Pity Parade by Whitney Dineen blitz with giveaway
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Pity Parade
Whitney Dineen
(Pity Series, #4)
Publication date: May 23rd 2024
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance
Trina Rockwell here. You know, your favorite TV host from Midwestern Matchmaker?I have a I am without a doubt, the unluckiest dater in the history of the entire world. I’m not even embellishing. I’ve inadvertently dated a mobster, a dead-beat dad, and a guy who puts salt on watermelon. What’s next, pineapple on pizza?As my past relationships reads like the who’s who of court jesters, it’s no wonder I’ve refused my producers desire to spotlight me as one of the singles on a new show they’re putting together.
The problem is that Midwestern Matchmaker just got canceled and unless I agree to their terms, I’m out of a job.
In order to keep doing what I love doing—matching midwestern singles, I either need to suck it up and parade my dating life on national television or I need to get married—STAT.
Guess which one I’m putting my money on?
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EXCERPT:
I sit down on the deck and take my shoes off. The warm boards feel wonderful on my bare feet. I can visualize myself drinking my morning coffee here every day at sunrise and sitting out and enjoying a glass of wine at the end of the day. If I weren’t so desperate to get out of doing another show with Tom, I’d forget everything to do with men and simply enjoy the summer for myself.
I’m suddenly eager to put my feet into the water, so I stand up and walk down to the end of the pier. Within moments, I’m lost in my reverie and I don’t hear anyone approach before a deeply masculine voice announces, “Hi there, you must be my neighbor.”
I spin around so quickly I almost tip over. Oh. My. Heavens. I’m staring at the glorious-looking Heath Fox. My mouth suddenly goes so dry I can barely ask, “You’re my neighbor?”
His green eyes pop open in recognition as he answers, “Trina Rockwell. Imagine meeting you here.”
Heath and I met at a charity event last year. He was one of the bachelors being auctioned off for the cause—childhood diabetes. One look at him kicked my libido into overdrive and I bid more on him than the next three men received combined—for charity, of course.
“What are you doing here?” I ask this as though inquiring why he’s sunbathing on the moon or why he has fourteen toes on each foot.
“I’m taking the summer off to enjoy myself. How about you?”
“Me? Oh … um … same.” Heath’s and my charity date went spectacularly well, or so I thought, until he kissed me goodnight. After that, he assured me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone.
I was offended to the extreme. It’s not like I thought I was buying a relationship with the man, but to end the night by giving me the kiss off—literally—was a bit much.
“Dating anyone?” he wants to know.
“I’m not exactly sure why would you care?” Yeah, I’m still mad, but better keep it passive-aggressive. I’m not a shrew or anything.
He shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t know. I thought I might have heard from you again after our evening out, but I didn’t.”
“You thought you’d hear from me?”
“I thought we had a nice time,” he says.
“Then maybe you should have called.” So I could tell him to take a long walk off a short pier.
“According to the paperwork we signed for the auction, I wasn’t allowed to make first contact after our date. They didn’t want any of the ladies to feel unsafe.” I don’t remember reading that, but it sounds plausible.
“Huh.” I mean, what else can I say? Oh wait, I know. “You made it perfectly clear you weren’t looking for a relationship. I can’t imagine you thought I was clueless enough not to take the hint.”
“I wasn’t looking for a relationship,” he confirms. Then with a smirk that nearly melts my butter, he adds, “Nothing long lasting, anyway.”
Author Bio:
Whitney loves to laugh, play with her kids, bake, and eat french fries — not always in that order.
Whitney is a multi-award-winning author of romcoms, non-fiction humor, and middle reader fiction. Basically, she writes whatever the voices in her head tell her to.
She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jimmy, where they raise children, chickens, and organic vegetables.
Gold Medal winner at the International Readers’ Favorite Awards, 2017.
Silver medal winner at the International Readers’ Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016.
Finalist RONE Awards, 2016.
Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017.
Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017
Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017
GIVEAWAY!
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Look on the Bright Side by Kristan Higgins #bookreview #contemporary #romance #womensfiction
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Title: Look on the Bright Side
Author: Kristan Higgins
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 28, 2024
Page Count: 431
My rating: 4 stars
About the book:
From the author of Pack Up the Moon comes a funny, romantic, and deeply moving novel about the unexpected rewards that come from life’s detours.
Lark Smith has always had a plan for her life: find a fantastic guy, create a marriage as blissful as her parents’, pop out a couple of kids and build a rewarding career as an oncologist.
Things aren’t going so well.
For one, the guy didn’t work out. Theoretically, she’d love to find someone else, but it hasn’t happened. Two, she’s just been transferred out of oncology for being too emotional. (Is it her fault she’s a weeper?) Three, her parents just split up.
Deviating from the plan was…well, not in the plan. A potential solution comes from the foul-tempered and renowned surgeon Lorenzo Santini (aka Dr. Satan). He needs a date this summer for his sister’s wedding. His ancient Noni wants to see him settled. In exchange, he could make a few introductions and maybe get Lark back into the field of her choice.
As a sucker for old people and fake relationships, Lark agrees. Teeny problem—she instantly falls for his big, warm family. Especially his estranged brother.
Meanwhile, Lark’s mom has moved in with Lark’s colorful landlady, Joy, and an unlikely friendship blossoms. The three women have a long summer and a big beautiful house on the ocean to figure out what’s next…and quite possibly learn that the best things in life aren’t planned at all.
Look on the Bright Side by Kristan Higgins is a new women’s ficiton or contemporary romance novel. The story in Look on the Bright Side is one that is told mainly in the present time but there are a few chapters flashing back to earlier events. This one is also one that changes the point of view between characters however it’s two of the ladies switching the POV and not the male character.
Lark Smith had her life mapped out at a very young age and life most that included marriage, children and a career. Things didn’t exactly go as planned for Lark though when she thought she was in reach of a few of her goals. Now Lark is losing another step on her path when she’s transferred from Oncology to the ER because she can’t stop crying with each terminal patient.
Just as Lark is coming to terms with the move she is contacted by Lorenzo Santini or as he is better known, Dr. Satan. While Lorenzo has made many at the hospital cry Lark tries not to let him affect her when he tosses out an odd proposal, to be his fake date for the summer. Being a sucker for family and grandmother’s in particular Lark couldn’t turn down the request.
Look on the Bright Side by Kristan Higgins is a story that will take you on an emotional roller coaster as you get to know the characters and the backstory to what makes Lark who she is. The side story of Lark’s mother and Ellie, Lark’s landlady, was also enjoyable to read too but Lark really stole my heart early on. I was drawn into this with the whole fake dating trope since I always enjoy those but this one had some nice surprises in store for me that I definitely didn’t expect so hats off to the author since that rarely happens in any genre. Definitely an author and story to check out.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
About the author:
Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty novels, wKristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. Kristan has been praised for her mix of “laugh-out-loud humor and tear-jerking pathos,” which the author attributes to a diet high in desserts and sugar-based mood swings.
Kristan’s books have received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, Kirkus, the New York Journal of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, National Public Radio and Booklist. She personally responds to every reader letter she receives, even the mean ones.
Kristan is the mother of two ridiculously good-looking children and the grandmother of the world’s cutest baby. She lives in Connecticut and Cape Cod with her heroic firefighter husband, a rescue mutt and indifferent cat. In her spare time, Kristan enjoys gardening, easy yoga classes, mixology and pasta.
To sign up for Kristan’s always entertaining newsletter, visit http://www.kristanhiggins.com.
Peanut Butter Panic (Amish Candy Shop Mystery #7) by Amanda Flower #bookreview #mystery
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Title: Peanut Butter Panic
Author: Amanda Flower
Publisher: Kensington Books
Publication Date: Aug 23, 2022
Page Count: 306
My rating: 5 stars
About the book:
Dead by dessert . . .
Thanksgiving is Bailey King’s busiest holiday weekend. This year promises to be even more hectic, since Bailey’s candy shop, Swissmen Sweets, is providing desserts for Harvest, Ohio’s first village-wide Thanksgiving celebration. Yet, even with a guest list close to seven hundred people—Amish and English alike—the event’s organizer, Margot Rawlings, is unfazed . . . until she discovers her mother, former judge Zara Bevan, will be in attendance.
Zara’s reputation as a harsh critic is matched only by her infamy as a judge who has actively harmed the Amish community. So no one is prepared when Zara arrives with much younger boyfriend Blaze Smith and reveals their impending nuptials at dinner. That should have been the day’s biggest news, except shortly after the announcement, Blaze suffers an allergic reaction to something he’s eaten and dies on the spot.
Now, Bailey’s desserts are prime suspects, along with Margot and nearly everyone who attended the meal. With such a cornucopia of possibilities, Bailey must dig in and get to the bottom of this murder, before the killer goes up for seconds…
Recipe Included!
Peanut Butter Panic by Amanda Flower is the seventh full length novel in the cozy Amish Candy Shop Mystery series. Along with three companion novellas in this series each of the books holds it’s own mystery that will be solved so they can be read in any order or as a standalone if choosing to do so. For those that follow from the beginning in the series though there is character building carrying over from book to book to tie them altogether.
The main character in this series, Bailey King, had been working in New York as a chocolatier before she decided to return to Harvest, Ohio and help her Amish grandmother run their family owned candy shop, Swissmen Sweets. While Bailey is not Amish herself she does find herself fitting into the community with her Amish roots and trusted more than other outsiders so they often turn to her for help.
This time around it’s Thanksgiving in Harvest and Bailey has agreed that Swissmen Sweets will be providing desserts for the town’s celebration. With hundreds of people from town, English and Amish alike, expected to attend Bailey is amazed at how well the event’s organizer, Margot Rawlings, is keeping pace. That is until Margot’s mother shows up at the event with a new younger boyfriend, Blaze Smith. Things definitely heat up when right in the middle of eating Blaze has an allergic reaction and dies and Bailey knows from experience there is a murderer to be found among the many guests.
First I’ll just say that the Amish Candy Shop Mystery series is probably at the top of my favorite cozies list to keep returning to time and again and this installment was just as much fun as the rest of the series. At this point though I should also mention I’ve lost track of how many series I am reading from this author as she keeps bringing me back to all of her books. This particular series has all of the quirkiness In the characters, a fun sidekick in a rambunctious little piggie and always a great mystery to follow while laughing out loud the entire time. Another great installment, can’t wait for the next!
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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About the author:
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty-five mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, Hallmark Publishing, Crooked Lane Books, and Sourcebooks. In addition to being a writer, she was a librarian for fifteen years. Today, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their two adorable cats.
The Winchester Codex by Frances Spurrier blitz with giveaway
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The Winchester Codex
Frances Spurrier
Publication date: January 2nd 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Books can be dangerous. Fitz believes he is guardian of one of the most dangerous of all – The Winchester Codex was responsible for wiping out the entire draconic race, of which he is one of the last vestiges. Caught in a trap from the deep time of history, the dragon had vowed to protect the book’s author. Yet in the 21st century, what relevance does this ancient manuscript have? He hides the codex in his attic and tries to forget about it.
A surprise visit from a friend leads to one last quest, forcing them both to confront their past.
In Swansea, Fitz and his friend Perceval happen upon a temporarily homeless teenager who joins them on a walk around the coast of Wales to raise funds for charity and records everything on social media.
But not all their followers are benign. Someone wants the codex that has lain neglected in Fitz’s attic for centuries and wants it badly. What started as a simple walk, ends with a journey into darkness and to the gates of death.
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo
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EXCERPT:
When he surfaced from the Tube, he realised with a jolt of panic that no-one had given him directions to the museum entrance. Or he’d forgotten to print out the email. Find phone, he thought grappling for his mobile in his rucksack. Find email. The arrangement was for two interviews, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, plus he was to be wheeled out for some guest appearances among the exhibits. The traffic as ever was dense and impatient. How could anyone think straight in all this noise and busy-ness? Already he felt a headache coming on.
He stood with a crowd of people waiting to cross at the lights. Curious stares surrounded him as they always did. Yeah I’m a dragon. There’s still some left. So get over it.
Exhibition Road. The right place at least. A queue already? That was gratifying. A young child with a pink parasol and gum boots patterned with yellow ducks stared
at him, apparently unpeturbed by the sight of a live dragon wandering down Exhibition Road. The child called out ‘Hey Dinosaur. Are you lost?’
Kind of.
‘Ssshhh! Gracie ’the young woman with the child looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry… so sorry…’
‘Not at all. It’s a common confusion.’
‘About being lost. Or about being a dinosaur?’
‘Both.’
Author Bio:
Frances Spurrier is a published poet, essayist, reviewer and blogger. The Winchester Codex is her first novel. She lives in London with her husband and Suki the Golden Doodle.
GIVEAWAY!
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Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander #bookreview #thriller #suspense
**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**
Title: Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead
Author: Jenny Hollander
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: February 6, 2024
Page Count: 294
My rating: 2 1/2 stars
About the book:
She has everything to live for―and everything to hide.
Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve―events known to the public as “Scarlet Christmas”―though Charlie knows she was much more than that.
Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She’s the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie’s former classmates threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything―not even the people she once loved most―get in her way.
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander is a debut psychological suspense novel. The story in Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead is one that is told in a dual timeline style switching between the past and present with more emphasis on the present timeline.
Nine years ago headlines everywhere lit up with the story of a mass murder on a school campus which reporters and police dubbed it the “Scarlet Christmas”. Charlie Colbert was there as events took place and became the witness everyone wanted to hear from, the problem, Charlie doesn’t actually remember what happened.
Now, after years of therapy and being out of the spotlight Charlie has made a life for herself putting that long ago event out of her mind, or at least to the back of it. Charlie is now the editor of a major magazine and engaged to be married so the last thing Charlie needs is the past brought back to the surface so when she gets word of a possible movie being made Charlie’s goal is to do whatever it takes to stop it.
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead is one of those books that I think I may be an outlier on with it just not quite working well for me. Everything about this one should have been something I loved but I ended it at two and a half stars with a bit of disappointment. For me this one was incredibly slow which often makes it harder to stay engaged but with that said I wondered if the author had focused more in the past and built the event up better if it would have made the pacing pick up too. Whatever the case I would probably give this author another shot if she wrote another thriller though.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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About the author:
Hi! I’m Jenny, a writer and editor from London. My debut novel, EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD, was published by St. Martin’s Press (US) and Little, Brown (UK) on February 6, 2024.
My work has been featured in ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Bustle, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. I spent ten years in New York, where I worked as a senior editor for Bustle and the deputy editor at Marie Claire. Now the digital director for Marie Claire, I live in London with my husband and our rescue dog, Captain. When I’m not knee-deep in Google Analytics, an edit, or a manuscript, I’m a fierce advocate for developmental coordination disorder, known in the U.K. as dyspraxia, which I was diagnosed with when I was nine.
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