Thursday, January 30, 2014

Two Households Both Alike....



   Thought I was gonna be talking about Romeo and Juliet hu? Well that's where your half right. First two books in the Wicked series Witch & Curse by Nancy Holder and Debbie ViguiĆ©. I got this book so long ago and always meant to pick it and read and just never did. This is a two book in one you can obviously just read Witch put it down and read Curse another time. Now its taking me a little longer to read both of them then I thought it would, and I hate leaving you guys with nothing, as I have been lately, so this is more a review for Witch: book one, and I'll have book 2 ready for review shortly at which for future reference I'll put a link in this post at the bottom.

Wicked: Witch & Curse (Wicked, #1-2)   First a quick summary, I would share with you the synopsis but I don't think that really gives an accurate one. When Holly Cather's life meets a tragedy killing her family and best friend, Holly has to go live with an aunt she never even knew she had and her family. Upon arriving at Seattle incidences continue to arise around her. Little does Holly know these accidents are in fact attacks sent to kill her, her aunt Marie-Claire, and twin cousins Amanda and Nicole, by a warlock Michael Devereaux, believing he could gain more power. Michael and his sons, Eli and Jeruard are of a long line of warlocks from centuries ago, while Holly, her aunt and cousins come from a long forgotten feuding family of witches the Cahor's. Unknowingly Holly and Jer are reincarnations of Isabeau and Jean from six hundred years ago and have visions and dreams of their lives.

   When you pick up a book written by two authors isn't it nice when you can't tell where one authors writing ends and the other begins. Well such is not the case here, I was able to tell one authors writing to the other don't know which one is which however, but you can tell its almost as if part it didn't get edited and sometimes it didn't flow at all. For instance the fist couple chapters of Witch one moment I'm reading about a rafting trip the next about some ritual and then some guy doing god knows what and back to the rafting (FYI if you ever want to go whitewater rafting I suggest you skip between page 10 through about 20 I think or you'll talk yourself out if and never do it.), I had to re read it to make any since and that barley helped, it didn't flow, it didn't go at all, there's characters you don't get why they're there or where they came from. Once I got past the second chapter it started to flow much nicer, and by nicer I mean it actually flowed.

   As far as the Romeo and Juliet aspect, I actually stumbled on a video with one of the authors saying that it was kind of a retelling of it if the families were witches and warlocks. Well after a while you do see similarities, you have a two rival families, the young love, though that is kinda on the fence. The school the girls go to is doing the play of which Nicole gets the lead part, and there's even a reference to the Leonardo DiCaprio version or Romeo and Juliet (which I'm not ashamed to say I have and its not the best I could write a whole review on whats wrong with it, but this isn't about that), but a retelling I don't know maybe its to early in the series cause the young love its kinda there and its kinda not.

   There is hardly any relationship between our supposedly 'love' interest. Holly and Jer meet, have a flash back of Isabeau and Jean, don't see or speak to each other for month's, and when they see each other for the second time they're all but two pieces of clothing from doing the dirty deed for no apparent reason, hello can you say 'jailbait', Holly is 17, Jer is in college, also why, they've saw each other one time for all of ten seconds. Apparently Jer sent things to help ward off the attacks and sent messages to Holly in her dreams but we get NONE of that we just get told this in one little sentence, they don't go into what these talks are about or anything. There's is more for Isabeau and Jean but not by much, they are married through the wishes of their parents each trying to gain one thing or another through it, and yet they do fall in love with each other but with Jean its like back and forth with him. There isn't a lot of character background for any of the characters, the twins couldn't be more different and Nicole often doesn't even acknowledge Amanda, first off being different from each other I can handle, but isn't there a special bond with twins, sometimes I felt like why write these two as twins when they couldn't care less about it, there's none of that twin bond there.

   I know I already mentioned the editing but I can't not mention this one part. Holly is in a Rite Aid store where she gets attacked by things flying off the shelves everything flying at her one of these things that are flying at her are knives, yes I said Knives, though it added to the danger of the situation, let me ask you when was the the last time you walked into a store, any store, and just saw KNIVES laying around on a shelf, not in a box or an impossible to open plastic case? Uhhh Hello! Stores don't do that, if they did they're in for a serious case of mass murder, they don't want some guy just walking in picking up a knife and start killing people, come on! So that kind of bugged me and after I read that part I was just sitting there for like five minutes thinking 'why the Hell would a store have knives like that' and why would a Rite Aid have knives. So its like that didn't get any edit at all.

   In lite of not having only negative to say about this, the story as a whole is actually rather good and it was somewhat enjoyable. Though I was able to tell one author from the other I like one of them, obviously I don't know who but I like whose ever writing it was far better than the writing that seemed it wasn't edited. I liked the flash backs to six hundred years ago though the first few times it transactions to it could of been better but then that transaction did get better, the author that wrote those flash backs is the one I like there was nice detail, and the dialog was nice for the time period it was in.

   I think I know why I never picked it up to read, though it didn't stop me from buying it, I think something was telling me I wouldn't like it that much. I hope you enjoyed this review. You can check out the review for Curse here.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Bout of Books 9.0 Day 5 Mini Challenge

Bout of Books


   There were two challenges today Book Spine Poetry hosted by The Book Spines and as much as I enjoyed doing this challenge last time I simply didnt have the time to go though my books and figure out a poem and it didn't seem right to use the same one I used for this challenge during the B.O.B. The other challenge today is Create a Stroy hosted by Never Too Fond of Books I thought this one seemed cool though.

What you do is
    1. Open your current book to the last page you read.
    2. Using the last word of every line, create a poem or story. You must use every word (but they do not have to be in order), and you may add punctuation as necessary. If a word is split between the end of the line and the beginning of the next one, you may choose whether or not to use it.
So let see if I can pull this one off it does seem simple enough. Ok here we go
Book I'm using is Wicked: Witch & Curse by Nancy Holder & Debbie Vigue
Words: her; and; bed; her; window; soft; cousins; her; here; eyes; blinked; sleepwalk; living; looking; seated; both; fire; black; Nicole; her; mother; crackling; the; her; gifts; they

Her mother blinked looking her eyes black, they both sleepwalk. Nicole and her cousins seated here her soft bed. The crackling fire window, her living gifts.

That's the best I was able to come up with my page didn't give much to work on sadly but there it is.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Bout of Books 9.0 Day 2 Mini Challenge

 
Bout of Books
 
Sarah Says Read is hosting one of the challenges today Reading Tactics. She want us to answer this:
 
How do you fit in as much reading as possible during Bout of Books? How do you squeeze in those extra pages?
 
 
 
   For me luckily not very many of the shows I watch are back on TV yet, or the season(Sons of Anarchy, cries)/or series[Bye, Bye Nikita] has ended, so that helps with me not watching TV at night and instead I'm reading. If I watch anything this week it'll only be when I'm eating diner or something. Other than that I'm trying to read as much I can during the day but lately I'm finding it hard to get INTO the book I read so its still not as much reading as I would like since I'm reading slower.
   I did anything that needed to be done(laundry, cleaning, ext.) last week so that I wouldn't have to do it this week. Might of even overworked myself when I cleaned the living room too.
   I typically stay up late trying not to get into bed to early as lately I'm don't stay up for more than a half hour once I do laydown but I'm reading on my NEW tablet in bed. I'm hoping this read-a-thon will help kick start the year for me and get me reading a little faster again.
 
Thanks Sarah for asking this!
Don't forget to visit her and give her your answer too if your participating, the link is above.


Sunday, January 5, 2014

Bout of Books 9.0 Goals and Updates

Bout of Books

   Bout of Books is starting tomorrow you can still sign up here. This post is my goals during the R.A.T and this time I'm but my updates in one post.

   
GOALS:
I want to participate in at least 3 challenges.
Go to atleast 5 blogs and leave a comment and or follow them.
How many books I plan to read is only 2. I know that seems lows however one book is actually a combined book there is 2 books in it and theres a good 650 pages put together in it the other book I'm reading is an ebook I honestly don't know how many pages are in that cause I'm reading it with the kobo app and don't like how that shows the progress it only shows how many pages are in the chapter your reading. But according to goodreads theres it has 400 pages.
So the books I'm reading are:
Wicked: Witch & Curse (Wicked, #1-2)Fire Burns

Both these book can count toward my TBR Challenge too.

Progress
Monday:
Due to an unforeseen thing I ended up having to take care yesterday I didn't do much reading during the day as after I took care of it I ended up sleeping what felt like half the day much of my reading I did last night.
Pages Read:
Wicked: 50 pages, it isn't starting out that great hopefully it picks up though
Fire Burns: only started it and got 3 chapters in I think that's roughly about 40 pages.

I didn't do either challenge yesterday or go to any blogs unfortunately but I plan to make up for that today. I'm already off to a good start as I am cuddled on the couch with my coffee, book and Snuggie, enjoying one of the only cold days of the year south Florida ever sees, its 50 right now outside, I'm not like most Floridian's who say its freezing when its 60 out but I say its pretty cold at 50. Complete with my cat in my lap to stay warm.

Tuesday:
I ended up reread a chapter in Wicked cause I felt a little lost it seemed like it went everywhere, its also the only book I read. I did the Reading Tactics mini challenge yesterday, and visited some blogs you'll notice them listed below.
Pages Read:
Wicked including the pages I reread, I read 60 pages.

Wednesday &Thursday:
Sorry I didn't make an update yesterday I felt like I finally made some progress in Wicked. I did visit a couple more pages also. And didn't do any challenges Wed. or Thursday.
Pages Read:
Wicked with both days I am at page 200 in the book
Oddly enough I haven't read Fire Burns since Monday.

Friday:
Was a little busy yesterday and didn't get much reading done but I did get some done, visited a few more blogs and did the Create A Story Challenge yesterday, don't think its any good though, but it was fun, that makes two of the three challenges I wanted to do.
I really thought I could use this read-a-thon to get me to read an ebook at night, however my sleep patterns have been all wacky this week, don't know why, and part the reason I'm not reading as much as I wanted. When this R.A.T is over I plan to do something about that.
Pages Read:
Wicked: 50 bring me up to 250 in that.

Saturday & Sunday:
Wow is the read-a-thon really already over! I almost forgot to wrap up everything, so I know this is a bit late. I had a lot of fun again visiting the different blogs and doing the challenges I did. I didn't make my reading goal of the two books but I did finish books one in Wicked as I said in my goals that book is a two book combined book and I finished the first one. I did 2 challenges I was hoping to get 3 but I like the two I did.
The total pages I read for Wicked: Witch & Curse is 361 completing Witch
The only reading I got with Fire Burn was only on Monday

Blogs visited:
Love.Life.Read
Bestsellers or Bust
Life is Reading
Moonlight Reader
4 A Happier Me


If your joining this R.A.T what are your goals. I look forward to see you there.~

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Kindle Limited Freebies

 

Hey so I may have accidentally fond about another dozen free eBooks guys, ok I'm not that sorry about though. These eBooks though I think are only free for a limited time maybe not all of the but one I know for a fact is not free all the time and another I'm not sure on.  However if any of these titles are free always I will add them to my free eBook page, of which I'm still working on and will have up shortly.

As I said I know for a fact that one is not going to be free all the time so if you've been like me and don't know if you want it or not it might not be for you but unsure well you might as well get NOW! What is it...
Hopeless (Hopeless, #1)
I heard some good things about this one but a lot of comparing to Beautiful Disaster and though I love Beautiful I don't want something that is soo much like it however since its free, for now, thought go ahead and get it just maybe not read it anytime soon.
 
The rest of these some I know are free all the time some I really don't know if its just for a little while
 
Sweet Masterpiece (A Samantha Sweet Mystery #1)   Drowning Mermaids (Sacred Breath, #1)   Water (Akasha, #1)   Witch Song (Witch Song, #1) Finding Cinderella (Hopeless, #2.5)   Broken (Reflections #1)   Awaking   Marked (Eternal Guardians, #1)Everblade  The Watchers (The Watchers, #1)  Medusa (Heroines of Classical Greece #1)  Silence (Silence, #1)  Broken Silence (Silence, #2)


I think its safe to say I'm getting quite a library of free ebooks, lol. It might already be time for an intervention.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New Year, New Resolutions

 It 2014!!!!
   And you know what that means its time for new years resolutions, that let's face it more often than not people drop it by the time summer comes around, new goals to meet, a chance to look at everything in a fresh way and give it a new start.

   This last year I made a few goals I wanted to meet. The obvious one lose weight, and I was too, I lost some weight though not as much as I hoped and gained back a little sadly right around when the dog wanted to start waking me up barking at God knows what time in the morning, I do NOT like being woke up with something annoying like this dogs barking, and it echoes!!!! So that being said I've been waking up in no mood to workout.
   I also wanted to make a change in life and that though it happened later in the year I met with starting this blog. Though starting this isn't quite the change I was thinking of it still is a change, its something that I will have to keep actively involved on and I know I started out strong and the last couple months have been dull but I'm hoping that was just a floozy, mixed with a little readers slump. I am so glad that I started this its giving me a purpose and putting my option out there, weather anyone read it is just a plus. So making a change in my life, step one met!


   Now for this years!!!

   Well the obvious one again, lose weight, lol. One of the first few things I'm going to do is cut my hair, Yikes!, just kidding about the yikes, but I am cutting my hair and I plan to cut it short, shorter than I've had it in a very, very long time, I'm not going Britney Spears, but it needs to get cut, drastically. I'm trying to get some body back in my hair, I tried a couple things even cut it, though not short, and now I think that my last thing to do is to just chop it, donate it of course something I always do when I cut off more then a few inches, find a good shampoo and hope for the best, its also a good way to start fresh with a new look, maybe it can be counted as step two to making a change in my life. New look can bring a new attitude which brings a fresh look on things.

  I have a few others but this is a BOOK blog so how bout I tell you my blog and reading goals now.

   This year I'm participating in the TBR Challenge, and looking for others to join, I'm sure there's tons out there. I'm going to start doing some blog book tours, though not too many want to start out slow and get the hang of them so be on the look for those.
   I don't want to just be reading eBooks now that I have my NEW tablet, I actually like holding a book and turning the page, so far I've only found one app that looks like I'm turning the page but I don't like other factors of it is the thing, anyway, also I have some books I've recently got and have had for a while that I should get to, soo and this may not happen that soon as I am so enjoying my NEW tablet (by the way I'm sorry for keep on calling it my New tablet I'm just so happy I have one I promise it'll stop, at some point, lol) but I'm thinking I could read a book during the day and an eBook at night, reading an eBook at night I don't need a light on and so I wont fall asleep with my it on, lol, now I know I'm not the only one out there who reads in bed and falls asleep with their lamp/flashlight/book lights/whatever on all night.

   Most everyone does a book haul of some kind, however I want to start going to the library again, actively this year. I may get a physical book or get a ebook from the library, depends on if I find the books I actually want at the library. But I'm going to start a little feature for my Library Hauls. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go once a month or every two weeks, guess it really depends on how many books I get, I will make it a consecutive day though so its not all over the place I'm thinking Mondays its the start of the week after all. One of the first few books I want to find is The Host, the movie is on Netflix and I kinda want to see it, but I wont till I read it.

   There's one more thing that I want to do this year as I'm sure everyone knows last July there was a lot along the lines of Harry Potter! What with the new special book cover, the anniversary, and of course his birthday. I even fond out somethings I did not know. I also realized I have not read the books in ages, I mean AGES, so I kind of made myself a little vow that I would read the books. I read the first one already. However I want to make that little vow more official by proclaiming it on here. I am vowing not to watch the movies till I finish the book! This is already being hard to do as I miss the movies! But do it I shall. What would really be perfect is if I can find the audio books at the library so I could read along with that, as from what I've heard the guy who read them did an amazing job with all the voices and everything. In fact I did listen to the audio book of the first one while I read along with it and loved it! I hope I can find it for all of them. So I'm thinking this vow needs something....I know, when I'm done with the book and I watch the movie how about I make a post and tell you something I didn't know, or forgot about, and things I learned about recently, how does this all sound! I'm sure this might be a challenge somewhere, as the books being so popular and that there are so many, I'm positive I'm not the first one to make a challenge or a vow like this and I'm sure I'm not going to be the last, but I'm doing it like this, if you want to join me do feel free!! There's just one more thing I think its missing, a goal date, anyone have any clue as to when that should be........hmmmmm
   I think I know the perfect date........how does Harry's birthday sound to everyone!!!!! And when I'm done I am sooooo having a Harry Potter movie-thon, lol. This is also perfect timing because Universal is adding to the Harry Potter world!! I wish I could go when they open it I want to take a ride on the Hogwarts Express.



   Oh guess what else, something I think is a great way that'll kick start the year and get my TBR Challenge to a good start.....It's the Bout of Books R.A.T 9.0!!!!!!! I participated in the last one they had and had so much fun, sooo I am signing up for this one now the first one of they year!! They have little mini challenges that you can do and a grand prize if you want to participate.  It starts on the 6th look for my goals post in the next few days! Hope to see you there!

Here is their little blurb about it:
Bout of Books
The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

What are your resolutions for this year? Making any reading goals? Are you going to be joining any challenges or read-a-thons I would love to hear about them!~

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