Leanne Crabtree's Blog, page 9
November 28, 2013
Couldn’t resist
I saw that The Works had Abbi Glines’ paperbacks in online so I couldn’t resist buying these when I saw them in store.
I now have book 2 & 3 in her Too Far series though luckily I haven’t read book 3. Just need book 1 now for that trilogy to be complete.
Twisted Perfection I have on my kindle to read and the 2nd and 3rd happen to be books 2 and 4 in her Sea Breeze series, so it didn’t quite go to plan. BUT they will make an awesome addition to my growing New Adult shelf on my bookcase, so I’m happy
The Vampire of Highgate I’ve been checking out for weeks and since they’re 3 for £5 I needed to buy something else and that was the lucky book.


November 27, 2013
Book Review – Willing Captive
Name: Willing Captive
Author: Belle Aurora
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Funny, New Adult
Release Date: 26th September 2013
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Delilah “Lily” Flynn is used to her drab existence. Lily’s been living it for twenty two years.
Her boring life is suddenly turned on its head when she’s rudely kidnapped from her bedroom.
Or so she thinks.
Nox Taylor is far too high up in his field to be assigned a babysitting job.
There’s nothing more he wants than to complete his mission so he can be rid of the smartass tomboy, Lily.
Day after day, Nox watches Lily and her strange ways. She’s unlike any woman he’s ever met.
Getting close to the girl is purely for her own protection…right?
Lily never imagined she’d make her first real friends in captivity.
What lengths would she go through to keep them?
After seeing a lot of people I follow on Goodreads giving this 5 stars, I just had to buy it yesterday when it was 77p and then just couldn’t resist reading it and WOW!
I loved this. From start to finish, I was hooked.
I liked Lily. She was both sweet and fiery and gave as good as she got when needed. As for Nox, he had a cockiness to him that drew me in from the moment he removed his mask. I loved watching their relationship develop throughout, it was both fun and sweet and I fell in love with them.
The storyline was interesting and unique. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but I’ll tell you now, I was NOT disappointed.
I wasn’t expecting for the…case? to finish at the 75%-ish mark and from there I was wondering where it was going to go with still a quarter of the book to read. I’ll admit for a good 10% or so I had a steady stream of tears running down my cheeks, thinking: No! I refuse to believe it! and then the tears continued for a different reason.
It’s a sweet and emotional story with a thread of humour throughout and it was right up my street. If anyone knows a story like this (and/or Wallbanger by Alice Clayton) then please let me know. Thanks.
I highly recommend you read this if you like romances with a bit of humour and a captivating storyline


November 24, 2013
Just added an exceprt
I’ve just added an excerpt from the story I started writing while in San Francisco, currently called *Footballer*, because I seem to lack imagination with story names (That’s what my author friend Natalie Herzer is so good at, you have her to thank for Cat’s Wolf and Wolf Claimed
Thank you Natalie!) You can find it on the “W.I.P Excerpts” tab above. Hope you like it!
After some discussion I’ve decided to concentrate on three stories at the minute; The Concubine, *Charlotte & Sebastian* and *Footballer*
* – working title


November 21, 2013
Even more paperbacks!
So as you probably know by now, I love The Works shop. Cheap paperback books in genre’s I love!
And you can see my purchases from today above (minus Rebel Heart which was from Amazon).
I’ve read most Rachel Caine books (Morganville Vampires, Weather Warden and Revivalists) so why not these two that she wrote almost 10 years ago?
Pushing the Limits is a sort of YA/NA book that I already have waiting on my kindle but I’m trying to build up a NA shelf, so it’s a nice addition to those already on it (and for £1.99 or 3 for £5, how could I resist??)
Rebel Heart follows on from Blood Red Road, which I read while in San Francisco and loved (so I just had to buy it!)


November 20, 2013
Book Review – Becoming Red
Name: Becoming Red (Becoming, #1)
Author: Jess Raven & Paula Black
Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Romance
Release Date: 30th November 2012
Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars
Ash DeMorgan, graduate, orphan, ice maiden, has long since consigned the fairytale nightmares of a troubled childhood to the realm of fantastical childish imagination.
Now, lured back to Dublin, the scene of her tragic past, Ash encounters a city pulsing under the dangerous sexual influence of a new street drug the locals call Rave. Nothing is as it seems. Ash is about to discover that her nightmares are real, ancient Irish myths are larger than life and roaming the streets of the medieval city, and she has become the prey in their erotic hunt. A step back into her past is about to become a high adrenaline race for survival.
Connal Savage, outcast, assassin, and living, breathing hunk of ancient mythology, has lived a thousand years servicing a debt of revenge. Dead inside. Until he encounters his boss’s granddaughter, an infuriating woman who threatens to lead him to hell with all his good intentions, who manages to chip away at the hard encrusted defences of a lifetime spent at war and burrow herself deep into a part of him that hasn’t breathed for centuries. He is about to discover that when it comes down to the wire, when you’re bargaining with the Grim Reaper for the life of the one you love, you will do anything…
l love the cover of this and its sequel Becoming Bad; both are amazing and grab your attention straight away.
As for the story, well, I have to admit it took me a while to get into it. I think it was down to all the description and the changes in time at the beginning; Connal’s POV and then switching to Ash’s but it occurring before Connal’s. It was a bit confusing to start with, but it got better as the two met and interacted.
I was intrigued where the story was going from early on and it wasn’t until nearly half way through where I figured it out (maybe I was just slow :S) but after that point I was really into it. The whole chemistry between Connal and Ash was quite fun to read about, how she’d rather not have him following her but at the same time she was attracted to him. The authors’ reference’s to “Little Red” and “Big Bad” also added a bit of humour.
Ash was a woman who didn’t mess around; she carried a knife and told people what she thought of them if they messed around with her and I liked her attitude. Though sometimes, her actions were a bit questionable.
Connal; a dread haired mountain of a man, just seemed to ooze sex and I liked how protective he was of Ash, if only, at the start, because his employer told him to.
It was an interesting story and something different to what I normally read, or should I say a different take on it, and I enjoyed it: A woman being the last carrier of a gene that could mean the repopulation of a dying breed.


November 19, 2013
Change of Theme
As you may have noticed, I’ve changed the theme.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while and after the problems I’ve been having with how the old one displayed the sidebar items, I thought it was about time I got around to it. So here it is…


November 17, 2013
Cool Bookmark
I also picked up this cool metal bookmark from a bookshop in Chicago’s airport. I may have to do as it suggests and read these books at some point. Though I have actually already read some: Lord of the Flies, Harry Potter series, Wind in the Willows, Frankenstein and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. And there’s some I wont read, such as the Bible.


Got back earlier…
After a horribly long flight. Yeah, I’m not a fan of long ones, I get travel sick.
Anyway, that aside it was a really nice place. Though I wasn’t too fond of the hills. I knew there were some, I just wasn’t expecting them to be so high and steep in places. The one we’d just walked up to take the picture below was evil; like walking up the peak of a mountain, so I’d advise you get the cable car to the top and walk down Lombard Street to get a good shot.
I’ve decided to share a few of my better pictures with you, so you can see what a beautiful city it is.

Lombard Street

The Bay taken from the ferry to Alcatraz

Sea Lion sunning himself at Pier 39

View of Alcatraz and the bay from the cable car

One of the many cable cars in SF

Heart shaped sculpture at Union Square
Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t get much writing done in the way of Shifter Romance Novella’s 0.5 and 3…BUT I did start writing something. I haven’t written much yet in my notebook, I’m barely starting Chapter 2, which is about 10 A5 pages in, though it will need some fleshing out near the beginning since I started writing it in short and ended up going full after two pages
I just hope it works out because I’m having fun writing it.
I managed to read two and a bit books, Blood Red Road and Eversea, which were both amazing, and started Bitter Blood.
P.S. Does anyone else like going abroad and using those penny machines where it squashes them flat and prints an image onto them (as seen below)??? Or is it just me?


November 8, 2013
Finally decided…
…what books to take. And here they are!
So these are the four lucky books I’ve chosen to take away with me. I always seem to do better reading the Morganville Vampire series when I’m abroad so books 13, Bitter Blood, and 14, Fall of Night, are coming with me. Then Blood Red Road is coming because I quite like a dystopia novel every now and then and finally my signed copy of Eversea just to add a bit of none paranormal/sci-fi to the mix.
I have been known to devour books in the down-time between outings while on holiday so you never know, I may end up coming back with more than I went with ;D
I’ll also be taking my notebooks with me, because with no laptop, that’s where my writing happens and hopefully San Francisco will give me plenty of ideas/inspiration for me to get on with books 0.5 and 3 in my Shifter Romance Novella series.


November 5, 2013
Writing…
So I’m trying to work on book 0.5 and 3 of my Shifter Romance Novella series. They’ve both hit walls at the minute.
Book 0.5 was kinda written in short when I explained Misha’s lack of interest in wanting a wolf mate, so I need to flesh it out a bit to make it novella length. It is also, hopefully, going to explain how Kaitlin’s dad became Alpha. *fingers crossed*
As for book 3, Malachi and Ruby’s story, that’s taking a bit of thinking about because it’s got a different plotline to the first two, as in the bad-guy for that one is inside the pack, not an outside source.
I’m also trying to proof Cat’s Wolf’s paperback, i.e. make the cover image less pixelated and then read through it to make sure it makes sense and reads correctly. I think I’ve sorted out the cover, now it’s down to the reading of it. When I’ve done that, and it all checks out, it should be ready for others to buy from Amazon!

