The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

September 29, 2016

FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Harper Collins 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.

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan was a fantastic book. From the first page of this book right through the end, I didn’t want to put this book down. I saw a lot of myself in Nina and the fact that she loves books just as much as I do. I have never thought about getting a job at the library but after this book, I am going to consider it. I have read one other book by this author, and if you want to see what I thought of that book, you can click here to check it out. I am pretty sure that I was going to like this book because I loved the other book of hers that I read. I also love these books because of the take place somewhere other than the United States which I like because I love learning what it is like living in other places in the world. If you love contemporary fiction books than I know, you will love this book just as much as I did.

About The Book

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

About The Author

Jenny T. Colgan was born in 1972 in Prestwick, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK. After studying at Edinburgh University, she worked for six years in the health service, moonlighting as a cartoonist and a stand-up comic, before the publication of her first novel Amanda’s Wedding in 2000. In 2013, her novel “Welcome to Rosie Hopkin’s Sweetshop of Dreams” won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She is now working on her next novel.

She mostly lives in France, with frequent visits to London. She occasionally writes for The Guardian newspaper, as well as a TV series.

Her Doctor Who novel Dark Horizons is published under the name Jenny T. Colgan.

Buy A Copy

Add-On Goodreads

Excerpt

(more…)

Everlasting Lies by Barbara Warren

September 27, 2016

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.

Everlasting Lies by Barbara Warren wasn’t my favorite book that I have read lately. I had such a hard time with it because of the lying that goes on. When I saw this book I thought for sure, it would be something that I would enjoy reading but in the end, it just bugged me. It was well written, and I enjoyed the author writing. I kept thinking of my parents who lie all the time, and I just wasn’t able to get past that while I was reading this story. I am going to hold on to this book because I am sure I would like it, so I am going to pull it out in the future and give it another chance. Like I said this book is well written, and I know that most people would enjoy this book, and I want to try and read it again in the future to see if my thoughts change.

About The Book

Edina Paxton is kissed at twelve, seduced at fourteen and married with child at fifteen. She immediately regrets her marriage to Charles Vernon and is relieved when he leaves to fight in the trenches during WW1. She soon finds love, comfort and sexual satisfaction with Bill, another soldier and the boy who first kissed her.

Charles is invalided out of the army and is sent to India on a hospital ship. There, he becomes a manager of a coalmine in Britain’s Indian Empire, with all the privileges that his position rewards, including sexual favours from female employees. At the end of his army service in 1920 he returns to England to collect his family and return to India, only to be greeted with the news that while he was away Edina was at play. She is pregnant.

Reluctantly, Edina and her three children sail for India with Charles and Edina gives birth to her fourth child while sailing south on the Red Sea. On reaching India, Charles finds his Indian mistress is pregnant, and Edina finds Charles’s Indian boss to be very attractive. It’s a mutual attraction. Neither Edina nor Charles is a saint.

Piecing together fragments of her grandmother’s remarkable and tragic story, Everlasting Lies is Barbara’s loving tale of the early life of Edina, her grandmother, and Charles, Edina’s husband. They both experience the horrors of WW1 and, in hopes of renewing their marriage, start new lives as members of the upper class in Imperial India.

About The Author

Barbara Warren always has the pedal to the metal. Born in England and educated at a convent, she left school at sixteen and was selling encyclopedias in the roughest part of London at eighteen. She married and emigrated to Canada when she was twenty-three, had three charming daughters, went to university when she was thirty-six and retired from teaching in her mid fifties.

Then she pursued her passion for the arts and travel. She and her husband rode camels in India, elephants in Nepal and horses in Montana. They hitchhiked in Norway, cycled across Denmark and snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef. Barbara’s paintings grace homes in Canada, USA, and Mexico and she designs her clothes. She spends the winters in Mexico and the summers in the bible belt of southern Alberta.

Her first novel, Everlasting Lies, tells the story of her grandparents’ love affairs with each other and with others. They struggle to survive in the last years of Victorian England and the horrors of WW1 and then start a new life with four children in Imperial India.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Facebook

Buy A Copy

Author Website (has links to all retail sites where book is sold)

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Chapters Indigo

Add-On Goodreads

Enter To Win

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Ride Of A Lifetime by Kitty McGregor

September 24, 2016

FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Book Look 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.

The Ride of a Lifetime by Kitty McGregor was am an okay book. I did enjoy this book but at times I found myself getting bored with the story. When I do get bored with a book, I just put it down and come back to it later which I was able to do with this one. I usually really enjoy books like this one but for some reason I think that this one tried too hard to be something that it wasn’t. There are parts where it seems like there are devil worshipers and that just rub me the wrong way with this book. I think that is because I wasn’t expecting that to happen with this book. Other than feeling like this book was trying to be scary it was an okay book. I would also be willing to check out other books by this author in the future. If you love Christian fiction, then I recommend you pick this one up and check it out.

About The Book

When Lucas McCade retired from the PRCA rodeo circuit, he was an internationally famous rodeo star. In a life of conquering hard bulls and harder men, he had rarely known defeat and never given into fear. Little could he have known that as he left the arena of wild-eyed bulls and slashing hooves, he was stepping into a life filled with real danger. Once he rode for gold-buckle dreams, now ride with Lucas McCade as he scouts the back trails over the rolling hills of Oklahoma and encounters the paths of the powers of darkness. In a culture where a man’s word is still his bond and a handshake seals a deal, McCade leads his family in a walk with Christ that causes outrage in the spiritual realm. Once again, ancient battle lines are drawn between the powers of the Prince of Darkness and the Heavenly forces of Jesus Christ. It promises to be the ride of a lifetime!

Buy A Copy

Add-On Goodreads

Let’s Be Friends

Borderline Insanity by Jeff Miller

September 21, 2016

FTC: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley 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.

Borderline Insanity by Jeff Miller turned out to be a great book, but it was a slow starter for me. This type of book is one that I always enjoy, but I had a hard time getting into the story for some reason. I am sure part of the reason was that of what happened in the prolog of the book. It just really bothered me that someone would make a mother leave one of her babies behind and take her and the other back to Mexico. I am sure it is something that happens, but I don’t think that it is right. It left me feeling sorry for the mother and the children. After I was a few chapters into the book, I started to enjoy the story more. Once I was into the book, I read it pretty quickly because I wanted to know how it all worked out in the end. If you love reading mysteries than I am sure you will enjoy this book as much as I did at the end of it.

About The Book

Special Agent Dagny Gray is a member of a small FBI team with unprecedented independence. To maintain their autonomy, the team must continue to solve big cases. To stay on the team, Dagny must keep her personal demons under control.

When Father Diego Vega tells her that undocumented workers are vanishing from a small town gripped by immigration politics, Dagny thinks she’s found her next case. But without bodies or proof of foul play, her boss won’t let her take it. Defying his orders, Dagny risks her career to investigate with Father Vega.

The families of the victims don’t trust her. The local police won’t help her, and the sheriff wants to stop her. Deep down, she worries that she’s not going to find the missing men alive. But what she uncovers is more horrifying than anything she could have imagined.…

About The Author

Jeff Miller grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, where Jerry Springer attended his temple and Pete Rose broke his heart. He’s rafted down the Rio Grande with folksinger Butch Hancock, co-created an award-winning mockumentary about table tennis, and performed and written for a public access sketch comedy series. Like many lawyers, the only thing he ever really wanted to do was write. The Bubble Gum Thief is his first book. He lives with his incredible wife, Kate, and their two young sons.

Buy A Copy

Add-On Goodreads

There’s Been A Change Of Plans by Amy Koko

September 20, 2016

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.

There’s Been A Change Of Plans by Amy Koko was a fun book to read. I did find myself smiling through most of the book. Even though I am younger than the author is in this book I understood what she was going through and how hard it can be dealing with the things that she had to deal with. I loved this book because she shared the humor she saw in such a bad situation. It also reminded me that even if life is hard, I need to take the time to find the humor in the situation because that is the best way I have found cope with things that are causing me so much stress. If you or someone you know has gone through a divorce later in life, I know you will enjoy and understand this book even more than I did.

About The Book

Blogger Amy Koko bears her soul in her witty, bittersweet memoir, There’s Been A Change of Plans: Divorce, Dating & Delinquents in Mid-life. Expecting a trip to Italy, Koko is blind-sided by her husband’s confession that he’s been putting his shoes under a much younger and prettier woman’s bed. After twenty-seven years of marriage and four children, she faces the unimaginable: her life as she knows it is unraveling around her and her family’s future is anything but certain.

In the literary tradition of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn and Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Koko’s memoir details her journey from hearing the news that her husband is in love with a blonde, thirty-something Swiss pastry chef to trying everything from thong underwear to a mini-facelift to save her marriage, only to see it die in the parking lot of gas station.

With incredible honesty and humor, Koko takes the reader on a wild ride through the tough, emotional times of starting over through divorce, mid-life, finding a job, and Internet dating, all the while trying to keep her four teenagers out of jail.

There’s been a change of plans, and that’s just the beginning.

About The Author

After 27 years of marriage, Amy Koko went into divorce, kicking, screaming, stalking and drunk texting but lived to tell about it. She is the creator of the popular blog Exwifenewlife and a contributor to Huffington Post Divorce as well as Huffington Post Women. Amy lives in St. Petersburg, Florida where she begins each day with a freshly ground cup of good coffee and ends it with a good glass of pinot noir. Or chardonnay. Or a dirty martini. Whatever’s handy.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

Buy A Copy

Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble

Add-On Goodreads

Enter To Win

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Secret Crush by Victoria Pinder

September 18, 2016

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.

Secret Crush by Victoria Pinder was an okay book. I had a hard time getting into this book. At times it felt like the author was rushing things and then at others times I was left wondering why some parts were left in the book. I enjoyed the plot and the characters but like most books I was able to figure out what was going on by the end of the book. I did like the characters and the story line of this book. Like I said before I had a hard time getting into the book, so I was glad that it was a shorter book than some of the others I have read lately. If you love chick lit books, I am sure you will like this book.

About The Book

Billionaire’s second son John Morgan comes home to his father’s funeral. He joined the FBI to prove his father caused his sister’s death, but now he needs to find out who he is and what’s left of his family that he can trust.

Alice Collins grew up on a farm, but she was best friends with Victoria Morgan before she died. She decides to go to the Morgan family’s funeral to pay her respects.

Surprises ensue as they usually do for the Morgans at the funeral. Alice gets caught in the crossfire of family drama and intrigue, and it’s John’s duty to protect her. While they reconnect, feelings surface. But can a farm girl truly ever capture the heart of a billionaire? Could their love be real? Or is this all just a fantasy while she’s involved with one Morgan plot after another?

About The Author

Victoria Pinder grew up in Irish Catholic Boston before moving to the Miami sun. She’s worked in engineering, after passing many tests proving how easy Math came to her. Then hating her life at the age of twenty-four, she decided to go to law school. Four years later, after passing the bar and practicing very little, she realized that she hates the practice of law. She refused to one day turn 50 and realized she had nothing but her career and hours at a desk. After realizing she needed change, she became a high school teacher. Teaching is rewarding, but writing is a passion.
During all this time, she always wrote stories to entertain herself or calm down. Her parents are practical minded people demanding a job, and Victoria spent too many years living other people’s dreams, but when she sat down to see what skill she had that matched what she enjoyed doing, writing became so obvious. The middle school year book when someone wrote in it that one day she’d be a writer made sense when she turned thirty.
Besides her full-time job of teaching, in 2013 and 2014, she sold her sold books to three different publishers. The Zoastra Affair, Chaperoning Paris, Borrowing the Doctor, and Electing Love will be published by Soulmate Publishing. Anything the Throne will be published with Double Dragon Ebooks. Favorite Coffee, Favorite Crush will be published with Jupiter Press.
Now she is represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency, and she hopes to continue selling her novels that she writes. Moving up to the next level from hard work and determination is rewarding, and partnerships bring new opportunities.
Also, she’s the Vice President of Programs for the Florida Romance Writers. She’s gone to multiple conferences and intends to continue. She learns and meets so many people at conferences. Her website is here, http://www.victoriapinder.com, and she’ll continue to grow my web presence. She is working hard on other projects and found the time to plan her wedding this year.
Before writing, her father had taken her to many star trek conventions and on her own, she grew up as the only girl in the 90s at the comic book store. Science Fiction was her first love, but contemporary romance was her second. She’s sticking with contemporaries for the near future.
Member of Florida Romance Writers, Contemporary Romance, Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter of RWA, Celtic Hearts and Savvy Authors.