Tag Archive: text-to-speech-enabled



The Forever Girl (The Forever Girl #1)The Forever Girl by Rebecca Hamilton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I became aware of this book one when I picked up book two for free with Kindle Unlimited. Notwithstanding the inside out reading of Marie Lu’s Legend series, I prefer to read books in their prescribed order.

As the title ‘Forever Girl’ implies, this is a young adult book. And though I loved the storyline and the characters, I just got ill with the sexual teen-angst. If you don’t want to have sex with the guy, don’t sleep with him and then dwell on all things sexual. And, okay, the main character is out of school, in her twenties, still a virgin though I can’t see how. She seems immature. Oh, but don’t get me started on the centuries old vampire with another label. Why has he no more self-control than a child especially when he says he cares for her and wants to wait until she is ready to go adult? But vampires and sexual ambiguity seem to be the theme in young adult books these days.

Had I realized that I would be reading about vampires I might not have read this. It is a worn-out cliche, to say the least. But the drawing card, for me, is the awakening of the witch. Even then the main character was so wishy-washy about moving forward.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t hate this story. The writing was well-done. The story carried me past any errors that might have been there. This next problem I put on me. I started getting mixed up by the extras in the story. It was near the end of the book that the name Paloma came up. I still can’t quite figure out who she was.

It was four o’clock in the morning when I finished the story and quickly opened the next book. So that interest in the story kept me from going to sleep. Read this during the day. The end is hair-raising.

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My Melancholic DiaryMy Melancholic Diary by Iva Kenaz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I want to thank my GoodReads friend, A.S. Johnson for recommending this treasure to me. She was right, I did love it!

Once I got the recommendation I found that I could get it through Kindle Unlimited so I set about getting it right away. I already had tons of books ahead of it on my ‘currently reading shelf’, but I got around to it finally. So glad I did!

Where was this book when I was growing up? Oh, yeah, the author probably wasn’t born yet. What a great way to learn how fanciful a diary could be! When I was a young teen I had one of those diaries that had a little lock on it. Why I needed a lock always made me laugh. I rarely wrote anything in it beyond “I breathed in and out today.”

That a person in grade school chose to stay the last year of grade school with her eccentric father in the countryside near Prague in the Czech Republic so that she and he could iron out their differences, shows the maturity of the main character, Lisa, who is 14 nearly 15. But the book is full of mature themes but not in a preachy way. I think there is so much depth in this book that anyone of any age would find something to glean from it.

Lisa, the diary writer, the main character, of course, has a romantic heart and the adolescent inadequate self-esteem. Not too different from most people her age, but when you are that age, you don’t realize that. In fact, I wonder how many people outgrow that?

So seeing Lisa’s musings of her life and loves didn’t feel far from most people I know. Except for the fictional character that becomes alive for her. At first, that is shocking in such a mature girl, but as you watch the rest of her life you see that this ghost from another book guides her as much as she guides him. It is the one relationship that is working for her. What a grand idea! We should all have our own fictional hero/heroine who can speak to us while we write out the character’s destiny. Oh, yeah, we who write do just that! That is if we are writing daily. Gulp. We should be writing daily. Note to self…

Anyway, I highly recommend this book to everyone. I think even males will like it.

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A Witch's Magic: A Love Triangle With a Magical Twist (Heart of a Witch Book 2)A Witch’s Magic: A Love Triangle With a Magical Twist by H.T. Night

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Can I give a three and a half star rating? I loved the first book, but this one so left me flat. The first dealt with the power of a blooming witch trying to decide between good and black magic and the decision that needed to be made between her two great guys. Unfortunately, book two was more of the same angst. Nothing got resolved.

I was happy to hang out with old friends. I had grown to really like the characters, even the not so good ones. But I got very frustrated without any progress being made in this book. In the first book, there were even bits of seemingly real information about how to find your center and power. Not much was in this one.

AND I might have been happy just hanging with the friends as I mentioned before, but the book needed more editing. There were places I had to reread sentences to make sense of things. A word left out or not the right word. A sentence of present tense mixed in with mostly past.

Even still, I can’t wait to read the next book.

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Beneath the MaskBeneath the Mask by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don’t read ‘romance’ novels. Not if I can help it. But I consider Margaret McGaffey Fisk to be my friend so I felt I should try. I knew I couldn’t go wrong with her writing. I don’t think I saw a passive sentence anywhere in the book. This reading comes close after I read of Pride and Prejudice. If this were to be a contest, this would win heads down!

Passion is what wins it for me. No! Not that kind of passion! I mean the passion this young girl had pursued since she was small. But, now that she was to be presented as a woman… She wants to dance, something frowned upon back in those days.

Dawn Hyde, narrator of the Audible version of the book made this book so beautiful! Her accents and voice changes helped keep the characters separated and unique. I look forward to reading more with her voice.

Okay, for the romanticohics, there is romance in the end, but most of it is this girl coming of age and her trying to live out her passions, somehow. It makes me sad to know women of the past weren’t encouraged to follow their hearts and passions. When I start feeling like we’ve made no forward motion in the feminist movement, reading something like this shows we have made some progress.

I am looking forward to more by Margaret McGaffey Fisk!

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Witch to ChooseWitch to Choose by H.T. Night

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just had to slap my hands and get tough with myself. I am three reviews behind my reading! The problem right now is that I already had book two of this series and I didn’t stop reading to do my own writing. Bad Dar, bad Dar!

And look at this! I didn’t know that this author was a male! So I have to give kudos fo his writing. With my goal of the last couple years to read mostly books written by women with strong female main characters, and aiming for the Bechdel test awareness, this book nearly slid right by. I think it was around the third chapter that I had to stop and look up this author. Women talking to each other and not about the male characters, realistic feelings coming from all of the people in the story. Men who cry. Women with power! Wow! H.T. Night, I am proud of you! And I plan to read more by you.

Oh, and look at this: NO CLIFFHANGER! It ended nicely yet I just wanted to see what happened next.

Now I am not a Wiccan and have only studied a tiny amount. So it felt believable…all except the person who is a warlock. I have heard that men are witches, too. Aren’t warlocks dark magicks? If anyone wants to educate me on that I would be happy to know.

For what it’s worth, Mr. Night has a plethora of books out there with vampires and wolves and all. I may have to stretch our my reading chops and finally include those bitie creatures. Now more reviews to do before I can read more!

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Five Minutes in HeavenFive Minutes in Heaven by Lisa Alther

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a ride! Not exactly rollercoaster, but not merry-go-round either. From the beginning, I like the main character, Jude. She is one who doesn’t belong in the world, but finds her way, anyway. She is flawed and confused, with good reasons. I wanted to root for her to win each of her obstacles.

From Tennessee to New York to France and back, Jude struggles with her demons, longing for love to return to her as pure as she put it out. Rarely does it find her. Mostly because of her own insecurities and lack of role-models, love floats out as a fantasy. Never to be achieved.

I picked this version of the book up from Amazon, Kindle Unlimited (which is in fact limited, as you can only have ten ‘checked out’ at a time). I kind of wished I had the Audible version or the Whispersync to go along, but I managed okay without.

My biggest complaint is the French. Not the people. Just the use of the language with no definitions available to the reader. If you only took Latin, Spanish and German in your language classes, French isn’t a language you even have books for. At least that’s how it is in my house. So I had to ignore the language and hoped to get the gist. I hate when authors do that to the reader. It stinks of a superiority to the reader. It wasn’t necessary. If you are conveying a story to the reader. and most of the book is in English, why not continue in that language in the last third of the book?

And the ending? Wish I had been given a grown up, matured, version of Jude when she comes home at last! The last part ended in the same way, that the other two sections had ended. Wondering what next. Still, it was worth the read.

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The Girl GodThe Girl God by Trista Hendren

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, wow. I picked this small but mighty book up for free today from Amazon. I was intrigued by the picture on the front cover and the title. I thought I was getting a children’s book. I believe this is an ‘everybody’ book.

The story was from a mother to her daughter. A sweet simple story. But the wisdom of the story runs deeply. Then there are the quotations throughout; each capturing a piece of my soul. All the illustrations were engaging. I wish I bought this in tree form as I would like to spend more time with the book and with the pictures. At least I can go back to this one in my ‘cloud’.

Because this was so wonderful I went to find other books by Trista Hendren. Yay! The were free with Kindle Unlimited!

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Special Offers (Coursodon Dimension, #1)Special Offers by M.L. Ryan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked up this fun book through BookCrossing dot com. I put off reading it for a long, long time. Why? The title and the cover. Even the blurb didn’t make me want to read it. But I am so glad I finally did!

It is only vaguely about Special Offers. What it is is a humorous paranormal story. When I started reading it I couldn’t stop. I needed something light to read as my husband was in the hospital and I was in the middle of a fibro-flare. So I couldn’t be at the hospital with him. Instead, I started this book. What a joy!

The characters M.L. Ryan invented were wonderful. Haily, the main character, is quirky and fun. She isn’t a hopeless romantic, she is practical and has a sharp wit. That romance happens in the deal is felt as rather coincidental. The rest is quite the adventure!

Even though I picked this up from BookCrossing, I want you to know it is free for Kindle on Amazon right now. I recommend it for adults, as there are a couple scenes that might be too racy for young adults. I picked up another copy so I could read it in my other readers when I feel the need of the fun ride again.

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The Paying GuestsThe Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think I have found my favorite author, Sarah Waters. I was so thrilled with Fingersmith that I couldn’t wait to read something else by her. The Paying Guest lived up to my expectations. Too bad Ms. Waters wasn’t one of the required reading homework of my high school. She is a classical writer. I think she could rewrite ANY of the old classics and make them so much more relatable.

Juliet Stevenson narrated this story with class and character. I could listen to her reading forever. She added depth to my experience; giving each character a tone and feel so you knew who was talking or whose point of view you were in.

There is so much intrigue in this book. I couldn’t stop reading. I just wanted to know what happens next. That was why I didn’t do much else yesterday but read. I want to say other things, but I don’t want to be spoiling the story for others. Just amazing! That’s all I can say. Amazing!

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Off the Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs, and Girls on GetawaysOff the Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs, and Girls on Getaways by Terri Peterson Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Truth? I didn’t finish reading this book. Not because it is horrid. Mostly because this would make a great research book to have around. It is mostly for book clubs or groups that like to relate their travel to their reading. There are many pages of books dedicated to certain states or cities. There are pages of itineraries to follow. And there are pages dedicated to setting up groups that travel ‘by the book’.

I highly recommend it to those who can travel and would like to set up a group just for that way of seeing the world. I will try to put it on my wishlists for the hardback version so that I can make notes and research the books for the local areas. And who knows? I may be able someday to do some traveling beyond my own neighborhood. ๐Ÿ™‚

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