It's a late Sunday update today. You know those posts I said I would write? Yeah, they aren't the reason for the later Sunday update. I was reading and playing Sims when I told myself I was going to play blog catch up. I frequently do things like that to myself and then complain about how much catching up I have to do. I know, I do myself no favours. Luckily for me, I'm not at work until Wednesday so there's hope for me yet.
This week has been drama free work wise. You'll be pleased to hear no words were had, no fights, no finger pointing, and I haven't descended into playground behaviour. I am taking the next couple of days to do some pros and cons of my current work situation though so wish me luck. I'm bored of complaining to you guys about it and I’m sure you’re getting fed up of listening to it.
I felt like I've both done loads and nothing this week. I successfully got my hair cut which I've been telling myself I'd get sorted for the past two months. It looks and feels so much better. Maybe I should go more often so I don't get the weird stringy wispy mess I usually call hair? I probably won't though. I also met up with a friend I feel like I haven't seen properly in forever and although another friend pulled out of that meet up it was so nice catching up. I swear life gets in the way but little things like drinks with friends cannot be overlooked for how beneficial it is to my mood.
Apart from that, it's been chill. I spent last weekend looking through old vinyl records with my mom and brother and that was such a laugh. I spent a long time bringing up artists on Spotify as I knew no songs by bands like T Rex and Genesis who featured heavily in my parents' old collection. Also, I discovered that someone really liked Elton John because who knew he had quite so many records? I've got to say there is something about Vinyl that is fun to handle. I like having Spotify on my phone... it's convenient. But I definitely see how a physical thing can be nice to listen to now and again.
I've got the next couple of days off from work for my birthday which is Tuesday. I had my work birthday Friday though and that was nice. I've got myself set up with some new nice Lush bath bombs and some facemasks so I know I'll be relaxing in the bath at some point and trying to unwind from things. It should be lovely. Just need to choose a good book. Any recommendations?
What I’ve Been Reading
I only read two books this week. I felt like I was reading A Darkness Absolute for a year. It was so slow at the start with mystery taking it’s time to develop and hook me. I remember having that problem the first time I read it, too. It was as good as I remember it, though. Kelley Armstrong doesn’t disappoint with her books. I also read the best romance! I’m not always a fan of second chance romance, but Therese Beharrie’s Second Chance With Her Billionaire was amazing. I admit, I normally look past these Mills & Boon releases about billionaires, etc, because really? But this is not a book to be overlooked, I will now read everything she writes ever.
New To Me
I’ve only bought/traded for three new books this week. I saw On The Come Up And The Hate U Give in a book offer and fine I’ve read The Hate U Give already but who can resist owning a physical copy of such a powerful book? I now have a copy to lend out to all my friends. And I swapped for I have Lost My Way and I’m excited to read. I’ve always enjoyed Gayle Forman’s books. I did pass on reading her one release which was classed as a proper grown-up book as it didn’t look like my kind of read. but her YA releases are always spot on.
My wish got granted on Netgalley. I did ask for The Kingdom of Copper for my birthday so I may end up reading a physical copy instead (if my brother has followed my request anyway) but I was very surprised to see my wish was granted on Netgalley. I can’t wait to get reading.
How has your week been? Has anyone done anything exciting? And can anyone suggest a good relaxing bath read for me? I always struggle to find a book with the right tone for relaxing, maybe a good romance?
A Wicked Kind of Husband (Right Kind Of Love #3) – Mia VIncy
Published: 5th October 2018Source: Kindle Unlimited, Purchased
Genre: Historical Romance
My Rating:
It was the ideal marriage of convenience…until they met
Cassandra DeWitt has seen her husband only once—on their wedding day two years earlier—and this arrangement suits her perfectly. She has no interest in the rude, badly behaved man she married only to secure her inheritance. She certainly has no interest in his ban on her going to London. Why, he’ll never even know she is there.
Until he shows up in London too, and Cassandra finds herself sharing a house with the most infuriating man in England.
Joshua DeWitt has his life exactly how he wants it. He has no need of a wife disrupting everything, especially a wife intent on reforming his behavior. He certainly has no need of a wife who is intolerably amiable, insufferably reasonable … and irresistibly kissable.
As the unlikely couple team up to battle a malicious lawsuit and launch Cassandra’s wayward sister, passion flares between them. Soon the day must come for them to part … but what if one of them wants their marriage to become real?
Hilarious, heartrending, and hot, this standalone Regency romance tells the story of a marriage of convenience between opposites.
This week I’ll probably have but one post up again but I am hoping to spend the weekend writing a couple of posts. Anyway, for this week I will slowly play review catch up on the brilliant books I read in January. One of my favourites was from a new to me author, Mia Vincy, and I wanted to tell you all about it whilst I eagerly await a new release from her.
This is another book I discovered because of Nick (how did I even find new books before her?) and I could not be happier about it because it was absolutely stunning. It’s a tragedy this is Mia Vincy’s first published book because it was unputdownable and as soon as I finished I wanted to binge read everything she had ever written. Those eagle-eyed readers may be questioning how this can be her first book when I’ve marked this as book #3 in a series, that is because this was the first one she had which was ready to be published so the series will be released out of order. I hadn’t realised that but don’t use it as an excuse to wait on her books because honestly, who doesn’t read a romance series out of order these days? It’s worth it… trust me.
When I discovered this book I'd been in the mood to read a really good historical romance as I needed a break from the sea of contemporary romances waiting to be read on my Kindle. I actually had another book all lined up and then I saw it mentioned on Twitter (by Nick obviously) and ended up borrowing this on Kindle Unlimited and I have no regrets. I would have read it in one sitting if sleep and mydie-hardd love of Luther hadn't gotten in the way. Instead, it got read in a few chunks but within two days. I stayed up far later than intended and sacrificed washing my hair for this book which is large praise indeed (and made me rejoice that dry shampoo is a thing). I adored each page and wanted to hug it close upon finishing. Hell, I went bought it after finishing my KU borrow because a book this good deserved my financial investment.
Historical romance can often feel samey (as can any romance really) but Mia Vincy successfully made this book stand out with both original and interesting characters, and amazing writing. There was excellent banter between the characters, with drama, chaos and an interesting storyline to boot. It’s not everyday you come across all of these in a single book and I’m normally happy if a book can tick three or four of these boxes so you know I was pleased when it had all of them.
Our main character, Cassandra, charmed me from the first page with her politeness which masked a sharp mind and wry remarks at her sister's drunken state. It was her determination to do right by her family and help them even when they truly didn’t seem like they deserved their help. And when I found that Cassandra was already married (in name only) I thought for sure I wouldn’t like this absent husband… I was wrong (I frequently am, even if I pretend otherwise) and Joshua charmed me as soon as he arrived on the page not recognising his own wife (not that she recognised him either). He was curt, abrupt, rude, and charming. He was filled with an energy that brought him alive and even though he was harsh in many ways the dichotomy of this character is what made me like him. I simply loved him and his kind chaotic overflowing heart. He and Cassandra were so well suited and neither even realised it. They were both so similar and so different. And together they had chemistry in buckets but their personalities together were what worked, they complemented each other which made them work as a couple.
Can I also say this book did the sex right? Because it did. There were no cringey sex scenes and I didn’t feel bored by them like they were interrupting an excellent romance as if the author was ticking the sex box to be sure it fits into the romance category. Oh no, it was done well. Like I said, this book is the whole package. It’s awesome.
I loved every page of this book and didn't want to stop reading. Cassandra and Joshua are my favourites who I hope to return to time and again. I find myself a fussy historical reader and had thought I might not enjoy it. I was wrong and should know better. It was brilliant and it's on Kindle Unlimited. Go read it. Now!
Have you read this yet? If not, why not? And how do you occupy yourself when you’re eagerly awaiting new releases from an author?
Hi guys.
Sorry, I skipped a week. I was just not in the blogging mood but hopefully I’m back now and have t shirts for everybody.
More drama at work. Not related to some people being dirty hypocrites. I’m mostly over that. Can you tell? But instead I got folks trying to blame me for their mistakes and I am so putting my foot down with my manager because she is telling other departments out dirty laundry and I’m like hell. no. You’re manager. Start acting like it and take the fall when your team messes up and then make sure it doesn’t happen again. Don’t be placing blame on your team especially when she knows I don’t do that shit. It wasn’t even a major thing I got blamed for. It was tiny, inconsequential and… honestly… I shouldn’t care I got the blame because it don’t matter. I’d shake it off… but this is the not the first time someone has been pointing fingers at others when they’ve done something wrong and I am not ok with that. These are the tiny dramas they don’t warn you about when you enter the working world. You have to deal with bitches and revert to high school behaviour to make it through the day. And then people question why adults are still reading YA when they shouldn’t be able to relate. Dude, I can relate to the high school drama. I’m living it.
I ordered a new phone Friday as well and let me tell you that was a whole other drama. From having a tracking number which showed someone else’s parcel delivery to my parcel showing the wrong delivery day. It was a total nightmare. Let me tell you DPD need to get themselves some better hold music and there is nothing more frustrating than them telling you to go to a website if you don’t want to wait on hold when you can’t get any online help beyond a damned email! And they go on about how they’re all about being nice to one another, which is fine, no one enjoys being the customer service member on the other end of the phone of a pissed off customer, but reducing down the number of ways you can get a hold of customer service assistance is not the way forward. I want to say I’ve got the phone sorted, but I’m currently writing this post whilst stuck on hold so stay tuned. All I wanted was to treat myself to a new damned phone… I should have just gone in store and shopped but I thought I knew better. Shopping may be stressful but this may be a circumstance where dealing with a person may be better than doing it online.
I’ve not really done anything exciting since we last caught up. Just work drama (seriously, all the drama) and sleeping. I’ve even been going through a bit of a book slump so not a whole lot of reading occurred… and any reading that did was meh and I DNF-ed a whole heap.
I did have a good old clear out of some books I absolutely am never going to read. I own a whole heap of books and I figured it’s about damned time I clear them out and own up to not reading them. I don’t have time or the inclination, why pretend otherwise? So I am clearing out books and doing some swapping and I feel damned good about it. It’s just a relief to get rid of some books I know no longer interested me. I think I should do this more often.
What I’ve Been Reading
Like I said, I’ve been in a bit of a slump and I’m coming out of it, but damn is it hard when you’ve been in a bad mood about things. Offside was a DNF as I attempted to clear out some old books which have been lingering on my Kindle for way too long. Offensive Behaviour was good… but I also stopped reading it and didn’t feel any motivation to return to it. I know that is more me and my mood than anything else. I’m not willing to admit defeat yet on that one, hopefully a week or two I’ll read it. I did decide to try a reread to get me back in the mood so I started reading City of the Lost and have just moved on to A Darkness Absolute and let me tell you that it was a good decision. Hopefully, this gets me back into reading.
New To Me
Yeah, I got a few books. Not too many, though. The first three equate to like £5 in 2 weeks and then I traded for Foolish Hearts and omg that hardcover is so pretty! Who knew? I adore that stuff.
And I got a few arcs too. You know I am psyched by The Austen Playbook, I’ve not requested an arc so fast in a good long while. I’ll start that soon, but I want to wait until I’m a bit of a better reading mood before starting.
Hope you’ve had a good couple of weeks and keep your fingers crossed my reading slump ends with my current rereads.
Published: 18th February 2019
Source: Netgalley
Genre: Historical Romance
My Rating:
He’s her ticket into high society…
Banking heiress Ursula Nunes has lived her life on the fringes of Philadelphia’s upper class. Her Jewish heritage means she’s never quite been welcomed by society’s elite…and her quick temper has never helped, either.
A faux engagement to the scion of the mid-Atlantic’s most storied family might work to repair her rumpled reputation and gain her entrée to the life she thinks she wants…if she can ignore the way her “betrothed” makes her feel warm all over and stay focused on her goal.
She’s his ticket out…
Former libertine John Thaddeus “Jay” Truitt is hardly the man to teach innocent women about propriety. Luckily, high society has little to do with being proper and everything to do with identifying your foe’s temptation—an art form Jay mastered long ago. A broken engagement will give him the perfect excuse to run off to Europe and a life of indulgence.
But when the game turns too personal, all bets are off…
I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I think most of my purchases and arc requests of late can be attributed to the influence of Nick. This is definitely true of todays book, it’s definitely firmly in the 'Nick made me do it' category. I can't help it, as soon as a book gets her stamp of approval I'm there wanting to buy or request it and no amount of telling myself to wait a second and be sensible works, impulse just takes over and I’ve a new book in my hands. Publishers should totally give her commission from my purchases.
Anyway, her positive words made me want to read this. To be fair, so did the fake relationship trope and the fact I’ve been craving a good historical romance. Sadly, this was a case of nick approved book not quite working for me for very me reasons. The book was actually really enjoyable with interesting characters and it succeeded in not falling into the usual romance plot traps and surprising me… but it didn’t click and fall into the ‘this is amazing’ category.
Ursula (what is with that name?) was totally charming with her complete inability to read people and her utter social awkwardness. She was so easy to like and she had a love for animals! I was always going to like her. And our romantic hero, Jay, was not the stereotypical man who gets around with money and privilege. He was many layered and he had secrets which slowly emerge throughout the story. I was wary of him, at first. I knew there was more to him than met the eye but I hadn't realised how many secrets he held and honestly thought he was going to be the typical over privileged man who was rich and slept around and wasn’t very interesting. Turns out he was a grower not a shower and I loved how he was actually adorable. He seemed like he would be the kind of rich guy who was a snob, like he would be judgey and savage people and be inconsiderate of others feelings but in fact he was the most considerate man. he always knew how to make those around him more comfortable and feel better about themselves, almost to his own detriment. He was a sweetie who had been told a few too many times he wasn't good enough.
There was a lot to like with these characters and the story was easy to get sucked into as you try and figure out the various secrets going on. But something didn't work. I kind of feel like it was the way the book was written. I constantly felt like I’d missed something and found myself flicking back because I wasn’t certain if I’d skim read and missed something only to find the book had gone forward and would flashback to explain a missed scene. Scene transitions just didn’t seem to work to me and I know everything was there and nothing was ever missed, but I think the writing for some reason distanced me from the story and threw me out as I tried to figure out what was going on and decide if I’d missed something. I also found I couldn’t always keep the secondary characters straight in my head. Names would be mentioned and I’d be left questioning ‘who’s that again'?’ which is never a fun feeling when reading. I can’t say the secondary characters weren’t well developed, but for some reason names wanted to stick in my head even less than usual. I am guilty of forgetting names when reading but this was worse than usual.
I don't know it was enjoyable and I was drawn in by the characters and the story but things were really minor and shouldn't have impacted my enjoyment too much seemed to bother me.more than usual here. It was good and I do recommend. Yet it also wasn't totally for me. Its weird. I would be interested to read more from this author to see if it was just this book or maybe it's their writing style which doesn't totally click with me. It's hard to pinpoint but something was missing to stop me rating it higher but enjoyment was there.
Have you read a book where you know the book is decent but the writing style keeps you from falling head over heels? I feel like it happens to me a lot lately but this was a good historical romance but sadly not my favourite.
We’ve made it through the first month of 2019 and the world hasn’t burned and the apocalypse hasn’t happened. Check us out.
It was a decent month, even if a lot of work drama was plain old rage inducing. Apart from work making me want to punch someone or rip my hair out January was actually a decent month. I might not have booked a holiday yet but I’m getting closer to figuring out where I want to go. maybe it’ll be a west coast trip this year. Maybe doing the whole LA thing, or heading to Vegas… or both if I can find the money for it.
I can’t actually think of what I did in January, I feel like it was a month of seeing friends and being social. I had a cocktail night, which was a laugh, went to the cinema and went to a really good Indian restaurant where the staff are always awesomely friendly and the food was tasty too. I think maybe socialising was the theme of the month for me (which is a rarity, I hate being social). Hopefully, this trend will continue through the year but now it’s February I’m trying to figure out what I want to do for my birthday but I have no clue. maybe I’ll try and convince my friends to do something fancy like food in the city and cocktails and pretend we’re cultured. Who knows, but February’s theme is set anyway, it’s all about my birthday.
Can’t Stop Listening
I created a whole playlist because I have been loving a lot of music this month. I have been dancing and raging and this is a playlist to get you through every emotion. There is no theme, my tastes do not follow a theme.
January Reads
Favourites:
The Rest:
January Posts
January Favourites
I really enjoyed showing you what my favourite other things were for my yearly wrap up so I thought I’d try to do it for January… but I don’t even know what my favourites will be.
I have been loving this BareMinerals matte liquid lipstick. I have the colour Swank (I know, it’s a naff name) which a friend bought me for Christmas and that girl knows me so well because it is my most favourite lipstick lately. I get all the compliments when I wear it so strongly recommend.
So, I started watching Luther in 2018 but I finished in 2019 and oh man, that stuff was awesome, but what was that ending? I also watched a few things on Netflix and I have to say Home Again and the Fyre documentary on Netflix were both awesome. Home Again was meant to be a rom-com for me but turned into just a really nice easy viewing and a reminder your life doesn’t end when you hit 30 when you have kids. And then Fyre, well, I mean, it was mental.
And that is my month. It’s been a bit all over the place but it was good. What have your highlights of January been? Any favourite reads?
How did I manage to go a whole week without a post being written? So, I wrote two posts this afternoon/evening (I’m trying this up Saturday) but considering this is one of the posts, yeah, don’t expect a mass of posts from me for a week or so. That’s all I’ll say. I’ve been busy doing nothing. The cold weather has gotten to me a little, I think. We certainly haven’t had it as bad as some folks in the US (wrap up warm and stay inside when you can because it looks awful) but it's been chilly enough that I've spent a lot of time in cosy PJs and plenty of blankets reading and watching TV. I’ve just not been in the mood for blogging and reading to a certain extent, I think I’ve just been a little run down so curling up with some TV (I'm looking at you Eastenders) has been all I’ve wanted to do after work.
This week I’ve had full responsibility for dog walking and let me tell you it has been the worst week for not being able to fob off the responsibility of him to someone else. I’ve had my woolly hat and gloves on to take Milo out and he has not had a long adventure because both of us have been shivering by the five-minute mark. He has been a total pest without his usual exercise, though. Maybe Sunday can be the day we burn off his energy.
My boots arrived, though! And guys, they are stunning. I adore everything about them and they are so damn sparkly! I cannot get enough of them, I really can’t. I’m pretty sure I want to wear them with every outfit. Reckon I can make them work appropriate?
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve had a slower reading week again. I began reading The Loneliest Girl in the Universe Sunday and powered through it that day. It was good but now I’ve finished it and had time to think on it a little more it’s not as good as my ‘I can’t put this down’ thoughts made it seem. I then had another day of not knowing what to read so I ended up buying Lord of Scoundrels because I fancied some more historical romance. The Intimate Deception has been on my Kindle for a good 3 years or something and I am trying to clean up my Kindle books a little so I began reading that. It’s not bad, a good enjoyable read I think (if a touch predictable, I’ve not finished yet but I can see how it’s going to go).
New To Me
Only one purchase this week and I read it straight away. I’ve recently discovered with Kindle books you can return them up to 14 days after you’ve purchased them so I’ve kind of adopted the idea of returning books if I haven’t read them within a week because I’m trying to get my Kindle under control and there are so many books which I’ve bought and within a week or two of buying I’ve known I’ll never get to them. It kind of makes me think before I even buy a book if I’ll actually get to reading.
How has your week been? Any good books or awesome purchases? And we all will make it through winter, right? I feel like I might lose fingers typing this up (I'm a drama queen, I know).
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