Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota

Title: Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota
Author: Tracey Bateman

Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota is a good, clean, christian romance novel. It is/was also a freebie for the Nook which is why I picked it up. I am kind of in a mood for stories set in the Midwest/American Frontier right now. Normally I wouldn't post a review for a romance book in this blog but since this is a clean romance (no naughty parts~) I'm fine posting this review here.

The book starts off with Rosemary traveling to North Dakota to move in with her twin sister and her twin sister's husband. Their father had just passed away and Rosemary had no where else to go.

This started off fine but then just went downhill as the story continued. Rosemary became a complete Mary Sue.

Also, the love between her and Finn seemed a little rushed at the end. They get married because of some legal issues over the land Rosemary brought but I never felt like the issues between them were resolved before or after the marriage. Rosemary didn't want to marry Finn because she did not want to be a replacement for her dead sister and we are told that Finn doesn't think of Rosemary in that way but he never really convinced Rosemary of it. I also found it weird that the whole town right away wanted Finn and Rosemary to get married. His wife and her sister just died but omg they need to get married right now! Because it is like the proper thing to do!!!

One thing I liked about this book is that it made me want to move out west and  herd sheep! Wait... that's not right.

The setting of the story was very nice. I feel like the author did a good amount of research before writing the story. At the end of the book she does mention that she took some liberties with the setting and time period and gives her reasons why.

This book was not really for me though.I don't like the whole sibling marrying her dead sibling's husband. At least the two main characters had reservations about getting married too but I feel like it still was not resolved. I never really felt that Finn had moved pass just seeing Rosemary as a separate person and Rosemary never got over the fear that she was just a replacement.

Rating: 2 1/2 Cafe Lattes out of 5

2013 Winter Challenges

I can't believe it is almost 2013! We've made it! LOL

I'll be writing reviews regularly starting in January. I have been working on some tumblr blogs and this website writing and translating articles. Oh, and university of course. But finals are over and I have some more time to update this blog more! :)

Anyway, I just wanted to make a post to keep track of some winter reading challenges coming up.

Read-the-Season Dutch Edition: WINTER by Romance Readers Reading Challenge
Taking the word WINTER, read a book that's title or author's name (first or last) starts with each letter. For romance/romantic books only.
December 21, 2012 - March 19, 2013

W. Witemeyer, Karen - To Win Her Heart
I. Ines del Alma Mia - Isabel Allende
N. Night to Surrender, A - Tessa Dare
T. Tracy Bateman - Love Finds You in Wildrose, North Dakota
E. East of the Sun - Julia Gregson
R. Russian Concubine, The - Kate Furnivall

New, new and new! 2013 by Rated YA-MA
Read 6 Young Adult books that are 1st in a series by 6 new authors you've never read.
January 1, 2013 - March 31,2013

1. Tiger's Curse - Colleen Houck
2. Breathe - Sarah Crossan
3. Tell Us We're Home - Marina Budhos
4. Stormdancer - Jay Kristoff
5. Wither - Lauren DeStefano
6. The Lost Girl - Sangu Mandanna

The Iron King Review

Title: The Iron King (The Iron Fey #1)
Author: Julie Kagawa

The Iron King is about a young girl named Megan who finds out that she is half fey (fairy). When her baby brother is kidnapped and taken to the Fey's World, she has to go in after him and rescue her brother before it is too late.

Firstly, I am in love with this cover! Look at it! It is even more beautiful in person. I also like the little designs that got carried over from the book cover above each chapter heading. As an artist and designer, I just love these little artistic pieces in books. I need to get the whole series now just for this, haha. Bu really, I enjoyed this book a lot and I will be picking up the next one soon.

The Iron King was such a great read. I loved how Kagawa sets up the fey world. I want to go there! I also think she does a good job with the characters. I've even found myself laughing at some parts in The Iron King. My favorite character so far is Grimalkin the cat. He is awesome. Here is my favorite line from him:

"'I am a cat,' Grimalkin replied, as if that explained anything."

It explains everything. ;)

Robin "Puck" Goodfellow

The only thing that I did not care about in this book was the set up for the romantic love triangle between Megan, Ash and Puck. I did not like Ash when he first appeared in the book. Even later on I still didn't really care about him. Hopefully he gets better because right now I am just not invested in him. Also, I just don't feel like Puck is that great of a match for Megan either. It is really just the fact that he is A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck which to me is just..... yeah, I love Puck and A Midsummer Night's Dream but no thanks. That makes him really old too in relation to Megan. 

I love the story, I just don't care for the romance that's starting to happen right now. I just want to see Megan take on The Iron King and kick his butt!

Rating: 5/5 Chocolate Bars

Book Haul 4

Yay~ Books! :D

One of the things I love about my university is that they have an annual book sale. There are some nice treasures for only a dollar or two! This is the last year I'll be able to take advantage of it though. I also went to Barnes and Noble this week because I had a little extra cash.

See that tiny, flat book on top of the pile? It's an old cookbook/recipe book that I got at my uni's book sale. It has a bunch of old/traditional recipes from the Virgin Islands. I thought it was cute but the font on the cover is hard to read. :p Underneath it though is The Kit Runner! I have been meaning to get my hands on this book for a while now especially after reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author.

The next two books are the ones I got from Barnes and Noble. They are Outliers and Tiger's Curse. A few weeks ago a guest speaker came to my uni and talked with us art students. He did mostly animation work and was involved in a start-up. He mentioned Outliers and I saw it on sale so I grabbed it. It is pretty interesting so far. Tiger's Curse has such a beautiful cover! I can stare at it for hours honestly lol. Actually, I was looking for a different book but couldn't find it and forgot the name of the author and title so I grabbed Tiger's Curse instead. A friend from goodreads is reading this whole series and I keep seeing her updates so I have hopes for this book.

The last three books are ones that I also got at my uni's book sale. They are The Red Tent which I have been kind of wanting to read for a while too but it wasn't a priority book, It Ate Billing on Christmas (lol) and some art book in German from 1988. o.O

Book Blogger Hop: Pretty Covers

Book Blogger Hop was created by Crazy For Books as a way to connect book bloggers and readers together. This week The Fake Steph is hosting the question.

Is there a book series that you're not totally into, but still keep buying new releases because you love the covers?

Not really. There are so many other books out there with beautiful covers that probably have more interesting stories and characters. A pretty cover can draw me to the book but if I don't like the story/characters then I'm not going to continue reading.

I almost considered getting the next book in the House of Night series because I really like those covers and want a good vampire story but I just really disliked the main character.

I am still trying to finish Alice in Zombieland. I put it down because I wasn't enjoying it at the time but hopefully the story picks up. But I brought the book because it was an Alice story and had such a beautiful cover. If I don't like the story though, I am not getting the next book in the series regardless of how pretty the cover might be.

Lol I didn't mean to turn this into a rant. :p