can only think they want their “15 minutes of fame”.  Why else would you be willingly followed by a camera 24/7 that can watch you do just about anything and have complete strangers watch any time of the night or day.  Why else would you knowingly make friends with people who would stab you in the back without a second thought with the nebulous excuse ‘well, I heard you said this about me”.  Yes, years ago I was caught up in the Survivor experience too like so many others who were introduced to reality TV, but Big Brother takes it a whole other level and I don’t get the appeal.  And this is coming from someone whose two favourite shows are reality, elimination type shows, So You Think You Can Dance and Face Off.  But in both those shows it’s either the audience or judges who do the eliminating and you can see there is a real bond between contestants.  They work together and when someone is sent home, they really are sad and not rubbing their hands in glee that another one bit the dust.  I think the thing that bugs me the most is all the hugging.  Stabbing them in the back and then hugging them goodbye just doesn’t work for me.  No amount of money is worth it.  They can also get pretty nasty on Master Chef too though it’s Chef Ramsay and company that sends the contestants home.

 

Now on the plus side, I’m REALLY enjoying Outlander.  I read the first book but didn’t really continue on with the series after that one – the size of them intimidates me.  But the series is working just fine, just fine indeedy.  Ach Jamie.

I’m not reading these days, don’t seem to have the  concentration, so no real thoughts on romance reading, thus another ‘ponderings’ post.

 

'til later

I had a good day yesterday and thought that would be the start of coming back.  I’d gotten a new doctor, got new medication for depression, and had a session with the councilor the day before.  Yesterday I stopped and got new stickers for the car – I should have had them a month ago and was driving on borrowed time, getting quite concerned whenever I saw a cop car thinking I’d get pulled over – deservedly so.  But how would I explain that no, I didn’t get my sticker yet because it was too overwhelming and I was driving on out of date insurance slips because no, I hadn’t opened the mail when they came and now I don’t know where I put them.  Unless I was young and very attractive I don’t think that excuse would have worked – and even if I were – chances are I’d still get a ticket.  But I did find the slips and everything is OK on that front.  Now, as I said to my coworkers this morning, if I get pulled over it will be probably for speeding – deservedly so – not for outdated license stickers.

But I got up this morning and it was if the better day yesterday never happened.  It was SUCH  struggle to even get out of bed.  If I hadn’t called in sick earlier this week (though I did go after all – a couple hours late) then had a breakdown at work the next day; and if we weren’t very short staffed this week, I would have skipped the work thing today.

I mired in despair for a bit, still there mostly, but I did make it to work – then told myself this is going to happen.  There WILL still be bad days, probably many more than good days for a while.  But the time WILL come when it turns around and the good days start to outnumber the bad.

My house is a mess and it’s slowly been getting worse over the past six months, to the point I don’t feel comfortable having anyone over.  But the reno guy is coming on Monday.  One of my coworkers is coming over tomorrow to help me clean up and that is stressing me out – maybe why today is a bad day.  She knows what I’m going through as she does to and is telling me not to worry – but then that’s almost like telling me not to breath – impossible.  So I’m breaking it down into tiny bits.  I wrote out a list of things I think I am capable of doing to kind of be ready to have someone over.  I will never be really ready the state I’m in but I have to deal with what I can do.  I’m thinking for the time being I might have to carry around a notebook and pen and do that – write down small things that are accomplishable and realistic all things considered.

And I certainly am glad I had the foresight years ago when I started this blog to call it RAMBLINGS on Romance ETC. ETC. ETC.  I sure am rambling about etc. aren’t I?

And another good thing about the day - I am ROCKIN' a good hair do.

What seems like baby steps are actually huge steps when one is in the depths of depression.  I was thinking last night; one of my favourite books is Alice in Wonderland.  She enters Wonderland by falling down the rabbit hole.  That’s kind of what it’s like only one isn’t entering Wonderland.  At the bottom of this rabbit hole it’s dark and nobody can see you and you can’t see them and that’s the way you want it to be.  Isolating ourselves is one of the things we do best – at least isolating ourselves from the ones we care most about.  I could function very well on one level, I planned a Bilbo Baggins type party for my 60^th birthday  - inviting 22 people and had a wonderful time, I came to work just about every day; I may have taken one or two ‘mental health’ days but many less than some people.  I was fun at work and did fine on phone calls.  It’s only the ones we love the best at least in my case I have the hardest time dealing with.  And then that creates a whole new set of issues as they don’t really know or is some cases understand.  I read up on the symptoms of acute depression and that’s where I’m at and one of them is self-loathing and that I can really relate to.  The more I draw in, the more I hate what I’m doing to them and to myself, thus causing me to draw in more.  And they don’t know what I’m going through ‘cause I don’t call them, or see them or tell them, thus causing even more self-loathing.  It’s a vicious, vicious circle and I wish I knew the answer for everyone or what to tell people who love someone who suffers from it.  I think it may depend on the severity.  Suicide for example, has never been a concern in my case though I do understand the utter hopelessness people contemplating it feel.  As I said, self-loathing is a symptom but I’m still rational enough to know that would make my family really hate what I did and the aftermath would be unfair to them – the thoughts of closing the house itself for example.  I have over 40 boxes of books in one room alone and I’m sure they’d be cursing me with every box they removed.  And then they would probably burn them they’d be so angry and we can’t have that!!  But that’s me and loved ones don’t know what’s in the heart and mind of someone who’s not doing well, so doing nothing might not be so good.  I think just contact them and be gentle and patient and not expect a long answer unless the sufferer is in a ‘moment’.  And even if they are thinking “I wish they would just smarten up and get over it” try and understand it’s not that simple.  After my Keeping up with the Karsdashian’s weekend marathon it’s obviously something Kim doesn’t get but Kloe does about Rob (“self-absorbed little twit” she muttered).  Most important to family – know that it’s not lack of love that’s keeping the depressed person isolated, it’s the depression itself.  Now poor Rob is probably experiencing self-loathing for missing the twit’s wedding.

I LOVE the song Stuck in a Moment by U2.  The following lyrics couldn’t BE more perfect.  I’ve sung it to myself many a time over the years:

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if our way should falter
Along the stony pass

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass

It's just a moment
This time will pass

 

This is exactly how it feels – like we are stuck in a moment – only it’s longer than a moment, and we really can’t get out it no matter how hard we try.  But as hard as it seems to believe – to the point of impossibility, it’s just a moment and this time will pass.

 

And to end on a more positive note – and using metaphors which I love to do, I hit the floor of the rabbit hole – hard – but now I’m standing up, brushing off all the dirt and looking up for a way out.

I’ve always been almost way too open here.  I’ve shared things that after I posted I think to myself “I can’t believe I wrote and posted that!  And here I go again with probably the same response after.

 

I have suffered from depression for years.  I’ve blogged about it before.  No biggie in a way, so many people do, and I’ve been able to hold it at bay for quite some time with medication.  But the medication gradually stopped working, I think I’d say about 6 months ago, and I’ve slowly, without really realizing it, started suffering the symptoms.  I reached the bottom on the weekend just past.  It was a long weekend and I sat in my house with the air conditioning real low, covered in a blanket, wearing dirty clothes when I bothered to get dressed late in the day, the blind closed and watched mindless television – I mean we are talking Naked Dating and Keeping up with the Kardashian.  It doesn’t get much lower than that.  At the same time I was having a full blown junk food pig out, anything to keep me from ‘feeling’ anything.  Over the past 6 months I’ve pretty much put on all the weight back on I worked so hard to get rid of and Monday was my rock bottom.  It’s hard to put into words the horrible sense of being overwhelmed by the most simplest of things are.  Things I could handle with both hands tied behind my back are beyond me.  Before I went to the cottage, packing my luggage was beyond me and I left it until the morning of and then just threw stuff in – dirty or clean – it didn’t matter.  Thank goodness the cottage had a washer and dryer and others were constantly doing laundry.  I still haven’t unpacked yet and that was over a week ago.  My luggage is still sitting in the living room.  I seem to have fruit flies and rather than pulverizing the little buggers with my vacuum and then a bit of kitty litter, I’m crying over them.  My bathroom renovation guy was supposed to start my bathroom on Tuesday, but I called and postponed it because I haven’t been able to do housework – even though I desperately want to – and I couldn’t have him working in my house the way it looks now.  I was supposed to get my car sticker renewed by August 11^th but I still haven’t done it.

I’m managing to go to work as I love my job and coworkers and weird as it sounds, work is my ‘safe place’ right now.  But I did call in sick yesterday; not physically sick, but mentally and emotionally sick.  No matter what I’ve tried nothing works and I did something even worse with bad results I can’t even think about without feeling sick to my stomach about.

So.  After I called in sick yesterday with the thoughts of doing housework so I could have Reno guy in to do my bathroom and I STILL just sat there not even moving, I realized I’d hit rock bottom (or so I thought but that goes with the last sentence in the above paragraph).  We have an Employee Assistance Program but I didn’t have the number so I got dressed – no makeup, no bling, no hair fixing – and came into work.  It was obvious that I was a mess emotionally wise.  But I did get through the day, in fact I even worked late.  I called and have an appointment with a counselor today so I’m leaving early for it.  I did literally fall apart here at work earlier today and my Manager got me the name of a doctor and I also called them to get in for more medication.

 

So, I will blog about my journey back, hoping that it might connect with someone reading who is going through the same thing.  Although I can’t imagine it at the moment, I have to believe it can be done.  The thing about depression is it’s hidden.  Outwardly I seemed happy and my normal easy going self except the weight gain.  But on the inside, where no one can see, I am/was falling apart.

 

To be continued

I just can't quit you Book

 

 

 

It's said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn’t have the ability to comprehend language?

 

Ehd’s a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He’s strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it’s obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn’t know where she came from; she’s wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he’s determined to fulfill his purpose in life – provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.

 

Elizabeth doesn’t know where she is or exactly how she got there. She’s confused and distressed by her predicament, and there’s a caveman hauling her back to his cavehome. She’s not at all interested in Ehd’s primitive advances, and she just can’t seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive, but beautiful, man is a constant – and often hilarious – struggle.

 

With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time.

 

This hasn’t happened for a while – in fact not since I read Broken Wing, but I can’t move on from this darn book.  I’ve tried but it’s just not working.  It’s got stuck inside me like an ear worm song and I find myself thinking about it at most unusual times.  So I’ve had no choice but to answer the book siren call.

 Despite the fact that there is no conversation in the whole book between hero and heroine, the inner dialogue of the hero is so compelling.  This book is far from perfect technically and if a more technical reader challenged me on some of the inconsistencies, I would so give it to them.  But EMOTIONALLY this book is damn near perfect and since I have strong emotional reactions when reading, this book has gotten to me in a big way.  It has a very emotional ending and the first time I read it, I choked up and even went so far as to CRY.  I’m not a crier and holding back those tears even made my throat hurt more.

 

I tried moving onto another book after this but it didn’t work, I couldn’t forget Ehd, Beh and Transcendence so there was no other option but to reread it again.  When I finished it this time, I was at work and again got all choked up.  It was my break and there were people around so I couldn’t let the tears flow.

 

 

 

 

Having read it a second time I tried to move on to another book but once again found that any book I tried paled in comparison.  I even tried rereading another book I’ve love just to kick start me on but again it didn’t work and I had no choice but to give into it and read it a third time in a row.  This time I was doing the cottage thing, having a wonderful time when I came to the end.  And for the third time got all choked up. But again I couldn’t give in to the tears that wanted to flow.  How would I explain to 4 other women, 2 teenage boys and 3 dogs that I was crying over a romance about a cave man and a woman who came from the future.  One that I had just finished reading twice before – in a week!  In a week filled with frivolity, that would have been just too weird.

 It’s still calling to me though. I have started a couple of other books since then and I can tell they are good and normally I would really enjoy them, but once more, I don’t know how far I’ll get  before the compulsion comes over me again.

 

Am I the only one that has this kind of reaction to a book?  It's more than a desire to read it again.  It's a NEED!  I read Broken Wing FIVE times before I could move on.  I wonder how many times with this book.........

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Summer being Summer...

 

 

I’ve been a bit absent for a few days – not to worry, I’ve not disappeared.  I was given a project at work and it’s taking up some time.  As it’s an Excel spreadsheet I’m working on, it’s all good.

 

 

I hit a milestone birthday the other day.  I turned 60.  Now while there are some days I don’t feel the spry young thing I used to be, I most certainly don’t feel 60.  It’s funny, back when much younger 60 seemed so old.  And it isn’t really.  But it’s odd.  One of the duties I have at work is calling clients.  I usually do a quick look at their file first just to get a feel for them.  Whenever I see someone born in the 1940’s I worry about calling them as they may be having a nap or something else old people do.  Then I have to ‘get a grip’ and say to myself – “Self,  this is the generation of Woodstock, of Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger!!  And you yourself were born in the earlier part of the 50’s.  And you aren’t old.  So neither are these people you silly goose!”  I have to tell myself that quite a bit.

 

 

I ordered a book the other day – Letters to a Secret Lover by Toni Blake.  I read it not long after if first came out and loved it.  I’ve been having an urge to read it again but you need to see the state of my print book collection to realize it was not at all feasible to try and find it.  I did have a library downstairs and could have put my fingers on it in minutes.  But then my oldest moved back home and dismantled it and didn’t remantle it and then my basement flooded and, well, at the moment I have 40 boxes of book piled up in one of the bedrooms.

The price of the ebook was more than I was willing to pay so I just had to live with that jittery feeling.  You know the feeling – you are jonesing to read one particular book,  It’s using it’s siren’s voice, calling your name, not unlike what Odysseus went through.  But I wasn’t going to give in to The MAN and pay the silly price they were asking.  But a series of unfortunate and fortunate events happened.  The price came down a bit (the fortunate) and I hit a reading wall (the unfortunate) and I caved and got it.  This post is dedicated to the unfortunate or what I decided to call:  The Trustworthy Book.

 

Now those who don’t reread books will probably think this whole thing is silly.  Both my sisters fall into this category.  They don’t reread and don’t understand why I do.  But many readers ARE rereaders and this is for them.  We are all familiar with the “comfort” read.  This is the book that we will read again when we are feeling sad or down and we want something to help cheer us up.  Often when we are in a slump a “comfort” read will help pull us out.

 

A ‘trustworthy’ read is very similar but there are a few differences.  A ‘trustworthy’ read, at least in the way I’m thinking, could only have been read once before unlike a ‘comfort’ read that could be read many times.  But why you first read the ‘trustworthy’ read, is because you know going in you are going to love/like it because you’ve read it before.  I needed this kind of book as I wasn’t in a slump exactly, but I’d read a couple of books by an author I’d previously enjoyed and these books were awful in fact they left a terrible taste in my reading mouth and I needed to read something I trusted I would enjoy.  So it’s not so much a comfort book I needed.  I didn’t really need that.  And I didn’t want to read a new book by an author I trusted as this is what I did.  So I needed a book I knew in advance I could trust as I was a bit book shy

I’m headed out for a week at a cottage early, early Saturday morning.  In fact at the Very Painful hour of 6:30.  AM – yuck.  They don’t have WiFi and no McDonalds so I will be ‘off the grid’ so to speak for a week.  And as I’m not the least bit ready, this will probably be my last chance to blog until I’m back.  So not to worry – this time it’s only for a week.

 

‘til later

****ETA****

So - being the queen of procrastinators I didn't get this sent before I left on vacation.  I shall post again soon, but I had a most lovely time.  But the old gray mare - she ain't what she used to be and recuperation time takes longer and longer.

 

 

Recent Reads

Off Limits by Sawyer Bennett

Genre: Contemporary/Young Adult

Steam Level:  Just the right temperature

My thoughts:  I am so taken with this author and her books. One of the recent ones I read I only graded a 2 as I didn’t like the heroine one little bit, but over all I’m most impressed and quite happy to have found Sawyer Bennett.

I seem to be reading this series backwards so for anyone wondering if the series needs to be read in order, no it doesn’t.
This is the story of Nixon or Nix Caldwell and Emily Burnham. Emily is a trust fund child. She comes from wealth and privilege. Several years before the story starts, she realized that she had been a person she didn’t like and has made a concentrated effort to become a better person. I’ll be honest and say early into the story I wasn’t sure how it was going to go as she is given a choice, bow to pressure and go out with a former boyfriend who has become stalkerish or losing her trust fund and she went with the stalker ex route. I was a bit worried that would ruin her for me and I even put the book down for a couple of days thinking I would be disappointed. But since I have had good luck with this author, I went back to it and it’s a good thing I did. Emily is young, still in college and to buck a lifetime of behavior would be kind of difficult to do all at once and she has come a long way. And I did like her ever so much.

She and Nix meet when she almost runs him down and does some real damage to his motorcycle. They both orbit around some of the same people. Emily is the sister of Ryan Burnham, who’s story Off Sides, I haven’t read yet but is the first in the series and Nix is the brother of Linc Caldwell, the hero of Off the Record, which I have read and enjoyed. Ryan and Linc are both on the same NHL hockey team. Although they are kind of in the same circle up until the motorcycle accident they hadn’t met. Nix is, well, a jerk to Emily and she is less than impressed. She’s willing to pay him for the damage she did but it turns out that she doesn’t have enough of her monthly allotted amount so he comes up with the idea of having her work it off. He owns his own custom motorcycle/metal art business and he is terrible at the administrative end of it. He decides to take that in lieu of.

Nix is a real 'Oscar the Grouch' kind of hero and if done well, one of my favourite kind. And I think Ms. Bennett did him just about perfect. He’s a returning veteran and he is suffering from PTSD, a Traumatic Brain Injury, physical scars and a whole boatload of guilt. Because of all these factors, he figures there in no chance that he can have any kind of relationship, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t do one nighters. And he is hot for Emily. Emily, for her part, is hot for Nix, but his running hot and cold and being a jerk and a nice guy have her very confused. But lust and growing love have her agreeing to his offer – strings free sex.

Of course this is a romance and it never really works that way in a romance. Nix begins trusting and opening up to Emily about his ghosts and rather than reject him, she gives him unconditional support.

And while Emily is a younger heroine than I’m used to in a contemporary romance, I ended up liking her a lot. The characters from the other books make appearances but I don’t think it’s need to read the first one in order to enjoy this one – since I didn’t and I did.

I really enjoyed this one along with most of the other books by this author I’ve read and I ended up getting the box set of all the books in this series

Grade: 4.5 out of 5


Off the Record by Sawyer Bennett

Genre: Contemporary/Young Adult

Steam Level:  As it's the same author, it's again the right temperature

My thoughts:

I'm not sure how I came across this one, it might have been a Kindle Daily Deal. But however I came across it, when I read the synopsis, I was sold. I love sports romance and hockey in particular. I do hold my breath sometimes though. Although there are many who know the game more, I do pride myself in knowing quite a bit about the sports I enjoy and sadly, I dock major points if the author doesn't know the sport they are writing about.

I could breath with this one though. The entire story takes place during the off season so it wasn't really an issue. Lincoln Caldwell is a young goalie for the New York Rangers. If I had any reservation and it kept this from being 5 stars is how young he is. But that's a rather small quibble.

Lincoln is young, he is hot and he lives in New York. He's a normal guy. But Ever Montgomery, who is writing an article on him for the paper she works for brings misinformation and her own screwed over issues into the article and writes a scathing piece, calling him a man whore when he really isn't. As payback Linc insists Ever spend the next six weeks with him in order to get to really know him.

I liked this book, I really did. I wasn't sure if I would as it's written in the first person and not only that but also in the present tense. This is not normally something I read. When I discover it's first person, unless it's a well known author, or a book with real good buzz, when I find it's in the first tense, I tend to move to another book but I am SO GLAD I kept going. The author alternates with one chapter from Ever's POV and the next chapter from Lincs so we get to see what they are both thinking.

And I liked both characters immensely, Linc just a tad more than Evers. She was just a tiny bit harder to warm up too and took a bit longer to get over her issues resulting from being abandoned by her father and cheated on by her fiancé. But considering these things, I could see why she was the way she was. And her grovel was very well written.

I very happily recommend this book and as it's part of a series, I fully plan on getting more books by Sawyer Bennett


And again I read these out of order.  I read 2 then 1 and it was fine.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Recent Read

On the Rocks by Sawyer Bennett

Genre: Contemporary/Young Adult

Steam Level:  not to bad, not to bad at all

My Thoughts: If anyone is a regular follower of my reviews, they might think all the books I read are either 4's or 5's with a very rare 3. Alas, this is not the case. I'm only giving this one a 2. There is a BUT I will get to later though. This the story of Hunter Markham, a world class surfer and Gabby Ward, a young contractor who took over her fathers business when he died. Gabby has been lifelong best friends with his sister Casey and has been crushing on Hunter for years. She made a move on him a few years previously but he shut her down and at the start of the book she is still very angry and very cold to him.

But he has feelings for her now that she's all grown up and when she bids on a job to refurbish a local bar and wins it, they are forced to work together and the sparks fly.

The author writes in a very unusual style. She writes in the present tense and in the first person. Each chapter is in either Gabby's voice or in Hunters. Normally I would run far away from this, both because of the tense and the first person, but for the most part the author makes it work and this, oddly enough, isn't one of the reasons the book doesn't work for me at all. The biggest reason is I can't stand Gabby. Ugh, just ugh. She makes one stupid decision after the other based on her feelings. She's mad at hunter so she will toss away the chance to renovate, she decides not to tell her best friend she's banging her brother, knowing it will hurt Stacey when she finds out about Gabby and Hunter. She wants to keep their relationship a secret for no good reason I could figure. She's immature and just plain stupid and I did not like spending half the book in her head. And she calls her friends "bestie". For Pete's sake, that's what Amy Farrah Fowler calls Penny in The Big Bang Theory. In the show it's funny, in this book it's stupid and annoying.

I also thought the book had too many very descriptive sex scenes. Now despite what my sisters say, they do it to annoy me, not because it's true, I am NOT a prude and love a well written sex scene or three. But this book was on overkill. Enough already I thought a few times. We get it. Back to Abby, for a minute, she was, well, not to sound like a prude 'cause I'm not, but I'm going to sound like it, she has a potty mouth and a potty brain. She describes what she and Hunter do as the F bombing. I get that the guys in many of these books "think" that way, but when the heroine does, I find it rather offensive. So in no uncertain terms I did not like this book. I liked Hunter quite a bit but Abby ruined it.

But I mentioned there was a but and here it comes. I read another book by this author and really enjoyed it so I know she can write books I enjoy, she just didn't do it with this one. And Hunter has a twin brother who spent five years in jail and I wanted very much to read his story, so I did want to finish this one so I could read brother Brody's book. Which I am reading right now and liking.

So there you have it. A low grade for a book I did not like but I'm reading the next one and glad to be doing so.

Grade: 2 out of 5

'til later

More Ponderings

 

 

Another short post.  Work is picking up again (thank goodness) but I still have time to ponder.  As mentioned before, I lost my blogging mojo and it recently started coming back and before I could manage to solve the forgotten password, I started getting a lot more active at Good Reads – kind of my pre-resume blogging fix.  I found this really neat feature.  If I gave book 4 or 5 stars, it gave me a list of friends to send a recommendation to.  Cool beans.  But with great power comes great responsibility.  I’m an author’s delight.  I enjoy a lot of what I read so I was getting this feature pop up quite a bit.  But I didn’t want to abuse it and send out a referral to everyone that pops up.  My son is a friend on Good Reads and while the thought of recommending some real hawt erotic novel is very tempting and every time I see his name I giggle, I don’t.  The most tempted I’ve been is with Transcendence but even then I resisted.  I don’t think he would appreciate the romance aspect as much as I did – heh, heh, heh.  A lot of the people that come up are technically friends but I haven’t had real interaction with them so I don’t want to send them to strangers.  So if anyone reading this has received a recommendation from Good Reads from me, I have sent it thoughtfully.

 

But even still I hesitate to do this.  I know, I know some of you long term readers are thinking. 

“Aren’t you the odd ball who emailed every romance reader you know and told them they HAD to read Broken Wing by Judith James?  And aren’t you the one who haunted blogs and at the least little opportunity told the blogger to read Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas?  And what about Ride the Fire by Pamela Clare??  That’s what we expect from you.!"

 

Yes, that was me and I did do that.  But even as I was doing it, I knew that not all readers would be struck as much as I am by some books.  While many may enjoy the books as much as I do, some may consider them a waste of time and of money and wonder to themselves ‘what’s the big deal?’  I don’t want to – and this is going to sound rather vain, but I don’t really mean it that way – lose my power of the recommendation by going full tilt and have more people than not think it a m’eh book.  Because then they would have wasted their money and I’d feel bad about it.  I know every book we pick up is a risk, even if it’s a well-loved author, but it’s kind of like a box of chocolates, we never know what we are going to get.

 

So this is really my rambling (cause that’s how I roll) way of wondering if you appreciate recommendations from fellow readers, pay no attention to rec’s or find them annoying.  I don’t seem to get that many – I send a lot more than I receive, but I do check them out to see how they appeal to me.  And sometimes I’ll get the book and sometimes not.

And if you do get a book based on someone else’s recommendation and it’s so bad you don’t know why they bothered, does it bother you?

And this is the book that did it for me Recent Read

Transcendence by Shay Savage

Genre: I'm not quite sure how to put it - but - prehistoric

Steam Level:  Oh very nice.


My Thoughts:  This is the book that really kicked me into my Book Restelessness.  It's going to be a while I think, before a book affects me this deeply.

It was a long weekend here in Canada so I had a chance to read a number of books. One of them was Transcendence. I found this one when I was ‘playing’ on Good Reads and noticed it was on the list of a Good Reads friend with a 5 star review. I checked a few other friends reviews and they had given it similar raves. The story sounded very different so I thought I would give it a try. I think I can honestly say this is the most unique romance I’ve ever read. The setting is in prehistoric times though we’ve no idea where. As if that isn’t different enough, the story is told entirely from the hero’s POV and he has no real ability to communicate. He doesn’t have the talking function in his brain; at best he can grunt in slightly different tones.

Edh as he thinks of himself, is all alone. He did have a tribe but they were all killed in a fire many years before the opening of the book. He is very lonely but doesn’t really have the comprehension to realize that is what he is. He is getting weaker and weaker due to lack of food and real motivation to find some. But the human spirit in him refuses to give up altogether and he sets a trap by digging a pit to trap an animal. But it’s not an animal he trap’s, it’s a young woman from modern times.

Honestly it’s tough to get across how distinctive this book is. While Edh doesn’t talk, he has inner thinking and he’s delighted to have found a mate that he can ‘put a baby in’. That’s the adorable way he thinks having sex, making love. The mate, on the other hand doesn’t see things quite the same way. We learn that her name is Elizabeth but Edh can’t say that so he refers to her as Beh – the closest he can say to Beth. He also learns the word No, as Beh says it to him quite often when he’s all set to ‘make a baby’. Considering he’s prehistoric male though, he’s quite philosophical about the whole thing and is willing to wait until Beh is ready to ‘make a baby’. Most of what he knows or comes to understand, he picked up from watching his family before they lost. Despite not being able to communicate with Beh in any kind of language; she talks – a lot – but all he hears is a buzzing, they do manage to communicate slowly through their unusual communication, over time they fall in love.

I don’t want to say too much, but I will say that at the end of this very beautiful, very unusual love story, I cried. And I’m talking sore throat from trying not to break out into sobbing, crying. That hardly EVER happens when I read a book, but despite their being no real spoken language between Edh and Beh, I connected with them that much.

This book gets my highest recommendation for both its uniqueness and the fact it made me cry. Cry people! I don't normally do that when reading a book.


Grade: 5 out of 5

It's Not You, It's Me.

Sometimes I'm just going to be short.  While most of the time I AM in the mood to ramble on, on the rare occasion, I'm not

I’m going through a Restless Book Reader phase right now.  I’m sure we’ve all had it at one time or another.  Although similar, it does differ from a full-blown case of a Book Reader Block.  I think what caused it is I had such a run of good book, topped by the best one that went as far as to make me CRY!! (review coming shortly)  I’ve tried a few since then but can’t really focus on actually getting into one knowing it will be difficult to top the run I just had.

A Block is not the same.  When one has come down with a case of the Block, one is not interested in reading any book, anything more thought provoking than a cereal box or an odd People magazine.

Right now I’m in the mood, but I’m in the mood to read something I’m going to LOOOOVVVEEE.  But until I get into it, I won’t really know.  ‘tis a dilemma.  I’ve started about 3 or 4, all different genres and it’s that old “it’s not you, it’s me” feeling. 

 

'til later

 

Recent Reads

Taking Him by Jackie Ashenden

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: oh my stars, yes there is steam. Lots and lots


My Thoughts:  After reading a most excellent review at All About Romance for the second book in this series, Having Her I knew I must buy it. And since the first book, Taking Him was pretty much the same price and I could tell they were connected, I got this one too and figured I’d read them in order this time.

Note of interest. When I was in Grade 3 I developed a crush on the son of friends of my parents who was a few years older than myself. This crush lasted all the way through high school and even today, more years than I care to think about, hearing his name gives me a funny feeling. I didn’t know him that well, but spent a couple of summers camping with his family and mine and we went to the same schools. So when I read a story where the heroine has had a lifelong crush on the hero, dating back to childhood, I can buy into it so easily as I lived it. Mind you, mine is not a story where after years of unrequited love, he finally noticed me and we got married and lived happily ever after. I lost track of him after he left high school and my family moved to another city – but still.
If you haven’t gathered it by now, this is that kind of a story.

Ellie Fox has had a crush on her older brother’s best friend, Hunter Chase, for years, ever since he sometimes looked after her when she was young and her brother was dealing with a very unstable, mentally ill mother. But of course he never noticed her as anything other than his buddies sister who he knew had a crush on him. But Ellie is all grown up and about to leave the country for a squeal of a job designing video games for a company in Japan. She decides she has nothing left to lose, she’s leaving after all, and makes a play for him when he picks her up and rescues her when she gets very drunk at a Comi-Con convention. Hunter is horrified – it’s his best friend’s sister, but once the genie is out of the bottle he can’t help but think of her in “that way”. But she’s his best friends sister and if that isn’t enough, he had real sexual issues himself that plague him. He was sexually molested when he was younger by someone he trusted and he’s done a major job in his head trying to deal with things. Because he was not in control when he was young, he has major sexual control issues now and has rules that his partners must adhere to. When he folds under the onslaught of Ellie, she must also abide by his ‘rules’. And oddly enough, one of his rules is no sexual intercourse. Yes, our 33 year old alpha type hero is still technically a virgin. Oddly enough, this is the second virgin hero book I read in a weekend, though both for totally different reasons. Hunter is very skilled at what he does and definitely knows his way around a woman’s body.

Ellie is desperate and in love enough to accept Hunter’s very odd rules. She has no clue as to why he’s set them in place but she does clue in that he has issues and wants to help him. In the real world, things wouldn’t be solved by the love of a good woman, but I don’t read romance novels for real world solutions. I had no trouble buying into this “romance novel – love heals all’ premise. In the story Ellie eventually gets through to Hunter and gets to the root of his issues. She tries explaining that he wasn’t to blame, but a lifetime of issues take longer to overcome.

I loved this book. I loved Hunter; he most definitely is an alpha type hero and it makes for a very interesting dichotomy when the fact he’s a virgin is added. And I quite liked Ellie too. I read another review where the reviewer called her desperate. While I could understand why the reviewer felt that, I didn’t. I think she had a girls love for him but didn’t really know who he was apart from what he showed her when he took care of him, but as she got to know him outside and inside, that love evolves to a more mature love. And I found the ending a bit unusual – in a good way. I’m glad I found the review for the next book and as a result, found and read and loved this one. I know I’ll be reading it more than once.
I’m looking forward to the next book about her brother Vin and her best friend. I have a feeling it will take place around the same time as this one does.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5




Having Her by Jackie Ashenden

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: oh my stars, yes there is steam. Lots and lots


My Thoughts: Right off the bat I have to confess that this book made me uncomfortable to read. I’ve never read a BDSM/slave-master relationship book before and I can state categorically that it will never be my cup of tea. Not that I’m saying anything is wrong with it – hey we all have our fantasies and I can’t say that hasn’t been one of mine at one point or another in my lifetime, but I’m just uncomfortable reading with that being the sum total of the relationship. Which one would wonder why the high marks? I will explain *grin*

Vin Fox is a control freak. At least he comes across that way as in reality his life is completely out of control. His mother suffers from schizophrenia and when she is off, the voices tell her to kill her daughter, Vin’s sister Ellie and the heroine of the first book, Taking Him. His father left the family early, unable to handle Vin’s mother’s illness. Vin had to give up his dream of going to architectural school. Because he can’t control things, he overcompensates and anger seethes within him.

Kara Sinclair is Ellie’s best friend. While outwardly she is one strange young woman, she dresses oddly, constantly changes the colour of her hair, wears bright contact lenses, in fact she has a case of virginity she wants to rid herself of but whenever she gets close to it, she can’t – or rather can’t let whatever partner – go through with it. She also has issues though we don’t start seeing them until further on in the story.

So this is the set-up. Although they know each other through Ellie, Vin and Kara don’t have much interaction with each other until Vin picks Kara up after another failed attempt at getting rid of her pesky virginity. In a fit of pique, Kara asks Vin to do it. He refuses of course, but Kara seems to be set now on Vin being “The One” and sends him a series of emails and pictures, some at inopportune times. He finally loses his temper and takes her up on her offer, while she is wearing a Princess Lea costume she had donned for a Comi-con type convention.

Thus begins an erotic, somewhat unnerving role playing game of Vin being the Master and Kara being the Slave. There is no affection between the two; it’s strictly a sexual relationship at first though Vin is careful to be gentle and give Kara plenty of opportunity to call it off at any time. But in a twisted way, it suits both their needs; Vin’s need to control and Kara’s need to be absolved of any responsibility or intimacy and as we will find out later on, a kind of punishment. I’m not exactly sure what I was feeling reading this part of the book, but what I did find was that it was a compelling read and very difficult to put down. If the book had continued like this, I’m sure I still would have kept reading but not sure of my enjoyment level, but as Vin’s world spins more out of control, he slowly begins treating Kara differently, caringly, needing her outside the boundary of Master/Slave. Kara wants no part of this changing of the rules. That means facing her own tragic demons.

I am in awe of how this author tells a story. Kara’s life is so sad. She is so far from the person we think we know from the beginning of this book and the previous book when she was a secondary character. I ached for her. And it would be so easy to dislike Vin and his control issues, but I didn’t. I ached for him too. He never had a childhood and had to take on responsibilities far beyond what he should have had to. These two are perfectly suited, both filling a need the other one has. They are both so broken and it is through opening up, getting past the lines of their initial relationship, they begin to heal, as much as they are capable of. For both, the other is exactly what they need. It’s a complex connection they have and it’s dark, complicated story. And I loved it. Comfortable isn’t always best. This book proves it.


Grade: 5 out of 5