Today’s post …
Is over at:
Yummy Men & Kick Ass Chicks — I’m talking about foreign book covers, along with several other authors.
About Books
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Finale fun … or not …
Note: I posted this over at Magical Musings last week, but I wanted to share it here too.
So most of the fall TV shows have wrapped up, and the summer shows are starting. I’m looking forward to the start of Covert Affairs this month.
For the most part, I’ve enjoyed all the season finales (and even the cliffhangers) over the past few weeks of shows like Arrow, The Blacklist, and The Good Wife, but there’s one finale that I’m still thinking about—the finale of How I Met Your Mother.
Oh, boy.
I’ve always really enjoyed HIMYM, but I was not a fan of the finale. In fact, it sort of ruined the whole show for me, especially since the point of the show for nine seasons seemed to be Ted finding the Mother, the love of his life. But if you’ve seen the finale, you know the show was really about something and someone else entirely. I kind of feel like the whole thing was a bait and switch.Finales can be hard to do, especially with a long-running series like HIMYM. It can be difficult to wrap up every single plot thread and leave fans with a satisfying conclusion. But, man. I was not expecting everything that happened in the HIMYM finale, and it was not satisfying to me at all. I’ve enjoyed watching reruns of the show, but now that I know how it ends? Even the reruns have lost some of their charm. Like I said, the finale sort of ruined the whole show for me.
I’ve been thinking about book finales too. The finale of the Hunger Games trilogy is another one that didn’t work for me. I kind of felt like everything that Katniss went through was for nothing, since a certain character doesn’t make it back home at the end of the series. On the other hand, I thought the end of the Harry Potter series was very well done and let readers leave the characters knowing that Harry and company were in a good place.
Maybe it’s cliché, but at the end of the day—or TV show or book—I want the characters to get their happy endings. To me, those are the most satisfying finales.
What about you guys? Did you enjoy the HIMYM finale? What do you think are some good book and TV finales?
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Authors After Dark is approaching …
Today, I wanted to give a shout-out to Stella Price and the Authors After Dark convention, which will be held Aug. 6-10 in Charlotte, N.C.
I’ll be among the authors attending. The master of ceremonies is Alexandra Ivy, and you can see the list of all the authors attending here.
AAD is a great, reader-friendly conference, and I’ll be participating in several panels and other events. And, if you’re in the Charlotte area, there will be a Saturday afternoon book signing that is open to the public. You can see the schedule of events here, and the registration information is here.
If you’ve never been to a book conference, AAD is a really good one to try. About 500 people usually attend AAD, so it has a small conference feel, and it is easy to find/hang out with the authors, bloggers, and readers that you’ve chatted with online. Plus, there are always a ton of book giveaways, food, and other treats. Last year, there was ice cream social one afternoon, which was really cool.
Hope to see you there.
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Checking out the summer TBR pile …
So it’s June, which means that it’s time to think about summer books and what you want to read on vacation.
I know I say this every single year, but this is going to be the summer when I put a serious dent in my TBR pile. We’ll see if it actually happens or not. LOL.
But in the meantime, here are some of the books in my TBR pile that I’m looking forward to reading this summer. Note that the descriptions are from Goodreads.
With only the wedding dress on her back and her honeymoon luggage in the car, Kari Worthington is running away. Determined to put her controlling father, her rigidly structured life, and the uptight groom she left at the altar in her rearview mirror, she escapes to the Texas Hill country … and lands on a tall, dark, and gorgeous winery owner’s doorstep. All she needs is a job and a place to live until she can get back on her feet. So why is she fantasizing about losing herself in his powerful arms?
For Marc Cordero, freedom is so close he can taste it. He’s devoted his life to managing the family business and being a single dad. Now with his daughter away at college and his brother taking over the winery, Marc is ready to hop on his Harley for parts unknown-until a runaway bride bursts onto the scene. Free-spirited and tantalizingly sexy, Kari excites him like no other woman has before. But when irresistible passion turns into something more, will Marc give up his future to take a chance on love?
When post-grad Rachael Hamilton accidentally gatecrashes a pro-athlete party, she ends up face-to-face with Ryan Carter, the NFL’s most beloved quarterback.
While most girls would be thrilled to meet the attractive young millionaire, Rachael would rather spend time with books than at sporting events, and she has more important things to worry about than romance. Like her parents pressuring her to leave her unpaid publishing internship for law school. Or her brother, who’s obliviously dating Rachael’s high school bully. Or that same high school’s upcoming reunion.
Still, when Ryan’s rookie teammate attaches himself to Rachael, she ends up cohosting Friday night dinners for half a dozen football players.
Over pancake brunches, charity galas, and Alexander the Great Rachael realizes all the judgments she’d made about Ryan are wrong. But how can a Midwestern Irish-Catholic jock with commitment problems and an artsy, gun-shy Jewish New Englander ever forge a partnership? Rachael must let down her barriers if she wants real love–even if that opens her up to pain that could send her back into her emotional shell forever.
Hell on Wheels by Julie Ann WalkerHe’s the bad boy she’s always wanted …
Nate “Ghost” Weller has loved Ali Morgan nearly half his life. But he’s done something so heinous he’s convinced she’ll never forgive him if she discovers the truth, so he keeps his feelings and his secrets to himself. Then she blows into town with a mother lode of bad guys on her tail and Nate can’t deny she’s in serious trouble. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who can help her.
She’s the good girl he’s kept at arm’s length…
Ali knows Nate as the most solemn, aloof man on the planet. Sadly, he’s also the sexiest. For years she’s avoided him, unable to stomach his dark scowls and brooding silences … especially when she secretly yearns for his touch. Now she must rely on him to save her from the malevolent shadows ghosting her every move. When the bullets explode, so does their passion. But can love really conquer all? Or are some things just too terrible to forgive?
What about you guys? What books are you hoping to read this summer?
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Graphic novels — to read in print or e-book?
So a couple of months ago, the e-book for Black Widow: The Name of the Rose by Marjorie Liu and Daniel Acuña was on sale. The story sounded interesting, and I always like a bargain, so I downloaded it to read on my tablet.
Hmm. It was an interesting experience.The story was good, and the art was cool. Overall, I enjoyed the graphic novel, and I’d recommend it to Black Widow fans or those who enjoy the Marvel universe and its characters.
But reading a graphic novel isn’t quite the same as reading a print novel on an e-reader. Which was something that I had never considered before.
For one thing, there seemed to be a set limit as to how big I could make each page. I was a little disappointed by that, as it made some of the dialogue a bit hard to read. I could tap on each individual panel and make them bigger that way, but with three or four or more panels on a page, that got a little tedious at times. I don’t have an iPad, but I imagine that if I had read the graphic novel on it, I would have had a better experience, as that screen would have been bigger than my tablet one.
So lesson learned. In the future, I’ll probably stick with print versions of graphic novels, just so I can see everything better.
What about you guys? Do you read graphic novels and comics on your e-reader or tablet? Why or why not?
