Book Review: Claimed By Chaos by Jesi Donovan

 

Book Description

They were sent to kill her. Claim her. Use her. None of them expected to want her.

Tierney has always felt wrong. Like something dark and dangerous hides beneath her skin. When that darkness finally erupts, she discovers the truth: she's the last survivor of a bloodline destroyed centuries ago.

Now she's been thrown into a deadly competition with no training, no allies, and four lethal men circling her like wolves.

An assassin. A prince. A beast. A schemer.

They should be her enemies. But in a world where everyone wants her dead, these monsters might be the only ones willing to keep her alive.

The question is: what will they demand in return?

A Court of Monsters is a scorching paranormal why choose romance with a fierce heroine, four morally grey men, deadly trials, and a cliffhanger.

My Review

I knew going into this book that it would end in a cliffhanger but as long as I know that beforehand, I will give a book a chance and see if it grabs me. And boy, did this grab me. This is book 1 in the A Court Of Monsters Trilogy.

Right off the bat, Tierney has been running all her life. Her mother disappeared years ago and told her that she needed to keep moving and keep herself hidden as much as possible. She's working at a bar when she spots a man in a booth that is strange and gives her the creeps. She's cornered soon after by 3 assassins who almost kill her but instead, a power she had no idea she had comes to the surface and she kills, then absorbs the 3 monsters powers. Now she knows more monsters will be coming after her, she can feel them coming but now she knows that she can protect herself, even if she's not sure how she did it the first time. She's done hiding, let them come. 

Claimed by Chaos has different courts that are vying for power. The Shadow Court, Ice Court, Beast Court, Shadow Court and the Chaos Court. The crucible is about to begin and anyone can compete in it so the courts have sent assassins to kill her and stop her from getting to The Crucible in time to compete. If she can make it to the Crucible and get through it then somebody in one of the courts can claim her and use her as a weapon. 

All the other courts got together 400 years ago and thought that they eliminated the Chaos Court by killing all of them because they were entirely too powerful. Tierney might be the most powerful Chaos person they've ever encountered. 

The Citadel has also sent an assassin to kill her but he's feeling things that he shouldn't be ever since her saw a picture of her. He has seen her face in his dreams and doesn't know what that means. And then Rhydian whose brother killed their father and took over their court has been running from his brother for several years now waiting until he can prove that he had nothing to do with his father's death so he can take back his rightful place. He plans on going to find her and help her get through The Crucible but he has no plans on claiming her against her will and is hoping that if he protects her during The Crucible she will willingly help him.

The assassins that are sent to kill her, end up having feelings for her. Now they have to fight together to save her and keep her safe. There are a lot of players in this book and a lot going on. It was kind of hard to keep track of everyone, but the story is really good so I plan on reading the other two books at some point. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Book Review: Twisted Road by Christine Feehan

 

Book Description

There’s no escaping the pull of desire in this novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan’s Torpedo Ink motorcycle club series.

When Czar shut down Lazar “Keys” Alexeev’s undercover mission, that should have been the end of the story. Instead, Keys is back in the middle of a nowhere town where a petite redhead with a pouty mouth and a ready smile drives him to distraction. He’s not sure why he’s breaking all of Torpedo Ink’s rules to spend more time around a woman who’s not even his type. He can’t get her out of his head—and now he’s facing the consequences.

Lyric Johansen doesn’t like to look anyone in the eyes, but Keys’s gaze is the one thing keeping her from a full-on panic attack. Her instinct to charge into the fray and help the biker fend off a group of vicious thugs has led to the most insane situation she’s ever been in: trapped in a coffin with a man she barely knows, minutes away from a painful death.  

Survival means staying focused. But when Keys kisses Lyric to snap her out of losing it, he’s the one who ends up falling apart. He’ll need to unleash hell to get them out alive.

If only to get another taste….

My Review

Keys and Lyric wake up in a pine box after getting knocked out by some bad guys. Keys has been undercover in Lyrics small town for a few months and they have gotten to know one another a bit. But waking up in a box on their way to be slaughtered is not a good day. 

Keys knows he can get them out alive but first he has to calm her down from having a panic attack which isn't easy since he's just found out she's claustrophobic. He gets through to her, tells her to act unconscious and he'll do the rest. It almost works but she's not known for her ability to take orders and sit idlily by when she thinks she could help.

Now the bad guys are dead, another bad guy is waiting for confirmation of their death, they're both hurt and Keys has no way to get ahold of his motorcycle club members to help them. But his club, Torpedo Ink does come for them when he can get word to them. Afterwards when the wounds are healed and Key and Lyric have time to themselves, they come to realize that they don't want to go back to being alone and want to make a life together but Lyric doesn't know if she'll be enough for him, to stay with her in the long run. It was fun watching these two learn how they fit together, even if Keys was way too bossy for my taste. 

Keys makes it a point to show Lyric and tell her that he doesn't want to live without her. The first meeting with some of the other members of Torpedo Ink, doesn't go as well as Keys was hoping because the guys don't think Lyric is the kind of woman that Keys would end up with if he ever claimed one woman. There's some misunderstandings and then when Lyric meets Czar, their leader he can see that both Keys and Lyric are meant to be together. All of the members of Torpedo Ink have special supernatural type gifts. Steele is a doctor and can surgically repair injuries psychically. Someone else in the group is a human lie detector and Czar knows instantly if two people are meant for each other. They all have their own gifts in that way. 

But the guys are all like family because they all went through something truly horrible as children. It made them killers, killers who go after human traffickers and pedophiles. Czar thinks that there's a human trafficking ring operating from the town that Lyric was living in when she met Keys. So, Czar and some of the others question her about what she saw and heard while she lived there. While she's not comfortable, she does her best to answer them. They know they have to go after the human traffickers and save whatever women and children they might have kidnapped. 

While I liked the storyline quite a bit and loved being able to see what some of the other characters have been up to, Keys is over the top bossy and pushy in what he wants to do with Lyric. She goes along with him because she wants to please him which sat wrong with me on more than one occasion. I didn't love his characters the way I loved some of the others, but it was a nice addition to the series.

Twisted Road is the 10th book in the Torpedo Ink series by Christine Feehan. I've read all the books and they are best read in order to understand what the members have gone through since they were children. There's a lot of talk of murder, revenge and sex in these books. But these are not bad people, they spend their lives saving people when they can. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

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

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"Time to get my candy fix"

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

Apartment Life #427

 

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.

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This week I bought a few things from Amazon. It was supposed to be delivered on the 30th but it got delivered on the 29th and 9:30PM...to the wrong apartment. 

So when I saw it, I went over to that apartment and knocked on the door and asked for my package. She told me that there was no package there, that she never got my package. I told her that I had the picture the driver took and she said, Yeah, they always have a picture but that my damn package wasn't there. 

So I left. But another of my packages last month had been left at her door and once again she said she never got it. I know she's lying but whatever. 

I called Amazon and they sent a replacement for all the stuff I ordered. But I made a complaint and said that we now have building numbers and apartment numbers right next to our doors so there shouldn't be any misdelivered deliveries. She said she would add that to my account. We will see. 

But now I know to watch out for the woman thief who is keeping my packages when they are mis-delivered to her door. 

I see a bunch of the homeless people going to her door and hanging out there, so there's that. The whole thing just really made me mad. 

The high this week was 105F/40C

The low this week was 72F/22C

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

Saturday Vittles

 

We're trying to eat healthy again and trying new recipes. This was really good. 

Cucumber Shrimp Appetizers

You will need: 

1 Large Avocado

20 Large Shrimp

1 Large Cucumber

1 TBSP Mayonnaise

salt to taste

1 TBSP Lemon Juice

No Calorie Cooking Spray

What To Do: 

Spray a large pan with cooking spray. Sauté shrimp until done. Set aside in the refrigerator to cool. 

Mash the avocado with the mayo, lemon juice and salt. Peel the cucumber and slice into 1/2-inch pieces or smaller if you like. 

Place a little of the guacamole on each cucumber and top with a cold shrimp. Serve right away. 

Each one is about 25 calories. 

Would you eat this?

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 got an email telling me I would be getting a sample of Honey Roasted Peanut M&M's. I'll let you know when I get it. 

I also received a Bloomindale's Little Freebies Box with samples of Chloe Sable and Lavender perfume, Infinity Coty Vanilla and Amber perfume, and Jil Sander Leaf perfume. 

My favorite perfume this week was the Leaf by Jil Sander. That smells really good.

Did you receive any freebies or free samples this week?  

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.

Dealing With A Bully

For my first two years of high school I lived in Hawthorne, California. The High School I went to was Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California. 

Freshman year things were mostly fine and I got good grades and had no problems with anyone. Near the middle of the school year one girl had a problem with me for talking to her boyfriend. But I had my own boyfriend and wasn't interested in hers. She kept picking on me, pushed me into the lockers in the locker room of P.E, Class, tried tripping me on the way to class. Called me names ect. I got really sick of it, so I took another class the second semester of the year that we could take instead of P.E. so I wouldn't have to be in the locker room with her. I ended up taking ROTC. Ohh that was a lot harder than I thought it would be, we ran the mile 3 times a week.

The next year, Sophomore year of high school she kept picking on me. So I took girls wrestling instead of P.E. that first semester and got really good at it. The second semester I took weight lifting. By this time I was still running a lot after school, and I was in good shape. The weight lifting made me stronger after a few weeks of doing it and when she came at me during lunch one day, I just had enough of her. 

She pushed me and I punched her in the face. She grabbed my head and punched me, then she grabbed a hold of the second piercing in each of my ears and pulled. She ripped the earrings right out of my ears and I saw red. I punched her a few times in the face and I ended up breaking her nose. 

Campus security got to us, stopped the fight and took us both to the office. We both got suspended for 2 weeks and we both went to the ER. I had to have both of my ears sewn back together, you can still see the scars on my ears from that fight. 

When we were allowed back to school, she never bothered me again. No one bothered me. I only spent a little of the next year at that school because I got put in foster care for a few months when my mom went to prison for 6 months for drugs and then changed schools when I lived with my dad later. 

Book Review: The Cajun Werewolf's Captive (Stormy Weather, Book One) by Selena Blake

 

Book Description

Billionaire werewolf Sebastian Deveraux needs a mate. According to his brothers, he's spent too much time in the spotlight. That's code for not putting the Pack first. They're right, but evenings with a starlet are easier than admitting the truth to himself.

He found his mate. And she'd run from him.

Amanda St. James is back in Louisiana for her father's funeral and not a moment longer. The place is steeped in memories, daydreams, and dangerous desires. It doesn't matter how smoking hot Sebastian is, she refuses to end up like her mother.

Sebastian let his pride get in the way before. He's not going to make the same mistakes again. This time, he'll do whatever it takes to keep her.

My Review

Sebastian Deveraux is a wolf shifter. Years ago he met Amanda and had fallen hard for her, she was his mate and he let her get away. He's thought about her as the years have passed him by, but he'd never gone after her. She's human and she had no idea that he was a shifter and he was scared that if she knew, she would reject him, so he left things the way they were. 

Now his brothers, who had also liked Amanda, have been after him to take a mate. But the only woman he wants is Amanda. He's thinking about going after her when she unexpectedly shows up at his house. She's in town for her father's funeral and stops by to thank him for the flowers. Only thing is, he didn't send the flowers. I'm sure his brothers were behind that. So, because they came together again things are tense between them. She knows more than he thinks she does and confronts him about a huge secret he's keeping. She knows or at least thinks she knows about him being a shifter. 

If they're going to have a chance at happiness, he's going to have to come clean about everything. But she has secrets of her own. She was afraid she was going to end up like her mother, pining away for a man who could never love her and when Sebastian finds out that's the real reason she ran, he feels so bad and knows he has to tell her and show her how much he actually cares, even if that means telling her the truth about him and risking her rejecting him. 

These two needed each other, they've both had bad things happen, but they knew deep down that they were meant for each other which is why they had never had any other real relationships. I was happy with the ending and how they finally got their happy ending. They deserved it. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

This picture is courtesy of Anisah Hanna. She makes hilarious videos of her rats. Look at those slippers. 

Picture courtesy of Anisah Hanna. He's reading a book. 

*The last 3 pictures are courtesy of martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #426

 

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.

Instead of Uber, I've been seeing this new car service called, Vay. You download the app, order a car and it comes to you driverless and then you can drive it yourself wherever you need to go.

I looked at their website and the price is above. Kinda crazy.

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I heard the police helicopter up and got a picture of it.

Then looked outside and there were 2 cop cars parked in front of my building. They went into the building next to mine but I have no idea for what. 

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I noticed that someone (probably a homeless person) set fire to a box spring part of a bed. Good thing it didn't catch anything else on fire.

The fire stayed right here thankfully. This was close to my building though and I'm getting pretty tired of them setting fire to things around my apartment complex. 

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The high this week was 110F/43C

The low this week was 75F/23C

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