Tricky Trivia Tuesday (#2)

Tricky Trivia Tuesday is an on-going trivia game here at Literati's Literary Library. Click here to read the rules and contest details!

Since last week's question was easy, I went with a more difficult question. Good luck!

Tricky Trivia Tuesday Question: Who did A.A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, use as inspiration for the character "Christopher Robin"?

Remember, no search engines!

First person to answer correctly gets their name entered in the Big Box of Books giveaway!

Tricky Trivia Tuesday (#1)

Hello and welcome to the very first Tricky Trivia Tuesday!! For the complete list of rules and to find out what exactly this Trivia Tuesday thing is about, click HERE.

Since this is the first one, we'll start with an easy question.

Tricky Trivia Tuesday Question: In Rick Riordan's Heros of Olympus series, what is Percy's sword named?

First person to answer correctly gets their name entered in the BBoB giveaway!!

Tricky Trivia Tuesday

What's this? A new feature? Why yes it is! 

What is Trivia Tuesday? 

Each week (or as close to that as I can manage) I will post a new trivia question.

You, my lovely readers, then post a comment with your answer, name, and email.

The first person to get the correct answer then gets their name entered into my Big Box of Books giveaway.

The drawing will be held at the end of June.

What will be in the Big Box of Books? It's a surprise! And by that I mean I have no idea. :-p It will be an eclectic mix of genres, maybe some ARCs, maybe some new releases, maybe some classics... who knows! As I find books to put in the box, I will update the list of books. (There will be some books not listed... what fun is it if you know everything you're getting??)

Rules:
~ US and Canada only.
~ You may guess as many times as you'd like, but you cannot double post or put two of your answers into one comment. In other words, you post one answer per comment, and before you can post another guess, you must wait for someone else to guess.
~ You do not have to participate in every Trivia Tuesday to be entered to win, but the more you play the more chances you have of getting your name in the drawing!
~ No cheating! Googling the answer is cheating. No search engines allowed. You must know the answer off the top of your head, or at least think you do. ;-) Play fair guys!

Big Box of Books current listing:
Real Vampires Have Curves, by Gerry Bartlett
Carolina Moon, by Nora Roberts (used)
The Goblin Wood, by Hilari Bell
Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Really Ravishing Review (Carolina Moon)

Title: Carolina Moon
Author: Nora Roberts

Well, I thought Carolina Moon was okay. I picked it up at the Salvation Army for two reasons: 1) It was Nora Roberts and I was in the mood for her work. 2) It was set in South Carolina, and being newly transferred to North Carolina, I thought it would be fun to read a book set near here.

Nora did me well with both her setting and with her mystery-romance. I enjoyed reading Carolina Moon.  A few minor things that I was less than enthralled with, but a lot that I enjoyed. Here are the deets...

Abused and beaten by her father throughout her childhood, Tory escapes to NYC and makes a life for herself. But her life in the city is simply a shield from her past, and as she matures she realizes that to truly live for herself, she must go back to Progress, the her childhood home, and face her past. There's a lot more in Progress than memories of her cruel father though. Her girlhood friend, Hope, was raped and murded when the girls were merely eight years old.

Determined to face her past and find peace, Tory returns to Progress to set up a shop and live her life. Complications arise when her father returns to rough her up, and another rape and murder take place in the town. What began has a journey of self-restoration quickly becomes a hunt to find the killer(s) that haunt the town.

Liked: Tory. She was a tough little thing. She was easy to sympathize, empathize, and relate with. If you are in the mood for a "she rises above" story, you'll enjoy reading about Tory. She's strong and stubborn and adorably fierce.

Cade. Okay, who doesn't love a totally capable Southern organic-cotton farmer? Seriously. Smart, forward-thinking, and hello tan and muscled. (Confession: I honestly don't give two hoots about the physical description of these fictional guys. But I know most of you do. So I do these for you. All for you.) Cade is warm and patient and totally unwilling to let Tory back out on everything.

The supporting characters. The other POVs were a nice change of pace and I really loved getting to know Faith.

Didn't like as much: For a little while in the middle I wasn't pleased with the pacing of the romance. It felt too quick, and I had a hard time believing Cade was really THAT smitten with her and would have that much unwavering dedication to unlocking the mystery of Tory.

I had the type of ending pegged from the first quarter of the book. I knew exactly what twists she'd throw in. And she did. Kind of bummed about that. But I didn't know the exact details, so that was a plus.

All told, it was an enjoyable read.

4 out of 5 stars.

My Magnificent Mailbox #32

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme put on by The Story Siren.

These past few months I have gotten:

From the Salvation Army:
Carolina Moon, by Nora Roberts

From Sandy over at Scribing Shadows:
Naked City, Anthology

From Andrea over at Aine's Realm:
Trust Me, by Rachel Hawthorne
Elphame's Choice, by P.C. Cast
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
Changeling, by Delia Sherman
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman
The Phantom Limb, by William Sleator and Anne Monticone
Whip It, by Shauna Cross
The Selchie's Seed, by Shuliamith Oppenheim
Priscilla the Great, by Sybil Nelson
The Robe of Skulls, by Vivian French
Blood Lite, Anthology

From Wal-Mart:
Clockwork Prince, by Cassandra Clare
Crossed, by Ally Condie
The Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan
Beautiful Chaos, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

From Ollie's:
The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Holly Black and Toni DiTerlizzi
Cryer's Cross, by Lisa McMann

From The Recycled Reader Used Bookstore:
Midnight Bayou, by Nora Roberts
Sea Swept, by Nora Roberts
Rising Tides, by  Nora Roberts
Inner Harbor, by Nora Roberts
Chesapeake Blue, by Nora Roberts
Postmortem, by Patricia Cornwell
Body of Evidence, by Patricia Cornwell

From Page After Page bookstore:
Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk
Lover Avenged, by J.R. Ward

From the library:
Perfect, by Sara Shepard
Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta

From Market Street Bookshop:
Uncommon Criminals, by Ally Carter
Shadowspell, by Jenna Black

Expect a much smaller IMM next Sunday. This was a backlog of all the books I've gotten since I left Nantucket. What did you guys get?

Literati's Lacking Loyalty

HI! I've missed you all!! You may (or may not) be wondering where I've been. Well, I'll tell you. Life has been crazy. So crazy, that I haven't done any blogging of any sort. I've barely kept up on social sites, and I've only been able to Tweet because my phone has Twitter. But I'm baaaack!

What have I been doing?

~ August 2011: Moved off the island of Nantucket. We put all our stuff -furniture, toys, everything we own- into storage, and the boys and I headed off to Ohio. My husband stayed on Cape Cod for Air School. It was a tough time for all of us, but the boys and I enjoyed seeing family folks that we hadn't seen in a long time.

~ December 2011: My husband finished his school early and came to Ohio to spend Christmas with us. Then, on the 28th, we packed up the cars and made our way down to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. We spent a few days getting settled in -which, by the way, doesn't take all that long when all you have is clothes, toys, and a few bare necessities- and exploring before the hubs had to report for his next school. He is currently training to be an Avionics Electronics Engineer.

And that brings us to now. We're in E-City for 6 months, and then we will be stationed somewhere else. (And we'll finally have all our stuff back! My oldest son saw a couch in a store and looked longingly at it, saying, "Ohhh. A COUCH!!" Sad, I know.) I admit I'm very much looking forward to having a dining room table... plates... a couch... a bed... dressers.... It's a little annoying having all our clean clothes folded in stacks on the floor. In the meantime, we're enjoying the adventure. And so far, I love E-City. It's fun and they have everything. The library is sadly lacking, but I just saw a used book store the other day, and I can't wait to go!!

I will do my best to get some reviews and giveaways up soon! It's nice to be back!

Really Ravishing Review (Nevermore)

Review of Nevermore, by Kelly Creagh.

Quickie: Poe!!! Poe enthusiasts will enjoy this book, simply because of all the Poe references.

Full: I came upon this book because my sister-in-law started talking about it, mentioned it had Poe, and she saw me perk up. She lent it to me, and I dug in.

Positives:
- POE. I adore Poe. The story references, the fun (fictional, I hope) reason for his mysterious death and the whole darn package was just great.

- Varen. Okay, so the moody, reclusive Goth boy got me. I was just as excited to "see" him as Isobel was, and I was totally sucked in to his world and quirks. He had a rich and interesting personality and backstory, and I just couldn't get enough of him. I had some issues with the love story, but that's for the Negatives section. ;-)

- The wickedly awesome paranormal elements, again, tying in with Poe and all of his totally disturbing stories. The Nocs were brilliant, the incorporation of Poe's worlds into the story was brilliant, the creep factor was brilliant... you get the idea.

- The last 200 pages. (You'll see this in the Negatives as well) It was intense. Creagh did a fantastic job at making me just as overwhelmed as Isobel. Seriously. I had to keep taking breaks because I had no idea if we were dreaming or in reality. That was, of course, the point.

Negatives:
- Love story. I did enjoy it, very much. But cheerleader and a Goth paired up in a school project and then they fall in love? Been there, read that. Varen was the saving grace in the whole thing. He made up for Isobel being so boring.

-The last 200 pages. What the flipping bananas was that? Creagh did a nearly too good of job at confusing the reader. It was great, but I had no bloody clue what was going on. You didn't even really know what exactly the problem was until the end. I found it irritating that Isobel got buckets full of cryptic, pointless warnings and absolutely no real information as to what she was supposed to be fighting or doing. If I were her, I probably would have left the world to crumble. Cryptic warnings have their place in the suspense building, but this was overkill.

-The end. I read it three times, trying to see what I missed. It felt a bit rushed, which is saying something since the book is 541 pages. (I have nothing at all against large books, I actually love them) I kept looking at the remaining pages thinking, "How on Earth is she going to wrap this up that fast?!" Well, the answer is, she didn't. I freaked out and went online to discover that there is another book coming. PHEW. So here's hoping that the next one isn't as rushed and gives real information about what Isobel is to do.

All in all, I enjoyed it. Faults for sure, but I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

4 stars out of 5.

My Magnificent Mailbox #31

Ahoy there! What's this? A post from the elusive Literati? Why, yes it is! It's an IMM post, because I finally have gotten some new (to me) books!

IMM is a weekly meme brought to you by The Story Siren.

This week (or well, these past few weeks) I've gotten:

From a rummage sale:
The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Mother Knight, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorn
Dancing on the Edge, by Han Nolan
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
The Angel's Promise, by Frederic Lenoir & Violette Cabesos

(all that for $1.40. Can't complain!)

From Wal-Mart:
The Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan
One Grave at a Time, by Jeaniene Frost

(I'm in Ohio, not on Nantucket, and they have a Wal-Mart here!!)

From my friend and Moon Twin, Andrea, over at Aine's Realm:
Troll Fell, Katherine Langrish
Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
The Dark Horse, Marcus Sedgwick
Zoe's Tale, John Scalzi