I am very excited to share my Feature Post and Book Review on the Buoni Amici Press Release Blitz for LOST & FOUND (PASS Series Book #4) by Freya Barker.
Below you will find a book description, my book review and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
***
Book Description
Even with a degree in psychology and a keen ability to read people, security specialist Bree Graves can’t seem to get a bead on her boss. There was a time she thought she had him figured out but she’d been wrong. Still, she loves her job with PASS and her team has become her family. However, she doesn’t realize how much she needs them until her latest assignment puts her on the radar of a dangerous stalker.
For Yanis Mazur the safety of his PASS team is paramount. Even if that means sacrificing his personal life. Not only did he spend years building his security firm, but also the shield protecting his emotions. Yet when the one person who could breach his walls goes missing during an assignment he sent her on, he’s willing to risk both his business and his heart to get her back.
A victim of obsession, betrayal, and violence, Bree has no choice but to put her faith in the man who almost broke her.
LOST & FOUND (PASS Series Book #4) by Freya Barker is an action and romance filled thrill ride romantic suspense. This is the couple I have been waiting for and it was worth it. This book can be read as a standalone for the crime and suspense plot, but the PASS characters work together and have evolved as characters over the four books.
Briane “Bree” Graves loves working at PASS. She is a five-foot two spitfire who can hang with all the big boys. She has an emotional past with her boss, Yanis, but she loves her job more and buries any personal feelings between the two. Her latest assignment puts her in the path of dangerous stalker and after she is injured, she finds that she may have been wrong about her and Yanis’ past relationship. Yanis wants her back, but he is the one person who could destroy her.
Yanis Mazur has given up a lot as he has built up PASS Security including a personal life. He has shielded his emotions since a he broke off his relationship with Bree. When Bree is targeted, it wakes him up to what he has been missing and what he wants back. Can he protect Bree and get her to trust him again?
I LOVE Bree and Yanis! They have so much past baggage to overcome and all while just trying to stay alive. The romance works well since they are both 15 years older since their breakup and more mature. They are more willing to talk through their problems and misunderstandings. The build up to their reuniting and the sex scenes progresses at a realistic pace with everything else that is happening in the suspense plot. The sex scenes are perfectly hot and never gratuitous. The suspense plot has many surprises and keeps the characters and readers on their toes right up to the climax. I enjoyed catching up with all that is happening with the other men of PASS and their significant others.
I highly recommend Bree and Yanis’ story, the entire series and all of Ms. Barker’s romantic suspense books!
***
Author Bio
USA Today bestselling author Freya Barker loves writing about ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
Driven to make her books about ‘real’ people; she creates characters who are perhaps less than perfect, each struggling to find their own slice of happy, but just as deserving of romance, thrills and chills in their lives.
Recipient of the ReadFREE.ly 2019 Best Book We’ve Read All Year Award for “Covering Ollie, the 2015 RomCon “Reader’s Choice” Award for Best First Book, “Slim To None”, Finalist for the 2017 Kindle Book Award with “From Dust”, and Finalist for the 2020 Kindle Book Award with “When Hope Ends”, Freya continues to add to her rapidly growing collection of published novels as she spins story after story with an endless supply of bruised and dented characters, vying for attention!
K-9 DEFENSE (A K-9 Alaska Novel Book #1) by Elizabeth Heiter is the first book in a new series in the Harlequin Intrigue line of romantic suspense stories set in the scenic wilds of Alaska.
Kensie Morgan flies from Chicago to the wilds of Alaska after a mysterious note appears that could solve the fourteen year old kidnapping of her, at the time, five-year-old sister, Alanna. Kensie was only thirteen at the time, but she feels responsible for not keeping her sister closer while she was reading. She finds she is out of her depths in this remote Alaskan town where outsiders are all looked at with suspicion.
Colter Hayes has been recovering and hiding with his service dog companion, Rebel in a remote Alaskan cabin. Kensie discovers his past and wants his help finding her sister. Colter does not want to reenter the world and yet he cannot let Kensie go on this mission alone.
Kensie is stirring up the locals as well as emotions Colter does not want to feel. Will she and Colter be able to find Kensie’s sister before she is harmed herself or are they on a wild goose chase?
This is a fast read and yet Ms. Heiter is able to make both the “instant like” romance and the mystery/suspense plot feel fully developed and satisfying. Kensie is a strong female heroine even though she was out of her comfort zone. Colter was the perfect wounded alpha hero and his companion Rebel was a great addition to the story for this dog lover. The Alaskan territory added beauty and harshness to the story. Ms. Heiter was also able to bring to life the types of people who inhabit this wilderness, good and bad.
I recommend this emotional and intense romantic suspense and this author!
***
About the Author
Publishers Weekly bestselling author ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists, and a little bit of romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Her novels have been published in more than a dozen countries and eight languages; they’ve also been shortlisted for the HOLT Medallion, National Readers’ Choice, Daphne Du Maurier and Booksellers’ Best awards and won the RT Reviewers’ Choice award.
Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America and Romance Writers of America.
Today I am posting on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Beach Reads Summer 2021 Blog Tour. I am excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE SUMMER SEEKERS by Sarah Morgan.
Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
***
Book Summary
Get swept into a summer of sunshine, soul-searching and shameless matchmaking with this delightfully bighearted road-trip adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Sarah Morgan!
Kathleen is eighty years old. After she has a run-in with an intruder, her daughter wants her to move into a residential home. But she’s not having any of it. What she craves—what she needs—is adventure.
Liza is drowning in the daily stress of family life. The last thing she needs is her mother jetting off on a wild holiday, making Liza long for a solo summer of her own.
Martha is having a quarter-life crisis. Unemployed, unloved and uninspired, she just can’t get her life together. But she knows something has to change.
When Martha sees Kathleen’s advertisement for a driver and companion to share an epic road trip across America with, she decides this job might be the answer to her prayers. She’s not the world’s best driver, but anything has to be better than living with her parents. And traveling with a stranger? No problem. Anyway, how much trouble can one eighty-year-old woman be?
As these women embark on the journey of a lifetime, they all discover it’s never too late to start over…
THE SUMMER SEEKERS by Sarah Morgan is an epic road trip of discovery all wrapped up in this women’s fiction novel for the summer. The adventure, heartbreak, joy and love intertwines between these three protagonists in Ms. Morgan’s enchanting story.
Kathleen is eighty years old and wants one more grand adventure. The original “Summer Seeker” knows she will need help with her planned journey across America on the original Route 66.
Martha is twenty-five, unemployed and living at home with her parents who continually compare her to her successful sister. She is ready for a change and what could be more of a change than crossing the ocean for a road trip driving and being the companion of an octogenarian.
Liza is Kathleen’s daughter and have a personal crisis of her own. Having believed she would be a better wife and mother than her own, she discovers she has become unappreciated and taken for granted. She decides to take her mother’s advice and begin to put herself first.
These three women embark on journeys that will make them all realize it is never too late to start over.
I loved this book so much! The three women, in the three main stages of life are unhappy and this book takes them on a beautiful emotional and enlightening journey of self-discovery. This is a character driven story with a great road trip that is the perfect summer get away read.
I highly recommend The Summer Seekers!
***
Excerpt
1
Kathleen
It was the cup of milk that saved her. That and the salty bacon she’d fried for her supper many hours earlier, which had left her mouth dry.
If she hadn’t been thirsty—if she’d still been upstairs, sleeping on the ridiculously expensive mattress that had been her eightieth birthday gift to herself—she wouldn’t have been alerted to danger.
As it was, she’d been standing in front of the fridge, the milk carton in one hand and the cup in the other, when she’d heard a loud thump. The noise was out of place here in the leafy darkness of the English countryside, where the only sounds should have been the hoot of an owl and the occasional bleat of a sheep.
She put the glass down and turned her head, trying to locate the sound. The back door. Had she forgotten to lock it again?
The moon sent a ghostly gleam across the kitchen and she was grateful she hadn’t felt the need to turn the light on. That gave her some advantage, surely?
She put the milk back and closed the fridge door quietly, sure now that she was not alone in the house.
Moments earlier she’d been asleep. Not deeply asleep—that rarely happened these days—but drifting along on a tide of dreams. If someone had told her younger self that she’d still be dreaming and enjoying her adventures when she was eighty she would have been less afraid of aging. And it was impossible to forget that she was aging.
People said she was wonderful for her age, but most of the time she didn’t feel wonderful. The answers to her beloved crosswords floated just out of range. Names and faces refused to align at the right moment. She struggled to remember what she’d done the day before, although if she took herself back twenty years or more her mind was clear. And then there were the physical changes—her eyesight and hearing were still good, thankfully, but her joints hurt and her bones ached. Bending to feed the cat was a challenge. Climbing the stairs required more effort than she would have liked and was always undertaken with one hand on the rail just in case.
She’d never been the sort to live in a just in case sort of way.
Her daughter, Liza, wanted her to wear an alarm. One of those medical alert systems, with a button you could press in an emergency, but Kathleen refused. In her youth she’d traveled the world, before it was remotely fashionable to do so. She’d sacrificed safety for adventure without a second thought. Most days now she felt like a different person.
Losing friends didn’t help. One by one they fell by the wayside, taking with them shared memories of the past. A small part of her vanished with each loss. It had taken decades for her to understand that loneliness wasn’t a lack of people in your life, but a lack of people who knew and understood you.
She fought fiercely to retain some version of her old self—which was why she’d resisted Liza’s pleas that she remove the rug from the living room floor, stop using a step ladder to retrieve books from the highest shelves and leave a light on at night. Each compromise was another layer shaved from her independence, and losing her independence was her biggest fear.
Kathleen had always been the rebel in the family, and she was still the rebel—although she wasn’t sure that rebels were supposed to have shaking hands and a pounding heart.
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Someone was searching the house. For what, exactly? What treasures did they hope to find? And why weren’t they trying to at least disguise their presence?
Having resolutely ignored all suggestions that she might be vulnerable, she was now forced to acknowledge the possibility. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so stubborn. How long would it have taken from pressing the alert button to the cavalry arriving?
In reality, the cavalry was Finn Cool, who lived three fields away. Finn was a musician, and he’d bought the property precisely because there were no immediate neighbors. His antics caused mutterings in the village. He had rowdy parties late into the night, attended by glamorous people from London who terrorized the locals by driving their flashy sports cars too fast down the narrow lanes. Someone had started a petition in the post office to ban the parties. There had been talk of drugs, and half-naked women, and it had all sounded like so much fun that Kathleen had been tempted to invite herself over. Rather that than a dull women’s group, where you were expected to bake and knit and swap recipes for banana bread.
Finn would be of no use to her in this moment of crisis. In all probability he’d either be in his studio, wearing headphones, or he’d be drunk. Either way, he wasn’t going to hear a cry for help.
Calling the police would mean walking through the kitchen and across the hall to the living room, where the phone was kept and she didn’t want to reveal her presence. Her family had bought her a mobile phone, but it was still in its box, unused. Her adventurous spirit didn’t extend to technology. She didn’t like the idea of a nameless faceless person tracking her every move.
There was another thump, louder this time, and Kathleen pressed her hand to her chest. She could feel the rapid pounding of her heart. At least it was still working. She should probably be grateful for that.
When she’d complained about wanting a little more adventure, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. What could she do? She had no button to press, no phone with which to call for help, so she was going to have to handle this herself.
She could already hear Liza’s voice in her head: Mum, I warned you!
If she survived, she’d never hear the last of it.
Fear was replaced by anger. Because of this intruder she’d be branded Old and Vulnerable and forced to spend the rest of her days in a single room with minders who would cut up her food, speak in overly loud voices and help her to the bathroom. Life as she knew it would be over.
That was not going to happen.
She’d rather die at the hands of an intruder. At least her obituary would be interesting.
Better still, she would stay alive and prove herself capable of independent living.
She glanced quickly around the kitchen for a suitable weapon and spied the heavy black skillet she’d used to fry the bacon earlier.
She lifted it silently, gripping the handle tightly as she walked to the door that led from the kitchen to the hall. The tiles were cool under her feet—which, fortunately, were bare. No sound. Nothing to give her away. She had the advantage.
She could do this. Hadn’t she once fought off a mugger in the backstreets of Paris? True, she’d been a great deal younger then, but this time she had the advantage of surprise.
How many of them were there?
More than one would give her trouble.
Was it a professional job? Surely no professional would be this loud and clumsy. If it was kids hoping to steal her TV, they were in for a disappointment. Her grandchildren had been trying to persuade her to buy a “smart” TV, but why would she need such a thing? She was perfectly happy with the IQ of her current machine, thank you very much. Technology already made her feel foolish most of the time. She didn’t need it to be any smarter than it already was.
Perhaps they wouldn’t come into the kitchen. She could stay hidden away until they’d taken what they wanted and left.
They’d never know she was here.
They’d—
A floorboard squeaked close by. There wasn’t a crack or a creak in this house that she didn’t know. Someone was right outside the door.
Her knees turned liquid.
Oh Kathleen, Kathleen.
She closed both hands tightly round the handle of the skillet.
Why hadn’t she gone to self-defense classes instead of senior yoga? What use was the downward dog when what you needed was a guard dog?
A shadow moved into the room, and without allowing herself to think about what she was about to do she lifted the skillet and brought it down hard, the force of the blow driven by the weight of the object as much as her own strength. There was a thud and a vibration as it connected with his head.
“I’m so sorry—I mean—” Why was she apologizing? Ridiculous!
The man threw up an arm as he fell, a reflex action, and the movement sent the skillet back into Kathleen’s own head. Pain almost blinded her and she prepared herself to end her days right here, thus giving her daughter the opportunity to be right, when there was a loud thump and the man crumpled to the floor. There was a crack as his head hit the tiles.
Kathleen froze. Was that it, or was he suddenly going to spring to his feet and murder her?
No. Against all odds, she was still standing while her prowler lay inert at her feet. The smell of alcohol rose, and Kathleen wrinkled her nose.
Drunk.
Her heart was racing so fast she was worried that any moment now it might trip over itself and give up.
She held tightly to the skillet.
Did he have an accomplice?
She held her breath, braced for someone else to come racing through the door to investigate the noise, but there was only silence.
Gingerly she stepped toward the door and poked her head into the hall. It was empty.
It seemed the man had been alone.
Finally she risked a look at him.
He was lying still at her feet, big, bulky and dressed all in black. The mud on the edges of his trousers suggested he’d come across the fields at the back of the house. She couldn’t make out his features because he’d landed face-first, but blood oozed from a wound on his head and darkened her kitchen floor.
Feeling a little dizzy, Kathleen pressed her hand to her throbbing head.
What now? Was one supposed to administer first aid when one was the cause of the injury? Was that helpful or hypocritical? Or was he past first aid and every other type of aid?
She nudged his body with her bare foot, but there was no movement.
Had she killed him?
The enormity of it shook her.
If he was dead, then she was a murderer.
When Liza had expressed a desire to see her mother safely housed somewhere she could easily visit, presumably she hadn’t been thinking of prison.
Who was he? Did he have family? What had been his intention when he’d forcibly entered her home? Kathleen put the skillet down and forced her shaky limbs to carry her to the living room. Something tickled her cheek. Blood. Hers.
She picked up the phone and for the first time in her life dialed the emergency services.
Underneath the panic and the shock there was something that felt a lot like pride. It was a relief to discover she wasn’t as weak and defenseless as everyone seemed to think.
When a woman answered, Kathleen spoke clearly and without hesitation.
“There’s a body in my kitchen,” she said. “I assume you’ll want to come and remove it.”
USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes hot, happy, contemporary romance and women’s fiction, and her trademark humor and sensuality have gained her fans across the globe. Described as “a magician with words” by RT Book Reviews, she has sold more than eleven million copies of her books. She was nominated three years in succession for the prestigious RITA® Award from the Romance Writers of America and won the award three times: once in 2012 for Doukakis’s Apprentice, in 2013 for A Night of No Return and in 2017 for Miracle on 5th Avenue. She also won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award in 2012 and has made numerous appearances in their Top Pick slot.
As a child, Sarah dreamed of being a writer, and although she took a few interesting detours along the way, she is now living that dream. Sarah lives near London, England, with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing, she loves being outdoors, preferably on vacation so she can forget the house needs tidying.
Today I am excited to be on the Harlequin Trade Publishing Women’s Fiction Summer 2021 Blog Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for CONFESSIONS FROM THE QUILTING CIRCLE by Maisey Yates.
Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
***
Book Summary
The Ashwood women don’t have much in common…except their ability to keep secrets.
When Lark Ashwood’s beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters discover an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark’s been looking for to stop running from the past, but is she ever going to be brave enough to share her biggest secret with the people she ought to be closest to?
Hannah can’t believe she’s back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. The plan? Help her sisters renovate her grandmother’s house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Until she comes face-to-face with a man from her past. But getting close to him again might mean confessing what really drove her away…
Stay-at-home mom Avery has built a perfect life, but at a cost. She’ll need all her family around her, and all her strength, to decide if the price of perfection is one she can afford to keep paying.
This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before, if they are to stitch their family back together, one truth at a time…
CONFESSIONS FROM THE QUILTING CIRCLE by Maisey Yates is a women’s fiction book with romance subplots featuring a mother, her three daughters and the secrets they keep.
When the Ashwood sisters’ beloved grandmother dies, they all return home to Bear Creek, Oregon for the summer. Lark, the youngest finds an unfinished quilt and convinces her mother and sisters to help her finish it.
As they discover the origin of the quilt’s cloth pieces in old diaries, they also begin to reconnect and lean on each other as they begin to reveal decades old secrets that have kept them apart.
Secrets, so many secrets in this book. Ms. Yates deftly handles difficult topics such as abandonment, spousal abuse, sexual abuse and stillbirth all with empathy. As the women come together and work on the quilt, they reveal their secrets knowing that to move forward, they have to face their pasts. The ancestors in the diaries ultimately share their secrets and help the women in the present.
This is not what I am used to reading from Ms. Yates. It is darker with disturbing topics, but it is not all dark, it does have a few touches of romance and ultimate happiness. This story is well written with characters that you become attached to and cheer for their happiness.
I recommend this emotionally difficult, yet ultimately satisfying story.
***
Excerpt
1
March 4th, 1944
The dress is perfect. Candlelight satin and antique lace. I can’t wait for you to see it. I can’t wait to walk down the aisle toward you. If only we could set a date. If only we had some idea of when the war will be over.
Love, Dot
Present day—Lark
Unfinished.
The word whispered through the room like a ghost. Over the faded, floral wallpaper, down to the scarred wooden floor. And to the precariously stacked boxes and bins of fabrics, yarn skeins, canvases and other artistic miscellany.
Lark Ashwood had to wonder if her grandmother had left them this way on purpose. Unfinished business here on earth, in the form of quilts, sweaters and paintings, to keep her spirit hanging around after she was gone.
It would be like her. Adeline Dowell did everything with just a little extra.
From her glossy red hair—which stayed that color till the day she died—to her matching cherry glasses and lipstick. She always had an armful of bangles, a beer in her hand and an ashtray full of cigarettes. She never smelled like smoke. She smelled like spearmint gum, Aqua Net and Avon perfume.
She had taught Lark that it was okay to be a little bit of extra.
A smile curved Lark’s lips as she looked around the attic space again. “Oh, Gram…this is really a mess.”
She had the sense that was intentional too. In death, as in life, her grandmother wouldn’t simply fade away.
Neat attics, well-ordered affairs and pre-death estate sales designed to decrease the clutter a family would have to go through later were for other women. Quieter women who didn’t want to be a bother.
Adeline Dowell lived to be a bother. To expand to fill a space, not shrinking down to accommodate anyone.
Lark might not consistently achieve the level of excess Gram had, but she considered it a goal.
“Lark? Are you up there?”
She heard her mom’s voice carrying up the staircase. “Yes!” She shouted back down. “I’m…trying to make sense of this.”
She heard footsteps behind her and saw her mom standing there, gray hair neat, arms folded in. “You don’t have to. We can get someone to come in and sort it out.”
“And what? Take it all to a thrift store?” Lark asked.
Her mom’s expression shifted slightly, just enough to convey about six emotions with no wasted effort. Emotional economy was Mary Ashwood’s forte. As contained and practical as Addie had been excessive. “Honey, I think most of this would be bound for the dump.”
“Mom, this is great stuff.”
“I don’t have room in my house for sentiment.”
“It’s not about sentiment. It’s usable stuff.”
“I’m not artsy, you know that. I don’t really…get all this.” The unspoken words in the air settled over Lark like a cloud.
Mary wasn’t artsy because her mother hadn’t been around to teach her to sew. To knit. To paint. To quilt.
Addie had taught her granddaughters. Not her own daughter.
She’d breezed on back into town in a candy apple Corvette when Lark’s oldest sister, Avery, was born, after spending Mary’s entire childhood off on some adventure or another, while Lark’s grandfather had done the raising of the kids.
Grandkids had settled her. And Mary had never withheld her children from Adeline. Whatever Mary thought about her mom was difficult to say. But then, Lark could never really read her mom’s emotions. When she’d been a kid, she hadn’t noticed that. Lark had gone around feeling whatever she did and assuming everyone was tracking right along with her because she’d been an innately self focused kid. Or maybe that was just kids.
Either way, back then badgering her mom into tea parties and talking her ear off without noticing Mary didn’t do much of her own talking had been easy.
It was only when she’d had big things to share with her mom that she’d realized…she couldn’t.
“It’s easy, Mom,” Lark said. “I’ll teach you. No one is asking you to make a living with art, art can be about enjoying the process.”
“I don’t enjoy doing things I’m bad at.”
“Well I don’t want Gram’s stuff going to a thrift store, okay?”
Another shift in Mary’s expression. A single crease on one side of her mouth conveying irritation, reluctance and exhaustion. But when she spoke she was measured. “If that’s what you want. This is as much yours as mine.”
It was a four-way split. The Dowell House and all its contents, and The Miner’s House, formerly her grandmother’s candy shop, to Mary Ashwood, and her three daughters. They’d discovered that at the will reading two months earlier.
It hadn’t caused any issues in the family. They just weren’t like that.
Lark’s uncle Bill had just shaken his head. “She feels guilty.”
And that had been the end of any discussion, before any had really started. They were all like their father that way. Quiet. Reserved. Opinionated and expert at conveying it without saying much.
Big loud shouting matches didn’t have a place in the Dowell family.
But Addie had been there for her boys. They were quite a bit older than Lark’s mother. She’d left when the oldest had been eighteen. The youngest boy sixteen.
Mary had been four.
Lark knew her mom felt more at home in the middle of a group of men than she did with women. She’d been raised in a house of men. With burned dinners and repressed emotions.
Lark had always felt like her mother had never really known what to make of the overwhelmingly female household she’d ended up with.
“It’s what I want. When is Hannah getting in tonight?”
Hannah, the middle child, had moved to Boston right after college, getting a position in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She had the summer off of concerts and had decided to come to Bear Creek to finalize the plans for their inherited properties before going back home.
Once Hannah had found out when she could get time away from the symphony, Lark had set her own plans for moving into motion. She wanted to be here the whole time Hannah was here, since for Hannah, this wouldn’t be permanent.
But Lark wasn’t going back home. If her family agreed to her plan, she was staying here.
Which was not something she’d ever imagined she’d do.
Lark had gone to college across the country, in New York, at eighteen and had spent years living everywhere but here. Finding new versions of herself in new towns, new cities, whenever the urge took her.
Unfinished.
“Sometime around five-ish? She said she’d get a car out here from the airport. I reminded her that isn’t the easiest thing to do in this part of the world. She said something about it being in apps now. I didn’t laugh at her.”
Lark laughed, though. “She can rent a car.”
Lark hadn’t lived in Bear Creek since she was eighteen, but she hadn’t been under the impression there was a surplus of ride services around the small, rural community. If you were flying to get to Bear Creek, you had to fly into Medford, which was about eighteen miles from the smaller town. Even if you could find a car, she doubted the driver would want to haul anyone out of town.
But her sister wouldn’t be told anything. Hannah made her own way, something Lark could relate to. But while she imagined herself drifting along like a tumbleweed, she imagined Hannah slicing through the water like a shark. With intent, purpose, and no small amount of sharpness.
“Maybe I should arrange something.”
“Mom. She’s a professional symphony musician who’s been living on her own for fourteen years. I’m pretty sure she can cope.”
“Isn’t the point of coming home not having to cope for a while? Shouldn’t your mom handle things?” Mary was a doer. She had never been the one to sit and chat. She’d loved for Lark to come out to the garden with her and work alongside her in the flower beds, or bake together. “You’re not in New Mexico anymore. I can make you cookies without worrying they’ll get eaten by rats in the mail.”
Lark snorted. “I don’t think there are rats in the mail.”
“It doesn’t have to be real for me to worry about it.”
And there was something Lark had inherited directly from her mother. “That’s true.”
That and her love of chocolate chip cookies, which her mom made the very best. She could remember long afternoons at home with her mom when she’d been little, and her sisters had been in school. They’d made cookies and had iced tea, just the two of them.
Cooking had been a self-taught skill her mother had always been proud of. Her recipes were hers. And after growing up eating “chicken with blood” and beanie weenies cooked by her dad, she’d been pretty determined her kids would eat better than that.
Something Lark had been grateful for.
And Mom hadn’t minded if she’d turned the music up loud and danced in some “dress up clothes”—an oversized prom dress from the ’80s and a pair of high heels that were far too big, purchased from a thrift store. Which Hannah and Avery both declared “annoying” when they were home.
Her mom hadn’t understood her, Lark knew that. But Lark had felt close to her back then in spite of it.
The sound of the door opening and closing came from downstairs. “Homework is done, dinner is in the Crock-Pot. I think even David can manage that.”
The sound of her oldest sister Avery’s voice was clear, even from a distance. Lark owed that to Avery’s years of motherhood, coupled with the fact that she—by choice—fulfilled the role of parent liaison at her kids’ exclusive private school, and often wrangled children in large groups. Again, by choice.
Lark looked around the room one last time and walked over to the stack of crafts. There was an old journal on top of several boxes that look like they might be overflowing with fabric, along with some old Christmas tree ornaments, and a sewing kit. She grabbed hold of them all before walking to the stairs, turning the ornaments over and letting the silver stars catch the light that filtered in through the stained glass window.
Her mother was already ahead of her, halfway down the stairs by the time Lark got to the top of them. She hadn’t seen Avery yet since she’d arrived. She loved her older sister. She loved her niece and nephew. She liked her brother-in-law, who did his best not to be dismissive of the fact that she made a living drawing pictures. Okay, he kind of annoyed her. But still, he was fine. Just… A doctor. A surgeon, in fact, and bearing all of the arrogance that stereotypically implied.
One of the saddest things about living away for as long as she had was that she’d missed her niece’s and nephew’s childhoods. She saw them at least once a year, but it never felt like enough. And now they were teenagers, and a lot less cute.
And then there was Avery, who had always been somewhat untouchable. Four years older than Lark, Avery was a classic oldest child. A people pleasing perfectionist. She was organized and she was always neat and orderly. And even though the gap between thirty-four and thirty-eight was a lot narrower than twelve and sixteen, sometimes Lark still felt like the gawky adolescent to Avery’s sweet sixteen.
But maybe if they shared in a little bit of each other’s day-to-day it would close some of that gap she felt between them.
New York Times Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.
Today I am excited to be on the Buoni Amici Release Blitz and sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE PERFECT HERO (The Themis Series Book #1) by Anna Bishop Barker.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
***
Book Description:
Themis, the Titan goddess of justice. The purveyor of divine law and order.
The men and women of The Themis Group have a singular cause – to bring justice and closure to those who have lost hope.
But while they are united in mission, they all have their reasons for being with the mysterious private investigation firm that straddles the converging lines of crime scene science, traditional investigation, and mainstream law enforcement. Some do it for the thrill. Some do it for the satisfaction. Some do it because they are compelled.
But each member of the team is looking for something they will never find in the work they have chosen.
The Perfect Hero – Book 1 of The Themis Series
Hired to follow a trail of blood, bodies, and madness, Logan Pressley and the Themis Group are looking for a killer. Not just a killer—The Slayer.
He is not looking for a woman. At 45 years old, he has had enough of humanity, and wants no part of the myth that people call love.
Starting a new life, Maggie Robertson is not looking for a hero. Hell, she’s not even looking for a watered-down version of one. Romance, she has found, is a wasted phenomenon for the young, and the days for being swept off her feet are long past.
Then there was that one-night stand. The night Logan and Maggie lost themselves in each other. In that single night, all the carefully laid rules were broken.
THE PERFECT HERO (A Themis Series Book #1) by Anna Bishop Barker is the first book in a new romantic suspense series featuring the men and women of The Themis Group. The Themis Group is a private investigation firm in Tampa, Florida with all the capabilities of public law enforcement and more. They also have the willingness to help law enforcement and the hopeless when called.
One night out when neither was looking for anything, but a drink with friends, Maggie Robertson and Logan Pressley are thrown together and the sparks fly straight into a night of unexpected passion. While both would like to see the other again, it does not happen as expected.
The Themis Group has been hired by the FBI task force to assist in the chase of a vicious serial killer called The Slayer. Logan has been recovering the victims of The Slayer from bodies of water all around Florida. Co-owner of Themis with his brother and a former Army Ranger, Logan strives for perfection to make up for one terrible mistake from his past.
Maggie is a mature woman on the verge of a new career. Her son is in his last year at West Point and she decides to accept the offer from The Themis Group to put her new Criminal Psychology Degree to use. She is surprised to find her new boss is Logan’s brother. She is intelligent, smart and mature and willing to give the situation a chance and see where it leads.
As Themis searches for a serial killer, Logan and Maggie each find they have events from their pasts that have shaped them, but can they get past them and share their vulnerabilities to find happiness with each other?
This is my kind of romance with mature characters that have mature issues and work to solve them without games or lack of communication. Maggie and Logan are both in their forties and know what they want and do not want and are surprised by the instant connection they find. The sex scenes are explicit and smokin’ hot throughout the story. The suspense plot was not as intricately integrated into the romance as I would have preferred. The crossover was not brought to light until close to the end of the book and it is not one you can guess. There is a glimpse of one of the antagonists crossing over into the next book. This book also sets up many of the characters we are likely to follow into future books in The Themis Group.
I can recommend this romantic suspense for a great mature romance read and I am looking forward to many more books to come from this author.
***
About the Author
I was born in Kentucky and raised in Florida, so I am a southerner through and through. Since I was old enough to pick up a book, I have been a voracious reader. I wrote the usual poetry and short stories in high school, and I kept the dream of writing in the back of my heart until opportunity and encouragement helped me to realize that dream.
I live in Tampa with my kids, grandkids, dogs, various other livestock, and way more books than is strictly healthy.
Hot Romance.
Suspense.
Humor & heart.
Grown up stories for grown up people. This is what I write. There’s also food, music, dogs, the occasional geek reference, and quite possibly an inappropriate joke. There will likely be dead bodies as well.
Three random facts about me: 1. I was bitten by a shark when I was 14. 2. I have read War and Peace. (When I get to the afterlife, I am demanding that week of my life back. Sorry, Tolstoy.) 3. It is my sincere belief that any situation can be improved by eating some cheese.
My life philosophy is guard your inner peace and read dirty kissing books.
Today I am excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on this Blog Tour for CHANGING THE RULES (Richter Book #1) by Catherine Bybee.
Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section, the author’s social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway for a $100 Amazon gift card. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
***
BookSummary
As an employee of MacBain Security and Solutions, Claire Kelly can certainly hold her own. Armed with an impressive set of covert skills, she’s more than prepared to tackle any job that comes her way…except one involving Cooper Lockman.
Cooper and Claire used to work together before his feelings for her sent him packing to Europe for six long years. But now he’s back and determined to ignore the still-smoldering heat that lingers between them.
Their current mission: go undercover together at a California high school to root out the mastermind behind a prostitution ring targeting young girls. The closer they get to the truth and the closer they get to each other, however, the deadlier their task becomes. As Claire and Cooper risk their lives to bring down their target, will their hearts be the final casualties?
CHANGING THE RULES (Richter Book #1) by Catherine Bybee is the first book in a new romantic suspense series featuring characters working for MacBain Security and Solutions that were introduced in the fifth and final book “Say It Again” in the First Wives Club series. Even with the crossover, this book is easily read as a standalone with background information given in the story.
Claire Kelly was taught an impressive set of covert skills at her private military boarding school, Richter in Germany. Given a home and college education by the MacBain’s, Kelly has now worked for MacBain Security and Solutions for six years while living with her best friend and fellow Richter graduate, Jax.
Cooper Lockman has been working in the European MacBain office for the last six years and has returned to the California headquarters in time for a new assignment with Claire. He left to give Claire time to mature and make her own life, but he is back and finds he still wants her.
Claire as a student and Cooper as a back-up track coach are working undercover in a local high school to root out a sex-trafficking ring with a mastermind who has eluded local undercover police. The more they uncover, the more dangerous their situation even as their relationship heats up.
I was so happy to see Claire and Cooper get a story. Claire is a character that can take care of herself and was trained in all covert skills and yet she is a caring and giving adult. Abandoned as a baby and still at times affected by that, she loves the MacBain and Hoffman families. Cooper is perfect for Claire. He is willing to give her up for six years, appreciates her skills and does not seek to change her. Ms. Bybee does a wonderful job of making Claire and Cooper’s romance grow naturally while also keeping the plot and suspense moving at a rapid pace with ever increasing tension. All the characters, past and present and the increasing suspense keep you turning the pages to get to the final solution.
I highly recommend this romantic suspense and I am looking forward to many more!
***
Excerpt
Claire collapsed onto the living room sofa the second she walked in the door. Not only had she suffered a headache the entire day, Cooper ran her like a trainer working an Iron Man competitor.
“That sounds like a bad day,” Jax said as she walked around the corner of the kitchen.
“You don’t want to know.”
Claire flung an arm over her eyes to block out the sun.
She heard Jax walk in the room and then exhale as she sat down. “You’re right. I don’t give a crap what happened in school, unless it involved Cooper. What I want is the details of last night after I got out of the car.”
Before Cooper picked them up, Claire and Jax had agreed that Jax would give them a few minutes to have a private conversation. Now Claire regretted that plan.
“The long story, or the short story?” Claire asked.
“Whatever one you want to deliver.”
Claire’s arms slid off her head, and she pushed herself into a sitting position.
“Cooper has a thing for me.”
Jax sat silent, blinked a few times. “Okay, and?”
“What do you mean, ‘okay, and?’”
“Sorry, Claire, but that’s obvious. I think you’d have to be an idiot to not see it. Even the guys on the team see it.”
“What? Are they talking about—”
Jax stopped her with a shake of the head. “Of course not. But you can tell by how they look at the two of you that they know there’s an attraction.”
Claire pointed to her chest. “I’m not doing anything, it’s him.”
“Maybe it’s more him.”
She kept shaking her head. “No, it’s all him. I’m not instigating anything.”
“You flirt with him all the time.”
“I do not,” Claire huffed.
One look from Jax and she rescinded her statement. “Okay, we banter. But it’s always been like that. I have the pool stick, he makes some kind of phallic joke. It’s banter. Not flirting.”
Jax sat back, crossed her arms over her chest. Claire couldn’t believe her best friend was calling her out. “We’re friends. And last night he ruined that by telling me he’s had a thing for me since we met. Told me he left sunny California for dreary London because I was too young and naive to handle him when I first got here.”
Jax narrowed her eyes. “Is that really how he said that?”
Claire’s headache was coming back. “No. He said I was a child.”
“A child?”
Claire stood up from the couch, started for the kitchen. “He kept repeating that I was eighteen back then.”
Jax followed behind. “Which is true.”
Claire yanked open the fridge, pulled out a beer. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Always. But I just don’t see where all the fire is about this. Cooper owns up to the flirting comments and puppy-dog looks he gives you, and you’re pissed because he walked away six years ago.”
Like picking a lock, the pieces slid into place and finally started to click. “But he’s my friend.”
“Trying to say you’ve never thought of him as more?”
“No.” Her denial was quick.
Jax started to smile. “You’ve never checked out his ass? The guy can fill out a pair of jeans.”
Some of the anger she’d harbored all day eased. “That’s true.”
“And that smile. When he’s belly laughing he has the tiniest dimples.”
Claire closed her eyes, pictured his smile. She hadn’t noticed the dimples, but now that she thought about it . . . She opened her eyes to find Jax staring at her.
“Sounds like you have a thing for him,” Claire said.
“Wouldn’t matter if I did, and I don’t, by the way, but it wouldn’t matter. The guy can’t stop looking at you.”
“God, what am I going to do with him?”
“I don’t think you have to do anything. It’s not like he asked you out and you said no and now it’s awkward.”
“You’re right. It’s worse than that.”
“You’re overthinking it.” Jax pushed off the counter. “You know what, let’s gussy up a little and hit a proper happy hour. We’ll talk in German and pretend we don’t speak English and shamelessly flirt.”
Claire abandoned her beer. “Now that is exactly what I need to do and get my mind off of boys.”
***
About the Author
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bybee has written twenty-eight books that have collectively sold more than five million copies and have been translated into more than eighteen languages. Raised in Washington State, Bybee moved to Southern California in the hope of becoming a movie star. After growing bored with waiting tables, she returned to school and became a registered nurse, spending most of her career in urban emergency rooms. She now writes full-time and has penned the Not Quite Series, the Weekday Brides Series, the Most Likely To Series, and the First Wives Series.
