Monday, March 16, 2015

Ellen March - Love on the Menu - Review & Giveaway



About the Book

Jago Tanner is a loner. He works up a good hunger at his outdoors pursuits centre in Wales and looks upon each female conquest as just another meal. When he’s sated, he doesn’t go back for dessert. Until Riley shows up. A Londoner hired through an agency to assist him with activities, she isn’t at all what he asked for. For starters, with the name Riley, he expected a man. But Riley is all woman—the sexiest woman Jago has ever laid eyes on. Unfortunately she dresses like a trollop and curses like a sailor. Though ignorant about most outdoors pursuits, she’s a skilled horsewoman, able to calm even his nerviest stallion. And her lively and generous nature enchants his housekeeper Emily and his ancient friend, Tom.

In short, Jago’s new employee is a bundle of contradictions. Which is why, when Jago falls for her, he doesn’t trust his feelings. Riley seems unusually accident prone, and when her brother’s shady friends menace her, she plays the innocent. But how can anyone so self-sufficient and mouthy also be so trusting and naïve? And can a man with Jago’s volatile nature endure the jealousy a woman like Riley provokes just by strolling down the street?


My Review

Opposites attract.

The dynamic duo of Riley and Jago bring new meaning to the tried and true romantic standard. She's the "cheeky, carefree, happy" one and he's the "orderly, structured, controlled" yin to her yang. She's all emotion, and he can't interpret his feelings to save his life. Their differing personalities set them on a collision course that could potentially lead to heartbreak or the greatest happiness either of them has ever known.

Riley is a spiky-haired, big-chested gal, who's candid, crude and feistily independent. She flees London after getting 'dumped by text.' She quits her bartending job at a lap dance club for a position at an outdoor recreation center in the remote mountains of Wales. She's by no means qualified, but she doesn't care. She needs a change.

Jago is a man's man, rough and course around the edges. He's a loner with a short fuse, but he's the type of guy who stands by his word. When he hires Riley sight unseen based on her name, he assumes that she's a man. When she arrives, he reluctantly agrees to give her a trial run because he expects her to fail. He wants her as far away from him as possible because it's driving him to distraction by how much he finds himself attracted to her.

Although Jago is "a flame to moths, attracting women of all ages" and "a testosterone temple that was ready for worship," he's never had a girlfriend. He's a cold one who never opens up to anyone. When Riley shows up, she confuses him and that makes him angry. He's someone who micromanages his life from his finances to his daily routine and he doesn't know what to make of Riley's "intoxicated mixture of sex and sleaze."

What he doesn't know is that while Riley may dress slutty, she's still a virgin. He unfairly judges her, hating everything her lifestyle stands for, falsely believing that she was a lap dancer just because she worked in the club. She causes "destruction like a whirlwind" around his barn, always having to get the last word in, and she fights back tooth and nail because she's mad that he always tends to think the worst of her.

But they find out they're more alike than they think. Riley starts to fall for the quiet serenity of Jago's ranch, not missing the lights and noise of the city as much as she feared. While Jago begins to learn more about her little by little and he likes what he sees. She's selfless and generous, caring about others more than herself from her no-good brother to a temperamental stallion.

When Riley finally tells him that she loves him, Jago says nothing. He's at a loss. He can't understand his feelings, so he doesn't know how to say it back. He wants to wait until he's certain about how he feels about her, letting his iron grip on his emotions control his heart.

But his selfishness could cost him everything he ever wanted because Riley's okay with who she is. She won't let him change her while he holds fast to the notion that "she had a body he wanted to fall into and a personality he'd need to climb out of." Gradually, he lets down his guard and realizes what a stubborn fool he's been, but does his transformation occur too late? Did he already lose the girl he's come to love?

***

Love on the Menu can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble 
Smashwords

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $13.95 paperback
Pages: 244
Genre: Steamy Cowboy Romance
Release: February 14, 2015
Publisher: Fanny Press
ISBN: 9781603815680
Click to add to your Goodreads list.


About the Author

Ellen March and her husband live on top of a mountain in Wales, which is ideal in the summer but not so much in the winter months or when it rains. She has three grown children, one suicidal cat--it really does have nine lives--and three Alaskan Malamutes. One of her hobbies is showing and working them. Ellen's first love, however, is reading and writing. Since childhood, she has devoured every romance and fantasy she can get her hands on and enjoys acting out her own fantasies in print. Her body of work includes erotic romance, psychological thrillers, and supernatural fantasies. Fanny Press has published three of her erotic romances--Promises, His Girl Friday, and A Ghost of an Affair--and will be publishing more in 2015 and beyond.

Links to connect with Ellen:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Blog Tour Site


About the Giveaway

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Monday, March 2, 2015

Sharon St. George - Due for Discard - Review & Giveaway



About the Book

Aimee Machado is thrilled to be starting her first job as a forensic librarian at the medical center in the town of Timbergate, north of Sacramento, California. Her ebullient mood is somewhat dampened by her recent breakup with her former live-in boyfriend, Nick Alexander. And then there's a little matter of murder: on Aimee's first day on the job, a body is found in a nearby Dumpster and soon identified as her supervisor's wife, Bonnie Beardsley.

Aimee's heartbreaker of a brother and best friend, Harry, just happens to be one of the last people to see Bonnie alive, but he is hardly the only suspect. Bonnie was notorious for her wild partying and man-stealing ways, and she has left a trail of broken hearts and bitterness. Aimee is determined to get her brother off the suspect list.

Aimee's snooping quickly makes her a target. Isolated on her grandparents' llama farm where she fled post-breakup, she realizes exactly how vulnerable she is. Three men have pledged to protect her: her brother Harry, her ex, Nick, and the dashing hospital administrator with a reputation for womanizing, Jared Quinn. But they can't be on the alert every minute, not when Aimee is so bent on cracking the case with or without their help.

Book 1 in a new mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Aimee Machado.


My Review

Aimee Machado is real.

She has a lot of faults. She's not perfect. And that's what makes her interesting.

For a murder mystery, a librarian is a unique choice of sleuth solver, and Aimee herself readily admits, "The only crimes I was qualified to deal with involved library fines."

But Aimee's not just any librarian.

She has a master's degree in the health sciences that includes a special forensic component, making her one of only three people in the United States equipped in such a field. That makes her a boon to Timbergate Medical Center when Dr. Vane Beardsley brings her on board to kickstart a pet project of his, hiring her to get his fledgling hospital research facility up and running.

The only problem is Dr. Beardsley's wife turns up dead just as soon as Aimee takes the job.

Her relationship with her new boss immediately becomes strained when she realizes that Dr. Beardsley doesn't seem to be mourning his wife at all. Instead, he asks her out to dinner, quickly blurring the line between their personal and professional lives.

Aimee is an independent woman with an iron clad rule to never date an employer. She's someone who's struggling to pay her graduate school loans while living in a makeshift apartment above her grandparents' barn. Her job doesn't produce any revenue for the hospital so she knows that she could be axed at any time. She resents how Dr. Beardsley has no qualms about placing her in such a tenuous financial position, but her curiosity to learn if he killed his wife gets the better of her.

At first, she finds herself jealous of the memory of his blonde, curvaceous wife, the incessant gripe running through her mind about how "some women got all the rich guys" while she has to hustle to get by and make a living. So she gives in to an old weakness of hers by making Dr. Beardsley believe she has a fiancé.

It's a telling moment because Aimee has enough self-awareness to know that she usually lies in order to avoid awkward situations, instead of having the courage to face them head on.

But her resolve soon falters and she succumbs to temptation, allowing Dr. Beardsley to take her out. But things don't go well when he abruptly exits the restaurant, leaving her sitting alone at the table, after she starts asking too many probing questions about his family.

She knows how easily forensic evidence can be manipulated, but when she comes outside and sees that her four tires have been slashed, the first thing she thinks about is how she's going to find the money to replace them, instead of the amount of danger she could be in for letting a suspected killer know that she's on to him.

But the thing that really bothers Aimee is how she's allowing Dr. Beardsley to make her feel weak and vulnerable, and she's too relentlessly stubborn to let it go. After the good doctor walks out on her in public, she's determined to see if he really is the murderer or simply a womanizing creep. There's no going back now. After their dinner date went awry, she has to put it all on the line in order to expose the truth, whether it costs her her job, or quite possibly her life.

***

Due for Discard can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $15.95 paperback
Pages: 340
Genre: Detective Murder Mystery
Release: March 1, 2015
Publisher: Camel Press
ISBN: 9781603812238
Click to add to your Goodreads list.


About the Author

Sharon St. George had the good fortune to spend an idyllic childhood in a small northern California town, riding horseback and camping with her family in the nearby mountains. One of her favorite pastimes was reading fiction, and a trip to the library was always an occasion of great joy. She’s traded horses for llamas, but she still treks to the high mountain lakes near her home—always with a mystery novel in her backpack. Sharon’s writing credits include three plays, several years writing advertising copy, a book on NASA’s space food project, and feature stories too numerous to count. She holds dual degrees in English and Theatre Arts, and occasionally acts in, or directs, one of her local community theater productions. Sharon is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, and she serves as program director for Writers Forum, a nonprofit organization for writers in northern California.

Links to connect with Sharon:
Web Site
Goodreads
Blog Tour Site


About the Giveaway

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