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features that started from my blog

Random Reads Rebooted (1)

02 Jan

Random Reads Rebooted

Random Reads was a blog feature that used to be hosted by the blog, I’m Loving Books, however, it is no longer active. Random Reads Rebooted is a reimaged version of this and I hope you will join me.

I don’t know about you guys, but I have a bad habit of buying books and then forgetting about them…I’m like a squirrel storing away its nuts for winter, except I do it with books. Random Reads Rebooted is dedicated to finding (and reading) those books that have long been forgotten about it.

On the first Saturday of the month (or within that first week), randomly select a book that is on your bookshelves (it could be a virtual shelf like a Goodreads one, or a real shelf that you have someone randomly numbered). I recommend using random.org to help you pick that special or forgotten book. At the end of the month, come back and let us know what you thought about the book that you picked.

January Pick
Towards the end of 2015, I started actively cataloging all my various kindle ebooks to my goodreads account (let’s just say only about 15% had actually made it to my shelves prior to this)…so my random shelf for January is going to be my Amazon Books Purchased in 2014 shelf which currently has 173 books on it. Using random.org, my random number was 169 which lines up with Jazz Funeral by Julie Smith.

Jazz funeral

Everybody loved easygoing Hamson Brocato, producer of the successful New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, but even so he ended up stabbed to death in his kitchen the night of his own JazzFest party. NOPD detective Skip Langdon, Smith’s spunky heroine last seen in New Orleans Mourning, gets a ready-made suspect list from the victim’s live-in lover, singing star Ti-Belle Thiebaud. Included are Ariel Bruge, Ham’s assistant, apparently a woman scorned; his father George, enmeshed with family members in a bitter disagreement over the family’s fast food (“Poor Boy’s Po’ Boys”) chain; and Patty, the stepmother Ham was cool about. Skip notes the list’s omissions: Ti-Belle herself (often heard arguing with Ham at the top of her powerful voice) and Melody, Ham’s teenaged half-sister who vanished the same day Ham died. Skip doesn’t miss much as she probes the victim’s tangled relationships, remaining all the while a consistently convincing character herself, grumbling about her boss and anxious about her long-distance significant other.

What about you – what is your random read for January going to be?

 
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Posted by on January 2, 2016 in Random Reads Rebooted

 

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Dishing with Dee…San Fran Part 1

08 Oct

dishing with dee 2

So i’m going to break my Dishing with Dee posts about my trip to San Francisco into two posts, in part because I have some great pictures that I want to share with you guys and in part, because I want to draw out the torture of why I was in San Francisco, a little bit longer 😉

REX_Exterior-600x600So after leaving a very wet Washington DC and flying for 5+ hours (thankfully, I wasn’t overly crowded on my flight), I arrived in San Francisco at like 8pm (which for you who can do time zone calculations is about 11pm my normal time). One of the best things about traveling when its an all expenses paid trip (yes, you read that right), is the cool places you often get put up. Case in point, those of us who were attending this event in San Francisco were put up in the Hotel Rex. If you look closely at the picture, you can almost see my room, i was up on the third floor, but had a great view of the street and the fire escape (although it did get a bit loud at 5am when the trash guys came around).

REX_LibraryBar_Overview-1200x800What is great about this hotel, especially since all of us who were in San Fran were heavy readers, was that the bar is called the Library Bar where all the food and drinks on the menu were all american classics, like a Rob Roy or a West Side. Unfortunately with our schedule i didn’t get as much of a chance to check out the area as I hoped. But my kind of funny story, when I got there Thursday night, I went down to the bar for food and a drink, and the bar tender started speaking french to me and while I know a smattering of it, for the most part I was completely lost. When I said I didn’t speak French, he was like, oh, aren’t you here for French club…once we clarified that i wasn’t, I was able to order food and move on. The other bonus of being in a hotel with a bar called the Library bar, is that the hotel has its own little lending library – its one of those borrow a book, donate another book kind of set ups (and I did my due diligence but donating a couple of romances to the shelves, since they were lacking in that forum).

And last but not least, as you walked up each landing to the next floor (because I personally hate taking elevators), there were these cool quotes from different authors…and being the dork that I am, I had to take photos of them!

san fran quotes

Stay tuned for more of my adventures from San Francisco…coming soon!

 
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Posted by on October 8, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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TBR Tuesday – 6 Oct 2015

06 Oct

TBR Tuesday While I’ve been horrible about actually posting reviews for my TBR Tuesday books, I have slowly but surely been chugging away at them. Many people know that I moderate a few groups on Goodreads and in one of them, the other mods and I came up with the idea of a challenge called Pillaging the Pile – where we would each set a goal for a three month period and see how many books from our TBR we could read in that time. There were two options that people could choose, books that had been on their shelves for more than 6 months, or those that had been there for more than 12 months. I had typically been picking the more than 12 month option, just because I have so many.

Anyways, the most recent iteration of the PtP challenge ended on September 30th, and I thought I would post a quick list of the books that I read during the preceding three month period and my initial thoughts on a few of the books, although you may see a few of them pop up as full reviews later on down the road.

1) Behind Closed Doors – Shannon McKenna – Bought Dec 2009 – Finished – 7/3/15
2) Crux – Moira Rodgers – Bought Oct 2010 – Finished 7/3/15
3) Remember When – Nora Roberts/JD Robb – Bought Apr 2012 – Finished 7/5/15
4) Silver Lining – Maggie Osbourne – Bought Sep 2009 – Finished 7/13/15
5) Haunted in Death – JD Robb – Bought May 2012 – 7/19/15
6) Three to Ride – Sophie Oak – bought Jan 2011 – Finished 7/18/15
7) Mouth To Mouth – Erin McCarthy – bought July 2009 – Finished 7/31/15
8) The Wallflower – Dana Marie Bell – Bought December 2009 – Finished 8/18/15
9) Hands on Research – Pam Champagne – bought February 2010 – Finished 8/28/15
10) Holiday Bound – Beth Kery – bought November 2010 – Finished 8/29/15
11) Kiss Me Again – Dee Tenorio – bought June 2009 – 8/30/15
12) Nice and Naughty – Jayne Rylon – Bought December 2009 – Finished 9/1/15 (i think this was a reread)
13) The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho – Bought August 2011 – Finished 9/3/15
14) Dark Harvest – Anitra Lynn McLeod – bought December 2011 – Finished 9/7/15
15) Deep in the Woods – Annabel Joseph – Bought November 2010 – Finished 9/7/15
16) Felicity Stripped Bare – Vanessa Jaye – bought August 2009 – Finished 9/11/15
17) Kink – Saskia Walker/Sasha White – bought April 2010 – Finished 9/13/15
18) Homecoming – Lacey Baker – bought October 2013 – Finished 9/16/15
19) Sacred Revelations – Roxy Harte – bought April 2010 – Finished 9/28/15

so I managed to cull my TBR pile down 19 books in that time period (of course, I probably added equally as many new books…lol). Hopefully, this next three month period will be as productive – I started with a goal of 10 books (which has been my base for the previous sessions, and i typically up it if needed).

 
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Posted by on October 6, 2015 in TBR Tuesday

 

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Dishing with Dee….helloooo, San Fran!

02 Oct

dishing with dee 2

Yes, its true – I decided to escape the horrible weather that is currently hitting the DC region (although i did have to drive to the airport in it yesterday) and in the words of John Denver, I’m leaving on a jet plane (although i do know when I’ll be back again…lol). I’m in San Francisco for a couple of days – part work, part pleasure – I’ve never actually been here before, so its totally new to me and i’m looking forward to seeing some of the sights!

Of course, with it being 3hrs behind east coast time, i was wide awake at 5am…and what do you do when that happens? you get up, throw on your running shoes and do some hill repeats of those iconic hills in the area – you know, the ones you see on the movies with the cable cars? there was a nice one just outside my hotel, so I did a few on that – it felt really nice after not really running for a few months 😉

So stayed tuned, I’m sure i’ll have some more updates for you while I’m enjoying my travels here!

 
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Posted by on October 2, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

Dishing with Dee….well, September is nearly over…

29 Sep

dishing with dee 2

You’ll notice that my blog has been fairly quiet for the last couple of weeks (well, in fact, most of September). I wish I could say that I had a good reason, but honestly, its just been a rough month. I don’t talk a lot about my other non-blogging life, but I found myself unemployed (hopefully only briefly), when the contract I was supporting expired and wasn’t renewed and with it being the end of the Fiscal Year, no one is really hiring right now. On top of that, bad month on the Academic side of the house, when I f’ed up in a major way and didn’t get goals accomplished in my dissertation – that I am now working to overcome for the next semester; and finally, the 5k open water swim I was training for…cancelled because of weather…

anyways, hopefully, October will be a much better month on the blogging front 😉

 
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Posted by on September 29, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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TBR Tuesday – 25 August 2015

25 Aug

TBR Tuesday
Behind Closed Doors
Author: Shannon McKenna

Date Purchased: 11 December 2009
Date Read: 3 July 2015
Time on Mt TBR: 2031 days

Review:
When I look back at the date this book was purchased, it was right before I left Kuwait in 2009 to head home from my year long deployment. So I think I may have purchased it to read on the plane, and then (if I remember rightly), we had really crappy internet and I was unable to download it to my computer to transfer to my kindle – so it got forgotten about until recently when I dug it out to read (mostly because it fit a book challenge, as well as hearing that the series was finally being released in audiobook format – it was an often requested one, so i’m honestly curious to see how it is in audio).

It’s also been a while since I’d read any really good romantic suspense type work, so that made it an enjoyable read. I’ll also admit that I’m a fan of book series with sibings/friends who work together (although at the same time, they can be too over-done if its a huge series all about siblings…but that is a gripe for another day). I will say that in a few places, it felt kind of dated (but when, what do you expect when the book was originally released 13 years ago). The storyline was well-developed and the enemy/evil character was believable. I liked how Raine didn’t have too many TSTL moments (although there were a few) and Seth, well, he was just all around kick-ass. I’ll admit that I’m intrigued enough that I want to continue the series (hopefully in the not too distance future)…Overall, I gave Behind Closed Doors 3.5/5 and looking forward to more books in the series.

 
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Posted by on August 25, 2015 in TBR Tuesday

 

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Dishing with Dee….Deceptive Book Covers

11 Aug

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Ok, so this is going to be more of a rant, than an actual post, but I just came across a book that seriously irks me…however, I’m not going to post the name of the author/title (at this time…there will be a review in the near future however). I’ll also preface this with I know how little control authors potentially have over bookcovers.

Anyways, back to my rant…as part of ARC August, I picked up one of the romances I had planned to read last night. The cover of said romance had a guy in a cowboy hat, with what looked to be horses and oil drilling platforms in the background – so silly me, I was expecting a western-ish type romance, or something where they were outdoors, doing stuff like you would expect from the cover…however, to my disappointment, there was NONE of that in the book. The book itself revolves around a doctor and an ex-olympic swimmer…no sign of horses, oil platforms, cowboys etc in the book.

So in my curiosity (since I knew this book was a re-edit/re-release of a previous book), I decided to do some research – the previous edition of the book, a cowboy on the cover of a horse that appears to be riding (as in a rodeo). It wasn’t until I went back to what looks to be the first cover of the book (when it was picked up by Ellora’s Cave), that it appears the cover actually fits the theme (two people in the water)…I mean, it is too much to ask to actually have a cover even slightly resemble the book – it doesn’t need to be perfect, but at least attempting to capture some of the elements would be awesome. What makes me doubly disappointed, is that I’ve read and enjoyed this authors works before – but I’m struggling so much with the cover mismatch that I can’t enjoy the story (although there are other issues in the story that I am also struggling with)…

what about you – have you guys ever come across a cover that was so unrelated to the book that you struggled to read it – because you felt as though you had been deceived?

 
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Posted by on August 11, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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TBR Tuesday – 28 July 15

28 Jul

TBR Tuesday

Let’s talk about Forgotten Books (or books that have been designated as lost on Mt TBR). I’m a bit behind in my reading this week and don’t have a TBR book to post about, so I thought I would take a moment to write about the plight of forgotten books – these books just want to be loved, the same as all books. I mean, these sweet, innocent books, who through no fault of their own, ended up lost on someones pile, feeling neglected and unloved. (Ok, I write that partly in jest, but i’m sure if books had feelings they would probably say something like that).

When I look at books that I have read recently that fall within my TBR challenge, they fit into one of several categories:

1. Book was a freebie/cheapie – I don’t know about you, but I’m always on the lookout for a good deal when it comes to books (I’d probably go broke if I had to pay for all of the books I read each year). So when I see books by authors I like (or sound intriguing) that are on sale/free, then I normally one click them. I will admit that over the last year, I’ve gotten a bit pickier about the ones I have actually gotten, compared to early years of kindle ownership – but I still manage to get more books that I would probably read in a life time. These books normally languish in the pile until I get bored and start rooting through them; or I start to catalogue my purchases on Goodreads (and mentally go, why the heck did I buy that?) or when I need to book that fits a random reading challenge and one of those books randomly happens to fit.

2. Bulk Purchase of an Author – when I find a new author I love, I have a bad habit of bulk buying their books – often times, it will be their entire backlist. This could be especially exacerbated if there is a sale featuring books in a series (I managed to pick up the entire In Death series by JD Robb in audiobook a few years ago for about 1/3 the cost it would take the buy each one separately). Unfortunately, I then read several books by said author and find myself getting burnt out – so I put them aside and forget about them – until things like the Forgotten Book Challenge come along.

3. Books Given as Gifts – I always feel guilty when I get books as gifts – not because i don’t love them or appreciate them – but sometimes I’m just not in the mood for a certain book; or it just doesn’t work for me – so the book(s) get placed on the TBR pile and hopefully will get moved off in the future – but you just never know…

I’m sure there are probably other ways that books end up on Mt TBR, but these are the most popular ones for me. What about you – how do books end up on your TBR or are you a read as soon as purchase kind of person (if you are, i might hate you slightly!)

 
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Posted by on July 28, 2015 in TBR Tuesday

 

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TBR Tuesday – 21 July 15

21 Jul

TBR Tuesday
Silver Lining
Author: Maggie Osborne

Purchased: 20 September 2009
Date Finished: 13 July 2015
Time on TBR: 2123 days

Review After some disappointing TBR books, I was so happy to find one that made me realize why I came to love the historical romance genre. Silver Lining by Maggie Osborne reminded me of so many of the books I cut my romance teeth on back when I was a teenager (and was actually written not long after that time period). The characters in Silver Lining make frequent appearances in the fora of Amazon, especially when it come to talking about names, because the main female goes by Low Down for a portion of the book (rather than her real name of Louise). Personally, for me, I loved see the rough and ready Low Down finding her place in a relationship where she didn’t need to be strong/masculine (as she did in the mining camps) as well as finding the family that she never had growing up. The rest of the book and story was well developed and plausible – it didn’t take too much thought to see what was going to happen next and everything seemed evenly paced (it wasn’t a wham bam thank you ma’am kind of book, but rather took place over a 7-8mth period). The evil other woman (which I really like when done well) was present and for an “innocent young woman” she was definitely not so. I can’t wait to hoping dig into some more books by Ms Osborne in the future.

 
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Posted by on July 21, 2015 in TBR Tuesday

 

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Dishing with Dee….Reoccurring Characters and descriptions

20 Jul

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So originally when I thought about the idea of Dishing with Dee, I wanted to talk about things in books (etc) that bugged me and I did for a while and then got distracted with other stuff. But never fear, I’m back. Today I wanted to talk about descriptions of frequently reoccurring characters in book series – I’m talking the characters who show up in every book in the series (or a significant amount) – they may not play a key role, but they are present. Case in point, I am trying to tackle some of the audiobooks I have bought over the years and since it was short, I picked up Haunted in Death to listen to.

Now this audiobook was number 22.5 in the series (yes, you read that right!). So I was kind of disappointed in the fact that every time one of these reoccurring characters made an appearance (I’m talking about Ian McNab/Dr Mira), the author felt the need to tell us who they were, like we were brand new readers and it was really frustrating to me. Mostly because I felt, at times, like the mystery took a backseat to some of these descriptive portions. At the same time, I understand that authors have to walk a fine-line between being descriptive (in case someone not familiar with the series is reading) and just going with the flow (for people who have been invested in the series for a while). And unfortunately, it wasn’t just this installment in the series that I’ve noticed it but all of them (either novels or novellas) contain similar scenes.

Admittedly, its not enough for me to give up on reading the series, because I do enjoy it – but it is a pet peeve of mine.

 
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Posted by on July 20, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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