Resorting To Romance by Jennifer Shirk GIVEAWAY!

 It was supposed to be L.A. attorney Loni Wingate’s perfect day. Instead, she got only chaos and heartbreak. Her fiancé stole her promotion and ended their engagement, leaving her career and her future dangling by a thread. Then when Loni tries to go to her safe place, her family’s quaint North Carolina resort, she finds it’s up for sale.

But Loni didn’t get to where she is without a fight. So if a developer is coming by to assess the property, the place she feels most connected to her long-gone Mama…well, Loni and her sisters will serve up a taste of Southern hospitality he’ll never forget.

Ian Hollowell hasn’t experienced “Southern hospitality” firsthand, but he’s pretty sure this is not it. Between the storage room accommodation, the all-sugar sweet tea, and a lethally hot pepper omelet, he’s getting the sense his welcome is anything but. Still, he didn’t get his ruthless reputation by quitting when the game gets interesting.

And Loni is one adversary Ian can’t resist… especially when family revelations start pushing Loni to question her loyalties.

Now a round of “keep your enemies close” might be flipped on its head in bestselling author Jennifer Shirk’s sparkling and stirring story about reconsidering the past in order to shape the future. Because sometimes it takes one last resort to find the place―and people―that truly feel like home.

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Amazon.com: Resorting to Romance: 9781649376503: Shirk, Jennifer: Books

Jennifer Shirk is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of sweet (and sometimes even funny) romances for Montlake Romance and Entangled Publishing. Her novel, Fiancé by Fate—a 2015 Readers' Crown Finalist—became an Amazon #1 bestseller for Series Romance, and Wrong Brother, Right Match, had won the Sweet Traditional category of the 2017 Golden Quill Contest and became a #1 Amazon bestseller for Holiday Romance.

Jennifer serves on many community volunteer boards in her hometown but is most proud of her work on The Ocean City Free Public Library’s Board of Trustees, where she has served as President since 2014. She resides in a beach resort in NJ, so when she's not writing or working on her tan, she's taking care of her most treasured possessions: her husband, daughter and two grateful rescue dogs.

Check out her website for News and Links: www.jennifershirk.com

Feel free to friend her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferShirkBooks

And don't forget to join her mailing list for a chance to win monthly giveaways and free ARCs: eepurl.com/Q6TH1

My Thoughts...

Set in North Carlina was a plus for me. The family dynamics was so much fun. The romance could not have been any better and the ending was the best part of the whole book. I love finding new authors. I recommend this one.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Love Is For The Birds by Diane Prettyman

 

The Texas Gulf: beautiful yet unpredictable.

A beach town destroyed. Her mother’s candy store swept away. This is what Teddy Wainsworth faces when she returns to Bird Isle. Meanwhile, Jack Shaughness, owner of a popular barbecue restaurant chain and widower still grieving the death of his wife, receives permission to cross over to the island with a smoker full of brisket to feed hurricane survivors. Soon after arriving, he meets Teddy and immediately finds himself drawn to her—which makes him feel he is betraying his wife. When the two find a lost dog, Jack convinces Teddy to take it home while they attempt to find the owner, creating a bond that brings them closer.

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Love Is for the Birds: A Novel - Kindle edition by Owens Prettyman, Diane. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Diane Owens Prettyman is the author of the romantic adventure story "Thin Places" and the twentieth-century historical novel "Redesigning Emma". She is also a frequent contributor to the Austin American-Statesman. Her third book "Love is for the Birds" will be released in October of 2024. This novel combines contemporary romance with eco-fiction for an entertaining beach read set on the Texas Gulf.

Diane stays true to her belief that every story has a happy ending, though perhaps sometimes, maybe even often, one has to wait for the perfect finale. Diane lives just a few hours’ drive from the Texas Gulf. She is an avid boogie boarder and spends her summers in the water. Her husband and two black standard poodles provide her room and board in Austin, Texas.

The Rose Arbor by Rhys Bowen

London: 1968. Liz Houghton is languishing as an obituary writer at a London newspaper when a young girl’s disappearance captivates the city. If Liz can break the story, it’s her way into the newsroom. She already has a scoop: her best friend, Marisa, is a police officer assigned to the case.

Liz follows Marisa to Dorset, where they make another disturbing discovery. Over two decades earlier, three girls disappeared while evacuating from London. One was found murdered in the woods near a train line. The other two were never seen again.

As Liz digs deeper, she finds herself drawn to the village of Tydeham, which was requisitioned by the military during the war and left in ruins. After all these years, what could possibly link the missing girls to this abandoned village? And why does a place Liz has never seen before seem so strangely familiar?

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Amazon.com: The Rose Arbor: A Novel: 9781662504228: Bowen, Rhys: Books

Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of two historical mystery series as well as several internationally bestselling historical novels, two of which were nominated for Edgar Award

Rhys was born in Bath, England and educated at London University but now divides her time between California and Arizona. Her books have been nominated for every major mystery award and she has won twenty of them to date, including five Agathas.

She currently writes two historical mystery series, each very different in tone. The Molly Murphy mysteries feature an Irish immigrant woman in turn-of-the-century New York City. These books are multi-layered, complex stories with a strong sense of time and place and have won many awards including Agatha and Anthony. There are 19 books so far in this series plus three Kindle stories, Rhys’s daughter, Clare Broyles, now cowrites the series with her

Then there is Lady Georgie, She's 35th in line to the throne of England, but she's flat broke and struggling to survive in the Great Depression. These books are lighter and funnier than Molly's adventures. They poke gentle fun at the British class system--about which Rhys knows a lot, having married into an upper class family rather like Georgie's.

As a child Rhys spent time with relatives in Wales. Those childhood experiences colored her first mystery series, about Constable Evans in the mountains of Snowdonia.

Her books have been translated into over 30 languages 

My Thoughts...

This was such a fun mystery well actually is several small mysteries on one book. It is a dual timeline story.  It was a really fun read. This is an author I will be reading more of.

Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

The Last Thing She Saw by Nina Laurin

 

After a flood destroys the historic center of a small Quebec town, a child’s body is discovered. The remains are decades-old and nearly impossible to identify, yet everyone knows at once who they belong to. Nine-year-old Michelle Fortier vanished without a trace in 1979, and her fate has remained unknown—until now.

Stephanie O’Malley grew up in her mother’s crumbling trailer listening to stories of Michelle’s disappearance, stories she once tried to turn into a podcast without much success. Although Stephanie left Marly fifteen years ago and vowed never to return, she finds herself back with her tempestuous mother Laura, her high school sweetheart Luc, and the entire community in an uproar.

While Stephanie struggles to separate the truth from wild rumors about witchcraft and town-wide conspiracies, Laura is consumed by the strange feeling that all this has happened before. But then a bombshell drops: the body might not be Michelle after all.

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The Last Thing She Saw: Laurin, Nina: 9781538707258: Amazon.com: Books

Nina Laurin is the bilingual (English/French) author of Girl Last Seen and What My Sister Knew, both published by Grand Central Publishing. She studied Creative Writing at Concordia University in her hometown of Montreal, Canada, where she lives and writes. You can learn more at thrillerina.wordpress.com and on Twitter @girlinthetitle.

My Thoughts...

I was not a fan of this one, nothing to write home about. It was okay. the dual timeline made it seem to go on forever. It has a suspense vibe but it to long winded and not really an edge of your seat read. The Synopsis makes it sound fantastic; I was fooled. Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

In Every Life by Rea Frey

 What happens when a husband's dying wish is for his wife to find a new love . . . before he's even gone?

Harper is living a life she never expected. After a failed attempt at making it as an artist in New York while falling for and losing her first love, her dreams crumbled in the span of a week. A decade later, Harper is happily living a simpler life as an art teacher in Chattanooga with her beloved new husband, Ben.

When Ben is diagnosed with late-stage cancer, their whole world shifts. Despite the bad news, Ben comes up with one final wish for his wife: he wants Harper to find a new partner before he dies. When the New York Times sends a journalist to do a feature story about Ben's life, Harper comes face to face with Liam Hale, the man she fell madly in love with all those years ago and never saw again.

Suddenly, Harper is faced with all of those old what-ifs:

What if Harper had ended up with Liam instead of Ben?

What if she'd pursued life as an artist instead of teaching?

What if it had all turned out differently?

After making a wish, Harper wakes up to find herself in a parallel universe . . . where her what-ifs become a reality.

Is the grass really greener, or is she standing right where she should be--no matter the cost?

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                     In Every Life: Frey, Rea: 9781400243136: Amazon.com: Books

Rea Frey is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of several nonfiction books and suspense, thriller, and contemporary fiction novels. Known as The Book Doula, Rea helps other writers birth their stories into the world.

My Thoughts...

I am such a huge fan of Frey. She never disappoints.

Follow your dreams story with a mix of love and real life. This was beautifully written and so hard to put down. I  am fan of Frey's writing but this one she really outdid herself and I must say I recommend it but make sure you have time to read it in one sitting you won't be able to put it down.

Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Three Keys by Laura Pritchett

Becoming invisible is painful . . . unless you know how to work it.

Ammalie Brinks has just lost the three keys of her life’s purpose—her husband, her job, and her role as a mom, after her son went off to college. She’s also mystified to find herself in middle age: How exactly had that happened? The terrifying idea of becoming irrelevant, invisible, of letting her life slip away Into obscurity, has her driving distracted through Nebraska with a broken plastic fork in her tangled hair.

But what Ammalie has found are three literal keys, saved in a drawer for years, from her and her husband’s past. They are the keys to homes that she hopes will be empty—and plans on spending time in. Embarking on an international and increasingly complicated journey (criminal behavior turns out to be challenging!), she seeks to find a life truly her own. And that middle-age business? As someone breaking the law, Ammalie finds there's a real benefit to being invisible when you’re working on becoming the striking, bold, and very much manifested self you want to be.

Laura Pritchett, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Colorado Book Award, offers a delightful exploration of the very serious business of living a full and honest life. Filled with love, heartbreak, and misdemeanors, Three Keys tackles the unavoidable sorrows and joys experienced during a second coming of age with the zest and vigor that it deserves.

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Three Keys: A Novel: Pritchett, Laura: 9780593724200: Amazon.com: Books

No author photo available

Laura Pritchett's seventh novel Three Keys is due out in July. Her other novels include Playing with {Wild}Fire (Torrey House, 2024), The Blue Hour (Counterpoint, 2017), Red Lightning (Counterpoint, 2015) Stars Go Blue (Counterpoint, 2014), Sky Bridge (Milkweed Editions, 2009), and Hell's Bottom, Colorado (Milkweed Editions, 2001). Known for championing the complex and contemporary West, giving voice to the working class, and re-writing the “Western,” her books have garnered the PEN USA Award, the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, the WILLA, the High Plains Book Award, several Colorado Book Awards, and others.

She’s also the author of one play, two nonfiction books, and editor of three environmental-based anthologies.

She developed and directs the MFA in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University, one of the few in the nation with a focus on environmental and place-based writing. She earned her Ph.D. from Purdue University. When not writing or teaching, she can generally be found outside in Colorado’s mountains.

 

Tracking Tilly by Janice Thompson

 

Who Stole Tilly from the Auction Block? Breathe in the nostalgia of everything old red truck in book one of a new cozy mystery series. The Hadley family ranch is struggling, so RaeLyn, her parents, and brothers decide to turn the old barn into an antique store. The only thing missing to go with the marketing of the store is Grandpa’s old red truck, Tilly, that was sold several years ago. Now coming back up on the auction block, Tilly would need a lot of work, but RaeLyn is sure it will be worth it—if only she can beat out other bidders and find out who stole Tilly after the auction ends. Hadley finds herself in the role of amateur sleuth, and the outcome could make or break the new family venture.

Pick up your copy here...

Tracking Tilly: The Little Red Truck Mysteries (Red Truck Mysteries, 1): Thompson, Janice: 9781636099088: Amazon.com: Books

Welcome to the wacky, wonderful world of inspirational author Janice Hanna Thompson, where romantic comedy rules the day! I hope you love to laugh, because I make it my goal to tickle your funny bone at every turn in my light-hearted tales.

Whether you’re looking for inspirational romance, quirky cozy mysteries, light-hearted historicals or fun books for younger readers, you will find it between the pages of my novels and non-fiction books.

Why do I focus on the light-hearted stuff? Because life is hard! My readers lead busy, chaotic lives and need those special “Calgon, Take Me Away!” moments! Providing “Love, Laughter and Happily Ever Afters” brings me great delight. Lest you think it’s all fluff, think again!

Woven between the lines of each cheerful tale you will find the ultimate love story, one guaranteed to stir your soul and get your heart fluttering. Talk about a real happily ever after! There’s something for everyone in my stories, so settle back in your chair, grab a cup of hot tea, and get ready to discover a light-hearted approach to life!

Read Janice's books or follow her baking recipes at https://outoftheboxbaking.com/. 

My thoughts....

Okay first let's talk about this cover, I want that truck so bad.  Just a gorgeous cover. Don't blame the character for wanting her grandpa's truck.

Thompson gave us a good faith based cozy mystery that was sweet and a fun read. I enjoyed this one.

Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.