Cover Whore

OHHHH I just had a "moment"!

They're gorgeous, pretty and all that jazz.

Just take a look at these!

The Faerie Ring - By Kiki Hamilton

PUUUUUURDY

Muse - By Rebecca Lim

O-M-G, this is beyond words for me...I need a moment....ok WHOA!

Texas Gothic - By Rosemary Clement-Moore

There's just something about this cover that screams REAADDDDD MEEEEE!

Well those are just a few of the LOVELIES I've found lately :)

Fresh Face Friday 4-29-11

Who: Michelle Muto


What: The Book of Lost Souls

When teen witch Ivy MacTavish changes a lizard into her date for a Halloween dance, everything turns to chaos. And when no one is powerful enough to transform him back except Ivy, it sparks the rumor: Like father, like daughter. Ivy has heard it all before – that her father, who left when she was seven – was involved with the darkest of magic.

Making the rumors worse, someone uses an evil spell book to bring back two of history’s most nefarious killers. Ivy’s got a simple plan to set things right: find the real dark spell caster, steal the book, and reverse the spell. No problem! But she’ll have to deal with something more dangerous than murderous spirits that want her and her friends dead: the school’s resident bad boy and hotter-than-brimstone demon, Nick Marcelli. Nick’s offering Ivy more than his help with recovering the missing book – he’s offering her a way to ditch her scaly reputation as a lizard-lover. Demons are about as hard to handle as black magic, and as Ivy soon discovers, it’s going to take more than a lot of luck and a little charm if she wants to survive long enough to clear her status as a dark witch, get a warm-blooded boyfriend, and have her former date back to eating meal worms before the week’s end.
.
      Cover: Nice, I like the whimsicle feel the "magic" that's coming out of the book :)

My Thoughts: The story sounds captivating and different. And I LOVE different. Ivy sounds like a character who could truly be a stand out in the novel world. Plus throw in a hot demon, who wouldn't want to read this book?
Stalking Grounds: Facebook, Twitter, Website



F-ING Pissed

ARRRRRRGGGGHHH! Currently I'm trying to re-word everything that I'm saying because I don't want to piss anyone off, but you know what? Screw that. This is my blog, my words, my opinions! So this is what I have to say:

ATTENTION: I understand that there are people out there with different opinions, beliefs, view points and all that. I am an EXTREMELY open-minded person. Yes I am loud, different and am not afraid to tell you exactly what I think. I'm sorry if you don't approve of what I'm putting on MY blog.... but if you have an issue with me, discuss it with only me, that's what e-mail is for!

So as a closing statement I'm going to say this.....

• YES! I put up pictures of half-naked hot dudes on my blog
• YES! I call them Man Candy
• NO! I would not have a problem if people were putting up pictures of half naked women in bikini's, because honestly I would think they're hott too! If you got it flaunt it!
• And I'm pretty sure if the gentlemen that I put on my blog are modeling half-naked, they probably aren't experiencing any self-esteem issues
• Oh annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I think they're accustom to being plastered all over the place since that are models and all

Last, but not least is this....I understand that my audience is made up of men, women, both gay & straight....there's probably even some Llamas in there from Fiction Vixen's site....but the point is a blog is suppose to be a place where you can write what you want & say what you want. Yes there are always going to be those people looking down on you, saying this and that, but all I ask is to take it up with me, not my entire audience as well.

LOVE,

JESS

(Almost) Weekend Man Candy

Since the weather here in northern CA is suppose to be amazing this weekend.....

I'm talking 87 degrees....I thought I'd let you guys know what I might be up to this weekend....

First mabye I'd go for a dip....

Then a little tanning is in order....

Then I'm going to be overheated so I'll need some ice cream with this warm weather.....

After swimming, being overheated, my body will need to re-coop....

Feeling refreshed and stimulated, finally some well deserved reading time!

Here's to HOPING my weekend goes this well!



Talkative Tuesday 4/26/11

Talkative Tuesday is BACK! And better late then never right?!

Though I did take last week off, I offer you a blog that's totally awesome and full of "Sass"!

Sassy Book Lovers is made up of 2 wonderful friends from down under who share a savage love for reading. With just starting their blog last month it has TRULY taken off! (I will admit I am slightly envious)

There are Quotes of the Day, fabulous giveaways, and honest as they come reviews! Now I'm going to go bug them until they give me their tricks of the trade, while I'm away make sure you all check out their awesome blog!

Stalk them...NOW: Facebook, Blog

The Goddess Test - By Aimee Carter

Release Date: 4/26/2011

Website: Aimee Carter

Publisher:

Purchase Info: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depo

Every girl who has taken the test has failed.

Now it's Kate's turn.

It's always been just Kate and her mom--and now her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.

Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld--and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate is sure he's crazy--until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride, and a goddess.

If she fails...

The Goddess Test takes the Greek myths that we've fallen in love with over the years and spins them into a tale that is magical, heart wrenching and full of laughs.

Kate is probably one of the most selfless characters that I've ever read about. Giving your life up for someone you don't even know, and who is frankly a bitch, would be hard for anyone to deal with. But when it requires you to give up your winters to live with the God of the Underworld, yeah that would have me second guessing myself. So when Kate decides that Henry (who is Hades) is basically off his rocker and says no, because honestly who would believe he's a God? She faces the reality of her decision and instantly regrets it. Now she finds herself begging Henry to change what he's done, she'll stay with him for how ever long he wants, just as long as he can reverse what has been done.

When Henry can't reverse it, he offers Kate something that means more to her then she could imagine. Time with her dying mother. Next thing she knows Kate finds herself trapped in Eden, with the pressure to pass 7 mysterious tests, living with food tasters, tutors, guards, and someone who even picks her clothes out. And they're ugly clothes at that. This all seems a little much, but when Kate finds out that the other "Queens" that have been trying to pass Henry's test have all turned up dead, well that puts everything in a whole new light. Fighting for not only is her life, but Henry's as well. Kate is determined to do whatever it takes to pass.

Henry and Kate's chemistry in this book seems so one sided for the longest time. I mean you can tell that Henry cares for Kate, and that he wants her to pass, but would it hurt the dude to show it every once in a while?! Geez! Though I know that Kate didn't go into this thing in love with Henry, she knows that her heart isn't lying. Not only is she struggling with the stress of the tests, but the overwhelming feelings she has for Henry too. So needless to say by the end of the book I was sitting on the edge of my seat wondering, not only what would happen with these two, but if Kate would pass her tests! And let me tell you this book has one HELL of a twist for an ending! Something you would NEVER, EVER have seen coming. It makes me so hopeful for the next book in the series, because something like that will be hard to top.

4/5

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

I've spent today, the last day of the Easter holidays and a beautiful spring day at that, scooped up inside with first one and then another book. Yes, I should have at least gone for a walk. Yesterday I did in fact plan, if somewhat halfheartedly, to go running today, but actually I do not feel quilty for not venturing out today. Both books I finished reading today were very nice reads and after taking part in a dance competition in Tallinn, Estonia on Saturday and taking the boat back home yesterday I felt like being compately lazy today was the right thing to do! :)

The first book I finished today was Ever After by Sandra Freeman, a sequal to her earlier novel The Other Side which I read back in March. I'm planning on reviewing both novels in a later post. Today, however, I would like to talk about the other novel I spent most of today reading: Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay.

What drew me to reading this book in the first place was the fact that it was about a ballerina. Though dance sport became my thing, the first dance style I ever loved was ballet. And even though I stopped taking ballet classes when I was 15-16 years old and moved over to dance sport, to standard and latin american dances, I've always kept my interest in ballet, too. I love watching ballet and I love reading novels about the world of ballet. Thus, it was with high hopes I requested Russian Winter from the library.

Russian Winter tells the story of Nina Revskaya, a former star of the famous Bolshoi Ballet. Now old and ill, forced to spend her days in a wheel chair, she decides to auction her remarkable jewellery collection. During the process her past starts to catch up with her.

I liked this novel very, very much. The story moves between the past (mostly late 40s - early 50s Stalinist Russia) and the present and is told not only by Nina's reminiscences, but also from the point of views of Grigori Solodin, a Russian professor who owns a piece of amber jewellery that seems to belong to a set owned by Nina Revskaya and who's own history may be intertwined with the famous ballerina's, and of Drew Brooks, a young associate director at the auction house about to auction the Revskaya collection. Drew's Russian-Finnish ancestry was a nice surprise for me as a Finn, although it also provided the one bit of the narrative I found hard to believe. In the novel Drew's Russian grandfather, after he's released from a forced labour camp somehow manages to enter Finland unnoticed. Drew's future grandmother then finds him walking along a road and offers him a lift and a place to stay. That something like this would have happened in Finland just a short time after a war against the Russians seems very unlikely, but I do give the author her literary freedom of course. :)

I loved all the stories told in this novel. Though I must say, I might have liked Grigori Solodin's story even more than Nina Revskaya's. All in all this was a great read. It was also refreshing to read a partly historical novel about Russia that was not about the revolution or the second world war, but set in the years before and after WWII.

Here's a picture I took from my hotel room balcony towards the city centre in Tallinn.

Monday Morning...let's have some candy!

So after a wonderful holiday weekend I'm running off a sugar buzz! Sorting papers, filing things, scrubbing every surface in my office, you know the things normal people do on Monday mornings.....yeah.

So I thought maybe I could find some recruits to help with things around here!

Awww, he loves kitties! So he's gentle and wants to help me with laundry

He looks sweet & nice, like he wants to help me file :)

Those look like "I wanna get dirty" pants....outside dirty, he can help garden ;)

Well I've gotta get these guys in line, and start getting things done!

HAPPY MONDAY!

Fresh Face Friday 4-22-11

Who: D. Apodaca


What: Captivated (An Affliction Novel)

Mindy Keenan couldn't shake the feeling that somehow...in a matter of moments...the boy she once knew was not the one standing before her.

After Mindy's childhood best friend, Dean Aiken, shuts her and everyone else out of his life, she learns to move on. Years pass and she gets used to the fact that he's no longer a part of her life, but things begin to change…

Mindy's new best friend, Markus Medina, witnesses Dean kill two people behind a club. Mindy has a hard time believing him, especially when he mentions that the bodies disappear. Poof! Into thin air. Markus decides he has to follow Dean around in order to get evidence that he's been killing people, so he doesn't sound like a nut to the police.

Despite Marcus’ crazy theories about the possibility of Dean not being human. And not to mention the fact that he's dangerous. Mindy can't help that she may be falling in love with him. Even after hiding their feelings for each other from the world. Dean and Mindy being together stirs up dangers that neither of them could ever imagine. When she finds out about what Dean really is and the world he tried to keep her away from...it's already too late.
        

Cover: G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!! With the contrast of the red hair, silver skin, and multi-colored pupil, there's just something about it that catches my eye...hahaha.

My Thoughts: Very interested to see how this story pans out. I foresee love triangles, blood shed, and broken hearts, which are all the great ingredients for a fantastic story! I am actually going to be reviewing the book within the next couple weeks, so be looking for what I think about it.

Stalking Grounds: Facebook, Twitter, Website

Immortalis Carpe Noctem (Immortalis Series Book #1) - By Katie Salidas

Release Date: 3/2/2010

Website: Katie Salidas

Publisher: Rising Sign Books, LLC

Purchasing Info: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depo

Becoming a vampire is easy. Living with the condition... that's the hard part.

Bleeding to death after brutal mugging, twenty-five year old Alyssa is rescued by the most unlikely hero: the handsome and aloof vampire, Lysander.

His gift of immortal blood initiates Alyssa into a frightening, eternally dark world filled with: bloodlust, religious fanaticism, and thousand-year old vendettas.

With Lysander as her guide, Alyssa will have to learn what it takes to survive in the immortal world. She'll have to find the strength to accept her new reality and carpe noctem; or give in, and submit to final death.

For someone who was nearly raped & basically beaten to the point of no return, Alyssa is able to handle her sudden change pretty well. Now Lysander I just want to smack at times. At first he seemed slightly heartless for a few comments that he made, but after learning more about him you understand why he is the way he is. Centuries of loyalty are suddenly throw off balance by some asshole with a villa, that kind of thing. Though Lysander is trying to show Alyssa the true way of being a vampire, she doesn't quite want to end someone else's life for her well being.

There were a lot of your usual vampire struggles in this book, you know, newly changed vampire doesn't want to kill....maker forcing them too, that kind of thing. But eventhough there were a lot of the "usual" things I really liked the back history that the author gave Lysander. The war between the church and vampires was unique too, I've never before seen a scenario where the church is actually using a vampire to do their dirty work. Not just any vampire, one who is beyond brain washed into actually thinking that he's going to find his place with God if he erradicates the world of the vampire kind. What an oximoron huh? Another thing that I liked was the power struggle that Alyssa is thrown into with Lysander's former other half. Now talk about a bitch with a capital B! She's walking around thinking she's hot shit and no one can mess with her or her "rules". Let's just say she's put in place and leave it at that ;)

Though there were some really great parts about this book, I wasn't head over heels in love with it. Yes I enjoyed the story, and yes I will pick up the next book in the series because Lysander & Alyssa's potential future intrigues me. It could possibly be that this is the jumping off point into a series that's going to go places I've never seen. I can only hope, so look for my review of Ms. Salidas' next book in the Immortalis Series, Hunters & Prey, very soon.

3.5/5

(Imagine half a heart here, thanks)

Giveaway: The Gathering - By Kelley Armstrong

The Gathering (Darkness Rising Book #1)

Maya lives in a small medical-research town on Vancouver Island. How small? You can’t find it on the map. It has less than two-hundred people, and her school has only sixty-eight students–for every grade from kindergarten to twelve.

Now, strange things are happening in this claustrophobic town, and Maya’s determined to get to the bottom of them. First, the captain of the swim team drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. A year later, mountain lions start appearing around Maya’s home, and they won’t go away. Her best friend, Daniel, starts experiencing “bad vibes” about certain people and things. It does’t help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret…and he’s interested in one special part of Maya’s anatomy: Her paw-print birthmark.

So you all voted and The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong is what you wanted me to give away!

Here are the simple things that need to be done to enter:

• Leave a comment telling me which Kelley Armstrong book is your favorite
• MAKE SURE you leave you email so I can hunt you down

Simple right?! Just how I like it, but if you want to spread the word that would be AWESOME too.

Contest ends Saturday April 30th, at Midnight

It is international to anywhere that the Book Depo will ship

 (click on "Book Depo" to make sure they ship to you)

If this contest is a sucess, then I'm going to try to have a weekly contest from here on out!

GOOD LUCK!!

The Restorer (Graveyard Queen Series - Book #1) - By Amanda Stevens

Release Date: 4/19/2011

Website: Amanda Stevens

Publisher: Mira

Purchase Info: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depo

Never acknowledge the dead

Never stray far from hallowed ground

Never associate with those who are haunted

Never, ever tempt fate.

My name is Amelia Gray.  I'm a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts.  In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I've always held fast to the rules passed down from my father.  But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman's brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I've been hired to restore.  The clues to the killer--and to his other victims--like in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret.  Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy.  To warn him would be to invite them into my life.  I’ve vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

Chills!



This book had me hooked from the beginning! It's so hard to find a book that depicts ghosts so well. They're either SUPER eerie or trying to maintain an impossible love relationship with the main character. In Amelia's world she's one of the few who can see them, and she's doing EVERYTHING possible to make sure they don't know that. Her father's rules have stuck with her throughout the years, giving her the strength to keep going and providing the foundation that she bases her life on. While starting the restoration of a college cemetery in North Carolina, murder stops her progress before she can even really begin.
Stumbling upon an unearthed body generally comes with the territory when you're a cemetery restorer....but when it is a fresh murder victim, that's a whole different ball game.

Amelia is out of place in this investigation, but as the only person who knows what condition the cemetery was in and possibly where things were before the body was dumped, she feels it's a duty to help. But in doing that it's requiring her to work side by side with detective John Devlin, someone who's sexy, mysterious and haunted. For the first time in her life Amelia is breaking her fathers rules, and in the process discovering that there's something else out there. Something so dark and so malice, that it causes her to broaden her ghost world farther then she wants. Amelia and Devlin's chemistry is hot! She can't explain to herself why she's breaking the rules she lives by for this man, but there's something dark about the way he looks at her. Something primal and hot that makes her want to just give into whatever he wants. So she does the only logical thing she can think of....stay away! But after a series of strange events Amelia finds herself constantly in the presence of the one man who gets her gears working, but sends her brain into "run away" mode. With a glimpse into Devlin's past Amelia has suddenly become more intrigued with him then the ongoing problems they're facing. Trying to crack Devlin's shell and figure out why he's haunted seems to be sending her places she never thought she'd go, you know this place called, "I'm a stalker, because I don't even know this man, but I'm digging whatever I can up on him", that place. But with spooky P.I.'s, murder cover ups, and a crazed killer on the loose, Amelia is now trying to unravel a mystery that seems to have been set in motion over 15 years ago.

I loved this book from beginning to end! There wasn't a part that I thought, "this doesn't fit", because it all fit. Ms. Stevens did a fantastic job of creating just the right balance between bone chilling suspense, hot romance and creepy ghosts. This is the first of 3 books that will be in the Graveyard Queen series, and I will be one of the people pounding on the doors of Barnes & Noble at midnight trying to get my hands on the next book!

5/5

True Blood Season 4: Invitation to the Set

Ok, so a little True Blood always makes me feel better!

Love it!

It's just one of "THOSE" days....

Yes I'm in a complete and utter funk today!

I don't want to do anything, not even read...I'm trying to figure out what book to read next, yep that's not happening either.

This funk needs to stop, I've got crap to do, books to read, reviews to write...UGH

Oh, ANNNNNNND my throat hurts like I'm getting sick! I see fun times ahead :(

(you know it's really bad when I don't attach any pictures, or have a Monday Morning Man Candy post)

Giveaway Winner: Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

Thank you to everyone who entered, spread the word or even looked at this post!

The winner was comment #6 by Marjie!

Winner has been notified, but if I don't hear back from them within 48 hours I will draw a new winner.

Cover Whore, yes TWO times today!

I absolutely HAD to share this cover! Calling it gorgeous doesn't even do it justice!

Blood Rights - By Kristen Painter



Cover Whore

I figured that since it's been a while I thought I'd share some of the beauties that I've come across lately!

Daughter of Smoke & Bone - By Laini Taylor

Instantly this cover caught my eye, it's SO different and exotic!

The Space Between - By Brenna Yovanoff

There's something surreal about this cover, but there are so many things hidden in it that it catches your eye.

Devil Without a Cause - Terri Garey

We all know why I like this one!

Rosemary and Rue (October Daye Series - Book #1) - By Seanan McGuire

Release Date: 9/1/2009

Website: Seanan McGuire

Publisher: DAW Books

Purchase Info: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depo

The world of Faerie never disappeared: it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie's survival—but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born. Half-human, half-fae, outsiders from birth, these second-class children of Faerie spend their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Or, in the case of October "Toby" Daye, rejecting it completely. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the fae world, retreating into a "normal" life. Unfortunately for her, Faerie has other ideas.

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose, one of the secret regents of the San Francisco Bay Area, pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening's dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby is forced to resume her old position as knight errant to the Duke of Shadowed Hills and begin renewing old alliances that may prove her only hope of solving the mystery...before the curse catches up with her.

In October Daye's world all she wants to forget is the Faerie world, to isolate herself and never return. Too bad life is never easy, especially for Toby. After spending over a decade missing she now finds herself being sucked back in, because now her life depends on it.

Toby struck me as such a strong character, but at the same time she's at her weakest. What she's gone through in the last 14 years has left her vulnerable, scared and alone. But now being bound to find a killer that is using iron to kill, and thugs to do the dirty work, that's just icing on the cake. She might only be half Fae, which means her magic is weak, but she'll have to pull every trick in her small book to figure this mystery out. Sneaking her way into the crime scene Toby is able to use blood magic to relive the few final moments of her friends life, seeing things that will help piece together why someone would go to such an extreme to murder a Fae. There's a high price for blood magic and Toby knows this, but the direction that it sends her in is one that she's more afraid of then any other.

Suddenly she finds herself going Home, and I'm not talking a cozy cottage where she'll have tea with her mom, I'm talking the place that changelings (half breed Fae), go when they have no where else to turn. It's the one place she told herself she would never go back to. Yet now here she is selling basically her soul for answers and leads. Not to mention the emotional turmoil that she has even looking at the place, and it's so not what she wants in the middle of a murder case. Yes returning Home was hard, but Toby now has to face old demons and return to the people she let down over a decade ago. Coming down to the wire Toby MUST piece this puzzle together or Winterrose's curse will take her under. Yet threw gun chases, ambushes, doppelganger look-a-likes, then more twists & turns then I can name, the ride that Toby is on makes this one hell of a book! The detail that the characters posses, from looks to personality traits, makes Rosemary and Rue unlike any other book I've come across.  

Couldn't put this book down!

There are books that I get into, then there are books that I completely and utterly fall in love with. They're the ones that leave me buzzing for days afterward, with the inability to focus on another book. It's like a really good high....and it's totally legal. This was a book that left me felling giddy, excited, and wanting to run out to the book store in the middle of the night just to get the next one in the series! If you don't own this book, buy it, borrow it, sell your first born to get a copy if you have to, because it's just the beginning of a series that promises nothing but sheer awesomeness in the future!

5/5

Talkative Tuesday 4/12/11

Oh man, what a morning! Tuesdays are turning into the new Monday for me....such chaos!

Today I'm introducing a great new blog who's name I absolutely LOVE!
Everyone say hi to the AwesomeSauce Book Club, and their amazing admin Amber :)

With a fairly new review site, Amber sure is able to show her reading passion well. She's met a ton of amazing authors, a few of my favorites, and it totally down to earth.

There are heart-felt reviews, amazing contests, and Teaser Tuesdays. So make sure that you all follow her blog, join the Facebook group, and stalk her Twitter!

Teaser Tuesday 12.4.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I'm reading The Tea Lords by Hella S. Haasse. This is the first book I've ever read by this famous Dutch author and I am thoroughly enjoying the experience. My teaser is from p. 54. Rudolf Kerkhoven arrives in the Dutch East Indies i.e. Java. The year is 1871.

"Never in his life had Rudolf felt such profound relief as when the Telanak dropped anchor in the roadstead of Batavia. The long sea voyage, so eagarly anticipated as a gripping adventure, had turned out to be exceedingly tedious: 107 1/2 days of being confined to the cramped spaces reserved for passangers on deck and in the midship, cheek by jowl by a motley assortment of individuals whom he could not imagine ever consorting with of his own free will."

Can you imagine over 100 days at sea?!

True Blood Season 4: Waiting Sucks (#5)

Mondays are starting to become a great friend of mine. Simply for this reason, and this reason only:

This gave me the chills, like creepy chills....

The weekend is over....but it's Monday!

Hope you all had an fabulous weekend! Mine was full of birthday parties & chaos!

So here's something to bring be back to life.....

Mmmmmm, LOVE that little tat on the rib cage

Ok, who doesn't start drooling over a shirtless Ryan Reynolds? Especially when he's had cuffed and being scared by vamps in Blade Trinity?

Well Happy Monday all!

Random Books from My Personal Library: D-F

Continuing the series of posts introducing some random books from my bookselves:

Daughter of Amun by Moyra Caldecott
This is a historical novel about the female farao Hatsepsut who ruled Egypt c. 1479-1458 BC. I bought this book many years ago, then completely forgot all about it! I love Egyptology and really anything to do with Ancient Egypt and hope to finally read this book this year. Daughter of Amun is one part of Caldecott's Egyptian sequence, which also includes a novel about Tutankhamun and his wife called Tutankhamun and the Daughter of Re and another book about Akhenaten called Akhenaten: The Son of the Sun. Daughter of Amun is the first book in this series. This novel was originally published in 1989 and then republished in 2000 with the name Hatsepsut: The Daughter of Amun. My copy is a 1989 paperback.

The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
Virginia Woolf dedicated Orlando to Vita Sackville-West and after reading Orlando for the first time in my early twenties I wanted to read something by the writer the book was dedicated to.  I found a copy of The Edwardians in the Helsinki University Campus Library and simply loved the writing as I had loved Woolf's writing in Orlando. The Edwardians has a very clever beginning with Sackville-West pondering what would be the best point to "interrupt into the life" of her hero. It is one of my alltime favorite beginnings in a novel. :) The Edwardians is a story about Sebastian and Viola, brother and sister with an aristocratic background. The time: July 1905. I loved this story so much that I later bought myself a copy.

The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey
I very seldon read fantasy novels. Somehow the maybe most typical fantasy world of dwarfs, elfs, and human warriors has never appealed to me much. (I even found Lord of the Rings boring, sorry LOTR fans! ) But every now and then I find a fantasy novel or a novel with fantasy elements that I like. The Fire Rose is one such novel. In 1905 Rosalind Hawkins, a medieval scholar from a fine Chigaco family, is forced to cut her education short and take a position as a governess in San Francisco, when it turns out that before his death her father has speculated away the family fortune. Rosalind's employer Jason Cameron turns out to be very mysterious. He doesn't allow Rosalind to see himself and communicates with her through a speaking tube. Cameron is in fact an alchemist, who has attempted the old French werewolf transformation, only something went wrong. This was a very nice read, a bit different take to the beauty and the beast story.

Yesterday I visited the National Library. I hadn't been there for a while and had managed to put my card into such a good place that I could not find it at all! I had to pay 5 euros for a new one. That's 2 euros more than in the public library. Anyway, I love the National Library and have many fond memories of many, many hours spent there during the years I studied for my university degree, so I was happy to pay to get a new card. I ended up coming home with ten books, mostly women's studies / history of women, plus a few books about literature. Add those to all the novels I have borrowed from the public library and I think I'm in deep trouble... ;)