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Where I Lost Her by T. Greenwood ~ Book Review

Book Description:

In her page-turning new novel, T. Greenwood follows one woman's journey through heartbreak and loss to courage and resolve, as she searches for the truth about a missing child.

Eight years ago, Tess and Jake were considered a power couple of the New York publishing world--happy, in love, planning a family. Failed fertility treatments and a heartbreaking attempt at adoption have fractured their marriage and left Tess edgy and adrift. A visit to friends in rural Vermont throws Tess's world into further chaos when she sees a young, half-dressed child in the middle of the road, who then runs into the woods like a frightened deer.

The entire town begins searching for the little girl. But there are no sightings, no other witnesses, no reports of missing children. As local police and Jake point out, Tess's imagination has played her false before. And yet Tess is compelled to keep looking, not only to save the little girl she can't forget but to salvage her broken heart as well.

Blending her trademark lyrical prose with a superbly crafted and suspenseful narrative, Where I Lost Her is a gripping, haunting novel from a remarkable storyteller.

Purchase a copy on Amazon.

About the Author:

T. Greenwood is the author of twelve novels. She has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and, most recently, the Maryland State Arts Council. She has won three San Diego Book Awards. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks. BODIES OF WATER was finalist for a Lambda Foundation award. Her twelfth novel, RUST & STARDUST, will be published in August 2018.

She teaches creative writing for San Diego Writer's Ink and online for The Writer's Center. She and her husband, Patrick, live in San Diego, CA with their two daughters. She is also a photographer.

Connect: WebsiteGoodreads

Review:

T. Greenwood jumps right into the story with this book called Where I lost her. We follow Tess as she spots a little girl who was all alone late at night on the back road near where Tess is visiting her friends. I did find the first half of the book a little slow for my liking but it did pick up and I was really interested in finding out if what Tess saw was true or is she was having a mental breakdown. The author does a great job weaving in back history of Tess and Jake keeping us on our toes wondering if the stress of not having a child of their own has spun this tale. I was hooked. Gripping to the story and wondering what was truly happening, who is actually involved and did what and if they would really find this little girl in time.

I give this book a 3.5 out of 5 just because I found that the first half was slow but I do look forward to reading more from this author.

~*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.*~

2018 Reading Challenge Update


I have been thinking about doing a reading challenge update for awhile. I have been thinking about updating at the end of each month with which books I have read and which ones are on my next to be read list. It will be a quick post and I hope you will follow along and also let me know where you are at with your 2018 Reading Challenge by commenting below. 

Let's get caught up from January to today. I am trying to not read too many books before reviewing each of them. Sometimes I get too caught up with wanting to read more than, my bad. 

Here are the books I read in the last two months and the ones you can look forward to a review on very soon.

Twerp by Mark Goldblatt - review  
Facade by Nyrae Dawn - review
Just One of the Boys by Leah Rooper - review 
The Other Twin by L.V. Hay - review  
Where I Lost Her by T. Greenwood - review
Wicked Charm by Amber Hart - review 
The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum by Kirsten Weiss - review
The Glass Forest bu Cynthia Swanson - review 
The Second Wife by Kishan Paul - review 
Marked by P.C. Cast & Kristen Cast - review 

First two months are off to a great start! I have been aiming for 4 or 5 books a month to try and lower my ever growing to be read list. This is hard especially with all the new books coming out. I also recently picked up 14 of 18 of the House of Night books by P.C. & Kristen Cast. I am hooked from book one. This series is something I am going to add to my reading list this year. Keep an eye out for those reviews. 

For the month of March I am going to aim for 7 or 8 books because I will have some more reading time. 

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco
Not That Easy by Radhika Sanghani
Chewish: 36 Recipes of Love with Stories by Sandra Goldberg Wendel
Betrayed (House of Night book #2) by P.C. Cast & Kristen Cast
Cheat Day Rules by Josephine Fitzpatrick 
Dead Inside by Cyndy Etler 
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewel 
Sanctuary Bay by Laura J. Burns


Update: (March 9th) 
Perfected books 1-3 by Kate Jarvik Birch
Plus I will beta reading a novel called Star Racers by Martin Felando

Two of the above are health &/or recipe books, the rest are novels. I look forward to reading them all. Have you read any of the above or do you intend to read them? 

Until next time,
Jennifer

Memphis by Ginger Scott ~ Release Day!

We're celebrating the release of Memphis by Ginger Scott! Check out the excerpt below!

Memphis by Ginger Scott
A Contemporary New Adult Romance
Release day: February 23
Goodreads
Amazon: http://a.co/c50FzBy
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2Fe2sNv
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2sJ503C

Blurb:
My mom always said it was just something about the way he moved.
The same swagger Archie Valentine wore in the ring when he took his opponents down followed him like a halo everywhere he went. But make no mistake about it— he was no angel. He was like a drug. My mother was his addict.

I never understood it...how love could make you blind and convince you to drink the poison. Not until I met Memphis Delaney.

At first, it was the familiar form. He’s a fighter, built like a god from the past, the kind of man the universe doesn’t make anymore. His eyes hide a story, and every time I’m in his presence I want to keep reading him until I get to the end. And then...there’s the way he moves. His boxing is violent but beautiful, and his body is a seductive weapon. When he’s in the ring, he wears the stare of a man committed to the battle until his very last breath.

He could end me; turn me into her. Too much of him will leave me as a shadow, and I’ve lost so much of myself already.

But I have discipline. It came the hard way. Lessons learned, scars left behind, and trust stripped away from life.

I will breathe his air, but I won’t fall for a man like him. The only boxer who’s ever going to break my heart is the one who gave me my name.

EXCERPT:
I turn so our feet are squared and glance at his home that I think he probably knows I went through while he was gone. Somehow the money he paid for it seems not enough and too much all at once. My gaze shifts back to his, and he steps forward until the toe of his left shoe rests against the right side of mine.

“That’s a nice story, Memphis. I’m glad you found the bike, but I’m not sure what that has to do with me,” I say, my breath catching as his fingertips trace along my jaw, his touch so faint I find myself leaning my head to encourage his palm to rest along my cheek more boldly.

He brings his other hand up with more confidence, and I’m caught. The other option I had, to walk away, is gone. I never really wanted it, though.

Memphis dips his chin, hunching slightly to bring his eyes in line with mine. We’re so close that I can feel the tickle of his breath against my lips, and they tingle at the familiar. Each experience with him weaves itself into my heart in this way that terrifies me. This is how people lose themselves.

But I let it in—each breath, each sound, the smells and words. His story. I am surviving on the very being of him, and I think I have been for a while now.

“I was eighteen when I tracked down that bike. I knew it was mine...”

“I don’t belong to you, Memphis,” I cut in, my heart pounding.

His mouth forms a crooked smile. He holds my eyes hostage in silence for few long seconds. “Maybe it works the other way,” he says, his eyes moving over my face with a softness that feels intimate and vulnerable. His forehead falls forward until it rests gently on my own, and I let go of the grip I have on myself, exchanging it for fistfuls of his T-shirt. My knuckles run along his chest as I gather the material and close my eyes, his muscles hard from discipline.

“I can’t watch you get hurt. I can’t...”

His hand moves to my chin, and he lifts it until our eyes meet. Suddenly, breathing just got a lot harder to do.

“I won’t lose, Liv. I work too hard, and I study too much, and I will never be in a ring I’m not supposed to be in,” he says, and I breathe out what sounds like a laugh but feels like hurt.

“My fifty-year-old uncle kicked your ass in some display of alpha-male, teacher- student bullshit. I couldn’t watch that...how am I supposed to watch you step in with some guy who really wants to kill you? How am I supposed to kiss you knowing that your lips might never be the same after a fight. How...”

Memphis’s mouth takes mine before I can protest anymore, nothing like our stolen moment from earlier. His hands cup my face and his mouth moves possessively over my bottom lip, sucking it in and letting it slide loose through a graze of his teeth. He turns my head with a gentle nudge and kisses me deeper, and his hands fall from my face in long, possessive drags down my shoulders to my waist, stopping with his thumbs just above my hips and his fingers splayed out around my sides.

My hands roam up his chest and neck until my thumbs run along the roughness of his chin, and my touch seems to somehow make him hungrier.

“My god.” He breathes the words against my lips, restraint giving way...





About the Author:


Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of several young and new adult romances, including Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This Is Falling, You and Everything After, The Girl I Was Before, Wild Reckless, Wicked Restless, In Your Dreams, The Hard Count, Hold My Breath, A Boy Like You and A Girl Like Me.

A sucker for a good romance, Ginger’s other passion is sports, and she often blends the two in her stories. (She’s also a sucker for a hot quarterback, catcher, pitcher, point guard...the list goes on.) Ginger has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and blogs for more than 15 years. She has told the stories of Olympians, politicians, actors, scientists, cowboys, criminals and towns. For more on her and her work, visit her website at http://www.littlemisswrite.com.

When she's not writing, the odds are high that she's somewhere near a baseball diamond, either watching her son field pop flies like Bryce Harper or cheering on her favorite baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Ginger lives in Arizona and is married to her college sweetheart whom she met at ASU (fork 'em, Devils).

Social Media Links:
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com /GingerScottAuthor
Twitter: @TheGingerScott
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/the gingerscott/
YouTube: https://www.youtube. com/user/GingerScottAuthor
Google: https://plus.googl e.com/u/0/+GingerScottAuthor/posts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Gi ngerScott
Website: http://www.littlemisswrite.com

Blood & Water by Katie O'Rourke - Book Review

Book Description:
Tucson, Arizona is a place for runaways. Everyone came from somewhere else and has a story about what they left behind. 
Delilah arrives on her brother's doorstep with a secret. She hasn't seen him in five years. He ran away from their family long ago for reasons no one talks about and she still doesn't understand. The stress of raising his teenage daughter alone sometimes makes David envious of his deliberately childless friends, Tim and Sara, but they're runaways too, harboring secrets of their own. Blood & Water tells their stories and traces the deep connections between this unlikely group of friends.
This novel is about family, in its various manifestations: the one you're born into, the one you choose and the one you create.

Where to Purchase:

Amazon:
USA: USA Link
Australia: Australia Link
Brazil: Brazil Link
Canada: Canada Link
France: France Link
Germany: Germany Link
India: India Link
Italy: Italy Link
Japan: Japan Link
Mexico: Mexico Link
Netherlands: Netherlands Link
Spain: Spain Link
UK: UK Link

Connect with the Author:
Facebook: Facebook Link
Twitter: Twitter Link
Author Website: Author Website Link

Author Bio:
Katie O'Rourke was born and raised in New England, growing up along the seacoast of New Hampshire. She went to college in Massachusetts and graduated with a degree in gender and sexuality. She lives in Tucson, Arizona where she writes, loves and is happy. 
Monsoon Season, her debut novel, was a bestselling e-book. A Long Thaw was released in 2014, followed up by Still Life, a collection of short stories. Finding Charlie was selected for publication by Kindle Scout in 2015. 
She writes for todaysauthor.com.

Book Review by Carmen:
This was a heartwarming and easygoing story, and though I found David intriguing; I didn't agree with how he argued with Delilah. I gave this book a four star rating and got a copy in exchange for an honest review.

*Please be sure to support the author by buying their books and connecting with them on social media.

Onward by Meghan McDonnell - Book Review

Book Description:
In Onward: Volume Seven of this addictive and vicarious real-life series, Meghan McDonnell gets married in Las Vegas, copes with the unexpected death of a significant person in her life, supports her best friend through pregnancy and childbirth, and continues to reflect on family, friends, sense of place, and identity.
For 30 years, McDonnell has intimately chronicled her life beginning at age eight through present day. With searing candor and tenderness, her musings on daily experiences and observations of family, social and romantic relationships, and the interior life coalesce in a commentary on facing passion and fear, embracing the light and dark, and American life in the 21st century. Wide in scope and vivid and provocative in detail, her journals are her confessional love letter to the world. Join her on a fearless, vulnerable, profoundly surprising, sometimes painful and quixotic, but always honest journey, also known as the human experience. Readers who love Joan Didion or Cheryl Strayed will enjoy this author.

Where to Purchase:

Amazon:
USA: USA Link
Australia: Australia Link
Brazil: Brazil Link
Canada: Canada Link
France: France Link
Germany: Germany Link
India: India Link
Italy: Italy Link
Japan: Japan Link
Mexico: Mexico Link
Netherlands: Netherlands Link
Spain: Spain Link
UK: UK Link

Connect with the Author:
Twitter: Twitter Link

Author Bio:
Meghan McDonnell was born and raised in Seattle, majored in English at Western Washington University, and lived in Los Angeles for four years. She has held countless day jobs and recorded her experiences in her journals. When she’s not writing or reading, she spends time outdoors, solves crossword puzzles, cleans her house, does yoga, skis, watches vapid and extraordinary TV and movies, pretends to garden, obsesses over true crime podcasts, and imagines what it would be like to be an FBI agent. She lives in Walla Walla with her husband and two cats.

Book Review by Carmen:
The first thing that I was so happy to read about was that Meghan had gotten engaged to Carson - though she still has her moments in this novella; where she's in her head a little bit too much or gets involved in other people's drama, and still struggles with bouts of depression. There's quite a bit that happens in this novella; I ended up giving this book a four star rating and got a copy in exchange for an honest review. 

*Please be sure to support the author by buying their books and connecting with them on social media.

Wicked Charm by Amber Hart ~ YA Book Review

Book Description:

Nothing good comes from living in the Devil's swamp.

Willow Bell thinks moving to the Okefenokee area isn't half bad, but nothing prepares her for what awaits in the shadows of the bog.

Girls are showing up dead in the swamp. And she could be next.

Everyone warns Willow to stay away from Beau Cadwell—the bad boy at the top of their suspect list as the serial killer tormenting the small town.

But beneath his wicked, depthless eyes, there's something else that draws Willow to him.

When yet another girl he knew dies, though, Willow questions whether she can trust her instincts…or if they're leading to her own death.

Purchase a copy on Amazon.

About the Author:


WICKED CHARM, young adult standalone romantic thriller, Entangled Teen 2018 UNTIL YOU FIND ME, (Untamed series #1) new adult contemporary romantic thriller, Penguin Random House 2014 CAPTURED BY YOU, (Untamed series #2), Penguin Random House 2015 BEFORE YOU (Before & After series, #1), young adult contemporary romance, Kensington 2014 AFTER US (Before & After series, #2), Kensington 2014

Connect: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads |

Review:

Wicked Charm hooked me into the story right from the very first chapter! A great YA romantic thriller. It has the lure with the swamp, a few murders of girls that had connections to the tall dark and "evil" boy next door. I love the little relationship that develops between Willow and Beau. At first I wasn't too sure about Beau, I mean there seemed to be something just not good about the boy. Once the story starts to really unfold we learn more about Beau's past and about his family. Willow is very determined and head strong, she has set her eyes on Beau and nothing will stop her from getting to know the real Beau. She won't take others rumors or bad mouthing before learning the truth herself.

The author goes back and forth between the two main characters POV with each chapter. It is very easy to follow along and I found that the author did a great job on setting the scene and also developing each character keeping the reader guessing who could really be behind the murders in this small town. I did find that the story was more romance than thriller for myself. I found that the murders were just second to the relationship between Willow and Beau. It was a great, fast YA read. I couldn't put it down, I am sure I could have read it in one sitting if life didn't get in the way.

I look forward to reading more from Amber Hart. I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

~*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.*~

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