Green, White and Red in Friends without Benefits :D

I received an ARC of  Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City) from the author in exchange of a honest review and...

Friends Without Benefits can be read as a standalone, is a full length 120k word novel, and is book #2 in the Knitting in the City Series.
There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Finney: 1) She suffers from severe sarcastic syndrome, especially when she's unnerved, 2) No one unnerves her like Nico Manganiello, and 3) She knows how to knit.
Elizabeth Finney is almost always right about everything: the musical merits of boy bands are undervalued by society, “benefits” with human Ken dolls are better without friendship, and the sun has set on her once-in-a-lifetime chance for true love. But when Elizabeth’s plans for benefits without friendship are disarmed by the irritatingly charismatic and chauvinistic Nico Manganiello- her former nemesis- she finds herself struggling to maintain the electric fence around her heart while avoiding electrocution or, worse, falling in love.

Honestly I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Yeah, yeah. I'm yelling and I'm not ashamed to tell you that it is one of those teenager hysterical cry. One of those I had reserved for Bono, Larry, Adam and The Edge 25 years ago ;) But this time it's all for NICOOOOO! (Sorry, I can't truly stop).

He's my brand new literary crush!

I know, in the past I wrote that there couldn't be anyone better, more irresistible, sexier than Quinn riding his Triumph, but Penny found one of my weaknesses... I'm a cook-food-feticist! So how was I supposed to resist this:

"Before me was the sight of Nico, shirtless and in black boxer briefs, making apple fritters. He was standing at the kitchen table spooning apple goo into a waiting dough shell. Flour speckled his chest and stomach. I noted his stomach was pooch free."  You wrote it Penny! "Watching a shirtless Nico Manganiello bake was something that belonged in Playgirl magazine"

And you know what? I love Lizzybella too! I like strong, witty, sarcastic female characters. She's that and even more!

Cherry on top: the Epilogue. I'm not a crying person, but I had moisture in my eyes when I read the last page :-)

A couple of important things you've to know directly from Penny's notes:

Two characters in this book are diagnosed with a pediatric rare disease. For the last eight years my (day) job has been focused on biomedical research; specifically, research into the (accurate) diagnosis and treatment of pediatric rare diseases. I felt it appropriate that a percentage of the profits of this book go pediatric rare diseases foundations which are dedicated to helping the children (and their families) of this underserved and underfunded population. Therefore, at least 10% of the profits from every ebook sold will go to one of these foundations.
Every month for the next year (October 2014 – October 2015) I will be highlighting a different rare disease research foundation on my blog. http://reidromance.blogspot.com/ Proceeds for that month will be sent to the highlighted research foundation.
If you’re interested in learning more about rare diseases research and the collaborative efforts currently afoot, here are some great resources:
http://rarediseasesnetwork.epi.usf.edu/ (clinical research network with sites all over the world, studies focused on rare diseases)

http://www.rarediseases.org/
http://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/

And now RUN to buy it! If you still didn't have it, don't wait a second more!

Oh Helen Fielding, what have you done?

I think that yesterday the news about how Helen Fielding had killed off Mr Darcy (TheGuardian)  was the most gossiped on Twitter, Facebook, telephone, and so on... I even discussed about it with my husband right this morning (Sipping my coffee during our breakfast). 

I mean, no politics, no bad economy, no wars and no dead people. This morning I had  the impending desire to vent my disappointment at one of the most cruel thing an author can do to an affectionate reader: kill the good guy :O

R.I.P. Mr Darcy

She's not the first one and not the last one to kill an universally acknowledged hero (I'm sure that when he punched Daniel defending Bridget all the female population dedicated to chick-lit and chick-flick -me included- swooned ;P) but every time I've to ask (Better said, cry out) the author "WHY? PERCHE'?"

Was it really necessary? Didn't you find a better way to create havoc in our heroine's life?

I imagine Mrs Fielding answering "Probably yes, dear." She would sip Earl Grey tea in a porcelain cup before adding, "But would I obtain the same resonance introducing a young, beautiful, unscrupulous new assistant in Mark's office? No, indeed. Bridget maybe would be suffering enough, but you readers? No way. You need an earthquake to come back to me."

Because...

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about" (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

So, here we are my friends, mourning the death of our beloved Mr Darcy even before we've opened the book. Grief and pain will be fading soon and we'll hurry buying the book to know how did it happened and how Bridget had managed to survive the shock.

And don't worry, we'll survive. Like we did when J. K. Rowling killed Albus Dumbledore, or J. Weiner gave Peter an heart attack. It will pass, eventually.

And, please, leave a comment epitaph below for your stronger literary loss :-)

Daniela's Zwetschgenkuche aka German Plums Cake

One of my fond memories of living in Germany involved September in Stuttgart, when the hills slowly turned yellow, orange and red, the first pumpkins appeared on the farmer's market kiosks, and the bakeries took out of their ovens fragrant, juicy Zwetschgenkuche aka Plums cake. 

I love this sheet cake and Daniela's version is my favorite. Here her delicious recipe:

Ingredients:

Batter

4 eggs

1 & 1/2 cup sugar

4 cups All purpose Flour

4 teaspoons Backing powder

1 cup vegetable Oil (I prefer peanuts Oil)

1 cup milk (Kids version) or sweet sparkling wine!

Streusel

1 cup Sugar

1 cup all purpose Fluor

1 cup Butter

1 kg  Elongated Purple Plums - Cleaned and helved 

(More or less this quantity, but it depends how big they are. Consider you've to cover completely the pan surface).

www.michiganplum.com

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Butter and flour a large pan, or prepare a bake paper rectangle (Mine is 32cm x 24cm = 12.5 inch x 9.5inch).

 Put all the ingredients in a stand alone mixer and whisk all together for a couple of minutes.

Prepare the Streusel combining all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Alternately, you can mash the ingredients together in a bowl using a fork, or just mix everything together with your fingers (I do this way ;P).

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and evenly arrange the halved plums on top of the batter, flesh side facing up. Sprinkle with the Streusel and bake for 45 min. - 1 hour.

Ta-daaa! Official Cover Reveal: Friends Without Benefits by Penny Reid

Official Cover Reveal: Friends Without Benefits by Penny Reid

Time to share ;)

Bad times good times. 

Definitively in the last couple of weeks I had very good moments reading and I scored three 5stars books in a row! Here my lucky strikes:

Sweetened With a Kiss by Lexxy Callahan
 

Fairy queen becomes Elves Queen, showing her claws, and Prince Charming chooses to be Prince Philip. No, it isn't a Once upon A time story! It's an amazing story about good changes and everlasting love. 

Message to the female MC: Go! Jen, go!
Message to the male MC: Hey, Mr. Sellers I'd the impulse to hit you with your caveman's club a couple of time but (As a reader I'd the privilege to have a look in your mind so I knew that your bossiness it was only a way to hide your insecurities) I would leave you walk away unharmed ;)

---------

I fall in love with the couple in this  book:

Forever My Girl (The Beaumont Series) by Heidi McLaughlin  

   

A rock star and his regrets.
He promised her all:

“You’re forever my girl.”   

“Hey, Jojo?” he yells.
“Yeah.” I yell back.
“I’m going to marry you someday.”

Then he run. And came back after ten years, creating havoc in her life o.O

It's an emotional second-chance love story, a boy who'd to find himself, a smart heroine, a strong group of supporting loving characters: a wonderful story, indeed.

----------

The third 5stars was the sequel of Forever my girl. And this time the 5stars are all for Harrison :) He has really the patience of a saint ;)

My Unexpected Forever (The Beaumont Series) 

   

I expected a life of music.
I expected to raise my son.
It took one look to make everything change.
I never expected happiness.

I never expected to find her.
I never expected to feel desire.
I never expected I’d be a family man.
I never expected to be loved.
I never expected to fall in love.

Stronger than you think

She's a lawyer, she's smart and well educated. She's strong. She's also a woman who'd said NO to a man. A man who cannot be called human being, a man who'd paid two guys to wait for her out of her door and ruin her face with acid.

She's the woman who said "I'll help other women, I'm not hiding".
Respect and admiration for Lucia.

«Ecco il mio viso sfregiato dall’acidobr /Aiuterò le donne vittime di violenza»

Jocks are overrated, let's fall in love with everyday heroes

I was slicing zucchini when I had an epiphany. Hey, don't read anything between the lines. I don't want to slice anybody's zucchini! It was a mindless action that left my brain free to wander. That's all ;P So, I was preparing dinner when I made a mental list of the last romances I read and loved and saw the fil rouge among the stories: little town and everyday heroes.

Yep! All my favorite writers stopped looking for handsome guys with killer bods in  fields and grounds and pointed at nice little towns.

Bye bye Rachel Gibson's Chinooks or Jill Shalvis's Pacific Heat players. Our beloved love geniuses had to follow the actual marketing rules and embrace their friends style, so their heroes have now current jobs.

I still love their stories, at the end is the romance that really counts. But I wonder if they had to fully adopt Robyn Carr or Kristan Higgins format in order to keep selling, because I loved also their jocks. And I miss them ;)

Luckily now exists a parallel universe populated by free writers (called Indie authors ;p) who write about whatever they love (Even sport!) and create stories as good as the aforementioned ones :)

Here some of my big names favorites