Monday Morsel: Only Enchanting

Monday Morsel is a little twist I put on the bookish meme Teaser Tuesdays hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. It works just like Teaser Tuesdays…except it’s on Monday. 🙂

Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Monday Morsel participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“”I think, Mrs. Keeping,” he said abruptly, “you had better marry me.”

She was so shocked that her mind stopped functioning.” Pg.116 from Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh.

 

Note: click on cover to go to site.

Tuesday Teaser

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“She took flight at what she saw–an angry, aroused, primal male animal. She hoped Lucien didn’t notice how fast she moved as she scurried out the door, feeling as if the devil truly was on her heels.” Pg. 21 from “When I’m with you” by Beth Kery.

 

Note: click on the cover to go to the site.

Tuesday Teaser (2)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“His mouth claimed hers again, hotly and hungrily. It drew breath from her.” Pg. 211 from Two Alone by Sandra Brown

 

Note: click on the image to go to the site.

What happened?

Today was an odd day. We left the house today with the intention to have a little fun. We were going to test drive a jeep. Just test drive. Just drive it.

We had an appointment for 11 am and a young woman greeted us like with the enthusiasm of a long-lost relative. She was lovely, pixie small and as determined as Gandalf. We were not leaving without trying out the Rubicon.

Meanwhile, mother nature had decided today was the day to do laundry and she was dumping half of her winter snow on us in the matter of a couple of hours. It was a blizzard, which lent itself for a great Jeep experience because we had to put on the 4×4 drive. We had a good laugh when I got behind the wheel and promptly stalled the car not once but twice (it’s a manual).

I’m not the world’s best driver and what I know about cars could be written on a napkin with room to spare, still even I had to admit the Jeep was very cool-looking. I just didn’t think we would do more than drive it.

There’s something about car dealerships. They talked numbers until our eyes crossed and they introduced us to every person who worked there. Everyone was incredibly friendly and talked to us until we felt like they were more than long lost friends, they were family. When we started to weaken from hunger and suggested going out for lunch they led us to their smiling chef who promptly cooked us lunch.

Leaving was an impossibility and our repeated attempts to exit were quickly quelled. That place is a fortress to rival Alcatraz. It took us six hours but we finally managed to leave.

With one small accessory.

Awesome things about romance

Just after that post on awesome things, I started thinking about romance. What’s awesome about it? Why do I love it so much?

The first thing that comes to mind is the happy ending. I love happy endings. They give me closure on the story and the characters. I can finish they book knowing they’re happy and in a good place. It might be unrealistic but I hope for a happy ending all the time, even in real life. When my husband went to have a mole checked out, I was hoping for the best and was thrilled when we learned it wasn’t cancer. A young teen visited me this week fearing she was pregnant. I waited for the results with her hoping she wasn’t (not that there’s anything wrong with being pregnant…just not at 16).

Happy endings are unrealistic but maybe just because of that reason, they’re so lovely. In romance, they’re guaranteed. In every book. Isn’t that great?

Point number two in favour of romance is the boy-meets-girl tale. I love stories of how two people came together. Whether they are like cats and dogs and fight their way to each other, or he rescues her or she rescues him and they fall in love, or perhaps he’s given up on love because of a horrible traumatic event but she helps him find hope in it again. Sigh! It just tugs at my heart. Will she love him? Will he love her? What about their issues? What about her fears? I can’t wait to find out.

Great romance doesn’t stop at happy endings and a love story. That’s only the beginning. There is excellent writing, humour, angst, pets, ridiculous characters, scary villains, awesome dialogue, intriguing plots, great historical references…you get the idea. But, for me, those are all icing on the cake. My greatest reasons for reading this genre are the first two I mentioned above.

Now, you might not agree with me but… are you still wondering if that teen girl was pregnant? See? You might want that happy ending after all.

By the way, she wasn’t.

(credit:sodahead.com)

Pets and romance, the good, the bad and the furry

I love animals in a romance novel. If I find the heroine has a four-legged buddy that tugs along with her, it raises her from average to interesting in one little sentence. I do love dogs (cough, cough bullmastiffs, coughs, coughs) but I’m flexible. It doesn’t have to be a dog. A chameleon will do as long as it has personality.

In my humble opinion, pets can be great characters and they have the potential to be fantastic comedy reliefs. They’re also a part of real life. Most of us have some sort of little being in our life, even if it’s only a cactus. Adding a pet to a character gives them depth and vulnerability. What’s more attractive than a muscled firefighter? One that has a pet parrot he inherited from an elderly aunt with the personality of Attila the Hun. Already, I like him more. See?

My issue is when pets become…perfect. For example, when the new lab puppies the heroine just rescued from certain death at the shelter, fall magically asleep so she can have hot sex with her love interest. Or the kitten that appears at our hero’s door and waits without food or water for a week while the hero accepts that this is the cat for him. Hm. Right. When have my pets ever done that? Wait…Never!

Maybe I’ve had a run of odd luck but all our dogs had personalities and issues. Buddha, our rottweiler was living proof that dogs can get ADD, Merlin had an obvious eating disorder and would eat anything not nailed to the floor (rocks included), Lobo had multiple phobias and Ocean has OCD around waking up on the weekends. None were or are perfect. And, in my opinion, that’s what makes them interesting–especially in books but also in life.

I know, I know. I should remember that when I grumble and curse at 6 am on Saturday mornings…

(credit:wallike.com)

Books and misbeliefs

The very first book I ever read was by Enyd Blyton and it got me hooked on reading. I finished it the day I got it. The book was a series about a young girl who went away to a boarding school and I absolutely loved it. It was called First term at Malory Towers. I’m forever grateful for that book because without it, I might have never started reading. Before it came along, I didn’t read. I thought I wasn’t a reader. Boy, did it change my mind.

The very first romance book I read was Twilight. A friend had it and was reading it and she showed it to me. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I didn’t read about vampires. I remember saying it with more than a little attitude. Unperturbed, she shrugged and left the book on a table.

I read the jacket. Then, I was curious and had to read the beginning…One paragraph later and I asked my friend to borrow the book. I read the entire thing that afternoon, ignoring everyone around me. Then headed home and bought the series.

Twilight might not be everyone’s cup of tea but, for me, it was addictive. I couldn’t stop reading the books over and over. To break my habit, I tried to find something else to read. Desperate, I went to the nearby library and, as luck would have it, I found Nora Roberts. The rest, as they say, is history.

So, my personal story with books is rather filled with misbeliefs. I thought I wasn’t a reader until Enid Blyton appeared. I thought I didn’t read about vampires, until Stephenie Meyer came along…

Isn’t it lovely to be wrong?

(credit:egully.com)

(credit:stepheniemeyer.com)

Paranormal bliss

Nalini Singh is Paranormal bliss. She writes books in two series, the Guild Hunter series and the Psy/Changeling series. They’re both really amazing.

I only discovered her a few years back. I’d heard her name but didn’t read her stuff. Paranormal can be hard to get into. Complicated worlds where things are different…it’s all a little intimidating. Ms. Singh changes it in a flash. She has that gift of being able to grab the reader’s attention with a couple of sentences. Before I know it, not only am I hooked, I’ve figured out her world. Turns out, it wasn’t that complicated after all. Instead, it was awesome!

And her worlds are. I want to live in them. Plus, and I can’t emphasize this enough, there’s a wonderful love story. She writes heroes that intimidate and compel and heroines that I want to befriend and cheer for.

Better still, she’s consistently good. She keeps delivering one great book after another. I was suspicious of her new series, the Guild Hunter series…until the second sentence in the book. No joke. Elena is just awesome and Raphael is an intimidating, awe-inspiring hero. l could actually feel the excitement and thrill start and, as soon as the first chapter ended, I had to read the rest of the book.

Her books are, of course, all keepers. I just re-read the Guild Hunter series and sighed with renewed contentment at the end. So good. Can’t wait for the next instalment.

There is one more thing I should add. Something she does with words. I can’t explain exactly what it is but it’s almost poetic. She has these expressions about her characters, like she said of Dmitri that he ‘still danced with a blade’, meaning he fought with a sword. I know I’m not doing it justice, but, in her books, the words lift the story up. They’re almost magical. It’s really something. Not cooky or too much but edgy and impressive. I want to say cool but I’m afraid of what that might sound like.

Paranormal is not everyone’s cup of tea and some worlds are so complex you need to take a course to understand what’s going on. This is the complete opposite. Easy to like, strong characters and a wonderful love story. Add in a bit of super-powers and you’ve got a great book.

The only thing I regret about Nalini Singh is that I didn’t pick up her books sooner. I’d recommend her to anyone.

(credit:dearauthor.com)

http://www.nalinisingh.com

I need a new book

I’ve been surviving on re-reading the entire Guild series by Nalini Singh but I’ve finished it again. And the weekend is coming…I need a new book. The only problem is I’ve already read my usual automatic-buy authors. I have nothing new left until December…And the weekend is coming…I need a new book.

Hm…any ideas? Any recommendations? I’ll take just about anything at this point…especially if its romance. I love romance. Sigh!

(credit:on-the-other-hand.com)

So we have snow…sort of

We finally got snow.

We got about 5 maybe, maybe 10 cm and everyone sort of let out a collective sigh of disappointment. Turns out Canadians don’t really wait for snow, they wait for the first BIG snowfall of the season and our teeny, tiny 10 cm didn’t even measure up. Yes, those in their teen years are throwing the stuff around like they’ve never seen it before and little kiddies are desperately trying to create snowmen but this isn’t snow. Not really.

We need enough snow to make it the subject of conversation. Enough to impede traffic and give students a day off, enough to convert the weather man into the most listened-to person on TV and to change the landscape into a winter scenario.

We have rain coming. This snow will be gone in a matter of days, therefore, it doesn’t count.

My akita agrees. Made perfectly for winter, she loves this weather. She bounces outside chasing snowflakes and shoving her nose into the snow to find traces of smells. She loves being outside in it.

I don’t agree. I like warm environments, preferably weather insulated and, if possible, with coffee available. I was certain my little dog couldn’t possibly be warm in this cold. So, I dug my fingers into the deep recess of my little akita to see how dense her fur was. I had to fight my way through layers of thick, dense hair until I reached the softer down and, finally, hit skin. She’s toasty warm under there.

Like everyone else, she’s also waiting for the BIG snow fall.

(credit: bearlife.org)