Friday fast 5! Music

I haven’t done a music post in a while. They’re my least popular posts but I’m going to push my musical musings on you anyway lol

1

JULIA MICHAELS – Issues

2

NoMBe - Freak Like Me

3

GLASS ANIMALS – Agnes

4

KHALID – Young Dumb Broke

 5

DREAMERS - Painkiller

2017 Spotify Playlist

review: the sumage solution (san andreas shifters #1) by g.l. carriger

Can a gentle werewolf heal the heart of a smart-mouthed mage?

NYT bestseller Gail Carriger, writing as G. L. Carriger, presents an offbeat gay romance in which a sexy werewolf with a white knight complex meets a bad boy mage with an attitude problem. Sparks (and other things) fly.

Max fails everything - magic, relationships, life. So he works for DURPS (the DMV for supernatural creatures) as a sumage, cleaning up other mages’ messes. The job sucks and he’s in no mood to cope with redneck biker werewolves. Unfortunately, there’s something oddly appealing about the huge, muscled Beta visiting his office for processing.

Bryan AKA Biff (yeah, he knows) is gay but he’s not out. There’s a good chance Max might be reason enough to leave the closet, if he can only get the man to go on a date. Everyone knows werewolves hate mages, but Bryan is determined to prove everyone wrong, even the mage in question.

Delicate Sensibilities?

This story contains M/M sexitimes and horrible puns. If you get offended easily, then you probably will. The ­­­­San Andreas Shifter stories contain blue language, dirty deeds, and outright admiration for the San Francisco Bay Area. Not for the faint of heart (mouth/tongue/etc.).

This book stands alone, but there is a prequel short story featuring Bryan’s brother, Alec, the Alpha. Want to know why the pack moved? Read Marine Biology ~ Goodreads

Source: e-arc provided in exchange for an honest review

Review:

My favorite thing about The Sumage Solution was Carriger’s take on wolf packs and the alpha/beta roles.

Bryan is the beta wolf to his brother Alec’s alpha – but what’s interesting is Bryan is the big, brooding older brother while Alec is the younger, smaller one – yet they fill their roles perfectly. I just loved that twist on the usual pack dynamic.

When Bryan (aka: Biff) and his pack move to San Francisco, they have to register as supernaturals with DURPS and Bryan meets the smart-aleck sumage, Max.

I adored the little verbal dance that Max and Bryan do as their attraction blooms. Max is out and proud but is lacking in self confidence due to his epic failure as a mage while Bryan is still in the closet but feels this overwhelming need to protect Max and make him feel whole again. These two will become tied together in unexpected in ways that will heal them both if they just give in.

The Sumage Solution was a lot of fun! Great, complex characters with touches of the paranormal, magic and mystery and a bit of an unconventional romance with Gail Carriger’s (writing under a pen name) trademark quirky wit. And I LOOOOVE a beta hero! Bryan was so freaking sweet and just what Max needed. 

This is promoted as a stand alone, and I (mostly) agree. I do wish I read the prequel short – Marine Biology – that introduced the wolf pack because I was overwhelmed when all the guys were thrown at me in the beginning. It felt like I was supposed to know them already but I didn’t. It really doesn’t matter to the overall story but I wish I knew that at the time. ( You can get Marine Biology on Kindle)

I was also a touch confused about all the magic – but that’s not something I read about very often so I think that’s a case of – it’s me, not the book - and I was so happy with how it all turned out in the end that those were just minor quibbles to an otherwise delightful start to the series. 

blog tour review: no good deed by kara connolly

Fans of Dorothy Must Die will love this reimagining of the legend of Robin Hood. Girl power rules supreme when a modern girl finds herself in the middle of a medieval mess with only her smart mouth and her Olympic-archer aim to get her home.

Ellie Hudson is the front-runner on the road to gold for the U.S. Olympic archery team. All she has to do is qualify at the trials in jolly old England. When Ellie makes some kind of crazy wrong turn in the caverns under Nottingham Castle—yes, that Nottingham—she ends up in medieval England.

Ellie doesn’t care how she got to the Middle Ages; she just wants to go home before she gets the plague. But people are suffering in Nottingham, and Ellie has the skills to make it better. What’s an ace archer to do while she’s stuck in Sherwood Forest but make like Robin Hood?

Pulled into a past life as an outlaw, Ellie feels her present fading away next to daring do-gooding and a devilishly handsome knight. Only, Ellie is on the brink of rewriting history, and when she picks up her bow and arrow, her next shot could save her past—or doom civilization’s future. ~ Goodreads

Source: e-ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Review:

No Good Deed features a gender swap/time travel re-telliing of Robin Hood. To be honest, I don’t remember much from the original to be able to attest to how close the author stuck to the source material but the key players are all there.

Ellie Hudson is an archer, competing in England for a spot on the Olympic team. Her father puts a lot of pressure on her and Ellie’s brother, Robert, who is also an elite archer, has gone missing on a Peace Corp mission. All of this throws off her concentration and during an important shot she sees a man walk across the field. Unfortunately, she’s the ONLY person who saw him. She thinks everything is finally getting to her and goes off exploring the caves and tunnels of the area, hoping to find the strange man but instead finds herself back in the Middle Ages of Sherwood Forest accused of trespassing. About to thrown into be thrown in a lake with rocks tied to her as a test of her innocence, Ellie makes her great escape that leads to a series of adventures as Ellie finds herself at the center of the legend of Robin Hood with her own Merry Men.

Ellie’s quest to help the villagers of Nottingham, save herself and find a way back were a lot of fun! Connolly keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. Ellie is such a kind, likable, kick ass kind of girl with mad archery skills that makes everyone want to follow her. 

No Good Deed has very little in the way of romance – which I know a lot of YA readers are looking for. There are a few glances and sweet touches but that’s about it. I think I was supposed to be shipping Ellie and the noble Knight Templar, James, that’s teased in the summary, but I’m all about the hate to love vibe I was getting from Ellie and Guilbert – but honestly, that’s all irrelevant – because this is just about the adventure and less about the relationships – or even character development.

And that lack of character development and world building would be my one nitpick about this book. The bones are all there – the complex relationship with her parents, the missing brother, the *maybe* connection to James, the friendships, the time travel…it’s all just a surface type backdrop to get Ellie where she needs to be for the story to take place. There are no explanations or follow through but it’s fun nonetheless. The mix of authentic and modern day language from the medieval times characters was also a tad distracting.

A creative, modern day twist on the Robin Hood legend, relatable heroine who has action packed adventures that don’t involve a romance and great banter between the merry band of misfits make this a good pick for someone looking a for a light-hearted action packed read as long as your willing to let those adventures stand without explanation.

The publisher is comparing this one to Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige, and I have to agree. I have some of the same quibbles with NGD – innovative but with lack of follow through – as I did with DMD, but if you liked Dorothy Must Die, then this should be right up your alley.