Resisting Mr. Tall Dark and Texan

Resisting Mr. Tall, Dark & Texan (Harlequin Special Edition)

About the Book:

Hot off the press! Word around town is Ethan Traub— of the Texas Traubs—is bringing the family oil business to Thunder Canyon, along with his sassy personal assistant, Lizzie Landry. Settling down isn't part of this wealthy bachelor's game plan. So why are we hearing rumors that he's starting to see Lizzie as something more than his devoted employee?

Lizzie may be secretly in love with her heart-meltingly handsome boss, but she knows better than anyone that he's not the marrying kind. Besides, she's got her own dreams—to hightail it back to Texas to open her own bakery. But my sources tell me the oil baron won't let her go so easily. Stay tuned, faithful readers, to find out if this is one deal Ethan will seal with a kiss!

My Comments:

You don't pick up a book that looks like this if you want something with an original plot line, so you won't be surprised to learn that this doesn't deviate too far from the old reliable plot of best friends becoming more.  I did find it odd that Lizzie was both is personal assistant at the office and his live-in housekeeper at home, but it did give them plenty of time to interact in the book.  I liked her, I liked him, I liked the way they were both trying to strike out on their own, but still hold onto the familiar.  I liked the happy ending.  Grade:  B.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.  I was not obligated to provide a positive review.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival

I'd like to welcome everyone to Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival.  We are a group of Catholic bloggers who gather weekly to share our best posts with each other.  To particpate, go to your blog and create an entry titled Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival.  In it, highlight one or more of your posts from the past week that you believe would be of interest to Catholic bloggers---whether they are posts reflecting on spiritual matters or posts about antics of Catholic kids, or anything in between.  Come back here and enter the URL of that post below.  Finally, go visit other participants, and leave comments!  If you want a weekly reminder to post, join our yahoogroup.

Not much blogging here this week, but I do tell you how to find free ebooks.  How about you?

Baby Come Home: My Review

Baby, Come Home (Southern Roads)

About the Book:

The hardheaded Armstrong brothers are determined to rebuild their tornado-ravaged hometown in the Georgia mountains. They’ve got the means, they’ve got the manpower…what they need are women! So they place an ad in a Northern newspaper and wait for the ladies to arrive…

Sensible yet sexy middle brother Kendall Armstrong penned that ad himself—but there’s just one woman he really wants to answer the call…

Civil engineer Amy Bradshaw—Kendall’s ex-fiancée—fled Sweetness years ago, taking a precious souvenir with her. She’s back now…but only on a professional level. Really. Little does she know that old flames

always burn the hottest…

My Comments:

This was one of those books I kept expecting to like, kept expecting to turn the corner and engage me, but which never did.  It's a romance, so the final resolution was never really in doubt, the journey is the purpose of the book and in this case, the journey never really grabbed me.  Maybe the environment just seemed too unreal, and I guess I never really connected with the characters.  In any case, I won't say it is a horrible book, just that it wasn't the book for me.  Grade:  C.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.

Where to Find Free E-Books

One of the advantages of having an e-reader, whether a Kindle, a Nook, a Kobo Reader or even an I-Pad is being able to amass a free library that takes up less room than a computer.

If you are looking for classics or other works with expired copyrights, Project Gutenburg is a good place to start.  They have over 36,000 books hosted on their site, all of which were, as they say, originally published by bona fide publishers.  They also link to sites that provide over 100,000 more free reads (some of which are self-published).

The major on-line bookstores offer free copies of the classics as well, but even more interesting, they offer free copies current books as well.  Generally speaking, the offers of current books are of limited duration, and often coincide with the author's release of another work.  In other words, as of this writing MaryLu Tyndall's Surrender the Heart is a freebie.  It was originally published in August, 2010 and is the first book in a series of three set during the war of 1812.  The third, Surrender the Dawn (Surrender to Destiny) will be published this August.  It does't take a genius to figure out that the publisher is hoping that after you read the first book, you'll purchase the next two.  Other limited-time freebies are self-published books whose authors, I would assume, hope you will purchase more of their works after trying one.

The problem with those limited-time offers is being able to grab what you want when it is available.  You could just search for free book when you are in the mood to read, but who knows what you will find, or whether there is anything you want to read available that day.  You could make a habit of checking your favorite bookstore's site daily for free reads, but that gets time-consuming.  Luckily, there are folks out there who have tried to make the task easier for most of us.

If you are a regular on facebook, search for facebook groups for free books for your chosen reader.  Free Books For Kindle offered twenty books today.  I don't want any of this batch, but if you check my Mailbox Monday posts, you'll note that I do find my share of books that catch my eye long enough to download them. If they interest me at all, I go ahead and "buy" them; I don't have to read them and that way they are mine forever.  Free Nook Books Etc. had even more.

Some people have set up blogs dedicated to free e-books.  I subscribed to Free Kindle Books and Tips on my Kindle when I first got it, and it was convenient to read it there.  However, I found buying directly from the Kindle to be clumsy and decided it wasn't worth 99 cents a month to read it on the Kindle when I could read it on-line for nothing.

Finally, if you are a book blogger, check out NetGalley.  They offer review copies of just about any genre you like and while different publishers require different things from bloggers, in general, most people who blog regularly are able to access a variety of books.

What's your favorite way to find free e-books?