Pulled Muscle Results in Another Weekend Reading Marathon

Yesterday I went to Media Play with a list of books I wanted to buy. When I buy new books, I usually buy them from Media Play. (Their Replay program offers certificates for $5 off with each $100 purchase--on triple point days, you essentially receive $5 every $35 purchase.) This time they had one of the five books on my list, so I placed a special order for the rest. I ran some other errands with my sister, one of which involved buying a cabinet. I suspect that I pulled a muscle when I helped her carry it into the house. I went home, took a nap, and when I woke up, I realized that I had pulled a muscle in my back. Ugh.

So, instead of the cleaning marathon I was planning, I had a reading marathon instead:

Hot Stuff, by Carly Phillips. This is the next book I'm reviewing. I'll start writing the review tonight if my back will allow it. I've read other books by Phillips, and this is the one I enjoyed most. 4 out of 5.

Night's Edge, by Maggie Shayne, Barbara Hambly, and Charlaine Harris. This was my Media Play purchase. All three stories have supernatural elements; the first two focus on ghosts, while Harris's story is about vampires. Please excuse the pun, but Night's Edge was a haunting read. All three stories are engaging. I read Shayne's story right before going to bed last night, and I worried that I would have nightmares. I've never read Hambly's work before, but I'll definitely seek her out now. Harris's story, "Dancers in the Dark," is set in the Sookie Stackhouse world, though it's not a Sookie story. I liked Sean very much. This is the darkest story of the three. I give this anthology 5 out of 5.

Wickedly Hot, by Leslie Kelly. Wow--the title is apt. I loved this story, not just because it was a good change after the dark stories of Night's Edge, but because I fell in love with the characters. Ryan Stoddard goes to Savannah, Georgia to track down the woman who conned his grandmother out of a painting. Jade Maguire wants revenge against the man who dumped her sister. Sparks fly from their first meeting. Wickedly Hot includes a plot element I don't usually like--revenge via bondage--but Kelly illustrates that it's all in how the story is executed. This aspect didn't work in a book I reviewed recently, but it worked here. Another 5 out of 5.

A Question of Intent, by Merline Lovelace. A military story by an author I haven't read before. While I liked the characters, Jill and Cody, the story is more plot than character driven. By the end of the book, I knew Cody's (and some of Jill's) backstory, but I wanted more interaction between them. 3 out of 5.

That's it for now. I think I'll try ice on my back.

Alyssa