Book Review: The Earl and his Tiger

The Earl of Stanton buys a tiger to ride up behind him on his phaeton and discover the tiger is a female who he seduces.  Later in the story he finds out the tiger is the Lady Jane de Montfort.  Concept is a little bit old Georgette Heyer did a rendition of this same theme in Shades of Gray. 

Story line was okay the plot is simple with very little side plot development.  I thinks that must be the hardest thing for authors is the side plot development but it adds so much to a story.  It's like multi-tasking but in a book.  The side plot is something you can develop to add to the background of the characters.  In this one the author could of done flashbacks to the step mother and her lovers reasons behind their treatment of the heroine.  Another side story on the dead brother who shows up in the last chapters of the book with a one paragraph explanation of where he came from.  

Heroines, they should come in a variety of personalities but the best ones are strong, humorous, and have a variety of shapes and sizes.  Women who can hold there own in any situation.  These women do not need to be ninjas like Lara Croft but they should not be doormats either.  The heroine in this story was to much of a doormat for me.

Book Review: The Short and Fascinating Tale of Angelina

Romance novels can be so fascinating at time. They sweep you into intense love scenes.  Take you away for reality for short time in your day. At  lease that is what they do for me.  This is not one of those romances.

In this romance a mother decides to place an add in the news paper for someone to romance her son to make sure he can physically seduce a female.  A female is found to participate in the seduction and proceeds to romance the son and of course the son falls in love with the female. Different concept which is good but the execution fall a tad be short.

As plots go this one if very simple just straight seduction of the son then back to London the heroine goes to continue her life.   Simple plots are okay but it would of been a better reading experience if the author had added a side plot or two.  That would of helped with character development a bit more.  In the book she talks about the heroine's time on the stage and her life as a mistress.  If she had developed that area more and also develop why the son need to be seduced in the first place it would been a better read.  This is not a book I would recommend.

Book review - The Shut Mouth Society

http://www.amazon.com/The-Shut-Mouth-Society-ebook/dp/B001AYT70E

Greg Evarts a former black ops veteran forms a freindship with a person who is a member of the Shut Mouth Society when the friend Abraham Douglas is murdered over a document.  The chase and investigation begin to reveal the reason behind the murder.  During the investigation he is assisted by a female Professor Baldwin.  Baldwin's parents were members of the Shut month Society and protecting information about former president Abraham Lincoln.  For Professor Baldwin this is a walk through time learning more about her favorite subject and realizing what her parents were involved in during their lifetime.

I enjoyed the book the pace of the story was good it didn't drag,  The information about Abraham Lincoln was interesting and unknown to me.  I think the characters could of been worked on a bit. Professor Baldwin was one sided you didn't learn till the end that an ex-boyfriend had taken her on a drug raid or taught her to fire a gun.  I couldn't get a mental picture of her looks or style. The sub-plot related to rock robberies could of been developed more this plot only received a line or two every now and then. But overall it was a book I would enjoy reading again.

Book Review - Rules of Engagement by Stephanie Lauren and others

I recently bought  a book for my kindle now that I have come out of the dark ages and have learned the ease of the fantastic invention,  the book Rules of engagement by Stephanie Lauren. I enjoy her book tremendously and I have notice she has start grouping her books with less well know writers and with some other well known authors.  I enjoyed the ones I have read until I came across the one listed above.  Most of you have probably notice amazon has books out there by authors which are 100 pages or less.  I know the book snob in me is showing but books with less then 100 pages are undeveloped ideas and need more thought and writing to make them a book

The book Rules of Engagement has one of Stephanie Lauren's books from the Rogue's bundle and two short Ideas the first by Kathryn Seidick "The Wedding Party" and the second by Delilah Marvelle "Unlaced".

The Reasons for Marriage is where Duke of Eversleigh is contemplating getting married to someone to bring about the usual heir to the family name and responsibilities.  He goes to visit Jack and Harry Lester to check out their sister and ends in marrying her after some drama.  The story is well develop and diverse.  The character are notable and developed.

The Wedding Party by Kathryn Seidick is about an rich heiress who is suppose to marry a man with a title but no money.  The girl wants to know if he loves her and so she asked him and he says of course.  That is the story in a nutshell.  The family is mention but the characters are not developed.  The plot is weak and not diverse.

Unlaced by Delilah Marvelle is about a couple who had previous bad marriages and love each other but don't want to acknowledge it until a ball and fire happen at which point they decide it is time to acknowledge their love and finish a game of chess they started at the beginning of the story.  Here again more character development would be nice and a more diverse plot would of been better.

Community Gardens

Every morning I drive down Davis Blvd on my way to work and watch the gardens in this community garden grow.  On Wednesday and Saturday mornings the gardeners are out in mass watering the garden, harvesting their crops and weeding.  The heat way during the summer really hit them hard.  As I wondered around the area I found a few unexpected Items.

This is their water source and the art work for the garden.  They have five water barrels setup to provide some water to the gardens as you can imagine with the drought we had this summer these water barrels were not in use to much.

This is the rest area for the garden I loved this area, the concept and they are constantly adding on to this area.  They also have master gardeners come for lectures and advice on what to plant and how to maintain the gardens.

I love the idea of the community garden and especially next to a church. Most churches have extra property for growth and activities.  For those churches who do not have immediate growth a community garden would be a great idea.  It would give those people in their church and in the area who can't grow a garden in their back yard due to not having one a way to participate in the garden growing process.  I would also be a great way to help support a local food back or church families that need some help.  If their corps are plentiful then they could also start selling the produce. 

My Memories of 9/11/2001

Source: mediaod

There are certain days in our lives that we remember forever every detail, thought, and even the people around us at the time are imprinted on our brain forever from that day forward. Such a day was 9/11/2001, I went to work at TXU that day like I always did I was listening to my favorite radio station and listening to some country music. I parked the car in downtown Dallas a half a block from work and walked into the building. They didn't check badges at the building hadn't since I started there about 4 months earlier. Rode the elevator to the fourth floor and went to my desk then someone said the World Trade Center had been hit by a jet. The woman next to me got her radio out from under her desk and turned it on. That was the end of work in that office. All day all we did was listen to as many details as we could gather from that radio. We heard rumours a plane was on its way to Texas to knock down the Chase tower.

I looked out the windows on our floor and all the restaurants were shutting down and going home to spend time with their families. Most of the businesses downtown shut down for the day not TXU we worked our regular hours. In the afternoon a call came through from the main office that we would need a badge to get back in the office the next day. There were about 4 of us who walked over to the main office to get our badges. Downtown was a ghost town that afternoon there was no one walking around downtown just us five. Once we got there we went to the security area but they said we needed a supervisor's signature. Back to the our office to get the supervisor who was on the phone with security already. After he got off the phone we went to the main office again and he went with us this time and everyone got their badge for the next day of work.

That evening I went home the road were almost bare I felt like I was driving in holiday traffic and it wasn't a holiday. I got home and watched the T.V. to see the visual events of the day. I was glad to be home with my family and know they were safe and around me.

The next morning I was driving into work and I was driving up the road downtown to my parking space and all I could do was look at the sky for a airplane and cry.

The Fort Worth Tour

When the girls were in high school we had a total of 10 foreign exchange students. 4 of them were brought over through a corporation from Japan, Germany, and Columbia. The other 6 came over for 6 weeks through a school based exchange program. The German teacher had contacts in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the english speaking schools in those three countrys would alternate sending a class over in November and then they would go back in December. It was a great experience for the entire family. You find out that children are the same the world over and family life is the same all over the world. All the student could speak english at least a little some got to where they could speak it very well. After being here for about a month or two the student found out they were speaking so much in english they couldn't remember their own language. This could cause the student to stop learning english which is what happen to our columbian student. When he couldn't understand his mother he stopped learning english. The two students from Japan loved the shopping both of them kept asking for money when ever they wrote or called home. One spent their money on used clothing (she was a Madonna fan) and the other one spent it on perfume. Our favorite student was from Germany and he has kept in touch with us the most over the years. All the students had problems slipping back into their lifestyle back home because they were used to greater freedom so I heard about family arguements once they got home.

During the time they were here they all had the same english teacher who always gave them a list of Local sites to vist in Fort Worth. So I got in the habit of a regular tour I would take the student on throughout the year. This tour include; the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art, The Kimball Art Museum, The Museum of Science and History, The Aeronautic Museum on the road to Grandview, Texas, Billy Bob's Honky Tonk, and the Fort Worth Stockyards. Their use to be a craft mall in Dallas and the Galarie in Dallas those were the last two places on my tour.

We enjoyed having the students with us the four years the girls were in high school. During the time the students were with us. My ex-husband was called up for Desert Storm he was sent to England and my husband and I got a divorce. Life went on and they were include in the our lives like we were include in theirs. It was a great experience and the girls found out what a brother were like.