Category: 5-Stars

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Book Review: Love Me Like You Do by Aimee Brown @AimeeBWrites @aria_fiction

Love Me Like You Do
by Aimee Brown 

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ Apple / Kobo

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A runaway bride. A handsome stranger. Two pasts to put behind them.

Parker is ready to marry the man of her dreams. But he isn’t ready to marry her. It would be helpful if he didn’t choose their wedding day to tell her this. But as she flees from the travesty behind her, she literally runs into the arms of a handsome stranger. The southern drawl, the dreamy eyes, she can’t fall for another man after being left at the altar – can she?

When Liam agreed to go on a date he didn’t expect to leave with the bride. Nor did he expect to take her the emergency room. Immediately he’s drawn to her fiery spirit, her kind heart, and beautiful smile. Liam’s got a whole host of problems and a past that keeps coming back, now can’t be the time to fall in love, but Parker might just be the one to break down his barriers and let him live a little – if she’ll let him in.

Will these two strangers allow serendipity to put them together, or will their fears keep them apart?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I let out a heaving frustrated sigh. One that feels like it’s come from the depths of my soul where I store all my secrets.

 The goofy grin now on his face sends a wave of mortification through me. I can feel the heat start at my feet and quickly make its way to my head. I probably look like a thermometer with both a bright red face of humiliation and bright red hair.

 The next pose is anything but easy as we lean forward, butts in the air, hands on the ground, and sweat dripping onto our increasingly slippery mats. Jason doesn’t hold back and rips a fart right next to me. ‘Sorry,’ he says out loud as the room pretends it never happened. ‘Perfectly normal,’ Stella says. ‘Perfectly normal is far too correct,’ I mumble to Jason who laughs under his breath.

 Yep. They say you gotta kiss a lot of frogs and, well, I don’t want to anymore… The right frog is supposed to turn into your prince according to fairytale law. But I think mine got run over by a truck or something.

 ‘I pinkie swear.’ She holds her pinkie in the air in front of me… Don’t tell me you’re never pinkie sworn before?’ ‘I’m a thirty-two-year-old dude. Of course, I’ve never pinkie sworn before. Is it like crossing my heart and hoping to die?’ I do the cross my heart motion and point to the sky. ‘What the hell was that?’ she asks with a laugh. ‘There is no dying involved in pinkie swearing. Just link your pinkie through mine. It’s binding. If we were Japanese and I broke the pinkie swear, I’d have to cut off my pinkie or let you cut it off or something morbid like that. It’s the real deal of promises…’

My Review:

 

This was good fun and wicked funny, I giggle-snorted most of the way through and laughed aloud several times.   I adored these quirky characters, even the obnoxious ones, well, maybe not the exes, but I was totally enamored with the endearing main characters who gave good banter and clever inner musings.   Written in a dual POV, the writing was original, irreverently witty, keenly insightful, delightfully amusing, and sparked sharp visuals across my cranium that kept me smirking with glee.

The storylines pulled from several genres including my favorite, women’s fiction, as well as romantic comedy and considerable family drama. I relished every clever word of this engaging tale and am now stalking, coveting, and scheming to amass all her books, past and future. I have a new author to fangirl as she just shot to the top of my favorites list.

About the Author

Aimee Brown is a writer of romantic comedies set in Portland, Oregon, and an avid reader. She spends much of her time writing, raising three teenagers, binge-watching shows on Netflix, and obsessively cleaning and redecorating her house. She’s fluent in sarcasm and has been known to utter profanities like she’s competing for a medal. Aimee grew up in Oregon but is now a transplant living in cold Montana with her husband of twenty years, three teenage children, and far too many pets. She is a lot older than she looks and yes, that is a tattoo across her chest. (In the Portlandia spirit, yes, I lived many years in PDX and I do indeed have a bird tattooed on me (2!)) Aimee is very active on social media. You can find her at any of the networks below. Stop by and say hello!

Follow Aimee:
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Book Review: Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker @stmartinspress @Wendy_Walker

 

Don’t Look For Me
by Wendy Walker

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ Apple

 

“In Wendy Walker’s thrilling novel Don’t Look for Me, the greatest risk isn’t running away. It’s running out of time.

One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life.

She doesn’t want to be found.

Or at least, that’s the story.

The car abandoned miles from home.

The note found at a nearby hotel.

The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together.

They called it a “walk away.”

It happens all the time.

Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over.

But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

Not one of these “friends” had stuck around after she’d fallen off the social ladder. And it had not been gradual. The day she was expelled was the day her phone stopped ringing or buzzing or pinging. It was as though she’d caught a deadly virus. A social virus that no one wanted to catch.

 

My Review:

 

This was my first taste of Wendy Walker and I can smugly state I picked an excellent starting point to sample her lovely wares. Her storylines were frighteningly realistic and so emotive and tautly written that my kindle seemed to be vibrating from the tension and I am now in need of a spa day to work out the knots in my neck and catch my breath, which I often caught myself holding during perusal. This was a complex, gripping, and heart-squeezing tale laced with tragedy, grief, intrigue, and family drama. There were numerous tangled webs as well as oddly compelling characters to unravel, and this wily wordsmith kept me guessing on several fronts. I fell right into her evocative prose, which smoothly scrolled through my gray matter with sharp imagery and heart-wrenching scenarios. It was marvelous.

About the Author

Wendy Walker is the author of psychological suspense. Her novels have been translated into 23 foreign languages and have topped bestseller lists both nationally and abroad. They have been featured on The Today Show, The Reese Witherspoon Book Club, and The Book of the Month Club and have been optioned for television and film.
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Book Review: The Fire By Night by Teresa Messineo #TheFireByNight

The Fire by Night
by Teresa Messineo 

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ Apple 

A powerful and evocative debut novel about two American military nurses during World War II that illuminates the unsung heroism of women who risked their lives in the fight—a riveting saga of friendship, valor, sacrifice, and survival combining the grit and selflessness of Band of Brothers with the emotional resonance of The Nightingale.

In war-torn France, Jo McMahon, an Italian-Irish girl from the tenements of Brooklyn, tends to six seriously wounded soldiers in a makeshift medical unit. Enemy bombs have destroyed her hospital convoy, and now Jo singlehandedly struggles to keep her patients and herself alive in a cramped and freezing tent close to German troops. There is a growing tenderness between her and one of her patients, a Scottish officer, but Jo’s heart is seared by the pain of all she has lost and seen. Nearing her breaking point, she fights to hold on to joyful memories of the past, to the times she shared with her best friend, Kay, whom she met in nursing school.

Half a world away in the Pacific, Kay is trapped in a squalid Japanese POW camp in Manila, one of the thousands of Allied men, women, and children whose fates rest in the hands of a sadistic enemy. Far from the familiar safety of the small Pennsylvania coal town of her childhood, Kay clings to memories of her happy days posted in Hawaii, and the handsome flyer who swept her off her feet in the weeks before Pearl Harbor. Surrounded by cruelty and death, Kay battles to maintain her sanity and save lives as best she can . . . and live to see her beloved friend Jo once more.

When the conflict, at last, comes to an end, Jo and Kay discover that to achieve their own peace, they must find their place—and the hope of love—in a world that’s forever changed. With rich, superbly researched detail, Teresa Messineo’s thrilling novel brings to life the pain and uncertainty of war and the sustaining power of love and friendship and illuminates the lives of the women who risked everything to save others during a horrifying time.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

When a command comes to fall back, it takes an infantryman less than ten seconds to simply turn around – and run. But not military nurses, whose only creed, whose one, unbreakable rule, is never to leave their patients. Never.

Jo looked at Captain Clark now as he came up to her, hands on hips, spitting before he spoke, and realized how much the movies had conditioned her, had prejudiced her. She’d believed that all U.S. soldiers in perilous positions would be just as truthful, upright, clean-mouthed, good, and pure as they were on-screen. Here was an American, and the odds were against him, certainly. And yet the man was still a bastard.

Kay liked to imagine that somewhere – in a small fishing village perhaps, far from all this – a nice plump Japanese woman was bouncing her baby on her knee, singing him a funny lullaby about dragons and magic kites, because other than her, they all seemed madmen to Kay – cruel, hard madmen. Destroying just to destroy, because the rest of humanity wasn’t human, wasn’t like them.

My Review:

The Fire by Night was found treasure, it was an extraordinarily well-crafted, poignant, deeply researched, and beautifully written book. The story featured two young female nurses who had become friends during their training and served in the Army during WWII. One nurse was sent to Europe to work in field hospitals frequently on or near the front lines, and the other was sent to the Pacific where she found herself an unwelcome and poorly treated guest of the Japanese government and placed in an internment camp in the Philippines.

Ms. Messineo’s magical arrangements of words immediately ensnared my full attention and inserted me into the corners of their tents and into their pockets. I heard the weeping, felt the turmoil, and smelled the adrenaline. She also placed me between their ears, behind their eyes, and straight into their souls. I was devastated when they were abused and my heart lifted when they fell in love. Ms. Messineo’s scenes were vividly and thoroughly detailed for sight, sound, smell, and emotional tone. She cleverly wove in exceptional and thoughtful ancillary details that added considerable depth and gravitās to the saga. I was awed by her extensive knowledge, sensitive and insightful observations, and breathtaking word prowess.

I had no earthly idea nor had I ever considered what military nursing during wartime would entail, what their living conditions would have been like, or the hardships the women would have faced from the very people they were serving. If I had thought about it at all, I would have assumed they had been in military hospitals. I finished the book with an intense appreciation for their sacrifice and survival, as well as for their bravery. I do love a feisty heroine, and Ms. Messineo gave me two.

About the Author

Teresa Messineospent seven years researching the history behind The Fire by Night, her first novel. She is a graduate of DeSales University, and her varied interests include homeschooling her four children, volunteering with the underprivileged, medicine, swing dancing, and competitive athletics. She lives in Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Book Review: Stuck On You by Portia MacIntosh @rararesources @PortiaMacIntosh @BoldwoodBooks

Stuck On You
by Portia MacIntosh

 

Amazon / B&N / GP/

Could a post-it note really lead to love…?

Sadie doesn’t have time for finding love. She’s too busy as PA for famous artist Damian Banks. When she’s not arranging exhibitions, she’s organising his dry cleaning or dumping his never ending stream of girlfriends.

But when she strikes up an unusual friendship with her desk share buddy, she finds a confidante and a new potential love interest. Problem is, they’ve never actually met…

With Christmas just around the corner, can Sadie put herself first for a change and find what she’s been looking for all along?

The brand new romantic comedy from top 10 bestseller Portia MacIntosh. Perfect for fans of Sophie Ranald, Mhairi McFarlane and Zara Stoneley.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Break-ups must always be done in person, that’s just the way it is –they should probably make it the law, which might sound extreme, but I’m sure it would cut down on a whole host of angry follow-up crimes.

 

… she really is a Karen. A middle-aged boomer with a can-I-speak-to-the-manager haircut who has lots of opinions about lots of things but none of them feel all that well thought out

 

‘Good morning,’I say brightly as I walk through the main office. There are murmurs of greetings from the troops but, honestly, I could burst into flames and the most they would probably do is move their plants and crack a window. I will not miss this bunch of miseries at all.

 

I squeal in such a high pitch I’m sure only dogs and Mariah Carey can hear me.

 

My Review:

 

This was a delightful introduction to the highly engaging wit and lively humor of Portia MacIntosh, and I’m outraged at myself for not having noticed her cleverly amusing and winsome arrangements of words before. It was so enjoyable I want to read her entire listing while hoping for more of the same. Apparently she has been beavering away with seventeen delectable books to her credit while in the meantime, I have obviously been distracted by any manner of shiny objects or pounding sand.

Stuck On You was written from the first-person POV of Sadie, a frustrated PA who was secretly seeking greener pastures away from her tediously demanding celebrity boss.   This was pleasurable reading and I adored these quirky characters as much if not more than the entertaining storylines they inhabited. The writing style was wily and clever with keenly humorous insights, breezy inner musings, and snarky observations. I have a new author to fangirl and zoom to the top of my Favorites List.

 

About the Author

Portia MacIntosh is a bestselling romantic comedy author of 12 novels, including It’s Not You, It’s Them and Honeymoon For One. Previously a music journalist, Portia writes hilarious stories, drawing on her real life experiences.

Social Media Links –

Newsletter sign up: http://bit.ly/PortiaMacIntoshNewsletter

https://portiamacintosh.com/

https://www.facebook.com/macintoshportia

https://twitter.com/PortiaMacIntosh

http://instagram.com/portiamacintoshauthor

http://bookbub.com/authors/portia-macintosh

 

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Book Review: First Girl Gone (Charlotte Winters #1) by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain,  #FirstGirlGone #LTVargus #TimMcBain @Bookouture #NetGalley

 

First Girl Gone
(Charlotte Winters #1)
by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain 

 

Down the beach, she can just make out the rusting hulk of the Ferris wheel through the dawn mist. The hairs prickle on her neck as she drags her focus back to the chestnut hair fanned out in the shallow water at her feet, to the grains of sand decorating the beautiful girl’s white cheeks like freckles.

Detective Charlie Winters never thought she’d find herself back on Salem Island, but she’s forced home re-open the wound that never healed: her sister was abducted from the small town when they were teenagers. But now a family friend needs her help to find her missing daughter, Kara.

Searching Kara’s messy, poster-covered bedroom, Charlie finds more questions than answers. Did Kara run away, or was she snatched? She’s clearly been keeping secrets from her family—but don’t all teenagers?

A little black matchbook hidden in a jewelry box is Charlie’s only lead, but the seedy nightclub it comes from proves to be nothing but a dangerous dead end. Until Charlie is approached by a second distraught mother whose daughter has also vanished.

Forced at every turn to relive the trauma she ran away from, Charlie’s blood runs cold when a girl’s body is discovered in the exact spot on the water’s edge where the last trace of her sister was found. It’s clear someone is taunting Charlie, but with other innocent girls’ lives at risk, she has no choice but to take the bait…

An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller that will leave you gasping for breath. Fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni, and Lisa Regan will need to sleep with the lights on!

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

So… Misty Dawkins… She got fat… See? That’s why I’m never having kids… You pop out some crotch fruit, and your hips and thighs stay doughy until the end of time.

 

He’d lost so much weight, and the lack of hair and eyebrows only added to the frail appearance. He looked withered and gaunt. Like a tree that someone forgot to water.

 

His hulking figure looked, in this moment, very apelike. Between his oddly animal posture and the unkempt beard crawling so high on his cheeks, Charlie couldn’t help but think of him as a man about halfway through the transition to werewolf.

 

It strikes me that a lot of us live in a sort of echo chamber these days. We surround ourselves with people who agree with us on everything— politics, art, entertainment.

 

But you don’t know what it was like growing up next door to him. He was like Bart Simpson. One time, he melted a hole in one of my Barbie dolls with a magnifying glass.

 

My Review:

 

This was a ripper of a series opener; I will be camping out on the authors’ pages to make sure I don’t miss the subsequent installments. I am hooked, ensnared, addicted, and infatuated with these clever and conniving wordsmiths as well as their oddly appealing and unusual quirky characters.   I do loves me a kickass chick with clever snark, and this book had two.

The writing was easy to fall into with storylines that intrigued, beguiled, and taunted the little pea in my brain to immediately begin to conjure theories. I was so smug in believing I had easily solved the case with my initial suspect being the villain. But, nooooo. These wily authors had outmaneuvered me and I had fallen for their trickery. How have I not read these prolific scribblers before? They seem to be like potato chips as now that I’ve had a taste of their salty goodness, I must have more.

About the Author

L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain are the authors of the Violet Darger series and The Scattered and the Dead
series among others, which have collectively tallied over
a million downloads. Their book, Dead End Girl, peaked at #3 in the US Kindle charts an

d has remained in the top 10 in multiple sub-categories since it was published in 2017.  

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Book Review: A Witness to Murder (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #3) by Verity Bright, @BrightVerity, @bookouture

A Witness to Murder
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #3)
by Verity Bright

Amazon / B&N 

A medieval house, a dead body, and some rather suspicious chocolate fudge? Call for Lady Swift!

Autumn, 1920. Lady Eleanor Swift, accidental amateur detective, and retired explorer, is determined to take a break from investigating murders. So when a local politician dies suddenly at an elegant dinner party at Farrington Manor, she tries her hardest not to listen to the raft of rumors around the village that he might have been poisoned by the fudge. It’s the anniversary of the disappearance of her beloved parents and she’s promised herself not to get mixed up with any more mysteries. She isn’t sure they’d have approved.

But when she arrives home to discover that Mrs. Pitkin, the kindly cook from Farrington Manor, has been dismissed without wage or reference because the police consider her a suspect, Eleanor knows she needs to act. If there was a murder, then she needs to track down the culprit and clear Mrs. Pitkin’s name.

Accompanied by her faithful partner in crime, Gladstone the bulldog, who has the best nose for sniffing out bones in the country, Eleanor sets out to find the killer. And when another body turns up and she finds poisoned fudge in the victim’s house, Eleanor knows she’s on the right track. But can she sort the truth from the lies before she becomes a witness to another murder – this time rather closer to home?

An utterly charming cozy mystery! Warm and witty, fans of Agatha Christie, TE Kinsey, and LB Hathaway will be totally hooked.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

As we say in the valleys, everything you have in this world is just borrowed for a short time.

 

…have you seen a fish hooked out of water and hurled three miles inland? Because that would be me trying to make it in the murky world of politics. Bad smell and all.

 

‘…my thoughts are now burning like acid. Clifford, what would you call indigestion of the mind?’ ‘Cerebral dyspepsia, my lady?’

 

You, Lady Swift, are all class. Which class, I’m not honestly sure.

 

My Review:

 

I am totally enamored and fully ensconced in the vastly entertaining and intriguing cozy mystery setting of Verity Bright’s Lady Swift series. A Witness to Murder is number three in this refreshingly crisp series which I hope continues into perpetuity. Each book has been a relaxing and pleasurable perusal of wry humor, engaging storylines, and an endearing and oddly compelling cast of characters, and this one even more so. Lady Swift finds herself nose deep in an unofficial murder investigation while also attempting to campaign for local politics, both were unexpected activities which she finds to be surprisingly and dishearteningly perplexing and strewn with countless roadblocks.

Each delightful installment in this series seems to be even more elegantly written than the last and feel as well-crafted and aesthetically complete as a well-produced program of Masterpiece Theater with more than one curiosity teasing mystery to be solved, clever humor, and brain twitching thoughts and vernacular of the times. I adore Lady Swift and her ever observant and well-connected butler and am already fervently awaiting the arrival of her next adventure.

About the Author

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Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humor, before embarking on their first historical mystery. They are the authors of the fabulous Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s.

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Book Review: The Road to Delano by John DeSimone, @tlcbooktours, @rarebirdlit, @johndesimone1969.

The Road to Delano
by John DeSimone

Amazon / B & N  / Rare Bird Books / GP/ Apple 

Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Rare Bird Books (March 10, 2020)

Jack Duncan is a high school senior whose dream is to play baseball in college and beyond, as far away from Delano as possible. He longs to escape the political turmoil surrounding the labor struggles of the striking fieldworkers that infests his small ag town. Ever since his father, a grape grower, died under suspicious circumstances ten years earlier, he’s had to be the sole emotional support of his mother, who has kept secrets from him about his father’s involvement in the ongoing labor strife.

With their property on the verge of a tax sale, Jack drives an old combine into town to sell it so he and his mother don’t become homeless. On the road, an old friend of his father’s shows up and hands him the police report indicating Jack’s father was murdered. Jack is compelled to dig deep to discover the entire truth, which throws him into the heart of the corruption endemic in the Central Valley. Everything he has dreamed of is at stake if he can’t control his impulse for revenge.

While Jack’s girlfriend, the intelligent and articulate Ella, warns him not to so anything to jeopardize their plans of moving to L.A., after graduation, Jack turns to his best friend, Adrian, a star player on the team, to help to save his mother’s land. When Jack’s efforts to rescue a stolen piece of farm equipment leaves Adrian, the son of a boycotting fieldworker who works closely with Cesar Chavez, in a catastrophic situation, Jack must bail his friend out of his dilemma before it ruins his future prospects. Jack uses his wits, his acumen at card-playing, and his boldness to raise the money to spring his friend, who has been transformed by his jail experience.

The Road to Delano is the path Jack, Ella, and Adrian must take to find their strength, their duty, their destiny.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Coach never yelled. He just stared at that empty space above a boy’s head as if he were wondering what kind of torture would produce one ounce of common sense in the teenager’s brain.

 

It’s one thing to be poor. It’s another thing to be forced into poverty by men who don’t care that we’re human beings.

 

He plays like a turkey before Thanksgiving.

 

My Review:

 

This was my introduction to John DeSimone and I found his storytelling to be absorbing and deeply insightful. He implanted me so thoroughly in his tale I felt the scorching heat as well as tasted the bitterness of the times in my mouth. I was vaguely aware of Cesar Chavez as a child of the ’70s, although as a white child, his name was not spoken reverently in my parents’ home and as was typical, so often paired with several unflattering slurs that I likely thought it was part of the man’s name.   Embarrassing true story, and it happened more than once.

The storylines were well-crafted, profoundly perceptive, distressingly realistic, and adroitly captured the tumultuousness of the period as well as the unfettered arrogance, assumed privilege, blatant corruption, and abuse of power enjoyed at all levels. I remember gaining that same sense of staggering epiphany and awareness of the unfairness and hypocritical inhumanity experienced by the teenaged characters as if waking up to the not so well kept secret as a naïve and poorly informed bumpkin, and marveling at how entire communities silently allowed it to not only continue but to flourish.

John DeSimone’s powerful and emotive word choices hit all the feels and a sharp punch to the gut while reminding me of that oh, so, uncomfortable time. I found myself deeply invested in this hauntingly unsettling tale and fearful for all the characters as I knew it wasn’t going to end well for anyone. And along the way, I was well-schooled on baseball, card-playing, and grape growing in the most interesting fashion.  Anyone who can get to me like that deserves far more than 5-Stars.

About the Author

John DeSimone is a published writer, novelist, and teacher. He’s been an adjunct professor and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. His recent co-authored books include Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan (Little A Publishers), and Courage to Say No by Dr. Raana Mahmood, about her struggles against sexual exploitation as a female physician in Karachi. His published novel Leonardo’s Chair published in 2005.

In 2012, he won a prestigious Norman Mailer Fellowship to complete his most recent historical novel, Road to Delano. His novels Leonardo’s Chair and No Ordinary Man have received critical recognition.

He works with select clients to write stories of inspiration and determination and with those who have a vital message to bring to the marketplace of ideas in well-written books.

Find out more about John at his website, and connect with him on Instagram.

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Book Review: Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea (The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea #5) by Jane Linfoot @janelinfoot @rararesources

 

Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea
(The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea #5)
by Jane Linfoot

St Aidan: a cozy Cornish village where friendships are made for life and it’s always cocktail hour somewhere…

‘A pure delight’ Debbie Johnson

Return to your favorite little wedding shop by the sea for love, laughter, and a romance to sweep you off your feet!

It’s the most romantic day of the year but the girls aren’t just gearing up for Valentine’s Day and a busy wedding season ahead, it’s also the 10 year anniversary of their beloved shop!

Jess is planning the party of the decade and with the champagne and cocktails flowing, sparks are going to fly…and not just from the fireworks display!

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I know if Ben were the last guy in the world on a desert island, I’d actually have to make a boat and leave. And that’s saying a lot from me, who came bottom of the class in woodwork.

 

‘…we’re desperate for your input with the Faceplant side.’ Poppy stifles a smile. ‘That’s Jess’s affectionate name for Facebook.’

 

Once your eyes are open to the possibilities of super-hot, lukewarm doesn’t get a look in.

 

Nic’s young-at-heart Great Auntie Di was very grateful for the sewing kit in the emergency basket I had tucked away in the downstairs cloakroom. A few stitches and some safety pin reinforcement was all it took to make her look like an on-trend seventy-nine-year-old again, rather than a teenager on the pull.

 

It could have been worse, at least they weren’t playing naked Twister.

 

My Review:

 

Jane Linfoot has become one of my favorite people, she is certain to be my favorite person of the month, as I adored this book from beginning to end. The storylines were entertaining as well as insightfully observant and cleverly amusing while her character development was simply stellar. I reveled in their banter and thoughtfulness of each other. I admired Milla’s evolution and smirked at her propensity for creating a bit of chaos as she appears to be more than a bit of a Calamity Jane and destined to be plagued with funny little disasters, despite her best efforts and good intentions.   These were endearing and lovable people whom I would enjoy spending time with and knowing well. I look forward to delving into this series again and again for more antics and bridal adventures to keep Poppy’s busy eyebrow wagging.

About the Author

I write fun, flirty fiction, with feisty heroines, and lots of heart. Writing is fab because I get to wear pretty shoes instead of wellies. I live in a cottage up a mountain road in Derbyshire, where my family and pets are kind enough to ignore the domestic chaos. Happily, we’re within walking distance of a supermarket. I love hearts, flowers, happy endings, all things vintage, most things french. When I’m not on facebook, and can’t find an excuse for shopping, I’ll be walking, or gardening. On days when I want to be really scared, I ride a tandem.

Social Media Links – Follow Jane on Twitter @janelinfoot, or find her on her Author Page on Facebook. She’s also on Instagram, and has lots of Pinterest boards relating to her novels.

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Book Review: One Left Alive (Detective Morgan Brookes #1) by Helen Phifer

 

One Left Alive
(Detective Morgan Brookes #1)
by Helen Phifer

Amazon / B&N / Apple / GP/ Kobo

 She knelt down by the side of the first girl. She had to force herself to breathe as she lifted the soft white cloth covering the girl’s beautiful face…

When the body of a woman is found hanging from a tree in her front garden, rookie Detective Morgan Brookes is first on the scene. But Olivia Potter is past saving. And when her husband and daughters cannot be traced, Morgan knows there is more to this tragedy. And then she finds them. Lying huddled together in the dark basement, each of their faces covered with a small cotton cloth, their bodies cold to the touch.But as Morgan kneels beside the family, she realizes that one of the girls is still breathing. As she holds Bronte’s fragile hand in hers, begging her to hold on, she vows to find out who has done this.

Every day Morgan wakes at 4.25 a.m., her old insomnia now mixed with a new fixation on the case. But every clue about the murdered family leads to a dead end. Until, trawling through old files, she discovers a link to a cold case from years ago. Another family was murdered in this house, and the killer was never caught.

When Morgan returns to the scene of the crime to discover more about this forgotten case, she finds another body. With Bronte still unconscious in the hospital, Morgan must act fast to solve this case and lay two families to rest, before the killer returns for the girl left alive…

A chilling and gripping crime thriller that will have fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, and Patricia Gibney glued to the page.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

She remembered what it was like to be a teenager all too well; you never accepted anything an adult offered. God, was that what she was now: an adult? It was strange to think that she was probably only five or six years older than him, yet here she was trying to solve the murder of his girlfriend’s family.

 

If you ask me, she was already dead when they did that. Awful thing to do, vile. It’s like killing her twice; once wasn’t enough so they did it all over again.

 

What had her life come to getting relationship advice from a doctor who only worked with dead people?… ‘I have to go; I’m not used to being around so many living souls, it’s not good for my chakras.’

 

‘It’s not like on the television, is it?’ Amy spat crumbs of brownie all over herself, almost choking on the laughter which erupted. ‘No, it definitely is not. We don’t manage to solve the crimes in an hour.’

 

My Review:

 

 

An excellent start to a new series, and I plan to be following every one of their riveting cases if they are all as absorbing and well-crafted as this one. I’m rather new to police procedurals but I enjoyed the deft storytelling and complex characters on both sides of the law. The case was cannily layered and well-nuanced with compelling side stories and welcome hits of humor and humanity to balance the emotional tone.   I respected these people as well as their process and look forward to solving more conundrums with them, as well as seeing how well they rub along together in future endeavors.

About the Author

Helen Phifer lives in a small town called Barrow-in-Furness with her husband and five children.

Helen has always loved writing and reading. Her love of horror films and novels is legendary. Helen adores reading books which make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Unable to find enough scary stories to read she decided to write her own.

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Helenphifer1

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/helenphifer

Twitter:      https://twitter.com/helenphifer1

Website:     https://www.helenphifer.com

 

Posted on

Book Review: The Country Escape by Jane Lovering

 

The Country Escape
by Jane Lovering

Amazon US / UK /  B&N / Google

Welcome to the idyllic country retreat of Christmas Steepleton, and let Jane Lovering whisk you away with the most heart-warming, romantic and comforting read of the year.

Leaving London and her ex-husband Luc behind, Katie and her 14-year-old daughter Poppy move into their very own, very ramshackle cottage near the village of Christmas Steepleton on the Dorset coast. 

Harvest Cottage has been unloved for many years, so the job of bringing it back to life is a slow and expensive one. So, with funds running low, Katie jumps at the chance when a film company asks to use the cottage as a location.  But even as things are looking up, as harvest time passes and autumn chill starts to bite, the prospect of a cold winter in the country is daunting.

Some light relief comes from new friend Gabriel, so different from Katie’s exuberant but arrogant ex Luc. Will their friendship blossom into something more romantic, or will the reality of a tough country winter send her and Poppy scurrying back to the comforts of town? 

Let Jane Lovering spirit you away to the perfect country escape, far away from the bustle of the city. Just right for fans of Emma Burstall, Fern Britton and Kate Forster.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

… living with a fourteen-year-old gave a whole new insight into exactly how phoney people could be, although teenagers weren’t truly ‘people’ yet, more ‘humans in training ’.

 

… there’s not much of a dating pool round here. More of a puddle!

 

You’re the first woman to make me feel that I haven’t wasted my life making quilts and learning to crochet rather than strutting bare-chested down the street with power tools strapped to my body.

 

The other two men were just standing staring at Gabriel as though he’d suddenly ripped his clothes off to display Jean-Claude van Damme under his coat… Karen’s mouth fell open and the cocktail cherry dropped out.

 

I never knew bullies kept on being bullies when they were grown up… I thought you grew out of being a shithead like you grow out of wanting a fringe and sucking your thumb.

 

They looked a bit shocked and I realised that this was Poppy’s first exposure to a properly poorly person. My mother, despite her aches, pains and general incessant complaints, was fit and well and her grand -mère had the air of one who had had herself embalmed at the age of seventy to save time later.

 

My Review:

 

While continuing with my adoration of Jane Lovering (and I am totally enamored now), I giggle-snorted and smirked my way through this highly amusing tale, and will be honest and say I also barked a few times at the keen visuals and humorous imagery this talented wordsmith painted with her clever arrangements of words. Her crafty wordplay and impressive vocabulary skills rival Webster’s, although I believe he had a lot of help in amassing his.

The storylines were fresh and engaging and populated with an interesting mix of uniquely peculiar yet oddly intriguing characters, as well as a profoundly obnoxious teen named Poppy who was greatly annoying and had me wanting to glue her lips together.   Poppy could be the poster child for birth control and the prime example of why many Brits send their offspring to boarding school. But of course, I was a total delight at age fourteen.

About the Author

Jane Lovering is the bestselling and award-winning romantic comedy writer who won the RNA Novel of the Year Award in 2012 with Please Don’t Stop the Music. She lives in Yorkshire and has a cat and a bonkers terrier, as well as five children who have now left home.

Social Media Links –

Twitter Profile: @janelovering

Facebook Profile: Jane Lovering Author

Website URL: www.janelovering.co.uk

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/jane-lovering