Halloween Decorating

My daughter and I love Halloween but she likes it even more than I do. So much so that she couldn't wait for October to start decorating. This is our living room window during the day.

This is what it looks like at night with the lights turned on. 

This is the shelves and cabinet. There's a little Halloween tree in the middle there.

One of the corners in the living room. 

Another corner of the living room. 

I made that pumpkin tree a few years ago. I bought all the supplies at Michael's and glued it all together. I think it's cute.

The wall above the couch.The spiders hanging down from the ceiling are attached to a plastic web that goes from one end to the other of my living room. 

This is the wall that leads to the hallway, bathroom and bedroom. 

The monster over the bathroom door, 

Some of the statues light up. This is what it looks like at night.

My grandson painted a pumpkin that we put on the cabinet. 

My daughter added lights to the Halloween tree on the cabinet. 

Do you decorate for Halloween?

Book Review: A Prime's Passion by Shiloh Walker

 

Book Description

Eyes down, little wolf. 

In her world, the strong were broken young or they didn’t survive. Eyes down, little wolf, Zee’s father would say. You aren’t strong enough yet.

Zennia Day kept her eyes down and stayed quiet, knowing that one day, she’d escape.

When her chance comes, she finds herself on a road that takes her far from Massachusetts, all the way to North Carolina.

She has her eyes on the future…until she meets Niko, a dominant Therian male and future Prime. When she looks at him, instead of a challenge for dominance, Zee sees a promise of forever.

Niko charmed her, teased her…and stole her heart. Mere days later, after making a public, permanent claim, he crushed that same heart in his fist, tossing her aside in front of the entire world and casting her out of pack lands.

Ten years later, she's an outcast, living  far from her own when she gets word her father is dying.

She can do nothing—she was banned. Violating Niko’s order was to court punishment, even if it was just to tell her father good-bye.

“Day is dying.”

The blunt words almost had him on his knees until Niko realized his second-in-command wasn’t talking about Zee, but her father.

No Therian is ever left to die alone, so Niko sent orders the Day family to come home.

Niko is unprepared for Zee’s message. I have no pack. I have no home.

The words leave him shattered.

Realizing what he’d done in his rage, Niko pushes harder for answers. It doesn’t take long to discover that what he’d heard a decade earlier had been based on lies. Because of those lies, he’d thrown away the love of his life.

Zee’s been paying the price ever since.

Now he must mend a heart he’d broken...and convince her to give him one more chance.

My Review

Zee left her pack after the Prime's son rejected her. But she's made a life for herself with the Mer people and is content with her life. 

Niko did a bad thing when he rejected the love of his life and she left the pack. Now he's looking for answers to questions and realizing that he made a horrible mistake years earlier. 

In the world this author has created, humans and preternaturals or preterns all live together in a sort of peace, although not everyone is happy about it. There had been a war between the preterns and humans and now there was a kind of peace between them. Niko goes to get Zee because her father was dying but what he finds is a broken shell of what she once was because of having no contact with her pack. He realizes that he acted rashly because of a misunderstanding but it's going to take more than sorry for her to trust him again. 

For ten years Niko had thought that Zee was with her old pack and was fine but turns out she's not had that at all and was far from alright. Without the pack to give her the physical touches a wolf shifter needed, she's actually in physical pain from lack of physical touch. Niko thought she had moved on maybe with another wolf but because of a misunderstanding, no other wolf would touch her because she was off limits. So when Niko shows up where she's made a life for herself with the Mer people, he's not met with open arms. Right away her friends have her back and let her know they will throw him off their land if she wishes it. But Zee doesn't want to cause problems between Niko who is Prime now and her friends or their people so after a bit of talking with him, she goes back to his pack for the funeral and wake for her father. 

Because Zee is so touch starved and Niko has made it obvious he still wants her to be his mate, they end up together. Her excuse is so that she isn't so on edge and in pain when she's around his pack but they both wanted to be together. While they're trying to deal with the past, trust issues and them being mates...there's also a group of humans trying to kill them off. When one of the pack gets shot, Zee finds a way to tap into her other half and get help. Zee isn't just a wolf shifter, she's something more and it was great to watcher her start to figure out what that meant. There's a lot more to Zee than even she thought. 

I liked how they found out who was behind the attempts on their lives and what the group had planned. 

Watching the pack not know what to do with her now that she's back but when Zee finally shows how strong she is, some of the pack respect her show of strength. Niko and Zee were really great, it's just sad that it took so long for them to get back together but I do love a second chance romance and this was such a good one. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Disclosure: I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Review: Mile High With A Vampire by Lynsay Sands

 

Book Description

In the latest Argeneau novel from New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands, an immortal and her mortal pilot are on the run from hungry vampires...and discover they’re life mates along the way. 

Jet Lassiter likes being a pilot for Argeneau Inc. Perks included travelling to exotic locations and meeting interesting people, even if they are the blood-sucking kind. He’s living the good life, until his plane goes down in the mountains and four of his passengers are gravely injured. They need blood to heal... and Jet is the only source.

Quinn Peters never wanted to be immortal. Once a renowned heart surgeon, she was turned against her will and now she has to drink blood to survive. Before she can ask how her “life” can get any worse, she’s in a plane crash. One of the few survivors, Quinn is desperate to get the mortal pilot to safety before her fellow immortals succumb to their blood lust and drain Jet dry.

But hungry vampires are the least of their worries—the crash wasn’t an accident, and someone is trying to kill Quinn. Will she and Jet find their happily ever after as life mates, or will her assassin find her first? 

My Review

Jet and his friend pilot the plane but when a crash happens and Jet's friend dies in the crash while he was unconscious, he can only thank the guy for getting most of the plane down in one piece. 

Quinn and other immortals (think vampires but they don't like being called that) are on the plane when it crashes. Jet is a mortal and some of the immortals are hurt really bad, they are in desperate need of blood so that their nanos can repair their bodies. So Jet is in real danger from them because at this point they are little more than mindless killers. Getting the mortal to safety while the immortals are trying to get at him for his blood is really tricky but Quinn is there to help him make it to safety.

Once they finally get to safety, it's time to figure out what happened to cause the plane to go down. At first everyone thinks it's just an accident but little by little they piece together an entirely different situation. While they are investigating who might want to kill someone who was on the plane, a huge secret is uncovered and now one of them is in serious danger. Quinn and her sister had something terrible happen to them when they were kids but Quinn has packed those memories away and has a kind of amnesia about the whole thing. Once the veil is lifted from her mind and the bits and pieces come flooding back, her whole life started to make more sense to her. 

All the while the investigation into the plane crash is going on, Quinn is trying to piece together her memories and some super secret, ancient group is out to get revenge...Quinn and Jet are trying to make sense of the feelings they have for each other. 

This book was a continuous line of danger, action and romance, time and time again. The danger was real and had me on the seat of my chair as I didn't know how or if they were going to find a way to safety each time something bad happened. But the romance was sweet and hot! This book was hard to put down, so I didn't and devoured it in one sitting. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

The Ice Cream Jail Blues from last week continues this week. 

"We were able to make a phone call from jail to call mom to help us out."

"But she just brought us soap on a rope and told us we had to see the judge about stealing her ice cream."

"Locked behind bars, waiting for our court date."

"The judge let us off the hook since it was our first offense. Next time we'll just ask mom real nice for the ice cream"

"The judge said our records got sponged" 

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

Apartment Life #271

 

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 24 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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

My daughter was outside and she spotted a car crash. Here's the video she took of it. 

The police showed up and were making sure everyone was ok.

But it sure looks like the cars are totaled.

There were two cars, this red one and the black one in the video. Looked like both people were fine though.

---

If you follow me on FB or Twitter (@scarymary66) you might have seen me mention the new lady and her kids that just moved in. She had 2 small kids older is maybe 7 while the younger is probably 4. Well, she's made quite the impression on everyone around here. Her youngest has been seen outside several times in nothing but his underwear. The kids run around unsupervised all the time. The youngest almost got hit by a car last week when he ran into the street and a car had to slam the brakes to stop from hitting him. No supervision at all. And the kids are loud, screaming while running around. Open door and window season is just around the corner so this should be fun. Maybe the kids won't be outside so much when it gets cold. People tend to stay inside when it's cold around here. 

Last week I noticed that she had two large packages delivered and left outside her door while she wasn't home. Most people around here know better and she found out why. Later that day I noticed the packages were gone while I was walking the dog. I walked around the corner and saw the boxes hidden by one of the bushes. They had been opened and the empty boxes left by the bushes. The lady got home a little while later. So I'm guessing that one of the local homeless or druggies saw the boxes and took the and stole whatever was inside. I wasn't about to take her boxes and save them for her. People get accused to stealing for doing things like that. Plus it's a lesson about the kind of neighborhood she just moved into. Most people ask a neighbor to keep a lookout for packages and bring them inside if they aren't going to be home because of just this kind of thing.

The high this week was 100F/37C

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

Review: Walmart Beauty Box- September

 

The Walmart Beauty box is a subscription box that comes out 4 times a year. You sign up for it and it comes automatically every 3 months. They did increase the price of the box a little bit. So instead of $5 it's just a couple of dollars more. These boxes are free and you just pay for tax for shipping, mine came to $7.48.

What was in the box?

Real Techniques Miracle Airblend Sponge

Alaffia Authentic Black Soap All In One

Burt's Bees Squeezy Tinted Lip Balm

WoodWick Mini Hourglass Candle

Hello Extra Freshening Mouthwash

Bliss Clear Genuine Clarifying Cleanser

Cleen Beauty Lavender Chamomile Night Cream

This months box was so much better than the other boxes I have received. 

The WoodWick candle by itself would be $16.00 if you bought it alone. I love these candles and this one smells so good. 

The tinted lip balm is a nice color that I can wear. The mouthwash is one I've used before and has a good taste to it. Nice minty and fresh tasting. 

The cleanser and night cream are really nice. I like that the night cream isn't oily at all and seems to disappear into my skin leaving nice and moisturized. 

The Black soap is just ok in my opinion. It does clean my face well but it's very drying. 

I love trying out new makeup sponges and this one works great. I like the shape of it and it doesn't soak up a lot of extra foundation as I'm using it. It works well and is a good size for the job.

I think for the price, this month's box was really good. I love being able to try new to me products and this is a great way to do that.  

Did you get this box?

One problem I wish they would work on is their website. I haven't been able to log into my account in months which means I cannot cancel unless I email them and even then I'm not sure I could. I have emailed them about not being able to log into their website and they just send me back the same BS "The problem is now fixed" email each and every time. No, the problem is not fixed. 

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:

2 Samples of Hit Balm. 

Loreal Toning Gloss for Hair. 

Beautiful Magnolia perfume. 

Dove spray deodorant. 

2 perfume card samples. 

5 piece Pioneer Woman mixing bowls with lids.

Hit Balm is a pain relieving cream. I have Osteoarthritis in my knees and hips so I didn't mind trying this. It did help my knee one night but it did nothing for my hips at all. 

I've received the Beautiful Magnolia perfume before and loved it so when I saw a free sample available again I got it. 

I like the Dove spray deodorant. I can always use that. 

I used the Toning Gloss, it's meant for people who color their hair and I don't but it's a nice conditioner. 

The 2 perfume cards had just enough scent on them for one application each and they did smell nice. 

I am loving the mixing bowls. They all fit together so it's easy to store. They are heavy so they don't move if I use an electric mixer which is nice. The lids have a really pretty flower pattern on them too. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Gray Card by Cassandra Chandler

 

Book Description

Is he after her heart or her planet?

Evelyn Chambers is a nerdgirl and proud of it. When she finds out that her drop-dead gorgeous best friend is an alien general with only three days left on Earth, she has to wrap her head around too much at once. Aliens are real, and if she wants to keep hanging out with one, she'll have to marry him!

Adam Smith has never seen a planet as beautiful as Earth or a woman as enticing as Evelyn. His government wants him to re-enlist, but when Evelyn suggests marriage to help him stay, Adam realizes that what he really wants is her—and he'll sacrifice everything to be with her.

Can he convince his government—and Evelyn—that he's looking for more than a Gray card?

My Review

Evelyn and Adam are best friends but they both really like each other. So when Evelyn realizes that Adam is sad about something she asks what and when he tells her that he has to go back home in three days, she's shocked. But the bigger shock is she proposes to him not realizing he's an alien. But Adam loves her and she loves him and doesn't want him to leave. Evelyn has a lot of come to terms with in a short amount of time. When Adam tells the liaison that he doesn't plan on going back to their planet with him, he tries to break Adam and Evelyn up by telling her exactly who Adam is. 

When she confronts Adam about it, it's not the way he wanted her to find out but she takes it pretty well. But the liaison doesn't stop there, making things worst for them. But Adam isn't going to give up and enlists the help of others to put a stop to whatever nefarious things the liaison seems to be doing. 

All in all this was a fun, quick read. I really liked Adam and Evelyn and hope that more aliens show up on Earth. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Book Review: Wildfire Hellhound (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew Book 5) by Zoe Chant

 

Book Description

He knows he's always been a wolf.

He's wrong.

His past is gone, dead and buried.

It isn't.

And nothing, nothing, is more important than pack.

Until he meets her.

This is Fenrir's story.

My Review

Fenrir is a hellhound shifter but he's been stuck in his animal form for a long time. His Hotshot firefighter team doesn't know his entire story because he doesn't remember it all. There's something between he and Lupa and when he comes face to face with her, he lets her escape and then he runs off and his team can't find him. 

Darcy is a private investigator and while out on an assignment she finds a naked, unconscious man. She brings him back to her place and warms him up but he speaks very strangely and then a strange woman knocks on her door asking about him. He asks Darcy to call his firefighter team right before he passes out and by the time they get there, he's turned back into his animal. 

It takes Darcy a few minutes to realize that the very large wolf and the man are the same person after his team gets to her house. It's not until Fenrir shifts into his hellhound form that Darcy accepts what she's being told. The fact that Fenrir knows Darcy is his mate just makes things more interesting. 

Fenrir and the rest of the team try to track down Lupa and her gang and find her but she gets away. Fenrir wants to serum that Lupa uses to make him human again but they can't figure out how to make it for him and he can't figure out how to shift from his animal back to human on his own. And because of this he can't mate with Darcy which really depresses him. 

Darcy and his team try to figure out his connection to Lupa, why he was stuck in his animal form for so long and why he can't remember what happened to him when he was still human. It was a great story full of twists and family secrets. The romance between Darcy and Fenrir was heartbreaking because they knew they had an uphill climb to be together but it was still really great to watch it happen. 

I liked finding out more about the evil that's been tracking them and trying to attack them and why. We find out a lot in this story so this series is best read in order since the overarching storyline would be confusing otherwise. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Wildfire Pegasus (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew Book 4) by Zoe Chant

 

Book Description

The baby isn’t the biggest secret…

Diana never even knew his name. One impulsive, out-of-character night with a smoking hot firefighter, and now she’s a struggling single mom. She may have had to give up her dreams, but she’s determined to give her precious baby Beth everything...including a chance to know her biological father.

When a twist of fate lets Diana track the firefighter down at last, she’s braced for him to run screaming—not sweep her into his arms and hold her like he’ll never let go. Yet she can’t escape a nagging feeling that it’s all too good to be true. Is it just her anxiety disorder…or something more?

1. Rescue mate

2. Claim mate

3. Catch newfound daughter (who turns into an adorable, alarmingly fast pegasus) yet again

…were not on Callum’s to-do list for the day. Now he’s flying blind without a plan, and only one thing is certain. Diana and Beth are his, and he’ll do anything to keep them.

Even if that means hiding the truth.

It’s not just that he’s a pegasus shifter (though that’s hard enough to explain). How could Diana trust him to be a good father if she knew about the crippling curse of his special power? Or the hidden pain in his past? And as if his personal demons weren’t enough, there’s the literal demons stalking his fire crew...if Diana knew any of it, she’d bolt even faster than little Beth.

Especially if she discovered the biggest secret of all…

He might not be Beth’s father.

My Review

Diana had a one night stand with a man she didn't know and had no way to get a hold of once she found out she was pregnant until she spots him giving an interview on tv. After finding out where he is, she drives to him to let him know about their baby. 

Callum is a pegasus shifter and Hotshot firefighter. He's also an identical triplet so when Diana finds him and tells him they have a baby together, he's not sure he's the father but he knows Diana is his mate.

Because of a set of crazy circumstances, Callum doesn't remember a night he might have spent with Diana but that doesn't stop him from claiming the baby as his own and claiming Diana as his mate even though one of his brothers could be the father. Hearing about how she met Callum and maybe his brothers was actually really funny.

The evil from the last few books in this series is still after the Hotshot crew and they are still trying to communicate with the thunderbird. But we do get a little more information about the thunderbird so I'm looking forward to seeing where that leads. 

Callum and his two other brothers haven't always gotten along but there's been a lot of miscommunication along the way so when they all come together to figure out who the father is, it's a real mess at first. Once again if they had just talked, things could have been resolved so much easier. Diana takes all the information that gets thrown her way pretty well considering it's quite a bit. But Callum and Diana were so great to watch together. 

The evil is still after the team so we get to see Lupa again who seems to be in charge, kinda and her flying hellhounds. Fenrir, who is one of the Hotshot teammates but who is stuck in his animal form is a hellhound so it was really interesting to see how he reacted to Lupa when he got a good look at her. Fenrir's book is next and it's the one I've been looking forward to the most because he's such an interesting character. 

This book was so much fun and so many secrets came out in this book, so I'm really glad I read it. This series is best read in order because of the overarching storyline.  This series has been so much fun that I've been binge reading the books. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Happy Raturday!

 

"Mom wouldn't gib me any ice cream, so I stole some"

"I would share but it's just big enough for me"

"We decided to steal some of our brothers ice cream. Hope we don't get caught"

"If we do get caught, it was totally worth it"

"Oh no. We got caught. Gonna go to jail for stealing the ice cream"

The Ice Cream Jail Blues will continue next week. 

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

Apartment Life #270

 

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 24 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 24 years here in a weekly blog post. 

---

I saw the police cars patrolling my street again too. They didn't stop but it seems like every time I step outside these days I spot them in the alley, on the street or going down side streets. I think they would see more if they stopped, got out of the cars and came into the courtyards. That's where most of the drug dealing is going on and where most of the druggies are laying around or sitting in front of people's doors waiting for the drug apartment to be open for business in the morning. 

---

One night while my daughter was coming home from work she spotted this ax sitting near a tree outside my apartment complex.

Then she noticed that there was also a knife stuck in the tree right beside it. She decided not to touch either one in case something weird was going on. The next morning they were both gone.

----

There's a new tweaker woman in my neighborhood who has been hanging around down at the drug dealers apartment. And then on Tuesday Tweaker Lady was on the other side of the chain link fence and she stops and looks at me and says, "You're big. You're huge! There will be justice." And just kept on staring at me as I walked home. o.0

She's been spotted walking down the middle of the street waving her hands and yelling at people as well as yelling at no one. I think she might be mentlly ill maybe suffering from schizophrenia. 

Wednesday morning my daughter tells me that Tweaker Lady and friend were sitting in our chairs in front of our apartment making a bunch of noise. My daughter confronted then and asked them to leave and they continued to sit there making noise for a while before they got up and left. I told my daughter to wake me up next time and I will make them leave. They won't ignore me. I'll throw a bucket of water on them, I don't care. Sorry, I'm just trying to clean my chairs and didn't see you sitting there. 

---

Friday morning my daughter heard gunshots close by, maybe in the alley of our apartment complex. No one ever calls the police for that because it happens so often. I didn't hear it because my bedroom AC was on and it's loud and muffles any noise from outside. 

The high this week was 105F/40C

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

Book Review: Wildfire Sea Dragon (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew Book 3) By Zoe Chant

 

Book Description

Wildfires and demons? No sweat.

His bodyguard? She’s the real danger…

Noble. Dutiful. Serious. All words no one would ever use to describe sea dragon shifter Joe, Prince of Atlantis.

Screw destiny. Battling raging infernos with his bros as a wildland firefighter is infinitely preferable to sitting on a throne. Even with weird monsters stalking the crew…and him personally.

Bring it. He doesn’t need a bodyguard. Especially not her.

The woman of his dreams…

She is Seventh Novice. And if she’s ever to become a Knight of Atlantis—the first and only one who isn’t a sea dragon—she has to be perfect. Perfectly honorable. Perfectly dutiful. Perfectly in control of her deadly inner monster.

Which would be a lot easier if she hadn’t been assigned to protect the infamous Prince. A man with the common sense of a stunned herring…and a body that drives her beast into a frenzy of desire.

Now Joe has to thwart fate one last time. Without revealing his secret...

He can see the future.

And if he claims his mate, she’ll die.

My Review

Joe is a sea dragon shifter and he's got a huge secret...he has visions of the future so he knows that he cannot claim his mate because he's seen a vision of her dying if he does. He is a Prince but works with a firefighting group that he thinks of as his family.

Seven saved him from an attack and after a bit of a problem, she is named as his bodyguard but Joe and Seven both know that she's also his mate. 

Seven thinks that the reason Joe doesn't want to claim her as his mate is because of his playboy lifestyle and doesn't want to settle down but he's actually trying to save her life. She and Joe reunite with his Hotshot firefighting crew and they seem to know right away that Seven is his mate but there's a lot they don't know. 

When Seven witnesses Joe have a terrible nightmare, he tells her his big secret and why they can't mate and then they make a plan to keep everyone safe until the danger passes so they can mate later. So their romance is a slow burn even though they lust for each other and want each other but have to wait. 

But it irritated me a little that Joe decided not to tell his friends the truth about his visions. If he wanted to keep them safe, all he had to do was tell them the truth, I know they would have believed him and they could have helped him. So he and Seven work behind the scenes to try and keep his visions from coming true all the while trying to keep their hands off each other. But it was a wonderful romance, the characters are feeling so familiar since this is the 3rd book in the series I've read and the overarching storyline of the evil in the wilderness they've been dealing with is really interesting. Plus it's fun seeing so many different kinds of shifters. 

Because this is a spinoff series from the Fire & Rescue Shifters series, we get to see characters from that series at times and this was one of those times. I really liked that because I adored that series and it was nice to see some of those characters again. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

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 ordered some groceries using Anycart from Albertsons and I received these freebies in the bags with my groceries. 

Orange flavored Luna Bar. 

Starbucks and Tim Hortons coffee samples. 

I also received $17.00 off my Anycart order since it was my 4th order. 

That was a nice surprise. 

I like these orange Luna bars. I've had them before and they do taste like oranges. 

Both coffee samples were good but I'd had the Starbucks one before. 

If you've never used Anycart and wondered about it, it was really easy to use and they delivered my groceries the same day. This post is not sponsored, I just like their service.

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Wildfire Unicorn (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew Book 2) by Zoe Chant

 

Book Review

There's a shirtless firefighter at her door...and he's holding a baby unicorn.

Animal rescue officer Candice thought she’d seen it all. That was before the unicorn.

Or rather, unicorns.

When a smoking hot firefighter turns up at her emergency centre, the baby unicorn in his arms turns out to be the least unusual thing about him. And he wants Candice for more than her fully-equipped rescue trailer…

Unicorn shifter Wystan thought meeting his true mate would solve all his problems. Now he’s got an adorable and unruly mystery on his hands, the mother of all wildfires breathing down his neck, and dark forces closing in on all sides. How’s he supposed to romance this blunt, prickly, astonishing woman in all this? Especially when Candice guards her heart as fiercely as she protects the animals under her care?

But when unicorns are real, dreams can come true…

And so can nightmares.

My Review

Wystan is a unicorn shifter and at the end of the last book, he and his team find a baby unicorn in the bushes as they are fighting a huge fire. Unicorn shifters were supposed to be able to heal but Wystan didn't have that ability and he felt like a failure. So he did the only thing he could do in this circumstance, he brought the tiny unicorn to the nearest veterinarian. 

When we first meet Candice she's trying to help a rat that was left behind by its owner. I love rats so of course I already loved her. Candice is the senior animal control officer and she has tents set up at the camp for the firefighters to bring in the injured animals they found while fighting the fires. 

When Candice sees the baby unicorn for the first time she thinks it's an albino baby deer so there's no big drama around that. But then a powerful force that they've decided to call, nightmare follows them all back to camp and wrecks havoc all around them. There's also a powerful shifter that they've tried once in the first book to make contact with,  but they aren't sure if it understands them. If they are going to get out of this alive, the'll have to try and reason with the shifter and help the evil thing that's stalking them.

Candice and Wystan are very much opposites and each has some baggage but Candice is very standoffish because of what happened to her in the past which makes their love story a slow burn romance which I was fine with. They took their time and got to know one another before going further. 

There's a huge twist that leads to a really big secret and I liked it and thought it was a cool reveal. A lot happens in a short amount of time at this point and it kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next. I really liked how this ended though and am really looking forward to the next book. 

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew Book 1) by Zoe Chant

 

Book Description

He's an alpha griffin shifter. She's autistic. He's met his match...

When firefighter Rory lays eyes on fire watcher Edith, he instantly knows she’s the one. His fated mate. 

Now, to win her heart, he just has to protect her from:

1. A raging wildfire (actually, she’s already got that covered, thanks)

2. The lightning-throwing invisible monster that started it (um, the what?)

3. Killer bunnies (don't even ask)

4. The appalling matchmaking attempts from his crew of misfit shifters (not only is this guy scorching hot, his dog is adorable too. And...weirdly smart?)

5. His own animal need to claim her. Now. (if only she could look him in the eye…)

Good thing that as a powerful griffin shifter, he can handle anything…right?

There’s only one problem.

The last thing this autistic woman wants—or needs—is to be protected…

Zoe Chant returns to the hot, hilarious world of the Fire and Rescue Shifters with an all-new series starring an all-new crew - now wilder than ever! 

My Review

Edith is in her fire watch tower watching for fires in the forest but when she witnesses a lightning strike out of nowhere and calls in the small fire, they don't believe her but send someone to check it out anyway. 

Rory and his firefighter crew were called to check out a wild fire when he comes face to face with Edith and as soon as he meets her eyes, he knows she's his mate. 

An invisible monster is lurking in the forest, ready to take over another animals bodies so it can watch the Hotshot team and try to find a way to possess one of them. All the while Rory is trying to get to know Edith a little better and find out why she's so skittish. But after finding out more about her, the team asks her to join their Hotshot team and fight fires with them and after a little persuading, she accepted the new position which was great since Rory wanted nothing more than to get to know her better before letting her know he was a shifter and she was his mate. 

But because she didn't tell anyone she's autistic, there's plenty of miscommunication going on that leads to personal problems that could have been cleared up if they had just talked. But in the end things end up the way they are supposed to and we get to see yet another twist when they find another kind of shifter that I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of. This series has an overarching storyline and after reading this book (book 1), I plan on reading the rest in short order.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.