Y is for Your Own Adventure

by Carol9 Comments
Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? They were popular when I was a kid. They always featured some kind of adventure written in the second person and you got to make the choices as the story progressed, usually deciding between a couple of options at the end of each section and turning to the appropriate page to move on. Helena S. Paige has taken that idea and made it grow up in A Girl Walks into a Wedding: Your Fantasy, Your Rules. Title: A Girl Walks Into a Wedding: Your Fantasy, Your Rules Author: Helena S. Paige Category: Erotic Romance Expected publication: May 27, 2014 by William Morrow Paperbacks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository Wedding fever creates plenty of opportunity for heat in Helena S. Paige’s sexy and funny A Girl Walks Into a Wedding—the interactive erotic novel in which YOU, the reader, make all the rules . . . Your best friend is getting married, and she’s asked you...
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Spring into Horror Read-a-Thon

by Carol4 Comments
I'm joining in on the Spring into Horror Read-a-thon, hosted by Michelle at Seasons of Reading. Now horror is not my usual cup of tea, but Michelle says you only have to read one scary book, and that doesn't have to be horror, it can be, but it could also be mystery, paranormal, thriller, etc. I'm using a book I'm currently listening to as my spooky one. The Black Country by Alex Grecian - "The British Midlands. It's called the "Black Country" for a reason. Bad things happen there. When members of a prominent family disappear from a coal-mining village - and a human eyeball is discovered in a bird's nest - the local constable sends for help from Scotland Yard's new Murder Squad. Fresh off the grisly 1889 murders of The Yard, Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith respond, but they have no idea what they're about to get into. The villagers have intense, intertwined histories. Everybody bears a...
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X Marks the Spot

by Carol5 Comments
On any good treasure map, X always marks the spot, whether it be a kids game or in a pirate book. The Treasure Hunt in Andrea Camilleri's book, is not a good hunt. Not only is there no X to mark the spot, but the "treasure" is gruesome. Title: Treasure Hunt (Inspector Montalbano #16) Author: Andrea Camilleri Translated by: Stephen Sartarelli Read by: Grover Gardner Category: Mystery Audio published: September 24, 2013 by Blackstone Audio (first published 2010) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Audible | Amazon | Book Depository A hail of bullets interrupts a period of dead calm. An elderly brother and sister open fire on the piazza below their apartment, punishing the people of Vigàta for their sins. Montalbano is hailed as a hero when news cameras film him scaling a building — gun in hand — to capture the ancient pair of unlikely snipers. Shortly after, the inspector begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to go on a “treasure hunt.” Intrigued, he...
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W is for Whimsey

by Carol1 Comment
Whimsey -  1. capricious idea or notion 2. light or fanciful humour 3. something quaint or unusual In Kaye Wilkinson Barley's novel, Whimsey is all those things and the name of an artists' colony on an island off the coast of Georgia. Title: Whimsey: A Novel Author: Kaye Wilkinson Barley Read by: Susanna Burney Category: Magical Realism Audio published: Feburary 6, 2014 Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Audible | Amazon Whimsey is a novel of southern fiction with a splash of magic and a touch of fantasy, topped with a sprinkling of humor. The magic was already there when cigar-smoking matriarch Elizabeth Calhoun established an artist's colony on an island off the coast of Georgia and named it Whimsey. Elizabeth's ghost still drops in from time to time to make sure things are going as she planned. There's also a wicked pixie named Earlene who fancies tight-fitting designer clothes and Louboutin stilettos. Elizabeth's grandniece, Emma Hamilton Foley, a once-promising jewelry designer who moved away from the island, now fears...
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V is for Vegetables

by Carol8 Comments
I don't like vegetables. That's not entirely true but that's what I say. There are some veggies I love  - roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted carrots, eggplant, but most I can take or leave, usually leave. I hate peas and Brussel sprouts (yes, I've tried them). But the benefits of eating veggies far outweigh the "I don't like them,"  so I'm trying. Last night we had chicken and mushrooms and I served peas for David and Amber. Instead of just passing on the veggie myself, I microwaved up some baby carrots. I tend to like vegetables cooked but not overcooked. Summer's coming and pretty soon it'll be time to plant the garden. I find myself much more likely to use vegetables when I can just go out to the backyard and see what's ripe and plan the meal around that. We'll have cucumbers, zucchini, a couple types of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli. I'm not sure what else. In the meantime, Everyday with Rachael Ray...
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Thursday’s Tale: U is for Ugly

by Carol7 Comments
Actually, U is for Ugly Duckling, a story by Hans Christian Andersen, 1844. "The Ugly Duckling" story is one most of us know. A mother duck is sitting on her nest and all but one egg hatches. The ducklings are adorable, but the mother continues to sit on the last, largest egg, despite being told by another duck to leave it. Of course, the last egg hatches, and the young one is very large and doesn't look like the others, but he can swim and the mother declares "he is not so very ugly after all if you look at him properly." But his mother can't protect him from all the abuse he endures from the other farmyard animals and even the girl who feeds the poultry, so he runs away. One day he sees some beautiful white birds flying over head, but he does not interact with them. He is terrified by a hunter and his dog. He spends some time with...
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