Special thanks to Leontine from Leontine's Book Realm for the super header.


Wednesday, December 23, 2009

One more sleep



Look at him, all tucked up and ready for Santa to come. Adorable. :-) I'm pretty much ready, presents all bought and wrapped and under the tree, most of the food bought (I need to go out and find a German Chocolate Cake my daughter requested today) and just need to clean off my dining room table. How does that thing become such a catch-all? Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and I will have a little Christmas cookie treat on Wave's site tomorrow (appears we've crashed it trying to get free books this morning).

Silent Night by Rowena Sudbury (20 pages)



Jonah is the bad boy of his wrestling organization (pro-wrestling) and has been doing some charity work but is heading home Christmas Eve. There is a huge storm and his flight is canceled but along with that of fellow employee (but I got the impression not wrestler) Max. So they end up spending the night in the executive lounge of the airline alone. They get talking and it seems Jonah has a reputation of being a slut and is treated as such and although Max has a partner things are not going well for them. After some sharing of feelings things go VERY well for Max an Jonah. Max decides to change his plane ticket the next day and go home with Max rather than return to his lover. It was okay, it's only 20 pages and while I felt sorry for Jonah and how people treated him, it is possible to say no sometimes, no one forced him to give blow jobs and Max was in a relationship even if it was shit. I think another 20 pages could have made it better if some of these things had more time to be dealt with.

One Night Stand by Clare London (31 pages)



Teddy wakes up in a strange bed and realizes he seems to have had a one night stand (which he swore off of) and he can't remember with who. He starts remembering it was the Christmas party for work, getting drunk, he was a super aggressive top with whoever it was and then .... Holy shit, it was his boss and friend Marshall who he'd been crushing on forever. As he debates smothering himself with a pillow Marshall wakes up and Teddy tries to apologise but Marshall confesses he's been crushing on Teddy too and nothing happened he didn't want. About the first half of this is Teddy laying there freaking out and remembering and it's really very amusing, for us I'm sure, not for him and then Marshall trying to get through to him that he didn't take advantage of him or do anything he didn't want. A very cute story about most employees' worst nightmares. Thankfully we don't drink much at our Christmas parties because I've NEVER had a boss I'd want to end up in bed with. Ewwwwww. A fun little story that I quite enjoyed.

Leftovers by Treva Harte (69 pages)



This probably should have been read tomorrow after a huge dinner, but oh well. Paul and Emmerson where best friends and lovers in college but Paul left to pursue a singing career in LA and Emmerson (a song writer) stayed in NY even though Paul has pushed him to travel. They get together every Thanksgiving with their friend Liz and Paul and Emmerson have their "thing" but Emmerson refuses to go with Paul. This year Paul has decided he loves Emmerson and he wants them to be a couple. He finally finds out WHY Emmerson won't leave NY. I won't say why but I thought it was handled very well and that Emmerson had a lot of issues from his childhood which contributed but with Paul's support and that of Liz he manages to deal with it if not "get over it". Liz was a great female character. She'd been their best friend forever and now following her divorce, she and her child end up moving in with Emmerson and helping him too. She was not the bitchy pushy friend, how a good friend (male or female) should be, so kudos to Treva for that. It was a good read that explored an issue you don't see much of.

Cy Gets a Sex Demon by Angela Fiddler (172 pages)



I had mixed feelings about his. I kind of liked the "feel" of the novel, it's set in Calgary so always a bonus and I'm sure people from Calgary would have recognized some landmarks mentioned, but I always felt like I didn't quite know what was going on. That I'd somehow missed some piece of information that would have made it clear. Cy works for some mysterious organization doing something mysterious. I never really figured out what, but it involves fae and demons and people with powers and he seems to be a guy who finds lost people. He takes home the new office temp Patrick (I had no clue why really. Because he thought the boss would kill Patrick? Maybe? See, not sure what or why) and he's looking for a missing young man who had something to do with Patrick's father and there's a request to search for a sex demon who was lost in a card game. It was a very complex world that I never really understood. I always felt I was standing behind a fuzzy glass and that the characters knew things you didn't so they would just nod sagely and go "oh right" but I was clueless. I did like Patrick and Cy had an amusing and kind of sardonic way of looking at the world but I think I read a lot of it with a puzzled look on my face because I felt I had missed something somewhere along the way. Oh and the sex demon part is only at the end. I'd be interested to find out what happens to him. I guess I just don't do well with ambiguous but it might work well for others.

Have a Merry Christmas all.

11 comments:

Chris said...

We really crashed Jessewave?! Oops...

Ok, this sentence? "Cy works for some mysterious organization doing something mysterious." I can never read that book because my head would explode in frustration. :)

Tam said...

Eh, it's probably just my freaky internet but I keep getting this message "that site is busy" or something like that. Frustrating as our internet has been sucking the last two months.

It was pretty frustrating as I wanted to know more and it wasn't a case of not having space because it was a short book, it was pretty long but I always felt that like that person who joins a long-time group of friends were everyone understands what happened before and gets it and you kind of get an inkling of what's happening but aren't 100% sure you are right. Just didn't work for me.

Chris said...

Woot! I got one! Thought it was a good time to take a chance on one I wouldn't necessarily have picked (the cover is just so wrong): Mute Witness.

Rowena Sudbury said...

Thanks for the review, and you are right I would probably have been better served to spend more time with the story. The whole thing does come off forced to a certain degree. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and in this case it's true!

In any case...thanks again for the review :)

Tam said...

Thanks for stopping by Rowena, I do have a soft spot for the bad boys, maybe some day you can let us know what happened to Jonah and Max after that initial snowy night. I now it's hard to fit much in to 20 pages. Have a great Christmas.

Rowena Sudbury said...

Thanks so much, and you too!

I too have a soft spot for bad boys, so it's nice to find someone else who does as well!

Janna said...

Hmm, can't wait for your tucked up guy to wake up :)
Have a wonderful and merry Christmas!
hugs,
Janna

Tam said...

You're up late Janna, or early. :-) Have a wonderful Christmas too.

nichem said...

Hi Tam, I just discovered your blog, and was reading through some of your recent posts. I had the same reaction to Soldier as you did-- I loved the kids and that the 2 guys were helping them (and, like you, the kids made me tear up a few times), but the other parts of the story were so unrealistic it kinda made me crazy. I've waffled about getting Tommy's story, because if it has as many unbelievable elements as Soldier, I'm not sure if I want to read it. Though I'd really like to see what happens to Tommy and Gom. Got any advice?

Hope you had a great Christmas!

Tam said...

Hi Richelle, thanks for coming by. Soldier had plot holes big enough to drive the big-ass Hummer through but there was enough I loved that got me past that. I think the romantic relationship between Tommy and Daniel works much better (they've known each other forever) but the resolution to the Gom storyline is completely unrealistic and coincidental but as I said, there was only 40 pages or so. It was adequate. Not a glowing endorsement huh? LOL

nichem said...

LOL. I'll probably just go ahead and get it since it's so short. I'm curious about the kids, and I can probably stand a few unrealistic plot twists for 40 pages.