Book Review: “Good Girl Gone Badd” by Jasinda Wilder

Hello!

You know ever since I decided I wasn’t going to feel guilty about reading erotica/romance this year, I’ve really taken that idea to heart considering I read three books in the same genre back-to-back. I don’t necessarily regret it but yikes! I also made a little goal to myself that I would love to read five books for May and I didn’t make it until I finished This Is War but I was committed to it and was so excited and proud that I was able to complete it, which is why I decided to publish this review a little earlier than I originally planned. I didn’t think anyone would mind either!

I’ve never read a Jasinda Wilder book before. I have seen her books on my feed, mainly Amazon and the site to track my reading goals (before I switched over to Goodreads in 2016!) but I was never attracted to them; I can tolerate BDSM but not a lot of it and her books always tend to show up on those type of lists so I would just glaze over them but as you may know by now, I have a real weakness for free e-books, and this and another book in the series are on my Kindle but I’ll explain all about that down below..

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

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Evangeline du Maurier is the definition of a good girl. Attending Yale, raised with the best tutors and etiquette instructors, she’s expected to toe the family line and be a trophy wife for a future senator. But when this good girl takes a quick getaway to clear her head, she finds a whole lot more than she’d bargained for. She finds herself in the arms of a bad boy. 

Baxter Badd. 

Big, hard-drinking, and as rough and demanding in bed as he is out of it, Bax may be the baddest brother yet... 

taken from Goodreads.

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Over the years I’ve seen a lot of drop dead gorgeous covers and you always hope (and sometimes pray) that they can live up to what the cover is basically trying to telling you, but there have been some duds and there is nothing more disappointing than a cover for a romance to be such a let down. Fortunately for me, this wasn’t one of them! I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into with it but I was very surprised how quick I dove into it and considering I found it one day before Scarlett St. Clair’s newest installment in the Hades x Persephone series “A Touch of Malice” released and completely ignore it for like three days (and nights!) after waiting since March! I’m still shocked I did that!

I was free to do what I wanted. No one had any expectations on me. Least of all Baxter.

I didn’t know what to expect in the beginning and was a bit worried about the introduction of the two characters, because in a way, it sounded a bit odd that a woman like Evangeline would even come across a situation she had and I just didn’t think it was relatable or whatever. I still don’t but the way Baxter reacted was fine. I thought it would be a way a guy sees a woman anyways! I liked the pair and was quite taken with how Bax acted especially to Evangeline in certain scenes, the one in the diner was interesting because I never saw him in that threatening way as one might feel while coming across someone like Bax in the first place. And then, when he is explaining to her about what she wants and basically tells her to make those choices for herself, was nice and if I’m honest, very educational at the same time!

If you are not familiar with the other books in the series, especially Badd Motherf*cker, Badd Ass, and Badd To The Bone as you will properly be respectively introduced to each of the couples mentioned inside, but you don’t have to. For the most part, the story is about Bax and Evangeline but the Badd family is an important aspect of the plot and reason to the eight brothers. I have the first book but not the other two and I would love to read them as well but I don’t have any plans in reading about the rest of the books. Personally, I think basing the entire series on these eight guys is a bit much, it’s like the literature version of the K-Pop bands, for some odd reason people seem to think you can an unlimited amount of people in group and everything would be fine with it. Since I started with this book, this is the last Badd brother in the original lineup for me. I will hopefully have the review for BM sometime later next month, which is tomorrow. How crazy is that?!

Have you read “Good Girl Gone Badd” or any of the other books about the Badd brothers by Jasinda Wilder? Do you have a favorite brother? Are there any other books by Jasinda you think I should check out for the future?

March Playlist

Hello!

March has been pretty rocky, between fighting with our WiFi (again!) and not feeling mentally well throughout the last couple of weeks, I am happy to say music has been a saving grace!

I have a couple of things to talk about in this post.

Firstly, let’s go into the monthly playlist as there were so much coming out at one time! I was able to listen to albums and really get a feel into the music scene will be for 2021. I have said this before, but once March comes around, it’s like everything that came out of the hip hop and pop worlds is on everyone’s radar during the summer. It is a crazy time so you need to have your ears and eyes open at all times! The funny part about this though is, I was really into old tracks for the last half of the month…

This is your Top 20 songs that I really enjoyed listening to in March. Click here if you want to check out the entire playlist on Spotify!

Nolita Fairytale by Vanessa Carlton
Better Without You by Evanescence
Maps by Lesley Roy
Hail To The King by Halocene featuring Cole Rolland
My Head & My Heart by Ava Max
The Parting Glass by Celtic Woman
Now You Know by Icon For Hire
If I Had A Heart by Rachel Hardy
Superwoman by Alicia Keys
Power Is Power by Fear of Water
Open Your Eyes (Deep Blue Songspell) by Bea Miller
Woman by Ellie Goulding
Cry Little Sister by Vomitron featuring Anneke van Giersbergen
Guest Room by Echos
Confessional by Janet Devlin
Problema by Daddy Yankee
Call You Out by Flyleaf
Bystander by Sumo Cyco
The Ritual by Eternal Eclipse
Hate by Plush

Now we are going to move on to something that was announced back in mid-February.

One of my favorite symphonic metal bands Delain that I found in the start of my rock n roll phase back in 2010 have decided to break up essentially, It was announced through their social medias, I found out on Instagram and it was a message from Martijn Westerholt. He is the keyboardist but the founding member of the band itself, and he let all of the fans know what the future holds for Delain as a whole. If you would like to read the rest of the statement, click here.

In my little selfish way, I had wished they made this decision last year but it seems that they weren’t ready yet to say anything about it. Maybe they hoped once the new year came around, they would still be together. So, now here we are and my thoughts from the first moment I read it to today, I still don’t have anything bad to say. I know it is heartbreaking for the fans, but this happens everyday, however, what I made me excited about the decision was the band ‘Delain’ would still be here, just now with the current members. New people would be added and they will create music and relationships with all kinds of fans.

Since the announcement, I have thought of various ways the band can evolve and the one thing that comes to mind is they could go deeper into the fantasy world that has kind of become part of the symphonic metal and rock discography. I also think it would neat to see them go into the metal sphere a little bit more. I have never considered them ‘metal’ despite their best efforts, I just didn’t like it as much. All in all I am actually excited for the next edition of Delain.

What have you been listening to lately?

How I Became A Music Blogger

Howdy!

I’ve been trying to figure what to blog about for a few days and I thought about some advice posts; I like them but I’m also one of those people who doesn’t feel the need to follow the same set of rules of others. These will be things that I do that might be useful to the newbies or somebody who would like to experiment every once in a while.

What does it mean to be a music blogger?

I started writing reviews back in 2011, probably four months after I actually created this blog. I will say, those first few reviews are really bad. I have the worst grammar and I cannot describe what I hear for the life of me! I will say though, since I’ve been doing them and the fact that I try to get out of my comfort zone, I feel like I am getting better at it.

In the beginning, I wasn’t really thinking about what could come out of the review itself, I just knew that I needed to express myself about what I hearing inside of my headphones. Towards the end of 2012, I’d say my music choices started to go in a darker direction and since I was already listening to tons of international music, I knew I wanted to share it with more people, whether it be my Twitter followers, friends and/or family. Everybody wants new music, so why shouldn’t I help promote these artists and groups?

What can you talk about on your blog?

Well, that’s up to you really!

I think it’s important to establish what kind of music blogger you want to be from the very beginning. To me, there are two ways you can go about this, you can be like me and only focus on the music itself–that means you discuss nothing about anything else but whatever you’re presented. Second way is you talk about that artist’s personal life, which is something that I do NOT participate in because I think it’s absolutely rude!

There are a lot of bloggers out there that only review new artists, which is good because they need all of the promotion they can get from people. However, if you do put your email address on your about or contact page, be aware that you may not always get to talk with that particular artist or group, majority of the time you’re talking to a third party. It has its ups and downs, because honestly the artist will make you feel welcomed and allow you to have time to listen and get your words figured out, but the third party does not. At least, from my own experience, they haven’t made me feel like I was going fast enough to reply back to them about anything.

Besides the new artists, you can talk about your favorites, but in reality you’re really closing up opportunities to get to know other musicians. Thankfully, when I started blogging about music, I was already in the thick of international music, so I was listening to stuff all over the world and it didn’t really matter if they were singing in English or not.

There are different ways to review music:

• Albums/EPs – These are pretty much the only way I review anything to do with music at the moment. However, I do have my own limit. I do discuss an album that’s over 20 tracks. It just puts a lot of pressure on me to stay open enough to speak my thoughts and I never want the number of songs to change my mind about a particular track. 
• Single – If you’re going to write about a single, be prepared for that post of yours to be pretty short. I think I always had two or three paragraphs whenever I’d review just a single, but on the bright side, I always thought it would be fair to release two single reviews in one day!
• Music Videos – Music videos are pretty easy to talk about, as you can just find it on YouTube’s recently added and go from there, but you also need to think about something else. Are you going to only discuss the song, the content of the video itself, or both? I always found it to be easier to do both, but whenever I would listen to the heavy metal music, I wouldn’t review the actual video in fear something creepy would pop out and scare me! 

What kind of ways to listen to music to review?

I mostly only use Spotify to listen to my music. They are convenient, because they have the new music on their browse tab. Once you start using it a lot, and you “follow” more and more artists and bands, then it’ll create a “release radar” playlist for you of the music and you basically go from there. After I’ve found an album or EP, or even a selection of them, I’ll create a playlist of each one and save them for later until I’m ready to work on them.

If you can’t use Spotify, then YouTube is my second option. Unfortunately, you will have some issues going in this direction. Musicians and record companies will not always upload a full album onto the artist or band’s main page, it’ll just depend on the circumstance honestly, so if you’re unable to find all of the music on the record, you’re going to need to hope another fan has put it up without tampering with the sound too much and of course YouTube has taken all of them down!

My last suggestion is whether or not, you want to purchase the album on iTunes. I mean, all your doing is reviewing the album, and in case you’re not sure about the genre or if you’re going to like it in general, you’ve just spend $11.29 or $14.99 that you now have to keep in your library. So, everything is up to you on what you want to do.

Here are some tips on what I do before I start the reviewing process!

1. Have a notepad nearby! It’ll be smarter to write or type out the song titles and date of when the record came out. Something else you should look into, is some information about the artist you’re talking about, you have to remember that you are not only selling the album, but the musician too!
2. Trust your gut, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. If you are not comfortable talking about a certain subject, do NOT push yourself to write about it. However, on the flip side, if you can’t figure out how to describe the song and how it sounds, go with your next best option. I’ll usually say whatever I’m feeling at that moment. I’ve described song(s) as “driving around in a small town while the sun is setting!” So whatever comes to your head first, then say it!
3. Don’t rush the process, if you need to take a break in between a group of songs, then do it! I have started reviews in the mornings and finished them at night, and I’ve even spread them out over a couple of days since I usually schedule them at a later date.
4. If you’re unable to find the album cover on the artist’s social media accounts, then I recommend you making a banner for your future review posts. I’ve used Paint to create mine, but I’m sure you can make really clever ones using your own photos!

I think that are all of my tips and tricks that I can share with you today! If you are thinking about starting on music reviews, or reviewing anything such as books, movies, etc, it’s a fun experience for you as a blogger but it also helps promote the musicians you’re talking about too!

Tune Tuesday | Norway

This year I wanted to add Norway to my list and so I did!

Several months ago, I heard about how all of the radio stations in Norway were going off. Apparently everybody over there thinks that since we use the Internet to find music that playing music on the radio is too outdated. I think I would be heartbroken if our radio stations went off here in the states! I understand to take a few shows off the air, but what are you to listen to in the car if you don’t have a connector for your phone or iPod? Unless you still burn music onto blank CDs a lot of people are going to be going long family trips without anything to listen to. That would be the worst thing ever! I need music on those kinds of trips honestly, keeps my sanity!

Besides all this happening there, I have found quite a bit of music from there. Two bands that I found on Spotify, haven’t been listening to them very long actually, but they have a lot of music out! The first is Leaves’ Eyes and they are going to be releasing a new album soon that I am very excited about!! I can’t believe it’s been two years since they released “Symphony Of The Night” I mean, that’s just crazy! Another band in the same genre: gothic/symphonic metal Sirenia is a band that just released their newest album back in May! Unfortunately I have yet to listen to it all the way through, but I will one of these days! Both bands have almost the same sounds, stories in their albums, but both female vocalists are so different in range! I think Liv Kristine (Leaves’ Eyes) is better than Ailyn (Sirenia) because she sounds more powerful in her voice whenever she sings the more slower tempo songs. Ailyn is very dramatic, so they each have their differences and it’s good that this separates the two bands.

The last one hasn’t really made it onto my favorites list yet, but when I found out he was from here I knew I had to include him in this post. Kygo is an EDM artist. I’ve only heard of a couple of his songs and I’m just now starting to like his song with Conrad Sewell called “Firestone” but the other one called “Stole The Show” with Parson James still needs time. Sadly, that’s all I’ve been able to find from Norway until next year! Do you listen to any Norwegian band/artists that I need to hear? Send them to me!

Hell To The Heavens – Leaves’ Eyes

Seven Widows Weep – Sirenia

Firestone – Kygo ft. Conrad Sewell

Song Review: “Happy Song” by Bring Me The Horizon

Since I wasn’t a big fan of Linkin Park when they first came out like my cousins, I didn’t care much when their music started to change drastically when they released “Minutes to Midnight.” I’ve been able to change right along with bands and artists when they want to go into a new direction with their next album(s) but seems like Bring Me The Horizon might have to work for it.

BMTH was on that list – I wasn’t going to listen to because they were too dark for me. They made Deathcore music and I wasn’t willing to hear their music. At the end of last year, I knew I’d break because I had listened to like four other bands that we’re on the same list. It was just a matter of time. I heard Sempiternal several months after it had come out. Everybody was talking about it and naturally I wanted to know what all of the fuzz was about and then after I heard it, I saw complaints from former fans about their change in sound, so I looked up their past albums and there was a definite change from their first to this album. Oli’s vocals were the focus for a lot of fans, especially when they tried to perform their older songs live. Oli could barely do them anymore. The sound in their albums are still dark in terms of lyrics and sound but they are using more electronic/synths in their newer songs. I liked it because it was something that I was used to hearing.

They’ve recently released their first single of their new album called That’s The Spirit and it’s called “Happy Song” and I didn’t like it when I first heard it. I was actually disappointed in myself a little. The introduction has a bunch of girls shouting the word “Spirit” like a cheer at a game of some sort. Oli’s vocals start out slow, low and then in the chorus he’s higher pitched. He’s shouting-singing, but not like harshly. As much as I love music, I’d hate to see artists and bands release songs that would be good for radio play. I feel like this is one of them unfortunately. It sounds like a song they released in the late winter and there’s nothing special about it. I just don’t like it. I’m sorry! I’m hoping the new album sounds better than this.

I don’t care if you were a fan of them before the change or not, what do you think of “Happy Song?” To try and save Oli”s voice do you think going in the direction like Linkin Park is a good one?