Tag: RJ Scott

Review of The Christmas Throwaway by RJ Scott

 

Rating: 4.75 stars

The Christmas ThrowawayBen Hamilton is a rookie cop and that means he takes all the shifts the more experienced cops don’t want.  And that is how he finds himself outside St. Margeret’s in a blizzard on Christmas Eve looking at the frozen figure curled up on the bench.  The young man is shivering in his sleep and the snow is quickly blanketing him, soon it will be impossible to tell there is someone there.  It takes Ben several tries before he is able to rouse the young man and ask him his name.

Zachary Weston is only seventeen when his father throws him out of the house for being gay.  Left without any money, clothes or a place to go, Zachary finds himself at the end of his rope, on a bench in front of an old church in town, falling asleep in the cold and snow.  Then a cop named Ben wakes him up, and ends up taking him home to the house he shares with his mother.  Together they show Zachary the true meaning of love and family. This will be the Christmas that changes everything, and not just for Zachary.

“Hey! You can’t sleep here.” That sentence opens RJ Scott’s The Christmas Throwaway, a book I first read last year at Christmas.  It quickly became one of my favorite holiday stories.  The story of Zachary Weston, a teenager abandoned by his family, at the worst time of year in the worst weather imaginable pulled at my heartstrings from the very beginning.  Zachary has given up and is quietly letting the cold and snow pull him under.  But Ben Hamilton is an earnest, kind young man, who is horrified to find Zachary close to death in front of St. Margeret’s.  Well aware that he should be turning Zachary over to child services, instead Ben takes him home to his mom at his family’s house and changes all their lives from that moment on.

Although the story starts out with Zachary as a seventeen year old boy, Zachary is of legal age when he and Ben start their relationship, a element that looms large in Ben’s mind when he realizes he not only likes Zachary as a friend but is attracted to him as well.  RJ Scott gives us wonderful characters to believe in and love throughout this story, not only Ben and Zachary but Ben’s mother who grows to love the “Christmas throwaway” like her own son, Elles Belles Ben’s sister, Mark his best friend and so many others.  But your focus will remain on Zachary and Ben, especially Zachary and his plight as a child thrown away because of his sexuality, a grim statistic across America.  Zachary is saved, but the story makes clear he is one of the fortunate few and that there are so many others out there needing help and support.

I just loved Zachary and Ben and their slow climb into a lovely relationship.  It’s funny, and heartbreaking and always feels so real as they deal with problems that arise, miscommunications and misperceptions by both of them.  And there is Rebecca, the sister Zachary left behind who will supply her own share of trauma and angst to this story.  But this is a Christmas tale and it ends as it started, on the bench in front of St. Margeret’s on Christmas Eve.  From the first Eve to the last, RJ Scott’s shares with us a story of love at Christmas time that will stay with you throughout the year.  It has become a favorite of mine.  I think you will find it becomes yours as well.

At this time of year, the  GLBTQ shelters are over flowing.  If you can donate even a little at this time of year, it would be greatly appreciated.  Here are some shelters in need:

New York City, NY:   The Ali Forney Center for LGBTQ Homeless Youth.

Chicago, IL  The GLBT Chicago Shelter

National Coalition for the Homeless, write them at info@nationalhomeless.org

Covenant House, Washington, DC

 

Cover: That cover by Reese Dante gives me the chills, so perfect in its depiction of characters and time of year.

Review: New York Christmas by R.J. Scott

Rating: 4.5 stars

New York ChristmasDaniel Bailey and Christian Matthews went to the same university and Daniel was even in the same English class where Chris was the T.A.  But that is where the similarities  between them ended.  Daniel was gorgeous, rich, and a bit of a slut.  Everything came easy to him, including a trust fund at the age of twenty five and a job guaranteed at his father’s firm.  So Chris never expected to see Daniel again once Chris graduated, but life has a funny way of messing with your expectations.

Now years later, Chris is reeling from a series of blows life has dealt him.  Chris had graduated and become a teacher, the one thing he had always wanted to be and was great at.  But then his boyfriend, a fellow teacher at the private school they worked for betrayed Chris and the fallout cost Chris his job as well as ruined his reputation.  The only thing that saved Chris was his best friend offering him work at her bakery. That’s where Daniel Bailey walked back into Chris’ life, not as the rich man Chris expected Daniel to turn out to be, but as a police officer who very much wants Chris in his life.  Christmas is a season of miracles, and if it can bring Daniel back to Chris, maybe everything else can be made right too.  Everything seems possible in a New York Christmas.

RJ Scott broke out the carols, the mistletoe,  and the wassail because this story is permeated with the glow and good tidings of a wonderful Christmas tale.  I have certain expectations of a holiday story.  It must make me feel good, leave me smiling in joy for the characters who have found love in each other and the season.  I love to have some snow (although not necessary), some good deeds, and a couple or couples well on their way to happily ever after.  With New York Christmas I get all that and more.

I love RJ Scott’s characters and here she delivers two more wonderful men, reunited after years apart.   Time has changed both of them, especially one who seemed destined for a life lived shallowly and at the expense of others.  But Daniel surprises Chris and the readers with his depth, charm and commitment, to his job and to Chris as well.  I loved Daniel.  Chris is another lovely man who just happens to need a Christmas miracle.  Fired from the job he loved because of the cowardice of a man he thought cared for him, Chris was almost homeless if it were not for his friend who gave him a job, filling in for a worker out on pregnancy leave.  Chris is full of pain over the loss of a career as a teacher and lonely.  It is so easy to empathize with this man, so full of goodness that has been trampled on by others.  So when Daniel comes back into his life wearing the very uniform that is an emblem of safety, bravery, and wellbeing, you just know that Chris’ life has changed finally for the better.  And it has much to the delight of the reader as their relationship unfolds over the next 79 pages.

At the end, there are good tidings, holiday cheer and a couple deeply in love.  And that’s how I like my holiday stories and that’s why I loved New York Christmas.

Cover design by BitterGrace Art.  I loved this cover, the men are adorable and perfect models for Daniel and Chris.

Available through RJ Scott’s website.

Review: The Journal of Sanctuary One (Sanctuary #6) by RJ Scott

Rating: 5 stars

The Journal of Sanctuary OneJake Callahan was looking forward to spending time with his brother, Hayden and his boyfriend up at their cabin for Christmas.  It had been an extremely tough year for everyone who worked at Sanctuary, the secret organization devoted to keeping witnesses  and other “vulnerables” safe when the alphabet organizations (CIA, FBI etc) couldn’t.  Sanctuary operatives were still trying to close down the Bullen case as there were files still to be encrypted and a few criminals left to round up.  Still, this time of year was special to Jake and he needs it now more than ever as the betrayal by exFBI agent Sean Hanson was as painful as the day he first learned that Sean was working for Bullen. Now all Jake wants is some peace and time with his brother but Mother Nature is making that impossible.  The northeast corridor is being blanketed by a snow storm, Hayden is stuck in New York  City with his boyfriend Beckett. and Jake is facing Christmas alone at the cabin.  That is until a bloody and injured Sean Hansen appears on his doorstep and faints into the snow.

Sean Hansen is being hunted and by several factions, all of whom want him dead.  The gunshot wound in his side attests to that and between the pain and the snow Sean is being to despair of ever making his destination.  The cabin called Sanctuary One was no longer used for official business but Sean figured it would just be off the grid enough for him to be safe there until the last of his mission is finished. And then all Sean wants to do is find the man he had started to love, so he could explain and apologize. The last person he expects to see just before passing out from pain and blood loss is Jake Callahan, the man he has been thinking about.

As the snow storm turns into a blizzard that seals the cabin off from everyone around them, Jake and Sean are left to deal with their memories, emotions and the fact that the killers are still on Sean’s trail, putting them  both in danger.

RJ Scott’s Sanctuary series remains one of my top series for 2012 and this latest edition just cements it firmly in place.  The Journal of Sanctuary One picks up where Full Circle (Sanctuary #5) left off, with members of the Bullen family in custody, the Bullen case coming to a close and Sean Hansen escaping from a prison van and on the loose.  Now only a short time later, all the operatives are in recovery mode in one way or another. Manny and Josh (Full Circle) are at a safe house in Canada, working on the encryption of the files, Hayden and Beckett are in New York, Dale is waiting for Joseph to come back from a mission and Jake is feeling alone and hurting from Sean’s betrayal. And you are there with him, feeling his pain and loneliness.

And that is one of the real joys of this series. RJ Scott has created a cast of characters, so complex, so real and from a variety of backgrounds that they are memorable from the very start.  In some books and series, I have to think hard to bring up names and associate them with their personas, not so with the Sanctuary series.  Mention Morgan and I can picture him in detail.  Joseph and Dale, two of the hottest characters (Navy Seal and ex Seal) in the series, and I feel as though I know them intimately.  Over the course of the series, we meet one unforgettable character after another and watch as they bond with each other, and find love. And through it all, the thread that ties the books together along with the Sanctuary organization is the Bullen crime family, which extends from Congress to the many family businesses.  The Bullens have destroyed families, tortured and murdered  their way to the accumulation of wealth and power.  And Scott managed to make the investigation as thrilling as her love stories.  Each book moved the investigation forward (and sometimes back, depending upon the double cross) and always a new criminal element presented itself by the end of the book as well as a new couple. How I loved every minute they continued to investigate the Bullen crime family, a most heinous group of thugs and the wild pathways they took to get evidence and witnesses.

And The Journal of Sanctuary One brings the investigation back to its very beginnings,  including something I didn’t see coming and back to Jake Callahan whose father started the Sanctuary organization and who built Sanctuary One.  The author really pulls together all the elements from each book, including some I didn’t realize were important, to finish off the Bullens once and for all.  We get a closer understanding not only of who Jake is, and what has driven him all these years but that of Sean Hansen, an enigma whose story we have been waiting to hear.  RJ Scott has included most of the characters we love from the other stories, even if we only see and hear  them over the phones and Skype.

And there is nothing like a snowbound cabin to bring out the emotional explosions and stress that have been building for these characters and the author delivers the required scenes in painful detail and authentically loud conversations.  Just what you would expect from these men who are so much each others equal in every way, just perfect.

So have we heard the last from Sanctuary and its operatives?  I hope not.  I get the feeling that we will be hearing from Dale and Joseph soon.  Remember Dale was expecting Joseph back from his mission and we never heard that he made it.  Hmmmm….funny that.  It brings me hope that this outstanding series will continue and that I will meet up once more with all my favorite couples as they investigate, hack, protect, and love. So if you haven’t made the acquaintance of Sanctuary and their operatives, start at the beginning with Guarding Morgan and work your way through the stories in the order they were written.  That way you won’t miss a double cross, new witness or new crime and or course, new couple.  You will love them as much as I do.

Sanctuary Series in the order they should be read in order to fully understand the Bullen Family conspiracy and the characters involved:

Guarding Morgan, Sanctuary Series #1 – rating 4.25 stars

The Only Easy Day, Sanctuary Series, #2 – my review here

Face Value, Sanctuary Series #3 – my review here

Still Water, Sanctuary Series #4 – my review here

Full Circle, Sanctuary Series, #5 – my review here

The Journal of Sanctuary One, #6

Buy link here LoveLaneBooks.co.uk

All the Sanctuary books can be bought at the link above.

December is here, the year is almost over and the week ahead in Reviews

Every year seems to go by more quickly than the last and 2012 is almost gone.  It has been a tumultuous time here at home,  in Maryland, and the entire northeast.  From the scorching heat and drought of the spring and summer months to the recent Derechos which brought high winds and flooding, it has been a regular smorgasbord of geological happenings and meteorological events.  We have had a major earthquake  from which the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument and other buildings have still not recovered from.  A heat wave and drought that killed much of the harvest from land and sea, with water levels down from lack of rain and snow to heat which baked the land and everyone on it.  We had high winds, tornados and of course flooding that still did not mitigate the low water table.  Really, 2012 has been our version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and it’s not over yet.

Amazingly it was a year ago yesterday when I rolled out by my first blog, scrambling to get my feet under me and figure out what I wanted to say, what I wanted to review, and everything in between.  It took me a while to get my voice and now the mutterings can’t stop!  The thoughts keep tumbling out, rolling over one another like pebbles in a stream caught in a swift current, some concerned with vocabulary, others focused on eBook covers and design and more still on book content, reviews to be exact.  I hope I have helped some of you find your way to new authors or rediscover old ones that you have forgotten.  Later this month I will be rolling out my Best of 2012 lists, from Books to Covers.  I bet you have been making your lists too.  Let me know what book(s) is on them, and do you have a favorite cover artist, like Anne Cain, or even a favorite model?  Inquiring minds and all that.

So here’s to the beginning of the end of 2012.  I love this time of year, so much to reflect on and yet so much still to look forward to, including the holidays no matter which one you celebrate.  I’ll be talking to you soon.  In the meantime, look what’s coming up this week:

Monday, 12/3:                             Private Dicks:Undercovers Anthology

Tuesday, 12/4:                             The Journal of Sanctuary One (Sanctuary #6) by RJ Scott

Wed, 12/5:                                    Crucible of Fate (Change of Heart #4) by Mary Calmes

Thursday, 12/6:                           Too Careful By Half, a Roughstock story by BA Tortuga

Friday, 12/7:                                 Eight Days by C. Cardeno (a Christmas story)

Sat., 12/8                                         3 Dreamspinner Christmas Advent Calendar stories

So now I will leave you with a Vodka Christmas Cake recipe. You simply have to try this…

Once again this year, I’ve had requests for my Vodka Christmas Cake recipe, so here goes.

Please keep in your files as I am beginning to get tired of typing this up every year!

(Made mine this morning!!!!)

1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup water
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
Nuts
1…bottle Vodka
2 cups dried fruit
Sample a cup of Vodka to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Vodka again to be sure it is of the highest quality then Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point, it is best to make sure the Vodka is still OK. Try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eegs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the fruit up off the floor, wash it and put it in the bowl a piece at a time trying to count it. Mix on the turner.
If the fried druit getas stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver Sample the Vodka to test for tonsisticity.

Next, sift 2 cups of salt, or something. Check the Vodka. Now slift… shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.
Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don’t forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window.

Finish the Vodka and wipe the counter with the cat ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Review of Splintered Lies (In The Shadow of the Wolf #3) by Diane Adams and RJ Scott

Rating: 4 stars

When cop Joe Christie’s shifter wife and unborn child died, a part of him died with them.  Since their deaths, he has just been going through the motions of life, running on his own in wolf form and avoiding all former friends and partners, including Nick.  That would be Nickolas Alexander, Joe’s former best friend and lover before his marriage to Mara.  Once Joe married Mara, Nick stepped back from their lives and away from Joe.  But Nick has continued to love Joe all through his marriage to a woman that he grew to like as well. And when Mara and their unborn child was killed, Nick stood by Joe as the shattered man tried to cope with their loss and failed.

One piece of information about the ongoing investigation into criminal acts against the shifter population shocks Nick to the core and then galvanizes Joe into action.  Mara and Joe’s unborn child were the recipients of an illegal drug and unknowingly part of a criminal experiment on female wolf shifters and their babies.  They were killed to get rid of evidence of the experiments not in a car accident as Joe and the others had been told. Only two others of their group know the truth and when Nick tells Joe how Mara really died, Joe explodes in rage, determined to find and kill the people responsible.

With Rob, Sam, Doug, and Jamie to help, Nick and Joe set out to find the truth behind the torture, kidnapping and deaths of the shifters.  Nick tries to keep his love for Joe quiet but working next to him in the investigation is unbelievably hard.  And Joe is also finding  that the love and lust he thought he had buried when he married Mara is coming back in full force.  Will his guilt and love for his dead wife make any future with Nick impossible?  And will the conspiracy to kill wolf shifters mean their deaths as well.

Splintered Lies (In The Shadow of the Wolf #3) completes the investigation into a wolf shifter conspiracy that started with Shattered Secrets (In The Shadow of the Wolf #1) and continued in Broken Memories (In The Shadow of the Wolf #2). All the couples from the first two stories are back as well as the auxiliary characters who are now the main characters here, Joe and Nick.  There is a conspiracy aimed at the destruction of wolf shifters.  Shifters have been captured, kidnapped and tortured, experimented on and then killed but the investigations into each case has proven that the leadership behind the criminal acts goes higher than anyone had anticipated, reaching into the top levels of the government itself. Authors Adams and Scott more than accomplish their goals in giving the reader a horrifying mystery to solve as each new angle or case makes the conspiracy behind it even more terrifying in scope.  Before we had abused wolves who can’t or won’t shift back, cases of multiple rapes and prostituted shifters, now it is revealed that pregnant wolf shifters and their fetuses have  been the subject of gruesome experiments.  And when those experiments have failed, the subjects have been deposed of, including Mara and their unborn child.  The subject matter alone here raises the horror factor considerably and thankfully most of the experimentation has been left to the reader’s imagination.  Again, this is such a huge element of the series and it is very well crafted.  Splintered Lies brings the hunt for the people behind the atrocities to a conclusion that is 99 percent satisfying as not all of those who participated are counted for at the end.  Are they setting us up for another book?  It would seem so.

More problematic are the characters of Joe Christie and Nick Anderson.  Joe is lost in his grief over the death’s of Mara and their child. And all the emotions he is going through seemed grounded in reality.  You can feel how shattered he is,  how his grief has immobilized him in his loss. But when it comes to the backstory of his and Nick’s earlier relationship, you want to know what was the pivotal point that made Joe choose Mara over his very real love for Nick.  Over and over Joe reveals how guilty he felt over dumping Nick for Mara and that Nick still appeared in his dreams but the reader never understands why Joe felt the need to make the choice he did and that serves as a huge disconnect between the reader and this character.  How can the reader mourn the loss of Joe and Nick’s relationship is it never feels completely real to begin with? Then there is Nick who in his love for Joe steps back and away from the man he loves.  He says he understood Joe, but again, we never feel either his passion for Joe or the bargain he made with himself.  Nick just comes across as way too passive with regard to his past with Joe.  Ultimately, while the confused sexual tension between the men had a certain gravity to it, the rest of it felt flimsy in its construction.  So while I liked the characters I never bought into a loving connection between them and the story suffered from it.

An intriguing angle I wish had been more throughly explored was the idea of  shifter assimilation versus shifter integration into human society. Sam posed that part of Joe’s behavioral problems was that he was trying to act “human”, from his method of dealing with his grief to crowded human conditions.  I loved this concept.  It came about  very late in the book and has so many great elements to it, so many places you could go with it that I wish it had been the focus of the story or  maybe the central idea behind its own series.  Again I felt like it was given short shrift but maybe that’s on purpose.  I certainly hope so because an exploration of what it means to be a wolf shifter in a human society could certainly benefit from another great perspective or even two.

So if you love shifters, add this series to books that you should read.  I adored two out of the three couples but the rest of the book has so many good elements that I don’t think it should be missed either.

Here are the In The Shadow of the Wolf books in the order they should be read in order to understand the long reaching plot and characters:

Shattered Secrets #1

Broken Memories #2

Splintered Lies #3

Another splendid series cover by Reese Dante

 

Review of Texas Heat (Texas #3) by RJ Scott

Rating: 4.75 stars

Riley and Jack Campbell-Hayes are hoping that the trauma of the past is finally behind them and their families.  Jack’s mother Donna is remarrying and all have gathered for the celebration,  Jack is expanding the ranch holdings into training quarter horses and Riley is moving his “green” energy exploration business forward just as he always wanted. Veterinarian Neil Kendrick is marrying the love of his life, Donna Campbell. Neil is aware of the complicated feelings of some of her family have with her marriage to a much younger, less wealthy man, so he brings along a good friend, Robbie Curtis, for support.

Robbie has just landed back in the States from a long stay in Australia that ended badly for him. An experienced horse trainer, Robbie is just the person Jack needs to help with his new business and Robbie settles uneasily into life on the Double D Ranch. Then Eli Martin, Riley’s old friend from college, reappears on the scene.  Loud, energetic,and a force of nature, Eli is now a fashion photographer and wants to use The Double D as a backdrop for underwear campaign using cowboys.  Eli takes one look at Robbie and decides that cowboy is the one for him. Now all he had to do is convince him.

But Robbie is still full of pain from the events in Australia and Eli is hiding a secret of his own, facts that will make a relationship much harder for both of them.  Haley, Riley and Jack’s daughter wants a sibling and a former competitor wants to sabotage Riley’s latest oil exploration venture. Nothing ever comes easy for the married couple and those that surround them.  But even with 20 half naked cowboys lounging around the barns and the gay rodeo in town, Riley and Jack’s rock solid love proves to be the answer for all that life throws at the people of the Double D.

Texas Heat is the third book in the Texas series from R.J. Scott and what a terrific series it is.  Starting with the book The Heart of Texas, we have followed the relationship up and downs of Riley Hayes and Jack Campbell through blackmail, marriage, murder and the barn burnings of Texas Winter (Texas #2) to finally arrive at a happy state for both men and their families.  And what a long hard road they have had to travel but Scott has done her job in giving us two great characters to start off with and then continuing to flesh them out and surround them with equally interesting families to support them and add their own drama and surprises.  It really is the tale of two families whose pasts interconnected through passion and business decades earlier, the reverberations of those events passing through all generations to effect the current generations in the form of Jack and Riley.  We have watched as Riley Hayes grow from petulant pretty boy obsessed with his own ends to happily married man concerned for the welfare of both families he has come to love.  Jack has also grown in his love for Riley,  lessening his suspicion of others as well as his need for control.  Seeing both men at this stage in their lives as fathers to Haley and husbands and businessmen is one of the true joys of this book.   We have been through so much with them that their happiness here becomes ours.

In addition to Jack, Riley, Haley, and all the rest of the families from the first two books, Scott gives us Eli Martin and Robbie Curtis, a fascinating couple in every  respect.  Robbie has been hurt emotionally from the loss of a partner and is afraid to open himself up to the possibility of love and perhaps more loss.  Eli was with Riley through his irresponsible  years, in fact he was co pilot of them as well.  But a life changing event now sees Eli grabbing out with gusto for everything life has to offer.  If he sees it and wants it, Eli goes after it without thinking it through. How can two such disparate men make a relationship work? There are no easy solutions and it takes both men taking a realistic look at what they want and what they can offer each other.  We get a realistic vision of a relationship in progress.

What I continue to appreciate with RJ Scott’s writing, no matter the series,  is that even as our emotions are engaged with two couples at differing stages of their relationships, other events are swirling around the outskirts just waiting to come forward with a jump and a bang. Scott keeps juggling a number of plots in her story but never lets one drop.  There are so many layers to appreciate and think about that when the end of the book comes the author has a structure in place for the next in the series without losing reader satisfaction with the current story.

I can’t wait to see how the next book continues the saga of the Campbell-Hayes family and the fortunes of the Double D Ranch.  Who needs Dallas when you have the Double D? If you have started the series,  don’t forget to pick this one up.  If you are new to Scott’s Texas books, start with The Heart of Texas and work your way to this one.  They need to be read in the order they were written. RJ Scott rarely disappoints and here she comes through with bells on her  cowboys boots and then some. Don’t let the Campbell-Hayes pass you by!

Here is the Texas series in the order they were written and should be read to understand the characters and the events involved.

The Heart of Texas(Texas #1)

Texas Winter (Texas #2)

Texas Heat (Texas #3)

Thank you, Nationals and the Week Ahead in Reviews

Well, as everyone knows by now, the Cards rallied and the Nats lost.  But oh what a season they gave us!  The Nationals had an outstanding year, giving the city something we haven’t seen in close to a century, a winning baseball team in DC.  We have Davey Johnson, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Jason Wurth, Gio Gonzales, Ryan Zimmerman and all the others to thank for all the glorious play, the unbelievable pitches, the outstanding hits and the high drama of the outfield.  It was great!  And now we have all winter to dream of the return of the Boys of Summer.  Great job and thanks for the wonderful memories!

The weather seems more like November than mid October these days with our first frost occurring on Friday.  A portent of a hard winter to come? Perhaps.  We didn’t actually have a winter last year but I just hope Mother Nature doesn’t feel the need to make up for that and give us the snow and ice for two winters.  At any rate, the plants are getting  mulched and the gardens prepared, just in case.  The generator is in, new roof on and gutters as well.  I hope we are prepared but you never know until it comes.  At least I have lots of books to read and pumpkin spice coffee to drink.  Sigh.

Here is the week ahead in book reviews:

Monday:                               Steamroller by Mary Calmes

Tuesday:                               Texas Heat by RJ Scott

Wednesday:                         The Gravedigger’s Brawl by Abigail Roux

Thursday:                             Rocking Out by Emily Veinglory

Friday:                                   Three of Swords by Theo Fenraven

Saturday:                               Theory of Attraction by Cleon Lee  and Just A Summer Fling by Lily Grace