Payment in Kind by J.A. Janice

From Kobobook:

Synopsis

It looks like a classic crime of passion to Detective J.P Beaumont: two corpses found lovingly entwined in a broom closet of the Seattle School District building. The prime suspect, Pete Kelsey, admits his slain spouse was no novice at adultery, yet he swears he had nothing to do with the brutal deaths of the errant school official and her clergyman-turned-security guard companion. Beau believes him, but there's something the much sinned-upon widower's not telling—and that spells serious trouble still to come.
Because the secret Pete's protecting is even hotter than extra-marital sex. . . and it could prove more lethal than murder.

My Review:
In this quick pace novel, J.P. investigate the death of two people whose bodies were found in a closet. On first glace it seems that the two were engaged in misdeeds but something about it just doesn't seem right. As the story unfolds we learn who the victims were as well as their family life. Even J.P. and his nemeses Max interact differently. It is not until the end of the book that we find the killer and the real reason for these puzzling murders.

This is an enjoyable read. The characters were all relate able. You are on the case with J.P. Just when you think you know who the killer is something happens to lead you in a new direction. The detective personality of digging deeper than what is the obvious is what make this novels so good. Then again if he only went with what was on the surface there wouldn't be much to the book. If you are new to the J.P. Beaumont world I think this is a good book to start with. For the most part these can be read out of order but there are times when reference of things that happen in past books come up.

Challenges:
2013 Audio Book Challenge
50 States Reading Challenge
2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge

Exposed by Naomi Chase

rating: 2stars

From Kobo:
Her past is back to haunt her--and it's hotter than ever. . . On the brink of a major promotion Tamia Luke is within reach of the glitzy life she's always dreamed of--until her client Dominic "Nico" Archer blackmails her into becoming his mistress threatening to reveal her scandalous past. Tamia has no choice but to submit to his demands. But the tables turn when her hostility towards Nico is replaced with insatiable lust. No man--including her boyfriend--has ever satisfied her the way he does. And as her infatuation grows the closer she comes to losing everything--including her life.

My Review:
"Tamia has no choice ..." Life is all about choices. Even when you think you do not have a choice, you do. Some times there are things that happen to us that we can not control but how you react is up to you. You have a choice. Tamia made choices when she was younger that she knew may come back to bite her. Then when confronted with her past she made the choice to keep hiding, all that followed was of her own doing.

This book was entertaining and at times steamy. The ending was not a happy one and I am quite okay with that. The only thing I did not like was the sister. Very unappreciative and certainly did not learn her lesson. The fact that she was jealous and ultimately turned on her sister goes to show that people, even family, will bring you down to save themselves.

TBR 3

Challenges
2013 Ebook Reading Challenge
2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge
New Author Reading Challenge 2013

Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs

Knit the Season

by Kate Jacobs

mp3 audiobook

rating 5stars

from Kobo:
Not only are the holidays are just around the corner, the women who knit at Manhattan's Walker & Daughter have an extra reason to celebrate: there's a wedding planned for New Year's Day. In the meantime, college-age Dakota Walker is working to finish a sweater her mother started before Dakota was born. As she takes on her mother's pattern, she learns from her family and friends that there was much more history in these stitches than she had anticipated, and that to build on her mother's legacy, Dakota must allow herself to become the woman she truly desires to be...

It has been awhile since I have posted a review. *smh I know, I know, shame on me. Worse yet, I haven’t been reading that much lately. Still I have a ton of reviews to write. I am also not happy with the style of writing on this blog. So I’m going to try something a bit more conversational and see how it goes. On to today’s post.

Knit the Season is book three of the Friday Night Knit Club series by Kate Jacobs. Change is the theme of this latest book. Learning how to adjust when life throws you a curve ball is an important lesson. At every
Dakota is faced with a situation not turning out the way she thought it would or was just plain blindsided.

I listened to this on audio several times. I really like the story. Dakota was annoying at times. Though the theme of the book is change, and knowing that meant that she would most likely have a hard time trying to deal with change, the way she constantly thought about how things were going to affect her bother me (especially when it came to Gran).

Kate still finds way to keep Georgia relevant. Switching from present day to flashbacks are hard for some readers to get right, it is done well throughout the series so far. The characters are all well developed. Reading the story and its characters makes me want to walk into Walker and Daughter yarn shop. And finally, there are several recipes and knitting patterns at the end. I love this about the books. You don’t just get a story, you get activities to try as well.

TBR list 1

Challenges:

2013 Audio Book Challenge
Let Me Count The Way
2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=S*4/FsYOoLE&subid=&offerid=258185.1&type=10&tmpid=9309&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobobooks.com%2Febook%2FPS-I-Love-You%2Fbook-pB-VBeGosUawT7a4VlUuzA%2Fpage1.html%3Fs%3DWGexNlszTEafO6bTH4g-KQ%2526r%3D2
#ThrowbackThursday
rating: 3stars (2.8)

From Kobo:
A wonderfully warm and heartfelt debut from a stunning new talent. Everyone needs a guardian angel! Some people wait their whole lives to find their soul mates. But not Holly and Gerry. Childhood sweethearts, they could finish each other's sentences and even when they fought, they laughed. No one could imagine Holly and Gerry without each other. Until the unthinkable happens. Gerry's death devastates Holly. But as her 30th birthday looms, Gerry comes back to her. He's left her a bundle of notes, one for each of the months after his death, gently guiding Holly into her new life without him, each note signed 'PS, I Love You'. As the notes are gradually opened, and as the year unfolds, Holly is both cheered up and challenged. The man who knows her better than anyone sets out to teach her that life goes on. With some help from her friends, and her noisy and loving family, Holly finds herself laughing, crying, singing, dancing -- and being braver than ever before. Life is for living, she realises -- but it always helps if there's an angel watching over you.

My Review:
P.S. I Love You is about love. Holly and Gerry have been together since they were teenagers. They are childhood sweethearts and soul mates. And more importantly best friends. Gerry dies and now Holly must learn to live without him.
Let me start by saying that this was perhaps not the best book to read for this game as it is long and quite emotional. I usually do not like lead female characters who are very dependent on others. Holly would seem like a character I would not like but the subject matter made me feel for her. She had the love of her life and to become a widow at such a young age would make any person more than just a little depressed. Gerry cares for her even after he is dead by leaving her a series of letters. The most important thing about these letters is that it gives her his blessing for her to keep moving forward with her life. So often when people we love leave our lives some times it may feel like you are betraying the person by having fun, falling in love, or whatever else the case may be.
This book has been sitting on my shelf for well over a year. Every time I look that it I would just say I am just not in the mood for what I thought would be a sappy book. Like I said above it may not be the best book for the relay but it is a great read. I can't say I can relate but I was in a relationship for years and when it ended I was lost for awhile. I missed our friendship most of all. And that to me is why the book is about love. If you are in a relationship and the two of you are truly friends then I think you will enjoy this book.
Note: I know that the likelihood of this ever really happening (the letters) is slim but I’m leaving this book on my boyfriend’s nightstand. I don’t want letters after he’s dead as I hope we have a long time together. But maybe it’ll spark some kind love note every now and then. LOL…a girl can hope.

Reading Challenges 2013:

2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge
2013Book to Movie
2013 TBR Pile Challenge

Fun and Games 2013/2012

PBT's 5th Anniversary Relay (Play Book Tag)
Readers of Romance Book Challenges Winter 2013

Killing Rain by Barry Eisler

#ThrowbackThursday
book 4 John Rain series
narrator:Michael McConnohie
mp3 audiobook
rating: ★★★★ (4.4)

From Goodreads:
Killing Rain, John Rain has a new employer, the Mossad, which wants him to fix a "problem" in Manila; a new partner, Dox, whose good-ol'-boy persona masks a sniper as deadly as Rain himself. He also has a new hope: that by using his talents in the service of something good, he might atone for all the lives he has already taken. But when Rain's conscience causes him to botch an assignment, he finds out that the Mossad's next assignment is himself. And when Delilah, the alluring Israeli agent he once fought and then loved, reappears in his life, is she there to help him - or to finish him off?

My Review:
This is the first book I have listed to by this author. I must say that it is quite a story. Narrator Michael McConnohie has a great voice. A great story is always key but with audio books the voice of the narrator is most important because if I don't like the voice that the end of listening to the audio version.

John Rain (wonder if he had John Wayne in mind) is an assassin for hire. He is hired to take out a guy named Manny. With not much to go on, John and his partner Dox has to watch Manny for the perfect opportunity to take him out. The right time presents itself but at the last minute circumstances change and John freezes. Now John is the hunted by those who hired him and the man Manny was working with.

The story is completely interesting. The characters are believable. Each having their own personality and quirks. It's fast paced but still contains detailed information. Though this is book 4, I had no problem reading it out of order which is definitely a plus. A great book for any reader who loves thrillers, suspense, and spy-mercenary novels.

Challenges:
2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge
Let Me Count The Way
2013 Audio Book Challenge

Other:
Winter's Respite Read-a-Thon

2nd Chance by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

#throwbackthursday
hardcover (large print)
520 pgs
rating 3stars (3.4)

From Kobo:

A brutal madman sprays bullets into a crowd of children leaving a San Francisco church. Miraculously-or was it intentionally?-only one person dies. Then an elderly black woman is hung. Police homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer senses a connection and together with medical examiner Claire, assistant D. A. Jill, and Chronicle reporter Cindy, finds a link that sends a chill through the entire nation. This killer's motives are unspeakable.


My Review:

Lindsey Boxer has been promoted to lieutenant. Her first case back seems to be an apparent drive by on choir children. Soon it is discovered that the only murdered victim was not an accident. When things escalate and everyone is at a lost of whom the murderer could be the Women’s Murder Club come together once again.

Fast paced and interesting 2^nd Chance keeps you engaged from the very beginning. No moment for things to become dull in this novel. The murder is, of course, central stage but there are a couple of subplots that keep the story moving forward. The killer in the novel, who calls himself the Chimera, is quite disturbing. There is one particular scene in the book that involves pictures of several lynchings that illustrated just how sick the killer is. If you haven’t read this yet and you are a fan of detective, crime, murder mystery novels this should be added to you tbr.

 

Challenges:

13 in 13
2013 TBR Pile Challenge
2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge

2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge

Anne from Creativity’s Corner and I LOVE a good challenge. So when we saw the dates dwindling down for 2012, we KNEW we had to come up with something awesome for the new year. Thus, the 2013 Book Bingo Reading Challenge was born!

When we thought about all the things we wanted to include in this challenge, we ended up making a list:

• Reading the books in our TBR pile
• Re-reading some books
• Reading some new books
• Reading books that EVERYONE but us has read
• Reading books from series that we have started & have been neglecting

In order to keep track of everything, we came up with a fancy, schmancy scoreboard:

Of course, a challenge isn’t really a challenge unless there are some rules and guidelines:

1. Be awesome. If you’re not, this isn’t going to work.
2. The challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2013.
3. If you want to participate, you can join in any time of the year! Feel free to write up a blog post with the rules linking back to my and Anne’s blog in your sign-up post.
4. If you read one book for the “1 book” in any category, you can’t change it later on when you read another book to “2 books.” Once a square is crossed off, it’s crossed off for good! (Feel free to print off the scoreboard to keep track!)
5. Books read for one square are for that square ONLY and cannot be counted towards another category. This is all about reading ALL THE BOOKS.
6. The FREE SQUARE isn’t really a free square. In order to cross it off, you must read a book by either:
   1. Reading a book picked by another participant, or
   2. Reading a book in a genre picked by another participant.
7. You can start your board over again, but ONLY if you receive the stamp of awesome by completing a blackout. The “winners” of the challenge will be the ones who achieve the most winning combinations by the end of 2013.
8. You can feel free to post your reading list for each category, though it’s not a requirement.
9. Having a blog or writing reviews for books read is not required. So long as you want to have fun, you can participate!
10. This isn’t a race, but don’t be afraid to rub your reads in the other player’s face. This will be seen as encouragement. Feel free to use the hashtag #2013BookBingo on Twitter!

While you can definitely “win” by the boring ol’ vertical or horizontal (or diagonal!) lines, the best ways to win are as follows:

Like it says in the guidelines, the ONLY way to start a new board is to become the SUPER READER! The goal is to read ALL THE BOOKS! To be a winner (thus, to become the awesomest reader around), you’ll want to accomplish as many wins as possible!

I am not sure how I am going to go about this challenge. I doubt I'll do a blackout though.

This is my scorecard so far.

Books Completed
2nd Chance by James Patterson (tbr)
Payment in Kind by J.A. Janice (reread)