Book reviews, author interviews, thoughtful commentary with Lisa Lickel and friends
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
Sunnys Dream with Mary Ball
Sunny’s
Dream
Mary L. Ball
Contemporary Christian Romantic
Suspense
Forget-Me-Not Romances, December
2017
Kindle: $2.99
Print: $7.47
Buy on Amazon
About
the Book
“Sunny’s Dream,” Celestial
Investigation, book one.
A Christian romantic suspense
based on three sisters. Their P.I. skills come in handy in the quaint town of
Mercy, North Carolina, a place where romance and mystery unite.
Sunny Kast spends her week
fighting cyber-crime, and dreaming of her prince charming.
When a man walks into Celestial
Investigations and introduces himself as Trouble, she’s sure he’s not her
prince and positive that he lives up to his name.
After Max Trouble finds an
important document, his life gets complicated with the know-it-all P.I. hired
to track down its owner.
Sunny and Max’s relationship
grows. She’s optimistic that he may be her prince charming, but after her car
is sabotaged, and she’s almost killed Max’s chauvinist ideas of a female
investigator surface.
Will she see God’s perfect plan,
or a not-so-perfect relationship?
Mary,
tell us what you love about this book.
This is my first series. I liked
creating novellas about three feisty sisters who run an investigating
firm.
Share
two things you learned while writing this book.
I learned a lot about
poisonings, LOL and requirements needed to be an investigator in NC.
What
can you tell us about the series?
It’s a Christian suspense about
three sisters in a small town who deal with the same shortcomings all sisters
do and ban together to solve crimes.
What
do you hope readers will tell others when they've finished the book?
That they enjoyed the
series.
What
are you reading now?
Lessons
from David- How to be a Giant Killer by Andrew Wommack. I have a
whole shelf of fiction TBR’s I need to tackle.
About
the Author
Mary
L. Ball is a multi-published Christian author. She lives in North
Carolina and enjoys fishing,
reading, and ministering in song with her hubby at
functions. Her books are about small-town romance, suspense, and mystery,
influenced by the grace of Jesus Christ.
Readers can check out her titles
at: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-L-Ball/e/B007O97Y0E
Connect on:
Friday, December 21, 2018
Rose Colored Christmas with Mary Ball
Rose
Colored Christmas
Mary L. Ball
Christian novelette, 107 pp
Contemporary romance
Forget-Me-Not Romances, August
2018
About
the Book
Young widow Emilee Arnold enjoys
her freelance web design, teaching Sunday school Christmas. She’s content until
she rescues a pilot from a burning plane and is snowed in with her very own
scrooge.
Gabe King specializes in flying
corporate groups. He claims to be an easy-going guy,
until Emilee challenges his lifestyle and his heart.
Emilee can’t stop her attraction
to Gabe but his dislike for Christmas is the one thing she can’t get passed.
Can Emilee help to make her very
own Christmas miracle?
Kindle: $2.99
Print: $5.97
Buy on Amazon
Mary,
tell us what you love about this book.
I enjoyed plotting the story
around Christmas and bringing Gabe back to a place where he can enjoy holidays’
again.
Do you
prefer novellas to full-length works or vice versa? Why?
Novellas. Life is busy, I just
don’t have time to read a 300 page novel. I guess my passion for reading
shorter works rubbed off into my writing, I like creating novellas too.
What
was the easiest aspect of telling this story?
Christmas makes us excited for
new possibilities. I enjoyed Emilee’s expectations for the holidays.
What
did you learn during your research?
A lot about private
planes. J
What's
your favorite Christmas tradition in your family?
I enjoy watching movies where
families have a tradition. Our family never had one. Each year seems to present
a unique situation, which requires adjustments for us to get together, it’s
been hard to carry any customs over to the next year.
About
the Author
Mary
L. Ball is a multi-published Christian author. She lives in North
Carolina and enjoys fishing, reading, and ministering in song with her hubby at
functions. Her books are about small-town romance, suspense, and mystery,
influenced by the grace of Jesus Christ.
Readers can check out her titles
at: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-L-Ball/e/B007O97Y0E
Connect on:
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
One day book shopping spree!
ONE DAY ONLY!
One day special promotion of Holiday Books for that last-minute shopping. Even E-books can be great stocking-stuffers! Visit http://robinsnest212.wordpress.com
TODAY Wednesday December 19
for a browsing experience of only the best in clean holiday fiction.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Forgetting the Scot New from Jennifer Trethewey
Forgetting the Scot
The Highlanders of Balforss Book 3
Jennifer Trethewey
Historical Romance, serial
Entangled
released October 22, 2018
$3.99 eBook
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Barnes and Noble
About
the Book:
Virginia Whitebridge is trapped in a
loveless, abusive marriage. The law says her husband can have whatever he wants
from her—so he's taken her inheritance. And he tried to kill her. After a close
escape, Virginia feels protected for the first time in forever, thanks to the
Scottish Highlands and the Highlander Magnus Sinclair. But she must go back to
England, regardless of the danger, to reclaim what's hers. Even if it means
leaving her heart in Scotland.
It's just Magnus's luck that he's
fallen for a woman he can't have. Virginia is rich and titled... and English.
To keep her safe, he must follow her to the one place he loathes—England. Where
the bowing, preening London Society has a secret language of manners unknown to
him. Where he is too large, too uncivilized, too everything.
Despite omens that death awaits him
there, Magnus vows to help Virginia go to London and restore her fortune. Get
in. Get out. Or die trying.
My
review:
The Sinclair clan Highland Scots
save a pirate crew’s captured women, one of them Declan Sinclair’s bride.
Another Sinclair is about to fall. Magnus, a cousin raised in part by clan
patriarch, Laird John, respects his uncle, but when Magnus, the least tamed of
the Sinclairs, does more than make passes at a lass in glasses, even Laird John
can’t talk sense or manners into his nephew. Especially since the lass is so
inviting.
In the most bawdy tale in the
series, Magnus and Virginia, the much-abused wife of a truly evil English
viscount and who has no support from her greedy father and equally despicable
aunt, find true lust and impossible love. Magnus might have trouble keeping his
kilt in check, but his heart and sense of nobility are truly in the right place
as he vows to do anything, even disobeying his uncle, to ensure his soulmate’s
safety and her heart’s desire to benefit the needy.
I enjoyed returning to this unruly
but talented and dedicated clan with their high dreams, camaraderie and work
ethic. A few loose ends with story elements introduced then left drifting kept
me noodling over them after I’d finished the book. I don’t want to give
anything away by mentioning them, and perhaps most readers won’t be bothered.
Told from Magnus’s and Virginia’s perspectives, this highland adventure is full
of chases, fellowship, angst, and charm. It also includes pretty hot sensuality
which is a little different from the first two books.
About
the Author:
Hi, I'm Jennifer Trethewey and I
write about men in kilts because, hey, what's not to love about a man in a
kilt? I was lucky enough to travel to Scotland twice. I'm planning a third trip
next year. I have fallen in love with the Highlands and all things Scottish:
the people, their language, cuisine, customs, idioms, humor, history, intense
sense of pride, and, most of all, the land--the perfect setting for sweeping
romantic tales of love, strife, and glory. As they say, Scotland is pure dead
brilliant!
As for more personal stuff, I'm an actress, former co-artistic director of a
professional theater company, and my husband and I operate an improv comedy
club. I live with my comedian husband in the Midwest where I've been ever since
college.
I write both contemporary and historical fiction full time. I like to read
romance, mystery, fantasy, and paranormal, as well as literary fiction and
non-fiction. As you can imagine, I'm a big fan of Outlander and Herself. I
adore traveling to new places (but I hate flying). I love movies and music and
dogs and good wine and I love to enjoy them all with my friends.
Friday, December 14, 2018
Keely Brooke Keith Uncharted Journey
Uncharted Journey
Book 6 in the Uncharted Land series
Keely Brooke Keith
Romantic sci fi fiction
released November 9, 2018
$12.99 print
$3.99 eBook
Buy on Amazon
About
the Book
Eva and Solo find love at The Inn at
Falls Creek, while Bailey’s quest to reach the Land costs her everything.
Young widow Eva Vestal assumes loneliness is God’s permanent plan for her life.
She keeps busy by raising her son and co-managing the Inn at Falls Creek with
her elderly father, but her heart yearns for more.
Solomon “Solo” Cotter has spent his life working with horses, but he secretly
wants to write a book of the children’s stories his grandfather told him as a
boy. He barters with Eva’s father for a 40-night stay at the inn, a needed
respite from work to get his stories on paper.
Once Eva discovers the barter, she believes Solo is taking advantage of her
father’s failing memory. But when tragedy strikes and Solo works hard to save
the inn, Eva sees his true nature. As her heart stirs with feelings for Solo,
she wrestles with the guilt of loving someone new.
Meanwhile, outside the Land...
Bailey Colburn arrives at the coordinates of the Land on the autumn equinox and
finds nothing but ocean. The sun sets, ending Bailey’s dream of a safe and
simple life with the family she’s never known. Just when she decides Justin
Mercer lied about visiting a hidden land in the South Atlantic Ocean and
meeting Bailey’s distant relatives, the atmosphere around the boat changes and
ushers her into an uncharted world, but her entrance into the Land comes at a
devastating price.
Uncharted Journey weaves past and future in this inspirational story of life in
a hidden land. There is always room for you at the Colburns’ house in the
quaint village of Good Springs. Join the Colburn family as they discover their
purpose, find love, and protect the Land. Read Uncharted Journey today.
My
review
Uncharted Journey picks up the
thread of post-apocalyptic Earth and one young woman’s desperation to find her
roots and escape a violent and hopeless life. Trouble is…the family she seeks
disappeared two hundred years ago and the only evidence is from a crazy man
asking her to catalog a plant that can’t exist. Even worse…Bailey discovers this
plant has properties worth killing for.
Bailey convinces her former
professor to connect with his nephew who runs a charter boat service. The crazy
man’s directions are even loonier—to find this place where the impossible plant
exists is to head way south and wait on only one day of the year, the fall
equinox, when this island appears like Brigadoon. Imagine her surprise when it
works.
Arrival is a shock to both Bailey’s
crewmates and the security team of Good Springs, who include a former pilot who
had arrived at the Uncharted Land some years earlier and made it his home. One
of the initial security party members is a young man in training named Revel
who is new to the area.
The parallel Land story is that of
Revel’s widowed sister, Eva, who is left as the oldest daughter to run the
family business in a society whose traditions over seven generations decrees
the son follow his father’s trade. In Revel and Eva’s case, that’s the Inn, a
business out in the middle of nowhere, in which Revel has no interest, but a
long-term guest, Solomon, discovers he’d rather be nowhere else. Eva has a way
to go before she can corral her fears for her ailing family members, their
livelihood which affects her ability to raise her young son, and her lonely
heart.
It’s a brave new era in the Land
Uncharted, when young people are breaking out of the customs of
mid-nineteenth-century-era American colonialism and finding their own way.
Women can become doctors, run businesses, even wear pants, and sons are
choosing their own careers.
About
the Author
Keely Brooke Keith writes
inspirational frontier-style fiction with a slight Sci-Fi twist, including The
Land Uncharted (Shelf Unbound Notable Romance 2015) and Aboard Providence (2017
INSPY Awards Longlist). Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, Keely was a
tree-climbing, baseball-loving 80s kid. She grew up in a family who moved
often, which fueled her dreams of faraway lands. When she isn't writing, Keely
enjoys teaching home school lessons and playing bass guitar. Keely, her
husband, and their daughter live on a hilltop south of Nashville, Tennessee.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Carol James Christmas novella Marys Christmas Surprise
Mary’s Christmas Surprise
Carol James
White Rose Publishing, a division of
Pelican Ventures LLC
Holiday Christmas Extravaganza
romantic novella
December 1, 2018
$2.99 ebook
Buy on Amazon
Buy on Barnes and Noble
About the Book:
Mary Sherman’s Christmas is nothing
like she’s planned. Her fiancé has called off the engagement just days before
Christmas, and her parents have gone on an anniversary cruise around the world.
Suddenly alone for the holidays, Mary returns to the comfort of her childhood
home to spend Christmas in her parents’ empty house.
There’s only one problem. The house is not empty. Unbeknownst to Mary, her
parents have taken in a boarder, a handsome carpenter named Jake Wolesky.
Mary’s Christmas surprise may make this the best holiday ever.
My review:
Carol James’s sweet holiday novella
is a great bite-size escape from the busyness of the season. Take an hour or so
to read the adventures of a young professional man and woman who meet by
accident while on leave from their personal traumas.
Mary has spent years waiting for
other people to make decisions that impact her future lifestyle and career.
Joseph, aka Jake, needs a break from his mother’s bitterness in watching her
ideal of a perfect family collapse around her. Jake and Mary meet accidentally
when Mary calls the police on an intruder in her parent’s home, which she
expected to be empty when she unexpectedly goes home to lick her wounds in
private.
It’s a good thing the two grown
single adults are on the same page regarding morals and high ground, and decide
to refrain from sleeping in the same house. It also doesn’t take long for
misconceptions, mayhem, and mistletoe to work its magic.
Carol James is an author of
inspirational fiction. She lives in Lilburn, Georgia, a small town outside of
Atlanta, with her husband, Jim, and a perky Jack Russell "Terrorist,"
Zoe.
Having always loved intriguing stories with happy endings, she was moved to
begin writing to encourage others as she'd been encouraged by the works of
other authors of inspirational fiction.
Retired from her "real" job, she enjoys spending time with her husband,
children, and grandchildren, traveling with friends, volunteering at and
serving on the board of a nearby Christian school, and serving in the
production department at her church.
She is also a soccer fan extraordinaire and keeps her DVR busy recording
Atlanta United and English Premier League games.
And, most days in the late hours of the night or the wee hours of the morning,
she can be found bringing her newest novel to life. https://www.carol-james.com
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