171. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe by Charlaine Harris

BOOK REVIEW: Wolfsbane and Mistletoe by Charlaine Harris

We associate Christmas with Santa Claus and gifts, cookies and milk, candy canes and gingerbread men. How about werewolves and other things that go bump in the night? Can the stuff of Halloween become the stuff of Christmas dreams as well? This book might just make you howl with pleasure (pun intended) once you read this book.

Best-selling authors Charlaine Harris and a few other authors offer stories on werewolves and the holidays, a fresh variation on the concept of birthdays and vampires found in Many Bloody Returns.

The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone - literally - particularly lycanthropes. The authors have harvested the scariest, funniest, saddest werewolf tales, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.

Whether wolfing down a holiday feast or craving some hair of the dog on New Year's morning, the werewolves in this frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants of readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.

Great fresh read for Christmas or any time of the year, it's a lovely melange of stories you definitely won't want to miss.

170. Still Me by Jojo Moyes

BOOK REVIEW: Still Me by Jojo Moyes

Have you all watched the funny yet tear-jerking Me Before You movie? Did you read the books Me Before You and the sequel After You by Jojo Moyes? No? Get the books ASAP from your nearest bookstore because the books are really heart-warming and relates to each and every person.

In this prequel, the lovable Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam (he's a paramedic by the way, a tiny spoiler if you haven't read the sequel) alive across several thousand miles.

Louisa is hurled into the world of the super-rich Gopniks: Leonard and his much younger second wife, Agnes, and a never-ending array of household staff and hangers-on. Lou is determined to get the most out of the experience and throws herself into her job and New York life within this privileged world.

Before she knows what's happening, Lou is mixing in New York high society, where she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who brings with him a whisper of her past. He looks so much like Will (the disabled guy whom she fell in love with in the first novel), that she becomes so attracted to him.

In this novel, as Lou tries to keep the two sides of her world together, she finds herself carrying secrets - not all her own - that cause a catastrophic change in her circumstances. And when matters come to a head, she has to ask herself: 'who is Louisa Clark?' and 'how do you reconcile a heart that lives in two places?'.

Through her triumphs and tribulations, Louisa learns that she just has to remain the way she is and that if people can't accept her the way she is, then TOO BAD! She learns that love, even with distance, can still stand strong once you really understand each other.

A wonderful book from Times Reads, I laughed uproariously at the funny parts and was sniffling into a tissue when Louisa had her downs. All in all it was a beautiful prequel, as beautiful as the two novels before it. I highly recommend this book to my girlfriends and family.

Thanks to Times Reads as well for their wonderful freebies, a magnetic bookmark and two gorgeous Reign of the Fallen character cards. I have been using the Kasmira character card as a bookmark for this book. Haha... Thank you Times Reads!