Book Review: Pact With the Pack by A.J. Mullican

 

Book Description

Cherry Duvall's had a rough week.

After escaping an abusive, controlling ex with her jugular barely intact, Cherry finds out Eric's skipped bail—and he's out for her blood. Cherry jumps on her motorcycle, and it's through the woods to grandmother's house she goes in an attempt to get out of town while the getting's good.

Too bad Eric beat her there. Cherry's too late to save her granny, and things get hairy when Eric threatens her with his knife.

Things get even hairier when five larger-than-life wolves appear in her granny's cabin to battle Cherry's attacker.

Dive into a world of sexy shifters and pack dynamics in this steamy reverse harem romp!

My Review

Cherry is trying to stay away from her ex who tried not too long ago to kill her but when he finds her again, a pack of wolves stop him but not before she is hurt. The wolves turn out to be wolf shifters that save her and deal with her ex. They take her back to their house and heal her but she thinks she's dreaming. Once she's awake, she has a lot of questions and when they tell her who and what they are, she has a hard time believing it at first. 

Once that's out of the way though, she starts to get to know the five shifters and likes all of them. When they find out that her ex's brother is looking for her to make her pay for his brother's death, the guys know they can't let her leave yet because she's in danger. The ex's brother belongs to a biker gang so it's more than just the brother out looking for her. When he finds her, the danger amps way up but there's a great twist that just slides right in there that you never see coming at all. 

This is a why choose romance, meaning she is involved with all five men. They make it work after some drama. This was a fun story. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Recipe: Chicken Thigh Tray-bake

 

I make a lot of low carb meals in the oven. I especially like doing it this way because you just through everything on a baking tray, add some no calorie cooking spray, spices and throw it in the oven. You can do a lot of different types of meat or fish and different vegetables and it always comes out good. I eat vegetable heavy since I cut things like pasta, rice and potatoes out of my diet for the most part. So that's why I made several different types of vegetables with the chicken.

What to do: 

Add one chicken thigh per person to a baking tray. Add 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks, 1 package of sliced mushrooms and one package of cherry tomatoes to the tray. Spray all the vegetables with no calorie cooking spray and add whatever spices you like to the chicken and vegetables. Bake at 350F for 75 minutes or until everything is cooked the way you like it. 

I leave the skin on the chicken while cooking so the thighs don't dry out and just toss it once it's cooked. I've been trying to eat low calorie as well as low carb for the last couple of months. We'll see how that goes. For those that like the skin, feel free to keep it and eat it. 

Would you eat this?

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. 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.

Jim and Dianne

When I was a kid and my parents were still married there was a couple who lived next door named, Jim and Dianne. Dianne was a good friend to my mom and she would come over all the time when my dad was at work and Jim was at work. My dad was a dog and I knew he had affairs with many of the women in our area, he even had an affair with his psychiatrist, but that's a story for another time. I found out after Jim and Dianne moved away that my dad had an affair with Dianne and that's why they moved away. 

Years later (Like 5 years) after my parents had divorced, my mom ran into Jim and she started dating him. He was one of her nicer boyfriends. He was nice to my brother and I and he was nice to my mom. Jim had no job though and no money but he said he was going to get us crab and steak for dinner one night. So we all piled into my mom's car and went to the store. Jim had on a couple of shirts and his jacket. He told my mom to get a few things like she normally would and he would meet her out in the car. 

Once we got out to the car, Jim had smuggled a few packs of crab legs and several steaks under his shirts and jacket. I don't know how he did it but his entire torso was scraped up from the crab legs but he was so proud of himself. My mom didn't have much money so she didn't say a thing to him about how he got the food. We ate good that night. 

Jim didn't stay around for very long and my mom moved on to a different guy. I wish they had stayed together for a little while longer since he was one of the nicer guys she dated. 

Links to past stories

2023

January 2023

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

July 2023

August 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December

2024

January 2024

February 2024

March 2024

April 2024

May 2024

June 2024

Happy Raturday!

 

"Anytime is a good time for pamcakes"

"Corm is good too. I'm looking at you, looking at me eating some corm."

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

Apartment Life #324

 

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 25 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 25 years here in a weekly blog post.  

Monday afternoon I was out with Falcor,  I watched a jeep with 4 guys in it pull up to a neighbor's car,  get the door open and ransack it as the alarm was going off. They were all wearing dark hoodies in 110 weather, so I knew something weird was up. They took off soon after within a few seconds so it happened fast. I knocked on the neighbors door to let him know, thankfully they didn't wreck his car or steal it.

He decided not to call the police. He said he didn't want the hassle. They didn't steal anything, just broke the back window that he said he's just going to replace.

----

I saw this lady outside on one of the hot days. She was working on her car with two little kids inside the car and no AC running. So I was nice and went out there after 30 minutes and brought her 3 bottle of water. She took the water and then yelled at me to, "Next time mind my business".  

So I went back inside and left her to it. She was out there for another 20 minutes before she got the car started. No good deed goes unpunished I guess. I've never seen her before so I don't think she lives around here.

---

At 1AM Wednesday night I was woke up by this guy standing right outside my window yelling and whistling at someone down the street. 

He kept going out in the street and whistling really loud and then yelling. 

He would yell at someone, look at his phone, turn around look at my window I guess to see if I was looking out and then start yelling again. I took these pictures with my video camera though.

Finally another guy walks up and they stood there arguing but finally picked up their groceries they had on the ground and started to walk off.  They were yelling at each other the entire time they were walking down the sidewalk away from me. 

The high this week was 110F/43C

The low this week was 80F/26C

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

 

MARKO HIETALA - Left On Mars (feat. Tarja Turunen)

Marko and Tarja used to be together in Nightwish but years ago Tarja left Nightwish and I was so sad because I love her voice. So when I saw Marko and Tarja were singing together in this song I gave it a listen and I'm so glad I did. I've missed hearing their voices together. Such a good song. 

Book Review: The Alpha's Saviour by Reece Barden

 

Book Description

She saved his life. He's never going to let her go...

Hayley's on the run from a stalker who's determined to make her pay. When she saves the life of the local alpha, exposing her new location in the process, Cooper decides he has to make her his.

His to possess, his to love, his to protect.

He's waited a long time to find his mate. He's not going to let her go.

She risked her cover and her life to save him. He's willing to do anything to keep her safe.

Will Hayley be able to accept this whole new world of wolf shifters, packs and fated mates that she never knew existed, or will her past catch up to her and ruin it all?

This is book 1 in the hot and steamy paranormal werewolf romance series, the Shifters of Grey Ridge.

Read this if you love wolf shifters, insta love, fated mates, he falls first, protective dominant heroes and a female lead who can take care of herself.

Characters are in their twenties and thirties. Happily ever after, no bullying and no cheating.

My Review

Hayley is on the run from her ex who is violent. She told the Sheriff about her past just in case he finds her. But no one else knows and she's trying to make a new life for herself. Things change drastically for her when she witnesses a young boy about to get hit by a vehicle but at the last minute Cooper runs out to save the boy, getting struck by the vehicle and landing face down in the water. Hayley sees where he falls and pulls him out of the water and performs CPR on him, saving his life. He was badly hurt and his injuries would have killed him if he was human but lucky for him he's a wolf shifter with increased healing. He wants to go to Hayley right away because he knows she's his mate but he wouldn't be able to explain away how he is healed already. So he waits a few weeks while his family gets to know her better. 

As soon as he makes an appearance in person, Hayley finds herself completely attracted to Cooper. He wants to repay her for saving his life so he comes up with a ruse to help her the with remodeling on the house she bought. This way he can spend time with her and let her get to know him as a human would. 

But because they both have some serious secrets, it causes a lot of drama between them as well as a lot of misunderstandings. But neither one of them is willing to give up completely in making this relationship work. Things really get exciting when the danger comes right to her door and some secrets are revealed. I really liked Hayley, she is a lot stronger than Cooper was giving her credit for. But Cooper was such a delightful hero. I just loved him. 

This book was everything I could have asked for in a shifter romance. It had everything I love and then some.

  I totally have a bad habit of reading books out of order and I did that with this series. I read The Alpha's Inferno by Reece Barden a while back which is the first book in this series and you can find my review of that book here.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Amazon

Book Review: Paax: Warlord Brides (Warriors of Sangrin Book 1) by Nancey Cummings and Starr Huntress

 

Book Description

Paax never wanted to be matched to a mate.

The situation in his clan was dangerous for a hardened warrior, let alone a soft Human female without fangs or claws to defend herself. Sending her back to Earth was the only way to keep her safe. However, the moment the curvaceous woman stepped off the transporter, his tattoo burned with a passionate intensity he’d never experienced before. Paax knew he would do anything to protect her, to claim her, even challenge the clan’s violent Warlord.

No force in the universe would take his mate from him.

Matched to an alien warrior in the Draft, Mercy swore she’d do whatever it took to get out of the marriage contract. She liked her life on Earth and her independence. No one would take it away, not even the ridiculously hot warrior who demanded she call him husband.

Why is being claimed by the horned muscular alien the only thing she can think about?

She didn’t want to stay, did she?

My Review

After the Suhlik aliens invaded Earth and killed people, Paax's people came and offered to keep Earth safe from the Suhlik in exchange for human brides. Women are genetically tested to see if they match one of the warriors and if they find a match, they are taken to their new home on an alien world. They don't have a say in this at all because there's a bride draft and most women are tested and sent away unless you are exempt like Mercy was for a while because she was taking care of her sick mother. But once her match is found, she is taken away from her home and away from her sick mother. 

Paax is a skilled doctor and made a serum that turned his twin brother into a bad person. His brother is unstable and also their warlord/ruler. Some of his people want Paax to fight him for control of their people but he doesn't think he's up to it. When Mercy arrives, he's instantly attracted to her but because his brother is throwing danger at both of them, they have to get to know one another really fast. So their romance happens really fast but they are attracted to each other right away. Maybe because they are a match genetically? I'm not sure. Paax is such a wonderful mate and guy though so I can understand falling for him to easily and fast. 

This was such a good alien romance. The danger, romance and action made this a quick read.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Falcor has always liked to be under the blankets when he sleeps. Most of the time he'll hide his head under the blankets too. Must be the Chihuahua side of him. lol 

This is the area I take Falcor during the day when he needs to go out in the Summer. It's shaded because of all the palm trees and it's right next to my building so we don't walk too far in this heat. 

This Oleander bush is right next to the area I take Falcor. It was full of blooming Oleander flowers. 

Book Review: Rancher's Law by Diana Palmer

 

Book Description

A Texas detective and his former neighbor reunite in this heartfelt romance novel from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer 

One night in his arms changes everything…

For Amelia Rose Grayson, there was only ever one love: Cal Hollister. When Cal, a police captain, is wounded, she’s there for him and helps nurse him back to health. After he shrugs off their undeniable chemistry, Amelia knows she needs to cut all her old ties. She escapes her small-town life and forges a new path, trying to leave Cal behind. But Amelia can't break free of Cal’s orbit. Emotion—and an unrelenting passion—takes over when they reconnect, sending them both into dangerous territory. Can the two of them move past their previous hurt and make peace? And will they finally face the reason they keep finding each other?

My Review

Amelia lives with her grandfather and gets good grades in school and is friends with Cal. She studies chemicals in college and knows how to use them to blow things up. In the small town of Jacobsville, there are so many ex-Military people, law enforcement and mercenaries that you have to expect people to like shooting guns, making bombs ect. Cal is ex-military and after his last mission, he's pretty messed up mentally but doesn't show it outwardly too much. He and Amelia get closer as they spend time together and he knows it would be a mistake to sleep with her since she's not experienced but it happens anyway. They spend one night together and both of their lives fall apart right after for a lot of different reasons. 

Eb Scott is a retired Soldier of Fortune and what I would call mercenary and has a team that he sends out on missions. After Amelia and Cal have a falling out, she goes to Eb Scott and asks to join his team and reluctantly he agrees. Years later she's been trained but is mostly behind the scenes where she can't be hurt or put into danger. Years later Amelia and Cal see each other again and it's bitter sweet after everything they've both been through but Amelia wants nothing to do with him because of how he treated her the last time they spoke. 

Cal wasn't the nicest of guys and the way he treated Amelia without even letting her explain anything made me so mad. She was the nicest of people and he knew her, knew her better than to think she would treat him the way he thought she did. Cal in my opinion took advantage of her when she was in emotional pain and then treated her like crap afterwards for no reason. I'm not sure I would have forgiven him as easily as she did in the end even if it was because of other people meddling and spreading lies. He should have at least talked to her like a civil human being instead of his excuse of being in emotional pain because of what he went through during his last mission. That wasn't a good enough excuse for the way he treated her and what she went through. 

I've read a lot of Diana Palmer books and I know the men in them are going to be gruff, grumpy and standoffish and I can accept that but Cal was a jerk and Amelia deserved better. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

"I'm about to make some skeeti"

"If you search online how to make it, it gives you some ideas"

"Or we could just make some soup. We could make enough for you too."

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

Apartment Life #323

 

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 25 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 25 years here in a weekly blog post.  

On Wednesday I noticed an ambulance at one end of the street and a few minutes later the police showed up at the other end of the street. 

The police and paramedics were going to two different apartment complexes so I don't think they were related incidents. It's not often that I see police and paramedics on my street for different calls at the same time. 

It was actually a pretty quiet week, Maybe the hot temperatures are keeping people inside. 

The high this week was 110F/43C

The low this week was 68F/20C

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

 

Hyro The Hero - We Believe feat. David Draiman

As soon as I saw that this song was featuring David Draiman from Disturbed I had to listen to it. While I don't usually listen to rap much at all, I kinda like when it's mixed with metal or rock. The rapper can actually sing too which is really nice to see. I hope you enjoy. 

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 a $25 gift code to Shutterfly from a Class Action Lawsuit I signed up for. With it I used it to make this mug with Falcor's picture on it. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Planet Mail by Kate Pearce

 

Book Description

As far as job hazards go, Douglass Fraser didn’t think crash-landing on an alien planet and spending her recuperation being erotically pleasured by three gorgeous men was in the United Planetary Parcel Service’s courier handbook. There certainly wasn’t a section on what to do when a very sexy king wants you to have his baby and save his world.

Marcus Blood Axe isn’t only a descendant of ancient Viking space travelers, he’s also a ruler dealing with a shortage of fertile women and no heir. Surely the gods are on his side when Douglass drops out of the sky and into his bed, giving him a last chance to stop his people’s death spiral into extinction.

Despite the exquisite pleasures to be found in the king’s arms, Douglass wants more from Marcus than to be his broodmare. When another woman claims to be pregnant with Marcus’ child, it’s past time to get back home. Now the war Marcus wages is one of sensual passion designed to convince his Earth woman that she’s worth everything to him…even if it means giving up what he cherishes most.

My Review

Douglass works as a courier between planets. Like a mail person but takes a space ship to different planets to deliver mail. Douglass's space ship crash lands on an alien world that doesn't have a lot of contact with other planets. They find her, drug her and she is pleasured by several men, getting her ready for the King who wants her as his consort. I was so not ok with this at all. But Douglass doesn't even bat an eyelash at it all and even decides to just go with it. Nothing wrong with taking pleasure from several men and the King. What? 

The men are sweet, not gonna lie about that. They want to make her happy and hope that she stays on their planet if they can find a way to contact her home world. The King was a little more gruff to begin with but he quickly came around and we see his more romantic side. 

These people are pretty much dying out because there's a shortage of fertile women and baby's are not being born. But to drug a woman who crashes on your planet and hope that he accepts the things that have happened to her while she was pretty much unconscious is just not right even if she doesn't seem to have a problem with any of it. 

The story was actually good, the writing was great and these characters are very likable so I did enjoy this book even with the problems I had with how Douglass was treated at first. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

I spotted this little bird all fluffed up cleaning himself on the wall. Look at him all puffed up. lol 

I started snapping pictures as he hopped off. I caught him mid hop! lol This picture made me laugh.

This large bush started flowering early in the morning so I walked over and got a picture of it. I don't know what kind of bush it is but the purple flowers are so pretty. 

Have a nice week.

Recipe: Low Carb Fajitas

 

My daughter found some low carb flour tortillas (Carb Counter brand) and we wanted to try fajitas with them. 

We fried up the peppers, onions and chicken in 0 calorie cooking spray. Made a little guacamole and some Pico De Gallo to go with it. 

Pico De Gallo Recipe

4 large tomatoes diced small

1 1/2 large yellow onions diced small

One bunch of cilantro diced small (about 1 cup)

Juice from 2 lemons

Salt to taste

 Mix all ingredients together and let sit overnight in container in the fridge. You can eat it right after it's been made but for more flavorful Salsa, make 2 days ahead of time and let it sit in an air tight container in the refrigerator.

The low carb tortillas are good. They taste the same as regular tortillas to me. They are fluffier though which I like.

For 2 tortillas it's 60 calories and 14 grams of carbs. 

Happy Raturday!

 

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

Apartment Life #322

 

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 25 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 25 years here in a weekly blog post.  

On Wednesday two police cars showed up as I was outside with Falcor. They quickly got out of their cars and made their way into my courtyard. There's a homeless man who I'm sure is on drugs but he's been hanging around a lot and some of us in my courtyard have seen him trying to turn doorknobs. He's tried a few of the doors in my courtyard over the last couple of months and when my daughter saw him doing that to the single lady's door who lives across from us a couple of months ago, she called the police. But because it was in the middle of the night and no one else answered their doors or saw anything the police didn't even take a report about this.

The next day my daughter told the neighbor about it and she was so mad the police didn't do anything about it. The camera we have in the window just let's us view what's going on in real time and take pictures, it doesn't record 24/7. So we had no proof...until now. The lady across from me saw this homeless man trying to open her door when she was coming home this day and she called the police. They came out pretty fast but again, there was no one else that saw what he had done and so they didn't even question him. It's getting ridiculous. What do they need? Maybe we should wait until he breaks in, knock him out, tie him up and then call the police. But we'd probably get arrested for battery and kidnapping. Ridiculous. 

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On Thursday the police were across the street. They were checking out that PODS storage container that's been sitting on the street for about 9 months or more. I am outside about 10 times a day or more depending on if the dog has an upset stomach or not. Which happens for no reason at least once a month. So I'm outside a lot. I haven't seen one person opening the lock to the POD. No one has come or gone from this storage container in all that time that I've seen. It's about time that the police are looking into why it's been sitting there all that time. I'm surprised that the manager of that apartment building over there hasn't called about it before now. What do you want to bet that it will sit there for another 6 months. Maybe someone is paying for it but what if it was stolen and just placed there? Am I paranoid? Maybe...lol 

----

We heard 5 gunshots around 3AM on Wednesday. They sounded really close but I didn't see anything on the cameras. The police showed up and looked around but left when they didn't find anything. Unfortunately it's almost 4th of July and people around here tend to shoot their guns off in the air around this time of year.

The high this week was 109F/42C

The low this week was 77F/25C

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

 

Bad Wolves ft Daughtry - Hungry For Life

I've liked Daughtry ever since he was on American Idol. I already like Bad Wolves so when I saw they had a song together I had to listen to it and it ended up being really good. I hope you enjoy.