As the days get longer, the stacks seem to get shorter. I wonder why?
Even though I don’t have a lot this week, I do have one book that I’ve been looking forward to since last year: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny. Her Inspector Gamache series is one of my all-time favorites. When I read last year’s book, The Long Way Home, I could see where she might be ending the series at that point. Gamache was retired, he wouldn’t necessarily have more cases to solve. But I am so, so grateful that he does.
If you love a good, deep, character driven mystery, this series is a treat from beginning to end, starting with Still Life and hopefully not ending for a long time to come.
Next weekend is Memorial Day, the unofficial start of Summer. It feels early this year, calendar-wise, but the weather in Atlanta is already into the mid-80s, so by that measure, Summer is already here.
Winters in the South are marvelous. Summers are hot, muggy, sticky and sometimes stormy. And did I mention hot? On that other hand, everywhere I’ve ever lived had something unpleasant in their normal weather pattern. In Anchorage, summers are wonderful, mostly in the 60s but sometimes the 70s, and the winters are, well, abominable. And abominably long. In Seattle, the summers are pretty good, except for that two-weeks-maybe-three where you really, really wish you had air conditioning – and you don’t. And it’s never really cold in the winter, but it is gray and wet and terribly gloomy Chicago has a cold, snowy, miserable winter, and a hot sticky summer, but the spring and fall are gorgeous. Then there’s the big stuff. In Florida, it was hurricanes. In Anchorage, earthquakes.
There’s something I miss out of every place we’ve lived. And something I don’t miss!
Another blissfully short stack of books, or so it seems.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m on the American Library Association Notable Books Council. It’s an awards jury for the 25-ish notable books of the year. While I can’t say which books are under consideration, I can show you this picture. I received ALL of these boxes on Friday. While I expect to read what’s inside, I had to wait for Sophie and LaZorra to finish playing Queen of the Hill before I could even get started!
If I haven’t whetted your appetite for A Match for Marcus Cynster with today’s sneak peak review of the book, this excerpt should do the trick. Reading Reality is the second stop on Stephanie’s tour. The first excerpt, which sets the stage for the story, is at From the TBR Pile. For future stops (and more tantalizing excerpts) check out the link to the full tour schedule at TLC Book Tours.
Excerpt #2:
After leaving Oswald tethered with the other horses a little way away, Niniver joined her clansmen in the fold to the south of the narrow ledge on which Nolan was pacing.
Bradshaw, Phelps, Canning, and Forrester greeted her politely. Phelps and Bradshaw had brought their sons. After exchanging quiet hellos and nodding to Sean and the young groom he’d brought with him, she joined the others in studying Nolan.
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley Formats available: paperback, ebook, large print audiobook Genre: historical romance Series: Cynsters #23 Length: 448 pages Publisher: Harlequin MIRA Date Released: May 26, 2015 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Restless and impatient, Marcus Cynster waits for Fate to come calling. He knows his destiny lies in the lands surrounding his family home, but what will his future be? Equally importantly, with whom will he share it?
Of one fact he feels certain: his fated bride will not be Niniver Carrick. His elusive neighbor attracts him mightily, yet he feels compelled to protect her—even from himself. Fickle Fate, he’s sure, would never be so kind as to decree that Niniver should be his. The best he can do for them both is to avoid her.
Niniver has vowed to return her clan to prosperity. The epitome of fragile femininity, her delicate and ethereal exterior cloaks a stubborn will and an unflinching devotion to the people in her care. She accepts that in order to achieve her goal, she cannot risk marrying and losing her grip on the clan’s reins to an inevitably controlling husband. Unfortunately, many local men see her as their opportunity.
Soon, she’s forced to seek help to get rid of her unwelcome suitors. Powerful and dangerous, Marcus Cynster is perfect for the task. Suppressing her wariness over tangling with a gentleman who so excites her passions, she appeals to him for assistance with her peculiar problem.
Although at first he resists, Marcus discovers that, contrary to his expectations, his fated role is to stand by Niniver’s side and, ultimately, to claim her hand. Yet in order to convince her to be his bride, they must plunge headlong into a journey full of challenges, unforeseen dangers, passion, and yearning, until Niniver grasps the essential truth—that she is indeed a match for Marcus Cynster.
My Review:
I had read most of the early Cynsterbooks a while back – it looks like I stopped at 15, Temptation and Surrender. So I knew enough of the early background without remembering each and every detail.
I remember enjoying the books, so I’m not sure why I stopped. After having read A Match for Marcus Cynster, I’m really, really not sure why I stopped, because I just plain enjoyed the heck out of this one.
On the other hand, I think I’m glad that I haven’t read the most recent previous book The Tempting of Thomas Carrick. Based on the descriptions of past events in Marcus’ book, it’s obvious that very recently a lot of bad things happened to a lot of good people. In Match, we find out just enough, without having to deal with the horrible events as they occurred.
The resolution of those events forms the backdrop for this book. And we learn quite enough to make that backdrop make sense.
Niniver Carrick has become the Lady of Clan Carrick after what can best be described as a series of extremely unfortunate events. While it appeared that her oldest brother Nigel murdered their father, the early events in Matchshow that next-brother Nolan was the real murderer, and that he murdered Nigel as well, leaving Niniver and her youngest brother Norris as the last members of the leading family of Clan Carrick.
Niniver has also discovered that her two older brothers’ machinations and gambling debts have left the clan in a gigantic financial mess. With time and care, it can be sorted out, but Niniver expects that someone else will have that sorting. While the Carrick family have been the traditional Lairds of Clan Carrick, her remaining brother doesn’t want the leadership, and Niniver assumes that she is ineligible.
The clan decrees otherwise, and votes Niniver in as Lady Carrick.
Leaving Niniver with a personal dilemma. She is not married. Now that she is Lady Carrick she believes that she will never find a man who would be willing to marry her but not attempt to wrest the leadership of the clan out from under her. It’s a realistic fear in her time and place.
The clan will not follow anyone but her. They trust her and no one else. If some putative husband attempts to usurp her power, it will fracture the clan, and she knows it. But the law is otherwise, her husband would expect to take over everything she owns and holds, not understanding that leadership of the clan is given, not inherited, and that that leadership is based on trust and not merely the right of inheritance.
Of course for any casual reader of the Cynster stories, or just by learning about Marcus Cynster from the pages of this book, it is easy to see that the men of the Cynster family have learned better. As a group, they have found, or been forced to realize at dear cost, that a marriage of equals is a much happier and more fulfilling marriage for both parties.
Marcus is perfectly suited to marry Niniver. He knows how to support her from beside or if necessary behind her, because he’s seen the men of his family support their wives the same way. Even better, he has loved Niniver from afar for years. He just has no idea if she feels the same, or if she feels much at all.
Until circumstances force her hand. The younger, unmarried men all seem to be contesting for Niniver’s hand, in spite of her continued refusals and rebuffs. She is caught between a rock and a hard place – many of their fathers are influential in the clan, and she can’t afford to alienate their support. But their sons are not just acting like buffoons, but their continued flouting of her authority is shaking the foundations of her leadership.
Niniver has to admit that she needs a man to run off these young louts in a manner which brooks no argument – with fists if necessary. She calls upon her neighbor, Marcus Cynster, for his assistance in this matter, and tries to ignore her own feelings. She has loved Marcus for years, but has no idea of his feelings for her. She assumes that he is like all the other men of his class, instead of looking at his family for examples. (Her immediate family was never the supportive type, she has no concept of the close-knit nature of his.)
Each of them believes that a few days of Marcus in residence at Carrick House will teach the young men a lesson. Neither of them reckons on an outsider who is stirring up trouble in the hopes of taking his own advantage.
And neither of them counts on the continued danger drawing them so close that they are able to step past all of the own reservations – and irrevocably towards each other.
Escape Rating B+: As I said at the beginning, I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It’s not just that Niniver and Marcus are very likeable, although they definitely are, but that their romance, that neither one of them is willing to admit is a romance, fits the characters and the situation so well.
As a heroine, Niniver is a treat. It is difficult in a historical romance for the heroine to have not merely personal but also professional agency in a way that does not feel anachronistic. Upper class women just didn’t aspire to careers, at least within the pages of historical romance. But Niniver is a leader, and in a way that feels like it is reasonably possible in her time and place. And she recognizes that the leadership is both a privilege and at times a burdensome responsibility.
She reasons, mostly correctly, that she can either be the Lady or be married, but not both. Eventually she, or rather the clan, might be in a financial position where a change in leadership would be survivable, but that time is not now.
I’ll confess to a bit of concern about her affair with Marcus. Not because she decides to have one, but that no one ever considers what will need to occur if she gets pregnant. Not that Marcus wouldn’t be thrilled to marry her under any circumstances, but for a woman who does a great deal of forward planning, this particular blindspot loomed a bit large.
Marcus is a good match for Niniver because he knows what he is getting into from the very beginning. She, or her position, don’t change his essential nature. He knows from the outset that Niniver needs a consort and not a Lord, and he understands and is willing to fulfill that role from the start. He protects her and supports her – it is her right and duty to conduct business for the clan. He usually manages to hit just the right note. And it’s not an act – he’s adopting the role he hopes to have from the beginning of their relationship.
Almost all of Laurens’ heroes and heroines have a difficult time either admitting they love each other or at least managing to say it to each other. This often results in a minor misunderstandammit late in the story, as is the case here.
However, the suspense element in this book nearly makes that misunderstanding fatal. Niniver is rightfully wary of any friends of her older brothers, because the fast crowd they got involved with directly contributed to the financial mismanagement of the clan. One of their crowd keeps hanging around, and it is obvious to the reader from the very beginning that Ramsey McDougal is up to no good. It was so obvious that he was behind all of Niniver’s current troubles that I kept wanting to shake Niniver and Marcus out of their complacency long before they finally figured out what MacDougall was up to.
So, although the villain was a bit bwahaha predictable, the hero and heroine were generally terrific. A Match for Marcus Cynster is a good book to read on a hot day, dreaming of the breeze over the Highlands. (Extra points for the creative use of THE love scene from Star Wars)
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more posts in this tour.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are mothers.
And for those of us who are not, one of my reviews this coming week is Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed, a collection of essays about choosing to be childless, edited by Meghan Daum. Because I still get people telling me I’ll change my mind about not wanting to have children. And let me tell you, not only has that ship sailed, but it’s no longer even remotely able to re-dock at this facility.
After having been teased by (meaning read) The Deepest Poison last week, I’m really looking forward to The Clockwork Dagger this week!
I pretty much did a happy dance around the office when the ARC for Armada popped up on Edelweiss this week. I adored Ready Player One, and can’t wait to see what Cline has come up with now.
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley Formats available: paperback, ebook Genre: paranormal historical romance Series: Scandals with Bite #3 Length: 384 pages Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca Date Released: April 7, 2015 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
When Rafael Villar, Lord Vampire of London, stumbles upon a woman in the cemetery, he believes he’s found a vampire hunter—not the beautiful, intelligent stranger she proves to be.
Cassandra Burton is enthralled by the scarred, disfigured vampire who took her prisoner. The aspiring physician was robbing graves to pursue her studies—and he might turn out to be her greatest subject yet. So they form a bargain: one kiss for every experiment. As their passion grows and Rafe begins to heal, only one question remains: can Cassandra see the man beyond the monster?
My Review:
As I finished up Bite at First Sight with a smile on my face, I found myself making a mental connection between the phrase, “love at first sight”, the title of the very tongue-in-cheek vampire romance movie, Love at First Bite, and finishing with the title of this third book in Brooklyn Ann’s Scandals with Bite series, Bite at First Sight.
The phrases and titles blend together in a kind of word game where you change or remove one word and get from A to B to C. And it all fits!
The amount of slightly campy humor that was injected into Love at First Bite fits right in with the Scandals with Bite series, even though this latest entry is a bit darker than the earlier pieces of fanged, fluffy fun in the series.
This one needed to be just a bit darker, so it works. I’ve also just realized that the story is a play on the “Beauty and the Beast” trope, and the darker tone works well for that, too.
This series uses the tried-and-true convention of matching an unconventional heroine with an even more unconventional hero, or possibly vice versa.
Cassandra Burton’s unconventionality is tied up into what she does, while for Rafe Villar is it part of what he is. The author definitely makes it work.
Cassandra was ahead of her time. She doesn’t merely want to become a physician, she is actively preparing herself for that role, in spite of a society that laughs at a woman who wants to go to medical school. (It’s the early 19th century, society laughs (and actively forbids) women from stepping out side a set of preconceived and limiting roles).
Like most of the would-be doctors in that era, her only way of studying human anatomy from the inside is to dissect corpses. Therefore, like many doctors of her era, Cassandra is forced into becoming an occasional graverobber.
And that’s where Rafe comes into the story. After the events in Bite Me, Your Grace (reviewed here) and One Bite Per Night (likewise here) Rafe is now the interim Lord Vampire of London. There have been recent scuffles between vampires and hunters in London, and there are all to many vampires who believe that someone is disinterring recent graves in order to find more of their kind.
Rafe finds Cassandra in the midst of her body-snatching quest, only to discover two things – she’s not after his (or any) vampires and she’s one of the few people he can’t mesmerize. She’s immune to his power. But by the time he figures that out, it’s too late – he’s revealed that vampires exist, and that puts her under vampire house arrest until the mysterious Elders tell him what to do with her.
This is a kind of torture for both of them. Cassandra and Rafe have met before – Cassandra was one of Angelica Ashton’s friends long before Angelica became the Duchess of Burnrath (and a vampire herself). Rafe was Ian Ashton’s second-in-command during that rather messy courtship.
Cassandra has always been fascinated with Rafe, not because he’s quintessentially tall, dark and handsome, but because he isn’t. Rafe was horribly burned, and the doctor in Cassandra wants to repair the damage. He’s also quite striking, although handsome wouldn’t be the right word. Cassandra, a widow, has some other ideas of what Rafe could do to, or with, her that she tries not to reveal.
She just plain fascinates him, but he assumes that she couldn’t possibly be interested in someone as scarred and disfigured as he is.
Of course, they are both wrong, but it takes a long house arrest and a lot of shared danger for them to finally figure that out. When they do, it’s almost too late. Rafe’s enemies are using his tolerance for the all-too-human Cassandra as an excuse to stage a coup. And if the conspiracies don’t bring Rafe down, the Elders he has disobeyed just might.
Escape Rating A-: This series just keeps getting better. So much so that I really hope the author continues to explore this world where vampires meet the Regency. It’s a lot of fun.
I said that this book was darker than the first two, which definitely had a higher froth quotient. It’s darker because both protagonists have more pain and darkness is their own histories, and because the conspiracies and potential coup provide an underlying layer of dark deeds and betrayal that color the narrative.
Rafe is terribly scarred. He fought off a vampire hunter who attacked him during his daysleep, and was so intent on killing the crazed bastard that he followed the man outside into the sun to finish him off. The price was a scarred face and more importantly, a withered and dysfunctional left arm. People, including other vampires, see Rafe as crippled. Rafe seems to think that the scars only reflect his internal darkness. He sees pity or revulsion in people’s eyes, and he turns away, first and with rudeness, so that he doesn’t have to face them.
Cassandra wants to be a doctor, but in the society in which she lives, even her intellectual pursuits are frowned upon. She is used to hiding who she really is and what she really wants, or only associating with people who sympathize and understand. That she is a widow loosens some of the social strictures, but not enough. She is under scrutiny at every moment. In Rafe, she sees a personal and professional challenge. She wants to see if his arm can be repaired. She longs to discover if the hot dreams she has about him mean that he might possibly show her some of what she missed in her loveless marriage.
While they separately spend a lot of mental energy trying to stave off their mutual attraction, the reasons why they do so make sense. He neither believes in love, nor that anyone could possibly love his scarred self. Cassandra’s experience of what married life is like for a woman make her shy of shackling herself to anyone. Also she knows what Rafe is and can see that they have no future.
The political in-fighting in Rafe’s new dominion keeps the suspense level high. Cassandra does distract him, and he is new to the job. Also, he’s just plain new at the idea of managing anyone other than himself, and makes a whole lot of “new leader” mistakes. The underlying sense of privilege and prejudice that empower the leaders of the so-called revolution are properly disgusting. Their use of propaganda and whisper campaigning seems all too modern. They are good enough at being bad to be a serious threat to Rafe’s and Cassandra’s lives.
Cassandra finds a sphere in which she can finally be who she really is, providing she lives long enough to enjoy it. But Rafe is the one who really grows and changes during the story. He has to reach beyond his self-imposed isolation to discover that he has friends who will stand by him at any cost, and that he is capable of both inspiring loyalty and feeling it in return.
If the combination of paranormal and historical romance sounds like fun, this book proves that it really, really can be. Even better, this story can stand on its own, although once you’ve read it you’ll want to go diving into the previous books for the background.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
Sourcebooks Casablanca is generously giving away 3 Scandals that Bite Book Bundles to lucky commenters on the tour. Just fill out the Rafflecopter to be entered!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who participated in my Blogo-Birthday celebration for their suggestions. I very much appreciate the kind words, and will take the suggestions seriously. I know Reading Reality needs a makeover, and I’m on a waiting list to get that done. (I actually CAN carry a tune in a bucket, but I can’t draw a bath. My graphic and artistic skills are seriously limited, so I need help!)
On the more directly bookish front, I was surprised when I looked at next week’s schedule and saw that all my books are blog tour books next week. When I was in school, even though I loved to read, I hated to read anything that was assigned. I guess that because I assigned these to myself, it doesn’t feel quite the same. And of course I only sign up for tours when I really think I’m going to like the book. It usually works out that way.
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley Formats available: paperback, ebook Genre: historical paranormal romance Series: Scandals with Bite #2 Length: 372 pages Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca Date Released: August 5, 2014 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
The Dowager Countess of Morley asks Vincent Tremayne, Lord Vampire of Cornwall, to become guardian of her American granddaughter. Vincent honors the agreement and plans to get his new ward married and off his hands as soon as possible.
When Lydia Price arrives, she soon turns Vincent’s gloomy castle upside-down, and he decides he wants Lydia for himself. But if Vincent can’t protect Lydia from her entanglement with scandalous portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, the vampire community will make sure that he—and Lydia—face dire consequences..
My Review:
This is the second book in Brooklyn Ann’s Scandals with Bite series (after Bite Me, Your Grace, reviewed last week) and I liked this one better than the first. I now have high hopes for book 3, Bite at First Sight, which I have scheduled for next week.
The formula is very similar to the first book, but it has been tweaked just a bit in ways that minimize the number of misunderstandammits and make the characters fit more comfortably, at least for this reader, into the unconventional heroine meets brooding hero plot.
(OMG I just realized that Lydia Price marries Vincent. If this isn’t a play on the name of the late horror film actor Vincent Price, I’ll eat my (fictional) parasol.)
Returning to the work in hand, Lydia truly is unconventional, not just on the inside where it counts, but also in her background. Her parents married for love, which was unusual enough, but her father gave up his wealth and title to marry her commoner mother. His mother disowned him and any children he might have, and turned her aristocratic and autocratic back on the lot of them.
Lydia grew up in New Orleans, where her parents fled to make a fresh start. It was a happy family until both Lydia’s parents died of yellow fever just about the time that Lydia should have been looking for a husband.
Instead, the orphan is on her way to England, to the hopefully accepting arms of the only family she has left. Unfortunately for her, that family is her hateful grandmother. Fortunately for Lydia, her grandmother is so hateful that she essentially bargains Lydia off to an old family connection.
Once upon a time in the 1600s, Vincent Tremayne, Earl of Deveril, pledged an alliance with his best friend, who was then Lord Morley. Lydia’s grandmother is that Lord Morley’s descendant, and Vincent feels duty bound to harbor his old friend’s great-great-granddaughter. Because while Lord Morley is long dead and has had several generations of descendants, Vincent is the Lord Vampire of Cornwall, and is still very much alive.
But Lydia brings a lot more life to his lonely castle than he ever thought possible. And not just because he has to finally hire enough servants to keep the whole place functioning again, as well as retain a chaperone for Lydia to supervise her “coming out” Season in London.
Lydia’s American upbringing has made her a refreshing change from the mostly simpering debutantes who have nothing on their minds but snaring a titled husband, whether by fair means or foul.
Lydia rides, shoots, fishes and paints. Those first three make her an ideal Countess for the remote Cornish estate – but all Vincent sees is a young woman with a zest for life who couldn’t possibly fall for the monster that Vincent sees himself to be.
All that Lydia sees is a handsome, brooding man who lights up in her company and encourages her intellectually.
Vincent admittedly also sees a way of getting back at her grandmother by ensuring that Lydia makes a more favorable match than her cousin, the grandchild that the old lady favors because she has the poor chit under her thumb.
Vincent’s first salvo in that polite war is to hire the best chaperone in England to supervise Lydia right out from under her grandmother. Miss Hobson sees the Earl and his ward together and decides that the most brilliant match available to Lydia is the one that appears to be the one after Lydia’s own heart. Miss Hobson begins scheming, in her quiet but effective little way, to get Lydia and Vincent together.
(After all, Vincent IS an Earl. It is a very brilliant match!)
The London Season offers plenty of opportunities for Vincent to avoid the affection that is growing between himself and his ward. Duchess Angelica Ashton, wife of the Lord Vampire of London and heroine of Bite Me, Your Grace, sees plenty of opportunities for a little mischief and more than a bit of matchmaking.
Lady Morley sees a titled Lord that she can both steal from her commoner granddaughter and possibly bring under her own sway into the bargain. She has no idea what she is attempting to bite off.
Lydia just sees Vincent pulling away from the friendship that they established in Cornwall. No one sees the very real danger that stalks them all.
Escape Rating B: Because readers of the first book already know quite a bit about the vampires of England and their governance, this story is able to delve more into its characters and spend a bit less time on explaining everything.
I like Lydia as the heroine. Her unconventionality is organic to her story. She’s not rebelling against expections, she’s trying to figure out where she fits between the expectations that her parents raised her under and the much, much stricter set of rules that confine English young ladies of a certain class. The rules of life have changed right under her, and in the midst of very real grief, and she is learning her place in her new world.
Vincent believes that as a vampire, he is a monster. He feels guilty for living, for everything he does, and does not want to bring someone else, namely Lydia, into a life which he feels will crush her spirit as it has crushed his. At the same time, he is an excellent lord, and takes care of his people, both human and vampire, and does what is a very good best by them. Ian Ashton often sends those who have been damaged by the change to Vincent for supervision and healing, and their partnership in this regard is quite successful.
As much as Vincent falls in love with Lydia, and it is great to watch them slowly and carefully reach out for each other, while he is certain that anyone else would be better for her. He sincerely tries to find her a mortal husband. In the end, Lydia has to seduce him (with Angelica Ashton’s wardrobe) to get him to see the light. Even then, he’s still in the process of convincing himself that his selfishness will not harm Lydia, and he isn’t certain.
When the decision is taken out of his hands, it puts all of them into even more danger. Rash actions produce drastic results. And while this story does eventually come to its blissful happily ever after, it was also incredibly pleasing to watch Lydia give her disgusting grandmother the comeuppance that she so richly deserved.
One of the secondary characters in this story who has continually made my “curiosity bump” itch is Ian’s second, the scarred Spanish vampire Rafael Villar. I am looking forward to finally discovering his story in Bite at First Sight. I have high hopes that it will be even better than One Bite Per Night.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
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I’ve mentioned before that I’m on the American Library Association Notable Books Council. It’s an awards jury for the 25-ish notable books of the year. While I can’t say which books are under consideration, I can show you this picture. I received ALL of these boxes on Friday. While I expect to read what’s inside, I had to wait for Sophie and LaZorra to finish playing Queen of the Hill before I could even get started!
And for those of us who are not, one of my reviews this coming week is Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed, a collection of essays about choosing to be childless, edited by Meghan Daum. Because I still get people telling me I’ll change my mind about not wanting to have children. And let me tell you, not only has that ship sailed, but it’s no longer even remotely able to re-dock at this facility.
Giveaways from 11 Shops and a $280 Prize Pack in the Spring Fling Fabulous Giveaway
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