Sex, Chocolate, and Other Things Geeky

The end of a series.  Wow.  Not many of the series I read come to a definite end.  Kelley Armstrong has pulled off a great finish to a fantastic series.  Savanna has grown a lot over the course of the series, not just physically but also mentally and emotionally.  This book, like the last, mostly focuses on her. My least favorite thing about this book?  That it's the last full length novel for the Otherworld for the foreseeable future.  My favorite thing?  Savannah and Adam finally get together!  That's the only spoiler I'm going to give you, cause I don't want to ruin things. There a number of loose threads that could use some tying up, and I hope there are some short stories that will take care of them, but coming to the end of Thirteen I was able to have a moment of contentment that all had ended well.  It's always nice to close a book with that happy little sigh.

Waking the Witch saw Savannah heading out on her own as a detective for the first time.  She became emotionally attached to one of the people she met during the case she was working, a little girl named Kayla. The last thing Savannah does in the book is think that she'd happily give up her powers to help Kayla, crashing asleep and waking up to find that her powers were indeed gone. Spell Bound picks up with the thoughts of one watching Savannah.  Someone who can do just what she "wished" in that moment.  All we get to know about him is that he has some agenda and Savannah is at the heart of it. As much as Savannah grew in the last book, I'd say this is her real coming of age story.  She has always been the most powerful witch on the block, and she knew that all too well.  Her contempt for humans and for other witches less powerful than her was always in her thoughts.  She never tried to learn how to do things the normal way, because she knew she had her...

I've been reading this blog called Mark Reads , specifically his chapter by chapter reviews of one of my all time favorite series, which just happen to be the books that started me reading fantasy in the first place, The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce.  Her books are amazing coming of age stories and often focus on strong, female characters (right up my alley!).  In the second book of the series, Pierce includes a sexual relationship between the main character and a friend of hers.  It's important to remember that these are young adult fiction, published in the 80s, and she's got a female character having sex with someone without being in a relationship with them.  Completely awesome, right?  I read these books for the first time somewhere between 1992-1994 and have reread them more times than I can count since then.  The blog review I'm reading about book two phrased it like this: "To have this sexual relationship presented so plainly and wi...

Pegging (for those unfamiliar with the word) is the term used for a female bodied person penetrating a male bodied person anally using a strap-on dildo. Tristan Taormino's Expert's Guide to Pegging was her Valentine's gift to the world this year, and I just love how she introduces the topic, and how she talks about the fears people may have about pegging.  The anatomy lesson is great and full of info that is useful for both beginners and more experienced players.  I love how much Tristan loves her topic.  It’s one of the things that makes her videos so much fun to watch.  The first things she goes over are some of the basics like hygiene and lube, with really good information about both these topics starting the ball rolling. Tristan gives lots of detail on the types and stages of warm-up are great for anal play, taking us from oral stimulation through using more and more fingers, up through different types of toys that will help get the butt ready for pegg...

The Women of the Otherworld series covers a lot of ground in just a few books and bringing Eve into the picture shows just how much it covers.  Eve is the self appointed black sheep of the witch race, and she never learned to look before she leaps.  Her impetuousness, cliche though it may be, is her greatest strength and her greatest weakness.  She's a great spellcaster, a half-demon, a former track star and a decent martial artist, but if she didn't make snap decisions without all the facts, she wouldn't be where she is at the start of the book, or at any other point in it, to be truthful. Haunted takes place mostly in the afterlife and deals as much with the pain of being able to see those left behind as it does with catching the bad guy.  Pretty much everyone who has ever lost someone has wondered if their loved one was there watching them, hoping they were and afraid to hope at the same time.  Now we get to see the other side of the coin. ...

For me, Dime Store Magic is where this series finds its feet and then Industrial Magic lives up to the expectations set up previously.  Paige is finally growing up and becoming an actual person, instead of living the life others expect of her.  The evolution of the characters is almost tangible.  This is not to say that there aren't still some moments of wanting to shout at the book because the character "on screen" is about to make a huge mistake and they don't recognize it, but that happens with pretty much every book, movie, and tv show out there. The pacing of this book was really good.  One scene leads into the next with the kind of flow that makes you realize it's suddenly 3am and you have work in the morning.  I also really liked how characters from previous books were reintroduced and a few completely new characters that had only been talked about but never actually seen got some time on stage.  In the first two books of the series, things were fo...

Kelley Armstrong's second Women of the Otherworld book finds Elena in the clutches of a crazy billionaire and a team of scientists trying to understand what makes her tick.  It also introduces her to the wider world of supernaturals she never knew existed. I just don't get how a werewolf could be skeptical of the existence of vampires or witches.  It baffles me every time I read this book, and it's the fact that the character herself comments on her incredulity saves that part of the book for me.  For me this book is more about what makes a monster than anything else.  Is it turning furry on occasion and having a huge appetite?  Or maybe needing to drink the blood of others.  What about if your father was a demon?  Would that make you a monster?  Or is it the fact that you place your own entertainment above the lives of others?  That you will hunt thinking beings and shoot them in cold blood?  That sounds a lot more monstrous to me t...

I'm a huge fan of urban fantasy.  Were-creatures, vampires, magic users and gods and demons showing up and mingling in our everyday world?  What's not to love?  I can't pinpoint where my love of urban fantasy started, but I know who has fostered it: Laurell K Hamilton, Simon R Green and Mercedes Lackey are just a few that spring to mind.  Kelley Armstrong is another author who has built an amazing world using ours as her foundation. The first book in her Women of the Otherworld series is Bitten and she's finishing off her series with the aptly titles Thirteen, the thirteenth book in the series.  In celebration of this I've decided to be a part of a reading challenge to read one book from the series per month, until I'm done.  Here's a link to the challenge for those who are curious: Otherworld Reading Challenge I love rereading books.  Especially when it's been long enough that I can't remember everything that happens in them.  Makes things al...

Once again, Tristan Taormino has knocked it out of the park.  Expert's Guide to Advanced Anal Sex is a great combination of information and titillating action.  As usual for her work, Taormino starts off with a lot of great information, covering the basic information needed to make anal sex fun and safe, including enemas, lube and the different positions that can be used. There are 4 couples featured in this instructional DVD.  They're all amazing together!  The first couple are Kylie Ireland and James Deen and they start off with a great interview.  Kylie has some great advice for women who are new to anal and James talks about the importance of communication and reminds us all that when we have sex we're there, working to have fun. This amazing scene starts with lots of foreplay and warm up, which is great to see and very hot to boot!  They get Kylie lubed up, start off with fingers then graduate to a good sized toy before...well, you'll see.  ;-...

This is another amazing set of fantasies directed by Tristan Taormino and this time, they’ve been dreamed up entirely  by Adrianna Nicole!  Hearing her talk about the difference between just performing and having these be her own fantasies written large across the screen is pretty cool, too.  The intensity that she brings to every scene she does makes it easy to assume that she isn’t at all nervous about the outcome of any given scene. The bonus scenes are a happy surprise!  The interview between Manuel and Adrianna is very interesting and has lots of good info about anal and the scene itself has step by step tips for newbies to anal, which is a nice addition.  This is like the most intense instructional video ever!  The scene with James is all about female orgasm and the different types of orgasm a woman can have.  I’m a sucker for a guy who loves to make sure his partner is happy.  They’re so much more interesting than ...