Archives for March 2021

The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman

March 4, 2021 By Leave a Comment


The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Genre: Historical, Non-Fiction
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936

On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved―the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson―by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.

All you have viagra 25mg prix to do is rub the creme on the penis. What causes erectile dysfunction? There are a variety of ways to treat prostate cancer including* Surgery to remove the combustion material and a source of ignition; isolation, limit and stop the combustible material into the combustion zone; cooling method is to reduce the combustion temperature, discount viagra cialis to lower the temperature below the ignition point of combustible material . More rest is needed to prevent viagra buy australia benign prostatic hyperplasia. There are many other reasons because of which boating, sailing, and fishing are a popular outdoors activities viagra samples here. Alexander Larman’s The Crown in Crisis will treat readers to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward’s and Wallis’s close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings readers up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton.

For the first time in a book about the abdication, readers will read an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward’s life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson’s scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government’s worries about Edward’s relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won’t be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.

A complicated love and a complicated situation all the way around.

I had no idea how complicated and what a deal it was when Edward decided to abdicate. This was just simply history to me. Something that happened, but this book makes the situation come alive.

I will be the first to admit I didn’t know much about the abdication. I didn’t know much about the people involved beyond knowing their names. That was it. By reading this book, it brought the situation to life for me. Wallis was more than a name on a page. She’s complicated and cunning. She’s also in love with Edward–it seems sort of that she’s in love with his status and his position, but there also seemed like genuine love there. Edward was in love. He wanted Wallis because she seemed to be everything he loved in life–her freedom, her coolness and her ability to worm her way into situations. She knew how to be someone. She could be vain and snotty, though, too.

There were a lot of levers being pulled in this situation and so many players. It’s a complicated read, but it’s also worth the time. Pick this one up and go for the ride.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Do No Harm by Christina McDonald

March 4, 2021 By Leave a Comment


Do No Harm by Christina McDonald
Publisher: Gallery Books
Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Women’s Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Lavender

Emma loves her life. She’s the mother of a precocious kindergartener, married to her soulmate—a loyal and loving police detective—and has a rewarding career as a doctor at the local hospital.

But everything comes crashing down when her son, Josh, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

Determined to save him, Emma makes the risky decision to sell opioids to fund the life-saving treatment he needs. But when somebody ends up dead, a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues, her own husband leading the chase. With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Emma is dragged into the dark world of drugs, lies, and murder. Will the truth catch up to her before she can save Josh?

How Is Impotence Treated? Prescription free sample of cialis Drugs Nowadays the most popular treatment is prescription drugs. When the problem of urination becomes intense, your kidneys need to work more buy sildenafil without prescription for absorbing and filtering the excess sugar content in your body. davidfraymusic.com online cialis Later we learned that the medical term for stomach inflammation is called gastritis. The http://davidfraymusic.com/events/russian-recital-tour-sverdlovsk-state-academic-philharmonic/ buying viagra in canada simplest way to reduce physical fatigue at work (which is the major cause of this disease. How far would you go to save your child? Would you give up your integrity, everything to do this? Emma is a doctor, happily married and with a beautiful little boy. Emma and her detective husband, Nate, and their little boy, Josh, are struggling financially but are still content with their lives. Then they get horrible news: Josh has cancer, and his best chance of survival depends on a new, experimental procedure with highly good results. Unfortunately, the cost is prohibitively high, beyond their means.

Nate decides to crack a case so he could get a promotion to be better able to pay the escalating hospital bills. The trouble is that he must investigate Emma’s brother and try to bring down a drug ring in their town. Many people have been dying from overdoses. He is a complex character and extremely likeable. He has must face demons from his past as he tries to solve the case facing him.

Emma is great—at first. She is a desperate mom who will do anything to save her child. How does one go about getting a large sum of money in a short time? She enters a world she thought she never would and becomes darker in the process. She constantly faces hard decisions and does despicable things, for a good cause—to save her child. However, does the end justify the means? That is the big question, the point of the book. Her character is well drawn as well, and her demons from the past are even greater than Nate’s. By the end, readers will either understand her decisions or hate her. The secondary characters are described enough so that we understand even their motivations.

Tension constantly builds in this nail-biting drama. Emma tries to keep her activities away from her husband, and it is getting ever more difficult.

Other themes come into play: family, friendship, right versus wrong, health care, and addiction. These themes are treated with sensitivity and respect and offer readers much to think about. The decisions are complex, for all the major characters.

Christina McDonald has done a great job writing an entertaining book while giving it depth. I recommend this book for those who want a page turner with substance.

Filed Under: Mainstream Fiction, Mystery/Suspense, Other, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson – Spotlight and Giveaway

March 4, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Long and Short Reviews welcomes MaryJanice Davidson who is celebrating the recent release of A Wolf After My Own Heart, the second book in her BeWere My Heart series. Read our 5 star review here. Enter the rafflecopter for a chance to win a copy of the first book in the series, Bears Behaving Badly.

Things are hot and getting hotter… Escape into this delicious shifter romance from bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson.

Oz Adway is a rare breed: an accountant who wants to get dirty. He’s a wolf shifter working for the Interspecies Placement Agency so it’s not long before he gets the opportunity to break out of his boring, safe office job. He volunteers to find runaway bear cub Sally Smalls, recently orphaned by a plane crash. Piece of cake, right? Unfortunately, Sally’s taken refuge with “ordinary” human Lila Kai. Lila has no idea what’s going on, but she’ll destroy anyone who tries to take the cub. Oz is not about to let a human jeopardize his daring career move, no matter how attractive he finds her.

Lila knows something’s different about the sexy weirdo who keeps popping up in the wrong place at the right time. She’s determined to figure out what, regardless of the escalating threats to her safety and Oz’s distracting hotness. She didn’t move into a cursed house and take in a werebear just to run when things get complicated. Together, Oz and Lila will prevail! But only if they can keep their hands off each other…

Enjoy an Excerpt

She was just getting the hang of the ambulance when she hit the wolf.

The thing was bulky and difficult to control (the ambulance, not the wolf), and whenever she got it back from its semiannual mechanically induced coma, it took her a few minutes to get the hang of driving it again.

She stood on the brakes
(oh shit oh shit oh shit)
and braced for the double-thump of the tires running over the animal, which didn’t come.

Lila Kai collapsed back into her seat, her heart pounding so hard she could taste metal. She pulled over to the side of the street. A street, not a country road on the way from nowhere to somewhere. This was Lilydale, not Hastings. And even Hastings didn’t have wolves in their streets. Just deer. So what the hell?

She put the ambulance in Park, kept the engine running, and hopped down. She checked the headlights—nothing. The side of the road—nothing. She even took a tentative couple of steps into the brown brush lining the ditch
(don’t think about the zillions of horror movies that start like this)
—nothing. No wolf, limping or otherwise. Or…coyote, maybe?

Which made sense, now that she thought about it. Because whatever it was, it hadn’t been just huge, it had been fast, too. It had come out of nowhere and to nowhere it returned, all in the space of half a second. Maybe she just clipped it.

Is that a metaphor for something? Life? Death? Taxes? Transitions? Romance?
Mmmm…probably not the latter. There was just no way to twist clipping a random wolf into an allegory about her nonexistent dating life. The fact that she’d given even half a second of thought to that was proof that she needed to lay off the Cosmos (the drink and the magazine).

She went back to her decommissioned ambulance, rebuckled her seat belt, put it in Drive, checked her rearview, ignored the urge to ponder more metaphors-that-weren’t, then pulled out, and headed back toward her rental house. The adrenaline rush had been unwelcome as always, but—
“God damn it!”

Two kids had darted out from nowhere
(what the hell is up with this street?)
and were flagging her down, waving their little arms around so fast they looked like little bony windmills in a gale.

This time, at least, she didn’t have to stand on the brakes, and once she had stopped, she rolled down her window. “What’s going on, li’l weirdos?”

Both children were gesturing frantically. “C’mere, you have to help, she’s hurt!”

And more than a few horror movies start like this, too.

Again with park, unbuckling, opening door, climbing out. The boy and girl who had jumped in front of her looked like they were about eight, dressed in the de rigeur kid gear of jeans and sweatshirts and battered sneakers. They had the corn-fed reddish-blond looks of many Minnesotans. “Who’s hurt?”

“I dunno, she just is, we found her, come on. Bring your ambulance gear!”

“It’s not an ambulance.”

“’Course it’s an ambulance!”

“No, I mean it’s decommissioned, so it’s not really an amb—”

Tiring of her explanation, the girl seized Lila’s hand and started hauling her up the street. Lila looked behind her, half expecting to see the wolf creeping up on them and felt a little let down to see the way was clear. Which was insane. Strange enough to see such a creature under any circumstances, never mind smack in the middle of town. But she wanted to see it again; how was that for nuts?

I probably need a nap.

The girl hauled on her hand again and hooked left
“Jeez, kid. Do you work out?”
and then led her down a short alley, to where a small huddled form was curled into a blanket.

“See?” the girl asked, clamping down hard on Lila’s fingers in her excitement.

“Yeah, see?” the boy, presumably her brother, added. “She’s right there!”

“Isn’t this a school night?” But she bent over the small figure, blinked as her brain tried to process the image, gently touched it on the shoulder, then pinched her own leg
(Nope. Not dreaming.)
and looked up at the kids. “All right, first, that’s not a kid, it’s a bear cub for some reason. Second, I’m not a vet. Most important, I’m not an EMT, either.”

Instead of answering, the girl whacked the boy on the arm and hissed something that sounded like, “Unstable!”

“My high school guidance counselor would agree.” Lila bent back over the curled up mass of black, fluffy, whimpering fur that cowered away from her and glared with dark eyes. “I’m not sure what it is you think I can do.” She looked back up only to see the children’s expressions had transformed; they were actually edging away from her. “Why are you doing that? You guys lured me here. If anyone should be uneasy, it’s me. Shouldn’t you have picked my pocket by now?” She looked around the utterly deserted alley. For the first time, she realized she couldn’t hear anything: no bugs, no birds, nothing. And not much light from the lone streetlight. Downright creepy.

She checked the mouth of the alley for the wolf and was again disappointed to see nothing.

“You’re right, sorry,” the boy said.

“Yeah, sorrywebotheredyougoodbyenow.”

Lila sighed. She was in it the minute she’d stepped down from the vehicle that wasn’t an ambulance. “God damn it. Okay, so, just because I can’t help doesn’t mean someone else can’t.” She stood, only to see the children take several steps back. “Maybe call animal control?” She had to, she realized. You couldn’t just leave a random bear cub in a random alley after random kids flagged down a random adult.

But in the time it took her to fish out her phone and begin looking up Lilydale Animal Control—or would that be Saint Paul?—the children had (cue the dramatic music) vanished. Like the wolf, her patience, and her faith in the good people at Apartment Guide.

“Nice quiet neighborhood,” she muttered to the Realtor who wasn’t there. “Lots of families. It’s in the middle of a national park. Bargain.”

She’d been a Lilydale resident for fewer than eighteen hours and had no idea who to call. And after a day of unpacking, she was standing in an alley at 8:00 p.m. After hitting a wolf. The one thing she did know: she—they—couldn’t stay there indefinitely.

“You’d tell me if you were a metaphor, right, teeny tiny bear cub?”

She scooped it up, surprised by how light it was, given that it was the size of a small golden retriever
(it must be mostly fur, the way birds are mostly feathers)
then checked for the wolf one more time, and headed back to her nonbulance.

***

Excerpted from Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson. © 2021 by MaryJanice Davidson. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author MaryJanice Davidson is the NYT and USA Today best-selling author of the UNDEAD and UNWED paranormal romcom series. Her books have been published in over a dozen languages and have been bestsellers worldwide. A former model and medical test subject (two jobs that are close than you’d think), she lives with her family in St. Paul, MN.

Website

Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Bookshop, BAM, or Books2Read.

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Related By Murder by Jo A. Hiestand

March 3, 2021 By 5 Comments


Related By Murder by Jo A. Hiestand
Publisher: Self Published
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense
Rated: 4 stars
Review by Rose

From the moment ex-police detective Michael McLaren arrives at his friend’s house, he’s plunged into a nightmare of a case. Two men, hanged a year apart, each killed on a Good Friday. A barrister. A solicitor. Related careers. Related by murder. Related motives?

Pottery shards, a torn newspaper article, and biscuits are found in each man’s pocket. What do they signify? And the blackmail letters Melanie receives… Are they related to the murders, or are they separate, terrifying in their own way?

Professions, calendar date, McLaren’s attack. Could it all be entwined? Or is the motive for murder something else, something so secret that keeping it is worth attempting a third one?

Ms. Hiestand has done it again! Somehow I’ve managed to miss a book or two in the series, and they are on my list to pick up. Not because you need them to understand what is going on in this book, but because I love the characters and want to fill in the gaps.

It was good to see McLaren again and his friend Jamie, and I was very happy to see him moving on with his life. I loved the character of Melanie and can’t wait to go back and see how they met, as well as how their relationship has progressed. As much as I love the mystery aspect of this series, I am drawn back to them over and over again by the characters. Ms. Hiestand does such a good job of bringing them to life – even the secondary characters!

As always, the mystery was top-rate. I have to admit I was caught off-guard…good job with that! I always love it when an author manages to surprise me with the culprit.

Thanks for another outstanding read, Ms. Hiestand!

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Covet Thy Neighbor by Denise Carbo

March 3, 2021 By 13 Comments


Covet Thy Neighbor by Denise Carbo
Publisher: Self Published
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rated: Four Stars
Review by Poppy

Single mom of twin boys, Olivia Banner, has her hands full juggling life’s demands. She doesn’t have time for her mysterious new neighbor or all the questions his presence conjures up, even if he is a handsome devil.

Toss in a complicated relationship with her ex-husband, meddlesome family members, and going back to school to provide a stable financial future for her and her boys, and Olivia turns to her gal pals for guidance.

Sometimes playing it safe is the right choice, and other times leaping into the unknown can lead to all the dreams you never knew you had coming true.

“My neighbor is a serial killer.”

This line is a few pages into this book, and made me literally LOL. I knew I was in for a fun time, right off the bat. You know what I loved most about this book? The characters and the town. The writing is really easy and flows nicely and the dialogue is natural between all the characters (there are a LOT of people in this book). I’m a huge fan of character driven plots, and this one checks all the boxes.

It’s obvious this is part of a series (we have a couple getting ready to get married, for example, and I’m sure they were the H/h in the previous book) but I never felt lost. I do feel as if the whole experience would have been richer and more fun if I’d read the previous books, but I had no issues following anything.

The author shows a realistic version of a divorced family, the struggles they previous spouses go through, the difficulties splitting custody of children, etc. I have to admit I did NOT like Olivia’s ex, Ryan, in the least (one of the first things he does is “smirk” at her and MAN did my irritation level rise at that) and had a hard time believing she’d even try to reconcile, but I’ve actually talked to folks who never wanted to try everything to keep a marriage together.

There’s a lot of angst and issues to overcome on the parts of both Olivia and Luke and that, also, is handled well. Olivia’s twin boys are realistic and precocious and made me want to tear my hair out sometimes (…see?… realistic!). Secondary characters were well-written and well-rounded and everyone was three dimensional and unique. I only have a couple of complaints: there were SO many people, sometimes I had trouble keeping up (this might have been different if I’d read the previous book) and occasionally the book did tend to be a little cheesy, ala your favorite Hallmark Movie. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it did cause me to have an eye roll now and then.

Really, though, this is a nice, solid small-town, character driven romance. You’ll fall in love with more than the main characters here. You’ll fall in love with the whole dang town and its inhabitants. Looking forward to more from Granite Cove!

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A Universe Less Traveled by Eric Von Schrader

March 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment


A Universe Less Traveled by Eric Von Schrader
Publisher: Weeping Willow Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Fiction
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Lavender

What if there were another world, almost like ours, but not quite? It brushes up against us, like the tail end of a dream, but stays just barely out of reach.

What if you found a way to go there?

Billy Boustany stumbles upon the ability to slip into a surprising new version of his sleepy midwestern city. He begins a journey that is most fun he’s had in years. Then it turns into an obsession that upends his life, his family, and everything he knows.

A Universe Less Traveled tells Billy’s story, framed by tales of other accidental travelers to this mysterious city, and provides a glimpse into an alternate history of the twentieth century.
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Looking for an escape from the troubles of his failing business, Billy discovers a teeming metropolis with iridescent skyscrapers and throngs of immigrants and tourists from all over the world. As he explores, he meets peculiar allies and experiences raucous celebrations. Billy questions his sanity as he struggles to make sense of this bizarre world. Though he fears screwing up his adventure, he lets his college student daughter in on the secret. Together they go further into this amazing place, until they reach the ultimate destination, a magnificent city of Native Americans that has sprung up at an ancient site. There she begins a relationship with a handsome young man with a startling plan.

Billy also meets a formidable enemy – the Knights, a shadowy organization with a mission to keep people like him out of their world. They reveal how the two worlds diverged a century ago and warn him to stay away at all costs.

When his daughter disappears at the hands of the Knights, Billy and his wife go on a frantic search to find her in the other city. It leads to heartbreak, then to a new beginning.

The story starts right off with amusing correspondence about mistaken identity in the early twentieth century. Then readers are brought to the year 2010 with Billy, the protagonist, who owns an electronics store. Little details bring his story and his world to life, and there are lot of them.

From Billy’s point of view, strange things are happening, places he clearly remembered are disappearing. How could that be?

We’re also brought into the world of Jim Hines, during the Crash before the Great Depression. However, after he falls off a building and then later wakes up from a coma, he notices that his world is…different. This is a second chance for him, but there is a downside to this changed history. He comes up with a brilliant idea to save the day, which in turn drastically changes the future.

The worlds of these two men are linked in an interesting way. John is Billy’s employee, and his story is just as interesting. There is a great subplot concerning Native Americans, and this is interwoven well with the story. The action picks up, and the characters experience all kinds of unknowns. How will they get out of their tricky situation? This is a fun story, a great way to escape and fire up the imagination.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Among the Ruins by Dominic Peloso

March 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment


Among the Ruins by Dominic Peloso
Publisher: Dark Mountain Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery/Thriller
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

An aspiring actress finds herself the only person still alive after a plague has devastated the world. With no purpose left, she finds herself almost unable to go on; until she meets literally the last man on earth.

Together the pair find a reason to live within each other, and work to build a life on a beautiful, quiet Earth they have all to themselves.

But when a message from someone long thought dead warns that all is not as it appears, paranoia sets in. Is the last man on earth her charming savior or a creepy captor?
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Gripping, packed with twists and turns from the first page to the very last, this stunning psychological thriller is a rollercoaster of a read that explores gaslighting, Stockholm Syndrome, disassociation, mental illness, existentialism, and the search for purpose in an absurd universe.

Nobody was supposed to survive this plague, but someone did.

I was mesmerized by how much detail was included in the first scene. It described the disorienting sensation of waking up alone after a serious illness. Elyse wobbled around on weak, shaky legs while performing basic living tasks like using the bathroom and finding something quick and easy to eat in her kitchen. She was so fragile in those moments that I immediately empathized with how vulnerable she was as someone who was still ill and had no one to look after her. This scene sucked me into the plot immediately. It was an excellent, if occasionally a little stinky, introduction to this character and her conflicts.

There were times when Elyse made decisions that defied all logical explanations. While I understood that her mental illness made it difficult for her to tell the difference between reality and her delusions at times, her reactions to similar stimuli were so varied that I could never tell how she might react the next time they happened. It was hard to get to know her under these circumstances, much less come up with many theories about what was really happening to her. I’m saying this as a reader who was fascinated by the conflicts she faced and couldn’t wait to see how her conflicts were resolved.

With that being said, the ending couldn’t have been better. It stayed true to Elyse’s understanding of how the world worked while also providing tantalizing hints about what might have really been going on with her. I also appreciated the fact that it left room for a few different interpretations for audience members who had other theories about the causes of the strange events she experienced after the plague ripped through her city. This was the sort of tale I’d love to discuss in a book club or with other readers who have strong opinions about the storyline.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend Among the Ruins to anyone who enjoys stories that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

An Unexpected Earl by Anna Harrington

March 3, 2021 By Leave a Comment

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Anna Harrington who is celebrating the recent release of her newest book An Unexpected Earl, the second book in the Lords of the Armory series. Enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win the first book in the series An Inconvenient Duke.

He’s determined to do right by the girl he left behind…

Twelve years ago, former brigadier Brandon Pearce had to give up the girl he loved, Amelia Howard. Now he’s the Earl of Sandhurst, but committed to stopping a criminal group that’s threatening the lives of innocent people. Amelia’s brother is in their clutches, and Pearce has to navigate the slippery slope of being back in Amelia’s life without telling her what he’s really up to.

But he’ll have to deceive her first…

Amelia is now a grown woman with a past she desperately needs to keep hidden in order to save her brother Frederick’s reputation. She’s shocked to discover that Frederick is being blackmailed—and heartbroken that, despite his protestations, Brandon Pearce appears to be on the wrong side of all this.

Pearce is playing a deep game to further his investigation, but he’s willing to do anything for a second chance with Amelia, even when he discovers she has secrets of her own…

Enjoy an Excerpt

“You’re soaked through and freezing because of me. I can’t stop you from putting yourself unnecessarily at risk—” When Amelia opened her mouth to protest that, Pearce cut her off. “But I can save you from catching your death of cold.” He put his hands on his hips in a commanding pose that showed him as the no-nonsense brigadier he’d become. “Now, take off that dress.”

She refused to move and silently returned his stare. To be honest, the thought of taking off her wet clothes and finding something dry to put on tempted her. Greatly. Especially since an icy puddle was spreading around her feet at that very moment. But she’d never give him the pleasure of admitting he was right about—

A violent shiver shuddered through her so hard that her teeth chattered.

Pearce leveled an I-told-you-so gaze on her that had surely made his subordinates quake in their boots.

“Fine.” With no other choice, Amelia grudgingly turned her back to him. “But I have no maid here.” She tried to inject as much irritation into her voice as possible, so he wouldn’t suspect how the thought of undressing in front of him twisted her belly into an aching tangle of desire. “So if you want me out of this dress, then you’re going to have to help me.”

Her wet hair had tumbled down from the chase, and she lifted it off her back, out of his way, with trembling hands.

When he reached for the row of tiny buttons on her back, she closed her eyes, willing her breath to remain steady, her pulse calm. One by one, the buttons slipped free, and her bodice loosened.

“This is necessary,” he explained, misreading her protests. “You’ll never warm up as long as you’re in this wet thing.”

She bit back a distressed laugh. “And here I thought you were simply attempting to see me naked.”

She could almost hear the rueful twist of his lips. “I’ve undressed you before, you know.”

“When I was nine.” A strained quality laced through her suddenly hoarse voice. “We’ve changed since then. If you persist in this folly, then we’ll both find out exactly how much.”

“It isn’t folly.” He lowered his mouth over her shoulder. “And believe me, Amelia,” he murmured, his breath tickling her ear, “I know exactly how much.”

Foolish longing ached at the back of her weakening knees.

“All done.” The last button slipped free, and her bodice drooped low down her front.

She grabbed at it with both hands to keep it in place as she whirled around to face him. “This isn’t at all prop—”

Her chastisement died beneath his stare. Instantly, her anger was replaced by something else just as fierce. Something that pulsed achingly and made goose bumps spring up across her wet skin, that longed to have his hands running all over her and hers over him. His skin would be just as wet and cold as hers, she knew, but he would also be warm beneath, with smooth skin over hard muscles. The young lad she’d once loved was still there, ready for her to make love to him—
She bit her lip to fight back a groan. Damn the man for making her want him!

“Do you need me?”

Did she need… Yearning pulsed through her, and she squeaked, “Pardon?”

“To remove the rest of your clothes.”

And that sent a wicked spiral of wanton desire shooting right out the top of her head.

Her hand tightened its hold on her bodice as she somehow remembered to keep breathing. “I–I can manage the rest on my own, thank you.”

“Including your corset?” His gaze scorched over her, as if he could see right through her dress.

“Yes,” she breathed out. Her confused brain swirled. Had she just answered his question…or given permission for him to remove even more of her clothing? To do more with her than simply look?

“All right.” But he didn’t turn his back to give her privacy. The rascal didn’t even look away. His eyes remained on her as she stood there in the firelight, her skirts clinging to her hips and legs. “Are you certain?”

“No.” She wasn’t certain about anything when it came to this man…except that he made her feel beautiful. Desirable. Alive.

Was it wrong to let him stir these feelings inside her, to luxuriate in them and the memories of how wonderful their friendship had once been? After all, it was only undressing, and only to keep her from catching cold. A completely practical, not at all sexual reason. As long as nothing intimate happened between them, there was no harm in removing her dress to warm herself, no harm in letting those feelings wash over her.

Apparently, she was now lying to herself.

Yet Pearce kept his distance, and she kept her gaze locked with his as her trembling fingers pulled at the cap sleeves of her dress and tugged them down her arms. The bodice came next, peeling down to her waist and then over her hips and thighs. She pushed the wet material to the floor, then stepped out of both it and her shoes. His eyes never left hers, even as she reached behind her back for her corset and tangled her shaking fingers in the lace. A tug untied the bow. She removed the corset and let it fall to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her stockings and wet shift.

From several feet away, she saw the undulation of his throat as he swallowed. Hard. But his eyes stayed fixed on hers.

“I think you have to agree,” she half whispered, her voice a hoarse whisper, “that a lot’s changed since I was nine.”

A moment’s hesitation…then temptation won, and he dragged a deliberate gaze over her. The wet shift clung to her body, the material surely translucent in the firelight and revealing everything underneath. This time when she shivered, it wasn’t because she was cold.

***

Excerpted from An Unexpected Earl by Anna Harrington. © 2021 by Anna Harrington. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author: Anna Harrington is an award-winning author of Regency romance. Anna was nominated for a RITA in 2017 and won the 2016 Maggie Award for Best Historical Romance. The Secret Life of Scoundrels. A lover of all things chocolate and coffee, when she’s not hard at work writing her next book or planning her next series, Anna loves to fly airplanes, go ballroom dancing, or tend her roses. She is an English professor in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Bookshop, BAM, or Books2Read.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for March 3, 2021

March 3, 2021 By 1 Comment

Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.

NOTE: we also host the Friday Five–a fun writing prompt blog hop and would love to see you there!

Today’s topic is: My greatest weakness

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Jackson by LaQuette

March 2, 2021 By Leave a Comment


Jackson by LaQuette
Restoration Ranch Book 1
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Mistflower

From celebrated author LaQuette comes a sizzling opposites attract Texas Ranger romance that will leave you breathless…

Aja Everett longs to turn her old family ranch into a place where anyone can find rest and healing. But her big heart’s bound to get her in trouble if she’s not careful—someone wants her gone, and they’ll do whatever it takes to drive her away from the land that’s her lifeblood. Whether she’s willing to admit it or not, she needs help.

She needs a man like Ranger Jackson Dean.
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Jackson doesn’t trust love. He once made the mistake of following his heart and all he’d gotten was pain in return. But when city-slicking do-gooder Aja Everett asks for his help, he can’t stay away…and as attraction sizzles and protective instincts flare, she may be the only woman able to restore the heart of this Texas Ranger.

Get out your fans for this steamy contemporary romance which features a hunky Texas Ranger with trust issues and a confident, sexy, full-figured heroine who believes in the best in people. Sometimes oil and water are meant to mix.

Okay, when does book two come out? I am the queen of no patience. I didn’t realize Jackson was book one in a series. I cruised through this book loving life, then the end came and I panicked – I looked for more pages to turn. I was at the end already?!! While I loved the romance between the hero, Jackson, and the heroine, Aja, and I appreciated they achieved a happily ever after, I was not tickled that a major plot thread was left open to continue in book two. Although, I do recognize that making me crave for more is what makes a thrilling series. I’m already hooked on the Restoration Ranch series.

I’ve never read a book by LaQuette nor have I read a multicultural book, but I was head over heels while reading Jackson. With all those amazing plot twists, the writing style was riveting. I didn’t see the ending coming and being able to pull that off makes me classify this story as an original, well-done, unpredictable mystery. I was on the edge of my seat a few times during the action scenes.

The romance between Aja and Jackson was sizzling to boot. Jackson’s natural instincts to protect and Aja’s desire to help others often crossed hairs, but each had the best of intentions at heart.

The other characters in the story were well developed and I look forward to meeting with them all again when the second book comes out.

In conclusion, I can with good conscience enthusiastically recommend Jackson with the warning it might leave other readers like it left me, wanting the next book to be released as soon as possible.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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