Tag: romance

This Chick Read: A Crazy Kind of Love (Flirting With Fame #2) by Mary Ann Marlowe

Jo Wilder is a paparazza with a heart. She has an eye for photography, thanks to her famous photographer father, but her heart just isn’t into getting the big story and hurting the people she’s reporting about. One day, while trying to get that perfect shot of a celebrity and her kids, she is blocked, then charmed by a handsome stranger. That stranger, Micah Sinclair, helps her get the shot by lifting her up on his shoulders, then proceeds to charm her. He does such a great job of disarming her that she doesn’t realize that he is famous himself. As their paths cross again, they start to develop a friendship that leads to romance. One that is strife with pitfalls, because how can Jo keep her emotions in check and still get that big story, or is that really what she wants?

A Crazy Kind of Love is the second novel in the series and I’m happy to say that we get to meet up with Eden and Adam again. Eden is Micah’s sister and has a pretty big part to play in this novel too. It’s not enough that Jo second guesses herself and her relationship with Micah, that struggle being the central conflict in this story, but Eden also has a part to play in Jo’s internal struggle as her conscience. Just as Jo second guesses herself about Micah’s intentions, Eden steps in with some advice or input for Jo that helps her find her way on this kind of insane path. I liked the back and forth that Jo’s emotions go through as Eden tosses a casual verbal grenade down that path to happiness. I also liked the foreshadowing of friendship the two women were developing alongside the romance that was developing between Jo and Micah.

Micah, oh Micah! He  was almost too good to be true. As Jo was going through all of these struggles with her conscience, her health and her heart, Micah was a little harder to read. He kind of reminded me of a male version of Goldie Hawn. You know, beautiful, kind of ditzy and out there, but with moments of insight and wonderfulness. I don’t know Goldie in person but those are the types of characters she plays in the movies and for some reason I kept seeing her when I was reading a scene about him. Maybe it’s my own skepticism about the lead singer in a band falling in love with a professional stalker and not really having any problems with it? Or at least, getting over that initial does she like me for the opportunity or for myself, really fast. BUT, I read romances as an escape, so I too got over that character pitfall pretty quickly. He was just delish, regardless.

As with Some Kind of Wonderful, A Crazy Kind of Love had characters who had real problems, whether they were health related, difficult families, love lives, etc. This is why I like Mary Ann Marlowe’s novels so much. Yes, you get that escape from reality that you want from a love story, but you also see your main characters overcome obstacles that could happen to you. I didn’t have a problem connecting with Jo Wilder and in fact, I loved her for all of her foibles, health and family issues. It made her and Micah’s story that much sweeter. It was nice that love came so easily to them, when they had to overcome life’s obstacles to get there. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️

I received a copy of this book from the author for my honest review and it was honest!


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to purchase!  A Crazy Kind of Love (Flirting with Fame) Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: Second Chance Girl (Happily Inc. #2) by Susan Mallery

Happily Inc. is a wedding destination town where most people who live there have something to do with putting on a wedding. Caterer, baker, event coordinator, etc. Carol Lund is a gamekeeper and doesn’t have anything to do with weddings. Matthias, our hero, also doesn’t have a wedding themed job. The only thing he has to do with weddings is, well, the bridesmaids. He is a no strings attached kind of guy.. definitely not Carol’s usual, but for some reason she is attracted to him. Although that’s not a stretch, he is fabulous looking and very charming. Matthias is an artist, making glass creations alongside his brothers in a family business. He wakes up every morning, sips his coffee and sketches while watching Carol walk the preserve with her solitary giraffe, Millie. Something about this morning ritual appeals to him and inspires his creativity.  Their relationship has never gone beyond friendship, until one nigh when they have a little too much to drink.

Luckily, we didn’t see Matthias hit on too many bridesmaids because that would’ve been hard to overlook. The Matthias we meet is fun, charming, and too good looking, but he also has this inner pain about his father that humanizes him. As he and Carols friendship grows, I think that humanity also appeals to Carol. She on the other hand has always focused on her animals, to the exclusion of having a personal life. The fact that she was a khakis and t-shirt kind of gal made her so not Matthias’ type, but that one night changes how they see each other forever.

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would from the synopsis. The zoo element was a really different setting for a romance! This series is a spinoff of Mallery’s Fools Gold seies that is so poular and I think it is just a good. There is a side romance between Carol’s sister and a visiting Duke that is really cute and made me laugh. All in all this was a great lighthearted romance.


Click this link to purchase.  Second Chance Girl: A Modern Fairy Tale Romance (Happily Inc)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: Forget Tomorrow (Forget Tomorrow #1) by Pintip Dunn

Forget Tomorrow is set in a world where on your seventeenth birthday you are given one of your future memories. This memory is supposed to give you an idea of what your life will be and what you will do for a living. Callie has been training to be a Chef. Well, they call it something different, but in essence that is what she thinks her memory will show her. If it does, it means she will be put into training for that job and her future is secure. However, there is a very small percentage of people whose memory shows them perpetrating a crime. In that case their lives would be forfeit until that memory is reality and they will be charged for their crime. Yeah, you can see where this one is going, right?

This was a totally original tale and I found myself caught up in this alternate world very easily. Callie was an average teenager and this memory completely blindsided her and freaked her out. She is the last one you’d think would be a criminal and Callie is positive this memory will not come true. She then takes measures to make certain it doesn’t with the help of a boy, Logan, that she has grown up with. Logan used to be a good friend of hers but hasn’t spoken to her in five years after his brother was taken away for exhibiting psychic behavior. Something the authorities in this world want to study and basically jail anyone who shows signs of a psychic gift.

There were a lot of twists and turns in this novel and I definitely don’t want to give any of the surprises away in my review. I will say that the ending took me completely off guard. Iwasn’t entirely   pleased with it, but as this is the first in a series I am going to hold out hope that what happens gets resolved in a future storyline! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Click this link to purchase! Forget Tomorrow 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.

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This Chick Read: Warcross (Warcross #1) by Marie Lu

Set in a futuristic world where video games and real life interface, Emika, a seventeen year old bounty hunter, faces a moment of temptation that will change her life forever.  During the Warcross World Championships Emika hacks the game in a way that shows her face to the world and she goes from on the edge of homeless to world famous and a wild card entry into the Championships.

Hideo Tanaka is the child genius who invented glasses that interfaces his Warcross video game with real life. When Emika hacks his game he offers her a job as bounty hunter and gives her entrance into the Championships to work as his spy.

I do not play video games and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get into this book because of that but I shouldn’t have worried. The world Marie Lu created was vivid, had amazing energy, and painted a 3-D picture for me to visualize and engage with. The games themselves were exciting, the action well written and Emika’s thought process as she deconstructed play exciting. I loved the game!

There was plenty of action to keep this book moving along at a fast pace, and when the action slowed down Emika’s relationship with Hideo painted the page with soft brush strokes. I didn’t know if I liked the fast paced gaming or the slower paced relationship better.

The only negative I had was about the ending to this book. However, I will have to trust that Marie Lu will manage to pull it all together in the next novel.  ❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️

Click this link to purchase!   Warcross Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: Chasing Christmas Eve (Heartbreaker Bay #4) by Jill Shalvis

I have been intrigued by Spencer throughout this series and was excited to finally be able to read his story! He has always been somewhat of a mystery. He is a millionaire, owns a businees and invents things, but in the previous novels we’ve only learned as much as those characters story arc’s brought us in contact him, and that was usually as supportive friend and sometimes troublemaker. In Chasing Christmas Eve we finally get the skinny on Spence, his background, how he made his money, and why he seems to be kind of a loner. 

Colbie Albright is new to Heartbreaker Bay and happens upon their charming courtyard fountain and is about to make a wish into it when she gets pushed into it by a wayward dog. Spencer comes to her rescue and is immediately charmed by her and feels that tug of interest. The chemistry between these two is explosive and pretty soon it makes Spencer forget his reasons for holding back from relationships. Colbie, although running away from her problems seems to find her muse, and true love in Spence. 

I love these Heartbreaker Bay novels. I mentioned before that as each story is written and we learn a little bit more about this group of friends, they become our friends. I’m totally invested in living through each of their stories and building that relationship with them even more. 

❤️❤️❤️❤️


Click this link to purchase!  Chasing Christmas Eve: A Heartbreaker Bay Novel

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: Balancing the Scales (Brits in Manhattan #1) by Laura Carter

Becky Fletcher is a patisserie chef in a hot Manhattan restaurant when she meets hotshot lawyer Drew Harrington at a bagel cart. He is immediately drawn to her looks and is attracted by that fresh British accent. Becky is a bit standoffish until Drew shows up at her work and starts to charm her with his cocky American humor. She is not interested in a relationship or hookup and despite their attraction and Drew’s busy schedule they agree to be “just friends”.

Of course, laws of attraction, and the rule romance books dictates that their just friends rule, will turn into a friends with benefits situation. As they get to know each other, they come to care for each other and that title of friend starts to not be enough. What Drew doesn’t know, and the reader finds out slowly, is that Becky left some baggage behind in England that she needs to clean up.

Drew and Becky at first glance don’t seem to be the right fit. He’s trying to make partner at his law firm and she works bakers hours. Yet somehow the two of them find a connection that works. I liked Becky’s sweet personality and once I learned her back story admired her for taking a stand and walking away from a bad relationship. Separately they each needed to grow, and together they gave each other the strength and support required to do it. A couple to root for and feel good about!

If you are a fan of Laura Carter’s you may miss the romantic suspense from her other novels, but you won’t be disappointed. This is a sweet love story with heart and a fun Saturday afternoon read. ❤️❤️❤️❣️

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

Click this link to purchase! Balancing the Scales (Brits in Manhattan)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read:  a Chapter Excerpt of Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston

Shelly Laurenstons new novel Hot and Badgered doesn’t come out until March 27th, but when offered the chance to read a chapter in advance of the release, I just couldn’t pass it up! I zipped through this chapter, once again loving the humor, dialog, and action. Her novels are unlike any other shifter novels. 

Here’s the synopsis:

It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.

 Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .

Unfortunately, we have a little while to wait until this fun new novel in The Honey Badgers series comes out. I can’t wait!


Click this link to pre-order! 

Hot and Badgered (The Honey Badgers)

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This Chick Read: Sweet Tea and Sympathy (Southern Eclectic book 1) by Molly Harper

Margot Cary’s career as an event planner in Chicago ends with the biggest splash in Chicago’s elite society and her name becomes synonymous with failure. What she needs is some time off for people to forget what happened, and for her to dust off her resume and find a new job. Out of the blue, her great Aunt gives her a call and asks her to come help run the family business, The McCreary Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop. Yep, you wouldn’t think the two would have anything to do with each other, and no, they did not use someone’s toes as bait. Margot is skeptical about the job and doesn’t know anything about her father or his side of the family, but desperation and the need for a job makes her accept the job, at least temporarily. However, along with the job comes a family that she never knew she wanted, and a father who she thought didn’t want her.

This novel is a little bit family saga and a little bit romance. Don’t let that hint of romance fool you, this novel is about a girl who never knew she was lost, until she was found.  I loved the contrast of Margot’s fish out of water city girl attitude and the kookiness of her small town family. They had a ton of heart and the way they melted Margot’s endeared them to me and made me relish those scenes.

When Margot and Kyle meet, Margot is drawn to his sweet sadness. I don’t want to say their love story was lackluster, but it was certainly secondary to her need to learn about this new family and get to know a father that she felt abandoned her as a child and that didn’t disappoint me at all. Kyle was certainly wonderful, but he had a lot going on in his head too. I liked how the gentle Southern pace of their romance allowed the reader to focus on the other more central story line about family and roots and also made Kyle’s journey of acceptance of this new relationship feel real.

The name of this book, Sweet Tea and Sympathy was certainly apropos both to the southern roots of Margot’s family and also some of the challenges that needed to be overcome by both Margot and Kyle before finding happiness. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

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

Sweet Tea

Click this link to purchase!  Sweet Tea and Sympathy (Southern Eclectic Book 1)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Amor Towles has written an elegantly worded story about Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat who was sentenced to house arrest in the grand Metropol hotel in Moscow. Set in 1922 when being an aristocrat was considered dangerous to the new Bolshevik regime, this fascinating glimpse into life at that time captured my heart, as did Alexander Rostov. 

You may think Alexander’s life would be encapsulated, and in some ways it was. He couldn’t leave the Metropol, but as it was located across the street from the Kremlin, everyone at some point passed through its doors. Alexander, used to living in the upper eschelon of society, did have to make changes. Gone were the large room of suites he had inhabited before his sentence. He was now relegated to life in a room the size of a closet. However, his life was really lived outside of his rooms. He dined in the beautiful restaurants in the hotel and his family became the people who worked and stayed in the hotel. His culture and charm are completely alien to the age we live in now, but the wording was so descriptive that I could easily visualize it, although I’ll admit to seeing it’s scenes in black and white, with Cary Grant cast as Alexander.

The true heart in this story were in the relationships he built with the people around him. Nina, a young girl of six at the beginning of this book was his adventurous friend who led him on a journey of secret passageways and scientific experiments. His friend Mischa, who came and went from the hotel bringing news about the outside world and the political changes Russia was going through. Anna, an actress that he builds a longstanding relationship with, Marina, the seamstress and friend, and his evolving relationship with the Maitre’d and chef at the restaurant who eventually become his best friends. Sophia, however was the relationship that helped Alexander evolve beyond a gentleman into a father. Their relationship at times touched and broke my heart.

I listened to the audio for this book and while it was long, Nicholas Guy Smith’s voice wove this tale and did justice to the beautiful prose. The story of Russia’s growth from a monarchy to communism was a part of history that I wasn’t that familiar but became enraptured. I will definitely be looking for more books from this era.  ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️


Click the link to purchase this book!  A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick Read: Why Do Dukes Fall in Love? (Dukes Behaving Badly #4) by Megan Frampton

Indeed, why does anyone fall in love? Michael, the Duke of Hadlow is way too busy being Duke-ish to concentrate on his love life. He is determined to not rest on his Duke-ish laurels and spends most of his time in business pursuits. He doesn’t have patience for small talk or common courtesies, so going to a ball and meeting a woman isn’t high on his list. Lucky for him, a woman, in the guise of a much needed secretary falls in his lap. Edwina, recently widowed and needing to support she and her daughter Gertrude, interview for the position of the Duke of Hadlow’s secretary. Edwina, having invested her previous husbands money successfully before her brother in law mis-managed and lost it all, is very bright. A trait that the Duke finds extremely attractive. Of course, the fact that she is gorgeous doesn’t work against her either. To give the Duke credit though, it is her mind he is the most attracted to and the fact that she isn’t offended by his discourteous disposition.

I’m sure the names Edwina and Gertrude were common names historically, however, it did seem odd to me that their names seemed old fashioned yet, the Duke’s name was the more current and very common Michael. Ok, does this have anything to do with the plot or whether I liked or disliked the book? Not really, other than it was jarring to hear the name Michael in concert with the names Edwina and Gertrude. But, I’m letting myself get sidetracked… I liked quite a few things about this novel.

  1. Edwina, although gorgeous, was liked because she had a brain. Very unusual for this time!
  2. Gertrude at six, had quite a few things in common with the Duke. They were both impolite, asked too many questions, and weren’t concerned with how others perceived them.
  3. I loved how when Edwina would teach Gertrude how to be polite, use please and thank you, consider how she would like to be treated as how she should treat others… The Duke was learning at the same time. Kind of a reverse pygmalion.
  4. Edwina, decided to give in to her widowy (word?) rights. You betcha. She was going to sleep with the Duke!

There was a bit of humor in the telling of Edwina and Michael’s ( don’t their names sound funny?) story.  There was a LOT of passion. The Duke, although insensitive, did learn and get less insensitive. He also (finally) saw Edwina’s worth and fought for her. As the hero should in all historical romances! This was my first novel by Megan Frampton and I liked her writing style! I also love a happy ending, and by the end of the book, I definitely knew why this particular Duke fell in love. ❤️❤️❤️


Click the link to purchase!  Why Do Dukes Fall in Love?: A Dukes Behaving Badly 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

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