Sunday, January 8, 2017

The Sunday Post/It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Hey, all!


The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. It's Monday, What Are You Reading is a fun weekly meme hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date where we share what we've read and reviewed over the past week and what we plan to read next. 

It finally feels like winter here, at least for the time being! Yesterday and today hovered around 40 degrees (30 with windchill), with the nights hovering around 28 (upper teens with windchill!). It's brutally cold for Florida, but it's not bad with the right clothes on, and a warm fire and good book to come inside to. ;) 
It'll be back into the mid-70s in a few days; Florida winters are so hard to adjust to, since you'll be sweating in shorts and a tank one day and shivering in fleece leggings and a coat the next. 

Aside from that, a busier week with work, but nothing too bad. I've had a bit of a sore throat/achy thing going on the past few days, so hopefully that clears up soon. That's pretty much it!



Steps this week

Sunday - 12,894
Monday - 10,330
Tuesday - 13,873
Wednesday - 10,786
Thursday - 13,319
Friday - 8,239
Saturday - 10,150

Total -  79,591



This Week's Recap







Coming Up

2017 Reading Challenges 

Top Ten Tuesday: 2016 Releases I Meant to Get To (But Plan To!)

Waiting on Wednesday

TBR Thursday

Cover Lust, No. 50


Read This Week

5 stars!
Amazing, absolutely amazing. And what a great way to kick off 2017!
3.5 stars!
Quick, funny, sexy, with a  decent narrator.
Partial audiobook
4.5 stars!
This was such a well done new adult! 
3.75-4 stars??
I dunno, I'm really conflicted here. It kept me absolutely riveted and I read it in a day. On the other hand, it didn't quite live up to Marriage Games and the ending was a bit rushed...or perhaps the middle was drawn out. Very torn.



Currently Reading

Rereading this, and going the audio version. 
Just started this one, but so far so good!


What Will I Read Next?


????


Friday, January 6, 2017

Cover Lust, No. 50

It starts with a stolen kiss under an English sky, and it ends with a walk down the aisle. It starts with the President sending his best friend to woo me on his behalf, and it ends with my heart split in two. It starts with buried secrets and dangerous desires…and ends with the three of us bound together with a hateful love sharper than any barbed wire.

My name is Greer Galloway, and I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States.

This is the story of an American Queen.
 


I love the blue tones and simple font, plus the back of that dress is to die for. That said though, I actually prefer this cover because of what it isn't, rather than what it is. Looking at this cover, you wouldn't think it's the pure, raunchy filth that it is. I read a lot of dirty, dirty smut, and this book made me blush. However, I like that you wouldn't know that just by the cover!

Thursday, January 5, 2017

TBR Thursday

Kimberly @ Kimberlyfaye Reads started a new weekly feature that I'm excited to join in! This feature is to showcase what's on your to be read shelf (or eReader, or Audible library) and see what others think of it. Have you read it? Should I read it or put it back on the shelf? It's a way to dust off the books on your self and decide if they're worth reading!

Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.

Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world cleaved in two.

With more than a million copies sold of her beloved Throne of Glass series, Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her seductive and action-packed series to new heights.
 


I read A Court of Thorns and Roses last year and liked it, but have been hesitant to pick up this one since there's a switch in the love interest (I don't know whether it's a love triangle, exactly) and that's one of my biggest pet peeves. I can think of a whopping two books/series where it didn't infuriate me, so I'm very cautious here. I know it's a beloved book though. 
Thoughts?




Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!   


January 31st

Some love is infinite

"Don’t have a best friend that’s a girl" — this was the advice from my older cousin. I didn’t take it. Because he followed with, "friends don’t f*ck friends. And you’ll want to f*ck her."

It was terrible advice.

My cousin should’ve told me that being best friends with Baylee Wright — since she was twelve — would be the best and worst decision of my life.

He should have told me to protect her from what was coming.

He should have told me that when a darkness crawled towards us, there’d be no safety net.

Now I’ve signed back on to the same Vegas acrobatic show as Baylee, working together for the first time in years. And she tells me that she’s having trouble in a certain “area” of her life — because of our past.

“You can help me fix it,” she says.

And then she hands me a list.

Standalone New Adult Romance - Recommended for readers 18+ for mature content.

Luka Kotova is introduced in Amour Amour, and Infini takes place in the same acrobatic world. However, it's not necessary to read Amour Amour prior to Infini
 


So excited for this one! I absolutely loved the Cirque Du Soleil-esqe vibe of the first book, and can't wait to see what happens in this one. 


Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Top Ten Tuesday: 2017 Releases I'm Excited For

Hey, ladies!


It's Top Ten Tuesday by The Broke and The Bookish! Today's topic is 2017 debuts you're excited for, but since I am horrid with keeping track of debuts, I'll just be doing my most anticipated releases for 2017. Let's jump right in!

10. April 25th
The thrilling final installment of Chloe Neill’s New York Timesbestselling urban fantasy series sees a sinister sorcery advancing across Chicago, and it may usher in the fall of Cadogan House… 

Since the night of her brutal attack and unwilling transformation to vampire, Merit’s stood as Sentinel and protector of Chicago’s Cadogan House. She's saved the Windy City from the forces of darkness time and again with her liege and lover, Ethan Sullivan, by her side.

When the House is infiltrated and Merit is attacked by a vampire seemingly under the sway of dark magic, Merit and Ethan realize the danger is closer than they could have ever imagined. As a malign sorcery spreads throughout the city, Merit must go to war against supernatural powers beyond her comprehension. It’s her last chance to save everything—and everyone—she loves.
That is so not how I pictured Ethan....

9. January 10th
In this modern day spin on Leroux’s gothic tale of unrequited love turned to madness, seventeen-year-old Rune Germain has a mysterious affliction linked to her operatic talent, and a horrifying mistake she’s trying to hide. Hoping creative direction will help her, Rune’s mother sends her to a French arts conservatory for her senior year, located in an opera house rumored to have ties to The Phantom of the Opera. 

At RoseBlood, Rune secretly befriends the masked Thorn—an elusive violinist who not only guides her musical transformation through dreams that seem more real than reality itself, but somehow knows who she is behind her own masks. As the two discover an otherworldly connection and a soul-deep romance blossoms, Thorn’s dark agenda comes to light and he’s forced to make a deadly choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or face the wrath of the phantom who has haunted the opera house for a century, and is the only father he’s ever known.
I've never actually seen Phantom of the Opera, but I'm quite curious!


8. March 7th
In the #1 New York Times bestselling Mercy Thompson novels, the coyote shapeshifter has found her voice in the werewolf pack. But when Mercy's bond with the pack and her mate is broken, she'll learn what it truly means to be alone...

Attacked and abducted in her home territory, Mercy finds herself in the clutches of the most powerful vampire in the world, taken as a weapon to use against alpha werewolf Adam and the ruler of the Tri-Cities vampires. In coyote form, Mercy escapes only to find herself without money, without clothing, and alone in the heart of Europe...

Unable to contact Adam and the rest of the pack, Mercy has allies to find and enemies to fight, and she needs to figure out which is which. Ancient powers stir, and Mercy must be her agile best to avoid causing a war between vampires and werewolves, and between werewolves and werewolves. And in the heart of the ancient city of Prague, old ghosts rise...
Oh my god, yesssssss. Sounds like this'll take us back to the older Mercy books vibe, which I'm psyched for.


7. January 24th
A typical day in the life of Charley Davidson involves cheating husbands, missing people, errant wives, philandering business owners, and oh yeah...demons, hell hounds, evil gods, and dead people. Lots and lots of dead people. As a part time Private Investigator and full-time Grim Reaper, Charley has to balance the good, the bad, the undead, and those who want her dead. In this eleventh installment, Charley is learning to make peace with the fact that she is a goddess with all kinds of power and that her own daughter has been born to save the world from total destruction. But the forces of hell are determined to see Charley banished forever to the darkest corners of another dimension. With the son of Satan himself as her husband and world-rocking lover, maybe Charley can find a way to have her happily ever after after all.
So excited for this one!

6. February 21st
Some men are born responsible, some men have responsibility thrust upon them. Henry John Edgar Thomas Pembrook, Prince of Wessco, just got the motherlode of all responsibility dumped in his regal lap.

He’s not handling it well.

Hoping to force her grandson to rise to the occasion, Queen Lenora goes on a much-needed safari holiday—and when the Queen’s away, the Prince will play. After a chance meeting with an American television producer, Henry finally makes a decision all on his own:

Welcome to Matched: Royal Edition. 

A reality TV dating game show featuring twenty of the world's most beautiful blue bloods gathered in the same castle. Only one will win the diamond tiara, only one will capture the handsome prince’s heart.

While Henry revels in the sexy, raunchy antics of the contestants as they fight, literally, for his affection, it’s the quiet, bespectacled girl in the corner—with the voice of an angel and a body that would tempt a saint—who catches his eye.

The more Henry gets to know Sarah Mirabelle Zinnia Von Titebottum, the more enamored he becomes of her simple beauty, her strength, her kind spirit... and her naughty sense of humor.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day—and irresponsible royals aren’t reformed overnight. 

As he endeavors to right his wrongs, old words take on whole new meanings for the dashing Prince. Words like, Duty, Honor and most of all—Love.
I wanted Henry's book from the first time I read him in Royally Screwed!

5. June 6th
All’s fair in love and work. The first standalone romance by New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Beautiful Bastard) is a sexy, compulsively readable romantic comedy that dives headlong into the thrill and doubt of modern love.

Despite the odds against them from an embarrassing meet-awkward at a mutual friend’s Halloween party, Carter and Evie immediately hit it off. Even the realization that they’re both high-powered agents at competing firms in Hollywood isn’t enough to squash the fire.

But when their two agencies merge—causing the pair to vie for the same position—all bets are off. What could have been a beautiful, blossoming romance turns into an all-out war of sabotage. Carter and Evie are both thirtysomething professionals—so why can’t they act like it?

Can Carter stop trying to please everyone and see how their mutual boss is really playing the game? Can Evie put aside her competitive nature long enough to figure out what she really wants in life? Can their actor clients just be something close to human? Whether these two Hollywood love/hatebirds get the storybook Hollywood ending or just a dramedy of epic proportions, you will get to enjoy Christina Lauren’s heartfelt, raucous, and hilarious romance style at its finest.
 

I can't wait to see where this duo takes it!

4. May 30th
The Hidden Legacy series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews continues as Nevada and Rogan navigate a world where magic is the norm…and their relationship burns hot

Nevada Baylor has a unique and secret skill—she knows when people are lying—and she's used that magic (along with plain, hard work) to keep her colorful and close-knit family's detective agency afloat. But her new case pits her against the shadowy forces that almost destroyed the city of Houston once before, bringing Nevada back into contact with Connor "Mad" Rogan.

Rogan is a billionaire Prime—the highest rank of magic user—and as unreadable as ever, despite Nevada’s “talent.” But there’s no hiding the sparks between them. Now that the stakes are even higher, both professionally and personally, and their foes are unimaginably powerful, Rogan and Nevada will find that nothing burns like ice …
 

Need this. Now. 

3. May 2nd
Twenty-four-year-old truck stop waitress and single mother Catherine Wright has simple goals: to give her five-year-old daughter a happy life and to never again be the talk of the town in Balsam, Pennsylvania: population two thousand outside of tourist season.

And then one foggy night, on a lonely road back from another failed attempt at a relationship, Catherine saves a man’s life. It isn’t until after the police have arrived that Catherine realizes exactly who it is she has saved: Brett Madden, hockey icon and media darling.

Catherine has already had her fifteen minutes of fame and the last thing she wants is to have her past dragged back into the spotlight, only this time on a national stage. So she hides her identity. It works.

For a time.

But when she finds the man she saved standing on her doorstep, desperate to thank her, all that changes. What begins as an immediate friendship quickly turns into something neither of them expected. Something that Catherine isn’t sure she can handle; something that Catherine is afraid to trust.

Because how long can an extraordinary man like Brett be interested in an ordinary woman like Catherine…before the spark fades?
It's K.A. Tucker. Enough said. 

2. March 14th
Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them. 

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. 

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?
Curious!

1. May 30th
In this riveting sequel to New York Times bestselling author Rachel Vincent's acclaimed novel Menagerie, Delilah Marlow will discover that there is no crueler cage than the confines of the human mind…

When their coup of Metzger's Menagerie is discovered, Delilah and her fellow cryptids find their newly won freedom brutally stripped away as they are sold into The Savage Spectacle, a private collection of "exotic wildlife." Specializing in ruthless cryptid cage matches, safari-style creature hunts and living party favors, the Spectacle's owner, Willem Vandekamp, caters to the forbidden fetishes of the wealthy and powerful. At the Spectacle, any wish can be granted—for the right price.

But Vandekamp's closely guarded client list isn't the only secret being kept at the Spectacle. Beneath the beauty and brutality of life in the collection lie much darker truths, and no one is more determined than Delilah to strip the masks from the human monsters and drag all dark things into the light.
 
My post anticipated release for 2017!

Monday, January 2, 2017

December Recap

Hi, ladies!

I can't believe we're in 2017, and it's time to set a new Goodreads reading challenge and decide which other challenges to participate in. This year I'm setting my Goodreads goal to 100; keeping it nice and simple!

It's also time to recap what I read in December, and give a final update on 2016's challenges. I was in a strange sort of reading funk for most of December, but luckily my last book kicked that!

Let's get right to it!


Books Read















Total - 13 

Total for 2016* - 190
*including rereads


Challenge Updates


188 of 130, 145% complete!


Audio challenge

Binge Listener (20-30) pledged
63 audiobooks for 2016, and goal met!




71 books knocked off my TBR!!




The one that was my favorite




The one that made me cringe



The one that left me conflicted



The one that made me laugh



The one that surprised me 



The one that broke my funk



Book Boyfriend of the Month

Mad Rogan!

Sunday, January 1, 2017

The Sunday Post/It's Monday, What Are You Reading? Hello, 2017

Hello, ladies!



The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. It's Monday, What Are You Reading is a fun weekly meme hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date where we share what we've read and reviewed over the past week and what we plan to read next. 

Hello, 2017! I hope you all had a good Christmas/whatever holiday you celebrate. Mine was good for the most part, even though extended family drama always taints things a bit. Overall though, it was pleasant!


Work is picking up again, so it's been a bit busier than normal, but that's okay. Glad to have work!

I'm so freaking excited for all the books releases this month! Publishers and authors seem to hold out until January to blast their new releases, and the wait is finally over. Yay!






Between the holidays, family, weather, and that time of the month, my steps kinda sucked this week. I'll be back on track this week, though!

Sunday - 9,065
Monday - 8,383
Tuesday - 9,653
Wednesday - 5,966
Thursday - 13,858
Friday - 7,967
Saturday - 9,945

Total - 64,837


This Week's Recap






Coming Up

December Recap

Top Ten Tuesday: 2017 Debuts I'm Excited For

Waiting on Wednesday

TBR Thursday

Cover Lust, No. 50



Read This Week

3.5 stars!
The audio was decent, but I was a bit let down with this one. There wasn't anything wrong with it exactly, but it wasn't as amazing as everyone made it out to be, at least in my eyes.
3 stars!
I didn't realize it was a novella so initially I felt it was really rushed. Oops, my bad! Unfortunately, that feeling stuck with me, haha.
2 stars!
This sucked. The premise was so good, though!
4 stars!
This was a little different than Jay Crownover's usual, but it was really good! Action packed, sexy as hell, addictive and the side characters were amazing. This was one of the three brothers' books, and I can't wait for Lane and Sutton's books.



Currently Reading

Well, I picked it up today. Don't know if I'll stick with it, since I'm already annoyed!



What Will I Read Next?

????