Romance Biggest Winner Part 2

I'm a romance writer, I'm a romance reader and I could stand to lose a few pounds. What's a girl to do to get motivated to lose some weight?
Join Romance Biggest Winner!
Yeah, it's a play on Biggest Loser, but who wants to be a loser? I wanna be a winner!


The challenge:
Six months of romancing the scale. Contestants get to choose their own goals, and part 2 even includes a fitness goal. The teams each week that lose the most weight get prizes. And because this is a romance lit lovers weight loss challenge the prizes are books!]
There will be two winners at the end of the six months. One author, one reader. Because I don't have a book published (yet) I'm a reader for the purposes of the contest. The winners get a big ole five hundred smackaroos.
I sure could use that money.
Last challenge's reader winner lost a hundred pounds! I don't know how she did it, but I'm gonna try to channel her until September 1.
I've got a great team of other readers and writers who are in this with me. *waves* Hiya team 6 - soon to have a cool name and team captain!


Everything kicks off today. 
I'll be following the Isagenix weightloss program and I joined my local Fitness 19.
My goal inital goal is to lose about about fifty pounds.
I'll blog about the journey on Thursdays every week, since that's our weigh-in day.


To celebrate the kick off of the challenge I've got a selection of four free books today. 


Title: Drop Three Dress Sizes in 30 Days
Author: Dr. Harry Jay
Genre: Self-Help, Weightloss
Publisher: Self Pub
Length: short


Review: This is not a diet book. (Although Dr. Harry Jay - I'm sorry, I can't help giggling every time I say that name!) does give a 'presciption' for a pretty extreme diet on the last couple of pages. This book is really all about focusing your mind to help you get what you want. His ideas could apply to anything in your life.  I've heard that meditation benefits a lot of people trying to lose weight and while Dr. Harry Jay (hee hee) gives a lot of psychology sounding terms explaining his ideas in a very academic sort of way, the idea is sound. I'll try his mind focusing ideas out and see if they don't help.


My recommendations:
One-click this if you're tired of diet books and want to change your thinking about losing weight, but don't expect a weight loss plan.
I give it three stars



Title: Top Raw Food Recipes
Author: Elon Bomani
Genre: Cookbook
Publisher:Papyrus Publishing
Length: Short


Review: Not a beginners guide to raw foods, that's for sure. I've eaten raw before (a vegan diet with no cooking or heating over 112 degrees so natural enzymes in the food stay active and alive), and felt the best ever in my life. But it's not easy to maintain unless you're Oprah and have a live in chef preparing everything for you.
If you can stick with all the preparation and craving for warm food it's great. Elon Bomani throws ya right in with foods that can only be prepared with complicate and expensive kitchen items, like a Champion juicer and a dehydrator.  While her dishes sound yummy, I know from experience you can eat raw without having to have the NASA of all kitchens.
I have no doubt if you take the author's suggestions and recipes and apply them to your diet you will lose weight and have a healthier happier body, but you'll also be spending a lot of time preparing all your food.


My Recommendations:
Skip this one and just look up some raw food recipes on the net. There are plenty that don't involve anything more complicated that a fork, knife and spoon.
I give this one three stars



Title: A Country Kitchen Christmas
Author: Leanne Tyler
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Christian Romance
Publisher: Books to Go Now
Length: About 50 pages


Review: I was pretty excited to read this short story.  This is my bread and butter (pardon the pun). I write romance with food!  The author made up a cooking network, a food blogger who didn't know how to cook and an impossible situation where the network wants to film a cooking segment at the heroine's farm, which is now owned by a never-have-been boyfriend. Sounded awesome, but it fell short of my expectations. Firstly I didn't know it was going to be Christian Inspirational. The romance of the story seemed to play second fiddle to the God message.
The author had scenes, like getting the Christmas tree, which I didn't need, but skipped scenes like the arrival of the guest winner, a soldier coming home from A-stan, and the filming of the cooking segment that I was looking forward to.
While the ending was HFN (Happily For Now) it was still unfulfilling. I didn't get a good sense of the developing feeling between the hero and heroine.

My Recommendations:

One click this if you're looking for a short inspi read where a confused couple turns to God to help them through a crazy situation. If you just looking for a cute contemporary Romance, skip it.

I give this one three stars

Title: XXXL Sex: The New Puppy (BBW Fat Girl Sex Series)

Author: Maeve Brooklyn

Genre: Erotica

Publisher: Page Zero Publishing

Length: about 20 pages

Review:

Ummm, well, oh. I totally think there is a market for BBW (Big Beautiful Women) romance and erotica, this book was, ummm, icky.

I, being a BBW myself, so did not connect with the character. She had like, half a second of insecurity about her weight, surfed for lovers on Craigslist and was really excited to destroy something beautiful, namely her sub's pretty pink bum.

The characters were unconvincing, the plot even more so, and the writing left a lot to be desired.

My Recommendations:

Oh, hell no. Keep shopping. 

I give this one star.