This Chick Read: The Night Mark by Tiffany Reisz #Giveaway

Faye Barlow has lived in agony since the death of her beloved husband Will four years ago. Faye takes a photography job in Beaufort, South Carolina as a refuge from a failed marriage to Will’s best friend and to continue to grieve Will. As she travels around Beaufort taking pictures of landmarks, she see’s a wrecked lighthouse and is intrigued by its story. When she goes to the library to research it, she notices a picture of its caretaker who is the mirror image of her husband Will. She learns of the story about Bride Island Lighthouse, the legend of the Lady of the Light and the inhabitants who lived on the island. She goes out to the lighthouse for a closer look and has her feet swept out from under her by a wave, and comes out of the water in 1921 face to face with what looks to be her husband.

This was a lovingly told story of a woman who survives loss and finds love again in 1921. An era that was pre World War II, pre depression, during prohibition, before pre Civil Rights, and before women have the right to vote. Women are only slightly better than property to their husbands and modern day Faye is an anomaly in that time. The fish out of water parts of this book were both eye opening and fun to read, but her struggles to milk a goat paled in comparison to her education of how black people were treated at that time.

Her growing feelings for Carrick were clouded by his looking like her dead husband. In addition to overcoming that obstacle, Faye is Faith, a runaway abused wife of one of Carricks Navy buddies. There were a lot of obstacles to this love story and intricacies to the plot that made the ending very satisfactory and moving.  ❤️❤️❤️❤️

GIVEAWAY- Win a signed copy of The Night Mark! (US only) EXPIRES 5/25/17

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Click the link to purchase! The Night Mark: A Novel

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

This Chick Read: Etched in Bone (Others #5) by Anne Bishop

This series has quickly become one of my favorites. I was eager to read Etched in Bone, while at the same time dreading it. Do you ever love something so much that you want to eat it up and put it off at the same time? This was one of those novels for me! Continue reading “This Chick Read: Etched in Bone (Others #5) by Anne Bishop”

This Chick Read: Seeking Mansfield by Kate Watson

Finley Price is in love with her best friend Oliver, but doesn’t have the self confidence to see that he also loves her. A victim of child abuse, Finley has a tough time speaking up or being the center of attention. She lives on the fringes of life, trying to contribute as much as possible to Olivers family who has taken her in after her father dies and her mother is incapable of raising she and her brother. When two famous teenage actors move in next door, Finley watches Oliver fall under the spell of Emma, and is forced to spend more time with Harlan, Emma’s brother, than she’d like. Added to that teenage friction is the fact that Finley’s father was a famous actor, and that industry is in her blood. Seeking Mansfield uses the situation of teenage love and pain as an engine for Finley to grow within herself, face her fears and go after the life she wants, which is an admission to prestigious Mansfield Theater.

I was totally surprised by the depth in what looked at first glance to be a lighthearted romance. Finley has a lot of inner demons she needs to work through so at times this book was pretty dark. The storyline revolved around alcohol, physical abuse and broken hearts, but the story did balance those dark moments with laughter, a loving brother, and solid friendships. Her relationship with Oliver changed very slowly and I’ll admit that I got a little impatient with how the author used misdirection to make us believe that they had moved on from their feelings. Finley had suffered so much up to the start of this book, that once I found out her back story I just wanted to see her happy. Harlan, as her love him/hate him relationship didn’t ring true, so I had trouble buying into it, but he was a fun character to read, and an integral part to how Finley grew in this book. For that reason I’ll forgive this author the time she spent on that plotline. This novel is the first book in the series, so I can only hope the next one follows Finley on her education at Mansfield Theater, because she was a fascinating character and I want to know more about her!

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review, and it was honest!

❤️❤️❤️❤️


Buy it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo!

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

Blog Book Club : Kulti by Mariana Zapata (A three blog review!)

A few weeks ago on my Sunday Commentary I asked for my fellow bloggers to help me choose a book to read off my TBR. That post started a discussion with Donna @ Heron There & Everywhere about the book Kulti. It’s been sitting on my kindle for a couple of years and funny enough it was sitting on hers too! Recently I read and reviewed Zapata’s Wall of Winnipeg and Me and was loving her slow burn love stories. It wasn’t very hard for Donna to convince me to read that book together. We asked if anyone else wanted to join in and Sarah Ferguson and Choppy chimed in and we all decided to post our reviews on the same date, today!

If you would like to read all of our reviews, click on each name.

Donna @ Heron There and Everywhere

Sarah @ Travels with Choppy

This Chick’s review of Kulti by Mariana Zapata

Sal Casillas grew up idolizing star soccer player Reiner Kulti and dreaming of one day playing pro soccer. She works hard for that dream and when the story starts she is in fact an aging (at 27!)  pro soccer player whose team just hired Reiner Kulti as their assistant coach. Sal is beyond excited, never believing she’d get the chance to meet her idol in person, and be coached by him. Well, things don’t start off that well. Kulti comes to all the practices but doesn’t interact with the team at all, he’s actually kind of an ass! One day, her dad comes to watch her play, excited that he has the chance to meet Kulti. Sal hadn’t had the heart to tell her father how awful Kulti was being to the team. When Kulti is rude to her father Sal hits the wall. She walks up to him and very precisely, and with the utmost respect (he was her coach after all!) tells him off. After that moment something changed in him and they slowly started to become friends. Until they became more.

First I have to exclaim over how much fun it was to read a sports romance where the female protagonist was the pro player! It gave a whole different vibe to the story. We were given some backstory about Sals rise up through the ranks of pro soccer and a ton of backstory between she and a girl on the National team. I won’t spoil the story but I will say ” what a bitch!” I wanted to give Amber a big kick! Growing up playing soccer myself, and having those same kind of dreams about going pro I wonder if that is part of the reason why I loved this book so much. Then, I’d keep reading and realized I was really enjoying the building friendship between Sal and Rey. Sal was so surprised at their relationship, and the fact that this man wanted to be her friend that she wore blinders to the fact that he was deeply in love with her. Totally clueless and I loved her for that.  And him. After a rough start Rey ended up being my dream guy too.

If, like me, you have put this book on the back burner, PICK IT UP! It will not disappoint!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I’m going to pop on over to Donna and Sarah’s blog to see if they liked this book as much as I did. If you have read Kulti and want to chime in with your thoughts, we’d love to hear them!


Buy this book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo!

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

What’s in a Name….Change.

I just wanted to put out a quick post to let you know that I’ve changed the name of my blog from A Chick Who Reads to The Reading Chick to match my URL which is thereadingchick.com.

I identify myself as The Reading Chick in my own head so I thought I’d make it official! I’m sure you are all saying Who Cares… but just in case you are in that 1% who might, this is my official notice. Please still follow me as The Reading Chick!

On a side note, I hope everyone’s Sunday has been wonderful. Here, in the US it’s Mother’s Day and I had the best brunch and a movie with my own mom, husband, and siblings.  Just to brag on my lovely mother I’ll share a photo from brunch today.


Take Care!

Deb

A Happy Mother’s Day Book #Giveaway !! 

Congratulations Jennifer Dunkleman Hon-Winner!

As you all know, I spent last week at the RT Convention in Atlanta. I met some fabulous people, among them a group of Inspirational Romance authors.  These ladies were so gracious that I thought Mother’s Day would be a perfect time to do a couple of giveaways to honor their writing. I haven’t read any of these books but have read others by these authors and they were fabulous. Click on the link below to enter this contest, it’s that easy!

GIVEAWAY- US Only!

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A Portrait of Emily Price-by Katherine Reay

Art restorer Emily Price has never encountered anything she can’t fix—until she meets Ben, an Italian chef, who seems just right. But when Emily follows Ben home to Italy, she learns that his family is another matter . . .

Emily Price—fix-it girl extraordinaire and would-be artist—dreams of having a gallery show of her own. There is no time for distractions, especially not the ultimate distraction of falling in love.

But Chef Benito Vassallo’s relentless pursuit proves hard to resist. Visiting from Italy, Ben works to breathe new life into his aunt and uncle’s faded restaurant, Piccollo. Soon after their first meeting, he works to win Emily as well—inviting her into his world and into his heart.

Emily astonishes everyone when she accepts Ben’s proposal and follows him home. But instead of allowing the land, culture, and people of Monterello to transform her, Emily interferes with everyone and everything around her, alienating Ben’s tightly knit family. Only Ben’s father, Lucio, gives Emily the understanding she needs to lay down her guard. Soon, Emily’s life and art begin to blossom, and Italy’s beauty and rhythm take hold of her spirit.

Yet when she unearths long-buried family secrets, Emily wonders if she really fits into Ben’s world. Will the joys of Italy become just a memory, or will Emily share in the freedom and grace that her life with Ben has shown her are possible?

Wild Montana Skies by Susan May Warren

Bestselling Author’s New Series Delivers Romance and Adventure as an SAR Team Searches for Others–and Finds Themselves

Search and rescue pilot Kacey Fairing is home on leave in Mercy Falls, Montana, twelve years after she joined the military to escape the mistakes of her past. With a job waiting for her as the new lead pilot of Peak Rescue in Glacier National Park, Kacey hopes to reconnect with the now-teenage daughter she sees only between deployments. What she doesn’t realize is that someone else is also back in town.
Ben King has been building his country music career since the day Kacey shut him out of her life. Now all of that’s on hold when his injured father calls him home to help run Peak Rescue until he’s fully recovered. It doesn’t take long, though, to discover his father’s ulterior motives as Kacey Fairing walks into the house and back into his heart.
With Mercy Falls in a state of emergency due to flash floods, Kacey and Ben are forced to work together to save lives. But when floodwaters turn personal, can they put aside the past to save their future?
The Wedding Shop by Rachel Hauck

It’s the early 1930s, but Cora Scott is walking in stride as a career woman ?after having inherited her great aunt’s wedding shop in Heart’s Bend, Tennessee, where brides come from as far away as Birmingham to experience her famed bridal treatment. Meanwhile, Cora is counting down the days until her own true love returns from the river to make her his bride. But days turn into months and months to years. All the while, Birch Good continues to woo Cora and try to show her that while he is solid and dependable, he can sweep her off her feet.

More than eighty years later, former Air Force Captain Haley Morgan has returned home to Heart’s Bend after finishing her commitment to military service. After the devastating death of her best friend, Tammy, and discovering the truth about the man she loved, Haley is searching for her place in life. 

When Haley decides to reopen the romantic but abandoned wedding shop where she and Tammy played and dreamed as children, she begins a journey of courage, mystery, and love.

As Cora’s and Haley’s stories intertwine through time in the shadow of the beloved wedding shop, they both discover the power of their own dreams and the magic of everyday love. 

To Win Her Favor by Tamera Alexander

A gifted rider in a world where ladies never race, Maggie Linden is determined that her horse will become a champion. But the one man who could help her has vowed to stay away from thoroughbred racing forever.

An Irishman far from home, Cullen McGrath left a once prosperous life in England because of a horse racing scandal that nearly ruined him. He’s come to Nashville for a fresh start, hoping to buy land and begin farming, all while determined to stay as far away from thoroughbred racing as possible. But starting over proves harder than he’d wagered, especially when Maggie Linden’s father makes him an offer he shouldn’t accept yet cannot possibly refuse.

Maggie is certain that her mare, Bourbon Belle, can take the top purse in the inaugural Peyton Stakes, the richest race ever run in America. Maggie only needs the chance to prove it. To give her that chance–and to save Linden Downs from being sold to the highest bidder–Maggie’s father, aging, yet wily as ever, makes a barter. His agreement includes one tiny, troublesome detail–Maggie must marry a man she’s never met. A man she never would have chosen for herself.

A Tapestry of Secrets by Sarah Loudin Thomas

This Decade-Spanning Novel of Family and Faith Will Delight

Now in her eighties, Perla Phillips has carried a secret since she was eighteen years old. When she sees her granddaughter, Ella, struggling for perfection, she decides to share her secret to show that God can use even the biggest mistakes for good. But before she can reveal what happened during that summer sixty years ago, she has a debilitating stroke. 

Carrying a secret of her own, Ella arrives back in Wise, West Virgina, to help her aunt Sadie care for Perla. Both know the woman wanted to tell them something, but she’s now locked in silence. Together they begin looking into the past, but they may learn more than they expected. 

Will they have the courage to share their hearts? Or will the truth remain buried forever?

This Chick Read: Lethal Lies (Blood Brothers #2) by Rebecca Zanetti #Giveaway

The Giveaway has finished and congratulations to the winner!

Anya Best is being stalked by a serial killer. Taunting her with pictures of his murders, she is struck by the similarity between his victims and herself. Asking for help from her FBI Agent sister only got Loretta killed as well, and Anya is out for justice! Playing the media, Anya sends a direct message to the killer.

“I’m tired of your game and am getting bored. In fact, I’m recently engaged to a real man, unlike you. My fiancé is Heath Jones of Lost Bastards Investigative Services….You don’t like anyone in law enforcement, right? I’m marrying a guy who chases down jerks like you.”

With that challenge made, Heath, only peripherally involved before, suddenly has a fiancé, and the added danger that his past may have seen Anya’s announcement on the news giving away his location. He needs to catch this killer before time runs out.

I loved that Anya was not a weak heroine. She fought all of her instincts to run away in order to get her revenge against the man who killed her sister. In the bargain, she got a hot commando alpha male who’s first instinct was to protect what was now his and make her his own. I thought Heath got the short end of the stick with Anya who was determined to use herself as bait. This book was a fun quick read and the characters were easy to root for.

The underlying sub plot that runs through both the Sin Brothers series as well as this offshoot has still to reach its conclusion. In case you aren’t familiar with these books, all of the heroes in these novels have been biologically engineered with various super abilities. Heath’s is the ability to move really quickly that gives him an edge during a fight. All of the brothers also have enhanced hearing and sight. Abilities that the doctor who created them wants to breed into a new set of super soldiers. Needless to say, we have a lot of evil running around loose and these brothers have some hard work in front of them.  Will this story ARC conclude with the next book? I can’t wait to find out!

I received a copy of this book for my honest review, and it was honest!

Want a chance to own a copy of Lethal Lies? Click the Giveaway link below!

❤️❤️❤️❤️

GIVEAWAY- US Only, sorry! EXPIRES 5/19/17!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



This Chick Read: The Hunt (The Cage #2) by Megan Shepherd

After their escape failed in The Cage. Cora who had started to have feelings for their Kindred keeper Cassian, found out he was the one that betrayed she Lucky and Mali. A betrayal that was supposed to help enhance the psychic abilities that he thought she had. I’m not sure how that was supposed to enhance abilities, but it certainly pissed Cora off! As a punishment for their escape, she, Lucky, and Mali are put in some sort of Safari themed enclosure where Kindred go to relax and fake kill things. One scene between Lucky and one of the animals particularly struck me (and Lucky!) as sad and awful. Cora, still determined to escape, takes Cassian up on his offer to train her to use her psychic abilities but this time she will use him. She trains and is able to telepathically build her strength and plan an escape for she and her friends. Continue reading “This Chick Read: The Hunt (The Cage #2) by Megan Shepherd”

This Chick Read: The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2) by Brittany Cavallaro

Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes are spending the holidays together in England at Charlotte’s family estate when her mother is poisoned and her uncle Leander goes missing. Assuming the Moriarty’s are behind it, they head off to Berlin, where Milo’s company is based and Leander was undercover investigating an art theft ring. While investigating in Berlin things begin to unravel between them. Continue reading “This Chick Read: The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2) by Brittany Cavallaro”

#RT17 Ruminations and the Giant Book Fair! #Giveaway

Read to the bottom of the post for the GIVEAWAY!

This is my second year at the RT Convention and it was interesting to compare my two experiences. This year I did a lot more writing workshops and seminars, so it was a lot more informational, and a little less as a reader. However, I was able to fit in a lot of events and see my favorite authors, as well as meet some new ones!  I noticed a focus on different genres in the reader events and wonder if next year there will be a different focus? BDSM and Erotica authors were highlighted, which isn’t really my interest. On the opposite end of the spectrum it seemed like there were more inspirational authors. The contrast between those two genres made for an interesting crowd! There were plenty of mainstream events and I never found time to relax, except for when sitting in line for the next event.

For me, the highlights were meeting Ilona Andrews and Charlaine Harris. I am a huge fan of almost every series that they both write, and also know that they rarely make these kinds of events, so I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to meet them. I was excited to see Kristen Ashley, although disappointed because she ran out of books at the Giant Book Fair in the first half hour. I enjoyed seeing and speaking to Rebecca Zanetti and Laura Kaye, and in fact, Laura Kaye was one of the speakers in my writing workshop at the beginning of the week. She lectured on how to write an emotional arc, and I learned a lot!

The best thing about this trip is spending time with my sister. She and I share a love for reading, and look forward to this girls trip every year. Next year the event will be held in Reno at the Peppermill Resort and Casino. That part of the country is gorgeous, so if any of you have ever been tempted to go, I really think it will be worth it! Take the entire week and visit Lake Tahoe which is only an hour away!

I ended my week with the Giant Book Fair. There were several books I wanted that I didn’t pick up through the week. I know, shocking, right? (Final count 140!) This was my chance to purchase those books and meet the authors. I was lucky enough to get a chance to spend a bit of time with each of these, except Charlaine Harris, who was sweet but super busy and took some photo’s to share with you all. She also mentioned her series Midnight Texas will be on NBC in July! LOL.

Charlaine Harris -Night Shift.
Amanda Bouchet-author Kingmaker Series
Coolest inscription!!
Victoria Denault’s new Hockey novel. Love that cover!
Amy E. Reichert gets the prize for coolest ring, and she was so sweet!
The amazingly talented and lovely Rebecca Zanetti!
Most beautiful cover art and lovely person Kristin Smith!



GIVEAWAY

I am going to let you in on a big giveaway by Avon that is only good until 5/19/17! There are a total of 16 FREE book downloads! I have a picture of some of these books below. Choose the epub option, the mobi took a day to download to my kindle. ( update 5/14/17- the kindle option works the books showed up the next day!) Have fun reading!


Click HERE

You will be signing up for their newsletter, but you can choose from 16 awesome books! This offer expires 5/19/17!!!!!!

Let me know in the comments below if you get them! Do NOT pass this up!  LOL. It’s not life or death or anything, but I know you guys are just as crazy for books as me.

That’s it about RT17 from me this year, now I need to get back to reading and writing reviews!

I hope you enjoyed my posts!

Deb