Bookmail & Wrap Up

Sorry about the delay.  I've been having a few issues with the new Mojave OS ever since I updated my software from Yosemite.  It's been slow, and sluggish, and yesterday I couldn't force quit a program that was preventing me from shutting down the computer, so I had to pull the plug - oops, power outage.

Today I think I've gotten some of the kinks ironed out, but it's still so frustrating to feel like you're being held hostage by your iMac.  Finger's crossed I can actually shut down properly today.

Anyway, last week was quite a good week for me.  Two of the books I've been wanting to read - to see if I want to continue on with the series - were actually at my library.  I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but trust me, in a small regional country town, having any of my paranormal romance or urban fantasy series on the shelves is major.

I'm still on the fence in regards to Torpedo Ink.  I enjoy the overall story, but the messed up lives, the abuse, and the extremely graphic nature of these books is starting to get to me.  It's like the Anita Blake books all over again.  If you have any thoughts on the matter, let me know in the comments.  I'd seriously love to discuss this with anyone who is having problems with the direction the series is going in.

Thanks for taking the time to watch my videos, I hope to get more up soon.  And until I see you next time,

 

Bookmail, Funko's and a New Camera!

OMG!  I can't believe I actually spent so much 😵

Yes, I am now coming to you with the Canon EOS 200D, and I am beyond excited about finally owning a DSLR.  I've been wanting one for years, but could never justify the expense (soooo expensive in Australia!), however when my old trusty Nikon Coolpix started to fail I decided I needed to invest in a quality camera that was versatile and would allow me to use it for various projects.

Do I love it?  YES!  Am I freaked out by spending so much? YEEESSS!

Anyhoo, it will take me a little while to get myself sorted out with a filming setup, so don't worry if a few video's look funky, I'm working on it.

Thanks for watching, and until I see you next time

 

Winter reading has cometh

A chilly Phrynekinns curious about the water on the INSIDE of the window!

Yes, my lovelies, Winter has certainly made itself known.  But in case I was in doubt the negative temperatures, freezing winds and excruciatingly blue skies were a bit of a clue.  On the plus side this has meant more time spent indoors - to escape the cold - snuggled up somewhere reading a book {at them moment I'm rereading the Guild Hunter series}.

In the past 4 weeks I have purchased a few items from Book Depository, but in small lots - none of those huge splurges I made last year, fun as they were.

Recently I bought two more titles from Susanna Kearsley's bibliography, The Shadowy Horses and Mariana.  Enjoyed both thoroughly.  While not action packed and full of adventure, they are a slow steady romance that always seems to comprise of a time travelling element.  Still quick to read as I need to know what happened, but not as exciting as my Urban Fantasy books.

Also added two new (to me) authors to my shelves.  Alice Thompson's The Book Collector, which sounds amazing, yet is rather on the shorter side, and Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers.  I have already started this Lord Peter Wimsey mystery as Sayers was a contemporary of Agatha Christies, whose Miss Marple books I'm reading this year.  Only a fraction of the way through this tiny book, but I'm cerainly getting my dose of snooty entitled upper-class attitudes with this little number.

Bought one pre-order this month, Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan.  Although I enjoy the way her books are written, they are all starting to sound the same - same alpha male, same in distress female... I don't know whether or not I will continue with this new series.  I'd like to read something different from her after all these years of same ol' same ol'.

Book Depository was full of good deals for me this month.  Found a heavily discounted edition of Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs.  I love the Mercy Thompson world.  The books are amazing, and full of the mystery, humor and romantic moments that I love.  However, this anthology of short stories was a little disappointing in that it only included one story from Mercy!  Yes, just the one - and it was tiny.  However, it is nice to have all the short stories from the associated series all in one bind up, so there's that at least.

Have been trying to stay away from the book section of Big W lately, but when you go through the checkout you have to pass a bin of bargain books.  So, while I was waiting in line, I caved and just started looking through it.  And, of course I spied a name I recognised.  Sarah Pinborough.  Luckily the title they had, Mayhem, looks to be the first in this series, trilogy?, and it sounded amazing, so for the princely sum of $5 it came home with me.

Oh, I did happen to win a book as well!  Yes, I seem to have had a little bit of luck with IG giveaways from Allen & Unwin ;-D This is only an ARC copy of The House Between Tides, and it's now on the shelves at my local Big W, but it looks, and sounds, so interesting that it's jumped up my TBR list and I'm hoping to get to it sometime this winter.

And finally, I picked up The Fireman by Joe Hill from Big W about two weeks ago.  This massive chunker of a book clocks in at 752 pages and has to be at least 2 inches thick!  A monster to be sure, but I am looking forward to reading it at some point in the future.

Which leads me onto my biggest disappointment on the book front.  It concerns the condition my AbeBook's items arrived in.  The first two to arrive, The Stand and Misery, were in fairly good condition, some tears to the cover, and yellowing pages.   However, I'd ordered the 'very good' condition copies so while I was annoyed, it was okay.

Then arrived Bag of Bones and Carrie.  This was the book that started me on the quest to get the six editions of the King Classics that Hodder released in these interesting covers.   Ah, Carrie... you weren't in 'very good' condition, and you reeked of cigarette smoke to boot!  Seriously, my whole unit smelled of disgusting smoke for days - and nothing I tried seemed to take the pong out of it.  Finally had to leave it outside for about 48 hours (sunny days and freezing nights!) but at least the smell came down to a barely detectable level.  Still not impressed as I am allergic to the smoke, so I had itchy eyes, scratchy throat and a stuffed up snoot.

So, that's what's been happening in my neck of the woods on the bookish front.  Making a new Book Depository order in the next few day - have my eyes on so many new stories.

Until next time,

Book Review || Fire Bound

Fire Bound

A Sea Haven Novel #5

Christine Feehan

Published: 26 April, 2016

JOVE, mass market pbk, 367p.

ISBN: 978-0-515-15611-9

She possesses the power to inflame the most dangerous desire of all

Flame-haired Lissa Piner is a skilled glassblower whose delicate gift conceals a burning inner strength that can destroy as exquisitely as it can create.  Commissioned to design chandeliers for a string of luxury hotels, her remarkable skills have taken her to Italy.  But Lissa's real mission there is a secret.  For her entire life has been a lie, leading to a chance to avenge a terrible wrong.

Enlisted as her bodyguard is Casimir Prakenskii, a trained assassin living off the grid.  In Lissa, he sees a kindred spirit - something unexpected and wicked, mysterious and sensual.  But something more than desire is about to bring them together, because both of their pasts cry out for revenge.  And for two people with this many secrets, this much passion and this many enemies, someone is bound to get burned.

Well, we've almost reached the end of this series.  Fire Bound is the second last book in the Sea Haven novels that follow the Prakenskii brothers (Lev, Stefan, Maxim, Gavriil, Casimir and Viktor).  I have been eagerly awaiting each brothers story since finding out about Ilya's past in Turbulent Sea, but as the series has progressed I've been finding myself oddly disappointed with most of the books in the Sea Haven series, and Fire Bound was no different.

Now don't get me wrong, there were sections of this book that I did like, but I've reached the stage where I don't just want these characters to hit the sheets within a few days of meeting each other.  In Lissa and Casimir's case, they had only exchanged a handful of words, before they ended up jumping into bed with each other (p.64 and goes on for more than 20 pages!).  This bossy, dominating alpha stereotype is fine if he's a werewolf, but for a paranormal romance I want to see something other than the me-trained-assassin-you-mate-so-let's-have-sex attitude that I've been finding.  A book full of sex scenes does not equate to romance in my opinion.  I'd rather imagine somethings that have it describe in minute, and often very graphic, detail.  Is it just me?  When did author's stop leaving something to the readers imagination?

Okay, sex aside, the other major gripe that I had with Fire Bound was the ending with the Sorbacov's demise.  These two men have been the bane of the Prakenskii brothers life for over 30 years.  They are ruthless, well protected, going after them is a suicide mission and you may not be successful - according to the Prakenskii's themselves - and yet they are dispatched with ease by Lissa.  No help from Casimir, or any of the brothers, they're just set up and snuffed out by one feisty redhead.  Okay, she doesn't escape scott free, but it boggles the mind.  This was one of the places that thumbed its nose at the 'mythology' established in earlier books, and having Lissa basically assassinate two ruthless killers, pulled me out of my reading zone.

*sigh*

So now having bitched about the cons, and while the above problems did bring down my rating, there were one or two moments that held this books head just above the 2 star waterline.  I enjoyed finding out about Lissa's past, and I was just about clapping when her uncle, and his bodyguard, got their just desserts, but by far, my favourite moment would have to be the surprise introduction of Viktor.  OMG, Viktor is one hell of a scary SOB! We find out what he's up to now (bring the series full circle with events from Hidden Currents), and got a few tidbits about his and Blythe's past - which was definitely enough to get my mouth watering for the final book in the series.  And it is for these scenes that I gave Fire Bound 3½ stars.  Major fireworks ahead.

I hope you enjoyed my review of Fire Bound by Christine Feehan.  Let me know if you have read the book - or a planning too - and if you have, what did you think of it?  

I'm hoping to get another quick review up later this week, so until next time...

April Book Haul

April was a trying month.  In the middle of the month I ended up having surgery on my wrist, and about two and a half weeks later, without much improvement, I found myself sitting in the hospital's emergency room last Monday (waited 2 hours and froze in the air conditioning!), only to get some antibiotics and a referral to get an ultrasound done later in the week.  Results for that aren't in yet, but the guy doing the scan said there was no infection - awesome! - but I do have some keloid scarring happening... bummer.  Unfortunately this is almost as bad as the original symptoms and I'm hoping that massage and future physio might do the trick.  However, I digress as you probably don't want to hear about all that stuff, instead on to the book haul...

So with that in mind, it's perfectly understandable that I would turn to alternate forms of therapy to take my mind off the pain - and inconvenience of not even being able to do up my own bra! - with some retail therapy - and so I bought more books.  Bad, I know, but I was just so sore (and yes, bored), that I needed a pick-me-up.  However, I didn't expect it to be this problematic ;-D

Thankfully they didn't all arrive at once or else my mother, who stayed with me for nearly two weeks, would have had a conniption over all the parcels that the courier was bringing to my door.  As of the beinning of May I have read 9 out of the 15 - woo-hoo! - and I'm putting some aside for future reading as I'm just not in the mood for them now, but I do want to read them at some stage (i.e., The Black Tulip).

First book I read was The Casquette Girls, and I really enjoyed this paranormal YA book.  Was moody, atmospheric and had an interesting twist.  Could really see it being made into a movie, or TVM, as the New Orleans backdrop was amazing.

Next I went on to The Obsession by Nora Roberts.  It was pretty good, but not amazing.  Could have done with a 5 page prologue and not the nearly 80 pages we got, but the rest was pretty good.  She does write a good mystery/romance that you can read over and over again.

Then I thought I'd better start on my April #ayearofmarple challenge with A Murder is Announced.  Took me till the end of the month to finish it, but I got there.  Yeah, still isn't my favourite story, but won't be as bad as this month's offering, They Do It With Mirrors (which I really don't like).

After that, I sprinkled the week with my newly delivered Stephanie Laurens books - all three of them!  Yes, I totally caved and bought the first books in the Cynters Next Generation series.  I don't know why I did this.  Why did the author have to continue on with a new generation that will guarantee at least another 20 books!  I'll be needing a bookcase to devote just to her interconnected series by the time she's finished with them.  I enjoyed The Tempting of Thomas Carrick more than A Match for Marcus Cynster, and I was not all that fussed with By Winter's Light as the main romance between Daniel and Claire was overshadowed by the meeting of Lucilla and Thomas.

The Liar was an impulse buy as I'd enjoyed The Obsession.  But once again, I was feeling let down by the author as it was reminicent of other novels in her bibliography.  It felt like I was reading scenarios from her other books that had just been transfered into this novel after changing characters names and other descriptive info, etc.  Needed to revisit some older favourites to get the bad taste out of my mouth, so to speak.  Indeed, I spent some quality time with The Search, The Witness, Black Hills, and a couple of bowls of ice-cream over the next few days ;-P

Then Garden of Lies arrived and I was a happy little camper.  I have found these paranormal Victorian romance/mysteries quite entertaining.  This one was okay, but I think I'll have to give it a re-read to see if it was just my mood, or it really was just an pretty good story.  

And finally, the last book I read in April was the much anticipated Firebound, the second last book in the Sea Haven series.  I was hoping for a great book, but I didn't get that. Don't get me wrong, Firebound was pretty good, and it furthered the storyline along, but there were just too many inconsistancies and far fetched scenarios for me to be able to buy into the fantasy of it.  Will post a review in the near future discussing my thoughts on this series.

And so we come to the end of this mini wrap-up.  I can't believe I bought this many books in April, and actually finished so many of them as well.  Still awaiting a few more books, but thankfully I ordered those in the beginning of May, so they don't count ;-D

Hope you all had a fabulous reading month, and until next time,

Earth Bound is here!

Read Chapter 1 {HERE}

"After escaping from a cult, Lexi found refuge with her sisters on the farm that more than sustained her body—it nurtured her soul as well. But she never forgot the terror she left behind or the always present fear that the cult would find her again, and claim her. Then her nightmare came true.

Lexi was discovered and threatened—only to be suddenly saved by a stranger. He is Gavriil Prakenskii, and he’s awestruck by the woman he’s rescued. She is destined for him. He can feel it in his soul. But how can Lexi find happiness with a man steeped in secrets and shadows, one intimately acquainted with violence, and whose very love could be the death of them?"

After weeks of waiting for it, and pre-ordering it last month, I finally got my hands on the latest book in the Sea Haven series by Christine Feehan in the post this week!

Yes, I can now continue on with the Prakenskii brothers - and we're getting closer to them meeting the Drakes by what I read in Earth Bound ;-D

I'll post a review of this soon, but I just couldn't wait to tell you how much I enjoyed this book.  Full of action, magic, and a bad case of insta-love - which seems to be popping up more frequently in this series (not such a fan of that aspect), but the story of Lexi and Gavriil was very fast paced and just sucked me in.  

If this is something you would like to try, then I'm sorry but you'll have to read ALL seven Drake Sisters series books before starting on the Sea Haven (or Sisters of the Heart as it is alternatively known as in some countries) series.  There are so many references to previous books that you would miss out on a lot if you just dove into the Sea Haven series first.  

Start soon as next year will see the release of the second last book in this series... and I can't wait!

Until next time,

Top 5 Wednesday - Re-reads

Where has the week gone?  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was posting last weeks Top 5.  Anyway, this week we are doing one of my favourite tags - the re-read.  I love re-reading books!  It's always fun to go back to a book you loved and fall in love with it all over again... which is why I am so surprised when I watch YouTube and see a majority of people don't re-read!  Yes, I know.  How can you not re-read a truly awesome book?  Anyhow, lets get on with this list...

   

 NORA ROBERTS STAND-ALONES

Yes, I do read Nora Roberts.  I particularly enjoy these two books, also I re-read The Search at least once or twice a year, but I just didn't have enough room to add the picture ;-D  I like most Nora Roberts books because there is a little bit of romance, some mystery, occasionally paranormal aspects, and they aren't overly violent (which is a nice change from time to time).  I find I read these books more in winter when I can snuggle up under a blanket on the couch with a hot cup of tea.

covers are made of that suede-y material that just doesn't seem to show damage!

 

 NAKED IN DEATH - J.D. ROBB

This is the first book in J.D. Robb's (aka Nora Roberts) massive In Death series - that will see the release of the 40th book in February next year!  These books are great to just chill out with when you're in a bit of a detective, slash mystery, mood.

 

 GUILD HUNTERS - NALINI SINGH

This is an amazing Urban Fantasy series!  See what the world could be like if Archangels were the apex predator.  I tend to read the first three books together, almost as if they were one bind up.  Can't recommend this series highly enough if you want something great to read that's not going to take 2 weeks, or you love those of the angelic persuasion ;-D

 

 STEPHANIE PLUM - JANET EVANOVICH

I love this series, and although the last 5 or so books have been less than stellar, I can't help but go back to Two for the Dough and Hot Six when I want something that's guaranteed to make me laugh ;-D

 

 WRITTEN IN RED - ANNE BISHOP

 I adore this book - and series - and as you can see from the photo I took of the spine this is a well read, and re-read, book ;-D

Just leaving a pic of the spine of some of my more well re-read books ;-D

Okay, so I promise that's me done for this weeks Top 5.  I hope you found something new to read, and if you want to find out more about this series, it was created by the lovely Lainey at GINGERREADSLAINEY and I'll include a link to the Goodreads group {here} if you would also like to participate.

 

If you have any questions, or comments, I'd love to hear from you... and you know what to do down below ;-D

So until next time,