A Strange Freedom: Blood and Fireworks - By Kiki Howell

Release Date: 5/27/11

Website: Kiki Howell

Publisher: Excessica Publishing

Purchase Info: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Can a witch gain her freedom to live as she chooses between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July?  

A man was not exactly what Meranda was looking for when she went to her grandfather’s grave for a ritual of remembrance on Memorial Day.  However, what she thinks is a ghost in the heavy shadows of the night ends up a vampire. 

When Meranda’s grandfather lay dying on a bloody battlefield in WWII, Alexander promised the man he would take care of his family if he got out of the war alive.  Even though he returned to the states a night walker, he has done his best to honor that promise from a distance. 

When Meranda is hurt due to his negligence, Alexander valiantly fights his own desires for her blood to save her.  Only, once she is better, their lives clash.  But, using a little magic, she plans to win their war by the time the fireworks light up the sky on Independence Day.

Hot, hot, hot! 

 Alex is trying to resist the urge he feels towards Meranda, but a lifetime of watching her has turned his duty into his passion. His love for Meranda scares him, because he's just not sure what's going to happen if he gives into those feeling while around her.  Now Meranda, she knows that what her & Alex could have would be hot, steamy and UH-MAZE-ING. What she doesn't quiet understand is how he can't seem to trust himself enough to just take from her.....classic vampire problem.

Oh, well lookie here, a solution! When Meranda discovers something magically that will fill the void that is now between them, she knows that sure it'll piss Alex off, but she has to do it. She loves him too much not to.

I LOVED this couple! Maybe it's because there was so much passion, or chemistry, but they really did it for me. I want to see more of them, see where their journey takes them and what other kinds of hot situations they can get into. For me when an erotica novel is extremely well written and can tell a great story around the sex, that's when I know the author is someone I'll be begging to read more of. And Ms. Howell seems to be that person for me, she's sharp, witty and can write one hell of a story!

5/5

Teaser Tuesday 21.6.2011

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 Robert Fagles' wonderful translation of Homer's The Iliad. My teaser is from page 134.

"And Helen the radience of women answered Priam,
"I revere you so, dear father, dread you too-

if only death had pleased me then, grim death,

that day I followed your son to Troy, forsaking
my marriage bed, my kinsmen and my child,

my favorite, now full-grown,

and the lovely comradeship of women my own age.

Death never came, so now I can only waste away in tears.""

What are you reading?

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

I never intended taking a six week break from blogging, but somehow it just happened. I was very busy at work in May. Then in the end of May/beginning of June I spent 10 days on a combined dance competition and holiday trip in England and France. First I took part in the British Open Championships in Blackpool with Mr. Dance Partner and then I continued to Paris to watch some tennis. It was a great trip! We did well in the competition (got into the 25 couple quarter final out of 155 couples) and Paris, well, Paris was as fun as ever. :) But all that resulted in my not blogging at all for all these weeks. I have been reading, though! :)

Undoubtedly my best read during these past six weeks was a reread. I had been thinking of rereading all Sarah Waters novels in chronological order, but when the members of my reading group chose The Night Watch as our May read, I was more than happy to start the rereading not from Tipping the Velvet after all, but with this wonderful novel set during and after WWII. First time around Tipping the Velvet was my favorite and The Night Watch a close runner-up and I was excited to see what I would think of the book when reading it the second time.

I surely was not dissapointed! The first time I read The Night Watch back in 2006 I loved the character of Kay most -and I still did. :) But I think I was able to appreciate the structure of the book more this second time around. In five years I had forgotten a lot of the plot, but still remembered enough to realise how brilliantly Waters really had plotted the story. The first part set in 1947 sets a lovely, bittersweet tone, and I really could not get to the end fast enough to relearn where it all began in 1941. For those of you, who have not read The Night Watch, as you might have already guessed, the storyline moves backwards from 1947 to 1944 and finally to 1941.

What I loved the most, however, was the writing. Waters has a great eye for details. That's something she has in common with another one of my favorite authors Sofi Oksanen, allthough their books otherwise are very different. All in all, I could praise The Night Watch all night long, but I'll just add one more thing: of all the novels I've read dealing with war, the bombing scenes (or the scenes depicting the moments after a bombing) in The Night Watch are the most impressive.

Now I'm planning on taking Tipping the Velvet with me when I go for holidays. (Tipping the Velvet and the Robert Fagles' translation of The Odyssey :))

I'll leave you tonight with a quote from The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk. This is how The Night Watch effected me:

"Novels are second lives. Like the dreams that the French poet Gérald de Nerval speaks of, novels reveal the colors and complexities of our lives and are full of people, faces, and objects we feel we recognize. Just as in dreams, when we read novels we are sometimes so powerfully struck by the extraordinary nature of the things we encounter that we forget where we are and envision ourselves in the midst of the imaginary events and people we are witnessing." [p. 1]

Man Candy - I need a cabana boy!

Well, the weather here is sure warming up quickly! It's been close to 100 degrees, and  so I will be spending a lot more time in the pool.

So I thought, 'Hey! I need cabana boys!', and so that's what inspired today's Candy!

First we'll need lifeguards in case someone gets a cramp ;)

Oh and can't forget the swimming instructor for those who can't seem to remember how to float

Last, but not least, we'll need a few of these!

Cover Whore - Tale of Two Covers

So have you ever seen a cover & absolutely fall IN LOVE with it?

Or maybe see a cover and say..."eh, it could be better"?

Well I have run into some covers for the same books & want to hear your thoughts on which ones you prefer!

#1:

Eye of the Tempest - Nicole Peeler

 The first one is the finalized cover that Ms. Peeler is going with, the one of the right is the one I have on TIOBaaT's FB page....personally I like the one I found better, how about you?

#2:

Touch of Frost - Jennifer Estep

Again, the first one is Ms. Estep's final cover & to the right is the cover that I had found months ago.

All I have to say is THANK the BOOK GODS she changed it to the finalized one. I was SOOOO not diggin' the first one.

These are just a few that I've scene & I'm thinking that next week I'm gonna do a Cover Duel: International Edition



Help Wanted!!

So thee absolutely wonderful author, Charlie Finn, is searching for help! Here's exactly what she's looking for:

So, what’s a page without its admin? Nothing I guess ... That’s why I’m having an admin call! Wow that sounds great you say but what would i need to do? Promote, promote, Promote. I need someone who can promote me everywhere when I’m not able to do so. To post me everywhere on Facebook and get my name out there – but not till the point people get sick of hearing about me or seeing post’s about me! – I don’t expect you to promote me 24/7 but I’d like you too at least post about me every day even if it’s just once! So that includes posting on Facebook LOTS! Book pages, blogs – maybe guest blogging about me and the story I’m trying to write without giving spoilers away! – It’s also includes updating my page a lot with what I’m doing and also if I’ve been naughty and haven’t wrote anything, I need a kick up the bum quite a bit! So we’ve sorted your be promoting me a lot but what’s in it for you? Well a read of everything I’ve written so far. Which at the moment stands at 2 different unfinished version’s that I’m somehow going to merge into one. You also get to read anything new that I’ve written to review and give me feedback on it and help me make it as awesome as it can be. Your get to read everything before anyone else does so in trusting you I hope that you won’t share anything with anyone else or give anything away! I’ll develop a character into my story that will have a pretty big part in it, you get to choose their name, sex, traits and occupation and how you would like to see them develop in the story and I’ll bring them to life! And when it’s all finished I’ll even send you a free finished copy of the book! So if this sounds like you and you are very trustworthy and know what you’re doing and you think we could be a great team together and we could get along greatly then send me an email at: c_x-x@live.co.uk with the subject: ADMIN CALL p.s There is no age limit in applying but my book does have some very graphical sex scenes so please keep that in mind when applying!

All the best,

Charlie Finn x

Think you could pull this off? Get in contact with her via email or on her Facebook page HERE!

Scale of Hotness

So over the last year and a half that I've been truly reading, I have come across MANY different types of intimate scenes. I'm not just talking getting it on here people, I'm talking the work up to the big moment too!

So I thought that I had a pretty good idea of how hot "HOT" was.....yeah that was until I started this series called, The Black Dagger Brotherhood! I mean honestly, how the hell do you compete with that?!

So I have configured my own 1-5 Scale of Hotness, take a look:

1 = Average YA Novel: All kinds of emotions sprouting up, but they can't make anything of it. (because it goes against the Legion of YA Authors contract they signed)

2 = Twilight: You fantasize about it, work up to it, then turn to page to read you're waking up the next morning surrounded by feathers.....

3 = Anita Blake: It's hot, magnetic & lustful, but you're thinking it's kind of all over the place....then find yourself saying outloud, "Who are all these people?" 

4 = Sookie Stackhouse: Picturing Eric Northman or Quinn in the love scene just gets the motor goin', yet it doesn't quiet go "there" & is able to retain a type of southern wholesomeness.

5 = Black Dagger Brotherhood: You skin instantly prickles when you start reading the scene & you are wishing you had to ability to dematerialize right NOW!