Review of To My Senses by Alexandrea Weis

To My Senses

By Alexandrea Weis

Amid the prying eyes of spicy New Orleans society, one woman just choose between embracing her passion or heeding practicality in this finely-tuned Southern love story. Haunting and heartfelt, this debut novel is steeped in wit, charm and sizzling moments of desire.  It shares one woman’s journey through love, betrayal and the ultimate tragedy that eventually leads her to discover her true purpose in life.

This is the first book in the Nicci Beauvoir series. I received the second one Recovery a couple of months ago from the author and loved it so much I asked for the first one. The take of Nicci and David starts here. You don’t have to read To My Senses to understand Recovery but I would suggest it very highly. It does make everything add up better and you get all of the back story to all of the characters in Recovery.

This is a great dramatic love story based in New Orleans high society. It is fun to see how Nicci fits into her eccentric family and society groups. I say fun because she is not a traditional society girl and loves to do things to show she is independent of their ways. Nicci’s character starts to develop in this book as she finds out who she really is and where she wants to go in her life.

I gave Recovery 4 stars but I will give this one 3 stars. Not because it is not worth the read but to emphasis that this series gets better with each book. Sacrifice, the 3^rd in the series, will be out sometime next year. I will definitely be getting that book and letting you know how everything with Nicci ends up.

Summer 2011

Hello to all my blog friends! I have so missed you all!  What a crazy summer this has been for me. Not only have I been out of work for the last four months but I still have the rest of my life going on!

Can I just say the economy sucks! The job hunting is not very fun. I do get interviews so I guess that is good but just no solid job offers so that is not so good.  It is funny how you go for an interview and when you ask how soon you are looking to hire they always say right away! or last week! and then all you do is wait for the phone to ring!  I had one place that I had to do three interviews and by the time I got them all done it was 6 weeks after I started with the first one. I guess that is in a hurry? So the process is long and discouraging. Good news is that I had another interview today and it was great. So we'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks to see if it pans out.

But on to the better things about being unemployed. My house is clean, my laundry is always caught up, I cook more often, I read a lot of books, I have re-painted my whole house, I have cleaned out the basement, finished my Mom Cave, I get to exercise whenever I want (wait is that a good thing?), don't forget the Harry Potter movie marathon leading up the last one :( and also re-reading book 7 too, and I get to spend TONS of time with my kids!!! They are not really seeing that as a plus anymore. They seem to be finding more and more things to do away from home lately. I am getting the hint. It probably has something to do with the week of hiking every day that did it to them.

My family is coming up to my house next weekend. So I am trying to find a great hike that the whole family can do together for one of the days they are here. Utah has tons of hiking trails all across the state that are of all different skill levels. So I decided that I should try some out so I can take the fam on the best one out there for all of us. So I subjected my kids to a hike a day for about a week. Every morning at 8am I was ready to leave and take them to the mountains! What a fabulous way to start the day right? Well for the most part it was fabulous. So needless to say we found the perfect hike that ends at an amazing waterfall. If you have ever heard of Sundance - as in the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Ski Resort - that is pretty close to where we will be hiking at. It is only about a 30 min drive to the trailhead and it is truly some beautiful country there. I will post pics soon.  I have several other hikes I will post about that were great and even one that wasn't so great.

So that is what I have been up to this summer and so that didn't leave me much time for blogging. I have another great review for tomorrow. There are two more coming for next week and then another two the week after that. I am so excited for them.  In between all of that and hopefully some more hiking I will post some details about the hikes we went on and I am still going to post about my Oregon trip. I know, I know that I have been promising that for a while now but I am really going to do it!

I am going to try to spend more time getting on all my fav blogs over the next week. Now that the Mom Cave is actually finished and usable I can get on the computer more often.  So thanks for sticking with me and I will be visiting y'all soon!

Review of Under the Dome by Stephen King

Under The Dome

By Stephen King

Just down Route 119 in Chester’s Mill, Maine, all hell is about to break loose…

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day, a small town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and rain down flaming wreckage. A gardener’s hand is severed as the dome descends. Cars explode on impact. Families are separated and panic mounts. No one can fathom what the barrier is, where it came from, and when – or if – it will go away. Now a few intrepid citizens, led by an Iraq vet turned short-order cook, face down a ruthless politician dead set on seizing the reins of power under the dome. But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time isn’t just running short. It’s running out.

I absolutely love a good, long book and so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one! It is a whopping 1074 pages and it didn’t disappoint!  I was very intrigued by the synopsis that was written about this book but had heard mixed reviews so wasn’t really sure how much I would enjoy this. I was engaged from page one and if I could have read all 1074 pages in one day I surely would have done so.  This was very much a fast paced book and I would compare it to The Stand, which is one of my top five all time favorite books ever. It has a good mix of the fight between good and evil but on the smaller scale of this little town and those trapped inside. This does not mean it is not as dramatic as the battle in The Stand. I feel that it made it even more so and if you have ever lived in a small town you will totally understand why. Of course in true Stephen King style it has a great sci-fi twist in it that I didn’t see coming at all.

So I will give nothing away and will end on this note cause you know how I HATE spoilers. It is a 5 star book and well worth the length, especially if you are a Stephen King fan!  

PS - I will post more on Thursday about where I have been for the last month and what I have been up to. I have missed my blog and am glad to be back with all of you!