Tainted by Brooke Morgan

Title:  Tainted

Author:  Brooke Morgan

Paperback:  429 pages

Published:  2009

ISBN:  9780061853371

Challenges:  ARC Reading Challenge, New Author Challenge

… she worried whether Katy was normal and totally adjusted.  Did she laugh enough?  Was she too introspective?  To serious?

She’d obviously had fun digging the clams, so she was clearly capable of joy; she just didn’t jump up and down and let herself go wild very often.  Was that bad?…

How do you ever know as a mother?  There are landmines everywhere, waiting to blow up in your face.  Am I too strict?  Not strict enough?  Should I tell Henry, for example, that he really has to stop swearing in front of her or is that being overprotective and silly?  Will Katy be sitting in a shrink’soffice some day, blaming me fo everything wrong in her life?  Will she make the same mistakes I did?

–Tainted by Brook Morgan, pages 21-22

First off, I’d like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for inviting me to join the Tainted virtual book tour 🙂

Tainted by Brooke Morgan is about a young single mother, Holly Barrett, who has always been the wallflower and shy friend of the more gregarious Anna.  Holly got pregnant with Katy the first, and only, time she had sex and the father, Anna’s ex, ran as fast and far away as he could.  Two years after Katy’s birth, Holly’s parents died within days of each other, leaving Holly with a sense that the world is full of pain and she has virtually no control in it.  Henry, her 75-year-old grandfather, Anna, Katy and the Cape Cod house that had been her summer home growing up is her entire world.

Enter Jack Dane.  Tall, handsome and English, Jack is “faintworthy” and Holly is quickly swept away by his charm and he provides her with a sense of safety; he fast becomes a part of every aspect of her life.  He, too, has lost both of his parents.  By all appearances, Jack is Mr. Perfect.  But is he really this good? Or is he keeping dark and dangerous secrets?  Is he really Prince Charming? or a monster in disguise?

Tainted by Brooke Morgan is a slow cooker and an unassuming book.  I really like how Morgan has really captured the sensitivity and worries of the “dating” single mom, and that of worry-worry-worry that goes along with motherhood (sometimes I wonder if worry is the force that drives our engines as mothers!).  I also love Henry, Holly’s grandfather, who reminds me of a few grizzled souls whom I love dearly.  Not one to want to be called “Gramps” because it made him seem infantile and incapable, nor “Grandfather” because it made him seem ancient, he’s always went by just “Henry” but hasn’t lost the effect of his role as a grandparent by this choice. 

Confession time:  I haven’t finished this book yet, but I fell in love with it after the second or third chapter.  I’d have to say that Holly is my literary twin, and I can completely relate to her.  Jack is still Mr. Perfect where I’m at in the book but, to tell you the truth, he has a really Dexter-feel to him.  The dog didn’t like him, and I’m waiting for him to go on some murderous rampage.  Or bodies to turn up, at least.  He’s too nice, and people who are always nice are creepy and are hiding something.  It pulls me along and I hafta-HAFTA read the next page.. the next chapter… and before I know it, 50 pages have gone by.

Of course, since I haven’t finished it  yet, I’ll reserve rating it for now, but I’m definitely loving it 🙂

If you’d like to check out other reviews, here’s a list of fellow tour hosts:

I’m Booking It
All About {n}
Savvy Verse & Wit
Café of Dreams
Clever Girl Goes Blog
Dolce Bellezza
The Literate Housewife
Life in the Thumb
Bookworm With a View
Cozy Little House

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Off My Butt and Back to Work

Okay, so I’ve been a bit lazy of late.  I blame it all on LOST, truly.  It’s not all LOST’s fault, but I’m blaming all of it on the show anyway. 😀

Mags and I have been rewatching the past seasons, we’re about halfway through season 2 now, and it’s “brother” everything around here right now.  “Are you going to school, brother?  Don’t forget your backpack, brother.  Do you have Math Bowl after school, brother?  Or cheerleading, brother?”  Meh, she rolls her eyes at me and says, “Mom, stop it.”  but I know she loves it.  I know she laughs as soon as she leaves and is just too cool to give a chuckle in my presence.

We’re also almost done with Stargate SG-1, and working our way through Atlantis as they were televised concurrently.  LOST and Stargate, it’s all their fault.  Seriously, though, I’m loving Stargate Atlantis so much more than SG-1 right now for two reasons: 1) The Ori really suck as bad guys, honestly.  The Goa’uld were such better baddies… not to mention beatable.  I just don’t see us kicking much Ori butt and it’s a bit depressing. and Atlantis have Wraiths to fight (and now we’re getting the Pegasus Galaxy’s version of the Replicators… meh).  Wraiths are creepy/cool/bad/ugly-but-beautiful aliens who suck the life from their victims with “mouths” in their palms.  The SECOND reason that Atlantis is better than SG-1 (at least the last two or three seasons of the show) is:

Ronan Dex

OMG… Faint!  He’s soo HAWT!  He’s played by Jason Momoa, who’s okay, but I totally have a character crush.  He fiercely guards his friends (even McKay, lol), loves deep, and has honor and integrity I wish could be found in more people.  AGAIN… lol… Maggie rolls her eyes a LOT when we watch Atlantis.  She really hates it when I lick the TV screen.

*Sigh* have to wait until the mail comes tomorrow for more Atlantis.

Which is some of the other things that has been capturing my interests, btw.  There’s fairly good evidence that the “Lost City of Atlantis” was actually Minoa, which experienced severe destruction after being repeatedly swept over by wave after wave of a powerfuls tsunami when the iland volcano that is now Santorini in the Agean sea suffered a mega eruption 10 times that of Krakatoa which blew out it’s cauldera.  80-90% death toll, and whoever was left were slaughtered in the invasion of the Peloponnese Greeks, who were possible the only major empire in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to have remained unaffected by the disaster.  Cool, eh?

Then there’s the whole science of “free energy” that I’ve been studying up on.  The Hutchison effect has got to be one of the most bizarre phenomena I’ve ever seen.  Through the manipulation of energy, they’re able to transmute substances into unknown elements, levitate objects, and even cause a sudden and instantaneous death on the cellular level.  It’s totally weird and completely real.  It’s quite possible that we could see the elimination of need for fossil fuels, except for two things… DOLLARS and EGOS.  DOLLARS, because energy barrons are NOT going to allow any kind of invention that would allow us to go off-grid.  Simply put, “If I can’t slap a meter on it, then I won’t fund it” as J. P. Morgan told Tesla.  As to EGOS, well…  The mainstream, “accepted” scientific experts have ranted a lifetime against the idea that energy could be free (because they’re paid by BARRONS to “research” such claims) and if such a shift were to occur in our understanding, then they’d have to admit they’re wrong.  OMIGOD!  Nooooz!  The universe would implode from the sudden intake of breath!

Then of course there’s the whole Paradox of Choice that will keep us bound to environment-polluting, resource-sucking fossil fuels.  Basically, if it requires making a decision in our modern world full of 175 different salad dressings and over 200 choices of breakfast cereal, we become paralyzed and, instead of making an informed decision, we opt for inaction. 

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Then I realized this morning that I’d totally missed the PUSH deadline.  Crap.  LOL…  So I’ll be getting the entries compiled and getting a winner picked quickly.   So you get an extended chance to enter.  I have a review of Tainted by Brooke Morgan to post tomorrow, so I’ll get the winner picked for Thursday then.  I’ve been such a slacker! 

I think part of my problem has been that I was pushing myself too much and it sucked all the fun out of everything.  I think I’d rather enjoy the books I’m reading than “get them done”.   Okay… back to finish Tainted now 🙂

TSS ~ Blindfold the Groundhog! I’m Protesting Winter!

Okay, so I’ve had just about enough of this wispy white and cold crap.  I’m not fond of having my breath stolen from my lungs because it’s so cold it’s painful to breathe in at all.  Maybe if I just hibernate for the rest of the winter?  Gah!  I’d still have to go out to get groceries.  Oh, well… I guess it’s either run away to Florida or just suck it up.  Since I don’t have the money for a road trip, I guess that means I’m in for the sucking part.

So, January was a fairly productive reading month.  I finished off eight books, and am about half way through two others.  Since just having year-long goals only made me quick to start and race to the finish, while dropping off the face of the reading world the other five or so months, I decided to post monthly plans to keep me accountable 🙂

I was surprised I hit 8 last month, but I need to get that every month if I’m going to accomplish all the challenges I’ve signed up for.  There were two books I had planned to read in January that I didn’t get to, so they go on the top of the list.  Also I have  a blog tour book, so that goes to the top, too.  And I’m doing the Lord of the Rings Readalong, so The Fellowship of the Rings is a topper, too.  LOL, heck, they’re all top books!

Currently Reading:

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl ~ I’m reading it with Magggie, and we’re on page 30.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore ~ Really, I’d only picked this one up because Fire is on my ARC-alanche pile, but I’m completely wowwed by this YA fantasy book!  I only wish I’d read it sooner!

Planed Reading:

The Mom’s Guide to Growing Your Family Green by Terra Wellington ~ This is one of the two I’d meant to get to in January.  It was won in the March 2009 ER batch, so I’m needing to get it done this month.

Holy Roller by Julie Lyons ~ The second overdue ER book, I think it’s also a March 2009.

Tainted by Brooke Morgan ~ I’m down for February 24th for the TLC Book Blog tour.  I’m looking forward to reading this one, it sounds intriguing.

The Triumph of Deborah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy ~ I have a second book for a giveaway for this one 🙂

Strange but True, America by John Hafnor ~ I also have a second book to giveaway on this fun book 😉

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein ~ I’ll probably space this out all month so I can both enjoy it to the most, as well as get it done while reading everything else.

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I also intend to keep up on my Google Reader.  I’ve done really well at keeping it under 100, which I was feeling panicky about that much until Jen and Natasha were laughing at me and wanting to get theirs below 1000.  Okay, I’ll stop stressing because there’s 20 still sitting in my reader… lol.  And I’m trying to post something everyday.  I only missed 3 days in January, and if I can get a few rainy day posts in the can, I should be able to have one everyday.  I’ve been thinking about doing some mini-reviews of books I read before blogging. 

So what kinds of post would you like me to do?  Does anyone miss Viral Video Wednesday?  What are you planning to read in February?