Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
Duke du Jour by Petie McCarty – Spotlight and Giveaway
September 1, 2026 By 2 Comments
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Petie McCarty will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
She’s waiting in the past . . . He belongs in the future.
Jared Langley, present-day Duke of Reston, tumbles into an abandoned fountain on his ducal estate and is pelted back in time to the year 1816. There, Reston servants and local villagers think him a dead ringer for his namesake and rakehell ancestor—the seventh Duke of Reston, gone missing at the Battle of Waterloo. Unfortunately, Seven got mixed up with French spies out to assassinate the Duke of Wellington, and an unwary Jared ends up in their crosshairs.
Lady Ariana Hart has loved Jared Langley, the seventh Duke of Reston, since she was twelve years old, until the night the rogue broke her heart. Given up for dead, her rakish neighbor makes a miraculous return from Waterloo. Only Jared shows up a changed man and reignites all the feelings Ariana had long ago buried.
Jared is in a race against time.
His tasks?Waylay the suspicions of his quirky servants and neighbors
Get to Wellington before the French spies do
Fix his fountain–before Seven shows up–so Jared has a way home
And definitely do not fall in love with the irresistible Lady Ariana . . .Second Edition
Enjoy an Excerpt
The sound of hoofbeats and wheels churning came from the path to the old stone stable. Seconds later, what looked to be a perfectly restored nineteenth-century curricle pulled up with a magnificent pair of spirited blacks in harness. The young man driving tied off the reins and jumped down, and Jared could only stare in stunned disbelief.
Curricle Man matched Jared’s height and build and wore scuffed knee-high boots, what appeared to be knickers, and a woolen waistcoat over a loose, long-sleeved white shirt with a linen scarf stuffed in the collar. A wave of dizziness struck Jared again. Curricle Man strode over and bowed.
Bowed?
“Chappy said you were back, Master Jared. So I took the liberty of bringing round your curricle, so you could take straight off to see Lady Wilder.”
This tableau had quickly turned into a nightmare.
“I do this often,” Jared said. The words came out sounding like a question, and he received two incredulous looks.
“As soon as you arrive, Mast—uh, Your Grace. At least, you did on the last few visits before you left for the continent,” Curricle Man offered. “I only thought―”
“Well, do not think. Maybe this visit I choose to be different. I can change.”
Jared got the you-must-be-daft look again. Truth be told, he felt a bit daft since he had not known he owned a curricle and had no intention of driving this one until he learned how. Harness-racing sulkies he knew.
Restored curricles, not at all.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” Curricle Man persisted, “but you always said if you did not go there, Lady Wilder would come here. And you hate that.” The man gave him a wary stare. “Of course, that was more than two years ago.”
Jared’s head pounded in earnest, and he fought off a wave of nausea brought on by the accompanying dizziness. He did not know these people, he had no idea what or whom they were talking about, and he feared a climactic ending to this delusional scene.
“Yes, but this year is—” He had meant to say different, but Cook—who had been strangely silent throughout their discourse—beat him to the punch.
“—Eighteen sixteen, of course,” she said, looking worried. “Are ye sure ye didn’t hit yer head back at the fountain, Master Jared?”
“Eighteen sixteen?” he asked weakly.
“Right,” the two strangers agreed in unison.
Oh, dear Lord in heaven! I am not just named after Jared Langley. I am Jared Langley, seventh Duke of Reston.
Then everything went black.
About the Author: 
Petie spent a large part of her career working at Walt Disney World—”The Most Magical Place on Earth”—where she enjoyed working in the land of fairy tales by day and creating her own romantic fairy tales by night, including her new series, The Cinderella Romances. She eventually said goodbye to her “day” job to write her stories full-time.
These days, Petie spends her time writing new tales for her Cinderella series, her new The Watchers series, sequels to her Regency time-travel series, Lords in Time, and more contemporary romance standalones, along with her two previous releases—Any Fin For Love and Ambush in the Everglades.
Petie shares her home on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with her horticulturist husband and an opinionated Nanday conure named Sassy who makes a cameo appearance in Christmas Watch, Book 2 of The Watchers series.
Visit Petie at her website to get to know her, learn about her current projects, and discover her other published works.
Buy the book at Amazon or read for free on Kindle Unlimited.
The Last Rift Dragon by Shami Stovall
August 31, 2026 By 1 Comment
The Last Rift Dragon by Shami Stovall
Publisher: Capital Station Books
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Rated: 5 stars
Review by RoseThe City of Bridgehaven is under attack.
The nation to the west intends to murder Bridgehaven’s last three remaining dragons, rendering them extinct. They’ll stop at nothing to crush the eggs, flay the dragons, and burn Bridgehaven to the ground.
But Richter Whitlock is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen. He joins the Knights of the Silver Fog—individuals dedicated to protecting Bridgehaven, and the dragons, at all costs—in the hopes of caring for a fragile dragon egg, so that one day he may bond and fight back.
But there are traitors in Bridgehaven, and enemies are circling close.
If Richter hopes to save his home, and his egg, he’ll have to master his magic, learn to craft magitech, and become one of the greatest Knights anyone has ever seen…
Shami Stovall has done it again! A brilliant new series has arrived with wonderful characters, world-building that is literally out of this world, and non-stop action which would work so well on the screen. Not since her Arcanist series have I read a book that so instantly drew me in to such an extent that I could not put the book down until I had finished it!
There were so heartbreaking moments as well as moments that had me holding my breath until things were resolved. I really think this is Ms. Stovall’s best work to date. I love all the dragons, and it’s obvious there are a lot more about dragons to learn about. Great job!!!
I am so looking forward to the next installment of this series.
Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for August 26, 2026
August 26, 2026 By 3 Comments
Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
A Weird Fact I Learned From Reading Fiction
Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for August 19, 2026
August 19, 2026 By 2 Comments
Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
Food(s) from my Geographic Area that I Don’t Like
The CAll to Authorship by Tim W. Lindsay – Spotlight and Giveaway
August 17, 2026 By 1 Comment
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Tim W. Lindsay will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click to see the other stops on your tour.
Embrace the call to authorship: 10 steps to leverage the power of a book!
Books help people—they inform, inspire, and engage. Books are also a powerful force for those who write them. Publishing a book builds your authority, sharpens your thinking, and opens doors to media exposure, speaking engagements, partnerships, and more.
Despite the greater accessibility of publishing than ever before, many would-be authors hesitate. They get stuck with self-doubt or believe producing a book is incompatible with a busy life. They may start writing but don’t finish. Or they finish but don’t publish or market their books.
The truth? With a little dedicated time, consistent effort, and the right guidance, anyone can publish a book that changes lives for the better. And they should.
Put down your phone. Take the leap from consumer to creator!
This step-by-step guide will show you how to:
– Use a one-page tool to clarify your goals, target audience and plan.
– Craft an outline that drives your manuscript forward.
– Overcome mental roadblocks and craft habits to finish your first draft in months, not years—even with a busy schedule.
– Select a publishing model, refine your manuscript, and make informed design and distribution decisions.
– Employ promotional strategies to achieve goals that transcend royalties.Become more than you are. Have courage. Commit to growth by authoring a book, strengthening your ability to serve. Write with purpose. Publish for impact!
Bonus for book professionals: Special content for book coaches, editors, and ghostwriters—those helping ordinary people become extraordinary authors.
Enjoy an Excerpt
We live in an age of swipes, scrolls and soundbites, where attention is fragmented and surface-level engagement is the norm. In such a world, choosing to sit down and write is bold indeed.
Writing a book is an act of meaning-making. It’s how we wrestle with ideas, make sense of experience, and speak into the noise with words that are considered and enduring. It takes courage to believe that your words matter. It takes character to see them through and shape them into a book.
That journey often begins with a spark. Maybe you’ve been through something, built something, learned something—and now you feel the quiet tug: This should be a book.
But with that tug often comes hesitation: Who am I to write this? Will anyone care? I’ve heard those doubts from countless aspiring authors through my work at Tellwell, where we’ve helped thousands turn that first spark into a finished book. And I’ve watched them write anyway. What followed was often extraordinary.
For Cindy Cherry, that moment came unexpectedly. For years she resisted writing a book about her father, Don Cherry, the outspoken hockey commentator who became a household name in Canada. She feared a memoir about her dad might seem biased, or worse, opportunistic. But everything changed when a Google Alert lit up her phone screen: a news organization was praising the Western Hockey League for cutting ties with Don following what she calls “Poppygate,” and for erasing his name from an organ-donation campaign he had helped champion, raising nearly half a million dollars. This cause was close to Cindy’s heart. As a teenager she had donated one of her kidneys to her younger brother.
She realized that the public narrative was being written in a way that dishonoured the man she knew and loved.
About the Author 
Tim Lindsay founded Tellwell in 2015. Since then, he and his team have guided some 5,000 authors including entrepreneurs, professional speakers, coaches, consultants, experts, course creators, community builders, religious and nonprofit leaders, Indigenous organizations, athletes, influencers, and everyday citizens. Discover more at Tellwellpublishing.com.
Buy the book at Amazon
TV Review: Little House on the Prairie
August 17, 2026 By Leave a Comment
Little House on the Prairie (2026), screenplay by Rebecca Sonnenshine and based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Showrunner: Rebecca Sonnenshine
Starring: Luke Bracey, Crosby Fitzgerald, Alice Halsey, and Skywalker Hughes
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.), Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Romance, Holiday, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars (8 on IMDB)
Reviewed by AstilbeThe Ingalls family lives and works on a farm in Midwestern America during the late 19th century.
Anything is possible on the open prairie.
So many iconic moments from the book were explored here. I’d say my favorite one involved what happened when the Ingalls family was snowed in over Christmas and had to become creative when planning how to celebrate that special day. Another notable moment involved a natural disaster that the characters had no advance warning of but had to react to quickly in order to prevent something catastrophic from happening. These were moments I imagined over and over again while I read the Little House books growing up, and it was fun to see a modern reimagining of them.
I was surprised by how many changes this adaptation made to the original material which had already softened many of the more difficult moments of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life. Some of the changes made sense for a 2026 interpretation of this classic as western society has changed quite a bit in the last hundred and fifty years or so, but I would have loved to see Laura and Mary played by actors who were closer to the original ages of these girls when the book was written. Some of their scenes simply fit better for younger children and felt a little unusual for a preteen and a young teenager to still be interested in. For example, most older kids have a very different experience of Santa than what was portrayed here.
With that being said, this first season did a great job of setting up what happens to these characters as they grow older. There was some wholesome foreshadowing for the Ingalls children in particular that Little House fans might find amusing, and I liked the way so many of the important people in their lives were either introduced early on or included in conversations that will hopefully be revisited in the future.
Little House on the Prairie was a heartwarming introduction to what will hopefully be a long-running series.
Heidenröslein: The Little Rose on the Heath by Christopher Whittaker – Spotlight and Giveaway
August 13, 2026 By 1 Comment
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Christopher Whittaker will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Two men. Two worlds.
One war that will remake them both.
Peter Schiller, a disciplined officer from privilege, is trained to lead—but not for what war truly demands.
Günther Klein, a working-class recruit, is thrown into the trenches and forced to learn fast or die.
In the mud and ruin of the Great War, rank and class begin to dissolve. Orders blur into instinct. Honour bends under necessity. What remains is survival—and the thin, unspoken bond forged between two men who should never have met.
But war does not end when the guns fall silent.
Heidenröslein is a powerful, unflinching story of war, brotherhood, and the quiet, irreversible cost of becoming what the battlefield demands.
Enjoy an Excerpt
1914
The kitchen was small, but it carried the quiet dignity of people who owned little and cared for everything.
Against one wall stood a heavy sideboard of dark timber, polished by years of careful hands rather than luxury. Fine China sat arranged behind glass doors, each piece positioned with deliberate precision. The plates were reserved for Sundays, feast days, or visits important enough to justify the risk of using something fragile. Crystal wine glasses hung above them, catching the weak morning light and holding it in muted amber reflections.
Nothing in the room was fashionable.
Everything in it was treasured.
In the center stood a small round table worn smooth at the edges where elbows, plates, and years of conversation had rubbed away the varnish. The stove and icebox stood side by side beneath the far wall, black iron beside chipped white enamel, both old enough to have become part of the family itself. Beneath the kitchen window ran a long washing trough, damp to the touch, carrying the faint scent of soap, starch, and boiled cabbage that seemed to linger permanently in the wood.
At it stood Frau Klein.
She held a cup beneath the water, slowly moving the cloth around its rim although it had already been cleaned twice over. Her hands worked from instinct now, broad and reddened from years of labour, fingers thickened from kneading dough, wringing cloth, hauling water, carrying coal, and doing every invisible task required to keep a household alive.
She had once been handsome in the soft, rosy-cheeked way of country girls.
Now life had settled heavily upon her.
About the Author: Chris lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife Dianne.
Buy the book at Amazon.
Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge for August 12, 2026
August 12, 2026 By 1 Comment
Each Wednesday, Long and Short Reviews hosts a weekly “blog hop”. For more details on how to participate, please click here.
Food(s) from my Geographic Area that I Love
The Tale of the Prince and the Spider by Sasha Hopkins – Spotlight and Giveaway
August 10, 2026 By 1 Comment
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Sasha Hopkins will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Enjoy an Excerpt
Prince Alexander is a boy filled with courage, laughter, and light, until a chance encounter with a mysterious new “friend” changes everything. Trapped in a web of fear and silence, he must find the strength to fight back against a dark trickster who wants to steal his voice, his joy, and his future.
The Tale of the Prince and the Spider is a modern fairytale for children, parents, and anyone who has faced fear in silence. Told with warmth, honesty, and hope, it reveals how secrets can poison, how love protects, and how even the smallest voice can grow into a roar.
Through Alexander’s journey, readers discover that pain does not define us—courage does. His story is both a thrilling adventure and a gentle reminder that you are stronger than your fears, your voice matters, and you are never alone.
This is more than a tale of princes and monsters. It is a story for every family who longs for healing, resilience, and light in dark times. Beautifully written to spark conversations between children and adults, it invites readers to talk openly about bravery, truth, and the power of standing tall.
Over hills and around turns, sunlight peeked through branches, making shadows dance on the ground—castles, boats, horses one minute, then growling animals the next as clouds sailed on. Alexander stopped by a stream, Menace drinking loudly, and smiled at the light’s game. “I’m not scared of tricks,” he said boldly, his voice cutting through the stillness. One more hill, one more bend—he’d find out what was next.
Excitement buzzed as he turned a corner, the Lost Forest rising on both sides. A dusty path split off, leading to a little house sitting at the woods’ edge—small, bent, its shadow sharp against the trees. Curiosity pulled him—who lived there? With a prince’s daring, he hopped off Menace and walked to the door, his boots crunching the dry ground.
About the Author
Sasha Hopkins is a father of five and a storyteller from Melbourne, Australia. His journey has been shaped by both love and hardship. As a child, Sasha endured trauma that left deep scars, yet he chose not to remain silent or let those experiences define him. Instead, he transformed his pain into a story of courage, resilience, and hope.
He wrote The Tale of the Prince and the Spider during a period of recovery in Western Australia, creating it as a gift for his children, Winter, Hunter, Hudson, Navy, and Orion. What began as a father’s offering of love became a timeless fairytale for families everywhere: a reminder that even in life’s darkest moments, light can be found, voices can be heard, and healing is always possible.
Through his writing, Sasha shares a powerful message: your past does not diminish you, and speaking out is an act of bravery that can inspire others. When he isn’t writing, Sasha is adventuring with his kids, encouraging them to embrace adventure, laughter, and the strength within themselves.
Buy the book at Amazon.
