Thursday, February 3, 2022

Book Blast/Giveaway Undoing Time by Rachel Dacus



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Rachel Dacus will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Liv Pomeroy’s high hopes and lavish lifestyle come horribly undone when her fiancĂ© runs off with her maid of honor. Swearing off love forever, she goes on a summer escape to Florence, Italy. Agreeing to help her cousin May raise funds for an art restoration project, Liv is astonished to find they share a genetic gift for undoing time. Soon she’s joining a team of time travelers who rescue history from those who would change it. And fighting her attraction to a sexy time traveling colleague, who just might turn out to be working for the wrong side in the American Revolution. A thrilling tale of time travel, romance, and espionage.






Read an Excerpt

The announcement of another flight jolted her back into the present. It wasn’t her flight. She relaxed again into her seat and put her feet up on her carry-on.

In her pocket, her phone buzzed and Liv pulled it out. Seeing the name, she hesitated, but with a sigh swiped it open. The familiar voice that was synonymous with nagging trilled in her ear.

Her mom’s insistent soprano told her, “You don’t have to do this, Olivia.“

“But I do, Mother. You know Dad agrees with my going to Italy. He even set it up.”

“Flying off to another country isn’t going to bring Joel back to you.“

She tried not to shout at her phone. “Why would I want that asshole back!”

“Language, Olivia.”

But Liv was beyond parsing words. “If Joel comes back, they’ll arrest me for murder. Because I’ll kill him.”

“It’s a good thing you work in an art museum, around all those temperamental artists, where no one will notice your emotionalism.”

“I’m emotional because my almost-husband treated me like a piece of furniture. And my best friend helped him.”

“Olivia, you’re being impulsive.”

Liv realized she was again in danger of murder. Double or triple murder. First Joel, then her mother. Maybe Rita too. Good thing they were on the phone.

“Mom, I need to do something that matters.”

“Your life matters to us.”

It was Liv’s turn to pause. Because it echoed what Joel had said after she threw the ring. “You’ll never have the guts to make your life matter, Liv.”

She was done. “OK, Mom. They’re boarding. Gotta go.“ They weren’t, but this conversation had to end.

“Just remember Liv. Family is everything.”

Liv pretended to have already hung up before hearing that. She sank back into her chair and closed her eyes, letting the airport noise wash over her.

A few minutes later, an amplified voice rose over the hubbub. ”Flight 564 for Florence, Italy, boarding in fifteen minutes through Gate 17.”

Liv had just enough time to pop into the future and see this flight land safely. Florence Airport, 2:30 pm, she whispered. A familiar feeling tingled in her cells as time’s curtains parted. Heat rose from the concrete as Liv stood on the runway watching the plane—the plane she would soon board—as it bounced down and skidded to a stop, then taxied to its gate in the Florence airport.

Reassured, she jumped back, ready to board. Liv called her little trick undoing time.

About the Author:
RACHEL DACUS writes about history, love, romance, and art – usually with a touch of the supernatural. If time travel were possible, she’d hop over to Renaissance Rome, and then check out how the American Revolutionary War is going, and maybe visit an 18th century London artist’s studio. A poet and novelist, Dacus has published four novels and four poetry collections. When not writing, she listens to music, new and old, from indie and progressive rock to classical and jazz. Once a dancer, she’s now an avid walker, often twice a day -- once for the Muse and once for the world’s liveliest Silky Terrier. She blogs about the writing life and has collected a wealth of writing and publishing resources.

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Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Book Blast/Giveaway - Talk of Tokyo by Heather Hallman



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Heather Hallman will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

CAREFUL WITH YOUR WORDS

1897 Tokyo is no different than anywhere else in the world: men are exploiting women. Specifically, Western men are exploiting Japanese women, and Suki Malveaux holds no punches in her condemnation of their behavior in her weekly column in the Tokyo Daily News.

Suki knows firsthand when Western men arrive at Tokyo Bay there’s only one outcome for Japanese women: a child and new mother left behind as nothing more than discarded shrapnel from the heartless war on love.

Griffith Spenser is her latest target. He’s been seen with Natsu Watanabe, one of Tokyo’s esteemed war widows. Under full anonymity of the moniker “The Tokyo Tattler,” Suki makes sure Griffith knows exactly why his behavior with Natsu won’t be tolerated.

Away from her Japanese mask as a columnist, Suki never intended to meet the cad. When he seeks her out to hire as a tutor for his niece and nephew, she’s faced with seeing him day in and day out without him ever knowing who she really is.

Caught in her struggle for anonymity so she can keep battling for women’s rights, Suki’s about to learn the full impact of her words on the people behind the story, especially on Griff.

Read an Excerpt

Tokyo 1897

Foreign Quarter of Tsukiji

Fluttering her eyelashes in a coquettish manner, which had much in common with trying to dislodge a flying insect, Suki faced the man who held her fate in the palm of his rather well-shaped hands. “I was admiring your fine home.”

“I quite like it myself.”

“Was it constructed after the quake of ’94?”

“We commissioned its construction when we arrived in ’95. I’m assured by its builders it could withstand another earthquake of that intensity. Japanese-style homes fare better than brick and stone.”

“Mother Nature has given us many opportunities to rebuild.”

“Mother Nature?” Spenser furrowed his brow. “I thought it was the giant catfish residing under Japan flipping its tail that caused all these earthquakes.” His tone was teasing, while the observation revealed Spenser as the type of foreigner who bothered learning about traditional culture.

“You know your Japanese folklore,” Suki replied.

“I like to be prepared for all the dragons and ghosts I’m certain to encounter,” Spenser said with a smile that brought out creases along his soft brown eyes. “I should introduce myself, although introductions are probably unnecessary. I’m Griffith Spenser, arrived from England, resident of Tsukiji for almost two years.”

Suki mentally added to the introduction: Spenser counted minor members of the British aristocracy among his family, although he himself had no chance of inheriting a title; his company was the most highly regarded foreign-owned trading firm in Tokyo; he’d arrived with a new bride who left him a year later; and he now graced the bed of war widow Natsu Watanabe. Also, he played lawn tennis.

The Tokyo Tattler’s job was to know these facts about Tsukiji’s most illustrious residents, and Suki needed to continue doing this job, which was why she couldn’t let Spenser’s allure compromise her defenses. The man had asked her to his home without explanation. Although she’d like to imagine he’d summoned her to discuss the modern significance of Japanese mythology, she was a realist. Spenser had a score to settle with the Tokyo Tattler, and all this pleasant banter about earthquakes was merely diversion.

About the Author:
Heather Hallman writes witty, sensual, contest-winning romances set in Meiji-era Japan (1868-1912). She is the author of the Tokyo Whispers series that includes Scandals of Tokyo and Talk of Tokyo.

She is fluent in Japanese language, history, and culture, and earned a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology based on fieldwork research in Japan. She lives in Tokyo with her professor husband and two young daughters. In her free time, she can be found translating ancient Japanese poetry and observing the passing of seasons while sipping green tea. Just kidding, she has no free time. But she does watch something that makes her laugh while she does the dishes.

Perennial obsessions include the weather forecast (she checks three different apps at least three times a day, as no single app can be trusted), Baltimore Ravens football (hometown obsession), and making smoothies that taste like candy bars.

Feel free to chat her up about any of her obsessions, or, even better, about historical Japan—any era is fine, she loves them all. She also enjoys exchanging book recommendations, discussions about the craft of romance writing, and stories about life in present-day Tokyo.

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Buy links for Talk of Tokyo:

Boroughs Publishing Group
Amazon
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Sunday, January 30, 2022

Book Review - The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher

The Wrong Family

The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Synopsis: Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son—the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore.

Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel…

She shouldn’t get involved.

She really shouldn’t.

 

Review: Sadly this was one of the biggest disappointing stories I have ever read. It's just really bad on so many levels with the majority of it not making much sense at all. I totally hated the whole bit on the depression/mentally ill being the cause of what happened.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Book Review - Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

Where They Found Her

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis: At the end of a long winter, in bucolic Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods near the town’s prestigious university campus. No one knows who the baby is, or how her body ended up out there. But there is no shortage of opinions.

When freelance journalist, and recent Ridgedale transplant, Molly Anderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the story for the Ridegdale Reader, it’s a risk, given the severe depression that followed the loss of her own baby. But the bigger threat comes when Molly unearths some of Ridgedale’s darkest secrets, including a string of unreported sexual assaults that goes back twenty years.

Meanwhile, Sandy, a high school dropout, searches for her volatile and now missing mother, and PTA president Barbara struggles to help her young son, who’s suddenly having disturbing outbursts.

Told from the perspectives of Molly, Barbara, and Sandy, Kimberly McCreight’s taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth about the baby’s death revealing that these three women have far more in common than they realized.

 
Review: My first book from this author and it was more a 3.5 for me as I did enjoy it a good bit but there were a few parts that were a bit draggy and repetitive especially the parts involving Molly and her inability to connect with her daughter. I mean I totally understood how she was feeling but didn't need to keep being reminded.

I loved the headings on each chapter or else I would have really been lost not knowing who was speaking and wow I enjoyed how everything came together in the end even though one of the final twists dropped my jaw! I love it when I can't guess the entire ending!

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Friday, January 21, 2022

Book Review - The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Synopsis:  In The Midnight Library Nora Seed finds herself faced with a decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

Review: I'm usually not into much fantasy type stories but found this such a joy to read! The short chapters were an absolute plus for me and I found Nora easy to connect with. It was interesting just sitting back and pondering over my own life after and during the time I was reading this wondering about the different ways my life would have been over some of the simplest and tiniest decisions. It's just not something I think I have ever really given much thought to. But this was a very thought provoking tale!

With that being said I was pleased with how the story ended. There are no "perfect" lives. We have to take the good with the bad and try to live the life we have to the fullest the best way we can.

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