Final Notice (by Jennifer L. Hart)

Posted on January 30, 2015 by setaian

Cozy Mystery

Jackie, her husband Luke and his brother Logan are partners in a property management team in Miami. When a renter is smelling up the place or not paying rent, the landlord hires them to sort it out. Unfortunately for them on their very first job they stumble across a brutally murdered young woman.

When the police fail to find a suspect after a few days they put the case on the back-burner and Jackie decides if she doesn’t step in the case will join the thousands of other unsolved murders.

Jennifer L. Hart is a favorite author. She writes snarky and intelligent cozy mysteries that are high on fun and low on angst (despite the obvious triangle that’s bubbling away in the background of this one). I love every single character in this book –– honestly, they pretty much all deserve to be the star and I can’t wait till the next instalment.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: red-orange-yellow-guide-pdf

Love & Other Lies (by Madeline Ash)

Posted on January 28, 2015 by setaian

Contemporary Romance

When Abby moved to the small coastal town of Belgulla, she wasn’t running from her shameful past, she was confronting it. The first thing she did when she arrived was tell everyone in the town what she had down and why they couldn’t trust her. Since then her life has been confined to her job as the town’s vet and a quiet, isolated life with few friends.

Rue has been travelling around Australia and is on the final leg before heading home when he arrives in Belgulla and crashes straight into Abby. Her brutal honesty somehow appeals to him so he asks her out. When she says he is too good for her, something that every woman before her has said, it’s a red rag to a bull and he decides if she wants a bad boy he’ll give her one.

Love & Other Lies is great. It’s a quick and easy story about a woman who genuinely has a past she can be ashamed of –– not the typical Hollywood scars you see in so much romance. There is a bit of ache, but for the most it is angst free. A lot of love for this book.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

Sabotaged (by Dani Pettrey)

Posted on January 24, 2015 by setaian

Romantic Suspense / Christian

After her uncle, who is a competitor on the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, disappears Kirra goes looking for him with the help of Reef. They discover that Kirra’s cousin, Meg has been kidnapped to force her uncle’s cooperation in a terrorist act that will do untold damage to the environment and kill countless people.

Many years ago I was walking my dog in the park and a very pretty woman came up to me and said hello. Thinking to myself that all my christmases had come at once we struck up a conversation. Things were going so well until she asked me if I’d heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This book feels like that. I requested it because the synopsis sounded interesting. A romantic suspense novel set with the backdrop of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. That part of it actually kind of works but the book is way too preachy. Honestly, it really should be mentioned in the synopsis that this book is christian romantic suspense. If I knew that from the start I would feel a lot more positive towards the book.

Christians who want a christian book will enjoy this, but the constant preaching will alienate many non-christian readers.

Many thanks to Bethany House Publishers and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

Atlanta Burns (by Chuck Wendig)

Posted on January 16, 2015 by setaian

Young Adult???

Atlanta Burns just wants to be left alone. Then one day as she’s walking home from school she comes across a gang of bullies beating on someone and she steps in. In very short order the bullies are on the ground with a face full of bear mace while she and Shane make their getaway.

With Shane spreading the word about what she has done she soon finds herself the defender of the weak and the deepest, darkest nightmare of the bullies. But with a town overflowing with white supremacists, gangsters, rednecks and corrupt police, her life is only going to get more complicated.

Atlanta Burns isn’t my typical book but I guess the one recurring theme in most of the books I read is they are about strong and determined women. Well, Atlanta Burns is about the strongest of the lot. She reminded me more than just a little of Tank Girl –– a comic book heroine from the late 1980s. So if you’re in the mood for a kick-ass anti-heroine who takes on the bad guys and somehow manages to scrape through and be the last one standing, Atlanta Burns is your woman.

Awesome book!!!

Many thanks to Skyscape and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

In the Cards (by Jamie Beck)

Posted on January 15, 2015 by setaian

Contemporary Romance

Lindsey has an ivy league education, a trust fund, and the perfect fiancé. That is until she discovers her fiancé had a fling with a woman he met at a bar and might have given her an STD. Heart-broken she leaves New York and rents a beach house in Malibu hoping to make some life changing decisions.

Levi is a gambler by nature who made his money by pushing his luck at the card tables in Vegas and shrewdly investing his winnings. Having a con-man for a father and being abandoned by his mother has left him with trust issues and a reluctance to form attachments.

When Lindsey moves in next door his world views are immediately challenged. She somehow manages to keep breaking down the walls he built to protect himself. Then after a motorcycle accident he finds himself depending on her more than he’s depended on anyone since his mother abandoned him.

I really loved this book. I was expecting a lot of angst and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t materialise. It’s contemporary romance and the story is typical in one sense but with quite an interesting take on things.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

Love Me Sweet (by Tracy Brogan)

Posted on January 10, 2015 by setaian

Contemporary Romance

After her rat ex-boyfriend released a sex tape to the media, Delaney decides she needs to escape the scandal, the paparazzi, and the reality TV show about her celebrity family. She withdraws all her money, buys a beat-up old Volkswagen and heads for the middle of nowhere –– Bell Harbor, Michigan. There, she rents a ramshackle old house and settles in to ride out the scandal.

Grant is the cameraman on an adventure tv show. That is until his girlfriend decides the star of the show is better prospect than a lowly cameraman. Angrily, he quits and heads home to Bell Harbor. Only, when he arrives he finds out that his mother has rented out his house to Delaney, that Delaney paid the entire six months rent in advance, and his mother has already spent the money.

With very few options Delaney agrees to allow Grant to live in the house until he can get her money back. As the days go by their attraction to each other builds but Delaney is keeping her secrets and Grant knows it, she also knows that Grant loathes the Hollywood fakery and she is ultimate symbol of that. It’s very likely she will lose the first decent man she has known when reality comes crashing back in.

Love Me Sweet is fairly typical contemporary romance. There are no real surprises in here. That said, at the moment there are only two authors of contemporary romance who are must reads for me. Terri Osburn and Tracy Brogan. For me they are the shining lights of contemporary romance and very much the next generation of writers. The writers who are breathing new life into the genre. Honestly, if it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I’d still be reading the genre.

So yeah, you’ve probably read something like this before, but Love Me Sweet still sparkles. It’s great fun and entertaining.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l

Many thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Prize Time!

Posted on January 1, 2015 by setaian

I have a gift for one person who reads this post. You don’t need to subscribe to Floating Leaves, and all details provided will be deleted after I have contacted the winner.

All you need to do is send a message to me via the “Contact Me” form and type “Cross Pen” in the body of the message.

So what is it? A Cross Century II Medalist Ball Point Pen (worth about US$80.00)

I will draw one name at random on Friday 16th, January and contact him / her via e-mail.

Ian

Update:

This morning I drew a winner. I allocated each entry a number and used an online ‘random number generator’ to select the winner. All messages with the exception of the winner’s have already been deleted. Her messages will be deleted after I have posted the pen.

Congratulations to C from Germany who will soon be receiving a shiny new Cross pen.

floatingleaves.net

Mostly Books

Monthly Archives: January 2015

Final Notice (by Jennifer L. Hart)

Love & Other Lies (by Madeline Ash)

Sabotaged (by Dani Pettrey)

Atlanta Burns (by Chuck Wendig)

In the Cards (by Jamie Beck)

Love Me Sweet (by Tracy Brogan)

Prize Time!