Fast & Slow = Fantastic!
582546
I don't have Gina's first cookbook, but I just ordered it today after getting Fast & Slow for Christmas. I've been cooking from the Skinnytaste blog for about 3 months while doing a lifestyle adjustment to my eating habits. I love Skinnytaste - lots of good recipes on her site and this new cookbook looks great too. I have the yellow split pea soup in my crockpot right now and it smells good already! I love that her style is simple and healthy with mostly easy-to-find ingredients that don't blow the food budget. Everything I've made so far has been a hit in my household - even for those that don't need to watch their weight.
1277797
This is a seriously fast hard drive.  Color me impressed.  Western Digital is really moving up in my book.

OK, so on it's face, this seems like your basic 1TB external hard drive.  It has its own power supply, which many will find to be cumbersome, but for this level of performance I think it's worth it.  However, this is not your basic 1TB external.  For one, it has a superfast USB 3.0 interface, and it comes with its own USB 3.0 expansion card if your motherboard doesn't already have one (and at the time of this writing, there are less than a handful of new motherboards that do).  The expansion card requires a free PCI-E slot.

Setup:
I tested this on Windows 7 Ultimate x64.  Windows did not automatically find drivers for the USB 3.0 expansion card, but the WD package includes a driver disc.  The drivers aren't just sitting on the disc, you have to run an installer on the disc.  The installation requires no restart, which is great, because that's always a little scary when installing strange new hardware.  After the card is installed, you can just plug the drive in and go.  What's nice is that Windows views the drive as an actual hard drive and not just removable media -- a minor point.

Performance:
Using TeraCopy (which is fantastic file copy alternative), I was able to get between 94 and 101 MB / sec write speeds!  That's super fast.  By comparison, my WD Caviar Black RE3 1TB drive only does around 63 MB/sec write speeds, and I thought that was nice!  I haven't tested read speeds, but I expect them to be pretty high.  USB 3.0 has a 4.8 GB/sec limit so the bottleneck here is certainly not the bus.

Sound:
The drive is dead silent, and the white LED on the front is not blinding in any way.  It resembles the light on a Mac Mini.

Convenience:
Since USB 3.0 is new, you're not likely to find it around too much just yet.  But you can still plug this guy into regular old USB 2.0.  You'll get around 25 MB/sec write speeds with that.  But just the fact that you can do it is convenient.  Having to carry around the power supply, however, is not.  And you have to be careful with your USB 3.0 cable because there's only one.

Price:
I think the price is pretty good for this level of performance and also considering they give you a USB 3.0 expansion card.  You'd pay about the same for an enterprise-level, internal WD RE3 drive of this size.

Negatives:
I wish there was eSATA because then I wouldn't need a free PCI-E slot or have to open up my computer to install it.  But the deed is done, and now I have an extra USB 3.0 port for some other device.  Still, eSATA would be nice.  Maybe there are USB3 to eSATA adapters...
Only a 2 year warranty?!  That's rough for a 1TB drive.  WD internal drives run between 3 and 5 year warranties.  But I suppose they're not willing to put that kind of warranty on an external drive that gets moved around a lot.  Still, a longer warranty would instill more confidence that my data is safer.  Backing up 1TB worth of data is not easy or cheap.

Conclusion:
I would absolutely recommend this thing.  I was a little skeptical at first, but the numbers don't lie.  This thing is fast.
2060321
This series reads incredibly fast, with lots of action and plot development on every page!

While I enjoyed the first Crewe Chase novel, this sequel was much, much more engaging and well-written.  The characters were more likable and their interactions were believable.  While Crewe is mainly focused on his training, the author allows for ample socialization and frivolity with his friends.  My favorite relationship is the one between Crewe and Professor Abernathy, who is selected to be his Jet Handler and teach him all she knows.  She is definitely a character that piques the reader's interest about her past and what her future with Crewe holds.

This novel ends on a gut-wrenching cliffhanger - cannot wait for the next installment!
1154055
I love this hard drive. Simply put, it's extremely fast. Before purchasing this hard drive, I had the 10k RPM Western Digital Velociraptor (WD5000HHTZ). On my Windows Experience Index (Win7), I believe the WD hd rated 7.5 or 7.6. With the Samsung 840 SSD, it rates at 7.9. Where I notice the biggest difference is in the following:

- Loading Photoshop and Illustrator is significantly faster than the 10k rpm HD
- Loading games/levels (particularly BF4) is also noticeably faster. I'm always the first person present in any game =).
- Boot time for Windows 7 is also extremely quick
- It's dead silent. I love that I can't hear disks spinning and working hard to keep up. The absence of noise has been a pleasant feature.

Overall, I highly recommend this product and wouldn't hesitate to buy it again. I only wish I had bought this from the get go and didn't spend the money on my 10k rpm HD.
2979604
I'm a very slow reader and I read this book in about a week, I couldn't put it down. It was fantastic beginning to end. I loved the characters and felt vested in them. Wonderfully written and wildly entertaining! I look forward to more from this writer.
2507935
When our book club chose this 600+ page book, I wasn't going to read it!  "Too long," I thought.  But I downloaded it on my Kindle, and once I started reading, I could hardly stop!  Fast-moving as well as thought-provoking, this book was really an easy read, despite the length.  I highly recommend it.
1698841
Speed from beginning to end,  with an amazing story the whole way through!
2100307
I am a slow reader. Typically, I get a few chapters into a book, then abandon it - especially books I read just for fun. Well, this story grabbed me from the very beginning. I fell completely for the little girl character, and her place in this wild, dangerous drama. It's definitely one of those you find yourself thinking about during the day, and you can't wait to get back to reading it.

I'm really looking forward to Mike's next book, The Raven (http://amzn.to/2cl96nJ), which was released today!
439195
Another great new release from Leslie!  It is faster paced, which is great.  The music is fun and my heart rate was reasonably elevated all the way through.  A great fat-burner!
743301
I absolutely loved it! The first book in years I forced myself to put down simply so it wouldn't be over too soon. I didn't want to leave the world, or the characters that had both somehow become so dear to me so quickly. I'll be buying the sequel at the soonest opportunity!
1721451
I never heard of this author, but Kindle Unlimited showed these books, and I am really glad it did! I truly enjoyed the trip through the lives of the characters. Nothing bored me. Nobody irritated me. The stories flowed smoothly and seamlessly into each other, and there were no conflicts from one to the other. That's rare. The plots were considered and the author obviously cares about his characters and their life stories. But now I'm kind of dancing and waiting for the next one!  Actually, I read the next one after this compilation of 4, but I am waiting for the next one that was promised! I do hope we'll see a lot more from this author. It feels as if he has a lot to tell us. He has developed the characters to the point that readers can care about them as 3-dimensional people, faults and all.
You have to read them in order, which I actually enjoy, because there's nothing more boring that reading a synopsis of the books that came ahead of the one I'm reading now. They're numbered! They flow! Don't pick up 4 until you have read the first 3! But do pick them up and read them. Just do it when you have time to read them, because I lost some sleep, not wanting to stop.
3087960
This is a fast read and sooooooo good!  Id give it 10 stars if I could!
1475798
I gave the first book in this series the highest rating there is, so how do I go about rating this book 2 even better than the first?! (BUT IT WAS!!!) This is only the second book I have ever read by this author, and he is already in my top 5 or 10 of all time favorite authors! I guess I can only hope he is a very fast writer. I understand that he has written another series before this one, so I will have to go back and read that series in hopes that it will last until his next book comes out. The problem is this... he is such a good writer that it is impossible to take your time and savor his words slowly. You dig into them, and rip and roar through them as fast as you can. Because his books are just that good. No, they are even better than good, they are great! (Did you see what I did there?) ;-)

So anyway, this is a great book about time travel. Read it, you won't regret it!
1712341
I finished this book without putting it down, at least in my mind.  It moves quickly from situation to situation and between characters as is pulls you along.  I couldn't get off the high-speed conveyor that brings sci-fi to a believable status.  It may happen!  My only difficulty is that I wanted to continue immediately to episode two, a dirty trick making me wait.
1634536
Reading this book is like riding a great rollercoaster...ups, downs & plenty of curves!  The characters are so likable (even the 'monsters')...good plotting (a couple of things I never saw coming)...the author clearly knows what she's writing about.  While this genre is not my "go to", I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this novel...Looking forward to novel #2 (if there is one) from this author!  Go ahead...buy the book & take a great ride!
3013093
Wow!  Feel No Evil was eloquently written but at the same time, it was fast and furious.  I couldn't put it down.  The characters came to life within pages . . . Some characters I loved and others I loved to hate!  The author's writing style is unique and refreshing.  And to the Author, Ms. Aquilina . . . if you are reading this, can I ask you if there will be a sequel, or a second book, or even a movie based on Feel No Evil?  I would suggest this book to anyone who likes to read novels.  I even suggested it to my neighborhood book club, and they LOVED it!
135859
Whoa! I feel like I just stepped off the tallest, fastest roller coaster known to man-kind!

The family featured in THE BABY IN THE WINDOW by Alretha Thomas is typical of most families in that there are challenges, disagreements...and lots of love. When Cass' and Nick's lives intertwine (under strained circumstances) and they fall in love, who knew they'd be in for such a thrilling, made-for-movie ride?

THE BABY IN THE WINDOW begins on an even keel and rapidly climbs to a feverish pitch that will have readers turning pages quickly. Then, the pace picks up even more, to an incredibly fast, wild tempo, filled with nail-biting scenarios...and once your nails are bitten off completely, you'll be reaching up to pull your hair out! At the top of the roller coaster you begin to feel things just might iron themselves out, but a huge surprise wrings your emotions of every drop and you're left with your mouth hanging wide open, with nothing to say but, Oh my!

The characters are full-bodied and well developed and the dialogue is wonderfully real. The sub plot is a delightful struggle that will leave readers wondering till the very end.

Pick up a copy of THE BABY IN THE WINDOW by Alretha Thomas. You won't be disappointed. Awesome job Alretha Thomas, I look forward to reading your work again!