Accidentally Hers .. By Jamie Beck

Love can happen in the most unusual of ways. It can be beautiful, it can be magical or it can be accidental.

Another love story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading. A romance set with a backdrop where the love interests are pitted on different sides of a criminal/legal battle made for a winner.

Grey Lowell and Andy Randall are two people that have been spurred by an infatuation that soon turns into something more real, but the circumstances could not be more against them as both of them are fighting a losing battle against each other, where neither can't afford to lose. But a win, in either case, also means that they have to let go of each other in the process. What a pickle!

Even though it is very much a meat and potatoes contemporary love story, the combination of drama, character development, and romance were perfectly paced. The lead and all the supporting characters were easily lovable and the anecdotes that they shared were truly enjoyable.

Accidentally Hers is not the greatest book ever written, but who cares when you are getting ample entertainment, which is all it's about.

Happy Reading!!!

The Shining .. By Stephen King

The scene from FRIENDS pretty much sums up its review and piqued my curiosity to start reading this book in the first place.

Rachel: Hmm. (she opens the freezer) Umm, why do you have a copy of The Shining in your freezer? 

Joey: Oh, I was reading it last night, and I got scared, so. 

Rachel: But ah, you’re safe from it if it’s in the freezer? 

Joey: Well, safer. Y’know, I mean I never start reading The Shining, without making sure we’ve got plenty of room in the freezer, y’know. 

Rachel: How often do you read it? 

Joey: Haven’t you ever read the same book over and over again? 

Rachel: Well, umm, I guess I read Little Women more than once. But I mean that’s a classic, what’s so great about The Shining? 

Joey: The question should be Rach, what is not so great about The Shining. Okay? And the answer would be: nothing. All right? This is like the scariest book ever. I bet it’s way better than that classic of yours.

Well, what Joey said is somewhat the truth. The Shining is a great book, but not the scariest in my opinion, still one of the best ghost stories I ever read.

The story is of a small family that has an unpleasant past with bad blood between the members who are on the verge of falling apart. Nevertheless, they want to hold on to each other and thus look for a fresh start. A new beginning that requires them to move to a new house, a hotel in this case. A place that, as it turns out, is HAUNTED.

Add to that a psychic or clairvoyant kid, who is young enough to be influenced and scared by the supernatural powers and entities. An empathetic figure who is willing to help a bad-tempered alcoholic father and an over-paranoid mother, gets in terrible trouble because of his capability to "Shine". 

King has created a lot of spookiness with things that are metaphysical to wrap the reader in a blanket of horror. Even though you will not feel the goosebumps that you are supposed to feel while reading a scary book, you will surely feel the anxiety for the unpredictability of the unread plot. Some of the chilling moments that will get your heart pumping harder are the strange apparitions to crazed topiary animals to haunted elevators and an atmosphere thick with foreboding. 

It is the sheer brilliance of the writing style that makes this book worth it and makes it stand out in a crowd of similar books. The thing I have come to love about this author is the fact that he very subtly lets you inside the head of the characters and forces you to feel their emotions.

“Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.”

I envy the people who have already watched the 1980 classic film version of it because I might as well have been living under a rock. Time to get cracking on the movie...

Happy Reading!!!