The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

This week, I’m going to give a super-abbreviated version and end with a good ol’ PSA.

Coming up this week, I have all sorts of stuff planned: Monday, I have a special post and giveaway for the Fiery Hot Reads on Icy Cold Nights Hop. I’ll be reviewing One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean, whose books I adore. Tuesday I have a gorgeous New Adult cover reveal and I’m following it up Wednesday with double New Adult reviews, one for Forever My Girl by Heidi McLaughlin and the other for Saving You, Saving Me by Kailin Gow. Thursday is the last day of January, which means it’s time to link up the first month’s New Adult Challenge reviews! I’ll also have some news about my first giveaway for everyone who’s linked up. Friday will bring my RAK wrap-up and a review of a cute YA from Entangled called The Reece Malcolm List by Reece Spalding and I have two novellas I was too late to post yesterday all ready to go for my Saturday Bonbon reviews.

Now your promised PSA.

I missed half of my week’s reviews because I was back and forth to the hospital visiting my ex father-in-law with my kiddo. He hasn’t exactly lived a healthy lifestyle – I’m not going to cast a huge amount of shade at personal choices of others except his – but he smoked, drank, ate things he shouldn’t and didn’t take care of his Type II diabetes the way he should have. He had to have a double bypass on Monday, Wednesday had to go back into surgery to remove a blood clot and on Friday, had a stroke. He’s doing better than expected right now – he doesn’t have any paralysis, only some speech and confusion issues – but he’s not even close to being out of the woods.

Peeps – take care of yourselves. He’s only in his 60s and he wasn’t particularly overweight. If you looked at him and didn’t know him, he wouldn’t look like the kind of guy who you’d think this would happen to. I know many of you have probably lost parents and siblings much younger than this from cancer and other things that just came out of nowhere – so since I’ve heard I’m the bossy type, here’s your PSA this week. Take care of yourself – check for lumps in your glands and breasts. Do a mole check. Get that mammogram and pap smear you’ve been putting off. Re-familiarize yourself with what the symptoms of a heart attack are and the next time you’re at the grocery store, toss a bottle of aspirin in your cart, just in case.

There are probably a hundred things I’m forgetting, but for me, the takeaway this week was I had to watch my kiddo see for the first time that someone he loved could die. It’s a reminder that there are some things we can control about our health.

Bossy rant over.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

It’s my first Sunday post of the new year! I don’t want to go and jinx myself now, but we’re 20 days in and I’m still doing well on my resolution to be more organized. For me, this is amazing, especially because I’ve gone about it in a different way than I ever have before. I’m finally ahead on some scheduled reviews and working on clearing up some backlog – I can’t even tell you how good it feels to get up in the morning and know that even if I feel rotten and don’t get anything done, I have posts set to post for the next four or five days or more. So..go me!

I didn’t always enjoy the books I reviewed this week, but I must be in a good mood because I’m pretty happy about it because they were all books I’d looked forward to and was just glad to have gotten my hands on and tried.

• Monday, I reviewed Lisa Schroeder’s Falling for You and loved it. I want her to write more like this one. Maybe not, I won’t be able to afford it.
• Tuesday brought a cover reveal and giveaway of Laura Howard’s upcoming New Adult book, The Forgotten Ones, then my review of Brenna Yovanoff’s Paper Valentine, which I liked – it was very lazy summer retro-serial killer.
• Wednesday was the big disappointment of the week, with my review of Gena Showalter’s Last Kiss Goodnight. It wasn’t up to her usual standards and just drab.
• It was double the Rhiannon Paille covers on Thursday!
• Friday was the start of the Dreaming of Books Giveaway Hop and hopefully I came up with at least one interesting thing to give away. I do try to be different.
• Saturday I decided to test out a little novella review feature. The three I picked for its debut were a little all over the place, with one making me want to break out my HULKSMASH suit, one had me in love and with the other, I was a little confused. Story of my life, right?

Next week for review, I have an adorable Harlequin Kiss book called Hitched!, Forever My Girl and The Breakaway on the review schedule so far (I had to DNF Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters, which I had planned too).

On to the haul!

I received for review:
Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #3) by Katie McGarry
Stung by Bethany Wiggins
The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett
None of the Regular Rules by Erin Downing from the author
Impulse (Jumper #3) by Steven Gould from Tor

I purchased:

Second Rate Chances by Holly Stephens
The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

From some super nice peeps:
I won a personalized autographed copy of Crimson Frost by Jennifer Estep from a giveaway from Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings. Jennifer even threw in personalized autographed bookmarks from each of the other books in the series! I definitely squee’ed and scared my cat.

Emma D. in New Zealand, who is one of the nicest people in the #RAK program, sent me Silken Rapture by Beth Kery.

So I had a pretty awesome week overall. I kicked my flu bug, was nice and organized and am on my way to finally clearing up some of my backlog (*crossing fingers*).

How was your week? Leave me a link and I’ll come visit!

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

There’s been an…incident, so for a brief, moment, Barbara has been replaced by this delicious piece of cake:

It’s what she would have wanted.

I’m sure  most of you are aware by now that Hostess, beloved creator of such delicacies as the Twinkie and Ding Dong, has decided to cease production immediately. It has indeed been a dark week for moist cake and “creme” lovers everywhere.

Other companies have expressed interest in the Hostess recipes and brands though, raising hopes that we will again have our Zingers, Honey Buns and Sno-Balls. Yesterday, Mexican bread-baking firm Grupo Bimbo was believed to be at the head of the pack meaning someday, we may be able to buy Bimbo Ho Hos!

I’ve finished consoling myself with some hot chocolate, so I suppose I have the strength to go on with the post now. */drama. Seriously, did you hear they’re probably going to cancel Cops now too? It’s not like I watch it, but it’s the principle of the thing. I grew up with it!

I should do book things, huh? Last week, as predicted by me, was disorganized on my part. Health issues kept me from being as productive as I wanted and just keep setting me back, but sooner or later I will wrestle my TBR pile into submission. The only non-review book I read was Leave Me Breathless by Cherrie Lynn. Oh. My. Can you still see me steaming? Look towards the middle of the US? That’s me. It was HOT. If you like smoking contemporaries, you have to have this.

In other generally bloggish things:

I reviewed Renegade by J.A. Souders and it wasn’t for me. There was a lot of running around which isn’t my favorite thing, even though I really loved the whole concept of the book. I finally got my hands back on a New Adult title with Make it Last by Bethany Lopez that I saw making the tour rounds and had to have. It was a really familiar story that didn’t wow me but I thought the author had a lot she could work with in the future as her skills tightened up. On Saturday, I reviewed The Tangled Bridge by Rhodi Hawk, which I thought was too much story for one book. She’s a brilliant writer, there was just so much there that I had brain overload for 500+ pages and I think I shut down somewhere in there because of all the extra storylines. I hope she gets it worked out, the series has potential. Does this week sound like it had a theme? There was a lot of potential in what I was reading, none of it was quite there yet. It was frustrating.

Cait reviewed The Promise by Kate Worth and she had the most perplexing problem – she had little issues all over but she ended up caring about the characters. There was a pesky editing problem, but she thinks Worth might be an author to watch for (as does Kimba, whose review of the book she read and loved!).

In approximate book haul news:

In my never-ending quest not to keep track of what I buy, I’m not sure if this is the whole or exact list of what made its way into my house or onto my Kindle since I last shared with you. What I don’t know won’t bother me, right?

For review:

Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black
The Water Witch by Juliet Dark
The Stone Demon by Karen Mahoney
Dante’s Girl by Courtney Cole
Mia’s Heart by Courtney Cole

Purchased:

Lord’s Fall by Thea Harrison
Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
Leave Me Breathless by Cherrie Lynn
Fall from Grace by Christine Zolendz
Saving Grace by Christine Zolendz

Won:

Audrey’s Guide to Witchcraft by Jodi Gehrman won from Kimba at The Caffeinated Reader

Coming up this week:

Um. Uh..

Well, there’s this post. Cait’s going to review Provoked by Rebecca Zanetti and I have the next sizzzzling installment of those Six Pack Ranch boys from Vivian Arend, Rocky Mountain Angel. I have a couple of New Adult books I’ve been anxious to get to and unless body parts start falling off (always a possibility), I’m getting to The Iron Prince! By the weekend, it’s giveaway bumper cars: the Gratitude giveaway ends on the 20th, my Secret McQueen giveaway starts on the 21st and the Black Friday Shopping Giveaway starts on the 23rd. In between…reviews! Turkey! Cranber – eh, nobody eats that. Pie!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and above all, especially if you’re traveling or deep frying a turkey, SAFE holiday. And if you don’t celebrate US’s turkey day, then just enjoy the day and eat like a maniac in solidarity with us. Don’t worry, the calories don’t count if you’re doing it for someone else, I checked.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

Well, hello! I’ve decided to make all of my resolutions in November instead of waiting until January (not procrastinating is one of my resolutions, see what I did there?) and one of them is to be more consistent with some of the things here, this weekly post being one of them. So, here’s to week one of my old year/new year’s resolution!

What went on last week:

I know something big happened last week…what was it, what was it…. Oh yeah, the blog turned TWO! It got a spiffy blue makeover and I kicked off my month of giveaways with one for the winner’s choice of any two books in a series. It ends on Wednesday when the next giveaway (with goodies supplied by one of my favorite authors!) starts up, so check it out if you haven’t yet.

After a long time using freebie media buttons that I found through web searches, I decided to splurge a teeny bit and found Print Smitten on Etsy to make up some specifically to match things this time around. Tara let me pick which buttons I wanted and to specify which color code I wanted to use – she’s really a sweetheart! I’m just starting to get the hang of making graphics but buttons are kind of beyond me. Her stuff is so cute and she does so many different things, I had to give her a shout out.

Last week also saw (dun dun dun) the regular return of Cait! She’s been on a general hiatus while she packed up all her bags and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Okay, more like Texas which is actually more fun. Expect more “y’alls” and the minute I find out she bought a ten gallon hat and snakeskin boots, I am totally telling you. I’m happy, happy to have her back. If she leaves again, we’ll hunt her down, deal?

In more regular-type stuff:

• Our email subscription service is driving me batty and I’m still working out the bugs. For no reason I can tell, some of it’s running a day or more late, the new service (if you’ve confirmed) is on time. I need chocolate.
• Cait reviewed Tempting the Player, the latest book from J. Lynn, alter ego of Jennifer Armentrout (B+)
• I reviewed Luminosity by Stephanie Thomas (A) which was a very pleasant surprise and came up with an…interesting playlist. My taste is questionable and old, we can leave it there.
• Cait was like a bee in a jar waiting for Darynda Jones’ Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (A) and she finally got to read and review it!
• I had a great guest post from Sharon Lynn Fisher and was completely blown away by her sci-fi romance Ghost Planet (A).

Next week (penciled in, you know):

• Cait’s got an opinion or two to share about Deity by Jennifer Armentrout and Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse
• The first giveaway of the blogoversary celebration ends on Wednesday and the next one begins – prepare for a hot cowboy and some fun swag
• Friday I’ll be reviewing Greta and the Goblin King by Chloe Jacobs and there will be a dream cast that won’t involve actors from the 80s like my playlist last week. I swear. *snicker*

 

The books – I’m sort of guessing what came in during the last week-ish. I not only try not to keep track of what I buy but I was so excited about receiving Breath, I didn’t log it in. So, this is a “probably” list.

What I got for review:

Breath (Riders of the Apocalypse #4) by Jackie Morse Kessler
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (The Rules of Scoundrels #2) by Sarah MacLean
Dualed (Dualed #1) by Elsie Chapman

Purchased:

Checkmate (A Neighbor from Hell #3) by R.L. Mathewson
Iced (Fever #6) by Karen Marie Moning
Just for Now (Sea Breeze #4) by Abbi Glines

Gifted to me:

The Passage (The Passage #1) by Justin Cronin
The Twelve (The Passage #2) by Justin Cronin

I hope everyone else had a lovely week – I’d love to stop by and see your posts too, leave a link to your posts or I’ll come find you (puts on stalker gear).

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

Either I’m getting senile (always a possibility) or this weather is messing with me. Last week it was absolutely gorgeous, just the kind of weather I love. We were in the mid-60s and sunny during the day, 40s at night and one night we dropped to around freezing, hopefully killing off some bugs. Today we’re back in the mid to upper 70s. WHAT? And who put in the order for more pollen and ragweed? It’s awful enough that sometimes I can’t remember what day it is, now I have to try and remember what season it is when I’m sneezing and have to close the house up and turn the air on?

Whine, whine, whine. Nope, no cheese with that.

It was a typical (meaning wild and wooly) week on the blog:

• Monday, Uncontrollable by Shelli Johannes was released so I had a little blast announcement with a link to a big ol’ extravaganza being held at Mundie Mom.
• Tuesday I brought you a review of the disappointing Dearly, Beloved, the second in Lia Habel’s Gone with the Respiration series. Crossing my fingers the third book will make me fall in love with the series again.
• My pick for Waiting on Wednesday was Shadowlands by Kate Brian and later in the day, I posted a review for the military romance, Until There Was You by Jessica Scott.
• Thursday I had my review of Uncontrollable by S.R. Johannes which I recommend (this was part 2, read part 1 first! Then later in the day I decided, what the heck, let’s do a giveaway. So, my birthday giveaway was spawned. It ends tonight at midnight.
• I decided in lieu of calling it a review day (being lazy), I would say the last day of the regular week was Format Friday since I have a large number of posts to pull together and format for this week. Truthfully, I was bloated with cake and feeling like a bum. But that’s between us, right?

This week on the blog:

• I’ll be reviewing Whispers at Moonrise by C.C. Hunter, Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth, The Suburban Strange by Nathan Kotecki and Fried Zombie Dee-Light by Susan Abel Sullivan.
• Tuesday, Cait will be reviewing On Dublin Street and have a little interview with the author, Samantha Young. Love her!
• Did you hear the Fraterfest Read-A-Long starts this week? I’m still making my list of books to read over the weekend up but one thing’s for sure. On Saturday the 6th, I’m hosting the Cover Sleuth Challenge with a giveaway that will end on Monday the 8th. I’m not sure it’s hard enough….

I’m skipping my personal haul this week because I’m pretending it never happened. You’re with me, yes?

Books I received for review:

Derailed  by Alyssa Rose Ivy, courtesy of the author
‘Twas the Night After Christmas  by Sabrina Jeffries, courtesy of Gallery
Vengeance Bound  by Justina Ireland, courtesy of Simon and Schuster
Fury of Seduction  by Coreene Callahan and
Knight Awakened  by Coreene Callahan, both from Montlake Romance
Immortal Surrender  by Claire Ashgrove, courtesy of Tor

I hope everyone had a great week! Leave me a link (or I’ll just figure it out) and I’ll stop by and see what you’ve been up to.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

It’s a chance to share news, recap events from the past week, showcase books and things we’ve received and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead on our blog.

Yay, it’s finally chilly here! I had to break out my socks, so you know it’s getting cold. I heard geese the other day and tonight, we’re expecting temperatures below freezing which means at least a partial kill-off of some bugs. Celebration time! I don’t know if we’re going to have our leaves turn pretty colors though. A lot of them fell off when we had such a horrible drought this summer already.

You always get weather reports with me, don’t you?

I had a nicely busy week on the blog, doing a couple of reviews that were “fun” reads:

• Sunday I brought you a thrilling prologue from Courtney Cole’s new book, Of Blood and Bone. I’m going to be reviewing in in a few weeks and I can’t wait to dig in.
• Monday was Lumberjack In Love day. Penny Watson’s hilarious book ended up taking a good part of my day as I ended up answering tweets and chatting on Goodreads about it. This is such a good little book, so funny and sexy. And I happen to love Penny to pieces, so that helps but the book still rocks – check out the other reviews too!
• Tuesday things were more serious with my review of Careful by Isobella Jade, a book warning about the dangers of texting and driving. Scary stuff and needless to say, I hope nobody does it!!!
• Wednesday I picked the final book in the Shadow Falls by C.C. Hunter series for my WoW pick. I can’t believe it’s finally ending (especially since I thought it was over with the book I’m reading next week – d’oh!). I also reviewed the last novella in the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa and ended up with mixed feelings. I’m ready to move on to Ethan’s series and leave Meghan and Ash behind.
• Thursday reeeaaally late, I reviewed Incarnation by Emma Cornwall. This is so good! Light on the steampunk but heavy on the thriller and atmosphere, I recommend this one if you like alternate Dracula retellings. This is definitely alternate.
• Friday I think I ate Cheetos. No, I worked on some things for my upcoming month of giveaways in November!

Coming up this week:

• Reviews for Uncontrollable by S.R. Johannes, Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel and Whispers at Moonrise by C.C. Hunter. I have a suspenseful WoW that I whine about not being able to get the ARC for and a release day post and if I find a fire lit under me, I may work a little something extra in there. My birthday’s next week and I feel a giveaway coming on.

On to the haul!

Received for review:

Dark Shadows: Angélique’s Descent (Dark Shadows #1) by Lara Parker
Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch (Dark Shadows #2) by Lara Parker
Ephemeral by Addison Moore

Gifted to me:

All He Ever Needed by Shannon Stacey
Taking Chances by Molly McAdams

Purchased:

Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield
Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster
Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier

Lots of Kindle Freebies this week:

Impact: Wild Men of Alaska by Tiffinie Helmer
The Billionaire’s Secrets by Meadow Taylor (was meh)
Match Me by Liz Appel
Agents Under Fire (Guardian Agent, Avenging Agent, Warrior Agent) by Dana Marton
Second Chance by Katie Kacvinsky (sequel to First Comes Love)
Don’t Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Today, Crazy Love by Nicola Marsh is supposed to be a Kindle freebie according to an invitation I received from her on Goodreads.

I hope you had a great week too – leave your link and I’ll come visit!