ReadingAdventures

I've been posting a bit all over the place again!

This is a link to my review of Kleypas - Lisa - Midnight Angel by Lisa Kleypas. I will update this post until I catch up again!

**************Edited to say******************



Updated to add that here is a link to my review of The Dawn Stag by Jules Watson.

A question though....when I went to add a couple of new posts today I noticed that the Edit Posts section has changed, and you no longer have any formatting options, including adding pictures etc. Has anyone else's Blogger account changed like this? I hope they change it back again because even after doing this for over a year, I am still HTML challenged!


And edited again to say.............



This is a link to Ill Wind by Rachel Caine, the first book in the Weather Warden series...and book number 200 for this year!

Warning.....a post that sounds suspiciously like a rant coming up!

My son had a friend over for a sleepover last night. I've met this kid a few times and he's been here to play before, but I have to say he's not my favourite kid, so maybe that colours my judgement but still!

It all starts in the organisation stages. Even when he is asking if he can come over here because his mother is going out, his mother doesn't even have the courtesy to ring me to make arrangements. Everything is all done through the kids. No different for a sleepover. After numerous messages from my son, I ring her up to make arrangements to take him home from school when I pick my own child up, check with her that there is nothing that the child can't eat, shouldn't do etc etc. All clear!

So I pick the kids up, and they go and start playing. Being boys, playing involves wrestling, punching, squashing each other etc etc. Leave each other alone for goodness sake!

Dinner time - What do you want for dinner, other than McDonald's. Pizza? I don't like pizza. Chicken? I don't like chicken. Well how about I cook pasta. I mean you can't go wrong with pasta can you? So I cook pasta and put a very plain tomato pasta sauce on it. First of all he doesn't want to eat because he's not hungry, even though 20 minutes before they were both going where's dinner. then, he doesn't like the sauce. I don't want to eat it. Sulk, sulk, sulk. Fine...I'll cook more damn pasta and you can eat it plain.

As a treat I thought I would take them to the ice cream parlour, but it took so darn long to eat dinner that that is now closed so we'll go through the drive thru for ice cream instead. But I want a sundae - you can both have the same thing. Oooooohhhhh. Even in the car they need to be fighting each other.

More playing, wrestling, start throwing things around the room. That got stopped pretty quickly but now they are both sulking. Arrgghh.

Getting close to bedtime. You can have a shower, clean up the toys and go to bed. I don't want a shower. I want a bath, but I don't want to share a bath. I want to go first..no, I want to go first. Just get in the friggin' shower.

Surprisingly enough, they both went to sleep soon enough.

Okay, so pasta was a problem for dinner, but breakfast has to be pretty safe doesn't it?

What do you want for breakfast? There's Weetbix, Cornflakes, Oats, FibrePlus. I don't like any of those. All right then...how about toast? I don't like toast. Okay, do you just want some bread with jam on? What flavour jam? Strawberry or Raspberry. I don't like either of those flavours. Do you want eggs or something then. No. Oh for god's sake, you can have breakfast when you go home to your house then!

I had said to them that we could make cards this morning. My son loves to do it, and I thought it would be fun. I don't want to. Friggin' fine....watch the damn TV then. I am going for a shower.

68 minutes to go - there's always tears when someone gets hurt! It was bound to happen!

49 minutes to go - child is still not dressed, hasn't eaten.

40 minutes to go - it's only 10.20am. Is it too early for me to open a bottle of wine or a beer? Especially bearing in mind I have to drive to go and vote at our state election today.

22 minutes to go - is it wrong to be counting down? Would it be wrong of me to take the child home before the agreed time?

17 minutes to go - more tears. But I wanted to play with that. But I had it first.

10 minutes to go - Both of you.....CLEAN YOUR FRIGGING TEETH NOW!!!

6 minutes to go - Through gritted teeth...I said clean your teeth and pack your clothes up.

Child has been taken home. Apparently he had a good time.

It's going to take me all weekend to recover! LOL!!

Saw the details of 2007 TBR Challenge over at Literary Feline's blog.

Now, this month I have done appallingly at the two challenges that I have signed up at. I haven't read any of the books that I said I would read for the November Challenge, and I am yet to read any of the books that I said I would for the From the Stacks challenge. Admittedly I still have a couple of months for that one but still...haven't even started!

In light of that I am not going to sign up just yet for the 2007 TBR challenge, although it is tempting...let's see if I can resist it! It doesn't often happen that I can!

Sir Phillip knew that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he'd proposed, figuring that she'd be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage. Except… she wasn't. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her…and more.

Did he think she was mad? Eloise Bridgerton couldn't marry a man she had never met! But then she started thinking…and wondering… and before she knew it, she was in a hired carriage in the middle of the night, on her way to meet the man she hoped might be her perfect match. Except…he wasn't. Her perfect husband wouldn't be so moody and ill-mannered, and while Phillip was certainly handsome, he was a large brute of a man, rough and rugged, and totally unlike the London gentlemen vying for her hand. But when he smiled…and when he kissed her…the rest of the world simply fell away, and she couldn't help but wonder…could this imperfect man be perfect for her?

I actually finished reading this a couple of weeks ago but as I have mentioned before I am really behind in my reviewing, so now I am sitting here scratching my head trying to think what I really wanted to say. The thing is, I am not all that sure that that wouldn't have been the case even if I had finished the book an hour ago. For the first time since I started reading this series, I was completely underwhelmed by a Bridgerton book.

There are so many reasons for this. Firstly, I found Phillip to be really hard to relate to you. Phillip is a widower with two young children. His wife had died a couple of years ago, and Phillip had basically been distant from his children both before his wife's death and after, and he is not only remote himself but he seems to be distant in terms of who he has hired to care for his children. As a consequence, his children are pretty much hellions and are really horrible to Eloise when she gets there. Of course, because she has so many siblings she was able to fight fire with fire and get back with her own practical jokes.

It was difficult to see Phillip unwinding enough to fall in love with Eloise and it really wasn't until her brothers arrived that I began to see how any bond would be formed between them.

The other thing that I found strange about this whole book was that the early events in this book corresponded with the latter events in Romancing Mr Bridgerton, and yet when Colin enters the story in this book there was absolutely no mention - surely a close knit family would have chatted about something as big as his wedding to the huge society event that happened the night that Eloise ran away. And about that as well, would a sensible spinster really run off from London to go and stay with a man she has never met at all. Didn't really work for me.

I have however heard good things about When He Was Wicked, which should be in at the library for me in the next few days.

Rating 3.5/5

Joanne Baldwin is a Weather Warden. Usually, all it takes is a wave of her hand to tame the most violent weather. But now, she's trying to outrun another kind of storm: accusations of corruption and murder. So, she's resorting to the very human tactic of running for her life...

Her only hope is Lewis, the most powerful warden known. Unfortunately, he's stolen not one but three bottles of Djinn-making him the most wanted man on earth. Still, she's racing hard to find him-before the bad weather closes in fast...

I am sooo far behind on my reviews you wouldn't believe it!! When you add that fact to the fact that I don't seem to be able to do any formatting, spell checking, adding pictures (fortunately I had added the picture for quite a few of my outstanding reviews including this one before the change was made), anything at all in blogger...except type really.....it means that I am kind of distracted. If this continues, I might also need to brush up on my HTML skills....Uh-oh! It is a shame to be losing focus on this book a little, because not only was this a very enjoyable introduction to a new series that I am definitely planning to keep on reading, this was also book number 200 for the year for me!!

My reading goals for this year were to read 200 books, of which 25 needed to be books that I already owned at the beginning of this year. Whilst I have managed the 200 books with room to spare, I am not sure that I am doing quite so well on the 25 off of the shelf....I actually have only read 11. A while ago my plan was to reach 200, and then concentrate on reading some that meet the already owned criteria, but there are just so many other books that I want to read before the end of the year that I don't think I am going to make it!

Anyway, enough about that! Perhaps I should post something about this book!

Joanne Baldwin is on the run. She has been accused of the murder of one of the most powerful weather wardens in the world, and unless she can get help she is very quickly going to find herself either stripped of all her powers and a shadow of her former self, or really really dead! Joanne believes that help in this case will come in the form of Lewis, the single most powerful warden, but finding him means driving cross country, with not only her fellow weather wardens chasing her, but the storms themselves closing in on her. Then she picks up a sexy hitchhiker who seems to be too good to be true. Is it possible that he is the answer to her prayers, or is he really just as he seems.

This was an action packed read - not only are there the paranormal elements, but when the very weather is against you, what hope is there! I liked Joanne as a character. She was quite feisty and she was prepared to fight. It would seem that in some way she has some issues in relation to her judgement calls, but there would be no story otherwise! I have to say, without spoiling anything, the ending was a really big surprise to me, and gave the series additional longevity I think.

This is definitely a series that I plan to continue reading....I already have the next one out of the library to get to eventually.

Rating 4/5

This is the second book in the Dalriada trilogy that started with The White Mare














AD 81. Agricola, the ruthless governor of Roman Britain is intent on capturing the last unconquered territory in Britain - Alba, Scotland.

Rhiann is an Alban priestess and princess who submitted to a political marriage to Eremon, an exiled Irish prince. Out of duty, grew love - a powerful and desperate love that will bind them together through conflict and betrayal. Now in them lies the hope of a nation. For Agricola's army is formidable - brilliantly armed and heavily supported. To the people of Alba it is a wall of steel and fire advancing across their homeland, bringing with it desolation.

The predestined day draws near: the armies of Alba and Rome will meet in an epic battle to decide the fate of a country. Rhiann searches for guidance in the spirit world, little realizing how big a part she will play in this endgame. Eremon knows only that he must risk - and sacrifice - many lives, perhaps even his own.


I read The Dawn Stag a couple of months ago and was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Whilst I like the idea of reading about Rome, I haven't actually read that many! But combine Scotland (or Alba as it is known in this book) and Rome and I am definitely interested.

This book takes up where The Dawn Stag left off and covers a period of approximately three years. In the summer months there are battles to be fought against the increasingly frustrated Romans, and in the winter time to recover and to be together, focussing on what it is that they are fighting for - a free Alba.

Whilst the story of Rhiann and Eremon is definitely interesting, and one that I wanted to follow, the author does not forget about the secondary characters. There is love and there is loss, happiness and heartache. The other interesting character was Agricola, the leader of the Romans. He is facing a huge loss of prestige and reputation if he cannot defeat these uncivilized warriors and soon, yet he gets drawn into losing battle after losing battle, and becomes increasingly frustrated.

I have to say that to me it felt like there was a greater focus on the mystical in this novel. Rheann is Ban Cre - not only the carrier of Royal blood, and possibly mother to one of the next leaders of her people, but also their spiritual leader. It is Rheann who must reconcile herself with the events of her past and find her way back to the Goddess, who must draw the other tribes together to fight in unison with the forces led by her husband to give them any chance to defeat the enemy, who must fight to save lives, including some of those that she loves.

The relationships are well written, and the events, about which is really known, feel real and compelling. The only thing about this book that concerned me was really the ending. There is a third book out in this trilogy in May next year called The Boar Stone, but it really felt as though the story was all wrapped up in this book. Having read the synopsis I guess I have an idea of how the third book will tie in with the first two books, but I suspect that for the most part we have seen the last of Rhiann and Eremon, and the other's that we have come to know and love from Dunadd. If not for the ending, this book probably would have ended up with the same rating as the first book, which was 4.5 out 5.

Instead, I am giving it a rating of 4/5

I have just checked and I have 10 books that I need to have finished by 30 November which is when they need to be returned to the library. The books are

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin - started this one already

Dreaming The Eagle by Manda Scott - just finishing a book about Roman times so might need to read this one in a few days time

In the Prince's Bed by Sabrina Jeffries - Never read this author but have heard good things.

The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan

The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

The Observations by Jane Harris

The Dawn Stag by Jules Watson - just finishing this one off

Ill Wind by Rachel Caine - really want to read this series

Light in Shadow by Jayne Ann Krentz - Highly recommended by quite a few people

Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes - Last book in the Walsh sisters series, and then I would be completely up to date with that series.

To Sir Philip with Love by Julia Quinn - really enjoy this romance series


Note that there is no mention in there of any of the books that I said I would read for either the November challenge and only one of the From the Stacks challenge!


So the question is....what do I read next? I'm thinking that I am going to have to return at least a couple of these! Oh...the shame! And then I will have to reborrow them at a later date!

Saw this on Dylan's blog and thought I would share here!

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

A noblewoman of frail beauty and exotic mystery fakes her own death to escape the gallows. And now she must flee. In disguise and under a false identity, she finds unexpected sanctuary in the arms of a handsome and arrogant yet gallant British lord—who must defy society to keep her safe . . and overcome a tragic past to claim her as his own.

This is one of a few Lisa Kleypas books that you never really see mentioned all that often in blogland. When I read it, I was kind of surprised because although it isn't the best Lisa Kleypas book I have ever read, the heroine was very unusual, and also part of the book was set in St Petersburg in Russia, something that is once again unusual.

When the book opens, our heroine Tasia is in prison awaiting execution after being convicted of murdering her fiance. Tasia can't actually remember anything about the murder. All she knows is that she was found near the body, holding the murder weapon, and covered in blood.

In order to escape from her fate, she fakes her own death, and escapes Russia to England, where her cousin agrees to help her. They have a friend, Lord Stokehurst, who is in need of a governess. He lives away from London so there isn't much chance that she will be found there. Somewhat unwillingly, Luke agrees to take "Miss Karen Billings" on as governess for a period of one month, and one month only. Luke's daughter, Emma, immediately likes Miss Billings, even if the other staff in the house do not, and gradually Lord Stokehurst begins to have feelings as well, even though he is aware that there is something about her story that is not quite right.

Eventually the truth about Miss Billing's identity comes out, she gets found, and Lord Stokehurst needs to travel too St Petersburg to save her!

While I liked Lord Stokehurst, he was in some ways a shadow of some of the other Kleypas heroes. He was a widower who had lost his hand when he tried to save the life of his wife and child some years before, and had had no intention to marry since the death of his wife. He did have a mistress during the early parts of this book, so it wasn't that there was a complete lack of interest in women, which would have been a similar story to something else I have read lately.

As for Tasia, she was very young - only about 18. She was also a bit too good to be true. More than once during this novel she practically nursed other characters who were her enemies.

As I said before, this book is not the best Kleypas I have read, but it wasn't too bad. The ending was a bit rushed and a bit too obviously setting up the next book, but I did put the grade up a little for something that is a bit different!

Rating 4/5

This month's TBR challenge, was to read a book that was originally published in e-book format.

A fresh new talent in the realm of paranormal romance, Nalini Singh dives into a world torn apart by a powerful race with phenomenal powers of the mind - and none of the heart...

In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to sentence herself to the horror of "rehabilitation" - the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was...

Both human and animal, Lucas Hunter is a changeling hungry for the very sensations the Psy disdain. After centuries of uneasy coexistence, these two races are now on the verge of war over the brutal murders of several changeling women. Lucas is determined to find the Psy killer who butchered his packmate, and Sascha is his ticket into their closely guarded society. But he soon discovers that this ice-cold Psy is very capable of passion - and that the animal in him is fascinated by her. Caught between their conflicting worlds, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities - or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

Title: Slave to Sensation

Author: Nalini Singh

Year published: 2006

Why did you get this book? I've read such good reviews that I just had to add it to my list.

Do you like the cover? Yes, pretty much. Nothing that we haven't seen before though.

Did you enjoy the book? Yes


Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? This is a completely new author to me, and I will definitely be getting the next book in this series!

Are you keeping it or passing it on? I have a real hard time letting go of books at the best of times, but this time it is a definite keeper.

Anything else? This is one of the most unusual storylines I have read in a long time. Sascha Duncan is Psy, one of a race of people who have successfully managed to ensure that they feel no emotion. They are perfect in business, and in life, but Sascha knows that she is flawed. She feels a way that no Psy should, and it only gets worse after she meets the were-panther Lucas Hunter. Lucas has such strong emotions, bonds of strength with his pack, terrible memories from the past, hope that he is able to get it together with the Psy woman that he knows is much more than just Psy.

As Lucas and his pack try to stop a vicious Psy killer, Sascha learns about her people, and learns to allow herself to feel in every way. The only problem is, can she survive away from the Psynet that she has been linked to for her whole life.

I really liked both the characters of Lucas and Sascha. Lucas gradually realising that he is going to have to learn to trust someone else, and Sascha learning to trust her emotions...really, really good!! And it didn't hurt that Lucas was hot either!!

Rating 4/5

It is the late summer of 1814, and Hannah Bonner and her half brother Luke have spent more than a year searching the islands of the Caribbean for Luke’s wife and the man who abducted her. But Jennet’s rescue, so long in coming, is not the resolution they’d hoped for. In the spring she had given birth to Luke’s son, and in the summer Jennet had found herself compelled to surrender the infant to a stranger in the hope of keeping him safe.

To claim the child, Hannah, Luke, and Jennet must journey first to Pensacola. There they learn a great deal about the family that has the baby. The Poiterins are a very rich, very powerful Creole family, totally without scruple. The matriarch of the family has left Pensacola for New Orleans and taken the child she now claims as her great-grandson with her.

New Orleans is a city on the brink of war, a city where prejudice thrives and where Hannah, half Mohawk, must tread softly. Careful plans are made as the Bonners set out to find and reclaim young Nathaniel Bonner. Plans that go terribly awry, isolating them from each other in a dangerous city at the worst of times.

Sure that all is lost, and sick unto death, Hannah finds herself in the care of a family and a friend from her past, Dr. Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-d’Uzet. It is Dr. Savard and his wife who save Hannah’s life, but Dr. Savard’s half brother who offers her real hope. Jean-Benoit Savard, the great-grandson of French settlers, slaves, and Choctaw and Seminole Indians, is the one man who knows the city well enough to engineer the miracle that will reunite the Bonners and send them home to Lake in the Clouds. With Ben Savard’s guidance, allies are drawn from every segment of New Orleans’s population and from Andrew Jackson’s army, now pouring into the city in preparation for what will be the last major battle of the War of 1812.

This book is the fifth book in the Into the Wilderness series by Sara Donati. The series in order is:

Into the Wilderness
Dawn on a Distant Shore
Lake in the Clouds
Fire in the Sky
Queen of Swords

Like many other readers of this series that I have chatted with over time, I first read these books after I read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and wanted to read something else with a similar time frame. While I liked the first book, I think that my enjoyment of the series has been building and building, and Queen of Swords continued that trend. It was a very, very good read.

As I have mentioned before, I have a lot of reading time when I am on the train commuting to and from work, and normally whenever I finish a book I have the next book I am going to read already in my bag. I finish one book, and pick up the next straight away. When I finished this one, I picked up the next book, but couldn't start reading....I needed some time to actually revel in the reading experience that I had just had. Reading on the train also means that I laughed out loud, and teared up several times throughout the book in public!

The book opens with Luke trying to rescue his fiancee from a man who kidnapped her nearly a year before. Accompanying Luke is his half sister, Hannah, a soldier by the name of Kit Wyndham and a group of loyal men. Rescuing Jennet, they find that in order to protect him, Jennet has given their son to a man by the name of Honore Poiterin, asking him to take him away from her prison like island. Now, the Bonners must try to get their son back, and their journey takes them to Pensacola and then to New Orleans.

The Poiterins have taken the baby and spread the story that he is the son of Honore himself, and they are not going to give him up without a fight. The Poiterin's are one of the Creole first families in New Orleans, and they have many allies, meaning that it is not always going to be a fair fight either.

As Jennet becomes more and more desperate to regain custody of her son, and as Luke and Jennet try to rebuild their relationship after the traumatic events of the past year, they find themselves having to make allies in a city where there is much uneasiness, for it is 1812 and the war between the English and the Americans is right on their doorsteps.

I have to confess that I know very little about the war of 1812, although I have read a couple of books that are set around that time. I certainly had no idea that there was so much fighting around New Orleans. I guess I just assumed that most of the fighting occurred on the East Coast and didn't really spread all that far from there.

The highlight for me in this book was getting to know Ben Savard, and seeing the way that he helped Hannah move forward with her life, without disrespecting her past or dominating her present. It was an interesting parallel to me that even though he too was biracial like Hannah, that one of the biggest traits that they shared was that they both had been bought up and accepted by their respective families, in stark contrast to the treatment of some others like them. To an extent these relationships were also reflected by society as a whole, with Hannah finding it much harder to exist in the city of New Orleans than she normally did.

By moving the action away from Paradise (where most of the other books take place), Sara Donati has managed to bring a completely different feel to this book, without losing any of the integrity of any of the characters. Whilst many of the characters we have come to love in previous books were offstage during this novel, we did get glimpses of them through the letters that were received, and there was a welcome cameo from Nathaniel and Running Bears as well.

I really do recommend reading this series if you enjoy historical fiction set in the early days of the US.

Sara Donati is just starting to work on the sixth book in this series, and I for one cannot wait to read it. In the meantime I am so tempted to actually reread the whole series....and I don't really do rereads normally!

Rating 4.5/5

Colleen Gleason had a fun Thursday Thirteen up this week....advocating the teenage sleuth Trixie Belden over her more famous colleague Nancy Drew.

Now I was a huge Trixie Belden fan for all of the reasons that Colleen mentioned...most especially Jim Frayne....my first red head literary crush, but not my last by a long way. I think I actually have all of my books in a box around here someday! One of these days I will get around to unpacking them all!

As for kids books, I really loved Enid Blyton's books. The Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair were among my favourites. The way the kids were able to be transported to whole new worlds, and never knowing quite what they would fine was amazing to a little girl who just wanted to escape!

So, two questions. What kids/teenage books do you remember reading and loving? And who was your first literary crush?

Miami is still freakin' humid. The nights are even hotter. And there's a body on ice. And that's just the beginning of this adrenaline-rush of a hot-wired ride from phenomenal number one New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.

A woman with a taste for speed and a talent for breaking the rules, Barney also knows a little too much about cheating. First there was Hooker and that salesclerk. Now she's convinced one of the competitors is up to no good on the track. Snooping to find evidence, Hooker and Barney "borrow" a NASCAR hauler. Turns out, the hauler is carrying two race cars and a dead guy. It looks like Barney and Hooker are facing multiple counts of grand theft auto and homicide.

So buckle up as Barney, Hooker, a 150-pound bundle of Saint Bernard love named Beans, and the Super Cigar Ladies Felicia and Rosa shift into gear on a wild race around South Florida and Concord, North Carolina.

Everything you always wanted to know about righteous indignation, stealing an eighteen-wheeler, and sex in the fast lane.

What to say...what to say.

This is the second book in what are apparently being called the Barnaby Novels, after Metro Girl. Alex "Barney" Barnaby is working as a spotter for Sam Hooker - NASCAR driver. Now I have to admit that I don't know the first thing about NASCAR. Whilst I have been to a couple of Formula 1 Grand Prixs it is impossible for me to tell who is winning when all those cars are going around and around such a small track! Maybe I was a little lost right from the get go in this book.

Whilst Barney and Hooker have been a couple in the past they are no longer, but they still flirt like crazy, which is understandable since Hooker is apparently completely irresistible to all women everywhere. There are a couple of things from the past though that I know that some people won't like, most notably an episode where he was unfaithful some time before.

With dead body after dead body, incompetent bad guys, and lots and lots of goofy characters, this is pretty much standard Evanovich fare, but nowhere near as funny or as comforting as a Plum read. I guess in a way I feel a bit guilty saying that as I am sure that Evanovich wants to write things other than Plum and have everyone enjoy them.

Will I read the next Barney novel? Probably. Do I expect to absolutely love it. Probably not.

Rating 3/5

Amelia Peabody is unashamedly proud of her newest translation, a fragment of the ancient fairytale 'The Doomed Prince'. Later she wil