King Arthur Movie Tristan

In honor of my 2 Year Blog-A-Versary, I raffled off three books. I drew 3 winning names this morning...and the winners are...





10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea (self-help)

mommablogsalot
















All The Pretty Girls (thriller/suspense)

LadyTink











Wicked Ties (erotica)



annmarie



congrats! and thanks to all who entered :O)

So. Weekly Geeks, we're going into the confessional this week.


What's your non-reading guilty pleasure?

Trashy TV?

Trashier movies?

Junk food?

I've got a few guilty pleasures, here they are, in no particular order:

Chocolate: I'm a confirmed choc-o-holic. I don't know why, I can never say no to chocolate.



Yarn and anything crochet-related: I'm as bad at the craft store as I am at the bookstore. I've got a closet full of yarn and binders full of crochet patterns. When it comes to crochet projects, I have plenty of WIP's (wip's are the book lovers equivalent to TBR's. WIP stands for Works in Progress. I also have several UFO's which stands for Unfinished Objects)




Movies & Television: I love watching movies, and I can easily be a couch potato. I watch all kind of movies, depending on my mood. But when it comes down to it, i'm a sucker for Mafia films. The Godfather (one and two only), Casino, Scarface, Goodfellas and pretty much anything with Robert DeNiro in it, and i'm there. Another thing is that I like to quote these movies. I know that can be either annoying, or fun, depending on who i'm quoting the film around. If it's another Godfather fan, then its fun, because we can quote back and forth. But if it's around my hubby, then he gets annoyed since he is very bad at quoting mafia movies and doesnt really know what i'm talking about.
I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!







Shoes: I've got shoes in my close that i've never even worn. But I just had to have them.




Those are a few of my guilty pleasures, what are yours?

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun...

-Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

Diego modeling his new sweater that I crocheted him.

title: Frederica



author: Georgette Heyer

genre: regency romance

published:1965

pages: 437

rated: 5 out of 5







When Frederica brings her younger siblings to London determined to secure a brilliant marriage for her beautiful sister, she seeks out their distant cousin the Marquis of Alverstoke. Frederica makes such a strong impression that to his own amazement, the Marquis agrees to help launch them all into society. With his enterprising - and altogether entertaining - country cousins getting into one scrape after another right on his doorstep, before he knows it the Marquis finds himself dangerously embroiled...






Frederica Merrivale is guardian to her siblings since her parents have passed away. She travels to London to find her younger sister, Charis, a suitable husband. Frederica looks to her distant cousin, the Marquis of Alverstoke for help. The Marquis is rich and arrogant and tends to give a hard time to anyone who crosses his way. Frederica however, is not easily intimidated. She lets the Marquis know what she wants and he is amused by her straightforwardness. The Marquis agrees to host a coming out party for the beautiful Charis.
The Marquis has a reputation for being a ladies man, he loves them and leaves them, getting easily bored. Before you know, the Merrivale sisters are the subject of everyones conversations.



Frederica thinks of herself as an old maid, being that she is 24 years old, and this annoys the Marquis very much. He lets her know that she is not past her prime like she thinks she is.
Soon enough Frederica herself has a few admirers in London.



I really liked this one scene, I won't give it away and say who it is that grabs her hand and kisses it:

She would have drawn her hand away as he spoke, but he prevented her, lifting it from the banister, and lightly kissing it. She had the oddest sensation of having suffered an electric shock; she even felt a trifle dizzy; and it was several moments after he had left her before she went back into the drawing room. It was no longer customary for gentlemen to kiss hands; and although oldfashioned persons frequently kissed the hands of married ladies, his lordship was not oldfashioned, and she was not married.

I liked Frederica, she is smart and sassy and does not let others intimidate her. The Marquis is another great character, I like how he doesn't care what others think and actually enjoys getting his uppity family members in a huff.
Even Frederica's dog, Lufra, is a fun character and had me laughing out loud.



I had previously posted on my blog that I was looking for that next favorite book, and I found it here with Frederica. This book is funny, charming and full of interesting characters. The story just keeps going and going, and has plenty of plot twists. Georgette Heyer has a way of taking you into the story and keeping you there. I lived inside this book for a while, I hated to put it down. Heyer's writing style reminds me a bit of Jane Austen.

Then came Frederica, upsetting his cool calculations, thrusting responsibilities upon him, intruding more and more into the ordered pattern of his life, and casting him into a state of unwelcome doubt. And, try as he would, he could discover no reason for this uncomfortable change in himself. She had more countenance than beauty; she employed no arts to attract him; she was heedless of convention; she was matter-of-fact, and managing, and not at all the sort of female whom he had ever wished to encourage.

About the author:

http://www.georgette-heyer.com/

Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, who made the Regency period her own. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote eleven detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.

I found this older cover at the authors website:







Special thanks to Danielle Jackson over @ http://www.sourcebooks.com/ for sending me this book to read and review.

title: Star Trek

plot: A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.

rated: 5 out of 5




Being a trekkie, I was very excited to watch the new Star Trek film.
I liked the storyline and the casting was great. The special effects were amazing as well. And I liked that Leonard Nimoy plays a part.

This movie starts off with the birth of Kirk, so you get to see a bit more about his youth and background. You also get a glimpse into Spock's past.




As the story goes on, you see how Kirk came to be commander of the U.S.S. Enterprise and how the crew came to be. You also learn how Spock and Kirk form thier lasting friendship. All in the middle of fighting evil Romulans and trying to save Earth.

Mailbox Mondays

Happy Memorial Day to the bloggers in the U.S. :) And happy Monday to everyone.


Some of you may remember my reviewing 10.10.10 and The Mighty Queens of Freeville. These books were sent to me for review by MotherTalk.com. And to thank thier reviewers they give Amazon.com gift certificates! Check out their book reviews here


What did I purchase with my gift certificates? More books of course.



Beloved by Toni Morrison

After reading Toni Morrison's Sula, i've been wanting to read this one for a while. The movie version was scary, shocking and sad. I'm curious to see how the book is. And after reading ScrapGirl's great review, I knew it was about time I bought this one for myself.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Incantation by Alice Hoffman

Growing up in Spain around 1500 in the village where her family has lived for 500 years, Estrella, 16, knows that there are secrets in her home. As books are burned in the streets, and Jews from the nearby ghetto are murdered, she confronts the reality that she is a Marrano, part of a community of underground Jews who attend a special "church." The plot tangent involving Estrella's best friend, Catalina, jealous because Estrella has taken her boyfriend, seems too purposeful, but the historical fact is compelling, with the reason for the secrets spelled out in the horrifying persecution: Estrella is witness to her mother's burning and her brother's bones being broken by the police "one at a time." Acclaimed adult writer Hoffman, whose YA books include Aquamarine (2001), makes the history immediate in Estrella's spare, intense first-person narrative, in which tension builds as Estrella's discovers her hidden identity.

TLC Book Tours sent me a copy of:





Something Beyond Greatness: Conversations with a Man of Science & a Woman of God

In their worldwide search for extraordinary figures who fit the criteria for 'something beyond greatness,' authors Judy Rogers and Gayatri Naraine humbly discovered that the quality of greatness is not the exclusive province of those recognized publicly for their deeds. While all of us acknowledge that this noble characteristic is shared by people such as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr., what Rogers and Naraine found is that this life-affirming quality very often rests in the ordinary.


We are all capable of seeing with love and acting from the heart—two essential qualities of those who accomplish the selfless deeds that transform the world for the better.

So, i've got some more great books here to add to the TBR mountain. What are you reading?

Just for fun, I came up with Bookworms Top Favorites button. Whenever I really enjoy a new book, i'll be adding this to the review:

Again with Memorial Day Weekend here in the U.S. starting traditionally on Friday evening, it also is unofficially the start of summer. You've probably been asked this in other meme groups in which you participate, but do your reading habits change over the summer? Do you choose lighter fare? What do you enjoy to take to the beach, for example? What is the ultimate summer book? OR what are your favorite travel guides -- official or unofficial guides? Again, an example, I think of Holidays In Hell by P.J. O'Rourke, of places I'd rather not vacation. Along those lines, where do you vacation? Any places you recommend or even don't recommend?

First off, I want to wish everyone in the U.S. a Happy Memorial Day weekend.

As far as summer reading goes, I always enjoy lounging on my back porch reading a good book. And I always take a book on vacation and to the beach.
I don't drastically change what I normally read just because summer is here, but I might pick up a few lighter reads during the summer. And I tend not to read books set in the winter during summer months.

A few reads I recommend are:

If you're in the mood for something fun and light:



The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants





Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom





Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict





If you're in the mood for something more serious and dramatic:




The Mermaid Chair






Odd Thomas




Everything's Eventual





The Poisonwood Bible






Do you recommend and summer reads?

Whatever you chose to read this summer, enjoy it!