My Bingo Blog

Folks. I did it. I blacked out my Bingo board.

The scariest part for me was the book rainbow. Most of my books are white and black it seems! Or ....dare I upset a lot of you??...ebooks. GASP. I have waaaay too many ebooks. But I managed to pull off all the colors without touching Baby Girl's books. So Proud. In fact. We will do that first. Please indulge me and say "oooo fascinating!" Thank you :)

Back to my Bingo Board...
Going straight across.

• The first book I read was Valor (review pending over at Sunrise Avenue). 
• You can find 2 of my challenge posts here and a separate post here.
• I tweeted @_RaTCentral_  probably too often :)
• Here is the tweet about what I was reading: "Trying my hand reading Dorothea Benton Frank. Folly Beach inrl is beautiful!! #summerlovin13" (ps I am @am_zech)

Next Row:

• I did all the participation posts! My fave is probably Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On because I got to announce my new blog and I enjoyed the book title scramble!
• I was following Greased Lighting on Twitter all day! I even won a prize! "And....the #SL6 trivia WINNER is......Alyssa @am_zech!!! Congratulations and check your DM for info. #SL24 #SummerLovin13"" SO HAPPY!
• Here are all the authors interviewed through the week. The links lead to the interviews: KA Tucker, Jennifer S. Doktorski, Sarah Fine, S.T. Bende, Jessica Gunhammer, Ardash Vartparonian, and Karla Nellenbach.
• I follow Read-a-thon Central on both Twitter and Facebook!
• And I read PLENTY of blogs this week!! New book blogs and old faves in my Feedly.

NEXT!

• Eat something sweet? Duh. It's me.
• A picture of something I love: 
  
  Chocolate via my instagram (@amzech18)
• I shared a favorite author with Read-a-thon Central on Facebook:

For the Bingo!!::I haven't been huge on following certain authors, but I do have 1 that I've been a fan of since 8th grade: Terry Brooks. I love his epic fantasy world and can't get enough!!

• Picture of the book I am reading..and my coffee...and Greased Lightening :)

via Instagram

MOVING ON:

Of course I checked out all the host blogs! Multiple times! I read all the author interviews and I really enjoyed reading their take on the participation posts. 

LASTLY:

• Read another book! "Okay!" I says. I accidentally read The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back in one day!!
• Do something outside:

 

I was outside reading and walking with Baby Girl a lot this week. Sorry its sideways :((

• And last but not least-a picture of my fave snack while reading. Lately. Trying to stay away from the aforementioned chocolate. 
  

I did it!! I BINGO BLACKED OUT!! 

And, even more amazing......I made it through this post! WHEW!

Night ya'll!

Hound Dog

This is going to be a fun blog link up! Reading everyone's 'bad boy' character will be quite interesting :)

I wasn't quite sure who to pick so I went back to the beginning, my beginning:: Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat is one of the sexy vampires of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. And well, honestly? I fell in love with him from the Queen of the Damned  movie. We watched it once a week in high school. No. I am not exaggerating. 

While Lestat was something marvelous, they didn't call him the "Brat Prince" for nothing. He did, however, lead me to what I remember as my first 'bad boy' crush: Jean-Claude from the Anita Blake Chronicles. 

Pause for deliciousness. 

Vampire. Master of the City of St. Louis. 400-600 years old. Owner of several nightclubs and strip clubs. He is powerful and strong and deliciously beautiful. 

I fell in love with Anita Blake and her boys almost instantly. Anita is a vampire hunter and also a necromancer. She is well versed in guns and hand to hand combat, an excellent strong female character. Jean Claude is part of her triumvirate, and on numerous occasions, her lover.

Jean-Claude while sincere in his interest in Anita, is manipulative and ruthless, always trying to gain status and power in the vampire world, the extreme bad boy of the fantasy world. 

As much as Jean Claude was completely irresistible, the series unfortunately was not. The books grew widely inappropriate (Jean-Claude is an incubus after all) and so I had to quit reading after book four or five. 

Have you read the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series? Team Jean-Claude or Team Richard??

***Challenge Post: Summer Flings
Here would be my summer fling:
 Damon Salvatore

OR put together...
 The Salvatore Brothers

OR Let's Be REAL...


For my your viewing pleasure!

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!

Hello All!!

First, a bit of fantastic news: I have my new blog up and running!!!

Sunrise Avenue is my new home for blogging about books, life, and let's face it: Doctor Who! I have copied all the Summer Lovin' posts over to that site, but will finish out the challenge here as well for continuity. Eventually I will delete them from here to keep the sites orderly. I am really excited about it and hope you go check it out (work in progress remember!). Feel free to give me pointers about what you like and don't like so I can keep working hard! Click to visit the Welcome page.

Today's participation post is simply to update the masses on our progress! I am proud to report some good success! First, a review of my goals

1. Read and complete Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank

2. Read and complete an ebook

3. Participate in the daily blog link ups

4. Follow at least 2 new book bloggers

Goals 2, 3, and 4 have been accomplished! I meant to read more of Folly Beach yesterday, but it was busy and I was sick, so instead I laid in bed and started and finished another ebook, The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back. Goal one then is up in the air whether it will be finished then or not. 

CHALLENGE POST

COVER TITLE SCRAMBLE from Love. Life. Read.

Guidelines

• Pick 5 from each month and unscramble them. Each grouping of letters is one word (the words are kept in order)
• Put the answers in your blog post
• Link it up!!

.....I should be good at this one.............said the liar.

May Titles:

1) hte   h5t   vewa The 5th Wave
2) eht   scetrsahnen
3) ginwre
4) sujt   neo   skis Just One Kiss
5) yan   shduesc  lwil   od Any Duchess will do
6) ti   dha   ot   eb   uyo It had to be you
7) tols  dan   dfnuo Lost and Found
8) het   yelbon  gnki The Boelyn King
9) neoc  noup   a   niprec Once upon a Prince

June Titles:

1) het   nomo   dan  remo  The Moon and More

2) ormts  dna  egies Storm and Siege

3) rtas    dsceur  Star Cursed

4) teswe  lsat   ira  Sweet Last Air

5) het   crenwmeo 
6) veorfre   oto   rfa Forever too Far
7) het  miatng   fo  deyrr  uanacvhga .....I was pretty sure it started "The mating.." Wrong!

8) wot  fo  a  dnki Two of a Kind

9)  neo   etswe  deri 
10) hwta  hte   kedu   sesdeir What the Duke Desires

11) kifagn   ti 

July Titles:

1) fi   het  ohes   tisf   If the shoe fits
2) eth   eegd   fo  vnere 
3) rfits  gisht   a   veonl  
4) utre   lvoe  True Love
5) ehtre   tletil   rdswo  Three Little Words
6) eht   gniht  si  velia The Night is Alive
7) feprcte  gifln  Perfect Fling
8) scoseh  hte   gronw   ugy   veag   imh  het  gwonr  gefrni       
9) meoh  ot   kewihsy   kecre Home to Whiskey Creek

August Titles:

1) lafl   fo   veif  Fall of Five

2) wrnco    fo    gdminhit Crown of Midnight

3) hte   desah  fo  het   onom 

4) sero  bahrro   ni  mlobo
5) eht   rohe The Hero
6) gib   ysk diwengd Big Sky Wedding 

7) yatacasw  veoc  a  ltehrse  yab   venlo 

8)  siht   rilg   a   veonl  This Girl a Novel

9) mtetapinto Temptation

WHEW! Barely made it :) For loving to read, I am HORRIBLE at word games. Lucky there were enough easy ones for me to do each month! How did you do??

Happy Independence Day!!

Feel free to copy and save, hang on wall, and enjoy!!

Tears on my Pillow

Greetings Amigos!

Day Four of the Summer Lovin' Read-a-thon and I have been having a fantastic time!

Today we share a quote from our current read or tell us about a book that really pulled on your heart strings. I recently added the Life Changer shelf to my Goodreads page, which includes six spectacular books that have caused me to stop and question my beliefs and/or my life in general.

One book I am currently reading with the blog Good Morning Girls is called Anything by Jennie Allen.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Safe. Comfortable. Happy. Words we all love. Feelings we want. Even crave. We may love God, but being that he's invisible, words like "comfortable" seem to feel better faster. We are all chasing something. Our hearts were made to run hard and fast after things that move us. But as a generation we are all beginning to stir and wake up, identifying that these words don't satisfy for long, especially when compared to God. If God is real, and we are going to live with Him forever, shouldn't He be everything?
Caught in this familiar haze of worldly happiness and empty pursuits, Jennie Allen and her husband Zac prayed a courageous prayer of abandonment that took them on an adventure God had written for them.
"God, we will do anything.''

It is a book that is shaking live throughout the GMG community. And if you are looking for a book to challenge your beliefs, pick this one up!! Here are a few random quotes that I have underlined in my copy:

"It's not just those in prison who are far from God; often it's those of us sitting in the pews, deciding where to go to lunch after this guy finishes talking about a God we barely need" (pg 24)

"I did wonder sometimes, when I closed my eyes and let it get scary quiet, if I was missing the best things, the things that matter most, because I was afraid." (pg 39)

"I believe that being willing to abandon everything requires being willing to go anywhere--and willing to let go of everything. ... If anything has 'buts', it wouldn't be anything." (pg 57)

and last one :))

"..we are actually looking for ourselves to matter. So we keep so busy, so distracted, so in love with everything but our invisible, patient, jealous God." (pg 70).

What books changed your life??

No affiliate links. All book links lead to goodreads.com.