Falling for You: a book review

Falling for You. Becky Wade. 2018. Bethany House Publishers. Pages: 368. [Source: Netgalley/Bethany House Publishers Review Program]

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"Hey," Willow said. "Sorry I missed your call."

"No problem. I was calling because…Well, for a reason that you're not going to be thrilled about."

"Okay. What am I not going to be thrilled about?"

"The fact that it involves Corbin."

Willow winced, then concentrated on swallowing her bite of cookie. Nora was right. She wasn't thrilled.

§§§

Rating: 5/5 ❤︎

You wouldn't believe how excited I was for this book to come out. I was extremely delighted to find out that I could request A Bradford Sisters Romance #2 to review, and didn't hesitate to say YES to reviewing it. A childish part of me had hoped that I would have finished reading this before May 1st just so I could say I finished it before it came out in stores, but I was too busy packing up my apartment since I graduated from college (woot woot~!). And it doesn't matter that I didn't finish it before the 1st, because I wanted to enjoy this and not miss a single thing about it!

I didn't connect with Willow Bradford, Nora Bradford's older sister, as strongly as I had with Nora. But that's probably just because Nora is just so much like me—bookish, creative, a major history buff, absorbing information like a sponge—while Willow is a model who is more into the finer things in life (because her income allows her to indulge). But this didn't stop me from enjoying the book!

At first, I didn't like Corbin. I didn't like Corbin since I was introduced to him near the end of True to You, when John Lawson, Nora's beau, brought him along to a family party. I had been wondering what was up between Willow and Corbin since that encounter, but I wasn't sure if book 2 would feature their story or Britt's and Zander's. It kind of makes me wonder what Britt and Zander are going to have to go through before they get together? hmm...

But as the story progressed, I got to know Corbin more, and I started to like him. I began to sympathize with him whenever he tried to make headway in their relationship. The way he breached Willow's rules did get on my nerves, though, because to me it seemed that he didn't respect boundaries, which can be dangerous in a relationship.

Thankfully, Corbin quickly won my heart, and at one point I was almost yelling because Willow had been told by Corbin's dad to stay away from him and all I wanted was for her to tell him or for him to find out somehow so he could have a serious talk with his dad.

The ending of the story was a bit bittersweet, but Willow and Corbin had completely reconciled by then which made the ending happy as well.

This instalment of showed me a great story about getting back together again without having to go through countless aggravating obstacles. It also reminded me how I need to forgive and not hold grudges for as long as I do—though those I have a grudge against never really work to help me to forgive them, so... yeah.

I would definitely read this one again, and I want to buy it. I so, so want to buy it.

2017: A Year's Books in Review & Happy New Year!

Happy New Year's guys! I'm finding it extremely hard to believe that it's already 2018!

Where did the time go? It feels like 2017 just started. It reminds me how I'm going to be graduating in April.

I celebrated New Years by watching the festivities on and off on Fox TV since the channel actually shows important and interesting things instead of the inappropriate like on CNN (though we only checked long enough to see what they were saying before we would switch back to Netflix so we could continue watching BBC's The Musketeers, lol. I don't live close enough to anywhere to go watch fireworks in person.

As for New Year's Resolutions... well... I haven't thought of any. Other than how many books I might read.

I guess, if I had to make some resolutions, I'd say I'd... well, I'll try to get more exercise by playing some Kinect games on my brother's Xbox 360 since I'm bringing it down to college with me. I'll also try to get at least two short stories published this year, maybe get a novel written that I might be able to publish at Angry Robot when they open their doors to all manuscripts again.

I'm excited for this new year. It's a clean slate. I hope this coming year will be safer for everyone.

Another thing I wanted to go over in this post was the books I read last year. I certainly didn't read as many as I wanted, clocking in at 8 when I was aiming for 10. Unfortunately, the 9th book I had decided to read was a mass market paperback with around 650 pages.

According to Goodreads, I read a total of 2,662 pages over the 8 books. My shortest book was The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards at 256 pages. The longest book I read was Dreamlander by K.M. Weiland at 544 pages long.

The books I read this year, in order, were:
Fractured by Rae Elliott
Dreamlander by K.M. Weiland
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
The Secret of Pembrooke Park by Julie Klassen
Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller
True to You by Becky Wade
The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards

This coming year I hope I will be able to read 10 books. At least ten books. Though, it all depends on how long my practicum is going to be and where I will get it. My practicum was going to take place in Tibet, but due to health issues, I will have to do it in Canada. Somewhere. I'm thinking 100 Huntley Street since 1) They have an intern program that's more than running around and getting people coffee, and 2) my Grandma knows almost all the up and ups that run 100 Huntley Street. So getting an internship and doing my practicum there is highly likely.

I'm really excited about this coming year. How is my life going to change? How will my grades turn out to be? Where will I be living in six months?

I hope your year will turn out to fantastic. I have a question, though: how did you celebrate your New Years?

Star Trek: From History's Shadow

From History's Shadow. Dayton Ward. Based on the concept created by Gene Roddenberry. (Star Trek: The Original Series).  2013. Pocket Books. Pages: 427. [Source: Bought]

He heard breathing and the rustling of clothing. Muscles tensing in anticipation of a confrontation if not a full-blown firefight, Kirk stepped around the stacked containers and levelled his phaser at the figure standing in the open. It was the Vulcan, who appeared flush and disheveled. At his feet lay what could only be the particle weapon detected by Spock's tricorder.

"That is my only weapon," he said, standing in place and holding his hands away from his body. "I am not a threat. It is my counterpart who should concern you."

~~~

I've had this pocket book sitting in the data-banks of my iPad for 6 months to a year. I can't quite remember when I bought it, I just remember that I wanted to read it very badly since it sounded like it was quite exciting. And I wasn't disappointed. Did I love From History's Shadow? Yes, yes I did.

From History's Shadow starts out with the crew of the Enterprise just having returned to the 23rd Century after the whole incident with Gary Seven in the Original Series episode "Assignment: Earth". They've barely been in their century a day before a disturbance in a cargo bay has them slamming on the brakes so they can go investigate.

What exactly is causing all that fuss in the cargo bay, anyway? Turns out, Enterprise somehow gained a couple of stow-aways when it was in the 20th Century.

One of the reasons why I grabbed this book was because Mestral was in it. Mestral is a Vulcan character from the only Star Trek: Enterprise episode I've ever watched - "Carbon Creek". The reason why I like him so much is because he decided to stay on Earth after kind of falling in love with a Carbon Creek resident named Maggie. The thought that Mestral, a Vulcan, decided to stay and live amongst the human race, which at the time was extremely interested in the concept of alien invaders, is an interesting concept.

I liked the action and the cohesiveness of the plot of this story. Despite the fact that there were at least four points of view at any given time, I understood what was happening at each point and the only times I felt lost were when I returned to the story after stopping in the middle of a scene. Each and every character read like they were supposed to. Sometimes I felt that the situations weren't described as much as they could have but in every scene my imagination took over and compensated because there was enough information!

At the end of the novel, when one of the characters, a James Wainwright, is retired and old and slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's Disease, a breaking news TV spot pops up on his TV, showing a picture of a very familiar UFO. After several encounters with a similar-shaped ship which was under the command of Captain Kirk when he was in his prime, Captain Janeway's starship pulls the memories of his times chasing aliens and seeing things out-of-this-world from the depths of his mind where they had long since been buried.

What I would have liked to have seen at the end was Mestral visiting James after he saw the image of Voyager on the TV, since they had a bit of a working relationship halfway through the novel. You know, just to see how he was doing since Mestral would have hardly have changed at all. But it didn't happen. Oh well.

Note: The reader of this novel would have to be extremely well-versed in the Star Trek universe to get a lot of what happened in this novel. I just squeezed in thanks to my curiosity and due to the fact that I'm finally watching Star Trek: Voyager from the beginning.

This novel takes elements from:

• Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Assignment: Earth".
• Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday" with a cameo by Captain John Christopher.
• Star Trek: Voyager episodes "Future's End & Future's End, Part II"
• Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Carbon Creek"

Thunderstorms

Today is the second day in a row, and the second time this season, that I have listened to the rumblings of distant thunder - a sound I've missed over this last winter. There's something about the sound of electricity hotter than the surface of the sun while it's ripping the sky apart that I find so fascinating.

When there's a thunderclap, I listen as it echos on forever. There's something comforting to me about listening of the acoustics of the sky as if it were a massive instrument...

These thunderstorms remind me of the project I've been working on for the last couple of months. It also reminds me of my love to listen to rain as I read a good book. It has been raining a lot here, and I'm grateful since Fort McMurray wasn't all that far from where I live. With the rain we've been having, we're just a tiny bit less like a tinderbox. I hope.

I currently have three novels on the go, but I've stopped to focus on only one since it's the one Bethany House Publishers sent me to review. It's titled From This Moment, and it's by Elizabeth Camden. I am absolutely in love with it. It's a Victorian mystery, and boy, it feels like a mystery. I believe that you guys - if you like mysteries - will absolutely devour it like I am.

The other two novels, the ones on hold, are The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux and Star Trek: From History's Shadow by Dayton Ward. I'm enjoying them both, and I look forward to getting back to them once I'm done the review novel.

The project I'm working on is a collection of poems about spring, titled Blue Jays & Rainy Days. I was inspired to write it after seeing two Blue Jays in one day not long after the snow disappeared and buds began to appear on the trees. It's spring themed, and I hope to have it published through Pronoun before I head off to college in August.

I find myself enjoying writing poems a lot more than I did when I was younger. I guess, back then, I just didn't see the point of criptic messages strung out in the form of a poem.

But I love writing them now - and the haiku of all forms is my favourite! I just hope I'm structuring them the right way... lol.

Everything's Okay at 20k

Once again I found myself lowering my total NaNoWriMo word-count. It has come to rest for the rest of the month at 20 000 words, because my month has been too busy for my original word counts of 25k and 30k.

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed that I wasn't going to make it to 30k. But I understand also that my family needs me and my brain can't stay focused enough to go the whole way. I'm a slow writer, and sometimes pressure doesn't work.

I'm going to skip Camp NaNo in July so that I can focus on other things. I need to get ready for college, and that means saving any money I can. I also need to focus on losing weight so that I can enter in to college without having to worry about how I look all that hard - and by then I should have THM down pat.

Writing may slow so that I can find time to read (I need to finish The Reluctant Duchess before May 1st so that I may review it and send the review off to Bethany House Publishers). I have so many novels in my To Be Read pile that it's ridiculous! And I didn't a request a novel for review in May because none of the novels they presented to me were of any interest to me. So May is open for whatever novel I choose to read.

I need to finish reading the last book in The Dragons of Starlight novel series by Brian Davis so I can move on. I have several ebooks I would like to crack open, such as The Secret of Pembrooke Park or The Dancing Master by Julie Klassen, or A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan, or Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

I should also crack open The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hobbit, or Murder on the Orient Express so I can review another classic for the Back to the Classics 2016 Reading Challenge I'm in.

There's so much I want to do, but so little time, lol!

Well, I better get back to writing. I've got laundry to fold and change over as well.

P.S. Maybe I should devote time to learning German and French on top of all this...

Victorian-Era, Here I Come!

 

Yesterday, I decided to sign up for a book reading challenge that runs from the beginning of January 2016 to the end of December 2016. It's set up like bingo, and I have to cross off five boxes in a row if I want to "win", so to speak.

 

I won't win anything but the satisfaction of reading more books in what has to be one of my favourite genres ever. I have at least two books that fit the bill - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Refining Fire by Tracie Peterson - which would allow me to stamp out "British Male Author" or "Mystery, Suspense, Sensation" and either "American Female Author" or "Book About Courtship or Marriage" on the chart.

 

Also, if you finish a book before January, you can review it and put it in the que for January 1st so it can still count (it says so in the rules). If you don't believe me, check out the sign up post for it on Becky's Book Reviews here! (http://blbooks.blogspot.ca/)

 

I'll be doing that with Ruby by Lauraine Snelling, a book I really am not enjoying all that much (it's also keeping me from reading Star Trek: From History's Shadow by Dayton Ward, lol).

 

I can't wait to start reading again! :D