Top Ten Meanest Love Songs

Saw this over at Aol Music Canada and just had to share:

10. The Beach Boys "Caroline No" 1966
Kiss-off:"Could I ever find you again/Things that made me love you so much then"

9. Bruce Springsteen "Tunnel of Love" 1987
Kiss-off:"Lights go out and its just the three of us/You, me and all that stuff we're so scared of"

8. Justin Timberlake "Cry Me a River" 2002
Kiss-off:"Your bridges were burned, and now it's your turn/To cry"

7. Nancy Sinatra "These Boots Are Made For Walkin"
Kiss-off: see above title of song...

6. Bob Dylan "Idiot Wind"
Kiss-off: "You're an idiot, babe/It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

5. P.J. Harvey "Dry" 1993
Kiss-off: "You leave me dry"

4. Carly Simon "You're So Vain" 1972
Kiss-off: "You probably think this song is about you"

3. Glen Campbell "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" 1967
Kiss-off: "She'll cry just to think I'd really leave her"

2. Lily Allen "Smile" 2006
Kiss-off: "When I see you cry, it makes me smile"

1. Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know" 1995
Kiss-off: "Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back, I hope you feel it"

I do love my jammies...

I suffer from the occasional bout of insomnia, and last night it hit full force. I woke up at three in morning and no way was I going to be able to go back to sleep. I recognized the feeling right off...so I did the only thing I knew that wouldn't disturb my husband. I got up, grabbed a book off my night stand and went into the family room and read.

The book I grabbed was The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square by Rosina Lippi. Here's the blurb (taken from Amazon.ca):

For John Dodge, moving to new places and reviving ailing businesses is a way of life. So when he sees an ad for Scriveners, a stationery shop in a small town in South Carolina, he decides to take the plunge.

As soon as he arrives in Lambert's Corner, Dodge falls happily into the whirl of gossip, gifts, and quintessential Southern hospitality. Link Kay, one of his employees, warms up to him after Dodge admires his expertise on pens. Bean Hurt- a feisty and outspoken ten-year-old-becomes a fast friend. And Maude Golden, the mayor, supplies him with indispensable information. But the one person who really catches Dodge's eye is Julia Darrow-the beautiful but aloof pajama- wearing owner of the Cocoon, a popular store specializing in luxury linens. Dodge tries to befriend her, but she remains elusive and mysterious. Everyone knows that she is a widow, but no one seems to know why she came to town or why she never leaves Lambert Square-or does she?

Like Dodge, Chicago-born Julia is fleeing a tumultuous past. But with the help of a hilarious and endearing cast of characters, Julia and Dodge learn that, sometimes, you don't need to go far to find home.

I was drawn right from the beginning. I just couldn't help it. I enjoyed every single little bit. The setting, even a fictional one, was superb. The characters were funny, engaging, friendly and full of southern charm. Who wouldn't want to visit Lambert Square?

The character that I enjoyed the most (of course) was Julia. On the outside she seems to be in control, strong, self assured and a keen business women, but throughout the book you see that she's slowly falling apart and that she's quite capable of figuring her what she needs to get her out of her problem. She just might need a little help from Dodge, if she's willing to accept it. Another reason that made her so appealing to me was her ability to love and train problem dogs, she sees beneath the exterior and just loves the dogs as they are. She fosters these dogs and only gives them to people that she finds worthy. Amazing!(Can you tell I'm an animal lover?!)

I just devoured this book. I cannot believe that I haven't read Rosina Lippi before, of course I've had seen her books before but I never given her a chance. I'm so glad that I picked this book up the library. I'll definitely will be looking for her other books, and also the historical fiction that she writes under the name of Sara Donati.

My only complaint about this book...was that I wanted more. After it was done, I wanted more. And more! I didn't want to say goodbye to these people. I want more Lambert Square! Please!

The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square by Rosina Lippi (5/5) General Fiction; Romance Comedy; Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons (2008); New Author; 100 + Reading Challenge (15); Library book; Added to shopping list; Favorite Reads of the year;

Lover Enshrined

I've been waiting and waiting for this book to be published. I actually pre-ordered it, and I rarely buy books as it is. But I've enjoyed the series so much that I decided that NEEDED this book asap. Well I received it last week, but I had other books that I needed to be read so I could return them to library. So I put it on my nightstand, and every once in a while I would gaze upon and sigh...one more book...until I can spend time with you...Yes, I know I sound pathetic, but that just me...

I finally was able to start it on Wednesday evening.

Here's the blurb:

In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly war raging between vampires and their slayers. And there exists a secret band of brothers like no other—six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. And now, a dutiful twin must choose between two lives...

Fiercely loyal to the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Phury has sacrificed himself for the good of the race, becoming the male responsible for keeping the Brotherhood's bloodlines alive. As Primale of the Chosen, he is to father the sons and daughters who will ensure that the traditions of the race survive and that there are warriors to fight those who want all vampires extinguished.

As his first mate, the Chosen Cormia wants to win not only his body but his heart for herself- she sees the emotionally scarred male behind all his noble responsibility. But while the war with the Lessening Society grows more grim, and tragedy looms over the Brotherhood's mansion, Phury must decide between duty and love.

You know how when you are really looking forward to something, just knowing that it will be awesome, so you have all this built up expectations...and then you sit down and start reading. And by each chapter you read those expectations are being lowered and lowered. That's what happened. Please don't get me wrong, it wasn't a horrible book, it was pretty good in fact...considering. But I was expecting fantastic, I was expecting a 5 star book.

I was expecting a love story to develop between Phury and Cormia, and it did eventually, but to me it seemed like it was a secondary plot (not main), there was a lot of information going, introduction to another "war" storyline between the Lessers and the BGB. Instead of a wanting to read about Phury - which you think about it, it is his story, I was more interested in knowing about what was going on with Rehv and other characters.

The one constant of the series, is the darkness of the story and the setting, and like the other books of the series it had and it was wonderful. I had the feeling of being in a film noir. It had the usual eeriness, without getting gruesome.

I will put this book along with the others on my keeper shelf, and maybe a few months down the line I'll re-read...I may get something completely different from the story by then.

Lover Enshrined by J.R. Ward (3.5/5) Romantic Suspense; Paranormal: Vampire; Published: Signet (6/2008); Series: # 6, The Black Dagger Brotherhood; 100 + Reading Challenge (14); Keeper;

Friday Fill-Ins # 75

Here are this week's Friday Fill-Ins:

1. Idle hands are devils hands.
2. I love to day dream in the shower.
3. My favorite time of the day is when the kids go to bed.
4. The last tea I drank was Lady Grey.
5. I like to take pictures in the Summer.
6. My mother always said respect your elders.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to a nice glass of wine, tomorrow my plans include taking the kids to swimming and soccer and Sunday, I want to to do nothing!

Friday's Feast # 192

This week's Friday's Feast questions:

Appetizer

When you drink soda/pop/coke, do you prefer to drink it from the bottle, a can, or after pouring it into a cup?

I don't drink all that much pop. But when I do its either in the can or bottle.

Soup

What television show are you willing to stay up late to watch?

Lost and Heroes

Salad

Name one person, place, or thing you think of as brilliant.

The Northern Lights. I'm not sure if I would use brilliant, but they are amazing.

Main Course

Would you be willing to work 4 10-hour days instead of 5 8-hour days in order to save gas?

Shorter work week. And I have done it before, so yes I would do it.

Dessert

If you were a superhero, what would you call yourself?

I have no clue....

BTT - Trends

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is:

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

Let me start off by saying that I'll read just about anything that I can get my hands on. I do have problems reading horror and true crime, I have tried both those genres and I just cannot wrap my mind around them...they scare me too much. One because of my very active imagination and the other is just too much for me.

I enjoy classical literature, and try read at least one classic a year. Last year I read The Lusiads by Luis de Camoes, it's an epic tale of the Portuguese people. This year I haven't decided yet...

I enjoy reading biographies, but I haven't done so in a long time. I believe the last one I read was a biography on Audrey Hepburn.

I stay mainly in the fiction area. I occasionally enjoy a science fiction and fantasy novel. Love thriller, suspense and the lighter mysteries. I'm a huge fan of romance, from the lighter kind to the more sensual kind. But my first love is historical fiction. I love it!

The Hollow

Finally got my hands on the second installment of the Sign of Seven Trilogy, The Hollow by Nora Roberts.

Here's the blurb:

For Fox, Caleb, Gage, and the other residents of Hawkins Hollow, the number seven portends doom -- ever since, as boys, they freed a demon trapped for centuries when their blood spilled upon the Pagan Stone...

Their innocent bonding ritual led to seven days of madness, every seven years. And now, as the dreaded seventh month moos before them, the men can feel the storm brewing. Already they are plagued by visions of death and destruction. But this year they are better prepared, joined in their battle by three women who have come to the Hollow. Layla, Quinn, and Cybil are somehow connected to the demon, just as the men are connected to the force that trapped it.

Since that fateful day at the Pagan Stone, town lawyer Fox has been able to see into others' minds, a talent he shares with Layla. He must earn her trust, because their link will help fight the darkness that threatens to engulf the town. But Layla is having trouble coming to terms with her newfound ability -- and with this intimate connection to Fox. She knows that once she opens her mind, she'll have no defense against the desire that threatens to consume them both...

I've been reading reviews for this book and generally there's mixed feelings about the book. Usually, (IMO) people tend to enjoy the first book of a series because it sets the tone of the story, it introduces the characters, etc. Although I tend to agree with that, I enjoyed Blood Brothers, I liked this one better. Maybe it's because I like Fox and Layla, I love his sensitivity and kindness towards others, his crazy addiction to any junk food related, and persistence to conquer her fears... I just cannot pinpoint it. Over all I enjoyed this book more than the first.

Now that being said... How am I going to wait until December for the last book in the trilogy? I'm not all that patient...I guess I'll find a way.

The Hollow by Nora Roberts (4/5) Romantic Suspense; Paranormal; Published: Jove Books (5/2008); Series: # 2, Sign of Seven Trilogy; 100 + Reading Challenge (13); Keeper;

Cozy Kind of Weekend

What's a girl to do on a rainy weekend?

Easy...cozy up on my comfy couch with two cozy mysteries.

Here's the blurb for The Ghost And Mrs. McClure by Alice Kimberly:

This spirit is willing -- to catch a killer.

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making end meet by managing a mystery bookshop - a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity -- like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940's murder, he keels over dead -- and right in the middle of the store's new Community Events space.

Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder? The bookstore's full time ghost -- a PI murdered on the very spot more than fifty years ago. Is he a figment of Pen's overactive imagination? Or is the oddly likable fedora wearing specter the only hope Pen has to solve the crime? You can bet your everlasting life on it...

This was my second time reading this book. I first read it when it was published, a few years ago. I remembered that I enjoyed it, and I remember some of the plot points, but I couldn't recall everything that occurred. Anyway, when this book was chosen to discussed in a group discussion, I just couldn't resist taking another look at it. Thank goodness I was able to find at my local library.

I enjoyed how quickly everything happened, the pace was wonderful, without feeling that we were lacking in information. And it also short, it' wasn't a long book, just long enough to read it in one sitting. The characters were very good, loved the interaction between Pen and Jack, and Pen and Sadie. There were definitely a lot of laugh out moments (IMO). The dialogue was brilliant.

The Ghost And Mrs. McClure by Alice Kimberly (Re-read) Contemporary Mystery Paranormal: Ghost; Published: Berkley Prime Crime (2004); Series: # 1, A Haunted Bookshop Mystery; 100 + Reading Challenge (11); Library book;

The other book I read was Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett. Here's its blurb:

The streets of Stoneham, New Hampsire are lined with bookstores...and paved with murder.

When she moved to Stoneham, city slicker Tricia Miles met nothing but friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery bookstore, she met friendly competition. But when she finds Doris Gleason dead in her own cookbook store, killed by a carving knife, the atmosphere seems more cutthroat than cordial. Someone wanted to get their hands on the rare cookbook that Doris had recently purchased—and the locals think that someone is Tricia. To clear her name, Tricia will have to take a page out of one of her own mysteries—and hunt down someone who isn't killing by the book.

I enjoyed it, I love the little twists and turns the author lead me through, but overall I found that something was missing. But here's the thing, I cannot put my finger on what was lacking. I just can't figure it out!

I liked most of the character, the main character Tricia was likable enough, and I could understand her plight, her sister was comic relief (IMO), great friendly characters like Ginny and Mr Everett. And then there was the Sheriff, and I can honestly tell you that she gave me the willies. Didn't like her at all. Maybe that's it. Nope, that's not it.

Oh well....Anyway, it was an enjoyable enough read and I'm looking forward on reading more books from this author.

Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett (3.5/5) Contemporary Mystery; Published: Berkley Prime Crime (2008); Series: # 1, A Booktown Mystery; 100 + Reading Challenge (12); Library book;

BTT - What Is Reading, Fundamentally?

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is:

Suggested by: Thisisnotabookclub

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks —which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

Reading is being able to recognize letters of the alphabet and their appropriate sounds to make words and to get information from the message.

I have friends that say that they don't read. Well, of course I understand that they don't read for the pleasure of it, but they read signs, labels, and such.

Reading for leisure or pleasure (for me) anythings game. I prefer novels, but I occasionally I listen to audiobooks. I'm not that big of a fan of the e-book format, but truth be told I really haven't given it a fair chance. As a child and teenager I used to read comics, and sometimes I still browse through them.

Omaha, Anyone?

Anyone that knows me, knows that I enjoy action lit. Throw some conspiracy theories along with it, I'm a fan for life. So, when my friend K another action lit fan, recommended this series to me I just had to give it a try.

From what I understand the author of this series, James Rollins, has written other non-series books, that are also action lit. I believe K mentioned something along the ways of one of his characters being alot like Indiana Jones. Hmmm, Indy! I'll have to do more research about that. Moving right along...The series is called Sigma Force, they are "an elite covert arm of the US Defense Department made up of former Special Forces officers trained as experts in various scientific fields". (took that little bit of info from Stop You're Killing Me)

Here's the blurb:

An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum -- a devastating blast that sets off alarms in clandestine organizations around the world, as the race begins to determine how it happened, why it happened, and what it means.

Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. And her search for answers is about to lead Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator, into a world they never dreamed actually existed. For new evidence exposed by the tragedy suggest that Ubar, a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, is more than mere legend...and that something astonishing is waiting there.

Two extraordinary women and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, are not the only ones being drawn to the desert. Former U.S. Navy SEAL Painter Crowe, a convert government operative and head of an elite counterespionage team, is hunting down a dangerous turncoat, Crowe's onetime partner, to retrieve the vital information she has stolen. And the trail is pointing him toward Ubar.

But the many perils inherent in a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmarish secrets to be unearthed at the journey's end. What is hidden below the sand is more than a valuable relic of ancient history. It is an ageless power that lived and breathes -- and awesome force that could create a utopia or tear down everything humankind has built during millennia of civilization. Many lives have already been destroyed by ruthless agencies dedicated to guarding its mysteries and harnessing its might. And now the end may be at hand for Safia, for Kara, for Crowe, and for all the interlopers who wish to expose its mysteries, as it prepares to unleash the most terrible storm of all....

I enjoyed how the book started, the introduction to the characters and the info on their backgrounds. And then things start happening. It's very fast paced, and I enjoy that too. But, man, it was boom this, and boom that and at a point I had to put the book down for a breather. I never thought I would this, but I wanted a little restful period in the storyline.

That being said, I will still read this author, because it wasn't bad, in fact it was quite good . But note to self, take breaks while reading James Rollins.

Sandstorm by James Rollins (3/5) General Fiction: Action; Published: William Morrow (2004); Series: # 1, SIGMA Force; 100 + Reading Challenge (10); Library book;

Strangers In Death

I'm a huge, HUGE fan of the Eve Dallas series by JD Robb/Nora Roberts. I've been very patient, waiting for my turn for the book at the library. So I when I picked it up at the library yesterday, I sat down with it immediately.

Here's the blurb:

Technology may be different in 2060 New York, yet the city is still a place of many cultures and great divides. But as ever, some murders receive more attention than others-especially those in which the victim is a prominent businessman, found in his Park Avenue apartment, tied to the bed-and strangled- with cords of black velvet.

It doesn't surprise Lieutenant Eve Dallas that Thomas Anders's scandalous death is a source of titillation and speculation to the public-and of humiliation to his family. But while people in the city are talking about it, those close to Anders aren't so anxious to do the same. With some help from her billionaire husband, Roarke, Eve's soon knocking on doors-or barging through them-to find answers.

But the facts don't add up. Physical evidence suggests that the victim didn't struggle. The security breach in the apartment indicates that the killer was someone known to the family, but everyone's alibi checks out. Was this a crime of passion in a kinky game gone wrong-or a meticulously planned execution? It's up to Dallas to solve a case in which strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways.

Very few authors have the ability to suck me right in. I sat down with the book and I completely forget about the time. I started reading it in the evening and think it must have been around two in the morning when J came into the living room and told me to go to bed. He took the book away from me...yep, took it away. I had to go to sleep. Anyway, I finished it the this morning.

Like any series, there are books that are really good and other that just don't do it for me. And this one fits in the "Eh, it's okay.". Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, but I found the second part better than the first. It seemed to take a while to connect the two points of the story together. By the end of it, it was all tied up together.

Strangers In Death by J.D. Robb (3.5/5) Paranormal Suspense/Alternate Future; Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons (1/2008); Series: # 28, Eve Dallas; 100 + Reading Challenge (9); Library book;

R.I.P.

"Every single art form is involved in film, in a way."
Sydney Pollack (1935-2008)