Book Review: Her Protector by V. Vaughn

 

Book Description

Chrissy Johnson thinks she is happy. She loves her day job working at the animal shelter and her weekend gig performing on stage with a local band. But when Fred Carter, who claims to be a talent scout for a record label, rolls into town, she dares to dream big. Fred tries to steal more than her heart, though, and Chrissy’s life snowballs out of control.

Ryan Henry is at a crossroads in his life. As a warrior for the Le Roux clan, he has respect and prestige, but the one thing that would make his life complete still eludes him. Ryan wants a true mate. If he stays in Maine where he’s exhausted his possibilities, he fears he is destined to be alone. Luckily, fate intervenes, and when he is sent on a mission to help a North Pole clan with Christmas he discovers his true mate along the way. The only trouble– she’s human.

My Review

Ryan is a shifter and wants to find his true mate but is afraid he might end up alone. So he goes to help another clan for Christmas in the hopes that he might find his mate along the way but what he finds instead is Chrissy, a human. 

Chrissy is a singer in a band and her crush ends up putting her in a lot of danger. She fell for the wrong guy it seems and now she's in a heap of trouble. Ryan comes along and helps her but there are so many things that get in the way along their adventure. Chrissy wants to turn herself in and let the police figure it all out but Ryan isn't so sure that's a good idea and I agree with him. 

These two are thrown together and it seems that a little Christmas magic is all that they needed to stay together long enough to fall for each other. There's a bit of a snag towards the end when Ryan doesn't tell Chrissy the entire truth and she finds out anyway but I still liked the ending. This was a cute, quick read. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

Falcor enjoying the sun and a walk. 

Book Review: Guarded By The Grizzly by Bella Drake

 

Book Description

He’d do anything for her. She’s trapped in a loveless marriage. When duty and destiny are pitted against each other, will desire lead to disaster?

Bear shifter Nash Barnes is a relentless agent of justice. Sworn to his FBI SWAT team, nothing comes between him and protecting his community. Until he meets Aria. But when he discovers his fated mate is already married to another man, his distress puts his teammates’ lives at risk.

Aria Morgan is desperately unhappy. Trapped in a marriage of convenience to a mean, abusive cartel member, she’s long since given up on love. But when a handsome stranger defends her from her aggressive husband, she can’t quite convince herself to send him away.

When Nash offers to kick her husband out of her house, she’s torn. She longs to finally be free of him and explore the explosive chemistry brewing between her and the sexy agent, but taking her shot at love could cost Aria her life.

With a target on her back, there’s nothing Nash won’t do to protect his true mate.

Guarded by the Grizzly is the seductive second book in the SWAT Shifters paranormal romance series. If you like fated mates, steamy scenes, and strong heroes, then you’ll love Bella Drake’s pulse-pounding new series.

My Review

Nash is a Swat member and also a bear shifter. He spots Aria and knows she's his mate but she's married and that fact messes him up so much so that he puts his team members in danger. So he watches Aria just to make sure she's happy so he can move on somehow but he finds out that she's in a loveless marriage and the husband treats her badly. So he does the only thing he can do, he puts himself out there for her and protect her when bad guys put her in danger. 

Nash and his team are working on a case and they find that their case might involve the same guy that Aria is married to so now Nash has a reason to get into her life and help her get rid of her abusive husband. 

Aria isn't too sure about Nash at first but she really dislikes her husband so she takes Nash's help. I loved Nash, he's such a nice guy unless someone is putting his friends and family in danger then his bear really comes out to take care of business. And Aria was great, she was exactly what Nash needed and she's such a nice person. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #301

 

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.  

My daughter was outside walking over to the store when the police who were out front called her over.

They wanted to know if anyone was ever in the office or when it was open. She told them no one is ever in the office. You have to call the number on the office window to get a hold of a manager. They were here for someone in the office courtyard. 

The high this week was 51F/10C

The low this week was 30F/-1C

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

 

The Boyz- Watch It

You all already know that I like KPOP and while I don't like all of it there are some songs that I just love. This is one of them. 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: 

Dolce & Cabana perfume and Mascara samples. 

Mutha face serum. 

2 samples of Loreal face serum. 

The face serums made my face feel soft and it didn't irritate my skin at all. 

The Dolce & Cabana perfume smells really good and the mascara works pretty good. Not as good as some of the drug store mascaras though. It's just ok. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Mating Instinct by Katie Reus

 

Book Description

She left because he couldn’t love her the way she needed…

Human Kat Saburova had her heart broken by the Shifter Council’s ruthless enforcer. So she left and never looked back. A year later, an attack that nearly kills her brings him back into her orbit—but she wants nothing to do with him.

Now he’ll do anything to save her…

Shifter Jayce Kazan has made countless enemies, but for a short time he found peace with a sweet, funny human. Though it tore his heart out, he let her go for her own good. But someone tried to kill her and inadvertently turned her into a shifter. And now that she’s in danger, he’ll cross every line to save her. Even if that means saving her from herself. As he fights for a second chance, the extremists who almost killed her once are looking to finish the job…

My Review

This book takes place right after Primal Possession by Katie Reus, which I reviewed last week. So if you haven't read these books and want to there may be some spoilers ahead in case you don't want to spoil either of these books for yourself. 

Jayce is the enforcer North America which means he goes after rogue shifters or shifters who have broke pack law and brings then to justice and if that means he has to kill them, he will. So he's made a lot of enemies and the last thing he wanted to do was to put Kat in danger by making her his mate or bonding with her even though he has very strong feelings for her. So she left him because she didn't want to feel like just a play thing when she had real feelings for him and he never explained why he was keeping her at arms length.

After the very bad things that happened to Kat in the last book, Jayce feels horrible that he couldn't find her in time to save her from what happened. So once again he's trying to keep her at arms length but it's really hard now that she's a shifter and doesn't understand all the rules to being a shifter. 

Jayce wants to go after the people in the APL (Anti Paranormal League) who put her in danger and are putting other shifters in danger. These humans are making it harder and harder for shifters to live in peace and if they kidnap or kill a few shifters in the process, they don't care. 

After Jayce and Kat have been fighting their feelings for each other so long I really thought I would see more romance between them but when they do give in to their feelings, it just felt like more lust than love which annoyed me a bit. The romance and their relationship took a back seat to bringing the APL members to justice. This book wasn't as good as the previous book, Primal Possession was for me. It was still a good book and got better towards the end when the action and drama really got going, so it was worth the read.

This book comes right after Primal Possession which I reviewed last week and you can find that review here. 

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

On Wednesday this massive dark cloud descended on my neighborhood. So I told Falcor we should go for a walk before the skies open and drench us. 

While out there I started getting pelted with hail. It only lasted about 3 minutes and then it rained for a couple of minutes and the cloud moved on really fast. Sure looked like the further away it got the more rain was coming out of it though. With the look of that dark cloud I really expected it to pour and it didn't. lol 

Grave Stakes by Grave Grahme

 

Book Description

BRITT

I thought I’d seen everything.

A decade as a cop tends to make anyone cynical. Even a cop with great instincts.

Until I follow those instincts one night, and get my throat torn out.

That's a new one.

Odder still, I wake up in the ER with no trace of the lethal injury. Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to be alive, but my memory is blank.

I’m going to find out what happened.

I followed a man that night. I have a feeling he has answers.

Finding him might kill me.

ETIENNE

I was the king of the city. Untouchable.

Until a hired assassin tried to kill me.

My saving grace? A police officer caused a distraction allowing me to dispatch the assassin.

My mistake? Saving that police office. A woman who haunts me with the sweetness of her taste.

Someone is power-hungry enough to try to make me permanently dead. I need an expert to help uncover the source of the threat.

And I know just where to find a detective.

Whether she wants to help or not.

NOTE TO READERS: No ifs, ands, or buts, this story has triggers. It’s dark romance with mafia and vampires and things that go bump in the night and think of humans as snacks or worse. If you have issues with violence, sexual assault, murder, blood, dubcon, graphic sex, and why choose scenes this may not be your read. And while this book is complete, it does have a cliff at the end. Consider yourself warned.

My Review

Britt is a human cop who helps to stop a vampire from being killed but she gets hurt and the vampire saves her life. Etienne is a vampire who is the big boss in a mafia type enterprise. He's not normally a nice guy but he likes Britt and wants her to come work for him so when she is under investigation at work and has some problems, she comes to work for him. 

Etienne wants to find out who is out to kill him permanently and Britt is there to help him find the person responsible. But Britt puts herself in danger a few times in order to find out who is behind the death threats. She's a seasoned police officer so this doesn't really surprise me. The romance between Etienne and Britt was kind of surprising though because she knows he's a mafia boss and a vampire and she's a cop so you wouldn't think that a relationship between the two would work but it sure did. 

These two are so hot together, boy they were burning up the pages. 

I knew from the blurb that this would end on a cliffhanger so I knew it going in and read this one anyway. If I know beforehand and can make up my mind to read it anyway then I feel better about a cliffhanger. I got this for free so I thought I would take a chance on it and I'm glad I did because it really was a good book. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

Amazon

Happy Raturday!

 

*All pictures today courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #300

 

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. 

New Year's Eve was fairly quiet. I did hear a few gunshots and saw one guy on the sidewalk shooting into the air at midnight but other than a lot of fireworks that was it. So fairly quiet. 

---

Tuesday the Water District was across the street drilling, smashing, pounding and installing new water meters. They had to break up the concrete that was there and bring in a cement mixer to pour new cement once they installed the new water meters. 

They were there from 6am until around 3pm. So darn early to be starting though. They put in new meters in front of several of the apartments across the street over the course of a few weeks so one day I asked a guy why the new meters. One guy told me it was so each individual apartment could be billed for their own water usage. Unlike my apartment complex where the management company pays the water bill but each of us residents are charged a monthly $50 fee for water and trash. 

The very next day the apartment building had roofers redoing part of the roof. They started yelling, pounding and banging at 5am and were finally finished around 4pm. It was a loud couple of days. 

I don't know how these guys were up there walking around on this roof with no safety ropes like it was no big deal. 

Can you believe this is my 300th Apartment Life post? It's crazy to me that I have that much to talk about around here. 

The high this week was 61F/16C

The low this week was 36F/2C

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

 

ARCHERS - Smiling Out Of Habit Video

I love Archers so when I heard this song I knew I wanted to share it. I'm pretty sure that I've shared this band before. I hope you enjoy this song. 

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.

I received:

A Sample of CeraVe lotion. 

I now have received 3 of these samples and I really like this lotion especially in the colder months when my hands dry out. 

Did you receive any freebies this week?

Book Review: Primal Possession by Katie Reus

 

Book Description

He’s found his mate…

As his pack’s second-in-command, Liam Armstrong is used to giving orders and his packmates falling in line. Then he meets a feisty human who has no problem telling him no. And oh yeah, she’s also his mate.

But she’s human.

Bookshop owner December is no stranger to loss—her younger brother was murdered by a shifter years ago. After resettling in the quiet mountain town of Fontana she’s finally made a life for herself, including befriending local shifters. But now she’s been targeted by a human hate group, forcing her to turn to a bossy wolf who’s convinced they’re mates. She thinks the very thought is ridiculous, but if she wants to survive, she’ll have to find a way to trust him. Before it’s too late for both of them.

My Review

Liam has found his mate but December won't accept him because her younger brother was killed because she was involved with a shifter. Now her older brother who is a sheriff will not accept her having a shifter as a mate. So December has been keeping Liam at arms length even though she's wildly attracted to him. She doesn't want to lose her brother because of a relationship with Liam. 

It takes December a long time to explain to Liam why she feels she can't be with him and I think she should have been more up front with him about her feelings. 

While they are fighting their feelings for one another the APL ( Anti-Paranormal League) who are humans out to destroy Liam's pack and all the humans involved with any of them are causing a lot of problems and putting everyone in danger. 

The APL were really bad news and some of those people were worst than others which made the danger they were in that much worse. 

There was a secondary romance between Kat and Jayce as well that I really liked. I plan on getting the next book so I can read their story too. 

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

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

Amazon

Favorite Picture of the Week

 

Falcor received some Christmas gifts to open on Christmas morning too. And if you see crumbs on the floor, those are from him opening a bag of treats right before this one and eating a couple of them. 

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.

Jumping into Big Bear Lake when I didn't know how to swim

Back in 1984, I was 14 years old my mom, me, my younger brother, uncle Jack and his wife, Wanda decided to take a vacation weekend trip to Big Bear, California. Wanda's daughter who was a year younger than me came too. My family loved Big Bear so we went there quite a few times. They also rented a pontoon boat. We all went out on the boat one day and we were all wearing the big orange life jackets, which I was grateful for since I didn't know how to swim. 

My brother and Wanda's daughter knew how to swim and they both jumped into the lake wearing their life vests. They were both egging me on to jump in since I was wearing a life jacket too. My uncle Jack told me that it would keep me afloat and both of the other kids stopped moving to show me that the vests kept them above the water. So I decided to be unpredictable and do something unusual for me and I jumped in. The life jacket kept me afloat and I had a good time until I felt seaweed wrapping around my ankle. 

My uncle and Wanda helped me get back on the boat, thankfully there was a short metal ladder on the side of the boat that I was able to climb onto and with some help was able to get back on the boat. My mom told me she was really surprised that I jumped into the lake since I didn't like deep water and Big Bear Lake is so dark you can't see into at all. I didn't know that the lake was around 70 feet deep either or I might not have jumped in. But I had a good time, I always liked going there. 

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

Happy Raturday!

Happy New Year. 

*All pictures today are courtesy of www.martymousehouse.com*

Apartment Life #299

 

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.  

Since it's the last day of the year I thought I would make this a happy post instead of all the bad stuff that happens in my neighborhood. I spotted this old car on the street and thought it looked cool. Maybe one of you know what kind of car it is. 

---

I was walking Falcor and watched as this horse walked out of the Cal Ranch store. I knew they allowed pets in there but this was a first for me. Beautiful horse though.

While we don't have a lot of tree's around here that change color and lose their leaves during the Winter time, this one does. You can see a lot of the leaves on the ground. Give it a week and all the leaves will be gone. I thought it was pretty. 

I want to wish you all a Happy New Year. 

The high this week was 62F/16C

The low this week was 43F/6C

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

 

Britney Tears - Halloween

I heard this song as I was scrolling Youtube and liked it. I can't find a music video for it but the song is good. I hope you enjoy it.