Book Marks

Merry Christmas to all!

Mums air dirty laundry and have hit on their hands Nicole Brady | The newest arrival on the parenting shelves began, of course, with a status update on facebook New mother Bunny Banyai wrote.

 

This review is from: Living Dead in Dallas (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

I normally expect my heroines to be tough, women who can coolly assess a situation then kick butt. What I got in Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris, is a heroine who is kind of kooky, reads minds, dates a vampire, and isn't afraid to yell for help when she's in a situation way over her head. While this sounds like a turn off from what I normally expect, believe me, it isn't. There is no way not to like cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse. She's got a figure to kill for, the uncanny ability to read minds, doesn't care about conventional society, and is pretty content with her life until she is reminded she is on loan out to help the vampires.

It seems that Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill have agreed for Sookie to help the vampires when they need help. The leader of the local nest of vampires, Eric is sending Sookie to Dallas to look for a missing vampire. For those of you who have read the first book in this series, take heart, the gorgeous Eric plays a larger role. Now take a backwater gal out of her little hometown and send her by plane to Dallas with her boyfriend traveling in a coffin and see what happens! Sookie ends up way over her head dealing with vampires, werewolves, and fanatics who want to end the existence of all supernatural beings. There is also a subplot with Sookie dealing with the death of one of her friends who just happened to be a member of a sex club. Use your imagination and you can pretty well guess what happens with this plot!

Charlaine Harris has taken Sookie to another level. While she is still the ditsy waitress we were first introduced to in Dead Until Dark, she has managed to develop into a likeable heroine, who while still unconventional, captivates our attention and makes us root for her throughout the book. Like everyone else, I can't wait until the next book to see what new mess Sookie manages to get into.

This book is just as hard to put down as the first. I loved every moment of it!

Diary of a First Time Mum book review Diary of a First Time Mum by Nicole Hall is an an uncensored account of all the stuff that really happens.

Mmmmm, thanks to a member here I have discovered an absolutly brilliant book series that I am having serious trouble putting down! It isthe Sookie Stackhouse series, by Charlain Harris, the first of which is Dead until Dark.   

The wikkie summary works pretty well for me:

Sookie lives with her grandmother, Adele, and has an older brother, Jason. Early in the book, Sookie falls in love with a vampire, a Civil War veteran named Bill Compton. After first meeting Bill, Sookie saves him from some "drainers", people who steal blood from vampires. Bill returns the favor the next day when the drainers attack Sookie.

Several murders occur in Bon Temps, and Bill becomes a suspect because many of the bodies have fang marks. Sookie's brother Jason is romantically linked to two of the victims, prompting the Bon Temps police to arrest him. Wanting to help her brother, Sookie asks Bill to take her to a vampire bar called Fangtasia, which is owned by Eric Northman, a vampire sheriff much older and more powerful than Bill.

Eric realizes that Sookie's telepathy can be useful and commands Bill to direct Sookie to use her ability to determine the identity of the one embezzling from Fangtasia. Once Sookie identifies Long Shadow, who is Eric's partner and also a vampire, a confrontation ensues that nearly kills Sookie. Bill saves Sookie's life by staking Long Shadow when he attacks her. Meanwhile in Bon Temps, Adele is murdered within the family kitchen.

Bill, concerned with Eric's power over him and Sookie, decides to improve his own position within the vampire hierarchy. He asks Bubba, a dim-witted vampire, to protect Sookie while he is gone. Sookie discovers that her boss, Sam, is a shape-shifter when she lets a stray dog sleep on her bed and finds a naked Sam in the morning.

While Bill is gone, Sookie discovers that the murderer is her brother's friend Rene Lenier. He almost kills her, but she fights back. Badly injured, Sookie wakes up in the hospital and finds Bill by her side. Bill tells Sookie that he has become his area's investigator, working under Eric.

Now, that being said, I feel that this is 'one of those books' what is really hard to put down once you've picked it up, real easy to read, really easy to follow. Definitly a two thumbs up in my opinion!

I don't usually read stories of this flavour, but I didn't know what it was before I started reading it, as my book cover is not there! It isn't visual in its sex, only touching lightly o it and doesn't make it seem dirty, and the  story is pretty easy to follow.

               

basically, this chap goes to Venis for the party season and is swept away by a storm with two companions when he went on a boat ride one morning. He is ship wrecked on this island that has only women (married and unmarried alike), the men of these women having been swept away in their own ships by the same storm.

So he settles down and ends up sleeping with the women one per night right up till the men reappear. This is organised by the French woman he was shipwrecked with and the women on the Island. The activity was designed so that the women wouldn't fight over him (he is blonde, and they are all dark), and the bloke, after a brief stink, gives in.

When the menfolk of the island finally come back they are most unhappy to find Mr Blonde and Handsom with their women folk but get over it quickly when they discover that the third shipwreck companion, a teenager, has paired himself with their little crippled girl and wants to marry her (she is pregnant, but they don't mind).

The book ends with the blond and the French going home but the teen staying with his girl.

Noni Hazlehurst reads 'Go the F**k to sleep' Amber Robinson | Noni Halzlehurst has joined actor Samuel L. Jackson in reading a version of the profanity-laden bedtime story.

Susannah of the Mounties was a novel written by Muriel Denison in 1936. In the book Susannah is sent to Regina to spend the summer with her uncle who is a Mountie.

She spends the story getting into mischief, making friends and being loved by all.

A thoroughly enjoyable story, and I thoroughly reccomend it!

The Secret Garden, written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is a charming book about a girl named Mary Lennox. She is a spoiled and sickly child who lives in India. When her parents die because of a cholera epidemic, she moves to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her rich uncle in England. Things are a definite change for her. Slowly she becomes stronger and starts to take an interest in the outdoors. She meets all sorts of people like Martha, Dickon, and Colin. Martha is a maid on the grounds who has taken a fancy to Mary, and Dickon is her brother. Dickon is quite an unusual fellow. He possesses the ability to talk to animals and is able to grow anything with a little bit of soil. Colin, who you will meet later in the story, is a child who has basically given up the will to live, believing he is doomed to be a hunchback like his father. Strong-willed Mary reprimands him and takes matters into her own hands. Mary has all kinds of adventures with strange sounds at night, funny accents, and a locked garden. The Secret Garden is a wonderful book about friendship, determination, and perseverence.

A different book from what I usually read . . .

A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle “A Novel Without a Hero,” Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackeray’s forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale of both picaresque and risqué. Thackery mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical “morals.” His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy…and a mirror with which to view our own times.