It's Monday, What are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read. It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wondeful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

Last week I didn't get much reading done since I was recovering from my weekend trip to NY.  But, I'm hoping that by listing what I hope to accomplish this week will help me keep on track :)

Read:

Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion . . . she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit -- more sparkly, more fun, more wild -- the better. But even though Lola’s style is outrageous, she’s a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood.

When Cricket -- a gifted inventor -- steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. ~Goodreads

Currently Reading:

The True Confessions of a TV Psychic!

A sparkling romcom based on the true life adventures of Britney Bronte, hapless wannabe celebrity psychic.

Meet Britney, a girl with a pack of cards and almost no ambition, who finds herself jetset to stardom on psychic Television. Will she find fame? Inner meaning? True love?

Crazies and conmen, angels and aliens, predictions and porn, they're all to be found in this whistleblowing romp through the New Age. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll howl... but whatever you do, remember please, DO NOT LICK THE PHONES!

My parents suck ass. Banning me from the phone and restricting my computer privileges are the most tyrannical parental gestures I can think of. Don’t they realize that Hope’s the only one who keeps me sane? . . . I don’t see how things could get any worse.”

When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dad’s obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?

Next:

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.

Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.

So what are you reading this week, anything you are super excited about reading? Leave a link and I'll check it out.

Happy Monday!

In My Mailbox(12)

In My Mailbox is hosted weekly by The Story Siren.  We highlight books we have received  for review, purchased, borrowed, or Won. You can find out more here.

It has been a few weeks since I've posted an IMM. My life has been so hectic that I haven't been home or had time to put together a Sunday post. Below is a few books that I've received/purchased in the last few weeks.

BOUGHT:

Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself – and that’s exactly what the demons are counting on…

Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.

But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?

Shay could never do the things her friends could--never try out for sports, never go to parties, never fall in love. Because of the mysterious and incurable blood disorder she was born with, she can barely make it through three days of school a week.

But now, her doctor-turned-stepfather has a brand-new treatment that he thinks will change everything. And it does. As soon as the new blood starts pumping into Shay's veins, she has visions of a different life...Gabriel's life. She sees an orphanage, loss, fangs, blood, and lust that she can't explain.

Is Gabriel real? And if he is, could he really be what she thinks he is?

Owen, Frank, Audrey, and Jin-Ae have one thing in common: they all want to die. When they meet online after each attempts suicide and fails, the four teens make a deadly pact: they will escape together on a summer road trip to visit the sites of celebrity suicides...and at their final destination, they will all end their lives. As they drive cross-country, bonding over their dark impulses, sharing their deepest secrets and desires, living it up, hooking up, and becoming true friends, each must decide whether life is worth living—or if there's no turning back.

Clara's relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it's almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he's willing to do to make her stay.
Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won't let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough....

 Review:

Josie’s come a long way from being an average human chick who just wants to sex-up a vampire. She’s dated, mated, and killed one of the world’s richest vamps and is currently seeing a mysterious, blood-slurping hottie named Walker.

Now, Josie must adjust to the realities of a steady relationship with a vampire, which isn’t all exciting parties, hot sex and moonlit walks. And with a vamp who’s anxious to push their relationship to the next phase as mortality bears down on his human’s fragile body, the pressure for Josie to commit is on.

Can their night-day romance survive leaving Josie’s character and individuality intact, or will the secrets of the supernatural community crush her spirit and her chance at a permanent vampire mate?

The True Confessions of a TV Psychic!

A sparkling romcom based on the true life adventures of Britney Bronte, hapless wannabe celebrity psychic.

Meet Britney, a girl with a pack of cards and almost no ambition, who finds herself jetset to stardom on psychic Television. Will she find fame? Inner meaning? True love?

Crazies and conmen, angels and aliens, predictions and porn, they're all to be found in this whistleblowing romp through the New Age. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll howl... but whatever you do, remember please, DO NOT LICK THE PHONES!

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.

Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.

What did you receive this week, leave a link and I'll stop by.

CLP Blog Tours: Guest Post Author Britney Bronte

The True Confessions of a TV Psychic!

A sparkling romcom based on the true life adventures of Britney Bronte, hapless wannabe celebrity psychic.

Meet Britney, a girl with a pack of cards and almost no ambition, who finds herself jetset to stardom on psychic Television. Will she find fame? Inner meaning? True love?

Crazies and conmen, angels and aliens, predictions and porn, they're all to be found in this whistleblowing romp through the New Age. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll howl... but whatever you do, remember please, DO NOT LICK THE PHONES!

Today I have a the fabulous guest post by the author of Do Not Lick The Phones, Britney Bronte with me. Thanks Britney for stopping by!

Can Guys Write Chicklit?

Course they can. There, that was a short guest blog! More seriously, the requirements for a chicklit author have nothing to do with gender. It’s about personality. If there was a questionnaire entitled What Kind Of Novelist Are You it would only need one question; ‘What do you like to read?’ That’s the kind of stuff you should try to write, even if it’s just once in your whole life.When the Bronte sisters got their books published, they had to use male pseudonyms. Take Emily Bronte’s classic, Wuthering Heights. How would you define it? A gothic novel? A psychological horror? A family drama? Most would agree that it’s some kind of romance. But at the time, it was considered so brutal, so shocking, that a woman couldn’t possibly have written it.

Things have changed; now we must wrestle a perception that women can’t write anything else, that boys write the action stuff, girls write the weepies. Female writers have already put the boot into that idea in the fields of crime writing and murder mysteries, children’s fiction and fantasy, though perhaps we are still struggling against a popular sense of women writing ‘soft’ science fiction while anything with technical description comes down to men; boys with toys and all that. Anyone remember a comic called Misty? It was full of tingly spooky stories for girls…but they weren’t written by girls. The guys who wrote them went on to write for comics like 2000AD, all ray guns and axes.

Wherever stories come from is a strange place inside each of us, hard to define. Pink for girls and blue for boys has nothing to do with it. In Do Not Lick The Phones, my heroine will tell you that the book she detests most is John Grey’s best seller; Men are from Mars Women are from Venus. This book could almost be treated like a chicklit manual if you’re looking for easy clichés: Woman loves shoes and chocolates, Man can’t bear to ask for directions, that kind of thing. Like any stereotype, it can be funny, but it’s not real, so don’t let it limit your story. Whether you’re a member of the Women’s Institute/the Froufrou Club/the League of Crazy Catwomen , if you want to write a western or hard scifi or whatever, go for it. And guys, join the legions of men out there already writing chick lit and romance. Anybody, everybody, if it’s what you love, it’s the story you were meant to create. Write it and be proud.


You can find Britney on Twitter, Facebook, or on her website.


You can purchase her book on Amazon.

**All proceeds for Do Not Lick the Phones will be donated to helping the London communities get back on their feet.**