The Bone House

The Bone house is the second book in the Skin Map series.  This book follows Kit Livingstone on his quest to find the skin map.  A quest he inherited from his grandfather.

Kit has been able to find one piect of the skin map.  He is now on a quest to find all the pieces of the map and restore the map for the dimensions of the multivers.  Kit is also on the run from other's who want the skin map for bad reasons.  Reasons to harm others.

Kit now has help from Mina his girlfriend and a few other characters who you get to meet in this book.  While looking for the other pieces Kit and Mina find themselves jumping from one place to another and keep getting in harmsway.  Mina eventually is caught in Seventeenth-Century Prague.  While trying to get away they explore a few places and even unlock some more secrets.

I thougth this story could get a little confusing with all the jumping between so many places but the more I read the more I was able to start to understand.

This book has been provided courtesy of the publisher via the Booksneeze program for the purposes of this unbiased review.

Hide in Plain Sight

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised.  I'm used to reading murder mysteries and rough humor but this feel good book was a nice change of pace.  I was looking for some more books to download on my Kindle and this one was free so I took a chance with no real high expectations.  I was absolutely wrong!  This book was great.

This book takes place in Amish Pennsylvania. You have Andrea Hampton the financial expert from the big city looking to get her promotion at the company she works for.  She is called home because her sister Rachel was involved in a car accident. Her main goal is to come back to her grandmother’s home and talk her and her sister out of opening a B&B called Three Sisters Inn.  However as expected once she arrives there she is forced to rethink things that happened to her in the past and get over a grudge she has been holder for her grandfather.  Strange things start to happen before the opening of the Inn, to many to be consequential.  She meets her love interest Cal Burke.
 
Cal came to the Inn to get over his own demons in his past high paced life of being a Lawyer.  I must admit his story is not what I was expecting and eventually I was pulling for him and Andrea to get together. 
I felt that some of the book was pretty predictable (Andrea and Cal getting together).

The more I read though the more I was wondering who was behind all the issues they were having before opening the Inn.  I kept thinking that I had it down and I knew who did it and in the end I was completely wrong.  There was also a part in the book where I was sure Andrea and Cal would finally get together and I was wrong yet again.  So if you’re looking for a book that is innocent with some twists and turns this is the book for you.  I'm so pleased with this book that I think I'm going to download the other 2 books in this series.

The Skin Map

Kit Livingstone is traveling in London to meet his girlfriend when his Great Grandfather appears to him and introduces him to Ley Lines.  These lines connect portals to other times and places.  However there is one problem, there is no map to tell you where you will end up or what time. 

Kit later learns there is a map but not the traditional paper map, a skin map tattooed on an explorer who risked his live to chart them because he thought the map would get lost or stolen.

This book was a little hard for me to get into a first, but once I gave it a try and finally was able to learn about the characters and a little bit about what was going on I finally got into it.  Its pretty interesting actually.  I would have like to see more character build up of his girlfriend but maybe in the next book.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Thunder Dog

Michael Hingson has been blind pretty much since birth.  It’s explained that because he was born premature, at the time of his birth hospitals put babies in incubators and fo

rced in oxygen, by doing this they were creating a breeding ground for an eye infection that caused him and many other people to be blind along with a few famous people.  At 14 Michael received his first guide dog named Squire.  Since then he has had many guide

dogs.  Roselle is the newest one only having her for about a year they are considered to still be learning each other. 

On the morning of September 11^th Roselle was still sleeping in since she had been up in the early hours because she is sensitive to storms.  Michael arrived in the office with Roselle early to set up his presentation.  In the middle of doing so there was a huge explosion that caused the building to sway 20 feet to one side.  Being on the 78^th floor of the North Tower Michael thought they were going to topple over.  However within a minute the building righted itself.  Without thinking twice Michael decided to get his office staff and guest out of the building until it was safe to return.  At this point no one is aware that a plane has hit the building.  During the long decent down to the bottom Michael uses his other sense’s to help him stay calm and by him staying calm Roselle will stay calm.  At one point a few burn victims begin to come down and still no one knows it was a plane.  As the long decent continues Michael realizes he smells something familiar but can’t place it.  After a few more flights of stairs he finally figures out what the fumes were and realizes they have been hit by a plane.  During this time he starts to wonder why anyone would crash into the towers.  Since it wasn’t foggy out like the time someone flew into the Empire State Building. 

Towards the bottom of the tower firefighters start to come up and as each one passes they try to make him go down with them stating he needs assistance.  Michael doesn’t want to go since he has walked this far, being blind is not a disability to him and because there are other people who might need them more than him.  Finally Michael, Roselle and his co-worker who has been with him since they left the office reaching the bottom and leave the building.  Once outside Michael’s co-work tells him that both towers have been hit by planes and there is so much chaos and confusion going on.  They decide the best thing to do is try to get home.  As they are walking away from the scene the South tower falls and the first big dust cloud covers them.  Once this happens they feel like they cannot breath and they feel like they are choking on the concrete dust so they try to find shelter.  They finally find a place but it’s not long after that when a police officer tells them and the others that are there that they need to leave to safer ground.  Once again they are out in the dust, at this point it has calmed down enough to walk but that’s when the North tower falls and yet again they are covered in another dust cloud.  By this time Michael’s co-worker has found a place for them to stay until they can get home.  At this place the women cooks for them and Michael is able to get in touch with his wife.  Michael decides later in the evening it is ok to leave and heads home.  He makes it home to New Jersey late in the night to a waiting group of family and friends.

I really enjoyed this book.  However I didn’t give it a 100% because I wasn’t real sure Michael knew what story he wanted to tell.  Based on the book title and excerpt you are lead to believe it’s all about him and his dog getting through the terrible tragedy of 9/11 and how heroic his dog was.  But in reading the book it seemed more like a memoir of him and his life growing up blind.  In fact I was so into the 9/11 part of the story I actually got pretty annoyed when he would cut in and start talking about how being blind prepared him for this situation because… I feel like he could have given us his background in the first few chapters and went on for the rest of the book to tell the store of him and Roselle’s frightening tale of 9/11.

When I was able to read the store of their escape I was so amazed at how calm and focused Roselle was.  She just waited to take commands.  I was so involved with wondering what she must be thinking, how she must be feeling.  I was also amazed at how many people didn’t seem to know what was going on.  Michael stated they never heard the second plane hit the South tower. I can’t imagine how scared and confused most of the people must have been by this.  I’m sure some like Michael were just confused as to what it could have been but decided to take precautions and leave.  I am comforted by this some that maybe most of the people that died didn’t know what was going on so maybe they weren’t scared and just left us.  I had so many thoughts and feelings and questions after reading this.  Like how many were right there, could see the light when the building came tumbling down on them.  How many of them were on top of the planes and knew what happened and had to make their piece.  I can’t imagine the fear they must have had.  Since reading this store I’m eager to read more stores of the people of 9/11 not to be nosey but understand what they went through.  Those people are our history and in order for people later in life to know what happened that they people need to share the stores.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received Thunder Dog by Michael Hingson free from Booksneeze review program. I was not required to write a positive review and did not receive any other compensation. The opinions I have expressed are my own and no one else’s. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

A Bone To Pick

I was finally able to finish this book! I love charlaine Harris but I was just having readers block.

Aurora Teagarden is a librarian who once belonged to a club called real murders but that club was disbanded when they became the story of a real murder. One of the former members dies and leaves her home and family money all to aurora. No one knew she had that kind of money and no one not ever roe can figure out why she left this all to her. Once roe goes to her new home she realizes some one has broken in and did steal anything but seems like they were looking for something. Roe becomes courious and starts her own little search in the house and finds a skull. With nothing else to do she takes it to her mothers house and hides it in a blanket case. She finds a note from the former owner saying she didn't do it. Now roe is even more confused.

A few weeks later she is invited to one of her neighbors houses for a welcome party for her and her former lover and his new pregnant wife. During that week the city comes by to clean some brush away from a sign and discovers the bones of a headless man. During all of this aurora is dating the town pastor and trying to decide how she is supposed to act and wondering how she feels about this. After the welcome part she wakes up in the middle of the night to find someone in her house. She calls her ex only to find his pregnant wife come to her rescue. Once Lynn comes to her rescue they discover the neighbor was behind the murder and was looking for the skull. During all the comotion Lynns water breaks and roe has to help deliver her baby.

I really enjoyed this book there were some funny parts and some sad parts for roe. I can't wait to start my next real murders book. In the mean time I'm going to be starting a book called thunder dag!

Readers Block!!!

So right now for some reason I’m having readers block.  I love to read but every time I sit down to read I just turn the kindle off.  I don’t like it since I have a ton of books I want to read.  Maybe tonight will be better.  We’ll see.  I’m currently trying to read “A Bone to Pick” by Charlaine Harris.  But while I was on break today at work I stumbled across an article on Yahoo. “7 Things your husband wants to tell you”.  I thought HA this ought to be good ,so I read it.  I mean what really can this article tell me that I don’t already know about my husband and most men for that matter.  They are pretty cut and dry; you ask a question you get an answer.  Once you finish reading this you might think I'm bitter about something, I'm not.  I have an amazing loving husband who I know would do anything for me and he makes me happy day in and day out.  Sure we have our arguments like any other married couple but we never stay mad at each other.  I'm simply writing my first reactions to this article I read.  Hope you enjoy it.

This article starts off by telling me “for women the purpose of communication is most often to relate; for men, it’s usually to share information”.  My thoughts were this; when does a man openly converse?  My husband can sit in a car with me and not talk for a long time.  I have to ask a question or get him talking about something he is interested in for him to talk.  Now this may be because he is not a chatty kind of guy but still.  Then my other thought was ok yeah I can see how it would be for informational purposes like once my husband told me someone had gotten arrested.  I asked him “why”? And “What happened”? His response was simply I don’t know I didn’t ask. REALLY! Why in the world would you offer up information like that and not get ALL the information.  So to me this article already is not starting out to well.  But the article tells me to “read on to learn seven things your husband wants to tell you in order to help bridge the communication cap”.  HAHAHAHAHA… Oh man this is going to be great.

*side note to the communication thing.  Why is it when you’re in a conversation with a man and you ask a simple question like lets say we were talking about going and seeing a friend.  And then you ask well what time do we need to be there.  Why do they feel the need to say “where?” like we have just gotten off topic somewhere and we are now confused as to what place I might be referring to.  Please tell me this is not just me that is dealing with this and that other husband’s/boyfriends do this.

#1.  A small “Thank you” makes a huge difference. Agreed! First off why am I the one who has to say thank you.  How often do the men thank to say thank you?  Not very often and I’m guessing they don’t tell you thank you all that often because well it’s not pertinent information to share as my husband says “you should already know, I shouldn’t have to say it”  so why in the world do I need to “stroke your ego” it also says that in the article.  They like that it says.  Now since things aren’t always cut and dry I will say that I work and my husband takes care of the house.  So yeah I guess I do need to say thank you more… when things around the house actually get done.  Right now he’s so busy mowing yards for everyone else and doing this or that for everyone else I’ve taken a back seat and I still get crap about not picking up my clothes from the bathroom or the bedroom (I’m a little bit of a slob but when I come home I’m tired, ok)  so maybe this really needs to work both ways.  He needs to tell me thank you for working and keeping the bills paid and I need to tell him thanks when he cleans or cooks or mows our yard.

#2.  I’m more likely to offer you concrete advice than a shoulder to cry on.  It says “my wife came home venting about a problem and every time I came up with a solution she would cut me off and dismiss it.” Well duh.. let’s think about this real quick.  Most the time the solutions are “just get over it, let it go, who cares”, or something really dramatic that will make the situation worse.  This may be why we dismiss it and cut you off.  I’m just saying.  And as an afterthought do you guys think that since you only speak to us for “informational purposes” we think you might be good listeners since the information is not all that free flowing.  You can’t have it both ways here.  You can’t only want to tell us information when you think its necessary and then want to be “Dear Abby” when we want to vent.  And they say women are hard to get.  The article says we should just tell the men what we really want to do is just vent.  I thought that was the whole reason as to why I came to you venting in the first place.

#3.  If you want a chore done by a certain day, tell me that.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  Why in the world would I be telling you to let’s say get the wood stove off the carport.  Not because I want you to do it when it’s snowing again and we need heat in the house.  I’m telling you to do it because I want it done ASAP.  Men want to offer advice but can’t seem to understand when I’m asking them to do something I want it done quickly.  Good thing we don’t take their advice to often.

#4. Tell me directly what’s bothering you.  Oh so many things to say about this.  If you want me to tell you what’s bothering me we have to be in an informational conversation for you to talk to me and I have to be venting for you to want to offer advice based on this article.  I don’t tell you what’s bothering me because you will either minimize my issue, make me feel like I’m the issue, or offer some dumb advice, or more than likely you’re the reason I have a problem and I don’t feel like I need to tell you because you should know what you have done wrong.

#5.  Please don’t ask me how you look in that dress.  Well we wouldn’t have to ask you how we look if you would offer compliments more often.  You want us to stroke your ego by saying thank you more, well we want you to tell us we’re pretty more often or how lucky you are to be with us.  So we like to trap you in this question.  We know you have to say we look good because it will cause the "you think I’m fat/ugly" argument in which you never win.  But then we get you again you give us the blanket “you look great in anything” line that start’s the well if that’s that case why don’t you tell me more often argument.  And in the end the argument is always concluded with “all I want is for you notice me and tell me how great I look or how lucky you are to be with me” so you might as well say if often to avoid this question.  The article tells us to ask specific questions such as “Do you think these shoes match my dress”.  Well 2 points to make to that comment. 1. Why in the world would I ask you that question when you ask us that question all the time or we are the ones to tell you that those shoes don’t match your outfit. 2. That was not the point of the question.

6. I wish you didn’t think we had to talk all the time to be close.  The article says: “you both get home from work, or finally get the kids into bed, and then you just sit there watching TV. You call this togetherness? The truth is that he does, even if to you is not “being together” unless you’re actually having a conversation.  The silence in the room and just your presence feels like closeness to a man.

Well men let’s look at the word closeness.  Being close.  We don’t have to talk to feel close we are talking b/c your attention is averted somewhere other than us.  We can’t for the life of us figure out why when you get home you don’t care about our day or want to tell us about your day since we have so

much to tell you.  If a man wanted to just sit on the couch and watch TV with us and feel “close” we might shut up. How about actually putting your arm around us or holding our hand while you watch something we want to watch. 

#7 I wish you wanted sex more.  I don’t know about others but I don’t have this problem so I cant really comment on it.  But I can say this.  Probably if men wanted to stop treating us like they can just take us out when they want to and put us back when they want to women might be more apt to want to have more sex.  If men went around treating women like they did when they first got with us they would for sure be getting more but when men say “I got you, why do I need to keep doing those things” it makes us say “we got you, why do we need to keep doing those things”  I’m just saying.

This article was written by a women but I’m not sure where she get her information and why she would even write an article like this. If my husband really wanted to tell me these things why wouldn’t he just tell me and why is it her job to try to tell me.  You can read this article online if you feel like looking at it at http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/7-things-your-husband-wants-to-tell-you-2508503/

Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro

I loved this book from the beginning!  I have seen some people give this book a bad rating but for me I thought it was great.

Lucy Fisher spent all of her inheritance on a trip to Hawaii with 2 of her good friends and coworkers.  When she returns she finds a bum carrying off her yet to be worn wedding gown and all of her other belongings thrown out in the yard of a home she shares with her fiancé Martin and her dog Tulip.  Once she realizes she’s been thrown out of her house and her key no longer works she is forced to leave her sweet Tulip and stay with a friend until she can get with Martin and find out what’s going on and get Tulip.

Upon returning to work she is asked into the Doctor’s office with the office manager.  She learns she forgot to deposit a large sum of money off at the bank before her trip to Hawaii.  She is asked to submit to a drug test since some are missing from the office.  She unbelievably fails twice and is asked to leave.

Since she has lost her home and her job she decides to move in with her sister and nephew and come back to get Tulip and the rest of her things when she has her meeting with Martin.  The next morning her sister wakes her up to ask to barrow her truck since her sister’s car will not start.  Later that day Lucy decides to take a bus to the unemployment office to look for work when she is suddenly killed.  Lucy wakes up in what she thinks is a hospital when she later finds out she is actually in ghost school for “Sudden Deaths” who have a mission to complete before they can go on to “The State”.  Before her classes start all the students are allowed to go to their funeral.  Lucy is excited about this.  She starts thinking about how great it’s going to be and who will be there and what will take place.  However sadly the only people there are her sister, nephew and one of her sister’s friends.  Lucy is horror stricken when no one shows up to her funeral.  So the next few lessons in her class she is not trying as hard as she should to learn her lessons.  Finally she is done with classes and is sent to her mission.  Her home base is none other than Martin’s home.  Lucy’s bad luck continues to follow her even in the afterlife as she is quick to find out that the one who fired her is now living in her home with her ex and her dog. Instead of trying to figure out her mission she is depressed and trying to figure out what is going on when one day the fun begins as she is reacquainted with her grandmother.  At one point she finally figures out her mission and starts to take things seriously so she can get to “The State”.

I really enjoyed this book more so than I thought after reading some of the reviews.  I decided though as a book lover that I was not going to let someone’s bad review hinder my want to read.  I’m glad I made that choice since I really enjoyed this book. I can’t wait to read more books from Laurie Notaro.