New Year Extravaganza! 18 Books, $100 Grand Prize

Welcome to the New Year Book Extravaganza!

We're featuring 15 authors, all with book giveaways AND you'll have a chance to enter at each stop for the $100 Grand prize Giveaway!

Meet featured authors and learn more about them and their books on the dates below. You may also enter their giveaways, and read "glimpses" of the books, at any time on the Event Page.

Bad Boy Rehab - Giveaway Hop

We tried giving up Bad Boys for our New Year’s Resolution…..
but try to make me go to rehab and I said no no no.

Bad Boy (n.) person
1. A guy who has many characteristics of a naughty, naughty boy.
OMG let the drooling begin.
2. A heartbreaker with a five o’clock shadow.
Rawrrrrrr!
3. Independent and willful. Does what he wants when he wants. Never follow trends, they follow him.
4. Someone that’s not looking for trouble, but there’s a serious sense of danger about him.
We love danger!
Usable Note: A bad boy is a gorgeous man with MANY layers and is INSANELY irresistible to women.
 *raises hands*… YES PLEASE!

It is said that most of us ladies prefer the bad boys, I don't know about that. What I do know is that I like reading about them in romantic fiction. There's just something about a bad boy falling in love and becoming vulnerable, just like in Obsidian, the YA novel by Jennifer Armentrout.

It Happened before Ten that Morning by Seun Odukoya

I’m some kind of a rules person. I like rules. They keep things simple.

While I believe that ‘law and order’; either as a TV series or as a legal system is nothing but a crock of shit, I also believe that some order is necessary. I mean – how do you get anything done without discipline?

So it follows that I have rules that govern my life and living. Rules like no eating after eight at night. No eating before twelve noon. No alcohol during the week except on vacation. Yeah. Pretty boring I know.

I had a couple concerning relationships. No serious relationships or commitments before I am a particular age. No romantic anything before twelve noon except on weekends. And no romance around the office. I believe the informal expression for that last one is; “don’t shit where you eat”.

Fast Grow Hair Growth Oil - Product Review

Since my big chop, my hair has been growing, but like I mentioned in my hair journey so far, not as fast as I expected it to. And definitely not as fast as I want it to. Some say healthy hair should grow about half an inch every month, if that is the case, then I'm right and though my hair has made good progress, it still has a ways to go.

Around the time I started researching better hair products than the one I had been using was when I was contacted by Sunset Hair to try out some of their Exotic Allure products.

From their website before I accepted to try the products, I found that the Exotic Allure Hair Growth products were specifically formulated to help promote fast, healthy hair growth by reducing hair breakage and shedding. It can be used for both relaxed or natural hair, and can be out on hair when wet and also while dry. For those with dry, flaky, itchy or inflamed Scalp, the oil supposedly helps too. I agreed to do the review and soon received the Fast Hair Grow Oil and Black Hair Vitamin.

Are Men Willing to Wait till Marriage?

A lot of the posts I have shared on this blog on celibacy and abstinence, both for personal or religious reasons, have been mostly focused on women. Someone sent me a Dear Myne post, asking how to find true love as she is celibate. Another sent in a comment that some men who will accept to abstain from sex with their women are often not interesting.

The articles I have written on this issue are more middle of the road, taking both genders into account, either as singles, or as people in a relationship.

One question that hasn't been really tackled here, and which I found while looking through the search phrases for my blog is the title of this post. Are men willing to wait till marriage? I know for certain that some men are, the question for the ladies may be, where are they and are they enough?

Downton Abbey Season 3 Begins With a Wedding

I first heard about Downton Abbey from Sting and after a while, I decided to check it out. The first episode I caught up with on PBS was not so encouraging. There were some characters I knew I could get to love, like Maggie Smith's sharp witted old Dame, but not knowing the full story held me back.

However, finding out over the weekend on Twitter that a new season was starting, I decided to try again. And I was rewarded with a fantastic episode, which included a lovely wedding. Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary of Downton Abbey had a beautiful spring wedding in their village church.

Avoiding Conflict - What sets you off?

Conflict is not all bad, as resolving them helps clear the air in a relationship, and the couple could develop resolution skills that may come in handy even in other parts of their life. However, some conflicts are just so unnecessary. At the end of the day, you begin to ask yourself, what was that about sef? And do you know the funny thing? You may not even have an answer!

I know what sets me off sometimes, and that awareness ensures I catch myself before I allow my inner turmoil affect the cozy atmosphere around me. Other times, it hits me from the blind side. Like the other day, Atala was frying plantain and I was washing up in the bathroom, by the time I came out, one set of plantains were in the bin. He'd let them burn. I didn't find it funny.

When he noticed my sudden sour mood, he asked me a simple question that when I thought about it, was like a pin in my 'how can you let food waste like that' balloon. He said something along the lines of, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. Haven't you ever had a food accident before? And since we've been living and cooking together so long, of course he know the answer :)

Date Night Movie Review - Nollywood Movies

I started the Date Night Movie Review series because I wanted to document some memorable movies, and celebrate doing things with your partner. Nollywood Reinvented pointed out a couple of weeks ago that we were neglecting Nollywood movies, and that was true. See, I like Nollywood Movies, but I know the ones I like, I just don't watch because I'm supposed to be patriotic or something.

I don't think I can be a Nollywood movie reviewer, I just don't have the patience. I watch for enjoyment, and maybe to learn something or two, either about storytelling, or simply about life. After all, movies are supposed to be a reflection of society, and writer/directors are auteurs meant to draw lessons through their stories. I applaud people like NollywoodReinvented who take the bullet so we can avoid the worst of the lot.

Other than review blogs like her's, my biggest criteria to choosing a Nollywood movie to watch - just like a Hollywood movie actually - are directors, story/screenplay writers, the trailer, and of course, the actors. It is almost a given that an actor like Denzel Washington, or Genevieve, or Omotola, at this stage of their careers, would not be found in low quality movies. I know I may miss some good movies that way, which is where selecting movies by certain directors comes in.

Tell Him by Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion

I recently saw Barbra Streisand in an interview with Piers Morgan and I remembered how I got introduced to her music. It was in a duet with Celine Dion in this amazing vocal masterpiece that I was obsessed with for a while. I searched it out on youtube and decided to share. Enjoy!

Rounding off 2012 in Portland Oregon - Weekend Pictures

When deliberating on what to do or where to go for Christmas or New Year, we didn't want to go too far so it was either a staycation at home, another city in our state or something similar. We settled for Portland in neighboring Oregon, it is actually closer to us here than some other cities in Washington, and we'd never been there before.

To add some pizazz, we decided not to drive, and instead bought Amtrak train tickets to and from Portland. It was roughly three and half hours, and that was time we could spend doing whatever we wanted instead of one person being stuck behind the wheel. Something funny happened, we almost bought tickets to Portland, Maine. The price first tipped us off, and the fact that it took three days to get there. We shined our eyes properly and were able to select our correct destination in the end.

The train ride to Portland was quite comfortable, I could say luxurious even. It was the Coast Starlight enroute to Los Angeles, and had and upper level in coach where we sat. The leg room was so much I was jealous. Why? Because I couldn't reach the leg rest attached to the seat in front of me. Turns out, the train thought of everything. Both the food tray and leg rest had extensions so I was able to use them easily. Our return was on the Cascades, which though not as shiny, was comfy still.