More book quotes pics!

I love these book quote pics that Beatrix at Cover to Cover Book Blog made for me. The pics fit perfectly with the scene within the story. Meanwhile, The Quarterback Sneak is receiving great reviews at Goodreads and at Amazon. I so appreciate the time readers take to post a review!

Love on the Bookshelf reviews Love By Design!

Love by Design was reviewed by Love on the Bookshelf! They rated it a 'Totally worth it' Re-read. See more below and visit the site to see other reviews.

http://loveonthebookshelf.wordpress.com/


Review: Love by Design
Posted on January 11, 2012 by Scarlett Stevens

Love by Design by Liz Matis
In Love by Design, Liz Matis tells the story of former party-girl turned successful interior designer Victoria Bryce. As the co-host of a design show (think Trading Spaces), she’s in need of a new partner… apparently on camera and off. Enter “saucy Aussie” Russ Rowland and the sparks are flying. But Victoria and Russ have both their egos and their pasts to get past in order for something like this to work. Before you know it, this sizzling pair have a laundry list of reasons not to be together.

Although you may find yourself rolling your eyes at their transparent resistance from time to time, Matis’s characterizations never fail to be realistic. Don’t we all make excuses for ourselves not to do something we know is good for us from time to time? And given how much is at stake for these two, especially the stripper scandal (you’ll see), it’s no small wonder that they’ve got to think twice.

But with all that chemistry Matis flawlessly cooks up between them, yikes! There are some truly spicy scenes in here that won’t leave you doubting the perfect pairing of these troubled characters.

The Three R’s

Rating: XX. There’s a LOT of reference to a certain, ahem, member of sizable length. Not that this is a problem, it just makes this book unsuitable for young’uns. Oh, and there’s the smokin’ hot sex, too. Don’t hold this book too tight–you’ll burn your fingers.

Recommendation: Read this one if you need some warming up this winter. No joke. It’s also the perfect just-before-bedtime reading, if you’d like some nice, sultry dreams. If you’ve got some friends who like a good down-and-dirty love story, share it. Or, at least, recommend they buy their own copy.

Re-Read: Totally worth it.

Whoo-hoo!

In Liz Matis' latest PLAYING FOR KEEPS you will get a wildly sexy romance with depth and laughs. - Book Junkie

I've received the first review for Playing For Keeps from a book review website - called Book Junkie. I'm THRILLED beyond words - which is why I capitalized the word THRILLED.

Here is the review:

n Liz Matis' latest from Little Hondo Press, PLAYING FOR KEEPS you will get a wildly sexy romance with depth and laughs.

The need for change and a breath of fresh air is just what Sam Jameson needs in her life. As a journalist, just coming back from Iraq and a horrible experience she is looking hard for the next story, one that will take her mind of the trauma of what really happened in the middle east. Not to mention her PTSD, which she so happens to not be dealing too well with.

So what to do next. Well writing a few exposé's on a few rough and touch football players seem right up her ally. After all Sam is just one of the guys, and after Iraq she feels this is exactly what she needs.

In comes sexy football player Ryan, who just so happens to have been the star player in Sam's college girl fantasies. It doesn't help that he is now flirting with her and that really makes Sam out of sorts.

A really fun read, the personalities of each of the main characters really shine bright in this romance making you fall in love with them, flaws and all. After all I think that is what makes a story so great, is seeing that your beloved characters seem so real and human as you do.

With a strong supporting cast and a promised sequel this is a warm hearting and sexy romance that will surely heat up your cold winter nights.

A page turner, bring on the sequel.

Here is the website if you want to check out reviews for other books..

http://www.myfoolishwisdom.blogspot.com

So that is my awesome news for the day.

Zombie Love

No post yesterday - I know bad romance writer-bad - but I was busy with real life romance :) - anyway -
My friend Colleen knowing my love all of things Zombie had given me a belated Christmas (because I hadn't seen her) present - one was The Zombie Night Before Christmas - so next Christmastime.... but the other one was Every Zombie Eats Somebody Sometime which is a book of zombie love songs! Each is sung to the melody of a real song. It is hilarious! Here are two samples:


sung to Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross:

Dead love,
You're the food in my life,
In this damn zombie blight.

My first turn,
You're every bite that I take,
Each shuffling step I make.

And I
(I-I-I-I-I)
I want to chew
All brains with you,
No other dead will do....

etc.

okay sung to the tune of "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton

It's late in the evening; she's wondering what's out there.
She loads up her shotgun and brushes her long blond hair.
And then she tells me, "You don't look quite right."
And I say, "Yes, you'll taste wonderful tonight."

etc.

So fun!

New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. - Mark

Which is why I haven't made a true New Years resolution in years.

Without a New Years resolution I lost 10 pounds in 2010, go to the gym at least 2 a week, and haven't eaten at a McDonalds in ages. Yes, I need to work on my other dietary habits but I'm more aware of what I put in my mouth - however I do not worry on holidays because lets face facts - it's not what you eat on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter, and on Fourth of July that make you fat - it's all the days in between.

Without a New Years resolution I've written and submitted - not as much as I would have liked but I'm a slow writer - and I probably will have to face the fact that I'm more of a short story writer than a novelist however I'm not quite ready to give up.

Rather than resolutions for 2011 I will envision this: I will be another 10 pounds lighter by 2012 and will sit at the computer at the very least an hour day to write.

I'm lucky that this is the only issues that I feel that need improvement ( Okay - so I really should envision a cleaner house but I'd just be kidding myself).

Happy and Healthy New Year to All!!!!

"You are all a lost generation." - Epigraph, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway Banned Books Week

It's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 25−October 2, 2010
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Every year during this week I choose a book off the 100 most challenged classic books

(for some reason I can't seem to post the link)

This year I've chosen #18 - The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

From Wikipedia:
Published in 1926, the plot centers on a group of expatriate Americans and Britons in continental Europe during the 1920s. It follows the group from Paris to the running of the bulls in Pamplona. The book's title, selected by Hemingway (at the recommendation of his publisher) is taken from Ecclesiastes 1:5: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." It is often described as Hemingway's best novel.[1]
The novel made Hemingway famous, inspired young ladies across America to wear short hair and sweater sets like the heroine's—and to act like her too—and changed writing style in ways that could be seen by picking up any American magazine published within the next twenty years.[2]

Here are some great quotes from The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

"You're not a moron. You're only a case of arrested development." 


"I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time."

"Tell him that bulls have no balls."

"I don't say it's right. It is right though for me, God knows, I've never felt such a bitch.'" 


"You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch." 

"Isn't it pretty to think so?" 


"It is awfully easy to be hard-boil about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing."

"She was built with the curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey."

Gotta love Hemingway...

What book will you be reading this week?

Angelology - by Danielle Trussoni

from the Barnes and Noble Website...

Synopsis
A thrilling epic about an ancient clash reignited in our time- between a hidden society and heaven's darkest creatures

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
Genesis 6:5

Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.

For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.

Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.


What did I think?
I thought the beginning was great as well as the ending but the middle was just one big info dump for me. The book begins in the present (sort of 1999). It moved well and was excited that I found a great read - then the story shifts to 1944 and this is where the author lost me - so I did my speed reading thing until I came back to present day (again sort of 1999)and was rewarded with a great ending.

So should you read it? Yes.

“Well, it all started when I figured out that the janitor at my high school was the Angel of Death...” from Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

from the back cover: Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She says she’s a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil. She say’s she’s working with the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons-aka "Bad Monkeys." Her confession has landed her in the jail’s psychiatric wing and earns her countless hours of poking, probing, and questioning by a professional. But is Jane crazy or lying? Or is she playing a whole different game altogether?
I wasn’t planning on buying a book - just browsing I told myself - when I was drawn to the bright yellow book titled Bad Monkeys. It was a interesting read. Written in a conversational tone the book’s fast pace led me down twists and turns with a truly satisfying, yet unpredictable ending. If you are looking for something different then do as Christopher Moore, author of A Dirty Job wrote, "Read it, memorize then destroy it. There are eyes everywhere."

"If you are false to yourself, I think, other people find it easier to be false to you." from The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

from Publisher's Weekly...Starred Review. Bestseller Gruber (The Book of Air and Shadows) probes the boundaries between sanity and madness in his outstanding sixth novel. Talented Chaz Wilmot, who makes a modest living as a commercial artist in New York City, can't say no when Mark Slade, his former Columbia roommate who now owns a downtown gallery, offers him $150,000 to fix a ruined Tiepolo ceiling in a Venetian palazzo (the ceiling had essentially collapsed, so it wasn't a restoration job exactly but more like a reproducing job). Once abroad, Wilmot gets sucked into an increasingly bizarre world where his own identity is confused and the art he produces may be a forgery but is genuinely magnificent. Is Wilmot crazy or is he being manipulated in a grandiose scheme linked to unrecovered art stolen by the Nazis? Gruber writes passionately and knowledgeably about art and its history—and he writes brilliantly about the shadowy lines that blur reality and unreality. Fans of intelligent, literate thrillers will be well rewarded.

My Take: This was a fascinating read. The author expertly draws you into the story and doesn't let go. I highly recommend it.

Has any one read Gruber's bestseller The Book of Air and Shadows?

Play Like A Man Win Like a Woman by Gail Evans

My college management professor back oh-so-many-years ago had us pledge in writing that we would read at least one business book a year. I happy to say I've kept to that plegde. This year my choice was Play Like A Man Win Like A Woman by Gail Evans. Ms. Evans gives women a playbook of success in a man's world. I wish I had this book when I first started out in the business world. Some of what she says I've learned along the way-the hard way. I recommend this book for every woman. Buy it for your daughter graduating from college. Buy it for your sister or your friend. Most of all buy it for yourself.

Here are the my top three that I've learned along the way and that she covers in the book...
1) Take credit for your accomplishments.
2) Ask for what you want. (Don't expect your boss to read your mind. Your husband can't so why would you think your boss could.)
3) Develop the right tone in your voice. Women tend to talk softly and you need to learn to speak up but without sound harpy.

I'm giving my copy to my niece who is in college and working PT at a police station (oh yeah - that is a man's world).

So anyone out there have any tips on how to succeed?

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

from the backcover blurb... Follwowing a divorce and crushing depression, Gilbert set out to discover three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures....

Truthfully, I didn't see what the hoopla was all about. I'm glad the author came through her experience whole and happy. Truly, I am. But I didn't connect with her. Most likely because I never went thru the bone-crushing depression she suffered and hope I never do. Though my husband went thru it as did my father, neither had the luxury of taking a year off to discover themselves. So to me it seemed indulgent - but hey I'm of the school of thought of - 'what ever works for you'. It just didn't work for me.

Here is what I did like...her description of Rome. Italy was not on my list of places to visit, but now I must have pizza from Pizzia de Michele in Naples. Gilbert's style of writing is excellent.

Now, I'm off to storyboard...

The Writing Class by Jincy Willett

From Publishers Weekly....Can a class of wannabe novelists solve a murder in their midst? That's the premise of this dark comedy of the absurd from Willett (Winner of the National Book Award), a boisterous satire of pseudointellectuals, impotent writers and the adult extension programs of public universities. The only things Amy Gallup, a once-noted California author, has published in years are blurbs of other writers' work. Amy's only income comes from teaching fiction writing to a motley collection of varyingly talented prepublished adults. Someone in the class is making threatening phone calls and sending extremely cruel notes to other students. When two of the students are murdered, a deep sense of danger takes hold. Yet the class goes on. .. The tension is so strong that readers can hardly resist the temptation to peek ahead and see which student is the killer.

This got some great reviews on amazon. For me it was just okay, but I usually don't read books like this. Got it in a 7 free books and buy 2 over 2 years. This is usually when I try different authors/genres.

I found myself using the speed reading technique to get thru it. There are some really nice touches and the ending is very satisfying.

I've never been part of an ongoing writing class - been to plenty (and I mean plenty) of one to two day workshops. Anyone have a funny story about a class they took or workshop?

The Heroines by Eileen Favorite

from Publishers Weekly: On a picturesque acreage near Prairie Bluff, Ill., 13-year-old Penny Entwistle, and her mother, Anne Marie, run a retreat where literary heroines seek temporary refuge from their tragic destinies. Franny Glass, Madame Bovary, Scarlett O'Hara, Catherine Linton and others find respite from their varied crises, but must return to their books eventually and suffer the fate that awaits. Penny, in the first throes of teenage rebellion, has little patience for her mother and the heartbroken or otherwise distraught women Anne Marie refuses to counsel (lest she change the course of their stories). And Anne Marie lavishes on her heroine lodgers the attention her daughter longs for. But when a mythical Celtic knight arrives, searching for his lost heroine Deirdre, Penny gets caught up in a web of deception that lands her in the loony bin. While the staff diagnoses her fabulous story as an attempt to deal with the long-ago death of her father, her mother commits Penny as a means of protecting her from peculiar goings-on at the house, and Penny must rely on the very fictional characters her mother favors to help her.

The reviews on Amazon were mixed - some loved - some, well, didn't.
I loved it. Tore right through it. Wished I wrote it.

This got me thinking...What fictional heroines would I like to meet?
I would like to have tea with, Scarlett O'Hara, Joe from Little Women, and Marguerite from the Scarlett Pimpernel.
I would like to have a beer with Stephanie Plum.

How about you? Which fictional heroine would you like to have tea with? Or a beer?