Showing posts with label historical romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical romance. Show all posts

Monday, August 5, 2019

Highland Romance with Jennifer Trethewey

Saving the Scot

Saving the Scot
Book 4 of the Highlanders of Balfourss historical romance series
Jennifer Trethewey

Entangled books
March, 2019

$3.99 ebook
$18.99 print
$14.99 Audio

Buy on Amazon 

About the Book:
Louisa Robertson’s father is furious when he finds her acting on stage. Now, she’s being shipped off to America to marry some stranger her father thinks will bring out the “lady” in her. Luckily, Louisa’s maid agrees to switch places with her! Her maid will marry the American and get the wealthy lifestyle she’s always wanted, and Louisa can do whatever she damn well pleases––for the first time in her life.


Highlander Ian Sinclair needs an army commission, and the only way he can get one is to safely deliver the general’s Daughter-from-Hell to her intended in America. Easy, right? It would be if the lady’s companion Louisa didn’t wear breeches and do everything the exact opposite of what he orders. It’ll be a miracle if the sparks flying between Ian and Louisa don’t set the bloody ship afire before they arrive in America.



But just when Louisa thinks her plan is going to give her the acting career she wants and a Highlander to boot...Ian discovers her secret.


My Review:
Saving the Scot is a hijinks tale of mistaken identity, secrets, and outright lies that make the reader wonder which Scot needs to be saved most. Louisa is the spoiled motherless little sister who terrorizes her father with her refusal to do anything conventional. Since he spends so much time away either on the battlefield or in military training, she’s been left to her own devices, which has led her to the debauched life of play-acting. On the public stage. Ian’s battle scars are more than skin deep, and after five years of attempting to heal as captain of a family merchant ship, he’s ready to leap back into the regimentation of military life. A major hitch in his plans arrives with the news of his fatherhood, a young lad being cared for by an ailing grandmother.

Framed by the false identities of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Trethewey, who’s an actress turned author, finally pens a story of what she knows best. Louisa lives as though she’s preparing for a role and uses the behavior as an excuse to cover her deepest fears of abandonment and closed-in spaces. When her father sends her away to marry her brother’s acquaintance in America, Ian is tasked with seeing her safely there. But Louisa has other plans and gets her maid to exchange identities. Feeling free to act on his attraction to the supposed lady’s maid, the two allow themselves to get carried away. Through various events involving pirates, thieves, sex traffickers, and another acquaintance with a false identity, the two sort out their future goals and wishes.

Although this story is part of a series of familial characters, it can be read on its own. Other characters are mentioned, and the allusion to the portent dream concluding the previous story, that of Ian marrying a woman in trousers, are the only ties to the other books. Told in opposing points of view from Louis and Ian, readers of romantic fiction will appreciate the research and attention to detail, along with the lusty relationship sparking the adventure.


About the Author:
Jennifer Trethewey
Jennifer Trethewey is an actor-turned-writer who has moved her performances from the stage to the page. In 2013 she traveled to Scotland for the first time, where she instantly fell for the language, humor, intense sense of pride, and breathtaking landscape. Her love for Scotland was translated into her first series of historical romance novels, the Highlanders of Balforss.


Trethewey’s primary experience in bringing the imaginary to life was working for one of the oldest women’s theaters in the nation, where she was the co-founder and co-artistic director. Today she continues to act, but writes contemporary and historical fiction full-time. Her other loves include dogs, movies, music and good wine. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband. 


Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Historical Romance in Seattle with Christine Lindsay


Sofi's Bridge
Sofi’s Bridge

Christine Lindsay

Pelican Ventures
c. 2015

ISBN 978-1611165203
Historical Romance
Ebook $4.99
Print $15.99

Buy on Amazon 

About the Book
Seattle debutant Sofi Andersson will do everything in her power to protect her sister who is suffering from shock over their father's death. Charles, the family busy-body, threatens to lock Trina in a sanatorium—a whitewashed term for an insane asylum—so Sofi will rescue her little sister, even if it means running away to the Cascade Mountains with only the new gardener Neil Macpherson to protect them. But in a cabin high in the Cascades, Sofi begins to recognize that the handsome immigrant from Ireland harbors secrets of his own. Can she trust this man whose gentle manner brings such peace to her traumatized sister and such tumult to her own emotions? And can Neil, the gardener continue to hide from Sofi that he is really Dr. Neil Galloway, a man wanted for murder by the British police? Only an act of faith and love will bridge the distance that separates lies from truth and safety.

My Review
First and second generation Americans with secrets help each other move beyond their stereotypes to protect the ones they love. One succeeds and the other watches another member of the family lose the battle.

Sofi Andersson, born of Swedish immigrant parents, has never suffered until the day her beloved papa didn’t come home, and her younger sister became so traumatized she can no longer function. Her mother Roselle is held up only with destructive advice from her physician and late husband’s business partner, who Sofi has long mistrusted. When threatened with institutionalization, Sofi kidnaps her sister with the reluctant help of their newly hired Irish gardener, Neil Galloway, who is not what he appears.

Sofi knows what she’s doing, running back to her late grandfather’s homestead and the friends and family who knew and loved him. Her father had certainly been a modern turn-of-the twentieth-century man who instilled independence in his daughters, encouraging them in daring to cross gender roles in architecture, math, and engineering skills. But he failed to surround them with the support they needed, and Sofi did right to leave Seattle high society and its rules to hunker down amongst her grandfather’s unconventional partners and family. It doesn’t hurt that this hiding place is also near her bridge-building late father’s last project. Sofi, at twenty-one, has absorbed all the skills necessary to build a railroad bridge, and when she realizes her father’s unscrupulous partner has changed her specs, she’ll move heaven and earth to save his reputation.

Meanwhile, Sofi is distracted by her new partner in crime, the Irish gardener Neil, who out of necessity confesses his true vocation and eventually the reason for his subterfuge. Their relationship grows over the summer, but as events come to a head, realize reputation is always trumped by faith, hope, and love.

About the Author
Christine LindsayIrish born Christine Lindsay is the author of multi-award-winning Christian fiction and non-fiction. Readers describe her writing as gritty yet tender, realistic yet larger than life, with historical detail that collides into the heart of psychological and relationship drama.

This author’s non-fiction memoir Finding Sarah Finding Me is the true-life story that started this award-winning career in Christian fiction and non-fiction. This book is a must for anyone whose life has been touched by adoption. Christine is currently writing a new fictional series set on the majestic coast of Ireland and loaded with her use of setting as a character that will sweep the reader away. Subscribe to her newsletter on her website www.christinelindsay.org.


Friday, August 18, 2017

Book Review Susan Karsten Regency Romance


A Match for Melissa (Honor's Point #1)


A Match for Melissa
Susan Karsten

Inspirational Historical fiction—Regency romance
Prism, a division of Pelican Book Group

July 2017

eBook $4.99
Print $15.99

Buy on Amazon 

About the Book
Melissa Southwood goes along with her ambitious father’s matchmaking schemes until one event throws all into question.

Amidst balls, carriage rides, dinner parties, and danger, Melissa must navigate an arranged courtship as well as the attentions of another nobleman.

Which aristocratic suitor will win her heart?

My review
A very sweet and highly inspirational Regency romance. Karsten’s debut shows a true enjoyment of the historical era. The story comes from the nouveau rich who desire to be part of London’s elite at any cost—marrying into it, if no other way.

Melissa visits her former companion, now serving as housekeeper to her bachelor minister brother, and comes across a wounded man. They later meet again through their mutual desire to serve others. The wounded man is none other than Lord Russell, reluctantly stepping in to take over the manor at his brother’s death. His new responsibilities and near-death experience lead him toward a change of heart and new-found faith.

While Melissa’s father is determined to use her as a stepping stone into high society, she is determined to find a faith-filled soulmate. Lord Russell would like nothing better than to marry a soulmate as well, but first he has to stay alive.

Karsten’s tale is the first of a series, and is a multiple-character story with many twists and a large cast. I look forward to reading future books.

About the Author

Susan Karsten
Susan Karsten lives in a small Wisconsin town, is the wife of a real estate broker and mother of three, mother-in-law to one, and grandma to two baby boys. Her hobbies include fitness (mostly jogging with her friend, Sandy and her friend's dog, Millie), quilting (definitely taking a back seat to writing), and reading. Her love for writing developed while in college where she earned a BS degree in Home Economics, with a minor in Speech. Having home-schooled her children, and with child-rearing days at an end, Susan now invests time in writing fiction and working at a bank. With a contracted three-book Regency historical romance series, a humorous chapter book, and a cozy mystery complete, she is working on a Regency novella. Her personal blog can be found at Graciouswoman.wordpress.com.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Historical romance with Nancy Bolton

Answering Sarah

Nancy Shew Bolton
 
Prism Book Group
2016

Print $14.99
ISBN  978-1533575661
Ebook $3.99

Buy on Amazon

Historical fiction

About the book: After a fire destroys their home when she was a girl, Sarah’s family rebuilds their lives, yet the echoes of the fire’s damage remain. Sarah learned to turn inward, and keep her curious mind to herself, asking God all the questions that her own father used to delight in. But the fire silenced her father, and spread the stillness to the rest of them. Yet Sarah longs to express herself, to find answers to all her questions. A new, young pastor arrives, and captivates her heart. The prospect of a challenging and unexpected life dances before her, but then is held out of her reach. And with the new possibilities come questions she’s never asked herself before. Is she ready for the answers?


My Review:
What a delightful though slower-paced historical romance. Bolton uses interesting antagonists to weave the two love interests into a true cord of three strands throughout a courtship to their wedding.

I love a too-good-to-be-true hero. While true that the pastor, Mark, must undergo a transformation from his initial declaration of pure service to God to that of sharing his life with a God-ordained helpmeet, he does so with little struggle. Even the temptation of being with Sarah and the major obstacles in their way are a bloodless coup. But I meant what I said. I enjoyed this pastor’s maturity and would love to learn at his feet. Our heroine, Sarah, has all the right ingredients, too, in a youthful and spunky joie de vivre. Her solutions to handling her parents are a good lesson for us all. Her deep-seated faith life was truly inspirational.

Bolton’s setting of small town America during late settlement is a good microcosm of personalities and opinions. I was afraid for the fate of the library, and am only slightly shocked that times haven’t changed all that much. A local book club I belong to tries to read at least one “banned” book a year—only they keep changing! Readers will have to check this book for some sweet and entertaining way to deal with curmudgeons.

Answering Sarah is told through the eyes of both Sarah and Mark. Sarah learns not only to ask her questions at the right time and place, but to learn when silence is a golden, mature option. I enjoyed this story, and though it is quite long, it didn’t feel as though it dragged and kept me reading into the next chapters even when I knew my time was up. Recommended for those who enjoy rural and rustic historical romance that takes its sweet time to be told by achingly sweet and respectable characters who know when to pull the reins and when to smack them.

About the Author:
Nancy Shew Bolton is a wife of 43 years, mother of five grown sons, and grandmother to a boy and girl. Ever since she learned to write, she would jot down her thoughts and impressions in little snippets of inspiration in the form of poetry, song lyrics, or short essays. About six years ago, she decided to try her hand at writing a full length book. She’s since written five works of fiction, two non-fiction, and is working on an idea for a children’s book, as well as more fiction manuscripts. 

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Featuring: Mail Order Surprise by Lucy Thompson






PURCHASE

About the book:
Colorado, 1881. Lydia Walsh is on the run. The quiet rancher she marries and expected to find safety and protection with turns out to have three siblings, next to nothing to live on, and is a crack shot who may or may not be one of the states best cattle rustlers.

Beau Harding wants to keep his family together and do the right thing by them. His mail order bride comes with her own set of baggage: two more mouths to feed and empty hearts begging him to fill. The job he took for some quick money gets him thrown in jail for rustling, and then to clear his name he takes on another job--and learns that his wife may have been the one plotting his family’s downfall all along.


What COTT voters had to say:
~Waiting to get a chance to read it Lucy
~Lucy Thompson, Great title, great cover!
~Mrs. Lucy Thompson, we wish you the best.
~Lucy Thompson is not only a wonderful author but I've been blessed to being able to get to know her through Facebook. God bless you Lucy. Hope you win.'
~Lucy Thompson, loved the book.
~Beautiful cover picture and a great book Lucy Thompson!
~YAY Lucy Thompson. Keep up the good work!
~Lucy Thompson, I can't wait to read your novel Mail Order Surprise. It is the next book I will read. All the best for your future releases.

About the author:
Lucy Thompson is a stay-at-home mum to five precocious children by day and a snoop by night, stalking interesting characters through historical settings, and writing about their exploits.


She enjoys meeting new people from all over the world and learning about the craft of writing. When she can be separated from her laptop, she is a professional time waster on facebook.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Book Review: Once in a While by Linda Ellen

Once In a While 
The Cherished Memories Series book 1
Linda Ellen

Paperback: 482 pages
November 2, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0990904403
Ebook 2.99
Paperback 14.99
Fiction, Memoir, Historical Romance

Once in a While (The Cherished Memories Series) (Volume 1)

From the Author:
Victor Matthews is a down on his luck young man, frustrated with his life and his inability to find gainful employment. 

Louise Hoskins is a young woman content in her life with her family and friends. Her biggest concern is her upcoming lead part in a play. 

One rainy night, they meet...and both are forever changed. 

Neither could foresee that the world as they know it is on the precipice of experiencing the now famous ’37 Flood, and that daily life is about to be transformed into a bone chilling waterlogged state of affairs. But as that harrowing experience fades and their lives return to normal, the two young lovers embark on an unforgettable courtship - that is, until a terrible argument and a tragic misunderstanding tear them apart. How will they survive the separation? And why does one special song have the power to instantly transport the sweethearts back into the realm of cherished memories?

My review:
Set against the turmoil of the Great Depression and the CCC, hard luck Vic Matthews meets the girl of his dreams...only she's holding a secret that blows everything sky high. If it's not the weird weather and flood of the century interfering...it's major miscommunication and self-sacrifice for the family that keeps these lovers apart. But it's a sweet reunion that actually leads to more family revelation and more surprises.

Second chances and a lot of love make this intriguing and touching family story of a contemporary grandma's reminiscing over her past life and love after a move come to life. The author's recreation and fictionalization of her parent's drama brings reality to the story almost like an autobiography. For those who love Americana, Vic and Louise's choices, opportunities, hardships and triumphs set in Louisville, will be a delight. Well documented historically with unforgettable characters and dialog true to the era. Filled with food, movies, and music of the period. I have to knock off some points due to some need for editing, but otherwise, I recommend the book to those who enjoy reading about this period in history...along with some adventure and romance.

About the Author:

Linda EllenLinda Ellen is an historical romance writer who's making her debut with Depression Era romance, rich with history, love, heartache, and real life.

Linda was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, where she resides with her husband and youngest son.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Alice J Wisler's new book, Under the Silk Hibiscus



Under the Silk Hibiscus
Alice J. Wisler
Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas
Release date: November 11, 2014


ISBN-13: 978-1941103302
Print: 11.39
Buy on Amazon

About the Book:
During World War Two Nathan and his family are sent to Heart Mountain, an internment camp in Wyoming for Japanese-Americans. Nathan's one desire is to protect the family's gold pocket watch, a family heirloom brought over from Japan. He fails; the watch is stolen. Struggling to make sense of his life in a bleak camp as the only responsible man of the household, Nathan discovers truths about his family, God, and the girl he loves.

What motivated you to write about this topic?
I grew up in Japan and so Japanese people, their culture, and their life in America are of interest to me. I want to share about the sad period of time when they were discriminated against in this country during WWII and sent to internment camps to live out the war.

What do you love about this new book?
I love that Under the Silk Hibiscus shares a portion of WWII history our country (USA) often neglects. I enjoyed researching about Heart Mountain,Wyoming, the setting for my story.  I was also glad that I could interview a woman who lived in an internment camp during the war. She gave me great insight for my novel. 

Introduce us to your favorite secondary character.
My favorite secondary character is the cookie-lovin' Aunt Kazuko, and a runner-up is the beautiful singer, Lucy. Both are in the internment camp with my main character, Nathan Mori. 

(Find the cookie recipe on A Taste of Friday)

Are you trying any new promotional venues?

I am always looking for new venues.  I'm hoping tweets will work and that others will tweet for me. I'm on a number of blogs and a few will be giving away copies of my novel.  

About the Author:
Alice has authored four contemporary novels published by Bethany House:  Rain Song (Christy Finalist), How Sweet It Is (Christy Finalist), Hatteras Girl and A Wedding Invitation, and Still Life in Shadows by River North/Moody. Her newest novel, Under the Silk Hibiscus (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas) is her first historical romance. 

Since the death of her four-year-old son, Alice teaches grief-writing workshops and her devotional, Getting out of Bed in the Morning:  Reflections of Comfort in Heartache (Leafwood), covers the many losses we face and how God sustains us through each one.  In 2012, Alice and her husband started a business, Carved By Heart, where they carve memorial plaques/remembrances, house number signs, bird feeders, rustic clocks, and other home décor.


Links:



Alice’s Patchwork Quilt Blog:  http://www.alicewisler.blogspot.com/