I’ve recently decided to join the Guest of the Month Club hosted by Emily Reads Everything. Once a month, I’ll be hosting a fellow blogging friend right here for your enjoyment. This week, help me welcome Michael of Your Own Pay.
Continue reading “Guest of the Month Club #2 – Michael of Your Own Pay”
Month: December 2015
Happy Holidays & Blogging Break
Seasons of Book Blogging Tag
Thank you to EspressoDreams for tagging me! 😀
The Rules
- Thank the creator (thanks, Jordyn!) and the individual who tagged you.
- Begin with the month in which you have been tagged and move forward from there
- State the best gift you’ve received after answering the prompt on your birthday month.
- Tag whomever you’d like when you’re finished.. or else you’ll be “it” forever.
- Have fun, of course!
#RockMyTBR – Book Tag
The #RockMyTBR Reading Challenge is hosted by Sarah K, The YA Book Traveler. Click here for more info.
ROCK MY TBR SONG AND BOOK TAG
Look at your books on your TBR and do the tag! It is open to all, even if you aren’t officially doing the challenge!
This was a hard tag for me, so I had to change up a few of the descriptions. Continue reading “#RockMyTBR – Book Tag”
Top Ten Tuesday – Best Books I Read In 2015
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Top Ten Best Books I Read In 2015 Continue reading “Top Ten Tuesday – Best Books I Read In 2015”
#RockMyTBR – Intro post
The #RockMyTBR Reading Challenge is hosted by Sarah K, The YA Book Traveler. Click here for more info.
Pretty much, this is a challenge to read books that you own but haven’t read yet! See my tag here.
I’ve chosen 1 book per month, for 12 in total. I’ve also created a Goodreads shelf with all of these on it.
- Kaleidoscope by Mindy Hayes
- Relentless by Karen Lynch
- Stupid Girl by Cindy Miles
- The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler
- Riser by Becca C. Smith
- The Liberation of Alice Love by Abby McDonald
- Oubliette & Severed by Megg Jensen(I read Anathema several years ago, want to finish the series)
- Broken Places: A Memoir of Abuse by Rachel Thompson
- The In-Betweener by Ann Christy
- A Reaper of Stone by Mark Gelineau and Joe King
- Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
- The Long Way Home by Regina West
Are any of these books on your list? Would you like to plan a buddy read for any of them? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This Week’s Five!!!
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of five things I enjoyed this week!
- Since the weather is still really mild here, son and I spent A LOT of time together outside this week. This was really nice. And while usually I find a stock photo for my blog posts, this one I took myself. It’s my son’s “acorn collection” from Thursday.
- I’ve been watching hubby play the Final Fantasy VII PS4 port this week. I never played it, so it was fun to watch him play a game that played such a large part of his gaming identity and his adolescence.
- Kit Cat, over at Let The Pages Reign has been a super delight to interact with. She did some blog hopping today and complemented this one, and it made my day. Show her some love ❤
- You know what? I’ve heard a lot of lovely words from a lot of lovely people this week. You ALL rock!
- Chips and homemade guacamole. Yum!
How about you? What did you enjoy this week? Are you looking forward to something special in the upcoming one? I’d love to hear about it!
Top Ten Tuesday – New-To-Me Authors of 2015
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
Top Ten New-To-Me Favorite Authors I Read For The First Time In 2015
- It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year, but the wonderful S. Usher Evans was one of the first “new to me” authors of 2015. I think I read Double Life on New Year’s! [Review]
- Kelsey Macke quickly became a favorite [local!] author when I read Damsel Distressed. [Review]
- Julie Kagawa for the Blood Eden series, even though I still need to read the third one. [Review]
- Christina McMullen. I read Kind of Like Life this year, and I look forward to seeing her other works (some of which are already on my kindle). She is also local. [Review]
- Rainbow Rowell. I listened to Eleanor & Park over the summer, and instantly fell in love. [Review]
Edit / Proofread **I had already read, reviewed, and fallen in love with this series before performing a post-publishing editorial service
I’ve read more authors than listed above, but they were some I’ve read before. Here are four authors that I hope to read and expect to love before the end of 2015
- Heather Letto
- Jenna Nelson
- Emmie Mears
- GS Jennsen
Review – Nuts by Alice Clayton
I picked up Nuts by Alice Clayton as part of a buddy read with some new friends on Twitter. It sounded like something I would typically pick up if it was free, but imagine my surprise when the e-book was just as much as a paperback!
If you’ve hung out around here for any amount of time, you know I don’t like to pay much (or anything, if I can help it) for e-books. It isn’t that I don’t believe authors deserve payment for the hard work they do, believe me I’d give them everything if I had the ability, but I’m a stay-at-home-mom with TONS of unread books already loaded up on my kindle. Oh dear, I believe I’ve gotten off track.
Well, just after signing up for this buddy read, Nuts went on sale for a much more reasonable price, and I was happy again.
It was interesting that we had decided to read 5 chapters a day, and the book kind of fell into sections along those lines.
 Roxie Callahan is a private chef to some of Hollywood’s wealthiest, and nastiest, calorie-counting wives. After a dairy disaster implodes her carefully crafted career in one fell ploop, she finds herself back home in upstate New York, bailing out her hippie mother and running the family diner. When gorgeous local farmer Leo Maxwell delivers her a lovely bunch of organic walnuts, Roxie wonders if a summer back home isn’t such a bad idea after all. Leo is heavily involved in the sustainable slow food movement, and he likes to take his time. In all things. Roxie is determined to head back to the west coast as soon as summer ends, but will the pull of lazy fireflies and her very own Almanzo Wilder be enough to keep her home for good? Salty. Spicy. Sweet. Nuts. Go on, grab a handful. (Amazon). |
I give Nuts by Alice Clayton 3 stars. It wasn’t terrible but I really didn’t feel much love for it.
I know Roxie was supposed to be witty, and funny, and (maybe?) somewhat relatable, and while her voice was distinct, it wasn’t unique, and honestly I found it grating.
There were plenty of fun food puns and embarrassing situations, which were enjoyable. And I really enjoyed that the author tried to bring in aspects of sustainable living and eating locally to a work of fiction, as these are things that I like to think are close to my heart.
The wrench that was thrown into the story around chapter 16 or 17 was really the most interesting part of the story.
The “steamy” parts of the book were a bit interesting. There was a lot of leading up to and thinking back on the sex, with most of the actual action being left between the lines.
Overall I guess I didn’t find Roxie, or the plot, to be all that unique, and the idyllic picture of a small-town on the Hudson seemed too good to be true.
This Week’s Five!!!
Whoa, my days are getting away from me! Anyway, here are five things from this week that I enjoyed.
- Date night with my hubby! We rarely go out to eat, much less alone, and going out was absolutely lovely!
- I’m participating in a buddy read of Nuts by Alice Clayton. It’s fun to get to know these ladies and see their reactions to the same things that I’m reading.
- My best friend had her first baby this week! I’m looking forward to seeing them in the near future.
- It finally dried out enough that we could do a final mowing of our yard (read:weeds) for the year.
- Christmas shopping for the kids in my family, it always makes me happy.
What’s something you enjoyed this week? Is there something you’re looking forward to in the near future?
Books in the Garden 