Welcome to the Tenth Annual Gratitude Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds!
To thank YOU, my readers, I’m giving away a the winner’s choice of a $10 gift card or a $10 book. To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.
For more terrific prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on the hop!
Welcome to the fifth annual Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop, hosted by The Kids Did It and The Mommy Island.
The weather outside may or may not be frightful, at least not yet, but the fire pictured in the graphic above certainly looks delightful. Even though both the tree and the pile of packages are much tidier and considerably less destroyed than they would be in my house. Hecate the cat is firmly of the opinion that all the things exist for her to play with!
While it may feel a bit too early to actually decorate for Xmas – after all it’s still two weeks – and a bit – before Thanksgiving, it’s never too early to start shopping for that perfect present. Unless you’re planning to leave coal in someone’s stocking. I’m pretty sure that’s available all year ’round!
But speaking of the perfect present – maybe you should treat yourself to a little something in the midst of all that holiday planning. Whatever you are planning this holiday season, answer the rafflecopter for a chance at either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository to put a little something in YOUR stocking!
And for more fabulous holiday prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!
Angel in a Devil's Arms (The Palace of Rogues, #2) by Julie Anne Long From USA Today bestselling author Julie Anne Long comes the second book in an exciting new historical romance series, the first since her beloved Pennyroyal Green series.
He has devil's blood in his veins. At least, that's always been the legend. How else could the Duke of Brexford's notorious bastard son return from the dead? The brutal decade since Lucien Durand, Lord Bolt, allegedly drowned in the Thames forged him into a man who always gets what—and who—he wants. And what he wants is vengeance for his stolen birthright...and one wild night in Angelique Breedlove's bed.
Angelique recognizes heartbreak when the enigmatic Lord Bolt walks into The Grand Palace on the Thames, and not even his devastating charm can tempt her to risk her own ever again. One scorching kiss drives home the danger.
But in the space between them springs a trust that feels anything but safe. And the passion—explosive, consuming—drives Lucien to his knees. Now his whole life depends on proving his love to a woman who doesn't believe in it...because his true birthright, he now knows, is guardian of Angelique Breedlove's heart.
My Review:
I picked up Angel in a Devil’s Arms because I absolutely adored the first book in the Palace of Rogues series, Lady Derring Takes a Lover. That first book was just an absolutely terrific time. It sparkled with wit and humor and romance to the point where I smile just thinking about it.
But the marvelousness of Lady Derring makes it a very difficult act to follow for this second book in the series.
These are two very different romances, in part because the home-like inn and business venture grandly named The Grand Palace on the Thames is in a much better – and more successful position than it was during the first book.
But especially because Lady Delilah Derring (the Lady Derring of the first title) and Mrs. Angelique Breedlove (the Angel of the second) are, in spite of being the best of friends – or possibly because – very different people.
Including the way that they ended up in this business together. Lady Derring spent her life attempting to stay on the straight and narrow all of her life, while Angelique Breedlove got shoved off the path early in hers. There’s an irony in them both ending up in the same place – and at the dead hands of the same man – but that’s the story of the first book.
At this point, Delilah has found her happy ever after in the arms of the law-and-order bent Captain Hardy. Angelique begins this story happy for her friend and content with the safe and ordered life she has made for herself.
A life that is disturbed by Lucien Durand’s advent into their haven and into the midst of their found family.
Because Lucien, in spite of his title, was shoved off that straight and narrow path just as forcibly as Angelique – and just as early. He’s a bastard, both in the literal and figurative sense, but the literal sense definitely came first. The circumstances of his birth only form one part of what has made him the man he is. That his noble father’s wife attempted to have him murdered is certainly an even bigger part of how he came to be quite as scandalous as he is.
Also the reason that the ton has believed he was dead for the past decade – because he very nearly was.
Lucien is back in London, whether to exact revenge or simply rub everyone’s nose in his success – as well as his successfully continuing to breathe – is anyone’s guess. That he would find peace and contentment among Delilah and Angelique’s little found family – because of and not in spite of the rather unusual rules they insist that ALL their guests adhere to – no matter how rich or noble – is as much of a surprise to him as it is to anyone else.
That Lucien and Angelique, with their different perspectives on their surprisingly similar emotional wounds, would be drawn to each other like iron filings to magnets astonishes them both.
She’s been hurt by men who wanted her too many times to give in easily. And he’s been abandoned too often by people he thought loved him to believe that he’s capable of that emotion.
But they are. They both, most definitely, are.
Escape Rating B: I liked reading Angelique and Lucien’s story, and I adore Angelique as a character. But this is a very different book from Lady Derring Takes a Lover, and it suffers in the comparison.
Angel in a Devil’s Arms is a much quieter book than the first one. There was just so much going on in that first book. Not only do Delilah and Angelique go into business together, they create the inn of their dreams, begin putting together their found family AND help Captain Hardy uncover the smuggling ring.
That’s a LOT. And the dialog between Delilah and Captain Hardy zips and zings all along the way.
Angelique and Lucien’s romance is very different. They both been battered a lot more by the school of hard knocks – and taken more than their share of those knocks – then Delilah and Tristan, even though their road was far from easy.
Angelique and Lucien are both wounded souls, and both wounded in the same way. Angelique was seduced and betrayed and ended her “career” as the late unlamented Lord Derring’s mistress because she had no other choices. Lucien’s mother was the mistress of an Earl who abandoned both her and Lucien when Lucien was 15, at the behest of his new wife. The one who tried to have Lucien killed. Those acts embittered Lucien and killed his mother – even before the attempted murder.
But they are both coming from rather dark places and are having difficult times making peace with themselves. That they manage to find peace with each other is a surprise and not initially a welcome one. They both have to change who they thought they were to make it work – and they very nearly don’t.
Angel in a Devil’s Arms misses the dramatic ups and downs of the first book. But the happy ever after is still very much earned.
To celebrate the release of ANGEL IN A DEVIL’S ARMS by Julie Anne Long, we’re giving away a paperback copy of Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long!
GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS: Open to US shipping addresses only. One winner will receive a paperback copy of Lady Derring Takes a Lover by Julie Anne Long. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR. Giveaway ends 11/12/2019 @ 11:59pm EST.
Gold Digger, The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor by Rebecca Rosenberg GOLD DIGGER, The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor!
One look at Baby Doe and you know she was meant to be a legend! She was just twenty years old when she came to Colorado to work a gold mine with her new husband. Little did she expect that she’d be abandoned and pregnant and left to manage the gold mine alone. But that didn’t stop her!
She moved to Leadville and fell in love with a married prospector, twice her age. Horace Tabor struck the biggest silver vein in history, divorced his wife and married Baby Doe. Though his new wife was known for her beauty, her fashion, and even her philanthropy, she was never welcomed in polite society.
Discover how the Tabors navigated the worlds of wealth, power, politics, and scandal in the wild days of western mining.
“Rosenberg’s rollicking Western adventure strikes gold with a gutsy, good-hearted spitfire of a heroine and action aplenty.”—THELMA ADAMS, bestselling author of The Last Woman Standing
Gold Digger tells the true story of Lizzie “Baby Doe” Tabor, a beautiful young woman who in 1878 marries the son of a wealthy miner in order to save her family from penury. Shrewd and stubborn, Lizzie fights back-biting Victorian society, wins and loses vast fortunes, and bests conniving politicians in her larger-than-life story. A twisting tale worthy of Mark Twain, with a big-hearted heroine at the center. —MARTHA CONWAY, author of The Underground River
My Review:
Mark Twain once said that “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities;Truth isn’t.” There are plenty of variations on this quote, but the one by Twain is particularly apropos to this story as it was written in 1897, during the time period covered by this chapter of Baby Doe’s life.
Her real life. Because even though Gold Digger is a novel, it is based on the life of a real person, Lizzie “Baby Doe” Tabor. A person who became a legend, even in her own lifetime.
Baby Doe’s life was a rags to riches story, in the best Western tradition. But, and it turned out to be a very big but, her life turned back into rags, as so many did when their fortunes rose and fell with the price of gold, or in her case silver, and on the vicissitudes of governments and the claiming and production of always chancy mines.
Because Baby Doe was not just a woman but a beautiful, intelligent and ambitious woman at a time when women who were the first were supposed to hide the second and third, and in a place where women of any kind were rare and as hardened as the men, the life she led and the legends that followed her are heavily influenced by those attitudes.
That she used her beauty and ambition to seduce or ensnare – at least as her contemporaries saw it – a married man who possessed both wealth and political ambition did not endear her to those contemporaries.
That at least according to this book she sincerely loved him, and that she certainly stuck with him through thick and thin – and there was plenty of both – may lend credence to the romantic parts of this story. She certainly stood by him when plenty of others didn’t.
But this is her life – or at least the biggest part of it. And it’s a life well worth learning about – and remembering.
Escape Rating B: I have some mixed feelings about this re-telling of Baby Doe Tabor’s story. On the one hand, her life was absolutely legendary. It makes for the sort of story that would be labeled highly implausible if it were purely fiction. As the fictionalization of a true story, it’s a marvel. The treatment of her life story, both contemporaneously and after her death, is a reflection on the way that the lives of exceptional women are so often dealt with. She was vilified as a homewrecker – and worse – during her lifetime and erased after the fact.
Her story is well-known in Colorado where she lived, but not outside her old stomping – and mining – grounds.
So on the one hand her story is one very much worth telling.
But this telling of it gave me a bit of pause. Attempting to get inside the head of a historical figure, even in fiction, doesn’t always work. (One of the things that worked well for me in yesterday’s book was that the author did not attempt to get inside Princess Margaret’s head. We saw what she did, and other people’s reactions to it, but we didn’t hear her thoughts and that felt right.)
We spend a lot of time in Baby Doe’s head, and her thoughts as presented owed more to historical romance than history – or so it felt to me. And her internal dialog felt a bit overblown – although that matches with writing of her time period. Leaving this reader a bit torn.
In the end, Baby Doe’s life is one that should be better known, and I would be interested in knowing more about. But this particular treatment didn’t quite work for me.
Your reading mileage, whether by car or mining cart, may definitely vary.
For a chance to win a copy of this book and other related prizes, please use THIS LINK to fill-out the Rafflecopter widget.
Welcome to the Lucky Leaf Giveaway Hop, hosted by Mama the Fox!
I don’t know how lucky the leaves are at the moment. Depending on where you live, they are all either falling or have fallen. Except those pesky pine needles.
And if you are the person who has to rake all the leaves, you probably don’t think they are lucky at all. Especially around here right now. It’s been raining all week and all those fallen leaves are sopping wet. Too nasty to make piles out of for jumping into. That takes dry, crunchy leaves. Which we definitely don’t have at the moment.
Not that we can’t use the rain. But it does make the days a bit gloomy, especially as we wind up – or is it down – to the end of Daylight Saving Time over the weekend.
Still, it is Fall, yesterday was Halloween, and it’s an excellent excuse to have a blog hop. Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at your choice of either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a book up to $10 in value from the Book Depository.
For more fabulous Fall prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!
MamatheFox and all participating blogs are not held responsible for sponsors who fail to fulfill their prize obligations.
This Earl of Mine (Bow Street Bachelors, #1) by Kate Bateman, K.C. Bateman The first book in a new Regency romance series, an heiress and a rogue accidentally end up in a secret marriage of convenience.
In a desperate bid to keep her fortune out of her cousin's hands, shipping heiress Georgiana Caversteed marries a condemned criminal in Newgate prison. The scoundrel's first kiss is shockingly heated, but Georgie never expects to see her husband again. Until she spots him across a crowded ballroom. Notorious rogue Benedict Wylde never expected a wife. He was in Newgate undercover, working for Bow Street. To keep their marriage of convenience a secret, Wylde courts Georgie in public, but the more time they spend together, the more their attraction sparks. Could an heiress with the world at her feet find happiness with a penniless rake? Kate Bateman's This Earl of Mine is a delightful start to the Bow Street Bachelors series, with witty banter, dynamic characters, and swoon-worthy romance.
My Review:
The way that this story opens reminded me of something I’ve always wondered about. Considering the incredible lengths that Regency heroines seem to have had to go to in order to protect themselves from predatory family members and their machinations, just how vanishingly small was the percentage of even slightly functional families among the upper classes?
I understand completely why Georgie goes to the lengths she does to keep her (OMG) cousin Josiah from compromising her so that she is forced to marry him, so that he can drain her extensive fortune to the dregs. He’s a complete wastrel, addicted to gambling, alcohol and opium – and he’s also complete slime. I can totally empathize with her desire not to marry him under any circumstances and don’t blame her a bit for the ruse she intends to enact.
I only question why there doesn’t seem to be anyone getting this bastard off her back – before he puts her on hers against her will. I’ve read this trope before, and it is infuriating. We empathize with her immediately, but as level-headed as Georgie is I can’t help but think there should be someone effective on her side.
Rant ends.
But I love Georgie as a protagonist. She is smart, she’s a successful businesswoman, she knows her own mind and skills and is both willing and able to act on her own behalf. She is not waiting for anyone to rescue her – and I’m happy that she isn’t. She neither needs nor wants someone to stand in front of her and fight her battles for her. She needs someone to stand beside her, support her in her own struggles and assist her when she decides she needs assistance.
That she finds that person in Newgate Prison is a surprise to everyone involved. Herself – and himself – included.
She goes into Newgate intending to marry a condemned prisoner who will be conveniently (for Georgie, anyway) hung the next morning. She ends up married to Ben Wylde, a covert agent of the crown masquerading as a convicted smuggler and working for Bow Street (hence the title of the series).
Ben is the brother of the impoverished Earl of Morcott. He’s also a veteran of the recently and hopefully finally completed Napoleonic Wars. Most important for the story, he’s a known rake on the fringes of the ton, those sticklers of high society. A high society that Georgie’s ambitious mother wants to ascend to, by way of Georgie’s beautiful but clumsy younger sister.
Which means that Georgie and Ben are fated to meet as soon as he bribes his way out of Newgate – not that he was in there as his real self in any case. It was all part of his current case for Bow Street. But their marriage is valid, which leaves Georgie and Ben on the horns of a rather dicey dilemma. (Horns is also punnily appropriate for Ben’s condition every time they are within sight of each other!)
Georgie needs to be married to fend off Cousin Josiah. Ben has neither the need nor the desire for a wife – whatever he feels for, or in the presence of, Georgie. Particularly as it is well known that Ben and his brother John (the Earl) are in dire need of a rather large fortune to redeem their late father’s many, many (many) gambling debts. While Georgie, who possess that large fortune from the successful shipping business that she inherited and has expanded (all by her ownsome, thankyouverymuch), is naturally wary of men who want to marry her for access to her fortune.
But they are stuck with each other. Or are they? Georgie very nearly gamed the system before in order to protect what she holds dear. Can she do it again – with Ben’s able assistance?
And can they manage to do it for keeps?
Escape Rating B+: I certainly enjoyed This Earl is Mine, and that’s because of the characters. Georgie is an absolute gem. Her independence of thought, and her willingness to act on that thought, make her a character that 21st century readers can easily identify with – and root for.
At the same time, the strictures wrapped around her life also firmly ground her in her time and place – or at least do so enough to not make her attitudes anachronistic. She knows what she’s good at, and she knows what she’s worth – and not just in the financial sense. At the same time her life is hemmed in by the restrictions placed on women of her time. She colors outside the lines but not too much and is always aware that there are lines and that she – and her family – will pay a price if she steps too far outside those lines and is caught.
She also knows what she wants in a man and a husband, and isn’t willing to settle for less. She just doesn’t believe that she can have what she wants – a man who will stand beside her and not in front of her. The way that she and Ben find out just how good they are together, while filled with plenty of heat, isn’t based solely on their explosive sexual chemistry. They become friends first – in spite of how difficult that seems. And what they share that matters the most is their love of adventure in a way that bonds them so closely that when they finally realize they love each other they are both shocked, because neither of them expected it – or the other – at all.
That Ben’s pride almost gets in the way of their happiness feels real – and that they overcome it due to her good sense and forthright nature seems right.
On my other hand, Cousin Josiah reads like a bit of a paper tiger. He’s terrible and awful but as soon as Georgie has someone effective in her corner his fate is inevitable. And that whole situation felt a bit contrived from beginning to sticky end.
I will say that this book drove me a bit crazy, because I kept having the feeling that I’d read something a lot like it before. And I’ve been looking for what that was for days now.
In the end, This Earl of Mine feels like a combination of The Duke’s Den series by Christy Carlyle, the Bareknuckle Bastards by Sarah MacLean and the Bastion Club by Stephanie Laurens – all the best parts of each, of course. It also bears a strong but slightly twisted resemblance to the Sebastian St. Cyr series by C.S. Harris. I say twisted in that last instance because the author took a character who should have been the hero of a romance and turned him into a tormented solver of mysteries for Bow Street. Ben Wylde and his friends feel like the other side of that coin, a war veteran like St. Cyr who solve crimes for Bow Street while staying on the romantic hero side of the equation.
If you like any of those series, you will also love This Earl of Mine, and vice-versa. But the Bow Street Bachelors are far from finished. The series will return with To Catch an Earl next summer, when the focus moves from Ben and Georgie to Ben’s friend and fellow agent, Alex. And I’m looking forward to the season AND definitely the book!
Thanks to the publisher, I am giving away a paperback copy of This Earl of Mine to one lucky US commenter on this tour!
Lady Abigail's Perfect Match (The Townsbridges #2) by Sophie Barnes A kiss can cure any ailment…
Lady Abigail has been infatuated with Mr. James Townsbridge for three years. But when she is finally introduced to him, she finds him arrogant and rude. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop her heart from racing or her stomach from flip-flopping while in his presence. In fact, being near him makes her feel somewhat ill. Which complicates matters when they are suddenly forced to marry.
James doesn’t like the aloof young lady to whom he has recently been introduced. And since he has a blistering headache, he doesn’t have the patience for someone who clearly doesn’t want to be in his company. But when she lands in his lap and he accidentally rips her gown, his duty is clear. Now James must try to get along with his awful fiancée, or risk living unhappily ever after. But is that possible?
My Review:
This story was a surprise. Oooh was it ever! And I meant that in a very good way.
At the beginning, it seemed like it was going to be the misunderstandammit to end all misunderstandammits. Admittedly, at the beginning, the hero and heroine don’t know each other AT ALL, so the way that they begin by misunderstanding each other and keep on doing it at every turn is a direct result of them being barely acquainted in the first place.
That their first meeting is far from auspicious doesn’t help matters. He’s really, seriously hungover, and she’s shy and tongue-tied in that way that comes off as standoffish and disapproving when it’s really all about wanting to disappear.
Then they each disappear from the party that neither of them wants to be at, in order to find a dark, quiet room where they can just breathe and give in to their equal but opposite desires to be anywhere else.
Until she sits on him in the dark – literally – and their quiet room is invaded by everybody and his brother – as well as both of theirs – discovering them in a position that looks extremely compromising.
This is a Regency romance, which means that they have to marry to preserve her reputation. Even if it seems as if he quite literally makes her sick to her stomach.
At this point I kind of wondered where the story could possibly go from here, because it seemed as if every time they were in the same room together they managed to make the whole situation worse.
Until they began writing notes to each other, and discovered that they have the same somewhat morbid and slightly offbeat sense of humor. They begin to find a way, and it starts to look like their impending marriage is going to be glorious and not doomed.
Of course there’s one more crisis that nearly drives them apart – again. But in their forced walk through some very dark places, they manage to find their way into the light. Happily. And together.
Escape Rating B+: I picked this book because I really enjoyed the first book in the series, When Love Leads to Scandal, and wanted to see where the story led next. (There’s no NEED to read the first to like the second, the one is not dependent on the other. But the first book is VERY short and a quite delightful romp all by itself.)
At first, I’ll admit that I totally wondered where Lady Abigail was headed (both the book and the character!) The misunderstandammit is one of my least favorite tropes, but in the first half of the story it seemed as if the whole thing was one giant misunderstanding and not much else. I’ll also confess that the reason Lady Abigail was so tongue-tied it made her sick – that James Townsbridge is just too handsome for words – felt a bit silly. But then, the whole misunderstandammit trope is pretty silly.
Once Lady Abigail put on her metaphorical big girl panties by talking to James through the shrubbery(!), their relationship began to sing. Or at least giggle and chortle quite a bit. It was certainly working.
When the crisis came and everything nearly fell to bits, things got very dark. And I’m trying not to spoil it, because the way they eventually recovered and learned to get past it was extremely well done.
So this one isn’t nearly as light and fluffy as that blurb might lead you to believe. And it’s all the better for it.
Nothing to Fear (Final Hour #2) by Juno Rushdan The clock is ticking
Fearsome Gray Box operative Gideon Stone is devoted to his work and his team. He's never given reason to doubt his loyalty...until he's tasked with investigating Willow Harper, a beguiling cryptologist suspected of selling deadly bio-agents on the black market.
He knows she's innocent. He knows she's being framed. And he knows that without him, Willow will be dead before sunrise.
Thrust into the crossfire of an insidious international conspiracy, Gideon will do anything to keep Willow safe...even if that means waging war against his own. With time running out, an unlikely bond pushes limits―and forges loyalties. Every move they make counts. And the real traitor is always watching...
My Review:
The title of this nonstop romantic suspense thriller may be Nothing to Fear, but Gray Box hacker-agent-operative Willow Harper has PLENTY to fear – she just doesn’t know it as this story opens.
She’s being setup to take the fall for the murder, while in Gray Box custody, of an enemy intelligence agent code-named “The Ghost”. But he stopped being a ghost once Willow focused her hacker skills on ferreting him out.
Now the mole in the Gray Box has to eliminate the threat to the organization that they really work for, while keeping their hidden status in place. That’s where Willow came in, unfortunately – or so it seems – for her.
Willow may be a genius programmer, and she has mad skills when it comes to data security, but her everyday, run of the mill life skills security is not so hot.
At first she’s just one of many suspects, but the mole has set Willow up to take the fall for everything, complete with a multi-million dollar account in the Caymans. An account that Willow knows nothing about. It’s not that the account is fake – the money is all too real – but that whoever set up the account was definitely not Willow Harper.
When the evidence turns up, with the black operations of Gray Box already in the cross-hairs, the agency’s director has no choice but to take her into custody.
And Gideon Stone, the agent who is certain that Willow is innocent, feels as if he has no choice but to take Willow and go on the run – in the hopes that he can get to the bottom of the set up, find the mole AND protect Willow – before their enemies manage to take her out and complete the frame.
The forces that are after them are bigger and better organized than Gideon imagined, and the hurricane that crosses their path is just the beginning of the danger that they face.
But the biggest danger for both of them is the damage that they can do to each other. If they’re not carefully, they’ll shoot each other in the heart.
Escape Rating B+: Nothing to Fear is absolutely a thrill-a-minute ride from beginning to end. It has all the classic elements of a great romantic suspense story, with its tough hero, offbeat heroine, secret black ops agency and spies, moles and counterspies at every twist and turn.
Not to mention that desperate run through a hurricane – although what happens on the boat stays on the boat. Or at least it’s supposed to.
As a “black” operation of our very own government – and isn’t that a scary thought all the way around – Gray Box makes a fascinating backdrop for a series. Everyone is a spy, or an agent, or an operative, or all of the above. Everyone has secrets – and everyone has committed unspeakable acts on behalf of the country. And all of their actions can and will be disavowed if that country feels it is necessary.
That Gray Box absolutely HAS to find the traitor within its ranks to keep the entire agency from being “whitewashed” just adds to the tension of the whole story. They have to find the mole, they have to clean up the agency, and they have to help Gideon and Willow however they can in the hope that everyone comes out the other side – except the mole, of course.
At the same time, Gideon and Willow are running as fast as they can, trying to stay half a step ahead of their pursuers, while being all too aware that everyone they left behind is in terrible danger – and not just their colleagues at Gray Box. The enemy is going after their families and friends in an attempt to run them to earth or bring them to heel. It’s a deadly chase.
And at the heart of the story are Gideon and Willow. Neither of them feels worthy of being loved nor is either of them quite sure they are capable of feeling or returning the emotion. Gideon is certain that the deeds he has committed are too dark, that his past is too dirty and that he is too much a creature of violence for anyone to be safe around him. And Willow, while a genius with computers, is at a loss with the unpredictability of human behavior and human emotions.
Which doesn’t stop them from falling for each other. But it sure does stop them from trying to stay together once the danger is over. Or does it?
The suspense of Nothing to Fear will keep readers on the edge of their seats from the first page to the last. And the story of this couple who make each other strong in their broken places will warm the least romantic heart.
Nothing to Fear is the second book in the Final Hour series. I haven’t read the first book, Every Last Breath, and had absolutely no problem getting right into the action in this one. But as wrapped up as I was in Nothing to Fear, that first book has certainly climbed higher in my towering TBR pile. After all, I have to read it in time to get the third book in this series, Until the End, late next spring!
I’m giving away a copy of Nothing to Fear to one lucky US commenter on this tour!
Welcome to the Howl-O-Ween Giveaway Hop, hosted by The Kids Did It and The Mommy Island.
Fall is finally Fell here in Atlanta, so it’s actually beginning to feel like it’s time for Halloween and all things pumpkin.
But about those trick-or-treaters…
This time last year, we were looking towards our first Halloween in a new house, and had no idea how many trick-or-treaters would be coming to our door. The neighbors gave estimates of anywhere from less than 30 to a couple hundred – which is a pretty broad range to work with!
It turned out to be closer to 30 – if that. We live in a cul-de-sac, and, apparently, the local custom is to drive kids to the houses. Cul-de-sacs aren’t popular under those conditions.
We were fortunate – VERY – that the neighborhood took up a collection of leftover Halloween candy to give away elsewhere. We really didn’t care where elsewhere was, as long as it was away from us – but I know it went somewhere charitable I just don’t remember where. Now that neither of us works in an actual office, we didn’t have a “work crowd” to absorb the excess – of which there was a lot.
This year we’ll get treats for 30 and turn off the lights in front IF we run out. Unless conditions have changed a LOT from one year to the next, we don’t expect to.
What about where you are? Do you get lots of trick or treaters? Or just a trickle? Answer in the rafflecopter for your chance at either a $10 Amazon Gift Card or a $10 Book from the Book Depository!
For more fabulous spooky prizes, be sure to visit the other stops on this hop!
Welcome to the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop, hosted by Review Wire Media and Chatty Patty’s Place!
Look at all those cute pumpkins up there!
It’s Jack-O-Lantern season, which means we’re creeping up on Halloween – no matter what the thermometer says.
It also means that Pumpkin Spice Season has officially begun. OH NO! Pumpkin spice season, the dreaded pumpkin spice season is upon us.
This is an endless debate in our house. My husband is on Team Pumpkin Spice, and I’m on Team Never Pumpkin Spice. Or almost never. Pumpkin spice belongs in pumpkin pie. I could possibly see my way clear to pumpkin spice tea. I like Constant Comment, and it couldn’t be far from that. Could it? I’m not sure I really want to find out. I might get infected with the Pumpkin Spice virus. Or whatever it is.
But Pumpkin Spice Special K is just beyond the pale. I’m also having a terrible time “digesting” the idea of either Pumpkin Spice Pizza or Pumpkin Spice Spam. That is NOT what Monty Python had in mind!
Are you on Team Pumpkin Spice Forever, or are you with me on Team Pumpkin Spice Never? Answer in the rafflecopter for your choice of a $10 US Amazon Gift Card (promise me not to buy Pumpkin Spice anything, pretty please !) or a $10 book from the Book Depository.
I’m joking about that promise not to buy any pumpkin spice if you win, but I’m not joking that there are plenty of other stops on this hop!