I totally forgot to mention my review of “Wolf Town” by Joely Skye. It has been up at Three Dollar Bill Reviews for quite a few days now. Please go and check it out.
Blurb:
For ages women have come together over coffee, cocktails, or late-night phone chats to analyze the puzzling behavior of men. He’s afraid to get hurt again. Maybe he doesn’t want to ruin the friendship. Maybe he’s intimidated by me. He just got out of a relationship.
Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo are here to say that — despite good intentions — you’re wasting your time. Men are not complicated, although they’d like you to think they are. And there are no mixed messages.
The truth may be He’s just not that into you.
Unfortunately guys are too terrified to ever directly tell a woman, "You’re not the one." But their actions absolutely show how they feel.
He’s Just Not That Into You — based on a popular episode of Sex and the City — educates otherwise smart women on how to tell when a guy just doesn’t like them enough, so they can stop wasting time making excuses for a dead-end relationship.
Reexamining familiar scenarios and classic mindsets that keep us in unsatisfying relationships, Behrendt and Tuccillo’s wise and wry understanding of the sexes spares women hours of waiting by the phone, obsessing over the details with sympathetic girlfriends, and hoping his mixed messages really mean "I’m in love with you and want to be with you."
He’s Just Not That Into You is provocative, hilarious, and, above all, intoxicatingly liberating. It deserves a place on every woman’s night table. It knows you’re a beautiful, smart, funny woman who deserves better. The next time you feel the need to start "figuring him out," consider the glorious thought that maybe He’s just not that into you. And then set yourself loose to go find the one who is.
My thoughts:
This is the first book I read for my “relationships topic” for the One, Two, Theme Challenge. I don’t know exactly what I expected other than an entertaining read, but I was disappointed. Yes, it was an entertaining read, but other than that reading it is as enlightening as reading no book about relationships at all.
The book takes various situations, e.g. he doesn’t call when he said he would, he puts you down in front of others, he doesn’t want to marry you…., and evaluates them. The result of that evaluation is invariably the same, “he’s just not that into you”. Greg Behrendt’s world is black and white. If the man doesn’t do what he said he would and/or doesn’t do what you expect him to, dump the loser!
He doesn’t call on Monday, like he said, but on Tuesday? What a jerk! Dump him! He doesn’t want to marry you even though he knows how important it is for you to get married? You know now what to do.
Admittedly, there are some situations where the dumping is appropriate, but in others a readiness for compromise would help a bit. Also, your own feelings towards the jerk seem of no importance. You might be crazily in love with the guy who’s just not that into you. Doesn’t matter, get rid of him anyway.
The basic statement of the book “Better to be alone than to be with someone that makes you unhappy” might be sane and sound, but I am not sure that 100% of the women out there would agree with that. Liz Tuccillo, the co-writer of this book and the girl voice likes Greg’s wisdom and lives by it. Strangely enough, even though he assures the female reader continuously that she is a. hot stuff (how he knows this is beyond me, not all of us are hot stuff) and b. a better man is somewhere out there waiting for her, Liz is still single at 40 something and looking.
I’m ambivalent about this. Some advice is good, makes sense and should be followed, but that is advice that your mother would give you, too. The writing style is entertaining and every woman recognizes herself in the stories. However, a few more shades of grey would have done a great deal to make this book more helpful all in all.
| Title | He’s just not that into you |
| Author | Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
| ISBN | 978-1416948674 |
| Buy link | Buy He’s Just Not That Into You |
Blurb:
Nineteen-year-old Dylan Shaw is possibly the most beautiful thing Malic Sunden has ever seen. After Malic rescues Dylan from an attack, Dylan makes it very clear that he is more than interested, but Malic won’t even consider sleeping with Dylan because of his age. Malic is sure he’s not good enough for Dylan, who has his whole life ahead of him, and can’t conceive of burdening Dylan with his secrets.
But the darkness in Malic’s life won’t be denied, and soon Dylan is drawn into the dangerous paranormal world that is Malic’s reality. Malic fights tooth and nail to push Dylan away, to keep him safe… no matter that Dylan is the key to Malic’s strength and the only hope for his future.
My thoughts:
This is book two in the Warder series and we already know Malic from the first book His hearth. There he is introduced as a loner with a tense relationship with Ryan. He seems to be the only warder left without a hearth, so now it is his turn.
I found the story was quite different from the first one. Where the first one solely focuses on the relationship between Ryan and Julian, here Malic is constantly out fighting and, as a consequence, getting into one trouble or other from which his friends have to rescue him. That Dylan is always there somehow and won’t be driven away is somewhat a side product. Malic wants him, but then again doesn’t, and can’t make up his mind what to do with him. I found this a bit over the top. For a notorious bad boy he was decidedly too good (aren’t they often?) and just couldn’t bring himself to get together with Dylan for fear of hurting him. I kept thinking, for Christ’s sake, now, go already!
Other than that it was an interesting sequel as it gave more insight into the world, how the guys fight, what other creatures are out there etc. And Malic is quite delicious, which is always a good thing.
I am wondering, however, whether there will be another instalment. Two books is not very much, considering it is called a series, but it seems all the boys are taken, so who is left? Unless, maybe, more and other beings come into play. We will see, I suppose.
| Title | Tooth and Nail |
| Author | Mary Calmes |
| Publisher | Dreamspinner Press |
| ISBN | 978-1-61581-692-7 |
| Buy link | Buy Tooth and Nail |
Blurb:
Julian Nash should be excited: he’s just earned a huge promotion at work and is going out to celebrate. But his happiness fades when he discovers his date cheating on him an hour before. Suddenly alone when everyone knows he’s supposed to have a plus one, Julian is set for a long night until longtime acquaintance Ryan Dean bails him out of the embarrassing situation. During dinner, they discover they have more than just friendship between them: there is mutual admiration and heated attraction. But getting to know Ryan better—and finding a place in his life—will bring Julian frightening surprises and paranormal danger he never expected or dreamed existed.
My thoughts:
I had somehow missed the “paranormal danger” part when reading the blurb. So after about one third of the book I was wondering what the rest of it will contain. There didn’t seem to be any problems to overcome between Ryan and Julian, there was great chemistry, no misunderstandings etc. etc. So I had another look at the blurb and noticed there must be something else waiting.
So, basically the first half of the story is a romance without anything extraordinary to happen. However, all of a sudden, a rather upsetting encounter takes place in Julian’s kitchen that changes the scenario quite a bit. He and Ryan go from run of the mill contemporary couple to rather intense and different.
There is not much of a side plot apart from the romance. It is rather short and a quick read. I enjoyed reading it very much and am already in the middle of the second instalment of the “Warder Series”, “Tooth and Nail”.
| Title | His hearth |
| Author | Mary Calmes |
| Publisher | Dreamspinner Press |
| ISBN | 978-1-61581-572-2 |
| Buy link | Buy His hearth |
Blurb:
Ben might be young and only recently out, but he knows what he wants, and the hot blond on the dance floor definitely fits the bill. The last thing he expects is to discover that he’s not only met Aaron before, but that he likes the guy as well. That’s something he’s never encountered before.
Aaron’s no player, but when the universe throws a tall, built slab of gorgeous beefcake in his path, Aaron knows better than to question his luck. Ben unexpectedly turns out to be smart, funny, and a really good fit, which is definitely a bonus. Ben might be young, but he’s mature enough to keep Aaron interested, and happy.
They both have pasts and regrets, but everyone does. They’re determined to work through their issues, though, and just when they’ve started to move on together, life happens, throwing complications in their path. Can their fledgling relationship survive when everything changes?
My thoughts:
I liked the prequel “Life or something scary like that”, so I was quite looking forward to reading this one. It is not a real sequel, since the main character was a side character in the previous book, but Cliff and Jack still are quite prominent here.
Unfortunately I was not too thrilled with this one. The reason is that a main plot element is a problem with Ben’s little sister and the struggle to get her out of the trouble she got herself into. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, but, like I already must have said ten times on this blog, I just dislike issues with “children” that the main characters have to solve for them. Whether it is a sixteen year old sister or a 10 year old son makes no difference to me. I just don’t like children or teenagers in stories, period. So the second half of the story was wasted on me.
Also, the revelation that Jack came out with towards the end of the book was so out of place – time wise and topic wise – that I started to thoroughly dislike him. It is a bit difficult to comment on it without giving away what Jack said, but he really should have kept his mouth shut. The fact that Cliff, his partner, came up with an explanation for it and that he was ok with it was even more surprising. Had I been Cliff I wouldn’t have been too pleased.
I liked the main characters, the way they got together and how they overcame all the problems arising. However, how the issue with Teeny, Ben’s little sister, came to a satisfactory ending, was a bit rushed. Somehow their mother, who was made out to be very strict, conservative, homophobe and what not, somehow turned out to be not so bad after all. I would have expected more drama towards the end.
The character I definitely liked best was Aaron’s mother. She surprised me with her actions and her attitude. The way she took Teeny under her wing was very nice and comforting. With a woman like that giving her advice I am sure Teeny will be fine.
Due to the turn the plot took in the middle of the book, this story was just not for me. If you don’t mind situations like the one I mentioned, you will probably like it, though.
| Title | Life changes everything |
| Author | TC Blue |
| Publisher | Torquere Books |
| ISBN | 978-1-61040-100-5 |
| Buy link | Buy Life changes everything |
Blurb:
When Jack Cutler’s roommate Paul ditches him to move in with his pregnant girlfriend, Melissa, he recommends someone else to take his place: Melissa’s brother, Cliff. Cliff is young and hot, but Jack is sure that Cliff is straight. And even once Jack learns the truth, he knows he’s not right for Cliff. Cliff wants the real thing, commitment, and Jack’s not heading down that path again. When jealousy flares once Cliff starts dating someone, Jack must re-evaluate his position on long-term relationships and whether he wants to risk one with Cliff.
When Cliff gets sick, the shaky foundation of Jack and Cliff’s relationship is tested. Even so, sometimes true love really does conquer all, for the moment, anyway.
My thoughts:
I know that I can usually count on TC Blue. She is one of my favourite writers and once more she did not disappoint me.
I liked the plot very much and it worked well for me. I had a few little misgivings, but I will come to them in a minute. If it had been another author I wouldn’t have liked the constant meddling of people to get Jack and Cliff together, but somehow I didn’t mind it here at all. Especially Ben was a real sweetheart. I don’t think I have read a story so far where the two characters took so long to finally get together (with the exception of “Take my picture” maybe, but that one is a totally different case).
God, the way those two were attracted to each other and never got it. On the one hand I wanted to smack them, on the other I hoped it would take a while still. TC pulled that off really nicely.
She even came up with a plausible (if rather hoorifying) explanation for Jacks reluctance to start another serious relationship. It just worked all out.
What I was not too enthusiastic about is the fact that Melissa and Paul left Jack in the dark as to Cliff’s orientation. THAT made no sense at all. It was one of the reasons why Jack did not approach Cliff, but since Melissa counted on their getting together, why not tell Jack right away. It took him ages to figure it out, it was painful to read. I’m not kidding.
Also Cliff and Jack very often misunderstood each other simply because they never said exactly what they meant. A pet peeve of mine. However, they always realized their own stupidity right in the next paragraph, that reconciled me a bit. I will never understand the need for misunderstandings in romance. Life is already hard enough without them.
Apart from those tiny things that I could live with, I very much enjoyed this. Especially if you like TC Blue’s writing style this is a must read. The sequel “Life changes everything” is already waiting for me to be read. It is Ben’s story and I am sure it will be just as good.
| Title | Life or something scary like that |
| Author | TC Blue |
| Publisher | Torquere Books |
| ISBN | 978-1-60370-323-9 |
| Buy link | Buy Life or something scary like that |
Blurb:
In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to sentence herself to the horror of "rehabilitation"- the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was….
Both human and animal, Lucas Hunter is a Changeling hungry for the very sensations the Psy disdain. After centuries of uneasy co-existence, these two races are now on the verge of war over the brutal murders of several Changeling women. Lucas is determined to find the Psy killer who butchered his packmate, and Sascha is his ticket into their closely guarded society. But he soon discovers that this ice-cold Psy is very capable of passion-and that the animal in him is fascinated by her. Caught between their conflicting worlds, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities-or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation…
My thoughts:
So I finally jumped on the bandwagon and read Slave to Sensation. I have been very curious about this book, but always found the title quite unappealing. But I have read so much praise for it that I finally got it on my swap site and went for it.
Don’t let the title mislead you. Sascha is by no means a “slave to sensation”. She is an interesting character, since she has never known emotion and yet her ability is worth nothing without it. However, she is still her own person and does what she thinks is right. She is not ruled by her desire for sensation.
I was very impressed with the world building. The world of the Psy was well developed and explained and a good contrast to the world of the changelings. I always had a liking for unemotional characters and I loved the Psy and their ordered, tidy world. I also liked their counterparts, the changelings with their emotions flaring up and their structures where family or pack is everything.
Sascha and Lucas meet for business and how it went from there was nicely done. To me everything that happened made sense, the side characters were introduced well, not overwhelming the plot but enough to make me want to find out more about them, especially Dorian and Hawke.
With the ending and the solution to the problem that occupied Sascha for a long time – a solution, by the way, that made sense and was not something far fetched – Nalini Singh has opened a lot of possibilities for other stories between Psy and changelings. I can’t wait to read them.
| Title | Slave to Sensation |
| Author | Nalini Singh |
| Publisher | Berkley |
| ISBN | 978-0425212868 |
| Buy link | Buy Slave to Sensation  |
Blurb:
Texas Frontier, 1826
Kit Barclay followed her husband into the wilds of Texas only to be widowed. Stranded with her mother- and sister-in-law to care for, with no hope of rescue before winter sets in, Kit has only one goal: survival. So when a lone horseman appears on the horizon, and then falls from his mount in fever, Kit must weigh the safety of her family against offering aid and shelter to the handsome stranger.
Trace Watson has lost everything that ever mattered to him. Trying to forget, he heads to the frontier colony of San Felipe, not caring if he lives or dies. But when he wakes to discover he’s being nursed back to health by a brave young widow, he vows to repay her kindness by guiding the three women back to civilization, no matter what the cost.
Soon, Kit and Trace are fighting the elements, Indian attacks and outlaws-as well as feelings they both thought were long buried…
My thoughts:
This is another story that I am not quite sure about. There were several points that I was not happy about.
I liked Kit’s character. She was down-to-earth, in control and hard working. Trace came over as just the right kind of man for her. Their situation was tricky and by working together they managed to get to safety. That was all good.
If there hadn’t been, for example
- Kit’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Those two got on my nerves. They might have been used to better living conditions, but so was Kit. So I don’t really see any reason why they let her do all the work and give her a hard time on top of it. When they prepare to leave the fort and plan what to take with them her mother-in-law wants to take her French china, for crying out loud! What’s wrong with the woman? Talk about priorities.
- John, Kit’s deceased husband. He takes his wife and his two female family members with him to Texas, even though they are used to living in New Orleans. Then he leaves them alone again back at the fort and dies when out on some mission. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to leave his family at home for the time being?
- Then the commanding officer of the fort who leaves them alone with two soldiers and a cow. No wonder, Trace ends up in jail for attacking him.
- Kit’s and Trace’s sudden problem talking to each other once they got to the settlement. All the time before they were perfectly good together and talked about everything.
- The author’s obvious feeling that a separation was in order and what better way to achieve it than by resurrecting the supposed dead husband? I didn’t feel very charitable towards him, but at least it was good to see that the poor chap did not desert his wife on purpose but couldn’t help it. But now that he was back the next problem arises. How would Kit and Trace reunite? Easy! Husband obligingly dies after a couple of months. This time for good.
- Kit’s and Trace’s communication problems once more. What’s wrong with the man? He is not the first person who has to deal with loss and he won’t be the last. Why does he want to suppress his feelings like that? I wanted to throttle him.
So once more I’m very ambivalent about the story. For fans of Western historical romance this is definitely worth a read. If you don’t like meddlesome relatives and sudden misunderstanding out of the blue, you might want to give this a miss.
| Title | Sunrise over Texas |
| Author | M. J. Fredrick |
| Publisher | Carina Press |
| ISBN | 9781426890543 |
| Buy link | Buy Sunrise over Texas |
Blurb:
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf–her wolf–is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.
Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human–or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.
My thoughts:
Even though I am not into YA in general I read Shiver along with Carin because I have heard a lot of good things about it. I like the "lovers who can’t stay together due to circumstances" topic, so I was not disappointed with the general idea of the story.
Grace and Sam have been in love for what seems like forever, even though they didn’t know each other in person. Very romantic. I liked the uncomplicated plot without many twists and turns which made for a quick and pleasant read, I suppose this is quite typical of a YA story where there are not obstacles at every corner (and given the situation there could have been A LOT of them).
I already said in my update #1 of the readalong that I didn’t get the Fahrenheit degrees at all, which supposedly took some of the building tension away. In retrospect I am pretty sure knowing my way around Fahrenheit wouldn’t have made a big difference. OK, it got colder and change was coming closer – I got that without the exact temperature info, especially since the indicators of when Sam would change were more than unreliable anyway.
It seemed the wolves changed at random, yes, based on the seasons, but nobody knew exactly when they would change, when they would change back, when they would stay a wolf for good etc. I found this quite confusing. It wasn’t as if with the temperature reaching a certain point the change would invariably happen, so I am not sure what the temperature was supposed to tell us exactly.
The fact that Grace’s parents were totally oblivious to the fact that Sam was practically living in their house was strange to say the least. OK, they left Grace pretty much to her own devices but how can parents be so clueless and uninterested? This could have been one source of conflict that was not fully explored here. Grace deals with it in her head, but never confronts her parents.
I have heard from someone that a few people have complained about Grace having no backbone. I really have no idea where those people are coming from. I liked her. She was matter-of-fact, independent, reliable and quite practical when it came to helping Sam out in tricky situations or when she was with Jack and had to think of a way to get help for herself.
Another thing I had also read somewhere before was that Sam was constantly writing song lyrics reflecting his emotions. That sounded rather interesting, but somehow I didn’t particularly care for them. The choice of poetry that Sam read to Grace was equally unsatisfactory to me. I love poetry but Rainer Maria Rilke wouldn’t have been my first choice if I wanted to introduce someone to either poetry or German.
One side character I particularly liked was Isabel, Jack’s sister. Even though at first she is the condescending, rich and spoilt girl with her little dog in her purse, she later turns out to be helpful and sincere. Her snappy way and bitchy attitude could not hide the fact that she is a good person after all. From what I read she will be also a major character in "Linger", the sequel to "Shiver", and I am really looking forward to reading more about her.
I’m not sure whether I liked the ending. First of all, the whole cure theory and the execution of administering it was more than dubious. Was it realistic how Isabel got the blood? Was it realistic how they got them all to the hospital and out again? That all sounded very half-baked and it was happening too fast.
The re-unification of Grace and Sam was, well, nice, but I was missing some sort of explanation as to what happened to him after he ran away. Grace assumed he was dead, and then, all of a sudden, he returns and that’s it? That was anticlimatic. I can only hope that "Linger" will pick up exactly at this point and will deliver what I have been missing.
| Title | Shiver |
| Author | Maggie Stiefvater |
| Publisher | Scholastic |
| ISBN | 978-0545123273 |
| Buy link | Buy Shiver  |
Want to read what others think about this book?
Read Carin’s review of Shiver. Her thoughts went along a totally different line.
Here is Leeswammes review of it.
And this is what Iris has to say about it.
Blurb:
Kissing him is better than nothing.
Young widow Vanessa Bingham is ready to stop mourning. She misses the intimacy and tenderness of a man’s touch. It’s obvious her old friend Derek Lane wants her, so why does her first attempt at seduction cause him to flee?
Kissing her is a dream come true.
Derek has been in love with Vanessa forever. His feelings have kept him from having a serious relationship-or a casual one-with any other woman. So when she finally turns to him, he doesn’t want to settle for being friends with benefits.
But Vanessa is a hard woman to resist for long…
Someone doesn’t want them kissing at all.
Just as things with Derek begin heating up, disturbing photos start to arrive at Vanessa’s door. Someone is watching her every move: someone she may know. Terrified by the stalker’s very real threats, Vanessa soon realizes that Derek may be just the hero she needs after all.
My thoughts:
This sounds like your run of the mill “budding love vs. creepy stalker” story. It was quite nice though. If more so called boring guys were like Derek, they would be in much more demand.
Derek is thoughtful, considerate, a DIY wizard, strong, smart, reliable, has a face like a model and the body of a god. Anything else? Vanessa knows what she wants and has no problem with saying it, too.
Very soon, however, it is obvious that Derek has some issues, because he doesn’t want to give Vanessa what she craves. Not a big surprise here. The reader already knows where he is coming from way before Vanessa does, which made her look a bit slow in my eyes.
The stalker problem is another thing. First of all, it is more than obvious who the stalker is. You don’t have to be an experienced mystery reader to figure that one out. Vanessa, however, is oblivious. Fair enough. What I didn’t understand was how she and Derek could be so nonchalant about the threat coming from the stalker. Derek frequently leaves her alone at her house even though it is by no means certain she is safe there. If I had a crazy stalker watching me 24/7 AND if I was mad about Derek, I’d take every opportunity I could get to sleep over at Derek’s house, especially since he was offering. That didn’t make any sense to me.
Anyway, Derek’s little problem solved, the stalker under lock and key, everybody is happy and we end up with a proposal. I could have done without that, but I suppose, given Derek’s nature, Vanessa had it coming. Unless it is a historical where a wedding seems to be a sine qua non, a proposal or wedding always adds a bit too much sugar for my taste. But that is me.
| Title | Her kind of hero |
| Author | Kathleen Dienne |
| Publisher | Carina Press |
| ISBN | 9781426890789 |
| Buy link | Her kind of hero will be available on 11/22 at the Carina Press website |
