Haunted on Bourbon Street

Haunted on Bourbon Street (Jade Calhoun #1)
Deanna Chase
247 pages
Publisher: Bayou Moon Publishing
Source: the author via a LibraryThing win
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Yay!  This is the third self-published novel this month that I've really enjoyed.  I love that I'm breaking my own stereotypes here!

Haunted on Bourbon Street takes place in New Orleans, where Jade has just moved into a haunted apartment above a strip club.  She works at the cafe next door and soon befriends the owners of the strip club/cafe.  But there's a couple problems: one, her apartment is being haunted by a strange man she dubs Mr. Sexy.  Two, her new BFF Pyper is being haunted by a much, much darker force and Jade will do anything she can to keep Pyper from being tormented by Mr. Evil.

This was a great book!  And a great time to read it considering Halloween is rapidly approaching.  This book definitely has some chills in it - Mr. Evil is a very dark force who is haunting Pyper; he likes to beat her up while she's sleeping.  He's definitely not a friendly ghost.

But this book was also sexy.  Mr. Sexy likes to creep up on Jade while she's sleeping and play the role of incubus, though he's not a demon, he's a ghost who seems to have followed her home.

The cast of characters in this book was diverse and made the plot fun to read.  I definitely recommend this ebook for your Halloween reading pleasure.  Chilling and sexy, Haunted on Bourbon Street is a win-win in adult fiction.  Four stars!

The Scorpio Races

The Scorpio Races
Maggie Steifvater
407 pages
Publisher: Scholastic
Source: ARC sent by publisher
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.


Every year in the island town of Thisby there is a water horse race.  A race in which several may die and only one can win.  Desperate to save her family home and to prevent her brother from leaving for the mainland, Puck becomes the first female to enter the race.  She soon befriends Sean, a regular in the races who also has something important riding on his winning.


What a fantastic novel.  The story was based on a myth but I want to state for the record that there is nothing paranormal about this book, contrary to the way some people are classifying it on Goodreads.  It's a solid story with realistic characters and the plot line is not at all sullied by magic or vampires or anything cliche like that.  There is nothing cliche about The Scorpio Races.  In fact, I found it to be refreshingly unique in the YA genre.


I will admit that the plot started out a little slow (hence my four stars instead of five).  There is a plot and a definite movement to it, but there isn't a lot of action until the end of the book.  Despite that, it was a page turner and I devoured most of it this afternoon while tackling my laundry. 


Really, the whole book lead up to the very end and it was the ending that was the absolute best part of the book.  I really liked the whole thing, but I fell in love with it because of the last forty pages.  The last few chapters that take place after the race really made my heart swell with happiness.  The Scorpio Races is about so much more than a race.  It's about family, friends, connections, and knowing what's important in life.  It's about knowing who you are and how that can make you a better person.  


I love Puck so much.


Not to beat the dead horse of YA comparisons (pun intended) but The Scorpio Races really did evoke some of the same feelings in me that The Hunger Games novels did.  The element of suspense was huge and and the ending climax of the book was amazing.  I can see The Scorpio Races becoming a classic in the future. And I would just like to add that I want to see this made into a movie.  I want to see those horses stampede across the beach on the big screen and I want to see a dainty red-head play Puck and I want to see (don't judge) Taylor Lautner play Sean.  The Scorpio Races would make such an amazing movie.


The Scorpio Races comes out Tuesday.  Read this book!  Read it!!

In My Mailbox (5)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren.

From the library:
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

"Won" on LibraryThing:
Effie at the Wedding: A Short Story by Tracy Marchini

I'm trying to be better at acquiring books because my TBR pile is so large.  I didn't do too bad this week, I didn't spend any money on books!

Happy Birthday To Me and Happy Birthday To Me Again

Happy Birthday To Me and Happy Birthday To Me Again
Brian Rowe
175 and 174 pages respectively
Publisher: the author
Source: the author
★★★★☆ and ★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summaries here and here.

So these books hit my inbox at a pretty good time, considering my own birthday is coming up in just over a week.  These books were great, but oh boy, I hope I never have a birthday like those Cameron has in these books.

In the first book, Cameron is just your typical high school senior who likes to play a little trick when he goes out to eat - in his quest to get as many free desserts as possible, it's always his birthday.  He's pretty sure the waitstaff, particularly waitress Liesel, is catching on but he continues.  Suddenly he's again way too fast, about a year a day and he's rapidly becoming an old man, befuddling his friends and his doctors.

In the second book, Cameron seems to have the opposite problem.  Things are back to normal and he's in love with Liesel, in fact he just proposed!  But then, suddenly he's aging backwards, losing a year a day.  With significantly less time to figure this out than the last time he had this problem, he's got to figure out what to do and fast.

These books were great!  They were fast, light reads that really entertained.  The characters were all unique and well developed - my favorite character from the first book is probably Mrs. Gordon - the mean, horny librarian at the high school; she was such a hoot!  I hesitate to say Hannah was my favorite character in the second book because she was so evil, but I think she is.  A lot of imagination went into her and I think it's her character that's going to drive the rest of this series.

Happy Birthday to Me was great, but I thought Happy Birthday to Me Again really took it up a notch, which is why I gave it five stars.  We see more of the paranormal stuff in the second book and it ends on a cliffhanger/twist of events that really sets the reader up for the third novel, which I suspect will be even better than the second.

I just want to take a second and say I really, really enjoyed these two novels.  They're probably the best self-published novels I ever read.  Thank you for sending them to me, Brian!  If you like YA, you should definitely check these out!  They're short so you can read both in one afternoon.  As for me, I will definitely be checking out the third book in the trilogy, Happy Birthday to You, when it comes out.

A Slot Machine Ate My Midlife Crisis

A Slot Machine Ate My Midlife Crisis
Irene Woodbury
332 Nook pages
Publisher: SynergEbooks
Source: the author
★★☆☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Middle-aged Paula is dissatisfied with her newlywed life in Houston with her rich husband.  After losing her job she spends a long weekend in Vegas with her best friend, Paula.  But when the time comes to head back home to Houston, she can't bring herself to do it.  Instead she stays in Vegas and starts putting down roots, sans husband.

Where to start, where to start... I didn't like this book.  The first thing that struck me was the over-description of all things Vegas.  From the different hotels, places to visit, places to eat, the people, everything.  It was just too much filler.  I also loathed the characters of Wendy and Paula from the start.  The descriptions of their spending made me sick.  Wendy had just lost her job in a bad economy, yet she was spending like she owned seventy oil refineries in the Middle East and Paula was even worse!  Paula had zero redeeming characteristics.  There is absolutely nothing likable about Paula, so how she managed to get married three times is beyond me.

There were a couple things I liked about the book though, and that included Roger.  I felt so bad for him, that he was in love with Wendy who clearly is so self-centered she couldn't ever really love anyone.  I wanted Roger to finally face the facts and file divorce, but he just wouldn't.  Poor man couldn't catch a break.  I also liked the character of Paige, Paula's sister.  I really liked her.  She had a great outlook on life, refused to take money from Daddy, and made her own way.  I wish there had been a whole lot more of Paige in this book than Paula.

I'm normally pretty opposed to divorce except in extreme circumstances like abuse.  I prefer to see couples to go therapy and at least try to work it out, but this book had me on a whole different train.  I was just waiting for Wendy and Roger to divorce.  I was wishing one of their shouting matches would finally turn into papers served...

Two stars, because it was okay.  There was just so much about this book that grated on my nerves, including the formatting.  I had the ePub copy so it should have read perfectly on my Nook, but there were no paragraphs and instead of quotation marks there were question marks.  Statements kept reading in my head like questions, which was strange.

In My Mailbox (4)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.

For review:

Simon Pulse sent Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez

Multnomah Books via their Blogging for Books program sent Shadows on the Sand by Gayle Roper

Jenn McKinlay via a Goodreads win sent her latest book Death by the Dozen

Swapped for:

The Reckoning by Beverly Lewis

An equal number of books in and out this week.  Let's call that progress for now!

Death by the Dozen

Death by the Dozen
Jenn McKinlay
276 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Goodreads win!
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Mel and her baking partner, Angie, are entering a local bake off contest with the chance to win ten thousand dollars and a lot of publicity for their cupcakery.  But when one of the judges is found murdered and frozen in a trailer, Mel finds herself not just baking but also investigating the murder.  Hopefully she can catch the killer before s/he comes after her, too!

I loved this cozy!  The plot was fantastic as was the diverse cast of characters.  Early on the novel Mel gets an intern from the local high school, Oz, who really shakes up the bakeshop.  I thought he was a great character in the novel.

If there's one thing I love more than a cozy, it's a cozy with a cat, or in this case, a teeny tiny kitten named Captain Jack!  The cat the author described me reminded me a lot of my own cat, Mittens, who is now unfortunately two years old and no longer a baby kitten.

There was on problem I had with this book: the cupcakes!  I started the book last night and when I was running errands earlier today and accidentally stumbled upon a local cupcake bakery, I had to go in.  They even had cookie dough cupcakes, which were mentioned in the novel and I knew it was meant to be.  And it was delicious.  So basically, be warned that this book will make you crave all things sugary, not that there's anything wrong with that.

What was really great about this cozy was that even though it was the third in a series, it can definitely stand alone.  I haven't read the first two books in the series, but I had no problem following the plot or figuring out the different personalities of the characters.  I love that!  I think I'm going to have to go back and read the first two, though, just for fun.

PS: Even though I was provided this book free through a giveaway, that didn't affect my review.  It was really good, read it!