Christmas - the aftermath

Wow. Ok, where did my five days of Christmas vacation go?? One minute I'm leaving work last Friday and suddenly it's Thursday already! Geez, those days vanished in the blink of an eye.

I was only on the computer those days for a few minutes - long enough to say how awesome Phantom of the Opera was and to send b-day wishes - so there's no way I'm getting caught up on my flist, so I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas.

My Christmas was...pretty boring, actually. It's just me and the hubby, and he'd already opened his gifts during Hanukkah. But he did get one extra when he found the pickle in the tree. What? Don't tell me you guys don't do the "hide the pickle ornament in the tree" thing! We can't be the only ones who do this - I've seen the pickle ornaments in the store! He found it awfully quickly this year, leading me to believe that he'd scoped out the tree when I wasn't in the room, the little sneak. :-)

I got a bunch of books I wanted, so that made me happy and turned me into a lazy elf for five days. But more on the books in a post later today.

Best part of Christmas was dinner, actually. Hubby made duck with all the trimmings. Yum!! Yes, just like the family in A Christmas Story, we had duck for dinner. :-) And for dessert we had cookies that I made after watching Giada on Food Network. They're delicious!

After dinner we piled into the car for our family tradition - looking at Christmas lights. There are a couple of neighborhoods we go to every year, the displays are so awesome, but then we head out to find different places. With us having moved this past spring, we had all new places to check out this year and we really lucked out and saw some excellent lights.

The night ended on a great note after we got home and I watched the Supernatural Christmas episode before I went to bed. :-)

But now the vacation's over and it's back to work this morning. Blech. But at least it's only two days this week and tomorrow's my birthday (yay!!) then it's time for New Year's already.

Oh, almost forgot to say Thank You to mickeym, deanbear25 and khek for the Christmas cards. Loved them!

So what was your most favorite gift you received this year?? Did anyone get Jared or Jensen wrapped up in a big red bow? ;-)

Gay novel recs

So my hubby gave me a bunch of gay romance books for Christmas (isn't he awesome?) and I settled in during the days I was off for the holiday and read three of them. I thought I'd give some quick thoughts/impressions on them in case anyone's interested in purchasing them themselves:

Spare Parts by Scott & Scott - this is the third Scott & Scott book I've read and I give it a thumbs up, just as I did with Razor Burn. They do a good job of writing two men starting a relationship and the angst that comes with it, especially when each man is keeping a secret from the other. Oh, and the sex scenes are very nice. :-) This one has a much more believable twist to it than Razor Burn, though I enjoyed Razor Burn very much.

Always by M.L. Rhodes - this is actually a novel with two stories in it, Never Let Go and Hearts and Bones, both with the same characters. I give Never Let Go two thumbs up, waaay up. M.L. Rhodes writing is spectacular and had me nearly in tears more than once during the story. Very moving tale of two men who have been friends for 13 years, since childhood, each secretly desiring the other. They finally come together for one explosive night, only to be torn apart the very next morning and their resulting journey back to each other. I felt for Ethan and Will deeply during the entire story.

Hearts and Bones is the sequel to Never Let Go, where Ethan's secret past rears it's head and puts both his and Will's life in danger. The only thing stopping me from giving this story two thumbs up is that in the last third of the book the men are forced at gunpoint into heavy BDSM and that's just not my cup of tea. I liked the idea of exploring Ethan's past, but taking it in that direction wasn't what I expected or enjoyed. But the first two thirds was good and again, Rhodes's writing is superb. Oh, and great sex scenes (besides the BDSM for me) in both stories. :-)

Willow Bend by Ally Blue - I'm very blah about this one, since the description on the back of the book led me to believe one thing would happen and it really didn't. The description was that one man, Paul, had lost his lover of six years a year and a half earlier to a car accident and that Paul was moving across the country to escape the painful memories, certainly not looking to start a new relationship, still missing his lover. The other man, Cory, lives in the town where Paul moves and he's focused on working two jobs to make enough money to take care of his extremely ill mother and doesn't have time for a relationship. But of course they meet and things spark.

I was expecting the majority of the book to be each of them fighting their feelings for their individual reasons, kinda of dancing around each other before realizing this was meant to be between them. Instead, only 38 pages in and they're going at it like rabbits! So that really threw me. The rest of the book was them having sex as much as possible with some half-hearted angst thrown in and a huge focus on Cory's dying mother. Thumbs down on this one, as it bored me and Ally Blue's writing is not very strong.

There you have it! Hope you liked my short reviews, and if YOU'VE got a rec, please tell me! When I posted my review of Razor Burn, a bunch of you told me about The Tin Star, which I purchased and really, really enjoyed, so thank you! I'm always on the lookout for great books!