Intercrossed

Intercrossed by Milly Ly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There were a lot of elements to enjoy about this book. I loved the characters and Milly has definitely mastered a lot in terms of dialogue. She was able to convey a lot with the dialogue.
Unfortunately this led to my main complaint about the book. Other than the dialogue, there are quick snippets to let the reader know the timing of events and that things have happened. There were a lot of unanswered questions for me.

This book feels like it is a really amazing start to something, that is just not quite finished yet. I love this creation of the world and that characters are great, but I want more depth to the world, more background information, more descriptions of locations and a better grasp of the timeline of events, because the dialogue of the story had it feeling very unrealistic in the romance of the book. I'd love to have this added in, and to have the ending action not feel quite so rushed, and have a bit more development as it was the start of a good action scene. I do enjoy the world that has been created and would like to continue along with the characters.

Overall I have to leave it with a 3 star in it's current state.

**I received a copy of this book from  For Love of a Book

View all my reviews

The Legend of the Werewolf

I received this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Legend of the Werewolf is written by Mandy Rosko and is Book 2 in the Things in the Night Series.  Having never read the first book, I can vouch for the fact that it works just fine as a standalone novel.  The beginning of the book gives a little bit of background on the main character, Mike Carter, who is a psychic detective.  I can only assume that the first book goes more in depth into how he got to where he is now, and there is reference to a city “that doesn’t exist” that must be the basis for the initial novel.  

Mandy has written a unique and memorable story in The Legend of the Werewolf.  The events and characters are unique.  She does a great job bringing the characters to live and getting to know them is quite enjoyable.  The story is based in a modern type era, with fantastical creatures and events.

Unfortunately a lot is lost amidst the mass amount of typos that seem to be endless.  There are grammar errors, misspellings and missing words.  It is quite distracting and really detracts from the wonderful story that is going on.  Not only are there typos, but there are also 2 glaring mistakes in the sequence of events.  The first being the event with the car lights; they are desperately trying to start up the cars to turn on lights, but automobiles don’t need to have keys in the ignition for lights to come on.  Later on when the action is over they talk about turning off the lights so the batteries in the cars don’t die, but if the cars are running, than the battery won’t die because of the lights.  The second event was towards the end of the book when they talk about needing to come back to destroy a castle, and then later there is talk about how the castle was already destroyed, but given the sequence of events this is impossible.  All of these things lend to discredit for the author.  Never having read any of Mandy’s other books, I cannot attest to whether this is a unique event or not.  I also find this lack of editing quite disdainful due to the fact that I was reading from a paperback novel. 

 

I want to reiterate that Mandy did a really great job writing an interesting story with great events and bringing her characters to life, given all of the bad edits I would have given this book only 2 stars, but because the story is so great, I rest on 3 stars.   With a better scrub and edit this book would easily be a 4 or 5 star story.  I hope that it is cleaned up in the future before any more versions are released, and barring these typos as the norm, I would love to read more of Mandy’s books in the future, as she really is a great story-teller.  If you are into Fantasy, Paranormal, Fiction, Romance, Mystery, and modern-themed stories, this book is for you. 

Mommy's Best Friend: The Mind of a Toddler

This month was all about best friends and inanimate object friends.  I love to track some of the crazy things that Liam (my 3 year old toddler boy) does and says for the hilarity of revisiting it in the future.  What kind of crazy things do you kids do and say?  Comment below.  Enjoy!


Liam found a pink hair tie which he has appropriately named Pink.
Pink was taking a nap and now Liam is showing Pink around the house. During Pink's nap time, everyone had to be quiet including the dog. Pink is afraid of loud noises and the dog apparently... Liam is also quite distraught when he hides Pink and can't remember where she is and starts frantically looking and shouting "Pink, where are you?"
Why do we buy kids toys again? 

Liam was playing with his interactive monkey toy and he would try to sit her up and she would fall, he would pick her up hug her, kiss her head and say "I'm sorry." 
Then the process would start all over again haha, what a sweet boy I have.


Out of nowhere Liam just started giving me double thumbs up...
Now he is saying "Thumbs up means it's time to eat..."
Grandpa Bubba would be proud... and probably instigated this...

I am no longer allowed to tell Liam good job for anything without a double thumbs up...  
If I forget I get a long lecture about how I am doing it wrong haha. 

Liam told me that Aubrey isn't his best friend anymore (they have been friends for a year and a half at daycare).  
I asked him why not he told me: "You are my best friend mom"
*Gushing with love*

Liam just said "I want the daddy'
I hesitantly asked "You want the daddy?"
He said "Yeah you are the daddy"
Unsure where this was going I just said "Yes that is true"
He just grinned and went on his way.
And that was the end of that conversation for now....

It has begun, my son is already trying to mooch his way to a taste of my alcohol.
I have a glass of wine out while I am working on homework and he was out of bed and came over and hugged me and told me he loved me and then he was sniffing my wine glass.
I asked him "Are you just trying to use me to taste my wine?"
He answered "No mom, I don't want to whine, I am not crying."
Gotta love the English language haha.

 Liam keeps telling me that grandma is coming and he's not sleeping because of it.... considering that this is about 25 days away I keep coming up with ways to try to equate to him just how long that is. Today I told him how many Show and tell days away that was since he counts down to show and tell every week.
His response was angerly "No show and tell I want grandma"
If the standing at the door whining for grandma doesn't stop soon I can't take 25 days of this, I may have to tell him she changed her mind haha. How can you equate that it's not soon to a toddler so that they will understand?

I told Liam he had to take a bath and start winding down for bedtime, his response was:
"I don't want it to be goodnight mom, wait until tomorrow."
If only sometimes we could push off sleep....

Liam and I just put together a new ABC puzzle and we were going through the letters and picture, we got to Y for Yarn and Liam says "Kitty Toy"
I said "well it can be, but it's also called Yarn"
Liam said "No mom, it's kitty toy."
I have no idea where he learned that since our cat has never played with yarn before haha, but technically he's not wrong...

Liam had my phone and all of a sudden I heard ringing.
I asked "Liam, who are you calling"
He said "I'm calling grandma."
He has set the phone on speaker to talk to her and then when she answered and I tried to talk to her he pushed me away saying
"No mom, I'm talking to grandma. You don't Talk." this came with a glare.
*I have lost control of my phone....
On another note I love how when Liam says bye on the phone, he also waves 

I won a flashlight with a book that I got in the mail and Liam is now using it to showcase his "spiderman" and "batman" fighting styles.... pantless....

You know you have perfected multi-tasking, when you can sing "If You're Happy And You Know It" while doing the actions, typing and looking up father's day recipes for a blog....
*Obviously Liam is not asleep yet haha

Liam just grabbed a bunch of grapes and shoved them into his mouth. Now he is rubbing his tummy singing "It's yummy yummy in my tummy.... my tummy..... it's yummy."


I think Liam may have watched Lion King too many times lately..
Twice now, I have caught him playing with his toys and saying "Somebody... anybody.... help."

Liam measured himself haha. He is 39in tall now. 9 more inches and he can ride on bigger rides

Liam is very excited about going to his first baseball game, I had him put pants back on and he asked
"Are we getting ready mom?"
I said "yes Liam"
He squealed "oh my goodness! Get my shoes mom"

Liam had my Kindle and read me all of the letters for the DDay book advertisement then we talked about what each word meant. Except that apparently triumph doesn't mean win it means H for hunter haha.

 Liam told me to "put the kitty away mom"

Liam keeps telling me that I am his best friend Life as a mommy is awesome

Liam put a long feathery cat toy in his pants and is walking around with a front "tail"  if he was older I would totally think that he was trying to be perverted haha
 

If you would like to check out previous editions of The Mind of Toddler click the links:

Character Antics: May 2014

The Exciting Why Stage: April 2014

Strange Bedtime Requests: March 2014

Timeouts Reign Supreme: February 2014

Random Toddler Moments: January 2014

Random Toddler Moments: December 2013

Taking Credit Where Credit is Due

Corcitura

I was given this book to read for free in exchange for an honest review.  

Corcitura is written by Melika Dannese Lux is a mythological, thriller, suspense, historical fiction novel.  It entertains the reader with a lot of new and in depth vampire mythological ideas, as well as a surrounding environment that you can imagine being in.

I feel like this book had a lot of great ideas.  I loved the vampire mythology and having the book told from the perspective of the “victim.”  It was also interesting to have nothing told blatantly about a vampire type until about a quarter of the way through the book.  With that being said I had a lot of problem really connecting with the story.  There are wonderful landscapes and buildings described, but it felt like the characters were lacking and that the events had a lot of holes.  

Given the longer length of the book it allowed for the characters to slowly come out over time, but there were many déjà vu moments, and I had a distinct problem with the scene in the first Part of the book where Eric was in the wax museum and it described him taking the necklace and then after an action filled romp he returned to the same wax figure and took the necklace again…  It felt like there were a lot of little sections of the book that would have ended up in a “movie errors reel” if this was a movie to show different things that didn’t add up. 

The biggest problem I had with this book was that there didn’t seem to be any backfill between some of the characters.  There would be a scene with something going on and then skip forward and be into another scene like walking into a room halfway through a conversation and never getting filled in on what was missed.  Reading this book was like watching a movie about a book but there were certain parts that had to be cut and so they were just left missing.  

Don't be discouraged, it was still quite an interesting story.  Lux did a lot of extensive historical research and mythological research in regards to different creatures of the night, with her main focus on vampires.  I enjoyed reading from the different perspective, but by the end of the book, I still felt like the relations between characters were lacking somewhat, and could have gone more in depth.  I still think it is worth a read, but I would love to see an edit of it with more character relationships expounded upon and brought more to life.  I wanted to feel more of the connection with Leonora; I wanted to feel more of the betrayal that Eric felt from other characters.  I wanted to feel the anger and the rage and the in depth emotions that were talked about, but not brought to life enough for me.  

Description of environment was superb; character ideas were great, but just give them more life and more depth and this would be a phenomenal book.  Given the way things stand right now I did enjoy the book, but it felt like some parts were missing, so I leave it at a 3 out of 5 stars and love this start to the story. 

The Mind of A Toddler: Character Antics

This past month has definitely been one of my son being best described as a "character."  He is always cracking me up with his crazy toddler antics.  Throughout the month I try to keep track of some of the silly happenings so that I can share it all at once.  Enjoy and feel free to share any of your hilarious toddler sayings or happenings. 

I had both my hands full carrying stuff and I coughed into my arm.
Liam lectured me saying "cover your mouth mom, cover your mom, ok?"
I just said "ok, thank you Liam"
Haha at least I know he is listening when I say it to him haha

 A fly just landed on Liam and he slapped himself to get it off and said "Ow!"
Then he yelled "Fly! No Ma'am!"
My life is awesome

 Liam says "mom, I want a sandwich with green."
I said "Ok, is that what you want for dinner?"
He pushes my leg and says "Go mom. Go in the kitchen now"
I feel like I live with a grown man some days....
He then got tickle attacked and had to re-ask nicely

Liam went through all of my Zumba games and told me which one I should do and then put it in the X-Box and said "There you go mom, Liam is a big help." He came and gave me a big hug and I thanked him and he pushed me away and said "Ok mom, time to watch fire truck on the computer." haha I think this was all a ploy.... He knows I work out when he watches fire trucks haha. 

Liam pulled a new one on me at bedtime. He told me that he needed the toilet because he was going to be sick. Knowing that he was full of it I said "No you don't"
He said pathetically "Yes mom, I'm going to be sick"
So I humored him and let him go into the bathroom where he fake coughed and spit into the toilet then giggled and ran back to bed.
Where do they come up with this stuff?
 

Uh oh... Liam is taking after mommy. I just found him sitting in his room by his nightlight reading a book... I can't even count the amount of time I spent by my nightlight playing card games up all night... So it begins...

 

With all of the thunder storms we had this month, Liam suddenly became "afraid" of thunder, which meant that he would come and lay on the couch with me with a huge grin on his face as he told me the noise was scary.

Whenever I catch Liam doing something hilarious or adorable I take a picture.  Later Liam tried to recreate whatever happened (reading, playing, etc) and then he tells me "get the camera and take a picture mom."

Liam just brought me a cheese slice and told me to slap him in the face with it... So of course I did it.
He giggled and said "ah cold" then grabbed the cheese and ran into the bathroom, and is currently slapping himself in the face with cheese while his giggles ring through the house...
Gotta love rainy days

*By the way he ran into the bathroom so that he could see himself slap his own face with the cheese in the mirror... in case that wasn't clear haha

 

 More Liam antics from today:
Liam sang Happy Birthday to his pizza.
He told his toys to "quit messin' around."
He hit the cat and then apologized to her

 

 After lunch I told Liam it was time for nap.
He yelled "no mom, I don't want to nap" and ran out of the room.
About 10 seconds later he came back and hugged me and said "Sorry mom, I love you. Time for nap". Then he proceeded to walk back to his room and lay on his bed. Haha. The joys of motherhood. 

 

Toddler boys are silly. For the past 10 minutes or so, Liam wanted nothing more than for me to throw a couch pillow at his face. He would then giggle with glee and say "do it again mom". Boys are weird haha

 

Naked hockey is a nightly occurrence.  Let me clarify...  Liam dries off after bath gets the hockey sticks and a ball and we play for 15 minutes or so before winding down for bed...  He will only put his jammies on after this...  And he is the only one that is naked....

 

Liam was throwing a toy up to the fan while I was checking into my group discussion and I caught him and said "Liam" in a stern voice.
He came over to me with a smirk on his face turned my head to the computer screen and said "Do your homework mom"
Needless to say he didn't do it again....
A short time later he got out plastic bead necklaces and was throwing them from the couch saying "Superman"
Life with a toddler is never dull.....

 

Liam is out of bed hugging me saying "Do your homework mom, I just want to hug you...."
How can you say no to that?

 

Liam got a fatlip on the playground at school.  As soon as we got home he dropped everything and immediately put a band aid on his lip and was checking it out and wanted me to take a picture haha. 

 

I have a strange child.... He keeps doing downward dog on the floor with his little brown naked butt in the air yelling Excitedly "get me get me". Wanting me to slap his butt..... (which he calls his body by the way haha).

 

My child now frequently says "Oh my goodness" (very extravagantly and drawn out, usually with a sense of awe or excitement).
"Good Lord Kiri, be quiet". (To the dog when she is freaking out about someone/something walking by).
"Want to share with me?" (Anytime I have something, usually food, that he wants.
"Goodness gracious" (in exasperation)
I guess it's a good thing that I have learned to sensor the majority of swearing around him, since he steals my phrases

 

I love when Liam tells me "Mom, my foot is tired..."
This means his foot has gone to sleep haha. I am going to start using this from now on.

After handing Liam the variety bag of snacks that I just put together for him this was his reaction:
"Oh my goodness. Oh Wow. Good job mom. Woah. High Five Mom. Look at my snack. Thank you thank you mom. I love you mom". Now he is dancing around and humming with his ziplock baggie full of snacks.
Mom snack level has officially reached epic proportions

Downside to previously mentioned amazing snacks: Getting woken up at 4am on a Saturday to a little person saying "Wake Up Mom, I need more snacks". Needless to say I gave up after 2 more hours of 15 to 20 minute snatches of sleep in between a new snack necessity request each time....

Earlier today Liam was asking me when we were going to go to the store or something to that effect and I said "10 Til"
I have NO idea what he thinks "10 Til" means, because now he keeps using it any chance he can get. He told me he has to go to bed because "10 Til" and then he told me when he wakes up in the morning he can "10 Til"
Earlier he even said "Mom, No, 10 Til"
Although all of these statements could theoretically be correct at some point, they just didn't seem to show his grasp on the meaning haha.

Now he keeps telling me "Mom I need 10 Til" I keep telling him that that is a time and he says yes and when I ask if he knows that is a time he seems to, so I have no idea

*I finally figured out that he thought I said show and tell for school but that took me over a week to figure out

Liam just walked into his playroom and said
"Oh my goodness gracious. This is a mess, time to clean it up Liam"
Then he started to clean... for a full 3 minutes before he got side tracked and started playing haha. Hey it's a start :)

I was just drifting off to sleep at nap time when I was awakened by Liam crying in his bathroom. So I jump up and go see what is going on. He is sitting on the toilet crying.... He forgot to put the seat up and pee is spraying everywhere..... I had to scrub down the shower curtain, mop the floor and wash all of the bathroom rugs.... needless to say that was the end of nap time....  Gotta love going potty when you are still half asleep

Liam has added "checking the green on my foot" to his bedtime ritual. This consists of taking the thermometer and running it over both feet until it beeps and shows green (meaning there is no fever). I have such a silly boy.

 

Liam just came up to me with a lighter and said
"Mom, I need fire."
Yep I have a boy haha

 

Here are some silly picture throughout the month:

 

 

Here are some videos to see my silly toddler in action

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 If you would like to check out previous editions of The Mind of Toddler click the links:

The Exciting Why Stage: April 2014

Strange Bedtime Requests: March 2014

Timeouts Reign Supreme: February 2014

Random Toddler Moments: January 2014

Random Toddler Moments: December 2013

Taking Credit Where Credit is Due