Book Review: Unconditionally by Jackie Ashenden

 

Book Description

He sacrificed everything to set me free. So I walked straight into the devil's arms to save him.

Lucien Frost is a killer. A weapon forged by the most dangerous man in the criminal underworld. He told me to forget him. Told me there was no future for us. Told me I was better off walking away.

I didn't listen.

Now I'm deep in a world where loyalty is currency, betrayal is punished in blood, and love is the most lethal vulnerability of all.

Three dangerous men want to control me. One is a crime lord who sees me as an acquisition. One is my best friend who sees me as the woman he's always loved. And one is the cold-eyed assassin who would burn down the world to keep me safe—even if that means losing me forever.

Someone is going to get hurt.

My Review

This sequel centers on Wolf, the enigmatic biker whose rough edges hide a surprisingly tender heart, and Astrid, a heroine still reeling from the fallout of book one. Now, I didn't read book one, irrevocably. But I was still able to follow along in this book for the most part and enjoy it. Reading the first book might have given me a little more insight into these characters though.

Astrid did irritate me quite a bit in the ways that she dealt with Wolf. I didn't like the way she treated him for the most part. Wolf is supposed to be this big, gruff biker but underneath it all, he's such a sweet person and I really liked that about him. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book but it got kind of sad when the storyline leaned heavily into exploring trauma, healing and heartbreak. 

I didn't like that this ended on a cliffhanger so I probably won't read anymore of this series. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Tuesday around 6PM, the sun started setting and the streetlights came on. The clouds were looking big and fluffy.

Wednesday. We still had some clouds over the mountains and moving towards me. Plus, you can see all the tagging graffiti on the Cal Ranch compound. I was standing in my alley to take the picture.

The rest of these pictures are from 2 weeks ago. I hadn't had a chance to upload them.

So much rain and clouds.

And a nice sunrise.

Sunrise the same time as the one above.

Clouds are always welcome.

 

That cloud was massive.

That night's sunset.

We got a little rain. 

My perfect type of weather. And it cooled things off too which was nice.

And a rainbow after a few rain sprinkles. Taken from my bedroom window.

Everyone Has A Story, Here's One of Mine

 

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography or memoir, but it just never comes together for me, but I figured if I write one story at a time and post it on my blog maybe once a month, I can do that. Maybe one day I'll pull all the stories together and put them in a book but for now I'll just share some stories with you about my childhood and into adulthood. Some of the stories will be happy, some sad and some horrific because that was my childhood. But they will all be real, things that actually happened. If it seems like something that people enjoy reading maybe, I'll keep it going. These stories will not be in any kind of order; I'll just write them as they come to me.

Calico Ghost Town

When I was a kid before my parents got divorced when I was 12 years old, they would take us to Calico Ghost Town, located in California. It was one of my favorite places to go as a kid. Let me tell you why. 

*All pictures courtesy of Pixabay*

I haven't been back to Calico Ghost Town since the 80's and while some things have changed, as I looked through the pictures they posted, a lot is still exactly the same as it was back when we used to go. You can do tours of the mines that are stable and safe.

I used to get so excited when I would see this sign because it meant we were almost there.

They have a train that you can ride around the ghost town. I'm not sure if this is it or not but it sure looked like this. The train would ride over the wooden bridges and wooden tracks. It was a fun tour.

They have a couple of restaurants.

They have a gift store where you can buy candy, souvenirs and see some old products on the back walls. My dad would always buy my brother and I one of these big suckers. 

It was always a lot of fun to walk around and see these old places.

There was a building where you would stand inside it and you couldn't stand straight; you tilted forward no matter how much you tried not to. And there was a wooded water tube where the tour guide would pour water on it down on the bottom and the water would travel up instead of down. It was a trick of some kind, but it was so fun.

The bottle house was so much fun to go into and see how it was made from bottle.

It's not a huge place and I have no idea why I liked it as much as I did, but it was fun for sure. 

Links to past stories

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2025

January

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September 2025 

October 2025

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2026

January 2026

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March 2026

April 2026

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July 2026

August 2026

September 2026

Happy Raturday!

 

"Pork and Beans for lunch"

*All pictures this week are courtesy of martymousehouse.com and Anissa Hanna*

Apartment Life #544

 

This is a weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell  Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that have gone on in and around my apartment complex and in my neighborhood in the past 27 years that I've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 27 years here in a weekly blog post.

Last week my daughter told me that I slept right though the police helicopter flying overhead and the police chasing 2 people on motorcycles down the pathway right next to the sound wall where I walk Falcor. She said she and her friend *our neighbor* were outside looking where the police were and then they heard the police on the megaphone telling people to come out with their hands up. My daughter said it sounded like it was either on one of the side streets close by or on the other side of the big sound wall. But there were no other cops on my street to get pictures of and the cops that were chasing the 2 motorcycles went by too fast for her to get a picture of them. But it sounded like the police were close, she just didn't know where they were.

And then 2 days later I was looking on the Nextdoor app and saw this. The McDonald's they are talking about is the one that's always in my pictures. lol That's what was happening. Still don't know if the guy was caught or why they were looking for him or who the cops were chasing down the pathway.  Sounds like some guy ran from the police and he was running around my neighborhood. The cops were around here for hours looking for him, just not on my street.

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The police showed up at the end of my apartment complex and was talking to several people that night. I have no idea why.

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The high this week was 81F/27C

The low this week was 54F/12C

So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell  Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.

Happy Halloween!

 

Happy Halloween! I used Copilot on my laptop to make all these images. I used a couple of pictures of me, Falcor, and my daughter as well. And yes, I like Grim Reapers, can you tell?  😂😂

I put my daughter in a Halloween picture too. 😂😂

I hope you all have a spooky Halloween. 

Freebie Friday!

 

Welcome to another weekly Freebie Friday post, where I tell you what free samples and full-sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a "Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things.  I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to great samples at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received: 

I won a $100 Visa giftcard from SheSpeaks. Anyone can sign up for an account and enter all the giveaways they host. You can't win if you don't enter!

I received a few free perfume samples as well. These smell so good!

I cashed out points on The Secret Squad for a $25 Amazon giftcard. 

Falcor received some free Milk Bone minis dog biscuits from Influenster. He loved them. 

You can sign up for The Secret Squad and rack up points for giftcards too. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Rescued By The Great Grim by Asa Maria Bradley

 

Book Description

Attending a prestigious occult retreat to learn the latest casting methods and network with the magical elite sounded like a dream come true. But then I figured out the sinister ulterior motive for gathering that many powerful people in one place.

Now I’m on the run with a magical trident that controls a demon destined to destroy the world. And just when the retreat organizers are about to catch up with me, I run smack into the arms of a Norse mythological monster—literally.

Can I convince this sexy Viking creature to help me defeat the demon and save the world? Or, will the curse he's under destroy us both?

My Review

Hailey is super excited to be picked to attend the prestigious occult retreat to learn the latest casting methods and work on her magic. But once there her mentors who are supposed to be teaching her more are anything but welcoming. 

Both of her mentors are strange and don't seem to really want to bother with her, but it turns out there's more to it than that. When Hailey finds herself in danger from her mentors, she's able to hide the thing they were using her to get at, before she slips into unconsciousness. 

Nickur/Nick has been cursed to look after the lake and land where he is for over one hundred years. He finds Hailey and brings her back to his cabin in the woods to warm her up and find out what almost killed her. As soon as she wakes though, there's a pull of attraction between both of them. Hailey quickly realizes that she can trust him and fills him in on what her supposed mentors were up to and what they did to her. 

Nick now has something to look forward to in helping Hailey and by helping her he may have just found a way to break his curse, if he can talk her into staying with him. This was a quick, sweet, novella. I've read several of this authors books and I always like them. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

While We Were Hiking in Nevada

 

I made a similar post a few months ago that you can view here. But I knew I had other pictures in one of my many photo albums. I have around 30 photo albums and it took a while to search through them all and take pictures of the pictures. I wanted to share a few more pictures of what Ken, me and our daughter saw on some of the hikes we took at either Red Rock or Mt Charleston. Some of these pictures were labeled but I'm pretty sure all of them were taken while hiking around Red Rock many years ago. Red Rock is only about a 30 minute drive from where I live. 

It used to be free to get into the Red Rock loop, park your car and just take off walking. Now they charge you to get in and they only let in a few cars at a time so it's not over crowded. We always went in the cooler months. There are a lot of cactus out in Red Rock, so pick your clothing accordingly. 

I liked to walk on a well worn path or hiking trail. It was easier for me to walk these paths then to start climbing around the rocks the way Ken and my brother always did. 

I stuck to a lot of the paths when we found one.

Getting to the top of the big rocks was nice because of the views.

We stopped here and ate lunch one time we were there.

Another path. Ken was behind me on a large rock climbing all over it.

I just loved how when you turned a corner there was always something different to see.