Blog Tour Review: SECOND CHANCES 101 by Donna K. Weaver (Ripple Effect Romance, #5)

  

    

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Second Chances 101 by Donna K. Weaver Thirty seven year old Francie Davis, a recent widow and empty nester, gets to attend college at last. She’s sure her luck has changed when she also lands a job on campus that will pay her tuition, as administrative assistant to a history professor. When her handsome new boss yells at her on the first day of work, Francie worries she will never be good enough. For Professor Alex Diederik, life is going downhill fast. Not only is his bitter ex-wife trying to poison their only daughter against him, but now his one place of solace—his work environment—is being complicated by his attractive new administrative assistant. She drives home his feelings of failure as a husband and father, and Alex wonders if hiring her was the right thing to do. Francie will have to put aside her hurt and insecurities or risk her dreams, while Alex must look outside himself if he’s to mend the breach with his daughter. And, perhaps, find someone who can help heal his pain.
 

My Review:

Audience: Adult (Clean)

Genre: Romance, Novella

Length: 133 pgs

Rating: ***** (I really loved it!)

Review: This book definitely stands out from the others. One, the protagonists are older, so it's a fun new romance of two people who have loved, and in a sense, lost that love. I LOVED exploring Francie and Alex's lives. I loved the friendship between Francie and Alex's daughter. The only thing I could have asked for is that this be a full-length novel because I wanted to see so much more from them both. How did Alex's ex-wife become so harsh and cruel? And the same for Francie's late husband.

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Author Donna K. Weaver Donna K. Weaver has always loved reading and creating stories, thus she’s been ever entertained. An avid cruiser, she’s sailed the Pacific five times. Wife-mother-grandmother-Army veteran-karate black belt-Harry Potter nerd.

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  Blog Tour Giveaway $25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash Ends 5/26/14 Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: SIX MONTHS LATER by Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire, 2013)

From Amazon: She Has Everything She Ever Wanted. But Not Her Memory...

When Chloe fell asleep in study hall, it was the middle of May. When she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can't remember the last six months of her life.

Before, she'd been a mediocre student. Now, she's on track for valedictorian and being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he's her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won't speak to her.

What happened to her? Remembering the truth could be more dangerous than she knows...

Audience: YA
Genre: YA Thriller, Mystery, Romance
Length: 336 pgs

Rating: *** (I liked it)

Review: This may seem unfair, and maybe I talked about it in a recent review, but I can't remember. I rated down because of the language. In this case, I felt like it drew away from the story and from the character. Let me explain just a bit. I listened to a podcast once about using swearing in writing-it came from a grammar point of view, not a religious one or something like that. It talked about how the more frequent a word is used, the less impact it has. The narrator swore so much, that it lost all impact for what she wanted to get across. For example, when the two main characters finally kiss, the male MC says, "Damn it," and pulls her toward him. It should have been a huge build up of this really tense moment, but it was so lackluster because that word and others had been used so often, it didn't haven an impact anymore.

Beyond that, a good book. I liked the characters and how the main character rated the girls more for how nice they were than if they were popular or not, and how she admitted to liking popular girls a little, maybe not loving them, but not putting them into extreme categories like so many YAs do. The relationships with Blake and Adam are just how they should be I think. For the most part, the pacing was really well. For a chunk in the middle it felt like things stagnated but then it picked back up again so that I didn't want to quit reading from about three-fourths through on.

Content: 

Sex 2/5 (Long kissing scenes, being implied that perhaps she and Blake had sex in the months she forgot)

Language 5/5 (Frequent use of D, H, S, and God in vain; A few Bs; One F-bomb.)

Violence 2/5 (Fight scenes, people dying, mystery and thriller related violence that fit the book)

Overall rating - PG-16

Try this. Like YA Mystery Thrillers? Read BREAKING BEAUTIFUL or DEAD GIRLS DON'T LIE by Jennifer Shaw Wolf.

Cover Reveal: THE PAPER MAGICIAN by Charlie Holmberg

I still remember the day I *met* Charlie. She left a comment on a post I'd written about THE GAME PLAN and how it was inspired by BYU basketball player Jimmer Fredette. She said she'd been at BYU while he was and been in on the hype. It was friendship at first sight. I immediately went over to Twitter and found her.

When Charlie got her agent, I was very excited for her. Then her book sold. MORE EXCITEMENT! Today I am so happy to be part of revealing the cover for Charlie's book, THE PAPER MAGICIAN.

About the book: Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.
 Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.
 An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.
 From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages.

And now, the cover...

SO pretty, right??

Congrats, Charlie! So excited for you!

Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. In addition to writing fantasy novels, she is also a freelance editor. She graduated from BYU, plays the ukulele, owns too many pairs of glasses, and hopes to one day own a dog. The Paper Magician is her debut novel and the first in a whimsical series exploring a world of magicians who animate manmade materials. She currently lives with her family in Utah * CharlieNHolmberg.com

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Blog Tour Review: LOST AND FOUND by Karey White (Ripple Effect Romance, Book 4)

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Lost and Found by Karey White Lydia was supposed to have an adventurous and exciting summer. Instead she's done nothing more than read and eat takeout. Now it's time to go home, and what does she have to show for it? A big fat nothing. Unless, of course, her trip to the airport somehow turns into something more than just a flight home. Blake feels like he's been sent on a wild goose chase. While work is piling up back in Denver, he's on the other side of the country, hunting for some mysterious box that his grandfather left him. Well, no more. Nothing inside that box could possibly be more important than the opportunity to make it as the youngest partner at his firm. So he's going home, and that's that. But that's before he discovers his flight has been cancelled. When these two strangers meet at the airport, they make a split-second decision to search for the box together. Maybe with both of them on the hunt, Lydia can have her adventure and Blake can find the box. And maybe, if they’re lucky, they’ll even find some romance.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Kobo

My Review

Audience: Adult (Clean)
Genre: Romance
Length: 144 pgs

Rating: ***+ (I really liked it)

Review: This one had a really fun premise: three days for a couple to get to know each other while on a treasure hunt, and I enjoyed how it all played out. I liked seeing Blake unroll a little at a time and open up to Lydia. I loved that she went out on the ledge for him and pushed herself. **SPOILER** I was disappointed that near the end it was Blake who ended up coming to Lydia, instead of giving her the chance to show how she'd grown and become strong with him. I understood that she needed to see him giving up his work, and that Blake needed her to see that, but Lydia spent the whole story coming out of her shell and being adventurous, and then at the end she didn't get the chance to really nail it.

 
Author Karey White Karey is a USA Today best-selling author. She grew up in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Missouri. She attended Ricks College and Brigham Young University. Her first novel, Gifted, was a Whitney Award Finalist. She loves to travel, read, cook, and spend time with family and friends. She and her husband are the parents of four wonderful children.  

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The Ripple Effect Romance Novella Series Enjoy this exciting new series of clean novellas by six critically-acclaimed authors. "Like a pebble tossed into calm water, a simple act can ripple outward and have a far-reaching effect on those we meet, perhaps setting a life on a different course—one filled with excitement, adventure, and sometimes even love." Book 1: Home Matters by Julie N. Ford Book 2: Silver Linings by Kaylee Baldwin Book 3: Righting A Wrong by Rachael Anderson Book 4: Lost and Found by Karey White Book 5: Second Chances 101 by Donna K. Weaver Book 6: Immersed by Jennifer Griffith

Tour Giveaway

$25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash Ends 5/12/14 a Rafflecopter giveaway    

 

Review: A WINTER SEA by Susanna Kearsley

From Amazon: History has all but forgotten...In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown.

Now, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn that story into her next bestselling novel. Settling herself in the shadow of Slains Castle, she creates a heroine named for one of her own ancestors and starts to write.

But when she discovers her novel is more fact than fiction, Carrie wonders if she might be dealing with ancestral memory, making her the only living person who knows the truth-the ultimate betrayal-that happened all those years ago, and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her...

Audience: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction, Paranormal
Length: 544 pgs.

Rating: ***+ (Really liked it)

Review: First off, I've read some reviews who have trouble with the way this book alternates between the present and past in the POVs. I personally loved it. After only a few chapters, I got to where I could tell the author was about to shift again, making the transition really smooth. I loved the romance between Sophia and Moray, and though I doubted and thought I'd hate the ending, it turned into something that I really loved. **SPOILER** In the end, Sophia has to send her baby to trusted friends to keep her safe and pretend as though the baby isn't hers. I hated this, probably because my personal opinion is that if I wanted my kids safe, that safety would only be with me. Probably the biggest reason I rated it lower. **END SPOILER** I wanted to see more of the contemporary romance with Graham. All I really got was that Carrie was inexplicable drawn to him and that she was physically attracted to him, and then only small bits about why she fell in love with him. Sometimes the narrative falls into something akin to a history lesson, though it fits in. Hard to explain that. Since Carrie is the *author* and narrator, it really actually fits, and I, as a history geek myself, was really engrossed by these cool bits--but I could see where it would bog down other readers. It reads very slow. I kept having to put it down, read something quicker paced, then come back to it. However, once I passed about two-thirds through, I didn't put it down. All in all, I adored the interesting historical facts and the endnotes that the author included to show that so much of it was actually real. Wow. The Research. I'm absolutely boggled by all she would have had to do. It also had some truly, truly fantastically beautiful lines. Such as one from the countess on having her children apart from her, "My heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that is has the strength each day to keep me standing."

Content:

Sex 2/5 (Scenes are implied only)
Language 3/5 (Mostly for what word it used--Christ in vain--I think about seven times)
Violence 2/5 (A lot of war is talked about, Moray describes a graphic scene at the end, Sophia is assaulted by the gardener)
Overall rating - PG-16

Try this. Want more wonderful but heartbreaking historical fiction? Read LONGING FOR HOME by Sarah M. Eden.

Guest Review: KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon, 2004)

Guest Review by Gina Denny. Read her Goodreads reviews here and follow her on twitter @ginad129

From Amazon: Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Audience: Adult

Genre: Historical, Fantasy

Length: 288 pgs

Rating: *****

Review: I had a hard time deciding where to place this book on my shelves: I mean, obviously, there's a major historical element, as 90% of the book takes place in the antebellum South. But the main character is a modern black woman who travels back in time via a preternatual link she shares with a slave owner. Time travel would normally make a story science fiction automatically, right? But there's no feat of physics here, and the "science" mimics magic more than anything... and that's how I landed on "historical" and "fantasy" as the genre classification. 

This is the second speculative fiction novel I've read in a row in which the speculative elements were so subtle that they were almost unnoticeable. The story is character-driven, full of beautiful prose that isn't usually found in spec fic at all. I want to call it a literary novel with minor speculative elements - though it often gets sold as science-fiction. 

(Side note: black woman wrote and sold "science fiction" in the 1970s... why are we still dickering about with pen names and the whole "girls can't write sci-fi" nonsense at cons???)

Back to this book: It was beautiful. Poignant, powerful, and just gorgeously written. The protagonist, Dana, is strong with being a Strong Female Character. She just... is. She knows what is right and what she is entitled to, but she has limits and the story pushes her to those limits over and over again. 

I also love how... confused? Is that the right word? Maybe conflicted is better... I love how conflicted she was about her place and her position in the slave-holding South. She knew it was wrong, but she understood how easy it was to be manipulated, coerced, and forced to do things you knew were wrong. So powerfully presented. 

Don't get me wrong - this wasn't a "Gone with the Wind" sort of presentation of slavery. It was brutal, honest, and graphic. But it was also incredibly human. Lives were involved - not just statistics and faceless stories. I shed a lot of tears during this book. 

I'm definitely going to pull some more books by this author, I want to see what else she has to say.

Content: 

Violence 5/5: This was tough to rate. The violence isn't gory (like Goodkind or Martin), but it is horrific. Cold-blooded, vicious. Murder, suicide, hangings, whippings, beatings, casual violence. Multiple rapes happen off-screen. 

Sex 1/5: One really, really vague reference to the fact that a man and wife missed each other and didn't get to sleep until late one night. Allusions to the fact that they were "practically living together" before they were married. 

Language 4/5: Lots of uses of the N-word. All in a historical context, and the modern character discusses her displeasure of it repeatedly, but still. It's a lot. A handful of lesser words, and the B-word is tossed about several times too. 

Substance Abuses 1/5: A character gets drunk once. Whiskey is passed around at a party.

Overall Rating: PG-16* 

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Gina Denny is a fantasy & sci-fi writer. Flipping fairy tales upside down, reimagining classics, and obsessing over something new every week. Ravenclaw. Mormon. Homeschooler.

*I gave the rating based on Gina's description of content

Review: BOY SWAP by Kristina Springer (November 2013)

From Amazon: Boy Swap: The secret to sisterly love and scholarly bliss. 

Research shows that seven out of ten girl fights are over a guy. The Boy Swap Club fixes all that. In an effort to spread around male cuteness and minimize fights and backstabbing, they just share boyfriends. And Brooke Thomas, consummate band member, has been asked to join the super secret club because the president of the club has the hots for her guy. 

Brooke doesn't want to share her boyfriend. I mean, who does? But how can she say no? She, a second chair flutist in the school band, finds herself sitting between the Varsity Cheerleader Captain and the Homecoming Queen at the first meeting. Her friends will never believe this in a million years. Too bad she can’t tell them. But she knows. This one event can change her entire life. What if she becomes actual friends with one of these girls? It might be worth sharing her boyfriend. 

Besides, he'll always love her best, right? 

Audience: YA

Genre: Contemporary YA, Romance

Length: 119 pgs

Rating:  *** (I like it)

Review: So, this is a personal thing, but I actually rated this one down because of the language in it. That's totally me and my opinion, obviously. This book was well written and pretty cute. It was a quick read, only took me about two days, and a hilarious look at boyfriends and high school. The voice is fun and I liked the friendships and relationships. Just a couple of what I've been calling "twitches" lately. There are some things that are not so believable. The teens in the book use email and IM a lot, which struck me as odd. Most of the teenagers I know (little sister and cousins) almost exclusively use text and Facebook. (And Instagram as I've been told is the "in" thing right now...) Also, in the end it seemed like everything got tied up too nicely and Brooke doesn't get any blowback for any of her poor choices through the book, although I still dig the way it ended. I needed a resolution between the two boys in the book, especially with the boy she ends up with instead of just the magically happily ever after of them ending up together. Still, fun and worth it.

Content:

Sex - 3/5 (While there are no sex scenes, things get steamy between Brooke and her boyfriend, and there is a lot of talk about sex and boobs and bodies.)

Violence - 0/5

Language - 4/5 (Not because of pervasiveness, but because of the language used. God is used in vain repeatedly, which just bugs me a lot personally. Jesus is also used in vain twice. Several uses of H and a 1(?) use of A)

Overall Rating - PG16

Source: Bought via Amazon for Kindle.

Try this. Like fun, contemporary romances? Read MY RIDICULOUS ROMANTIC OBSESSIONS by Becca Wilhite.