First Wild Card Tour: 52 Ways to Wow Your Husband by Pam Farrell

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

My thoughts: I have been reading this book for the last week, while trying to keep it hidden from my husband, which I was able to do successfully.  Then tonight, I sit down to write this post with the book beside me and my husband comes over and picks it up and says "Have you read this yet?"  with a big smile.  He then told me I wow him everyday . .    :)  I just couldn't believe that after I had hid it all week he see's it tonight!  But anyway - let me tell you about the book.

This book has 52 chapters - (52 weeks) - with a different idea for something special you can do to "wow" your husband.   You can get a better idea of this by reading the first chapter below.  For me, the book just opened my eyes  to how little I know about certain areas of my husband's life.  I remember doing all sorts of fun stuff outside the house before our youngest son came along and how quickly our together time has been squashed for family time.  Family time is important - but we need to be strong together before we can be strong together as a family.  I am going to be spending the next few weeks really paying attention to what my husband does in his free time, what he does to relax, what some of his favorites are - and then I am going to be preparing some "wow" dates.  I have already started devising some things I can do in October - as that is the month that we started dating.  This book definitely has the ability to draw us closer together, and I am looking forward to it!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Pam Farrel

and the book:

52 Ways to Wow Your Husband: How to Put a Smile on His Face

Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)

***Special thanks to Catherine Miller, Marketing Assistant, Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Pam Farrel and her husband, Bill, are cofounders and codirectors of Masterful Living, an organization that provides practical insights for personal relationships. The Farrels are also regular relationship columnists. As coauthors their books include Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, The 10 Best Decisions Every Parent Can Make, and Red-Hot Monogamy. In addition Pam has written Fantastic After 40! and The 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make. The Farrels have been married more than 30 years and have three children and a daughter-in-law.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

With her trademark humor and godly wisdom, bestselling author Pam Farrel inspires women to add the wow-factor to their marriages and lives through 52 clever ideas for dates, meals, getaways, and daily expressions of love. A spark of fun and refreshment for newlyweds, married with kids, or empty nesters.




Love Wise Intro from Bill & Pam Farrel on Vimeo.


Product Details:

List Price: $10.99
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736937803
ISBN-13: 978-0736937801

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

WOW 1

The Recharger Box


What a man finds romantic is a woman who will lower his stress! In Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, I explain that men go to their favorite easy boxes to rest and recharge. God helped us women recognize these easy boxes in that most of them are shaped like boxes—the TV screen, the newspaper, the garage, the Xbox, the computer screen, the football field, the baseball diamond, the basketball court, the refrigerator, and the bed. The bed box (also known as the sex box) is a husband’s favorite box to go to when he is stressed out. This box or square is kind of like the center square on a bingo card, and a man can get to that box from every other square on his waffle.

Wow Assignment

Find out your man’s favorite easy box he goes to for recharging. Here are some ways to discover this vital information:

If given thirty minutes of dead time, what does he do?
If he were given a day off, where would he like to go?
What does he do now when stressed?
What does he watch on TV when relaxing? (Sports? Movies? Adventures? Fix-it shows?)
Kendra Smiley and her husband, John, wrote Do Your Kids a Favor…Love Your Spouse. John was wowed unexpectedly by Kendra with his all-time favorite box:

I’ve been a Green Bay Packers fan for years and transferred that enthusiasm to our three teenage sons. I never imagined I would actually be able to see a game at Lambeau Field because legend has it that the only way to get tickets is to inherit them when someone dies. But legends don’t stop Kendra! She called the ticket office, asking about the purchase of five tickets for the last home game of the season. After the laughter died down (I guess there was some truth to the legend), they referred her to an agency offering “Weekend Packages.” She knew we couldn’t afford all the extras of a package, and somehow she managed to convince the woman at that office to simply sell her five tickets. She gave me a gift that took her time, her effort, and a little bit of her charming persuasion. What a great model for our kids!

My man’s favorite easy box is: ________________________

Wow Wisdom

Pray and thank God for your husband. Often we women push, push, push our spouse to be more productive or work on our “honey-do” list even on his day off. If you keep pushing, he might begin to see you as a mother or a boss, not a wife and lover. A husband who gets pushed to do too many things he doesn’t enjoy will exhaust himself emotionally and grow distant from his wife. Think about how much better your life is when you are connected with your lover!

Instead of resenting your “waffleman” for needing to recharge, thank God he has a box to recharge in so he can maintain the energy to keep up with you! As Paul reminds us, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 nasb).

Wow Date

Make him breakfast in bed and serve waffles. Give him a note for one free day off to do whatever he wants—to enjoy his favorite “waffle box(es).” Include a gift card for something that helps him recharge. While you’re there in bed, why not enjoy some “bingo”? Remember, for most men, bingo is the number one recharger box.

eBook Deals this week from Sourcebook

Here are some ebook deals running until 8/8 from Sourcebooks.  The first two on the list I can personally tell you are very good - you should check them out!

In honor of The Vampire Next Door, book 3 in the sassy paranormal romance series by Ashlyn Chase, book 1, STRANGE NEIGHBORS will be available for FREE from 8/2/11-8/8/11! How can a who is witch afraid of the dark and a vampire who can’t survive in sunlight find a way to be together?












Jeanette Baker is a beloved romance author, and Sourcebooks Casablanca is proud to be bringing her books back in print! With Catriona, a captivating tale of love, danger, and a passion that endures across the boundaries of time, heading back into stores this month, LEGACY will be available for FREE from 8/2/11-8/8/11!!

Are you looking for an adventurous book full of goblins, pixies, fairies and more? Book 2 by Jennifer A. Nielsen, Elliot and the Pixie Plot, hits stores this month but you can start the series from the beginning for FREE this week only (8/2/11-8/8/11) by reading ELLIOT AND THE GOBLIN WAR.











Would you like to brush up on your vocab skills? Or perhaps you know a high school graduate or current student getting ready to head back to school… Download these two reference/study aids to have the best conversation skills in town—not to mention it helps out with testing and college admissions! Fiske 250 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know and Fiske 250 Words Every High School Freshman Needs to Know will both be available for $1.99 for two weeks, 8/2/11-8/15/11!

RETRIBUTION - Book Trailer and Giveaway (Closed)

Retribution (Dark-Hunter)

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

"...Harm no human…

A hired gunslinger, William Jessup Brady lived his life with one foot in the grave. He believed that every life had a price. Until the day when he finally found a reason to live. In one single act of brutal betrayal, he lost everything, including his life. Brought back by a Greek goddess to be one of her Dark-Hunters, he gave his immortal soul for vengeance and swore he’d spend eternity protecting the humans he’d once considered prey.

Orphaned as a toddler, Abigail Yager was taken in by a family of vampires and raised on one belief- Dark-Hunters are the evil who prey on both their people and mankind, and they must all be destroyed. While protecting her adoptive race, she has spent her life eliminating the Dark-Hunters..."

This giveaway is now closed.

Reality

Well, if you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you will have realized that my posting has gone down in the last six months to just the bare minimum.  I wanted to take a minute of your time to let you know what was going on in our lives (and ask for prayer - if you are the praying type).

In April, we found out that our 16 year old daughter was pregnant.  It definitely threw our family for a loop.  Pretty much sucked the air out of any energy I had for reading/blogging.  At first, she was very adamant about keeping the child (a girl) and raising her, finishing high school, going to college.  We didn't feel that we could discourage her one way or the other, as we didn't want her to resent us for making her give up the baby/or keep the baby.  This needed to be her decision.

As time has passed though, our daughter has decided to enter into an open adoption with my sister and BIL.  They have been trying to have a baby for years, and had even tried to adopt a baby from Haiti, but with no luck. She has realized that with school and work, that her baby would be spending more time with caregivers than with her and so feels this would be the best thing for the baby.

My emotions have been all over the place. (and we won't even talk about how my husband has been feeling)  Once I had accepted the fact that she was actually pregnant (well - still haven't fully accepted that. . .) and that she wanted to raise the baby I tried to come to terms with what my role was going to be in this child's life.  I knew that even though I said that SHE was going to be the baby's mother, that a lot of the child's care was going to fall to me.  Made me realize that I really did not want to have another baby.   Then when she decided to pursue the adoption, it took me awhile to accept the fact that the baby was NOT going to be here.  Because she is being adopted by my sister though, I still get to be a grandma (as well as an aunt. . .) 

I know that the closer her due date comes (10/29) the harder everything is going to become.  I am not sure how much of a support system that I am going to be for my daughter after the baby is born and goes home with my sister - as I cry at kleenex commercials.   Her first day of school is coming up in a couple of weeks - she will be starting her junior year of h.s. - and she is a little worried how people are going to act around her/with her.  She wasn't really showing when school ended last year, and she is definitely showing now.  I don't think she realizes how much bigger she is going to get in the next 3 months.  So please just keep us in your prayers.

So, as to blogging - my reading has been picking up, but I have been very slow with reviews.  I hope to begin to get caught up on reviews this month and my goal is to be fully functioning blogwise again by Sept 1.  So, if you have stuck with me through this hiatus - thank you so much, and if you have just recently started reading my blog - please stay tuned! 

Ignore the date in the picture - finally figured out how to change my camera!  Here is a pic of my daughter as we waited for a boat last week on vacation to take us to Shell Key. (We were in St. Pete's, FL)

Mailbox Monday (Aug 1, 2011)

 Mailbox Monday's host for August is Staci at Life in the Thumb. In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren. Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week! 

Blood Brothers

by Josephine Cox

Though they were raised by the same decent and well-respected parents, two brothers could not be more different than Frank and Joe Arnold.  The pair have nothing in common but blood. . . and Alice Jacobs.  Joe has fallen hard for the shy kindhearted young woman.  But it is Frank, a devious schemer, who is determined to have her.  He sees Alice as the key to his fortune, and will do everything, including hide his brutal nature, to succeed.

When Frank and Alice announce their engagement, Joe leaves home, determined to put distance between himself and temptation.  Despite his best efforts, the inevitable happens when Joe returns for the wedding.  And though Alice is drawn to Joe too, she ultimately chooses duty and Frank -- a decision that will have dark and violent repercussions for them all.

From number one Times of London bestselling author Josephine Cox comes a powerful and dramatic story of a love triangle gone terribly wrong.

In Search of the Rose Notes

by Emily Arsenault

Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends.  When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to "investigate." But their search -- aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books -- went nowhere.

Years later, Nora, now in her late twenties, is drawn back to her old neighborhood -- and to her estranged friend -- when Rose's remains are finally discovered.  Upset over their earlier failure to solve the possible murder, Charlotte is adamant that they join forces and try again.  But Nora was the last known person to see Rose alive, and she's not ready to revisit her troubled adolescence and the events surrounding the disappearance -- or face the disturbing secrets that are already beginning to reemerge.

Love Lies Bleeding

by Jess McConkey

Samantha Moore is the golden girl -- with a perfect job, a perfect man, a perfect life -- until a random act of violence changes everything.  Unconscious for two months, Sam awakens from her coma a different person -- bitter, in constant pain, and forced to endure medications that leave her nauseous, paranoid, and struggling to keep a grip on reality.

Furious with her family for sending her away to a small, remote town to recuperate -- placed completely under a physical therapist's care and robbed of what little freedom she has left -- Sam lashes out at the "nice people" all around her who claim to have only her best interests in mind.  But are her violent outbursts the by-product of her condition. . . or something else entirely?  Strange things are happening here -- and either Samantha Moore is losing her mind or her friendly new neighbors are far more dangerous than they appear to be. . .

Across Many Mountains

by Yangzom Brauen

A powerful, emotional memoir and an extraordinary portrait of three generations of Tibetan women whose lives are forever changed when Chairman Mao’s Red Army crushes Tibetan independence, sending a young mother and her six-year-old daughter on a treacherous journey across the snowy Himalayas toward freedom

Kunsang thought she would never leave Tibet. One of the country's youngest Buddhist nuns, she grew up in a remote mountain village where, as a teenager, she entered the local nunnery. Though simple, Kunsang's life gave her all she needed: a oneness with nature and a sense of the spiritual in all things. She married a monk, had two children, and lived in peace and prayer. But not for long. There was a saying in Tibet: "When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the earth." The Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 changed everything. When soldiers arrived at her mountain monastery, destroying everything in their path, Kunsang and her family fled across the Himalayas only to spend years in Indian refugee camps. She lost both her husband and her youngest child on that journey, but the future held an extraordinary turn of events that would forever change her life--the arrival in the refugee camps of a cultured young Swiss man long fascinated with Tibet. Martin Brauen will fall instantly in love with Kunsang's young daughter, Sonam, eventually winning her heart and hand, and taking mother and daughter with him to Switzerland, where Yangzom will be born.

Many stories lie hidden until the right person arrives to tell them. In rescuing the story of her now 90-year-old inspirational grandmother and her mother, Yangzom Brauen has given us a book full of love, courage, and triumph,as well as allowing us a rare and vivid glimpse of life in rural Tibet before the arrival of the Chinese. Most importantly, though, ACROSS MANY MOUNTAINS is a testament to three strong, determined women who are linked by an unbreakable family bond.

The Berlin Boxing Club

by Robert Sharenow

In tumultuous 1930s Berlin, 14-year-old Karl Stern is coming to grips with what it means to be an outcast.  Bullied by his peers for being skinny and ostracized for being Jewish, Karl longs to prove his worth to everyone around him.  So when luck smiles upon Karl and delivers German boxing champ Max Schmeling as a coach, he has an opportunity he never dreamed of: to make something of himself in the boxing ring, and in Germany.  But when Nazi violence against Jews escalates, Karl must take on a new role as protector of his family.  Can Karl balance his dream of boxing greatness with his obligation to keep his family out of harm's way?

As he did with 1960s New Orleans in his debut novel My Mother the Cheerleader, Robert Sharenow's colorful characters, vivid descriptions, and strong sense of place cause 1930s Berlin to spring to life for readers in The Berlin Boxing Club.  Sharenow beautifully marries the political and social upheaval happening around Karl with the life-altering events that take place in his own family to create a story with tremendous emotional impact.  Readers will understand, appreciate, and relate to Karl's quest to find his own unique talents in boxing and art -- and will be moved by his struggle for his family's survival in Nazi-era Germany.

Glow

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

If a violent battle destroyed the only world you’ve ever known, would you be brave enough to save who was left? Would love be strong enough to survive the fight? Either way, there’s no turning back.

The Empyrean is the only home 15-year-old Waverly has ever known. Part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space, she and her boyfriend Kieran will be pioneers of New Earth. Waverly knows she must marry young in order to have children who can carry on the mission, and Kieran, the handsome captain-to-be, has everything Waverly could want in a husband. Everyone is sure he’s the best choice. Still, there’s a part of Waverly that wants more from life than marriage, and she is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth.

Suddenly, Waverly’s dreams are interrupted by the inconceivable – a violent betrayal by the Empyrean's sister ship, the New Horizon. The New Horizon’s leaders are desperate to populate the new planet first, and will do anything to get what they need: young girls. In one pivotal moment, Waverly and Kieran are separated, and find themselves at the helm of dangerous missions, where every move has potentially devastating consequences, and decisions of the heart may lead to disaster.

Pulse-pounding and addictive, GLOW begins the most riveting series since The Hunger Games.

How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?

by Carla Ulbrich

How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This? is a collection of short, inspiring, funny essays that help people thrive, celebrate life, and work through illness.  Carla Ulbrich -- the Singing Patient -- reveals how laughter has been pivotal to reclaiming her health after serious crises.  She offers heartfelt and humorous advice for navigating the medical system and explains how she's benefited from exploring better nutrition, exercise, and alternative therapies such as acupuncture.  This singer-songwriter's candid insights, wisecracking commentary, handy lists, and hilarious song lyrics provide smiles and gentle camaraderie to those who want to tackle health problems with courage, zest, and humor.

Lost Memory of Skin

by Russell Banks

The acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone returns with a provocative new novel that illuminates the shadowed edges of contemporary American culture with startling and unforgettable results

Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders.

Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid, despite his crime, is in many ways an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices he himself struggles to comprehend. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and recidivism among convicted sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative partnership, the Kid remaining wary of the Professor’s motives even as he accepts the counsel and financial assistance of the older man.

When the camp beneath the causeway is raided by the police, and later, when a hurricane all but destroys the settlement, the Professor tries to help the Kid in practical matters while trying to teach his young charge new ways of looking at, and understanding, what he has done. But when the Professor’s past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men’s relationship shifts.

Suddenly, the Kid must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision.

Long one of our most acute and insightful novelists, Russell Banks often examines the indistinct boundaries between our intentions and actions. A mature and masterful work of contemporary fiction from one of our most accomplished storytellers, Lost Memory of Skin unfolds in language both powerful and beautifully lyrical, show-casing Banks at his most compelling, his reckless sense of humor and intense empathy at full bore.

The perfect convergence of writer and subject, Lost Memory of Skin probes the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassion—a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.

Deep Disclosure

by Dee Davis

After spending years in prison under deep cover, black ops agent Tucker Flynn joins A-Tac, an elite CIA unit masquerading as faculty at an Ivy League college. Nothing can shake him-except a vulnerable young woman marked for death.

DUAL DECEPTION

When Tucker is assigned to protect-and secretly investigate-Alexis Markham, he expects a routine mission. But this mysterious beauty has a past even darker than his: her father created a horrifying new biochemical weapon-and was murdered to keep it secret.

Alexis has spent the last decade racing to stay one step ahead of the shadowy operatives who will stop at nothing to possess her father's formula. She can trust no one, not even her handsome new bodyguard. But the heat that flares between them is impossible to resist. Will giving in to passion bring her the safety she's always craved, or will her love for Tucker draw him into a killer's sights?

Don't Mess with Texas

by Christie Craig

Nikki Hunt thought her night couldn't get worse when her no-good, cheating ex ditched her at dinner, sticking her with the bill. Then she found his body stuffed in the trunk of her car and lost her two-hundred-dollar meal all over his three-thousand-dollar suit. Now not only is Nikki nearly broke, she's a murder suspect.

Former cop turned PI, Dallas O'Connor knows what it's like to be unjustly accused. But one look at the sexy-though skittish-suspect tells him she couldn't hurt anyone. The lead detective, Dallas's own brother, has the wrong woman and Dallas hopes a little late-night "undercover" work will help him prove it . . . 

Spycatcher

by Matthew Dunn

Matthew Dunn spent years as an MI6 field operative working on some of the West’s most clandestine missions. He recruited and ran agents, planned and participated in special operations, and operated deep undercover throughout the world. In Spycatcher he draws on this fascinating experience to breathe urgent, dynamic new life into the contemporary spy novel.

Featuring deft and daring superspy Will Cochrane, Dunn paints a nerve-jangling, bracingly authentic picture of today’s secret world. It is a place where trust is precious and betrayal is cheap—and where violent death is the reward for being outplayed by your enemy.

Will Cochrane, the CIA’s and MI6’s most prized asset and deadliest weapon, has known little outside this world since childhood. And he’s never been outplayed. So far…

Will’s controllers task him with finding and neutralizing one of today’s most wanted terrorist masterminds, a man believed to be an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general. Intending to use someone from the man’s past to flush him out of the shadows, Will believes he has the perfect plan, but he soon discovers, in a frantic chase from the capitals of Europe to New York City, that his adversary has more surprises in store and is much more treacherous than anyone he has ever faced—and survived—up to now.

Life Changing Bible Verses You Should Know

by Erwin and Rebecca Lutzer

After Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of the Moody Church, and his wife, Rebecca, realized that memorizing Scripture has nearly become a lost pursuit today, they decided to create this practical, relevant resource filled with powerful verses and insightful explanations to help stimulate a spiritual hunger in readers’ own lives. With more than 35 topics and questions for reflection and further study, readers will discover how God’s Word will:

• sustain them in times of need
• comfort them in seasons of sorrow
• strengthen their hearts in times and areas of weakness
• direct their steps and decisions toward God’s will

These handpicked verses provide a foundation of wisdom and hope to show readers who God is and what He has done for them, as well as who they are and how they can successfully live the Christian life. 

 PURCHASED:

 Love Kills Slowly: 30 Cross-Stitch Patterns From Ed Hardy

This ain't your grandmother's cross-stitch. Ed Hardy's Love Kills Slowly Cross-Stitch is a counted cross-stitch book for a new generation of crafters. From pierced hearts to images of skulls and crossbones, Hardy's colorful, tattoo-inspired designs are perfect for stitchers looking for something bold and graphic. Each pattern comes complete with a full-color illustration of the original art, an illustration of the final product, and a full-color pattern and key. A how-to section teaches the basics of counted cross-stitch.

Hard Truth

by Nevada Barr

Just days after marrying Sheriff Paul Davidson, Anna Pigeon moves to Colorado to assume her new post as district ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park.  When two of three children who'd gone missing from a religious retreat reappear, Anna's investigation brings her face-to-face with a paranoid sect - and unspeakable evil. . .

PAPERBACK SWAP:

 Hourglass

by Claudia Gray

After escaping from Evernight Academy, the vampire boarding school where they met, Bianca and Lucas take refuge with Black Cross, a fanatical group of vampire hunters.  Bianca must hide her supernatural heritage or risk certain death at its hands.  But when Black Cross captures her friend - the vampire Balthazar - hiding is no longer an option.

Soon, Bianca and Lucas are on the run again, pursued not only by Black Cross, but by the powerful leaders of Evernight.  Yet no matter how far they travel, Bianca can't escape her destiny.

Bianca has always believed their love could survive anything. . . but can it survive what's to come?

PURCHASED: 

Never Look Away: A Thriller
Promise Me
Lipstick in Afghanistan
I Still Dream About You: A Novel

See ya Soon!

Going to the beach!  See ya in August!

In the Heat of the Bite by Lydia Dare (Book Review)

Title: In the Heat of the Bite

Author: Lydia Dare
Publisher: Sourcebooks

About the book: Chivalry is far from undead. . .

Matthew Halkett, Earl of Blodswell, is one of the few men in the ton who can claim to be a knight in shining armor -- because that's precisely what he was before being turned into a vampyre.  When he spies a damsel in distress in the midst of a storm in Hyde Park, his natural instinct is to rush to her aid. . .

But not every woman needs to be rescued. . .

Weather-controlling witch Rhiannon Sinclair isn't caught in a storm -- she's the cause of it.  She's mortified to have been caught making trouble by the imposing earl, but she doesn't need any man -- never has, and is sure she never will. . .

But when Rhiannon encounters Matthew again, her powers go awry and his supernatural abilities run amok.  Between the two of them, the ton is thrown into an uproar.  There's never been a more tempestuous scandal. . .

My thoughts:  This was book 2 of The Gentlemen Vampyre series and I enjoyed it as much as the first one, It Happened One Bite.  Rhiannon has come to ton because her Aunt Greer has brought her sister Ginny to ton to introduce her to society and hopefully arrange a marriage for her.  Rhiannon is slightly jealous as her aunt has never had anything good to say about her (not that she has much good to say about anyone)- as she is a witch and all.  Rhiannon is suspicious of her Aunt's intentions, so she doesn't intend to let Ginny make any mistakes, but in the process becomes  entangled in a few of her own.

Rhiannon is the witch who can control the weather, but it often gets out of hand when her emotions are in a turmoil.  If she is upset, there is bound to be stormy weather, and if she is angry - watch out for those lightning bolts!  She is very feisty, but she grew up sort of neglected by her father, so she has very little self esteem.  When she meets Matthew, she doesn't suspect he has any feeling for her, but embroils him in a scheme that will allow her to stay in ton for the season, and maybe gain a little respectability.

This was a very fun read and I am looking forward to the next book in the series, Never Been Bit, which I will be reviewing in September. Since the witches all have different powers, they have different personalities and different quirks to their characters. Since their husbands are currently Lycans and Vampyres - who don't get along - it is humorous to read about their interactions.

I would recommend this series for anyone who likes light paranormal romances.  Great for reading at the beach!

Reviews of other Lydia Dare books.

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Sourcebooks in exchange for my review.~

In the Heat of the Bite
Publisher/Publication Date: Sourcebooks, July 1, 2001
ISBN: 978-1-4022-4510-7
368 pages

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (July 18, 2011)

What are you reading on Mondays is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey - You can hook up with the Mr. Linky there with your own post - but be sure and let me know what you are reading too!

Currently Reading:
In the Heat of the Bite by Lydia Dare


Reading to become "Literary Genius":
Animal Farm by George Orwell

Next Up:
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

Reading with Daughter:
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

E-Book:
Uncommon Grounds by
Singular by David Porteous
The Five Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary Chapman

Bathroom Book:
The Book Thief by Markus

Reviewed Since Last Post:
Absolutely nothing - I will have to blame the power outage!

Children's Books Reviewed Since Last Post:



Waiting for Reviews: (Ugh! I am never going to get caught up on reviews!)
The Arrivals: A Novel by Meg Mitchell Moore
 White Sleeper by David R. Fett and Stephen Langford
Graveminder by Melissa Marr
Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy)by Lauren DeStefano
The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain
The Place of Belonging by Jayne Pearson Faulkner
The Blackberry Bush by David Housholder

E-books waiting for review:
Sudden Moves by Kelli Sue Landon
This World We Live In (The Last Survivors, Book 3) by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Children's Books waiting for review:
Pearl's Wisdom by Auntie LuLu
Bug Meets His Friend (Bug's Adventure Series) by K.M. Groshek

READY - SET - READ!