Author: shallowreader

ShallowreaderBingo! July

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The July card is here!

My Bingo game has been going for 6 months and I want to add a new category. I have been giving a shout out to the fastest bingo caller. Several people who would like to play have said that the game is too fast/too many boxes for them so I’m going to now give a second prize!

A shout out to the best match up between a bingo square and your chosen material. It doesn’t matter if you have read 25 items or only 1 item, I will choose my favourite entry depending on how amusing I find it. It is a very objective measure, scientifically proven.

Meanwhile, as her prize for winning, two of the boxes have been contributed to July by BookThingo who won last month’s game. Can anyone guess which ones are hers?

Remember that any reading goes – novels, letters, lyrics, news, captions, blogs – the lot!

Join in and play!

Row 1: XXL; It’s Complicated; July; Insta-WHAT!; Quaint Row 2: Tyranny of Distance; Ghost Town; Lick; Pyrrhic Victory; Fifty-Fifty Row 3: Crushed it!; They; True Love’s Kiss; And the Fandom Rejoiced; Ice Castles Row 4: Pulling out!; Wicked; Summer Lovin’; π (maths notation pi); Happy Dance Row 5: Betty; Going Solo; Delicate; Sausage Sizzle; 18

 

Lynne Graham and the disappearing case of an As-If-O-Metre

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I love a good As-If novel. For the most part, this is one of the most excellent aspects of reading category romance fiction. Plot lines are so absurd that they test a reader’s suspension of disbelief. Done badly, the reader rejects the story with disdain. But when As-If is done well, despite all the impossible, ridiculous plot bunnies you become lost in the emotional wellbeing of the two characters that you are reading about. So to test my As-If-O-Metre, I read Lynne Graham’s 99th novel The Sicilian’s Stolen Son.

Lynne Graham's The Sicilian's Stolen SonThe only link Jemima Barber has to her troubled late twin sister is her nephew. So when the boy’s father storms into their lives to reclaim the child that was stolen from him, Jemima lets the forbidding Sicilian believe she is her smooth seductress of a sister. Though his son’s mother might be gentler than Luciano Vitale remembers, he’s resolved to make her pay in the most pleasurable way imaginable. But when he discovers she’s a virgin, her secret is out! Now Luciano has a new proposal: Jemima can atone for her sister’s sins–by becoming his wife!

 

Continue reading →

Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm and my TBR: Favourite Trope

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It is time for SuperWendy’s TBR challenge again and this month the theme is Your Favourite Trope. Let it be known that there are lots and lots of spoilery spoilers ahead so look away if you one day plan to read Flowers from the Storm.  You have been duly warned….

Flowers from the Storm by Laura KinsaleFlowers from the Storm

by Laura Kinsale

narrated by the sublime Nicholas Boulton.

He’s a duke. He’s a mathematical genius. He can’t talk and he’s locked in a lunatic asylum. Only a modest Quaker girl can reach him, but when she helps him to escape, she’s swept into his glittering aristocratic world, her life torn apart by his desperate attempt to save himself.

 

I really love Secret Baby Tropes and though I would not list it as Numero Uno trope (which is Friends to Lovers) it is however the trope for which I have read a TBR book for this month.

I’m reallllly late to the Flowers from the Storm party. I have known about this novel since forever – how could I not with Kat Mayo as one of my borrowers. But I dragged my feet. I have read Kinsale’s The Prince of Midnight and (shameless name dropping here) had a rather interesting twittversation with Kinsale about its ending back in the early twitter days of yore.   Continue reading →

Sara Craven oddity

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Occasionally, I will read a book that perplexes me. This time it is Sara Craven’s Seduction Never Lies because I am here to tell you that titles do lie because there was nary a hint of seduction in this weird-ass, out of place in Craven’s oeuvre, veddy-veddy English book. But first, to the blurb!


Sara Craven's Seduction Never Lies

Seduction Never Lies

by Sara Craven

Red-faced, red-handed!

Octavia Denison has always known exactly what she wants – that is, until she’s caught in a compromising position by brooding former rock star Jago Marsh. Tavi is mortified, and judging by the gleam in his golden eyes, he’s seen everything – and liked it!

Used to getting what he wants, millionaire Jago is determined to uncover the identity of the mysterious, flame-haired temptress that trespassed on his property…and to satisfy the craving she’s awakened in him. But seducing Tavi proves harder than expected, especially when she’s set on putting as much distance between them as possible! It’s time to up the ante….

So Octavia/Tavy/Tavi (blurb copywriter mistake!) our virginal heroine rides a bicycle around her village, helps out her widowed vicar/reverend/clergy/priest dad (sorry – as I am not CofE I am not sure what the correct term is), she’s a dogsbody at the local school run by Mrs Wilding, a mean-spirited head teacher and Tavy is going out with her son, Patrick Wilding but it is a big hush-hush secret because Patrick is too scared to tell mummy he is dating her. Continue reading →

ShallowreaderBingo! May Edition!

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It’s already the end of May and woot woot! A Willful Woman has won this month’s ShallowreaderBingo! Not only did she win Bingo early in May but she tells me she has scored a book for every single square! So excitement!!!

Seinfeld celebration - all four main characters are running and dancing on the spot with their arms up high.

As for me… *sigh* my own reading has slowed down due to having to do not-so-shallowreading (see my new page on this here blog). Stay tuned for the June Bingo sheet which will be much easier than May’s doozy! Link me to your own Bingo scorecards or tweet to me!

So my squares: Continue reading →

Sealed with a Kiss – TBR challenge

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It has been a while since I last read a contemporary British romance that wasn’t a Mills and Boon or Historical romance. I occasionally enjoy chick lit and I really do love reading Harriet Evans novels so this was an easy loan when I saw it on the library shelves and it easily fits in with this month’s TBR challenge of something different. But first, the blurb:

Sealed with a kiss by Rachael Lucas

Sealed with a Kiss

by Rachael Lucas

Bingo Squares: Epic disaster wardrobe tragedy or train travel

Kate is dumped on her best friend’s wedding day by the world’s most boring boyfriend, Ian. She’s mostly cross because he got in first – until she remembers she’s now homeless as well as jobless. Rather than move back home to her ultra-bossy mother, Kate takes a job on the remote Scottish island of Auchenmor as an all-round Girl Friday. Her first day is pretty much a disaster: she falls over, smack bang at the feet of her grouchy new boss, Roddy, Laird of the Island. Unimpressed with her townie ways, he makes it clear she’s got a lot to prove.

Island life has no room for secrets, but prickly Roddy’s keeping something to himself. When his demanding ex girlfriend appears back on the island, Kate’s budding friendship with her new boss comes to an abrupt end. What is Fiona planning – and can she be stopped before it’s too late?

Heroine Kate’s boring boyfriend of 5 years breaks up with her on the dancefloor at her bestfriend’s wedding (seriously! who does that!)  Continue reading →

Lynne Graham, Mills and Boon goths and dead dogs

shallowreader 12 Comments

I read Leonetti’s Housekeeper Bride close to 2 months ago and I’ve had this post in drafts ever since I finished it. I ended up having to reread it during the week as I couldn’t remember it clearly enough to review it. Ooops!

Any regular reader of my blog is well aware of the love I have for Lynne Graham and so I had to read this, her (99th correction!) 98th novel. And the thing that really stood out to me was that our heroine Poppy is a Goth. I have to ask – is she the first ever M&B Goth heroine? I can’t recall ever coming across any other M&B Goths so it is a first for me. A Goth called Poppy is rather a burden to bear though.

But first, the blurb….
Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 8.58.24 pmLeonetti’s Housekeeper Bride

Lynne Graham

Bingo square: Dead Dogs

His Innocent Wife… 

The last thing Gaetano Leonetti wants is to be shackled in marriage, but to become CEO of his family’s bank, his grandfather has decreed Gaetano must find a nice, ordinary woman to wed. 

Convinced his grandfather is mad, Gaetano sets about proving him wrong with housekeeper Poppy Arnold. With her outspoken nature and unusual dress sense, she’s definitely not wife material! 

But it’s not long before hardworking, self-sacrificing Poppy charms his grandfather and Gaetano’s stuck with a union he didn’t want and a bride he sinfully craves! Having set her up to fail, can he really take the precious gift of her virginity?


So the story opens with our hero Gaetano having a bad day. One of his parties had gotten out of hand, photos had been spilled to the media and revenge boy needed heads to roll because his Poppa is not impressed. The head that ended up rolling was Poppy – the household housekeeper. Continue reading →

Children’s Reading journal article

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I have had a peer-review journal article published. I am honoured to be in the April 2016 edition of TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses in their issue on Conflicting and Connecting Narratives. My paper is called Marginalising children’s reading experiences: From series books to paratextual reading. The Journal is Open Access so click on the link above for the full article.

Should you have some time to read it, whether you agree or disagree, I welcome your feedback.

Thank you.