BOOK REVIEW Wednesday: Kiss at Your Own Risk by Stephanie Rowe

Hello my Funky Readers,

Today I have a typical naughty paranormal romance for you, but even if Kiss at Your Own Risk is pretty typical for its genre it is still a great book.

I don't remember laughing like this at a romance book in a LONG time! And needless to say, I loved it.

Trinity has a Black Widow curse on her, making her kill any guy she falls in love with. The curse will be broken if only she will go 5 years without killing anyone, and with only a week to go she is oh so close to her goal. Enter Blaine, a really tough macho warrior guy, who just escaped from 150 years of torture by an evil witch with an agenda to torture all her men into perfect mates for women. Did I mention that he was also forced to get in touch with his feminine side and he especially took to cross-stitching?

Of course these two have to meet, and of course Trinity has to watch herself or she will fall in love with Blaine and kill him. Of course they fall in love anyways. I giggled throughout the whole book, especially at Blaine's cross-stitching and other typical female talk. But can you really blame him? After 150 years of brainwashing, he had to start thinking that way or he would be dead. Now they are on the mission to kill a monster, because Black Widow curse gives Trinity the ability to see how to kill ANYONE, then to kill the evil witch and save Trinity's father all the while trying not to fall in love.

Even the bad guys are likable, even lovable. The witch, Angelica, has her reasons for doing what she does and I can say that I don't even blame her. Still, it is no excuse and she deserves what she got but it's nice to see bad guys who are not black and white bad.

And don't even get me started on the supporting characters! They are a hoot! Especially Death :)

I think if you're looking for a good laugh with a good dose of action and romance, this is the book for you!

5 out of 5  


~ Lyuba

Somehow I've missed my guest post...

Hello Everyone,

Yup, I've missed my guest post going live at Kirsti's The Notebook blog. :( Yup, shame on me. But if you want to find out how to spice up your everyday eyeliner look, head over to her blog and check it out! :)

~ Lyuba

I knew this would happen the moment I did it.

Hello Everyone,

So I've did it. I unsubscribed from GlossyBox and BirchBox. Of course, I knew that the moment I did it GlossyBox would have something amazing in their September box an they sure do. The product I've been wanting to try for the longest time, HD Brow Kit. Of course! Are they trying to rub it in for all those people who unsubscribed because of the additional shipping charge? If that's the case, it's working.

But here is the thing. I'm a redhead, and I need a very specific brow shade and GlossyBox even admitted on Twitter that all products are mailed out on random, so most likely the shades I got would be totally wrong for me anyway. And I haven't been able to access my beauty profile at all since I filled it out back in May, to check and make sure that my tastes didn't change. That's not cool, not cool at all. The issue of price is a big one for me too. As you may or may not know, I don't get paid in pounds. I get paid in dollars! Ok, I don't get paid at all since I'm an unemployed student, so it double hurts. 

And simple conversion will show that 12.95 British Pounds = 20.44805 U.S. Dollars. Freaking $20!!!! I can deal with $16-17 of what it was before, and sure $20 is not that much more but it's a principle now! These boxes are supposed to be a convenient and affordable way to try samples, but $20 is not affordable anymore for me. I'm sure if I had a job then I would think differently, but right now I can't afford to throw away $20 on something that might not even work for me. And most products from GlossyBox don't. At this point some of you might say that GlossyBox been pretty good at including one full size product in every box, and kudos to them for doing that but see the above argument. What if the product doesn't work? Product that I don't care for, like those nail wraps I got in August. Hm.... GlossyBox, if you had actually followed my beauty profile, you would have noticed that I didn't want any products that had to do with nails because I don't really have any nails to apply those products!!! My nails are short naturally, and I can't keep them long because they are very thin so putting any kind of nail wraps on will only draw attention to that.

Anyway, enough of a rant about my nails. I've mostly gotten GlossyBox because it was a fun surprise every month, and I loved waiting for it. Hoping that I would like most of the products that I otherwise would not buy. But when it turns out to be $20 every month for products I won't use, that's a little too much.

I've also unsubscribed from the BirchBox, not really because of the price ("true" $10 I can stomach) but because the last two boxes I've gotten just left me feeling MEH..... The samples were super tiny, plus I got the stupid nail wraps again (and I CAN update my beauty profile on BirchBox) and there were only 4 samples instead of usual 5 for GlossyBox. At least the are not raising the shipping, so I might come back to them at some point in the future.

And their customer service is very good. My August box took a month to arrive, but I held off emailing them because I knew that APO mail can take longer. Finally, after a month I did email and got a response the next day saying that they will mail out the replacement for me. Of course, that same day I got my box, and I frantically emailed them back asking not to mail anything to me. Turned out they already did (they sure do work fast), and I was told to enjoy both of my boxes. I actually got my 2nd August box the same day I got my September one, but even then the contents were pretty disappointing. I know that $10 is not much, but the products included just were not worth it for me the price tag I paid. It's not really the money, but the disappointment.

At this point most of you are probably screaming at me to get some photos up, but I'm pretty upset right now (not a good day of reasons other than beauty boxes) so I really don't want to deal with photos. If I feel better, I'll add photos to illustrate my point. If not, just google the content of the boxes and see what I mean for yourself.

Lyuba

P.S. On the bright side, I ordered the new limited edition palette from Sleek. The one that is available exclusively on their website. It better not arrive smashed!

BOOK REVIEW Wednesday: A Kiss of Adventure by Catherine Palmer

Hello Everyone,

Today's book is A Kiss of Adventure
by Catherine Palmer and I didn't know it, but apparently it's a first book in the Treasures of the Heart series.

Product Description

Desperate and on the run, Tillie Thornton finds herself in an uneasy partnership with Graeme McLeod, a daring adventurer who comes out of nowhere to thwart the plot of Tillie’s would-be kidnappers. Now these two must join forces against their common enemies, as well as the challenges of nature, as they embark on a quest that could bring them the answers they seek—or cost them everything.
Formerly published as The Treasure of Timbuktu.

~*~*~*~
I downloaded it for free on kindle since the title was catchy, and it was in the romance section. I had no idea it was a Christian romance though. I would say that normally I'm all for it, but it took me FOREVER to get through this book! Ok, more like 8 days but for me that's forever.

I liked the preface of the story, and it was a fun history/culture lesson but other than that... it was pretty boring to me. I'm sure the biggest reason why it seemed so boring was the constant preaching which I couldn't skip or avoid because there was just so much of it, and literally on every page. I also was very annoyed with the main female character, she is so indecisive and just not interesting. I kept wishing for her to just speak up her mind since it seemed like she already made up her mind about certain things, well if you did then SAY IT!!!

My favorite character was actually Khatty, who is not a main character at all. But her story made me want to research more about Tuareg women. The bad guys just didn't feel bad enough, well everyone just kept doing the same things over and over again. Kidnap, escape, kidnap, escape, repeat. I didn't feel like anyone was in real danger, even if supposedly the Tuareg leader was this chopping heads happy man. There wasn't enough adventure, considering it should be an adventure romance? Oh, and the prologue was totally not needed, it set up the stage for what seemed like a mystical adventure (maybe I've been reading too many paranormal romances lately?) but the actual story turned out anything but.

Overall this wasn't a bad book and last 30 or so pages made up for the overall mundane feel of it. I think if you're into Christian fiction (and don't mind a lot of Scripture quoting) you will really like this book. 

I give it 4 out of 5 because it really wasn't THAT bad, just not as good as I was hoping.

A Kiss of Adventure


~ Lyuba

Weekend Blog Hopping #5

Hello Everyone,

Time flies! Add your blog to the Weekend Beauty Blog Hop!

~ Lyuba