Tag: TLC Book Tours

Review: Lord of the Privateers by Stephanie Laurens + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Lord of the Privateers by Stephanie Laurens + GiveawayLord of the Privateers (The Adventurers Quartet, #4) by Stephanie Laurens
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Adventurers Quartet #4
Pages: 384
Published by Mira on December 27th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Revel in the action, drama, intrigue and passion as the Frobishers— with help from Wolverstone, the Cynsters and many familiar others— steer the adventure to a glorious end.
Unstoppable determination
Widely known as the lord of the privateers, Royd Frobisher expects to execute the final stage of the rescue mission his brothers have begun. What he does not expect is to be pressured into taking Isobel Carmichael—his childhood sweetheart, former handfasted bride and current business partner—with him. A force of nature, Isobel has a mission of her own: to find and bring a young cousin safely home. And along the way, she hopes to rid herself of the dreams of a life with Royd that still haunt her.
Unfinished business
Neither expects the shock that awaits them as they set sail, much less the new horizons that open before them as they embark on a full-scale rescue-assault on the compound deep in the jungle. Yet despite the support of his brothers and their ladies, Royd and Isobel discover that freeing the captives is only half the battle. To identify and convict the conspirators behind the illicit enterprise—and save England from political disaster—they must return to the ballrooms of the haut ton and hunt the villains on their home ground.
Unforgettable love
But having found each other again, having glimpsed the heaven that could yet be theirs, how much are Royd and Isobel willing to risk in the name of duty?
#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens delivers the thrilling conclusion to her acclaimed series THE ADVENTURERS QUARTET, a passionate Regency-era drama where intrigue and danger play out on the high seas and in exotic tropical jungles, ultimately reaching a dazzling climax in the glittering ballrooms of London.

My Review:

ladys command by stephanie laurensLord of the Privateers is an adventure romp with a romance attached – or a romance with an adventure attached. There be two plot threads here, and they are both compelling, if not equally so.

This book is the culmination of The Adventurers Quartet, and as such wraps up all of the many plot threads that were started all the way back in The Lady’s Command, and built up and added to in A Buccaneer at Heart and The Daredevil Snared.

The story would not be a pretty one if it weren’t for the inevitable happy ending. Far from England, in the English colony of Freeport in South Africa, someone is operating an illicit diamond mine. Not only is the mine unlicensed, and therefore not under government scrutiny of any kind, but the backers of the mine decided to maximize their profit by using slave labor.

They think they are so far above the law that they can kidnap colonists from Freeport, and that no one will care. And even if they are eventually caught, they will be able to walk away.

But the people they take are missed. Not just the children, but also the adults. Especially when they do stupid things like kidnap the military men who are sent to investigate, one after another. The government contracts with the Frobisher shipping clan to find out where everyone has gone, and that’s where the fun of this series begin.

Each one of the Frobisher children (sons AND daughter) is captain of his or her own ship. One by one, the oldest four sons go down to Freeport, put their share of the pieces together, and come back with a bride who is not willing to stay at home and wait while their men sail into danger.

It’s all been leading up to this book, Lord of the Privateers. That “lord” is Royd, the oldest brother and captain of their fleet. It’s up to him to lead the military operation to rescue the prisoners and gather as much evidence as possible on those mysterious and nefarious backers. In that order.

But Royd’s mission is compromised. Not by betrayal, but by his own unfinished business coming back to haunt him. Isobel Carmody, his childhood best friend and the love of his life, turned him away eight years ago. One of the captives is Isobel’s cousin, and she insists on accompanying him to Freeport. They have unfinished business between them to work out on this journey. They need to decide once and for all whether to try again, or to finally move on.

Royd thinks he has all the time in the world to woo Isobel again. Isobel thinks the voyage will be long enough for her to figure out whether she can trust Royd with her heart again, after he broke it eight years ago.

And they have a colony to save. And in the process, all their secrets will come out, and all the truths will finally come to light.

Escape Rating B: There are two plots here, the second chance at love story, and more importantly, the military operation to rescue the enslaved workers at the mine.

Unlike most second-chance love stories, this one feels resolved fairly early on. They are back together almost instantly, so most of the rest of the romance angle seems a bit anti-climactic. Also, their inevitable marriage is a foregone conclusion from the outset. Eight years ago, Royd and Isobel were handfasted, an old Scottish form of trial marriage. But if a child is born of the handfasting, the couple must automatically marry, or the child must be given up to the father. (Yes, I know it’s terribly misogynistic, etc., but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the law of the time).

Isobel gave birth to Royd’s son eight years ago, while he was away on a secret mission that he chose not to tell her about. She’s kept the boy a secret ever since, at least until he stows away aboard their ship to Freeport. Once that “cat” is out of its bag, an eventual wedding is the only possible conclusion.

But the military operation and the subsequent clean up of the gentleman backers is a romp from beginning to end. And if it weren’t for the fact that this is historical romance and therefore must lead to a happy ending, the clean-up operation feels like it might teeter towards disaster at any moment. That was the part of the story that had me on the edge of my seat.

It was wonderful not just to see all the dirty bastards finally get their just desserts, but to have those desserts handed to them by a combined delegation of the Frobishers, the Cynsters and the Bastion Club was a special treat for those who have read any of the author’s previous series.

But speaking of series, The Adventurers’ Quartet is one where you probably need to have read at least some of the previous entries. I read books 1, 3 and 4, and didn’t feel as if I missed anything except a good story by accidentally skipping Buccaneer. Because Lord is the payoff for all the previous books, I think it looses its punch if you start with it.

Because the romantic side of the plot was resolved early on, those scenes that “furthered” the romance were furthering something that already felt completely developed. To say they became anticlimactic makes for a very bad pun that nevertheless was true for this reader. Your mileage (measured in knots in this case) may vary. But the rescue operation makes for a cracking good yarn.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Stephanie and Harlequin are giving away a $25 Gift Card to one lucky entrant on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Dragon Springs Road by Janie ChangDragon Springs Road by Janie Chang
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 400
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on January 10th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother.
That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . .
In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate outside Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Until now she’s led a secluded life behind courtyard walls, but without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in.
Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes.
Murder, political intrigue, jealousy, forbidden love … Jialing confronts them all as she grows into womanhood during the tumultuous early years of the Chinese republic, always hopeful of finding her long-lost mother. Through every turn she is guided, both by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past toward a very different fate, if she has the courage to accept it.

My Review:

In a peculiar way, Dragon Springs Road reminds me a bit of Jade Dragon Mountain. Although both stories are set in China, their settings are 200 years apart. But the similarity is in the way that both stories managed to evoke a “you are there” feeling, at least for me. It was more than reading about something, it felt like being drawn into the story in both cases.

There was also a tiny element of The Tale of Shikanoko, even though Shikanoko is Japanese and not Chinese. In both that story and this one, there’s that sense of the mythic bleeding into the real. In the case of Dragon Springs Road, that mythic element is the fox spirit who protects Jialing and her mother during their residence on Dragon Springs Road.

Jialing believes that Fox is real, and she certainly seems to affect real things. But does she? As this story is told through Jialing’s eyes, we see things how she believes them to be, not necessarily how things are.

We also see a world that is in the process of change. Dragon Springs Road is in Shanghai, and the story takes place during the first two decades of the 20th century, through both the World War I years and the contentious early years of the Republic of China, as factions and warlords fought for power and against the rising tide of communism within, and Japanese imperial ambitions without.

As the story begins, Jialing is a little girl, one who has lived her entire life on the fringes of the Fong household on Dragon Springs Road. But things are not going well in the Fong household, and her mother, the concubine of the master of the house, is particularly vulnerable. Jialing is too young to understand any of this. All that she knows is that one day her mother goes away, leaving Jialing hiding in the decrepit outbuilding where they have lived.

And from that inauspicious beginning, Jialing is set adrift. She is very, very young. And she is mixed race, and therefore despised by both the Chinese and the Europeans. The household that moves into the Fong’s former residence take her in out of charity. And so she lives, dependent on the kindness of strangers, and knowing that she doesn’t belong anywhere, no matter how hard she tries.

Through the years, Jialing grows up. She makes friends, and enemies. She is fortunate enough to receive a Western education. But no matter how much she improves herself, all that anyone sees is the lowest of the low, a woman of mixed race.

Her friend, companion and guide through the lost years is the Fox who watches over the compound, and over Jialing. Fox both teaches her about the world outside, and makes her forget inconvenient questions. And Fox prevents others from asking inconvenient questions about Jialing.

The one thing that Jialing longs for above all others is to find her mother, and to discover why she was left behind all those years ago. And she does. Just as her entire world falls apart.

Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Escape Rating A: This is an absolutely lovely story that pulls the reader in and doesn’t let go until the end. It feels as if you are walking that road with Jialing, and not just reading about it. Stories that do that are rare and precious.

Dragon Springs Road is also a very quiet story. Jialing’s life is not the stuff of an adventure tale. She grows up, she does her best to serve, she watches and waits. Much of the action in this story happens to other people, as Jialing watches a second family overtaken by the bad luck that seems to haunt this one house.

And outside the gates, the world changes. Revolutions come, not just to China, but also to nearby Russia. The world that is coming is going to be very different from what has gone before. And Jialing becomes involved, but in the most unlikely of ways.

One of the threads that permeates this story is the prejudice that Jialing faces from all sides, and the ways that prejudice limits her choices. On all sides she is hemmed about by people who consider her less than dirt because she is neither fully Europeon nor fully Chinese. At a time and in a place where lineage is everything, she has none.

And yet she perseveres, making the best choice available to her. And we’re right there with her.

This is a book I simply loved. I was swept away at the beginning and left bereft at the end, gasping and flailing at my return to the real world. It feels like I was in a dream with the Fox, and she just turned me loose.

Dragon Springs Road is a book to get lost in. I loved it so much I’m having a difficult time articulating that love. Why don’t you pick up a copy and see for yourself!

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Those Texas Nights by Delores Fossen + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Those Texas Nights by Delores Fossen + GiveawayThose Texas Nights (Wrangler's Creek, #1) by Delores Fossen
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Wrangler's Creek #1
Pages: 384
Published by Harlequin Books on December 27th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The Granger siblings thought they'd left their ranching days behind, until fate sends them home to Wrangler's Creek, Texas and into the passionate arms of those they'd least expect
It's some run of bad luck when Sophie Granger loses her business and gets left at the altar all in one day. Desperate to not appear jilted, Sophie begs Clay McKinnon, Wrangler's Creek's smoking-hot police chief, to pretend they're having an affair. But Clay refuses, leaving Sophie to retreat to the family ranch to lick her wounds.
Hoping to leave his disreputable past behind, Clay moved to Wrangler's Creek for a fresh start. But that looks unlikely when Sophie's ex-fiance shows up married to Clay's impulsive kid sister. Overcome, Sophie resuggests the affair but this time for real. Clay is hesitant. City-girl Sophie isn't usually his type. But he can't deny the desire she elicits or his yearning to have her plant her cowboy roots for good.

My Review:

What happens to the bride after she gets left at the altar is an idea that has been done many times before. My most recent encounters with this trope that I can find were in Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller and The Best Man by Kristan Higgins. The story of how the jilted bride picks up the pieces of her life and manages to move on is one that is always ripe for drama, growth and redemption.

And sometimes more than a bit of melodrama as well. The situation is rife with possibilities for tragicomedy, as long as one is not the jilted bride oneself. And in fiction, she is always better off without the cowardly or asshat (or both) so and so.

So it proves for Sophie Granger. It would have been better all around if Brantley the ball-less wonder (I don’t like him much) had figured out a whole lot sooner that he was in love with someone other than Sophie, his bride-to-be. Especially since that other someone is already just a little bit pregnant with his baby.

But on the day of Sophie’s busted wedding, she has a whole lot of other crap to deal with. Not only is her wedding a bust, but it looks like the family company is too. For the Granger siblings, Sophie and her brothers Garrett and Roman, it looks like Sophie’s romantic woes are the least of their collective troubles.

Their trusted CFO, who is also their godfather, seems to have embezzled pretty much all of the company’s assets, Even worse, because he was apparently dealing with money launderers, the FBI wants its fingers in this pie as well. They have to investigate all the Grangers to make sure that no one was either involved in or profiting from what look like very illegal gains. Which can’t be found.

The company assets are frozen, including all their cars, all their apartments, and all their bank accounts. All that’s left is the quite substantial family ranch that their grandfather used to launch their cowboy outfitting business. Which means they all have to move in together, and with their mother.

Meanwhile, everyone in town has jumped on the “pity poor Sophie” bandwagon, when all she wants is to get on with her life. As soon as she gets most of it back.

But nothing fuels the town’s gossip mill more than Sophie’s choice of whom to get that life back together with. In a series of comic errors, everyone believes that Sophie has taken up with the new police chief. The good news is that Clay McKinnon is single. The bad news is that Sophie’s ex is now playing happy families with Clay’s sister.

Which doesn’t stop either Clay or Sophie from acting on an attraction that is oh-so-bad, but feels oh-so-good.

Escape Rating B: This is a lot of fun. And there’s a lot of small-town drama and small-town characters mixed into the romance in ways that make the reader smile, chuckle and occasionally laugh out loud. To say that Clay and Sophie have a ton of bad luck in their attempts to work their attraction out of their systems without the entire town commenting every step of the way fail miserably is an understatement.

They can’t catch a break, and they can’t manage to stay away from each other. But neither says they want a relationship. Sophie is dealing with too much crap, and Clay is carrying way too much baggage. Which, in the end, doesn’t matter a bit.

no getting over a cowboy by delores fossenThe town has its character, and its characters, both good and bad. The most fun of these is Vita, the local witch and the mother of Sophie’s best friend Mila. Clay’s ranch house is under assault by feral chickens, and a running gag in the story revolves around Vita’s various attempts to end the siege. A second, and even funnier running gag follows Mila’s attempts at a “fantasy date”, which usually end with Sophie and/or Clay witnessing something that they really, really, really wish they could un-see.

One of the less fun characters is unfortunately Sophie’s mother Belle. A little of Belle goes a very long way. She’s mean and bitter, and constantly rags on all her children and everyone in town pretty much all the time. She also doesn’t listen to anyone. Ever. Not seeing someone set her down and give her a piece of their mind left me with a bit of a bitter taste and a lack of resolution. She’s just not a stock character I like to see.
We also don’t get quite as much buildup for the romance as I would have liked. Once they are in, they are both all in, but we don’t really see how they get there. On that other hand, we do see a lot of the relationships that surround them, and with the exception of Sophie’s mother, I want to get to know everyone. There are oodles of fascinating future story possibilities here, just waiting to unfold.

And I’m looking forward to reading them all, starting with No Getting Over a Cowboy early in the spring.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Say Goodbye for Now by Catherine Ryan Hyde + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Say Goodbye for Now by Catherine Ryan Hyde + GiveawaySay Goodbye for Now by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 358
Published by Lake Union Publishing on December 13th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

On an isolated Texas ranch, Dr. Lucy cares for abandoned animals. The solitude allows her to avoid the people and places that remind her of the past. Not that any of the townsfolk care. In 1959, no one is interested in a woman doctor. Nor are they welcoming Calvin and Justin Bell, a newly arrived African American father and son.
When Pete Solomon, a neglected twelve-year-old boy, and Justin bring a wounded wolf-dog hybrid to Dr. Lucy, the outcasts soon find refuge in one another. Lucy never thought she’d make connections again, never mind fall in love. Pete never imagined he’d find friends as loyal as Justin and the dog. But these four people aren’t allowed to be friends, much less a family, when the whole town turns violently against them.
With heavy hearts, Dr. Lucy and Pete say goodbye to Calvin and Justin. But through the years they keep hope alive…waiting for the world to catch up with them.

My Review:

This story quietly drew me in, and then blew me away. It’s slow and sweet and just plain lovely. It’s about the triumph of hope, and it’s about the family you make being stronger and braver and better than the one you are born to.

And it’s also a story whose happy ending flies in the face of racism and sexism and trumpets the hope and joy and triumph of not giving in to either, no matter how much they beat you down along the way.

In 1959, in small-town Texas, there are a whole lot of things that just seem wrong to 21st century eyes. And yet, those are the way things were. And unfortunately in many cases and places, still are.

One of those seemingly immutable laws in that place and time was that the races don’t mix. Not just that it was still very much illegal for a black man and a white woman to marry (or vice versa), but that the innocent pre-teen friendship between a white boy and black one will result in both of them getting beaten. The only difference in those beatings is that the white boy gets beaten by his abusive father, and the black boy gets beaten by white toughs at the instigation of the white boy’s abusive father.

It all starts innocently enough. A boy rescues a dog, left for dead next to the road. But the dog isn’t dead. He also isn’t just a dog. And Pete’s saga to save the dog he names Prince is anything but easy.

Prince is a wolf/dog hybrid. The local vet refuses to treat the animal. And Pete is broke.

There’s a lady doctor out in the sticks, way outside of town. Rumor has it that while she doesn’t like people much, she will take care of wounded animals. So Pete drags the poor wounded dog four miles down the road in his little red wagon, hoping that the doctor will help the poor beast..

Dr. Lucy can’t resist a wounded stray – at least not one with four legs. Or wings. Or whatever. It’s people she’s trying to keep away from. But Pete is just as wounded as Prince, and he somehow worms his way into her heart, just a little bit underneath that frozen layer that protects her from the world.

Then Pete brings Justin, his equally young and even more scared black friend. They’ve both been beaten for being seen walking down the road together. The town wants to enforce that separation of the races at all costs, even if it’s the life of a young boy.

And Justin brings his dad, Calvin Bell, into Dr. Lucy’s life. And that ice dam around her heart is broken irrevocably. But as the town makes increasingly clear, there is no future for any of them in Texas. Justin and Pete can’t be friends, and Calvin and Lucy can’t explore whatever might be developing between them.

Until the world changes. Just enough.

Escape Rating A: Just as Pete and Justin and Calvin sneak their way into Lucy’s heart, this book snuck into mine.

It’s possible that Pete and Lucy are just way ahead of their time. But it feels more as if the point is that racism is taught. Pete just doesn’t take the lesson that his father tries to beat into him. Justin is his best friend, and it doesn’t matter to Pete that he is white and Justin is black. They have found a rare and perfect friendship, and race is a stupid thing to get in its way.

Lucy may or may not have been a woman of her time, but she’s stepped outside her setting in so many ways that falling in love with Calvin doesn’t seem anything but right to her, even though she’s aware that the world around them does see it as extremely wrong. As a woman doctor, she’s faced a different type of prejudice on her own. And the tragedies that led her to her life of isolation have changed her value system. And as a doctor, any society that would beat a child half to death for something so trivial as walking down the road with a friend doesn’t deserve her support. What it gets is her fear.

That they all manage to keep hope alive makes for a beautiful story. The world does change. In 1967, the Supreme Court strikes down all anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S. with their ruling in the case of Loving v. Virginia. It doesn’t mean that Lucy and Calvin will have an easy life together, but it does mean they have a chance at a life together. And that’s what they’ve been waiting for.

If your heart needs warming on a cold winter’s night, read Say Goodbye for Now.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’m giving away a copy of Say Goodbye for Now to one very lucky US/CAN winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Winter Holiday Recipes (+reads!) : Guest Recipe by Maisey Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

TLC winter holiday recipes tour button

Please help me welcome Maisey Yates to Reading Reality! I absolutely adored Maisey’s Last Chance Rebel, and my friend Amy gushed equally over Hold Me, Cowboy, so I’m thrilled to host Maisey for this stop of the Winter Holiday Recipes + Reads Giveaway. Her pumpkin pie recipe looks every bit as yummy as her books. And that baking inspired prize pack looks like a ton of decadently delicious fun – even if you do have to do the baking yourself.

Maisey Yates’ Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Pumpkin Pie is more readily associated with Thanksgiving than Christmas, I suppose, but growing up it was my brother’s favorite. So starting in early November (his birthday) and moving through Christmas, Pumpkin Pie was something my mom made a lot of. And I’ll tell you, it is the best pumpkin pie out there. 

Yes, the crust is key. And you know what else is important? Extra cinnamon! Read on for the recipe! (This recipe makes two pies)

The ingredients to the crust are simple, but following the steps is what gets you flaky crust and not chewy crust.

Double 9’ Crust

2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Shortening
1/2 tsp salt

Mix (press with fork) together until crumbly

Step 2 — (1/2 cup water, additional 1/4 cup flour)

In a jar mix 1/2 cup COLD water with a 1/4 cup flour, blend well.

Add to flour mixture. Mix gently until blended well. Handle as little as possible. Separate pastry into two balls.

Heat oven to 425°F. With floured rolling pin, roll both rounds into round 2 inches larger than upside-down 9-inch glass pie plate. Fold pastry into fourths; place in pie plate. Unfold and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side.

Filling

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
4 large eggs
2 can (15 oz.) LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
2 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

MIX sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.
POUR into pie shell.
BAKE in preheated 425° F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

hold me cowboy by maisey yatesAbout Hold Me, Cowboy

Stranded with a cowboy for Christmas…from New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates!

Oil and water have nothing on Sam McCormack and Madison West. The wealthy rancher has never met a haughtier—or more appealing—woman in his life. And when they’re snowed in, he’s forced to admit this ice queen can scorch him with one touch…

Madison had plans for the weekend! Instead she’s stranded with a man who drives her wild. A night of no-strings fun leaves both of them wanting more when they return to Copper Ridge. His proposal: twelve days of hot sex before Christmas! But will it ever be enough?

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Fate of the Tearling by Erika JohansenThe Fate of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling, #3) by Erika Johansen
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Queen of the Tearling #3
Pages: 496
Published by Harper on November 29th 2016
Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The thrilling conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Tearling trilogy.
In less than a year, Kelsea Glynn has transformed from a gawky teenager into a powerful monarch. As she has come into her own as the Queen of the Tearling, the headstrong, visionary leader has also transformed her realm. In her quest to end corruption and restore justice, she has made many enemies—including the evil Red Queen, her fiercest rival, who has set her armies against the Tear.
To protect her people from a devastating invasion, Kelsea did the unthinkable—she gave herself and her magical sapphires to her enemy—and named the Mace, the trusted head of her personal guards, Regent in her place. But the Mace will not rest until he and his men rescue their sovereign, imprisoned in Mortmesne.
Now, as the suspenseful endgame begins, the fate of Queen Kelsea—and the Tearling itself—will finally be revealed.

My Review:

queen of the tearling by erika johansenThis was awesome. As is the entire trilogy, starting with The Queen of the Tearling and moving right through The Invasion of the Tearling. If you like epic fantasy with a touch of SF, get thee hence and pick up Queen right now. This series is perfectly sized for holiday week binging.

At the beginning of the saga, back in Queen, it seemed as if this was pure epic fantasy. Starting in Invasion and particularly in this final book, we see where the story has its roots in SF. Somehow, in ways that are deliberately not made clear, the ancestors of the Tearling made their way from a near-future dystopian Earth to Tear. And deliberately turned their backs on late 21st or early 22nd technology in an attempt to create an agrarian utopia.

Kelsea, physically locked in captivity by the Red Queen of Mortmesne, takes a psychic journey back down through the timeline to see the origins of that long-ago utopia. While Kelsea is looking through the eyes of young Katie Rice three centuries ago, she sees William Tear’s dream of a perfect world die inch by inch, in ways that still have consequences all these generations later.

The problem with attempting to create a perfect world is that the people who populate it are never perfect. Not because they don’t try, but because people simply aren’t, even when they are not deliberately evil. Not that THAT isn’t a factor as well.

Kelsea starts out the story wanting to save her kingdom. She discovers that in order to save her kingdom, she must save the world. In the end, she can’t even manage to save herself.

And yet she does. And she doesn’t.

Escape Rating A: It takes a while for this final book to build to its epic, and thought-provoking, conclusion. As Fate opens, Kelsea is imprisoned, and has no freedom of action. She’s also not thinking too clearly.

Much of the first half of the book is carried by other characters – lots of other characters. The perspective and point of view switch often, and at first it’s just a bit jarring. The reader just has a grasp of one thread when the perspective switches to someone else at a different place, and sometimes at a different time.

Some of those perspectives are obvious – Kelsea’s regent back in the Tearling, the Red Queen in Mortmesne, various other leaders. But some are down among the rank and file, as we see a “lower-decks” version of the ways in which the world is falling apart, and the ways that everyone is using to even attempt to keep it together. Along with the ones who just don’t give a damn.

And the most important perspective of all, besides Kelsea’s in the present, is Katie’s in the past, at the beginning of the Tearling. While we begin with Katie as a child, as she grows up she sees the colony change from what seems like almost a working utopia to a god-bothered, fear-obsessed, evil theocracy. And that’s what survived to Kelsea’s present and has helped to make the current mess into the giant clusterfuck it now is. And there doesn’t seem to be any way in the present to save the day.

But in the view of the past, there is a whole lot being said about the way that the world, any world, works and doesn’t. It’s not difficult for the reader to draw parallels from the Tearling to 21st century America. Which is also a way of coming full circle, as it’s the results of our NOW that the Tear colonists fled which begins Kelsea’s entire saga.

And the implications of all of that will keep you thinking long after you turn the final page.

Reviewer’s Note: The way that The Fate of the Tearling manages its end reminds me strongly of Inherit the Stars by Laurie A. Green, with its choices about extreme means justifying shattering ends, and who does and doesn’t pay the price. If the ending of The Fate of Tearling leaves you gasping, and you want more with a similar heart-stopping and thought-provoking affect, pick up Inherit the Stars for a purely science fictional twist on some of the same results.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Secrets of Worry Dolls by Amy Impellizzeri + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Secrets of Worry Dolls by Amy Impellizzeri + GiveawaySecrets of Worry Dolls by Amy Impellizzeri
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Pages: 312
Published by Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing on December 1st 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

According to Mayan tradition, if you whisper your troubles to the Worry Dolls, they will do the worrying instead of you--therefore, it follows that Worry Dolls are the keepers of a great many secrets . . .
On the eve of the end of the world--according to the Mayan calendar--Mari Guarez Roselli's secrets are being unraveled by her daughter, Lu.
Lu's worry dolls are at-capacity as she tries to outrun the ghosts from her past--including loved ones stolen on 9/11--by traveling through her mother's homeland of Guatemala, to discover the painful reasons behind her own dysfunctional childhood, and why she must trust in the magic of the legend.

My Review:

This is a slow-simmering story, as we read about mother-and-daughter Mari and Lu, each from their own very distinct, if equally unreliable, perspectives.

These two women have been touched by tragedy, over and over. They both seem to survive, and yet, neither of them really does. And the tragedies they share drive them even further apart than the ones they experienced separately.

As the story begins, Lu is at the airport, wandering a bit because she chose not to take her scheduled flight to her mother’s home country of Guatemala. Lu just wasn’t ready for the trip, or for whatever secrets her mother expected to be revealed to her.

Lu was even less prepared to hear over the airport’s speakers that the plane that she was supposed to be on had crashed with no survivors. And that the crash site was her own little community in New Jersey.

This was the second time that Lu had dodged fate. She was supposed to have been on a school trip on September 11, 2001 to see the World Trade Center. In the midst of a snit with her twin sister Rae, Lu decided not to go. So Lu was at school when the towers fell, and her sister died. She lost her father that day as well, he was a firefighter, a first responder, and he never made it out.

Lu might as well have lost her mother that day too. Mari retreated for long stretches of time in to the sleeping pills and wine that had always been her crutch. The only difference now was that Lu at least knew what drove her mother to self-medicate her pain and loss.

When Lu comes back from the airport, she discovers that she is the only member of her family left behind, as tragedy has struck again. Her mother is in a coma as a result of the plane crash. And her mother is pregnant.

From this point we view the story from two diverging viewpoints. With Lu, we see her childhood and young adulthood as she remembers them, and we see Lu in the present, coping with the decisions that must be made about the care of not only her mother, but of her unborn brother or sister. And we see her finally take the trip that her mother meant her to take, the trip to discover the truth about Mari’s past.

But we also view that past from Mari’s perspective. Within the depths of her coma, she seems to be telling, at last, the true story of her life to her unborn child. And as the past merges with the present, the joys, the sorrows, and the regrets are finally laid bare.

Escape Rating B: This story takes a while to go from a simmer to a boil. It feels as if the first two thirds are set up, and the final third is the payoff. But it definitely does pay off marvelously in that last third. The story in the present is from Lu’s perspective, and for a lot of the book, she is just barely treading water. Her life seems to have been on hold since 9/11. She can’t seem to let herself live. She can’t even manage to let herself leave the island community of Rock Harbor that both shelters and imprisons her.

There are so many things that Lu doesn’t know, and so much that she doesn’t want to tell herself.

But Mari is an even more unreliable narrator. She has been hiding the facts of her early life from Lu, and also from herself. There is too much in the past that she hasn’t wanted to face – which has not kept that past from haunting her life.

There’s also an element of magical realism in the way that this story works. After all, how are we reading Mari’s perspective? She is in a coma in the present throughout the entirety of this book. And yet, it feels right that we learn about her in her own voice.

The story revolves around choices, the different choices that women make, and the different choices that are available to them. So much of what went wrong in Mari’s life revolves around her choices and the choices of those around her. Lu seems to be trying to avoid making choices, until she finally realizes that she has to face up to them. In the end, she makes the choice that is right for her, and after having lived through her story, we feel it with her.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a copy of Secrets of Worry Dolls to one lucky US/Canadian commenter on this tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: The Darkest Torment by Gena Showalter + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Darkest Torment by Gena Showalter + GiveawayThe Darkest Torment by Gena Showalter
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Lords of the Underworld #12
Pages: 576
Published by Harlequin Books on November 22nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads


Can Beauty tame her Beast?


Driven to his death by the demon of Distrust, Baden spent centuries in purgatory. Now he's back, but at what cost? Bound to the king of the underworld, an even darker force, he's unable to withstand the touch of another and he's quickly devolving into a heartless assassin with an uncontrollable temper. Things only get worse when a mission goes awry and he finds himself saddled with a bride just not his own.
Famed dog trainer Katarina Joelle is forced to marry a monster to protect her loved ones. When she's taken hostage by the ruthless, beautiful Baden immediately after the ceremony, she's plunged into a war between two evils with a protector more dangerous than the monsters he hunts. They are meant to be enemies, but neither can resist the passion burning between them and all too soon the biggest threat is to her heart.
But as Baden slips deeper into the abyss, she'll have to teach him to love or lose him forever.

My Review:

The concept that training a demon, or training a man, is just like training a dog, is too funny not to share. This may be the first time I’ve read about a heroine who directly compares her hero to a canine – and a not very well behaved one at that.

Baden and Katarina don’t exactly seem made for each other when they meet, and it is far, far from a meet-cute.

Katarina is in the midst of her forced wedding to a man who has threatened to kill her dogs if she doesn’t obey. Katarina may hate him (she does) and he’s thoroughly evil (which he is) but she loves the dogs she’s trained. She also loves her brother, who is currently a minion of said evil bastard – because said evil bastard is supplying him with heroin.

Katarina’s life would seem to have reached the depths of extreme suckitude, until her wedding is invaded by Baden and the Lords of the Underworld. Baden is running errands for Hades, fighting on the front lines of a war in the underworld. Said evil bastard, named Alek, has something that Hades wants. When he refuses to give it up – I said he was evil, right? – Baden takes Katarina, still in her hated wedding gown, instead.

Too bad this happens after the “I do’s”.

Katarina finds herself in the middle of that underworld war. Hades may be bad (he is!) but his enemy Lucifer is much, much worse. And Baden is caught in the thick of the action. Since Baden can’t let go of Katarina until he gets back whatever Alek has, Katarina is in the thick of it right along with him.

Her beloved dogs have been killed. Alek murdered them to get vicarious revenge on Katarina. When she emerges from her grief, she is presented with two gamboling puppies who need her protection. But Gravy and Pudding don’t need Katarina nearly as much as Baden does. The more Hades tries to turn Baden to the dark side, the more light that Katarina shines into his life.

But human and weak Katarina can’t survive among the immortal badasses in the middle of this battle. At least not until she develops some badass powers of her own. Human Katarina could never be the mate the Baden needed, but badass Katarina gives even Hades a run for his money.

And who knew that it would be so much fun to give a hellhound a bath?

Escape Rating B: This entry in the Lords of the Underworld series definitely has a “Beauty and the Beast” vibe. Katarina has to tame both Baden and the beast of Destruction who shares his soul. That she manages to do it is a testament to her skill as a dog trainer, because at the beginning, both Baden and Destruction are dogs with plenty of bark and a potentially deadly bite.

darkest touch by gena showalterThe Lords of the Underworld series is now 12 books in, and that’s a lot of backstory. I read a few of the early books, way back when, and picked up the next-most-recent, The Darkest Touch, earlier this year. It refreshed my memory on the general arc of the series, but my memory of all the individuals who have marauded through the pages is just a bit hazy. I still had fun.

The premise of the series is that the warriors who opened Pandora’s Box, millennia ago, were each infested with a demon bearing one of the plagues that was let out of the box. Now they are desperately trying to find a way to end their curse, as each of the warriors finds true love and some redemption. While it isn’t necessary to read the entire series to get in on the current action, the author’s guide to the current members of the troupe that features at the end of The Darkest Torment is a big help. This game has oodles of players, and it’s very nice to have a scorecard.

There is a bit of Stockholm Syndrome in the romance between Katarina and Baden, although there are points where the reader isn’t sure who captured whom. She does get dragged off at the beginning, but Baden is a way better bet than Alek, even with the demon of Destruction inside him. Alek is just that bad.

Katarina shows a lot of spine in dealing with Baden’s high-handedness, but it’s difficult to lose consciousness of the fact that he can overwhelm her at any time. It’s his desire for her willing cooperation that keeps him in check, and sometimes not much else. I’m glad that the initial extreme power imbalance is addressed before the HFN ending.

I’m only saying this is Happy For Now rather than Happy Ever After because the war in the underworld is still looming over everything. If our heroes don’t win the day, no one is getting much of an ever after at all.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Love, Literary Style by Karin Gillespie + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Love, Literary Style by Karin Gillespie + GiveawayLove Literary Style by Karin Gillespie
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 280
Published by Henery Press on November 8th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

They say opposites attract, and what could be more opposite than a stuffy literary writer falling in love with a self-published romance writer?Meet novelist Aaron Mite. He lives in a flea-infested rented alcove, and his girlfriend Emma, a combative bookstore owner, has just dumped him. He meets Laurie Lee at a writers’ colony and mistakenly believes her to be a renowned writer of important fiction. When he discovers she’s a self-published romance author, he’s already fallen in love with her.
Aaron thinks genre fiction is an affront to the fiction-writing craft. He likes to quotes the essayist, Arthur Krystal who claims literary fiction “melts the frozen sea inside of us.” Ironically Aaron doesn’t seem to realize that, despite his lofty literary aspirations, he’s emotionally frozen, due, in part, to a childhood tragedy. The vivacious Laurie, lover of flamingo-patterned attire and all things hot pink, is the one person who might be capable of melting him.
Their relationship is initially made in literary heaven but when Aaron loses his contract with a prestigious press, and Laurie’s novel is optioned by a major film studio, the differences in their literary sensibilities and temperaments drive them apart.
In a clumsy attempt to win Laurie back, Aaron employs the tropes of romance novels. Too late. She’s already taken up with Ross, a prolific author of Nicholas Sparks-like love stories. Initially Laurie is more comfortable with the slick and superficial Ross, but circumstances force her to go deeper with her writing and confront a painful past. Maybe Aaron and Laurie have more in common than they imagined.In the tradition of the Rosie Project, Love Literary Style is a sparkling romantic comedy which pokes fun at the divide between so-called low and high brow fiction.

My Review:

This was a very interesting story. Not just the romance, but the way that it was written. I’m still thinking about that part.

The story is a romance between an aspiring literary novelist and an aspiring romance novelist. She finds his litfic dreary, and he thinks her romance is purely drivel. Of course, they are both wrong.

As the book begins we are following the literary fiction author, the unfortunately named Aaron Mite. Because frankly, his ego, his confidence and his spirit are all about the size of mite. Awfully tiny.

Aaron’s part of the story also reads like the worst conventions of literary fiction. The hero is a hapless, hopeless everyman, his life is going nowhere, his dreams are dying, and his life story seems formless, vague and plotless. Also pointless, except where it heaps more angst upon him through the agencies of his equally abusive father and girlfriend.

But when Aaron takes himself to a literary authors’ retreat outside the city, he finds himself falling into a romantic comedy that he never even thought of.

Laurie Lee is an aspiring romance writer with a couple of self-published books under her belt. She is astonished to receive a scholarship to the elite writers retreat, but vows to make use of the time on her next novel.

Laurie and Aaron are occupying opposite sides of a duplex at the retreat. Laurie thinks Aaron is kind of cute in a bookish sort of way, and she is in the market for a fling after a long and sad dry spell. But it takes a lot of effort for her to get Aaron to respond to her, because he’s not just painfully withdrawn, but also simply can’t believe that a famous novelist would possibly even want to talk to him.

Laurie is at the retreat as the beneficiary of a case of mistaken identity. The retreat intended to invite award winning author Laura Leer, but instead sent the acceptance to Laurie Lee. Laurie is determined to make lemonade out of the lemons, but Aaron begins looking down on her from that moment forward.

In spite of the fact that they have been spending most of the retreat together, having the best sex that either of them has ever had.

Even though their mistaken identity meet cute still manages to lead to real romance, it always seems like the HEA that Laurie longs for is always just a bit out of reach. Aaron’s attitude towards her writing is pretty obvious, and even more so after her next book is picked up by a big name actress and a Hollywood studio.

Their break up seems inevitable. Their getting back together seems impossible, especially with fate conspiring with his old girlfriend and Hollywood to keep them apart. But an assist from a couple of very surprising guardian angels gives them one more chance at happiness.

Because Aaron and Laurie’s story has changed from dreary litfic to HEA rom com!

Escape Rating B: As someone who has occasionally been forced to read literary fiction, generally at gunpoint, the commentary about the publishing business in general and literary fiction conventions in particular was always spot on.

Which doesn’t stop Aaron’s sections from being a bit dreary to read, because Aaron has been leading a very dreary life. The point of the story is to inject some romance, some comedy, and some just plain life into that otherwise angsty story. It’s fun watching things turn around.

A comparison has been made between Laurie Lee and the heroine of Legally Blond. Laurie is a character who doesn’t even realize that her incredible good looks often get her much further ahead than her brains, although she has plenty of those, too. She’s also a bit of a pollyanna, always seeing the best of things and people.

The tragedy in her background doesn’t seem to have gotten her down one little bit. But the revelation that the Hollywood studio has bought her story for the plot she contrived and not for her mediocre writing skills is a blow. But she gets right up again and goes after what she wants, which is to be a real writer and not just a name on the cover.

That Aaron’s rather Scrooge-like father becomes her mentor and guardian angel in her quest to improve her writing seems like a surprising twist, but is also adds a lovely redemption arc to the book.

In the end, the story comes to its inevitable HEA, but does so in a way that feels fresh. And at the same time, firmly in the rom-com “tradition”.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I’m giving away a copy of Love, Literary Style to one lucky US/CAN commenter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Beauty and Attention by Liz Rosenberg + GiveawayBeauty and Attention: A Novel by Liz Rosenberg
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 211
Published by Lake Union Publishing on October 25th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The riveting story of one brave young woman’s struggle to free herself from a web of deceit.
For misfit Libby Archer, social expectations for young women in Rochester, New York, in the mid-1950s don’t work. Her father has died, leaving her without parents, and her well-meaning friends are pressuring her to do what any sensible single girl must do: marry a passionate, persistent hometown suitor with a promising future. Yet Libby boldly defies conventional wisdom and plans to delay marriage—to anyone—by departing for her uncle’s Belfast estate. In Ireland, Libby seeks not only the comfort of family but also greater opportunities than seem possible during the stifling McCarthy era at home.
Across the Atlantic, Libby finds common ground with her brilliant, invalid cousin, Lazarus, then puts her trust in a sophisticated older woman who seems to be everything she hopes to become. Fraught with betrayal and long-kept secrets, as well as sudden wealth and unexpected love, Libby’s journey toward independence takes turns she never could have predicted—and calls on courage and strength she never knew she had.

My Review:

This is a difficult book to review. I finished it last night, and now that I’m done, I’m not exactly sure what happened. And that feels weird.

The story takes place in the mid-1950s, at a time when women were supposed to marry young and become model wives and mothers. While a tiny number of careers were open to women – teacher, nurse and secretary – the ambition was to become a stay-at-home wife and mother.

I’m so glad I wasn’t an adult then, because, well, that is so not anything I would have wanted.

And it isn’t what Libby Archer wants, either. Not that she is actually sure what she does want in her early 20s, but that just makes her normal in our 21st century eyes. It does give her contemporaries a great deal of pause, however.

The man who loves her is just certain that she should marry him, right now. And he places way too much pressure on someone who finally has a chance to spread her wings, so she runs.

Libby’s alcoholic father has just died. And after years of tip-toeing around his cold withdrawals and drunken rages, after years of suppressing her every desire and ambition to care for him in his decline (as good daughters were supposed to do) she wants to discover who she really is before she becomes a part of somebody else.

So she goes to Ireland to visit her aunt and uncle and cousin. These are people that she remembers fondly from her childhood, before her mother died and her father started drinking himself to death. Uncle Sacks is her mother’s brother, and it was easy for her dad to drop the connection.

Libby picks it back up again. She finds a second home with her aunt and uncle, and a fast friend in her dying cousin, ironically named Lazarus. Whatever is killing Lazarus, which is real but ill-defined, he will not be rising from the dead.

She finds strength as part of their rather eclectic household, but she is still drifting inside herself. When her uncle dies, the household scatters to the winds, and Libby finds herself drifting again, but this time, drifting into all the bad decisions that her friends back home warned her about.

It is only at the side of her cousin’s deathbed that she begins to pick up the reins of her own life. Where those reins lead her is left to the reader’s imagination at the end of the book.

Escape Rating B-: I liked the first part of the story very much. Libby is a bit lost and uncertain, and so she should be. She’s free of her father’s domination, and feels both exhilarated and guilty at the same time. After years of being forced to deal with her father’s “illness” she wants the freedom to explore herself, and everyone else’s very forceful good intentions just feel like an attempt to put her in a different cage.

Only because they are.

Libby’s life in her uncle’s house, and the story of her deep friendship with Lazarus, are bittersweet. It is a safe harbor that is doomed to end, but still surprises Libby when that end comes.

One of the fascinating things about Libby is that she is so much of a blank slate. She is bright, naive and innocent and has a desperate need to please. Several men fall in love with her, not necessarily for who she actually is, but what they think they can make of her.

And she is easily manipulated and led. Which is what happens. Someone she thinks is a friend seems to maneuver her into the terrible marriage that everyone back home feared for her. But one of the faults of the book as that we don’t see it happen. One page, she’s just meeting the future Mr. Awful for the first time. The next page, she’s married and obviously miserable. That missing link took the heart out of the story for this reader.

In the end, the reader is left with the impression that Libby has finally seized her life in her own hands, but there are fits and starts even to that. Her independence is not assured, merely seems to be in the offing. And the equivocation of the ending left this reader a bit bereft.

I hope that Libby finally rescued herself. But I wish I knew.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am giving away a copy of Beauty and Attention to one lucky US/Canada commenter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.