Review: Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter

See, I told you it was too early for such nice weather! Guess what we had yesterday? Yup, snowflakes. It's not really cold and what we got was wet snow, but we got enough that it didn't melt off overnight and we can still see it this morning. Also, what are they announcing for tonight? Freezing rain. Yay. NOT. At least, now, it's really March weather :P Less scary.

I had a very, very lazy week-end. Basically, I didn't do anything except read and watch TV, so in a few words, it was a great week-end :D I thought of blogging, but every time I sat down at the computer, I ended up playing Bejeweled Blitz ^_^; Ah well. The Curling Women World Championship has started and Canada is 3-0 :P I really like Jennifer Jones' team so I'm really happy. Got a scare in the first game against Sweden since they were trailing 5-1... but they had a nice come back and won the game 9-6 :P And now, they seem to be on a roll :P

Speaking of sports, I've been keeping an eye on tennis this week-end as well... my favorite tennis player Justine Henin as come out of retirement earlier this year. However, you don't get a ranking till you play your third tournament. Well now, she's officially back at no. 33 :) The clay season is coming up, so for sure, her ranking will get better as the year advances :D

In case you're wondering, this week-end, I finished Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men and Nice Girls Don't Live Forever by Molly Harper. These were book #2 and #3 in the Jane Jameson trilogy... They were fun to read, but not sure I'm going to review them. Also read A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner!! :D Yep, got my hand on it on last Thursday, after 2 days of online indicator stalking :P If I could only get one book this month, that would have been it :D LOL, it was funny, because I was meeting friends at 7pm. Got at the bookstore at 6.10pm and had the book in hand and paid at 6.15pm. Since I was early to meet my friends, I just sat outside of the bookstore and started skimming through it and peeling of the price tag (I hate when the stick price tag!!). James was probably wondering what I was doing ^_^;

So that was my week-end. Didn't work on my review of Pleasures of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole for Cindy, but I'll definitively do that today :P Unless drama at work kills me, which is a definite possibility. Sigh, my co-worker is crumbling under pressure, tiredness and my boss's hammering. And if my boss was a woman, I'd say he was having a serious, major case of PMS. Okay, that's for another. In the meantime, in case you weren't aware of it, I put up a review at Breezing Through last Friday :) Jill and I discussed Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter :) You can find the review here.


Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter

published by Jove Books in January 2010

Armed with her cousin’s pistol, Audrianna travels to a coaching inn, to meet with a man who may have information that will clear her dead father’s name. She does not realize that the handsome man of commanding sensuality who shows up is not the person she expected, but instead Lord Sebastian Summerhays, one of her father’s persecutors, lured to the inn by the same advertisement that brought her there.

When the pistol accidentally fires, the situation becomes mortifyingly public, and thoroughly misunderstood. Audrianna is prepared to live with the scandal. Lord Sebastian has other ideas...

If anyone doubted it was winter in Montreal...

Well now you can't.

Oh gosh, what an horrible week so far weather-wise... and it's just Wednesday! So winter is really here now :( Basically, we got really cold temperature on Monday. -20C... first time it was this cold this winter... and for some reasons, it was shocking cold. I don't know why, but it really hasn't sunk in that we're in December.

Then, yesterday, we got 15cm of snow (we were expecting 5)... and afterwards, freezing rain. Ugh. Funniest thing is that the city of Montreal said that they were ready for the snow... They weren't exactly. It was so jammed yesterday!! For once, I'm glad that my sister had an exam till 9pm yesterday. It took my dad 4 hours to get home ^_^; and when I went home, at 9.30pm, the traffic has just started to get better. Took me 1.5 hours to get back on the South Shore. My friend who usually takes the bus gave me a call and asked if I could give her a ride. There was no way she would have gotten on a bus in, hmmm, the next 2 hours. So we went shopping. Didn't find any Christmas gift for anyone :(

Bad news is not over... Right now, we don't have power at home. I hate it when there's a power outage... and it's been a few hours already since it happened in the middle of the night. I'm a bit paranoid about power outage, because 10 years ago, Montreal had the ice storm... Basically, we got freezing rain for 3 consecutive days or something like that... and everything was ice... and with its weight, the ice took down a lot of cables and stuff like that. So we lost power for a week... in which case, we had to evacuate... Hopefully, it's not as serious this time and we'll get power back soon.

It's still snowing/raining lightly today. It should be over before the afternoon. We are expecting some more snow and rain this week-end.

Sometimes, I really hate living in a country that has a winter...

Oh by the way... my boots aren't as waterproof as I thought ^_^;

Dresses and Ice

So I mentioned that we were having a snowstorm on Friday right? Well it was a ewwwww snowstorm... or should I call it ice storm? Anyway, we ended up having some snow, some ice pellets, some freezing rain and snow to cover the whole thing up again. Luckily, I left work early... but it still took me 2 hours to get home... but the worst was probably on saturday morning, when we (my dad, my sister and I) had to clean the cars... took us an hour. I swear, the ice was soooo thick!! It was about 5cm thick...

My week-end was very quiet... I went to work on Saturday night and when I came back, played cards with my mom and her friends. I won 10$ :P not bad... at least, I didn't lose. It kind of sucks though when they keep saying how easier it is to play with 3 persons only and how there's more action and blablabla. Hey, I'm here... I'm playing, I'm the 4th player... I only play once every 1.5 month, so would it be too hard to suck it up a bit? but I have to agree that there was little action during the game... I think that everyone was too tired. I know I was and my mom was too. Hopefully, it'll be more fun next time.

Then yesterday, I went shopping... for a dress. Yup, Holly's wedding is in a month, so I figured that I should start looking right now. Especially after Isabel sounded so frustrated after her shopping trip. I had two friends and my sister with me... and I have to say, I love shopping with Karin, one of my friend. She's the shopaholic in the group and when I go with her, I don't have to look for stuff, she just hands it to me and all I have to do is go in the cabin and try it on. So that's what I did yesterday... and I ended up buying 2 dresses. Yes, TWO dresses :P and also a cute pair of shoes! LOL :) I actually really like the shoes... but the high heels are going to kill me ^_^; but they're really cute. Maybe I'll take a picture of them when I get home. Anyway, Karin told me to bring a pair of flip flop as well LOL :) I tried to look up for pics of the dresses on the net, but I couldn't find them. They're kind of summer-y dress... the one I plan to wear actually have colors very similar to my blog template, but it's not as cheery, because the background is a mix of beige and brown. As for the other dress, it's black, grey and yellow and stretchy. Anyhow, I'm just very, very glad to have found the dresses and shoes on the same and only shopping trip. I'll borrow a clutch or bag from my friend and a jacket, from my sister :) So basically, I'm all set for the wedding :) Except perhaps for jewelry, but that's not as hard to shop as :) hmmm... I think.

Oh, speaking of the trip... Ames and I are almost all set. I bought tickets to "O" on Saturday :P I'm looking forward to the show... and I hope it was worth the price :) but then, it'll be my first Cirque du Soleil show... so I think it will be... anyway... All we need now is to rent a car and reserve a hotel in Las Vegas... I asked for Holly's recommendation and she gave me New York New York and Treasure Islands... not that I don't trust Holly's recs, but I was wondering, what was yours?

Finally, reading-wise, I finished Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh and Demon Night by Meljean Brook :) Both books were great :P and I'm happy to own 2 copies of each, it's worth it :P

Books and weather...

Argh!! What should I do? LOL :P great way to start the post right? So here's my dilemma... I pre-ordered Mine to Possess and Demon Night, along with a couple of other books... My purpose was to get them as early as possible... preferably, before they showed up in the bookstore.

So apparently, Mine to Possess and Demon Night have been shipped.... however, the bookstores also have received their shipment? So what should I do? Should I rush to the bookstore and try to get my hand on it? Should I wait for the shipment to arrive? By the way, I don't mind having 2 copies of the books :P Cos if they're good, I need a keepsafe copy anyway. My problem with rushing to the bookstores is that sometimes, the clerks aren't that nice... and they'll stick to the release date :( I don't want to waste a trip to the bookstore and have them tell me that they can't give me the books... However, it's not a 100% sure I'll get that answer right? To me, as long as I get my books before the week-end, I think I would be fine... ^_^; yeah... I think.

I just checked Canada Post website and I should received the packages today. The problem is that lately, my orders have taken more time to arrive than predicted. So although they say today, it could really be next week. Arghhh!! Hmmm... I guess I'll be calling my mom and see if I've gotten anything in the mail today... and if not, then I'll swing by the bookstore when I pick up my sister?

My name is Nath and I suffer from the "I want this book now, I need to have it NOW" syndrome. LOL.

In other news, guess what? We're having 30 to 40cm of snow tomorrow! I'm sooo sick of having snowstorms this year... what will that be, our 4th big snowstorms? It always takes forever for the city to clear the roads and etc. Traffic jams and crazy drivers... I'm going to cry :( Especially after the weather we got this week!!! We got rain, freezing rain and 40 to 50km/h winds! Living in Quebec sucks weather-wise :(

ps- I'm going to try to have a review up :P


EDIT: I went out around lunch time and got Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh :P Luckily, it was on the shelves! I'm going to try to hold off for Demon Night. The packages were supposed to arrive today,b ut as expected, they didn't. I'm crossing my fingers for tomorrow.

Here we go again...

Hey ppl :)

I tried to blog, but things always come up... like work or reading, LOL! (I've just sum up my life in a sentence. A bit pathetic if you ask me.) So nothing special in my life. Well actually, yes, I'm excited for something, but that'll be another post.

So right now, my life is the usual... but I'm so sick of shopping. Glad though my sister is over it too, so she won't be dragging me into stores anymore! The only things we're looking forward to buy are a laptop and a Wii. I really want the Wii, but it's out of stock pretty much everywhere here :( As for the laptop, it'll mostly be for my sister... which reminds me, I should go see the IT guys to ask for advice.

The weather has turned cold again :( and guess what we had on Monday? Yes, snow... again. Not to bad, we got between 5 and 10cm and the snow was really light... but I mean, ugh. We had a lot of snow this year, a bit too much to my tastes. However, I'd like the weather to stick to one season. I mean, it was rainy last week, snowing this week... what is it going to be next? My sister said jokingly that Quebec should add this in their adverstisement campaigh: Come to Quebec where you can experience two seasons in one week! LOL.

Finally, I'm bored. I don't know what to read... which is stupid, since I have a nice TBR pile. But nothing really calls to me :( Isn't it sad? Luckily, I'm supposed to have new books coming by mail today. I hope they're going to make it!! I've been waiting for over a week already... and it's so sad... not to know what to read :( Any suggesions? What good book did you read lately? (If possible, not a historical...)

By the way, in case you haven't noticed, I posted a review over at Book Binge of Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep. After revealing in our Hits and Misses of 2007 post that Ames and I have wanted to open a buddy blog, but didn't at the end... the girls at Book Binge invited us to join them. So I'll be reviewing books for them too... but I'm not giving up reviewing on this blog :D So keep reading this blog please :D

Anyway, that's all for now about my life. I'll try to have more reviews up soon :)

Catching up

Hello everyone!

I've been such a bad blogger!! Between normal life, renewed passion with wuxia novels (i.e. kung fu novels), snowstorms, reading and the holidays, oh and of course work, I have difficulty keeping up with everything. Either I post or blog hop, but I don't have time to do both as usual :(

So here I am, catching up... I had promised some reviews for yesterday, but since I didn't go to work, it didn't work out :( See, Sunday was our annual Christmas Gift Exchange... and we got a snowstorm... bleh... An additional 40cm of snow to the 40cm we got 2 weeks ago. Let me tell you, it's been a couple of years since I've seen SO MUCH SNOW. It's white everywhere and driving is hell. I'm presently stuck at work because there was too much traffic for me to go downtown to pick up my sis! I'll be posting pics of how it looks tomorrow or the day after... so anyway, I was one of the few that braved the weather and still went for our gift exchange. Out of 12, 5 made it... the exchange of gifts lasted 10 minutes LOL! Turns out that I picked M and M picked me... so we exchanged our gifts while the others watched us... very anti-climatic gift exchange... Then I stayed over at my friend's house because there was just no way I was going to make it back home. We played board games, Wii and watched a movie... and ate a lot. It was quite enjoyable. Sometimes it's for more fun when you're in small groups.

So I got Elijah last week... still haven't started it yet... and I got mail yesterday!! Blood Dreams and The Haunting of Josie, both by Kay Hooper!! :D I'm reading Blood Dreams right now and hoping I'll be done with it tonight. I also went to the bookstore today... See, everytime I get a package by mail, they give me a mystery card... basically, a mystery card is a card that contains 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 or 1000$... however, in order to use it, you have to buy over 50$... I've also had several coupons that I wanted to use... and so I went to buy books, even if I have too much of them. So I bought:

- Hot Mama by jennifer Estep
- Worth Any Price by Lisa Kleypas
- A Dangerous Beauty by Sophie Nash
- On the Loose by Tara Janzen
- Cast in Secret by Michelle Sagara

and one more book... but I can't remember the title. Oh and also, the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop... the new edition with the new covers... I just think they're sooo nice that I had to have them :D

My resolution for 2008, try to lower my book hauling ^^; I definitively have to start buying less books. But then, you never know LOL... I've been telling myself that many times... and it never seems to work. Sigh.

By the way, you remember my architect friend doing her master thesis? The one I've been helping? Well here are some additional pictures :D

See how ingenious you have to be to make some of the buildings! Seriously, some of them were really hard!

And here is the final product!

So what do you think? the last picture has her panel... cost her 100$ just to print it! It's hard to be a student... :)