Favorite Song of the Week

 

Cult To Follow - Start A Fire

I couldn't find an actual music video for this one but I still wanted to share the song because I really like it. It's not as hard as some of the other songs that I've shared but his voice is really nice. 

Recipe: Low Carb Mini Chocolate Pudding Pie

 

I know you were expecting a Freebie Friday post but I didn't receive any freebies this week. So I thought I would share this delicious recipe for mini chocolate pudding pies that I made. 

You will need: 

Keebler Mini Graham Cracker Pie Crust

1box of Jell-O Sugar Free Pudding Mix

1 can of Sugar Free Reddi Whip

What To Do: 

Make the pudding according to the package directions. I made mine with 2% milk. Let chill in the refrigerator for an hour. 

Preheat oven to 350F, place 1 pie crust on a cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Do not over bake. Remove from oven and let cool completely. 

When you're ready to assemble one, add about 1/2 cup of the pudding mixture to the crust and top with 2 TBSP of Reddi Whip. 

These crusts are ready to eat and you totally don't have to bake it for 5 minutes but I liked it a little crunchier. You can remove the crust from the tin before you assemble it if you like but it came out easy after I added the pudding also.

1 Mini Pudding Pie has 210 calories and 26 carbs. 

Would you eat this?

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

About 3 weeks ago my daughter, her ex and their son went hiking out at Red Rock when my grandson turned 10. Red Rock is only about a 30 minute drive from here in Las Vegas so it's not too far away to get out of the city. And in the Winter months it's nice for hiking and climbing. 

So I thought I would share a few pictures she took. While I like Mount Charleston better because of all the tree's and greenery, Red Rock has its own beauty and sometimes you even find some incredible spots. 

Like this one. There was this depression in the rock that had collected the rain water from a few days earlier and it just looked so cool. What a great find. 

Book Review: A New Orleans Threesome by Louisa Bacio

 

Book Description

Haunted by paranormal abilities she can't control and plagued by nightmares about a demon that seeks her soul, Lily Anima travels to New Orleans in search of salvation. She enlists the help of an unlikely couple: a vampire, Lawrence Justice, and a werewolf, Trevor Pack. The attraction is immediate and fierce.

There's only one problem.

Lily's a virgin. And whatever paranormal problem she's having is what has kept her that way. Every time she's tried to do the deed, something stops her.

Together, the trio encounters magic and unspeakable evil, and Trevor and Lawrence attempt to help Lily turn her powers into a gift rather than a curse. Ultimately, to get the demon off her back, Lily's men will have to show her all the wicked ways the three of them can come together.

Warning: Read at your own risk. This book is filled to the brim with steamy m/m sex, a virgin who wants in on the action, and a c*ckblocking demon.

My Review

Lily has some paranormal powers that she can't control so she seeks out Lawrence to help her try and get control. Lawrence and Trevor are lovers and live together so Lily meets Trevor first and he brings her home to meet Lawrence. Trevor is a wolf shifter and Lawrence is a vampire. They believe that Lily is a witch but there's something else going on as well because she's a virgin but not for lack of trying. Lily can't get her body to cooperate when she wants to do the deed though. 

Lily has been having horrible nightmares but doesn't think they mean much until the demon from her nightmares comes to kidnap her. There's more going on in her life than she's letting on and if she wants the help of Trevor and Lawrence, she's going to have to trust them and tell them everything. 

The pull between the three of them is intense and Trevor wants to add Lily as a third person to their relationship but until she can fully give her body to them, there's going to be a lot of sexual tension there which makes things a little more complicated. 

This is my first book from this author but I really enjoyed this story and am now looking forward to reading more. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Book Review: Munro by Kresley Cole

 

Book Description

TORMENTED IN UNIMAGINABLE WAYS

Coming off torture at the hands of his warlock captors, Munro MacRieve never expected to find his mate, or to lose her just as abruptly. Driven to desperation, the ruthless warrior uses his enemies’ own powers to reunite with her—in the distant past.

STOLEN FROM HER TIME

When a crazed werewolf crashes her wedding, Kereny “Ren” Codrina does what any cunning huntress would do: she captures him. Yet she finds herself softening toward the wounded beast—until he turns the tables and forces her into an incomprehensible future.

CAN A HUMAN AND AN IMMORTAL UNITE IN ORDER TO SURVIVE?

As danger mounts, Munro will do anything to make her undying, even sell his soul to an evil sorceress. But first he must convince his fiery mate that she belongs with him. If seduction means her survival, Munro will use every weapon in his arsenal to possess her—forever.

My Review

Munro is captured but he's an old, powerful werewolf (Lykae) so he thinks he can withstand any torture they throw at him until they time travel and find his destined mate and threaten to kill her if he doesn't give in to their demands. But he does what they want him to, he opens himself up to being made a puppet for them. When he does what they demand and his mate dies anyway, he's ready to give up. But instead he makes a plan to overcome what they've done to him, get his revenge and time travel to before they kidnapped his mate and save her. 

When Munro is able to escape, kill some of the people responsible and save his destined mate, he thinks he's made it through the hardest part. But he finds out that his mate, Ren, is a hunter that kills Lykae and Munro just happens to be a Lykae or werewolf. So Ren isn't thrilled to find out that she's his mate at all. But as the story unfolds and she realizes that he really was trying to save her life by kidnapping her and keeping her safe, she realizes also that not all Lykae are bad. 

I really liked the time travel part of this story and how her life in the past where she came from went on because the her that came to the future was a copy of herself so she got to find out what happened to her in the past. While the time travel storyline was interesting and I could totally understand it, it also made my head hurt at the same time because that could also be confusing. 

These two had a lot of drama to work through and Munro was kinda set in his ways and way of thinking. I'm glad that she was able to set him straight and let him know that he wasn't seeing things from her perspective at all and he understood and knew he needed to change for her. 

I love this series and am glad that it's still going strong. I always look forward to these books.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures this week courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #358

 

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 go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 25 years that we'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 25 years here in a weekly blog post. 

The pipe right here is the sewage overflow. When the plumbing pipes in a building start to backup and get clogged, the sewage starts coming out of these pipes around the buildings. I called in a work order to let them know it was happening again, because this happens several times a year. They came out the next day and snaked the pipe. Then they came out again the day after that because it was still overflowing. Then again the day after that, they came out again. Three days of raw sewage has been leaking from this pipe and this pipe sits right underneath my bedroom window. 

Looking down at it from my bedroom window. It did finally get fixed but they just left the mess there to dry up and blow away per usual. 

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Right on the walkway, near where the drug addicts hang out in my apartment complex were 2 needles, one had something in it. At least both were capped. I used a piece of trash to pick them up and throw them in the trash can. 

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Thursday morning my daughter heard a bunch of yelling outside the bedroom window. So we went and looked and there was a huge fight going on in the courtyard right across the street. They were on the ground actually throwing punches at each other. When they got up, a woman had a broom and hit the tall guy with it. Then another man had a metal stick and hit the tall guy with that. The police showed up really fast and the tall guy walked right by the police officer as he was going to the apartment. 

I took this picture from my bedroom window as you can see I can see the courtyard from my window. The police officer was standing over there talking to some of the people that were involved. When my daughter and I saw the fighting there were at least 7 people involved but they all scattered before the cops got there. 

Then another police officer showed up. One cop went around the building where the people were pointing and I'm guessing telling the cops where the tall guy went. The woman who hit him with the broom handle had been yelling at him to give her back her stuff. Who knows what he took but she wanted it back bad enough to hit him for it. 

One cop left soon after and the other officer got paperwork out of his trunk for them to fill out but no one was arrested. Which I'm completely surprised about since two people assaulted tall guy with sticks. The police left a little while later. 

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The high this week was 68F/20C

The low this week was 46F/7C

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

Favorite Song of the Week

 

No Resolve - What You Deserve

I found this song not too long ago but I really like the song. The music video is pretty sad though. 

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. So 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 $5 Amazon gift card from a blog contest on The Versatileer blog. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Smolder by Laurell K Hamilton

 

Book Description

Vampire hunter Anita Blake is no stranger to killing monsters. It’s part of her job as a Preternatural U.S. Marshal, after all. But even her experience isn’t enough to stop something that is bent on destroying everything—and everyone—she loves.

 

Anita Blake is engaged to Jean-Claude, the new vampire king of America. Humans think she’s gone over to the side of the monsters. The vampires fear that their new king has fallen under the spell of the most powerful necromancer in a thousand years.

 

In the midst of wedding preparations—including getting Edward, aka U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester, fitted as best man—Anita gets a call that the local police need her expertise at a brutal murder scene linked to a nationwide slaughter of vampires and humans, dubbed the Sunshine Murders.

 

But there is more than just a murderer to catch: an ancient evil has arrived in St. Louis to challenge Jean-Claude for his crown, his life, Anita, and all they hold dear. Even with Jean-Claude’s new powers as king and Anita’s necromancy, it isn’t enough; they must embrace their triumvirate or allow primeval darkness to spread across the country, possessing first the vampires and then the humans. Evil will triumph unless Jean-Claude and Anita can prove that love conquers all.

My Review

Anita and Jean-Claude are finally getting married...or are they?

Anita is making preparations to marry the new vampire King of America when a new, very old vampire comes to claim Jean-Claude's place as King. They find that this new nemesis is very powerful and have trouble fighting him when he first makes an appearance. It's only Richard's appearance back in their lives that seems to help strengthen their hold so they can best him. 

So not only does Anita need to worry about wedding plans, her family who hates vampires wanting to come to the ceremony, but now a new vampire threat, Richard coming back and Asher coming back with a new problem named Kane, as well. It was nice to see Richard and Asher back though. 

When Anita is called to a murder scene things start to go wrong because the government is working on a way to control vampires but it totally works the opposite way from what they wanted. Anita is mad, and rightly so. 

I was waiting for a storyline that I'm used to with lots of action and ended up with lots of therapy talk and talking about problems. I can kind of understand that since Asher and Richard are back and they needed to show Anita, Jean-Claude and the rest of the poly group that they have or are trying to work through their problems in order to come back to the group for good. But this felt more like a book that is setting up the next book so there aren't these emotional messes to deal with. I just hope the next book is high on action and has less talking about the emotional problems they have. 

Although they figured out who the big bad was in this book, they didn't take him down. They did figure out a way to fight him and are planning to do just that but it didn't happen in this book. This was more a setup for that to happen in the next book. This book dealt more with the jealousy, emotional baggage, and problems they have being a poly group with so many people in Anita's life. Some of the issues are being resolved but not all and Asher's big problem, Kane is still a big problem that he can't control. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with that. 

I will say that there are a lot of characters in this series and a lot of them are in this book so I would say not to start with this book if you want it to make sense. I would definitely start this series with the first book and work your way through since there seem to be new characters popping up each new book and old characters coming back from previous books. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

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