REVIEW: The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa

I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because as much as I love cats, I don't like copy cats!

Title: Iron Traitor
Author: Julie Kagawa
Series:The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #2
Publish Date: October 29, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
ISBN: 978-0373210916
Buy It Links (associate links included): Amazon
Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: After his unexpected journey into the lands of the fey, Ethan Chase just wants to get back to normal. Well, as "normal" as you can be when you see faeries every day of your life. Suddenly the former loner with the bad reputation has someone to try for-his girlfriend, Kenzie. Never mind that he's forbidden to see her again. 
But when your name is Ethan Chase and your sister is one of the most powerful faeries in the Nevernever, "normal" simply isn't to be. For Ethan's nephew, Keirran, is missing, and may be on the verge of doing something unthinkable in the name of saving his own love. Something that will fracture the human and faery worlds forever, and give rise to the dangerous fey known as the Forgotten. As Ethan's and Keirran's fates entwine and Keirran slips further into darkness, Ethan's next choice may decide the fate of them all.

Review: I'd like to thank the author and Net Galley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great series, it really is, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I normally do. The author is one of my favorite authors, however, the series is getting darker and darker. I wouldn't mind that, and for this series, I feel like it is a good thing. On the other hand though, there were not many light moments to the book, not too much funny stuff. 

One of my favorite characters in the entire series (including the preceding series) was Grimalkin (like I said, I love cats). This is how I think he would look:

picture found at dreamstime.com

He truly is my favorite character and we got to see so little of him during this book, it really was kind of a let down. While I expect the next book will be even darker, I hope we get more comedy relief from either Grimsy or Puck.

Saga of the Dollar Part 3: I say goodbye to my dollar

Part One can be found here | Part Two can be found here

The idea slowly forms in my head about what to do with this dollar, but I have an entire week to stew about this, and I want the wording to be perfect.You see, the biggest thing about me is that I am an overachiever.

Heck, even this series of posts is an over-achievement. Pictures and everything included! 

The recipe kind of looked like this: add 1 dollar to 1 over-achiever, toss in a Bible highlighter by random coincidence, allow stream of consciousness to bring the Gideons into the mix and add a pinch of a notepad with the following quote:

Or do I follow the yellow brick road?

So, this was where the Bible was:

Pretty, isn't it?

But how could I use the dollar and all this to bridge a gap between me and....whoever? I noticed the person before me left a note on the notepad thanking the cleaning staff (you know how you can see the ghost imprint of the note before). So why can't I do the same?

The night before I was going to leave Indianapolis and come back to reality, I sat down and wrote a note....

Good morning!
My name is Kristin. This past Sunday, my pastor gave a sermon in our church near Boston. In the sermon, he said that money can be a big divider, between people. He gave us homework this week by giving us all one dollar.He told us he wanted us to use it any way we wanted, but he wanted to know how we used it and how we thought it connects people across the divide, or divides people more. I want to use it to cross the divide between me and you. My email address is on the back. Send me an email and tell me about yourself! I hope this will bridge the gap between me and you. Use it any way you choose. I hope it helps you in dire need.
Kristin

Right before I left the room for the last time to check out, I used the Bible highlighter to highlight that passage, left the dollar and the note inside.

Goodbye little dollar! I hope you help someone out.

But let's leave that trail of genius, right?!

I hope that I get that bridge and I find out about whoever it was that becomes the new owner of the dollar.

REVIEW: Winter's Heat by Cristin Harber

Title: Winter's Heat
Author: Cristin Harber
Series: Titan #1
Published Date: October 1, 2013
Publisher: Mill Creek Press
ISBN: 0989776018
Buy It Link: Amazon
Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Synopsis: After putting her life on the line to protect classified intelligence, military psychologist Mia Kensington is on a cross-country road trip from hell with an intrusive save-the-day hero. Uninterested in his white knight act, she’d rather take her chances without the ruggedly handsome, cold-blooded operative who boasts an alpha complex and too many guns. 
Colby Winters, an elite member of The Titan Group, has a single objective on his black ops mission: recover a document important to national security. It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out operation. But now, by any means necessary becomes a survival mantra when he faces off with a stunning woman he can’t leave behind. 
When Titan’s safe houses are compromised, Colby stashes Mia at his home, exposing his secret—he’s the adoptive father of an orphaned baby girl. Too soon, danger arrives and Mia lands in the hands of a sadistic cartel king with a taste for torture. As hours bleed into fear-drenched days, Colby races across the globe and through a firestorm of bullets to save the woman he can’t live without.
Review: I received a copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. 
This was one of those romance books that hooks you in immediately. It's full of military, spy action, a really sexy guy, and a really smart woman. They get thrown together, they develop lust, then feelings for one another. Add in some mortal danger, with a dash of a kidnapping or two and you've got a great story line. 
However, these types of stories have been done, and redone, and redone again, so if they are not done right, it can leave the reader with a feeling of déjà vu. 
This author has done just the right amount of different ingredients to this recipe that she keeps the storyline fresh and engaging. It was a real pleasure to read this book, and I can't wait for the next.

Saga of the Dollar, Part 2: Indianapolis, here I come!

Part One can be found here...part three can be found here

About 8 hours after I got this dollar, I found myself in Indianapolis airport, huddled with a few other lab geeks, waiting for our transportation to the hotel. As we piled into the big van and I settled into it, my hand brushed up against something. I looked down and saw a small highlighter.
"Oh this will be useful in training..." I thought as I grabbed it, and briefly glanced at it before stuffing it into my purse (along with the dollar). It was a Bible highlighter. I didn't know they made highlighters special for Bibles, but the fact that it was a Bible highlighter kind of stuck in my head.
So I get to the hotel (Marriott, BTW....Roche, the company that paid for this learning time, was putting us up in style!) and a bunch of us meet downstairs for dinner. As we're talking about the activities to come this week, a night excursion to the Castleton Square Mall in Indianapolis was planned.

One of the other women mentioned she had heard there were a lot of hobos in the area camped out in front of the mall. Hey, this could be a way for me to use the dollar! I could give it to one of them, sit down, and get the person's story! What an awesome idea!
And then I started thinking about it. With my luck, I would end up picking the only truly homicidally insane one out there, get gutted like a fish, and die in Indianapolis. I don't want to die in Indianapolis. Surely I could find some more exotic place to die than in the middle of Peyton Manning country.
So that idea was nixed.The rest of the night continued in a haze of good food and lots of it, lots of laughter, and camaraderie between the lab geeks. As I made my way into my room, the Bible highlighter came back to my mind. Now, my stream of consciousness is more like this and it can confuse a lot of people:

Image found in DeviantArt

So from the highlighter I moved to the idea that there is a group of people, the Gideons, who mass-produce Bibles and put them in all hotel rooms. I went to the dresser, and sure enough, there was a really nice hardback Bible in there, along with a paperback of the Book of Mormon. A few years ago when I went to a hotel room, the Bible was all marked up with some really rather offensive language to me, even though I didn't believe in Christianity at the time.
I got ready for bed, and I don't know about you, but the first night in a hotel, I can't sleep. Two in the morning and I'm tossing and turning, when I start thinking about this dollar. Surely there was a reason why I got the dollar on the very day I was going to Indianapolis....and then an idea started forming....safety first...the highlighter.....Gideons........follow the yellow brick road (an inside joke from the Roche training)....

If you can't see where my yellow brick road is going with this dollar, its okay, not a lot of people can grasp the tenuous swirls of my stream of consciousness....but it should all become clear in part 3....

Saga of the Dollar, Part 1: Back Story

Last Sunday I went to church. Big gasp from all of you who have known me for the past twenty years, but I've found a place that I really like. The pastor is all out cool as heck, but you'll see that soon.
The Gospel was the parable about Lazarus and the rich man (can be read here). Reading is over, sermon begins, but I've only been to one of his sermons. The one that I did listen to had most of the congregation laughing at his story, while still providing a very good sermon. But surely he can't continue at that same level, it was just a one time thing...right?

But then he started out mentioning Hades, and how everyone back then knew it was a fictional concept, similar to how if he mentioned the word "TARDIS", everyone would know it was a fictional concept. Yes, he used those words. Now either he's a Whovian as well, or he just talked to me (and the few others that actually got that reference).

This is my desktop on my computer....see anything familiar?

If you're not familiar with Dr. Who, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is that funky blue police box right in the lower right hand corner. Don't ask me to explain it....it can't be done without taking up a few hours.

But back to the sermon, so then he focuses on the whole idea of the gap, or divide between Lazarus and the rich man, and then brings it round to things that divide us now as people. Eventually he got to the idea that money or the economy, is the big divider among people these days. And how true that is....the haves and the have-nots, right? With the American government in a state of shut-down right now, that divide is getting larger and larger.
He gave us homework (this was a first for me, but okay, I'll go along with it), he told us he was giving us a dollar, each. We could do whatever we wanted with it, we could use it, or save it, or give it away...anything at all. But he wanted us to focus on how that dollar either bridged a gap between people, or increased the gap between people.
I have to say, I truly thought it was going to be Monopoly money. After all, every church in the world is struggling for money, heck, everyone is struggling for money, after all, its the haves and have-nots....
But it was really a dollar. Yep, a real, honest to goodness dollar. For each of us.
I thought about what I would do with the dollar for a second, and stuffed it into my purse....I was off to Indianapolis for a week for training, maybe an opportunity would present itself along the way.

(More to come tomorrow....right now, I'm off to put the kidlets to bed! Stay tuned!)

Part 2 | Part 3

GIVEAWAY and BLOG TOUR: Mirror Deep by Joss Landry

Mirror Deep by Joss Landry

DANGER AND ROMANCE

…Roll like thunder in Kat Bonner’s world, when a known felon comes to the ranch to drop a bomb about her past. Kat turns to Pierce for help, the same Pierce who bucks her every chance he gets … and whose feverish investigation lands them in trouble with the law and directly in the path of a serial killer. Mystery deepens, fraught with wrong turns, bumbling detectives, old murders, and Kat’s doppelganger no one ever sees but her, just as she never sees the change in Pierce’s feelings toward her brewing, mounting, until she can no longer deny them.

Buy on Amazon | Paperback | Kobo | B&N | EBookPie | Scribd

 

Meet the author:

With a degree in commerce, Joss has worked as a consultant for more than twenty years, writing copy for marketing firms and assisting start-up companies launch their business. She recently made the switch from composing copy and promos, to writing fiction and prose. She is developing her style through courses and the support of other writers. A recent graduate of the Long Ridge Writer’s Group, she is a member of the Romance Writers of America and is presently working on honing three other novels for publication. Blessed with four children and five grandchildren, she resides in Montreal with her husband, a staunch supporter, and enjoys spending her time biking, rollerblading, playing tennis and swimming. She loves creating stories, as she says that it fulfills her need to think outside the box.

 Follow Joss Landry: Website | Blog | FaceBook Page | Twitter | Pinterest | LinkedIn |LA

 The author is giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to a reader a Rafflecopter giveaway

REVIEW: Two Brothers: Origin by Sofia Diana Gabel

Title: Two Brothers: Origin
Author: Sofia Diana Gabel
Series: Ramtalan Trilogy #1
Published date: 8/20/2013
Publisher: Escargot Books Online Limited
ASIN: B00EOABO8E
Buy it Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: What teenage boy doesn’t want to fit in and have friends? That’s what Argus Dachel, 17, wants more than anything, but because he’s half alien, and a New Breed, that’s not as easy as it seems. And it sure doesn’t help that he and his brother, Tai, are being pursued by a secret government agency. To top it off, now in their senior year at public high school, both boys risk exposure when Argus uses his extraordinary strength to defend himself against the school bully, falls for 16 year-old Lola and then learns that New Breeds are set for extermination by another group of hostile aliens. As government agent Max Jackson gets close to discovering the brothers’ identity and the hostile alien forces close in, what chance do Argus and Tai have of survival?

Review:I would like to thank the author and Promotional Book Tours for allowing me a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
It has been awhile since I've read any sci-fi. In fact I believe the last thing was Star Trek: The Stuff of Dreams. It's more science fiction than fantasy, but really soft science fiction. If anything, it would be more Young Adult, than true hard-core science fiction. Despite that, it was a great book. The book started off and just kept progressing. It wasn't one of those books that drags on, the author kept things fresh and enjoyable to read.
The cliff-hanger at the end was slightly expected, however, I still want to read the sequel and see how things go from there....will it progress like I expect?