Book Review of 'Sweet Ridge Hearts' by Susan Bagby

Happy Friday Bookworms!

Today kicks off my birthday weekend!! It is also my grandmother’s birthday, and the start of Mother’s Day weekend, so the festivities are about to pop off around here! Thank you so much for joining me today and virtually celebrating with me!  

Today I am featuring a novel that is from one of my favorite genres, and it’s by an author that is new to me, so I hope you enjoy my thoughts on this Contemporary Romance and have a blessed weekend!

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Sweet Ridge Hearts by Susan Bagby!

About the Book

Title: Sweet Ridge Hearts
Series: Maple Ridge #3
Author: Susan Bagby
Publisher: She Rises Studios
Release Date: October 22, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sweet

Career-driven Katy Flanagan desperately wants to become the creative director of the Martin and Lewis marketing agency. But when she loses the promotion and gets dumped by her boyfriend the same day, Katy flees New York for a small-town break with her cousin Christine. 

Yet even in country-quiet Maple Ridge, Katy’s skills can be useful, and she’s prepared to jump in to help Christine win a competition for her Sweet Ridge Bakery. What she’s not prepared for is handsome bakery manager Derek Higgins. 

A veteran dealing with the aftermath of PTSD, Derek is a lone wolf, and he likes it that way. Being forced to work with a spirited businesswoman and her healthy ego is a challenge every step of the way. But the stakes are too high for him to give up helping his boss. 

As the competition heats up, so does the chemistry with Katy—until she’s offered a new job in another city. Now she has to decide whether to take a risk and start her own company, or become the creative director of a new, successful firm, which is everything she ever wanted. At the same time, Derek must face his own issues when personal tragedy wraps him in survivor’s guilt, leaving him unable to forgive himself for past actions. 

While Derek seeks to heal the wounds of a haunting past, and Katy searches for the courage to face her fears and forge a new path, what will become of their relationship?  

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Book Review of 'Lullaby by the River' by Temperance Johnson

Hello Bookworms!

If you've found yourself in a literary rut and you enjoy Amish fiction then I have a unique reading experience for you.  This is not your typical Amish tale and tackles a sensitive topic that I believe needs more light shined on it.

I hope you enjoy my thoughts on this Amish Fiction and don't forget to scroll to the bottom of this post and enter the amazing giveaway from JustRead Tours.

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Lullaby by the River by Temperance Johnson, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

About the Book

Title: Lullaby by the River ‎
Series: Amish River
Author: Temperance Johnson
Publisher: Independently Published
Release Date: February 4, 2025
Genre: Amish Fiction

An unique Amish love story.  

A wounded woman with no way out…unless she marries her ex. 

After unexpected abuse, quiet and happy Priscilla Yoder thinks her life can’t get worse. But then she finds out she’s pregnant, and her family and church insist she marry the man who hurt her. When a man she used to love, a man who wants to leave the Amish, offers to marry her, she doesn’t see a better option. 

Danny Taylor, charming bad boy of his Amish community, is ready to leave the plain life. But when a woman he used to love finds herself in danger of marriage to an evil man, he can't resist offering marriage to keep her safe. Only problem is, he didn’t expect to fall for his bride so fast. She's softening his tough heart and showing him that there’s a good side to the Amish. As they grow closer, he realizes this gorgeous woman in pain has giant walls, and it will take both patience and faith if he wants to scale them. 

Caring for Danny was never what Priscilla wanted. And she never expected his faith to bring her closer to God. 

But when Danny’s past wounds resurface, and as Priscilla learns to hope again, can they trust God to make their relationship more than just a marriage of convenience?  

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Book Review of 'Broken Bondage' by Carmen Peone

Happy Taco Tuesday Bookworms!

My oldest son works at a Mexican restaurant and Tuesdays are a big deal there since it is Taco Tuesday.  I've never been one to "celebrate" per se but since he's started working there, and me always freaking out with how crazy busy it always is when I drop him off, I can't help but see Tuesday's in a more festive light now.  Do you celebrate Taco Tuesday?  Leave me a comment below and let me know if you do.  I have an uncle that is seriously obsessed, to the point that it's been years since he hasn't had a taco on a Tuesday. But enough about tacos...

The novel that I am featuring today is one that tackles the heaviest of subject matters, yet I was completely blown away with how simple yet powerful it is.  It was a tough and at times triggering read for me, but one that I am so thankful I gave a chance on.  I hope you enjoy my review of Broken Bondage by Carmen Peone and if you get a chance to eat a taco today by all means eat a taco! :)

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Broken Bondage by Carmen Peone, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

About the Book

Title: Broken Bondage
Series: Seven Tine Ranch #2
Author: Carmen Peone
Publisher: Iron Stream Fiction
Release Date: October 3, 2023
Genre: Clean/Christian Contemporary Western Romance

A Road Trip to Redemption 

Rita Runninghorse is about to marry the wrong guy. She has to get away from him. Now. She flees to a guest ranch in Eastern Washington State that offers a safe haven for women in need only to find the owner on a month-long speaking tour. 

Robert Elliot has one thing on his mind: bronc riding. The Indian National Finals Rodeo is within reach, and he’s not about to let anything ruin his chances of going pro. Not even the woman he finds asleep in the stall of their rankest horse. 

When Rita’s fiancé discovers where she’s hiding out, she takes Robert’s offer to go with him on the road and prays her fiancé gives up the hunt. Saddled together, Rita and Robert must rely on each other as they go on the road to keep her alive.

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Blog Tour: Excerpt & Review: The Tsarina's Daughter by Ellen Alpsten

ADULT CONTENT WARNING!!

This book does contain adult themes which some readers might find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

Welcome to the Blog Tour for The Tsarina's Daughter by Ellen Alpsten hosted by St. Martin's Press!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: The Tsarina's Daughter

Author: Ellen Alpsten
Release Date: March 15, 2022

Genre: Adult Historical Fiction

Ellen Alpsten's stunning new novel, The Tsarina's Daughter, is the dramatic story of Elizabeth, daughter of Catherine I and Peter the Great, who ruled Russia during an extraordinary life marked by love, danger, passion and scandal.

Born into the House of Romanov to the all-powerful Peter the Great and his wife, Catherine, a former serf, beautiful Tsarevna Elizabeth is the envy of the Russian empire. She is insulated by luxury and spoiled by her father, who dreams for her to marry King Louis XV of France and rule in Versailles. But when a woodland creature gives her a Delphic prophecy, her life is turned upside down. Her volatile father suddenly dies, her only brother has been executed and her mother takes the throne of Russia.

As friends turn to foes in the dangerous atmosphere of the Court, the princess must fear for her freedom and her life. Fate deals her blow after blow, and even loving her becomes a crime that warrants cruel torture and capital punishment: Elizabeth matures from suffering victim to strong and savvy survivor. But only her true love and their burning passion finally help her become who she is. When the Imperial Crown is left to an infant Tsarevich, Elizabeth finds herself in mortal danger and must confront a terrible dilemma--seize the reins of power and harm an innocent child, or find herself following in the footsteps of her murdered brother.

Hidden behind a gorgeous, wildly decadent façade, the Russian Imperial Court is a viper’s den of intrigue and ambition. Only a woman possessed of boundless courage and cunning can prove herself worthy to sit on the throne of Peter the Great.

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Book Review: Violeta by Isabel Allende

Title: Violeta

Author: Isabel Allende

Publisher: Random House-Ballentine

Release Date: January 25, 2022

Genre: Historical Caribbean & Latin American Fiction

This sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

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Book Review: The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher

ADULT CONTENT WARNING!!

This book does contain adult themes and language which some readers will find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

Publisher: Graydon House

Release Date: December 29, 2020

Genre: Adult Pyschological Thriller

Have you ever been wrong about someone?

Juno was wrong about Winnie Crouch.

Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son—the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore.

Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel…

She shouldn’t get involved.

She really shouldn’t.

But this could be her chance to make a few things right.

Because if you thought Juno didn’t have a secret of her own, then you were wrong about her, too.

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Book Review: A Home for the Windswept by Karri L. Moser

Publisher: Black Rose Writing

Release Date: April 22, 2021

Genre: Family Life Adult Fiction

Great Northern Paper Mill is the lifeblood of Winsockette, Maine until the tech boom and recession of 2008 cause the mill’s closure. This leaves Darcy and Basil Sullivan scrambling to support their growing family.

When Basil is drunkenly desperate, a news report about a devastating tornado ravaging small town Nebraska changes everything. This sparks an idea. Basil believes Man’s greed has taken everything from them, and God’s wrath will provide if they move to Nebraska to rebuild tornado damage.

As they begin a cross-country journey that tests their resolve and resourcefulness, a pregnant Darcy is torn between following the love of her life or fleeing back to Maine. She fears his breakthrough is really a breakdown. Basil, who sees his quest as a calling from God, begins to realize moving his family to tornado alley to profit from the loss of others could be what rips them apart forever.

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Book Review: The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Release Date: May 4, 2021

Genre: Historical Fiction

At the end of the nineteenth century, three revolutionary women fight for freedom in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's captivating new novel inspired by real-life events and the true story of a legendary Cuban woman--Evangelina Cisneros--who changed the course of history.

A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst's newspaper in 1896, she’s caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it’s a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.

Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women's jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, "The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba," she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence.  

With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst's staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.

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Book Review: The Last Tiara by M.J. Rose

Publisher: Blue Box Press

Release Date: February 2, 2021

Genre: Historical Fiction

Sophia Moon had always been reticent about her life in Russia and when she dies, suspiciously, on a wintry New York evening, Isobelle despairs that her mother’s secrets have died with her. But while renovating the apartment they shared, Isobelle discovers something among her mother’s effects—a stunning silver tiara, stripped of its jewels.

Isobelle’s research into the tiara’s provenance draws her closer to her mother’s past—including the story of what became of her father back in Russia, a man she has never known. The facts elude her until she meets a young jeweler, who wants to help her but is conflicted by his loyalty to the Midas Society, a covert international organization whose mission is to return lost and stolen antiques, jewels, and artwork to their original owners.

Told in alternating points of view, the stories of the two young women unfurl as each struggles to find their way during two separate wars. In 1915, young Sofiya Petrovitch, favorite of the royal household and best friend of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, tends to wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital within the grounds of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and finds the love of her life. In 1948 New York, Isobelle Moon works to break through the rampant sexism of the age as one of very few women working in a male-dominated profession and discovers far more about love and family than she ever hoped for.

In M.J. Rose’s deftly constructed narrative, the secrets of Sofiya’s early life are revealed incrementally, even as Isobelle herself works to solve the mystery of the historic Romanov tiara (which is based on an actual Romanov artifact that is, to this day, still missing)—and how it is that her mother came to possess it. The two strands play off each other in finely-tuned counterpoint, building to a series of surprising and deeply satisfying revelations.

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