Book Blogger Hop: Do you feel the need to stop reading anything but Christmas....

The Question is:

If you celebrate Christmas, do you feel the need to stop reading anything but Christmas-themed romances as the holiday season starts?

My Answer:

No, why would I? 

That'd be as illogical as only eating turkey dinners with all the trimmings for the full month of December. 

Don't get me wrong, a lovely little book about eating ice-cream on a Cornish beach is unlikely to be high on my reading list at this time but there are plenty of books out there that don't trigger seasonal moods. 

For example, right now I'm binge reading paranormal and urban fantasy novels. They can be read any time and work particularly nicely when the night has drawn in and you're cosied up under a blanket. 

Review: I Heart Forever by Lindsey Kelk

The day her husband Alex picks up a backpack and goes travelling, Angela Clark promises to stay out of trouble and keep both Louboutins on the ground.

So when her best friend’s boyfriend confides in her, it can’t hurt to help him pick out a ring at Tiffany’s surely?

And when her fashion magazine announces major changes, being terminally late and arguing with your boss isn’t that bad, is it?

Then suddenly there’s another big secret Angela’s got to keep – and the man she loves is still thousands of miles away. As the wedding of the year looms, and Manhattan switches on its Christmas lights, Angela is going to need her friends by her side as her old life looks set to change forever.





ebook.

Full length novel.



First Person.



No, but I think a reader would enjoy it more if they'd read the others.

Yes.



I love this series, I do. I really, really, do but this book fell short of the mark for me.
It's full of Kelk's trademark humour, mad antics and sweet endings but something just wasn't right.
Or maybe everything was perfect and the problem I had was that everything was the same as it always is.
Events in this series may move on - and there is a fab development for Angela and Alex in this one! - but the characters don't change.
They make the same mistakes over and over, they do the same crazy shit, with a slight twist, every time... And it gets old.
It gets old even though it's been a few years since the last book released.
If the series continues - and I assume it will given events - I'll continue reading but I'm scared that the magic that made me love these books is starting to fade.

I LOVE this cover!
I love all the I Heart covers.
They're happy and sweet and just perfect for these books.

Book Blogger Hop: When reading a book, do you use a bookmark or...

The Question is:

When reading a book, do you use a bookmark to mark your place in the book, or do you just fold over the top corner of the page? 

My Answer:

I own a couple of nice bookmarks but I never use them. I can never find them when I want them and typically I use whatever is to hand to mark my page: scrap paper, receipts, post-it notes, candy wrapper, hair grips... I'm not fussy. If nothing 'suitable' is within easy reach then I'll fold down a corner.

Yep.

I said it and I do it. 

I'll fold down the corners of pages.

I deface books with self-inflicted creases to their precious pages.

Back in school, for English class, I'd take a highlighter pen and highlight favourite passages.

To the standards of most bookworms, I am a monster who doesn't deserve to own a precious pretty book.

 

I don't care if I crease the spine of a paperback to stripey hell.

I'll read and eat and have been known to accidentally drop pasta (with tomato based sauces) on a page and not care... Well care too much.

I carry them haphazardly in my bag and have more than a few books that have pen marks, or have the edges of their pages crinkled because of water, or stained with some random substance like blackcurrant juice that leaked out my son's drinks bottle...

I take a lot of care with other people's books. I take care of library books. However, if the book is mine I do as I please and that means that shit happens.

I don't buy many paper books anymore, I typically stick to kindle, but for me a book that looks like it's lived - creases, scuffs and imperfections - is gorgeous. I don't want a library full of books that look like they've never been read. What is the point in that? As long as a book is never damaged to a point where it has no cover, missing pages or pages that can't be read for one reason or another, then I don't care about things like folding the corners of my pages because life is too short to constantly hunt for a bookmark.

Review: Keeping Lily by Izzy Sweet and Sean Moriarty

*Some spoilers ahead*

My husband traded me away to save his own life… 

And now I belong to the devil. 

One night and everything in my life changed. Two words and my world turned dark. 

“Take her”.

Owing the most ruthless crime lord in Garden City five million dollars, my husband chose to trade me and my children away to save himself. 

I was on the cusp of freedom, so close to divorcing that scumbag I was married to. 

Now I’m enslaved to a man who is obsessed with me. A man so wicked and beautiful, they call him Lucifer. 

So alluring, he makes the angels weep with envy. He’s so powerful, I can’t stop myself from bending to his will. 

He’s determined to master me, and he won’t rest until I give him all. 

He wants my light, and he wants my dark. 

He wants my body, and he wants my heart. 

But most of all, he wants the one thing I can’t give him. The one thing I can’t bear to part with…

*Some spoilers ahead*

ebook.

Shortish Novel.

Alternating dual POV.

Let me think... Torture. Murder. Forced seduction.

No.

Yes... 

Not in the terms of the central couple. 

If you consider Lilith is still technically married for half the book (even if he's a shit-bag pig who'd trade his wife for money) then yes... 

Yes.

What I Liked: 

I laughed a lot. That's not really a compliment as the book isn't supposed to be funny but it kept me amused - despite being hideously written - on a long-haul flight so kudos.

What I Didn't Like: 

Lucifer was a jackass with pretty much no redeeming qualities. 

He takes possession of Lily and her kids like they are things instead of people and thinks it's perfectly acceptable because her husband owes him money and he finds her attractive.

He kills without remorse. I'm not just talking about killing his enemies to protect his own or anything you could swing in a way that'd make him remotely sympathetic. Nope, he kills (or orders the death of) anyone for any reason he feels like and often not just the offender's death but the deaths of everyone in their family, including women and children!

Lily was pathetic and her actions were frustratingly contradictory. Weak resistance by day and slave to her quivering lions by night. 🙄 Honestly, I could dedicate a 500 word rant to the ridiculousness of the sex. Insta-multi-orgasms people! Lucifer obviously had a magical penis that sent pulses of undiluted pleasure direct to the sweet spot to pull some of those wondrous feats off.

Plus, how she could 'fall in love' with this man and trust him with herself is beyond me. How she could trust him with her KIDS is even further beyond the realms of my understanding.

Spelling mistakes and typos everywhere.

Other Thoughts:

I don't know why I read this. I really, REALLY, don't. Actually, that's not true, the concept was interesting and I was curious as to how it would play out but with hindsight I should have known better.

Can't say I like the cover much. I would have liked it if the chick didn't look lifeless but, alas... 

Book Blogger Hop: Off the book topic - What is your favorite scary movie?

The Week's Question is:

Off the book topic - What is your favourite scary movie? 

My Answer:

I don't like scary movies. I never have even though I've watched more than a fair few: It, Nightmare on Elm Street (1-3), Halloween, Friday 13th, Blair Witch, Scream, Saw, Pet Cemetery, Children of the Corn, The Exorcist, Child's Play... I just don't see the point in them. 

I get no enjoyment whatsoever from being terrified out of my wits. 

Maybe I just have an overactive imagination but I'm twitchy and disturbed for days after I watch something like that.

After I left my teens I decided I'd had enough and no matter what anyone said I wasn't watching them ever again. 

Thankfully my other half has no time for them either so I never have to 'take one for the team' on that score.

😊

The types of Halloween movies I like aren't horror scary, they're... Spooky. Atmospheric. Fun.

I LOVE Hocus Pocus at this time of year. 

Beetlejuice.

Casper.

The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

(Which is both a Halloween and a Christmas watch in this house.)

The Adams Family

Practical Magic

(Although I could watch this one all year round.)

🎃

What's your favourite Halloween movie?

Book Blogger Hop: Both Bram Stoker's Dracula and Marry Shelley's Frankenstein...

This Week's Question is:

"Both Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are considered classics. Have you ever read either of them?"

🎃

My Answer:

Yep, I've read Bram Stoker's Dracula back when I was in high school but I've never read Frankenstein.

Frankenstein is one of those books that's been on my TBR for years but I've never mustered the motivation to read it, even though I want to. It's the same for many classics: Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Anna Karenina...

I want to read them but I never prioritise them over contemporary books. 

Lately, I've been toying with the idea of creating a reading challenge for 2018 in which I read one classic novel every month, throughout the year, in order to finally see what all the fuss is about and why these books have stood the test of time.

🎃

My fav Dracula quotes:

💬

"I shall tell you. My thesis is this, I want you to believe." 

"To believe what?" 

"To believe in things that you cannot." 

💬

"Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies, therefore I like it." And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue.

Review: Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels #9)

*Minor Spoilers Ahead*

Mercenary Kate Daniels knows all too well that magic in post-Shift Atlanta is a dangerous business. But nothing she’s faced could have prepared her for this…

Kate and the former Beast Lord Curran Lennart are finally making their relationship official. But there are some steep obstacles standing in the way of their walk to the altar…

Kate’s father, Roland, has kidnapped the demigod Saiman and is slowly bleeding him dry in his never-ending bid for power. A Witch Oracle has predicted that if Kate marries the man she loves, Atlanta will burn and she will lose him forever. And the only person Kate can ask for help is long dead.

The odds are impossible. The future is grim. But Kate Daniels has never been one to play by the rules…

ebook.

Full length novel.

First Person.

I don't think so but there is some messed up stuff in here... 

YES.

You need to have read books 1-9 or there is no point reading this.

No.

A happy for now!

Yes.

What I Liked: 

Erra. (Yes, I said Erra.)

Roman.

Baby B.

Christopher. (Totally shipping him and Barabas!)

Weddings.

Friends.

Family.

Ghastek. 

All of it. 

Everything.

It was awesome.

What I Didn't Like: 

Nothing, this book was so addictive. I couldn't read it fast enough and was pissed off when it ended because I don't want to be only one book away from this wonderful world coming to an end!

Oh ok, if I had to pick something to gripe about it'd be Jim but he's Jim and his reactions are within character so I can't even complain about him.

Other Thoughts:

Only one more book! I can't believe there is only one more book to go in this series! I mean, I'm glad the Roland stuff is coming to an end but I could read about Kate and Curran's adventures for the rest of my life and be quite happy... My one consolation is that the next book looks like it takes place a couple of years after this one so yeay! 

“You're like a crazy cat lady, but you collect killers instead of fluffy cats."

"I don't collect killers."

"Yes, you do, and those who aren't killers turn into killers by the time you're done. You made Julie into a maniac. That child has more knives on her than a squad of the PAD.” 

💬

“Did you run any of this by Curran?” 

“I told him I was about to do something idiotic and dangerous, and he told me to go ahead and let him know if he could help in any way.” 

“I don’t understand your relationship.” 

💬

“Where the hell would I go without you, Kate? No matter where I went, you would be there in my head. I would miss you every moment of my life.” 

💬

“I looked at Curran. “You killed an animal god and then you ate him?” 

“Maybe,” Curran said. 

“What do you mean maybe?”