It's Monday! What are you reading? (May 7)

This is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

It let's you plan your week, as well as look for book suggestions from other bloggers.

Finished

Watch for review later this week!!

Currently Reading

Have a pretty good start into both of these and hope to finish up early in the week.

Up Next

Need to clear off my Netgalley shelf. I have Siren's Story, A Deeper Darkness, and Monkey Wrench that will be the next ones to read. Pretty good variety which should help my speed through them. Really excited for each one of them.

What are you reading this week?

Spring Carnival Blog Hop

This Hop has ended for 2012.

Please watch for carnival next year!

Welcome to the Candy Shoppe

The challenge of this stop is to 

guess the name of the actual candy or candy bar.

Each correct guess earns 1 entry into random drawing (using random.org). You can earn a maximum of 5 entries. The prize is your choice of an eye candy cover from the genre of your choice. (See Below).

Leave a comment with your answers and number them accordingly. If you only guess, 1, 3, and 5, please number them using 1, 3, and 5. Also, please indicate your prize choice.

Good luck!

  

Challenge:

1. Cheerful Farmer
2. Nothing
3. Sour Skull
4. Giggles
5. Hills

*Candy challenge will change daily, but you can only enter one time.

Prize Choices:
Mystery - Your choice of Stieg Larsson Millenium series
YA - Your choice of Cassandra Clare Mortal Instruments or Infernal Devices series
Paranormal Romance - Your choice of J.R. Ward BDB series
Historical Romance - Your choice of any Lisa Kleypas books
Historical YA Romance - Your choice of Anna Godbersen’s Luxe series

Book Review: Chocolate Cat Caper by Joanna Carl

By Joanna Carl

Publish Date: March 2002

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Series: #1

Personal Rating: 3 stars

Buy from Amazon
Add to Goodreads

Author's Website

Summary from GoodReads:

Looking for a fresh start, divorcée Lee McKinney moves back to Michigan to work for her aunt's chocolate business-and finds that her new job offers plenty of murderous treats to chew on. When a high-profile defense lawyer dies after eating a cat-shaped chocolate laced with cyanide, it's up to Lee to find out who tampered with the recipe-before she and her aunt end up behind not-so-chocolate bars.

My Review:

I liked several things about this book. I liked the setting of this book which was in a small town where a lot of the residents had landed after being in larger cities, if not metropolitan areas. However, when the crime happened, they definitely had reporters show up and bombard the town and chocolate store. How did Lee and her Aunt handle them? With chocolate of course!!

I liked the chocolate factory. When the author describes the workers that help her and her aunt with the chocolates, I felt like it was larger than I had first pictured. However, I think the aunt makes a lot of the specialty items and the workers do the easier chocolates as there is a talent to chocolate making. I know because it consumes my life the two full days after Thanksgiving making 80 to 90 lbs. of handmade chocolates.

Verdict: Not a bad book. It kept pace real well and I very much enjoyed the ending. How annoying though that Lee keeps saying the wrong word. Don't know that I like that very well. It wasn't like she would just say it once in a while, or when she was nervous, it was just in weird situations. Maybe didn’t add anything to the character. I don’t know, I will definitely read another story in the series.

Friday Follow (May 4)

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

Q: What is one thing you wish you could tell your favorite author?

A: I would have to tell Victoria Holt, thanks for bridging the gap. At a time before YA books, she wrote adult, clean books that a 14 - 15 year old could read. This allowed me to continue reading without giving up anything. 

Leave a comment and let me know what you think or where to find your post. Happy Friday!! 

Book Review: Fifteen Digits by Nick Santora

Fifteen Digits
By Nick Santora
Genre: Thriller
Publish Date: April 24, 2012
Personal Rating: 3.5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Author's Page

Summary from GoodReads:
Is it really insider trading if you’ve been an outsider your entire life?

Five men. Five walks of life. Every day they come together at the white shoe law firm Olmstead & Taft. But they’re not lawyers. They’re “Printers”: blue-collar guys consigned to the dark basement of the firm charged with copying, collating and delivering the mountains of paperwork that document millions of dollars of sensitive legal secrets.

Until the five are approached by an ambitious young attorney who teaches them what they have: insider information. Together they make a plan: take the classified documents that pass through their hands every day and use them to get rich. They create a joint account to deposit the spoils. An account with a safeguard-each one only knows one section of the access code.

Which means that for all five conspirators, there’s no way out. But as too much money piles up to go unnoticed, the Printers will discover there’s one thing even worse than being an outsider: being in too deep.

My Review:
I first have to say I loved the ending. It was a shock to me and actually kept me thinking beyond closing its pages.

This book held a steady pace throughout the book until the end. There are a lot of characters, but I think the author does a great job of moving through them slowly so you get to know them. Introducing them one by one and a little background you get to know the main characters Rich, Jason, Vice, Dylan and Eddie. They are all very different in their race, age, aspirations, and history. If I had to pick my favorites, it would be Rich and Eddie. I really did despise Jason. What a creep!

If you enjoy mysteries and thrillers, you will definitely enjoy this book. It was a quick read, when I was able to settle down with enough time to read. It’s not fluff, just that it flows really well from one point to the next. I didn’t get bored, even with the steady pace as there was enough information being introduced and time to digest it before the author gave you more.

I would definitely read another book by this author. Good job.

Favorite Quote:
"The benefit of being invisible is that people don't see you when you're robbing them blind." (Kindle location 3766)

What to Read Next?
If you have not read David Baldacci, definitely try one of his books. I would suggest The Winner and Absolute Power as they have a similar feel to this book.

Teaser Tuesday (May 1)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. Here's how it works..

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure what you share does not give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author too so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser...

"So, what else do you know about our killer?" "He's got blue eyes." "That's it?" "That's it." (Kindle location 688-90)

Vampire Dawn by J.R. Rain

Book #5