Friday 4 December 2020

New Release: CLAIMING THE DOCTOR'S HEART by Sean D. Young


CLAIMING THE DOCTOR’S HEART
 

by
Sean D. Young



Dr. Eric Bradley left small-town Clover Creek, Tennessee to follow his dreams. But when his father is hospitalized after a stroke, Eric must fill in as the town doctor. He’s used to working in a medical research lab, not listening to patients go on about their grandkids and dodging questions about where he’s been for the last ten years. Small-town life has never been his style.

Without Holly Ransom, the receptionist, to keep things running smoothly, he wouldn’t survive. And seeing her every day is an unexpected upside. If only her sweet n’ sassy charm were enough to solve all his problems.

Eric has only thirty days to return to Atlanta or he’ll lose the opportunity of a lifetime. But how can he leave the woman he’s falling in love with and his family legacy behind?

 



AVAILABLE ON

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | APPLE | KOBO | GOOGLE

 
 

ABOUT SEAN D. YOUNG


Sean Young has always been an avid reader. This Gary, Indiana native joined her first book club at the age of seven. A lover of the happily ever after, Sean uses her vivid imagination to craft heartwarming and passionate family love stories that deal with forgiveness, promise, romance and redemption. A certified wedding planner by trade, Sean continues to help brides plan the wedding of their dreams.
 
 

CONNECT WITH SEAN D. YOUNG

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Thursday 3 December 2020

Book Review: ALL THE YOUNG MEN by Ruth Coker Burks & Kevin Carr O'Leary

 

All The Young Men

by
Ruth Coker Burks and Kevin Carr O'Leary


In 1986, 26-year old Ruth visits a friend at the hospital when she notices that the door to one of the hospital rooms is painted red. She witnesses nurses drawing straws to see who would tend to the patient inside, all of them reluctant to enter the room. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and immediately begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. Before she can even process what she's done, word spreads in the community that Ruth is the only person willing to help these young men afflicted by AIDS, and is called upon to nurse them. As she forges deep friendships with the men she helps, she works tirelessly to find them housing and jobs, even searching for funeral homes willing to take their bodies - often in the middle of the night. She cooks meals for tens of people out of discarded food found in the dumpsters behind supermarkets, stores rare medications for her most urgent patients, teaches sex-ed to drag queens after hours at secret bars, and becomes a beacon of hope to an otherwise spurned group of ailing gay men on the fringes of a deeply conservative state.

Throughout the years, Ruth defies local pastors and nurses to help the men she cares for: Paul and Billy, Angel, Chip, Todd and Luke. Emboldened by the weight of their collective pain, she fervently advocates for their safety and visibility, ultimately advising Governor Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis.

This deeply moving and elegiac memoir honors the extraordinary life of Ruth Coker Burks and the beloved men who fought valiantly for their lives with AIDS during a most hostile and misinformed time in America.


My Thoughts

ALL THE YOUNG MEN is one of those books that produced so many varied and opposing emotions in me. I cried. I laughed. I was angry. I was in awe of Ruth Coker Burks who single handedly did so much to help an already ostracised group of people that society, and especially their own families, shunned because of their illness.

The story is divided between the lives of the AIDs sufferers Burks helps and her own hardship-filled life that I found just as interesting.

Both stories are set against the 1980s background when the stigma of an HIV or AIDS diagnosis came with prejudice and fear. The story also highlights the hypocrisy of religion and the astonishingly sexist and insincere attitudes prevalent in Arkansas at the time.

The writing flows nicely, and is both candid and emotive. I found the book a great snapshot of a time and place.

Highly recommended!     


Review copy courtesy of Netgalley and Grove Atlantic, Grove Press

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About the Authors

Ruth Coker Burks

Ruth Coker Burks was a young single mom in Hot Springs, Arkansas who cared for people with AIDS when no one else would in the 1980s and 1990s. With no medical background, Ruth single-handedly created a network of care, and saw to the final resting places of roughly a thousand men abandoned by families and neglected by medical professionals. For 30 years, Ruth has been an advocate for the LGBTQ community. She currently resides in Northwest Arkansas.

Kevin Carr O’Leary 

In the summer of 1997, Kevin Carr O’Leary was 21 and a recent graduate of Wesleyan University when he started work at Poz, a landmark magazine about living with HIV. He has since co-written five New York Times non-fiction best sellers, including Strength in Stillness with Transcendental Meditation instructor Bob Roth, This Is Me with actress Chrissy Metz, and Open Book with singer Jessica Simpson. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and two children.



Tuesday 1 December 2020

Review: PLAYING WITH TROUBLE by Amy Andrews




Playing with Trouble 

by Amy Andrews
is now live! 




From pro rugby player to...Manny?

Australian rugby pro Cole Hauser has had enough of speculations about his future post-injury. So when a football buddy puts his house in America at Cole's disposal, he jumps at the chance for some peace and anonymity. The plan is perfect--until he discovers he's roomies with a woman who knows how to wield a nail gun and her kid. Awesome. Not.

Single mom Jane Spencer is supposed to be spending four weeks alone in the wilds of Colorado rehabbing a house that'll put her business on the map. Instead, her time is overrun by her four-year-old and a grumpy, too-sexy rugby dude whose only goals are to watch ESPN and brood. Awesome. Not.

When, surprisingly, McHottie offers to get his ass off the couch and help Jane out with Finn, she's hesitant. But before she knows it, Cole is knee-deep in kid activities during the day and they're both fighting their simmering attraction at night. 

Anything between them can only be temporary - their time together is short and Cole lives on the other side of the planet. It should be easy to say goodbye, right? Wrong. It doesn't take long for them to realize they've borrowed a whole lot of trouble.

But trouble never felt this good. 



  MY THOUGHTS

Well, there’s a way to meet! Waking up in bed to find a good looking specimen of a man next to you – and he’s virtually naked! That’s the situation Jane Spencer finds herself in when her renovation project overlaps with Cole Hauser’s invitation from a friend to use his house.

Cole Hauser is not only recovering from a car accident, his injury spells the end of his rugby career. He is understandably lost and wants to lick his wounds. Jane Spencer is a single mother who – once again – has learned that the only reliable person in her personal life is herself. Instead of tackling a renovation project full time, she finds herself having to look after her son after his father once again backed out of a care arrangement. These two definitely have dark clouds hanging over them but the forced proximity of temporarily living in the same house sees them spending time together and indulging in a short term romance.

This story is well written and an easy to read one that will keep you diverted for the duration. I liked that both Jane and Cole were portrayed as rational adults, just getting on with what has landed on their plates. On the flip side, this same reasonable behaviour is what made me feel there was a lack of fireworks between the two. I can certainly see the attraction between them but there was just not enough magic in this romance for me.  I actually felt the relationship between Jane’s son Finn and Cole is what made me keep reading to the end.  

Kudos to the author for including the cartoon character, Bluey, into the story. It never occurred to me that one day I would read about a contemporary kid’s cartoon character that I love written into a romance novel I am reading.   


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Download your copy today!

Amazon: http://mybook.to/pwt 
Apple Books: https://apple.co/37U55Ev 
Nook: https://bit.ly/2IHxvYm
Kobo: http://bit.ly/3kFKZ4p  

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3okOQWO






Meet Amy




Amy Andrews is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling Aussie author who has published 70 plus contemporary romances. She loves to make her readers laugh, tingle and sigh and believes in snort laughing, snot crying, multiple orgasms, mighty wangs and HEA's.  She also loves frequent travel, good books and great booze although she'll drink mediocre booze if there's nothing else.
She lives by the sea with her husband of thirty years where she consumes pina coladas from her deck every afternoon whilst staring at the ocean.  
 
Connect with Amy
Website | www.amyandrews.com.au
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New Release (inc. Excerpt): STOLEN TO WEAR HIS CROWN by Marcella Bell

  

 ABOUT THE BOOK


Stolen To Wear His Crown 

Marcella Bell

On Sale Date: 1 December, 2020

*

From unworldly scientist… to his fearless queen!

Mina has finally achieved her dream of becoming chief scientific advisor of Cyrano, when she’s stolen from the interview room! She’s taken directly to the palace chapel, where the terms of a secret betrothal mean she must marry the king—immediately. Powerful King Zayn knows all too well monarchs can’t afford dangerous distractions like love. Yet still, he’s appalled to be wed to a complete stranger! Mina is altogether too sensitive, too scholarly, too unpolished to be queen. But that can’t stop the desire that flares each time she looks his way…

From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.

The Queen’s Guard, Book 1: Stolen to Wear His Crown


EXCERPT

Mina Aldaba smoothed her palms over her hair as she took a deep breath. The motion wouldn’t do anything against the strengsth and determination of her curls to frizz—even if there was enough moisture in her palms to give it some hold—but it felt purposeful. On the other side of the ornately carved door in front of her sat the men and women of Parliament—the people whose decision would dictate whether or not she finally kept her promise to her father.

Like her hair, she was determined and untamable. She had done everything she could, with a full heart and to the very best of her ability—and that had carried her to this side of the door, inches away from the chance to achieve everything she had ever wanted.

The rest was up to the men and women inside.

The thought set off a series of stuttering palpitations in her chest—and not the kind that could ever be confused with excitement.

This next part was up to fate. The only thing she could do was be herself, trust her knowledge, and hope that that would carry her through. Unfortunately, faith wasn’t one of her stronger virtues. She hadn’t gotten to this side of the door by wishing. She’d done it by force of will and desire, continuous studying and practice, so she would be ready to deliver when the opportunity came.

Now was that opportunity.

She could steel her spine even if she couldn’t calm her stomach.

She wore her usual black pantsuit and white blouse. Selecting one size up and choosing a square cut lent her hyper-feminine figure some much-needed gravitas. The hard lines of the design concealed any hint of curve—which she appreciated, given her very round derrière and rather Rubenesque chest. Dressing her figure for academia—or, more accurately, concealing her figure for academia—was a challenge that she hadn’t anticipated when she’d decided to become a scientist at twelve years old.

Still, one had to accept what one had.

She would never forget the day a female colleague had taken her aside about it, though.

“You’re going to have to do something about all of that.”

Her fellow doctoral candidate had spoken blithely as she’d gestured in a vague circle toward Mina’s jeans-clad rear and her breasts with a long red fingernail.

“It’s just too much,” she’d added. “You’ll never be taken seriously.”

At the time, the words had stung, but Mina was grateful for them. Her colleague had been right. The thin old uni sweatshirt she’d been wearing that day had stretched across her full chest, and her jeans had been form-fitted. 

She’d looked like the student she had always been, rather than the professional academic she was becoming, and the world she’d been about to enter was cutthroat, old-fashioned, and antagonistic—especially if you happened to have been born with female anatomy.

As soon as she had transformed her attire, her work had begun to garner more attention. Her male colleagues, it appeared, had been able to focus on it, rather than her.

Thankfully, she had mastered those ropes long ago—so well, in fact, that she was now in line to reap the highest professional reward: an interview for the appointment of an adviser to the King of Cyrano.

In preparation, her dense chocolate-brown curls had been ruthlessly brushed back from her face, heavily gelled, and confined into a thick French braid. Today—a day in which when she couldn’t afford to have even a single hair out of place—she had used nearly double the amount of product to tame the springy, indomitable mass.

She had learned long ago to avoid putting her hair in a bun. Too many academics harbored sexy librarian fantasies.

The combination of the suit and the braid created a no-nonsense image—that of a serious academic. It was precisely what Mina wanted to project. Especially since she was the youngest candidate ever to sit for a parliamentary interview—and only the second woman ever nominated.

The door cracked open, and a page popped his perfectly coiffed head out.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marcella Bell lives in the mostly-sunny wilds of Southern Oregon with her husband, children, father, and three mismatched mutts. The dry hot summers and four distinct annual seasons of the region are a far cry from the weird rainy streets of Portland, OR, where she grew up, but she wouldn’t trade her quirky mountain valley home for anyplace else on the earth. As a late bloomer and a yogini, Marcella is drawn to romance that showcases love’s incredible power to transform.

https://www.marcellabell.com/



Nee Release (inc. excerpt & author giveaway): WRITE BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Julie Hammerle

Julie Hammerle’s
Write Before Christmas
is out now

Check out this gorgeous new romance and be sure to get your copy today!

Title: Write Before Christmas

Author: Julie Hammerle

Genre: Holiday Romance

About the book 

You’ve probably heard of me. 
Reclusive fantasy author turned famous when his series got developed into a mega TV hit. 
Except now I’m way behind deadline, and the whole world is waiting to see what I’ll write next. 
The pressure is getting to me, and I. Can’t. Write. 
Cue: small town where people don’t recognize me. 
Cue: my assistant insisting on a personal chef to keep me fed and nothing more.
Cue: finding the first bit of inspiration I’ve felt in months whenever she’s around… Am I a walking cliche now, or what? 
Dani Cooper seems to have her own hurdles to jump this holiday season. Newly divorced, looking for her next move. She’s the first person who’s seen me for me in way too long. And I see her, too--as way more than just an employee, a divorcee, a cook. She’s becoming my muse… 
But when my Christmas deadline hits, will it spell the end of us, too?

Get Your Copy

Amazon | Kobo | Barnes & Noble

 

Exclusive Excerpt:

“You said your house is full….” I was trying to get a read on her. She wore no wedding ring, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing someone. 

“My parents are there, obviously, and the dog and my daughter. And my niece and nephew and my sister-in-law…” She chuckled. “Kind of a full house, and my brother’s not even here yet.” 

No mention of a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner or anything like that. “You said your daughter is there. Are you married?” Way to be blunt, Matt. Eh, sometimes it was best not to beat around the bush. 

“Divorced,” she said. “You?” 

“Single. Very single.” Something in her eyes shifted. Heavy lids darkened her irises to charcoal as she studied me. 

“I was hoping that was what you’d say.” I laughed nervously. “I was about to say the same thing to you.” 

“I’ve been thinking about you since we ran into each other.” She pushed her hair over one shoulder. “Which is…not something I’d normally say to a complete stranger.” 

“We’re not complete strangers now, though, are we? I’m Matt. You’re Dani—" My stomach bubbled with excitement, as she stepped closer. 

“I want to kiss you,” she said, her eyes narrowing. 

“Please do,” I told her. “I want you to kiss me.” 

She snatched the tumbler of moonshine back from me and drained it as a soft, chilly breeze ruffled her hair. With a lick of her lips, she dropped the cup. I barely had time to register the clank of the aluminum against the asphalt before her mouth was on mine. 

I stumbled backward, still holding on to her, trying to keep us upright as our shoes skidded on the gravel next to the street and we tripped into the grass on the side of the road. Her soft, silky lips tasted like mangoes and cinnamon with a hint of alcohol. I held on tight to her, breathing her in, this stranger on the road in the middle of nowhere. 

After a few moments, she pulled away, and I stifled a laugh. 

“What?” Her eyes flashed. 

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just that, a few minutes ago, I’d been thinking about how we barely knew each other and were sharing a drink.” 

She laughed, too. “I supposed all of this escalated quickly.” 

“I’m not complaining.” I glanced down the road, toward the house where I was staying. I could invite her to join me, which was the kind of thing I never shied away from, at least it used to be. Random hookups had become more complicated in the past year. If I let Dani into my house, I’d be opening a can of worms. For the next several weeks, she’d be my neighbor. We’d run into each other constantly. Things would get awkward, and the stress of dealing with a romantic entanglement would distract me from my writing. Better to cut this short and leave ourselves with the sweet, perfect memory of making out with a total stranger in the moonlight on a deserted road. “I should probably…” I nodded back toward Linda’s house, making it look like I lived up that way. 

“Me, too.” As she walked backwards, heading the way she came, she said, “But Matt, if you ever want to do that again…” 

“I’ll keep an eye out for you.” I waved goodbye and headed back toward Linda’s house, ready to walk and walk and walk until I got that kiss out of my mind.    

*
About Julie Hammerle

 

USA Today bestselling author Julie Hammerle writes young adult novels that focus on nerds, geeks, and basket cases falling in love. On the YA side, she is the author of The Sound of Us (Entangled TEEN, 2016) and the North Pole romance series (Entangled Crush, 2017). For adult romances, look for Knocked-Up Cinderella in the fall of 2018. A graduate of Butler University with degrees in secondary education and Latin with a minor in music, Julie lives in Chicago with her family and enjoys reading, cooking, and watching all the television.

Connect with Julie

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