The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-28-14

Sunday Post

I reserve the right to change my mind. I thought I was going to get to the Best of 2014 post last week, but well, I gave myself a present for the holidays and read a couple of books just for fun instead of diving through the backfile to figure out which books this year were best. So this week instead. Because of the holidays, there isn’t much going on in general this week. No tours because this is probably not a good week for traffic for anyone.

Even though Xmas is over, there are still a few days left to enter the Christmas Wonder Giveaway Hop.

Life returns to normal, or what passes for normal around here, next week.

christmas wonderfinalCurrent Giveaways:

$10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card in the Christmas Wonder Giveaway Hop (ends 12/31)

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the $10 Amazon Gift Card in the Winter Warm Up Hop is: Linda T.
The winner of the ebook copy of Vacant by Alex Hughes is: Rhianna W.

damnation by jean johnsonBlog Recap:

A- Review: Thirteen Days in September by Lawrence Wright
B+ Review: Butternut Lake: The Night Before Christmas by Mary McNear
A+ Review: Damnation by Jean Johnson
Chrismukkah 2014
B- Review: The Quick and the Undead by Kimberly Raye
Stacking the Shelves (115)

 

 

secret history of wonder woman by jill leporeComing Next Week:

Mercenary Instinct (Mandrake Company #1) by Ruby Lionsdrake
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore (review)
Best Books of 2014
Most Anticipated Books of 2015

Review: The Night Before Christmas by Mary McNear

night before christmas by mary mcnearFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: holiday romance, contemporary romance
Series: Butternut Lake #2.5
Length: 112 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Impulse
Date Released: December 9, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Butternut Lake is so beautiful at Christmas—from the delightfully decorated shops, to the cozy homes with their twinkling lights outside, to the lake itself. And this year so much is happening!

A wedding: Caroline meticulously plans her perfect Christmastime dream wedding to Jack, remarrying him after many years apart.

A baby: Allie and Walker are expecting the best Christmas gift of all—their first baby together.

A reunion: Daisy, Caroline and Jack’s daughter, is returning home after a long semester away at college.

But what’s Christmas without complications? Walker smothers Allie with worry; Daisy pines for her true love, Will, away in the army. And then the unthinkable happens—and Caroline’s wedding plans are ruined.

And just when it seems all is lost, the people of Butternut Lake come together to give their friends the greatest gifts of all. . . .

My Review:

This particular night before Christmas is a holiday story about sharing the joy of the season with the family you make. It’s also a love story that is mostly about what happens after the happily ever after.

up at butternut lake by mary mcnearIn the first two books of the Butternut Lake series (Up at Butternut Lake and Butternut Summer) we saw the women who formed a Girl’s Night Out group all find, or cement, or re-forge, the relationships with the men in their lives.

Although the side-stories are about Jax and Jeremy finding a way to continue their marriage past the revelation of a long-past lie, the focus in the series has been on Allie and Caroline.

In Up at Butternut Lake, Allie returns to her childhood home at Butternut with her young son in order to start a new life for herself after the death in combat of her husband. She finds a new life and new love with Walker Ford, the new owner of the local customized boat (and sometimes yacht) store. By this particular Christmas, Allie and Walker are expecting their first child together. But as much as Walker longs for this child, he can’t get past the tragedy of his first wife’s miscarriage and the subsequent death of their marriage. He is smothering Allie out of fear that if he doesn’t take care of each tiny detail, something will happen to the baby – again.

butternut summer by mary mcnearIn Butternut Summer (reviewed here), Caroline discovers that her ex-husband is not the gambling, cheating alcoholic that she divorced 18 years ago. Jack has stopped gambling, he’s certain that he will never cheat again, and he’s been clean and sober for two years. He comes back to Butternut in the hopes of establishing a new relationship with their daughter Daisy, and with a tentative prayer that he has a chance with Caroline again. At this particular Christmas, Jack and Caroline are planning to marry each other – again. But this time Caroline gets to plan the wedding she wants, and she’s nervous but having the time of her life.

Jack and Caroline’s daughter Daisy is home from college for the holidays, and to be her parents’ maid of honor and best woman. It’s not every child of divorced parents that is able to realize the dream of her parents getting back together. In many cases, it’s a downright bad idea, but for Jack and Caroline, it is finally right.

But in the midst of all this love and happiness, Daisy is pining for her own love, away in the Army.

In this holiday season, everything finally manages to work itself out the way it should, but not until after Murphy’s Law throws a big monkey wrench into everyone’s plans for a festive holiday and wedding celebration.

Escape Rating B+: I enjoyed this holiday story so much because I read the first two books and was familiar with all the characters – and all the reasons why their particular love stories were so deserving of happy endings. I don’t think that coming into this one cold (so to speak) would get half as much pleasure out of the resolutions to the various issues.

The story is wrapped around Caroline planning for her wedding. While she is not obsessed, and certainly never strays into BrideZilla territory, she really does have her heart set on a real ceremony and reception with all their friends and getting everything just so, even if a bit scaled down for a small town AND the second-time around with the same guy. Their first wedding was a registry ceremony and no family. She’s determined that this one be better – that it feel permanent because this time it is.

When the hall they have reserved suffers fire damage the day before the wedding, Caroline is slightly crushed, but plans to soldier on. Jack is the one who brings the whole town together to give her the reception she wanted, even if it isn’t the way she planned. It’s actually better this way.

Jack shows how far he has come from the jerk who left her 18 years ago by surprising both Caroline and Daisy with exactly what they wanted for Christmas, even if it was something they believed was out of reach.

All in all, a delightful holiday story with just the right sprinkling of romantic and family love.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-21-14

Sunday Post

It is SO much easier to do Stacking the Shelves and this Sunday Post with my double-screen monitors and my desktop PC. I love the idea of laptops, and the ability to carry one around wherever (especially traveling) but I find a desktop keyboard tons easier to work with. I tend to rest my hands on the edge of the keyboard, but when I do that on a laptop, it does things. Sometimes, bigger is better.

winter warm up blog hopWhile there is only one winner this weekend, there is still time to enter the December blog hops. The Winter Warm Up ends on Tuesday, and the Christmas Wonder Giveaway Hop will be here until the end of the month.

Current Giveaways:

$50 Amazon Gift Card in the Deadly, Calm and Cold Blog Tour
$10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card in the Winter Warm Up Blog Hop
$10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card in the Christmas Wonder Giveaway Hop

Winner Announcements:

The winner of The Wanderer’s Children by L.G. O’Connor is Debra G.

tethered by pippa jayBlog Recap:

B+ Review: The Tears of the Rose by Jeffe Kennedy
B+ Review: Deadly Calm and Cold by Susannah Sandlin + Giveaway
B Guest Review by Galen: Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz
B+ Review: Tethered by Pippa Jay
Winter Warm Up Blog Hop
Stacking the Shelves (114)

 

 

night before christmas by mary mcnearComing Next Week:

Thirteen Days in September by Lawrence Wright (review)
Damnation by Jean Johnson (review)
Butternut Lake: The Night Before Christmas by Mary McNear (review)
Best Books of 2014

Stacking the Shelves (109)

Stacking the Shelves

I just realized that I have Christmas romances for the next three Christmases! Everything from Tule Publishing always looks so yummy when I see it on NetGalley, then I forget how many I have until Saturday. OMG

8 is really an audiobook. It’s the full-cast recording of the play by Dustin Lance Black about the court case to fight Prop 8 in California. Because I loved Forcing the Spring so much (review on Monday), I couldn’t resist hearing the fictional version.

For Review:
All I Want for Christmas is You (Coming Home #5.5) by Jessica Scott
The Axeman’s Jazz by Ray Celestin
Bad Romeo by Leisa Rayven
Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss
Christmas in Venice (Christmas Around the World #3) by Joanne Walsh
Christmas at Waratah Bay (Christmas Around the World #1) by Marion Lennox
Christmas with the Laird (Christmas Around the World #2) by Scarlet Wilson
A Cowgirl’s Christmas (Carrigans of the Circle C #5) by CJ Carmichael
A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall
Down and Dirty (Cole McGinnis #5) by Rhys Ford
Just in Time for Christmas (Southern Born Christmas #2) by Kim Boykin
The Mouth of the Crocodile (Mamur Zapt #18) by Michael Pearce
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Ray Bradbury and Sam Weller
Skeleton Key (Todd & Georgine #1) by Lenore Glen Offord
Tainted Blood (Hell’s Belle #2) by Karen Greco
The Trouble with Christmas (Southern Born Christmas #4) by Kaira Rouda
A Very Married Christmas (Southern Born Christmas #3) by Erika Marks
The Wanderer’s Children (Angelorum Twelve Chronicles #2) by L.G. O’Connor
Windy City Blues (Jules Landau #2) by Marc Krulewitch
A Yorkshire Christmas (Christmas Around the World #4) by Kate Hewitt

Purchased from Amazon:
Escape from Zulaire by Veronica Scott
Mission to Mahjundar by Veronica Scott
Not Quite Dating (Not Quite #1)by Catherine Bybee
Not Quite Enough (Not Quite #3) by Catherine Bybee
Not Quite Mine (Not Quite #2) by Catherine Bybee
The Right Thing by Donna McDonald
Teach Me by Donna McDonald

Borrowed from the Library:
8 by Dustin Lance Black

Stacking the Shelves (107)

Stacking the Shelves

One of the quieter weeks, so to speak, that I’ve had in a long time. While this reflects the fact that NetGalley and Edelweiss are mostly showing January and February 2015 titles, which is kind of a dead zone for publishing, it still feels weird that the list is so short.

I almost fired up Amazon just to buy a couple of things to make the list longer. But common sense prevailed and I refrained.

There’s always next week!

For Review:
Bonfire Night (Lady Julia Grey #5.7) by Deanna Raybourn
A Call to Duty (Honorverse: Manticore Ascendant #1) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn
City of Liars and Thieves by Eve Karlin
The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber
Firewall (Magic Born #3) by Sonya Clark
Her Holiday Man by Shannon Stacey
The Tears of the Rose (Twelve Kingdoms #2) by Jeffe Kennedy
Through the Static by Jeanette Grey

 

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-5-14

Sunday Post

Nobody won anything this week, but there are three giveaways going on this week. All gift cards, which is very handy for buying more books!

queer romance monthOctober is also Queer Romance Month, because, as the website says, “Love is not a subgenre”. I’ll have a couple of reviews this month, and my fellow book pushers over at The Book Pushers are doing reviews and/or guest posts every Friday to commemorate what we hope is the first ANNUAL event.

And in other news there are two surprisingly similar attempts to stifle bloggers going on at the same time, one among book bloggers and one in library land. Ellora’s Cave is suing Dear Author and its chief blogger, Jane Litte, for reporting the facts about Ellora’s Cave’s current economic troubles. In my other world, a male librarian who is known in the whisper network as a broken stair has sued two female librarians for publishing on their blogs that women tell other women not to be alone with this guy. If you are interested in details, just Google #teamharpy for a rundown. Both Dear Author and #teamharpy are looking for donations to contribute to what will probably be massive legal expenses. And yes, I’ve contributed to both. This is about prevention of the chilling of free speech through monetary pressure, and I am #notchilled.

Current Giveaways:

$25 Gift Card by Nick Pengelley and Alibi Books
$10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card in the Books that Need More Attention Giveaway Hop
$20 Gift Card from Amazon by Lauren Clark

ryder by nick pengelleyBlog Recap:

A Review: Ryder by Nick Pengelley + Giveaway
B+ Review: Have Yourself a Curvy Little Christmas by Sugar Jamison
Books That Need More Attention Giveaway Hop
B+ Review by Cass: Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach
B Review: Pie Girls by Lauren Clark + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (106)

 

 

dear committee members by julie schumacherComing Next Week:

The Moonlight Palace by Liz Rosenburg (blog tour review + giveaway)
In Your Dreams by Kristan Higgins (blog tour review + giveaway)
Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore (review)
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher (review)
Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets by David Thomas Moore (review)

Review: Winter’s Heat by Zoe Archer

Winter's Heat by Zoe ArcherFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical romance
Series: Nemesis, Unlimited, #1.5
Length: 100 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Date Released: October 22, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

An auxiliary Nemesis agent and a former client go undercover as servants at a country estate during the Christmas season to expose corruption among London society’s powerful elite. Michael and Ada never thought they would again be working side by side in the pursuit of justice. Now that they’re on a case together, the attraction they had once shared flares to life, making a dangerous assignment even more unpredictable. Can they take the heat?

My Review:

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a Christmas book. Think of it as icy-hot. The descriptions of the weather in England in December should make you feel a little bit cooler as the weather outside moves to summer.

And the romance is more than enough to make any reader think very warm thoughts!

Winter’s Heat is a bit of a second-chance-at-love story, mixed with shades of both Downton Abbey and Leverage.

Sweet Revenge by Zoë ArcherThe explanation of what Nemesis Unlimited does is contained in book 1 in this series, Sweet Revenge (reviewed here). They provide justice for people who can’t otherwise get it from the courts. A lot of their clientele comes from the “service grapevine”. In Winter’s Heat, the case is to find a way to make a nasty pair of aristocrats pay for the way they turned an orphanage into a children’s workhouse, and then managed to slither out of any criminal charges with all the profits.

To provide them with their just desserts, Nemesis sends out two agents with experience in service in a country house (shades of Downton) to infiltrate the upper crust family Christmas. Everyone is certain that there is a way to make them pay, but it will need investigation and courage to find it.

The agents don’t just have experience in service, they have experience with each other. Six months previous, Ada was the servant who sent in an anonymous request to Nemesis in return for justice for a friend. And Michael was the agent sent to help her. They weren’t supposed to fall for each other. And when they did, Michael wasn’t supposed to disappear without a trace for six months.

She thinks that he was just using her as a dalliance. He knows he was stuck on a mission where revealing his whereabouts might have meant his life. But that doesn’t erase Ada’s feelings of abandonment.

She does not fall into his arms when he shows up as the agent in charge of her new assignment. Not even after he manages to tell her where he’s been. Michael has a lot of fences to mend.

And they have a case to crack. Ada is working for Nemesis on just this one case, to pay them back for the help they gave her friend. But the more involved she gets with the investigation, the more she realizes that righting wrongs and ferreting out evil is exactly what she was meant to do–with or without Michael’s assistance.

But working together on the case, and sneaking around just to communicate, adds yet another layer to their working partnership, and their desire for each other.

Escape Rating B: Winter’s Heat is a short and sweet addition to the Nemesis, Unlimited series. The story is focused on Michael and Ada’s investigation, rather than on the workings of Nemesis in general. The two of them are undercover at a large country house, and do all the investigating together. They’re pretty cut off from any of the resources of the agency.

Complicating matters are both their prior relationship and that they are operating undercover as part of a group of temporary hires in service. The work rules don’t allow them to be caught fraternizing, so even a simple private conversation is fraught with tension. Their prior relationship only makes things more difficult; Ada wants to help with the case, but she isn’t sure that she can trust Michael, no matter how much she still might be attracted to him.

One of the great things about the way that their relationship evolves is that Michael lets Ada discover just how capable she is; he makes some vague attempts at protecting her, but gives those up relatively quickly. He needs her as a full-fledged partner, and lets her grow into her role. Even at the beginning, he explains that he is the agent in charge because he is more experienced, not because she isn’t capable. As she definitely proves herself to be.

Their relationship is one of significant romantic and sexual tension, strung out until they snap. They can’t be caught, and yet they can’t stop. It’s delicious.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 1-5-14

Sunday Post

It’s the first Sunday Post of 2014. It took me a couple of tries to get the title set up. That “14” looked really strange in the header on first (and second) glance.

How often have you caught yourself writing the wrong year so far?

This was the week of the “list” posts. It was fun to look both back and ahead, to do the best of the year post and the most anticipated post in the same week. Although it was funny (funny weird not funny ha-ha) to see that there were books on the 2013 most anticipated list that hadn’t been published, and books that had been published that I hadn’t managed to get to.

Frank Zappa was right, “So many books, so little time.” And OMG it was Frank Zappa?

Here’s to another year of fabulous books!

Current Giveaways:

Paperback copy of Big Sky Secrets by Linda Lael Miller (US only)

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the $10 Gift Card from the Midwinter’s Eve Giveaway Hop is Brooke A.
The winner of the Cathy Woodman giveaway is Holly L. and she’s decided on a copy of The Sweetest Thing as her prize.

big sky secrets by linda lael millerBlog Recap:

A Baker’s Dozen of the Best Books of 2013
Heating Up the Holidays: Play with Me by Lisa Renee Jones, D+; Snowfall by Mary Ann Rivers, A+; After Midnight by Serena Bell, B+
Happy New Year 2014
A Look Forward: My Most Anticipated Reads for 2014
B Review: Big Sky Secrets by Linda Lael Miller
Q&A with Linda Lael Miller + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (72)

beg me to slay by lisa kesslerComing Next Week:

Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson (blog tour review)
Beg Me to Slay by Lisa Kessler (blog tour review + giveaway)
Rex Regis by L.E. Modesitt Jr. (review)
River Road by Jayne Ann Krentz (review)
Sharp by Alex Hughes (review)

Review: Heating Up the Holidays by Lisa Renee Jones, Mary Ann Rivers, Serena Bell

Heating Up the HolidaysFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Holiday romance
Length: 356 pages
Publisher: Random House Loveswept
Date Released: October 28, 2013
Purchasing Info: Lisa Renee Jones’ Website, Mary Ann Rivers’ Website, Serena Bell’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

As leftover turkey and stuffing give way to stockings and little black dresses, this tantalizingly sexy eBook bundle offers up holiday-themed novellas from a trio of beloved romance authors. Lisa Renee Jones gives a dedicated reporter and a powerful businessman a chance to count their Thanksgiving blessings in Play with Me; Mary Ann Rivers presents Snowfall, the story of a woman who confronts a life-changing event—hopefully with a special man by her side—just in time for Christmas; and in Serena Bell’s After Midnight, an explosive New Year’s kiss leaves two strangers wondering whether they’ll ever see each other again.

PLAY WITH ME by Lisa Renee Jones

Kali Miller has spent three years reporting fluff stories, waiting for the article that will launch her career to new heights. When she suddenly finds herself forced to take a job as an executive secretary at a Vegas casino, Kali meets the subject of what will surely be a shocking exposé: her boss, Damion Ward, the arrogant and undeniably sexy CEO. But after Damion invites her to help him plan a Thanksgiving charity event, Kali begins to see another side of the man. And when she surrenders to the exhilarating tension simmering between them, Kali hopes her story will have a happy ending.

SNOWFALL by Mary Ann Rivers

Jenny Wright can’t get enough of her erotic conversations with someone she knows only as “C.” Flirting online helps Jenny temporarily escape confronting the changes to her life as she slowly loses her vision. Jenny’s occupational therapist, Evan Carlisle-Ford, is helping her prepare for the challenges ahead, but the forthright, trustworthy man can no longer ignore his growing attraction to his fiercely intelligent client. Now Jenny must choose between the safe, anonymous “C”—or the flesh-and-blood Evan, whose heated kisses can melt snow faster than it can fall.

AFTER MIDNIGHT by Serena Bell

The clock is ticking down to midnight on New Year’s Eve, and all Nora Hart and Miles Shephard can think about is kissing each other—even though they met just minutes before. Then, as fast as Miles enters Nora’s life, he’s gone . . . and she never even gets the name of the man she thinks might just be “the one.” One year later, Nora and Miles are reunited. The chemistry between them is just as strong as they remember. But Miles broke her heart once before—and this time around, Nora’s not sure whether she can give love a second chance.

My Review:

You might not have gotten enough of the holidays. Or perhaps, not enough holiday romances. There aren’t exactly a whole lot of Thanksgiving romances out there. (We looked for them over at the Shelftalk blog at MPOW (my place of work) and didn’t have much joy.

But the Heating Up the Holidays three story bundle by Lisa Renee Jones, Mary Ann Rivers and Serena Bell is a worthy attempt to squeeze one last bite of Thanksgiving turkey, a final swallow of Christmas eggnog, and squeeze one more verse out of Auld Lang Syne, wrapped up with a bow.

When I peaked inside the wrapper and saw the story by Mary Ann Rivers (if you haven’t read The Story Guy, you absolutely must, it is beyond awesome) I couldn’t resist one last bit of holiday cheer.

Play with Me by Lisa Renee Jones is the Thanksgiving story in this bunch, and frankly, it’s a turkey. I did finish it, but there just wasn’t anything all that special going on here. Both the hero and heroine had a lot of dramatic backstory, and it’s possible that if this had been longer, there would have been time to ramp up the sympathy and angst, but without that, what we have is pretty much a typical rich alpha hero of the corporate billionaire persuasion who always gets what he wants steamrolling his new personal assistant from a working relationship into a sexual relationship in less than a week of insta-lust winning out over common sense.

Escape Rating for Play with Me: D+
——————————
Snowfall by Mary Ann Rivers is the story that made me grab this book from NetGalley, and then buy it all over again from Amazon. And it was worth every penny.

This is a beautiful story about losing and finding yourself. About evolving and being forced to reinvent who you really are, over and over again. And of course its a love story. (Snowfall is the Christmas story in this bunch)

What makes it so awesome is that the author makes you feel for the characters. Not just the highs of the romance, but also the pain of the intense stuff they are going through. And the stuff they are going through is not the piddly misunderstandammits that fuel most romances, nor is it the melodramance of cheap romance. It’s awful and heartbreaking, but never cheap or easy.

Read Snowfall. You can come back and thank me later.

Escape Rating for Snowfall: A+
—————————–
After Midnight by Serena Bell starts on New Year’s Eve as the clock is ticking down towards midnight in Boston. Miles and Nora are attending a party in a high-rise condo overlooking Copley Square as friends-of-friends of the owner, both invited in order to get over their respective breakups of long-term relationships. The New Year is supposed to be a great time to start over. They connect across the proverbial crowded room, and its as if the confetti and the sparkling champagne buzzes over their first kiss. Then a fight breaks out, and Miles runs away before they can exchange names and numbers. They had their 15 minutes. The question the story answers is whether their magic was a one-time thing, or whether they can find each other and get it back. They have to figure out whether all the bad stuff that has happened to them before they met has hurt them to much to try again.

After Midnight is a cute and fun holiday romance about taking a second chance on romance, and a second chance on yourself.

Escape Rating for After Midnight: B+

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-29-13

Sunday Post

Last weekend was a little too wild. When the movers left Saturday night, we were in the middle of an absolute sea of boxes. I think I was completely shell-shocked last Sunday. I’m so thankful that Cass stepped in and took over the beginning of the week.

Cass also contributed to Monday’s upcoming Best of 2013 and Tuesday’s Most Anticipated of 2014 lists. She gave just the reason I was begging for to have 13 books in the 2013 list and 14 books in the 2014 list. Now that’s what friends are for–an excuse to overindulge when you really, really need one.

I also posted my Best Ebook Romances of 2013 list on Friday to recap the annual article from Library Journal.

Recapping the year is always fun. It’s great to take a look back at the books that were so awesome. But then, there are always the ones that got away. And there are so many bright shiny new ones coming soon!

2013-Midwinters-Eve-HopCurrent Giveaways:

Winner’s Choice of The Sweetest Thing or Country Loving by Cathy Woodman (US/CAN only) ends 1/4
The Midwinter’s Eve Giveaway Hop continues through December 31. I’m giving away a $10 giftcard to the winner’s choice of Amazon or B&N, but there are nearly 200 other stops on this hop. There’s still plenty of time to get in on the fun!

clean by alex hughesWinner Announcements:

Because of last weekend’s moving panic, there are two week’s of winner’s announcements to catch up on. Without further ado <drumroll, please>

The winner of The Spirit Keeper by K.B. Laugheed is Erin F.
The winner of The Seduction of Miriam Cross by W.A. Tyson is Shelley S.
The winner of Clean by Alex Hughes is Jo J.
The winner of Sail Away With Me by Kate Devaux is Jen M.
The winner of Chaos Bound by Rebekah Turner is Natasha D.
The winner of Christmas at Copper Mountain by Jane Porter is Ann V.

The Sweetest Thing by Cathy WoodmanBlog Recap:

D+ Review: Written in Red by Anne Bishop
Series Shakedown: Incryptid Short Stories by Seanan McGuire
Under the Tree: Happy Chrismukkawanztice!
B+ Review: The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman + Giveaway
Once More with Feeling: The Best Ebook Romances of 2013
Stacking the Shelves (71)

Heating Up the HolidaysComing Next Week:

Best Books of 2013
Most Anticipated Books of 2014
Heating Up the Holidays by Lisa Renee Jones, Mary Ann Rivers and Serena Bell (review)
Big Sky Secrets by Linda Lael Miller (blog tour review + giveaway)