Book Review: Marked in Flesh

Title: Marked in Flesh
Author: Anne Bishop
Publishing Date: 2016
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: B-
Sensuality: N/A
Book Disclosure: Rented from the library.

Marked in Flesh is the fourth book in Anne Bishop's The Others series.  When I read the first book in the series Written in Red, I was blown away.  I loved the world Bishop had created and the main character Meg's childlike innocence in dealing with the dangerous world she lived in was fascinating to read.  These books really ought to be read in order as they build off of one another. 

Marked in Flesh is about humans, and more specifically humans who belong to the Humans First and Last (HFL) movement putting in motion a series of events to wipe out the Others and take control of the earth.  (Right.  You puny and petty humans.  As if!)  Now, not all of the humans feel this way.  However, if they are not with the HFL they are branded "wolf lovers" and ostracized from human cities and establishments.  HFL goes so far as to attack the "wolf lovers" not only damaging their businesses but trying to murder them, as well. 

Meg is a cassandra sangue, which is a blood prophet.  She is human, but her blood is not considered edible by vampires or shifters.  She is considered "not meat" from the others.  She has visions about the terrible acts the HFL is going to bring against the Others.  In this book, Meg doubts that what she is seeing is true or how to prevent the HFL from carrying out their attack.

Meg's relationship with Simon is starting to change from one of friendship to taking it to the next step, except neither is sure of how to do that without offending the other.  You know how I love my romance and I am getting frustrated with these two tippy-toeing around the issue!!  Get on with it already, LOL!!  So that is driving me crazy.  It is one of the reasons I didn't rate this book higher. 

The other reason is that there were so many different characters in the book.  A lot of them had very similar names.  For example, I kept getting Joe and Jackson mixed up and they were both living in different towns.  I was getting confused.  I managed to muddle through it, but it detracted from my enjoyment of the story.  The other question I have, is where the author is going with this series.   I am not sure of the big picture, or what the endpoint would be for this series.

Travel Adventures: IAFP St. Louis

Every year I attend the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) Conference.  This meeting is the best meeting for food safety professionals.  I always walk away from this conference learning so much about the latest scientific findings concerning all things food safety.  Usually, the FDA attends to give updates on the latest rules and regulations.  My favorite workshops deal with recent outbreaks and the investigation into finding the cause.  This year there was a great workshop on the cucumber/Salmonella outbreak that occurred across the US this year.

My dear husband (DH) usually attends this conference with me.  Usually, it is in a different location throughout the US and DH has a goal to visit all 50 states.  Last year it was in Portland, so he got to knock Oregon off his list.  This year it was in St. Louis, Missouri.

I can tell you that this trip did not start off well, especially with the fact that my last trip involved the dubious "Southwest Debacle".  We flew out of Tampa on American Airlines and had a layover in Dallas.  We get to Dallas, eat lunch and are informed that our connecting flight to St. Louis is delayed - not by too much, only an hour.  Long story short, the plane scheduled for our flight was undergoing some maintenance.  We didn't board the plane until about 6:00, which means we didn't arrive in St. Louis until about 8:30.

American Airlines gave everybody on the flight a $12.00 voucher to use at any of the vendors in the airport - but it was only good for that day.  I spent our vouchers at Garrett Popcorn.  If you haven't ever tried this popcorn, you are missing out.  Get the Garrett mix, which is caramel and cheese popcorn mixed together.  Yum!  I also was given a glass of wine on the plane for free.  I had my credit card out to pay, but the flight attendant told me it was the least she could do because of the delay (Sweet!). We also received an email the next day apologizing for the delay and credited us with 5,000 bonus miles for our frequent flyer program.  I'll give AA props for trying to make up for the delay. 

When we arrived at the airport,  it was completely deserted and all the shops were barred up and closed off.  This arrival really set the tone for the rest of our trip.  We caught a cab out of the airport and headed downtown.  (We tried to use Uber, but only the black car option was available).  We were staying at the Marriott Grand Downtown, right across from the convention center.  It's Saturday night, downtown at about 9:00, and the place is a ghost town.  No people are walking around, hardly any bars or restaurants are open.  Very spooky!  We are exhausted anyway from a day of doing nothing really, but waiting around and decide to go to bed.

Sunday was better.  We got to experience ribs at Pappy's Smokehouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  If I have to describe the only thing worth going to St. Louis for, it would be Pappy's.  Seriously.  The ribs are fall-off-the-bone delicious and meaty as all get out.  This place opened up at 11:00 AM on a Sunday.  We got there at 11:15 and the line was already through the restaurant.  It wasn't quite out the door yet, but close.  They have a really good system, so you go through the line pretty quickly and even though you think you won't get a table, you will.

DH so happy about Pappys BBQ!

We took a trolley ride around St. Louis, which showed us some of the popular sights for tourists.  Much of the trolley ride focused on Forest Park, which is where their zoo, art and history museum are located; all of which have free admission. We didn't have time to do that and I would have loved to go to the history museum because they were having a Little Black Dress exhibit I would have loved to see.  It featured black dresses from several time periods.  Ugh!  So up my alley!

The rest of my trip was spent at the conference.  Monday and Tuesday were full days of food safety workshops.  DH was on his own to explore the city.  I will share with you his opinion of this city in his own words. 

"I just realized it's not an arch.  It's a big fucking frown."

Needless to say, DH was not a big fan of St. Louis.  He rated the city a D+, saying he would have rated it an F if it wasn't for Pappy's and the Busch Stadium tour, which is where the Cardinals play.

I can tell you, I was more indifferent than he was.  But looking back, yes the downtown was devoid of shops and restaurants and there were not many people aside from those of us who came for the conference.  It was strange.  It is definitely not a place I am dying to get back to visit again any time soon.

I just realized as rereading this post, I really hope I don't offend anyone from St. Louis!!

Book Club Review - Memory Man

Title: Memory Man
Author: David Baldacci
Publishing Date: 2015
Genre: General Fiction/Suspense
Rating: A-
Sensuality: N/A
Book Disclosure: July Book Club book, Candy's choice.  Rented from the library.

Memory Man is the first book in the Amos Decker series.  I believe the second book has been released.  I believe this is the first time I have read David Baldacci.  I know. I know.  He is a big powerhouse in the fiction world.  How am I just now reading him?!?!  He happens to be a favorite of a few ladies in my book club.  FYI, I plan to do a separate post on my book club so that you can get to know those ladies.

Back to Memory Man.  Amos Decker is a very unique character.  He was a professional football player and he took a very bad hit on the field.  So bad in fact, that the had to be resuscitated twice by the medical staff.  He survived, but his brain had been altered by the hit.  He is now able to have perfect recall of anything that happens to him.  If he reads a story, he can recall every detail.  Fast forward to present day and Decker is a mess.  He was a detective on the police force whose world shattered when his wife and only child were brutally murdered.  It has been 18 months since their death and no suspects were found.  Out of the blue, a man walks into the police station and confesses to their murder.  Decker doesn't have any recollection of the man but thinks he might be connected to the real killer.

I very much enjoyed Memory Man.  What makes the story so great is the main character, Amos Decker.  He is such an unusual character.  Not just the fact that he can never forget anything, but that he is completely likeable.  He is very humble.  He is big and fat.  He feels like he lost all of himself, first with the football accident and then secondly when he lost his family.  Even thought the mystery takes front and center in the story, really it is also a story about self discovery. 

Amos isn't the only well drawn character.  From his former partner, the chain smoking woman who also has a daughter with down syndrome, to the actual killer - wow totally did not see that one coming, the cast is truly rich and well developed.

Never saw who the murderer was at all.  The mystery was laid out brilliantly and kept me guessing the whole time.

I would say the only negative that I found with the book, was that the author kept explaining Amos's brain condition, as if something like that is difficult to grasp.  Um no, got it after the first time you explained it.  However, the author kind of kept going on and on and on about it. 

This review reflects many of the my own thoughts as well as those of the ladies in the book club.  There were 7 of us there, out of 10, and all of us there liked the story.

Travel Adventures: Minneapolis & the Southwest Debacle

I had a work meeting in Minneapolis last week.  I wrapped up IFT in Chicago and then flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.  For my job I am part of a working group that approves content for the GAP Harmonization Standards.  Boy that's a mouthful!  GAP stands for Good Agricultural Practices.  Basically, it is the set of standards that when applied correctly reduce contamination of pathogenic bacteria from getting on your fruits and vegetables which you might consume raw.

Recently, new laws were released from FDA regarding farm food safety.  We are meeting to make sure that our GAP Harmonization audit meets with FDA requirements.  The meeting was held at the Target Headquarters in downtown Minneapolis.  It was such a cool building.  You could tell that it was a good working environment.  They had a lot of really cool lounging areas set up in the building with comfortable furniture arranged in small groups so that people could come and relax or have smaller, intimate meetings.

This was a huge mural on one wall at the Target HQ

The meeting ended a little after 3:00 and we were able to accomplish all objectives that day.  It was really cool to work with so many different experts from the industry.  There are times with not everyone agrees, but everybody is very respectful of the different opinions.  Its a great group.

Me and a few fellow colleagues were not flying out until tomorrow.  We decided to all go together to dinner together.  Reggie is a foodie, so he picked the restaurant and took care of the reservation.  We ended up going to Eat Street Social.  Can I just say yum!  The menu was small, but all of the dishes looked very well thought out.  I ended up choosing the duck breast with fig risotto and roasted Brussels sprouts.  OMG!! This was delicious.  Have you ever had duck?  It is a fatty meat, but when cooked right it just melts in your mouth.  This dish also I think had the skin on it, which was very crispy.  The texture and taste reminded me of bacon in a way.  It had a bit of crisp but was so tender to almost melt in your mouth.  Heavenly!

Eat Street Social, Duck Breast w/ Fig Risotto

 

 

 

So now I get to the sucky part of my trip.  My flight out tomorrow was through Southwest Airlines.  If you have ever flown Southwest you know that you board the plane in the order you check in online.  I always set an alarm to go off so that I can check in at exactly 24hrs (this is the earliest you can do it).  When I went to go check in there was something wrong with the Southwest website.  Fast forward two hours later, the website was finally back up and I had my line assignment.  I was in the B boarding group, so not too bad.  However, in the back of my mind I was worried about my flight being delayed because I was hearing of flights being cancelled.

The following day, I had a teleconference meeting in the morning and was scheduled to fly out at 4:00 in the afternoon.  I had some time to kill so my trip to Minneapolis would not be complete if I didn't go to the Mall of America, the largest mall in the US!  I had lunch in the mall and walked around.  It's three stories high and is adjacent to hotels.  In the middle of the mall there is a Nickelodeon amusement park.  It's kind of crazy to see roller coasters in the middle of a shopping mall.

Mall of America

I headed to the airport to find out that my flight had indeed been delayed.  But only by 30 minutes.  Not too bad.  However, once the plane arrived, they made an announcement that while our plane was there, no crew had been assigned to it.  What???  How do you have a plane but no pilot?  So they told us to sit tight and they would work on getting a crew assigned to our flight.  Long story short, our flight was cancelled as were several other Southwest flights at the airport.  Each gate counter had a line of at least 20 people standing in it.  The other bad part, is that if you were looking to reschedule through Southwest you would not be able to get another flight out of the city until at least Saturday, possibly Sunday (this was Thursday).  I think not!

I got on my phone and quickly booked the next flight out through American Airlines.  I wouldn't be leaving until the next morning, but hey I would be getting home before the weekend!  It also cost me double for flying out of AA rather than on SW, and I now had to get a hotel room, which were booking up fast.  I actually ended back at the Mall of America at the Marriott there.  The Mall is pretty close to the airport.

To get refunded, I was instructed to call their 1-800 number and give them my confirmation code.  When I did this the attendant on the phone could not find a record of my confirmation number.  It took about an hour for him to get help only to tell me that I was going to have to send an email through the website in order to get things straightened out. *Sigh*

I sent my email explaining my situation.  I received a very prescribed email back telling me that I would receive a full refund plus a $200 voucher to use on my next Southwest flight.  I have to say, I am not really sure I want to go on another SW flight.  Right now, their customer service is in the crapper!   I was just travelling by myself.  Had I been with my family, I doubt I could have afforded to book a ticket on another airline.  Have any of you been effected by flight cancellations?  If so, how did you muddle through it?

Review - A SEAL's Pleasure

Title: A SEAL's Pleasure
Author: Tawny Weber
Publishing Date: 2015
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: B-
Sensuality: Hot
Book Disclosure: I received this book in a goodie bag at the RT book convention 2016.

A SEAL's Pleasure is book number eight in the Uniformly Hot SEALS series.  Ugh!  I have not been reading this series in order.  I read A SEAL's Touch (book 10) first and really enjoyed it.  Then I tried this one next because I already had it.  But eh, this was probably a mistake.  Because this book took place around another SEAL couple's wedding, of which the hero, Gabriel is the Best Man and the heroine,  Tessa is the Maid of Honor.  I went and did my research and the couple getting married is featured in A SEAL's Secret (book 7). 

Gabriel is Mr. Hottie.  As a SEAL, he always wins in everything he sets out to do.  His MO is to be with the ladies and leave them satisfied, but not with attachments.  "Love them and set them free" is his motto.  But then he runs into Tessa and for the first time he is interested in romantic entanglements.  Surprise, surprise, Tessa knows right away upon meeting Gabriel that he spells trouble.  She has no room in her life for romantic relationships and she figures her best approach would be a wham, bam, get him out of my system approach.  Needless to say, these two have some issue to work out!!

Let me say I really like Tawny Weber's writing style.  She has fast moving storylines with relatable characters.  She can easily draw you into a story.  While I enjoyed this story, there were a few things that bugged me.  Mostly, I really felt that there was a lot more to this story that could have been expanded upon.  I was very interested in some of the external struggles that were happening with Gabriel and his teammates and also with Tessa and her company.  These definitely could have been explored more in the storyline.  Instead it felt like the story centered over Gabriel and Tessa's relationship reluctance a little too much.  Also, it seemed as though the couple wasn't together a lot of the book. 

I enjoy Ms. Weber's writing and need to start at the beginning of this series!

Ipsy: July Glam Bag

 

Have you heard of Ipsy?  My friend Lilly introduced me to Ipsy last month.  This is where you can subscribe to receive a different handful of cosmetics in the mail each month.  There are other skin care/cosmetic subscriptions out their but I chose Ipsy.  I just love this concept because it is a chance to try out different products.  The subscription only costs $10 a month, which I think is a steal because most bags are worth $40 to $50 worth of product.  If you pay for a year in advance you get a month free.

When you subscribe, you are given the opportunity to set up your preferences.  You fill out a questionnaire that creates your profile and preferences and it will dictate the type of samples that fill your bag.  For example, you are asked what skin tone, eye and hair coloring you have to match the cosmetics to your coloring.  It will also ask your style preferences, such as if you go more dramatic, or natural with your make-up.  You can select the areas you are more interested in, such as wrinkles vs. acne, etc.  This helps to gear your samples to match your tastes. 

I got my first Ipsy glam bag in the mail this month.  The cool thing when you get your bag, is you can go to the website and they will instruct you on how to use these products.  I was clueless on how to use the mini highlight stick.  I hadn't ever used a product like this before.  On the website, it gave you a description of where to apply it.  For the eyeshadow, they actually had a video you could watch to wear for a day or night look.  Also, on the website, you can review the products.

The products I received where:

1.  theBalm Cosmetics: Meet Matt(e) Trimony Eyeshadow in Matt Moskowitz
*I received the dark plum eye shadow.  It holds up well throughout the day and goes on easily.  It applies with a buildable application.*

2.  Organic Surge Daily Care Reviving Eye Gel
*I really like how this product feels when you apply it to the skin.  It is very lightweight and leaves the skin feeling cool and refreshed.  So far so good, I haven't experienced any negative side affects.*

3.  tre'StiQue Mini Highlight Stick in Maldives Luminescent
*This product I was a little clueless on how to apply.  The website has a facial diagram on how to apply.  I have used it a couple of times.  I didn't really notice any differences with me using this as opposed to not.  So it is very subtle.  If not for in my bag I probably wouldn't use a product like this.  It applies easily, but I didn't think it made a big impact.*

4.  ModelCo POWERLASH Black Mascara
*I like this mascara.  The wand applies the product in a very light coat that goes on smooth and not clumpy.  Also the formula holds up really nicely in the hot humid Florida summer.  At the end of the day, I was smudge free under my eyes.  It is buildable, so multiple coats apply nicely and still leave the lashes clump free.*

5.  Luxie Beauty Luxie Rose Gold Small Angle Eye Brush 215
* I did not receive this in my bag.  I didn't realize it until I went on the website and saw I was supposed to receive it.  I put in an email to the website and they responded very quickly and will be sending me a replacement, no questions asked.  Very nice customer service!*

Have you tried a make-up subscription like Ipsy?  If so, let me know which one and what you got in your kit this month.  If not, would this be something you would try?

 

 

Review - Break Away

Title: Break Away
Author: Lisa B. Kamps
Publishing Date: 2015
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: C+
Sensuality: Hot
Book Disclosure: I received this book in a goodie bag at the RT book convention 2016.

Break Away is the fifth book in the Baltimore Banners series.  The Baltimore Banners are a hockey team.  This is the first book I have read by this author and I just jumped right in this series with the fifth book.  Break Away is a story about a couple who went through a tragic event five years earlier and their relationship fell apart.  Emily Poole runs into her old flame, JP Larocque at her niece's hockey game.  JP after seeing Emily all this time wants to rekindle their relationship, but Emily wants nothing more than to forget their painful past.

I struggled with this book a little.  The story is hyper focused on what happened between JP and Emily five years before.  The tragic event shapes the whole storyline and ultimately overshadows everything else.  For example, the author never really goes into JP's past, like his family history.  It would have been nice to understand how JP became a hockey player, is his family still in France, does he have any brothers and sisters, etc.  You get the picture.  We know a little bit more about Emily, but again everything centers around how her life changed after the big tragic event. 

The story starts out a little slowly and about half way through, I was getting more into the story.  I liked Emily and JP's personalities, that of which I knew about them.  At first Emily was a little off putting to me because she kept pushing JP away so much, but then she really started to change as a character.  She decides to stop living in the past and to move forward with her life.  I really started to enjoy the book when she comes to that realization.

I don't know if it would have made a difference to read the other books in the series first.  I am not sure if I would have gotten more back story on JP and Emily in the other books.  For me this was an okay read.