From the TBR Pile to the Read Pile plus a giveaway!
Speaking of Goodreads, if we haven't hooked up yet, here's the link to my Goodreads Profile. Stop by and send a friend request. I enjoy seeing what other people read and the reviews they write.
I have a surprise for you. I'm hosting a giveaway. I will be giving away your pick of one of my three ebooks, Maggie Mae, Justice For Emily or A Brother's Love. If you like contemporary romance and romance/suspense, both with a ghostly paranormal twist, these books are for you! To enter subscribe to the blog, just fill out the form on the blog sidebar that says, "Join Our Mailing List", then leave a comment and let me know which book you prefer and what format you want. If you are already a subscriber, it still counts, just let me know in the comment. If we have more than ten entrants, I will give another book away. This giveaway will end on Thursday, April 5th.
I have read so many awesome books over the last couple of weeks, and I wanted to share them with you as well as introduce you to the authors who wrote them. So here we go!
Short Story - YA
Blurb: Pepper Jones and her mysterious sidekick Jacob Longstreet are investigating a string of burglaries in her neighborhood when they get a little too close!
My 5 star review:
Entertaining read!
I want to thank J.T. Lewis for writing Pepper And Longstreet (Vol. 1, The Beginning). I am an avid reader. My granddaughter, however, is not. I've been trying for so long to get her interested in reading and I think J.T. Lewis just might be the answer! I can't wait to give this book to her!
I so enjoyed the interaction between Pepper and Longstreet in this short story. I can't wait until Vol. 2 comes out to see what other adventures are in store for Pepper, and if Longstreet finds his ride!
This is a wonderful YA short story and I highly recommend it. If you've been looking to get your young teenager hooked on reading, Pepper And Longstreet (Vol. 1, The Beginning) just might be the answer to your prayers.
Short Story - YA
Blurb: A snobby high school cheerleader turns to Pepper and Longstreet when her father dies. A promised special inheritance has been lost due to a fire. Can Pepper and her mysterious sidekick find the clues needed as they sift through the ashes of this girl's life?
My 5 star review:
Loved it!
Pepper and Longstreet are so much fun to read about! Volume 2 moved in a different direction for me. While Pepper and Longstreet are still solving mysteries, this mystery was about a touching love story between a father and his children. It brought tears to my eyes. This is a must read! When you're done, do what I did. Give it to your child, mine's 31, and then it will be passed to your grandchildren. I promise. They will love it as much as you do. I absolutely recommend this book for anyone of any age.
Novel - Erotica
Blurb: Come and visit Nowhere: Take a wet dip into the tingling Aphrodisiac waters of the Lightning Pool. The Hot Tour will continue to seduce all your senses with a lesson in The Taming Cave. Dare to take a sexy, riveting ride on a dark stallion for the most thrilling pounding of your life.
My 5 star review:
A Stunningly Beautiful Read
What can I say? I loved all aspects of this book. The scenes that MS. ELLIOTT wrote describing various parts of Arizona in her book NOWHERE, ARIZONA: THE SUNSET WARRIOR were so well written, they carried me off and I was actually able to see these beautiful places in my head. I've lived in Arizona my whole life and never has anyone come so close to describing its harsh beauty, vivid colors and the feeling of a deep rooted lore and legend that you actually feel while walking the land so brilliantly.
Madeline Sayers is not a character I would normally like. She is lost in the corporate world and nothing else matters to her. By the end of the book, I found myself rooting for this woman to become a whole person, to feel love, to give love.
This book is erotica. I must say, you just never know what you are going to get when you pick up a book labeled erotica. There were several steamy scenes in this book that were beautifully written, some even entwined lore and legend in them. Whew! HOT! HOT! HOT! This is NOT your average erotica. Arizona is a place well known for our treasure hunts, i.e. the Superstition Mountain's Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine. I say, "Screw the gold. I'm going to find that Lightening Pool!" Read the story and you'll know why! You will not be disappointed!
I have the second in this series downloaded on my Kindle, and I just can't wait to get to it!
Novel - Romance
Blurb: Soul mates from the past leave their love unfinished when a tragic accident ends their lives on their wedding day. Yet they are destined to meet again to fulfill that love in new incarnations, leading vastly different lives.
Emma thought she had chosen the right path, but too late does she realize her mistake as her husband reveals the monster behind his smile-morphing their fairytale image with loveless obligation. Trapped in a broken marriage to a powerful, abusive husband, she knows this is not the life she was destined to live. As her hope for love withers, she meets James, her love from a lifetime ago.
Emma cannot deny the love pulling her toward James, but courage to abandon her marriage wavers and unknowingly puts her love on the line. If Emma has any hope of life and love, she must trust the bond with James and be with the man destiny has spent two lifetimes guiding her toward. Are they fated to fulfill their love, or will they once again, leave love unfinished?
My 5 star review:
Beautiful heartwarming story.
LOVE UNFINISHED by DARIAN WILK is a lovely tale of two soul mates finding each other in their current life and the obstacles they face coming together as they were meant to be. If you are a lover of romance like I am, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.
We meet Carol and Ted in the beginning of the book and fall instantly in love with both of them. Unfortunately for the reader, Carol and Ted have a tragic ending. Yep. I cried. Fortunately for the reader, we get to meet them again as Emma and James, both of which have some serious baggage to contend with. Throughout the book, I found myself rooting for Emma and James, but I never knew if they would be able to overcome all the obstacles in their way to find true happiness with each other.
I was pleasantly surprised by the ending of this book. There was a twist I was not expecting at all. If you enjoy romance with a touch of paranormal thrown in, you are going to love this book as much as I did. There were some grammatical errors occasionally throughout this book, but the story being told was so good they just didn't bother me. I was hooked and couldn't put it down. This book had all the elements a really great romance should have and I highly recommend it. I can't wait to read more from this author.
Novel - Suspense
Blurb: Glorious revenge, the dish known as best served cold. Audra Tanner has waited for five years to invite her unwitting guests to her feast of just desserts and now her dinner party approaches.
Audra was a brilliant CPA that for years, worked the grueling hours her job demanded as she made her way from lowly grunt auditor to a minority partner at a prestigious accounting firm located in the southwest. Her dedication took a tremendous toll on her not only mentally, but physically as well, and culminated the night that she met with the sadistic managing partner, Olin Kemper, to discuss her promotion to equity partner. That night, Audra learned that to become part of the ‘elite’ at Winscott & Associates required much more than she was willing to give. Unfortunately, that knowledge came too late and partnership was granted as a reward for her silence after her violent beating and rape.
Five years later, Audra is now an entirely different creature at work, a shell of her former self that wears the guise of partner during the day yet retreats at night to her hidden self as she plots her revenge on not only her rapist, but all those in power at the firm who knew what Olin had done to her, yet did nothing to stop him, as they were immersed in their own corrupt behaviors. Now head of the IT department and a self-taught hacker, Audra has spent the last five years perusing the firm’s computers, searching and digging through the mounds of encrypted words for anything that she can use to allow her the opportunity to exact revenge on all those responsible for her pain.
What she finds changes the course of not only her life, but everyone else’s as well, as her research leads her to the impending demise of the firm as well as an unsolved murder of a local college girl over thirty three years ago, both which stem from the monstrous hands of Olin. In her climactic confrontation with all the partners, Audra eviscerates all their hidden deceptions as she finally obtains her long awaited revenge and rocks the firm to its core.
My 5 star review:
AMAZING READ!
The author of Accountable To None, Ashley Fontainne, took me on an emotional roller coaster ride, feeling everything from pain and heartache of a character that the reader finds themselves wanting to wrap in a warm embrace, to the evil sense of entitlement on one of the most brutal characters I have read about in a long time. I'm exhausted. I could not put this book down. It gripped me from the very beginning and the intensity level just kept building and building. I found myself holding my breath as I read. I suggest you start this book on a Saturday morning with nothing planned for the day, because once you start, you won't be able to stop. This is an AMAZING READ! I highly recommend it.
Flash Fiction - Psychological Suspense
Blurb: Two passionate flash fiction stories, each involving a dress of a different color; a black one representing sin and a red one, an all consuming lust. At the heart of each story is a woman who has in one way or another become a victim of a man she chose to love. And each one chooses a different way of dealing with these unfortunate circumstances.
My 4 star review:
Stunning storytelling through flash fiction.
These two flash fiction pieces had me more scared for the characters in a much shorter period of time than I would have ever thought possible. What an incredible gift Ms. Summerland has to convey such depth of emotion in very short stories. I am so impressed with this author's writing that I've purchased volume one of her compilation of short stories. This author has an amazing way with words that will have you cringing as you're reading. These two flash fiction pieces were beautifully written.
Short Story - Contemporary Romance/Suspense
Blurb: When Lola Getz receives the invitation to her high school reunion, her first impulse is to toss it into the shredder. A terrible thing happened the day before her graduation-she never wanted to return to that dreadful place. But, when the Mexican drug wars heat up literally in her back yard, she’s forced to flee her home and run to safe little Summerville.
Forty-three year-old police officer Webster (Web) Bond lives in Summerville and knows all about the bothersome reunion preparations. He has no fond memories of that time in his life when he was known as “The Dweebster.” The only person Web’s interested in seeing probably doesn’t even remember him.
Little does Lola know when she arrives under cover of night that The Dweebster has grown up to become a hunky cop--and he has her in his cross hairs.
My 5 star review:
Action packed short story
BONDED FOR LIFE by SHARON BUCHBINDER is the first story I've read in her Class of '85 series and I can't wait to read more! This story starts out with Lola Getz, a woman who seems to have it all. She lives in a beautiful home in Mexico. She's wealthy. But as the story progresses, we learn that Lola has suffered some tremendous losses in her life.
Life in Mexico is becoming more and more unstable. Her personal safety is at risk from kidnapping at the hands of drug lords and opportunists wanting to earn money from the suffering of wealthy innocents. At the spur of the moment, Lola is forced to leave her home or lose her life. She finds herself heading for her high school reunion (the last place in the world she ever thought she'd be) where the reader finds out about another devastating loss she suffered while attending school in the states. Not sure where to turn or who to trust, she comes face to face with the Dweebster, Web Bond, an old friend from high school that has matured quite nicely.
I really enjoyed this story and highly recommend it. BONDED FOR LIFE is a well written short story. As a reader, I could feel Lola's fear and the stress she was under. I couldn't wait to find out who was behind the assault and, I must admit, I was really angry when I did find out. It was full of sexual tension and ended on such a beautiful, thoughtful note.
Short Story - Sensual Romance/Suspense
Blurb: Seven years of longing comes down to just one night.
Laney Kent returns to Barrier Shoals hoping to reunite with her first love, Bridger. She anticipates his reception might be chilly, but what she doesn't expect is to become the victim of a deadly obsession … or that this night with Bridger could be her last.
Bridger Jansen tangled a lot of sheets trying to forget about Laney, but his heart knew what the rest of him refused to admit: he could love no one else. He's determined not to forgive her for leaving him without explanation, but when he fails to protect her from a viscous attack, the person he can't forgive just might be himself.
My 5 star review:
Awesome read!
FAMILIAR LIGHT by SARAH BALLANCE is a beautifully written, fantastic short story! I am so impressed that Ms. Ballance could put together such a wonderfully suspenseful, sensuous read in a short story. What a talent she has. It left me breathing heavy after a particular scene at the beach and wanting for nothing, except in the Epilogue when it gives you a taste of the upcoming sequel called Tide of Lies. I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT! I WANT IT NOW! I can assure you that I will be reading much more of Ms. Ballance's work. I highly recommend this read.
Short Stories (4) Real Life Paranormal
Note: As of the time I posted this blog, Haunted by Willow Cross is free on Amazon. I have no idea how long it's going to be free, so click on the Amazon link above and get your copy soon!
Blurb: Have you ever heard something go bump in the night and wondered if someone was there? Only to go looking for the cause of the noise and find nothing at all. Or how about unexplainably feeling like you’re being watched when you’re completely alone? Things disappearing for no reason or strange ghostly footsteps in the hall?
This book is a collage of short stories about a few of the otherworldly experiences I’ve had. Although they are not movie worthy, you may find them interesting. All the stories are %100 true. Nothing has been added for dramatic effect.
My 4 star review:
Do you believe?
I really enjoyed this book, HAUNTED by WILLOW CROSS. Many of us have had unexplainable experiences and they are so much fun to share. If you like "real life" ghost stories, pick this up. You won't be disappointed.
Ms. Cross shared four different incidents that happened to her and her family with the reader, The Protector, Inherited Troubles, The House on Rivermet and Dream Home, and all told as if we were sitting together having a chat. Each one of the stories brings with it a different emotion, everything from outright fear to a feeling of love and warmth.
If you are interested in the paranormal at all, this is a fun read. I recommend you pick it up.