Manicure Monday (63): Sublime

 

Hi and welcome to Manicure Monday, a weekly post that combines my love of reading and nail polish. Each Monday I will show you one of my current reads along with a matching book manicure. Thanks for stopping by!  

Hello and happy Monday. Today I have a really fun and easy manicure to match the cover of Sublime by Christina Lauren. 

First, isn't this a gorgeous cover? I really loved the dreamy quality of it and all of the swirling fabrics and hair. I decided to create a fun, easy look using a simple technique. I don't know if there's an official name for this technique but I am going to call it a swirl manicure. It has a look similar to a water marble manicure but is much easier to accomplish.

First I started off with a dark grey base (Sinful Colors Ardoise) on all of my nails. Then I placed random drops of each color onto my nails. In order for this to work well it's best to work on one nail at a time before moving on to the next. The colors I used were Zoya Gie Gie (light pink shimmer), Zoya Rebel (light blue shimmer), Sinful Colors Ardoise (dark grey) and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (grey toned white). After placing small drops of each color onto the nail, I swirled them together using a nail dotting tool. You can really use anything for this part - a toothpick or pin would also work well.

 

Do this for each of your nails. You polish will be quite thick after this so be sure you give it enough time to dry all the way through before you put your top coat on. And that's it! For very little effort you get a pretty cool looking manicure.

I haven't really had time to do much more than start Sublime but it's good so far. I also love these authors and have a feeling I am going to like this one. Hopefully I will find more time to read this week than last.

Thanks for checking out today's manicure. Have a good week!

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Book Ball 2014 Recap + Giveaway (US)

Hi, everyone! Happy hump day. I hope you're almost over the hump (I know that sounds totally dirty). Which is how I am going to segue way into my recap of Book Ball 2014, hosted by the lovely authors Christina Lauren at the Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach. The event boasted an awesome lineup of authors that included Alice Clayton, Sylvia Day, Katy Evans, Ruthie Knox, Christina Lauren, Cara McKenna, Monica Murphy, Kristen Proby, Tiffany Reisz, and Andrew Shaffer. I had heard about the event a while ago and knew that I wanted to go because I love, love Tiffany Reisz. However, due to life happening, we did not decide to go until the day of, but I am really glad that we rallied and went for it.

My partner in crime was Kimberly from The Windy Pages. Like I said, we actually didn't decide to go to the signing until about an hour before it started. And we live about an hour away from the venue, and that's with good traffic. With the crazy rains in LA over the weekend, I wasn't sure if we were going to run into any traffic but I was confident that we would make it for most of the event. We managed to make pretty good time even with the weather and got to B&N at about 2:15pm for the 2pm signing. I thought there was going to be a Q&A or presentation but it was just a straight signing. There had been a get together the night before with the authors and I think they did most of their talking then. Also, with such a large number of authors, I think a full presentation would have been difficult.

We quickly purchased our books (after a lot of deliberation on which ones to buy) and headed back upstairs for the signing. The line was quite long but the B&N was really organized and the staff was very friendly. We ended up skipping part of the line because the authors we were seeing had shorter lines than some of the others.

First up was Tiffany Reisz! Peeps, if you read this blog you know how much I adore Tiffany Reisz. Her books are fantastic and totally racy and I love her to bits. She was super sweet and funny and was not fazed as Kimberly and I fangirled her. We talked bout the next book in the Original Sinner series that comes out later this year about a young, crazy Nora Sutherlin. I can't wait. I had her sign my copies of The Siren and The Prince, and she and I bonded over the fact that The Prince was our favorite book of the series. 

Next up was Christina Lauren, the writing duo behind the Beautiful Bastard series. Like an idiot, I had left my Christina Lauren books at home but I bought one for a giveaway and had them sign it. They are always so fun to talk to and it's easy to see that they are good friends. We talked a bit about their new book Sublime that is coming out in a few months. I just received and eARC of that one and they told me to tweet them while I was reading it (unless I hated it). :)

This is my favorite picture of the event. I don't even know what was happening here, but I love it.

The last author we saw was Alice Clayton. I have heard so many good things about Alice and finally picked up Wallbanger to try. Alice was super sweet and was lovely to talk to. I am really excited to finally read one of her books.

After the signing we went for a cheesecake break and ended up coming back to B&N to buy more books from their signed stock. I picked up a book by Kristen Proby and Katy Evans, who were both extremely popular at the signing. All in all it was a really fun signing and we met some great people in line as well. B&N did a fantastic job at the event and everything seemed to run really smoothly. I would definitely go back for another signing. Shout out to A Reading Nurse who we chatted with at the event.

Alright, now it's time for a giveaway. I have a signed copy of Beautiful Beginning by Christina Lauren to give away along with a couple of bookmarks. This is open only to US residents. Good luck!

Giveaway Rules:

1. Open to US residents only. 
2. We are not responsible for lost, stolen, or damaged items. 
3. One set of entries per household please. 
4. If you are under 13, please get a parent or guardian's permission to enter, as you will be sharing personal info such as an email address. 
5. Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter widget a day or two after the contest ends. 
6. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to to the email, otherwise we will pick a new winner. 
7. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. You can review our full contest policy here. 
8. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE ANY PERSONAL INFO IN THE COMMENTS. Sorry for the caps but we always get people leaving their email in the comments. Rafflecopter will collect all that without having personal info in the comments for all the world (and spambots) to find. Thanks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Manicure Monday (39): Beautiful Player

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another Manicure Monday post. Did you enjoy the extra hour that we got yesterday? I wish we got an extra hour every day. I think I could get a lot of reading done with one more hour in the day. :) Today's Manicure Monday book is Beautiful Player by Christina Lauren. If you follow me on Twitter, you've probably already seen me gush about this one. I like the whole series but this one just might be my favorite. Will and Hanna are fantastic together and their romance is hot but also super sweet. I've already re-read my favorite parts of the books several times over, which is always a sign of how much I like it. Hope to have a review of it up soon though I want to write the review for the previous book in the series first. We'll see how that goes. Anyhow, on to the manicure!

I had an idea for this manicure ever since I got it. I like the simplicity of the covers in this series as they usually only feature one color and then black and white. I knew I wanted to incorporate the stripes into the manicure as well. For this look, I only used two nail colors and black acrylic paint.

Cult Nails Tempest (white)
Color Club Rebel Debutante (green)

I decided to do a gradient using the white and green polishes. This actually turned out harder than I expected because the polish is a jelly (meaning it is slightly sheer). Because it was sheer, it was hard to get a really even gradient and it did not blend really well with the white. I did my best but this certainly is not my best gradient. I used a regular makeup sponge to dab color onto my nails, concentrating more color at the tips to get a graduated color shift.

After putting top coat on that, I used a really thin nail brush and black acrylic paint to paint stripes diagonally onto each nail. You guys, thank god I used acrylic paint that I could wipe off because I had to do the stripes on each nail at least 5 times. Apparently painting straight lines is not my strong suit. I started off with thicker lines and moved onto thinner stripes as I moved down my hand. I was trying to mimic the cover with the darker stripes gradually moving onto two thing stripes in the shirt. 

I did something a little different on my thumb and just used a solid green base and splattered black paint onto it. To do this, I used a little coffee straw to blow paint onto my nail to create a splatter effect. I think it matches the cover quite well.

Review: Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

Title: Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Bastard #1)

Author: Christina Lauren
Publication Date: February 12, 2013
Publisher: Gallery Books
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance/Erotica
Find It: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N
Source: Publisher at Comic-Con

Whip-smart, hardworking, and on her way to an MBA, Chloe Mills has only one problem: her boss, Bennett Ryan. He's exacting, blunt, inconsiderate—and completely irresistible. A Beautiful Bastard.

Bennett has returned to Chicago from France to take a vital role in his family's massive media business. He never expected that the assistant who'd been helping him from abroad was the gorgeous, innocently provocative—completely infuriating—creature he now has to see every day. Despite the rumors, he's never been one for a workplace hookup. But Chloe's so tempting he's willing to bend the rules—or outright smash them—if it means he can have her. All over the office.

As their appetites for one another increase to a breaking point, Bennett and Chloe must decide exactly what they're willing to lose in order to win each other.

I avoided this series for a long time. I saw the cover and heard the hype and thought that it was just another Fifty Shades type book about a high powered suit and his virginal assistant. But when I saw that the authors were going to be signing copies of their books at Comic-Con this year, I decided to bite the bullet and give the series a go. The worst that could happen was that I wouldn't like it and the best could be that I'd have an awesome new series to rave about. Can you guess what happened? Well I will tell you that I read Beautiful Bastard in about a day and then proceeded to tear through Beautiful Stranger and the Beautiful Bitch novella in the days that followed. If you like good smut, then this is the series for you.

Bennett Ryan is a beautiful bastard. He's used to getting what he wants and he doesn't put up with people who can't deliver. Chloe Mills is a driven and hardworking intern earning her MBA degree while working for Bennett. She puts up with a lot of crap for Bennett, she doesn't do it meekly. Chloe is ball buster really keeps Bennett on his toes. She does her job well and is probably the only person who can handle Bennett.

I am a big fan of when love interests don't get along. The love/hate relationship always makes things more interesting and Chloe and Bennett have a lot of both going on. They go from yelling at each other one minute to screwing in a stairwell the next. The sexual tension is really high and each encounter is more intense than the last. They also find some very creative places and ways to have sex, and they do it often. But as much as they do it, the sex never seemed gratuitous not did I get bored with it.

The book is told from dual POVs which I don’t always love but really appreciated in this book. Without it, you might really think that Bennett was an asshole. But seeing his side of things makes him a much more likable character. He has real feelings for Chloe beyond just sex and, though he is confident on the outside, we get to see some of his insecurities. I really like being able to get into both of their heads.

Beautiful Bastard is a deliciously over the top, sexy romp.  If you like fun, sexy books, give this series a try. I don't think you'll be sorry.

*A copy of this book was provided free of charge from the publisher. This in no way affected my opinion or review of this book.

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Visit the authors online at www.christinalaurenbooks.com, Twitter (Christina, Lauren) and Facebook.
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