J.R. Ward Event

 Good morning my bookish friends,

I have taken some time off from my blog due to life getting in my way. Life has a nasty way of getting in the way such as taking on extra side gigs to hopefully pay off bills and to get a loan for a bathroom remodel that has to get done due to moisture and water damage. So a couple of Saturdays ago I took off from side gig work and got up early to get dressed to meet the Queen of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. My friend who originally got me into this series. If you have never heard of the author or the series, I highly recommend starting the series off with Dark Lover and going in order. 

Good Reads insert of the Dark Lover first book in the series:

The only purebred vampire left on the planet and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents centuries ago.

But when his most trusted fighter is killed -- orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate -- Wrath must put down his dagger and usher the beautiful female into another world.

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of the Brotherhood and blood frighten her. Yet his touch ignites a dawning new hunger one that threatens to consume them both…

Getting up early to meet my friend so that we can drive to another state to see one of our favorite authors was a dream come true but hard because I love to sleep in. Since the pandemic, I had not been to any event or made real plans with my friends to go anywhere or do anything. I truly believed it gave us introverts an excuse to stay home and avoid the outside world.

After finding where the venue was we went in search of lunch. Not knowing the area I did the next best thing two adult women could do we looked on Google Maps for nearby restaurants and read the reviews to see what others thought about them. My friend is a pickier eater than I am. When it comes to food there are a few things that I don't like one of them being green beans. We found a little southern restaurant called Libby's". Let me tell you that this is truly a hidden gem of a restaurant. The food was amazing and spoke in real depth
to my southern soul.

Yes, the second picture is a fried bologna sandwich with an egg! My friend chose wisely as I was having some enormous food envy. I chose the equally wonderful fried chicken sandwich.

After lunch, we headed back to the event where I found out how many people came to see the Ward in person. I was astonished and grateful that I had taken my anxiety pill. We waited in line for about an hour before we were finally seated. My friend and I chose to sit in the back of the room near an exit, yes I am that person who needs to know where all exits are. 

The energy that Ward brought into the room was astonishing. She is not for the faint of heart and has a mouth that would astonish the pure and chaste people out there. Thankfully I am not one of those people and found myself laughing and smiling the whole time like the town idiot. But damn did I have a fantastic time listening to her talk about herself ( she says she is boring I disagree). She talks about her characters as if they are in the room there with us. The questions that her fans asked her were so engaging and interesting that I could not bring myself to ask a question that I have for all authors out there.

My question: Have you ever been so mad at someone that you have written a character based on them to just kill them off in a book? Seems like a simple enough question but one that I was terrified to ask. 

If you ever get the chance to go to an event with your favorite author I highly recommend it. I want to go next year and have other adventures like this because I have forgotten how much I love traveling and seeing new places.

I promise to keep reading and writing. Hopefully, soon I will have a new adventure to share with you.

Truly yours,

Armarius

The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires Review

 Hi, my bookish people out there

I just read one of the most interesting, terrifying books that would give popular horror authors a run for their money. Grady Hendrix author of The Southern Book Guide to Slaying Vampires was out of this world amazing. The reviews had this mashed up with Steel Magnolias, Fried Green Tomatoes meets Dracula. This was more than that it was Stepford Wives meets True Blood. 

When I first picked up my copy from the library let's be honest I had my doubts on this. One is that this was a male author writing from a woman's perspective. The second is that vampires have been done and redone thousands of times since Bram Stocker's Dracula. He nailed it especially if you were a young adult and lived through the early 1990s like I was.  Hopefully, a good director reads this book and decides to do an adaptation for a movie. Some reviews thought that Grady Hendrix was being sexist in his book with the Southern housewife bit but honestly, he wasn't it was scarily accurate of how it was and in some places still is. I loved how he portrayed housewives to being more than what their husbands thought they were. They were mothers who shoulder the responsibilities of running their households, helping with their husband's careers, and so much more that has to get done like slaying vampires.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars. This book held my attention to the very end to see if the book club would be able to defeat the evil that hides in the night.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, rape, and abuse

Good Read's synopsis:

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

Happy Reading,

Armarius