FTC: I received a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
First Crush, Last Love by Elizabeth McKenna was a fantastic book. I loved that you meet the characters when they are in their senior year in high school, and you follow along as they grow up. I loved this because it felt like I was growing up with them and it also helped me understand their lives. I wasn’t a massive fan of Lee throughout most of the book, but I didn’t hate him either. I really liked Jessie, but I got annoyed when she stayed with her ex-husband because no one deserves to be treated like she was. This author did a great job of making the story come to life for me, and I know that I will be reading more of her books in the future. If you love romance books that I know you will love this book just as much as I did.
About The Book
Book Title: First Crush, Last Love by Elizabeth McKenna
Category: Adult Fiction, 314 pages
Genre: Romance – Contemporary
Publisher: Elizabeth McKenna
Release date: Aug 1, 2017
Tour dates: Oct 16 to Nov 3, 2017
Content Rating: PG-13 + M (There are a few short, mild sex scenes – nothing too graphic. There is swearing by certain characters. Mature themes include drinking/alcoholism, verbal abuse with some physical pushing, AIDS (a minor character is gay), stalking, brief descriptions of child abuse by a step parent, and suicide attempt (overdose).
Remember your first crush? How your heart raced and your cheeks flushed whenever you saw him? Jessie Baxter does, and it’s happening again. Ten years ago, despite her best efforts, Lee Archer wanted to be just friends. Now, he wants more, but Jessie’s still recovering from a psycho ex-husband. Can she learn to trust again and make her first crush into her last love?
Elizabeth McKenna’s latest novel will have you remembering the angst of high school, the grief of a failed relationship, and the happiness of true love.
About The Author
Elizabeth McKenna works as a full-time technical writer/editor for a large software company. Though her love of books reaches back to her childhood, she had never read romance novels until one Christmas when her sister gave her the latest bestseller by Nora Roberts. She was hooked from page one (actually, she admits it was the first love scene).
She had always wanted to write fiction, so she combined her love of history, romance and a happy ending to write Cera’s Place and Venice in the Moonlight. Her short story, The Gypsy Casts a Spell, is available for free on her site http://elizabethmckenna.com/. She hopes you will enjoy her first contemporary romance novel, First Crush Last Love, as much as others have enjoyed her historical romances.
Elizabeth lives in Wisconsin with her understanding husband, two beautiful daughters, and a sassy Labrador. When she isn’t writing, working, or being a mom, she’s sleeping.
The quote I chose this week is by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
I really liked this quote because anyone can learn new things, but they also can forget everything just as quick. It is like when you stay up all night cramming for a test and once the test is over you forget everything that was on the test. There are so many times that I have done this, and then there are things that I still remember from when I was in middle school. Those are my thoughts on this quote.
What do you think of this week’s quote by Alfred Lord Tennyson?
As Station Seventeen’s rookie, Luke Slater knows his fire and EMS training will be both rigorous and risky, but he never imagined having to partner up with the one woman he wants to keep at arm’s length most of all. Quinn Copeland is as wide-open as Luke is reserved. He has no interest in letting the sweet and sexy paramedic rock his hard-earned control. But the need for composure becomes the need to survive when they find themselves in the crosshairs of a brutal gang leader on their first shift together.
Paramedic Quinn Copeland’s station mates aren’t just her friends. They’re her family. She’d do anything to keep them safe—including reluctantly trusting her impossible-to-read, impossibly gorgeous new partner with the one thing she holds close. As the passion between Luke and Quinn goes from a slow burn to a sizzle, their steps grow more and more dangerous, both in the fire house and out. Can they outwit a cold-blooded killer and face the fears that could cost them everything? Or are they in too deep?
Shae moved her gaze over their surroundings in a methodical sweep, the eyes she’d squinted against the glare of the late-morning sunlight going round and wide as they landed on Quinn. “So,” she said, dropping her voice but not the ear-to-ear smile that told Luke nothing good was going to come from their now-private conversation. “About Quinn.”
“What about her?” Luke stared holes in the pick-off strap he’d pre-rigged before the drill, willing his fingers to steadily fasten the stupid thing to the main attachment point on Shae’s harness. Rope rescue. Safe transfer. Focus.
“You two have been spending some time together lately, huh?”
His stomach knotted before dropping toward his hips. “Quinn has been helping with my paramedic training,” he said, selecting his words with care. After a really hairy call had led the house to a gruesome arson/murder scene three months ago, Luke had been surprised to discover he had a fear of blood. But since he also wanted to help people as a first responder, he couldn’t let that fear—debilitating as it had been—stand in the way of him doing the job that would keep people safe.
So he’d done what he always did. He’d taken a step back to quietly attack the problem, devoting himself not only to the rest of his fire and rescue training, but to earning his certification as a paramedic at the same time. Yeah, the workload was intense, and no, balancing both didn’t leave him much time for luxuries outside of sleep or hot meals. He wasn’t exactly a stranger to balls-out hard work, though. In fact, he and hard work were more like what his seventeen-year-old sister Hayley would call “besties”. Not that Luke had any freaking clue what that might actually entail, since he never got past the handshake and Heisman stage with anyone.
That whole arm’s length thing? So not an overstatement.
At any rate, Luke had his sister and their grandmother, Momma Billie. He didn’t need a bunch of Lifetime Original moments to distract him from his goal. He’d attained his full qualifications as an EMT six weeks ago. Official paramedic status would be in his reach before the year was out, provided he could continue to keep his seemingly sudden-onset fear of blood at bay. He was well on his way to becoming a full-fledged firefighter, like he’d always wanted. Just as long as he could keep both his focus and his distance, he’d be fucking stellar.
Quinn looked up with a grin and a wave before heading back into the fire house, and Christ, did she really have to have a set of cutely sexy dimples he could see all the way from here?
“Helping you with your paramedic training,” Shae echoed, her quiet murmur tumbling him right back to the here and now of the side wall of the engine bay.
Luke concentrated on the equipment in his hands, the clink of the carabiners and the soft hiss of the nylon ropes as he continued with the rope transfer while he spoke. “Sure. She’s been giving me tips and tricks to remember different procedures, telling me the fastest ways to safely do workups. Stuff like that.”
“Ah.” Shae waited a beat while he clipped the backup carabiner for the line transfer into place. “You know, it wouldn’t be terrible if you liked her.”
“I do like her.” The words shoveled out of his mouth by default. He double-checked the carabiner. Adjusted the slack in his line. Mentally kicked himself square in the nuts. “She’s nice.”
Shae made a noise Momma Billie would have described as unladylike. “You know what I mean, Slater. Don’t be a dumbass.”
And that was the problem, right there. He was a dumbass. He didn’t just like Quinn in a casual friends, good co-workers, she’s-helping-me-with-my-training kind of way. Nope. He was attracted to her. From the minute he’d clapped eyes on Quinn on his very first day as a rookie, Luke had had this reckless desire to kiss her. To hook his fingers in that waterfall of blond waves spilling down her back, to part her lips with his tongue and taste her until he ran out of air.
And he didn’t want to stop at her mouth.
About Kimberly Kincaid
Kimberly Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and sweet and hot and edgy romantic suspense. When she’s not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as “The Pleather Bomber”, she can be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. Kimberly is a USA Today best-selling author and a 2016 and 2015 RWA RITA® finalist and 2014 Bookseller’s Best nominee who lives (and writes!) by the mantra that food is love. Kimberly resides in Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters.
Title: The Rhapsody Series Box Set Author: Selena Laurence Series: Rhapsody Genre: Contemporary Rockstar Romance Release Date: September 2, 2017
The complete Rhapsody rock star series, including three novels and one novella.
A LUSH RHAPSODY:
Romeo…Meet Juliet.
She’s Everything That’s Lush.
He’s the Rhapsody She Can’t Resist.
It’s a Battle of the Bands.
And There Can Only Be One Winner.
RACING TO RHAPSODY
He wants her last race to be to him.
She’s Racing.
He’s Waiting.
Two Hearts Collide in this opposites attract romance.
DREAMING OF RHAPSODY
Love can make dreams come true.
Topher Leigh is not your average rock star.
Rachel Wilson has dreams of her own.
Watch these two gentle souls discover one another and prove to the world that love can make dreams come true.
ADDICTED TO RHAPSODY
Guilt is the hardest habit to kick.
He has a sex addiction.
She’s a widow at twenty-eight.
Can something that started all wrong end up right? Or will guilt be a habit they simply can’t kick?
About Selena Laurence:
Selena Laurence is a USA Today Bestselling author who loves Putting the Heat in Happily Ever After. In 2014 she was awarded the Reader’s Crown Award for Contemporary Romance of the Year. In 2015 her rock star romance A Lush Betrayal was a finalist in three national contests. Selena lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her kids, Mr. L, “Goldendoodle” and “Demon Cat.” When she’s not writing she can be found at soccer games and tennis matches, or one of her favorite coffee shops.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.
Pupcakes by Annie England Noblin was a fun book to read. I enjoyed the characters in this book, but I think my favorite part of this book was the dogs. I am such an animal lover that when books have animals in them, they usually end up being my favorite characters in the book. Throughout most of the book, I was a huge fan of Nathan, but Brydie got on my nerves because at times she seems like she was always whining about her life and her past. There is one thing that bugs me, but in the end, it isn’t really that big of a deal. On the back of the book, she says that Nathan is a veterinarian, but in the book, he is an ER doctor that also works at a nursing home. This just bothered me because I thought I was crazy when I noticed that difference but in the end, I wasn’t crazy. Other than that one point I really did enjoy this book, and I can’t wait until she writes another book because so far I have liked the other book that I have read by her as well.
About The Book
Sit! Stay! Speak! author Annie England Noblin’s novel takes one woman starting over, adds an aging pug named Teddy Roosevelt, and proves the power of a well-baked dog treat.
All she wants is a settled-down life.
What she gets is a dog—and a whole new normal . . .
There he stood in the doorway: overweight, depressed and nearly homeless—a pug named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was Brydie Benson’s latest problem, arriving on top of her messy divorce and sudden move. Brydie needed a place to start over, so this rent-free home seemed a great idea. She just never counted on Teddy, or his owner, the Germantown Retirement Village’s toughest customer, Pauline Neumann.
And because rent-free doesn’t mean bills-free, Brydie gets a night-shift job at a big-box grocery. Whoever guessed there were so many people who wanted baked goods after midnight?
Then, she gets an idea—why not combine her baking skills with her new-found dog knowledge? And so her store Pupcakes is born. Along with a new start comes a possible new love, in the form of Nathan Reid, a local doctor with a sassy Irish Wolfhound named Sasha. And as fall turns to winter, and then to Christmas, Brydie begins to realize that life is a little bit like learning a new recipe for puff pastry—it takes a few tries to get it just right!
About The Author
Annie England Noblin lives with her son, husband, and three dogs in the Missouri Ozarks. She graduated with an M.A. in creative writing from Missouri State University and currently teaches English and communications for Arkansas State University in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Her poetry has been featured in such publications as the Red Booth Review and the Moon City Review. She spends her free time playing make-believe, feeding stray cats, and working with animal shelters across the country to save homeless dogs.
In this thrilling hot must read by Amazon Bestseller Anna del Mar, Ex-SEAL turned game warden, Matthias Hawking is engaged in a fierce battle to end poaching in Africa, but when a beautiful journalist defies the poachers, he will do everything in his power to protect the woman who has captured his heart.
Anna is offering one (1) lucky Grand Prize winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and three (3) Runner-Up winners with an eCopy of one of her Backlist Titles (winner’s choice)! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:
Game Warden Matthias Hawking is a decorated ex-SEAL engaged in a grueling fight against ruthless poachers in Africa. He’s short on resources and long on enemies. There’s a price on his head. The last thing he needs is the unexpected arrival of a beautiful but stubborn journalist threatening to uncover his secrets, an alpha female challenging his alpha male and getting into trouble, a hurricane wearing boots.
Jade Romo is a veteran of several different kinds of war. She’s survived her heroin-addicted mother, the foster care system, and the conflict in Afghanistan. Jade’s tough, confident, cynical, and self-reliant, a woman who doesn’t believe in forevers. But when she defies the poachers and lands at the top of the warlord’s kill list, she’s forced to rely on the skilled, attractive but supremely infuriating game warden who has captivated her body’s undivided attention.
Haunted by his past but driven by his courage, her mysterious guardian will do everything in his power to protect the woman who has captured his heart.
The moment our lips met my heart struck my breastbone with a sonic boom. Every molecule in me came online. It was as if my body had been on an extended blackout and suddenly a generator had kicked in, a massive voltage surge. A switch flipped inside of me and I went from off to on, from zero to a hundred.
The kiss marked the difference between before and now, activating my will to live beyond existence’s basic functions. I was no longer breathing for the sake of surviving, but rather getting high on the heady scent of Jade, gorging on her exotic flavors, getting a fix on a woman who had proven she had all the makings of a dangerously addictive fix…for me.
Jesus fucking Christ. This wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening, not here, not now, not with this woman. This was wrong, for the mission, for me. And yet this was also right, so right I couldn’t stop it, so pure and exquisite that it demolished the logic that usually ruled me, bulldozed right over my carefully constructed defenses and blew my shields into splinters.
I seized on her lips. I drank her up as if I had a right to flirt with pleasure and happiness. Good, so good. She tasted like chocolate and salted caramel, wholesome and true.
Her mouth responded to me, eager, passionate. Our tongues entwined in a mutual exploration that unleashed the storm within, joy and hope I thought I’d never feel again, and lust, a hunger so raw and violent that it roared through my veins and threatened to destroy not only my control, but my life as I knew it.
Images flashed in my mind, visual effects of the emotions jarring me. Jade, cool under fire. Solid. Reliable. True. Jade, calm, smart and composed as she confronted Kumbuyo. She hadn’t lost it once, not even when that son of a bitch went at her. She was as brave as they came, bold, daring, fearless. The memory of her standing half-naked under the moonlight had me throbbing with need. She was a woman built for a warrior, a warrior worth fighting for; a goddess who’d stepped out of some ancient African legend to right my fucked-up world.
But I couldn’t endanger my mission and I couldn’t betray all that had been entrusted to me. I was trained for duty, which meant I had to pull out of this catastrophic trajectory, now.
It was hard, maybe even impossible. I was trapped in the feel of her mouth. I forced myself to think rationally. This was Jade Romo for Christ’s sake, the woman who had the potential to out me and destroy everything I’d built, including the reserve. While she was here, she was also my responsibility. Another thought hit me, one that killed the joy in me. She’d been seconds away from being raped and moments away from being killed. If something had happened to her under my watch, I’d never forgive myself.
How I ripped my mouth away from hers, I’ll never know. It took all my willpower. My senses reeled. When her eyelids lifted, her eyes glittered with questions and her hand hovered over her mouth, as if her lips stung as much as mine did.
“No, negative, we’re not doing this,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “We can’t. We won’t.”
Anna del Mar’s explosive, sexy debut novel in the Wounded Warrior series, perfect for fans of Lisa Marie Rice and Lora Leigh—the story of a woman desperate to escape her dangerous past and the navy SEAL who would lay down his life to save her.
Ash Hunter knows what it is to run. A SEAL gravely injured in Afghanistan, he’s gone AWOL from the military hospital. Physically and mentally scarred, he returns home to his grandmother’s isolated cottage—and finds a beautiful, haunted stranger inside.
Like recognizes like.
Lia Stewart’s in hiding from the cartel she barely escaped alive, holed up in this small Rocky Mountain town. Surviving, but only just. Helping the wounded warrior on her doorstep is the right thing to do…it’s loving him that might get them both killed.
Soon, Ash realizes he’s not the only one tormented by the past. Pushing the limits of his broken body, testing the boundaries of her shattered soul, he’ll protect Lia until his last breath.
Ex-military pilot Seth Erickson is fighting his own demons, but when he finds Summer Silva, a beautiful, warmth-loving, Miami woman stranded in the frozen wilderness, he’ll do everything in his power to keep her safe from murder, treason, and the ruthless Alaskan winter.
When a mysterious stranger is your only hope…
The scars of the past have left their mark, both physical and emotional, on former military pilot Seth Erickson. Off-grid in the far reaches of the bitter Alaskan wilderness, he wants only to be left alone with his ghosts. But he can’t ignore a woman in need—beautiful, stranded and nearly frozen with fear.
Summer Silva never imagined that the search for her missing sister would leave her abandoned on a wintry back road, barely escaping with her life from a cold-blooded killer for hire. Now, hiding out in the isolated cabin of the secretive wounded warrior who saved her, Summer knows she must do what she fears most. Putting her trust in a stranger is all she has left.
All defenses are down
After a fiery first night together, Seth and Summer are bound by a need as powerful as a Bering Sea superstorm—and vulnerable to enemies just as fierce. For Seth, reawakened by desire, there is no sacrifice too great, no memory too dark, to keep Summer safe. But murder and treason lurk everywhere and Summer may not survive Alaska’s ruthless winter.
Amazon Bestselling author Anna del Mar writes hot, smart romances that soothe the soul, challenge the mind, and satisfy the heart. Her stories focus on strong heroines struggling to find their place in the world and the brave, sexy, kickass heroes who defy their limits to protect the women they love. A Georgetown University graduate, Anna enjoys traveling, hiking, skiing, and the sea. Writing is her addiction, her drug of choice, and what she wants to do all the time. The extraordinary men and women she met during her years as a Navy wife inspire the fabulous heroes and heroines at the center of her stories. When she stays put—which doesn’t happen very often—she splits her time between Colorado and Florida, where she lives with her indulgent husband and a very opinionated cat.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017 Margaret Margaret
