Wednesday, January 16, 2013

FROM ROLE PLAY TO PUBLISHED WORKS


                 
           Where to start? Well, for me it started two years ago after much pushing by my daughter, my sister (fellow Bitch), and a dear friend I entered the world of Facebook.  I said over and over, why would I want to try it, if I want to talk to friends or family I will use the phone. My sister and our friend told me about how you could read stories written by Role Players based some of our favorite book series. Finally I caved, made my account and I haven’t looked back. I began to follow one group faithfully.  Not only would they post story lines, but they interacted with the fans. In this group were so many talented writers. I could not get over how connected some of them were with the characters they portrayed.  It was as if the character had truly come to live for me, so much that yes on many occasions I giggled and blushed at the comments made by certain characters, you know who you are *winks*.  I am fortunate enough to have become friends with several of these wonderful writers outside of the characters.  Among them there are those who have now ventured off the pages of Facebook out into the world of published works. Today I am going to give reviews on two of the author’s latest releases.


                                    Kindle Alexander’s Up In Arms


          In this book you meet Reed Kensington, a worldly lawyer, who while at his brother’s wedding meets Trevor West a soldier. This story not only follows these men’s love affair, which is sweet and sexy, but we also see the after math of how they deal with a tragedy.  I love these boys, how they interact, how they over come, how one of them blushes *sighs*. Sorry I love that!




                   JT Cheyanne and Venus Moon’s For the Love of a God


         Suria is a strong willed, dominate female, until she meets Euro, the son of Aphrodite, goddess of love. Euro who during his existence had nothing more that fleeting encounters with females, lasting no more time than it took to satisfy his lust. Until he sees Suria, together the learn about each other and more importantly themselves.


               Kindle Alexander, JT Cheyanne, and Venus Moon are all very talented writers. They can all weave a tale that paints a picture giving you the feeling you are a part of the story.  Please take a moment to check out the links below, I know you will enjoy the books by the wonderful ladies.

Kindle Alexander:
Links where to find Up In Arms:



JT Cheyanne and Venus Moon:
Links to find For the Love of a God:






Monday, January 14, 2013

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!!!!!


Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love the way the season makes me feel….what?? Yes I know it’s January. I am well aware that the holiday season is over with but I’m still in the holiday spirit so I’ve been reading Christmas themed books.  *grins*

I have not had the pleasure of reading Debbie Macomber’s books before. My mother gave me many of her Christmas themed books when she was done reading them. With the busy holiday season and taking a break between semesters, I didn’t read as much as I had wanted.  But before classes started back I read both The Perfect Christmas and Trading Spaces.

I have to say I really enjoyed both books. Contemporary romances aren’t usually my forte as I tend to enjoy some paranormal of some sort in my romance if not fully paranormal romance.  Oh and I try my best not to give any spoilers here………………………..

The Perfect Christmas sounded interesting to me as I read the back cover…


For Cassie Beaumont, it's meeting her perfect match. Cassie, at thirty-three, wants a husband and kids, and so far, nothing's worked. Not blind dates, not the Internet and certainly not leaving love to chance.

What's left? A professional matchmaker. He's Simon Dodson, and he's very choosy about the clients he takes on. Cassie finds Simon a difficult, acerbic know-it-all, and she's astonished when he accepts her as a client.

Claiming he has her perfect mate in mind, Simon assigns her three tasks to complete before she meets him. Three tasks that are all about Christmas: being a charity bell ringer, dressing up as Santa's elf at a children's party and preparing a traditional turkey dinner for her neighbors (whom she happens to dislike). Despite a number of comical mishaps, Cassie does it all --- and she's finally ready to meet her match.

But just like the perfect Christmas gift, he turns out to be a wonderful surprise!

What got my attention was “professional matchmaker” and “assigns her three tasks”. Oh yeah it had my attention because all I could think was “there’s going to be disaster”.  One, I laughed so hard through her ‘tasks”, poor woman I felt so bad but laughed so hard at her. Two, I adored her main characters. Their attitude and tension toward each other when they first meet to how they become caring and considerate even though they are off limits to each other.

BTW, I also love the tenant who listens to the loud rap music. Ha!!

Now on to Trading Christmas.

Emily Springer, widowed mother of one, decides to leave Leavenworth, Washington, to spend Christmas with her daughter in Boston. Charles Brewster, history professor, curmudgeon and resident of Boston, wants to avoid Christmas altogether. He figures a prison town should be nice and quiet over the holidays ? except he's thinking of the wrong Leavenworth! Through an internet site, Charles and Emily arrange to swap houses for the holiday. So Emily goes to Boston and discovers that her daughter has gone to Florida. And Charles arrives in Leavenworth to discover that it's not the prison town ? it's Santa's village! The place is full of Christmas trees, Christmas music and...elves. Meanwhile, Emily's friend Faith Kerrigan travels to Leavenworth to visit her and instead finds Charles the grinch. Then Charles's brother, Ray, shows up at his home in Boston to discover that he isn't there ? but Emily is. Through all the mix-ups and misunderstandings, amid the chaos and confusion, romance begins to emerge in unexpected ways. Because everything changes at Christmas!

No I have not had the opportunity to watch the Hallmark adaptation of this book. I’m intrigued now. This is truly a comedy of errors. Love every minute it. I have to say my favorite thing about this book is how each of the “couples” open each other up. Not just to the holiday season but cause them to venture out of their comfort zone or their shell if you will and become whole again when they didn’t realize that they weren’t.

In a way this reminded me of The Holiday, you know the movie with Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Jack Black and Kate Winslet. But no worries Trading Christmas was originally published in 2004 as When Christmas Comes and The Holiday was released in 2006, so no copycatting there. I just reminded me with the whole “trading homes” thing.  Darn…..rambling again.

So even though the holiday season is over I’m sticking with it for a bit longer. I have a few more, ok a dozen or so, Christmas themed books that I have stacked up and plan on reading to keep me in that holiday mood. Now I feel the need to bake some sugar cookies, put a turkey in the oven or heck even drag the tree back out!!  And you think I’m joking…..*laughs*


Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Heart of Atlantis by Alyssa Day

****SPOILERS POSSIBLE!! I will try my best NOT to give too much away, but proceed with caution!!! And remember this is MY opinion**** 


               I finally got the chance to sit down and read Alyssa Day’s latest book Heart of Atlantis. It is the final installment in her Warrior’s of Poseidon series. I stumbled upon the first book in the series, Atlantis Rising, while shopping at a small used book store near my home in 2009. The word Atlantis is what caught my eye; I love any story revolving around Atlantis or the Arthurian legends. I took the book home and read it in a day, only problem was the used book store didn’t have the next books, which at the time there were 4 books in all. I normally try to buy used since I read through so many it can get expensive to always buy new. This is one of those times I didn’t care. I went looking at new and used bookstores. Of course once I found them I read straight through the remaining books, and have done so with the each of the four following books. I really enjoyed the series over all. It has of course larger than life Atlantean warriors, vampires, shifters, and ancient gods just to name a few supernatural beings. The bases of the story is that Atlantis still exists protected in a magical dome after having been sunk 1000 years ago. The Prince of Atlantis, Conlan, is the reluctant heir to the throne. The prince’s brother Ven, along with Lord Justice, Alexios, Brennan, Bastien, Christophe, and Denal are the elite Seven warriors, they with Conlan protect humanity from vampires, and even from themselves. During the course of their individual stories they have to hunt for Poseidon’s trident and gems along with meeting their would be mates, which means forbidden love (my favorite!), love with the impossible, untimely love…well you get the point, the kind of love that if they truly want it they will have to fight to be together…*sighs dreamily* 

             Heart of Atlantis is Alaric and Quinn’s book, whom you first meet in Atlantis rising. Their story has played out throughout the series. In the beginning I didn’t like Alaric much; I don’t think we are supposed to. I will admit during Atlantis Rising, for some bizarre reason I pictured him in my head like Jafar from Disney’s Aladdin (My apologies to Alyssa Day!!! LOL) I don’t know why I think it was the stiff way he spoke, but as time and the story moved on I changed my opinion of Alaric. From this stiff, gruff, arrogant ass to loyal, selfless, caring funny man…yes I said funny. The banter between Quinn and Alaric had me laughing out loud several times in this book. Which is a quality I love in any book. Quinn is first seen as a hard ass solider with a high wall around her heart, slowly we get to see a different side of Quinn, and what made her the was she is. I don’t want to give too much away about the plot of this book, just know that this series is well written, full of action, adventure, humor, HOT sex, and lots of love. So worth checking out.

 List of books in reading order:

 Atlantis Rising
 Wild Hearts in Atlantis, novella that can be found in anthology Wild Thing or eBook 
Atlantis Awaking
Shifter’s Lady, novella found in anthology Shifter 
Atlantis Unleashed
Atlantis Unmasked
Atlantis Redeemed
Atlantis Betrayed 
Vampire in Atlantis
Heart of Atlantis