Dec 31, 2011

Tempting Tuesdays: A Some Girls Bite Read-Along

Tempting Tuesdays: A Some Girls Bite Read-Along
Hosted by Tina at Tina's Book Reviews, Rummanah at Books in the Spotlight, Missie at The Unread Reader and Jenny at Supernatural Snark.

The Read-Along for Some Girls Bite will continue through out January 2012 on every Tuesday. As this is my first time ever in a Read-Along, I am going to try and follow everyone around. 

1. Buy or borrow a copy of Some Girls Bite - Done
2. Take a look at the questions for chapters 1-4 - Did
3. Simply put a post together wherein you answer the questions and then come here to link up your answers so that everyone participating can hop around, read, and comment like a giant virtual book club. Fun right? Right ;-)

It sounds sooo easy but knowing myself, I will probably end up doing everything wrong! 0_0

January 3rd  - Chapters 1-4 (Jenny at Supernatural Snark)
January 10th - Chapters 5-8 (Tina at Tina's Book Reviews)
January 17th - Chapters 9-12 (Rummanah at Books in the Spotlight)
January 24th - Chapters 13-15 + epilogue (Missie at The Unread Reader)


Dec 30, 2011

Guest Post from Emlyn Chand

As a part of this social media Whirlwind tour of Farsighted by Emlyn Chand, sponsored by Novel Publicity, I had the privilege to promote this brand new YA paranormal series in my blog. Yesterday we had a chance to get to know a little bit about Farsighted, the leading character Alex and Emlyn, from her interview. And today I will be stepping aside and Emlyn will take over from here! 
The New Year is upon us. And if the Mayans were right, so is the apocalypse. Oh, man… Just when Earth was getting good.

Well if I’m going to go by flame, flood, meteoric collision, or zombie uprising, I think it’s best to be prepared. No, not with a flame retardant unitard or a well-equipped cross bow, but with mental resolution—with a calm acceptance of humanity’s plight.

Consider this a combo suicide note/ Dear John letter to the world. I might as well get a few final words in (just in case those Mayans knew what they were talking about). Pfffhew, here goes…


Dear World,

I wish I didn’t have to write this letter. We’ve been together some twenty-seven years, and that’s a long time. Sure, we’ve had our clashes. You’ve sent a fair share of inclement weather my way. Remember that thunder storm when the tree almost broke through the window of my apartment? I was so scared. That was totally not cool on your part. And tornados? I mean what’s that about. Control your temper!

But I know I’ve hurt you too. I’ve been frivolous with your resources and have sometimes even—gasp—littered. I bought a V6 when I could’ve bought a hybrid. In fact, I think my carbon footprint is a size 12 at least—and that’s a size you have to special order at the shoe store. Yeah, I’m not saying I’m perfect. We all do things we regret, but Earth, you know I love you, right? That’s why it’s so difficult saying what I have to say…

We can’t be together anymore. I’ve heard talk of a major problem. They say you’re going to die a horrific death, and since I count on you for protection, I’m gonna die too. I’d like to say we’ll be together in the next world, but do planets go to Heaven? I can’t say for certain, so I think I should say goodbye instead.

We’ve had a good run, you and I. And I never regret having loved you. How I wish I could save us both, but who am I to interfere with an ancient prophecy?

I’ll miss the way you spill light through my closed blinds in the early morning, gently telling me it’s time to start my day. And I’ll remember fondly the way the ground smells after a restorative rain shower—the way the pitter patter on my skin prickles like teensy weensy fingers giving me a massage, the way the earthworms come out of the ground and dance on the pavement. The songs of birds in the morning are my favorite; they always sound so happy. I wish I understood the lyrics to their upbeat symphony so that I could join in with them. And ice cream? I’ll give you credit for that, because the cows are yours, the vanilla bean is yours, the sugar is yours. The taste is magnificent! To never feel that icy sensation arouse my taste buds again is such a great shame.

I’m tearing up now just thinking about all our good times together. I hope you’ll remember me with the same fondness. No matter what happens, I will ALWAYS love you.

Now it’s time to say goodbye. Go out with a smile,








About Farsighted: Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t.  When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Farsighted is the winner of the 2011 Dragonfly eBook Awards. Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

About the Author:  Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit her on her website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.

Thank you Emlyn for the awesome post! If we do face apocalypse, I think I will need to write a Dear John letter as well. Just in case! You know what I will write one write now.


Dear siblings, 

NO. You cannot touch my Harry Potter collection when I turn into a zombie.


Love your sister,

Dec 29, 2011

Interview with Emlyn Chand author of Farsighted and GIVEAWAY!



Farsighted by  Emlyn Chand

Alex Kosmitoras’s life has never been easy. The only other student who will talk to him is the school bully, his parents are dead-broke and insanely overprotective, and to complicate matters even more, he's blind. Just when he thinks he'll never have a shot at a normal life, a new girl from India moves into town. Simmi is smart, nice, and actually wants to be friends with Alex. Plus she smells like an Almond Joy bar. Yes, sophomore year might not be so bad after all.

Unfortunately, Alex is in store for another new arrival—an unexpected and often embarrassing ability to “see” the future. Try as he may, Alex is unable to ignore his visions, especially when they begin to suggest that Simmi is in danger. With the help of the mysterious psychic next door and new friends who come bearing gifts of their own, Alex must embark on a journey to change his future.
“Did Dad tell you? A new tenant moved into the old pharmacy next door.”

“Really?” I ask, not letting on I already know. If I feign ignorance, Mom’ll divulge all the details. “What is it?”

“It’s a psychic shop,” Her voice crackles with excitement like a fire that’s just beginning to burn. “The All-Seeing Miss Teak. Isn’t that cute? Miss Teak, Mystic. Ha, I wonder if that’s her real name.”

I laugh. “That is funny. Never had a psychic in town before. What’s she like?”

“Oh, she’s very friendly. Why don’t you go over and say ‘hi.’ I’m sure she’d like to meet you.”

“Okay, I think I will.” I’m incredibly intrigued, because first off, it’s a psychic shop—how weird is that?—and second, its presence made Dad super uncomfortable—also very cool. I waste no time heading next door to check out the scene.

As I step cautiously into the new shop, a recording of soft, instrumental music greets me. I can make out chimes and a string instrument I don’t recognize but for some reason reminds me of snake charmers. The smell of incense fills my nostrils, which explains the burning I detected earlier.

“Hello?” I call out into the otherwise quiet room.

Nobody answers. I walk in deeper, sweeping my cane out in front of me in a metronome fashion. This place is new to me, so I need to be especially careful while moving around.

Thump! Despite my precautions, I stub my toe on something hard, big, and made of wood. Just my luck to stub the same toe twice in one day. I reach down to press my fingers into my throbbing foot to alleviate some of the pain. Something teeters before rolling off of the chest and across the floor; the sound it makes indicates a curved path. Suddenly, the object stops. Somebody’s stopped it.

“Hello?” I call again.

“Hello,” a deep, feminine voice responds, placing more emphasis on the first syllable than the second.

“I- I’m sorry I knocked that thing over. I didn’t mean to…” I hope she’s not angry. Probably not a good idea to get on a psychic’s bad side.

“That wasn’t just a thing, it’s a crystal ball,” she says as she walks over, sending my blood pulsing through my veins. I sense her looking at me for a moment before she places the ball back on top of the chest.

“Can it see the future?” I ask, allowing my curiosity to outweigh my uneasiness.

“No.” After a pause lasting several beats, she continues. “But I can see the future sometimes when I look into it.”

“Oh, okay.” I tighten my hand around my cane and turn to leave. It may not be the most polite thing to do, but all of this hocus-pocus stuff is freaking me out more than I would’ve guessed.

The psychic lady speaks again, stopping me cold. “Don’t run away, Alex Kosmitoras.” She must’ve spoken to Mom earlier today. That must be how she knows my name.

“I’m not running away,” I say meekly. “I’m just going back over to Sweet Blossoms.”

“Don’t run away,” she repeats—this time she speaks louder and with more energy. “Don’t run away from your abilities. They are gifts.”

“What?” I ask in confusion. What abilities is she talking about?

“You already know. Watch. Listen. Be open to your gifts.”

I turn to face Miss Teak, but find she’s already gone, returning to wherever she was before I got there.

Is it safe to leave? I trail my fingers across the wooden box I ran into earlier; a thick coat of dust clings to the tips as I pull away. If this shop just opened, why is it already so dirty? I wipe my hands over my shirt to get the gritty substance off. Shivers rock my whole body. Something about this place is wrong, and I’m not sticking around to figure out what. Tapping my cane along the floor, I’m able to find the exit without knocking into anything else.

Hello readers, I would like to introduce Emlyn Chand to you all, author of Farsighted, a brand new paranormal Young-Adult series, Fasighted. Emlyn was kind enough to answer some questions about her book and what encouraged her to writing this book.
What was it like writing from the viewpoint of a blind, teenage boy? Were there any parts of Alex’s personality/life you found hard to come up with?
You know, it wasn’t as hard to write blind as I initially thought it would be. It didn’t take long to begin “seeing” Alex’s world the way he does. I wrote the entire story without knowing what anyone or anything looked like (except for Alex himself). When it came time to shoot the book trailer, the directors were asking me questions about the scenes and which props they should bring, and I really, really didn’t know what to tell them!

As I got to know Alex better and better, it became easier to tune into his way of seeing things. I read books about coping with blindness in a school setting and spent a great deal of time pondering how I might behave if I couldn’t see. In the story, Alex has always been blind; he’s always known the world to be a certain way. Not everyone understands that, and they have trouble talking about it with him. I gave Alex a tendency to overcompensate. He knows who he is and what he’s capable of, and he wants the world to know it too, so sometimes he overdoes things a bit.
Your cast of characters has international flavor? What’s behind that choice?
I don’t see why my characters all need to belong to the same culture or ethnicity. What fun is that? Culture shapes our characters in a big way, so by diversifying my cast, I was able to hit on more types of personalities and situations. Grandon is based on my hometown; it’s small and kind of boring. I couldn’t wait to escape and move on to bigger and better things. My home town was mostly Caucasian, but somehow I ended up with a very diverse set of friends even though they made up less than 1% of the student body. Fast forward a few years, and I end up marrying a man from India. He’s from New Delhi, like Simmi. I’ve always been fascinated by other cultures; I even decided to pursue my Master’s in Sociology for this very reason. I credit two early life influences for this attraction:  1) My adoration of A.C. Slater in Saved by the Bell, 2) Disney’s Aladdin being the best movie ever.
What was the inspiration for Farsighted?
Everything started with a single image—my face in these tacky oversized sunglasses reflecting out at me from the car’s side mirror. I was daydreaming while my husband drove us across Michigan for my sister’s wedding. Something about my image really struck me in an almost horrific way. I felt the glasses made me look blind but found it so weird that there was still a clear image within them; it seemed so contradictory. At the time, my book club was reading The Odyssey, which features the blind Theban prophet, Tieresias. I started thinking about what it would be like to have non-visual visions of the future and began forming a modern Tieresias in my mind. Lo and behold, Alex Kosmitoras was born. I didn’t want him to be alone in his psychic subculture, so I found other characters with other powers to keep him company. Thank God for my poor fashion sense :D
What would you like readers to take away from Farsighted? Is there a different message for adults than for teens?
First and foremost, I hope that readers will enjoy themselves. My primary goal is to tell an interesting story that people will find entertaining and be glad they read. Secondly, I’d like to infuse contemporary Young Adult fiction with a bit more diversity and teach readers about the beauty of other cultures and other ways of life. I also hope that Farsighted is a book that leads to introspection—what would I do if put in Alex’s place? Did Alex ever have a choice or was this path his destiny? What would it be like to see the world the way he sees the world?

I like to think of anything I write as being kind of like a Disney movie, in that the primary audience will be children, but there are extra tidbits for the adults too. Farsighted has been infused with a great deal of research about runes, classic mythology, and Eastern spirituality, but you don’t need to understand any of that to be entertained by the story.
There have been articles written this year about YA being too dark for teens. What are your thoughts on this?
I definitely agree. I want to get back to the core of the YA genre, and I attempted to do that with Farsighted. I also think that paranormal has gotten a bit too out there. One thing I hear from readers quite a bit is that the paranormal seems normal in Farsighted. They don’t question the existence of the powers, and it doesn’t seem out there like some other books of the genre do. That was important to me. I wanted my story to be run by the characters, not the fantastic elements. This is a story about Alex, not about a blind psychic.
What motivated you to structure the book around the runes?
Remember how I said my Master’s degree is in Sociology? It’s actually Quantitative Sociology. I’m a numbers person as well as a word person. I love things to be organized just so. If you set a stack of papers in front of me; I’m going to fuss with them until they are lined up in a perfect stack. It’s just the way I am. Shaping each chapter around a rune gave the story order, which made me feel happy and comfortable. Whenever I got stuck and didn’t know what should happen next, I was able to learn more about that chapter’s rune and get the inspiration I needed to continue. The runes themselves tell a story, one that is successfully completed. I felt that boded well for Farsighted.
What do you like to read? Who is your favorite author?
I LOVE YA—I read it, write it, love it! My favorite author is JK Rowling. The more I read, the more I realize how brilliant she is as an author. If you remove the dialogue tags from Harry Potter, you still know which character is speaking, and Rowling managed to create an intricate beautiful world without allowing her character development to suffer, which is tremendously rare. I consider her literary God. Suzanne Collins, and JD Salinger are classic faves.

My all-time favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, definitely. The novel has so many layers and entertains on so many levels. Also the characters in that novel seem more real than those from any other I’ve ever read. It’s just beautiful—that’s the only word for it.
If you had to be stuck on an island for a year with three literary characters, who would they be?
First up, we’d obviously take Robinson Crusoe. He knows what he’s doing, and he can be the provider. I’ll also take Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games—if we get in any kind of danger, she’d be a great protector. Lastly, I’d take Ron Weasley. Ron and I can live the good life, while the other two make sure we all stay safe and well-fed. I know I would never get bored with Ron around—he’s just 24/7 entertainment.
You’ve taken a risk by going with an unconventional ending. Without spoiling the story for your readers, can you tell us why you made this choice? Are you glad you did this? Do you feel it’s been successful? Why or why not?
Yeah, I ended with a cliffhanger, which goes against traditional publishing wisdom. But you know what? I. AM. INDIE! Being indie means taking risks and breaking the mold and, boy, am I excited to do it. The ending is kind of polarizing, people either love it or wish there was more there. The joining thread is almost everyone mentions looking forward to the next book in the series. Farsighted demands a companion, and people see that. I think it was a good decision since this is the first in the series and since I enjoy toeing the line of convention. It’s fun to shake things up. 

Find Emlyn Chand in her facebook page, webpage, twitter, goodreads
Now it's time for the GIVEAWAY!! Today you have the chance to win $50 Amazon gift card or an autographed copy of Farsighted. How do you do that?!? You simply have to log into your Facebook and share this post.

WAIT! That's not the only way or the only prize. You can win many more, find out about them by clicking here.

Dec 28, 2011

Finished and failed reading challenges

I suck at reading challenges.

Reason #1 I never knew I was suppose to go back to the blog of the reading challenge hosts to show off the books I read for this challenges every month *face palm*

Reason #2 I just love sighing up for challenges -_-

Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge 
Status: Success. 
Men in Uniform Reading Challenge 
Men In Uniform 2011
Status: Fail
Vampire Challenge 2011
Status:I can not believe it
But I failed.
Miserably!
100+ Reading Challenge 2011
Status:  Nope only went halfway.
Erotic Reading Challenge 2011
Status:  I think my status as eraotic
reader is going haywire.
FAIL!

Status:  SUCCESS!

Dec 21, 2011

Scorpio Rising by Monique Domovitch Tour and Giveaway

As a part of promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity book tours I am happy to introduce Scorpio Rising by Monique Domovitch to my readers.

Scorpio Rising is the first part of The Scorpio Series followed by The Sting Of Scorpio. 

Scorpio Rising by Monique Domovitch
Amazon / Barnes & Nobel
Some people have ambitions so great, that to achieve them, they must put aside all else. Alexander Yvanov is such a man. Born in Brooklyn from an embittered mother, he climbs his way to a better life in New York. Thousands of miles away, beautiful Brigitte Dartois, also has big dreams and raging ambitions. This is the story of two people whose single-minded obsessions are put to the test when they meet. Will they choose love or success?
Monique Domovitch takes us on a breathtaking journey of twists and turns, from New York to Paris, in this, her stunning first novel, Scorpio Rising.
The Sting Of The Scorpio by Monique Domovitch 
If you enjoyed Scorpio Rising, you will love its sequel, The Sting of the Scorpio.

Alexander Ivanov returns to New York with his beautiful bride, Brigitte Dartois, and begins his dizzying climb to the pinnacles of success. To attain his goals, Alex plots his way, betraying friends and creating enemies. When Power Properties becomes the victim of a hostile takeover attempt, Alex is left to wonder who among those closest to him has turned on him while he struggles to keep his beloved company.
 Get to know Scorpio Rising a little better from the excerpt
Half way around the world, Brigitte Dartois also liked drawing. Rather than buildings, her pictures were of her family—Papa, Maman, and herself under a bright sun. Sometimes she drew trees and flowers. Her subjects were the same as any other child’s her age, but her pictures were different. They were strong and arresting.

“Viens voir, Colette,” her father called her mother. He held up a bright drawing of a garden. “Regarde, don’t tell me our daughter is not talented.”

Colette Dartois looked, but to her, those colorful scribbles were no better than those of any other nine-year-old.

She shrugged. “You shouldn’t compliment her too much. It will go to her head. Brigitte, put that away and go do your homework.”

Often, Colette would look at her husband and her daughter with vague discomfort. He paid so much attention to Brigitte and so little to her. Every day when Louis Dartois burst through the door after work, it was Brigitte to whom he opened his arms after a perfunctory kiss to Colette. Gradually, Colette’s love for her husband and daughter festered into resentment and jealousy.

Then, when Brigitte was thirteen, her father died suddenly. Three months later, her mother married Lucien. “Consider yourself lucky. Not many men are willing to be a papa to a grown girl like you. You better be nice to him.”

Brigitte was filled with anger, betrayed by her mother’s indifference. One night, when Brigitte was alone in the house with her stepfather, she awakened to a pair of rough hands moving over her body. “This will be our little secret,” Lucien told her when she opened her eyes. “If you even think of telling anyone, I’ll kill you,” he said. Then he raped her.

Her mother worked the evening shift as a barmaid at a club down the street, and for the next three years, it became a nightly ritual for Lucien to stop in for une petite caresse, as he called it. Every night he gave her the same warning. “You tell anyone and you’re dead.” Sometimes he went into gruesome details of what he would do to her if she ever told. Brigitte believed him. So, she kept her mouth shut.

Once, she was the top student in her class. Her grades began to slide until she was close to failing. She slept at her friends’ flats whenever she could. At home, she was silent and withdrawn. Her mother barely noticed.

“What’s the matter with you?” Colette asked. “Get your act together. You keep it up and you’ll be kicked out of school.”

One night while Lucien was in her bed and forcing himself on Brigitte, the bedroom door flew open. Her mother stood in the entrance, an expression of horror on her face. Lucien jumped up and fumbled with his trousers. “It’s the girl’s fault,” he said, his voice coming in halting breaths. “How’s a man supposed to resist? She’s always coming on to me. As soon as you leave in the evening, she takes off her camisole and lets me see her body. Colette, you’ve got to stop her, she’s trying to break us up!”

“Get out!” Colette shouted, and her voice was like ice. The girl sobbed in relief. At last, her ordeal was over. She would never have to see her stepfather again. “You’re no daughter of mine. Get out you putain.”

In shock, Brigitte realized her mother was speaking to her. She had lost! Lucien had won! She dressed as quickly as she could, threw a few of her things into a pillowcase, and slipped silently down the hall to the closet where her mother kept her purse. Sorry, but I’ll need this more than you will. She took all the cash she found. Then she left.

Two days later, a sales-help-wanted sign in a store window caught her eye.
Now time for the giveaway, you can enter to win 2 Kindle Fires, Amazon gift cards up to $100 in amount, 5 autographed copies of the book, AND 5 autographed copies of its recently released sequel, The Sting of The Scorpio. 

So what do you have to do to enter win the awesome prizes!! Follow this LINK and fill up the form!
 

Dec 16, 2011

Millennium Trilogy


Millennium Trilogy better known as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy. Millennium Trilogy is written by Stieg Larsson. And sadly I have not read this books. I know I know WHY NOT? Right? I don't know either :(However last week a friend of mine got me the trilogy in a DVD box. Yes yes, I saw the movies.

I was not sure at first if I wanted to watch it or not. Then I saw the trailer that said movie would be coming soon with Daniel Craig and... sorry I didn't see anything after Daniel Craig. So I did a bit of googling about the movie, the books and HOLY MOTHER OF GAWD!! Yes yes. Why have I not read this books is still a mystery but I was not about to give up the chance to watch the movies when I have them in hand. No matter if the movie is in Swedish, that;s why there is an option called 'subtitle'.

Millennium Trilogy


The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Lisbeth Salander:Noomi Rapace
Mikael Blomkvist: Michael Nyqvist
This was definitely my favorite from the trilogy.
Lisbeth Salander is an expert hacker helping out Mikael Blomkvist solve a mystery of a woman who has been missing for over 40 years.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the first of Millennium Trilogy.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Director:Daniel Alfredson
Lisbeth Salander:Noomi Rapace
Mikael Blomkvist: Michael Nyqvist
Second book of the trilogy and this one mainly focuses on Lisbeth and her past. And some unknown people trying to get Lisbeth in jail for crimes she didn't commit. 
The Girl Who Played With Fire on goodreads.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Director:Daniel Alfredson
Lisbeth Salander:Noomi Rapace
Mikael Blomkvist: Michael Nyqvist
Third and last of Millennium Trilogy. Lisbeth's fight continues to prove that she is not guilty. Revealing a conspiracy which was one of the reason that lead Lisbeth to have a abusive childhood.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on goodreads.

Overall, awesome movies. I can't say what I think of the books till I read them. But they are now definitely on top of my TBR. I am stil confused if I want to watch the US version of this movie. The Swedish one is already sooo good! 

I probably will though seeing Daniel Craig will be playing Mikael Blomkvist.

I don't know what to think of Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, I guess I will just have to see the movie to give it a final verdict. But I absolutely LOVED Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth and I can not wait to see her as Madam Simza Heron in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows releasing today.

WARNING: Millennium Trilogy are not romance novels or movies, the books are adult themed so are the movies.

 

Dec 14, 2011

My Book Boyfriend : Julian of Macedon

Today I would like you all to meet another book boyfriend of mine. Julian of Macedon from Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series Fantasy Lover.

Julian is a Greek love slave, summoned to you know... become love slaves of women 
Name: Julian Of Macedon 

Greek love slave summoned to be love slave and show off his talent?!?

Still learning how to drive and master parallel parking.


"Because I have no boobs. My ears stand out, and I have freckles all over me."
"Boobs?"
"Breasts."
"You have very nice breasts."
"Thanks. What about you?"
"I have no breasts. (Julian)"


“You okay?"
"Oh, yeah. I’m just fine considering the fact I’ve walked through burning fires that hurt less than my groin does right now."
"I said I was sorry. Okay, can you reach the pedals?"
"I’d like to reach your pedals…"
"Julian! Would you concentrate?"
"All right. I’m concentrating."
"I don’t mean on my breasts." He dropped his hungry gaze to her lap. "Or there, either.”
Le sigh. This days Julian has recently retired from his post as a Greek love slave *but he becomes one in special occasions, which involves Grace Alexander* and now he is a Greek history professor teaching in a college ....and I really can't recall the college name

Julian of Macedon is played by Ben Hill. Thank you Missie for the introducing me to him through Archimedes Fox  ;)

MBB My Book Boyfriend is hosted on every Wednesday by Missie over at The Unread Reader.


Dec 9, 2011

GFC Bye Bye?

There has been a lot of fuss that Google Friend Connect will be disabled so everyone is going nuts. You know what? SO AM I! I just cannot understand why take down this service. You can find the post by following this link.  

So after much researching I have found quite a few social networks to stay connected to blogs and my readers. But the thing is I do NOT want another social network in my life. Aren't there more than enough already? As a blog reader I mainly check blog post in my Google reader, I visit blogs to leave comments and check out their sites but mostly I stay on Google reader. And connecting with a blog through Google Friend Connect automatically puts that blog in my reader list, so that's pretty easy. 
  
Seeing GFC being taken down my only concern was if Google Reader will be disabled as well. Thank god it isn't. So I did some more researching to figure out what I could do stay connected to blogs via Google reader if I don't have Google Friend Connect and offer my readers the same thing in return. 

So I figured the easiest this to do is to go to your Google Reader page and you can find the subscribe button that looks like this 


Now if you want to follow up any blog and their posts all you have to do is copy that link 
click the picture to see get the bigger version
and paste it on the subscribe box and press add.    

 So that's pretty easy!

There are other ways to keep connected to blogs and readers as well. 
g+ (Google pluis) Is the reccomended site from google.


Feedbuner is another good form where you can deside in which site do you want to read blog posts.
I am sure there are many other networks as well. GFC will be available till March 1, 2012, so bloggers can find an alternate way to keep connected to readers and I really really hope Google keeps GFC.

After this post I don't think I want to say the word 'GOOGLE' ever again. YAK.
 

Dec 6, 2011

My Book Boyfriend: Ian McFarland


My Book Boyfriend is a weekly meme hosted by Missie from The Unread Reader.

This week I am going to introduce another boyfriend to everyone. Ian McFarland from All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins.
Ian is a vet who just moved in Georgebury, Vermont, he is absolutely socially retarded (as Callie puts it) he is not a people's person, he does not do the 'wooing' a woman intentionally. To Callie he first reminds her of a Russian assassin who can kill a fly with his pinkie. As soon as I read that my mind just went straight to

However Ian is a complete softy and a romantic hidden behind all that layers. And Jason here just doesn't seem like the softy or romantic one more like crazy hot rough sex against the wall serious kindda guy. And also Ian has short cropped blond hair another reason Jason gets ruled out of the competition to fill Mr. McFarland's shoes. 

Now let me introduce you to Ian properly.
Name: Ian McFarland
Age: 30 something
Occupation: Hot Vet in Georgebury, Vermont
Height: Over six feet and then some
Eyes: Blue *le sigh*
Hair: Blond
He does, says stuff that makes me swoon sigh and get all dreamy eyes.


He wore jeans...I'd yet to see him in something other than a suit, and I was having a hard time taking my eyes off those jeans, which fit very nicely. His polo shirt was a faded red, and somehow he managed to look quite...dangerous in a most pleasing and (let's be honest) horny way. Like at any minute he'd get the call from a mysterious government agency and trot off to kill someone, the way Clive Owen did in The Bourne Identity. I'll bet Ian had some cool scar somewhere...yes, actually, there it was, up near his eye. Knife fight, I'd bet hard cash.

I'd also bet he knew how to kiss. Guys who looked like that could kiss, ladies. Or so my romance novels told me. Hard kissing. Kisses that started hard, anyway, then went soft and long and the woman would be pulled against his unyielding chest, his arms like bands of steel, me all soft and melting, him hard and hot...



Oh...God. He was in a tux. I'd sort of forgotten to think about that. He looked like an assassin about to infiltrate a state dinner...tall, blond, dangerous, and heavens, it was aturn-on! Those eyes of his were staring back at me, and you know what, it had been a long time since I'd had sex, and could we please just do it right here in this hallway? Holy. Guaca. Moley.

His eyes drifted down, slowly, assessingly, then back up, pausing at the girls for a gratifying heartbeat or three, then continuing up to my face. "Let's go," he said, then cleared his throat.

I snapped out of my haze of lust. "'Let's go,' Ian? Can't you do better than that? Here, I'll give you an example." I smiled and let my eyes drift over him once more. Frrrroooww! "Ian, you look...amazing. Wow. Okay, now it's your turn."

He almost smiled. "You look pretty. Let's go."

I sighed. "You're a work in progress, Ian McFarland."

Dr McFarland definitely is the kindda man you take home to meet the parents and have a happily ever after with. And I am so totally in love with HIM! *more sighs*

Ian McFarland was played by Paul Walker and Jason Statham