My favorite way to relax – aside from a nap – is to get lost in a book.
No matter how you enjoy just chillin’ out remember to take some time for yourself on this National Relaxation Day!
Chill! ~ It’s National Relaxation Day!
Category: Discussion Post
National Book Lover’s Day ~
It’s National Book Lover’s Day! Grab your favorite drink, cuddle up in your most comfortable reading spot and open the pages of a book you’ve loved forever.
Reading has sustained me through some of the darkest moments, and the brightest times of my life. I cannot imagine not being able to open a book, step into another world and simply enjoy the experience.
Reading Is Sweet KU Challenge ~ List One ~ And We’re Off & Reading!
There is a fun group over on Facebook called “Reading Is Sweet“, it’s made up of authors of mostly Sweet, Clean Romances (but some authors have pen names so you never know who you might run into there). Last year there was a Challenge that was fun, entertaining, and introduced me to a lot of new-to-me authors.
Now a new Challenge has begun and the three Lists of books will be released about two weeks apart. You can keep track of your reads through a link, there is a prize, but the real gem of all of this is the book experience. If you’ve never heard of this group – check them out on Facebook. You just might find some new friends, new authors and lots of new books to devour.
To make my reading life a bit easier I’m putting the lists here at Keeper Bookshelf. So while this is a mainly for myself post – I do honestly hope you go over and check out the group, I believe if you love Sweet, Clean Romance that you’ll also find some authors to follow and new to you books to read.
The Lists can be found after the “Read More”
Congratulation to the 2019 RITA Award Winners!
The 2019 RITA Award recipients will make July 26, 2019, a day to remember in Romance writing acknowledgment history. This year Authors of Color, Authors of Diversity were acknowledged with top honors – and it’s a long, long overdue celebration.
As a reader and a blogger, this is one ceremony that I wish I could attend in person, but I’m content to watch the live streams and read the Twitter updates as the conference moves through the days leading up to award night.
Many of the authors who took home awards are long-time favorite authors or authors that I’ve read a few of their books. So many more are new-to-me, and I’ll be frank and tell you that I headed over to Amazon to pick up titles by the winners. When a book receives a RITA, then I should be reading it. It’s just that simple. And I will be going over the finalists and the mentions as well to pick up even more titles.
So, my congratulations to every single winner whether it’s the first statue received or the latest – all are amazing talents yet it’s their hard work, perseverance, stubbornness, blood, sweat, tears, and love of the written word – and belief in themselves – that brought every single person on that stage to where they stand today as an RWA RITA Award winner.
I don’t know any of these talented people personally — but I am so happy for every author there.
Here are the RITA Award winners for 2019. Each book title is linked back to GoodReads should you like to check them out a bit more.
Some Merging, A Bit of Rearranging
Over the next three months, I will be merging the best (if not all) of three smaller blogs, and some posts (that I can recreate) from blogs that I had to delete for various reasons.
(and that’s my Harley over there – she’s sad, too, at the extra work that has to be done now – but toss her a ball and she’s over it much faster than I am 🙂 )
If you’re on my mailing lists you might see an increase in the notifications – and if you follow me on Twitter you will definitely see an increase there. Yet, sometimes you just have to take care of stuff and that’s what I’ll be doing for a while.
My overall plan is a slow feed of posts over to Keeper Bookshelf from today until the beginning of November when those other blogs will go away as well. It won’t be overpowering, and you’ll probably not notice anything different. But I’m a person who explains why something different is happening with my websites — and this is most definitely different.
Thanks for your patience. Hopefully, the end result will be well worth the time and work involved. 🙂
Can’t Wait Wednesday 7-10-19
The Can’t Wait Wednesday weekly anxiously waiting for this book meme is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings. If you’re waiting for a great book to be released then this is the place to show and tell – and maybe find some other books to await as well. (I know I always do)
I have followed Christine Feehan’s “The Dark Carpathians” for years now, actually since I got hooked on the very first story of an ancient vampire and the woman who became his world. Since then this world has expanded and is now up to #33 in titles published. Considering her other long going series that’s an impressive number to keep a world still fresh and intriguing with every new additional story.
So this week I’m waiting for the September 3, 2019 release of DARK ILLUSION (A Dark Carpathian Novel).
Stacking the Shelves (#9)
Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews and Reading Reality. If you’d like to take part simply click on those links or the graphic to discover what this fun event is all about.
My Crazy Life This Week
Gah! I can’t believe it’s been this long since I did a “Stacking the Shelves” – how did that even happen?!? Aw well, time to catch up then. 🙂
2019 has been a crazy year. Some fantastic, some the deepest pit of Hell. But, that’s life, right? When the bad stuff happens all I can do is stay positive, find something good that came out of it and move on. “No regrets, over and done.” is my new mantra when life gets hard or the memories of the bad try to take over.
The one constant is reading, my books are my escape, my chance to trade in my world for another even if it’s only for a little while. Maybe “escape” is the wrong word, gives off a negative vibe – perhaps my chance to travel to new destinations, meet new people and have some exciting adventures along the way sounds a lot better. 🙂
Books Added to My Shelves This Week
I may have gone a bit crazy on Amazon this past week. For some reason, I’m on a Harlequin style reading kick – and absolutely nothing wrong with that! I just didn’t realize that so many of what I bought were actually Harlequin titles. I seem to be in the mood for their Intrigue™, Romantic Suspense™, and Heartwarming™ stories right now.
Let’s move the rest of this post to the “Read More” tab so it’s not too long on the front page.
Beyond Anger, Now Simply Sadness
I’m going to write a post that some may think should be kept to myself. Perhaps. Yet the way I get out my emotions is to write – whether I should or not is up to each individual’s interpretation of anger, grief, and sadness. I can only do what is right for me… not for you.
No, I haven’t lost a loved one or a precious pet.
But I have had to purposefully delete (well, someone else did the work I just said yes) six of my smaller blogs last night – and I am slowly going beyond the intense anger at why I had to do that to that quieter place of grieving and sadness. Grief, sad all because of a blog you might say! And, YES, for the simple reason that I put six years worth of time, research, composing my thoughts and exposing my heart in many ways on those blogs. So, I am indeed sad and grieving for that loss.
Greed is a vicious thing, living and breathing it makes faceless people do things without care to the consequences to others. I lost thousands of hours of my work, my thoughts, my reactions, my emotions to someone out for a quick buck by taking what is not theirs to touch.
I’ve learned lessons, painful one, but learned nonetheless. If you own a blog or website that is important to you, a place where you love to spend hours at a time then protect them in every way possible. Research plugins, don’t mindlessly trust by adding any ole link to your site. Google is your best friend in finding out what works best for what you do. Protect what you’ve worked so hard at for so long. For me, it’s too late for what I once had – but I learned that lesson well. I won’t make the same mistakes again.
If you love what you do – protect it. Keep an eye on it every day. There are nasty people out there who don’t give a rat’s ass about you personally they just want what you’ve created.
** I can put a positive spin on the experience though – now I’ve protected myself as best I can for the moment (that’s ever-changing), I will be able to redirect my content to another website that will benefit from the additional reviews, and I spit in the eye of the bully. Not a bad day’s work, really **
Can’t Wait Wednesday 6-26-19
The Can’t Wait Wednesday weekly anxiously waiting for this book meme is hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings. If you’re waiting for a great book to be released then this is the place to show and tell – and maybe find some other books to await as well. (I know I always do)
I love just about any genre of Romance (okay, there are a few I’m iffy on but I’ll read a good one of those on occasion, too) – but I do have my favorite authors and Nora Roberts (aka J.D. Robb) is always at the top of that list. So right now I’m waiting for her newest release UNDER CURRENTS to hit my Kindle in July 2019.
Sunday Post #3
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme
I have loved visiting the blogs that follow The Sunday Post and decided that it’s time to join up myself. Hey, you can never have enough book-friends, right?
Sunday Post #2
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme
I have loved visiting the blogs that follow The Sunday Post and decided that it’s time to join up myself. Hey, you can never have enough book-friends, right?
Away From The Keyboard News
It’s been a quiet week on the homefront. With so much rain the grass is about to take over our back yard. I’m seriously keeping an eye out for triffids at this point, so much rain that nothing has dried out enough to cut. I’m sure the young man who cuts our grass will be thrilled to see that “hay field” out back, right? 🙂
Last Week On The Blog(s)
I’ve been doing some consolidating this week, some clean-up in many cases. It always amazes me to look back and see how my style of blogging has changed – hopefully for the better. I have all but two reviews from May done, those last ones will be up today. Sometimes life just gets in the way in spite of scheduled posts and good intentions. Ah well, June is a brand new start.
Added To The Reading Piles
Went a bit crazy on NetGalley last week. Why do all the interesting, “Oh, I need to read that one.” books come out at the same time? Thankfully, they are all spaced about a month apart so it shouldn’t be too bad – I just shake my head at myself when I look at that list and wonder how it got so long. 🙂
I actually behaved myself on Amazon for a change. I didn’t pick up anything at all, although I do have my eye on a few releases for June.
Re-reading this post it seems that last week around here was a bit boring – oh, and Sunday Post somehow became Monday Post (how did I lose a day?) not sure how that happened. Oh, well – I hope your reading week to come is full of adventures and fun tales.