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Book Review: Delia Suits Up by Amanda Aksel @AmandaAksel

Delia Suits Up
by Amanda Aksel 

Amazon  / B&N / GP / BB

If you had one day to rewrite the rules you live by, would you? Delia Reese takes the financial world by storm in this breakout novel that’s 13 Going on 30 meets She’s the Man.

Just once, Delia Reese wants to be the one calling the shots—not the one waiting to be called. Despite her stellar resume, hiring managers at the big banks won’t give her a chance.Following yet another failed interview, Delia commiserates with her roommates and drunkenly finds herself wishing she had the advantages that come with being a man. If society wasn’t locked into gender roles, she’d be climbing the corporate ladder in designer heels with no apologies. By morning, her mirror reflects a surprising makeover.

Now that the world sees her as a man, Delia’s determined to double down on society’s double standards. With a smart suit and powerfully pink necktie, she hits New York’s financial district with a big gamble in mind.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

I watch his reflection on the sleek mahogany desk scan my resume up and down. Up and down. What’s he looking for? Waldo?

 

I hand him my New York driver’s license, which I use more for drinking than driving.

 

I raise my arm and take a whiff. “Ugh.” It’s like Old Spice and old onions had an all-out battle. Old onions won.

 

My Review:

 

I enjoyed this uniquely quirky tale of a women’s frustrated birthday wish to be someone else coming true. The storylines were laced together with snarky wry humor, amusing observations, and interesting insights as the character encounters and withstands the perspective of and reactions to themselves as different genders. It was an interesting and thought-provoking education as the character contemplated the freedom, challenges, constrictions, and limitations experienced by both extremes of our species.   Learning the art of snake charming of the capricious trouser anaconda alone was smirk-worthy and made my afternoon.

 

Amanda Aksel loves anything that’s smart, sexy, and funny. She’s the author of Delia Suits Up, The Marin Test Series, and The Londonaire Brothers Series. You’ll often find her writing novels about fabulous, independent heroines, pretending to be Sara Bareilles at the piano, watching reruns of Sex and the City, or sprinkling a little too much feta on her salad.

Get FREE short story and smart, sexy, funny updates from Amanda. Just sign up at www.amandaaksel.com

 

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Book Review: Her Previous Self (The Guernsey Novels #8) by Anne Allen @AnneAllen21

Her Previous Self 
(The Guernsey Novels #8)
by Anne Allen

Amazon  / B&N /  Apple / BB

 

Mary, miserable in her marriage to Thomas Carre, a merchant and privateer, and living in the new family mansion in Georgian Guernsey.

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Lucy, separated from her husband after a tragic loss and now acting as an unwilling sitter for her elderly grandfather, Gregory Carre, who has inherited the same mansion.

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Lucy is haunted by Mary’s continued presence in the house and finds herself being pulled more and more back in time.   How is it possible for her to live as Mary? To experience scenes from her tragic life? Lucy is forced to come to terms with Mary’s grief as well as her own.

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The more enmeshed she becomes the more anxious Lucy is to discover the truth. Why is Mary still restless? What caused her mysterious disappearance two hundred years ago?
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And can Lucy move on from her own loss to find happiness again?

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

Marriage and motherhood had given Lucy a different view of family and after losing her child and the subsequent breakdown of her marriage, her view had sharpened.

 

My Review:

 

This book was a unique hybrid of genres including women’s fiction, family drama, mystery, historical fiction, and a budding romance; and I enjoyed them all. While not my typical read, I enjoyed the tale as well as the variation from my usual habits. Ms. Allen has woven quite a chronicle with writing and storylines that were easy to fall into and featured a cast of likable and relatable characters and detestable villains, an intriguing mystery, and an unusual predicament with tragic and paranormal aspects. It ended a bit too soon for me, I would have liked a bit more, but then I always do when reading a good tale.

 

About the Author
Anne Allen lives in Devon, by her beloved sea. She has three children, and her daughter and two grandchildren live nearby. Her restless spirit has meant a number of moves which included Spain for a couple of years. The longest stay was in Guernsey for nearly fourteen years after falling in love with the island and the people. She contrived to leave one son behind to ensure a valid reason for frequent returns. By profession, Anne was a psychotherapist, but long had the itch to write. Now a full-time writer, she has written The Guernsey Novels.

 

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Book Review: One Night Only by Catherine Walsh  @CatWalshWriter @Bookouture

One Night Only
by Catherine Walsh

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP/ BB

Who could have predicted this? Being at the same wedding. In Ireland. There’s a reason one-night stands are one-night stands. You’re not supposed to see each other again, especially not when you’re the maid of honor, and he’s the groom’s brother…

Sarah Anderson has never been more excited about anything in her life. She’s going to her best friend’s wedding. And not just any wedding. An Irish wedding. Goodbye New York, hello rolling green hills, and men with beautiful accents and twinkling eyes.

But Sarah should have known that not all guests are fairy-tale princes…

There’s the chinless Uncle Trevor, whose idea of small talk is to claim climate change is a conspiracy.

Then there’s Great Aunt Eileen, who doesn’t talk at all (she’s too busy replacing the hotel cutlery with her own set).

Worst of all, there’s Declan Murphy. Best man. Brother of the groom. And the man Sarah last saw naked.

Is there anything more mortifying than bumping into a one-night stand halfway across the world? Especially as Declan seems determined to embarrass Sarah at every turn. At least when the wedding’s over she’ll never have to see him again.

But, back in New York, Sarah finds the more she tries to forget Declan, the more she can’t shake the thought of that infuriatingly charming smile and the way he wears a tux…

Was he really just for one night only, or might Declan Murphy be The One?

Prepare to laugh until you cry with this perfect feel-good romantic comedy about taking a chance on love. Fans of Sophie Ranald, Sophie Kinsella, and Marian Keyes won’t be able to put this down!

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

We have a very comfortable relationship with death in this country. A good funeral is the only entertainment a lot of people get in these parts.

 

That’s the problem with vacations. Once you take one all you want is another.

My Review:

  

This amusing and original romantic comedy was laced with delightfully clever snark, complex and intriguing characters, and crisp and witty banter that kept me smirking. I occasionally lost patience with the main character of Sarah as she was rather abrasive and self-consumed, but I enjoyed her bumbling encounters and comical misadventures.

The writing was fresh and humorously irreverent while featuring generous servings of enticing, endearingly quirky, and well-etched characters as well as snide Sarah’s cynical and caustic observations and inner musings. I adored the bride and Sarah’s best friend Annie, whose storylines provided a considerable share of the comedy.

I was amazed in noticing this smoothly polished tale was this up-and-coming author’s first published book.   Impressive to say the least!

 

About the Author

Catherine Walsh was born and raised in Ireland. She has a degree in Popular Literature and the only prize she ever won for writing was at the age of 14 in school (but she still cherishes it.)

She lived in London for a few years where she worked in Publishing and the non-profit sector before returning to Dublin where she now lives between the mountains and the sea. When not writing she is trying and failing to not kill her houseplants.

https://twitter.com/CatWalshWriter

https://www.instagram.com/catwalshwriter/

 

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Book Review: Heart And Soul (Angel Sands, #8) by Carrie Elks   @CarrieElks

Heart And Soul
(Angel Sands, #8)
by Carrie Elks

 

Amazon  / BB

 

An ER doctor, the single mom next door, and a fake relationship that feels all too real…

Moving to Angel Sands is a brand new start for single mom Meghan Hart. With a beautiful new apartment and a business she’s fallen in love with, things are finally looking up.

Then she meets her gorgeous new neighbor.

Rich Martin has no luck with relationships. He’s too busy saving lives to think about his own. But from the moment he sees Meghan, sparks fly.

After a run-in with a persistent ex, he asks Meghan for help. Pretend to be his girlfriend for a month. Despite her misgivings, Meghan agrees.

As they spend more time together, the chemistry between them explodes, ending in a kiss-to-end-all-kisses.

Before long, neither of them is certain what’s fake and what’s real anymore.

And right now, they’re in no rush to find out…

My Rating:

My Review:

 

I have easily tumbled into each installment of this engaging series with the comfortable ease of visiting a friend. And although each book tends to introduce a new friend, they are soon familiar and adored.   I can always count on Carrie Elks’s main characters to be highly likable, admirable, and endearingly flawed.   Her writing style flowed smoothly and seamlessly implanted me in each scene while craftily encompassing all the senses, which often proved hazardous to my diet plans as I currently found myself wanting to eat like an eight-year-old and craving tater tots and ice cream. This installment was generally low angst with lashings of humorous small-town issues, a deluded yet cleverly resourceful stalker, family drama, a slowly developing romance between a hot doc and a cool ice cream lady neighbors, and a few deliciously steamy encounters that had me gasping to catch my breath. More, please!

 

Carrie Elks writes contemporary romance with a sizzling edge. Her first book, Fix You, has been translated into eight languages and made a surprise appearance on Big Brother in Brazil. Luckily for her, it wasn’t voted out. Carrie lives with her husband, two lovely children, and a larger-than-life black pug called Plato. When she isn’t writing or reading, she can be found baking, drinking an occasional (!) glass of wine, or chatting on social media.

 

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Book Review:  The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms @TLCBookTours

 The Seven Day Switch
by Kelly Harms

 

Amazon / B&N  / BB

 

Two moms as opposite as a Happy Meal and a quinoa bowl. What a difference a week makes in a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud novel by the Washington Post bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.

Celeste Mason is the Pinterest stay-at-home supermom of other mothers’ nightmares. Despite her all-organic, SunButter-loving, free-range kids, her immaculate home, and her volunteering awards, she still has time to relax with a nice glass of pinot at the end of the day. The only thing that ruins it all is her workaholic, career-obsessed neighbor, who makes no secret of what she thinks of Celeste’s life choices every chance she gets.

Wendy Charles is a celebrated productivity consultant, columnist, and speaker. On a minute-by-minute schedule, she makes the working-mom hustle look easy. She even spends at least one waking hour a day with her kids. She’s not apologizing for a thing. Especially to Celeste, who plays her superior parenting against Wendy whenever she can.

Who do Celeste and Wendy think they are? They’re about to find out thanks to one freaky week. After a neighborhood potluck and too much sangria, they wake up– um, what?? –in each other’s bodies. Everything Celeste and Wendy thought they knew about the “other kind of mom” is flipped upside down–along with their messy, complicated, maybe not so different lives.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

“Where is Anna Joy?” I ask, the second name poison in my mouth. Anna Joy, for heaven’s sake. She’s not even southern. Where does she get off taking two nice names when there are so few good ones left to choose from in the neighborhood? Because of her greed, some poor newborn is probably going around with the name Bertha-Sue.

 

She hops to it with a team enthusiasm that fills me with pride. Sure, at home she can leave a half-drunk glass of milk on her desk until it’s science-lab material, but out here, she’s all in.

 

Are you sick with Old Timers’ like Great-Grandma? Are you going to die?

 

No one knows what to say to you. Your life path is the conversational equivalent of asking about a bad rash. Is that how you really want to roll?

 

I have them both going on a chore chart. I have mad skills, Wendy, and soon you will learn to worship at the altar that is my parenting.

 

 My Review:

 

This was my first experience with Kelly Harms and she provided a deliciously fun and well-crafted read. I adored her clever humor and snark merrily prancing through this slyly insightful and highly amusing book. Her writing style was easy to fall into and her humorous women’s fiction tale covered multiple tropes with family drama, whimsical body-switching, mom guilt, infidelity, and suburban parenting wars gone awry.

All of the characters were well textured and multi-layered but I had a tough time caring for the main character of Wendy throughout most of the book as she was rather acidic, testy, judgmental, full of sharp edges, and needed to save up for that all-important surgery to remove the stick that was firmly embedded up her rectal region. She was a complicated piece of work but thankfully Waspish Wendy salvaged herself and I had mellowed to her cause by the end of the book.

Even if the premise was more than a bit fanciful and outside of my typical reading habits, I enjoyed this one immensely as the women’s dilemmas kept me well entertained. I also find a bit of excellent writing such as this can make any genre worth a go. Kelly Harms has an avid new fangirl and has been added to my list of favorites.

About the Author

Kelly Harms is an author, a mother, and a big dreamer. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her sparkling son, Griffin; her fluffy dog, Scout; and her beloved Irishman, Chris. Before this midwestern life, she lived in New York, New York, and worked with many of her author-heroes as an editor at HarperCollins and then as a literary agent. When she’s not lost in a book that she’s either writing or reading, you can find her on the water, in the water, or near the water. Say hello anytime at www.kellyharms.com.

Connect with Kelly

Website | Facebook | Instagram

 

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Book Review: A Hand to Hold in Deep Water by Shawn Nocher  @shawn_nocher

A Hand to Hold in Deep Water
by Shawn Nocher 

Blackstone Publishing
ISBN: 978-1094095219
483 pages

Amazon / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

Willy Cherrymill and his stepdaughter, Lacey, are deeply bruised by a past brimming with unanswered questions. It’s been thirty years since May DuBerry, Willy’s young wife and Lacey’s mother, abandoned them both leaving Willy to raise Lacey alone.

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Lacey Cherrymill is smart, stubborn, and focused. She’s also a single mother to a young daughter recently diagnosed with a devastating illness. The last thing she needs to think about right now is the betrayal that rocked her childhood.
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Reluctantly, she has returned to her rural beginnings, a former dairy farm in the Maryland countryside, and to Willy, a man steeped in his own disappointments and all the guilt that goes with them.
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Together they will pool their wobbly emotional resources to take care of Lacey’s daughter, Tasha, all the while trying to skirt the issue of May’s mysterious disappearance. But try as she might, Lacey can’t leave it alone. Just where is May DuBerry Cherrymill and why did she leave them, and how is it that they have never talked about the wreckage she left behind?
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A Hand to Hold in Deep Water is a deeply felt narrative about mothers and daughters, the legacy of secrets, the way we make a family, and the love of those who walk us through our deepest pain. It is about the way we are tethered to one another and how we choose to wear those bindings. These are characters you won’t soon forget and, more so, won’t want to leave behind when you turn the last page.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Something was expected of her, something that might change the course of what was transpiring, but whatever it was felt just out of reach, like a word one might search for and though it shimmies around the tongue, it can’t be called up.

 

His voice is a painful thing in my ear that has settled in the corners of my mind like broke glass. I cannot bear the feel of his words.

 

She reaches across the table and takes his hand in hers. It’s so big, has always been so big around hers. She squeezes and he lifts his other hand from his lap, places it over hers. She knows now that she had been miraculously caught in the depths of a fall, cushioned by this man with the deepest of hearts.

 

My Review:

 

This was an intensively emotive read that was so perceptively written it was startling. I tumbled right into this itchy, prickly, and heart-squeezing tale and I grew to love these oddly compelling and uniquely crafted personalities. The characters weren’t people I would ordinarily seek out to spend time with yet they become so very knowable to me and I found their story addictive and gripping.

The storylines were cunningly crafted and maddeningly paced with intriguing, painful, and cringe-worthy elements that will stay with me for quite some time. Yet even those uncomfortable events were painted in an uncommonly personable and deeply observant manner and were so very thoughtfully presented that I found an odd wetness seeping from my eyes and hot rocks in my throat as I gasped to catch my breath. I am astounded by the quality and depth achieved by a first-time novelist. Shawn Nocher is definitely one to watch and was quickly added to my list of new favorites.

About the Author

Amazon
Goodreads
Website
Facebook
Twitter
BookBub
Instagram

Shawn Nocher is a debut author and a co-founder of Love In The Trenches (LITT), a non-profit foundation support group for parents of addicts who are suffering the collateral damage of their child’s addiction.
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Book Review: Passerby by Britney King  @britneyking_

 Release Date: July 22

“Roils with passion, rancor, and greed wrapped in Southern politesse… King’s intricately woven mystery is sure to please fans of the thriller and suspense genre far and wide.”

 

Jester Falls has always been an idyllic town. Perfect for a getaway. And what better place to stay than Magnolia House, the tourist trap’s most popular bed and breakfast, run by the eccentric Channing family.

 

 Ruth Channing loves her family—at least what’s left of it. She’d do anything to protect them.

 

But it isn’t until her brother picks up a mysterious woman on the side of Route 78 that Ruth realizes how many definitions the word anything can have.

 

Everything about Ashley Parker rings false: her past, her profession, even her name. Most worryingly of all, her reluctance to leave. 

 

When guests start disappearing, it’s clear there’s more at stake than just the family business… a lot more.

 

Grab Your Copy 

 

Amazon / B&N / Apple / BB

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

There are three things you should always keep a secret: your love life, your income, and your next move. Once you lose your mystery, you can’t get it back. As the saying goes, sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

  

My Review:

 

I continue with my fascination with the intriguing and maddeningly paced storylines culled from the dark recesses of Britney King’s irregularly curved and bendy imagination. I never know where her cunning arrangements of words is going to take me, or who the actual culprit will be in her devious and snark-laden tales, but I have so much fun flinching and cringing while I postulate and toss aside a multitude of wild theories along the way. She excels at the fast-paced itchy tales that keep me on edge and unable to put my beloved Kindle down without a struggle. With her newest release of Passerby, she continues to reign supreme on my thriller hit list where I have given her the designation of High Priestess of Word Voodoo.

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Meet Britney King

Hello. I’m Britney. 

 

 I live in Austin, Texas with my husband, children, a dog named Gatsby, one ridiculous cat, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

 When I’m not wrangling the things mentioned above, I write psychological, domestic, and romantic thrillers set in suburbia.

 

Currently, I’m writing three series and several standalone novels.

 

The Bedrock Series features an unlikely heroine who should have known better. Turns out, she didn’t. Thus she finds herself tangled in a messy, dangerous, forbidden love story and face-to-face with a madman hell-bent on revenge. The series has been compared to Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, and Basic Instinct.

 

The Water Series follows the shady love story of an unconventional married couple—he’s an assassin—she kills for fun. It has been compared to a crazier book version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Also, Dexter.

 

Around The Bend is a heart-pounding standalone, which traces the journey of a well-to-do suburban housewife, and her life as it unravels, thanks to the secrets she keeps. If she were the only one with things she wanted to keep hidden, then maybe it wouldn’t have turned out so bad. But she wasn’t.

 

The With You Series at its core is a deep love story about unlikely friends who travel the world; trying to find themselves, together and apart. Packed with drama and adventure along with a heavy dose of suspense, it has been compared to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Love, Rosie.

 

The Social Affair is an intense standalone about a timeless couple who find themselves with a secret admirer they hadn’t bargained for. For fans of the anti-heroine and stories told in unorthodox ways, the novel explores what can happen when privacy is traded for convenience. It is reminiscent of films such as One Hour Photo and Play Misty For Me. Classics. 🙂

 

Without a doubt, connecting with readers is the best part of this gig. If you’d like to connect, shoot me an email. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and occasionally on Twitter.

 

Connect with Britney King

Website | Newsletter | BookBub | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page 

 

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Book Review: One Hundred Whispers (An Aspen Cove Romance #18) by Kelly Collins  @kcollinsauthor

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One Hundred Whispers
(An Aspen Cove Romance #18) 
by Kelly Collins

 

Amazon  / BB

Welcome back to Aspen Cove, where everything is safe, including your secrets…

 

After being booted from her hit renovation show, Reno or Wreck It, for a mistake that wasn’t hers, Jewel Monroe moves to Aspen Cove to lick her wounds. No one seems to know who she is, and that’s a secret she wants to keep. When that old familiar need to renovate burns inside her, she buys a rundown house, but is the deal too sweet to be true? She can have it at cost if she helps sexy real estate agent Mason Van der Veen turn the property from pitiful to profitable in two months.

Mason Van der Veen is in trouble. He scooped up several properties in Aspen Cove, hoping to turn the town into the next Colorado vacation mecca. But when that plan fails, he’s told by his father that if he can’t renovate two properties in Aspen Cove for a profit in sixty days, he’ll lose his job and his thirty-five-million-dollar trust fund. Jewel is his secret weapon and has the notoriety to bring him the attention he needs, but she can’t help him if she stays a secret. Mason must choose between her wishes and his needs.

Can they work together and build a relationship out of the remnants of a rundown house, or will greed get in the way of a custom-built love made to last?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Marrying Matt was like saying I do to a friend. I’d always heard you should marry your best friend. I just didn’t think he’d start sleeping with mine.

 

“Oh, to be a fly on the locker room wall of the high school gym.” “Smells like sweat and bad attitudes. I swear testosterone smells like a skunk.”

 

Matt did as he was told. He seemed like a guy who’d had his manhood cut off, and by the looks of it, Sylvia was wearing it.

 

“Get the sutures and bandages ready. Blood is about to spill.” “Not right now. I’m busy. It’s time for Days of our Lives, and Lovey will murder me if I miss it. You’ll have to schedule your murderous rage another time.”

 

She’s the one who looks like a librarian with a secret room for naughty boys.

  

My Review:

 

Reading this series is like dropping in on a fun and familiar friend, I adore this crafty author and always revel in my time at Aspen Cove. Each engaging installment can stand alone yet provides updates on the odd little community’s beloved and endearing characters featured in previous volumes.   The main characters of this chronicle were newcomers to the tiny frozen hamlet and while thinking they were flying under the radar, both were well known and being held under the ever-watchful and speculative eye of the small-town’s residents. The emotional tone was perfectly balanced between angsty inner musings, family drama, snarky humor, amusing observations, and a blossoming attraction. I always start looking forward to a return trip the minute I finish one of these tasty treats.

 

ABOUT KELLY COLLINS   

 

  Goodreads  / Website  / Amazon / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest / Bookbub

International bestselling author of over 30 novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.

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Book Review: Totally Folked (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #1) by Penny Reid @ReidRomance

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One unforgettable night leads to an unlikely shared connection, and unlikely connections never go unnoticed by the good folks in Green Valley, Tennessee. . .

Totally Folked an all-new small-town romantic comedy filled with humor and heart from New York Times bestselling author Penny Reid is available now!

 

Fall in love today!

Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/TotallyFolked

Nook: https://bit.ly/3sOrkTX

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3sShLDy

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2OkmO0L

Google Play: https://bit.ly/39G9JpY

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/36KBgo6

Barnes and Noble Paperback: Coming Soon

 

Jackson James follows the rules. He has to. He’s a sheriff’s deputy in a super small town with a super big personality. However, strict adherence to the law during the day has been enjoyably balanced by rakish rules at night. Jackson, typically happy to protect and serve (and serve, and serve), starts questioning the value of wayward evenings when they begin to feel more like being waylaid rather than getting laid. Could it be that Green Valley’s most eligible—and notorious—bachelor longs for something (and someone) real?

Mega movie star Raquel Ezra follows only one rule: always leave them wanting more. Strict adherence to this single rule has served her well. Studio execs, reporters, audiences, fans, lovers—no one can get enough of the smart, savvy, and sexy bombshell. But when “generous offers” begin to feel more like excessive demands, years of always leaving has the elusive starlet longing for something (and perhaps someone) lasting.

When Raquel abruptly returns to the quirky Tennessee hamlet, her path crosses with the delectable deputy with whom she spent one unforgettable night. Unfortunately, scandal and intrigue soon follow. Raquel and Jackson must decide which is more important: following their rules? Or, at long last, finding something real.

TOTALLY FOLKED is a standalone, contemporary romantic comedy novel and book #1 in the Good Folk: Modern Folktales series.

 

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

Sexual orientation is a spectrum of course, but I think he prefers peen and pecs, and I get it. I prefer peen and pecs. What do I want with boobs and beavers? So many parts, so many holes. Why do we have so many hills and holes? Women are basically golf courses.

 

“Are you serious?” “As serious as a Botox shortage in Beverly Hills.”

 

Your mistakes and missteps will reinforce people’s unflattering ideas about you, and your good deeds will be explained away by nice weather.

 

She was basically MacGyver, Martha Stewart, and Captain Marvel all rolled up into one woman. Janet James could turn dirt and a paper clip into a winning science fair project, bake ten dozen gluten-free, dairy-free cupcakes while grading assignments, making dinner, and checking in to ensure my sister and I had finished our homework, washed our hands, and eaten our vegetables —all without breaking a sweat or displaying a single crack in her outward calm.

 

My stomach threw a dinner party and only invited anxiety.

 

My Review:

 

 Oh. Happy, Day. A new series from Penny Reid is always a cause for major celebration; as is a new book, new novella, a new newsletter, new Facebook post, new Tweet… you get the picture.   The woman has mad skills and I adore her endearingly peculiar and enticing characters as much as her crisp and cleverly amusing writing style. I have repeatedly fallen into her tales and often felt regretful in having to come back out. After eagerly anticipating the enigmatic Jackson’s story for what has felt like decades, I am delighted to opine that his chronicle could not have been better. The humor, romance, inner conflicts, startling epiphanies, snarky observations, wryly humorous insights, sensual steam, and bitingly witty dialogues were perfectly honed, simply sublime, and everything I have come to expect from this master scribbler.  

 

Meet Penny Reid

Penny Reid is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Best Selling Author of the Winston Brothers, Knitting in the City, Rugby, and Hypothesis series. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she just writes books. She’s also a full-time mom to three diminutive adults, wife, daughter, knitter, crocheter, sewer, general crafter, and thought ninja.

Connect with Penny

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

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lakzsD

Twitter: @ReidRomance

Mailing List: http://pennyreid.ninja/newsletter/

Website: www.pennyreid.ninja

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Book Review: Other People’s Marriages by Kerry Fisher  @KerryFSwayne @Bookouture

Other People’s Marriages
by Kerry Fisher 

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

As I stood at my own birthday party, listening to my husband’s speech about me, I could no longer silence the thought that had started as a low-level hum five years ago and built until I could no longer ignore it… did I want to leave him?

Steph has spent decades building a family with her husband Mal, and putting that family first. She is the glue that holds them all together and she has convinced herself that she’s been happy… most of the time. But as she stands at her birthday party watching her husband talking about a wonderful marriage she doesn’t fully recognize, the doubts that she has been pushing down for so long begin to grow…

After the party, as Steph tries to gather her courage to leave Mal, she receives a letter from her old friend Evie. Steph hasn’t spoken to Evie since a sunny weekend on a holiday beach twenty years earlier when the two friends said things to each other that could never be unsaid. And now, Evie is seeking a reunion and a way to repair the friendship. But this reunion threatens to reveal a secret that could destroy two families.

Other People’s Marriages is an absolutely unputdownable and heartbreaking read about the lies we tell to keep our loved ones close. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty, and Diane Chamberlain.

My Rating:

 

 Favorite Quotes:

 

I didn’t want him to spend his life feeling that everyone else had cracked the code to their place in the world but he’d scribbled his on the back of an envelope he’d lost before he’d memorised it.

 

Gemma was so charming that even when she was sending someone to hell, she did it in such a way that they enjoyed the journey.

 

I both admired Teresa for being able to keep a secret and could have shaken her out of frustration. But that was Teresa all over. She was like one of those money boxes that you had to smash open to retrieve the cash.

 

Paul looked so disgusted with Wendy that, for a second, I had a brief flicker of fear that he’d divorce me just for being related to her.

 

I’d frequently found myself wondering how so much water could make its way to the eyes, puzzling as I cried into Gladys’s neck about where the liquid came from, imagining a little reservoir tucked behind my jaw like the one in my Mini for windscreen wiper fluid.

 

I was a woman to whom detail was everything – mainly, if I was honest, so I could store it and use it against people at a later date.

 

 My Review:

 

Kerry Fisher’s latest offering was brilliantly insightful and so perceptive that the characters’ realizations and inner musings often stung as she was poking at some of my own failings and secret resentments that seemed to be fighting their way to the surface and had me nodding in emphatically agreement during perusal. This wily scribbler bravely dug deep and rooted around among the secret longings, self-doubts, and resentful sacrifices of marriage and motherhood with surgical precision and cunning, while maintaining a perfect balance of painful awareness and craftily amusing and snarky observations. She also held a bright light on those thoughts and impressions we women tend to keep privately stashed away and don’t dare speak of for fear of being banned from the sisterhood and flogged in the public square. What guile!

The storylines and family issues were varied yet highly relatable with narratives that flowed smoothly and sucked me in with cleverly astute and wry wit along with a keenly discerning eye and brutal honesty for warts and all disclosures of the nitty-gritty as well as the damage of long-held secrets. She had my rapt attention and I loved her deeply flawed characters as they were so real to me I could hear them breathing. I bonded and identified the most with the bombastic and colorful Steph, as gasp, I saw far too much of myself under her skin. So much so, I had to wonder if Ms. Fisher was actually someone who knows me all too well and using a pen name. Perish the thought!

About the Author

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Kerry Fisher is a million-copy bestselling author. She writes women’s contemporary fiction, is a USA Today bestseller and her books have been translated into twelve languages. She was born in Peterborough, studied French and Italian at the University of Bath, and spent several years living in Spain, Italy, and Corsica. After returning to England to work as a journalist, she eventually abandoned real-life stories for the secrets of fictional families. She lives in Surrey with her husband, and a naughty Lab/Schnauzer called Poppy, who joins in the huge dances of joy when her young adult children come home.