50%

He grinned at that. “Who was it who told me you were a regular hellion?”
“Some miserable man, I doubt not. Hellion —what nonsense! None of you can bear the thought of a woman making decisions for herself, being responsible for herself. You must always rule and order things to your own satisfaction, and you dare to call it protecting her.”

Starting to really like this heroine!

For more great quotes from the heroine and comments - Buddy Read The Hellion Bride 

30%

Emile gave him an unholy grin, “It’s not even noon, Ryder. I had thought to ask you to visit the still-house with me.”

“Kill me first, for it’s as close to Hades as men have managed to get whilst still flesh of this world.”

The flair and frequency with which this hero bitches about the hot weather would have us being best friends.

More comments/quotes - Buddy Read The Hellion Bride 

Reading Update: 15%

“Now you draw blood,” he said, “and you don’t do it too badly. But not all that well either .”

“Really , Mr. Sherbrooke, it’s never wise to bait your hook when you don’t know what you’ll catch.”

Liking the cold, sassy, willful battle between hero and heroine so far.
More comments/quotes - Buddy Read The Hellion Bride

Review: With a Twist

With a Twist by Deirdre Martin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

With a stop and go writing style that bluntly switched back and forth between leads, this was lacking any semblance of emotion. The heroine was uber snobby with some redemption towards the end and the hero was obsessed with his job only to have a sudden and lacking any emotional depth change of heart.
There was an Irish mob side arc that could have been interesting but again, wasn't invested in enough to have the reader care.
Never felt any chemistry between the leads and their I love yous came super quick and out of nowhere.
Very dry and lacking emotion :(

More comments/quotes - Buddy Read With a Twist

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80%

Natalie looked at him sadly. “You’re deluding yourself. When this story is done, there will be another, and another. Our relationship will always come second.”

Truth bomb! 

More comments/quotes - Buddy Read With a Twist

50%

“She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t get you."

Oh the joy of mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationships. No hate, just doesn't get, way to maneuver around that one, dude, lol.

More comments - Buddy Read With a Twist

Reading Update: 30%

I'll be in New York the end of the month, so I'm enjoying the talk about sites around the city. That might be the highlight so far :/

More comments/quotes - Buddy Read With a Twist

Menu Monday

Lemon-Garlic Shrimp & Vegetables

Not a lot of wow here but simple clean tasting and only took a little over a half hour to make up. Don't forget the extra lemon for some added tart taste. I made some white rice to mix with it. 

Cauliflower Hot Wings

These are really liked by the bf, a huge meat eater. So it is no small victory that he really digs these. I use actual Panko bread crumbs and think they work a little better. I don't like mushy cauliflower, I think they help with the crunchy outer layer. We eat these as a meal because it makes so much but if you had more people would work as a side dish. The batter is what makes these, you can use your fav BBQ sauce but I found one with a little spice works best. A little over an hour to make. 

Chili Lime Sweet Potato Fries with Honey Chipotle Dipping Sauce

I can't remember if I've posted this fry recipe before but I use this one every time I make sweet potato fries, it is amazing. The hint of lime combined with the dipping sauce is so freaking good. Probably takes around half hour but I'd spend three if that is what it took to make these.

Before I started doing Menu Monday, I waited until I had about three weeks of pictures and recipes, in case I didn't cook much, got sick, or life happened and I would still have something to post. For the life of me, I can't remember what the sandwich/burger that I made was in the picture. Lol. It is not on my Pinterest list of tries either. I don't know, it looks good but I have no idea what it was. :/

Chili Lime Salmon Bowls with Broccoli Rabe and Cauliflower Rice

If your grocery store has pre-grinded up cauliflower, it will save you time in making the rice, mine did. Yippy! Doesn't actually take as much time as sounds/looks, I think around an hour. All the flavors blended together awesomely and I felt super healthy And you get a heaping plate of food, lol. 

Cannoli Dip

Really good, simple, and quick to make. I think it took me 15mins, no more than that. I found that the waffle cones were my favorite to dip in it, followed by animal crackers, and graham crackers. If you want something quick for movie night this is a great go to.

Any new/old recipes wow you guys this week? Or any ghost pictures of food you can't remember making? :)

Reading Update: 30%

I think...I'm liking? Cade. He has a certain sassy wild je ne sais quoi I'm digging.

Review: Fancy Pants

Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

1.5 stars

I had the flu while reading this so my notes/thoughts were mired in me feeling like I was experiencing a slow death. Because of the homophobic comments and misogyny, I just couldn't get into this. If I had read it when it was first published (I gave This Heart of Mine 5 stars and that has a huge problematic scene) maybe I would feel differently but as Sam(AMNReader) says, "when you know better, you do better" in her Review, I read it at age 35 in 2018 and I personally felt there were a lot of Not ok things being done and being said.

This was almost more of a contemporary with some romance as the main couple didn't spend a lot of time together. The heroine goes through one heck of a journey and I would have gave the book 2 stars for her alone but she makes a decision (view spoiler)[doesn't tell hero she had his kid, even when original reason not to, wanted to stand on her own feet, becomes mute (hide spoiler)]; I just couldn't side with her. Romance books have to make me like the hero and heroine and I had no love for them here.

This was supposed to be a buddy read, Quotes/comments here but yeah, the whole flu thing kept me from being too talkative.

Anyway, a spoiled rich girl who travels to America, has one heck of a personal growth journey, and an abused runaway boy who plays golf, never feels good enough, and a handful of secondary characters that make the story better (Skeet and Miss Sybil) and worse (Holly Grace, not because of who she is married to but her comments).

Here are a couple of quotes I first started to highlight before the tone and flu took me over:

"Running musses your hair and makes your face all red. People won't love you if you're not pretty." She clasped Francesca tightly in her arms while she uttered this most terrible threat, using it the way other mothers might offer up the horrors of the boogey man.
The author did an amazing job, you'll get complete backstory on the heroine's mother, of showing why our heroine was the way she was. You'll think it is hard to sympathize with a spoiled rich girl but she never really had a chance to be anything else and she works her way out of it.

He threw the toothbrush at her, hitting her in the arm. "Take it! Take the fucking thing!

She drew back her arm and slapped his face as hard as she could. He slapped her back. Although he was mad enough to hit her, he wasn't mad enough to hurt her, so he struck her with only a small portion of his strength. Still, she was so small that she lost her balance and bumped into the side of a car. She grabbed the sideview mirror with one hand and pressed the other to her cheek. "Jesus, Francie, I hardly touched you." He rushed over and reached out for her arm.
There are some very touchy, cringing moments between the hero and heroine. At the point of these two quotes, the hero and heroine and only spent about a week together. The vibe of a guy throwing anything at the heroine in anger, screaming at her, or even slapping her "with only a small portion of his strength" in any context is take a good hard look at worthy but without personal relationship for knowing personalities, it feels abusive for the heroine. Men screaming at women just isn't the back and forth I look for; I don't know it felt super uncomfortable for me here.

"I want to do it! I know it's wrong. I know I shouldn't let you, but I just can't stand it anymore. I feel like I'm on fire." She tried to make him understand. "All those months, Billy T made me do it. All those months he hurt me. Don't I have the right, just once, to choose for myself?"
The younger issues involving the hero and Holly Grace was deep, dark, and I thought very emotional, it touches on issues no one likes to talk about but can be therapeutic for people to read and see discussed.

There were numerous comments about the heroine raising her son wrong and he might grow up "strange" or queer with the hero also early on making a comment about how he didn't want to be in a f****t calendar. Not my cup of tea views.

This was written well because Phillips is a good writer but well written homophobia is still homophobia. I didn't like a lot of the characters' actions and comments, it was stuff the romance community has seemed to want to clear out, which I definitely think to the betterment.


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