TREASURE ME by Christine Nolfi: Review

I was sent the e-book and a request by the author, Christine Nolfi, to review this book for her. She has also published numerous articles in regional publications. Her short story, Night Hour, appeared in Working Mother Magazine. 

Christine has a special place for me, because she is the first author to request that I read and review a book 
for them! lol 


Here's the blurb for the novel:

Petty thief Birdie Kaminsky has arrived in Liberty, Ohio to steal a treasure hidden since the Civil War. She’s in possession of a charming clue passed down in her family for generations: Liberty safeguards the cherished heart.

The beautiful thief wants to go straight. She secretly admires the clue’s author, freedwoman Justice Postell, who rose above the horrors of slavery to build a new life in Ohio. According to family lore, Justice left South Carolina at the dawn of the Civil War. Heavy with child, she carried untold riches on her journey north. As Birdie searches for the treasure, she begins to believe a questionable part of the story: a tale of love between Justice and Lucas Postell, the French plantation owner who was Birdie’s ancestor.

If the stories are true, Justice bore a child with Lucas. Some of those black relatives might still live in town. Birdie can’t help but wonder if she’s found one—Liberty’s feisty matriarch, Theodora Hendricks, who packs a pistol and heartwarming stories about Justice. Birdie doesn’t know that investigative reporter Hugh Schaeffer will trip her up—as will her conscience when she begins to wonder if it’s possible to start a new life with stolen riches. Yet with each new clue she unearths, Birdie discovers a family history more precious than gems, a tradition of love richer than she could imagine.

My Review:

When I first began this novel, I was a little iffy about whether or not I would like it. It seemed a little cliche to me at first, and also I had trouble connecting to the characters, especially the hornball, Hugh. However, as the story went on, I fell for this book. Once I realized what type of people Birdie and Hugh really were, and how their tough exteriors were really just a facade to hide their insecurities, I really began to feel for them.

My favorite character was most definitely Theodora. She was a gutsy, little old lady who carried a pistol around with her. One quote from her that actually made me laugh out loud is, "Stop worrying yourself into a tizzy. He's a man. All men are fools, but the stupidest among them can find his way home." I could actually picture this wrinkled old lady biting Birdie's head off when she said this! Another awesome Theodora moment is when she pulls the gun on the nosy reporter from Akron! She was actually a wonderful, caring person, but she said what was on her mind to whoever would listen! 

The story line was really great. I love how the characters grew emotionally and learned about themselves as the book went on. 

I also thought that the mystery of the rubies was written well. It kept me guessing throughout the novel, and I loved the way all the characters ended up being connected in some way! I thought it was great how Nolfi was able to write about this exciting mystery, and connect everyone involved at the same time. The idea of the treasure wasn't some far out idea, it was feasible, and you never know, something like that could actually happen!

The sexual tension between Hugh and Birdie was so thick you could probably cut it with a knife, I just wanted them to get it over with and scr**! There were enough characters in this novel to make it interesting, but not to make it confusing. Nothing annoys me more than when there are 30 characters in a book, and I have to look back every other chapter to figure out who is who! 

All in all I would definitely recommend this novel. The genre of books that I normally go for is historical fiction, but I was able to set aside the historical books I was reading and completely immerse myself in this one. This was the first novel by Christine Nolfi that I have read, and I would most definitely read another one by her. Her writing style is fabulous, and I was entertained the entire novel. Really, the only negative comment I have, is that it took a little while for me to really get into the story, but when things started coming together I couldn't put it down! 

I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars, and definitely recommend it to readers of any genre of books!


http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Me-ebook/dp/B004XMOP9I/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304614958&sr=1-2

Rainy Sunday BOOK GIVEAWAY!!! TWO BOOKS!!! AND 100 FOLLOWERS!!

I was sitting here thinking, what the heck am I going to do today with all this rain!? Then I remembered, that I had promised to do another giveaway since my last one had gone so well!


**I had to add that shortly after I posted this giveaway entry I finally reached 100 FOLLOWERS! THANK YOU to everyone who helped me out and entered my giveaway! I'm sure there will be many more to come! 


SIGNORA DA VINCI  by Robin Maxwell (NAL, 2009) is an entertaining and imaginative re-creation of the cultural cauldron of sixteenth-century Florence. The story is told by Caterina, a village apothecary's daughter who, after a brief liaison with a nobleman's son, gives birth to a boy destined to become one of Italy's greatest creative minds. Snatched from her by his father's family, Leonardo is doomed to lead the anonymous life of a bastard until Caterina takes charge of his destiny--and hers. She convinces his father to apprentice him to an established artist in the city. Determined follow Leonardo, Caterina disguises herself as a man and establishes herself in Florence as Cato, Leonardo's apothecary uncle. Educated in philosophy and the alchemical arts by her father, Cato/Caterina befriends the legendary humanist Lorenzo de' Medici and becomes a member of his Platonic Academy, a secret philosophical society established to further knowledge of the ancient arts. Eventually, Caterina and Lorenzo fall in love and she reveals her true identity to him alone. Together, the couple works to advance Leonardo's career while their circle battles Fra Savanarola, the Church reformer who seeks to curb the excessive luxury and pagan influences that saturate Florentine society. Even as she watches her son's genius flower, Caterina cannot escape the decline of her lover's health and great changes that overtake the city she has grown to love.


Anyone who has read any of Robin Maxwell's books is aware of what an amazing writer she is. She really knows her facts, and is able to take the facts, and twist them enough to make an amazing novel!


Oh, and to throw in a little more fun with this contest....I'll be adding a SECOND book for for the winner!  And, of course it will be another Robin Maxwell novel!


THE WILD IRISH by Robing Maxwell


Two powerful women of indomitable will-Elizabeth I and the sea-loving Irish pirate, Grace O'Malley-collide in this vivid but ungainly historical drama. Maxwell (The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, etc.) introduces the fabulous queen at 60, her face white with alum and eggshell paint and her red wig ablaze. Twice the age of her confidant, the brilliant Robert Devereaux, earl of Essex, she is brittle and bitter, loath to show any weakness or mercy. Determined to stamp out the ongoing unrest in Ireland, she calls on the notorious O'Malley for counsel. O'Malley's son and brother are in the custody of the English, and it is for their sake that she agrees to appear before Elizabeth. In an extraordinary private conference late at night in the queen's rooms, the Irishwoman tells her own story, which is the history of an island nation at war with England and itself as well as of a woman who has lived a long and turbulent life. Moved by her tale, Elizabeth grants her wishes, but soon finds herself sending Essex to destroy the rebellion raging in Ireland. Ravaged by syphilis and outnumbered two to one, Essex is persuaded by O'Malley that there is no shame in asking for a truce, and he makes peace with the Irish. Though he rushes back to Elizabeth hoping for her blessing, he falls from favor and desperately engineers a hopeless uprising. Maxwell's double portrait of two aging women is warmly drawn ("Look at us," says Grace. "Two old birds fightin' for the same feckin' worm"), but the novel's pacing is erratic, its leaps from England court intrigue to Irish battle scenes jarring.


Ok, so there are a couple of things needed in order to win the book!


+1 You must be a follower of my blog to enter this contest.


For extra entries:
+1 follow me on twitter (twitter.com/kdaze10)
+1 TWEET the giveaway on your twitter (leave the link for me to see!)
+1 Become my friend on GOODREADS (there is a link on the sidebar of my blog!)
+1 Follow me on networked blogs.


You can include ALL of this information in ONE post, so that should make it easier for ya!


Good luck to everyone! I will be using random.org to choose the winner, and I will announce the winner on MAY 8th! Make sure to share with friends! 

Leslie Carrol Review: Royal Pains, Notorious Royal Marriages, and Royal Affairs

Ok, I know it's been awhile since I've updated, but I was finishing up three books. ROYAL AFFAIRS, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, and ROYAL PAINS all by Leslie Carroll. I figured that since they were all by the same author, I might as well do a review of all of them together.

I finished all three books in a week, so I think that shows just how awesome they were! Carroll has a way of making non-fiction extremely entertaining! I learned so much about different members of royalty, without even realizing I was learning! Her books read like a scandalous magazine. I enjoyed ROYAL PAINS the most, because of the scandals that she wrote about that were absolutely nuts! It seems that all royals were either married to a cousin, insane, riddled with venereal disease, or murderers! I literally could not put the book down! The only complaint that I have is that ROYAL MARRIAGES and ROYAL AFFAIRS have several repeats on the royals. There were several stories in both books that were exactly the same, so I would just skip over them.

I definitely recommend any one of these books to those who are interested in historical fiction. There was so much information given, information that the royal families kept hidden for years. The royal families were always held above the "normal" person, but these books certainly bring them down to earth, and show how many faults they really had. It was fascinating to get an inside view of what really was going on within the royal family, even though it was at times completely shocking.

ENEMY WOMEN by Paulette Jiles: Review

This was the first book written about the Civil War period that I have read in a couple of years. I flew through the book,  because it was exciting and interesting, only to be disappointed for days by the way it ended, or as I thought, didn't end!

Adair Colley is a young woman living in the near Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Her family is left alone until near the end of the Civil War, because her father decides to stay neutral. Things change when the Union Militia comes to their house and takes her father, and also burns down their house. Adair and her two sisters head out to find out where their father was taken and why. Their brother, who has a crippled arm, joins the Confederate Militia in retaliation. Once Adair and her two sisters arrive at their destination, and go in to ask questions regarding their father, Adair ends up being arrested as a Confederate spy. She had rubbed a family the wrong way on their journey to find her father, and they had also watched her talking to her brother, who was in a confederate like uniform (butternut homespun by that time!) Anyways, this family told the Union officials that she was a spy, and they arrested her and took her to prison in St. Louis. During her time in prison she meets a Union Major, William Neuman. He hates his job, which is to interrogate women to find out if they are spies, and has requested a reassignation to a different unit. Before his change of orders goes through, he tries to convince Adair to admit to some form of spying, so that he can get things over with and set her free. She ends up writing stories about her family and town rather than admitting to any form of spying. He begins to fall in love with her, because of her strong personality and beautiful looks, and she reciprocates his feelings. About the time they realize their mutual feelings for each other, his orders for a change of duty go through, and he is to head South for more fighting. He promises to find her after the war, gives her money, and tells her how to escape. During all of her time in prison, Adair has developed consumption, so her health is not great, but she decides that it's time to make her escape and she does so. She travels South to her home, hoping that after the war her family will all end up back there. Major Neuman ends up in a battle in the South where he is wounded, and is supposed to have his arm amputated, but chooses not to, and instead makes his way to Adair's family home. After a long and hard journey for Adair, she makes her way home, only to find that her home and land has been sold and that her family is not there. She ends up hanging around her old home for awhile, trying to figure out her next move, and all of a sudden she sees Major Neuman nearing the house calling for her. She waits a minute and then gets up to walk toward him. Then it ENDS!

I loved the book, until the end. When the book ended I wanted to throw it against a wall. I was so angry at the NON ending of the book! I'm horrible. I sped through the book, barely putting it down because I wanted so badly for Adair and William to be reunited at the end and for their to be some type of closure. Well, Adair dying of consumption and William most likely dying of a gangrenous arm, was NOT the ending I wanted! I suppose I should be happy that they were reunited at all, even if they were both headed towards death. But, the romantic in me wanted to know what was going to happen with them! Were they going to get married? Were they going to move to Texas and make a home like they planned? Or, were they going to die in each other's arms? I just hate when novels end like that. I want a novel to END, not just kinda end. I hate when I'm really into a novel, and really become attached to the characters, only to be left hanging by not knowing what happened! Even if Jiles had Adair and William embrace at the end, or speak to each other at the end I would have been happy.

It WAS a great book, don't get me wrong. I really had trouble putting it down. I just felt so let down and lost by the way it ended. I have this problem with a lot of books though. When it ends, and I've become attached to the characters, I really want to know how their future turns out. Maybe that's why I stick to historical fiction. In stories about Kings and Queen's, I know how the story ends, so I'm not disappointed when my favorite character gets beheaded or something?

I definitely do recommend the book, because the whole way to the end was full of excitement and adventure. I read it every chance I had, and learned a lot about what was going on in South East Missouri during the Civil War. It also reacquainted me with Civil War fiction, so I can definitely see myself reading more in the near future.

(Excuse any misspellings or typos, I wrote this while substituting! I'll proofread it later!)

Finished on Friday & Starting Fresh

I just finished the novel TO BE QUEEN by Christy English. I'm subbing for 7th and 8th grade English right now, so I can't do my review at the moment, plus I want to get the notes I took throughout the novel together before I put my thoughts down in here. I will say though, that it is one of the best novel's I've read in a long time. I really liked Alison Weir's CAPTIVE QUEEN, but TO BE QUEEN eclipses it by far. I honestly felt like I was inside Eleanor of Aquitaine's mind during her early reign with Louis of France. Her enemies became my enemies, her loves mine, and her sorrows my sorrows. It was intense. At times I teared up for her pain, or for Louis' inability to get past his religious fervor to love Eleanor both body and soul. There were also times I found myself laughing out loud at Eleanor's witicisms. Of course this was all due to the  imagination and flowing writing style of Christy English, but to me, it could have been an account of exactly what was going through her head during the time she was alive.

Anyways, as I said I will do a full review this weekend.

I started a new novel today. I'm switching it up a little bit. I've read a lot of historical fiction which takes place during the Tudor's time or before, so I've chosen a novel that takes place during the Civil War to read. I just started ENEMY WOMEN by Paulette Jiles. I was once a huge Civil War buff, and read and watched everything I could get my hands on about the Civil War. Then came the Tudors, followed by Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Borgias. So, I feel it's time to give my old favorite historical fiction era a little of my time! Hopefully it will be completely engrossing, so that I can get through it at a decent rate. THE SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA slowed me down, because I had a little trouble getting through it, but I think I made up time with TO BE QUEEN, because I flew through it due to the amazing writing skill of Christy English.

Oh, and I will be choosing a winner for my FIRST book giveaway later on today, so you still have a little time to enter if you have yet to do so!



Review: SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA by Sarah Bower

It took me a little longer than I thought it would to read this novel, because I thought I would be unable to put it down, but with work and it not being quite as wonderful as I thought it would be, it took me a little longer.

The story is told in first person by a young woman named Esther. She is a Jewess who, at the beginning of the novel, is fleeing religious persecution in Spain with her family. They flee to Rome, where her father has some type of banking connection with the Pope. Esther and her mother leave after her brother's and father have left in order to follow them to Rome, and on the way her mother dies, so Esther is left in the care of her father. Through her father's connection with the Pope, Esther is set up with a position as Lucrezia Borgia's (the pope's daughter) lady's in waiting. As one of her lady's she befriends Angela Borgia (Lucrezia's cousin),, and she becomes obsessed with Lucrezia's brother, Cesare. Cesare helps to feed her obsession with him by paying special attention to her, and giving her the nickname, La Violante (Promise Breaker). Before Lucrezia is wed to the Duke of Ferrara Violante (Esther) witnesses several scandalous incidents at the Borgian Court that helped to make the name of Borgia infamous. 
Lucrezia is eventually married and sent to live with her husband in Ferrara, and Violante and Angela follow. Lucrezia becomes very ill, and Cesare (her brother) visits her fearing for her death. As the reader you are able to see at this point that their relationship isn't necessarily a normal brother-sister connection. During Cesare's stay he seduces Violante, although it wasn't hard because her obsession with him has become more than just a   little crush. Violante and Cesare make love, and he leaves her with two gifts; pregnant with his bastard child and the French Pox, nice guy, eh?
Time passes and she continues to hope that Cesare will acknowledge that she is pregnant with his child, and her obsession with him continues to grow. Eventually she has the child, and after Cesare recovers from a near death illness, he has the child taken away from her to be raised by his  mother. Violante continues to serve Lucrezia in hopes of regaining custody of her child, but even after Cesare dies, there is no way that his family will give up one of his heirs. 
Lucrezia eventually tells Violante the whole sordid story of her relationship with Cesare, and her real connection to her younger "brother" Giovanni. 
I won't go into details, because the book just came out and I don't want to ruin the entire book for  the reader.

I don't know how many contests I entered trying to win a copy of this book. I would guess I entered at least nine or ten? I was so excited when I saw that I had finally won a copy! I think that I had this book so built up in my head, that when I actually started reading it, there was no way it could measure up to how good I had pictured it to be. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the book, because I definitely did. I'm just saying that it wasn't the 'reading until 3 a.m., can't put down, love it, love it' book that I had it in my mind that it would be! I think I became lost several times in all of the political happenings in the book. I have only read one other book on the Borgia Family, so I was a little lost at times when there would be a lot of detail about the wars and politics that were going on at that time (my own fault). Also, the other book I had read about the Borgia's was THE BORGIA BRIDE by Jeanne Kalogridis, and it was packed full of all the scandal I could dream of!
There were so many different characters in SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA, that it was easy to get them confused and forget who they were, especially when they weren't major characters. The only other problem I had with the book was Violante's (Esther) obsession with Cesare. It was just insane. Around 300 pages in I realized that she was only 16, so that made a little more sense to me, but as a reader I became extremely annoyed with the main character! I like to feel endeared to the main character, not annoyed! Violante was so naive when it came to Cesare. Believing everything that he said, constantly thinking of him, and also letting everyone around her see how pathetically in love she was with him, even though he gave her absolutely NO hope, in face he and everyone else told her to GIVE IT UP!  Maybe as a modern woman I have trouble understanding that kind of obsession, because I wanted to scream at her to, "GET OVER IT!"
I was also looking for a little more scandal in a book about the Borgia's. There was a little at the beginning, dealing with an orgy, and there was some scandal hinted at throughout. The biggest scandal came in the last few pages and dealt with Lucrezia and Cesare, but I was hoping for more, on the edge of my seat, scandal throughout the book! Maybe that's my deep down romance novel self coming out?

Overall I would give this novel a three out of five stars. I learned a lot about the Borgia's by reading it, because the author definitely knew her facts, and even though she used her creative license to tell a story, she still stuck with the right timeline, and the major historical facts. So, even though I didn't get the over the top, crazy Borgia story, that I wanted, I still did learn a lot.  There was enough scandal and creative license used that I did enjoy the read, and I would definitely recommend it to those who know a little about the Borgia family. If you know nothing at all, or very  little (like me) than I would suggest doing a little google research before you read, so that you're not completely lost!

Top 100 books (supposedly) and book giveaway question...

I ran across this list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century (according to a list compiled at Radcliff College) on a fellow bloggers page Sarcastic Female Literary Circle. I decided that, since I can't fall asleep and I'm bored, that I'd go through and see how many of these books I've conquered over the years!
Key: Bold means I've read it; Underline means that I've started reading it but never finished; and highlighted means that I own the book, but have not read it yet.

1. "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald

2. "The Catcher in the Rye," J.D. Salinger

3. "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck

4. "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee

5. "The Color Purple," Alice Walker 

6. "Ulysses," James Joyce


7. "Beloved," Toni Morrison


8. "The Lord of the Flies," William Golding
9. "1984," George Orwell

10. "The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner 

11. "Lolita," Vladmir Nabokov
12. "Of Mice and Men," John Steinbeck

13. "Charlotte's Web," E.B. White
14. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," James Joyce
15. "Catch-22," Joseph Heller
16. "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley
17. "Animal Farm," George Orwell
18. "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway
19. "As I Lay Dying," William Faulkner 

20. "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway

21. "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad
22. "Winnie-the-Pooh," A.A. Milne

23. "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Zora Neale Hurston 24. "Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison
25. "Song of Solomon," Toni Morrison
26. "Gone with the Wind," Margaret Mitchell 

27. "Native Son," Richard Wright
28. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Ken Kesey
29. "Slaughterhouse Five," Kurt Vonnegut
30. "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Ernest 

Hemingway

31. "On the Road," Jack Kerouac
32. "The Old Man and the Sea," Ernest Hemingway
33. "The Call of the Wild," Jack London 

34. "To the Lighthouse," Virginia Woolf
35. "Portrait of a Lady," Henry James
36. "Go Tell it on the Mountain," James Baldwin
37. "The World According to Garp," John Irving
38. "All the King's Men," Robert Penn Warren
39. "A Room with a View," E.M. Forster
40. "The Lord of the Rings," J.R.R. Tolkien
41. "Schindler's List," Thomas Keneally
42. "The Age of Innocence," Edith Wharton 

43. "The Fountainhead," Ayn Rand
44. "Finnegans Wake," James Joyce
45. "The Jungle," Upton Sinclair 

46. "Mrs. Dalloway," Virginia Woolf
47. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," Frank L. Baum
48. "Lady Chatterley's Lover," D.H. Lawrence

49. "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess
50. "The Awakening," Kate Chopin  

51. "My Antonia," Willa Cather
52. "Howard's End," E.M. Forster
53. "In Cold Blood," Truman Capote
54. "Franny and Zooey," J.D. Salinger
55. "Satanic Verses," Salman Rushdie
56. "Jazz," Toni Morrison
57. "Sophie's Choice," William Styron
58. "Absalom, Absalom!" William Faulkner

59. "Passage to India," E.M. Forster
60. "Ethan Frome," Edith Wharton

61. "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor

62. "Tender is the Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. "Orlando," Virginia Woolf
64. "Sons and Lovers," D.H. Lawrence
65. "Bonfire of the Vanities," Thomas Wolfe

66. "Cat's Cradle," Kurt Vonnegut
67. "A Separate Peace," John Knowles

68. "Light in August," William Faulkner 

69. "The Wings of the Dove," Henry James
70. "Things Fall Apart," Chinua Achebe 

71. "Rebecca," Daphne du Maurier
72. "A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Douglas Adams
73. "Naked Lunch," William S. Burroughs
74. "Brideshead Revisited," Evelyn Waugh
75. "Women in Love," D.H. Lawrence
76. "Look Homeward, Angel," Thomas Wolfe
77. "In Our Time," Ernest Hemingway
78. "The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias," Gertrude Stein
79. "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett
80. "The Naked and the Dead," Norman Mailer
81. "The Wide Sargasso Sea," Jean Rhys
82. "White Noise," Don DeLillo
83. "O Pioneers!" Willa Cather

84. "Tropic of Cancer," Henry Miller
85. "The War of the Worlds," HG Wells
86. "Lord Jim," Joseph Conrad
87. "The Bostonians," James Henry
88. "An American Tragedy," Theodore Dreiser
89. "Death Comes for the Archbishop," Willa Cather
90. "The Wind in the Willows," Kenneth Grahame
91. "This Side of Paradise," F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand
93. "The French Lieutenant's Woman," John Fowles
94. "Babbitt," Sinclair Lewis
95. "Kim," Rudyard Kipling

96. "The Beautiful and the Damned," F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. "Rabbit, Run," John Updike
98. "Where Angels Fear to Tread," EM Forster
99. "Main Street," Sinclair Lewis
100. "Midnight's Children," Salman Rushdie

I guess this goes to show that I spend much more time reading books that I enjoy, rather than the books that a list says I should read! I'd rather relax with a book on Tudor England, than trudge through the pages or symbolism and overly descriptive paragraphs! Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of books on this list that I really do love, but I'm surprised by the amount that I have never even heard of! Makes me think that I should branch out and start reading the books on this list! I should probably be more aware since I'm an English Teacher. It's just that I spent six years in college and graduate school reading what THEY told me to read, then I student taught and did a long-terming subbing gig, and I had to read what I was teaching my students. So, when I don't have to teach a novel or read for a class, I choose what I want to read, and as the name of my blog shows, the genre I love is historical fiction! 

Onto other updates: I received the novel TO BE QUEEN by Christy English in the mail the other day, and I am trying to hurry up and finish the current book I am reading so that I can get to hers! She sent me a review copy, and I can't stop talking about it, because it's so exciting to be able to read and review a book by and author whose writing you adore! I am currently still reading the novel SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA, that I won in a contest a little while ago. I'm a little disappointed by it, but maybe because I had built it up to be so amazing before I won it? I'll review it on here as soon as I finish it! 

I've been apartment hunting in Goodyear Arizona (40 miles west of Phoenix). It's going well so far, but definitely stressful! I can't wait until the waiting is over, and I am comfortably moved in to my new place across the country!

Finally, I was thinking of doing a book giveaway. I'm not sure if 53 followers is enough to have a giveaway, does anyone have any thoughts on this??

Take a moment to visit the following link:

DISCOVER A GREAT DEGREE AT 


HISTORY DEGREE PROGRAMS