Updates

February Recap 2015

2015 02-15 King of the SnowAnother month gone. I know they say the years go by faster the older you get, but this is getting ridiculous. Maybe I was just too busy, or maybe I just don’t have a grasp on time with so much snow covering everything, but 2015 is 1/6th of the way over and I’ve no idea what happened.

February was a rough month personally and professionally. It’s never a good sign when one aspect of your life drains into the other aspect in negative ways, and I honestly couldn’t tell you which bled into which more, but either way it was just a gross month. But that being said I did have an excellent last weekend of the month when I went skiing with my sister and a bunch of friends for a belated birthday and Christmas present! (See photos below.) The photo directly above is of me in South Boston standing on a snow bank. I could touch the One Way sign and was taller than the street light. Thankfully, snow is starting to melt, but we’re LESS THAN TWO INCHES from the all time record (107.9) and I can’t help but think, “Bring it on!”

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 335: A Gronking To Remember- Lacey Noonan

There are no words for how bad this book is. Goodreads should allow a 0 star rating. Leaving it unrated is not enough, I want to acknowledge that I read it and gave it 0 out of 5 stars. I am glad a friend purchased this for all of us to enjoy, but as I say at the end of the post the ONLY way I would recommend it is if you can get it for free and to read it as an example of what not to do in any sort of writing situation.

From the premise to the writing there is little, if anything, redeeming about the book.* I knew going into it that it would have no literary merit, but I hoped it would be written well and if not at least contain decent erotica. It was not and it did not. And this has nothing to do with the lack of gay subject matter, because that already exists.

Click here to continue reading.

ARC, Books

Book 281: Poster Boy (Theta Alpha Gamma #5) – Anne Tenino

I think this is by far my favorite of the Theta Alpha Gamma series by Anne Tenino and it’s definitely one of the best written of the series. I of course requested a copy from the publisher, Riptide Publishing as soon as I found out there was a new release in the series. It didn’t hurt that the cover had the cutest of all the guys in the series so far. Prepare yourself, a Goodreads observation/rant is about to follow, if you want to just read about the book and not my thoughts on female M/M romance writers and readers skip the next two paragraphs.

When I put in my star rating on Goodreads, I noticed that the overwhelming majority of the first page were female readers. I decided to look at the first 100, but there were only 60 written reviews, which I ignored for their general idiocy, and of those 52 of them were female. This really isn’t that shocking, as I’ve mentioned it before and I remember reading about it while studying for my Gender Studies degree, but I’m starting to find it really interesting which ones I like and which ones the female readers like. It’s almost always opposite and I’m not sure what that says about me, the females or about the writer.

Click here to continue reading.

ARC, Books

Book 275: Love Comes Home (Senses #3) – Andrew Grey

Welcome to my first ever participatory post in a blog tour 😀 I wasn’t really sure what that entailed, but once I found out it wasn’t far outside of my normal posts (with the addition of a few links at the bottom), I figured why not!

I requested a copy of this novel from the Dreamspinner Press and within the first 50 pages I knew I wanted to find out more about Andrew Grey. When I looked into him, I found out this was the third in the series! I immediately reached out to his publicist to see if I could get access to the first two and they kindly obliged. Last week you will, hopefully, have seen my reviews of Love Comes Silently and Love Comes in Darkness and I am glad to say Love Comes Home did NOT disappoint. I will say, as usual, take my review, and all of the others on Goodreads with a grain of salt. I unfortunately made the mistake of checking a few out and got frustrated as usual. This is my honest opinion and I received no compensation for it.

Click here to continue reading.

ARC, Books

Book 265: It’s All Geek to Me – J. L. Merrow

Merrow, J. L. - It's All Geek To MeWhat a quick fun read! I thoroughly enjoyed this book and if Merrow were to expand this story into a longer novel, or even a series of short stories, I would definitely check it out. I received a copy of It’s All Geek to Me from the publisher, Riptide Publishing and received nothing in return for my honest opinion.

From the adorkable premise of the comic book store to the “aww” worthy ending, I couldn’t help but smile through this quick novella. I of course loved the two main characters, the gorgeously described Welshman Rhys and the adorably emotionally fragile protagonist Jez. Merrow did a great job building the tension between the Rhys and Jez and adding in a (not completely) unexpected turn. I wasn’t quite sure what the hidden secret was but I was so worried it was going to be something completely different and the actual reason was so adorable and their reactions were so adorable that I couldn’t help but smile.

Click here to continue reading.