I just finished reading My One and Only by Kristan Higgins. I'd reviewed a review of this book that wasn't so great, and I was worried that maybe there was a Kristan Higgins book I wouldn't like. But I'm happy to say that was not the case! Also happy I didn't let that review turn me off of reading this.

This book has all the usual humor and quirky charactes of a Kristan Higgins book, but I'm a sucker for a reunion story. I'm also a really big sucker for a story where the hero falls in love with the heroine at first sight and loves her forever. He knew the moment he met her he would marry her and he did. Their marriage didn't last, and I could see how they both contributed to that, and also how they were both in denial about their role in the breakdown. I loved Nick and I loved how her loved Harper.

I just started reading The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis, which as it turns out, is another reunion story!

This week I finished Sweet Possession by Maya Banks. Great characters in this story. I liked how Connor has things pretty together and Lyric is the one with "issues". He's so steady and solid for her.

I just started reading Explosive by Beth Kery. I've wanted to get my hands on this book ever since it came out but it wasn't available to me at the Sony Store. But when I recently discovered the Kobo store, this was on my list!

Hey, I'm posting this from the airport in Calgary! I'm about halfway on my journey to Los Angeles for the RT Booklovers Convention. So excited!

On the plan I was reading A Lot Like Love by Julie James. It totally distracted me from my fear of flying.

I also finished this week Yours, Mine and Howls by Kinsey W. Holley. A great story!  Kinsey writes awesome dialogue. I loved Becca.

If you didn't see my ecstatic Twittering this past week let me just share my joy with you!! I discovered that I can buy books from the Kobo store that work on my Sony reader. And the Kobo store has the books I want to read, that the Sony store doesn't. I still don't entirely understand why that is, apparently some kind of geographical restrictions set by publishers, but can I tell you how much that annoyed me (Grrrrrr) that I could not buy the books I wanted. Favourite authors, new authors...I could go to the bookstore and buy the print book. But why should I have to do that?
I don't know why I never thought of visiting the Kobo store sooner. I have a Chapters membership which gets me a discount off print books in store and online and I've made good use of that in the past. Now...not so much since I buy mainly ebooks. I feel a little bad about that, because I'd like to support my local bookstore and Chapters was awesome about carrying my print book Friends With Benefits when it came out. (It's sold out!! Yay!! Must go see if they've ordered any more...) Anyhoo, I got an email from Chapters about some sale and there was a link to their Kobo store, so I had the idea to check there. I had no idea what format Kobo readers use. Turns out it's EPUB, which totally works on my Sony. Excitedly, I searched for books, and found the ones I've been wanting- Jill Shalvis and Julie James, to name two. Even more excitedly I made my purchase, downloaded it, opened it in Adobe Digital Editions, transferred it onto my reader and opened it up...voila!  I had my book! And it was even cheaper than the Sony store!!!

Well you can imagine how my TBR "pile" has grown!! Will report back next week!

When I do this Wednesday post about what I'm reading, I'm always painfully aware that the authors I'm talking about could be reading this. I know how ferocious other authors get when one of their own is criticized. And I'm not a reviewer, I'm just a reader who happens to also be an author. So I try to keep my comments positive and talk about what I liked about the books I read, but the truth is, I don't like everything I read. So sometimes I just don't say very much. This week I want to share my thoughts but I'm not going to name the book, nor will I name the author. I will say this is my first purchase from Carina Press.

I had a lot of problems with this book and ended up mostly skimming it because it just didn't engage me. The point of view jumped from character to character several times within scenes, which may have been part of the problem. Although it was an erotic romance with some very hot scenes, they didn't evoke any kind of emotional response in me and I realized the writing is very cold and sterile. The characters themselves don't feel any visceral reactions, so neither did I. The story itself was hugely disappointing. In the middle of the story a second hero appears, and he has his own point of view, which was a bit jarring. Turns out he's the man heroine has the HEA with, after very little conflict, I have to say - except he's not. He dies. In a completely meaningless, random way. The other thing that was extremely disturbing was one of the BDSM scenes that was so much like a scene from my own book, Rigger, that it really freaked me out. Similar actions, similar words...I still feel really unsettled by reading something so like one of my own scenes. It must be coincidence but, whoa.

I also read Board Resolution by Joey W. Hill. I can see readers having mixed feelings about this story, the heroine spending much of the book restrained and at the mercy of five men. Ultimate fantasy or abuse? It took me aback at first, until bits of back story were filtered in and I realized that the hero and heroine actually knew each other a lot better than I'd first thought. And it was hot!I'm going for ultimate fantasy, with a heroine who learns a lot about herself through the process.

Right now I'm reading Tequila Truth by Mari Carr. I love this book! It's exactly the kind of story like to read.

It's actually been two weeks since I blogged about the books I've been reading. At that time I'd started Something About You by Julie James. I loved it! So of course I had to read everything she has! I've now also read Practice Makes Perfect (loved it too!) and Just The Sexiest Man Alive (another win!). I could be really picky about a couple of tiny POV problems in Just The Sexiest Man Alive but I knew she was doing it to plant a seed for somethign coming later. Loved the characters, though and great dialogue. Can't wait til her next book is out.

Currently I'm reading Simply Irresistable by Jill Shalvis. I've seen a lot of people "discovering" Jill Shalvis recently. Meanwhile I've been a big fan of hers for years. I'm so glad for her people are finding her because I love her writing!

Happy Wednesday! This past week I read Trust Me, by fellow Naughty Nine author Sydney Somers. It was such a great book! Syd writes awesome gargoyles stories too, but my first love is always a straight contemp or romantic suspense and this one delivered just what I like - kick butt heroine, alpha but tender hero who can take abuse from said kick butt heroine and love her anyway, a suspense plot that was simple enough to make sense (sometimes they're so complicated I'm not sure if it really makes sense) and oodles of sexual tension and hot sex. Some great secondary characters and I feel the makings of a hot series coming on!! (I also liked the Canadian setting - Tim's is in this book!)

Now I've started Something About You, by Julie James - a new to me author. So far, so good!

I finished Fools Rush in by Kristan Higgins and I do believe I have now read all her books. I enjoyed this one, as I have all of them but I wished for a little more of the romance between Millie and Sam.

Then I read (very quickly) Ice, by Linda Howard. This is my first Linda Howard book and probably wasn't a good intro to her. It was quite short (I borrowed it from the library so didn't pay for a hardcover book that's probably not much longer than category novel length). Her writing was good and the suspense was good, the romance was way too fast (I know it's a romance and people can fall in love in one day, but still...) and I didn't get the point of the story...the attack was random and how did everyone learn and grow through that? I will probably read another of her books though.

I'm also reading a couple of non-fiction books this week - Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, and 45 Master Characters, also by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. 45 Master Characters is freakin' awesome!! I borrowed this one from the library too, and I haven't even finished it yet, but I love it so much I just ordered it from Chapters. It has totally solved a problem I had with one of my completed manuscripts (guess what I'll be doing over the holidays!).

Okay I'm prepared to spill the name of the book I read last week. It all turned out pretty good. It was What a Rogue Desires by Caroline Linden. The frist scene, told from David's point of view, ends when he leaves the room, but the POV immediately switches to his brother's wife's POV, a character who never appears in the book again. My initial impression was headhopping all over the place, but looking again at that opening scene it was just that one change of POV. Call me picky. Anyway the story was good, and kept me wondering how the two of them were going to end up together. So in the end I enjoyed it.

Now I'm reading another Kristan Higgins book, Fools Rush In.

I started a new book this week but I'm not sure if I'm going to name it here because it got off to a very rocky start for me. This is the second time I've purchased a book by a "new to me" author based on a great review at one of the "big" review sites and been disappointed. Not sure why that is. I guess readers and reviewers (and I guess some editors, since they publish the books) are less concerned about the technical aspects of writing than a writer might be. Which is food for thought and what it means to my own writing, given a number of disappointments lately.

Not a lot to report this week since I'm still reading the same book - Cowgirls Don't Cry by Lorelei James.
This is very unusual for me to take a whole week to read a book! I usually do several in a week. It's not that's it's not a good book either, I'm enjoying it. But I have been writing a lot (I finished my WIP! Yay!) so maybe that's why. And I've got so many good books lined up to read next!

Except it's Thurday *hanging head with shame at being such a delinquent blogger*

I finished Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Not my favourite book of hers either. It had a couple of funny moments, but for me there wasn't enough about Mnnie (cute name; get it?). I never sensed the maternal love Becky has for Minnie, in fact they didn't spend a lot of time together and when Minnie has "issues" they hire a professional nanny to deal with it instead of dealing with it themselves. That disappointed. me. I do sense another story coming, though, with Luke reconcilitation with his mother  - any bets?? :-)

I then read another Kristan Higgins books, Just One of the Guys. LOVED this book! Chastity really stuck in my mind, what a great character. Since I liked it so much, I bought All I Ever Wanted, also by Kristan Higgins. Just started it last night. My third book of hers and I'm starting to see the pattern...

I finished Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale. It was a good book but not my favourite of hers. I found several times there was so much tension I had to put the book down. So many bad things happen! This story was mainly from the hero's point of view, which normally I like, and I did like this hero, Sophocles Trafalger :-), it was the heroine I had some problems with. She had a tragic past, certainly, but I think getting inside her head a little more would have made her more sympathetic. And I got frustrated because so many times they seemed so close to getting together but all that keeps them apart is their fear of expressing their feelings. Which is certainly a legitimate fear, except he'd told her over and over he loved her so I didn't quite get why she didn't believe him.

Now I'm reading Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Am I in a bad mood lately or what? Because I love Sophie Kinsella and I love Rebecca, except she has a baby now and I don't have as much patience for her selfishness. When you have a baby everything changes. Maybe that's what Bex will learn by the end of the book, I'm still just in the early chapters.

I finished Crazy Kisses by Tara Janzen and am now into Breaking Loose also by Tara. There are several little mysteries in this story that are pulling at me, have to find out what’s going on, but one of them (again so hard not to talk about these books without spoilers!) I can only say, yes!! He’s alive!! And I don’t think he’s actually Jesus Christ LOL.

Is it really Wednesday? (Yawn). I'm so tired. In a fit of late night insomnia I stayed up and finished Laid Bare by Lauren Dane. Very hot book.

I also finished this week Megan Hart's Deeper. Yes, this is a book you have to think about after to know how you feel about it. I liked it. It made me think of a lot of things, which I can't even really talk about much her without giving a whole lot of spoilers. It made me think about how one even can change the shape of our whole life, how life takes unexpected twists and turns, and what would it be like to have a second chance? To find out how different things could have been? Except you can't really go back and time doesn't stand still and there isn't always a happy ending.

I still haven't gone back and finished Submission by Cherie Feather but I did finish Let Me In by Donna Kauffman, although I have to confess I skimmed a lot of slow moving parts. The love story was very moving though and the ending did have more action.

I also read Cry for Passion by Robin Schone. This book is very intelligent and certainly makes you think about the history of women’s rights. However in terms of the romance, I felt distanced – Jack is a very tragic and wounded man, and normally I love a wounded hero, but his grief over the woman he loved and lost seems to overshadow the feelings developing for Rose. It made it hard to believe that their relationship actually could grow into something deeper than a sexual one. Robin Schone has a unique voice and writing style and does tell an interesting and thought-provoking story with accurate historical perspetive.

I’ve just started Kisses like a Devil by Diane Whiteside.

What I read this week:

Programming The Parallel Port: Interfacing The Pc For Data Acquisition And Process Control

Optical Interconnections And Parallel Processing: Trends At The Interface

Uncertain Rule-Based Fuzzy Logic Systems: Introduction and New Directions

Emerging Trends in Database and Knowledge Based Machines: The Application of Parallel Architectures to Smart Information Systems

April fool!

I went online and found some of the books I would be LEAST likely to read (if you know me, I am severely tech challenged- the fact that I can even blog is amazing to me). I don’t even know what those things mean! It’s like those titles are in another language. Here’s the real list!

JoAnn Ross – Shattered

It was great to read Shane’s story – the “flyboy” injured in Afghanistan. We knew from other stories (Zach’s? Quinn’s? Both? I can’t remember) that he had lost a leg. Now there’s a really wounded hero for you. But the interesting twist is that he doesn’t have PTSD and he’s not all bitter and hopeless. He has such a positive attitude, you gotta just love him. And a wonderful strong woman for him – the doctor who saved his life. My only complaint about this story is it’s light on the romance part, heavy on a lot of technical military detail, but certainly realistic and convincing. And a bonus love story – for Father What a Waste!

Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill
As I’m part way through this I’m wondering if this provided any inspiriation for the “Phoenix Team” in JoAnn Ross’s books (see above)...

And just started La Bonne by Michèle de Lully – this was recommended by a couple of other authors on a blog the other day so I had to get it...

Well I’m going to start something new on my blog – every Wednesday I’ll post what I’m reading. This kind of happened because I had to redesign my website, which is a good news/bad news kind of story. The good news is I have so many books out (or coming out) that I didn’t have room for them all on one page of my cheap...uh, I mean fiscally prudent website. So I had to lose the page where I talk about what I’m reading, which was hard to keep updated anyway.

Because I’m always reading something. I don’t plan to do a review of every book I read, but I’ll tell you what I just read, or am reading, and make some comments.

Just to get caught up – my most recent reads are:
Love Walked In – by Marisa de los Santos
Belong to Me – by Marisa de los Santos
The Four Man Plan by Cindy Lu
Tribute – by Nora Roberts

Reading now: Only Pleasure by Lora Leigh.

So…Marisa de los Santos. Her writing is beautiful. Her story is seamless. Since I’ve been writing I’m able to predict story lines with finger-snapping regularity. Not this time. In Belong to Me, she totally smacked me in the side of the head. When I went back, the clues were all there…but so subtle and seamless I didn’t see them. I LOVE that. I ADMIRE that. So much that I am now paralyzed by inferiority. There is no possible way I can ever write anything so good, so why bother even trying? (Which is why I don’t play golf. There’s no way I’ll ever hit that ball 150 yards straight, so why bother even trying? Oops. I hear my mother’s voice about my piano playing – no wait, that’s my voice, talking to my daughter about her piano playing – “ practice makes perfect”. Aaaaagh. )

Tribute – it’s Nora. She tells a great story. I loved it. I loved the house. I loved the hero – so untraditional – the woman is the one who wields tools and builds houses, the man can’t even pick up a tool without hurting someone. He’s a geek but he’s still strong and masculine- love it.

Only Pleasure – Lora! What’s with the headhopping???? Maybe I never noticed this before. But I still love you.

My TBR pile – okay these days with digital books it’s not so much a pile, although I do have several Harlequin Blaze books waiting to be read, thanks to editorial assistant Laura Barth at Harlequin, who rewarded me for a good deed with free books! Thanks Laura!

I’ve been downloading free Valentine’s reads from Harlequin and Samhain and the Romance Divas. The only one I’ve actually read so far is OWNED by Nara Malone at the Romance Divas . Okay, I confess, it’s because she’s my critique partner. This story is amazing. I couldn’t even critique it because it’s way beyond my level. (Another incident of being paralyzed by inferiority.) She has been experimenting with flash fiction and put together this creative, innovative, evocative story that will blow your mind. Check it out!