Recent Read

Six of Hearts by L.H. Cosway

Why this One:  I was following the books a fellow GoodReader had just done a review on that sounded very interesting.  It was the second book in the series and when I looked it up on Amazon, I saw the first book, Six of Hearts, was a freebie.  Well that was a done deal for me.

Genre: YA

Steam Level: Makes for the perfect temperature, hot but not enough to burn your tongue

Synopsis: I think in triangles. You think in straight lines.

I show you a table and make you believe it’s a chair.

Smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, misdirection. I trick and deceive.

But most of all, I put on a good show.

The world thinks I killed a man, but I didn't. Bear with me. It’s all a part of the plan.

Revenge is what I want. I want it for me and I want it for her.
I want it for all six of us.

She doesn't remember me, but she’s the reason for everything. She’ll be my prize at the end of all this–if I can hold onto my willpower, that is. Maybe I’ll slip up a little, have a taste, just a small one.

So go ahead and pick a card. Come inside and see the show. Look at my hands, look so closely that you can’t see what’s happening while you’re so focused on looking. I’ll be destroying your world from right here in the spotlight.

You’ll never see me coming until it’s too late.

I've only got one heart, and after I've pulled off my grand deception I’ll hand it right to her.

So, sit back, relax, and let my girl tell you our story. You’re in for one hell of a ride.

My Thoughts: I’ve been on such a run of good reads lately that I love the fact I’m an avid reader.  And surprisingly to me, a good number of them are YA and told in the first person – both of which weren’t my usual pick until recently.  And Six of Hearts continues this Most Excellent Streak.  I loved it, just loved it.

It starts out very angsty, a young boy living in Ireland, who’s been abused by his father, is hiding out when some shady looking people come and burn his house down.  He loses his family in the fire, his younger brother, his mother and his father.  He stays for a few days with his neighbours before an uncle from the US comes to take him back with him. This is all told from third person past tense.

The book then switches to first person present tense and becomes the story of Matilda, rather ordinary young woman named Matilda.  She lives at home with her lawyer father as well as works as his admin assistant.  They’ve been very close since her mother was murdered when she was 10.

Her world starts to gain colour though when Jay Fields enters the story.  He is an illusionist extraordinaire Jay Fields.  He’s amazing at what he does.  He wants to hire Matilda’s dad to represent him in a libel suit he is planning against the local newspaper whose reporter wrote a scathing article against him almost accusing him of murders.  Her dad refuses, thinking he’s not a good enough lawyer but somehow Jay ends up renting a room in their home.

Matilda is dead set against it.  She has a very strong attraction to this gorgeous, charismatic entertainer and just knows it couldn’t possibly reciprocated, as successful and captivating as Jay.  But he does give off vibes at times that just maybe…….

I know I’m going way overboard on the adjectives, I try not too as a rule, but one simply can’t help it with Jay.  He really is the bees knees, a bag of chips and all that jazz.  He’s brilliant at his illusions and he has what seems to be a twinkle in his eye at all time.  Yet on very rare occasions Matilda catches what seems to be anguish in their depths.

I loved Matilda too.  Though she considers herself ordinary, she’s far from it.  According to others, though she get it herself, she is quite attractive.  Jay seems to think so, though he gives out very mixed messages to her at times.  I love her enthusiasm and wonderment when she sees one of Jay’s illusions.  She’s quick witted and keeps up with Jay quite easily in the quip department.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I haven’t said anything about the story itself.  To say anything risks giving it away and I don’t want to spoil this book for anyone.  So final word:

GET THIS BOOK!  I LOVE IT AND IT’S FREE FELLOW READERS – FREE! 

You’ve nothing to lose but you can gain a great book and a possible new author.  I know I did. I’m now reading book 2.

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

Would I read it again: and enthusiastic yes.

Recent Read

How to Save a Life by Emma Scott

Why this one: It was one of those books that comes up “Recommended because” in reference to One Day Soon and since I thought that book was brilliant…..

Steam Level:  pretty heated

Genre: YA

Outline: Josephine Clark is trapped. A harrowing past haunts her every time she looks in the mirror, and she can’t escape the violence of her everyday life. More and more, her thoughts turn to Evan Salinger, the boy she knew in high school. The boy they called a mental case. A loner. A freak. The boy who seemed to know things no one could know. For a few short weeks, Jo had found perfect solace in Evan’s company, sneaking every night to meet him at the local pool. In the cool of the water and the warmth of Evan’s arms around her, Jo had tasted something close to happiness.

Cruel circumstances tore them apart, and four years later, the sweet memory of their time together is dissolving under the punishing reality of Jo’s life now. Evan seems like a fading dream…until he reappears at the moment she needs him most. Guided by Evan’s strange intuition, they flee her small Louisiana town, and Jo begins to suspect there is something more to his sudden return than he admits.

Over twelve days across America’s heartland, deep secrets come to light, buried pasts are unearthed, and the line between dreams and reality is blurred as Evan and Jo fight to hold on to their soul-deep love, and discover that there is more than one way to save a life.

My Thoughts: I think if I had read this book at a different time, I may have gotten more out of but coming on the heels of One Day Soon, and because I found One Day Soon so…. Everything, How to Save A Life didn’t have as much of a chance.  It’s like watching a brilliant ice dance skate in the Olympics, the kind that gives you goose bumps.  Each move by both is perfection, even down to the move of a hand.  Their connection to each other is intense and the audience knows it’s watching something they will rarely see and experience.  And then the next pair of ice dancers come on to the ice and they do a wonderful job, worthy of high scores, but it just didn’t give you the goose bumps that the first pair did.  On another night. In even the slightest of circumstances the second couple could come first – but just not this night.  That’s how it was with this book.

Josephine, or Jo, is one very angry, very damaged young woman.  It’s her final year of high school and she’s the ‘new girl’.  She lives with her uncle and as a long distance truck hauler, they move around a lot and even when they settle somewhere, he’s not around much.  Jo has good reason to be angry.  She was abused by another uncle, though the author doesn’t really get into it in any detail.  When she scarred herself on purpose to make him stop, her mother who already suffered from mental illness, couldn’t handle it and killed herself.  So Jo was left with basically no one.  We don’t know about her father.

She gets involved with the ‘geeks and freaks’ crowd though she also bangs the jock of the school.  This gives her the ‘illusion’ of being in control though of course we the readers, know this never really works.  But it adds to her isolation.

But there is someone even more isolated that Jo who attends the small town high school and that is our hero Evan.  He is ostracized by everyone and bullied and made fun of.  And even worse, it is his foster brothers that lead the charge.  They hate him with every breath they take

He interests Jo, here is someone very handsome who to her should be one of the cool kids but then she hears his story.  He has visions and has spent time in a mental institutions.  In the cruelty that can be young people that’s all it takes.

But Jo gets to know Evan better and she sees he’s a wonderful caring young man.  As their young love begins to grow and flourish and as she begins to trust Evan. Jo slowly lets down her walls a bit.

But just as things start going very well, a tragic incident happens and they are ripped apart from each other and Jo’s life slowly descends into hell.

Will they find each other again?  Can they heal each other?  Can their love overcome all that keeps them apart? This is what is answered in the second part of the story and I’m not going to tell.  Instead, if I’ve intrigued you enough, you will want to find out for yourself.  I will say though that it becomes a road trip book, based mostly on the ‘visions’ that Evan still sees.

I loved both Jo and Evan.  Jo is only keeping it together by a thin veil of ice, never really letting herself trust, always expecting the worst and sometimes even sabotaging herself to get what she thinks she deserves.

And Evan – well, even as a young high school student he’s swoon worthy.  His past is almost as sad, he was abandoned and then later adopted by a couple who aren’t really aware or care, what is going around them, how horrid this young man they took in is being treated.  He will break your heart with his story.

I have no problems whatsoever recommending this book and I’m sure many will very much enjoy it too.  For me though, not quite as much as the ‘other’ book

 

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Would I read it again?:  I don’t know honestly.  I can see me starting to read it and the other book calling to me.

Recent Read

So much for my previous plans.  Instead I bring you a review for a book that rocked me - seriously rocked me!

 

One Day Soon by A. Meredith Walters

Why this one: I happened to notice it received glowing reviews at both Amazon and GoodReads and very few bad ones.  The price was good so I gave it a try

Steam Level: The first love scenes didn’t happen until closer to the end and they weren’t very descriptive – but they were perfect, completely perfect for the book.

Genre: Young Adult

Outline: He found me in blood and tears.
I stayed with him through darkness and fire.

We loved each other in the moment between innocence and bitter truth.
We were the kids easily ignored, who grew into adults we hardly knew.

We weren’t meant to last forever. And we didn’t.

He ran away.
I tried to move on.

Yet I never stopped thinking about the boy who had fought to keep me alive in a world that would have swallowed me whole. He was the past that I buried, but never forgot.

Until the day I found him again, years after believing I had lost him forever.

And in cold, resentful eyes, I saw the heart of the man who had been everything when I had nothing at all. So I vowed to hold onto the second chance that was stolen from the children we had been.

Sometimes fate is ugly. Life can be twisted.
And who we are can be ruined by who we once were.

For two people who had survived so much, we would have to learn how to hold on before we were forced to let go.

My Thoughts: Every few years a book ‘gets to me’ on a very rare level that few books do.  The last one that did was Transcendence by Shay Savage and the one before that was Broken Wing by Judith James.  And now, this year, it’s One Day Soon by A. Meredith Walters.  This book has changed me in a fundamental way.  Its theme is homeless young people.  At the back of the book it states the author has worked in this field and it’s so obvious that she has.

As spring approaches, the squeegee kids start to come out.  I don’t know if others know who these young people are but they stand at the traffic lights of major intersection and when the lights turn red, they clean the front window of your car, hoping you will give them some money.  In the past I’ve always kept my fingers crossed that I’m not held up by the light and they won’t approach me, but now that will be different.  I’ll keep change in the car if I’m stopped.

This book broke my heart.  It’s told from Imigen or Imi’s first person account. It’s told in two times, a chapter 15 years in the past when she lived on the streets and then present time when she is a successful Social Worker at a hospital.  What both the past and the present have in common is Yossarian – or Yoss.  It’s Yoss who really broke my heart.  In the past he’s a young man, 18, who has been on the streets since he was 12 and left a very abusive home.  He sees Imi when she first runs away from home at age 16 because she’s pretty much been neglected by her scattered brained mother who puts whoever is her current boyfriend ahead of Imi.  Yoss can tell that Imi is an innocent when it comes to street kids and brings her under his wing for protection.  He is the leader of a small band of screwed up young people.  He and Imi fall deeply in love.  Even though the book is told in the first person, this author is brilliant in her ability to make us BELIEVE and FEEL this love despite their young age.

But Yoss has had to do some terrible, terrible things to survive and help his small group.  Thankfully the author hints at what he’s done rather that describe it, but since I think she’s a brilliant author, even implied and not even told from his POV, we feel his anguish and despair at the helplessness of his life on the streets and his self-loathing.  Even writing up this review is making me feel it again.

The present time line has Imi and Yoss meeting up again for the first time in 15 years.  That’s all I’m going to say for the present time as to say more would give away spoilers.  Enough to say though that even though it’s been 15 years since last they saw each other, their love and need for each other is still as strong and enduring as when they first met.

If you read other reviews, and I encourage you to do so, many of the reviewers say they don’t have the words to really describe this book and I add to their feelings.  This book is beautiful, it is haunting, it will stay with you long after you finish.  I was crying the last three chapters of this book.  And I mean could only read for a bit before I couldn’t see any more for the tears.  My throat hurt from trying to hold them back.  I have NEVER done this while reading a book before.  Transcendence made me cry at the end, every time I’ve read it.  But this one had me crying harder and much earlier in the book.  And it was a cry that I needed.  Things in my personal life have gone wonky again and while I know I need to cry ‘cause it does make one feel better after, I haven’t been able to.  But in reading and crying during the latter part of this book, though to be honest I probably could have almost from the beginning, it helped me.

I was thinking “I can’t recommend this book because it’s written so incredibly well emotionally but I can’t NOT recommend it as it’s one of those books that comes along very rarely and I don’t want anyone who loves the genre to miss it.  Even if they are affected half as deeply as I was it will be very emotional for those who read it.

Other reviewers have said that 5 stars is not enough for this book and in that I agree with them 100%.  I only wish we could rate higher for those books that rock your world and change you to your core.

Grade: 50 out of 5

Would I read it again?: When I’m ready for the emotional punch it will give me, absolutely!

Hockey Love - Part 1, A trip to the past

 

I am very much a mood genre reader.  I get in the mood for a specific sub genre of romance and read and read and read that genre until I get over it and I’m ready to move on to the next one.  If I’m in the mood for Western Historical for example, there is no sense throwing a Regency or SciFi romance into the reading mix because even if it’s the best written book in the world and right up my alley, chances are very good I won’t appreciate it as I’m ‘not in the mood’.  Which brings me to the point of this post. 

 

For ever so long now I’ve been in the mood for contemporary, almost exclusively hockey romance in particular.  I can’t seem to quit them and they take up the vast majority of my book buys lately.  I’ve been puzzling out why this is.  I don’t even really watch hockey much these days.

Now this is a vast change from years ago.  I’m Canadian eh and hockey is in my blood.  I tried playing it a bit when I was young but I couldn’t skate worth spit and besides that was back in the day when girls didn’t have their own leagues and didn’t even play hockey.  If they tried, they had to play with boys – icky poo.

But that didn’t keep me from being an avid fan in watching hockey.  My bestie when I was young was the niece of an NHL player who played for the Chicago Black Hawks so naturally they were the team I cheered for.

Then my allegiance changed when I grew a bit older and happened to sit up and notice Derek Sanderson of the Boston Bruins. 

 I think girls of all ages who watched hockey sat up and noticed him.  Oh mama was he hot!  He certainly got my girly parts going.  He was so different from you average hockey player of the times.  He had long hair and mustache and was the rebel or ‘bad boy’ of hockey.  And he was a fighter. Now before you young’uns go ‘yuck, look at all that HAIR’ keep in mind in my day, this was the style back then.  Mr. Sanderson or Turk as he was nicknamed was like a rock star for the female hockey crowd. 

Then alas, he left the team.  I still cheered for the Bruins but with him gone the eye candy wasn’t the same.  I should also mention that this was before helmets were mandatory, back in the early 70’s, so we really got to see the player.  As my interest in the Boston Bruins began to wane and they had won a few Stanley Cups – because I cheered for them of course, my interest in the next team would rise.

The Broad Street Bullies.  I don’t know if they are still called that but they were officially known as the Philadelphia Flyers.  But even though they were nicknamed Broad Street Bullies, it took me a while to clue in that they were in actual fact, bullies and dirty players so I dropped them.

That left me teamless for a while and even though I didn’t watch it as much as I used to, I still followed the standings and would watch the playoffs.  And then I met my husband.

He was a Toronto Maple Leaf fan and trust me when I say there are no fans like Leaf fans.  They are like an already rabid fan on steroids.  As I had no team I figured I’d take them on as my new team to cheer for.  It pleased the husband that I did.  Of course if I hadn’t have been willing I’m sure we would have ended up in Divorce Court.  There is reason the fans are called Leaf Nation. 

In the early days with my new team things were great.  But, I noticed something odd.  They never got any better.  Never.  They haven’t even been close to winning the Stanley Cup in over 40 years!!  I can see standing by your team but then it begins to slip into insanity.  There was no incentive to get better.  They are one of the top earning NHL teams in the league whether they lose or not.  So I was stuck.  I couldn’t keep supporting for a joke of a team, but being married to a card carrying member of Leaf Nation, I couldn’t move to another team.  So I gradually lost interest and it’s been quite a number of years since I’ve had a cheer to cheer for. And then there is the fact they all wear helmets these days and many even visors so it’s more difficult to pick out the eye candy.

 

And going back to my shallow teenage years it wasn’t just hockey on TV I watched. 
The city I grew up in had a Junior B team.  My friends and I went to many a game, always sat behind the penalty box as that was where the action was.  And we were as superstitious as athletes themselves. We simply had to put on a dab of Brute

aftershave to help them win.  How that came about I’ve no idea, all I can say now is teenagers are very strange beings, having been one.  So even though I didn’t play, I was very into the sport for quite a while.

And now that I’ve rambled ever so long, I’ll have to make this a two-parter.  Next up, the appeal of the sports romance.

Recent Read

Full Measures by Rebecca Yarros

Why this one: I think it was one of those Amazon Recommended books plus the price was  very good

Genre: New Adult

Steam Level: Just about the perfect temp.  It’s hot but won’t burn my tongue

Outline: Three knocks can change everything…

"She knew. That’s why Mom hadn’t opened the door. She knew he was dead."

Twenty years as an army brat and Ember Howard knew, too. The soldiers at the door meant her dad was never coming home. What she didn’t know was how she would find the strength to singlehandedly care for her crumbling family when her mom falls apart.

Then Josh Walker enters her life. Hockey star, her new next-door neighbor, and not to mention the most delicious hands that insist on saving her over and over again. He has a way of erasing the pain with a single look, a single touch. As much as she wants to turn off her feelings and endure the heartache on her own, she can’t deny their intense attraction.

Until Josh’s secret shatters their world. And Ember must decide if he’s worth the risk that comes with loving a man who could strip her bare.

My Thoughts:  Oh my, what a beautiful and emotional book this is.  I will be honest and confess though I’ve heard a lot of raves lately for NA books, I haven’t really paid them much attention thinking that at my advanced age I didn’t have much in common with the characters in the story.  Well call me So Wrong Kristie!!  (we must include both exclamation points.)  This book has it all!

It starts out heartbreaking and stays that way throughout.  December (or Ember as most people call her) has just had her world ruined.  She, her mother, sister and younger brother have just found out that their father/husband, a doctor in the army, was killed in Afghanistan.  Ember has to take over the family, her mother is too devastated to function and her younger sister, April, is acting out in not so good ways.  August or Gus, her younger brother isn’t old enough to help her.  The only one stepping is to help is Josh Taylor, Gus’s hockey coach and one time crush of Ember’s.  She has known him since high school though was never part of his crowd.  He was a top athlete, a bad boy and a chick magnet bar none.  Plus April had a boyfriend.  But that didn’t stop her from watching him with lust in her heart.

He is everything that her boyfriend isn’t during this difficult time.  And as if things aren’t difficult enough for Ember, she discovers something devastating about her boyfriend of 3 years, something that makes her evaluate her entire life.  She had been planning on going back to school some distance away, but between the shock of what she learns of her boyfriend and the fact her mother isn’t showing much signs of coming out of her deep, deep mourning, Amber can’t go back and transfers to the local college, though she does move out of the house and several miles away and moves in with a friend.

And Josh, who is attending the same college, lets her know that he feels a lot more for her than just friendship.  But there are so many issues to overcome before she can make him any kind of commitment.  She is discovering what a truly wonderful man he is.  Besides being patient, understanding, knowing when to give her space and when to be there, he s drop dead gorgeous, but because of all that Amber is going through, she’s very gun shy about offering him hope.  Her boyfriend really did a number on her, she’s overwhelmed by responsibility and there is Josh’s well deserved reputation as a player.  She sends him mixed signals.  She will let the relationship go so far, then she pulls back and then she does it again and again.

 

What makes this book such a gut wrenching read is how well the author tells the story.  This is a first person book, written entirely from Amber’s POV so what she feels, the author makes us feel.  Because we are in her head we get to really know and admire her for doing what she needs to do without any self pity.  We understand how complicated her feelings toward Josh are.  She is still a very young person, only 20 and she has a great deal of responsibility thrust upon her in the middle of her own loss of her beloved father.

She finally does let Josh into her life when she finds out something about him that could completely derail the relationship.  As you can tell, I really like Amber.

And Josh, of my goodness I want to be 20 again and have a Josh of my own.  The patience, the humor, the understanding he shows Amber is amazing.  The author does a marvelous job of letting us see Josh’s emotions, his love and longing for Amber, his pain towards the end of the book where he sees something and misunderstands and things are in danger of falling apart for the two of them and then his strength when it seems they have reached an impasse in their relationship even though it’s clear that they truly need and love each other to be happy.  Though normally I would have troubles believing a relationship between two such young people would  be lasting, but I have not a shadow of a doubt that these two will love each other forever.  This is a very emotional and poignant book and a few times the back of my throat started to hurt like it does in the sad part of a movie.

 

The only thing keeping this from being a 5 out of 5 book is it’s told entirely from Ember’s POV.  Many of the books I read these days written in first person or third person will have parts of the book from the hero’s POV.  I would have liked actually read Josh’s thoughts.  In the grand scheme of things though and how much I thought of this book, it’s a small thing.  But I was looking at the other books in this series and it looks as though the last book,  Hallowed Ground is a continuation of their story and it’s told from both POV.  I have two others to get through before that one and I’ve already purchased Eyes Turned Skywise.

Full Measure has been read and received very high grades from quite a few readers.  Well add me to that list now too.

 

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

 

Would I read again: A resounding YES

Recent Reads

Another one from GoodReads

Grease Monkey Jive by Ainslie Paton

My rating: 4.5 out of 5


Outline: A romance about changing the game, finding the truth
and fancy footwork

She thought love was make-believe and
the last person to prove her wrong would be a player.

When ballroom teacher Alex Gibson danced with Dan Maddox she’s reminded of the time she stuck a knife in the toaster, gave herself an electric shock and saw stars. He’s precisely the type of man Alex’s mother warned her off – a player, like the father who abandoned her.

Dan Maddox comes from a long line of men who were hiding under the hood of a beat up old car when the ‘successful relationship’ gene was given out, but he was first in the queue for an extra jolt of chick pulling power.

The chicks in Dan’s life are universally gorgeous, random, disposable, and answer to the name Baby until one drunken night when he picks the wrong girl, hurts a good friend and realises that unless he does something to change, he’ll end up like his violent, unstable father.

It’s Pimp My Ride meets Dancing With The Stars as Alex and Dan come together to compete in a ballroom dancing competition that changes the way they both feel about relationships and love.  

My Thoughts: This book came up as a recommendation through Amazon. Despite the rather silly sounding title, the grease monkey part got my attention as a much prefer a mechanic over a millionaire as a hero. After reading the outline, it sounded good enough for me so I bought it. Since I was in the mood for a good blue collar hero romance I started it up right away and was enchanted with this book. So much I could barely put it down. Only the fact my power kept being used up on my iPad kept me from reading it straight through.

The book starts out with a "grab your attention" beginning. Alex, our herine is a dancer and when she dances for Dan, our hero, the first time she feels like you do when you stick a knife in a toaster. As I've done that I know how it feels. The story then goes back a bit to give us a look into hero/heroine.

Dan is a real charmer. He surfs, he works, he hangs out with his mates and he fucks. Women find him irresistible and he makes no effort to resist them at all when he and his friends hang out at their favourite bar and it would be so easy to dislike him completely, BUT he is beginning to look into his own character and he's not liking what he sees. He sees he is starting to become like his father, a mean asshole of a guy and Dan wants to change who he is.

Alex is focused and driven. She's attending school so she can become a business woman, she's dating a class A jerk of a boyfriend because her mother approves of him. But her real passionis ballroom dancing. She and her partner for years teach dance and are signed up for one final dance completion.

Alex and Dan meet when on a dare Dan and a couple of his mates sign up for dance lessons. Sparks fly right off the bat for the two of them even though they are complete opposites. Dan is a wonderful hero wanting to change. He completely falls for Alex and I love when this happens. There is so much to love about this book right from cover to cover and it hit all my buttons, great chapter development, well fleshed out secondary characters and a tender believable love story. This book gets a Hugh thumbs up.

View all my reviews

Recent Read

As stated - somewhere by me - I haven't done many reviews lately but I have done some on GoodReads.  I thought I may as well put them up here too.



Taking Shots by Toni Aleo

Elli Fisher has never thought she was good enough, let it be her job, her weight, her love life, nothing. That is until she meets Shea Adler. After doing a promotional shoot for the NHL team, the Assassins, she meets the hunky hockey player who shoots a puck, shattering her world.
Shea Adler was tired of the life he was living outside of the rink. The girls, the money blowing, the drinking, everything had to stop and it all did when he met Eleanor Fisher. He had never met anyone like her. She was feisty, witty, shy, and simply gorgeous. When he laid eyes on her, it was as if he was taking the hardest hit of his life into the boards, and he had to have her. Elli is a little skeptical of Shea, but he knows that they were meant to be together, and he needed her in his life.
Can Elli throw her insecurities out the window and love Shea with everything inside of her, or will she let a past relationship, and her family ruin any chance of her being happy.


My rating: 1 of 5 stars

There are good hockey books and then there are bad one.  This is NOT a good one - at least for me.

I'm kind of surprised I finished this book. It's kind of tough to start the year off reading such a horrendous book but then I suppose I can only go up after this.

There were SO many things wrong with it I'm not even sure where to begin so I'll just list them as they come to me.

Very stilted dialogue between hero (?) and heroine (?). At times they sounded like a couple of junior high kids who have never talked to a member of the opposite sex before.

A heroine(?) who obsesses about how overweight she is AND SHE'S A SIZE F'IN 10!!!!!!! Give me a break. I could only dream of being that size. While I can see obsessing about weight if she truly was overweight, I constantly wanted to smack her upside the head and tell her to get over it.

The WAY over abundance of the word awesome. First off, I think only Mutant Ninja Turtles might use it anymore and a hero (?) who constantly uses it? UUGGHH.

I don't think the author made hardly any attempt to make the hero(?)sound like or act like a guy. Having raised two sons, they would never talk like Shea. Never. And if they did, I'd tell them to 'man up'.

The fact the heroine watches Pride and Prejudice almost every single night!! Who does that kind of thing?? There are movies I love and watch over and over but there is no way I'd watch the same movie every night. Add to that the fact that she has a shrine to the hero and the hockey team in her home and girl needs serious therapy. I think she must have stopped maturing at age 11.

The book clocked in at almost 600 pages in the kindle addition and that was way, way to long. It needed some serious tightening up. There were so many scenes that added nothing to the story, that never should have been added. A story needs to be constantly moving, not mired in minutia that adds nothing.

Small things like the hero scored 4 goals in one of the first games of the season, and he's a defenseman. I'm not saying it absolutely couldn't happen, but it's highly, highly unlikely.

The heroine paints her face and puts on the heroes jersey number on her face for every home game. Again this is more the thing a preteen would do, not a mature woman.

The way over the top Snidley Whiplash villian(ess)

And finally, though I could keep going, the final hurdle. If I didn't already despise the heroine, this alone would do it. All thorough the book our unmanly hero has all but stood on his head and sang ' I Am Woman' to prove his love and heroine sees her sister, a sister she knows would love to destroy her, kissing her love and that's it! Relationship over. The heroine cries - ad nauseum. The hero cries. Things are resolved of course, these two losers deserve each other. But this book left a serious bad after taste.

I absolutely do not recommend this book.

Recent Read

As I said, I've been a reading machine while I was off so I thought I'd some reviews now that I have access to a computer again and I'm feeling more like doing them.  First up....

Tank by M. Malone

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: The kettle is boiling on this one

Why this one: It was (and still is) free

Outline: Money changes everything...

Years ago, Tank Marshall swore off fighting. He exercises iron control to keep his anger in check. But his mother was just diagnosed with cancer and the deadbeat dad he hasn’t seen in years is back offering an inheritance and a chance at redemption.

There’s only one person that keeps him anchored in the midst of the chaos. One person untouched by violence and money and lies. Emma Shaw.

But the one thing that Tank hasn’t learned yet is that when billions are at stake, there’s no such thing as innocent. Money. Changes. Everything.

My Thoughts:  One of the things I see some authors, or maybe it’s not them, but maybe it’s the publishers – but no matter –do is offer the first book in a new series up for free or priced very low.  I think this is a brilliant idea, specially if it’s free.   If this book hadn’t been free I might not have perked up and noticed it.  As it is I’ve already purchased the next book and plan to get the whole series.  Win/Win for both the author and me.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit.  At the beginning of the book Tank Marshall is one troubled dude.  His mother’s cancer has come back, he has a father who abandoned them when he and his brother Finn were just children and now wants back in their lives again.  Tank is very bitter and wants nothing to do  with him.  He’s pretty rough around the edges but that just made him more appealing to me.  But his father is now very very wealthy and offering to pay Tank and Finn for just visiting.  If it was left up to Tank he would tell his father to pound salt, but he has the expense of his mother’s cancer to consider.  An expensive surgery could save her life.

He’s also developed a crush on the receptionist of his father’s attorney, one Emma Shaw.  Tank’s unusual method of dealing with stress is to beat people up.  Bad people that is.  It’s rather an unusual way of handling it, but kind of cute in a “Girl, you are sick” kind of way.  And it is only guys who deserved to get their lights punched out.

He finally gets a chance to connect with Emma who has enough struggles of her own.  Her parents are both dead and it’s just her and her sister.  Money is therefore an issue.  Things are strained between Emma and her sister, she’s dating a real douche bag who keeps hitting on Emma.  She knows and is actually quite fond of Tank’s father.  And when he offers her a deal she can’t resist……

 Therefore we have two people who aren’t in the best place finding and bonding with each other.

Tank is so smitten with Emma and will do pretty much anything she asks.  There is this hilarious ‘cat’ scene that I won’t say anymore on so as not to spoil anything because hey, no sense not getting this book at the mighty fine price of $0.00.

There is conflict towards the end of the story that could have devolved into an annoying Big Misunderstanding, but the author didn’t go there.  Both Tank and Emma were well written

One thing I should note that the book is written in first person, present tense with alternating chapters from Tank and Emma’s POV.  In the past that would have meant I would have passed on this book but thank goodness I outgrew that bias. It would have limited my reading world causing me to miss some really good books including this one.

As mentioned, this is the just the first in a series.  It seems that Papa Marshall was a bunny kind of guy and Tank and Finn have other brothers they never knew about.

This book gets a thumbs up and I’ll read more by M. Malone from me.  I can certainly see me rereading this one again.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

 

'til later

And 3, 2, 1 – I’m back!!

Not only back to much closer to my old self but also back to work after being on stress leave since mid-November but also as you can see, back to blogging.  Actually I was ready to come back to blogging last week but I couldn’t remember my password.  I’m at work now where I’m automatically signed in.

My leg is about 80% better now thank goodness.  Let me tell you since I’ve done both, torn ligaments are much, much worse than a broken leg.  There was no fun with the ligament damage like there was with the broken leg, just a lot more pain.  I’m still going to physio 3 x’s a week

 

But the real good news is that emotionally/mentally I’m in a much better place.  I really needed that time off for more than just my leg.  The different medication the doctor ordered is doing it’s job and I’m not in that dark corner any longer.

 

I did A LOT of reading over the time off.  I planned on keeping up at least on GoodReads but that didn’t seem to happen so I plan on getting caught up.  I signed up for the challenge and I want to make sure I get them all recorded.  I upped the number in 2016 by fifteen more so I don’t want to short change myself.  I’ve been on a really sports romance, particularly hockey romance lately.  I think they must have been comfort reads or something.

 

So I’m very happy to claim my life back.  I’m even starting to make plans for summer vacation and I couldn’t have done that before.  I’m not 100%.  I still have to see a therapist and I’ve a few issues I need to deal with but overall it’s like night and day.

 

The main thing I’ve learned is to be kind to myself.  One of the therapists asked me if I would be as hard on a friend then I am on myself and my answer was ‘not a chance’.  That alone was an eye opener. 

So anyone else suffering from the pain that is depression, seek help, take medication, know that it’s not you, it’s the depression and even though you  may not believe or see it, or feel it, there is light and always a hand waiting to help you out of the depth of despair.

 

 

 

This is my world right now - only it's darker

I wish I could report in and say I’m in a better place now, but I can’t.  Things haven’t gotten better for me, they’ve gotten worse.  As of Monday I’m going to be off work on a stress leave.  I never thought it would get this bad; that I would do this, but it has.

Four weeks ago I slipped and fell in the bathroom and tore some ligaments in my right leg.  If anyone else has done this, you will know it’s very painful.  It’s turned out to be much more painful even then the broken leg.  In health care they measure a person’s pain level on a scale from one to ten.  Mine has been between three and often up to eight continually.  The only time I’ve really been pain-free is when I’m asleep.  If I spend any length of time on my feet, it goes up to eight.  I’m going for physio 3 times a week and it’s helping a bit – but it’s going to take a long time to heal.

 

I’ve opened up in the past about not opening mail.  I’ve opened up about suffering from depression and now I’m going to confess something else that affects my life.  I’m a hoarder, only a recently acknowledged hoarder.  I’ve always found it difficult to get rid of things but in the past little while it’s escalated into something that’s becoming dangerous.  The reason I slipped and fell was clothes on my bathroom floor.  I have 2 bedrooms I can’t even really get into as they are so filled with ‘stuff’.  The bedroom I sleep in is getting worse daily.  I don’t have anyone over to my house any longer as I’m too ashamed as to how it looks.

 

The horrible part is I can’t seem to stop and make things better.  I had taken a few days’ vacation time a couple of weeks ago to try and make a dent but I’d fallen just before that and I couldn’t do it at all.  And since I have been in pain and not able to move about because of the leg it’s only escalated the mess and the hoarding situation.  I watch Hoarding, Buried Alive sometimes and I really feel for and sympathize with the hoarders.  I GET their anguish as I feel it myself.  I don’t know if I can let go of my ‘stuff’, I like to think I can but I don’t know.

I don’t have people over to the house any more as I’m so ashamed of what I’ve let happen.

So in this stress leave I’m taking the time to ‘fix’me.  I want to get on meds that work for depression.  There is an organization here in the city that helps with hoarders that I’ve been trying to get hold of and most important of all is I want to find a therapist who deals with people who suffer from depression.

 

I just want to stress again that this is an illness.  For those who have never suffered from it but may have friends or family that do, it’s not as simple as telling them to ‘pull up there bootstraps’ and ‘get over it’.  It’s a crippling condition in that self-loathing and hating who we are takes over our whole lives.  We tell ourselves and we believe that we are terrible mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, sisters and brothers.  We tell ourselves that no one can possibly really love us as they don’t know us inside.  Depression is an enemy we can’t see, a foe that is difficult to battle as the enemy, the foe is our very selves.

So if I can offer advice to family and friends to loved ones with depression, don’t give up on them.  You will probably get very frustrated with them, but as frustrated as you are with them, know they are even more so.  I know you may get impatient at times, but try not to let them know as that makes things work.  Chances are whatever they may tell you about their depression, it may only be the tip of the iceberg.

 

Just be kind, be there, love them and know they are in pain and that it isn’t their choice to be this way.

I will get there and hopefully they will too.

Update

You will probably notice I've been absent for a while.  There are a couple of reasons.  Reason number 1 is it's very busy at work these days and I just don't have time to do blog posts lately.  This is good as it makes the days fly past, but alas, as my computer at home is down, it's difficult to do them from my Ipad.

Reason number 2 is a bit tougher.  They've also changed the schedule I work now.  One week I work 8 to 4, the next week 12 to 8.  I worried when about this when I heard what they were going to do and as it turns out, with good reason.  One of the things I need most to help with the depression is a steady routine.  I could handle it when I worked on later shift out of 8 but now with things changing every week, it's been very tough.  I don't know if I need different medication to help or what but I do know that what I'm taking now isn't working and the depression has come roaring back.

I have an appointment with my doctor coming up soon where I plan to discuss it with her and I also want her to recommend a good therapist I can see on a regular basis.  We do have a workplace plan and I've used it, but it's geared to a fast fix to the problem and I don't think there is a fast fix to this.

Thus the reason for my lack of regular blogging.  The spirit is willing and I keep thinking of things to blog about, but the heart isn't whole at this time.  Hopefully I will get back on track soon as I know I enjoy it so much.  But it's another casualty of this horrible thing called depression.  But I will say....

'til later

Recent Reads

Dirty Talk by Megan Erickson

Why This One: I discovered this author with the first book in this series and was very, very impressed, then got one of her back list about the first Payton brother.  It was a given I’d read this one when it came out – so much so that I preordered it.

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: Hot – but alas, not in a way I liked

Outline: When the one you shouldn't want is the one you can't resist...

Brent Payton works hard, plays hard, and has earned his ladies’ man reputation. But he’s more than just a good time, even though no one seems to see it. Until a gorgeous brunette with knockout curves and big, thoughtful eyes walks into his family’s garage and makes Brent want more.

Ivy Dawn and her sister are done with men, all of them. They’ve uprooted their lives too many times on account of the opposite sex, but that’s over now. The plan seems easy until a sexy, dirty-taking mechanic bursts in Ivy’s life and shakes everything up.

Brent can’t resist the one person who sees past his devil-may-care façade, and Ivy finds it harder and harder to deny how happy he makes her. But she has secrets of her own and when the truth comes out, she must decide if she’ll run again or if she’ll take a chance on forever.

My thoughts: I was blown away by how much I enjoyed the first book in this series, Dirty Thoughts.  I loved everything about it, the blue collar hero, the fact he’s a grouchy bear type, the fact he and the heroine had had a previous relationship that neither really got rid of.  Brent Payton, the younger brother and hero of Dirty Talk had quite a large role so I wanted to read his story.  I happened to see Megan Erickson at RWA at a signing and told her how much I love the first book and she was telling me a bit about this one and how she loved the character of Brent.

Alas, I didn’t feel the love as much for Brent as I did for Cal.  Brent didn’t have the grouchy bearness of his big brother.  In fact he was quite the player.  That should have been a bit of a warning.  If this had been a historical, he would have been considered a rake and one of the reasons I don’t read as many historical is because of the number of rakes.

Brent, our hero, meets Ivy, our heroine when she visits the garage he works at with his brothers to visit Alex, her sister and the newest employee of Payton and Sons.  Brent is smitten right out of the gate and Ivy is smitten right back.  But she and Alex have made a vow to each other – NO MORE MEN!  They’ve both been stung in the past, Ivy when her former love abandoned her when she got pregnant with little Violet.

Gack – I hate doing this but there were a number of things that bothered me about this book. 

• I didn’t really feel a love connection between the two of them, more of a lust connection.

• He kept thinking about how small her hands were to the point I was almost picturing them as a character of their own – that her hands were way too small for the rest of her body.

• Alex and Ivy running at the drop of a hat.  Sure Alex’s former beau turned out to be a real rat bastard, but I think the fact that they both moved away and were more than willing to run again struck me as quite immature.

• Violet was way too sugary sweet.  Writing children in romance books is a very difficult thing to do and if the author doesn’t put in some brattiness, the child doesn’t come across as ‘real’.

• Brent did way too much mental lusting.  It got old after a while.  I’d rather he have spent more time thinking and getting to know the inside then the outside.  I think if he had done that, he probably would have found her too child-like in her way of dealing with life.

• I don’t really care for player type heroes – or heroines for that matter.  If they are regretful about it, they have chance at redemption for me, but Brent never did.
• And in a completely and utterly unfair thing - that's the same name as my oldest son and at times it was just kind of odd to read about what a player Brent was

I’m so sad I felt this way about this book considering how much I loved the first book as well as Make it Right – the story of Max Payton and part of another series she’s written, the Bowler University series.  And as a big plus, I did love that Brent is another blue collar type hero.  And the fact that this book didn’t work for me as well as the other two won’t keep me from reading her next planned book in this series or other books she’s written.  I think she’s a good writer, it’s just that this book wasn’t one of my favourites.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5

Would I read again: Maybe

~~~***^^^***~~~

Grayson’s Vow by Mia Sheridan

Why this one: I LOVE Mia Sheridan’s books!!  In fact if you look to the right, Archer’s Voice is right up there as one of the best books I’ve read in a number of years.  She is an automatic autobuy author

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: there were only a couple towards the end, but they flowed beautifully with the story and were perfect

Outline: Kira Dallaire is desperate.

Some challenges in life seem too hard to overcome. With little money, and even fewer options, the quick-witted and vibrant twenty-two-year-old needs to reinvent herself. Known for her generous heart and impulsive personality, she devises a survival plan, possibly her most outrageous idea yet.

Grayson Hawthorn is losing hope.

Some obstacles in life seem too hard to overcome. Betrayal definitely being one of them. With limited capital, and dwindling resources, he is attempting to resurrect his failing family vineyard, a self-imposed vow seemingly destined to fail. That is until a young woman enters his office with an outlandish, unexpected proposition impossible to refuse.

What begins as a temporary business arrangement, soon evolves into more as vivacious, spirited Kira challenges detached, arrogant Grayson to want more from life. To want more for himself. But as their wills clash and fiery passion ignites, they'll realize that sometimes the past creates walls too difficult to climb, and that lies and deception rarely precede a happily ever after.

As Kira and Grayson race toward their destiny, they will discover that some vows are meant to be broken, and others are worth risking everything for . . . even your very own heart.

My Thoughts: I started this book about 5:00 last night.  I didn’t turn on the TV, I was too busy reading.  I sat in the dark I was too busy reading.  I stayed up way past time to head to Zzzzz land I was too busy reading.  Finally my IPad ran out of juice and turned itself off.  I plugged it in and headed to bed.  I woke up at 2:30 am with my IPad 47% charged and finally finished the book.  When I get out of bed in the middle of the night – when I’ve been ASLEEP, that means it’s a Very Good Book.

This one grabbed me from page 2 and didn’t let go until I finished it.  Kira is the kind of heroine you can’t help routing for.  She’s gone through some real bad shit; you get to see how bad it gets as you read along, but instead of it getting her down, she pulls herself up, brushes herself off and starts all over again with one wild scheme after another.  At the beginning we meet her as she’s in a bank when she overhears a conversation between a banker and a man whose name she recognizes as someone from her past though she’s never met him.  We discover the connection later in the book.  But the client, Grayson, is being turned down for a loan and she feels a sense of almost responsibility.  When she later spies him giving what little money he seems to have to a homeless person, she’s decided on her next plan.  You see, though she is homeless at the time, she is soon going to inherit a great deal of money upon her marriage.  Grayson needs a great deal of money to try and bring the dying winery he inherited back to the place it once was.  She visits Grayson and proposes they marry for a few months so she can get her inheritance and she will split it 50/50 with Grayson, allowing him to do the needed work on the winery.

Grayson very reluctantly agrees to it, thinking she’s just a spoiled little rich girl who needs the money to indulge herself having already spent the allowance ‘daddy’ has given her and treats her quite rudely as a result.  Of course things couldn’t be further from his first impression and as the story moves along, he is proven wrong again and again as he gets to know her better.

Kira on her part, is starting to develop deeper and deeper feelings for Grayson as she gets to know his very sad childhood.  She has such a loving heart that she almost feels his pain, having shared many of same kind of pain herself, but that doesn’t keep her from calling him out when he goes overboard on his cynicism.

I adore Kira as a heroine.  Grayson is a bit harder to warm up to.  He pulls some, what seems to me, to be very cruel stunts.  Yes, he has his reasons for his bitterness, but he gets carried away a bit too often.  But the Kira love I have evens things out somewhat.  She is young, only 22, but because of all she had gone through, it was quite a mature 22.

I still preferred Archer’s Voice a little bit more than this one.  Ms. Sheridan piles it on a little too thick on the pain she inflicts on Grayson, but she is one of the best authors I’ve read at making us feel the emotional pain the hero/heroine feel.  Maybe it’s because of the first person, alternating characters of the way she writes.  We get into both their heads throughout.  So while I thought this was a wonderful read – I read in one and a half sitting – and will give it a thumbs up and shout “Read it, It’s such a Good Book” Grayson’s Vow gets a 4.75.

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

Would I read it again: Absolutely!!