Title Goes Here

I meant to post this as a Sunday recap, but to be honest I just got lazy.

1. My Dad got HBO for us, which is so friggin' awesome because now I can watch True Blood season 3 on my laptop at school!  Not that I hadn't already seen it, but since I was watching it online the quality was awful.  Besides the wonderful amounts of Eric we get in this season (omg omg I cannot wait for next season to start) I am absolutely head over heels in love with Alcide.  I know a lot of y'all are beard girls (and he's starting to turn me into one too) so here's one of my favorite screen caps of him ;)

2. RIP Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011. You were ARE an icon for the ages.

3. Reading Recap: 

I finished Sabrina Jeffries' A Hellion in Her Bed last week.  While it didn't blow me out of the water, I did generally enjoy it.  I would only really recommend it though if you're already reading or planning to read the whole series.  Nothing about it really stood out to me.  I could set it down for days at a time and not have trouble picking it back up, but nothing compelled me to find out the ending (like I've felt with some of her other books).  3 stars.  I am already reading How to Woo a Reluctant Lady, so it'll be interesting for me to see how Minerva's story compares to her two brother's.  I do like the overall story arc of the siblings uncovering what happened to their parents, and I love Mr. Pinter so I'm eager to read his and Celia's book whenever that is released (especially since I think Gran might disapprove of him!).

In Other News

A couple things have happened in the past week, but since they're not particularly related here a bit of a mash up.

1.  For all you Gleeks- Kurt/Blaine FTW!  I think we all knew it was coming, but in my opinion it played out perfectly.

I also just loved the episode as a whole.  The original songs were great and I'm sad we're going to have to wait a while for the season to start up again, but the mid-season did end on a stellar note.  I'm really counting on Finn and Rachel getting back together later in the show (it's pretty obvious right?) because they're my favorite pair.  Any thoughts from other Gleeks out there?

2. Sabrina Jeffries has officially announced that in the final book of the Hellion series Celia will be pair with Pinter.  I don't know if anyone else felt this way, but I thought the pairing was clearly set up since the first book (sort of like Minerva and Giles), which is something I've really enjoyed and am looking forward to.  She's said on her Facebook that David Gandy is her model for Pinter.

Very nice.

3.  I got to try TruBlood!  I know, I know, it's so gimmicky, right?  It tastes pretty good though.  It's carbonated blood orange soda, so it's just like a premium over price regular orange soda, but the bottles are soooo awesome!  I'm such a fan.

4.  The Iditarod recently concluded.  When it comes to this dogsled race, I am the definition of a superfan.  I constantly am running back to my computer to check the standings of the mushers.  I was pretty psyched because I won my bet this year.  I predicted Dallas Seavey would not win but place in the top ten, and he came in fourth!  Look, here's me being superfan-y.

My Spring Break is over and am now back at school. Le sigh.  Time to get back into gear.

Review Mashup!

I have been so out of the loop over the past week and a half! Sorry for going totally MIA on everyone. My profs decided it would be a wonderful week to slam everyone with tons of material. I haven't even been checking my blogger feed :p I did somehow manage to squeeze in some reading, so to make up for my disappearance I'm just posting a sort of review mash up of what I was up to.  And Happy Belated V-Day everyone!

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

I’ve heard great things about this series, and with the final installment coming out fairly soon, I decided to check this out of my local library. While I did enjoy it immensely, I didn’t feel it lived up to all the hype.

I think my biggest problem with the book was Callie’s complete and total disregard for her personal safety and well being. She was an intelligent female, but then she would do things (like sneaking around at night alone) that made me wonder where all that good sense had gone. It was so unrealistic that nothing bad happened to her, and that kept pulling me out of the story. (Not that I wanted something bad to happen! I just wanted her to take care of herself.) Also some of the situations seemed too contrived to me, such as Ralston ALWAYS being where she happens to sneak off to. London wasn’t that small of a place.

The second half of the book was much better to me. I felt like that was where Callie really began to come out of her shell. It was especially fun when items on her list began to be completed in unexpected ways. Despite my complaints, I did enjoy the book in the end and think it deserves 4 stars.

Nine Rules to Break sets up well for the rest of the series, in particular Juliana’s book (the one which is going to be released soon). She was a fun character, and the tension has already been set up between her and the Duke of Leighton. I don’t know if this is furthered in the next book in the series, but I hope to read it soon to find out.

The Truth About Lord Stoneville by Sabrina Jeffries

Like with Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, the release of a book spurred me to go back and start a series. Also, I’m a big fan of Sabrina Jeffries, in particular her Heiress series. She’s my go to author for a light, fun, historical read.

While The Truth About Lord Stoneville had all the elements of Jeffries’ style that I love, the book just didn’t work for me. Almost all of my issues can be isolated to Oliver. He seemed to have some real problems in the logic department. Because he was torn apart as a child watching his parents fight because of his father’s infidelities, he believes a marriage with children should be faithful. However, later he refuses to promise fidelity because it’s “just not in his nature”, but is still ok with getting hitch and having kids. Wtf? For most of the book I just found him annoying. He clearly believes everything his father did was wrong, but is so busy repeating those mistakes (often hurting Maria in the process) that he just came off as a hypocrite to me. Even if it’s unintentional, he’s constantly rubbing in her face how much of a womanizer he is.

I did like Maria very much. She wasn’t weak willed and was very resilient. Her cousin Freddy was a great addition too, even if he was rather two dimensional. 3 stars, and I can’t wait to read more of this series.

A Pirate’s Possession by Michelle Beattie

I’m not the biggest fan of pirate romances, but when I do go for them, I generally need them to be the over the top swashbuckling type, not the sappy, humorous secondary character type. This just wasn’t the sort of book for me.

I found Vincent, Nate’s second mate, to be a very distracting character. A dwarf pirate who was trying to prove his manhood was one thing, but he was so gabby and “get in touch with your emotions” that it got annoying and clashed with being a pirate.

I felt like a lot of Nate and Claire’s Big Misunderstandings could have been more easily resolved. It was utterly obvious that they were not on the same page about why they were mad at each other, and I felt like one of them would have said something revealing while they were busy sniping at each other. However, the dialog was carefully crafted to keep them both in the dark until the Big Reveal could later be used as a plot point.

I enjoyed the action scenes though. They were well written and propelled the plot forward while it lagged romantically. The fight scenes were some of the best I’ve read in a romance novel. I kind of wish they had been attacked more. 2 out of 5 stars.

Victory!!!

YEA!!! Packers won last night!  Sorry to all you Steelers fans.  Well, sort of sorry ;P

Last Week's Recap:

Married By Morning by Lisa Kleypas
Loved loved LOVED it!  But really no shock there.  I feel like I've been waiting to read this book for ages and I can't believe I only got around to reading it now.  I was so upset when I found out Poppy's book was coming out before this one.  I remember thinking What?!  I have to wait a whole friggin' year for Leo and Cat's story?  In the end I had to wait longer since I've been so busy with other stuff but this book was sooo worth the wait.  Leo and Cat's sparring was so fun to read I almost didn't want them to get together.  Almost.  Lisa Kleypas writes some of the best humor.  I spent most of this book in stitches.  In traditional LK style, the chemistry sizzles right off the page and the whole Hathaway family makes regular appearances, especially Dodger the ferret!  5 out of 5 stars.

Wicked Nights With a Lover by Sophie Jordan
4 out of 5 stars, review here

Let it snow, let it snow, ELIZABETHAN VAMPIRES!

We are snowed in here in northern Maryland.  My college shut down early yesterday and classes were cancelled today as well.  From what I hear it's going to snow tomorrow as well.  Nice time to curl up with a good book, eh?

In the meantime, oh look, a mini book review!

The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer by Lucy Weston
DNF
DNFs are really, really rare for me.  I usually end up pushing myself to finish stuff because I'm the type of person who loves to know the endings.  But once I had set this down for more that an hour, I just couldn't bring myself to pick it up again.  It was easy enough to read, but could be rather dull.  In particular the language grated on my nerves.  The syntax used was very high brow, almost pretentious.  I think the point was to make Elizabeth appear both royal and from a previous era.  Elizabeth would have used Early Modern English, like in a Shakespearean play, but the language seemed more Victorian.  I know I seem like a stickler right now, but it was very distracting.  I did like the character of Mordred though.   Anyone who is familiar with the legends of King Arthur would find him interesting.  Since I never finished it, please feel free to e-mail me if you know the ending :)

I'm Back!

I’m back from vacation… right in time to dive headfirst into Spring Semester.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be back on campus. It’s nice to see all my friends again and I like getting into a routine, but there’s always something about Spring Semester that’s more hectic. Maybe it’s all the dreaded snow storms that tend to mess up syllabi and make everyone fall behind.

Here’s my quick reading re-cap from the past week. I might post reviews of one or two of these if I have time by the end of the week.

Right Hand Magic by Nancy Collins
1 out of 5 stars
I found this to be a very disappointing read. I probably wouldn’t have even finished it if I hadn’t been on a plane and reading material was scarce. The plot/idea of the novel wasn’t too bad and I might have actually like it if the execution hadn’t been so awful. For some reason the writing style kept reminding me of fan fiction- maybe it was because the characters’ clothing was constantly be described and for some reason Hexe was always in a band shirt. Hexe (the hero) was especially boring because he was just too perfect. Everyone should have some flaw.

 

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
3 out of 5 stars
My biggest problem with this book is that it’s told in first person by the character who I find most annoying. Other than that, I like the plot/world building and intend to continue reading the series. I saw all of True Blood before reading this book, which I’m sure that influences me. I’m likely going to offend a lot of people by flat out saying I like True Blood more, but that’s probably because the show isn’t from Sookie’s POV and has an ensemble cast, which I always like.

 

Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun
4.5 out of 5 stars
I loved this book! I deserves all the hype it’s been getting. I don’t expect eroticas to have heavy romantic elements, and I don’t expect romance novels to be eroticas, so it was amazing to find that this book was the perfect balance of each. Lacey was a great character, a real strong, kick-ass contemporary woman. Hunter was a fabulous hero, though harder to understand than Lacey, and the chemistry between them seeps off the pages. I swear the room I was in heated up 5 degrees! The only reason I took half a star off was because even at the end of the novel, Hunter had a lot of baggage to work through, which made me wonder how they were going to work out. I definitely would recommend this one!


So that was my week. Happy reading everyone!

Adikshun: I Has It

Somehow over the past two years, reading romance has moved from a pleasurable past time to an addiction. I remember when I used to only read romance novels during a vacation, or if I happened to find a few at a garage sale. I never kept track of authors or series, so my selections were fairly ecclectic. And, after reading and enjoying them a time or two, I would later sell them or donate them to the library.

Now, two years later, I have a collection of two hundred romance novels (seventy of which were '80s Harlequin romances I bought in a lot off Craigslist. Awesomely bad covers). I have lists upon lists tracking the romances I read: by author, by title, by series, by what I plan to buy, what I plan to read but won't buy. Even without those lists I track everything again on Goodreads, which I check more than my Facebook.

All this popped into my head today when I went to the library to return ONE book and came home with THREE. I already had a large pile of TBR books from the library sitting on the floor, not to mention the two shelves of TBR books that I own. I finally understand what it means to have an "addictive personality" >.<

Recent Reads:

I'm fairly apathetic about this book. I didn't dislike it, but I found it too dull to merit a real review. There wasn't much tension and most the events seemed disconnected. I couldn't figure out what was keeping Charlotte and Rafe from getting married way sooner other than contrived stubbornes. 2 out of 5 stars