Saturday, November 28, 2015

The Good, the Bad, and the Vampire

Review:

The Good, the Bad, and the Vampire - Sara  Humphreys

The Good, the Bad, and the Vampire (Dead in the City #4) by Sara Humphreys

He wants eternity?
Dakota Shelton is a vampire cowboy with a penchant for cinnamon lollipops and Johnny Cash. Though highly skilled and deadly dangerous to his enemies, he's still a Texas good ol' boy at heart. And he has that heart set on wooing Trixie LaRoux-the most badass punk rock chick in town-the old-fashioned way.
Over her undead body...
Trixie is tough as nails and sharp as a silver stake-the last thing she wants is a man to sit on a porch and not grow old with. So it'll take going to hell and back fighting a new threat to vampires before she admits Dakota's courtship makes her blood hum. Turns out chivalry's not dead after all.


My Review:
I am so totally missing out on half the important facts in this book. I missed the previous installments in the series so there's some holes but still on its own The Good, the Bad, and the Vampire is a great book. I enjoyed Dakota as a sort of healer/savior champion type to Trix's delicate nature. Trix and Dak both make a great couple, they play well off one another, they're sexy together and they're sweet together. Trix provides the softness while Daks provides the strength. I really enjoyed it.



My Rating:
4 Stars


Reviewed By: Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews
http://kkmalott.booklikes.com/


Note: I received a digital copy in exchange for an honest review from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1296097/the-good-the-bad-and-the-vampire

In the Company of Wolves by Paige Tyler

In the Company of Wolves (SWAT) - Paige Tyler

In the Company of Wolves (SWAT: SPECIAL WOLF ALPHA TEAM #3)by Paige Tyler

He opened his mouth to order her to drop the MP5 she had aimed at him, but nothing would come out. It was like she’d robbed him of the ability to speak. Shooting her wasn’t an option, though. And the idea of arresting her didn’t make him feel any better.
There's a new gang of criminals in town who are organized and ruthless in the extreme. When Eric Becker, along with the rest of the Dallas SWAT team, ends up in the middle of a shootout, he immediately senses werewolves-a lot of them. Turns out, the new bad guys are a pack of wolf shifters.
In a spray of gunfire, Becker comes face-to-face with the most gorgeous woman he's ever seen. Becker does the logical thing. He hides her and leaves the scene with the rest of his team.
Jayna Winston has no idea why that SWAT guy helped her, but she's glad he did. Ever since she and her pack mates got mixed up with those Eastern European mobsters, everything had pretty much fallen apart.
So what's a street-savvy thief like Jayna going to do with a hot alpha-male wolf who's a police officer?


My Review:
I totally need to add the print books of this series to my collection. It was heavy on the cheese but I like the whole Alpha/Beta dynamic and I really enjoyed the way Miss Tyler created the whole bonds and relationships between her cast mates. It was really great seeing how the shift in power works between them and how they handle new comers. Although there could have been more plot and development, In the Company of Wolves is a fun and fantastic read.


My Rating:
5 Stars


Reviewed By: Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews
http://kkmalott.booklikes.com/


Note: I received a digital copy in exchange for an honest review from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1296096/in-the-company-of-wolves-by-paige-tyler

Kay Hooper - Contemporary or Paranormal

Kay Hooper is one of those authors that has a mixed history in writing romance and mystery, thrillers and ... She's also dabbled in some fantasy/paranormal themes in her romance novels.

 

Kay Hooper has the underlining development potential for creating paranormal romance but it appears that in the books that she's brought in supernatural topics it just seems to be a side note and not really the soul of the story.

 

Kay Hooper's writing is so fantastic that she has the ability to be a really great paranormal romance author. She's created topics like reincarnation, witches, ghosts, agents with supernatural abilities and other themes in her books, and she's done it fabulously.

 

I would really like to see Kay Hooper fully embrace the paranormal romance realm because I know she's got the talent to do it.

 

 

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1296005/kay-hooper-contemporary-or-paranormal

Friday, November 27, 2015

Black Friday

Attention Black Friday shoppers I hope you're paying attention to all the FREE ebooks that are posted up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble right now!! I am in a one click frenzy!

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1295540/black-friday

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Daddy, Father of Lies by Janet Inglis

Review:

 

 

Daddy, Daddy's Girl, Darling (Book 1) Father of Lies (Book 2)


Note that Daddy, Daddy's Girl, and Darling are all the same book they're just reprints with new titles.

Father of Lies is sequel to Daddy which should actually be titled 'mother of lies' but I'll get to that.

 

Daddy is a really controversial book. You can run an entire English debate class on this book and its content.


There's a really sad thing about Lia because she's searching for validation and love and acceptance from the adults in her life when she's in a position where she's feeling abandoned, alone and lost in the mix of her parents divorce and Nick her mothers new lover is the only one who seems to see her.


You get the whole predator in my home thing going on because Em brings Nick into her house and is completely oblivious to the fact that Nick is honing in on her daughter and then there's Lia's father who Lia has to beg to take her in because of the intensity of her affair with Nick begins to overwhelm her and he only does it because the police bring her there and is guilted into it, and still doesn't seem to pick up on Lia's silent message that 'Hey I'm a victim and I'm afraid'


On the other hand Nick as horrible as it is, is the only one that's willing to give Lia the love and attention that she's searching for. Nick treat's Lia like an adult, forces her to face adult situations and decision, forces her to be accountable for her participation in their affair while he steps back and refuses to take accountability for it himself or what he's doing to Lia.


This adds to Lia's dynamic that she's really the only adult in the book.


Nick is getting to play mister sex with mom and daughter while he establishes a marriage with Em and eventually has a child with her, Lia's father Ross is busy getting married to one of his students and also having another child while Lia is left to fend for herself.


Lia even acknowledges this issue later in the book that her parents are able to go on having other relationships forgetting that she exists and new having kids with their new spouses, but are completely incapable of loving the children that they're going off having. Which means the only one the new generation has to love them is Lia because she knows shes the only one capable of love.


Unfortunately many of the questions that Inglis raises she leaves open to the readers interpretation.


Its totally sad that Lia is pulled into this fascination with Nick, she's fascinated that he's a man who notices her, shes fascinated by his chest hair and the fact that he spends a lot of time in her bed. She begins to fall in love (or so she thinks) with Nick and realizes this then debates her relationship with Nick and how he feels about her because she literally calls him on it. He can't love her mother if he's been screwing her all summer.

 

But she misunderstands the concept of love and its tainted by her allowance of their relationship because their relationship is all she has to base everything she knows on.
Its earth shattering because once Lia finds herself pregnant with Nicks child she's devastated by the fact that he talks her into getting an abortion.

 

By the second time she finds out that she's pregnant with his child its not by accident. She actually plans the second pregnancy because she feels like she's losing everything and has no one and wants someone to love so she chooses Nicks baby. The way she goes about getting pregnant really shows how much her relationship with Nick and her lacking relationship with her parents have warped her outlook on life and who she is as a person.


Which is where Father of Lies picks up.


Nick and Lia's daughter Georgie comes home to find the truth. Lia in an attempt to stop her from finding out goes back home after being estranged from her family for years because of an event in their past that involves Georgie and Nick.


Father of Lies is double depraved, double tragic and twice as horrific, and again Inglis leaves many questions unanswered for the readers to interpret on their own.


Father of Lies destroys all the previous emotions established in Daddy and it focuses a lot of attention of Nicks perversity and Lia's tolerance and acceptance of his depravity despite knowing how bad it is.Lia makes excuses, romanticizes it, even refuses to face it and deal with it. Just being near Nick flips Lia's switch and she's back to opening her legs for him while ignoring the fact that Nick has already screwed their daughter and she's screwing her brother.

 

It feels like Inglis attempts to redeem Nick by uncovering more of his childhood abuse we hear about in Daddy but she expands on it as if it excuses what Nick does to Georgie like oh poor him - "If he knew Lia would have came back he wouldn't have done what he'd done to Georgie." Lia is back to being Nick's toy and she's too busy scrambling to cover up the history and lies and secrets to even pay attention to what's really going on. Same as her parents did to her when she was a kid. 


Nick's explanation behind what happened to Georgie in the past does not redeem him. In fact it makes it that much worse. Its sickening. Its the same thing with Matty and Luke. They've been raised by these people who are completely incapable of normalcy and what follows is an exploration and practice in abuse, incest and manipulation. 

All along Lia has grown to be a mother of two, she's a PHD, she's married and spends all her time away from home following wolves - which ties in to her fixation on comparing humans to animals, monsters, beasts and gods in her previous book Daddy.


Inglis/Lia has a fixation on relating humans to animals and stripping away her characters humanity by making them animals practicing their animalistic natures which seem to be the authors way of excusing all her cast of their failings and accountability. Its like Inglis trying to say to the readers my characters aren't human, their animals and they're acting out instinctually and they're stripped of their humanity so that these base actions are excusable because they're no longer human.


What surprises me or rather doesn't surprise me because really its expected is how much Lia's past has really affected her as an adult and how she has become just as bad as Nick and allows it even though she knows whats happening even after Georgie is put into the hospital.


What happens after the open ending of Nick saying he will follow Lia and be a part of what she does, which hints that he's willing to be with her and finally take life seriously and Georgie leaving home and Lia because of her wanting to be with her brother is an  attempt at giving a happy family resolution in the insanity and sickness is completely unanswered and unresolved.


The abuse and the demented idea that this is or should be acceptable is perpetuated and continues on to the next generation.


I don't sympathize with any of the characters anymore. None of them are redeemable, none of them are worth saving.


I could go on but I'd be going on forever.


These books are intense and are very well written and I have respect for authors that are able to write such topics so well and are able to evoke such intense emotions from myself as a reader. I enjoyed the emotional read but I can't say if I liked or hated these books because both are equal parts right.

 

 

 

 

 

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1295184/daddy-father-of-lies-by-janet-inglis

Monday, November 23, 2015

A Perfect Party by Anna Sugden

Review:

Cover-APerfectPartyIce Cats defenseman, Taylor ‘Mad Dog’ Madden wants more than friendship from Lizzie Martin. Much more. So when a Christmas party provides the chance to kick their relationship up a gear, should he take it or will he lose her completely?

 

 

 

My Review:

A really sweet quicky romance for the NJIC

 

 

 

My Rating:
4 Stars


Reviewed By: Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews
http://kkmalott.booklikes.com/


Note: I received a digital copy in exchange for an honest review from the author

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1293770/a-perfect-party-by-anna-sugden

I find books in the strangest places...

I was Thanksgiving dinner shopping on Saturday for all the early stuff you can get before the shelves go bare for the last minute rushers and the fighters for early Christmas stuff begins.

 

I mozied along at a snails pace inside Bashas (which is a local grocery store for those of you that don't have them) in a section I rarely went to along a wall of the store that was assigned the organic gluten free foods section squeezed between the dairy wall and the produce area where I spotted the all too familiar nook.

Every store has one.Just a random nook inset into a long wall in a section where it doesn't belong.

 

Seriously. I have yet to find a store that doesn't have one. Most of the time you walk by them without even noticing it.

 

In these nooks you'll typically find an out of the way shelf littered with random items from the store marked with stickers for clearance pricing. Most of the time its vitamins they've over stocked, cookies past their due date, themed t-shirts and decor they tried to sell for the holidays no one bought, plants the store gives up trying to revive. Random.

So there I found myself standing in the nook when I spotted a stack of familiar items on the back of the bottom shelf. I'm sure you can guess.

 

Books.

 

All on clearance for a dollar.

 

It wasn't a large stack, just some scattered items that didn't make the final cut before new inventory took its place.

They were all hardbacks in great condition, no scuffs, bends, or markings of any kind. They all looked brand new even though they'd released awhile ago. I spotted a few that I wanted so I picked them up.

 

What's even better is that with the Basha's members card I got a discount on that mark down price. Double win.

 

The books I bought?

 

Walter Mosley: Stepping Stone/ Love Machine (two books in one)

 

Jim Butcher: Cold Days

 

Richelle Mead: Game Board of the Gods 

 

Christine Feehan: Dark Storm

 

 

The Original Cost?

 

Walter Mosley: Stepping Stone/ Love Machine $24.99 (original price)

 

Jim Butcher: Cold Days $27.95 (original price)

 

Richelle Mead: Game Board of the Gods $26.95 (original price) 

 

Christine Feehan: Dark Storm $26.95 (original price)

 

The final cost: $106.84

 

 

The Mark down?

 

Walter Mosley: Stepping Stone/ Love Machine $24.99  $1.00

 

Jim Butcher: Cold Days $27.95 $1.00

 

Richelle Mead: Game Board of the Gods $26.95  $1.00

 

Christine Feehan: Dark Storm $26.95  $1.00

 

Final Cost: $4.00

 

 

 

That's a huge savings! Not to mention the 20% member discount!

 

I practically got the books for free.

 

Its moments like that- that totally make my day.

 

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1293628/i-find-books-in-the-strangest-places

Book Tag: How I Read


Everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon so I'm doing it too. :)

 

 

 

 

How do you find out about new books to read?


I can't really list all the ways I find new or old books to read. How I find them period. I look for books online (not pirated) I read friends reviews, site reviews, follow authors I'm already a fan of, follow publishers.

When I'm out and about people call me a book hound because I always seem to sense or sniff out areas where books are hidden lol

I can be in a giant building and find the one small corner with a tiny stand of books on it. So much that its become a running joke with friends and family.

 

 

 

 

How did you get into reading?


I think I could read before I could speak. Ha


In all seriousness I don't really know when I got into it because I started reading so early in life. All I know is once I started I never stopped.

 

 

 

 

How have your tastes in books changed as you got older?

 

My tastes have never really changed because I've always been into such a wide spectrum of genres. Of course my tastes of matured as I've gotten older but every once in awhile I like to pick up one of the oldies from when I was a kid and get nostalgic, and sometimes I'll get into a phase where I want to read more Non-Fiction than Fiction or read more Sci-Fi than Romance or more Poetry than Erotica but they never really change.

 

 

 

 

How often do you buy books?

 

HA. Sometimes every day, several times a day, every week, several times a week... I'm always buying books.

 

 

 

 

How did you get into reviewing books?

 

I wrote a letter to an author several years ago thanking her for creating a book that had become a favorite of mine because that book had really become an inspiration to me and my life. It was what I referred to as my security blanket. Her book got me through a lot of hard times. She wrote me a letter in reply and sent me a few other of her works thanking me for the letter. She mentioned posting a review for the books she sent and that's what got me started.

 

 

 

 

 

How do you react when you don’t like the end of a book?

 

Depends on how I feel about the author, their work, how familiar I am with it and whether I care. Sometimes its a pillow tearing fury other times its a simple eye roll, worst case scenario I dump the author.

 

 

 

 

How often do you take a sneak peek at the ending to see if there is a happy ending?


I've been guilty of checking the end with books I am unfamiliar with. I've only done it a few times but I wanted to see if it was worth investing in because I didn't want to be disappointed. I didn't skip far enough to have the ending ruined for me just enough to see if the investment was worth it.

 

 

 

 

Do you use bookmarks in your books?

 

Yes I do. Dog ears drive me bonkers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tag your it! Its your turn to pass it on!

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1293593/book-tag-how-i-read

I watch the world

Its funny those moments that make me sit back and realize how far technology has come just in my short life time. How much its changed from me shoving large floppy discs into huge desk top computers for short changed educational purposes as a kid to flipping on the tv years later and being able to open an app that gives you access to things you would never think of.

 

My Tv as I've discovered has many apps on it. One of the apps that catches my attention the most is a program that views locations all around the world on live video cameras called Earth Cam TV. The app streams places all around the world twenty four hours a day.

High definition video and sound are played while cameras over look mountains, beaches, towns, cities, resorts,  neighborhoods, parks,  town squares, forests, and national parks - and more.

 

One minute you're watching a beach in South Carolina the next you're at a Ski resort in Finland, the next you're viewing the red square in Russia or Myrtle Beach in California, and many other various locations around the world.

 

You watch people walking through towns in Wyoming, on boardwalks, surfing the beach in Hawaii or driving across the street, you watch people sitting on park benches in small towns, laying in the sand at vacation spots, sitting down for a beer in front of a pub in Ireland.

 

You can listen to people chatter and laugh, you listen to ocean waves crash and wind blow, hear the sounds of towns and cities everywhere.

 

Its oddly entrancing being transported in seconds all over the globe in a matter of minutes to places I'd never get to in my life time but then there's also that odd realization that I feel like a like a creeper. 

 

For example one of the locations had a boardwalk over looking a beach and a couple came into the camera view to enjoy the scenery. The male paused to kiss his female partner and here I am watching this unsuspecting couple go about their day without them knowing about it.

 

It felt like I was violating their privacy. This intimate moment between two people.

I felt guilty.

 

There are different times when the camera is placed in different areas. Sometimes the camera is up on high sky scrapers, or mountain tops, other cameras are directly in the center of a shopping spot or a neighborhood or a street corner.

Other cameras show the feeds and you get close ups of people coming and going, some so close you can hear people talking to eachother, talking on their cell phones, hear all the sounds that surround them every day and no one has a clue.

 

It made me wonder. I go about my day, I travel around my city, I walk down the street and I never really stopped to consider just who is watching or listening to me?

 

Would you want such a thing in your area? How would you feel if it was your street corner being recorded?

 

You can check out the Earth Cam App online here.

 

 

Original post: kkmalott.booklikes.com/post/1293565/i-watch-the-world

Life's Too Frantic

So I haven't been around to blog since late November early December, I hope you all are doing well. I am keeping busy wi...