The Underwood and Flinch Chronicles - Mike Bennett (Happy Halloween Everyone!)

Underwood and Flinch

Mike Bennett

For hundreds of years, the first born son of the Flinch family has grown to become servant and guardian to the vampire, Lord Underwood. Then in 1958, Underwood lay down to rest for fifty years, and the world moved on without him. Now, upon arising, Underwood finds the Flinch family is not what it was, and service is the last thing on the mind of his would-be servant.

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First off Mike Bennett is a very talented author and a superb story teller, he knows how to bring his characters to life and makes them feel like real people who you can relate to.   You might get a little confused at the beginning trying to keep track of all the different characters and story lines going on at once but it does it get easier and it all comes together as the story goes on.   I really liked how Bennett kept old vampire myths (like burning in the sun) that we all know and also made up some of his own and they still made sense. it's the perfect book for someone who like a good ol' bloody vampire horror story and not a story about vampires who sparkle in the sun.

I actually should have finished this over a year ago because that was when the last podcast episode was finally put out but I just couldn't bring myself to do it! It's not that I didn't want it to end I just couldn't finish it!

45 podcast episodes.

Happy Halloween everyone!

*Note
Oh my goodness you guys I am so sorry! This was supposed to post on Halloween but It was still saved as a draft!

4 to 16 Characters - Kelly Hourihan

4 to 16 Characters

Kelly Hourihan

Fifteen-year-old Jane Shilling’s best friends don’t know her real name. In fact, they don’t know anything about her at all. Jane’s life has collapsed in the last few years; following the death of her mother, her father turned to drinking, and Jane is reeling from the double blow. To escape, Jane devises a number of online personas, each with a distinct personality, life history, and set of friends. But things become trickier when she finds herself drawing close to some of her online friends, and winds up struggling with the question of how to maintain a real friendship while masquerading as a fake person. With the help of Gary, a socially awkward classmate and competitive Skeeball player who is Jane’s only offline friend, and Nora, her therapist, Jane begins to sift through her issues. The only catch is that that involves taking a long, hard look at what her life’s like when the computer is shut off, and that’s a reality she’s been fighting for years.

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First off I bet people who are not in fandoms had a lot of googling to do!  While I have never had her as much... passion for any of my favorite shows/movies/books as Jane does I can relate with her internet life (not the personas though).  You can still see similarities with Jane and her personas but at the same time they are still very distinctive and I really liked how every one of her personas reflected a small piece of her.   You can really see the difference between Jane talking to her therapist out loud and chatting with her online instead of just sitting across the desk from each other staring at each other. She would ignore her in real life while they were chatting online but would giggle out loud and seemed more open and friendly online.  I really liked watching her come out of her shell with Gary and I think why he was able to get so close to her is because when he would talk to her he was in her element so she felt more comfortable,  The down side of this book is there would be times there would be an email or something from someone to someone and I would be really confused on who they were.  I lose interest in the long chat sessions/conversations, and during some of the chats she would ask someone if they were there but if you looked at the time stamps it had only been like a minute!

If you go to the author's website there's a really cool fan work contest going on.

I was provided an E-galley from netgalley.com
Pages: 314

Seeds of Trust - Cynthia Reese

Seeds of Trust

Cynthia Reese

When Becca Reynolds heads for rural Georgia to investigate a suspected crop insurance scam, she's concerned about her career, not her heart.

Chief among the suspects is handsome Ryan MacIntosh, who isn't telling everything he knows. Could his involvement possibly be deeper than his devotion to his grandmother and the small farm that's been in the family for generations?

Becca can't be sure, even though she and Ryan have shared the most intimate of conversations—at least online. She's certain he's the charming stranger with whom she's exchanged countless emails…and fallen in love. But she can't admit the truth any more than Ryan can—nor predict what it will cost them in the end.

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This is actually a book I can't say too much about it's kind of a slow beginning but once you get past the first few chapters it picks up and I started to enjoy it more. The characters aren't necessarily bad but they aren't memorable and for me they aren't very relatable.  I did really enjoy the mystery side of it and I liked how it didn't just focus on Becca and Ryan's relationship the whole time. Mee-Maw was one of the better characters and she gave me a few chuckles here and there.  

Pages: 204 pages (mine was 362 because I got it from the library and it ended up being a larger print version)

Phone Kitten - Marika Christian

Phone Kitten

Marika Christian

Shy, slightly overweight Emily would die if she had to talk dirty face-to-face-especially to her hot cop boy friend. She sure didn't set out to do phone sex-she wanted to be a writer. But when her BFF framed her for plagiarism, she got in a tiny financial hole and saw this ad for "phone actresses" . . . Hey, it's not nearly as bad as it sounds. No pantyhose or pantsuits, no regular hours, you're your own boss, and lots of people to talk to. Guys, that is. But here's the odd thing-lots of them want to talk about more than Emily's imagined attributes; they start to think of her as the best friend they'll never have to meet. Next thing you know, one of her customers gets killed and Emily knows a lot more about it than she should. But she can't tell the nearest cop, who's also her own true love, because then he'll find out about her secret life. What's a phone kitten to do? Solve the murder herself, of course-because wouldn't it be a great story for the newspaper that wrongly fired her? It's her ticket back to her real life-if it doesn't get her killed.

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First off the cover is pretty cute but nothing too special. I was really worried this book might be a little too similar to the movie For A Good Time Call but I was wrong to thing that! Who would think to mix murder mystery with a phone sex line?  

I loved how in the middle of laughs or drama there would be these sweet little lines that the author would throw in there like one of the characters telling Emily to remember that she is one of the pretty girls.

It was definitely interesting reading about Emily's different phone customers and what they like (Beef jerky in certain body cavities was my favorite! I laughed for a good ten minutes.)

Now I know some people will agree with me and some won't but the book automatically made men (I don't believe there were any women) perverts just because they called sex line and I didn't really agree with that.  

There was a part of the book that made me laugh because Emily goes over to her date's house and thinks 'I took a deep breath and said a little prayer, hoping he had his porn hidden in his bedroom.' and my note said  'girl you work for a phone sex line you can't be complaining about porn!'

One thing about the book that I didn't like was how Emily complains about her granny panties quite a bit and my thoughts were why she bought them and why she keeps wearing them!

I felt like this book would be interesting from another character named Rachel-ann's point of view.

Over all I really did enjoy the story line and it gave me a few good laughs.

Pages: 253

SPOILER

I thought the author kind of threw Jim Alexander's death at you but at the same time it was pretty realistic.  I feel like the main place someone would find out about someone's death would be the news (in this case the newspaper) if you weren't close to them or their family.