Back from China!

Hello one and all! Well, I just made it back to the US from an unbelievably short one week trip to China for work. It’s always fun going back, even if for business purposes, and even if it takes an entire day to travel there. Nothing like a 5 hr 30 min layover in the Beijing airport to pass the time. And the worst jet lag you could ever imagine.

But I must say the interminably long flights did help me catch up on practically every super-hero movie which has ever been created in preparation for watching Avengers: Infinity War when I got back.

Anyway, sorry if I’ve been kind of quiet on my blog here, and non-responsive to emails and review requests, but it’s been quite a busy week! Thought I’d share some pics with y’all from my trip to Nanjing, China.

Definitely bought about 5 too many books, but when you find the Hunger Games trilogy in Chinese? Can’t say no!!

Best breakfast ever. Coffee drink and baozi.

Confucius Temple area of Nanjing.

Nanjing Normal University

Pearl S. Buck house in Nanjing.

I for one do love a heart-warming toilet.

Confucius Temple area in Nanjing.

And as with every trip, I already miss the foooooood!!!!

Headed to the Beach!

Well ladies and gents it’s that time of year once again where I need to get the hell out of dodge, and head to the sun and surf of the beach. Not gonna lie, I am in absolute desperate need of a vacation! I’m headed to Florida for a whole week, and I couldn’t be more excited.

It’s simply been too long since I’ve had a proper beach holiday, and by God I’m planning on enjoying every second of it. My Kindle is loaded, my audiobooks queued up, and my work email is ready to be ignored. Oh, I also plan on consuming more seafood and delectable desserts than any human probably should in a given week.

But don’t worry, I didn’t forget about all of you! I have some reviews all lined up and ready to post in my absence. Enjoy!

Headed Down Under

Well everyone! Once again I get to spend a lot of time catching up on my romance novel reading while on a long-ass flight across the Pacific. Last time I was headed to China. This time I’m going to Australia!!

I’ll be gone for a two-week business trip to the land down under, spending time in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane before taking another plane on over to New Zealand for the weekend. Woot hoot hoot!

Seeing as it takes about 24 hours of straight travel time to get there, I imagine I’ll be spending quite a bit of that time with my nose in my Kindle. Then I have the whole flight back to look forward to. If only I had thought ahead and picked out some books with a few hunky Aussie lead male characters! Dammit Lauren, use your head!!

Unfortunately I’m heading to Australia during their winter, so I’m coming to terms with the fact that I probably won’t get to spend all day admiring Chris and Liam Hemsworth surfing in nothing but their swim trunks. But alas, that’s ok! My new goal is to see a kangaroo fight. Catch ya on the flip side!!

 

Did You Miss Me?

I know, I know, long time no book review. But I’ve been busy, ok?! Not only was I home last week for the holidays, which basically meant I took an official break from reading any and all e-mails, but my work travel for all of the fall has only just ended! I have completed four work trips since September, which were two weeks each in length. That’s a lot of travel!!

There are some definite ups and downs to traveling for work. For example, I was able to get a ton of reading done, both in airports and of course on the beach. I think I averaged about 10 books per trip, so about 40 books altogether in the last 3 months.

In addition to reading, and relaxing on the beach, I occasionally get to do some sight seeing. I was able to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time since I was a kid on a family vacation. I must say, it’s rather peaceful to stroll through on your own.

And for those of you who, like me, are addicted to South Park, I visited the actual Casa Bonita in Denver, Colorado. It’s basically like Chuck E. Cheese for Mexican food. There were cliff divers and everything! Sure the food was terrible, and they mistakenly had a stuffed toy of Stan climbing the diving cliffs instead of Cartman, but overall it was a dream come true.

In spite of all the apparent benefits of work travel, there are some downsides to it as well. Firstly, traveling to 38 different cities in three months can be exhausting. That’s a lot of Holiday Inns and time changes to deal with. Not to mention pizza delivery.

The ultimate downside of work travel is that although I was able to read a lot of books, I was usually too exhausted to actually sit down and write reviews of those that I finished. However! My work travel officially ended the week before Thanksgiving, so I am now home and ready to write some book reviews! Just not today of course. I’m still adjusting. Be sure to check back later this week though, and I’ll have some steamy new romance reviews for all of you!

Who Am I?

No, I’m not Spiderman. Or Batman. Or any other superhero who seems to utter that question nowadays. It’s been one year since I started this blog, and I realized that I’ve never properly introduced myself. So, I thought, why not get to know the crazy chica who’s been droning on and on to all of you about romance and the like?

The Basics

Authors often e-mail me to review their books, and one of the things I love most about their initial e-mails is how they choose to address me. Ms. Romance for the Beach is often used. She who shall not be named. The mystery writer. I’m not really sure why I chose to keep my name a secret, but here we go. The big reveal. Drumroll please. My name is Lauren. Hiya! Now that that’s out-of-the-way, let’s move on to some of the fun stuff.

Today is my birthday, which means I am officially 26 years old! Woot woot. I’m single and I live in a big city. I won’t go into too much detail about exact location, because let’s face it, you have to make it a little hard for all the stalkers out there to track you down, but let’s just say I once saw the President during my lunch break. I may be single, but I personally find nothing wrong with that, and am in no way looking to settle down in the near future. Scandalous, I know. But I’ve got a job that let’s me travel on a regular basis, and a great group of friends, so I’m not exactly pining away for a knight in shining leather.

And so it Began

Believe it or not, this isn’t my first blog. I used to have a site dedicated to reviewing movies, but it definitely didn’t get as much visibility as this one. Also, I found that when it came to movies people were much more vicious/rude with their opinions if they differed from mine. Maybe book people are just a lot nicer!

Obviously, I love romance novels. Although I’ve always loved reading, my love affair with the romance genre is fairly new, and started approximately 4 years ago when I was living in China. I had just finished the Hunger Games trilogy, and even though I absolutely loved the books I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed that there was only a bit of kissing between the main characters. I wanted a little more heat!

So I started an online search of books which featured the best sex scenes ever, and lo and behold Goodreads kept suggesting romance novels. But I don’t read romance novels! I kept looking for other genres which might have some steamy scenes, but eventually I had to admit to myself that if I wanted a book with some tumbling between the sheets, I’d have to pick up a romance. The Bronze Horseman was the book I chose, and after being completely blown away by the quality of the writing, not to mention the more than adequate ways to keep warm during a Russian winter (hint hint, wink wink), my love for all things romance began in earnest.

My Favorite Things

Getting back on track to talking about myself, I have a knack for languages including French and Chinese. I love Thai food, and long walks on the beach. Come on, you know I had to put that in there 🙂 My favorite movie is Gone with Wind, and my favorite book is Crocodile on the Sandbank. When I’m not reading or working on this blog, you’ll probably find me at a happy hour with friends, watching a movie, or playing the piano. That’s right, I still manage to have a social life in spite of the amount of time it takes to manage this blog all by myself. I used to hate beach vacations, because I found them to be rather boring, but now I’ve found they are one of the best ways to indulge in my romance novel obsession. That being said, one of my favorite vacations ever was a 2 week trip all over France, so any book set in that locale is a must read. Is it just me, or is this starting to sound like a personal ad?

Likes and Dislikes

Well, if it does sound like a dating site profile, then I might as well go all out. I may have alluded to it earlier, but let me officially say that I love to travel. I think this was brought on by the fact that I was born and raised in Ohio, and there isn’t much to do there. So I went to school in both Canada and China, found a job that lets me travel extensively for 3 months out of the year all over the USA, and my next travel goal is to do a cross-country road trip. I read a romance novel once where the female lead wanted to dip her toes in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mark the beginning and end of her trip. What can I say? The idea stuck with me. When it comes to reading, I love a fairy tale happy ending.

As for dislikes, Mondays are my enemy, because they mark the beginning of the work week when I can no longer sit and read all day. I’m not a huge fan of reading about BDSM relationships, or novels which are too suspenseful because they make me fidgety.

I never majored in writing or literature in college, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write a book review every now and again! So that’s me in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting, but hopefully now you know a bit more than you did before.

I’m Going to China!

Holy shit, this trip came up quick. I hope I didn’t forget anything. By the time you read this I will probably already be flying over the US and Pacific Ocean on my way to China for a two week business trip. Two…whole…weeks. Although I’m not really looking forward to literally 24 hours of travel time from my departure city to my destination, it will give me plenty of time to prepare for my business meetings. Ha! Yeah right. My Kindle is fully charged, and I’ve downloaded some fabulous new romance releases to occupy my time. Still though, 24 hours of sitting in airports and airplanes is gonna be painful.

This isn’t my first trip to China, but it will be the first time I’ll be there while simultaneously maintaining a blog. I’ve scheduled some posts for all of you during my absence, but I honestly can’t guarantee if they’ll post at the right time, in the right format, or even at all. 12 hour time change and limited internet connection can be a bitch. Also, don’t expect a ton of communication from me via e-mail, blog comments or Twitter. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures though, and write a summary post when I get back! I can already tell you I’m going to eat ALL the food. 再见！我会想你们! If that just showed up as empty squares, then your computer isn’t set to read Chinese characters and you should get on that.