COVER REVEAL: Always You by Samantha Young

Samantha Young has revealed the cover for Always You !

Releasing: April 28, 2022

Cover Designer: Hang Le

Photographer: Regina Wamba

Arrochar Adair has loved her brother's ex-bodyguard and best friend, Mac Galbraith, for years. Once upon a time, she was too young for him, but now that she's a mature woman in her thirties, Arro can see no issue with their difference in age. Yet something deeper, a problem much more difficult to surmount, is keeping them apart.

Mac Galbraith remembers clearly the night Arro became everything to him, no longer just his best friend and boss's younger sister. However, having made many mistakes over the years, there is one mistake Mac is determined not to make: to believe that he is worthy of Arrochar Adair. Allowing them to grow closer during his daughter, Robyn's, return has proven his undoing. And when Arro forces the subject of their relationship, his response pushes her away. He just never meant for it to destroy them completely.

Devastated by Mac's final rejection, Arro is determined to move on without him in her life, though he seems intent on staying put. And when the Adair family face a new threat, one that may have ties to Mac's past, Arro can't seem to be rid of the man. In fact, Mac will do anything to protect her.

But with so much hurt between them, will Arro let Mac close enough to guard her from their enemy... before it's too late?

 

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Meet Samantha

Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She's been nominated for several Goodreads Choice Awards. Samantha writes adult contemporary and paranormal romance, YA urban fantasy and YA contemporary fiction and is currently published in 31 countries.
She resides in Scotland.

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Review: Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards

Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If you are looking for a relatively fast paced YA thriller, check this out.  It takes place over the course of about 24 hours, and just about everything goes wrong for these 5 strangers.  I do feel like younger readers will really enjoy this and that I am not the target demographic for this type of thriller.  I do enjoy the occasional YA thriller, but the characters here were a bit too immature for my taste.  I think some of the things that bother me about the characters (immaturity, poor decision making, panic in certain situations) would really appeal to a younger reader.   I don't identify with that demographic, so those character elements don't appeal to me.  That being said, this did keep me interested and engaged.

This follows Mira, a high schooler on her way home for Christmas.  She makes it from California to New Jersey when her next flight gets grounded due to a winter storm.  Her seatmate from the plane offers to let her catch a ride across Pennsylvania so she can get home for Christmas.  Mira, opts to go along with her despite being slightly put off by riding with 4 strangers.  What is the worst thing that could happen, right?  Not only is the weather taking a turn for the worse, but at ever step of the journey things go wrong on the drive.  This puts the passengers on edge and starts to make everyone suspicious of one another of sabotaging their drive to get home for the holiday.  The thriller aspect wasn't too bad, the author keeps giving us different breadcrumbs to mislead us as to who the culprit could be.  Mira and her four new friends are all really stressed out and that really comes through.   Each of the characters has a good narrative of why they aren't at fault for the things that are going wrong on their journey.  I don't want to spoil it, but if you are looking for a decent YA thriller that doesn't have sex or gore, and is relatively non-violent, give this a go.  

I did appreciate that there were mentions of places that I knew in this book.  I grew up in Pittsburgh, very close to Beltzhoover, this is where our main character Mira is from.  This location plays no part in the story other than it is Mira's destination, but it was kind of cool to see a place I know mentioned in a book.  

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire to providing me a paperback copy of this book.  I did end up listening to the audio version during the The Big Library Read in November 2021.  Whether you read the print book or listen to the audio, the execution of the creepy letters from Mira's "admirer" is done really well.

View all my reviews

Review: Kiss To Remember by Anna B. Doe

Kiss To Remember by Anna B. Doe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided and ARC via the author, all opinions are my own.

I highly recommend you read Kiss Before Midnight, the prequel novella before you read this. While not required it certainly sets up the events of this book and explains where we meet Grace at the beginning of this book. Grace Shelton has started her freshman year at Blairwood, she is hoping that this is the fresh start she needs after having her heartbroken at 16. Her first love went missing and she's never really recovered from it, she is determined to put Mason and her feelings behind her and start fresh now that she is in college. She is all set to move forward when she literally runs into Mason's doppleganger Trent Remington. Trent looks exactly like Mason, but he doesn't recognize Grace at all. Needless to say, this brings up all of the emotional turmoil Grace wanted to put behind her. When Trent and his girlfriend seem to pop up everywhere Grace and her friends are, she can't seem to move on and put Mason to rest. The more she gets to know Trent, she sees similarities to Mason but he's not Mason.

Trent has no idea who Grace is, however he is drawn to her despite the fact that he has a girlfriend. There is just something familiar about her, plus they are always running into each other. He enlists Grace to help him pass his French class so he can stay on the basketball team. This of course leads to drama with the girlfriend. It is also unfair to Grace as she sees so much of Mason in him, but he's not the boy she used to know. Their relationship is filled with angst as they try to figure out what they want from each other and who they want to be moving forward. They also have to deal with Trent's constant migraine headaches as he navigates the stress of school, his relationships, and basketball.

I really enjoyed this, and had a hard time putting it down. I was really invested in the story. This has some good twists and turns as well. I do have a few pieces of feedback. I did think that Grace's obsession with Mason was a bit over the top. I did appreciate that she started to stand up for herself at some point, she gets her heart broken a lot in this book. I did feel that the reveal and the ending were a bit rushed. I kind of expected some of the events in the reveal, and I thought the way it was executed was good. The ending wrapped up in about the last 100 pages and given the lead up to the ending I felt it could have had a bit more time to resolve.

I do really enjoy this series and I highly recommend it. All of the books are standalones with interconnected characters. You can read the books in any order, but I do recommend reading any connected prequels associated with the full novel and any bonus epilogues to get the full story.
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Review: Beard in Hiding by Penny Reid

Beard in Hiding by Penny Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC via the author, all opinions are my own. This book was published November 16, 2021 and is available for purchase now.

We were first introduced to the concept of Diane Donner and Mr. Repo in a short story during the holidays of 2016. Penny wrote a short story that was posted on Nocturnal Book Reviews. It can also be found in A Beardy Bonus: Bonus and deleted scenes from the Winston Brothers Series, which is a collection of all of the short stories and bonus content from the Pennyverse. As the synopsis states, this is not really a standalone, you will want to have read Truth or Beard, Beard Science, Engagement and Espionage, and Marriage and Murder prior to reading this to really get an understanding of the events that are taking place and not be spoiled. I think you could still read this on its own, but it will spoil things in the other books, and you might be confused about certain things, but Penny does a good job giving you enough info to follow along.

I was pleasantly surprised that this was a full length novel. I'm not sure why I thought this was a novella, but it is in fact a fully developed novel about Dianne and Jason (aka Repo) from beginning to end. If you have been keeping up with the Winston Brothers and Solving for Pie series as I have, you probably don't like Diane Donner very much. If you've read the books up to this point as I mentioned above, you will know why and there is a reason. She is just starting to redeem herself and in this book we get to know her a bit better as she begins to discover life post divorce. Her ex was a bit of a tyrant, who Diane was eager to please and wanted his approval to the detriment of her relationships with both of her children and those around her. Now that she is recovering from her divorce she wants to have a little fun, so she takes a trip to the local motorcycle bar in search of a little fun and maybe some danger. She finds Repo, who's real name is Jason, who happens to be part of the notorious Iron Wraiths motorcycle club, he's a criminal and she knows it. Repo doesn't want Diane to get hurt, but when she propositions him one thing leads to another and they have a connection atleast for one night. A year passes and they meet again, but this time they decide to take things slow and get to know one another. This is where this book really shines, we get to know them both as people, which we didn't in the previous books. While they may seem like an unusual couple, romance readers know that opposites attract and this is the case here. Jason has a soft side despite his gruff exterior, and Diane is tough as nails when she needs to be. They both complement each other nicely and I really enjoyed getting to know them and watch their relationship develop. We get a ton of backstory that leads up to the events that take place in the other books. I think Penny did a masterful job making sure the storylines matched up without rewriting scenes from the other books verbatim.

This was amazing as are all of Penny's books! I can't wait to see what she has in store for us next! I hope we get an Isaac book soon! He and Hank Weller are the two characters I am most anxious to read about. I know Hank is getting a book in the Good Folk series, but I'm not sure about Isaac. I do highly recommend this book and all of the other books in the Winston Brother series and the Solving for Pie books!

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Review: Restraint by Adriana Locke

Restraint by Adriana Locke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first of many wonderful books in the Mason family series. I've read all of the other books in the series to date, but I hadn't read Blaire and Holt's story.

The narration was awesome! Wen Ross plays the male parts in many of Adriana Locke's audiobooks, and he has a great voice for narration. He did a great job with Holt and the Mason brothers. Kelsey Navarro was an excellent Blaire, she had sass where she needed to and was vulnerable and emotional when the time called.

Hold and Blaire literally run into each other at the airport. Blaire is in Savannah for a few days on vacation. She is a bit of a workaholic, so her brothers sent her away to rest and recuperate from her busy life as a lawyer. Holt is a workaholic as well, he's co-CEO of Mason Limited with his brother Oliver, and running the company and making business deals takes all of his time and attention. Both Blaire and Holt have baggage from previous relationships, and want nothing to do with anything more serious than a single night. They are both career focused, however they are insanely attracted to each other, so when an opportunity presents itself for a one night stand to extend itself, they take the opportunity to enjoy each others company. I really enjoyed that while they had great chemistry and there were plenty of scenes that were NSFW, that all of their time together was not spent between the sheets. After their first night together, Holt and Blaire spend time getting to know each other with tons of great banter. This leads them both to open up to each other about tough emotional situations. As their week of romantic bliss draws to an end, it has them both thinking about their future together. Can they make it work long distance? Do they want to try a long distance relationship? Do they even want to be in a relationship? Are they moving too fast?

As with the rest of the Mason books, this had me hooked right away. I was invested in Blaire and Holt and if they would put aside their work commitments to give love a chance. This had a little bit of angst, but not too much. They both had to deal with their own baggage before they could come to terms with their feelings for each other despite only knowing each other for a few days. While this did have a bit of an insta-love feel, they did spend quite a bit of the book getting to know each other and sometimes when you know, you know. I felt this was really well executed and I had a hard time putting it down.

While this has character ties to the Gibson and Landry series, it can be read as a complete standalone. I've read all of the Mason series out of order, and I'm so happy to have finally read Blaire and Holt's story. I love the whole series and highly recommend them on audio or in print. The whole family is a riot and I have been completely invested in each of the brothers and their stories. This was no exception

I received an audible code from the author, all opinions are my own.

View all my reviews

RELEASE BLITZ: BEARD IN HIDING by Penny Reid

 

Beard in Hiding, an all-new companion novel to the bestselling Winston Brothers and Solving for Pies series is LIVE! Penny Reid delivers a heartfelt romantic comedy about two lost souls who find love in the most unexpected way.  

Propositioning the Iron Wraiths’ money man seemed like a good idea at the time…

Diane Donner—recently divorced pillar of polite society—is craving danger. She’s tired of playing it safe and she knows just the sexy criminal motorcycle man to proposition for a good time. Problem is, she doesn’t actually know his name.

Jason “Repo” Doe never takes risks. So when the queen of local commerce walks into his club, looking to get risky and frisky, Jason knows the smartest thing to do is save himself a headache while saving the new divorcee from her worst impulses.

But then one thing leads to another, and the memory of just-one-night doesn’t feel like enough.

Theirs is a story with no future, because how can a dangerous criminal win (and keep) a queen?

‘Beard In Hiding’ is book #4.5 in the Winston Brothers series, is a full length contemporary romantic comedy about two lost souls in their 40s, and is a companion novel to the Winston Brothers and Solving for Pie series.

If you want to get the full immersive Green Valley world experience, I recommend reading ‘Truth or Beard,’ ‘Beard Science,’ ‘Engagement and Espionage,’ and ‘Marriage and Murder’ beforehand. ‘Beard In Hiding’ contains spoilers for these four books (in specific).

Grab your copy TODAY!

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Start the Winston Brothers series TODAY!

Now in Kindle Unlimited!

https://pennyreid.ninja/series/winston-brothers/

About Penny Reid

Penny Reid is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of the Winston Brothers and Knitting in the City series. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she writes kissing books. Penny is an obsessive knitter and manages the #OwnVoices-focused mentorship incubator / publishing imprint, Smartypants Romance. She lives in Seattle Washington with her husband, three kids, and dog named Hazel.

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Release Blitz: Jonah Bennett by Tijan

 

Jonah Bennett, an all new emotional and thrilling novella from New York Times bestselling author Tijan and 1,001 Dark Nights, is available now!

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Tijan comes a new story in her Bennett Mafia universe…

Jonah Bennett wasn’t like his family. The mafia business was firmly what his brothers did, not him.

That changed the day a rival family killed his fiancée.

**Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you'll enjoy each one as much as we do.**

Grab your copy today, exclusively on Amazon!
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About Tijan
Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing later in life and once she started, she was hooked. She’s written multi-bestsellers including the Carter Reed Series, the Fallen Crest Series, and the Broken and Screwed Series among others. She is currently writing a new series from north Minnesota where she lives with an English Cocker she adores.

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