10,000!

10,000 pageviews! And only a very small fraction are mine, I promise!

Thanks to all who have been reading, whether you've follwed the blog from the start and read every post, or you stumbled across it accidentally last week - it means a lot to me.

Lots more reviews to come (I have to work through the 'Recently read' column on the right-hand-side!) and I'm trying to be more orderly about posts and upload them Mondays and Thursdays. Keep a look-out and happy reading!

The Mistress Files by Tiffany Reisz

The Mistress Files (2013) (short story collection)
Tiffany Reisz
Grade: A
Genre: erotica / short stories
Sex scenes: for such short little things, each story will blow your mind
Source: own

New York’s top Dominatrix, Nora Sutherlin has seen it all. From foot fetishists to masochists, clients who have cross-dressing fantasies to those who get off on being leashed like an animal, she’ll do it all – for a price. Her boss, Kingsley Edge and King of the Underground has tasked her with writing a book of her experiences in order to teach his other Dominants. The Mistress Files shares with us tales of five of her clients: from the Acting Actress to the Broken-Hearted Bartender, this is a collection that you won’t forget …

Making it Last by Ruthie Knox

Making it Last (2013) (novella)
Ruthie Knox
Grade: A-
Genre: contemporary romance
Sex scenes: hot
Source: NetGalley
Camelot series: (1) How to Misbehave, (2) Along Came Trouble, (3) Flirting with Disaster, (4) Making it Last

Amber Mazzara has been married for ten years, loves her three kids to pieces, but has had enough. After ten years of constantly having to look after at least one child, all her boys are now in school, leaving her bereft as she waits at home for them to finish school; her husband Tony is forced to travel to where the work is as the housing market has yet to pick up, and Amber feels like she’s losing herself.

Key of Valour by Nora Roberts

Key of Valour (2003)
Nora Roberts
Grade: A-
Genre: contemporary romance
Sex scenes: mild
Source: library
The Key Trilogy: (1) Key of Light, (2) Key of Knowledge

Zoe McCourt must find the third and final key to unlock the souls of the Daughters of Glass. The souls of three sisters, Venora, Niniane and Kyna were trapped by the sorcerer, Kane, thousands of years ago, and every generation since, the three chosen women have failed – until now. Malory and Dana have succeeded with their keys – further than any other before. With her clue in hand, and the help of her friends, Zoe must use her courage to find the answer …

Submit to Desire by Tiffany Reisz

Submit to Desire (2012) (novella)
Tiffany Reisz
Grade: A
Genre: erotica
Sex scenes: scorching
Source: own, eBook only

Charlotte Brand first catches the eye of Kingsley Edge, King of the New York Underground, when she’s breathing fire and very, very drunk. The next thing she knows, Kingsley is taking her home after she passed out and presents Charlie with a lucrative business opportunity. Kingsley has a client who is looking for a female who will submit to his absolute sexual dominance. Charlie’s experience only extends to vanilla, but she’s inexplicably aroused by the prospect of having someone else make all the decisions and agrees to spend a month with King, in ‘training’.

Charlie would never have dreamed that she would become one of Kingsley Edge’s harem, nor that she would enjoy it so much. This rich client of Kingsley’s has a predilection for acting out rape fantasies, and Charlie might be scared every time, but isn’t so repelled that she needs to use her safeword. As King extends her sexual repertoire far beyond her vanilla roots, Charlie finds herself submitting to these desires that he awakens within her, and treasuring her time with him that is slowly drawing to an end …

Saving Grace by Julie Garwood

Saving Grace (1993)
Julie Garwood
Grade: A-
Genre: medieval romance
Sex scenes: sweet
Source: own

Married as a child and widowed not long after, Lady Joanna never wanted to marry again. Her husband was a brute of a man, prone to beat and rape her as he liked, channelling his frustration at her barrenness using his fists. He changed the staff every month, so that she would never have the chance to get close to anybody, and her confessor, Bishop Hallwick preached that God viewed women as lower in standing than oxen. Raulf was a favourite of King John, and thus privy to all sorts of damning information – one piece of which Joanna happened to overhear, and could get her killed.

Flirting with Disaster by Ruthie Knox

Flirting with Disaster (2013)
Ruthie Knox
Grade: A-
Genre: contemporary romance
Sex scenes: hot
Source: NetGalley
Camelot series: (1) How to Misbehave, (2) Along Came Trouble, (3) Flirting with Disaster, (4) Making it Last

Katie Clark is recently divorced and finally making something of herself in her hometown of Camelot, Ohio. Married straight out of school, she followed her husband, Levi, as he pursued his dream in Alaska. They couldn’t afford two sets of tuition fees, and so Katie gallantly agreed to work while Levi took classes, waiting her turn. Then, several years went by as Levi started his business and Katie pitched in, and school became a distant dream. When Levi then ran off with all their money, Katie had no choice but to return home, telling no one of what had happened to her.

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Icons (2013)
Margaret Stohl
Grade: B+
Genre: YA / dystopian
Source: NetGalley
Icons: (1) Icons

Nothing was the same after The Day. The Day when the Lords came, causing 13 Icons to fall from the sky, generating a powerful electromagnetic field that halted all electrical activity within a certain radius. The Day when 13 of the world's biggest cities became silent, dependent only upon the electricity generated by the Icons that the Lords permitted them to use. The Day that 1 billion lives came to an end.

Doloria Maria de la Cruz is an Icon Child, marked out as different by the tiny grey dot on her wrist, just “one small circle the color of the sea in the rain … [her] destiny.” Her parents and brothers died on The Day when she was just a baby, and she and her best friend Ro have been brought up together by Padre in the Grasslands, areas outside the cities, untouched by the power of the Icons and the control of the Lords and the Embassies. On the day of her seventeenth birthday, everything changes.

Etiquette for the End of the World by Jeanne Martinet

Etiquette for the End of the World (2012)
Jeanne Martinet
Grade: A
Genre: funny / contemporary / chick lit
Sex scenes: mild
Source: NetGalley

Tess Eliot is 39-years old and has just lost her column in a respected newspaper. Apparently, her recent Tess Knows Best article, with the line “The best way to a man’s heart is through his rib cage, preferably with a hack saw” went too far. Unemployed, with her agent no longer sending out her book proposal for Tess Eliot’s Quick Fixes for Life, Love, and Your Mother-in-Law, Tess is desperate for work.

She stumbles across the World Organisation for Omniscient Solstice Harbingers who are offering an inordinate sum for someone to write an etiquette guide in preparation for the end of the world. A visit to the offices of WOOSH reveals that they really do believe that the world will end on December 21 2012, as the Ancient Mayans had predicted, and they really are serious about paying Tess that much money for effectively a how-to guide. She may think they all need their heads checked out, but these are dire circumstances.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 3: Guarded by Joss Whedon / Andrew Chambliss / Georges Jeanty etc

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9 Volume 3: Guarded (2013) (Dark Horse)

Andrew Chambliss (script), Jane Espenson (script), Drew Z. Greenberg (script), Georges Jeanty (art), Joss Whedon (creator) etc

Grade: C+

Genre: Buffy / graphic novel

Source: NetGalley
Buffy Season 9: (1) Freefall, (2) On Your Own, (3) Guarded 

The destruction of the Seed destroyed all magic. Suddenly, hundreds of Slayers were left defunct as the world no longer needed their help. To add insult to injury, vampires are now everyone’s best friend, largely thanks to Harmony’s glamorous reality television show. As might be expected, slayers are finding it difficult to adapt to this new life, and none more so than Buffy, the woman responsible.

Kennedy and her team have taken their shared plight and found an innovative solution. She’s found a way for Slayers to continue to serve and protect: as private bodyguards. For those that can afford it, they’ve got themselves the ultimate protection – and paying through their nose for the privilege. Buffy’s first charge is a high-profile tech entrepreneur, who is hiding from an enemy that Buffy is all too familiar with …

Along Came Trouble by Ruthie Knox

Along Came Trouble (2013)
Ruthie Knox
Grade: A-
Genre: contemporary romance
Sex scenes: hot
Source: NetGalley
Camelot: (1) How to Misbehave, (2) Along Came Trouble, (3) Flirting with Disaster, (4) Making it Last

Ellen Callahan might love her brother to pieces, but the reporters camped out on her driveway and sneaking up to her house from the back woods, are too much to bear for the entertainment-lawyer sister of a world-famous pop star. She has a young son to think of and doesn’t care for the fact that the reporters are making her their subject, second-best for when they can’t get shots of Carly, Ellen’s neighbour. At 7 months pregnant and the recent ex-girlfriend of Jamie Callahan, Carly is hot news, especially since Jamie’s not the father. Jamie might be powerless while he’s in LA, but he’s bringing in reinforcements.

Like This, For Ever by Sharon Bolton

I read and started this review at the end of March, straight after I read If Snow Hadn't Fallen. Yes, it's taken me this long to finish it - whoops. Here you go. Beware of hyperbole.

Like This, For Ever (2013) (Lost in the U.S.) (Bantam Press)
S. J. Bolton
Grade: A
Genre: gothic thriller horror
Sex scenes: n/a, but seriously the most frustrating sexual tension I've ever read
Source: NetGalley
Lacey Flint series: (1) Now You See Me, (1.5) If Snow Hadn't Fallen, (2) Dead Scared, (3) Like This, For Ever

S. J. Bolton scares the living shit out of me.

And yes, that’s exaggerating just a little, but it’s 3:24am, I’ve been reading for something like 5 hours, couldn’t wait to start reviewing and considering how much of my EU essay I’ve neglected, I’m in the exaggerating mood.

In just eight weeks, five young boys between 10 and 11 years old have gone missing around London, and the killer is picking up the pace. The victims are disappearing faster and bodies are turning up quicker; the latest discovery of the bodies of twin brothers Jason and Joshua is just one more reason for parents across the capital to give their sons curfews. It won’t be long before the Met starts getting the blame.

Bring on Summer!

The weather has been perfect this last week, my exams are finished and I'm FREE!

Today has been a productive day. My alarm was set for 6.15 because I was still a little paranoid from the night before that my brain was scarily taking on sieve-like characteristics. I had breakfast while spending a couple of hours of cramming and I was as ready as I would ever be. Law students aren't particularly known for their love of Equity & Trusts, especially since it's not law when compared to everything else we learn, but boy was that a nice exam.

Added to that I had a productive meeting, have organised my whole year's worth of notes within an inch of their lives, ticked three huge items off my to-do list that have been waiting to be done for weeks, and am almost done sending my final round of applications for summer internships.

Reviews are next on the list. I'm still feeling super-productive and motivated and so I might as well jump-in and get them done while I can. BRACE YOURSELVES.

#weallwin

Exam Hiatus

I'm prone to putting Enactus ahead of my degree, and any committed Enactus student across the world will be sympathetic and admit to doing the same. Why do I do it? Because as much as I love my degree, it doesn't give me anywhere near the same satisfaction I get from doing Enactus. I might only run our commercial project and thus have only an indirect impact on the lives of our beneficiaries, but to me, it doesn't make a difference.

As competition season is making its way across the globe, I'm nothing short of relieved that the UK held its Nationals first, so that I can actually focus on my exams. As much as I lived and breathed the competitions during the three months of preparations and couldn't imagine going back to real work, exam season is upon us and there's no denying it. In two weeks time, I will have sat my first exam with three more to go. I'm normally pretty calm when it comes to exams, essays etc and so it's when I start to get worried that I should be REALLY worried - I'm worried.

Basically, this is a long-winded way of saying: don't expect any new reviews or blog posts etc before 6 June. As much as I need to catch up with my backlog, second year actually counts and I want at least one first amongst my four modules!

Good luck revising to anyone else who has exams!

World Book Night GIVEAWAY!

That's right: I'm giving away one of my copies of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde that I'm receiving for World Book Night, just because I love y'all so much. See my previous blog post explaining about WBN 2013 here.

About the Book:
Set in 1985, the Crimean War hasn't ended, Wales is a Republic, people can timetravel and everyone has a fascination with literature. Thursday Next is a Special Operative in literary detection and is on the trail of a person who is kidnapping characters from great fictional works. This case could make or break her career ... 

To Enter:
1. Subscribe to my blog by entering your email address into the 'Follow by email' box on the right hand side of the page
2. Then, Leave a comment: if you could be a Giver for WBN 2013, which of the twenty titles would you like to give away?

And that's it!

Terms and Conditions
I am not being compensated for this giveaway.
1. Residents of the UK & N. Ireland only! Sorry, I'm only on a student budget!
2. Entries in before 23:59 on Tuesday 23 April 2013
3. Entrants must be 18 or over
4. Winner shall be announced Wednesday 24 April 2013 and I shall endeavour to have the book out ASAP

What are you reading this weekend?

The Prince by Tiffany Reisz

The Prince (2012)
Tiffany Reisz
Grade: A
Genre: erotica
Sex scenes: This is Tiffany Reisz - nuff said
Source: NetGalley 
The Original Sinners (The Red Years): (prequel) Seven Day Loan (1) The Siren, (2) The Angel, (3) The Prince, (4) The Mistress

If you’re familiar with my blog, then you’re aware of how difficult I find it to write reviews with as few spoilers as possible. When I was given The Prince on the condition that my review was free of spoilers, I found myself faced with a Herculean task. Don’t get me wrong, it makes perfect sense: The Prince is book three of Ms Reisz’s Original Sinners series and any review has to appeal to readers who have already started the series as well as those who are new to it. Considering that The Original Sinners is the quite possibly the most explosive and twist-heavy series that I’ve ever read, I think all reviewers who conform to the brief should be getting a medal or something. Or, even better, a signed ARC of The Mistress – we deserve it.

Back to the story. It’s the day that we never dreamed of happening: Nora has left Søren. For Wesley.