Release Blitz: Batter of Wits by Karla Sorensen

“Heartfelt, hilarious, with a dash of angst...Karla Sorensen shines with the perfect feel-good read!” --Author Catherine Cowles

Batter of Wits, an all-new funny and heartwarming romance from Karla Sorensen, is LIVE!

Hate at first sight couldn’t possibly exist, right?

That’s what Grace Buchanan thought, before her useless car stranded her on the side of a deserted road just inside the Green Valley city limits.

When Tucker Haywood—tall and handsome and full of southern charm— shows up to help, her reaction to him is the strongest thing she’s ever felt in her life, and it makes no freaking sense.

It doesn’t make much sense to Tucker either. Not why she hates him, or why he finds her so intriguing. He knows well enough that Grace is moving to Green Valley for a fresh start, not to distract him when he’s got no room for something like her in his life.

The complications between them are endless, but that doesn’t stop her definitely not love-at-first-sight feelings from changing into something else entirely.

Grace and Tucker are about to learn the hard way that in Green Valley, hating someone has never tasted so sweet.

‘Batter of Wits’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #5 in the Donner Bakery series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Download your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/30wAA1J

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2NDSL0j

Amazon CA: https://amzn.to/37cWWrV

Amazon AU: https://amzn.to/2vab3Qz

AppleBooks: https://apple.co/3ajscat

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Kobo: http://bit.ly/2RDMZge

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Coming to Kindle Unlimited on April 27th!

About Karla Sorensen

Karla Sorensen has been an avid reader her entire life, preferring stories with a happily-ever-after over just about any other kind. And considering she has an entire line item in her budget for books, she realized it might just be cheaper to write her own stories. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy…a book, a really big glass of wine, and at least thirty minutes of complete silence every day. She still keeps her toes in the world of health care marketing, where she made her living pre-babies. Now she stays home, writing and mommy-ing full time (this translates to almost every day being a ‘pajama day’ at the Sorensen household…don’t judge). She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two exceptionally adorable sons and big, shaggy rescue dog.

Find Karla Sorensen online

Facebook: http://bit.ly/2lU6xAS

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Website: http://www.karlasorensen.com/

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Stay Home Reading Rush Wrap Up

What is your Reading Rush TBR and did I read it? 

So the big question of every readathon is did your read what was on your TBR?  The answer is kind of.  I finished 2 books and most of the 3rd.  I had every intention of participating in the instagram challenges but I never did.  I'm not very good at this whole social media thing.

Reading Challenges Read a book with a house on the cover.  

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I didn't finish this.  I'm about 60% done with it currently.  I thought it would be a really quick read, but it isn't as fast paced as I thought it would be.  The lead up to why the house is so creepy takes quite a while and it is so far more character driven than anything.  I'm hoping the rest is a bit more paranormal as nothing has really happened yet.

I did do all of my reading on my couch up to this point though.



Read a book set somewhere you wish you could go. 

Read a book that will make you smile.
Read a book in the same room the whole time. 

Batter of Wits by Karla Sorensen - This comes out on the 21st.

You can check out my review here.

This was really cute and it did make me smile.  Everytime Tucker and Grace were out hiking I wanted to be out with them.  It has been overcast, chilly, and windy lately so I appreciated being able to escape to the beauty of the Tennessee wilderness with them.  I still want to go to Donner Bakery.

I read all of this in one spot on my couch

And because I always have an audiobook going, I was also able to finish the League of Gallize Shifters Box Set One by Dianna Love this weekend.  This is the first 2 books in the series.

I believe the ebook box set is free for the remainder of April.

You can check out my review here.

Review: Batter of Wits by Karla Sorensen

Batter of Wits by Karla Sorensen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Have you ever heard of hate at first sight?  Have you ever known someone to have a love curse, but in reverse?  Well Grace Buchanan has both.  She's moving from her crappy job in California to Green Valley with her twin brother to be closer to their dad, aunt, and uncle.  When her car breaks down outside of town and local lawyer Tucker Haywood comes to her rescue, she has such a visceral reaction to him and she doesn't know why.  The Buchanan men are all supposedly cursed in love to find the "one" in a love at first sight kind of thing, but Grace is the only girl in the family born for generations.  She and her twin brother Grady have never really believed in the family curse, but they can't deny what is happening between Tucker and Grace.  Tucker is nothing but kind to Grace and she has no reason to dislike him.  When they are forced to work together on a project for the town fair, Grace realizes he's not that bad and she needs to try harder to be nicer.

I really enjoyed this as expected.  Grace's interactions with her family were really great.  I loved her conversations with her Aunt Fran, her dad, her mom, and her brother.  Each time she spoke with them we got to know her a little bit more and got to see a different facet of her personality.  Tucker is a little more closed off, only opening up when he is with Grace.  We get to seem him open up more and more as he gets more comfortable with her and himself.  He's reserved and respectful when he's around the townsfolk and his family, but when he's with Grace he's witty, funny, and full of personality.  Grace on the other hand always says what she is thinking and wears her heart on her sleeve.  Their relationship comes crashing together fairly quickly, almost too quickly.  When they have conflict around Tucker trying to do the right thing and pleasing everyone around him and going after what he really wants in life and love, it comes as no surprise that people get their feelings hurt.  I really liked that the grand gesture Tucker made to win her back involved Grace's photography, something that she truly loves and showing the town how she sees the world. 

I enjoyed this hate to love, love/hate at first sight, romance.  It has great characters, great side characters, and a good story. 

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Review: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It is always hard to write reviews on memoirs because you don't want to rate and review the a person's experience.  Part of your rating is subjective and has to do with your enjoyment of the book, and this just wasn't for me.  It was repetitive at times, discussing the same books and concepts over, and as it is a memoir it only gives the author's point of view on things.  I found it hard to stay engaged with her writing style as she tells her story.  The structure of the work is intellectual on one page, philosophical on the next page, political on the next page, and they are eating ice cream on the next page.  This style of jumping around doesn't work for me, especially when dealing with intense literary and political topics.  

I expected this to me more about the "bookclub" and while Nafisi does interweave discussions about the books into this, this is more her memoir about the political climate and treatment of women in Tehran.  Now I will say I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this, so maybe I should have done more homework.  I did learn a lot, but it wasn't what I was expecting.  Also, I haven't read many of her favorite works and authors, so maybe I would have been able to follow along with her discussions had I actually read Lolita and some of the other works she talks about.  She writes those parts as though she were teaching her university students, and I felt like I hadn't done my homework.

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Review: League of Gallize Shifters: Box Set One by Dianna Love

League of Gallize Shifters: Box Set One by Dianna Love
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is for both Gray Wolf Mate and Mating a Grizzly. I really enjoyed this boxed set. Since this is a review of both books, I'll review some of the things I that were common in both then review each book individually.

Both books are standalones, but are part of a larger shifter universe that has a common cast of characters with some interwoven plotlines. The box set, ebook and audio, includes books 1 and 2 of the series and you could have read book 2 without having read book 1. The author does a great job explaining the mythology behind the Gallize Shifters and the background you need to pick up the second book without having read the first. I hope this continues with the rest of the series. I'm not a new reader of Dianna Love's and she's always done a good job making sure there is continuity within the series.  I'll let you know if that continues, as I have book 5 which comes out on the

Both of these books get pretty steamy at times so if you are looking for a good paranormal romance with some heat, check this series out. This series is a bit different than other shifter series as not all of the characters shift into the same animal and the animals they turn into have their own personalities. I thought that was a nice touch and something different that you don't normally see in PNR. Both the shifter and their animal have to develop as characters through the story and I thought Love did a really good job making sure the personality of the human and the animal side got ample time for the reader to get to know them and develop. I also appreciate that the women in this story are just as powerful as the men. So far they each have abilities and strengths of their own as well as being intelligent and fierce. The couples compliment each other and make each other stronger.

Gray Wolf Mate - This is a second chance romance featuring a wolf shifter, Cole. Cole belongs to a sort of black ops organization of elite shifters who have powers above and beyond the normal shifter. His college sweetheart, Tess, works for a government organization that studies shifters in an attempt to protect humans. Tess is an extremely fair person so she wants to make sure that the law extends to shifters as well as humans. Cole left her when he found out he was a shifter, knowing that would not sit well with her family. Neither of them have gotten over each other, so when a case brings them back together they have to work together to solve the case and work through their feelings for each other.

Mating a Grizzly - This was actually my favorite of the two books. The narrator did a better job distinguishing between the characters in my opinion than in the first book. There was also a lot more humor in this book than the first one. The bear personalities of Justin and Elianna added some whimsy to the book that really came through in the narration. As you can tell Justin and Elianna are both bear shifters. He works with Cole from book 1 as a member of the Gallize, that black ops elite special forces group of shifters. Elianna is a bastard and an outcast because of her mixed blood. She makes a deal with her father to move to America to protect her brother, and Justin is tasked with protecting her. The two of them immediately don't get along because of their preconceived notions about one another, but they quickly have to get over their issues when it becomes clear that someone is after Elianna.

I really enjoyed this boxed set. I had a hard time putting it down once I got started with the audiobook. I think I listened to both books in 2 days. I'm looking forward to catching up on the rest of the series and finding out about the other members of the Gallize and their mates.

I was provided an audible code in exchange for an honest review. 

The boxset ebook is currently free on most platforms for the remainder of April, so go grab it and check out this entertaining shifter series.

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Review: The New Husband by D.J. Palmer

The New Husband by D.J. Palmer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was just OK.  I won't rehash the synopsis because lots of reviewers have already done that.  I found this very predictable from the first chapter, and I never felt connected with the main character Nina.  When I read a thriller, I want my heart to race and I want to feel compassion and anguish for the main character.  I didn't get that from this.  The pace was too slow, and I felt like Nina was missing the obvious clues and letting all of this happen to her.  I guess that was the point though, Simon was so perfect and so good at manipulation that she didn't even realize it was happening.  Nina was a bit of a contradiction for most of the book, she'd do something independent then feel bad about it and do exactly what she said she wouldn't do.  It made Nina, a woman who is portrayed as intelligent and self sufficient, appear very dumb and weak.    I'm not a fan of characters like this, but again Simon's manipulation of her was a big part of the plot.  Maybe this is realistic, but the way it happens was almost too over the top for me at times.

I liked the addition of Maggie's perspective.  Her interactions with her friend Ben were the best part of the book.  Maggie, as a social outcast befriends a socially awkward boy at school and together they begin to uncover some of Simon's secrets.  Of all of the characters, she showed the most character development and growth.  When Nina finally realizes what is going on and the plot finally starts to unfold, the pace starts to pick up.  There are a few twists, but again I found it very predictable and I didn't feel the suspense.

I loved Saving Meghan, and while this wasn't my favorite thriller I am looking forward to Palmer's future works.

I was provided an ARC via the publisher in exchange for an honest review.  This came out on April 14th.


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Cover Reveal: Black Tangled Heart by Samantha Young

Black Tangled Heart, by New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young is coming May 14, 2020!

To my siblings, Jane was a friend. A pseudo-sister, the girl we grew up with.

To me? She was everything.

Our passion consumed us.

When our world fell apart, I thought our love would be the thing that held us together.

She was the love of my life. But she abandoned me when I needed her most.

And I’ll never forgive her.

For years I’ve been planning my revenge against the people who took everything from me.

Jane won’t be an exception. I’m coming for her.

She knows it.

She says she wants to help me serve my version of justice on the people who hurt me.

I’ll let her.

She probably thinks it will save her from me.

It won’t.

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2y7DmRe

Photography: Regina Wamba

Cover Design: Hang Le

Model: Robb

About Samantha Young:

Samantha Young is a New York Times and #1 International bestselling author from Stirlingshire, Scotland. On Dublin Street was Samantha's first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in thirty countries. She has since published over thirteen romance titles including the New York Times Bestsellers Into the Deep, Hero, and her most recent contemporary romance Fight or Flight. When writing Adult Paranormal romance she writes under the pen name S. Young.

Connect with Samantha Young:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSamanthaYoung/

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Email – authorsamanthayoung@gmail.com

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