Esperance by Heather Hildenbrand

She is his only hope. If only he wanted to be saved.

Alex is cured... sort of. After letting the mysterious Indra work her magic, the venom is gone but so is Alex’s ability to feel. He’s not dead, but he’s not really alive either. Numb inside, he turns his back on Sam and everyone else. The only person he’ll really listen to is his new master…

Sam’s angry and lost. Her destiny was to heal, but so far, all she’s done is hurt herself and others. When Alex chooses another woman’s healing over hers, Sam’s doubts and fears become the very thing that separate her from her true potential. Despite Sam’s broken heart, she is determined to make her magic work, no matter the cost. No price can be higher than the one she paid watching Alex walk away. 

Sam will do whatever it takes. And she’ll never stop trying to change Alex’s mind—and his heart.

But Alex has his orders and he doesn’t care who they affect. Love hurts. But in this case, it just might kill…

Book 3 in the Heart Lines Series.

Reading order:
Remembrance
Inheritance
Esperance
Imbalance (available for pre-order now)

My Thoughts…

The Heart Lines Series just keeps getting better and better.     This is a series that does need to be read in order but each book takes off where the one before it ended and that author is releasing them pretty close together.   

Esperance is the third book in the series and starts with Alex not having any feelings due to his illness being removed.    Sam is devastated by his lack of caring and vows to “make him better.”    In Esperance Sam also begins to learn how to use her magic.    

I love the after memories return Sam.   She is strong, self assured and faithful to her friends.    Those friends include Alex who is doing his best to push her away although not all of that is his fault.    All I want is for Alex and Sam to end up together and happy.    I think it is coming, they get so close, and then dang…another obstacle is thrown in their path.    But each obstacle helps them become stronger, more faithful, and more trustworthy.  

Brittany and RJ are real friends.   They start as body guards but become confidants and friends.    No matter what happens they standby, protect, and offer a shoulder to her whenever she needs it.   They understand that she loves Alex and that she has to do whatever she can to save him.  

I am excited that there will soon be a 4^th book in this series.   The Heartline Series is one of my favorite paranormal series ever.  

Book Links

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Friendship on Fire: Love in Bloom, Book 6 AUDIOBOOK

Friendship on Fire: Love in Bloom, Book 6

• Written by: Melissa Foster
• Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
• Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins 
•  
• Series: The Bradens, Book 3
• Series: Love in Bloom, Book 6
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Release Date:02-02-15
• Publisher: Melissa Foster

Publisher's Summary

Friendship on Fire is the sixth book in the Love in Bloom series. While Friendship on Fire can be experienced as a standalone novel, for even more listening enjoyment you may want to hear the Love in Bloom series in series order.

Small-town overachiever Riley Banks has finally scored her big break - working in Manhattan as a fashion design assistant for her childhood crush, Josh Braden. She enters her new job hoping to make a name for herself and - just maybe - explore the romance that slipped through her fingers way back when.

Josh Braden has models at his beck and call, a staff that never says never, and an elegant clothing line for the holiday season. When he hires Riley Banks, he expects her to learn the business from the ground up. But the girl next door turns out to be much more than he remembered.

Josh and Riley's friendship heats up. Every steamy kiss and every erotic caress stirs a love they cannot deny. But when Riley designs a wedding gown that would cause even the most jaded fashion editors to swoon, Riley's mentor accuses her of stealing the design.

Facing indisputable proof and the mistrust of her lover, Riley is not sure she can take the heat of life in the fast lane of the fashion industry - and Josh is forced to choose between the woman he loves and the career he adores.

Content warning: Due to mature content, recommended for readers aged 18-plus.

©2014 Melissa Foster (P)2015 Melissa Foster

My Thoughts…

Listening to an audiobook is like revisiting old friends.   I had read Friendship on Fire when it came out and couldn’t wait to listen to it.    BJ Harrison is amazing as a narrator.   He shares the emotions, the thoughts, and the love between Riley Banks and Josh Braden.    The characters come to life as BJ reads the words Melissa Foster wrote.  

Riley Banks has finally seen her dreams start to come true. She has a job as a fashion design assistant in Manhattan working for her high school crush, Josh Braden. Josh and Riley’s friendship heats up quickly once she gets settled into Josh’s sisters apartment and starts her new job. With steamy kisses and hot caresses their love blooms and they cannot deny their feelings. When Riley’s mentor, Claudia, accuses her of stealing a design from her, Riley’s is doubting her life as a fashion designer and her life with Josh.


Melissa Foster did not disappoint. With each book in this series I have seriously crushed on the leading men. Josh fell right into that crush area. He is sexy, rich, independent, and successful. He is also loving, faithful, and protective of those he loves. I love that each of the leading women in the books is also successful and strong willed. Riley does not let Josh walk over her, whether in their love life or in her career. She struggles with Josh’s love and how their relationship will be perceived in their work place.

This series of books are easy to read. Fun, easy, sexy, and oh so steamy. Friendship on Fire showed real life struggles, family values (standing by what you believe), and love. I highly recommend this book and the entire series to all chic-lit lovers.

Purchase Friendship on Fire

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Learn more about Melissa Foster

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Big Bad Bite Returned by Jessie Lane

Title: Big Bite Returned

Series: Big Bite Series #2.5

Author: Jessie Lane

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Release Date: April 28, 2017

Jenna O’Conner and Adam McPhee are happily mated … Or are they?

While Jenna happily wears Adam’s mating mark, she has yet to give Adam one in return.

Adam doesn’t want to pressure his mate, but not receiving one is starting to wear on him.

After Jenna is attacked while on the job as a SWAT officer, they are forced to reevaluate their relationship.

The time has come. Jenna needs to decide if her mate is going to get the big bad bite.

*This is a 10,000 word short story that takes place after Big Bad Bite and Walk On The Striped Side!*

My Thoughts…

If you are a fan of Jessie Lane’s Big Bad Bite series this is a must read but I do recommend reading the first two books in this series first.   

Big Bad Bite Returned is a quick look into what is happening with Adam and Jenna.   They are happily mated, until Jenna goes to work and gets shot.   This sends Adam into a frenzy of worry and then anger that Jenna has not followed through on her promise to mark him.    I didn’t like Adam when he was pouting (yes grown shifters pout) about Jenna and not telling her but I did like that he made her work to figure it out while never neglecting her care.     He never made her doubt his love.   The ah-ha moment for Jenna was perfect.   Her fix to the problem  was hot, sexy, and full of love.

I expect nothing less than steamy sex, true love, and total devotion from Jessie Lane’s characters.    Big Bad Bite Returned is a short story and the perfect quick read for those who love the Big Bad Bite Series.

“Have you heard the news?”

Adam’s gaze was glued to Jenna’s moving lips, from where she had her chin perched on his chest. Warm amber eyes, lazy from their love making, watched her inquisitively, waiting for her to finish.

“Gage knocked his mate up.”

The left side of Adam’s lips kicked up in a grin, and he mumbled, “Poor guy.”

It was her turn to be amused. She was about to lay the other half of the story down and knew exactly how Adam would react.

“He did it on purpose, Adam.”

It didn’t take long for his eyes to bug out of his head, and those perfect lips that she loved so much dropped open in aghast. “Why in the hell would he do that?”

Jenna snorted in amusement at her mate’s look of horror. “Careful. If anyone in the pack hears you talking like that, they’re going to think you’re against having kids.”

Strong fingers stroked through her hair, and Jenna’s sense of contentedness magnified. She loved these moments when it was just her and her mate, shutting the world out.

“You and I both know that’s not the case. I love the idea of us having pups one day. Just not right now.”

In a move so lightning quick it had her head spinning, Adam flipped Jenna onto her back on the bed. Spreading her thighs wide, he snuggled their hips together so she could feel his rejuvenated hard length against her sex. She couldn’t stop the moan that escaped her as Adam rocked it up and down her clit, which was still sensitive from the earth-shattering sex they had just finished a few minutes ago.

“You’re trying to kill me,” Jenna moaned.

Adam leaned down and nipped her lip. “Never. Killing you would defeat my master plan of fucking you stupid every day.”

She couldn’t help laughing at his blunt words. It was so like her mate to think with his dick. She knew she owned all of him, including his heart. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to tease him for being such a man.

“I see how it is. You only want me for my body.”

He ran his lips down her neck to the spot on her shoulder where he had given her his mate mark and kissed it. It was something Adam did all the time, as if he was paying homage to the spot on her body that made her his. “Wrong again, mate. I want to own all of you.”

“You do own all of me.” She then gasped as he slid inside her, filling her with his hard length.

“I know,” Adam whispered in her ear. She thought about smacking him on the ass for being cocky, but then he whispered in her ear, “Just as you own all of me.”

As her mate made love to her again, a little voice taunted her in the back of her head—her wolf. You don’t own all of him. You’ve yet to give him our mate mark.

Jessie Lane is a best-selling author of Paranormal and Contemporary Romance, as well as, Upper YA Paranormal Romance/Fantasy.

She lives in Kentucky with her two little Rock Chicks in-the-making and her over protective alpha husband that she’s pretty sure is a latent grizzly bear shifter. She has a passionate love for reading and writing naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them.

She’s also a proud member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA).

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The Measure of the Moon by Lisa Preston

Kindle Edition

Expected publication: May 16th 2017 by Thomas & Mercer

 “If you ever say anything to anyone, they all die.”

When eight-year-old Greer Donner falls off his horse in the Washington wilderness, he braces himself to face the long hike home alone. But screams pierce the darkness, and he stumbles upon a dead-end road where a man is beating a woman—nearly to death. In a moment of courage, he stops the assault, but he’s left to face the man, who turns his wrath into an ominous threat: if the boy ever reveals what he has seen, his family will pay the ultimate price. The secret Greer now carries begins his emotional unraveling.

In Seattle, Gillian Trett is a photographer with a troubled marriage and a childhood she’s trying to forget. Domestic tension mounts when her husband’s stepsister arrives. Desperate for a distraction, and a way to advance her career, Gillian throws herself into uncovering the history behind an old man’s Holocaust photo of boys in a forest. The mysterious children and the truth behind the scene haunt her—she can’t let go of the image, or of her own shadowed past.

Then a horrifying revelation entangles Gillian’s path with young Greer’s. The boy and the woman, separated by a generation and a hundred miles, each confront the terrible power of harbored secrets—not only to eclipse the truth but also to illuminate the dark, unknown dimensions of their loved ones and themselves.

My Thoughts…

This is a mystery book… a mystery to the characters in the book that is.     

The Donner family is trying to figure out what has caused Greer to change his attitude, his actions, and his life.    The reader is privy to the knowledge of what happen to Greer.     I loved that the Donner family didn’t just think Greer was acting out.   They knew their child/sibling well enough to know that something had happen to make him act the way he is.     They also went about trying to get him help without pushing him to say or do something that would cause him more trouble.   The support, the love, and the acceptance within the Donner family is true to how every family should be.  

What happen to Greer was horrible.   The fact that a young boy would witness what he did and then kept it all a secret just to keep his family safe made him stronger than most boys would be and proved the love he had for his entire family.       It also proved that a man’s words to a young boy can cause a lot of angst and heartbreak.  

I struggled trying to figure out how Gillian Trett’s part of the story would tie into Greer’s part of the story.    Gillian was not a likeable character from the beginning.      From the beginning of her story she was standoffish, rude, and just not warm and welcoming.   She partially redeemed herself as the story went on.

 The Measure of the Moon is interesting with its dual storylines.  

Book Links

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Meet the Author…  

Born in Phoenix, Lisa lived in numerous Arizona towns as a child and later spent several years in California. By young adulthood, she was in Alaska and started mountain climbing. She climbed in South America on different expeditions, seeking summits in Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. She also travelled solo through Europe and Asia.

Broken Dreams by Callie Anderson RELEASE BLITZ

Title: Broken Dreams

Author: Callie Anderson

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: April 27, 2017

Blurb

Ethan is the boy who climbed into my bedroom every night.

He’s everything I love.

Laced with everything I despise.

He’s every happy memory.

And every shattered dream.

He’s my everything.

But he broke every part of me.

I’m supposed to hate him.

But I can’t.

I don’t know how.

ADD TO GOODREADS

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AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU

Free in Kindle Unlimited

Author Bio

Callie Anderson is a wife, mother and writer, who embraces the truth, then weaves it into a magical tale of romance and heartache.

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Slightly South of Simple by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Paperback, 400 pages

Expected publication: April 25th 2017 by Gallery Books

 

Caroline Murphy swore she’d never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff; she was a New York girl born and bred and the worst day of her life was when, in the wake of her father’s death, her mother selfishly forced her to move—during her senior year of high school, no less—back to that hick-infested rat trap where she'd spent her childhood summers. But now that her marriage to a New York high society heir has fallen apart in a very public, very embarrassing fashion, a pregnant Caroline decides to escape the gossipmongers with her nine-year-old daughter and head home to her mother, Ansley.

Ansley has always put her three daughters first, especially when she found out that her late husband, despite what he had always promised, left her with next to nothing. Now the proud owner of a charming waterfront design business and finally standing on her own two feet, Ansley welcomes Caroline and her brood back with open arms. But when her second daughter Sloane, whose military husband is overseas, and youngest daughter and successful actress Emerson join the fray, Ansley begins to feel like the piece of herself she had finally found might be slipping from her grasp. Even more discomfiting, when someone from her past reappears in Ansley's life, the secret she’s harbored from her daughters their entire lives might finally be forced into the open.

Exploring the powerful bonds between sisters and mothers and daughters, this engaging novel is filled with Southern charm, emotional drama, and plenty of heart. 

My Thoughts…

Slightly South of Simple is a true book about mothers, daughters, and grandchildren.   Every grandmother or mother wants to spend time with their family but it can be overwhelming when everyone gets together at one time.    That is what happens to Ansley.    She is living her life in Peachtree  Bluff, doing her thing, and WHAM her three grown daughters and 3 grandchildren all come to stay with her.    I love how she just rolls with the different attitudes and outlooks on life each daughter has.   She calls them out when she feels they need it but more than anything offers them the support they each need from her.   What I really loved is how much the girls supported her.   They pushed her to step out of her comfort zone and reconnect with Jack.   

Slightly South of Simple is very much Caroline’s story.     Her husband no longer loves her and has left her and their daughter for a beautiful young model while Caroline is very pregnant with their second child.    Caroline runs from New York to her mother for support in what she knows will not be an easy change for her or her daughter.     There are life decisions Caroline will be forced to make that will affect her family’s life forever.  

My heart was tugged at by this southern story.     I could picture the scenes, hear the characters voice, and was in a don’t bother me I’m reading frame of mind while reading Kristy Woodson Harvery’s  story.  

Book Links

Goodreads   |   Amazon   |    Barnes and Noble 

 Check out my thoughts on Lies and Other Acts of Love HERE

Kristy Woodson Harvey is the author of Dear Carolina (Berkley/Penguin Random House, 2015), Lies and Other Acts of Love (Berkley/Penguin Random House, 2016) and the forthcoming Peachtree Bluff Series, beginning with Slightly South of Simple (Gallery/Simon & Schuster, 2017). Dear Carolina was long-listed for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, has been optioned for film and has appeared on numerous “must-read” lists. Lies and Other Acts of Love was a Romantic Times top pick, a Southern Booksellers Okra Pick and was chosen to be a part of the 2017 Trio display, which will spend the year traveling the South.

She blogs daily at Design Chic, the inaugural member of Traditional Home’s design blogger hall of fame, about how creating a beautiful home can be the catalyst for creating a beautiful life and loves connecting with readers at kristywoodsonharvey.com.

Harvey is a Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's school of journalism and holds a master's in English from East Carolina University, with a concentration in multicultural and transnational literature. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and websites, including Southern Living, Traditional Home, Domino, Houzz and Our State. She has been seen in Readers Digest, USA Today, House Beautiful, Huffington Post, PopSugar and Glitter Guide. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and five-year-old son where she is working on her next novel.

Going in Deep (Billionaire Bad Boys, Book 4) by Carly Phillips & GIVEAWAY

Date of Publication: May 9, 2017

Blurb

He isn't Mr. Nice Guy…
Julian Dane thought he'd hit rock bottom — until he met a woman (isn't that what they all say?). He used her and broke her heart. Now he wants to turn things around but the damage he dealt stands in his way.

Kendall Parker's unique issues have made it hard to live a normal life. Very few people understand her and she trusts even less … but she believed in Julian once, and he only betrayed her.

Now Julian is back — a new man — and determined to win Kendall's heart. But this reformed bad boy just might find that Going in Deep is harder than it looks.

Billionaire Bad Boys: Rich, Powerful and Sexy as hell.
All Billionaire Bad Boys Novels stand alone!

Available From

Amazon (Kindle)   B&N   Nook   Kobo   iBooks    Google Play    Amazon (Print)

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About Carly Phillips

After a successful fifteen-year career with various New York publishing houses, and over 40 sexy contemporary romance novels published, N.Y. Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Carly Phillips is now an Indie author who writes to her own expectations and that of her readers. She continues the tradition of hot men and strong women and plans to publish many more sizzling stories. Carly lives in Purchase, NY with her family, two nearly adult daughters and two crazy dogs who star on her Facebook Fan Page and website. She's a writer, a knitter of sorts, a wife, and a mom. In addition, she's a Twitter and Internet junkie and is always around to interact with her readers. You can find out more about Carly at www.carlyphillips.com.

Find Carly Phillips Online

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GIVEAWAY... to win your own ecopy of Going in Deep tell me if you are a fan of Carly Phillips or new to her.  If you are a fan what is your favorite book or series.   One winner will be chosen on Monday May 8th.   

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