I grew up on a farm in the middle of Canada's breadbasket. Under the canopy of crisp blue prairie skies I read books. Lots and lots of books. Occasionally, I picked up a pen and paper or tapped out a few meagre pages of a story on a keyboard and dreamed of becoming a writer when I grew up. One day the inevitable happened and I knew without question the time was right. What to write was never the issue - romance and the gut wrenching journey towards forever.
Quick little check in today. Time has gotten away from this week. I’m trying to get some kind of fall routine going.
I wanted to share some of my inspiration for my hero, Ridge Bennett. A landscaper with a heart of gold and a troubled past who’s looking to reconnect with his teenage daughter. The hero and heroine in this book are forty years old and have been around the block, so to speak. Both of them are starting over from very different places. It’s been fun finding a middle ground where they can be together.
I’ve actually been in a reading slump lately and I can’t seem to find my way out of it. I don’t think it’s so much the books as it is my ability to concentrate. That’s because the writing is going well and when that happens I don’t really have room in my head for anyone else’s story but mine. Which is a could thing. That’s part of my process. I’ll likely switch from reading romance to something entirely different. Until then I did watch some movie adaptions of romance books in August.
Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center. I LOVED this book, which means, you guessed it, I did not love the movie. I liked the movie. But compared to the book, it’s just okay. Of course, there was no way to bring all the book had to the screen but they tried. It’s a nice, easy watch. You can find it on Netflix. But definitely pick up a Katherine Center book if you haven’t already. She’s my new auto buy author.
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston. Another very popular book. I knew Amazon Prime was making the movie so I decided to read the book first. Confession: I didn’t finish it. Not because it wasn’t a great book but because it’s very much got a new adult feel to it and that’s just not my jam. But I enjoyed the movie version. Definitely check it out, if you’re interested.
Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. So…another new adult story. I didn’t bother trying to read the book this time. Also, I remember when it came out in 2011, some had problems with the nature of the main characters’ relationship.Travis was a real jerk and Abby kept forgiving his bad behaviour. I’ve read that the movie version makes significant changes that improve their relationship’s dynamic. I have to say, it worked. I really enjoyed it. Out of the three movies I’ve listed, it’s my favourite when I expected the opposite. Both the main actors did a great job. It was funny. Sometimes, cringingly. But it had some serious moments too. I would recommend it. Amazon Prime.
Here’s to romance book movie adaptions! We need more of them while we wait impatiently for Bridgerton Season 3.
Until next time…
What’s everyone else been watching? I need recommendations!
August is winding up, which is giving me have all the end of summer feels. But it’s not pumpkin spice season yet. Don’t get me wrong, I love autumn. But I’m not ready to embrace all the wonders autumn brings. So, here’s hoping for a lovely September.
Not included is a photo of the best ice cream cone I’ve had in a long, long time. It was Raspberry Macaroon (Vegan) in a waffle cone from Village Cream in Calgary. Oh my word. Delicious.
I spent a few days in Calgary visiting my sister and her family. We packed a lot of goodness into our visit. From a visit to a delightful boutique romance bookstore, Slow Burn Books, to a Fibre Arts Exhibit, Entwined and Entangled, at the Leighton Art Centre, We dined at Merchants in the Marda Loop area. My nephews are fifteen and twelve and they have a family tradition of playing a simple but lively card game called Anomia when they go out for dinner. No one looked at their phone once. Of course, we fit in a game of Scrabble.
We went the theatre to watch the Barbie movie. it was as awesome as everyone is saying! Highly recommend. We watched Red, White and Royal Blue based on the popular romance novel by Casey McQuiston. (Amazon Prime). Loved it. Recommend. We watched Fisk (Netflix). So funny! Definitely check it out and see if it might appeal.
Harvest is in full swing, kids are getting ready to go back to school. It’s the time of cooler evenings and backyard fires. Tan lines will begin to fade and the leaves will start to turn. Until then, I’ll be soaking up the last month of summer. Going to the pool, golfing, eating all the market garden produce, and praying the frost holds off for a few more weeks.
Eating things I somehow managed to grow in our garden. Keeping a garden alive is hard. Then there is the weeding…Not sure I recommend. (Do people lol anymore?)
Soaking up the lovely, warm, slow days of the warmest month of the year.
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
My Thoughts:
Look, if you’re looking for pure entertainment and escapism, this is the book for you. The action starts on page one and doesn’t let up until the last page. Also be warned, it ends on a cliffhanger. There will be five books in this series with the next one coming out in November this year. Thank goodness!
I loved it. I wish I could erase it from my memory and have the chance to read it again for the first time. I’ll probably read it again anyway. And I don’t do that often. There’s just something about this damn book. I don’t read young adult or new adult at all anymore. I avoid books written in first person point of view. (I’ve got to narrow things down somehow. There’s a lot of books out there.) This book is both those things. Like I said, I read it because of the hype.
But I love Violet. She’s smart and kind. She doesn’t blindly follow the rules. She doesn’t break them without cause either. Xaden. He’s ruthless. But he’s fair. And he’ll do anything to protect the people entrusted to his care, which is the sexiest thing ever. Also, anyone who knows me well, knows my favourite trope is enemies to lovers. Check. Violet and Xaden don’t like each other, they don’t trust each other. For very good reasons. But their chemistry is off the charts.
The dragons. There’s nothing kind or gentle about them. Their loyal to each other first. The place second. Their rider third. If the rider manages to earn it. If they don’t, they die. But there are a lot of ways to die in this book. Too many to count. Just like the tagline states: Ride…or die. It’s got strong Hunger Games and Divergent vibes. So, if you don’t enjoy that kind of thing…well, this might not be the book for you. But if you want to take a chance and have a summer fling with a book you might not normally read, this would be the book to pick. If you can find it. It’s selling out all over the place. Highly recommend!
It was time. Helen Carpenter knew that. Thirty-two and divorced for a year, Helen knew it was time—past time—to pull herself together. She needed to do something wild and adventurous and completely out of character. Which is why she signed up for a wilderness survival course in Wyoming.
Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen Carpenter’s well-behaved life: three weeks in a remote mountain range where she will survive a summer blizzard, a group of sorority girls, rutting season for the elk, and more than one infuriating man. Yet, despite the hardships and the indignities, the mountains bring their own wisdom to Helen’s life, somehow teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for yourself. How being scared can make you brave. How the things you hold on to become the story of your life. And, maybe most of all, how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you even have a hope of being found.
My Thoughts:
I loved The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. Read my review here. I noticed that they were making one of her early books, Happiness for Beginners, into a Netflix movie and I wanted to read it before I watched it. There is so much to love about this book. The characters, both main and secondary. Oh my gosh, Duncan, the younger brother! The setting. Hello wilderness camping, which I would never do. The healing and the humour. It tugs at the heartstrings and makes you laugh in equal measure. And the older heroine, younger hero is one of my favourite tropes. I’m guessing there are very few us who haven’t felt like we’ve been figuratively lost in the wilderness. Or who’ve found ourselves feeling one step behind or feeling out of step while everyone is marching forward. It’s sweet and funny, but it’s the depth of story that makes it a winner. Highly recommend.
There is something about looking at summer night skies that makes me prone to wondering and wanting to read science fiction! I remember back to camping when our children were young and staying a regional campground out in the middle of nowhere beside a small lake with very little light pollution. The sky at night was stunning. So much happening up there, which always make a person wonder…
Published: February, 2022
Categories: Romance / Action/Adventure / Science Fiction / Space Opera
Blurb:
Octavia Zarola would do anything to keep her tiny, close-knit bounty hunting crew together—even if it means accepting a job from Torran Fletcher, a ruthless former general and bitter adversary. When Torran offers her enough credits to not only keep her crew afloat but also hire someone to fix her ship, Tavi knows that she can’t refuse—no matter how much she’d like to.
There’s just one catch: with so much money on the line, Torran and his crew insist on joining the hunt. Tavi reluctantly agrees because while the handsome, stoic leader pushes all of her buttons—for both anger and desire—she’s endured worse, and the massive bonus payment he’s promised for a completed job is reason enough to shut up and deal.
But when they uncover a deeper plot that threatens the delicate peace between humans and Valoffs, Tavi suspects that Torran has been using her as the impetus for a new war. With the fate of her crew balanced on a knife’s edge, Tavi must decide where her loyalties lie—with the quiet Valoff who’s been lying to her, or with the human leaders who left her squad to die on the battlefield. Because this time, her heart is on the line.
Thoughts:
If you loved the show Firefly, definitely dating myself here, you’ll love Hunt the Stars. This story is the kind of enemies to lovers story I love. They’re on opposite sides but mutual respect is present in any and all types of communication. Being enemies doesn’t mean the two main characters have to be antagonistic towards each other all the time. I mean, it can! And those stories are great too. But when they respect each other’s abilities and put the job first and actually act like adults to get the job done, then that’s my catnip. My other catnip is badass heroines who are kind and nurturing. They know how to win a fight and then some, but they’re good at other things too. You don’t have to chip away forty layers of pent up hostility to find out they have a heart.
And then there was the world building. It pulled me right in and gave me a complete picture of what the world looked like for this story. So many much needed details about how everything functions. I could picture it perfectly.
There’s plenty of action/adventure, lots of steamy romance, and centers around another of my other favourite tropes – close proximity. It’s clever and it’s entertaining and I definitely recommend it.
Four of us went on a writing retreat last weekend. Annette Bower, Jana Richards and Alison Lohans and I packed up some writing gear and spent the weekend at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan. My first writing retreat since 2019.
Gosh, it was lovely to get away and focus entirely on writing! The companionship was excellent, too. The abbey is basically in the country, outside of the (very) small town of Muenster and close to the larger town of Humboldt.
The accommodations are simple. We stayed in St. Scholastica, a former nuns’ residence, not the main college building. No air conditioning. Common washrooms. We ate in the cafeteria. Simple food found on many a prairie table. No distractions. We met for meals and in the evening in the common room. It was delightful.
And, I got a lot done. Now it’s back to reality. We’re doing things like cleaning out our garage and basement. There’s a big disposal bin on our driveway and we are getting things done! We might fit in a game of golf or a barbecue, too.
Until next time…
It’s the long weekend here in Canada! What’s everyone else doing?
I’m busy getting ready to go on a writing retreat this weekend at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster, Saskatchewan. The first one in the after times. I’m so excited to spend three days thinking of nothing but writing.
June was a lovely month that went by entirely too fast. Somewhere in between planting, watering, and weeding, I fit in a couple of games of golf. A read a great book, A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske. It’s the first book in her Last Binding series. Highly recommend!! Will go into more depth in a couple of weeks. I baked a rhubarb pie for Father’s Day from rhubarb I picked from my yard. And the peony I planted last fall is blooming and it’s the prettiest pink. I ordered a couple of mugs from The Clay People. I’ve been wanting to order a mug from them forever, but every time they announced a stock resale of their Wheat Collection they were gone before I could order one. This month I was successful and I LOVE these mugs!
I’m putting together this post as I listen to Mary Balogh‘s interview on the Fated Mates podcast. I highly recommend listening to it. Mary is so well spoken, so talented, and very passionate about the romance genre. She’s also a friend and a fellow member of my writing group. So, needless to say, this post is taking forever to write because I’m distracted by listening to one of my favourite writers, Sarah MacLean, talk writing with Mary.
