Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck

Kelsey Hayes was just a freshman in high school when her parents were killed in an automobile accident, sending her into the foster-care system. After graduation, she takes a job at a circus in Oregon to earn money for college. There, she becomes fascinated with the star attraction, a white tiger named Dhiren. When the tiger is sold to the mysterious Mr. Kadam, Kelsey is heartbroken-until Mr. Kadam offers her a job as Dhiren's traveling companion. Because of her strong affection for the tiger, she agrees . When their truck is hijacked on a dirt road outside of Mumbai, Dhiren leads Kelsey deep into the jungle. There, he reveals his true nature: he is a three-hundred-fifty-year-old Indian prince, cursed by an ancient magician to live out eternity as a tiger. Young-adult readers will be enthralled by this mystical adventure story of a girl who risks her life to save the man she comes to love.

Most of the blogs I follow have been reviewing this book and each one has given a very positive review of it, so I decided to get it. When I looked it up on Amazon though, it was priced at about $27 so I was a little hesitant to buy it. However, when my sister asked me what I wanted for my birthday I thought this book would be an excellent gift, so I asked her for it and luckily she bought it for me.

Truth be told, when I started this book I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I have a strong dislike for excess exclamation points in any type of writing, and there seemed to be a lot in the first part of this book. Thus, in the first part I found the main character, Kelsey, to be a little annoying (how i hate to admit that) and was starting to think that the whole book was going to annoy me.

That just proves how often I am wrong, because I really LOVED this book. In fact, I think I loved it too much, I freaked out at the ending, thought about it way too much after I finished it, and have been checking Amazon almost every day to see if the next one is available to buy yet (it's already in print but they have been doing some updates on it), yeah...I think I might be bordering a little bit on the obsessed side...

Needless to say, I fell in love with each character in this book, Ren, Kelsey (she is NOT annoying), Ren, Mr. Kadam, Ren, and even Kishan for the short amount of time he was in it, and did I mention that I love Ren yet? Because I really love Ren...

Anway, I thought the author, Colleen Houck, did a great job getting the right amount of humour, adventure, and romance in the book. The adventure was very exciting, the humour was funny and put in at just the right places, and the romance was very romantic! I don't like to admit it, but I love a couple of really good kissing scenes in a book (as long as it stays pg rated of course :D).

So, like I said, this is an amazing book, the only thing bad about it is that the last two aren't out yet, so I will have to wait for them. Oh, and as a side note, now that this review has convinced you that you need to buy this book, you will be happy to know that it is now about $18 on Amazon, yes, you can all thank me later for waiting to read and review this book until it went down in price....

Miss Match by Erynn Mangum

Lauren Holbrook has found her life's calling: matchmaking for the romantically challenged. And with the eclectic cast of characters in her world, there's tons of potential to play "connect the friends." Inspired by the recent success of matching her sister and new husband, Lauren sets out to introduce Nick, her carefree singles' pastor, to Ruby, her neurotic coworker who plans every second of every day. What could possibly go wrong? Just about everything. When Lauren's foolproof plan begins to unravel, she learns that a simple introduction between friends can bring about complicated results. And as she reconsiders her new role as Cupid (as well as her vow to stay single forever), will Lauren finally decide that God's plan is always good enough?

I found this book on Amazon and really wanted to buy it, it looked like a fun light read and the fact that the cover has a big cup of coffee on it only added to me wanting to read it. But, if I bought every book I wanted to read, my bank account would soon be empty, so I held off from buying it for awhile. However, about two weeks ago I saw that it had decreased to only $5, and it was to good of a deal to pass up so I bought it.

I'm so glad I did buy this book, because I absolutely LOVED it. I can't even count the times I burst out laughing throughout this entire book. I love books with good humor, but I come across them so rarely that it's always a real treat when I find a good one.

The main character in this book, Lauren, was so fun and interesting. She loved so many things I love: God, Coffee, Chocolate, Romantic Movies, Pride & Prejudice, etc. And she was so random that I kept waiting to see what she would do next. One thing I especially loved about her was that she knew exactly who she was. Even though she was always shocking people with her somewhat crazy behavior, she didn't let that effect her, and instead just let people accept her for who she was.

Another thing I really liked was Lauren's relationship with her best friend Brandon. Usually, whenever a woman has a best friend who is a guy, they fall in love. And while I have to admit I do enjoy those kind of books, it was refreshing that they just stayed best friends. Also, their the conversations together were just hilarious, and reminded me a lot of how my brother and I act when we are together.

I could go on and on about this book, like how much I loved Ryan and the conversations between Lauren and him, how I loved the fact that Lauren and Hannah went from disliking each other to becoming friends, how much fun all the matchmaking antics were, and how...well you get the picture, there was a lot more I could say and a lot more I want to say, but I won't because I don't want to spoil this book for anyone. So, in other words, if you are looking for a clean light read to pass the afternoon away, go and buy this book right away, you won't regret it.