It's the Holiday season, so I know my posts are sporadic. Don't worry though. Find the Time to Read isn't going anywhere and neither am I. I'm going to be taking a small hiatus until after Christmas though. There will still be some posts, but no where in the volume that there have been. It's just to stressful to try to bake, read and review and of course wrap presents.

However, I have sent out my swap gifts, and I have gotten one in the mail. So what I have recieved will be getting their own post soon .

Until then guys,
Take care and have happy holiday season!

For 2010, I'm stepping my toes into the big pond of Reading Challenges. Every Friday throughout the month of December I will be setting up and featuring the Challenges I am participating in. I've selected the Challenges based on the criteria for each individual Challenge. My goal is to find Challenges that allow for over lapping, so that I can get the most for my reading, and still feel massively accomplished.


Today's challenge is hosted by J. Kaye's Book Blog. Last year I participated and completed the 2009 Young Adult Reading Challenge, it was the first and only challenge I participated in. And honestly I was amazed at how quickly I had completed it. Apparently I wasn't the only one who completed it rather quickly, because for the 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge, there are 4 different levels to compete in.

• The Mini - Read 12 YA books
• Just My Size - Read 25 YA books
• Stepping it Up - Read 50 YA books
• Super Size Me - Read 75 YA books

Christmas Cowboys
Authors: Ann Major - Stella Bagwell
Paperback: 388 pages
Publisher: Silhouette (October 1, 2002)
Received: Library


My Rating: 2 out of 5

Summary:
The first story in this Omnibus is A Cowboy Christmas by Ann Major. And honestly, it was this short story that pulled my thoughts on this book way down.

Heddy and Lelander were both born on Christmas Eve. That's pretty much were the similarities end. She's daddy's little princess, and he's an orphan from the wrong side of the tracks. And yet, they still manage to fall in love.

My big issue with A Cowboy Christmas was honestly a very small thing but it annoyed me to no end and really killed the story for me because it was all I could think about. So the small town that Heddy and Lelander live in, have an ice cream parlor called Dairy Princess. Yeah, it's a really small thing, but for some reason it drove me up the wall. To me it felt as if the author couldn't come up with a more original name, and instead figured well, Dairy Queen is pretty good, but this is a small town so lets only give them a Dairy Princess.

Other than that the story was solid. Lelander was shunned from the town him and Heddy lived in because everyone believed he had killed Heddy's father after a rather heated argument. So Lelander moves himself to Alaska, and becomes a famous writer with a horrible deep dark past. While Heddy lived in the small town and raised their daughter.

As characters I really like Lelander, but Heddy was such a door mat .She stayed in the town where she grew up and lived under the thumb of her grandmother. She didn't stand up for her husband and let him walk away, and ugh. The more I think about it the more I really didn't like the first story.

The second story in this book was A Christmas Cowboy by Stella Bagwell was much better in comparison. Lucinda picked up and left everything she knew in Chicago to get away from a stalker ex-boyfriend. Chance happened to notice her car on the side of the road after she had spun out during a winter storm. He rescued her and brought her back to his home the D Barr D. Where his sisters engagement party was going on.

For me this story really made up for the lackluster of the first one. Lucinda was a bit of a doormat but she had every reason to be. She was on the run, hoping to not draw any attention to herself least her abusive ex come and find her. Chance had been hurt and vowed to never fall in love again. But when he meets Lucinda, he comes to feel things for her he had thought he would never feel again.

There were parts of this story that really touched a cord inside of me. The one part that honestly sticks out is when Chance gives Lucinda a kitten. His reasoning is that she had never had a pet. It was such a simple and small gesture but it was what made me as a reader fall in love with Chance.

If there was a way I could recommend A Christmas Cowboy without having to recommend A Cowboy Christmas I would. But since I cannot do that, I honestly wouldn't recommend Christmas Cowboys.

Have you read Christmas Cowboys? Let me know what you thought of it, maybe I missed something in the first story that you think I should know! Leave me a comment!

Knight of Pleasure
Author: Margret Mallory
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Forever (December 1, 2009)
Recieved: from publisher for review & blog tour

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary:
Isobel is the apple of her fathers eye. She is everything he's ever wanted in a child. Headstrong, courageous, beautiful and smart. So when he gives her in marriage to a man who is practically ancient, she feels as if she was betrayed in the worst way possible. When her husband dies he leaves her with no other option but to agree to wed a French noble man to help form a political alliance.

Stephen is a womanizer, and an amazing solider. However, he is looking for something more even though he doesn't know it yet. When he meets Isobel he's immediately attracted to her, even though she is promised to someone else.

Knight of Pleasure was a very enjoyable read. To me it was of the same quality as Judith McNaught, and Jude Deveraux, two of my favorite authors in this genre. It was nice to read something that was quick paced but made the reader care about the characters. There were times when Isobel was going through some really crappy stuff, that just broke my heart.

Stephen is someone who I would be interested in. He was strong and stubborn and just from his description and personality, delicious. And Isobel who grew up a tomboy kept that up through out the whole story, which pleased me. She was no delicate wilting flower, she was strong and feminine, and honestly I felt that she would have fit in the time period she was written for.

The fact that Knight of Pleasure is part of a series didn't matter either. Yes there were allusions to the story before it, but it worked well as a stand alone as well. I didn't feel as if I had missed anything from the first story. I will be picking up the third book Knight of Passion and digging out the copy of Knight of Desire that I had won in a contest awhile ago.

Great book, great read. I would recommend to anyone. I know that this book is for sure a keeper on my shelf.

So for this Read-A-Thon, I learned that I really shouldn't work while doing it. I only finished one book, which is very much unlike me. I usually read really fast. Oh well. I had a blast. I was laying in bed and ended up falling asleep way before hour 20. I guess my body really needed the sleep because I didn't wake up until 11:30 this morning!

I hope everyone had fun and got more reading than I did accomplished. I can't wait to do it again!

Hour 14 I've napped, I've eaten and I've read a whole book. Finally, a whole book. I'm picking up Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory and gonna take a long bath and relax and read.

Check back in with you guys before I go to bed, which I'm assuming is going to be around Hour 22 or so.