Review: Do Not Lick The Phones by Britney Bronte

The True Confessions of a TV Psychic!

A sparkling romcom based on the true life adventures of Britney Bronte, hapless wannabe celebrity psychic.

Meet Britney, a girl with a pack of cards and almost no ambition, who finds herself jetset to stardom on psychic Television. Will she find fame? Inner meaning? True love?

Crazies and conmen, angels and aliens, predictions and porn, they're all to be found in this whistleblowing romp through the New Age. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll howl... but whatever you do, remember please, DO NOT LICK THE PHONES!

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Britney Bronte finally lands a dream job, hosting a psychic bit on television. Unfortunately, the station is owned by Satan, but the cast of characters that she encounters is enough to keep things always hopping. Britney weaves a fascinating tale of her job and the people who surround her. Life at the studio is never dull, that is for sure. From the "babes" that do the adult lines to the varied psychics and mediums working in her studio, the tales are varied and amusing. There is a bit with a sheep and another that involves an exorcism of a plant that had me stuck in a laughing fit. Of course, a man enters the picture. Kumar, the hottest man alive, is his name and Britney is definitely interested. And it is complicated, naturally. I think my biggest issue was the fact the book rarely left the studio. It felt hard to get a grasp on who Britney really was because it was all work related and so much detail into the inner workings of the TV station with too many characters being added on a constant basis. Overall, a good debut novel out of Britney Bronte and hopefully more to come.

All proceeds from “DO NOT LICK THE PHONES” will go to help out communities in London recover from the horrible riots that recently happened. That, folks, deserves a lot of respect given to Ms. Bronte.


You can find Britney at the following: her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

As always, a big thank you to Samantha with Chick Lit Plus Blog Tours for inviting me to review this book.

I had the time of my life

In 1987, there was this little movie that came out called “Dirty Dancing” and I fell in love. The sweet good girl, Frances “Baby” Houseman, that aspired to save the world falls in love with the proverbial boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Johnny Castle. Not only was he from the wrong side of the tracks, but he was older *gasp* and been around the block a few times. But fall in love they did and from the moment Baby tells him she carried a watermelon to the scene where Johnny stands up to her father, telling him that no one puts Baby in the corner, I was hooked. The music was perfect and the dancing was fabulous, but it was the chemistry between Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze that made the movie. (And I developed a crush on Patrick Swayze that lasted until his unfortunate passing.)




Earlier this week, it was announced that there was a remake of “Dirty Dancing” in the works. Not just a remake, but basically copying of the original, down to the music. Can you say “boycott”? Then today I saw the names they are throwing around for the remake and I wanted to kick something. For Baby they are talking Lea Michele (from “Glee”), Demi Lovato, and Mily Cyrus. For Johnny, the names hinted at include Matthew Morrison (from “Glee”), Usher, Justin Timberlake, Chace Crawford (from “Gossip Girl”), and Derek Hough (from “Dancing with the Stars”). Uh, how about no, no, no, and hell no?? If you want to copy the movie so badly, why not just re-release the movie? It stands the test of time, gaining new fans from newer generations, and you won’t need to go through the trouble of making those of us that love the original howl in outrage.



I can’t imagine anyone singing “She’s like the wind” but Patrick Swayze. I can’t imagine the “Mickey and Sylvia” scene without Patrick and Jennifer. And I surely do not want to see this movie Disneyed up.



Bad enough, we have a remake of “Footloose” coming out shortly, which I will also be avoiding. Blake Shelton, while I’m sure he is a fabulous singer, is no Kenny Loggins and I don’t personally care to hear him try to do “Footloose”. Hollywood, get original! The remakes are insulting and quite honestly, it is rare they top the original. Sucky movies are becoming too prevalent.

Read it forward coming soon!

Because I don't happen to have something as awesome as this at home:



(nor do I have the room for something as awesome as that.)

I have decided to do a little read it forward soon and will be passing on some fabulous books that I have read this year. I just have to figure out how I want to do it. :)

The Art of Writing - A guest post by author Lennie Ross

People always ask me what it’s like to write. I say it’s like playing with a Rubik’s cube the size of a house with tiny little squares the size of a postage stamp. We move words around until they make some sense, accurately reflect the images in our mind, and hopefully strike a chord of emotion in the reader.

I love to write. I started writing when I was fourteen. I wrote a book of poetry. I have no idea where that book is—probably in a tattered cardboard box in my mother’s attic collecting dust—but I would love to look at it again. The beautiful thing about all forms of writing is that they act like a time and date stamp of our thoughts and feelings at a certain moment in our lives. I guess that’s why so many people keep journals.

Like all artists, I have struggled to get paid for what I do. I have written copy for brochures selling everything from dental equipment to retirement living. I have written about local building projects, water contamination, and community fairs for small local newspapers. I have written TV movie projects inspired by real life stories of dying mothers looking for someone to care for their children and women who survived physical and sexual abuse, which I pitched from one network to the next until there was nowhere left to pitch. I have written erotica scripts where every ten pages there is a simulated sex/love scene. With all of these projects, I managed to get paid to some degree, but I have never made a living as a writer.

I know a few successful writers who make upwards of a million dollars a year doing what they love. I am not one of them, though I do hope that a little of their good fortune might rub off on me. A few years ago I became so disenchanted with writing due to my lack of financial success that I stopped writing for two whole years. It was the most foreign experience for me. I missed it. I craved it. I felt guilty for not writing, but I could not handle the disappointment and pain of not being financially successful at that which I loved.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought my mind was going to explode with ideas. Writers write; whether we are compensated financially or not, it is just something we have to do. So, I chose a new medium: the chicklit novel. With a new medium to explore, I was faced with endless new challenges: How long should it be? What voice should I use? Where do I find an editor? How do I find an agent? How do I self-publish? Throughout the process I found myself asking, “what do I do now?” Nobody was answering, so I just figured it out on my own. It was just another piece of the puzzle that is writing.

Two years later, after endless challenges, I have my first published chicklit novel, “Blow Me”. It’s a tale of three women’s struggle with sex and love in the City of Angels and one women’s struggle with being a writer.



Lennie Ross can be found on her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads

Review: Blow Me by Lennie Ross

Blow Me is the story of three single women—each close to forty and living a life they have long outgrown. Aware that the women’s magazines of their youth sold them a false bill of goods about having it all—the amazing career, the baby, the house, the husband—each woman is desperate to achieve some sense of stability. Skylar, a hairdresser/executive assistant who lost her job and burned down her apartment after a fondue party, is living out of her car; Chloe, a struggling actress/real estate agent with a French Canadian accent who has never sold a house and doesn’t have her SAG card, struggles to get a Green Card; and Dawn, an MBA-educated dating matchmaker, is hedging her bets against the ticking clock by freezing embryos. Their lives are in chaos and their only hope is to be rescued through marriage or by a Hairy Godfather. Situated in the shallow world of Los Angeles, this provocative novel in the style of Sex and the City provides a humorous look at aging, dating, and being single in the new millennium.

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Let me just say, Lennie Ross, you wrote one entertaining book!! I was fascinated with the lives of Skylar, Dawn, and Chloe. Set in the glitzy setting of Los Angeles, three very different women have forged a life for themselves and a tight friendship. (At least two of them did anyway.) Skylar's journey to finding herself and her purpose in life was rocky. Losing your job to two Barbie dolls and then burning your apartment down (hey, it was in the proverbial heat of the moment) is definitely rough. Living in her car, she had to work out where she could park for a night, where to find free food, where to grab a quick shower, all the while avoiding letting anyone know that she was, in fact homeless. Enter a man that seemed very unlikely to catch Skylar's eye, but helped her grow and find her dream job. Dawn's path was filled with an overbearing mother that just wants to see her married with children and possessing a hesitance to live her life. Her mother finally takes matters into her own hands and signs up, posing as Dawn, for a dating service and arranges a date for her daughter. Enter Jake. Dawn, as much as she likes Jake, is privately going through the process to freeze her embryos to keep up with the biological clock that is ticking away. And then we have Chloe. Honestly, I didn't find her likable. She felt fake and too materialistic. As she schemed to find herself a husband to stay in the country, I couldn't get behind her character and root for her.

Lennie's debut novel is full of heart and fun characters. The supporting cast is made up of some incredible men, some downright sleazy men, a mother that makes you want to yell at her in Dawn's defense, and a couple of cute kitties. If you've been to LA, you can envision clearly a lot of the places that are described, which helps bring it to life. I have to agree that if you love "Sex and the City", you are going to enjoy "Blow Me", a great debut from Lennie Ross.

If you want to learn more about Lennie, please check out her website, you won't regret it!

You say it's your birthday?

It’s my birthday, too!!



I am never overly thrilled with the prospect of my birthday. However this year I have decided that I am going to be celebrating my birthday from this weekend through next weekend.

What do I have planned? Nothing yet. Other than my birthday (the 9th) I did ask for my mom’s homemade lasagna for dinner. No other plans are made yet, but I think I deserve a week long celebration! I’d go for a month, but even I’d get sick of myself and my birthday by that time.

Party On!

I want to go here!!!

Chef creates Star Wars replica treats for diners at his sushi restaurant.


Han Solo! <3


Master Yoda. Eat or eat not, there is no wasting


And my favorite little bad attitude in a can, R2-D2 (with bonus Ewok!)