50%

He placed both arms on the bookcase to frame her within his embrace. He kissed her neck and followed with a nip of his teeth. "Would you read with me sometime?"

Kisses and books, peanut butter and jelly ;)

Sunday, We Salad! And Dessert!

It's still been a bit chilly here but I promised you people salad and salad you shall have!

Blackberry Honey Walnut Salad

This recipe recommends you make the dressing the night before to let it sit. I made it in the morning and planned on eating in the afternoon but then decided to go the extra mile and let it sit overnight. I could taste a difference, for the better. I'd let it sit overnight if you can.

Doesn't photograph well, but the personality of this dressing is top notch!

I didn't have walnut halves but the chopped ones I did, worked great. I was worried it would be too much sugar but I don't like things too sweet and this seemed perfect. 

Oh spinach, you don't even know the guests that are about to come party and mix it up in your home!

Fruits to the top and veggies to the bottom, so pretty :) Blackberries, apples (recipe calls for green apples but they don't agree with my stomach), mango, red pepper, cucumbers, and green onions.

Topping the salad off right!

Look at the pretty bowl! I really liked this. I would, however, leave out the red pepper and green onion next time, they just didn't seem to go, taste wise, with everything else. Definitely make the dressing, added so much flavor :)

Now, since I did a bait and switch with you all regarding moving from soup to salad, I've decided to give you a dessert also. 

Peanut Butter Cup Chia Seed Pudding

Ingredients for the chocolate.

This might go without saying, but make sure you have plenty of Chia seed on hand for this, I almost ran out, lol. This is another one that has to sit overnight but you'll be rewarded with a great breakfast for your hard work.

Ingredients for peanut butter cup.

Mine set-up perfectly after overnight but I did get lazy and just scooped it without running it through a blender first. If you like a smoother, less tapioca pudding feel, you definitely want to use a blender on this. 

I've never had Chia pudding before and while I liked it, it does have a bit of a sugar-less taste to it. The toppings helped immensely with the taste and made it from a 5 star to an 8 star dessert. I added banana slices, white chocolate chips, baking chocolate bits, and shredded coconut. It was super good after that, lol.

Any Sunday salads and desserts to share?

Reading Update: 5%

The prologue:
If Kylo Ren was in regency garb



Great beginning :)

Kindle Freebies

I have not read these selections but they're free (at the time of my post).

So enjoy and partake at your own risk :)

*Click on the book cover to go to Amazon and Get Yourself Some!

    

    

    

    

    

  

Hope you all can find some good summer reads :)

Copy a Romance Cover

We were not having it today. This may be due to I tried doing this before feeding him breakfast or that I had a pretty white lace tube top that I tried pulling and tugging on him. I had the bright idea of putting it on from the back, he, naturally, got goofed about that. After several pauses and promising him I wasn't doing something horrible, I still couldn't get the top up far enough past his ribs to look good. After pulling and tugging it off, we went with the lay down and I'll throw a white shirt on you.
We're not morning people :/

Random Number Generator month!

Here we go!

Ooooh, an earlier tbr addition....

Promise by Tabi Wollstonecraft. 

Synopsis sounds good, let's go see how much it cost....

Err, ok. Let's try B&N....

Ummm...author's page....

This was the last entry. 

Not a good start RNG. Let's try again.

If I had to walk to the books, I'd appreciate the closeness

The Damsel and the Daggerman by Delilah S. Dawson. 

I already own this, so no worries there :) I've only read the first in the series, so it bugs me a bit that I'll be reading out of order. However, it's the weekend, time to get wild!

Next pick,

Closer to the middle of the pack...

Hell Breaks Loose by Sophie Jordan.

Woo-hoo! I've been wanting to get a chance to read this one :)

Review: Wed to a Spy

Wed to a Spy by Sharon Cullen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Simon has served Queen Elizabeth faithfully for many years but now he is ready to retire back to his manor. However, Elizabeth wants one more assignment out of him, to find out if Mary of Scotland and Philip of Spain are conspiring.
Aimee wants to marry the love of her life, Pierre, but her aunt Catherine wants her to spy on Mary before she will consent to the marriage. Aimee is no spy and instead finds herself married to an Englishman.
Simon and Aimee have found themselves pawns in a larger game but their hearts won't be controlled.

He'd been sent to Spain and ended up in Scotland, married to a French woman.

With a stunningly gorgeous cover, Wed to a Spy is book one in All the Queen's Spies series. We are introduced to Simon, Will, and Tristan as Elizabeth of England sends them off to gather information about Mary of Scotland. This first book focuses on Simon and even though he is sent to Spain, through what seemed an unnecessarily tangled way, he winds up in Scotland and Mary's court. Simon seems nice with his desire to get to know his younger sister and retire to home. He's twenty-five and claims to be world weary from working for Elizabeth but we don't get any solid information or stories of his background for us, as the reader, to really sympathize for him.

Our heroine, who for most of the book I assumed was sixteen or seventeen, is twenty-one and a very immature one at that. The vast majority of the story she languishes for her lost love Pierre, which we see through very southern belle hand on forehead and clutched to chest letters written by her. I just could not connect with this heroine, she wasn't given much substance. She mopes about a lot about her circumstances and lacks the backbone I personally like seeing in my heroines. I felt the longing for Pierre went on for far too long, especially when we never get to meet the guy and then she decides being turned on by Simon disrobing means she is in love with him; sex with Simon seemed to cure her longing for Pierre.

As I mentioned, Elizabeth and Mary make appearances in this story, along with other real historical figures and the murder of Mary's private secretary Rizzio, plays a main part. Even though this was set during a tense political time, I felt like the story was slow moving. The suspense of the time is touched on but more of a little sprinkling than intricate weaving and our couple lacked the chemistry and emotional relationship that keeps me locked into stories. Having Aimee pining for Pierre didn't so much as create angst but acted more as a wall between the romance and Simon and Aimee. The latter second half felt like sex scenes suddenly thrown in for stimulation but I found them lacking because of the dearth of emotion. This story kind of boiled down to people in fancy clothes banging for me, which for the less historically inclined, may just hit the spot.


View all my reviews

Tasty Tuesday

Book Cupidity's Art of the Pie post may have just inspired me to try and make crust again. My first ever experience was trying to make homemade poptarts. 

Homemade Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Poptarts

You can tell by the picture they turned out..a bit rough, lol. I just used the crust recipe they provided and I don't think I gave the respect needed for freezing your equipment and ingredients. I'm not a crier, but frustrated tears were hella threatening when I was trying to work with the dough. I've not attempted since then. However, these tasted awesome and making the dough myself definitely made these flake wonderfully. The icing impressed me with how much it turned out looking like the box, taste was the same but fresher. 

It's been pretty cold here the last couple days so I made a warm fish stew. 

Brazilian Fish Stew

Since I was posting the poptart recipe, I thought I'd throw this in. I used Halibut for the white fish meat, added an avocado I had laying around, and substituted the olive oil with coconut oil. It's super easy to make, maybe a little time consuming as you have to wait 20mins for fish to soak in lime juice and then another 20mins for the broth to simmer, but nothing outrageous. Even with the rice, this only made two servings but again, the bf and I disrespect serving sizes because we're both tall and think that means we get double. It was amazingly delicious and I highly recommend if you're seeing snow flakes in your April/May air :)

April Read Roundup

Whew! It feels like April just flew right on by. I am so ready for some summer weather, I had snow floating in the air yesterday, BOOOOOOO. I know some actually had accumulation but I still want to complain. April was my Singles month (actually read some not in series, lol) and I'm super pleased with some on the hidden gems I discovered from this. Those selection books will be denoted with ***book cover***. I kind of want to keep blindly reaching into my book boxes but I must move on to another sub-genre of my tbr (I know all you book lovers get having sub-genres to your tbr :). I'm sure I don't need to tell you all because I'm sure you've been on pins and needles waiting for this month to come up, but May is my Random Number Generator month. How this differs from blindly plunking books out of boxes is I RNG from my Want-to-Read list on GRs. The thrill of what could be picked! If I don't already have the book or can't find it at my library, I will buy it, if I feel the price works for me. Anyway, I feel I had a good reading month and can't wait to see what awaits me in May :)

*Click on book cover to be taken to my review or if I didn't write one, the book's Goodreads page

5 stars

4 stars

3.5 stars

3.3 stars

  ******

3 stars

2.5 stars

******  ******    

******

2 stars

******    ******  

******  ******  

1.5 stars

1 star

Fifteen books read and 3.5 stars my highest rating, I thought I had a bit better reading month than that but I think ending on a good note and the pleasantly surprising random book box reads delighted me more than simple high ratings. 

How many books did you all get to read this month, any favorites?