Saturday, September 30, 2017

REVIEW/RELEASE: Untamable by Jamie Schlosser

Genre:  A Standalone Romantic Comedy

~Blurb~
Emery Matheson knows pussies. Cats, that is. As the star of a reality show called The Pussy Tamer, it’s his job to fix extreme feline behavioral issues.

When he hears about his next project—a lonely cat hoarder named Estelle—he expects a little old widow, not the blond bombshell who opens the door.

With a 100 percent success rate, Emery has never had trouble finishing a job. But just a few hours into the first day of filming and one thing is clear—Estelle and her band of misfit pussies will give him a run for his money… and his heart.

~Book Review~
5 Meow Stars
“The perfect mix of perverted and heart-warming, it was extremely entertaining.”
Hmmm, I might be stealing Estelle’s line, but her assessment of The Pussy Tamer show aptly captures this story. I really couldn’t sum it up any better, but I’d ever jip this hot and hilarious tale by not giving it the full review so here goes.  

Emery Matheson, 24, has gone from cleaning cat cages to cat shrink in only a few years. His successful show (think Supernanny for felines) lands him back in his hometown for his next assignment—an apartment overrun by cats and an owner who might be his perfect match.
“Fireworks exploded in my belly. To hell with butterflies—this was some good shit.”
I should probably start by talking about the hero and heroine because they were both great and perfect for each other. But I gotta address the other star players first…the cats! Not only were their names classic, but their inclusion was comedic gold. I laughed out loud many times. Then I started reading lines to my hubs. He mistakenly took that as a conversation starter so then I had to tell him to shut up so I could peacefully savior the hot sex scenes. But I digress. I’ve never been so on the edge of my seat over 9 lives before, and I didn’t realize there was so much psychology behind cat behavior.  
       
Now, Estelle Winters, 23, is so cool. I don’t get to say that too often, sadly, and I feel like “cool” doesn’t even begin to do her justice as a heroine. She’s no doormat, nor is she weak or timid. I totally adored her, and I kinda wanted to hang out with her. That’s saying a lot seeing as how I’m allergic to cats and don’t like rap music. But Estelle’s a bit of a free spirit, sweet, a lot of fun, and has a cool job running a costume shop. Her openness and originality was refreshing. I liked the way Emery rolled too. He’s a really caring good guy with lots of integrity, a total sweetheart. And when Estelle gave up “DIYing” it and turned to Emery for help, well they were just hot together.
 “Her scream echoed off the wall, and a roar left me as my balls drew up tight, blinding pleasure slamming through my body.”
Told via their dual first person POV, this is a low angst, sweet and sexy romcom. A pleasingly feel good story...if you were having a bad day, this would be the one to pick up and put a smile on your face.

AMAZON US | AMAZON UK | AMAZON AU | AMAZON CA
ALSO AVAILABLE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED!

~Also by the Author~
Book Review
Book Review
Book Review
Book Review
Book Review
 


Jamie Schlosser grew up on a farm in Illinois surrounded by cornfields. Although she no longer lives in the country, her dream is to return to rural living someday. As a stay-at-home mom, she spends most of her days running back and forth between her two wonderful kids and her laptop. She loves her family, iced coffee, and happily-ever-afters.



HOSTED BY:

Friday, September 29, 2017

REVIEW/RELEASE: CowSex by Lesley Jones


  ~Blurb~

When you add two strangers to a cabin, in the middle of a snow storm, the obvious happens...

CowSex.

When Essex lifestyle blogger and fashionista, Gracie Elliott crash lands into the life of Colorado mountain man Koa Carmichael, fists, chemistry and sexual banter ensue.  After sharing some sweet, emotional as well as laugh-out-loud moments, they find it impossible to deny that they might have just discovered what neither of them knew they were looking for.
              
CowSex, sometimes all you need is a little bit.


   ~Book Review~
1.5 Stars*

Gracie Elliot, 32, is bound and determined to take her Colorado vacation with her long-time live-in boyfriend or not. So when he bails, she goes alone. Only turns out she’s not hauled up in the snowy retreat by herself. 

My expectations on this were way off what the story actually delivers. The blurb suggests a stranded together sexy, romantic comedy. Instead what I discovered is a tale about two people—one crazy and desperate, one with a lot of baggage, who find a reprieve from temporary loneliness and a way to scratch nothing more than an itch in a fling that realistically would go nowhere. 

“Laugh-out-loud moments?” I didn’t read any.  Culture clash is a big theme, but it came across forced. The ongoing conversations where Gracie rolls off with British terms he’s unfamiliar with and he acts puzzled felt contrived and grew old fast. It’s as if the author simply made a list of British vernacular and wrote the dialogue around it. (And Americans do know that hot tubs are also called spas and jacuzzis.) None of this was “flirty banter,” and I didn’t feel any “chemistry” between them.

I found Gracie simply obnoxious. Stubborn and entitled would be good descriptors too. The situation when she arrives was obvious long before it sunk in to her, and then she continues to treat Koa like crap even though it’s his own house. Only five chapters in and I was already starting to understand why her ex-boyfriend didn’t want to spend any time with her. And since it’s established that Koa has bad taste in women, his attraction to her wasn’t exactly a measure of her greatness. Not to mention, talking about your vibrator and toilet wipes to an almost stranger does not make for sizzling chemistry, and drugstore flowers and candy as an afterthought during a condom purchase does not make for romance. That leads me to the problems with Koa Carmichael, 38, as a romantic hero…

I wasn’t sold on them finding each other. If anything, they find exactly what they don't need. See Gracie, who runs a business out of England, wants a devoted man to settle down with and have kids. It’s why she broke up with her boyfriend. Koa has already been married twice and is the father of two kids. His backstory is angsty and lends itself to immature drama in the present. Koa also has an on-again/off-again fuck buddy he’s known since high school who would like to make something more of their arrangement. I felt bad for her because Koa was already getting intimate with Gracie when she calls. And at that point, I was done for with Koa as a book boyfriend.  There was nothing to convince me he had any deep interest in Gracie other than as a sex partner and I certainly didn’t understand why she fell in insta-love with him all of a sudden. All I sensed was two people who confused the urge for sex with something more.  I also suspected that Koa too had a drinking problem. Even more mind boggling was Gracie’s claim to “how perfect it all is” only a chapter after Koa all but forces her to not use protection, and they argue about it. 

Told via Gracie and Koa’s alternating first person POV, I couldn’t stand either of them! For thirty-something people they both behaved immaturely and would have been better off getting their lives together separately. Honestly after the snow storm passed, there was no compelling reason for them to even be “thrown together” anymore.  Be aware this is not a steamy stranded together erotic romance. A lot of the sex scenes are either fade to black or simply referred to and don’t occur till 70%.

A final aspect that lowered my rating—the presentation of women in this tale was quite bothersome. Gracie’s a hot mess and all of the other women Koa has been with are presented as conniving, manipulative, gold digging, cheating, alcoholic, and/or easy. Most were a combination. Gracie, while supposedly standing up for herself, resorts to their same level of trash talk and name calling. Words like cunt, prostitute, whore, bitch, and more are thrown around on multiple occasions. That’s not how intelligent, mature women, and certainly not ones with or around children, behave or communicate. It added a very crass tone to the story that was a huge turn-off.  I closed the last page with a headache.

*It is the policy of the blog to not withhold or delay a review no matter the star rating. This is to help ensure that readers receive a fair sampling of reviews from all ends of the rating spectrum. However, readers should be aware that an email on behalf of the author was circulated to recipients of ARCs requesting that reviewers who did not enjoy the title delay their review till after October 2, 2017. Therefore, readers should be aware that reviews for this title were attempted to be suppressed and may not be an accurate representation of the title's reception.
   ~Excerpt~
     “He scoops ice out of a drawer in the freezer and wraps the tea towel around it before heading back towards me and placing his makeshift ice pack gently on the back of my wrist.
“Hold this in place,” he orders. I do as I’m told—with a lot of concentration, this is something I am occasionally able to do.
I continue to watch him as he repeats his movements from earlier, only this time he slides the ice pack under my wrist.
He then proceeds to retrieve what I assume are a couple of painkillers from a pack he takes from the pantry. He hands them to me, and I put them in my mouth before accepting a bottle of water he pulled from the fridge.
“You drugging me?” I question.
“Yep. They’re magic pills that stop you from talking, but they only work on beautiful girls. Not sure if you qualify.”
“Oh, and he’s a fucking comedian as well as a first-aider. What other skills can you impress me with, Cowboy?”
He scratches at his beard and gives his head a slight shake. “You have a smart mouth for a little-bit, anyone ever tell you that?”
All the time.
“And you should quit with the cussing. It doesn’t become you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Charming.”
We stare at each other in silence for a few seconds, and I feel a bit mean for being rude. He didn’t have to help me out with my arm, but he did, and he did it with a gentleness that surprised me.
“So, where’d you learn the first-aid skills?”
“Played a lot of football, got a lot of injuries, learned how to fix myself up.”
“By football, I assume you mean that game where men wear lots of padding, run along carrying a wonky ball, knock other men out of the way until they reach a line, where they then proceed to throw down the wonky ball and score a point, or a goal, or something similar? Would that be the game you’re referring to?”
He folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the worktop opposite where he sat me.
“It would be the game that’s played something like the way you described that I’m talking about, yes.”
I nod and then shake my head. “Always puzzled me why you would call that football when so much of the game is played with the hands. The foot and the ball, rarely actually coming into contact.”
“Well, what would you call it?”
“Big men that are scared of getting hurt, so they wear lots of padding while they run, ball.”
“Now who’s being a comedian?”
“I’m female, so it’s comedienne.”
“What’s the difference?”
“We’re actually much funnier.”
That earns me a smirk, and I swing my legs while sitting on the worktop, basking in the satisfaction that I’ve almost made him smile.”

Lesley Jones (c) 2017
Lesley Jones was born and raised in Essex, England but moved to Australia in 2006 with her family. Her first book, Saviour, was published in 2013 and she quickly gained a reputation as a writer of gritty, down to earth characters, involved in angsty and emotional plot lines.  Carnage, her third novel, has won a number of awards for ‘Best Ugly Cry.’  Her readers love the fact that she can switch her stories from hot and steamy, to snot bubble ugly crying, followed by laugh out loud moments, in the space of a few sentences.  She has declared that the very best part of her job is meeting her readers and has traveled the world a number of times over the past few years to do exactly that.  When not writing, she has admitted to being a prolific reader, getting through around four or five books a week.  She is a fan of trashy reality TV, listening to music, watching her son play football and enjoys a glass of wine… or three.


Thursday, September 28, 2017

COVER REVEAL & PREORDER SALE: Spirited Away by Mary Billiter

Genre: Romantic Comedy Suspense
Release Date: October 31, 2017

~Blurb~
What happens when the legend of the old west becomes the new reality? In Mary Billiter’s fun novel of investigating the unknown and navigating love, a drop-dead sexy cop and a fiery redhead are linked by a mysterious haunting and the unsolved crime of passion behind it all.

When Reese Pemberton relocates from the Golden State to the Cowboy State for a corporate promotion, she discovers a different state of mind. From the hustle and bustle mayhem of the Bay Area to the slow and easy meanderings of Wyoming, Reese welcomes the change in pace as the hotel’s new general manager. However, she shuts the door on the notion that her hotel is haunted.

But when a series of mishaps introduces the fiery redhead to the hotel’s legendary cowboy ghost, she begins to question the events surrounding his demise.

Reese and Cheyenne police detective Cody Pring join forces to put to rest the spirit that haunts the hotel. In the process, they discover long-buried secrets. Can the two solve a decades-old mystery or are some things better left with the dead?

Cover Designer: Claire Smith

*ON SALE FOR HALF PRICE/PREORDER SPECIAL*
iBooks    Nook  Kobo


~Also in the Resort Romances Series~
Rule Breakers
Do Not Disturb
Escape Clause



Mary Billiter is a weekly newspaper columnist and fiction author. She also has novels published under the pen name, “Pumpkin Spice.” Mary resides in the Cowboy State with her unabashedly bald husband, her four amazing children, two fantastic step-kids, and their runaway dog. She does her best writing (in her head) on her daily runs in wild, romantic, beautiful Wyoming.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

EXCERPT REVEAL: Untamable by Jamie Schlosser

A Romantic Comedy Standalone Novel

~Synopsis~
Emery Matheson knows p*ssies. Cats, that is. As the star of a reality show called The P*ssy Tamer, it’s his job to fix extreme feline behavioral issues.

When he hears about his next project—a lonely cat hoarder named Estelle—he expects a little old widow, not the blond bombshell who opens the door.

With a 100 percent success rate, Emery has never had trouble finishing a job. But just a few hours into the first day of filming and one thing is clear—Estelle and her band of misfit p*ssies will give him a run for his money… and his heart.

GOODREADS
 
~Exclusive Excerpt~
Red spots began soaking through Emery’s gray T-shirt.

“Oh my God. You’re bleeding.” I pointed at his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

He just laughed. “Occupational hazard. We have a medic on hand for that very reason. Besides, it’s not like you didn’t warn me.”

His words summoned a brunette carrying a first aid kit.

“You know the drill,” she said, grinning at him while she opened the case and started lining up her supplies on the kitchen table.

Emery grabbed the back of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, being careful not to disrupt the wires from his mic.

Suddenly, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The thin material had done little to hide the muscle definition underneath, but at least then I couldn’t see his smooth skin.

His nipples.

The ridges of his abs and that highly coveted V by his hips.

A thin smattering of hair covered his chest, traveling down the center of his abs and below his belly button. The light brown trail disappeared into the waist of his jeans.

I wanted to run my fingers over it. All of it. Even the parts I couldn’t see.

I was looking at the most magnificent torso ever—not just in real life—in the entire damn universe. He had movie stars and models beat. I remembered watching a video of Charlie Hunnam training for an upcoming role, and I’d been in awe of the amount of work it took to look that good.

Regular people didn’t just go walking around in that kind of shape. Apparently, Emery didn’t fall into the category of ‘regular people.’

And God bless him for it.

Feeling weak in the knees, I leaned my hip against the counter and wondered if I was the only one affected. Everyone else went about their tasks as usual. Well, everyone except for the medic.

After taking a seat, Emery said something to her about not using bandages this time, and her response was a nervous giggle. She quickly cleaned the area with disinfectant, then put cream over the scratches.

Red-faced, she slowly backed away as Emery slipped a new shirt on.

A different kind of heat flared through me, but this one was familiar and much more unpleasant than the virus I was fighting off.

Jealousy.

I was jealous that she got to touch him.

I made a face, because that was ridiculous. Emery was here to work, not get eye-fucked by the crazy cat lady.

The hot-and-bothered medic taped a sign to the wall by the door. In big letters, it said, ‘Do not leave door open. Mike will run.’ It made my sudden desire to claw her eyes out diminish.

She was just doing her job.

Psycho much, Estelle?

Opening my cabinet, I grabbed the bottle of Tylenol and choked down a couple pills along with my sweet tea.

I extended the medicine toward Emery. “Want some?”

“Nah,” he replied. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

“That happens a lot, doesn’t it?” I lightly accused.

“Getting mauled by cats?” He laughed. “More times than I can count.”

“No.” I tipped my head toward the flushed woman retreating from my apartment. “People losing their shit every time you take your shirt off.”

Releases Oct. 2nd!

Jamie Schlosser grew up on a farm in Illinois surrounded by cornfields. Although she no longer lives in the country, her dream is to return to rural living someday. As a stay-at-home mom, she spends most of her days running back and forth between her two wonderful kids and her laptop. She loves her family, iced coffee, and happily-ever-afters.



HOSTED BY:

Friday, September 22, 2017

COVER REVEAL: Defiant Attraction by V.K. Torston

InfoBanner 
Genre: Contemporary, New Adult, Erotic Romance
Release Date: November 16th, 2017

~Synopsis~

Dan might be the enemy of my enemy, but I’m not sure that makes him my friend. He’s definitely not my ‘step brother’, no matter what everyone at school says. Honestly, I don’t know what he’s supposed to be to me. Or what he’s becoming…

Fact: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In the yearbook, I’ll be Sophia Ramos: Valedictorian. Years of honor roll certificates, AP classes, and lugging around an obnoxiously large cello case are about to finally pay off. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll escape these decaying suburbs for a top university across the country.

The problem? A few years ago, my mom met someone just as broke, just as drunk, and just as impulsive as she is. Approximately five seconds into their relationship, they decided it would be an excellent idea for him—and his son, Dan—to move in with us. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t).

Now I share a house with none other than Daniel Cole. Even though Dan dropped out two years ago, he’s still the tattooed, bad boy, heartthrob, legend of St. Anthony’s Academy. He and I aren’t supposed to have anything in common.

Living together means war. First, Dan and I were at war with each other. Now, our rivalry is giving way to an unlikely alliance—two opposing sides teaming up against a common enemy: our respective parents.

Which is to say, we’ve been hanging out.

Question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
Here’s the thing: My brain is a complex organ. One hundred billion neurons, each with an average of seven thousand synaptic connections to other neurons. My brain is my ticket out of here.
My heart, by contrast, is a pump. It moves blood around.

I know Dan is off-limits. I know I shouldn’t do something I’ll regret. And I know how much is at stake (my family, my future).
So why can’t I stop thinking about him? Those inscrutable jade eyes. The smile that can say a thousand different things at once. That tattoo curving across his abs…

Even though I know better, I feel that pounding in my chest. And it’s getting harder to ignore.
But if I follow my heart, I can never go back.

Answer: There is no such thing as an immovable object.

DefiantAttractionWraparoundCover


V.K. Torston is a millennial and ‘cool aunt’ to a brood of nieces and nephews. She was born and raised in San Francisco, attended university in New York City, and aspires to one day live in London. A veteran of the independent music scene, she began writing nonfiction in her late teens. Then she realized that making up stories was way more fun than coming up with endless synonyms for ‘frenetic’ and ‘danceable.’ Her hobbies include drinking too much coffee, making up stupid songs, and ranting about current events. Defiant Attraction is her first novel.


Thursday, September 21, 2017

BOOK REVIEW: A History of Women in America by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Weissman

It's always good to refresh and expand your education, and it doesn't have to be Women's History Month to check out this US Women's History book!


Genre: Non-fiction/US History/ Women’s History

4.5 Stars

Have you ever considering that using your brain dries up your ovaries? Well in 1874, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Edward Clarke certainly suggested that education was detrimental to women’s reproductive health. (My two children conceived years after obtaining my Master’s degree got quite a laugh out of that.)

Sadly a similar mentality may be to blame for robbing courageous women of their accomplishments. It would certainly explain why most students are taught the famous ride of Paul Revere, but not the successful ride of twenty-two year old Deborah Champion who made the same trip without getting caught!

Using a similar format as I did with my review of Who Cooked the Last Supper, here’s the lowdown on this informative text on US history for women from the founding of the nation to the bra burning days of the 1970’s.

 Why this text is still relevant: 
“…stop giving lip service to the ideas that there are no battles left to be fought for women in America” (341).
Betty Friedan said it in 1963, but I know many women, myself included, felt it in January 2017 when uninformed women took to social media to criticize and chide three million other women who took to the streets to participate in the women’s march. So yes, the answer is pretty clear—this text is still very relevant and would do well to be required reading for all US students. History text books are far from universal, meaning they don’t equally depict both sexes. It’s books like this one that are needed to know and understand what the women of American were doing and feeling while the men were carving out rights for themselves and making laws that benefited only one gender; how women participated in the founding and expansion of this country; how women contributed to winning wars while the men touted the victories; how women stood up for not only their cause but the plight of other disadvantaged as well.

I also think that modern women— whether stay at home mothers, working mothers, or single career women— will find places where they are able to relate to the various struggles depicted here.

What does this book cover? This book provides a detailing of the opposition—physical and ideological—against equality for women alongside the biographies of notable women suffragists. The authors state in the introduction that they hoped to balance the lives of ordinary women and extraordinary women. They also aimed to show both the oppression women faced as well as how they overcame it.

This book is organized into 19 chapters under four subsections. Topics addressed include:   
Life for women in the early colonies (Ch.1); religion & law (Ch. 2); women’s roles in the American Revolution (Ch. 3); the conditions of life of slave women and roles of white women during slavery (Ch. 4); 19th century new roles attitudes towards women (Ch. 5); notable early feminist (Ch. 6);  the lives of notable early movement organizers alongside the struggles they faced (Ch. 7); the life and conditions for women in the factory system of the 1800’s (Ch. 8);  women’s roles and contributions to the Civil War as well as the injustices suffered by black women after the war (Ch.9);  the complicated relationship feminist experienced with abolitionists during Reconstruction as well  with proponents of controversial and progressive ideas regarding free love and sexual freedom (Ch. 10);  women’s lives in the West and its effect on suffrage (Ch. 11); life for immigrant women and families (Ch. 12);  women’s involvement in social reforms including some of the ironies of their organizations causes (Ch. 13); women’s labor force & the conditions thereof in the suffrage fight years (Ch.14);  the final organization of women leading up to the right to vote, varying attitudes surrounding it, and interest groups against it (Ch. 15); changes in sexual attitudes post suffrage and the birth control movement (Ch. 16); jobs for women in the post suffrage years and the effects of the Great Depression and the world wars on that (Ch. 17); social roles of women—middle class, working class, and African Americans—in the 1950’s (Ch. 18); and new goals and attitudes towards women’s liberation in the 1960’s and ‘70’s (Ch. 19).

Shortcomings: The authors acknowledge in the introduction that there are omissions in the text as far as coverage for Native American women, African-American women from 1880-1920, women in the arts, and certain professions. 

Published in 1978, the discussion of birth control is outdated. The history of it is still important to know. Women’s health care, in general, is one topic I felt should have been expanded on. Though it’s addressed sparsely throughout, a full chapter would have been useful.  Whenever women’s health care is addressed or included, its discussion is lacking. For example, S. Weir Mitchell is mentioned, but the detrimental effects of his rest cure are not adequately explained or expanded on. My women’s literature studies were far more informative on this controversial treatment. In fact, while Charlotte Perkins Gilman is mentioned, her famous piece “The Yellow Wallpaper” isn’t even named.  

While the book does a good job of providing the background and biographies for famous women (including but not limited to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) associated with suffrage rights, or the first wave of the women’s movement, notable second wave participants (such as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to name a few) are not given the same background paragraphs.

What Readers Might Find Interesting:  The women’s movement, including the fight for suffrage, was not a unified front.  Many women of the times didn’t support it, and even the ones who did were divided on things from organization to ideology.

How I felt reading this book:  I nearly celebrated myself when they finally won the right to vote after roughly 75 years and many chapters of detailing their obstacles and setbacks.  Every woman in the US should read this book if for nothing else than to understand the long arduous process and decades that women put into the fight allowing women today to have the rights and opportunities that they do. It should also serve as a motivation to not give up the continued fight to retain and advance women’s rights. 

Is this a feminist text? 
By definition (cited here from Merriam-Webster dictionary) and largely from a scholarly theorist perspective feminism is “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes as well as organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.” This book details women’s history in the US addressing the fight for political, economic, and social equality. So yes, it’s a feminist text.

Bear in mind that over the years the term feminism has taken on a variety of negative connotations (often the work of its opposition in an attempt to discredit it). The later chapters actually touch upon those disparaging assertions that feminist are angry man haters. I think the response voiced by a demonstrator aptly sums up the true position of feminist protestors and activists:
“What I want to cut off is the power men exercise over women. And if a man associates that power with his genitals, that’s his problem” (356).

Themes: Despite differences in class, race, and culture, there is a prevalent theme of loneliness and struggle for identity. 

Triggers:  There are mentions of rape and violence against women but it’s not graphically described.

Historical Accuracy: I am not a historian, but from my previous knowledge of the subject, the majority of the book appears sound.   

How I got this book/Why I read this book/My background: 
I ordered this book (paperback edition) from Amazon a few months ago after browsing several books on the subject for consideration for my kids’ educational studies. I read it first and made a chapter by chapter study guide for our lessons. I have a background in English literature with a concentration in women’s literature and feminist criticism so the general subject matter wasn’t previously unfamiliar.