The Viscount's Christmas Temptation by Erica Ridley

The Viscount's Christmas Temptation by Erica Ridley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very cute and just what I needed for a quick Christmas read. I finished it early this morning while trying to get sleepy after some Christmas Day prep, it was perfect timing!

Amelia is a great character, and there isn't anything she can't organize into submission, including Viscount Benedict! She has a Christmas plan that depends on his agreement, and she isn't giving him a choice. She brings him around to her way of thinking exactly as expected, but he has a few tricks of his own for her to crack that iron clad planning.

A recommend from me if you're looking for a light, quick, seasonal, historical romance.

#COYER Generator Fuel #1

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The "Getting Real" Reading Challenge - 12/5/16 until 12/31/16

So I've joined a number of reading challenges this year, and per the norm I'm no where near finished with them. With this in mind, as we close in on the end of the year, I've decided to throw myself a reading challenge in which I gather all of those books together into a list, count the pages and prioritize them into what's realistic to finish and what isn't, hence the "getting real" of the title. Realistically I will probably only read between 30-50 pages a day between now and the end of the year, because it's busy, and I'm trying to be realistic and relieve the pressure of meeting the challenge goals.

27 days x 30 pages per day is 810, x 50 pages is 1,350 pages. This is a sobering thought because that is so much less than the books I have left to read. I need to focus on what I can realistically finish, and I don't want to feel like I'm pressured with all the other tasks of the season looming.  For me reading is my enjoyment and relaxation, so taking that activity on as a challenge at the beginning of the year is fun and exciting, at the end of the year, not so much, and it turns into a big old albatross of unfinished-ness around my neck!

Right away this tells me I need to let some reads go, so goodbye Black Dagger Brotherhood's The King, The Shadows and The Beast, because I want to enjoy these not force myself to read them quickly, and they are all quite hefty in the page count!  Also goodbye to Carolyn Crane's Associates #3 and #4, at least until next year, I promise we'll meet again boys! And the .5 of the Something Strange and Deadly series.  I've left in all 4 of my Award Winning Sci-Fi books because it's probably bad form to not make it through the challenge you're hosting, or at least I should try!

After cutting the above, that still leaves me with 2,260 pages to read by 12/31.  So you see why I needed a reality check?  I may have already cut more pages than I have left, and it still means I have to read about 84 pages a day to accomplish what's listed below.  It's not out of the question and it's still a challenge.  Let's see how I do!

Challenge	Title	Pages	Status
Reading Assignment Challenge		464
New Release Challenge		320
Finishing the Series Challenge		400	In progress: pg 229 Finished 12/6/16
Award Winning Sci-Fi and Fantasy		218	Currently reading: pg 123
Award Winning Sci-Fi and Fantasy		271
Award Winning Sci-Fi and Fantasy		288	Currently Reading: 19% (about page 54) Finished 12/20/16
Award Winning Sci-Fi and Fantasy		528

End of week one: Finished Strange and Ever After, Started The Girl Who... and The Forever War. Left to read: 1,997 pages in 20 days now means about 100 pages per day.  So I didn't gain any ground, but it's still doable.  Must try harder!

End of week two: Still reading The Girl Who... and The Forever War, obviously my reality was still way off on how much I could get read during the last half of December. HA!

End of week three: I did finish The Girl Who... still working on Forever War.  At this point I do believe I will finish Forever War, but that's probably the last one from the list above.

COYER Blackout Reading Challenge - December 17th, 2016 - March 3rd, 2017

It's just about time for Winter COYER (Clean Out Your E-Reads)! Our lovely hostesses have been kind of lax on us the last few rounds, so they are cracking down on us this time! the rules are very strict, only e-books and audiobooks (unless/until you fill your generator) that you received for less than $1 (or less than $5 for audios only). That's okay though, because I have A TON of those, and hopefully this will motivate to me work on some of them! To see the complete rules and sign up, check out the #COYER Blackout Sign-Ups .

Join us, the storm begins December 17th and doesn't let up until March 3rd!

Generator: 4/10 (100+ pages = 1, <100 pages = .5)

All done for this round of COYER!

Finished:

142 pgs Review

123 pgs Review

228 pages Review

269 pages Review

 DNF:

 

Brownies and Broomsticks by Bailey Cates

From Goodreads: EASY BAKE COVEN Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees. While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells! When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer.

I wanted to like this more than I did. I did enjoy it, but I wasn't wowed. It doesn't stand out for me amongst the other magical food cozies out there. Mungo is cute, and the "book club" ladies are a fun diverse group, but some of the characters are also annoying, like Steve, who really needed to be put in his place. She asked him how many times to stop calling her Katie-Girl, but he arrogantly kept at it, yet she was still attracted to him? That really turned me off of his character.

The cover is adorable (of course they worked in a cat, who at least does make an appearance in the story, one of my pet peeves when they don't) and the mystery itself was fine.  I did give it a 4/5 in the end, the last third got more interesting with the spell working, and the writing is good, I just didn't really bond with any of the characters strongly.  I would probably read more in the series, but not necessarily seek them out.  It was a pretty easy read for a stressful couple of weeks so it could also have been my mood that kept me a little aloof from it. But I really didn't like Steve, someone needs to knock him down a peg. ;)

November 2016 TBR List Winner - Brownies and Broomsticks by Baily Cates

 And the winner is...

From Goodreads: Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees. While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells! When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer..

This looks like just the right kind of light and fun read I need right now, I'm really looking forward to it! And brownies, bring it on!

5 votes	2 votes	1 vote

My TBR List - November 2016 - Food

Welcome to my November 2016 edition of My To Be Read List, hosted by Michelle @ Because Reading. This is a monthly meme where we offer up 3 choices from our TBR pile for our readers to pick from to help us make the super hard decision of "what do I read next?" a little easier and to whittle away at the ever growing TBR Mountain! 

Theme: Food! Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me which you chose and why.

The poll will stay open through Friday 11/11 , and I'll update this post with the winning book on Saturday 11/12, then post a review on the last Saturday of the month, 11/26.

If you think this sounds fun and would like to join (the more the merrier, because we love voting!) please head on over to Because Reading where Michelle lays out the rules for us!

And the choices are...

From Goodreads: Never let them see you sweat-that's White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras's motto, which is pretty hard to honor in the most important kitchen in the world. She's hell-bent on earning her dream job, Executive Chef. There's just one thing: her nemesis is vying for it, too. Well, that and the fact that an elusive assassin wants to see her fry.

From Goodreads: Granny was famous for her award-winning apple pies-and notorious for murdering her husband Jacob at their homestead in Julian, California. The only trouble is, Granny was framed, then murdered. For more than one hundred years, Granny's spirit has been searching for someone to help her see that justice is served—and she hits pay dirt when she pops in to a séance attended by her great-great-great-granddaughter, modern-day divorced mom Emma Whitecastle. Together, Emma and Granny Apples solve mysteries of the past—starting with Granny's own unjust murder rap in the final days of the California Gold Rush.

From Goodreads: Katie Lightfoot's tired of loafing around as the assistant manager of an Ohio bakery. So when her aunt Lucy and uncle Ben open a bakery in Savannah's quaint downtown district and ask Katie to join them, she enthusiastically agrees. While working at the Honeybee Bakery—named after Lucy's cat—Katie notices that her aunt is adding mysterious herbs to her recipes. Turns out these herbal enhancements aren't just tasty—Aunt Lucy is a witch and her recipes are actually spells! When a curmudgeonly customer is murdered outside the Honeybee Bakery, Uncle Ben becomes the prime suspect. With the help of handsome journalist Steve Dawes, charming firefighter Declan McCarthy, and a few spells, Katie and Aunt Lucy stir up some toil and trouble to clear Ben's name and find the real killer..

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The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein by Antoinette May

From Goodreads: The Determined Heart reveals the life of Mary Shelley in a story of love and obsession, betrayal and redemption. The daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley had an unconventional childhood populated with the most talented and eccentric personalities of the time. After losing her mother at an early age, she finds herself in constant conflict with a resentful stepmother and a jealous stepsister. When she meets the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she falls deeply in love, and they elope with disastrous consequences. Soon she finds herself destitute and embroiled in a torturous love triangle as Percy takes Mary’s stepsister as a lover. Over the next several years, Mary struggles to write while she and Percy face ostracism, constant debt, and the heartbreaking deaths of three children. Ultimately, she achieves great acclaim for Frankenstein, but at what cost?

Frankenstein is so much more than a monster story, as anyone who has read it, or watched the play or movies, knows. This is a novelization of Mary Shelley's life, in which we can see the seeds of the now famous story planted early in her life.  It started as a contest between friends, another fairly well known fact, but I was interested to learn more about this woman, who created such a terrible and complex monster, and the doctor who brought him to life, just to see if he could, ending in the complete destruction of his own existence.  What kind of life did Mary have to have inspired such a story?

I got much more than I was expecting.  Mary seemed to be constantly get used and taken advantage of in her father's and husband's seeking of an intellectual and eccentric lives.  It seems that she put up with so much, for love of those who in my opinion didn't reciprocate in kind.  So many hardships and difficulties, I know I would have packed it in and gone back home early on, but Mary never did, and finally in the end, was able to be her own woman, despite all the men (and women) in her life that tried to use her or push her to the side for their own ideas to take precedence, though often accused of being selfish herself.  She did make some bad choices, but was also not the only one involved in those, so I personally don't feel the blame rests solely, or even mostly on her for any of them.

I was deeply drawn in to the story of her life, and decided to make a whole month of Frankenstein, reading the actual novel on Serial Reader (an app than delivers classics to your device in small bits each day) and then seeing the encore presentation of Benedict Cumberbatch playing the creature in the National Theater live production last week.  Cumberbatch was amazing, as expected, and was really able to bring to life this creature who awakens with the body of a man, but with no idea how to use it, and no concept of society except the fear and hatred he encounters early on, as much as he would like to be gentle and loved. 

While most consider Frankenstein to be a horror story, it was one of, if not the, first science fiction novels every written.  This was an interesting look at the life of a highly intelligent woman in a time where that was just not accepted, and I often wondered what else could possibly go wrong for her!  I gave it a 4/5 and would definitely recommend it to those interested in Frankenstein's creation and historical fiction.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

From Goodreads: A chilling, mesmerizing novel that combines the best of modern forensic thrillers with the detail and drama of historical fiction. In medieval Cambridge, England, four children have been murdered. The crimes are immediately blamed on the town's Jewish community, taken as evidence that Jews sacrifice Christian children in blasphemous ceremonies. To save them from the rioting mob, the king places the Cambridge Jews under his protection and hides them in a castle fortress. King Henry II is no friend of the Jews-or anyone, really-but he is invested in their fate. Without the taxes received from Jewish merchants, his treasuries would go bankrupt. Hoping scientific investigation will exonerate the Jews, Henry calls on his cousin the King of Sicily-whose subjects include the best medical experts in Europe-and asks for his finest "master of the art of death," an early version of the medical examiner. The Italian doctor chosen for the task is a young prodigy from the University of Salerno. But her name is Adelia-the king has been sent a "mistress" of the art of death. Adelia and her companions-Simon, a Jew, and Mansur, a Moor-travel to England to unravel the mystery of the Cambridge murders, which turn out to be the work of a serial killer, most likely one who has been on Crusade with the king. In a backward and superstitious country like England, Adelia must conceal her true identity as a doctor in order to avoid accusations of witchcraft. Along the way, she is assisted by Sir Rowley Picot, one of the king's tax collectors, a man with a personal stake in the investigation. Rowley may be a needed friend, or the fiend for whom they are searching. As Adelia's investigation takes her into Cambridge's shadowy river paths and behind the closed doors of its churches and nunneries, the hunt intensifies and the killer prepares to strike again . .

Mistress of the Art of Death was chosen as my TBR List read for October. I was interested in the historical and forensics aspects of this story, I was not expecting wry humor and to be drawn to the characters the way I was.  While the crimes being investigated are too terrible to think on for long, the personalities of Adelia and her companions, and the new friends she makes invested me in their lives and the outcome.  Even Henry II, in the story for very little, quickly gained a place in my affections. 

They are an unlikely trio, the atheist woman, Jew and Moor who are sent to investigate this crime.  Right away before they ever even make it to town, Adelia's secret of being a female doctor is out to some, but they try to maintain a fiction that Mansur is the doctor, which he attempts to play to the hilt. Adelia herself comes to care for the people more than she would have expected, even some of those she suspects of being a potential criminal. 

Sadly this author has already left us, but I do have several more of the series to look forward to.  Her storytelling style was easy to get involved in, and was not at all dry or tedious which can sometimes happen in a historical, even to those of us who like them!

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon - October 22, 2016

It's time for another Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon and I couldn't be more excited! I really look forward to these, I love read-a-thons of all kinds, but Dewey's is just extra special.  There are so many people taking part together, it was really one of my very first experiences with online read-a-thons and it opened up a whole new community to me. Reading was no longer a solitary activity, it was now a game, a race, a party, a celebration of books! I've lost count of how many Dewey's I've taken part in. If you're interested in learning more, there's the Dewey's Website which talks about how this Read-a-thon got started, and it is where you sign up, and there is Facebook Group and a Goodreads Group. I will probably update my blog, but also post on the Facebook group as that is the easiest for me to do from my phone.

I hope you decide to join us!  Here is my stack of possibilities, which is always subject to change!




Updates:

7 am on a fine Saturday and all is well!  I'm starting off with Blameless and also a Doctor Who 50th anniversary short story: The Ripple Effect by Malorie Blackman. I just loved the box edition where each story cover is the Doctor's signature outfit!  See you in awhile!



7 pm - halfway through! I have gotten halfway through Blameless, finished The Ripple Effect, and also The Rat Queens, which was a lot of fun!  Thinking about some dinner now, and getting back into Blameless, which is also a lot of fun!  Maybe pizza... or BBQ... but leaning towards pizza! 393 total pages so far 8 hours and 45 minutes of attempting to read, which makes my average per hour 44 pages, yay for graphic novels and short stories! lol!

10:30 pm - less than 100 pages to go in Blameless, I can do this!  Time for some cake!

Finished:

Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis

From Goodreads: For Jeff Johnston, a young historical researcher for a Civil War novelist, reality is redefined on a bitter cold night near the close of a lingering winter. He meets Annie, an intense and lovely young woman suffering from vivid, intense nightmares. Haunted by the dreamer and her unrelenting dreams, Jeff leads Annie on an emotional odyssey through the heartland of the Civil War in search of a cure. On long-silenced battlefields their relationship blossoms-two obsessed lovers linked by unbreakable chains of history, torn by a duty that could destroy them both.

Awards:
Locus Award Nominee for Best Fantasy Novel (1988)
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee (1988)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1988)


I didn't realize this was Connie Willis' first novel until I read the afterward! It is immediately clear that a lot of research went into this novel.  The mystery of the dreams bleeding through and trying to decide what they meant was very interesting, interwoven as it was with the events of Robert E. Lee's life during the Civil War and after.  That's right, Robert E. Lee.  To me the Lincoln's Dream part was a little misleading, as it was really a lesser part of the story and to me felt like it was included because it would seem more sensational as a draw?  The blurb also exaggerates the relationship of our two main characters, which is the weakest part of the story, but I suppose the mechanism needed to draw us through the dreams.

At any rate, while there are some definite flaws or lack of development in the characters themselves, the basic premise of the story, and the setting of the Civil War were the main draws for me, and did not disappoint. This is the second novel I have read by Willis (whom I didn't quite get to meet at Worldcon, but I did see her speak in the Grand Master's panel, yay!), the first being Doomsday Book, which was really good, but very affecting.  Lincoln's Dreams also is very affecting and its emphasis the horrors of the Civil War, along with the allure of dreams and their meanings, made it a solid and satisfying read for me.  I look forward to more of Willis' work, and expect just as much depth. 4/5 stars.

My first read of my own hosted Award Winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Challenge, and fulfills a
"Any Novel by a Grand Master" Square on the Bingo card, as she was the Grand Master for 2011, presented in 2012.

October My TBR List Winner - Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

 And the winner is...

I've heard good things about this series, so I'm looking forward to an interesting read!  I'll let you know what I think at the end of the month!

4 votes	12 votes	14 votes

My TBR List - October 2016

Welcome to my October 2016 edition of My To Be Read List, hosted by Michelle @ Because Reading. This is a monthly meme where we offer up 3 choices from our TBR pile for our readers to pick from to help us make the super hard decision of "what do I read next?" a little easier and to whittle away at the ever growing TBR Mountain! 

Theme: Monsters, Death, you know. I bet you're surprised, aren't you, it being October and all? I knew it! Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me which you chose and why.

The poll will stay open through Friday 10/7 , and I'll update this post with the winning book on Saturday 10/8, then post a review on the last Saturday of the month, 10/29.

If you think this sounds fun and would like to join (the more the merrier, because we love voting!) please head on over to Because Reading where Michelle lays out the rules for us!

And the choices are...

From Goodreads: There were many staff at Kensington Palace, fulfilling many roles; a man who was employed to catch rats, another whose job it was to sweep the chimneys. That there was someone expected to hunt Demons did not shock the new Queen; that it was to be her was something of a surprise. London, 1838. Queen Victoria is crowned; she receives the orb, the scepter, and an arsenal of blood-stained weaponry. Because if Britain is about to become the greatest power of the age, there's the small matter of the demons to take care of first... But rather than dreaming of demon hunting, it is Prince Albert who occupies her thoughts. Can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs elsewhere? With lashings of glistening entrails, decapitations, and foul demons, this masterly new portrait will give a fresh understanding of a remarkable woman, a legendary monarch, and quite possibly the best Demon Hunter the world has ever seen...

From Goodreads: A chilling, mesmerizing novel that combines the best of modern forensic thrillers with the detail and drama of historical fiction. In medieval Cambridge, England, four children have been murdered. The crimes are immediately blamed on the town's Jewish community, taken as evidence that Jews sacrifice Christian children in blasphemous ceremonies. To save them from the rioting mob, the king places the Cambridge Jews under his protection and hides them in a castle fortress. King Henry II is no friend of the Jews-or anyone, really-but he is invested in their fate. Without the taxes received from Jewish merchants, his treasuries would go bankrupt. Hoping scientific investigation will exonerate the Jews, Henry calls on his cousin the King of Sicily-whose subjects include the best medical experts in Europe-and asks for his finest "master of the art of death," an early version of the medical examiner. The Italian doctor chosen for the task is a young prodigy from the University of Salerno. But her name is Adelia-the king has been sent a "mistress" of the art of death. Adelia and her companions-Simon, a Jew, and Mansur, a Moor-travel to England to unravel the mystery of the Cambridge murders, which turn out to be the work of a serial killer, most likely one who has been on Crusade with the king. In a backward and superstitious country like England, Adelia must conceal her true identity as a doctor in order to avoid accusations of witchcraft. Along the way, she is assisted by Sir Rowley Picot, one of the king's tax collectors, a man with a personal stake in the investigation. Rowley may be a needed friend, or the fiend for whom they are searching. As Adelia's investigation takes her into Cambridge's shadowy river paths and behind the closed doors of its churches and nunneries, the hunt intensifies and the killer prepares to strike again . .

From Goodreads: Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they’re true. Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt. There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word. From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City. Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.

Poll

Which of these three should I read? results

Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter 0 votes 0.0%

Already Dead 0 votes 0.0%

Mistress of the Art of Death 0 votes 0.0%

0 total votes · comments and details · invite friends Voting starts on: Sep 30, 2016 10:00PM PDT

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Star Nomad by Lindsay Buroker

From Goodreads: They have her daughter. She will stop at nothing to get her back. When system-wide civil war broke out, fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko left her family and accepted a commission in the Alliance Army to battle the empire’s tyranny. Four years later, the empire has been toppled, but chaos and anarchy now rule the system. Alisa, after being injured in the final battle, is stranded on a dustball of a planet billions of miles from home. She learns that her husband died during the bombings, leaving their daughter on Perun, a planet that has become the last imperial stronghold. Alisa must find a way to Perun, even if she has to steal a dilapidated ship from a junkyard overrun by murdering savages to do it. She’s ready for the challenge. She did not, however, count on finding an elite imperial cyborg soldier squatting in the ship and planning to use it for a mysterious mission of his own. Alisa can’t let him or anyone else stop her, or she'll never see her daughter again.

This was a fun read that I discovered through Kindle Unlimited. I actually had a few other titles by this author on my list, a few as kindle freebies, but not in the Sci-Fi genre, they were her fantasy novels. So this one was marketed for fans of Firefly and Star Wars, and while normally I don't like it when books try to ride the coat tails of bigger hugely successful things because I feel like they can't possibly live up, I could see the influence of both in this story. There is much wit and banter between characters, each having their own quirks, a la Firefly. And there is the grand setting of the aftermath of a big war which has the feel of the Empire and the Rebels, a la Star Wars.  But our characters here are not the top brass or the last Jedi, they are people caught in the crossfire, and believing they were fighting for the right side, but then coming to know each other and find out they are still all humans, with feelings, and honor, regardless of the side they started out on.  They are the ones who somehow got left behind now that the whole thing is over and have to figure out what to do next, how to get home, how to pick up the pieces and move on with their lives. 

I enjoyed the characterization, and found myself imagining The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, as the Cyborg Soldier, every time the eyebrow quirk was mentioned, though he is much more outspoken and animated in his roles than the reserved Cyborg we here. By author admission the science part of the sci-fi is pretty general, but still sets the scene well.  I look forward to more in this series, and also sampling others by this author.  4/5 stars.