Christina Lauren's Beautiful Bastard

I received Christina Lauren's fan fiction novel Beautiful Bastard from the publisher to post my review on. That in itself was very exciting, but what was more was that I really enjoyed the novel!

This novel was a total surprise to me. I was expecting some great smut, maybe even a little twisted sex (it is fan fiction of the same genre as the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy), but nothing overwhelming. However, I was completely sucked into the story and the two main characters. The story, while not real deep, gives us enough to picture everything that is happening and to root for the characters. The characters are sassy, combative, sexy, and sweet. I loved their foreplay battles, office interactions, and the sex scenes had you biting your nails for completion as well as them getting discovered while in action. The characters were believable and held their own. Both Chloe and Bennett were strong; both knew what they wanted, both stood up for themselves and each other. I appreciated that there wasn’t a meek submissive female in this story. For the ending, I was not sure what direction the author was going - love story, friends with benefits, enemies, lovers parting ways- but I enjoyed how the author wrapped up the novel.

Overall I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for something new, erotic, and intriguing to read.

 

Ginny Lurock's Bad Blood

Bad Blood, by Ginny Lurock, was a bloody supernatural adventure. For readers who do not know the basic storyline, here is the Goodreads synopsis for the book:

High school senior Victoria “Tori” Reeve has it pretty good. She’s rich, she’s smart, and she’s popular. What more could a girl ask for? Sure, she’s a little lonely, what with being single and her best friend going off to college and all, but she’s got her work at the Spaulding Crisis Center to keep her busy. When she gets a new boss in the very easy on the eyes form of Isaac Larsen, suddenly her volunteer work feels a lot less like work. Even if he does seem to cause Tori to break out into spontaneous fits of foot in mouth disease. Somehow in spite of her blunderitis, Isaac still seems to be interested in her in a more-than-employer or even more-than-friends kind of way.

So really she should have known that things would go sideways.

Trouble comes to Spaulding, and that trouble seems to be centered on Tori and the Crisis Center. Is she really the focus? Or does this all have to do with the new mysterious man in her life? In her efforts to find out, Tori stumbles across some secrets. Skeletons that might have been better off left in the closet. As it turns out, Spaulding is a hot spot for bad blood…

Bad Blood is a YA book. The language, the characters, the emotional angst all lend to the YA plot. However, I do need to warn readers that this novel is also very mature. The language and subject matter actually surprised me a bit as I was reading. Overall though, Bad Blood was a fun story that had me going back to see what would happen next. It reminded me of a classic horror movie with all the action, blood, and me yelling at the various characters to take a different direction than they were going. It is like in the movie Scream when they make fun of the girl for running up the stairs when she runs down them, I found myself trying to coax the characters in this book.

If you are in the mood for some good horror with a supernatural twist give Bad Blood a read!

Anna Windsor's Bound by Flame

Bound by Flame was an elementally locked in & loaded suspense filled adventure complete with sorcery, kick ass Sybils, sexy demons (and some nightmare ones) bound in a struggle to save lives & tradition all while the reader is seduced with some very hot sex...oops...sexy characters.

I was impressed at how complete this story was. The author doesn't shirk her duties or tie up loose ends quickly. Everything was given its due & went beyond my expectations for where the story would end. I love that! This was especially impressive since it was the middle book in a series. It stood strong all on its own.

 

Lee Child's One Shot

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher One Shot was my first Jack Reacher novel. My dad and I are going to see the new movie but wanted to read the Child book first. Jack Reacher is a very odd, smart, complex, tough guy. At times I felt myself really liking Reacher and at others I was turned off or annoyed by him. Great writing can do that with a main character and I could not stop reading.  I am definitely going to go back to the beginning of Child’s Jack Reacher series and start at his beginnings.

For fans of David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, James Patterson, Carl Hiaasen, and/or Elmore Leanard- Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series are a must read. It has an electrifying plot, realistic action, great attention to detail, while still providing addictive characters you want to follow around on their current adventure.

 

Bad Blood Blog Tour!

The Bad Blood Blog Tour will be visiting The Small Book Blog on February 8th! Click on the Tour Badge to follow this tour:

Bad Blood Blog Tour

 

For more information from the host of the tour, updates of upcoming tours, or how to contact J for your own involvement, please visit Pure Textuality.

 

Happy New Year! What's your reading goal?

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! With the new year comes new resolutions- What are your 2013 reading goals?

For 2012 I had a reading goal of 100 books. However, after I changed jobs, lost my commute and lunch reading time, I fell short of making my goal by just 6 books! So, for 2013 I went conservative when setting up my reading challenges in Goodreads. In the Cover to Cover book club I am striving to read 60 books. However, in general I am going to try to make my reading goal 75. Wish me luck!