Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In

May 29, 2018 By 50 Comments

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

There are many bookish worlds out there that are quite entertaining to read about but wouldn’t actually be very nice places to live in for all sorts of different reasons. Since I love post-apocalyptic fiction and other dark genres so much, I could have made this list twice as long if I weren’t restricted to only picking ten examples.

1.  England from P.D. James’ The Children of Men. 

While a world without children would be a terrible place to live in general, what made this futuristic version of England truly horrifying was how hopeless it had become. Suicide had become so commonplace and accepted that painless ways of doing it were routinely advertised on television in the film version of this tale. I found that quite disturbing.

2. Panem from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

As if the widespread malnutrition and violence in many of the districts wasn’t dangerous enough, there was also the risk of being sent to your almost-certain death in The Hunger Games every year for the teenage members of this society. There’s no way I’d ever want to live in any of these districts, especially the poorest ones.

3. The entire planet of Earth from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

Earth is generally a pretty nice place to live in our universe, but in this book it’s demolished to make room for a galactic freeway very early on in the plot. I was pretty surprised by that twist, and I was only more surprised by what happened afterwards.

4. Winterfell from George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. 

Based on what I’ve read about this series, people regularly died violently in this kingdom. I’m not at all good at sword fighting, so I think my chances of being one of the folks who didn’t survive would be even higher than normal for this world.

5. Oceania from George Orwell’s 1984.

As if living in a brutal and totalitarian society wouldn’t be frightening enough, the dark ending of this book would make me even more scared to go anywhere near Oceania. Let’s just say that their government was so powerful that there was nothing it couldn’t accomplish.


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6. America from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

While it’s never a good idea to live in a country that oppresses human rights, the fact that this futuristic version of the United States banned reading books made me hate it even more than I would have otherwise. I can’t imagine going an entire lifetime without being allowed to read stories.

7. China (and then the entire world!) from Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

Granted, zombie apocalypses are never great places to live in general, but what makes this book even more disturbing than the typical example of this genre was how long it took China and the rest of the world to even admit that there was a problem in the first place.

If they’d fought back and freely shared everything they knew about how this infection spread as soon as the dead began to rise, the outbreak probably could have been contained fairly easily.

8. The Greater German Reich from Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.

In this alternate history novel, The Nazis won World War II and took possession of a massive portion of the United States. Needless to say, life under their regime wasn’t a happy experience for anyone. The Nazis continued to murder people who were Jewish, disabled, part of the LGBT community, and anyone else they decided wasn’t worth keeping alive.

9. Post-apocalyptic Chicago from Veronica Roth’s Divergent. 

Everyone in this world was divided into one of the five different factions of their society depending on that person’s personality and interests.

To be honest with you, none of the factions sounded like good places to live. Some members of their society were deprived of the opportunity to make the simplest choices for themselves like what to wear. Others risked violent deaths ever day for no reason at all. I wouldn’t have wanted to choose any of the five options available to the characters.

10. The army base from M.R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts. 

As much as I love the idea of a child character who is far more special and dangerous than she first appears to be, the world she lived in was incredibly chaotic. There is no way I would have ever been safe there because there were no safe places left anywhere at all.

What bookish worlds would you never want to live in?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings Tagged With:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Loved But Will Never Reread

April 10, 2018 By 48 Comments

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s topic made me smile. Normally, I will happy reread books that I love over and over again until I can quote passages from memory from them in ordinary conversations for the sheer fun of it.

There are exceptions to this rule, though. As you’re about to see, many of them have gone on my do-not-reread list for the exact same reason. I might not mind certain things the first time I read something, but they can deter me from rereading that particular tale.

1. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien.

 

It took me ages to figure out whether I should list this trilogy as individual books or as a group. Since they all told different parts of the same epic adventure and their plots were very tightly woven together, I decided to include all three of them as the first item on this week’s list.

While I loved seeing what happened to Frodo and his companions while they were trying to bring The One Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it and save the world, the pacing of this series was so slow and the books themselves were so long that I don’t see myself ever reading them again.

2. Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins.

I loved the fact that the author stayed true to the violent, unjust, and unpredictable world she created earlier in this series even though it meant shattering the audience’s expectations of what would happen next. There were certain deaths and other events in Mockingjay that honestly made me sob. I’m glad I know how it ended, but I never want to relive those scenes again.

3. Anne’s House of Dreams (Anne of Green Gables #5) by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

I was an adult before I realized that Anne Shirley’s adventures didn’t end after Anne of the Island, so I was excited to see what this character’s life was like after she finally married her childhood sweetheart. Without giving away spoilers, something tragic happened early on in their marriage that makes me never want to revisit this portion of Anne’s life again. It was simply too sad.

4. Beloved by Toni Morrison.

As a huge fan of Ms. Morrison’s work in general, it’s hard to admit that I don’t want to reread something she wrote. The descriptions of how slavery traumatized this entire family for multiple generations were so graphic, though, that I can’t handle seeing them suffer that much again.

5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. 
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The pacing of Great Expectations was so slow that I don’t want to revisit it even though I loved Pip as a character.

6. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

I knew quite a bit about the Great Depression when I first picked this book up, but there’s a huge difference between memorizing dry facts and seeing a three-dimensional family struggle to survive when the dust bowl hit their farm and they lost everything. The character development was amazing. It was emotionally difficult to see the Joads face malnutrition, discrimination, and severe poverty after I’d grown to truly love them. I can’t bear to see them go through all of that pain again.

7. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.

As intrigued as I was by the storyline in general, it took a long time to figure out what Martian society was like. I’d rather not revisit the slow process of figuring out why Valentine’s worldview was so different from humans who had been raised by other humans.

8. The Martian by Andy Weir.

I loved seeing Mark, the main character of this book, solve all kinds of impossible problems on Mars after a terrible accident there made his fellow astronauts believe he was dead and accidentally leave him behind when they returned to Earth. He could have died many times over before they even realized he was still alive, and that made this a thrilling read. With that being said, I worried about Mark’s health and safety so much the first time I read about his adventures that I don’t really want to repeat that experience.

9. My Ántonia by Willa Cather.

I adored the descriptions of what life was like for brand new immigrants in Nebraska in the late nineteenth century. Surviving their first winter on the prairie was a difficult task for even the most fortunate and well-prepared families. The threat of starvation or freezing to death was always present. That made it impossible for me to stop reading even once they’d slightly improved their diets and the insulation in their homes. I had to know what happened to the characters, but once I did I lost the urge to return to their darkest and most uncertain days.

10. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King.

Like many of the other books on this list, this one was too intense for me to reread it. I was so frightened for Trisha once she became lost in the woods, especially once she realized that there was something awful wandering around out there. Knowing her fate was a relief. With that being said, I don’t ever want to go through that emotional rollercoaster again.

 

 

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings Tagged With:

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters We Liked That Were In Books We Disliked

April 3, 2018 By 36 Comments

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s topic sure was a tricky one. Normally I will stop reading a book if I dislike too many things about it, so it took a while to come up with ten examples of characters who fit this theme.

I’d like to thank Marianne and Poinsettia, two of the other bloggers here at Long and Short Reviews, for telling me about the first three books on this list. Their thoughts on them are in quotes below. They both helped to kickstart the brainstorming I needed to do in order to come up with other examples, and I sure do appreciate that.

1. Vampire Academy by Michelle Read.

“When I read the Vampire Academy series, I thought it was okay, but not a favorite.  However, I really liked the character Adrian Ivashkov.  He ended up being a main character in the Bloodlines series, which is a spin off.” – Poinsettia

2. and 3. John Steinbeck’s work in general, and The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks.

“My problem is I don’t read books I don’t like — if I’m not engrossed in a chapter or two, I put it down.  I suppose I could go back to school days and the books I had to read (John Steinbeck, for example … I’m from California and my teachers revered him, so I read nearly everything he wrote and hated most of it, despite the characters and stories being interesting… but I don’t like depressing books, and his were). Or books with unexpectedly sad endings ( for example,”The Guardian” by Nicholas Sparks)” – Marianne

4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

One of the things I disliked the most about this story was how hopeless it was. Things only got worse for the unnamed main character and his son as the plot progressed because of how impossible it was for them to find food or safety.

With that being said, I still loved the tight, loving bond the main character had with his kid. He never stopped trying to protect his child no matter how dire their circumstances became, and that made me like him quite a bit.

 

 

5. Thinner by Stephen King/Richard Bachman.

There were so many problems with pacing and plot holes that I really struggled to get into this book. It seemed like the sort of conflict that easily could have been solved at the end of the first chapter if Billy had been humble enough to apologize for accidentally killing the old woman.

What surprised me the most about Billy later on, though, was how much I grew to like him once he realized that the cause of his alarming weight loss was a curse that had been placed on him by the son of the woman he killed. I have a soft spot in my heart for any character who learns from his or her mistakes and eventually tries to fix them.

6. Push: A Novel by Sapphire.
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As I mentioned above, I really don’t like reading about child abuse. Generally, I’ll stop reading stories that are about this topic if they go into any detail about it at all.

I didn’t know that was a major theme of this tale when I first picked it up. Finding out what happened to Precious next was the only thing that kept me going once I realized just how awful her home life was.

She was a such a gentle soul that I had to find out if she’d find a way to rise above her painful start in life.

7. Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult.

The premise of this tale caught my attention immediately. There is so much room for debate about what should happen to frozen embryos after the couple who created them get divorced. Unfortunately, this was another case of major plot holes messing up something I thought I was going to really enjoy reading.

Zoe, the main character, was a talented, likeable woman no matter what was going on in the plot. I never stopped rooting for her and her new partner to find their happy ending.

8. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling.

I spent most of my childhood living in various small towns, but I just couldn’t get into a book about small town politics because of how much time it took the characters to start feuding. Slowly burning plots are not my cup of tea in general.

With that being said, Collin was a fascinating man. His struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder were explained so clearly that I couldn’t help but to sympathize with him. I also appreciated the fact that he and all of his neighbors were written as well-rounded human beings. That is, they all had realistic strengths and weaknesses. There were no good guys or bad guys in this community, just a collection of unique people who all had wildly different personalities, interests, and goals in life.

9. Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton.

If there’s one thing this story taught me, it’s that the past can be truly disgusting at times. I was so grossed out by the descriptions of the characters who didn’t bathe or otherwise practice good hygiene that I wanted to stop reading almost as soon as I began.

Ibn Fadlan was such an intelligent and educated protagonist that I stuck around solely to find out what he’d have to say next about the Vikings.

10. Light in August by William Faulkner.

Does anyone else feel a little guilty for not enjoying the writing styles of highly praised authors? Mr. Faulkner is one of those authors for me. The ideas he wrote about were thought-provoking, but I couldn’t handle the stream-of-consciousness style of Light in August. Figuring out what was going on with the plot there was incredibly difficult for me.

I did like the way he described Joe, a biracial man who was passing for white, and Lena, a young, pregnant woman who was searching for the father of her child, though. Both of these characters were living in a time and place that wasn’t at all kind to people in their circumstances, so it was interesting to see how they reacted to the stigma against them.

 

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Decided I’m No Longer Interested In Reading

February 20, 2018 By 56 Comments

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I’m not the kind of reader who gives up easily when I stumble across something that doesn’t necessarily appeal to me the first time I try it. There are some stories that I finally learned to love after several attempts to finish them.

This technique works for me in many cases, but there are some books out there that I sadly don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get into. The first five novels on this list are classics, and the last five are from the fantasy genre.

1. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to get through Les Misérables. Based on the subject matter and rave reviews of it, I expected to love it the first time I read it. Sadly, I was never able to adapt to the long-winded narrator.

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

The idea of a family worrying about who their daughters will marry is bizarre to me even though I know it was a genuine concern for many families in the early 1800s due to the inheritance laws back then. To be fair, I almost never read historical romances in general, so I knew going into it that it probably wasn’t going to be my cup of tea.

3. Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott.

I loved Little Women and Little Men, but the third instalment of this series had so little to say about the March family that I quickly lost interest in it. There are still times when I wonder what Jo, Meg, and Beth were like when they were middle aged or old women. I’m sure they never stopped trying to find ways to make ordinary life more entertaining.

4. Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

One of my high school English teachers was obsessed with this writer. She taught us a detailed unit on how Thoreau lived and why he wrote Walden. While I was amused by the fact that Thoreau apparently had food regularly brought to him by relatives while he was living alone by Walden pond, the contradiction between the deliveries of his meals and how self-reliantly he portrayed that period of his life makes it impossible for me to enjoy this book.

5. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

I don’t like reading about children being mistreated. This is especially true when they are being harmed by their guardian and have no way to escape. If only Maud, the main character, had been an adult when she moved into her new home. The idea of attempting to outsmart a murderer appeals to me quite a bit, but I only want to read about adults taking on that task.

 6. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

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Due to how violent the first scene was, I never want to read the rest of Game of Thrones even though I liked the writing style quite a bit in general.  It only becomes more gory from there according to what I’ve heard, and I can only handle that kind of storytelling in small doses.

7. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.

So many people love the Wheel of Time series in general that it took me a very long time to understand I’d never be one of them. The pacing of The Eye of the World was simply too slow for me to keep going to find out what the Wheel of Time was or why other folks enjoy it so much.

8. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin.

There are several Ursula K. LeGuin books that I really love, but A Wizard of Earthsea isn’t one of them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to change this. Normally, her storytelling grabs my attention from the very first sentence.

9. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

I’ve read multiple Terry Pratchett quotes that I found deeply amusing, but I’ve never been able to get into The Color of Magic or the rest of the Discworld series.  I will keep trying to find something else from him that suits my tastes, though.

10. A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony.

As cool as the covers are for A Spell for Chameleon and the rest of the Xanth series are, their writing styles simply don’t do anything for me.

What books have you given up on?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings Tagged With: ,

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Liked But Can’t Remember Anything About

January 23, 2018 By 94 Comments

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

My reading habits involve me diving into a wide variety of genres: young adult, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, horror, and even the occasional romance novel.

Most of the time, I can remember the basic plot of a book long after I’ve finished it even if I forget some of the details in it. There are times when I forget everything about a story other than the fact that I’ve read it, though, and that is why I won’t be commenting about anything on the list below like I normally do on Top Ten Tuesday posts.

The only facts I can tell you about any of them is that I know I read and enjoyed them at one point!

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

3. The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.


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5. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

7. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.

8. Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult.

9. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.

10. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

Have you read any of these titles? What novels do you know you’ve read but can’t remember anything about?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings

Top Ten Tuesday: New-To-Me Authors I Read In 2017

January 2, 2018 By 44 Comments

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

2017 was a mishmash year for me as far as my reading habits go. As you’re about to see, I’m not the kind of reader who is forever loyal to one particular genre. I read everything from the mystery genre to science fiction to history.

I also wasn’t able to come up with a list of ten authors this week. When I find  someone whose writing style I really like, I dive into their backlist and try to read everything from them I can get my hands on whether they’ve written one other book or twenty of them.

It is so interesting to see how someone’s writing style has evolved over the years if I stumble across them later on in their career. I also enjoy spotting the similar themes that sometimes develop in a writer’s body of work. The best way to notice them is to read everything that author has written.

1. Eowyn Ivey.

I know I’ve mentioned her book, “The Snow Child,” in a previous Top Ten Tuesday post here. The more I read from this author, the more I enjoy her understated way of showing the audience what is happening in a scene.

2. David A. Hill Jr. 

“iHunt: Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy” is still the best book I’ve ever reviewed for Long and Short Reviews. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

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Everyone knows her as the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., but until this year I had no idea she was an author or that she’d written a memoir about her life. It was incredibly interesting to see how she remembered their marriage and the early years of the civil rights movement.

4. Graeme Simsion.

Mr. Simsion has written two books so far about a character who has Asperger Syndrome. In “The Rosie Project,” this character tried very hard to find a wife. In the sequel, he had to figure out how to fix his relationship after a series of misunderstandings made his partner wonder if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

5. Eli Celata.

This author is working on a series of urban fantasy books about a guy who doesn’t realize he has magical powers until he goes to college. Based on how interesting “High Summons” and “Grimm Remains” were, I’ll be keeping an eye out for more tales from him in 2018.

6. Drew Hayes.

As soon as I read the title of “The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant,” I couldn’t wait to see if the storyline was going to be as wacky and memorable as I thought it would be. Spoiler alert: it was!

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings

Winter Blogfest: Joanne Guidoccio

December 28, 2017 By 12 Comments

This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win an ebook of Too Many Women in the Room.

A Different Kind of Dessert

Scalilli. Turdilli. Crostoli. Grispelle. Biscotti. Pizzelle.

I have fond memories of all those Italian desserts my mother and grandmother prepared during the Christmas season. They would start baking early in December and then make more batches as the month progressed.

While I enjoyed partaking, I was not overly thrilled with the amount of work involved. In fact, delicious and labor intensive would be two apt descriptions for many of the entrées and desserts that emerged from my mother’s kitchen.

One Christmas in the early 1970s, my mother presented a different kind of dessert. She placed a dish filled with unusual shapes on the table and said, “Help yourself to a snowball.”

A dessert that didn’t end in a vowel…definitely a first in our household! I couldn’t help smiling at the looks of surprise exchanged by my father and grandmother. But their skepticism was short-lived. Delicious and easy-to-prepare, Francesca’s Chocolate Snowballs became part of our family’s Christmas tradition.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

4 ounces Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp milk
2 cups icing sugar
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
¼ tsp vanilla
Dash of salt
3 cups Kraft miniature marshmallows
2 cups coconut (amount may vary)

Directions

  • • Combine softened cream cheese and milk until well blended.
  • • Gradually add sugar.
  • • Melt chocolate and add to mixture.
  • • Stir in vanilla and salt.
  • • Fold in marshmallows.
  • • Drop rounded teaspoons of the mixture in coconut and toss until well covered.
  • • Place on baking sheet.
  • • Chill for 24 hours or until firm.

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Makes 36 snowballs

When Gilda Greco invites her closest friends to a VIP dinner, she plans to share David Korba’s signature dishes and launch their joint venture— Xenia, an innovative Greek restaurant near Sudbury, Ontario. Unknown to Gilda, David has also invited Michael Taylor, a lecherous photographer who has throughout the past three decades managed to annoy all the women in the room. One woman follows Michael to a deserted field for his midnight run and stabs him in the jugular.

Gilda’s life is awash with complications as she wrestles with a certain detective’s commitment issues and growing doubts about her risky investment in Xenia. Frustrated, Gilda launches her own investigation and uncovers decades-old secrets and resentments that have festered until they explode into untimely death. Can Gilda outwit a killer bent on killing again?

About the Author: In 2008, Joanne Guidoccio retired from a 31-year teaching career and launched a second act that tapped into her creative side. Slowly, a writing practice emerged. Her articles and book reviews were published in newspapers, magazines, and online. When she tried her hand at fiction, she made reinvention a recurring theme in her novels and short stories. A member of Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, and Romance Writers of America, Joanne writes cozy mysteries, paranormal romance, and inspirational literature from her home base of Guelph, Ontario.

Website l Blog l Facebook l Twitter

Buy the book at Amazon.

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Winter Blogfest: Carrie Lomax

December 28, 2017 By 3 Comments

This post is part of Long and Short’s Review Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win one Digital Copy of Holiday Heat (any format, please specify).

 Holiday Heat

With an extended family spread across the United States, the week from Christmas to New Years is a time for us to reunite, relax, and reconnect. I love sharing different traditions. For example, my aunt lives in New Mexico. Each year, she sends us pictures of luminarias—small paper lanterns made with a candle set in sand inside a paper bag—outside her home. When she visits, we put them out in the deep Wisconsin snow.

I lived in New York City for fifteen years, and my husband and I would take visiting family to see the shop windows along 5th Avenue. (Bergdorf Goodman has the best creations. [Link:  http://blog.bergdorfgoodman.com/video/bg-holiday-window-reveal/ ]) And no matter how small our apartment, every year, we’ve had a tree to decorate at Christmas.

After the gifts are open, the week before New Year is a time for visiting and catching up with loved ones near and far. It’s this time away from work and school that I look forward to each year. Which is why I chose this time to set my first Christmas-themed book, Holiday Heat.

Where better to recover from the heartbreak of a broken engagement than with family?

Though she’s terrified that her family will “lose it” over the engagement that didn’t happen, they’re the supportive rock Alyssa needs. Her own mother plots to hook her up with the hot guy who lives next door. And it’s her sister, Janelle, who sets in motion the dating contest that forces Alyssa and Marc to work through their lack of trust, and find a way forward. Without family, Alyssa and Marc wouldn’t find their New Year happily ever after. Here’s an excerpt:

“Alyssa. I wondered if you were coming home for the holidays.” 

“You did? I mean, of course. I always come back for Christmas.” She felt faint. What fresh hell was this speaking words business? If she did fall over she’d blame it on the balmy weather. Marc never spoke to her, except to tease.

“You didn’t last year.”

“I can’t believe you noticed,” Alyssa blurted. She’d been in Connecticut with Zach’s family.

“I’ve always noticed,” Marc replied with a half-grin that hit her like a tractor-trailer.

This holiday season, I hope you’ll find joy in reconnecting with the people you love, whether you’re celebrating with family or finding a community far from home.
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One Unforgettable Christmas Week
A broken engagement.
An ill-advised fling.
A reality-TV-inspired dating contest.

A competition between one woman’s heart and her head — with her future on the line.

The Bachelorette
Alyssa Carlisle arrives home for the holidays nursing a fresh Christmas Eve heartbreak. A hookup with her hot neighbor seems like the perfect rebound. He’s never looked her way, but Marc De Luna’s just what she needs: a no-strings attached, super sexy vacation fling.

She never thought he’d want more. She’d be a fool to believe it. Setting aside her ambition is out of the question.

The (Play) Boy Next Door
Marc’s had it bad for his aloof, ambitious neighbor ever since her family moved in. Her engagement to a rich boyfriend was enough to send him packing for an extended trip — anywhere — as long as it’s far away from any reminder of Alyssa. Now that he’s is out of the picture, Marc ‘s not about to pass up his chance to claim her as his own.

When her ex makes an unexpected appearance, Marc’s got a fight on his hands — and he’ll do whatever it takes to win.

About the Author: Carrie Lomax grew up in the Midwest before moving to New York City for 15 years. She lives in Maryland with two budding readers and her real-life romantic hero.

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Winter Blogfest: Emily Carrington

December 28, 2017 By 1 Comment

This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win one copy of A Very (Psychic) Vampire Christmas, which comes out right before Christmas. I will choose a randomly drawn person from the comments.

The Point of a Parrada

The point of a parrada is to sneak up on your friends. What’s a parrada? It’s a group of friends armed with guitars, maracas, and other instruments who surprise others with their sudden music during the Christmas season. The songs aren’t necessarily religious, but occassionally Jesus is mentioned.

This tradition is most common in Puerto Rico and Cuba. I stumbled upon it while doing research for my Puerto Rican-based psychic vampires. Although the story takes place a little south of Buffalo, New York, these psychic vampires bring their customs with them. Some, like piñatas being used mostly for a child’s birthday, are captured and rewritten by the werewolves who live in New York. Others, most notably the parradas, grow with the werewolves to lend their spirit.

The werewolves of Charles McLaughlin’s pack aren’t exactly celebrating Christmas since they follow the moon goddess and are rejoicing at the coming of the longest night of the year. But they learn to embrace new traditions. They have to. Charles’s mate, Luis, is a psychic vampire and brings with him a whole island’s worth of habits.

For me, singing is a crucial part of each Christmas season. I sing at the Protestant version of midnight mass after opening one Christmas present early. Please share your traditions with me. I will randomly select a comment and award that person a copy of A Very (Psychic) Vampire Christmas on January 3rd.

Happy Holidays!

Peace,

Emily Carrington


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A werewolf and a psychic vampire, mated for two years according to werewolf custom, are planning to get married to comply with psychic vampire tradition. Unfortunately, as much as they want to participate in a sexualized version of a Catholic wedding, they are cock blockd by the psychic vampire matriarch. She wants her son to stay away from his werewolf lover—and she’ll stop at nothing to break them up.

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author: Hi, I’m Emily. Welcome to my SearchLight world full of magical creatures, inclduing dragons, genies, and psychic vampires. If you’re curious about how dragon politics work over in China, check out my website: www.emilycarrington.com

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Winter Blogfest: Matilda Janes

December 27, 2017 By 8 Comments

This post is part of Long and Short Reviews’ Winter Blogfest. Leave a comment for a chance to win a $20 electronic Amazon gift card emailed to the winners email.

How Can You Go Wrong with Deep Fried and Drizzled in Honey!

For the holidays my family makes a traditional Christmas dessert using my great-grandmothers recipe from her hometown located in the Puglia region of Italy. In her dialect the dessert is called Purciddi. It’s deep fried dough flavored with anisette or Sambuca. Add toasted almonds and drizzle it all with warm honey. Top with cinnamon and colored sprinkles.Yum!

She loves to frost cookies. Now he’s going to frost hers.

Santa’s eldest daughter Chrystal Claus is curvy, cute and loves to bake. Opening her bakery has been a dream come true. She loves to watch her customers smile after they’ve eaten one of her treats. It’s her gift and she’s never been happier. That is until Jack Frost comes back in to town, seemingly intent on disrupting her life with his scowling eyes and his grumpy growls and all his bulging muscles she can’t help but notice. After he embarrasses her she decides she can’t stand the handsome jerk. But when she’s kidnapped, Christy discovers not all is as it seems.
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Jack Frost has been waiting for Chrystal Claus for an eternity and when she comes of age Jack wants to claim his mate. But it isn’t to be, bound by a promise; Jack reluctantly leaves Christmas Town. When he returns years later he can barely contain himself. He wants nothing more than to claim his mate and no one will stand in his way. Or so he thinks.

Can Chrystal accept being Mrs. Frost? Will Jack convince Chrystal that being naughty can be nice?

About the Author: I’m a wife, a mother and a lover of paranormal and erotic romance. When I’m not hanging out with my family or working, you can find me at my computer writing or with my phone in my face reading.

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