Top 5 Wednesday - Love Triangles

Hello!  And welcome to my second adventure in the Top 5 Wednesday.  This week we are exploring the Top 5 Love Triangles.   Drawn together by love or lust - or by magical bonds - these are the 5 threesomes that have pushed their way to the top of my list ;-D

#5 Sookie/Bill/Eric

Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

Although this series finished with a fizzle, the beginning of the series, the love triangle between Sookie with the the vampires fighting for her favour - Bill and Eric - just made great reading.  ;-D

#4 Anita Blake/Micah/Nathaniel

Anita Blake series by LKH

While not Anita's only - or main - threesome, this group is a much healthier pairing of individuals.  Dispite her accidental bonding with Nathaniel (and Damien), that is not the love triangle I'm using.  Instead it is the bond of love that Anita feels towards her Nimir-Raj, Micah, and their leopard Nathaniel that is the recipient of my #4 spot.  There is a real sense of home and family about Anita and Micah and their inclusion of Nathaniel.  No metaphysical or magical ties.  Just of love and friendship.

#3 Stephanie Plum/Morelli/Ranger

Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich

What can I say?  This is my favourite threesome to read about.  However, for some unknown reason I just can't put them at #1.  I love the way that Stephanie just can't seem to choose between her men, and that although Ranger is okay with her relationship with Morelli, Morelli has always been in the dark about the extent of her involvement with Ranger.   Funny and believable - but not epic.

#2 Merry Gentry/Doyle/Frost

Merry Gentry series by LKH

Merry is genuinely in love with her main two men.  There is an incredible bond between them, and I love how they have slowly evolved into the characters they are.  Although I prefer Merry and her Men to my number one, they just didn't have the extremes of feelings that my number one Love Triangle do...

#1 Anita Blake/Jean-Claude/Richard Zeeman

Anita Blake series by LKH

This is not a healthy love triangle by any means, but it is my number one because of the complicated threads that hold this threesome together.  It is not only about love, but survival.  Love, anger, fear, lust, hate and self-loathing are all found in this triumverate.

So, those are my all-time {for now} favourite Love Triangles.  If you want to know more about the Top 5 Wednesday group - or join the T5W family - visit the Goodreads page {here} for more information.  

Oh, and please feel free to post a link to your own Top 5 list as I'd love to see who your favourite love triangles were ;-D

Until next time,

Top 5 Wednesday - Top Blue Covers (of books you own)

I'm so excited to be involved with the Top 5 Wednesday.  I've only recently discovered this - thanks once again to YouTube - and loved the idea so thought I'd give it a go.

This week we are counting down our Top 5 Blue Covers.  Now I have to tell you that this was really hard for me.  I didn't even get a third of the way through my bookshelves and had already pulled out over 20 books.  But after much hemming and hawing I had finally narrowed the covers down to my top 5.  

So starting at #5

Gods, mythology, romance.  What more could you ask for?

... and I love the Asian influence and the different textures on the cover.

#4

Love this series!  Barrani, and Dragons, and Leontines - oh, my!

#3

Great book, and I love the tracery of frost around the hand.

#2

A great cover for Urban Fantasy, is it not?

#1

This cover captures the essence of the book.  Mad, bad and wicked.

Plus blud bunnies rock! :-D

So, those are my all-time {for now} favourite blue covers.  I hope your found something new here that you might try, and if you want to know more about the Top 5 Wednesday group visit the Goodreads page {here} for more information.  

Oh, and please feel free to post a link to your own Top 5 list as I'd love to see what blue covers you love ;-D

Until next time,

 

Cast in Flames fabulous!

 

OMG!  I just finished reading Cast in Flames, the latest offering in the Chronciles of Elantra series by Michelle Sagara, and I just want more!  This is a fabulous book, fast paced and full of action, and as a fast reader I was sorry to come to the end of it about 4 hours later.

I'll post a review soon - once I've had time to re-read the book - but for now, I just want to find out what happens to Kaylin Neya next.  Why do books have to end right at the good bit?!  Unfortunately I now have to wait a whole year for the next installment.  Bummer.

In the meantime, I can not recommend this series highly enough.  If you love fantasy, dragons, magic and action, then pick up Cast in Shadow and find out how it all began.

July Book Order

Hi! It's been a few days since I've been online.  I've just been so busy lately spending money on books ;-D

In the last week I have spent more money than I should have - nothing new there - but most of my books were based on recommendations from YouTube reviews.  *Gasp!*  I know!  Odd, huh.  But every review I checked out (The Readables, gingerreadslainey, polandbananasBOOKS, Ariel Bisset, and abookutopia) made these books sound sooooo good that I just couldn't help myself from adding them to my shopping cart!

So what did I get?  Well thank you for asking.  I have 8 books winging their way to me from Book Depository (so much cheaper than buying in Australia!) 

• Ghost Seer - Robin D. Owens
• Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas
• Cast in Flames - Michelle Sagara

 

 

• The Line - J.D. Horn
• Graceling - Kristin Cashore
• The Masterful Mr. Montague - Stephanie Laurens {a guilty pleasure}
• Concealed in Death - J.D. Robb
• Going Once - Sharon Sala {for my mum's b'day}

 

and the last complete season of Doctor Who - again, way cheaper from the UK (included p&h) than in Australia! 

I can't wait for the postie to start knocking on my door when each new book arrives.  Sadly, I already have my eyes on about another 10 books as they are scheduled to be released in the next few weeks.  I'll need a bigger house soon...

Experiencing technical difficulties

Having a frustrating afternoon as I'm trying to get the Related Posts widget all sorted out.  Can't seem to get it working to my satisfaction, so I'm sorry, but for the moment you'll just have to bear with me while I work this out - or get totally frustrated with it and remove it completely!  :-[

If anyone knows how to centre, and reposition the widget so it ends up between above the 'be sure to leave a comment' banner, could you let me know how to fix it?

Pretty please! ;-D

Update - since posting the above, I've removed the widget (once I found it in the code) after I got the irrits with it.  Problem now solved ;-D

Review: The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy
A Nursery Crime, Book 1
Jasper Fforde

Published: 6 January, 2006 (this copy)

Thorndike Press, Large Type Hardcover, 594p.
ISBN: 0-7862-8233-9

Meet Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, family mand and head of the Nursery Crime Division, long suffering under the shadow of the flashy Detective Friedland Chymes with his astonishing number of published cases in Amazing Crime Stories.  Spratt is fresh from a spectacular failure to see three wily pigs convicted for the murder of a certain wolf.  The media and tide of public opinion are set squarely against him.  Now, new trouble is brewing.  It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day.  Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Dumpty, minor baronet, lover of women, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death. . . 

 

Like The Eyre Affair, The Big Over Easy was a very imaginative and unique way to start a series.  The world building is so well done that you don't even question the differences between the realities, and you would think that having characters from nursery rhymes would jar you out of the reading experience, but Fforde has merged the two so seemlessly that having Humpty Dumpty fall off his wall doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

The characters were well developed.  Jack Spratt is ameniable, yet has some stored anger towards the obnoxious, egotistical and self-righteous Friedland Chymes.  Mary Mary (quite contrary ;-P ) is the new cop on the beat.  Her almost teenage level of adoration of the great Detective Chymes makes you want to slap her at times, but in all Mary is a likeable character and comes through for Jack Spratt in the end.

It is the murder of Humpty that stumped me.  There were theories, plots and subplots that just seemed to keep coming.  Just as Det. Spratt thought he had unmasked the identity of the killer... poof!  New evidence turned up.  Usually I have an idea - or at least a suspect - in mind as to the motive and identity of the killer, but in The Big Over Easy I wasn't even in the ball park!  A great twist at the end turns the entire investigation on it's head.

I won't go into other character summaries as it may spoil your reading experience, but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book.  As an avid reader I still can't believe that it has taken me this long to find Jasper Fforde - thank you YouTube - but I will now be making a space on my bookshelves for the Thursday Next, and now Nursery Crime series.

 

Scary blogger moment

While fiddling around with my Google+ settings I thought I'd accidentally deleted all the photos in the albums for my blog!  OMG!  What the heck did I just do?!  So in panic mode, I started googling to see if there was anything I could do - otherwise it would take months to find all the old photos and upload them again!

After about 15 minutes of shock, it turns out that I had just changed the privacy settings.  An absolute relief, but I'm still slightly shaky now when I think about it.  So if you want to avoid having a truly scary blogger moment - don't touch the privacy settings in Google+ 's Photo albums!

 

Review: Dark Wolf

Dark Wolf
A Carpathian Novel, Book #25
Christine Feehan

Published: 2014

Piatkus, Hardcover, 358p.
ISBN: 978-0-349-40216-1

Skyler Daratrazanoff always recognised the miracle that was Mimitri Tirunul, a man beyond any dream that had ever engaged her nigths.  But she is human.  Vulnerable.  He is Carpathian.  Nearly immortal.  She is nineteen.  He is an ancient.  Yet she holds half of his soul, the light to his darkness.  Without her, he will not survive.  Caught between the two arring species, Dimitri has spent centuries fighting to keep his people free and humans safe.  He has survived honourably when others have chosen to give up their souls.  Now, marked for extermination by the Lycans, Dimitri finds himself alone, and fearing for his life.  But salvation is coming . . .

No Lycan would ever suspect someone like Skyler to mount a secret rescue operation.  A teenage girl.  A human of untested abilities.  But she has something no one else has.  She is predestined for Dimitri - as he is for her.  And there is nothing stronger for Skyler than her desire to see her life-dream come true.  However dangerous it might be . . .

Lost a book

This is one of the most annoying things.  I bought a book that I was sure was the first book in a trilogy because I was certain I had book 2.  On returning home, I looked up the series online, and yes!  The second book cover is very familiar but I can't find it in my book cases anywhere :-(  Nooooooooo!  So now its a case of upending 3 BIG bookcases full of books until I find it... 

I just hope I didn't take it back to my folks house and leave it in my old bookcase there?

 

Book splurge

I spent the last two days visiting family back home.  Got to spend some time with my mum - who is recovering from hip replacement surgery - and, along with my aunt, we went shopping yesterday.  It was a bit of a circus.  Getting my mum in and out of the car and setting up the wheel chair each time, but we all enjoyed the day out.  Got to go to Spotlight and buy some more fabrics.  Thought I'd better do that before hitting the shopping centre (and the bookshops!).

As you can see, I raided the discount book bin at mum's Big W.  There are so many books in that store, compared to my local Big W, so I was actually able to find a few books.  There was one in particular that I was really chuffed to find as it is OOS (out of stock) at all the online book stores that I've tried to buy it from.  So you can imagine my surprise when I plucked Written in Blood by Sheila Lowe out of a pile at the bottom of the bin (I actually found 2!).  I also found two more books in the Kitty Norville series by Carrie Vaughn, plus a Joan Hess Claire Mallory book, and the big score was the final book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness. 

Then last night I remembered the email I'd recieved on Thursday from Book Depository which was for a voucher for an extra 5% off and I just couldn't help myself.  I was going to get another 2 books, but their prices had increased by about $2 each (I'd missed the pre-order period), so I'll just keep them in my wishlist and wait until the prices come down again.  In the end I bought books that were in series I'd been collecting. 

I've been trying to curb my book addiction lately, but as you can plainly see- it doesn't seem to be working all that well.  Next month there are more books coming out in some of the other series I've been getting.  Oy, it's a never ending cycle ;-D

 

Doctor Who is Back!

I'm soooo excited!  Don't forget to cancel your plans, fire up the popcorn and get ready as the Doctor will be back on Australian screens {ABC of course} for the first episode of season 8 on 24th August 2014.

It seems our new Doctor will be exploring a darker side of his nature ;-D  Can't wait!