TGIF aka A mini ARRC2013 round up

I'm so glad it's Friday, I have a bevy of new books to read, so many that I don't really know where to start.  I'm so excited about my choices that I want to read everything at once.  I was lucky enough to pick up some great stuff at ARRC2013 and I've put off reading anything new as I wanted to finish up Tart by Lauren Dane and Hot in Handcuffs stories by Shayla Black, Sylvia Day & Shiloh Walker - which I have - and they were great.  I really enjoyed Tart and loved the Sylvia Day story in HIH - it was the standout story for me.

But what should I read??? I'm tossing up between Seven Nights in a Rogues Bed by Anna Campbell or The Best Man by Kristan Higgins.  But I've also had a wee buy up on ebooks.  Willpower - I has none!

As with the last ARRC I went to, I've come away with a list of new authors to try: Anne Gracie, Cathy Maxwell, Amy Andrews, Rachel Johns, Danielle Lisle &
Shona Husk to name a few.  Shona was one author I hadn't heard of before; her Goblin King series sounds quite interesting.  I think it's refreshing after all of the angels, werewolves, vampires and shifter I usually read.  I've read gargoyles before, but no goblins, so I'm looking forward to reading The Goblin King.

Brisbane ARRC2013 was fantastic, I had a blast, I met Rachel Vincent - one of my favorite authors.  Her keynote speech opened the Saturday morning and all through it I was thinking "This is me, we had a similar reading experience growing up!" (In a completely non creeper kind of way Rachel).  I used to read what my mother read - Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Virginia Andrews.  She read a lot of true crime also.  There was many a night I used to sit up with a flashlight and a book sneaked off the book case in the hallway.  I was on my very best behavior and tried not to be crazy fan girl, I want her to come back to Australia after all.

Anne Gracie was our second keynote speaker and she ruined me for the second week of my holidays, I had planned to do so much - instead I needed to watch all of my yea olde hotboys.  Anne made us watch a delicious musical 'I need a Hero' montage and I was done for!  She gave a fantastic speech, if you weren't able to attend, hopefully there will be a CD out in the next month or so.  I also had the pleasure of sitting in on the historical panel - get her and Anna Campbell together and look out!  It was all blacksmiths, pelts and tentacle porn (DON'T Google that either - just don't). Cathy Maxwell was also on this panel and she was lovely, another author I'd heard of, but never read, so I've come away with two new titles to try.

Kristan Higgins was our third and final keynote speaker and she was another author who teased us with bare chested beauties, Bondi style.  She had me in stitches as she talked about her personal journey through writing and getting her first book published; and by the end, as she read out some letters from her readers, I don't think there was a dry eye - both from laughing at the 'you're going to Hell heathen' letters and the touching 'you saved my life with this book'.  I'm looking forward to read The Best Man, which was launched on the Saturday morning - because really, how could you go wrong with a sexy police man like Levi.

Hope your weekend is lovely and filled with brilliant things.  Have a happy St. Paddy's Day :)

C.