The Rundown: Once Upon a Time

We all know I watch a lot of shows, and while I won't recap them all, I will happily do a quick rundown. If you watched the episode, you get the point.

This rundown is about the season 3 premiere of Once Upon a Time.

1. No matter how many times I see Michael Raymond-James aka Baelfire aka Neal, I still call him Rene (from True Blood. He was so awesome.)

Hey, boo!

2. Mulan needs to find her OWN man. Can she back up off everybody else's man? I see the way she was looking at Neal.

Well, she is kind of hot.

3. Peter Pan can hear you coming. From far away.

I know. But really, it's the only way to distinguish him from the rest of the Lost Boys.

4. Catfight!!!

I hope Snow doesn't spend the next episode crying about getting into a fight.

5. As always, Rumpelstiltskin will cut a bitch. Open.

 

I guess we will find out next week what Pan wants with Henry's heart! 

Sleepy Hollow!

Tonight is the 3rd episode of Sleepy Hollow on Fox. Are you in? Need a catch up? Here we go:

Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) was a soldier who died in combat (or so he thought) a couple hundred years ago. Before he died, he chopped off the head of his assailant. Now, in present time, the Headless Horseman and Ichabod are both back-and Ichabod has to defeat him with the help of Detective Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie). However, the first thing Ichabod has to do is convince everyone that he is from the past.

Abbie is the perfect partner in crime (or justice!) as she is open enough to listen to Ichabod (as a teenager, she and her sister saw some freaky things in the forest) but skeptical enough to keep Ichabod on his toes. It's like Moulder and Scully all over again! They have great chemistry as they unravel the mysteries in Sleepy Hollow, but don't go shipping them just yet-Ichabod's wife, who turns out was a witch, is still around and trapped in between worlds. He wants to save her as well, and she has information that helps Ichabod and Abbie on their journey.

Turns out the Headless Horseman is just the tip of the iceberg. He is one of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and it's up to Ichabod and Abbie to stop them. 

So far this has been a great ride, and the supporting cast is awesome too. Orlando Jones is great in this dramatic role, and John Cho is wonderful as a conflicted minion of evil. I love the fresh twist on a great classic-they are taking it in the right direction. So what are you waiting for? Catch up on Hulu or Fox.com.

Book Review: Unattainable by Madeline Sheehan

 Unattainable (Undeniable #3) by Madeline Sheehan

I read a lot. Some books are good. Some books are great. Some books are can't-put-down-can't-live-life-until-I-finish-reading. That was this book.

The Undeniable series is about the Hell's Horsemen Motorcycle Club. Unattainable focuses on the relationship between Cage (the President's son) and Tegen (the daughter of a well loved club groupie who has been injured.) Tegen had a crush on her good friend Cage since she was a tween. At 16, she gave him her virginity, and the morning after, a sober Cage told her in no uncertain terms he didn't reciprocate her feelings-then he proceeded to bang anything that came his way. Between that, and her mother's relationship with a married biker that resulted in her mother being shot in the head and losing her memory, Tegen spent the next several years getting more and more angry. She only comes back to Montana to help her mother periodically, but otherwise she has been living in California with ZZ (a Horseman gone nomad) who is on the road more often than not, but they meet each other's needs as she has been hurt by the President's son and ZZ was hurt by his daughter, Danny. Tegen and Cage yell, fight, scream, and argue with such passion, there is no denying their true feelings for each other. They are a perfect match-unruly, angry, and sex-crazy biker brats that take years to get themselves together, but of course they do.

The counterbalance to this craziness was the beautiful and heart-wrenching love story between Dirty and Ellie. Dirty is named because he is...dirty. He is greasy, smelly, and seemingly lecherous. However, we find out so many things about Dirty and his past, and he turns into the guy to root for in this book. Ellie has tried to play things the smart way-she was good friends with Danny but when Danny committed herself to her husband and the club, Ellie decided the criminal MC wasn't a place to hang around. She went to school, and came back to Montana to teach and help her father with her mother's medical bills. Her first day back, Dirty saves her from a fate he has suffered more than once. From that moment on, she decided that she is going to save him. After a shower and shave, Dirty turns out to be a beautiful specimen of man, but Ellie knows that they have a long delicate road to haul.

It was genius to tie these two stories together. I don't know if it was by design or by coincidence, but I.Couldn't.Stop.Reading. Madeline Sheehan also has a knack for designing a story while keeping the reader up with the whole world-everything ties in and everything clicks. The reader feels like they know the characters and the twists (there are a lot!) and the genuine emotions come through in every relationship in the book. I can't recommend this book, series, and author enough. There are a small handful of auto-buy authors out there for me, and Madeline Sheehan solidified her place in those ranks.

Book Review: Hell's Knights

Hell's Knights (The MC Sinners #1) by Bella Jewel

4.5 Stars
Hell's Knights is a gritty erotic biker drama about Addison and Cade - two people with messed up pasts that collide instantly and powerfully.

Addison has lived a life of pure hell. Raised by a drug-addicted prostitute mother, she saw only the worst kinds of people all her life. Sexually abused by her mother's pimp from the age of 13 and fighting off johns all of her teen years, she trusts no one. Now at 21, her mother dies, and she is found by her father, Jackson, who never knew her situation. Jackson is the President of the Hell's Knights Motorcycle Club, and his VP is the delicious Cade. The first time their eyes meet, it's over. Cade is arrogant, beautiful, pierced and tatted, and extremely alpha. He also has a painful past that helps him understand Addi.

This book was rough yet tender, in the vein of Madeline Sheehan and Joanna Wylde. Despite some moments where Addi was a little TSTL and Cade was thisclose to being an alphahole, I enjoyed this immensely. Apparently some of my favorite characters in the book will get their own stories told, so count me in!

Book Review: Caught by Menace

Caught by Menace (Grabbed #2) by Lolita Lopez

This is the second book in the "Grabbed" series by Lolita Lopez. Usually I don't like to read books out of order, but the opportunity came for me to read this one first, and they are stand-alones in the same world.

Menace is a high ranking officer who has saved up enough credits to obtain a wife. The way this is done is simple-his warriors have a treaty with Naya's planet, where women's names are placed in a lottery, and the chosen women are chased and "grabbed". If you are caught, you are collared and become that warrior's wife. Life on the surface is a terrible dystopian wasteland, so there are some women who actually seek to become part of the lotteries. Naya was not one of these women. She is part of a small covert group called Red Feather that tries to get supplies, food, and protection to those that need it. She manged her way into the lottery so that she could help her best friend escape, and Naya ended up grabbed instead of her.

Menace is huge, menacing, and into kinky BDSM, although apparently all men from his plant are into it. Menace is also gentle, loving, patient, and willing to do what it takes to make Naya understand he takes his marriage vows seriously, and he truly wants her to be happy. However, just when she starts to accept her feelings for Menace, her past catches up to her and Menace may pay the price for it.

I really enjoyed this story, and I am definitely going back to read the first in this series. It was a fast read, just like I like, but the substance was there. The reader will believe the chemistry between the two of them, and the book actually spans about a year, so the change in their relationship felt honest and sweet. There were some very interesting scenes, as Menace is into some things that are counter intuitive to Naya, but his persistence pays off. Great read.

Review: Escaping Reality

Escaping Reality (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1)

by Lisa Renee Jones

Escaping Reality is a quick read, but is full of action, passion, and mysterious elements that kept me turning the page. At the start of the book, Amy gets a message from an unknown handler-her cover has been compromised, and she needs to leave NOW. Apparently, this happens to Amy every so often, and she has been on the run since she was 18 years old. At the airport she catches the eye of billionaire architect Liam Stone, and from that moment he sticks to her like glue.

Amy's mystery is slowly unraveled through the course of the book, and I was hooked. The instant chemistry she had with Liam was believable and sizzled off the page. The reader knows exactly why he is attracted to her, and his perception into her situation brings out those alpha protective instincts that readers love. Liam is delicious-assertive, take charge, amorous, and just a tad kinky. 

The next book is coming soon, and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered- who is the secretive Jared across the hall, and what is up with the whole situation with Amy's job? And who is her handler? 

5 stars.

Book Review: Desire (The Dining Club #1)

Desire (The Dining Club #1) by Marina Anderson

It's usually bad luck when a book advertises to "fans of New York Times bestselling authors E. L. James, Sylvia Day, and J. Kenner..." because they overwhelmingly can't deliver, and unfortunately I don't feel this novella did either.

The premise is compelling-an exclusive Dining Club that offers a series of sexual challenges, and if you pass a challenge, you move on to the next level. If you fail, you are out of the club and can never return. For Grace, this means her 6 month relationship with David will be over, and they will part ways as friends instead of lovers.  David is hoping that Grace is up to the task so they can take their relationship to the next level.

The problem in reading this novella stems from character development- Grace is impatient, a little selfish, and downright bitchy. David seems good-natured and laid back, until you see him in his real environment of comfort, the Dining Club, then the alpha-hole comes out. I was so confused, for a few pages I thought it was a different character. The reader will not connect to characters they don't care about, and that's what happened to me here. Hopefully the next chapters in this saga will be more developed and engaging to the reader.

What Are You Watching This Fall?

I love to read, as we all know, but I also have some television shows that I am excited about this fall, and they will definitely be competing for my time!

TV Guide has a handy Fall TV Guide that I have been scouring over, as well as checking the interwebs in general for updates on new and returning shows.

I have a few categories when it comes to TV (Jensen, take it away):

1. Shows I watch the night of

2. Shows I watch the next day

3. Shows I'll catch on the weekend

4. Shows everyone else watches, but I don't

5. Shows I know I should watch, but I probably won't until it gets canceled

Here are the shows I am excited about this fall, and fall into Category 1:

Almost Human

Arrow - October 9

Lost Girl-November 10 (in Canada, TBD on SyFy, but I'm hoping not too far behind that...)

Marvel's Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D- September 24

The Mindy Project- September 17

Scandal- October 3

Sleepy Hollow- September 16

The Vampire Diaries- October 3

The Walking Dead- October 13

I also have some exciting news- I will be doing Scandal recaps at Heroes and Heartbreakers! I'm slated to blog about every other week there, but don't worry, on my off weeks you will still get a recap here as well. Also on that recap list for my blog is Sleepy Hollow (if it lives up to my expectations.)

So, what are you watching?