Book Review: Minutes to Kill by Melinda Leigh

     I finished Minutes to Kill several days ago, and it has taken me this long to gather my thoughts on this book by Melinda Leigh.

Book Description:

     After corporate attorney Hannah Barrett tries - and fails - to stop a kidnapping in Vegas, she can't shake the haunting image of the terrified young girl she couldn't save.  She tells herself that a visit to her hometown in Scarlet Falls could be a welcome distraction.  But soon, Hannah realizes the kidnappers have all the info they need to track her every move.  And when chilling e-mails about the victim appear in her inbox, it's frighteningly clear what happened in Vegas has followed her home.

     Eight months after a terrible family tragedy, Hannah turns to Detective Brody McNamara once again.  Brody is eager to help, though he's embroiled in the investigation of a brutal murder.  But the closer they work together, the stronger their feelings grow... and the more they stand to lose when two seemingly unrelated, but equally deadly, cases collide.

     Minutes to Kill is the pulse-racing second novel in bestselling author Melinda Leigh's Scarlet Falls series.

**To start this review, I did receive an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  

     I have read several of Melinda's books before this one; however, I didn't know that this was the second in a series.  I think these are meant to be able to be read as stand alone books, but I must say I wish I read Hour of Need first.  

     For me, the beginning of the book held a lot of promise.  However, shortly after Hannah failed to save the young teenage girl from her kidnappers, the story sort of flat-lined for me.  The kidnappers got a hold of Hannah's purse (with her wallet and credit cards) and the only thing Hannah seemed to be worried about was just canceling her cards.  I mean they got her ADDRESS (which was where her brother and young niece and nephew lived) and she didn't seem to care.  No one, especially the cops in both Vegas and Scarlet Falls, seemed concerned that the bad guys had her address.  The suspense picked up somewhat towards the end, but by that point I had lost interest in these characters (especially Hannah) and their story.

     I didn't like Hannah all that much.  The whole book she kept beating herself up "for not doing enough" to save the girl.  I felt she did more than 99% of the world would do and her constant questioning and berating herself got old pretty quick.       

End rating: 3 out of 5 

Gluten-Free / Sugar Free General Tso's Chicken

My Husband and I are quite a pair when it comes to food.  He has Type 1 diabetes and I am gluten-free, so sometimes it can become a circus trying to plan out our meals for the week.  

My husband loves Chinese food, but most Chinese restaurants have lots of sugar in all their sauces, so his options were limited.  And now that I've gone gluten-free (and never felt better), certain soy sauces have gluten in them, so I have to be careful too. 

I found this recipe about a year or so ago and have made a a few times since then (prior to me going gluten-free).  There are a couple of things that need to be changed in order to make it gluten-free along with already having no sugar.  

Pay attention to the Soy Sauce you are using.  Some companies use wheat in their Soy Sauce.  A gluten-free option is Tamari, which I have been able to find at my local Publix (grocery store).  Also, make sure that your cornstarch is gluten-free.  In most cases they are (since it is made from corn), but check just to be sure.

You can obliviously modify the recipe to your liking by adding more or less red pepper flakes (depending on how spicy you like it), ginger, etc.  I always add a little MORE red pepper flakes and garlic, and a little LESS ginger.

And the leftovers taste just as good the next day! =]

Enjoy!

-XO

Alyse

Trying to fix Bloglovin'

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Hey everyone.  Been trying to fix my blog in the last few days.  My Bloglovin' account doesn't want to seem to cooperate with me =/

Perfect Summer Everyday Lipstick

MAC Lipstick in Costa Chic

MAC's Costa Chic is a frosty light coral color that is PERFECT for summer.  It is smooth and easy to apply, and a definitely moisturizing lipstick.  I would NOT recommend this lipstick if you have dried, chapped lips because I can see it settling into the cracks in your lips.

I put on every night (well, every night I remember) Kiss Me Tonight Intense Lip Therapy to keep my lips moisturized.  And on days where that doesn't work I use Lush's Bubblegum Lip scrub to get off all the dead, dry skin.

MAC lipstick's run about $15 (depending on if it is in a limited edition collection).  

Costa Chic on my lips

What are your go-to summer lipsticks?

-XO

Alyse

Beauty, Clothing, and Odds and Ends Haul!

I have done a little bit of shopping in the last month or so.  =]
Here are the items I've gotten:

There have been some great sales lately.  Got two comfy sweaters from Pacsun for about $30.  I am also a HUGE bookworm and two new books came out by authors I love: 

Dan Brown's Inferno and Iris Johansen's Taking Eve.

Target had the new Tomb Raider game for about $20 off so I snagged that up since I had beaten all my PS3 games. =]

Here are close-ups of the make-up items I've gotten over the past month(ish):

Here is the close-up of Tarte's Amazonian clay 12-hour blush in Fearless, Laura Geller's Balance and Brighten Foundation in Medium, and MAC's lipstick in Impassioned.

Love, Love, Love Victoria's Secret body scrubs.  They usually have a deal for 5 for $30 so I stocked up!  The scents I got were:

(From Left to Right)

Love Spell - cherry blossom and peach

 Amber Romance - amber and creme anglaise

 Pure Seduction - red plum and freesia

Midnight Dare -raspberry and sandelwood 

Secret Craving - black currant and vanilla absolute

Here is another close up of MAC's lipstick in Impassioned.  And I also got NYX's lipliner in Pinky to line my lips when I wear Impassioned.  I will do a post on Impassioned and show pictures of what it looks like on. =]

I have the hardest time finding make-up remover that doesn't leave my skin an oily mess.  But with Sephora's Triple Action cleansing water, OMG! This stuff is AMAZING! It gets all my make-up off and leaves no residue on my skin! Love this find!

Lastly, since summer has already in full force in Southwest Florida, I needed some extra help with my oily skin.  I have used Urban Decay's All Nighter setting spray and loved it, and I was running low so I decided to grab their setting spray formulated for oily skin! On Urban Decay's website they had the De-slick in a Tube on sale for about $12 so I grabbed that as well.  I have tried the De-Slick in a Tube and it is pretty great.

Well, those are the products I have purchased in the last month or so! =]

What have you guys gotten for yourselves?

XO, Alyse

Why spend $40 when you can MAKE it for less then $5?!

Okay, so if you are anything like me I HATE cleaning my makeup brushes.  I mean I clean them because I don't want to keep putting dirty brushes on my face, but it's a pain in the ass to stand hunched over the sink for 30+ minutes scrubbing my brushes.  Yeah... no fun.

I saw that a brush company had come out with what is essentially a rubber "oven mitt" with different textures to do the scrubbing for you.  The first time I saw this I was excited to get something that shorten the time I was hunched over the sink.  However, when I saw the price ($40 + shipping and handling), my excitement went away.  WHY is it so much...?  I know a hundred other things I can that money on, like food.

So I sat brainstorming on ways to cut the time down into this annoying chore. I realized that the only thing that I needed was a surface with different textures to scrub the brushes on.

I had my hot glue gun out for another project I was working on when I got my inspiration.

Here is what I came up with:

The only thing I had to buy was the plastic clipboard, which you can get almost anywhere (I ordered mine off of amazon).  I did different designs and sizes with the hot glue to give it different textures for cleaning my brushes.  I let it dry overnight just to be sure that my brushes wouldn't come in contact with still wet hot glue (because that wouldn't be good).

To clean, I just laid the clipboard in the sink, wet it and used my normal brush cleaner.  Then I swirled the brush over the different bumps and grooves.  I don't think I've had my brushes cleaner.  And this actually did cut down the time cleaning over the sink!

Mission Accomplished! =]

- XO, Alyse

February's Birchbox review

So, I have had my "Red Carpet Ready" themed Birchbox for about a week now and I have had time to try the products out to see what I like and don't like.

In case you didn't see my blog post on the products I received in February's Birchbox, click HERE to read it.

Here is the review I left on Birchbox's website:

Can I please have other perfume samples other than Juicy Couture...?!?!  Seriously, it seems like I get one every other month.  And I haven't liked any of them except maybe one.  And this one isn't the one I like AT ALL.  Idk to me it just smells like musty, dirty, dead flowers... not good. Sorry. Not for me.

Here is the review I left of Birchbox's website:

I understand the concept of double-sided tape; however, I need my "girls" to be locked and loaded into place.  I am to busty to mess with the no bra/use tape .  More power to those that can pull it off, but I am not one of them.  I wear dresses that have straps that allow me to wear a bra or my (really expensive) strapless bra.  

I just have no use for it.

Here is the review I left on Birchbox's website:

This is a good detangler, but that is just it... It's good.  There is nothing EARTHSHATTERING about this product.  You can get good detanglers for much less than this one.  

Here is the review I left on Birchbox's website:

I love Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares ESPECIALLY the Caramel flavored one.  However, I HATE getting food products in my monthly Birchbox.  I live in Florida where it gets HOT!! I also have a metal mailbox.  So by the time I get to my mailbox, I don't trust the food products that have been sitting in the hot, hot, sun-beaten, metal mailbox.  So I end up throwing food products away.  Sorry...

Here is the review I left on Birchbox's website:

I reason I gave this product only 2 stars is because I didn't see any "mattifying" effect in this moisturizer.  My skin is combo/oily, so this would have been a good find to have; however, this didn't do anything for me that my normal (AND not so expensive) moisturizer.  The texture was nice, but the selling point of this product didn't so anything for me. 

Here is the review I left on Birchbox's website:

My husband is VERY picky about the lip products I wear. He doesn't like kissing me if I have certain lip stuff on.  So the first thing I did when opening this product was put some on and ran to give my hubby a smooch.  He, of course, looked at me like I was crazy and asked me what I was doing.  When I told him I was testing out a new lip gloss and I wanted to see if he "liked" it or not, he shrugged and said "it didn't taste bad, so it's okay...".  So, to me that equal WINNER! =] (Keep in mind, I still wear what I want, I just TRY to keep him in mind if I was planning on kissin' my hubby).

About the product, it is as Birchbox describes is: sheer (NO COLOR, just some shine), and doesn't leave behind any "trace evidence" a.k.a sticky residue on the lips.   If you like products that show off you natural lip color and just adds a little bit of "glossy, wet" look to your lips, then this is the product for you. (Plus, I think the sample sent was a full-sized product.)