I only picked three books to read this month and left the rest open to inspiration. I read one of them.

Oops.

I did, however, read other stuff. (By ‘other stuff’ I basically mean Kindle’s free romance/erotica section because it was easy to read and quick to digest. And hilariously bad most of the time.)

I read:

• Smash ‘n’ Grab Squirrels by J. J. Murhall which was a short children’s book about a hapless team of horse detectives (they were horses, rather than detectives who worked with horses) trying to catch a team of vandalising squirrels. It was reasonably funny, if a little corny, and the illustrations were good. 3/5*

• Angel On The Ropes by Jill Schultz – 3.5/5* Full review here.

• Billion Dollar Baby 1 by Simone Holloway which was hilariously bad. Terribly cheesy storyline about a rich bloke wanting an heir and hiring an escort with a difference to provide him and then the obvious thing where they both start falling for each other. It had a daft twist at the end that actually made me roll my eyes in despair and it was basically only a chapter long with the next installments being about $3 EACH and all equally as short. I will not be buying any more. 1/5*

• The Fairy Queen’s Heir by A. R. Jarvis was a very odd novella. The fairy kingdom is in crisis – there are two Princes with equal claim to the throne and no way of deciding between them. To fairly choose their new king, they set the Princes a series of challenges – the winner of which will take the crown. However, somewhere along the lines the two Princes start noticing how handsome they each are and it all gets a bit ‘long-distance love affair’-ish and bizarre. 2/5*

• Not My Wolf (Fenrir Wolves #1)  by Eden Cole wasn’t exactly the book I was expecting. Turns out I should have paid more attention to the cover and I’d have had a clue, oops. Found in the ‘free romance’ section of Amazon’s Kindle library, this wasn’t actually a bad read. Made my train trip home from London more enjoyable anyway as I joined the alpha male of a Fenrir Wolf-shifter pack on his hunt for his true mate. I think I was as surprised as he was when his mate turned out to be a very strong and handsome bloke. A good old bit of stubborn ‘I’m not gay, get lost’-ness went on, building up all the tension with the added fun of murder and kidnap, culminating in some steamy guy-on-guy moments and a hilarious ‘sex-in-the-bath’ scene that was probably supposed to be sexy but just had me giggling like a lunatic in the First Class carriage of the train. SO glad for the anonymity of my Kindle in this case! 4/5*

• Big Girls Do It Better (Big Girls Do It #1) by Jasinda Wilder wasn’t too bad as a free read. Main character Anna is a size 18 DJ with major confidence issues who meets Chase Delaney who is unbelievably perfect and sexy and a rock star. Obviously Chase is a sucker for big girls and Anna thinks he’s faking it. They have a big of a yes-no build up before just getting plain down and dirty then all falling in love for a happy ending. There was a reasonable attempt at a storyline and character conflicts and the sex scenes were pretty well written. I did have a few issues with the descriptive language used though – I understand that the writer was trying to show that Anna was a plus-size girl who loved her food but lines like, ‘Touching his cock was like eating chips; I couldn’t take just one’ were so ridiculous it somewhat killed the mood because you wound up wetting yourself laughing. 2.5/5*

• Tipping The Babysitter by Kelly Sanders was the biggest stereotype porn book going – married man has one-off fling with just-legal babysitter whilst driving her home from work. There are no surprises and nothing amazing, it was sexy and short. And I have no idea what car the guy was driving or how skinny the two of them were but I am impressed at them managing to have sex in the driver’s seat of the car without anyone getting squashed, leaning on the car horn or stabbed by the gear stick. 2/5*

• Annabel’s Introduction (The Erotic Education Of A Naughty Miss #1) by Leota M. Abel was a very interesting concept indeed. With far more depth of character than I usually expect from freebie erotica, this actually had a storyline that could be worth following up. Annabel is due to be married and has all the concerns a well-bred English girl should have about her wedding night – then she accidentally witnesses one of the country estates rather handsome footmen having his way with a chamber maid in the gardens and her fear turns into curiosity. Her Grandmother discovers her secret and send up her own personal French Maid to give Annabel a bath and answer some of her questions. Opening a whole new world to naive young Annabel. 3/5*

I have also started reading The Evolution of Mara Dyer and The Cobweb Bride (neither of which are porn) but haven’t finished either of them.

This takes my total for the year up to 34/75 leaving me just 2 books behind schedule. An improvement on last month at least – yay for bad romance!