I am doing four reading challenges this year! That’s right. Four. Yes. I am a little obsessed with reading, lol. I’m doing these challenges in conjunction with two bookclubs and I’m rather excited about all of them.

 
The Challenges

1. Series Challenge: This challenge is the most complex and has the most rules. It’s geared to finishing up the millions of series that we’ve all seemed to have started. You know, since no author seems to be able to write standalones anymore. *rolls eyes* This challenge is scored but I’ve not included the scoring guide here (it’s too complicated).

The Rules:

1. This is a reward based challenge, with points assigned for meeting certain goals. It is not meant to be a competition between participants. That is, you don’t have to cut each other over high scores. Your competition is yourself, and your own habits of series reading.

2. The goal is to complete one series book per month. Or two, or three. Each participant can set their own goal.

3. The reward for reaching this goal (besides knocking out series books) is a credit that you may use to start a new series. Say I reach my goal in February, then I can start a new series without a scoring penalty.

4. There is scoring, but as I said it’s a self tracking system. Yes, we’ll have an overall leader in points, but since everyone will be setting their own self-goals, the scores will mean different things to different people.

5. Points are cumulative.

2. Review Challenge: It is what it is, lol The goal is to review all the books read during 2014.

3. TBR Decimation Challenge: The goal of this challenge is to try to read as many books off of my TBR (to be read) list as possible. Considering that my TBR list has grown to the point that I have dubbed it “Mt. TBR” I think I have a pretty large selection to choose from.

4. Purchase Challenge: This will be the most difficult challenge for me in 2014. The goal of this challenge is to try to limit my book purchases to no more than $20 a month. This is going to hurt but it is what it is. I’m pretty lucky because I bought a ton of books at the end of December 2013 (that are still coming in) so I think January 2014 will be the easiest month for book purchase control for me.

Short and sexy, this book was a fun read!

Erin has discovered that MMA trainer Ivan Markovic is the only person who can help her find her missing sister. Erin’s sister is a junkie dating (another) junkie who used to train at Ivan’s gym. Erin goes to the gym and asks Ivan to help her find her sister and her sister’s boyfriend because they are in trouble with two different drug running gangs.

Ivan decides to help Erin. He tells her to stay home and wait for his call but she gets a call from her sister and runs after her. When Erin arrives at the location her sister gives her, she finds her sister gone and a drug dealer looking for said sister. Ivan shows up (he had Erin followed) and saves the day.

From there Ivan takes Erin to his house where they have a heavy petting session. I was…surprised that Erin had sexual relations with Ivan so quickly. By this time she had known him for less than a full day and the text tells the reader that Erin isn’t that kind of girl. The heavy petting was…somewhat hot but it read a little…strange, lol.

There is some (very little) action in the book. A scene occurs where people break into Ivan’s house and he has to defend them with no weapons. The scene is written from Erin’s perspective who is hiding in a locked room in a closet. So…mostly sounds.

Later they find Erin’s sister – OD’d in some crack house. They save her, get her to a hospital, etc. They also get her a lawyer so she can go to rehab instead of jail. I was…kinda irritated at how easy the sister got off. She’s been a junkie for years, she also known to dabble in prostitution and it was well known (by police) that she and her boyfriend were involved in drug and gang violence. But she gets off with a couple stints in rehab. Crazy.

The ending was…a little too sweet and/or easy for me. Everything was wrapped up with a beautiful little bow – even Ivan’s criminal past and immense amounts of money were waved away with the gentle hand of deus ex machina.

The book moves rather quickly which helped to keep me interested. There are little asides thrown in that made me feel that I was reading a book in an already established series instead of a first in a series. I’m assuming that the little asides are all teasers for later books in this series.

So, it was a quick read and it kept my attention! That’s great right there. The feelings (while rushed) between Ivan and Erin were sweet and I liked that. I also have a thing for big protective men with tattoos. I liked the characters enough to continue the series.

3 Stars!