Love on the Red Rocks by Lisa Moreau

Love on the Red Rocks by Lisa Moreau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Love on the Red Rocks was actually a surprisingly great read or me. The beginning felt a little chaotic, and at first it was bit difficult to keep up with the three characters: Malley, Jessie, and Lizzie. That did not last long, and the story really began to flow. While the beginning throws a lot of names and characters at the reader quickly, I thought about the book and I see no other way it could be accomplished without similar results. What matters is the end result, it was not confusing, the reader just has to give it a little time to really start to come together.

Malley is a rule playing number cruncher with a dream of owning a bakery. She fears the venture is too risky and therefore keeps her day job. Malley has recently lost her father, and places the fear of loss in all aspects of her heart. Malley decides to tell her best friend, Lizzie she is madly in love with her while taking a vacation to a lesbian retreat. I found myself wanting to shake Malley a couple of times because of how completely clueless she was. Malley spends an insane amount of time thinking about Lizzie, which for me was a completely forgettable character.

Jessie while being insanely sexy has the same profession as Malley's father. This causes Malley to resist the relationship. Since she is still dealing with loss, the fear of loving someone so much like her father is difficult for Malley. This tarnishes the possibility of a future with Jessie. Jessie was by far my favorite character of the book. I mean who could resist her? She seemed very down to Earth and was very well written.

I think for a first novel this turned out really great. It is an easy read that you can pick up and put down when you need to complete a task. I enjoyed the book and look forward to the author's future work.

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Love on Tap by Karis Walsh

Love on Tap by Karis Walsh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Love on Tap is written by an author that I almost always love to read. While Love on Tap was well written, and easy to read I didn’t love it. The beginning was a little too slow for me. While the main characters were well written, they didn’t appeal to me as a reader. I am sure others will disagree but for me I wanted more. This does not take away from the overall story though.
Tace has a huge chip on her shoulder, and throughout the book this improves, but she appears to have deep self-esteem issues. Berit is just angry and disassociated, just waiting her time until she can leave. The love between them was nice after it started going strong. I was unsure why Tace was so very quick to become protective of Berit. Why did she not intimidate her? Was it because she was injured? The similar background of family addiction created a bond, and I actually liked the storyline with the main characters background. The secondary characters were almost non-existent. I had forgotten all about Allie when she was mentioned the second time in the book. It took me a minute to remember what her story was.
I think the book is defiantly worth the read, as I think it may appeal to some readers. I will continue to read books by this author because her books are always enjoyable even if they are not a favorite.


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Stealing Sunshine

Stealing Sunshine by Tina Michele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my first book by this author. When starting the book I was quite nervous due to other reviews. I was pleasantly surprised by the book. While Belle and Tara may be too different for some I enjoyed the difference in character. I did find myself getting a little irritated when the book skipped to the point of view of Roz. I did not mind the head hopping of the characters, though a couple of times on the digital edition I missed the break and it took a few sentences to figure out which point of view I was reading. I felt the author may have stretched the middle of the book a little too long.

While I cannot say this is one of my favorite books I did enjoy reading it.


~copy provided by NetGalley for honest review~

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Whirlwind Romance

Whirlwind Romance by Kris Bryant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whirlwind Romance is a well-written romance, which has easily likable characters, and a great storyline. I live in Oklahoma and was very excited that the locations mentioned in the book were well known and easily identifiable. I enjoyed getting to know Tristan and Kate, but the first person POV is not one of my favorites. 1st person is often difficult as we only get one side of the story. I think the author did an excellent job of not head hopping, even if I wanted to know what Kate was thinking.
The story was great, and I spent a great deal of time during the first half of the book attempting to figure Kate out, and the second half of the book thinking that Tristan needed to grow up. While I enjoyed both the characters and the plot the conflict was weak. The end felt a bit spread out, but I did not mind. Overall a great book, and would read other books by this author.

~copy provided by NetGalley in return for honest review~


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Piedra Falls and Treasure Falls

FEED ME

Vacation was in full swing yesterday, we decided to go check out Treasure Falls and later in the evening we decided to go look at Piedra Falls.  The day began with a 30 minute drive east of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We parked in a pleasant little parking lot and took a look at Treasure Falls from the ground.  Sondra met a few new friends.

We then hiked up to Treasure Falls to take a few pictures and get a closer look.  The hike was short (about 1/2 mile one way) but was nearly straight up.  We are not used to the altitude difference yet, and it was difficult to breath.  The 1/2 mile hike made your body feel as though it was a mile and half.  We had a great time, the waterfall was wonderful. 

As we were heading back to Pagosa springs we traveled nearly the entire 30 minutes down hill.  We pulled the car over at an overlook, and the brakes were smoking.  So was everyone else's, which is exactly why the overlook was such a perfect place for everyone to pull over.

Later that evening we (Sondra) decided to pack us up and go look at Piedra Falls (9 miles away).  It was around 7:30 and she decided it would be perfect to travel into this national forrest to hike to the falls and get to the waterfall and watch the sun set and then hike back before it was too dark.  Sounded exactly like the perfect plan.  

So after 55 minutes of driving on very scary roads with no siderails, going only 10 miles an hour, we arrive at the trailhead to the waterfall.  The sun had long since faded behind the mountians and it was not dark yet, but you could it was just light enough to know that it wasn't going to be light long.  We  ran down the path 1/2 miles took a few insanely bad snapshots of the waterfall and then walked back to the car in the dark.  It was a bit scary, and bats were swooping down at Barbara's head.  We did see the deer in the pics on this trip, and I took a few good pics. A fox was in the middle of the road on our way back.   Overall it was a great day.  Going back to the condo in the dark, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I did sleep very well.