Mysterious Saturday Review: Diva Haunts the House

*5th book in the Domestic Diva series*

Sophie's in charge of a haunted house. Several students will be working with her for extra credit - including her teenage niece Jen. Annoyed at the attention the haunted house is receiving, Natasha creates a spooky setting for her Halloween party.

In the midst of her party decorations, Sophie finds a dead body. Then she spies a vampire cape swirling out and down the street. Did she see the killer?

With a group of teens constantly at her house, an old legend of a vampire, and a mysterious murderer -things have been tense at Sophie's house. She feels people following her. Someone left a creepy doll on her porch. Jen and her friends are wearing garlic necklaces to ward off any unwanted visitors.

Could someone tall dark and with fangs be after Sophie?

My Thoughts: A perfect Halloween addition to this fun series. I love the decoration tips before each chapter. I also loved the combination of vampire lore and Halloween festivities. A spooky, fun, entertaining read with a romance twist. I love this series!

Cover Thoughts: Adorable

Source: Purchased

Fall TV Roundup

Now that I've seen half the shows I'm interested in watching, here are my thoughts:

Ringer (seen 2 episodes)
Really Like it - love the double life and the twists

New Girl
I find Jess quirky and funny. I wish Coach hadn't left. I don't like the new guy enough. For me, Jess makes the show.

2 Broke Girls
The last minute of the pilot turned me to watching the next one, we'll see how it goes from there. The second episode was a little better. I'm going to give it a few more episodes to see where it goes, but I'm not sold on it yet.

Hart of Dixie
LOVE it! I heart Rachel Bilson. I loved the ending of the first show and the second episode sealed it for me.

Secret Circle
I've seen the first two episodes and it's intriguing. I love the idea of the magic.

Person of Interest
I've seen two episodes of this one - and it's interesting. I like it.

Pan AM
I've only seen the first episode of this show - and it's fun, a little flirty, and the women changing their world is appealing to me.

Your Thoughts?

Happy Blog-iversary

Celebrating 3 years strong!

October 3rd is my anniversary date -but with going to NELA, it slipped my mind.

So, here' a present for you.

1 Clockwork Prince T-shirt. (Size Medium) along with a chapter sample of Clockwork Prince



Please leave a comment in the post with your email address to be entered into this (random drawn USA only) contest.

Contest Ends Thursday October 13th at Noon!

Trailer Thursdays: New Year's Eve

I LOVE these kinds of movies - the best being Love Actually, but I did like Valentine's Day. I love the all star cast.



Thoughts?

Adult Review: Witches of East End

A mother and two daughters have their world changed one summer. As a family of witches, this rarely happens. They've been living amongst the people for so long not using magic that they've become almost normal.

Still, something in the summer air makes them perform magic once again.

Freya becomes engaged, but is drawn to her fiance's brother. She uses her magic at her bar-tending job to help create love matches.

Ingrid, a librarian, uses her magic to help a friend become pregnant. Soon she starts helping women who stop by the library on her lunch hour.

Joanne uses her magic to entertain a delightful young boy. She also can bring people back from the dead and brings back a dear friend's husband.

When one girl disappears from the bar, one woman's husband hangs himself, and one man dies, the Beauchamp women appear to be in trouble both with the supernatural world and with the police. Are their powers causing trouble?

My Thoughts: I really liked the cross-over with the Blue Bloods series. I enjoyed watching favorite characters come into the novel. I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I loved it. On the other hand, while I really wanted to like Frey, I hated her actions. It's just my personal taste, but I don't like characters who cheat on their partners. It made me put the book down for a bit. Upon picking it up again, I found myself turning the pages quickly engrossed in the novel. I adored seeing Ingrid at work - loved that she was a librarian. The book moved right along. I loved uncovering the relationships and the pasts of the Beauchamp women. I loved the mysterious happenings in town and how the three witches worked together to solve them. I'm quite looking forward to the next book in the series, which according to GoodReads - the title is The Serpent's Kiss.

Cover Thoughts: Interesting

Source: Hyperion

NELA

I've been away for the first bit of the week at the NELA conference in Burlington, VT.

I went to presentations on teen programs, learned about folk and fairy tales, presented on blogging, heard the wonderful T.A. Barron speak, learned about the digital divide, and got some new ideas for displays.

If you didn't get to go to NELA, you can see the presentations/handouts here. My handout with various blogs is here. I know there were some programs I missed due to scheduling conflicts, so I'm happy to be able to look through the presentations myself.

I was nervous talking, but it turned out great. I LOVED meeting my co-bloggers
Leila Roy’s Bookshelves of Doom
Andrea Graham’s blog, 4YA
Josie Leavitt, one of the bloggers at ShelfTalker at Publishers Weekly


Here's a write up of our presentation. Sounds like we did pretty good!

A few pictures:




Here's T.A. Barron and myself:

Tom's website

The READ poster I made of T.A. Barron

Review: Enthralled

Sixteen short stories from Rock Star authors - all featuring a paranormal aspect. I love most of these authors and the rest are going in my TBR pile!


My Thoughts: I was blown away by this book. Normally, I don't read many short stories, because I ALWAYS want them to become books. And it was the same in this case, but they were so good. I couldn't put the book down. Honestly, I skipped 2 stories - two because they were part of series and I'm not caught up yet and one didn't hook me. I'm going to pass this out to every asking about paranormal reads. It has everything - ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies...
In the ARC, they have the author information in the back of the book, I hope that's changed in the final copy. I wanted to know more about the authors and if the stories were about characters from books. Put this on your reading list immediately!


Cover Thoughts: I really like it - especially the font!

Source: from Jennifer Lynn Barnes. THANKS JEN!