Take A Look At Me Now - Review

Review by K.T Sullivan

Nell Sullivan loses her job and her boyfriend on the same day. Determined to change her life, she takes her severance check and leaves London. She’ll stay with her cousin, Lizzie, in San Francisco and plot out a new life direction. The sights and sounds are so different and enticing to Nell. She joins Lizzie, as a volunteer, teaching children how to bake. This sparks her love of cooking and plants an idea of opening an American style diner in London. She interns at a legendary diner and learns so much. And meets Max who makes her forget the bad memories from home. When it’s time to return to London, Nell is torn between her new life and love and her true roots. On the day she’s scheduled to leave, Max’s secret life is revealed and her ex offers an olive branch. Nell hurries back to reignite her London life, but old wounds never heal. Who is her true love and will her dream restaurant rise from the ashes?

                       

Nell is a fun character on the brink of change, but faced with a few handsome and one delicious fork in the road. Dickinson weaves her through many choices, making a solid decision hard without consequences. This is a believable set of circumstances for the reader. The secondary players are memorable and add much to the book. The author uses San Francisco as a beautiful background in the story. It’s easy to see why Nell is so charmed with the city. A recommended read.

Miranda is a Sunday Times Bestselling author of four books, has been shortlisted twice for RNA awards (for Novel of the Year in 2010 with Fairytale of New York and again in 2012 for Contemporary Novel of the Year for It Started With a Kiss), has been published in seven languages and been a bestseller in four countries, and has sold over half a million books.

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Entangled Moments - Book Blast & Giveaway

Entangled Moments

Moments in Time Book One

By: Dori Lavelle

Blurb

A deadly accident can take a life in more than one way.

Four years ago, Carlene Adams made a deadly mistake. A tragic accident derailed the future she'd hoped for, taking the life of the man she'd planned to spend forever with.

As a self-imposed penance for her solitary sin, Carlene has given up on every dream she ever had. She has committed to spend every remaining moment trying to make up for that one instance when everything changed.  

Then she gets a second chance.

When Carlene meets Nick, the single kiss they share awakens the desires she shoved aside for so long. Suddenly she wants more than what she believe she deserves. Will she ever see him again? And if she does, what will that mean for her?

A thing of fate.

Leaving the life she built on regret, Carlene waits for fate to intervene. But just as she begins to believe in a fresh start, she's forced to realize a horrible truth—one with the power to send her second chance crashing before it even takes off.

Nick isn't who she thought he was. She isn't the girl he believed her to be, either. Their lives were intertwined even before they met, and if Carlene tells him the truth, she’ll risk tearing them apart—for good.

** Due to sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18. **

Buy Link:

Amazon

Author Info

Dori Lavelle, is a mother, wife, and lover of happy endings and mint chocolate. She thinks love and chocolate make such a perfect pair. Give her a great romance novel with a hint of suspense and a mug of hot chocolate and she'd be one happy woman.

Growing up, Dori read a lot, and when she wasn't happy with a particular ending, she wrote a different one, just for herself. Before long, she was writing stories when she should have been doing homework. The time has come for her to share the stories she cooks up in her head.

Author Links

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Email: Dori_lavelle@yahoo.com

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Younger, Thinner, Blonder - Review & Giveaway

Review by K.T. Sullivan

Tanya Travis lives a dream life with her budding rock star boyfriend, successful television show, and foul mouthed maid. Then, she’s fired, dumped, and evicted. When she hits bottom, the only way back to the top is a humiliating reality show set in Nepal. Celebrity Spa Trek is her redemption ticket. Her fellow contestants are on the comeback trail as well. Tanya quickly realizes she’s in over her head when presented with a disgusting challenge. She refuses and is banished. She finds herself as a helper in a local orphanage. The children spark her to recalculate her net worth. The handsome local guide, Ardash, grew up there and is never far from Tanya’s thoughts. To add to the tension of the show, Tanya’s former fiancé, Nathan, becomes a contestant as well. At first, she hopes for reconciliation, but after time, realizes she’s been saved from a disastrous marriage. Tanya grows as a human being and falls in love, but will she be named Queen of the Mountains?

                            

The author incorporates the glittering celebrity culture into the story. Tanya must live without her killer wardrobe and designer hair products. She brings her back to the basics to prove life has to have meaning beyond stuff accumulation. My favorite character is Astrid, Tanya’s Swedish maid. Her command of the English language revolves around swearing. She proves to be an invaluable friend and comic relief. It is easy to relate to Tanya holding on to her horrible past against the frightening future. Fun read.

Sue Watson was a TV Producer with the BBC who combined motherhood and family life with a busy career. However, one day it dawned on Sue that Cosmo magazine may have been telling porkies about 'having it all,' and she realised her life had become a slightly crazed juggling act. So after much comfort eating,soul searching and reality TV watching, she sold her car, cancelled the holiday, bought a flamingo pink laptop and took the plunge as a writer.

The result was Sue's first novel, 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes,' a story about Stella Weston, whose life is a constant struggle with the weighing scales and being a working mum, wife and daughter.

The author researched intensely, baking and tasting and baking and ... tasting and... created the fabulous recipe collection of easy but impressive cakes at the back of the book. Sue also gained an equally impressive extra ten pounds on her hips, which to this day she carries with her.

Sue's second book, 'Younger, Thinner, Blonder' is released in October (2013).

Originally from Manchester, Sue now lives with her husband and teenage daughter in Worcestershire where she is currently writing her third book. When she's not toiling over her latest novel, Sue can be found enjoying large bags of chicken crisps, large tubs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream and 'The Biggest Loser USA' on series link.

Connect with the author at:

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The Trouble with Love - Review & Giveaway

Review by Darcey Pickett

Something’s are always worth the fight!

As book number two of the trilogy picks up, we are back in the quaint little town of Sugar Creek, Vermont, where we meet Rocky Monroe as she is running her bed & breakfast and her Cupcake Lovers Club. 

Rocky has to travel to NYC to work out the details of a cook book for the Cupcake Lovers Club, and her bad luck has followed her.  She is in a strange town and has to reach out to the one person she has been trying to avoid, Jayce Bello.  Jayce and Rocky have history together and the passion that sparked between them all those years ago is still ever present.  Rocky was deeply hurt by Jayce and has done her best to put him out of her mind.  But with one crack in her foundation, she finds herself in his company and all those feelings come flooding back.

Jayce Bello, a family friend, had an intimate moment with his best friends little sister.  Faced with the demons of his own family drama and the fact he doesn’t want any more, he up and leaves Sugar Creek for NYC to become a police officer.  Having Rocky need him is the sign he was looking for and he is bound and determine to explain himself after 13 years and with the hopes of proving his love for her.

The romance between Rocky and Jayce was fun, it wasn’t sugary sweet and this novel offered a bit of mystery as well.  I found this book to be a fun read, and even though it is part of a trilogy I did not feel like I needed to have read the first book to understand and develop a relationship with the characters of this book.  But I can tell you that it had me wanting to go back to read book one and looking forward to seeing what happens in book three!  I recommend this fun read and encourage you to read the entire trilogy!

Storytelling comes naturally to award-winning author Beth Ciotta. Dubbed "fun and sexy" by Publisher's Weekly, Beth specializes in writing Romantic Comedy with a Twist of Suspense and is published in contemporary, historical, steampunk, and paranormal romantic fiction. "I can't think of anything more fulfilling than writing stories where everyone (except the villain, of course) gets a happy ending!"

Beth lives in NJ with her husband, two zany dogs, and a crazy cat. A retired professional performer, Beth now pours her artistic passion into her writing. 

To learn more about her colorful life, visit her at:

Website * Blog * Facebook * Twitter

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Chocolate For Breakfast & Chocolate Fondue - Review

Reviewed by Darcie Czajkowski

Young, naïve, and inexperienced, Bernadette “Bernie” Maguire has a mission when she and her best friend Lisa travel to Fribourg, Switzerland for their junior year of college.  Bernie’s goal of losing her virginity proves easy, too easy in fact, when she sets her sights on Karl Berset, an attractive Swiss banker.  She willingly becomes intimate with him, but after a single passionate weekend together, he disappears from her life and from Fribourg entirely. 

Almost immediately, Bernie knows she is pregnant.  She quietly keeps her secret, initially sharing only with Lisa and Lisa’s landlady, Erika Stangl.  She goes about her normal life, attending classes, spending time with Lisa, and even drinking the occasional beer with her classmates at Café des Espouses in town.

But events start to spiral further out of control when Bernie becomes intimate with a classmate who is unaware of her pregnancy, experiences the loss of someone close to her, and stumbles upon the shocking reason why Karl vanished from her life, as if she had imagined their affair altogether. 

Twenty-three years later, Bernie is still dealing with the consequences of those transient moments with Karl.  Her life is an emotional mess and, after her mother’s passing, she decides that she no longer wants to live her life in a self-destructive way.  With her aunt in tow, Bernie returns to Fribourg and, upon arriving at Hotel de la Rose, she finds her past literally staring back at her. 

Will Bernie have the courage to face the decisions she made all those years ago?  Will she be able to reconcile the girl who first landed in Switzerland with the woman she is now, someone who has made many mistakes but wants to change her life for the better?

Chocolate for Breakfast starts as a simple adventure abroad and unfurls into a dramatic, heartwarming story which continues in the sequel, Chocolate Fondue.  These books must be read together in order to experience and appreciate Bernie’s drastic character development.  Chocolate for Breakfast is the place to start to fully understand how the choices Bernie made in Fribourg sent her spiraling down the wrong path, but Chocolate Fondue is where the complexity and depth of Bernie’s character truly come alive and the full breadth of Martha Reynolds’ skill as a writer is on display.  In the sequel, Martha does a remarkable job of weaving together two storylines and making the reader want to keep reading to find out how the stories will be resolved.  A captivating story has a twist around every corner and keeps the reader wondering what will happen next, both of which Martha accomplishes with aplomb.  I was hooked from beginning until the end and, who wouldn’t be, when chocolate is involved.

Martha Reynolds is the author of three novels: the award-winning CHOCOLATE FOR BREAKFAST; its sequel, CHOCOLATE FONDUE; and the newly-published BITS OF BROKEN GLASS. All books are available through Amazon in digital and print versions.

Coming soon: the third and final book in the 'chocolate' series, BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE.

She and her husband live in Rhode Island, never far from the ocean.

Read and follow the writings of Martha at

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The Hunt For Xanadu - Release Day Post

Blurb

Twenty-two year old Kelsey Porter has dedicated her life to avenging the death of her parents, murdered in their quest to find the mystical land of Xanadu. Before she can locate the murderers, she has to discover their motives for the brutal crime and finds herself at the epicenter of a Buddhist mystery as old as time. With the help of her companion, Detective Desmond Gisborne, she hunts the killers across the globe and discovers a darkness in her spiritual past that tests the very limits of her soul. Soon she realizes that it is not she who is doing the hunting, but the one being hunted. Kelsey must find a way to survive, while ancient demons attempt to destroy her.

Link to buy the book:

Amazon

Author Bio

Elyse Salpeter is the author of seven novels and a host of short stories. What she loves doing is mixing "the real with the fantastic" in her books. She loves taking different scenarios and suddenly creating worlds where things just aren't what they appear to be.

Her Dark Fantasy Series, THE WORLD OF KAROV and THE RUBY AMULET take us to other realms filled with magic and evil... THE HUNT FOR XANADU is about a young girl on a mission to avenge her parents, murdered in their quest to find the mystical land of Xanadu.

Her two YA novels, FLYING TO THE LIGHT and FLYING TO THE FIRE are represented by Peter Riva from International Transactions. These books are about a young deaf boy who knows what happens to you when you die and now people are after him for the answers. The books are fast paced thrillers that keeps the reader on their toes, never quite knowing who, and who not, to trust.

When she's not writing, she's eating crazy foods in her Gastronaut club, working out, or running after her twins and a crazy ferret. 

Connect with the author at:

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Wish Upon A Star - Review

Blurb

Cookery columnist and author Cally’s world is turned upside down when her baby daughter is born with serious heart problems.  Her ex disappeared when she was pregnant, and Cally has spent much of the early years of daughter Stella’s life at the hospital.  When Stella’s only hope is hugely expensive life-saving surgery in the States, Cally moves in with her mother in the rural village of Sticklepond, to save money for the operation.

The village rallies round and begins fund raising with a vengeance, including the laid back and rather handsome baker Jago, who is still trying to escape the clutches of his controlling ex-fiance.  With everything that is going on, the last thing Cally wants to do is fall in love, but she is also tired of going it alone.  In the run up to Christmas, the true spirit of the festive season begins to show…

 A warmly told tale that takes Trisha Ashley fans back to Sticklepond, with colourful characters old and new

Review by K.T Sullivan

Cally Weston is a single mom with a daughter, Stella, who is seriously ill. She devotes herself to Stella’s care, writing food reviews, and fundraising for a life-saving trip to America. The promised heart operation is Stella's only chance. Adam, Stella’s father, is out of the hemisphere in Antarctica. She refers to him as her Penguin Daddy. He never played a part in Stella’s life until another man steps in to fill his role. Jago is a baker with a sure path to Stella’s good side. He makes gingerbread pigs and she must have one after her doctor visits. Jago’s former fiancée, Aimee, floats back into his life after her father cuts off her allowance. She’s heard Jago and his friend David won the lottery. Jago has no interest in rekindling anything. To get back at him and his budding romance with Cally, she calls Adam.  He decides he’d like to try the father thing because his parents desperately want a grandchild. He forgot Cally told him about the pregnancy. He responded by leaving her for another woman. Adam and Aimee team up to reclaim their former loves. Will the true love match survive?

The health concern adds a bit of seriousness to the light hearted book. Stella is an adorable character and moves the couple into each other’s orbit. The author cleverly weaves baking into the story. The love of cake brings Cally and Jago together. Recipes are included in the back of the book. I had to research Croquembouche, Jago’s signature creation. It looks sinfully delicious. I enjoyed the sentimental story.

About the Author: Trisha Ashley was born in St. Helens, Lancashire, and now lives in the beautiful surroundings of North Wales. She has written several novels that have become Sunday Times bestsellers. A Winter's Tale and Wedding Tiers were shortlisted for the Melissa Nathan Award for Romantic Comedy. Every Woman for Herself was voted one of the top three romantic novels of the last fifty years.  Connect with the author at: Website * Facebook * Twitter