Review: Calendar Girl Volume 2 (Calendar Girl #4-6) by Audrey Carlan

Book info:
Title:  Calendar Girl Volume 2  
Author:  Audrey Carlan
Series:  Calendar Girl:  #4-6 - April, May, June
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  October 27th, 2015
Source:  I purchased paperback copy at bookstore where I work

Now, I didn't enjoy the first story in this as much as the first book, but then the second story totally brought me back. The third story wasn't great to begin with, but it had an ending that really was intense and made me very eager to get ahold of Volume 3.  If you haven't read the first volume which covered January, February, and March, you can go read my review of that HERE.

The book starts off in April when Mia is going to spend the month with a professional baseball player.  Now, I was pretty excited about this, as baseball players are probably my favorite athletes, but the story didn't end up the way you'd think.  She starts off in Boston and is supposed to portray a normal "girlfriend" for Mason Murphy, who is considered quite the man-whore. But in order to get some sponsors, he needs to tone his image down.  So Mia is hired by a PR person for Mason named Rachel. But when she gets there, she can see that Rachel actually kind of likes Mason, except for his slutty ways.  And really, Mia can also tell that Mason kinda likes Rachel.  So while Mia does the public image thing for Mason, she works to be a matchmaker for the two in the background.  She misses Wes, the guy from January, but she knew that she had to tell him not to wait, because she had to complete this year in order to get the money she needed to pay off the people her father owed.  Unfortunately he does take her up on this, as she sees gossip magazine pictures of him with a famous actress, who even answers his phone when Mia tries to call him one time. 

May is a much better month.  Mia gets to go to Hawaii to be a model, and even better, she gets to take her best friend Ginelle, and her younger sister Maddy with her!  But there are things going on at home.  Maddy has a new boyfriend, and it seems to be pretty serious.  Mia is worried about her sister, but when she is invited to meet with Maddy's boyfriend Matt's parents for dinner, she at least gets to see that they are good people and that they really care about Maddy.  And it does give Mia a bit of relief about leaving Maddy alone while she is off earning money. But back to Hawaii.  Her first day she meets a Samoan model named Tai.  Now, of course, what I picture is a very large guy, and he is described that way, but I have to say that I'm guessing he's not what I'm thinking of, not large in a fat way, but just large as a man overall.  Mia's still feeling a bit jealous about Wes, even though she knows it isn't fair to him.  And so she and Tai have a lot of fun.  And the sex, let's just say the sex this month for Mia is pretty darn intense.  Extremely insane!  To the point that she even passes out from it one time.  Tai is a big boy in every way.  Now she knows according to one of his family members that Mia will not be the forever girl for him, and before Mia leaves, she may have to try to do a little matchmaking for him again when the right girl does show up.  But as with all of the guys so far, she leaves with him as a best friend. 

The final month in the book, June, Mia is sent to Washington D.C. to pose as the girlfriend of an older wealthy man, who is the father of a young, attractive Senator.  She knows right away that the man, Warren, isn't interested in her for sex, he just needs the "arm candy" to impress the other men who do the same.  It turns out that once again there is already someone else in his life, someone that he cares about, and has ever since his wife, the mother of his son Aaron the senator, passed away.  At first Mia does flirt with Aaron a little bit.  But soon, while Mia does her best to help Warren in business with the schmoozing, Aaron turns into a bit of a pervert.  Walking into her room while she's asleep and having a very erotic dream about Wes, Aaron decides he is going to join her in bed, that her being naked and moaning in her sleep means she wants someone to take care of that.  Later one when Aaron finds out about the romance between his father and this other woman, it sends Aaron a little bit over the edge, and he really comes after Mia.  Fortunately Mia has friends who will be there in her time of need, even when things get to a pretty scary part. 

We get a tiny excerpt for July, knowing that Mia will be going to be in a video for a Latin rapper.  I will be interested to see where the story goes next.  And of course I need to know how things will move forward with Wes, as the two of them have to keep things the way they are so that Mia can finish her year of earning money.

The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa

Of course I must first say thanks to both Netgalley and Harlequin Teen for allowing me to read this as an e-galley in March.  I just recently finished reading the first in the series, The Immortal Rules, and loved it.  I was so pleased when one of my followers told me the sequel was available on Netgalley.  But then when I looked at first, all I could find was a copy for Australian readers only. But I kept searching, and found the one I could download, and I did.  And even though I had another e-galley that was supposed to expire before this one did, I just couldn't wait to read this one!  So I'll have to pick the other one up in April when it expires.  But anyway, let me go on with the review, just be aware, if you haven't read the first one, there may be a few spoilers for the first book.  But I'll do my best to keep them few and far between!

So, Allison is of course our returning main character, or Allie as she goes by.  Her human group of friends from the first book, including Zeke, are safe in Eden.  But Allie's been having nightmares, feeling her sire, Kanin's pain as he's being tortured by Sarren.  And since she has this connection to him, she can feel the direction she needs to go to find him.  And so she is off to find him and hopefully rescue him from the crazy vampire that when she last met with him, she stabbed him in the eye and took that eye away from him.  On her way though, she sees Kanin be put into basically a hibernation or coma for a vampire.  And so the link seems to grow weaker.  And at the same time, there is a pull in another direction.  She follows that other pull and it is the wrong one, as it leads her to Jackal, the vampire that killed Jeb, Zeke's father, as well as other members of their group.  Turns out, she has a connection to Jackal as well.  I'll go ahead and tell you, since I figured it out in the last book myself, Jackal is her brother, Kanin is his sire as well.  So of course he's been dreaming of Kanin as well.  And he has connections in the town where Allie finds him, which is Washington DC from the description.  He tells her that based on where Sarren was in the town, he must be looking for a cure for the rabidism.  We now know that Kanin was the vampire who gave the humans his fellow vampires to test on to try to find a cure for the Red Lung disease so long ago.  And because of that, he is hated by most if not all vampires.  So Allie teams up reluctantly and grudgingly with Jackal to find Kanin.  And it ends up they are headed back to the Fringe where Allie grew up.  Once there, they will have a surprise helper show up, Zeke.  And Allie must once again face her love for a human.  They must get into the city as they find that there is a new disease taking over the humans.  And they are sure that Kanin and Sarren must be in the city somewhere.  This leads them to the Vampire Prince of the sector, as well as a blast from Allie's past.  A friend, or is it a foe?  It is obvious that Sarren has released this disease, but does he have the cure?  The prince wants this cure as well, and so Jackal, Allie, and Zeke must find Sarren for him, and determine if he has the cure and bring it back.

This book was another good sequel in that it didn't have the 2nd book slump that so often occurs.  Now, at first, it did start out a bit that I was going to bored.  I mean, Allie, by herself, on a road trip?  While Jackal is a bad guy, I do enjoy his humor, it does keep the story at least interesting, and it makes you wonder if maybe he can some day redeem himself, as most of the other vampires don't have the same sarcastic personality as him, at least not any that we've met in the books.  But the book quickly picked up once she got to work with Jackal, and once they hit the city of New Covington, where Allie grew up, the story got really good again.  Only problem?  I now have to wait for book #3, at least a year!

One last thing I'm curious about, the cover.  The first had a picture on it, of Allie I assume.  This one is a very plain cover.  I see on Goodreads a different picture of a possible girl, but just wonder why the change.

The Thief of Auschwitz by Jon Clinch

I got this title from Netgalley, I believe right before they changed?  Or maybe right after they changed their site and I began having issues.  I can't find it on there anymore, so I have no idea how to share my review or who the publisher is that I would share it with.  I believe it comes out on January 15th, so at least I know I'm within the amount of time I'm supposed to review it in.
I've always been fascinated with the holocaust, probably since I read The Diary of Anne Frank.  And whenever I get a chance to read a new book about it, I usually take the opportunity.  This was pretty much a normal story.  We hear a bit about life before the camps, and then we end up with life in the camp.  Life is miserable as always.  They lose all their belongings, get their heads shaved, and the men are separated from the women, and the children are separated as well, basically sent to die as soon as they reach the concentration.  The story is about Max's family.  His father, mother, and sister.  His father used to be the best barber in the area where they lived.  His mother was a great artist.  But once they get to the camp, of course, all that is gone.  And his sister Lydia is gone as soon as they reach the camp.  Max lasts because his father sees that kids going to the one side, probably aren't making it.  So he tells Max to lie about his age, Max is tall, so he is able to pass.  Max and his father have no idea about Eidel or Lydia.  Eidel, his mother, assumes that Max was lost too.  And one day she chooses to send a message to Max's father, Jacob, to ask him how they will live without their kids.  It is at this point that she finds out Max lived.  Jacob learns of what could be called the cushier jobs, and begins to try to get the job of cutting the Nazi officer's hair, and getting the easier job.  Up until then he and Max have been digging a huge ditch that they're told is to connect to a new women's camp.  Hard labor.  Eidel has been working in the kitchen in the women's camp.  At one of the officer's houses, the painting of Lydia is hanging, and when Jacob sees it, he almost loses it.  Soon the officer talks about how he wishes he could find someone to paint a portrait of his family that is as great as this one.  When Max is in an accident and breaks his leg, Jacob sees a way to possibly save him from being taken to die now that he can no longer work.  He tells the officer that it was his wife who painted the portrait and asks for a chance to take care of his son.  The officer gives him the chance and brings Eidel to the house.  When Eidel sees the portrait, she faints, and tells them that it was her daughter.  Well of course the German family doesn't want a portrait of a Jew hanging in their house, so even though they get her to do the painting, they take the portrait down and send it back to the store where they found it.  Max is given time to heal and almost really special treatment because of his mother doing the portrait.  But it soon turns that Eidel is having problems painting the portrait, it's been so long, not to mention these are the enemies.  So while she paints a good portrait when she is there, at night she sketches what she really feels with them, creating monstrous evil people in her bunk.  One day it gets out that she has done this, all the way up to the officer, and he is so angry that he burns the bunkhouse down.  While he is having Eidel finish the portrait.  Jacob is now sure his family won't have long to live after she's done.  So, he encourages Max to escape.  And Max does leave, but not without stealing the painting from the store first.  He goes off and becomes a painter/artist in his own right.  And interjected within the story are the modern day chapters about him getting ready to have his own big retrospective at the National Gallery in Washington DC.
The story was what you'd expect.  Reading about the camp and horrors and way of life there was interesting as usual.  Interesting and horrifying.  But the way they did the Max "present day" chapters mixed in was confusing at times.  It took my mind a minute to readjust.  I think part could be due to reading it as an e-book, and that maybe in an actual physical book where you can see the actual pages separating them it wouldn't be so bad.  And there's this part where he talks about an Uncle's paintings in the present day, that kind of seemed a little unnecessary to the story, in my eyes anyway.  A quick read, and one that people who often read about the holocaust will probably want to read.  The title is a bit misleading, as I expected an actual story about a thief.  And really I think the only true theft was the painting being stolen at the very end, and this was after Max had left Auschwitz.