Solid Soul

Jul15


Solid Soul (Kimani Romance) ♥♥♥♥

Chase is a widower whose entire focus has been about raising his son. Kylie was a teen mom and she is doing everything to prevent her daughter from making the same mistake. When Chase comes into her story and says that his son Marcus and her daughter Tiffany are planning to run off together, they know that they have to proceed with caution. Teenagers who think that they are in love can make some foolish decisions.

While agreeing to work together to support their children and hopefully convince them not to making rash life-changing decisions, Chase and Kylie get to spend some one-on-one time together. Meanwhile, Tiffany and Marcus say some pretty outrageous stuff that almost sends them both into apoplectic fits. Kylie wants to acknowledge the attraction with Chance, but fails to see how she can have a relationship with him and be a good example for her daughter.

This was one of the sweeter novels by Brenda Jackson because it was so real to life in many ways. The main characters have to think about how their actions will affect their children. Their romance is more complex since it is not just a matter of giving into the attraction. They have two hormonal teenagers that could use their lack of self-control as an excuse to throw caution to the wind. Chase and Kylie have to be concerned with the message they are teaching their children about personal relationships.

Overall, Solid Soul (Kimani Romance) had moments that were heart-rending and funny. There was a good cast of main and supporting characters with a likeable plot. I could imagine their difficulty; struggling to be a single parent and wanting to juggle an adult relationship.

You can buy Solid Soul (Kimani Romance) on Amazon by clicking any of the links in this post.

An innocent trying to seduce a man is hilarious

Jul5


Scale of 1 – 5: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

In the prologue, Emma is almost the victim of a sexual assault. That changes her from a fun loving adventurous young girl to a jaded and somewhat bitter person. With some reluctance years later, her parents allow her to have a season in order to find a husband.

Sebastian, also known as “Angel Duke” since his reputation as a buffer proof, is looking for wife. He needs to choose but he is bored with his choices of immature debutantes. He meets and is drawn to Emma. She acknowledges the attraction but does not even feel she is a worthy contender for marriage considering her perceived sordid past. He is a duke that is above reproach and she is supposedly “tainted”.

Side note: it is sad to me that when a woman is a victim of a sexual assault, people still judge her as if she caused it to happen. No woman asks for it. As in Emma’s case, it is usually a mentally twisted man whose desires motivate him to take by force what is not belong to him.

Back to the story…

Emma and Sebastian have a similar goal: get married. They agreed to help each other find spouses. This was funny to me since it is obvious that they want each other. There was plenty of back and forth funny banter between the two of them. I was laughing out loud at Emma’s so-called efforts to try to seduce Sebastian. She was such an innocent that it was cute.

In the end, Sebastian and Emma confront their respective demons and are able to resolve the issues holding them back from acknowledging their love for each other. This was a great story!

To buy  The Seduction of Sebastian St. James (House of Renwick) on Amazon click any of the links in this post

Petit Le Mans

Jul1

I am not a person that craves speed. Give me my non-souped up Toyota Rav 4 and I am content. I saw the first Fast and Furious and wondered what all the hype was about. I critiqued the actor’s performance instead of drooling over their fast cars.

That being said, when Hubby (who loves Formula One racing) said he wanted to go to Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October last year, I made sure I had my Kindle charged. I was sure I would be bored.

What is the Petit Le Mans?
The Petit Le Mans (French for little Le Mans) is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA. It uses the rules established for the 24 hours of Le Mans by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), which are slightly modified if necessary, mainly to allow additional cars to compete.

The race was founded by Road Atlanta owner Don Panoz and first run on October 10, 1998 as part of the IMSA season. The 1999 edition was one of the original events of the American Le Mans Series. This year will mark the 2nd Annual Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, which connects the races in North America, Europe and Asia.

The Petit Le Mans covers a maximum of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) (which is approximately 394 laps) or a maximum of 10 hours, whichever comes first; only once, in the rain-stopped 2009 race, has the leading team failed to complete 1,000 miles (1,600 km). In addition to the overall race, teams of two or three drivers per car compete for class victories in four different classes of cars, two for Le Mans prototypes and two for grand tourer cars. Class winners of this event receive an automatic invitation to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. (from http://www.roadatlanta.com/ev_petit.lasso)

This event starts on Thursday with speed trials on Friday and the official race on Saturday. We got there Friday for some of the speed trials for race position. I will not lie. During this time, I was a little bored. I did not understand what was going on. It did not seem as if there were that many cars on the track. After lunch, with the sun in my face, I got a little drowsy and nodded off a time or two. Hubby could not believe I went to sleep considering how loud the cars were. The noise was thunderous in the way I would imagine living next to an airport would be. I am not one to be deterred when I am sleepy.

Friday’s events might not have held my interest, however, Saturday was a different story. We got there early enough to get a good parking spot to see the action. Then we walked down into the pit area to look at the cars that were racing (see picture). It was at this time that I began to understand the hypnotizing power of muscle cars. When the engines were started, the low rumbling created a slight vibration through my body. It gave me chills. The good kind. I think it created an increase in adrenaline in my brain. I was hyper and excited all at once. In that second, my brain decided that I needed one of those cars. When we had to leave the pit for the race to begin, I started to crave the feeling that being next to a machine of that type of power gave me. It was difficult to break away and bring myself back to reality. That was the defining moment in my appreciation for sports cars.

Overall, Petit Le Mans is definitely an experience to be had. I do not have the funds to be able to travel to the Le Mans, but at least I can go to the miniature version in Georgia. I believe a lot of other people feel the same way. There were thousands of fans out there, many of whom were camped on site since Thursday. Everyone was gathered together for the love of racing, need for speed, and the appreciation of well-tuned, finely built, highly operating machines.

Books that make me say “Meh”

Jun25

There have been several books that I gave 2 hearts because of a variety of reasons. I did not want to spend a whole blog post on each review because I did not want to seem as if no book could satisfy my standards.
In this post, I will start with an extremely short synopsis of each book and then give the reasons why I did not give it a higher rating.

MINE FOR TONIGHT: Book One – The Billionaire’s Obsession)

Synopsis: Hero has been following heroine because he is obsessed with her. When she is without a place to stay, he convinces her to stay at his lavish apartment. Granted without his offer, she would have been on the suffering, on the street, with no place to go. But I still think that it is sad that she has absolutely no friends that she has to accept an offer from a veritable stranger. In any case, she accept and soon they give in to attraction. Cue the love scene.

My issues with this story: (1) The Hero seems to be a little creepy to me and his following his love interest is perilously similar to stalking (2) I did not like the way the book ended. If you write a novella, I do not like for the story to end abruptly as if the book is missing another chapter. The author should have made it clear in the synopsis that this is nothing more than just a prologue to the main story. I hope that the whole series is not like this book. It peeves me to no end when an author takes what could be a full length novel and divides the chapters into 3 or 4 novellas and calls it a series. It appears to me as a way to get more money and I do not like those type of marketing tactics. Plus, they did not have such a great attraction that I feel motivated to buy the second book.

Date with Destiny (A Billionaire Romance)

Synopsis: Heroine works for an escort service, but she is not any good at it so she is about to be fired. The Hero needs a date fast and she is the only escort available. During said date, it becomes apparent that she will be sleeping with him despite her protestations that she is not like that.**eyes rolling **

My issues with this story: (1) It was cheesy. It was a quick “Pretty Woman” if the man decided to date escort/prostitute after one date (2) What idiot man would introduce his daughter to his night escort? Really? I was really annoyed by that. Given that their relationship was supposed to be devoid of emotion, he should not have involved his child in the mix. (3) This girl worked for an escort service that was obviously providing more than just a female companion for events on date night. Where is the romance in Hero’s offer for her to be his girlfriend? Seems to me that he was trying to get his milk for free, as it were. With an ending like that, considering the fact that they really do not know each other besides the physical compatibility, she better save her money since it is highly likely that he will dump her in the future.

Granted I might be judging these stories too harshly in your opinion. I challenge you to read any of them and let me know what you think.
Agree or Disagree?