Thursday, June 20, 2024

#Review ~ Something Sacrificed (Wolf Mountain Ranchers Book 4) by Erin FitzGerald ~ Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense @ErinFitzWrites

 

ASIN: ‎ B0D67CGH64
Publication Date: ‎ June 4, 2024
Print Length: ‎ 312 pages

About the Book:

Some people would call this a midlife crisis, but I know better. I’m too old for that.

Pulling up my shallow roots, I decide on a whim to move from Texas to Montana, leaving what I’ve known for the past three decades.

The woman I cross paths with at the county fair is one I’ve known from a distance for twenty years, someone to whom I’ve grown close: My best friend’s widow, Genesis Dawson, who’s running the family ranch after her husband’s tragic death.

Startled by her unexpected appearance, I muddy the waters, creating a situation I can’t seem to fix. But a bigger problem is that her ranch is under threat and she stands to lose the investment of four generations.

Can I mend what I’ve broken and convince her not to make the biggest mistake of her life?

My Review:

Something Sacrificed is the fourth book in the Wolf Mountain Ranchers series. Will needs a change, and his move from Texas to Montana has some people shaking their heads. There's nothing for him in Texas, and his move to the Branson ranch in Montana is just what the doctor ordered. Will wasn't expecting to meet Genesis, his best friend's widow, who has also been his faceless pen pal for years. One look and one handshake has him flustered, in love, and telling little white lies. 

Now, Will has to find a way to fix his little problem with Genesis. Unfortunately, there are road blocks around every turn and one of them turns out to be a huge threat to him, Genesis, and everything she holds dear, including her independence.

So much with the emotions! Something Sacrificed is told from Genesis and Will's POVs. Their story is heart-wrenching on so many levels and in so many ways. The story was emotionally compelling. I felt each person’s frustrations, sadness, anger, and pain, as well as their happiness, excitement, and joy.

I adore this author’s writing style. The dialogue is smooth and conversational. FitzGerald created a wonderful world with three-dimensional characters. Both characters have emotional baggage and trauma, but are written delicately and realistically. The plot twist had my jaw dropping to the floor.

I was completely invested in this story, the characters, and their journey to the happily ever after they deserved.

I was provided a copy of this book.

My Rating: 


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Tuesday, June 18, 2024

#Review ~ Turning Up the Heat by Lizzy Hunter #ElizabethHunter #LizzyHunter @EHunterWrites #Romance

 

ASIN: ‎ B0D217MQY4
Publisher: ‎ Recurve Press, LLC
Publication date: ‎ May 14, 2024
Print length: 338 pages
Goodreads

About the Book:

If you can’t take the heat, get out of his kitchen.

Kelsey Rankin has worked for years to earn her reputation as one of the best writers at California’s top food-and-wine journal. She’s left her rural roots in wine country and moved to the city to pursue her dreams.

Then a work trip back home to cover the wine harvest puts her right in the path of Chef Oskar Olson, an internationally recognized chef and the newest resident of her hometown.

Oskar knew he wanted a break from big-city life when he moved to a small town. He wants to make his restaurant one that people talk about, and a review from Kelsey’s magazine might push his restaurant into the spotlight.

One explosive night could change everything for these two culinary hotshots and make them question everything they think they want.

Turning Up the Heat is a steamy, stand-alone romance for lovers of sizzling chemistry, mouthwatering food, and sweet happily-ever-afters.

My Review:

Turning Up the Heat is a wonderful contemporary romance featuring Kelsey Rankin, a food writer, and Oskar Olson, internationally recognized chef. Oskar is living in Kelsey's hometown, and Kelsey moved out prior to his arrival, and landed in the city. When they finally meet when work brings her back home, spark fly and the chemistry between the two is undeniable. 

I loved everything about this book. The realism behind Kelsey and Oskar's long-distance relationship took me down memory lane. I met my husband 17 years ago (on MySpace) and we lived an hour-and-a-half away from each other. We worked different shifts (I worked 10am-7pm) and he worked 3rd shift (10pm-7am) so talking during the week was difficult. We emailed each other for a while before moving to phone calls/texts, and I didn't have a computer. In order to talk to him for the first couple weeks, I had to go the library (about a block from my townhouse) before work to check my emails. We decided to move to the exchanging phone numbers stage and that made things a little easier. I'd call him in the morning before I left for work, and he'd call me at night before he left for work and I went to bed. I love it when scenes in books coincide with an event that happed in my life. It draws me closer to the characters and I can definitely better relate to them. 

Elizabeth Hunter is one of my all-time favorite authors. Everything she writes is phenomenal. She has writing skills that draw the reader in from the very beginning. When I was originally approached to review the ARC of A Hidden Fire (Elemental Mysteries, Book One) in 2011, never did I expect as much literary power to come from within the pages of a brand-new author. Every single book I've read from Elizabeth Hunter since then carries that same power. I have been mesmerized by her books from the very beginning.

I was provided a copy of this book.

My Rating:



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Monday, June 17, 2024

Cover Reveal ~ Nine Levels by Elana Gomel ~ Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Greek Mythology ~ @MirrorWorldPub @ElanaGomel

Mirror World Publishing and Sapphyria's Book Promotions present the cover reveal for 
Nine Levels by Elana Gomel.

About Nine Levels:

Waking up on the beach in Greece after a midnight party, Cleo, a British-Greek tourist, sees a stranger sitting next to her. The stranger has a giant spider on his forearm.

So begins an incredible odyssey through the nine levels of the mysterious mountain populated by an odd assortment of monsters, demons, and avatars of dead gods. Still grieving the unsolved disappearance of her twin sister Cora, Cleo is thrust into the world whose rules she does not understand and whose inhabitants confound everything she thought she knew about Greek mythology. Confronted by Woven Women, masked huntresses, sentient graffiti, and Mother of Monsters, Cleo has to make sense of it all. And meanwhile, a mysterious Call reverberates in her brain: You have to go up. You have to find your sister.

A story of self-discovery, courage, and breathtaking adventure, Nine Levels is a highly imaginative, innovative, and engrossing retelling of familiar legends with a twist you won’t see coming.


Release Date: July 17, 2024

Meet the Author:


Born in Ukraine and currently residing in California, Elana Gomel is an academic, an award-winning writer, and a professional nomad. She is well-known for her work on speculative fiction and narrative theory, represented by her academic books, which Beyond the Golden Rule, Bloodscripts, and The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy. Twelve years ago she published her first fantasy novel and has never looked back. She is the author of more than a hundred short stories, two collections, several novellas, and seven novels. She writes dark fantasy, dark SF, fairy tales, and hard-to classify dreamlike stories, some of them connected to her roots in the former USSR. Her stories won several awards, and “Mine Seven” was featured in the Best of Horror 13 edited by Ellen Datlow. Her latest fiction publications are the dark fairy tale Nightwood (Silver Award in the Bookfest 2023 competition) and Girl of Light, an alternative history of the USSR with monsters. Many of her stories and novels have mythological and folkloric overtones, inspired by her travels and her academic research. Having lived in several countries including Israel, Italy, the UK, and Hong Kong, she now resides in the magical – and sinister – redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains with her husband.

Amazon Author Profile: https://amzn.to/3z5FHeU