Sunday, March 22, 2020

Review: Beefcakes by Katana Collins

Beefcakes Beefcakes by Katana Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you like second-chance romances you need to read this.  This was sweet (no pun intended without being over the top.  The characters felt like real people with real relationship problems.  They lived real lives with real problems.  This was the perfect mixture of romance, comedy, and serious. 

I love it when a couple works through their issues and they actually talk about their problems instead of hiding behind lust and ignoring the bad stuff.  In this book, there is a lot of baggage between main characters Neil and Elaina.  He broke her heart when he left, and if he has any chance of winning her back he has to earn her trust back.  Elaina has been hurt far too many times in her life by people she cared for, and Neil was probably the worst.  She isn't going to make it easy for him to waltz right back into town and win her back with his antics.  I also love it when couples don't change for each other or settle to be something they are not.  Neil loves being a stuntman and loves to bake.  When he was injured on set, his career in the movies was over so he came home to help out with the family cupcake business.  Elaina is the town manager, and she's very serious and business oriented.  The Elaina from high school that Neil used to know was fun and a bit of a party girl.  He wants to know where she went and inspire Elaina to let "Lainey" out because you can be responsible and serious and still have fun sometimes.  All the while Neil is trying to help his mom's struggling business while she is going through cancer treatments and racking up debt.  When Elaina and Neil are thrown together in a crazy TV show that could potentially solve both of their financial issues, they realize that they still have feelings for each other.  They both have issues they will have to face, but the only way they will win is to face them together.

I love to bake, and I need the recipes for Neil's low carb, protein cupcakes in my life.  All of his recipes sound amazing!  Did I mention there are a couple of recipes at the end of the book?  As someone who eats a low carb diet, I'm excited to try them and see how they work out.  The author has even thought through substitutions for sugar alternatives and flour alternatives which makes me a very happy girl!

This is part of the Maple Grove series, but it is 100% standalone.  This is my first book from Katana Collins and I didn't find myself lost or confused by not having read the other books in the series.  I actually had no idea there were more books until I got to the end of this book and there were links to more books which I will of course be reading in the future.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.  This book will be published on March 24, 2020.


View all my reviews

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Release Blitz: BEEF CAKE by Jiffy Kate


DB04-BANNER-FB-RB

“I was all in with this slow burn romance that had me laughing and swooning from cover to cover” --Author Andrea Johnston


Beef Cake, an all-new small town contemporary romance from Jiffy Kate, is LIVE!

DB04-BC-EBOOK

If opposites do actually attract, then Gunnar Erickson and Frankie Reeves take the cake.
Frankie Reeves is complicated, even though she won’t admit it. She fills her days working as an ER nurse, taking care of her mom, and searching for the father she never knew. Anything else has no place in her perfectly compartmentalized, purposefully simple life. Attachments? No thank you. She has no time for that.

Gunnar Erickson recently moved to Green Valley to train at Viking MMA with his brother Cage. Being the youngest of the Erickson clan, he’s always felt like he has something to prove, and now that he’s finished with college, it’s his time to shine. But before he can step into the ring, a freak accident sends him to the ER and into the care of one Frankie Reeves.

While he’s immediately smitten, she pretends to be unfazed by this six-foot-three, two hundred and thirty-pound beef cake. Gunnar sets out to prove to Frankie that, not only does she like him more than she wants to admit, but he’s not the uneducated, brute she assumes he is. To Frankie, he’s the worst kind of complication, but that doesn’t make it easy to stay away.

‘Beef Cake’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #4 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

DB04-LIVE

Download your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/38ipiAU
Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/364MzVJ
Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/30tZjUD
Amazon AU: https://amzn.to/2FX2D15
AppleBooks: https://apple.co/2v1XUZN
Nook: http://bit.ly/362QLFs
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2R6dITC
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2NRZDYj
Amazon Print: https://amzn.to/2SLqHev
Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2NClJxQ

About Jiffy Kate

Jiffy Kate is the joint pen name for Jiff Simpson and Jenny Kate Altman. They’re co-writing besties who share a brain. They also share a love of cute boys, stiff drinks, and fun times.

Together, they’ve written over twenty stories. Their first published book, Finding Focus, was released in November 2015. Since then, they’ve continued to write what they know–southern settings full of swoony heroes and strong heroines.

JKJKJKJKJ

Find Jiffy Kate online

SPR logo FINALresize

Connect with Smartypants Romance


Monday, March 16, 2020

Review: Beef Cake by Jiffy Kate

Beef Cake Beef Cake by Jiffy Kate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review.  This book comes out tomorrow, March 17, 2020 and is the first of the Smartypants Spring 2020 releases.  There will be a new book each Tuesday for the next several weeks.

If you've read Stud Muffin, you will remember Cage mentioning he had a younger brother who was also training to be an MMA fighter. Well, Cage finally has his own gym up and running and his younger brother, Gunnar has moved to Green Valley to train and teach some classes to the locals. Gunnar is used to being pushed hard by his three older brothers, and he's willing to put in the work to be the best. When a random accident at the gym sends him to the ER for stitches, he finds himself drawn to the beautiful yet complicated Frankie. Frankie is an ER nurse who has a complicated past and ties to the Iron Wraiths. She is trying to uncover things she can't remember from her childhood, and the last thing she wants is some meathead MMA fighter flirting with her. When Gunnar lays on the charm, she finds that there is more to him than she gave him credit for.

I really enjoyed this. Both of the characters were complex and I liked that their romance developed at a nice pace. I love that this covers difficult topics such as domestic abuse, drug use, mental health, and more in such a relatable way. Frankie has been through a lot in her life, and while she's surviving, she's not really living. It isn't until she meets Gunnar that she starts to let her defenses down and starts to really experience life. With those experiences come traumatic memories from the past that she has to face with to move forward. I also really appreciated the way that Gunnar never gave up on her, he gave her the space and permission she needed to deal with things the way she needed to in every situation.

I do wish this had more interaction at the actual bakery. I really just loved those characters and the baking aspect, but they only talk about they bakery in passing as neither of the characters work there. That's OK, we do get mention of it and Tempest is still creating her crazy muffins. This offering is fairly independent of the the original Pennyverse. That in no way is a deterrent from reading the story, it is actually nice to see the authors take the original beloved world of Green Valley and make something wholly unique.

This book is a complete standalone. You do not need to have read the previous books in The Donner Bakery Series to follow along. You should read them because they are also great!

View all my reviews

Review: Havenfall

Havenfall Havenfall by Sara Holland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.  This book was released on March 3, 2020.

This was a fun YA fantasy that takes place in the mountains of Colorado at a magical inn called Havenfall. Havenfall in kind of the central hub for several different magical worlds, and is a safe and neutral location for the inhabitants of other magical worlds to congregate. Each summer, delegates from each world meet at Havenfall, with the Innkeeper remaining the neutral party and helping to broker deals between worlds and keep things running smoothly. Maddie's uncle is the current Innkeeper, and she hopes to run Havenfall someday. When Marcus is mysteriously injured and strange things keep happening at the inn, Maddie finds herself stepping into the role earlier than she planned.

This has a good mix of fantasy elements. The magic system is interesting, and I really liked the premise of each world having its own unique magic with Havenfall being neutral ground. I also appreciated that this kept you on your toes. Maddie wasn't sure who to trust and what was really going on at the inn as she was trying to keep the inn and its guest safe. I do wish she had more self confidence and didn't blame herself for everything. I prefer stronger female characters, and Maddie presented as a character that wants to be stronger than she is, but just can't put her past behind her. To be fair, she went through some traumatic stuff as a child and teen. She also never asks anyone for help. By the end of the book she is starting to develop into the person she wants to be and the strong young woman she will need to be to run the inn and fix what's going on at Havenfall. I think she has a lot of potential! I think the character development, while slow was good and will continue to develop in the next installment.

This was a bit slow for me. It took quite a while to reveal and develop some things that I had figured out very early on in the book. That being said, they did eventually develop and were explained. Because things develop over time, there is no big info dump in the final chapters to shock you and leave your head spinning at the end. The book closes nicely with no major cliffhanger, just the promise of more to come as there is alot left unsettled at Havenfall after the incidents in this book. I am looking forward to seeing where the author takes this series in the future.

View all my reviews

Monday, March 9, 2020

Review: Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco

Wicked As You Wish Wicked As You Wish by Rin Chupeco
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was really fun, and the chapter headings were some of the best I've seen. Chupeco takes fairy tale elements from some of the most beloved stories and uses them as elements in this adventure. She also weaves in her Filipino heritage and traditions into the story and characters in such a big way. I will say as someone not versed in that culture, I often had no idea what the characters were talking about when they were making reference to certain foods or things that would seem very natural to someone part of the culture. A bit of an explanation of what they were doing, eating, or wearing would have been helpful. It did make me go look all that stuff up, so if that was her goal, she succeeded in teaching me something.

Chupeco uses this novel to make a lot of social commentary and political statements. There are quite a few references to racial inequality, political corruption, and moral compass. While this does take place partially in a fairytale setting, there are some parallels with the real world. I think this is important for young readers especially if it gets them talking about big topics.

Because the author chose to utilize familiar fairy tale characters that we already know, there are a lot of characters to keep track of. I often find that when there are so many characters, they end up lacking development. This was the case here. I would have loved to see more development in the Bandersnatchers in particular. I hope to see them develop further in the next book. The plot meanders around quite a bit, causing the pace to lose steam in places. Everytime the group seems to be focused on their current task something derails them and no one seems to quite be in charge to get them back on track.

Overall, I really like the concept of this story and I'm looking forward to where it goes next. There are quite a lot of unanswered questions. The end was pretty unexpected, it was a pretty great twist that I don't think anyone saw coming.

View all my reviews

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Blog Tour: Kiss of Vengeance by S. Young


A standalone paranormal romance from New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young, writing as S. Young.



This post was supposed to go up this morning, but apparently I forgot to hit publish on the post when I put it together the other day.  Better late than never right?  

Review

This is the second book in the True Immortality series by S. Young. This is a slow burn paranormal romance. Our characters, Fionn and Rose, are drawn to each other the first time they see each other, but they brush it off as lust. Fionn has lived for centuries and is driven by a quest for vengeance, while Rose is a nomad. She has always felt that she was looking for something that was missing in her life. When Fionn mysteriously shows up, Roses is trust into the world of the paranormal that she never knew existed but she has always secretly been apart of. Rose may be the key to Fionn finally achieving his revenge against the Queen of the Fae, however the more time they spend together the more he realizes he may not be able to sacrifice her for his vengeance. The bigger question is will he be able to give up his quest for revenge in order to keep her? You have to read the book to find out.

It is no secret that I'm a huge fan of Samantha's books. I am so happy she's decided to return to the paranormal romance genre. I loved this. The characters were well developed. As always, Sam writes great banter between her characters and she always creates excellent side characters that you'd want on your team in a dire situation. The story has a good pace and the plot developed nicely, giving Fionn's backstory as he and Rose get to know each other. We really get to know why he's so angry and why he feels vengeance is his only option. I really like that she's using all different sorts of paranormal creatures in this series. I also appreciated that this book tied back to the first one. This is 100% a standalone, but it does make mention to things that happened in the first book. It isn't necessary, but I recommend reading War of Hearts not because you need to, but because it's a good book. I'm really looking forward to the next book.

Excerpt


A thudding, prolonged bass, followed by electronic pop filled the club. The ethereal voice of Ruelle echoed around the room. Rose knew the song. It was called “Live Like Legends.”

She looked out into the crowd of dancers to see they were writhing together, their movements becoming more sexual as the music built to a crescendo. Wondering at the strange feeling that had descended over her, Rose searched the dancers for something—she didn’t know what. Perhaps for something that was out of place in the sixteenth-century building turned nightclub.

“Hej, ti, naša pića!” A customer snapped his fingers in her face.

It successfully yanked her from her study of the dancers. “Don’t snap your fingers at me.” She didn’t care if he couldn’t understand her. Her tone was of the universal language of, “I don’t take shit from anyone.”

He sneered but thankfully shut up.

She’d just finished serving the rude guy when the music hit its peak, the bass and drums deep and booming, strings—most likely violins—frenzied, beautiful, and the electronic pop sound Ruelle was known for building to a climax in the same style of an epic movie trailer. Awareness scored her spine, turning the damp, warm skin of her nape cool. It felt like strong fingers clasping her neck. 

The feeling was so ridiculously powerful, for a moment Rose thought there was someone touching her. She spun away from the cash register, nostrils flaring as she took in the space around her, finding not even her colleagues near. Both Petra and Josip were on the other side of the circle.

And that’s when she felt it.

Like all the air had evacuated the room.

Chest tight, Rose gasped as her gaze shifted over the parting crowds. Her feet moved without her command, stumbling toward the bar counter—as though someone had tied a rope around her, lassoing her. Holding her captive.

Then she saw him.

Head and shoulders above everyone else, she saw a hulking figure, hair of indiscriminate color illuminated every few seconds by the dancing beams of light. The crowd parted for him as he glided through the sea of bodies. For such a big man, he moved gracefully, light as air, impossibly so … almost otherworldly. 

Longish hair framed his bold face, the ends tickling his angular jawline. His nose was a sharp blade to match the sharp angles of his cheekbones. Thick stubble covered the lower half of his face, surrounding a mouth pressed tight with concentration as his head swung from left to right, as though he were searching for something or someone.

Rose swallowed hard, her mouth dry. The man was mammoth. He had to be over six and a half feet tall. If his height wasn’t enough to draw attention, the way he dressed was. The club was hot, yet he swept through the rabble wearing a dark three-piece suit and a long, black wool overcoat. 

He paused, his heavy brows drawing together. His body language reminded her of an animal catching a scent, alert, rigid—a hunter beneath that civilized attire. Then his head snapped in her direction and their eyes locked.

An invisible weight slammed into Rose’s chest, and she wheezed. Thankfully, the loss of breath lasted seconds, and she sucked in a huge gulp of air. “Fuck,” she whispered, shaking as the stranger continued to stare at her.

The lasers of light bounced off his face, highlighting eyes so green they couldn’t be human.

It’s the lasers, Rose told herself. No one’s eyes are that color unless they’re wearing contacts.

Nothing, however, explained the intensity of feeling that held her still beneath the man’s regard.


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Add it Goodreads – http://bit.ly/2pjjKF2
Apple Books – https://apple.co/2MFzUAC
Kindle US – https://amzn.to/2M8JjSq
Kindle Worldwide – mybook.to/KissOfVengeance



ABOUT THE AUTHOR
S. Young is the pen name for Samantha Young, a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Stirlingshire, Scotland. She’s been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestseller On Dublin Street. On Dublin Street was Samantha’s first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in twenty-eight languages in thirty countries. True Immortality is Samantha’s first adult paranormal series written under the name S. Young.

Visit Samantha Young online at

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Release Day Launch: Kiss of Vengeance by S. Young



A standalone paranormal romance from New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young, writing as S. Young.


Fionn Mór was once a high king of Ireland; a fierce warrior who led his tribes against the invading fae. It was a war he couldn’t win and to save his family he turned consort for the Fae Queen. Fionn escaped as the thing he once despised, and the people he loved betrayed him for it. Now, centuries later, it’s time to reopen the gates to Faerie to take his revenge against the Faerie Queen.

At sixteen Rose Kelly discovered family secrets that changed her forever. Years after, she’s still lost, traveling across Europe in search of that elusive missing ‘something’. When she’s attacked by a vampire, not only is she wrenched into a supernatural underworld she never knew existed, a knock on the head releases a spell on her mind and unlocks powers beyond her wildest imaginings. And with them more questions. Questions Fionn Mór claims to have answers to.

Following the powerful and enigmatic Fionn to Ireland, Rose quickly realizes she’s a pawn in his plan for vengeance. What begins as a passionate battle of wills leads to an inexplicable but undeniable connection. One that will force them to face an impossible choice between the deepest love… and the darkest revenge.






DOWNLOAD LINKS


Add it Goodreads – http://bit.ly/2pjjKF2

Apple Books – https://apple.co/2MFzUAC


Kindle Worldwide – mybook.to/KissOfVengeance








ABOUT THE AUTHOR



S. Young is the pen name for Samantha Young, a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Stirlingshire, Scotland. She’s been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestseller On Dublin Street. On Dublin Street was Samantha’s first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in twenty-eight languages in thirty countries. True Immortality is Samantha’s first adult paranormal series written under the name S. Young.

Visit Samantha Young online at