Musical Monday: Smoke 2 Joints (Sublime)

   

It's 420. Of course I was going to post something like this. Stay blazing. 

This Week's Featured Read: The Name Game

So...this book has a bit of an interesting background. Ever since I'd introduced Kristi DiLuca in the second Games We Play book, Never Have I Ever, I'd known that someday I'd want to write her brothers' stories. But other than the fact that they're family ran the best bakery in Atlas Beach, I knew next to nothing about them. Then author Tiffany Carby put out a call for books involving sandwiches.

Coming from New Jersey--a state with its own, iconic sandwich--I knew I had to get involved. And, wouldn't you know it? I just happened to have a New Jersey based series already in the works. The title practically wrote itself. Because I wanted it to be game related and the Taylor Ham vs Taylor Pork Roll name dispute has raged up and down and across the state for a hundred and twenty years.

Because if there's one thing Jerseyites can't help but fight over, it's food. 

The Name Game

He knows what to do to save her business. She knows what he needs to fix his life!

Atlas Beach is experiencing a retail-renaissance—and Carly Meyer is determined to be part of it.  But her sandwich shop-slash-food-truck, The Lunch Box, is struggling to stay afloat.

Luckily, help is on the way thanks to the Chamber of Commerce’s innovative mentoring program—partnering successful Atlas Beach business owners with some of the newer start-ups. Too bad the mentor assigned to her is the delectable—and highly annoying—Tino DiLuca.

Tino knows exactly what’s hurting Carly’s business and—exactly how to fix it. But his number one solution, changing the name of her signature sandwich, is the one thing she’s not prepared to do.

https://books2read.com/The-Name-Game

Musical Monday: Whatever Gets You Through the Night (John Lennon & Elton John

    

I'd never seen this version before, but I kind of love it. I mean...vocally, it's rough and a little fast (?) but the energy and the HAIR are fire! The multiplicity of cuts to Yoko was an interesting editing choice.  

Wine Wednesday: Decoy 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon

 

So Decoy is put out by Duckhorn and I talked about Duckhorn's 2021 Cab recently. Decoy is a little more affordable, but also quite good.   

This has a lighter feel than the Duckhorn. There's a lot of black fruit--cherry, black raspberry, etc.--on the nose, along with hints of toasted oak and California chapparal. It's an easy drinking wine with mild, silky tannins and a creamy mouth feel. I enjoyed this with pizza

Musical Monday: Sweet Child O Mine (Piano and Cello cover by The Piano Guys)

 

So, I know I said that Clay and his mom would be dancing to Wind Beneath my Wings, but I might have to change that, because this would be pretty sweet as well. Currently, I'm trying to convince one of the other POUR DECISIONS authors to choose it for their groom. 

Guess you'll have to wait a couple of months to see how that played out. lol!

This Week's FREE Read: Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life

So...I probably should have made this book free LAST week, to coincide with Trans Day of Awareness, but this year has already gotten away from me. So it's free through Wednesday of this week--run and get it! 

I'm enormously proud of this book, but it's been out for about a year now and I don't think anyone's read it. Thanks in part--I can only assume--to the one crappy review it got from someone who didn't bother to read past the first chapter. 

And don't get me wrong--if you don't like a book, by all means write an honest review. But maybe at least be accurate and/or give a character arc a chance to, you know, arc a little bit? 

Mostly I'm disappointed for Giaza's sake. I've been in love with her since her first appearance in The Name Game. And I really think that she deserves a chance to shine a little bit, so I'm making the book free from April 4th through the 8th. 

If you love it, we'd love to hear about it! If you don't, well we're both big girls, we can handle that, too. But maybe give Giada and Ben a chance before you decide you hate them. I try and make my characters realistic, which means that sometimes they make mistakes out of the gate, sometimes there's a bit of a learning curve, sometimes the "course of true love" doesn't always run smooth.  

Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life

Games We Play 7.0

Life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.

 I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him.  And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?

Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.

And when it came right down to that…how could I not choose me?

https://books2read.com/GiadaMazzi

Musical Monday: War (Edwin Starr)

  

Yeah, this is another one that needs no explanation. And requires no notes. F*ck everyone who's brought us to this place yet again.