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New Year, New Guy
by Angela Britnell

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… she had seemed jumpier than a bag full of frogs.

Don’t make any jokes, but I really did fall and couldn’t get back up.

We’re all afraid, Olivia… You can’t make it through life without it. The trick is figuring out that the thing you need is just on the other side of that fear. The only way you can reach it is by going right through the center of it.

 My Review:

While the premise of the story was interesting and topical, I struggled with this book and not that the writing wasn’t up to par, as the author’s writing style was easy to follow. My issue is more to do with my personal preference as high angst and constant discord just isn’t my jam, and this tale was heavily loaded with both internal and interpersonal conflicts as well as annoyingly stubborn characters. The storylines were relevant and relatable yet developed ever so slowly with considerable repetition and retreading of the five characters’ inner turmoil and protracted grief, which had me tapping my little foot while waiting for the tale to progress and the storylines to advance. It was at the 90% mark when all systems finally hit their boiling point and – Whoa Nelly! The secrets were uncovered and feelings were revealed at a rather furious and frantic rate as I thankfully hurdled toward that highly prized HEA conclusion.

Code of Honor, an all-new fun and flirty romantic standalone in the Cipher Security series from April White, is available now in Kindle Unlimited!

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A painting, a panic room, a thief, and her lover … whose job is to catch her.

There are three things you need to know about Anna.

1) She’s a bounty hunter with adrenaline junkie habits,

2) She’s the “awkward” twin, and

3) She’s a thief – kind of.

Darius designs security systems for Cipher Security, and the strange and remarkable woman he met the night the painting was stolen is as intriguing a mystery as his hunt for the thief is.

But the lady has no filter, and she knows she can’t lie to the man who looks like a Disney Prince and kisses like fairytales are true, so she runs from the one person who may actually see her as the heroine of her own story.

‘Code of Honor’ is a full-length contemporary romantic suspense, can be read as a standalone and is book #2 in the Cipher Security series, Knitting in the City World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

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My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

How was it possible that Colette, wearing jeans and a linen shirt, could look so effortlessly female, while I looked like a confused boy playing dress-up in his sister’s closet? … We were genetically identical, and yet my body was awkwardly athletic while hers was willowy and slender. My laugh was loud and startling, and hers made fairies sigh and small woodland creatures come out and sing. She walked like a supermodel in stiletto heels while I teetered around like a drunk toddler in anything higher than Doc Martens combat boots.

… his gaze gave me sweaty butterflies. I’ve determined they’re a thing, since I don’t get simple, fluttery, girly butterflies like most straight women do when a ridiculously handsome guy notices them. My butterflies flap around so hard they make me feel slightly nauseated, which inevitably leads to a mild case of the sweats. Ergo, sweaty butterflies.

I had realized when I was a kid, choosing Honor as my D&D character, that my personal code felt a little like a mix of Robin Hood and Mulan, with an unfortunate dose of Sid, the filterless sloth.

I can be a lot of things… but shy isn’t in my repertoire. Awkward and dorky I have covered, and I could draw a map to Mortification Central, but I won’t, because that’s the kind of place you have to stumble into.

“You have a T. rex costume?” he asked as he looked over my shoulder. I snorted. “You don’t?” I shut the drawer before he could see the rhinestone tiara.

My Review:

This fun and snappily written book was chock-a-block full of smartly amusing humor that sparkled brighter than ten glitter bombs and took quirkiness to a stratospheric level. I adored, savored, and gleefully devoured each and every one of Ms. White’s perfectly chosen and expertly paced arrangements of words.

Ms. White’s writing was crisp and flawlessly engaging. Her charismatic characters were delightfully idiosyncratic and deliciously filterless while brimming with uncanny and colorful nonsense as well as intelligent insights and astute observations. The intrigue and mystery were craftily scaffolded and shrewdly tucked in between and among brilliant and raucous bouts of comedy. I adore her brand of whip-smart cleverness and also learned a thing or two, as a consultation with Mr. Google was required for engineer boots and the Four Noble Truths.

Excerpt

She was waiting for me to run away.

The woman in front of me, with whom conversation was akin to playing barefoot hopscotch on hot asphalt, who walked like shoes confused her, and who smelled of a spring breeze through a field of wildflowers, expected me to turn tail and bolt.

I rarely did the expected, however, and often made choices that flew directly in the face of convention. And as nothing about this woman or this conversation was conventional, I stayed.

And I laughed.

This startled her, and she suddenly dropped to the floor in what seemed at first to be a defensive maneuver, but was actually a crouch in order to pet the cat. Her posture put her face at approximately groin height, and for the space of exactly one half-second, I considered remaining in place to see if she would notice. But chivalry got the better of me, and I knelt down beside her.

Her face flamed bright red, and for a moment I thought she was ill.

“I was just staring at your penis, wasn’t I?” she said in a tone of complete chagrin.

Rarely did I meet someone even more straightforward than myself, and I attempted a benign expression. “Were you?”

The delightful woman sighed. “I was. I’m sorry.” But then a mischievous glint came into her eyes, and she said in a perfectly benign tone, “So, what do you think about my pussy?”

I choked on a startled bark of laughter, and she allowed herself a small grin as she deliberately ran her hands through the fur of the very contented cat.

“On that note, I believe it’s time for me to find something red to drink to match the color of my face,” she said, as she rose to her feet. She wasn’t graceful about it, but she was strong and didn’t wobble until she tried to take a step. She’d managed to stand on the hem of the pink silk gown she wore and winced at the sound of her heel tearing the fabric.

“Well, now I’ve officially hit my humiliation quota for the night. Enjoy the party, Mr. Masoud,” she said brightly, as she hurried away across the room. I let her go without further comment, though my eyes tracked her as she plucked a glass of red wine from a passing tray and finished half of it in one large gulp.

About April White

April White has been a film producer, private investigator, bouncer, teacher and screenwriter. She has climbed in the Himalayas, survived a shipwreck, and lived on a gold mine in the Yukon. She and her husband share their home in Southern California with two extraordinary boys and a lifetime collection of books.

Her first novel, Marking Time is the 2016 winner of the Library Journal Indie E-Book Award for YA Literature, and all five books in the Immortal Descendants series are on the Amazon Top 100 lists in Time Travel Romance and Historical Fantasy.

Find April White online

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My Rating:

My Review:

A series of murders occurred in a rural area and it gradually became apparent that they were somehow related and a serial killer was operating in the area, but why, and who? Each kill was becoming more gruesome and violent as the killer was becoming more confident and bloodthirsty. The gripping and absorbing storylines were tautly written, thrummed with tension, shrewdly paced, and were cast with uniquely etched characters that were as compelling as the intriguing narrative they inhabited while the case was worked, observations were made, and the clues were gathered and amassed. This was my first experience with the clever scribe known as Jane Isaac and I am a total wannabe to her well-crafted squad of hardworking and under-appreciated detectives.

In addition to assisting the police with their difficult case, I also gathered two new additions to my Brit Word and Phrases list with dog-ends – the unsmoked end of a cigarette, and nonce – slang for a pedophile.

“I was all in with this slow-burn romance that had me laughing and swooning from cover to cover” –Author Andrea Johnston

Beef Cake, an all-new small-town contemporary romance from Jiffy Kate, is available now!

If opposites do actually attract, then Gunnar Erickson and Frankie Reeves take the cake.

Frankie Reeves is complicated, even though she won’t admit it. She fills her days working as an ER nurse, taking care of her mom, and searching for the father she never knew. Anything else has no place in her perfectly compartmentalized, purposefully simple life. Attachments? No thank you. She has no time for that.

Gunnar Erickson recently moved to Green Valley to train at Viking MMA with his brother Cage. Being the youngest of the Erickson clan, he’s always felt like he has something to prove, and now that he’s finished with college, it’s his time to shine. But before he can step into the ring, a freak accident sends him to the ER and into the care of one Frankie Reeves.

While he’s immediately smitten, she pretends to be unfazed by this six-foot-three, two hundred and thirty-pound beefcake. Gunnar sets out to prove to Frankie that, not only does she like him more than she wants to admit, but he’s not the uneducated, brute she assumes he is. To Frankie, he’s the worst kind of complication, but that doesn’t make it easy to stay away.

‘Beef Cake’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #4 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

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My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

“He was sexy as hell,” she muses, in one of those airy, breathy voices that says I’d happily sacrifice myself at his altar.

 When I was a freshman in high school, we had to wrestle in PE class. One day, I had to wrestle a girl, which was fine by me, until she accidentally slipped her hand up my shorts and grabbed my balls. I guess you could call it my first hand job, only it wasn’t as enjoyable as I would’ve hoped… A couple of years later, I took that same girl to the Homecoming dance. I was very pleased to learn her technique had improved immensely.

My Review:

Cleverly written in my favorite dual POV, this maddeningly paced story swung from angst to sharp wit, to tragedy, to heart-squeezes, to potential peril, to amusing humor, and on to a sweet wooing romance and then back through all the cycles, multiple times. And I was rooting for these lovely characters throughout the entirety, although I wanted to stamp my little foot at Frankie’s mixed messages, and inconsiderate and snappish behaviors toward sweet Gunnar. She was an ER nurse with hard edges and a tough outer shell yet filled with fear and anxiety as well as confusion and nightmares about her past. In vast contrast, Gunnar was a hulking Viking cage fighter who was a rather anomalous character as he fought like a demon in the cage yet was well educated, profoundly insightful with people, and had a tender heart and the patience of a saint. Luckily, Gunnar didn’t back down from a challenge, and Frankie was certainly that, she was several in fact, and a total mess.

The engaging storylines were certainly original and oddly absorbing yet evolved slowly with an ever-annoying one step forward and two steps back dance while I grew increasingly fretful as I had an inkling as what was coming in the big reveal of Frankie’s repressed childhood, which was even worse than I had imagined yet handled in a stellar manner by these clever scribes.   I adore the entire line of Smartypants Romances, which appear to be amassing an uncannily well-cultivated grouping of talented wordsmiths. I am well and truly hooked and plan to read each and every one of them.

About Jiffy Kate

Jiffy Kate is the joint pen name for Jiff Simpson and Jenny Kate Altman. They’re co-writing besties who share a brain. They also share a love of cute boys, stiff drinks, and fun times.

Together, they’ve written over twenty stories. Their first published book, Finding Focus, was released in November 2015. Since then, they’ve continued to write what they know–southern settings full of swoony heroes and strong heroines.

Find Jiffy Kate online

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