definitely, possibly, maybe

it took me a while to get into infinity , the first book in the infinity division series by jus accardo. it wasn't until cade and noah actually started filling in the back story that it really caught my interest. and part of me wonders if the bonus pov scene included at the end would have maybe worked better as a prologue. because even though we would have been very confused, i feel like it would have upped the stakes for the story in a way that the first couple of chapters needed. but maybe the author tried that and it didn't work. regardless, once this story gets going it's good. noah and cade belong to another world, and in their world kori armstrong is dead. she was the love of cade's life and noah's sister. and she is in danger because dylan, also from the same alternate world as noah and cade, is out to kill her. in the guy's original timeline, dylan's love, ava harris, died in a car accident while cade was driving. and dylan wants her back at any ...

the second colorado ice novel , maybe this time , tells the story of jackson westmore and abigail jansen. she's the girl he's always wanted, his best friend's girl, the girl he's never felt he deserved. she thinks he hates her because for as long as she can remember he's treated her with disdain. these two souls have their communication wires crossed so badly, it's a little bit painful. again this is a second-chance at love story, which aren't my favorite, and i think it's because i do not understand these characters who hold onto grudges and feelings from their pasts as if they happened yesterday. that is so not who i am. and i find it sort of exhausting. so the whole first half of the book abigail is under the impression that jackson hates her and jackson is terrified that she will discover the truth and constantly putting his foot in his mouth. it's not until becky, jackson's sister, spells it out for abigail that any progress is made. a...

i'm a sucker for a holiday novella , as i believe has been established by prior posts . in let it snow  we have the stranded by blizzard holiday trope and the good news is that it's not two people who have never met. sam and holly have been flirting on the job for a while, so when their boss leaves them to close the small bookshop at midnight the night before christmas eve, being trapped in the store by a blizzard gives them an opportunity to explore all that tension simmering between them. holly is a bit of a geek and she's got a lot of baggage that makes her feel unworthy of most things. so she doesn't trust the attraction that sam feels as something real. not until he bares his own insecurities. the amount of sharing, the quick pace of the unburdening might not have worked had the characters actually been strangers, so i'm glad the author avoided that particular trope. because here we get an unexpectedly emotional and deep story. one that works in spite of t...

of time, of words, of energy. life is a whirlwind, y'all. and today i am giving in. i need to stop and veg for a while. just a little while.

so this is an alternate universe fic. michael is an artist and liz is blind and it's the contrast between someone who sees the world in technicolor and someone who is trapped in darkness that fuels the story. i was really proud of this fic at the time. i actually think it held up pretty well.

to the edge  is the second book in the at the brink series. but it is a standalone and there is no requirement that you read the series in order, since i had no trouble following the story without the first book. to the edge  is about clara luz and noah blake. they fell in love as teenagers but were separated by clara's mother before things could get too serious. except it was already too serious. in the intervening years, noah and clara do not forget each other. they also suffer emotional and physical trauma. clara's mother is a state senator, and she has controlled clara's life since the moment she was conceived. clara works for her mother's foundation, but bucks against the restraints kept on her by running a successful sex blog. when a fellow blogger encourages her to try bdsm for an article that could provide greater exposure to clara's blog, clara jumps into the scene without thinking twice. but when her first encounter goes badly, she is rescued by noah. ...

the sixth book of the beneath series takes on bishop--the brooding tattoo artist first introduced in beneath these chains --and eden--a mob princess on the run from something, problem is, she's not entirely sure what that is. [full disclosure: i was not that enamored of the last installment of the series, for some reason i failed to connect with valentina and rix, and i'm still dying to get to hennessey's story, which rumor has is the next one up.] but beneath these shadows might be my new favorite. it's kind of a toss up, beneath these scars is so good too. it's hard for anyone to live up to lucas titan in the alpha hero department, but bishop does a pretty amazing job of it. bishop whose last name i'm not entirely sure of. if it comes up somewhere in the book it's not a memorable moment, and for some reason i keep thinking of him as bishop connors but i also am aware that i totally made that up. for some reason that's the last name my brain keeps g...

a couple of my friends recommended the nest , likening it to a literary arrested development . and to an extent the plumb family is very much like the bluths. except possibly a million times less likeable. they are just as entitled, just as narcissistic, but there is an undercurrent of love and affection in the television show that is not really present in the novel. part of the problem is that so much of the narrative revolves around leo plumb--someone so selfish and self-destructive, so incapable of putting anything but his own self-interest first. we don't ever really see the leo that is kind and charismatic, the one who tricks people into thinking there is more to him than meets the eye. we are first introduced to him the night of his car accident, and that unflattering image sticks to him throughout the novel, even as his siblings try to find something worth believing in him. but leo is leo. he's got nothing to give to anyone, and yet somehow he still fools people into t...

the accidental elopement  feels somewhat inaccurately titled because the elopement happened on purpose. lucia brunelli proposed the marriage of convenience and she proposes running off to vegas to do it. ryan goes along with it because he's trying to get revenge on lucia's friend daniel, because way back when daniel took over his father's business and his family lost everything. and his brother and mother are still bitter and are being assholes about it and ryan wants to get revenge with minimal casualties. actually he doesn't really want to get revenge because a part of him knows that it would be an insane thing to do, because obviously his father is at fault for the failures of his company and the financial ruin of the family. ryan isn't insane. he's actually a really nice guy who goes out of his way to help and protect lucia when he thinks she's a girl who has fallen on hard times and is in the u.s. illegally. and when they do get married and all the ...

so i was researching what our eleven year anniversary would be, and it turns out it is our steel anniversary. and ever since i discovered that i can't get this out of my head: (obviously the blue steel look is the one i'm thinking of, but all of the looks are hilarious and worth taking a gander at.)