Category: Discussion Post

2019 Bookish Resolutions Challenge

Posted December 21, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 2 Comments

I decided to get involved in the 2019 Bookish Resolutions Challenge this year because there are behind the scene things for the blog(s) that I really want to accomplish in the coming year. Honestly, I’m banking on publically announcing my intentions to the world at large will motivate me to do some butt kicking around here.

Because this Challenge is a year-long event the goals have to be a longer vision. It’s too easy to say that I’ll read five books in January… but what about the rest of the year? See my point? Think long term for this one.

So here is my list of things I want to accomplish for the blog(s) in 2019. Listed in no particular importance level, simply as I’ve thought about them for this list. (I may add a few over the year, but that’s between me and my notebooks) 🙂

Stacking the Shelves (#6)

Posted December 15, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 0 Comments

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.

Books Added to My Shelves This Week

I love when I get new books — and when that purchase helps someone else as well. This week, among some serious Harlequin hoarding, I picked up an older series with sparkling new covers by Jill Shalvis. It’s a series that I’ve been planning on reading… one day. And because of Kensington Books donating a portion of the purchase of those books to the California Wildfire Relief efforts I decided that now is the time to buy them.

So this week in addition to 6 Harlequin titles I also picked up the Wilder series by Jill Shalvis – Instant Attraction – Instant Gratification – Instant Temptation

That’s it for this week – hope you found an awesome new book for yourself. 🙂

Stacking the Shelves (#5)

Posted November 3, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 2 Comments

Books Added to My Shelves This Week

October 28, 2018 thru November 3, 2018

It’s been a very quiet week on the spending money on books or NetGalley ARCs for me. Life happened – a ton of reviews to get up for publication days this past week (they’re scheduled in advance but the linking to Amazon and such is done on pub. day) – my son had another Spinraza treatment (for Spinal Muscular Atrophy) and that didn’t go well so tending to him… so my haul this week is rather small but still looking forward to diving into them.

I’m addicted to Heather Grahams’s Krewe of Hunters series — Paranormal anything is my first love in reading – so picked up Echoes of Evil

My pre-order in the multi-author series Return of the Blackwell Brothers arrived – so added The Rancher’s Fake Fiancee by Amy Vastine

And picked up two books in Melissa Fosters ‘Whiskey series – also added Tru Blue and Truly, Madly Whiskey

Plus there might have been a few Bookbub deals gathered up… I’m so bad with those free or 99 cent deals but I rarely pass up the good ones.

And of course, I rotated some books on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

Here are the covers – and if you’d like to check out the blurbs they are linked over to Goodreads.

That’s it for this week. Hope you found some fantastic reads for your ever growing TBR pile. 🙂

Can’t Wait Wednesday ~ I Need These Books ~ Now! #1

Posted October 24, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 14 Comments

When I began blogging years ago, there was an awesome weekly meme called Waiting on Wednesday that gave me so many amazing book ideas and authors that I’d never read yet to look up. Sadly, WoW isn’t being hosted by Breaking the Spine now, so I let that weekly event fall by the side.

Recently I discovered that Tressa at Wishful Endings has picked up the mantle with Can’t Wait Wednesday. So let’s get started and find some amazing new books to read at:

Because of those eclectic tastes of mine I’m going to put up two books I can’t wait for each week — they will be in a variety of genre maybe every now and then I’ll want something that might interest you as well.

This week I’m waiting on a Paranormal Romance/Shifter Romance for my Shifter Haven blog and that one is Tiger’s Claim by Celia Kyle

Fans of Katie MacAlister and Terry Spear will love this sexy enemies-to-lovers, paranormal romance about a gorgeous billionaire and a vengeful heroine from the New York Times bestselling author of Wolf’s Mate.

Jaguar shifter Stella Moore has one thing on her mind – to take down the anti-shifter organization that destroyed her family. Her plans are going perfectly until a sexy-as-sin stranger throws off her game and decides the only way they can both avoid getting caught is to claim her as his girlfriend. Wait! What? Now she has to fly to a tropical island and play along because the alternative is…deadly.

Most people know Cole Turner as an uber-wealthy playboy – not as a tiger shifter who’s part of a special ops team to protect his kind. Now his undercover mission has been compromised by a redheaded bombshell, and every animal instinct he has is screaming mate. To survive among so many enemies, they’ll have to keep up their romantic act, find their intel… and absolutely not fall in love along the way.

A little further away, like in February 2019 I’m waiting for the next in the long running in Death series by J. D. Robb entitled Connections in Death

In this gritty and gripping new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Eve Dallas fights to save the innocent—and serve justice to the guilty—on the streets of New York.

Homicide cop Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband, Roarke, are building a brand-new school and youth shelter. They know that the hard life can lead kids toward dangerous crossroads—and with this new project, they hope to nudge a few more of them onto the right path. For expert help, they hire child psychologist Dr. Rochelle Pickering—whose own brother pulled himself out of a spiral of addiction and crime with Rochelle’s support.

Lyle is living with Rochelle while he gets his life together, and he’s thrilled to hear about his sister’s new job offer. But within hours, triumph is followed by tragedy. Returning from a celebratory dinner with her boyfriend, she finds Lyle dead with a syringe in his lap, and Eve’s investigation confirms that this wasn’t just another OD. After all his work to get clean, Lyle’s been pumped full of poison—and a neighbor with a peephole reports seeing a scruffy, pink-haired girl fleeing the scene.

Now Eve and Roarke must venture into the gang territory where Lyle used to run, and the ugly underground world of tattoo parlors and strip joints where everyone has taken a wrong turn somewhere. They both believe in giving people a second chance. Maybe even a third or fourth. But as far as they’re concerned, whoever gave the order on Lyle Pickering’s murder has run out of chances…

Those are my “want it now books” for this week, looking forward to checking out your choices on Wishful Ending’s Can’t Wait Wednesday.

How Do You Escape ~ If Books Are Not An Option?

Posted October 14, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 2 Comments

Quite frankly, I don’t know how I would survive if I didn’t have the option of opening a physical or virtual book… I just don’t.

Given the political tone in my country lately (USA) I rarely watch the news, the radio stays silent because I simply do not want to be bombarded by the negativity and hate that seems to flood the airways these days.

So I have four “escape from life routes” that I’ll take if I’m not reading. Yet, by far my preferred escape is through the pages of a book.

Home Again ~ Safe, Sound, Tired

Posted September 8, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 0 Comments

All great things eventually come to a close – and our magical Disney vacation has now moved to the memory banks of our lives. We had an absolutely fantastical time… words simply cannot express the fun, the friendships (old and new), the desperate break we all needed from reality for those seven days.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge – and what an experience that was. A few mix-ups but what vacation doesn’t have those, yet Disney is always quick to fix things and keep the experience amazing… so kudos to the staff at the Lodge for making our trip memorable.

Isn’t this lobby view breathtaking? I have so, so many great memories of this trip – and because I work with words I’m going to be slipping in some Vacation Memories just for me, so I hope you’ll indulge me and maybe enjoy the pictures and memories (not my pictures though, I’m horrible with a camera lol)

This is the lobby of the Animal Kingdom Lodge facing front towards the savanna in the center of the complex

And this is the same lobby facing the inside opposite view. Stunning, right?

Meanwhile, back home, the cat survived alone with a friend checking in on him daily. The dog has a new second family that wants weekend sleepovers for Harley because they loved having her. 🙂 And… somehow I managed to screw up my scheduled posts for that entire week… I’ve no clue what I did, considering I do hundreds of these scheduled posts — but oh well, not gonna stress it just go fix it.

Now it’s back to reality — unpacking, getting groceries in so we don’t starve (man, eating out is expensive but it was so nice to not plan, cook and clean up)… and getting back to reviewing, reading and more reviewing – for me the fun stuff.

Hope you won’t mind the occasional walk down vacation lane memory post. It was such fun, I didn’t want to come home… but we do what must be done, like board a plane back to the real world. I’d much rather live in the most magical place on earth. 🙂

The Joy of Scheduled Posts

Posted May 17, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 6 Comments

I’m a fast reader, and I do read a lot of novellas which only take an hour or so to finish up. So, yep, my books read count is rather high. I’ve had comments, questions and even accusations on how I can possibly read so much especially when a lot of posts go live on the same day. A couple of those comments were rather rude and nasty, just sayin’.

So here’s the secret… and if you’re a blogger this shouldn’t be a secret at all but something you’re using all the time.

Scheduled Posts.

It’s really that simple. I can request a book on NetGalley in January, its release date is in April, and I’ll have read it sometime in-between those dates and written up my review… and scheduled it to go live on publication day. It’s not dark magic, it’s being somewhat organized. Now, when there are more than five books due out the same day I will often schedule them over a couple days past release day – but for the most part that Schedule option is a lifesaver for me. Sure, sometimes life happens and I run low or out of Scheduled Posts, but that’s usually only a stray review here and there. Right now I have books scheduled to go live on my blogs up through August of 2018.

I own several blogs, in a variety of Romance Genres. I love my Shifters, enjoy Western Historical, swoon over a good Regency, adore Paranormal Romance, always have time for a good Contemporary Romance and have fun with a puzzling Mystery. I’m also retired, so if I want to do nothing but read from the moment I wake up in the morning until I hit the bed that night… I can do that, the dust bunnies will wait til tomorrow. I can hop on Amazon and load up my Kindle with five or six novellas and be quite happy for the rest of the day. I’ll often do that when I’m reading an older or longer series – do a binge read and then space the reviews out over a few weeks.

So – I’m just sayin’ – before you make up your mind to comment on how quickly another person appears to be reading books, consider that they might have read them months ago… and you’re only hearing about it today because of… Scheduled Posts options.

What Is The Point of Being A Nasty Reviewer?

Posted April 25, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 9 Comments

Every now and then I feel the strong need to vent about something I encountered in the book world. My opinion really, and everyone is entitled to their own unique view on any subject. Yet I do not understand the need to rip apart a story, an author simply because I read a book or own a blog. I’m not some powerful genius, I’m a reader who enjoys talking about the books I’ve read.

So, a couple days ago I’d posted a review on Amazon, and like I often do went and looked over the other reviews to see what other readers were thinking. I came across a scathing one star review that basically called the story inept and the writer an idiot for writing it. Now, in my opinion, that’s not cool. I clicked on the Kindle Reader’s name to see what else they’d reviewed… and this is a whirlwind of one and two star reviews. Nothing this person’s read has met their requirements for a good story. I found it interesting that they had followed one of my favorite, long, multiple author series from the beginning and every single title got a one or two star review with nasty, mean-hearted and downright rude comments. Why?

Why continue to read a series if you truly do not like anything about it apparently. Heck, some of my long time (decades) authors, who I auto-buy every release, has the occasional story that I really didn’t like or connect with. But that’s like one out of one hundred and fifty, ya know? Not every single story, and written by different authors. So, I’m left with two conclusions – either this person is just a nasty, mean, rude person who doesn’t like anything at all or they have some vendetta against this series or one of the authors. Truthfully, I think it’s the first option.

I think it’s just sad that a reader like this can affect a book’s rating with such ease and such careless disregard for the person behind the words that they read and didn’t like. Hey, you can not like a book that’s your right as a human being – but why continue to read something you obviously hate? That’s someone who has felt the power of giving reviews and using it to vent their own unhappiness with the world… or they’re just mean. Maybe both.

I get into this discussion with friends often. The value of one or two star reviews – some look for them because they often love what the reviewer didn’t and will go buy the book, others are just as puzzled as I am about the vindictive reviews. Do you run to check out the books that have a one or two star review? Do you believe it’s possible to give a low star review without tearing apart the work that someone bared their soul to tell? I can think of a hundred and one ways to say I didn’t like a book without ripping apart the author, but that’s just me.

Bloggiesta – Spring 2018

Posted March 19, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 0 Comments

It’s that time again. Bloggiesta!

If you’re looking for a great time, finding some new blogs to follow, learning new tips for your blog, want to improve your skills… or heck, just have a good time reading about all this and more… then you really need to check this year’s Spring Bloggiesta which starts today. Just click on the graphic link or the written link above to go to the official page.

Because real life got in my way this year I’ll be doing a lot of blog post reading instead of my own posts — but that’s okay. I love learning new things, and I’m always guaranteed that and learning about new blogs during these events throughout the year.

If you blog, then you should consider checking out Bloggiesta! I think you’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn.

Inconsistencies In A Story or Genre – Do They Change The Story For You?

Posted January 11, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 0 Comments

Over the last few months, and particularly today as I just finished a story that prompted this post, I’ve been noticing a change in my reading reactions to stories. There are small things that I’ll overlook (for the most part) in any story. I don’t nitpick in reviews about grammar or typos. I’m reviewing the story so I stick with that… unless it’s so blatant that it cannot be ignored.

But what drives me insane is when an author slips outside of the genre they’re writing that story in. And when the cover they’ve picked is totally at odds with the story. I’m sad to say that I’m finding this a lot in Kindle Worlds stories.

So today I finished a story where the main male character is albino. Yet on the cover, his lovely female love interest is a white-blonde, and he (the albino character) has light brown hair.

That seems like such a small thing, doesn’t it? And to many readers, perhaps it is. My first reaction to any book is visual, it’s the cover that will make me want to read the cover blurb about the story. I’ve always reacted that way – the cover will attract my attention then the description will either nail it for me or have me putting the book back on the shelf. So, for me, that cover matters, it tells me a lot about the story within those covers. And when the two don’t match — I’m left with the ugly taste of feeling cheated by a story.

If you are a Contemporary Romance author who has just published their first Cozy Mystery — please research what Cozy Mystery writing sounds like, what the rules are, what the lore is — because I will know. Believe me, I will know the differences and it will affect how I react to, review your story and whether I ever buy another book by you. It does matter to keep to the genre for those readers who know and love and expect certain things from a story set in their favorite genre.

Do I sound too harsh? Perhaps. Yet I’ll not apologize for my opinion on this. To me covers matter, genre lines matter, knowing the genre you’re writing in matters.

COYER Winter Switch

Posted January 4, 2018 by Marsha in Discussion Post / 0 Comments

I made a decision back in December ’17 that I was going to get unread titles off of my Kindle in 2018 come hell or high water or words to that effect. One way that I can help myself and have a bit of fun with that declaration is by joining in the COYER Winter Switch Challenge which runs from November to March – yes, I know, I’m late in joining up but better late than never, right?

This time around there are two ways to take part – either the Switch or the regular COYER. For me, because I’m joining in late I’m going to go for the regular COYER because that will do what I want to do which is get those free books, those 99 cent books that I picked up but are still sitting unread on my Kindle finally read and moved to the cloud. I’m always annoyed with myself when I spend good book money on a title and then I don’t get around to reading it because of other review commitments. That’s just silly and it needs to stop.

If you have unread titles on your e-reader then maybe this is a challenge that you’d be interested, too. Sign up is easy just follow the link in the graphic above or this link: COYER Winter Switch Challenge

Now joining is easy, staying committed is a whole different story, and we all know that. So later today I’m going to be making a list post for myself that I can cross off the titles from 2017 and before that still need to be read on my Kindle. It’s an accountability thing for me, but I believe that it will help keep me on track with this clean up that I’m determined to do this year. It’s not a requirement, but a choice of my own.

Check out the COYER Winter Switch Challenge for yourself, and have some fun with lots of company as you clean out your e-readers this year..