Tag: #australianwomenwriterschallenge

Blog Tour & Review: Roommate Arrangement by Saxon James

 

ROOMMATE ARRANGEMENT

Divorced Men’s Club – Book One

by Saxon James

Blog Tour

Release Date: January 12, 2022

Cover Design: Story Styling Cover Designs
Photo: Wander Aguiar Photography
Model: Chris Hayman
Genre: M/M Later-in-Life Romance
Trope: Roommates to lovers, brothers best friend, opposites attract, small town

Synopsis

Payne


In search of: room to rent.

Must ignore the patheticness of a forty-year-old roommate.

Preferably dirt cheap as funds are tight (nonexistent).

There’s nothing sadder than moving back to my hometown newly divorced, homeless, and lost for what my next move is.

When my little brother’s best friend offers me a place to stay in exchange for menial duties, I swallow my pride and jump at the offer.

I need this.

I also need Beau to wear a shirt. And ditch the gray sweatpants. And not leave his door ajar when he’s in compromising positions…



Beau


In search of: roommate.

Must be non smoker and non douchebag.

Room payment to be made in meal planning, repairs, and dumb jokes.

Since my career took off, I barely have time to breathe, let alone keep my life in order. I’m naturally chaotic, make terrible decisions, and scare off potential dates with my “weirdness”.

So when Payne gets back into town and needs somewhere to stay, I offer him my spare room with one condition: while he’s staying with me, I need him to help me become date-able.

And while he does that, I can focus on my other plan: ignoring that Payne is the only man I’ve ever wanted to date.

Review

The first in the Divorced Men’s Club series, I really liked Payne and Beau and really loved this feel-good, low angst story. Both of these characters are older than many of the romance novels out there, Beau in his late 30s and Payne who was 40, which I liked, it’s nice to see life goes on and you don’t have to be in your 20s to find true love.

Payne who has split with his husband and returned to his hometown to get over it, lacking a place to stay, ends up staying with Beau, his brother’s best friend who has had a crush on him since they were teens (Payne has no idea)

I really enjoyed the friendship and connection these two complete opposites formed and that was allowed to morph into much more without either realising what was happening. I liked the way they worked through things together and communicated, (something so many novels seem to avoid and something that drives me nuts) talking things through and working things out so that things didn’t implode between them. The chemistry between them was hot and they were so sweet with each other, that I finished the book with a happy feeling for this odd couple who worked so well together.

Add to your TBR List!

GOODREADS LINK


Purchase Link

Amazon Universal


 

 

GIVEAWAY

$25 Amazon Gift Card

a Rafflecopter Giveaway
ENTER HERE

About the Author

Saxon James unapologetically writes happy endings for LGBT+ characters.

While not writing, SM is a readaholic and Netflix addict who regularly lives on a sustainable diet of chocolate and coffee.

Member of SCBWI.


New Release Book Review: Clouds on the Horizon by Penelope Janu

Penelope Janu is one of my must-read authors, she has one character who features in several of her books, including this one, Nate, and I am hoping once again that he gets his own happy ever after in his own book soon.

Clouds on the Horizon was a book I was looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint. I must say though, that it took me quite a while to get into this one, the characters didn’t lend themselves to me becoming caught up in their story for quite a while.

Phoebe has had a traumatic upbringing and hasn’t had much luck in relationships, she is like two different people; with the kid’s she is a therapist for she is warm and caring, but with most of the people around her, she keeps herself separate on an emotional and personal level. I found her brittleness and the way she was with Sinn, took me a while to get used to and though I understood her past dictated her behaviour, I just couldn’t warm up to her for the first part of the novel. Sinn was abrupt with Phoebe and though he wanted her help he didn’t want her involved in his investigation, Phoebe wouldn’t take no for an answer, a very stubborn woman. I didn’t feel the chemistry between Sinn and Phoebe until the second half of the novel, neither were willing to allow their feelings to really show, though Sinn was more willing than Phoebe.

I don’t understand much about horse syndicates other than people can make money from them, but it was clear Penelope Janu had done her research. The reason Sinn is in the area and needs Phoebe’s help was because of the work her father and her sister did on the accounts for the syndicate. While I got Phoebe’s need to protect her sister’s because of their upbringing, I did get frustrated with her behaviour in the case of this investigation.

I liked that because of this investigation and her relationship with Sinn, Phoebe had to really take the time to look at who she was now as an adult, and where she wanted to be on an emotional level and whether she wanted to take steps to change her life. She had two good friends who had her back, Mandy who was a counsellor and Jeramiah a local police officer, both of these helped her on an emotional level while dealing with Sinn and his investigation.

The animals in this story were fabulous characters, from the horses to Phoebe’s dog and then the gorgeous baby lamb, they made for some great scenes. I also liked Nate, Sinn’s off-sider and Pheobe’s small cast of friends and the children she helped. Penelope Janu has obviously done a lot of research around treatment for children with various issues and I found this very interesting seeing as this is part of my own work.

There was plenty to like about this novel and once I became fully engaged with the characters, I couldn’t put it down.

Thanks to Harlequin Australia for providing me with a copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

Blog Tour & New Release Book Review: Triple Beat by Ann Grech

Review

I enjoyed Triple Beat by Ann Grech, I really loved the relationship between Mike and Ezio which developed fast and furious and hot and completely unexpectedly between the two while Mike is holidaying on a cruise ship. Ezio breaks rules to be with Mke, but it ends too soon and neither knows how to contact the other.

Later Mike meets Robyn and they become friends and then more, but he never stops loving Ezio. I have to say that I wasn’t as caught up in Mike’s relationship with Robyn as I was with Ezio until Ezio comes back into the picture.
Ezio’s relationship with Mike completely tugged at my heartstrings and I so wanted them to find each other again and work things out.
Robyn really shows what a great person she is with the way she deals with Ezio’s return and Mike’s feelings for him.

 

I loved these three together and I really loved the ending of this romance, I do like it when things work out for the best.

 

Genre: MMF romance

Trope: Friends to lovers

TRIPLE BEAT

A Rule of Three Novel #2

by Ann Grech

Blog Tour


Synopsis


Single dad Mike must make a choice.

A second-chance with a holiday lover torn away before either man admitted they wanted more?

Or the woman who’d become his best friend and stolen his heart?

Different from him in so many ways, both are the loves of his life.

But Mike’s got secrets.

One could destroy a relationship. The other, his life.

Triple Beat is Ann Grech’s long-awaited second MMF in the Rule of Three series. Featuring a doctor who has the cure for what ails his former lover, a lawyer rewriting the laws of love, a personal trainer working out just who he is, and two sassy kids, you’ll fall head over heels for all of them.

 


Add to your TBR List! 

GOODREADS LINK

Purchase Link

Amazon Universal

 


Giveaway


$25 Amazon Gift Card – a Rafflecopter Giveaway  ENTER HERE

 


Other Titles Within this Series

PURCHASE

 

 


About the Author


By day Ann Grech lives in the corporate world and can be found sitting behind a desk typing away at reports and papers or lecturing to a room full of students. She graduated with a PhD in 2016 and is now an over-qualified nerd. Glasses, briefcase, high heels and a pencil skirt, she’s got the librarian look nailed too. If only they knew! She swears like a sailor, so that’s got to be a hint. The other one was “the look” from her tattoo artist when she told him that she wanted her kids initials “B” and “J” tattooed on her foot. It took a second to register that it might be a bad idea.

She’s never entirely fit in and loves escaping into a book—whether it’s reading or writing one. But she’s found her tribe now and loves her MM book world family. She dislikes cooking, but loves eating, can’t figure out technology, but is addicted to it, and her guilty pleasure is Byron Bay Cookies. Oh and shoes. And lingerie. And maybe handbags too. Well, if we’re being honest, we’d probably have to add her library too given the state of her credit card every month (what can she say, she’s a bookworm at heart)!

She also publishes her raunchier short stories under her pen name, Olive Hiscock.

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Book Review: Red Dirt Heart series by N.R. Walker

Red dirt heart seriesThis was a wonderful series, I flew through all 4 books one after the other, I  adored Travis and Charlie, such different people who fit together just right.

I felt for Charlie, growing up ashamed of being gay, a father who made him feel less than and unloved, struggling to make his dead father proud while hiding who he is from the community and deciding he doesn’t deserve to find that special someone. Then along comes Travis, a Texan who believes he was meant to come to Sutton Station, meant to meet Charlie and that they were meant to be together if only he can convince Charlie of this.

I loved reading about station life, I can’t even imagine how hard farming is out there in the Territory, but I do know how amazing those open plains were when I drove through 10 years ago. Charlie comes a long way in the Red Dirt Heart series,  he has a lot of healing to do and a long way to go to completely believing in himself as more than just a farmer.

The supporting cast, the other farm workers, who have become his family, a family that grows over the course of the series, and Ma and George who were his true parents in every way were all wonderful characters to get to know.

There were plenty of emotional times throughtout this series as Charlie heals and grows, Ma gets sick, Travis may have to leave the country for good, Charlies mother returns out of the blue, bring secrets long buried with her and Travis and Charlie go through their ups and downs. But there were plenty of laughs along the way as the Sutton Station crew live their lives in a harsh environment that is full of love.

I highly recommend this series.

AWW 2021

Book Review: Stealing Time by Rebecca Bowyer

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This is the first novel I have read by Rebecca Bowyer, though I have her first novel Maternal Instinct sitting on my kindle and I will have to get to it soon.

Stealing time is a dystopian science fiction novel set in a future that doesn’t seem like it could be too far away, which is a pretty scary concept. In a time where the planet’s resources are dwindling, people’s lifespans have been set, using an implanted chip which they receive at birth, to only allow them to live until they are 65. To even get to live to 65, they have to work a certain amount of hours and be productive to society.

Someone has found a way of ‘stealing time’ from these chips and giving it to another person, and children are the best resource to steal this from as they have the most amount of life to steal. This first happened 10 years before, but the people were caught and the technology was supposedly destroyed.

One of the main characters, Dr Varya Galanos who invented the chip, carries this as a burden, along with a secret she has been hiding from all but a few people. Her son who should have died of cancer is being kept alive in a time chamber of sorts. I can’t begin to imagine what this would be like for the child who lives each day at the same age in the same place while his mother is supposed to be researching to find a cure for the rare cancer that is trying to kill him. Her mother, her friend Zoe and her friend/employee Marisa are the only ones who know.

When Zoe’s child is stolen and returned near death by the time stealers, Varya has to help her friend save her child. Secrets start to unravel and Varya becomes even more secretive and desperate than previously as everything, including the time for her son, starts to come to a head.

This was an interesting novel, and as I said, disturbing in a way that I could see something like this coming about, hopefully not in my lifetime, but not too far off. Already, the elderly aren’t often held in high regard, we are overpopulated in many areas and resources are running out or being destroyed by greed and governments and corporations. It doesn’t seem too far fetched that time chips and rations on things we take for granted could become a real thing.

It is also the exploration of just how far a mother would go to save her child, and this alone is quite scary, a bit like another novel I read recently, once again set in an Australia not too far away where a mother is pushed to her limits to save her children. It would seem, parents, but mothers especially, have no limits when it comes to saving their children.

Thank you to Rebecca Bowyer for a copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

New Release Book Review: A Doctor’s Gift by Fiona McArthur

The Doctor's GiftThis was a really enjoyable medical romance, I very much appreciated learning more about donor transplants, and I could understand the hesitancy of Ailee in not wanting to start a relationship until she had been through the process of donating to save her brother’s life. I also liked the fact we got the recipients struggles that they went through when receiving a donor organ, I’d never given a thought to the fact they might be anything other than thrilled to receive a possibly life-saving organ, but there is so much more to consider.

Fergus was lovely and I loved that he put his heart on the line when pursuing Ailee. His daughter was delightful too and added an extra dynamic to the relationship. I kept hoping Ailee would tell Fergus what was going on, but things kept getting in the way, sometimes I felt Ailee waited for obstacle so she wouldn’t have to tell him. Poor Fergus, he couldn’t understand where she was coming from.

In Australia at least when it comes to organ donation, I think it is wrong that if you have marked that you are a donor, that your family can override that wish. I myself am a registered organ donor and I have told my family this, but they could still stop that from happening. Seeing Ailee discussing it with the parents of a patient who has passed and only having a limited time to get them to consent made me really appreciate how hard it is for doctors and nurses who know how much these gifts could make a difference to so many people’s lives.

I really enjoyed this read and was hoping Fergus could convince Ailee they could make a go of things.

AWW 2021

New Release Book Review: How to Mend a Broken Heart by Rachael Johns

How to Mend a Broken HeartI loved this novel, I was a little bit wary about whether I would feel I’d missed anything by not having read The Art of Keeping Secrets, but Rachael put enough information into the story that I didn’t feel I was missing anything, I would like to read it at some point though, it’s been on my shelf since it was published back in 2016.

New Orleans is one of the few places in America that I am interested in visiting and it was great to be able to experience it with Flick and Zoe. I wish someone would offer me the opportunity to work someplace wonderful for a few months like Flick is able to do. I found learning a bit about taxidermy quite interesting, I have a friend who practices the art of taxidermy, and while it’s definitely not my thing, it is very interesting.

I completely understood Flick’s need to take off from her life, while everyone around her was moving on, even her ex-husband, she felt stuck and lost. Flick’s ex-husband, now a transgender female, Sofia, would have been a hard person to continue being close with after all they had been through, but I could see how hard it was for Flick to admit that even to herself.

I really enjoyed seeing Flick come alive again and find herself. It certainly helped that she met Theo, the owner of the jazz bar next door. As well as helping her to learn to have fun, their blossoming relationship also forced her to really take stock of her feelings and her hangups and determine what was important in her life. Theo was gorgeous (I want to meet my own Theo), he had a secret that caused a big issue, I got a bit nervous at one stage that things weren’t going to work out the way I wanted them to (I nearly scrolled to the end to make sure lol).

Zoe suffers heartbreak from her ass***e husband and follows her mother to New Orleans. I have to admit to not liking Zoe much to start with, I completely understood her heartbreak and the grief she was going through, but she treated Flick awfully in the first week of being there, I thought her spoiled and self-indulgent. She did grow on me though, especially after she met Mrs Harranibar(Miss H). After literally knocking her over.

Miss H’s story is a sad one and in the end, being knocked down by Zoe changes her life completely.

I really liked ghost hunter Jack who bumps into Zoe when she first arrives in New Orleans. He was a lovely warm character and I liked how much of a gentleman he was. I hoped Zoe would wake up to herself, and though her marriage had just ended, who is to say when is too soon to meet another person.

New Orleans itself is a big character in this novel and it is definitely high on my travel list when we are able to travel freely and safely again, in the meantime, I’ll continue to travel vicariously through the wonderful characters in novels.

A wonderful heart filled read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Australia for a digital copy in return for an honest review.

AWW 2021

New Release Book Review: Transit of Angels by Desney King

IMG_20201004_174817.jpgThis novel was exquisite in every way, the language and imagery drew me in and led me along on a beautiful journey, where the landscape and settings were as clear as if I were there myself. Desney King’s writing is like poetry and conveys so much depth.

This is far more than just a story of grief, I went into this novel knowing very little about it and I had no idea the journey I was about to be taken on or how deep this novel would prove to be.  

My journey with Angel was a powerfully moving one, I didn’t want to break the connection, even wandering along the beach at a determinedly slow pace so that I could continue to read as I walked.

From the very start, this novel had me in tears and by the end, I’d been through every emotion I can think of. The tears came on and off completely unexpectedly at times and near the end, I felt I was about to have my heart ripped out again.

I loved Angel, as she dealt with her grief, and as she explored what happens to us after death, as she looked for signs and asked is there still a connection to our loved ones? I loved how she used art to help her heal, being an Art Therapist I know how powerful a tool this can be. And how she allowed the quaint mudbrick cottage on the river to help heal her. 

So much of the spiritual nature of this novel spoke to me, many of the ideas that Angel learns about are the very things I’ve been searching for and dabbling in for nearly 20 years. Maybe this book is a message for me to take up the search again.

The cast of characters that help Angel through her loss were wonderful, all with their own painful pasts and secrets, all who have learnt or are still learning to move on with life. I especially loved Clyde, an older gentleman who becomes a friend and a great source for Angel to learn about the spiritual realm. There were also characters who weren’t so nice, who were judgemental and unsupportive, but even these people have lessons for Angel to learn.

This is a novel that will stay with me, and one that I will revisit again in the not distant future.

Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

Release date for this novel is 19th October 2020.

Preorder now Booktopia AU   Bookdepository    Amazon AU    Amazon US    Amazon UK

New Release Book Review : Deadman’s Track by Sarah Barrie

cover191048-mediumOMG what a roller-coaster of a terrifying ride this novel took me on.

With at least two bad guys on the loose, there was plenty for the characters in this book to be worried about.

Tess was a great character, full of spirit, brave and sure of herself for the most part.

Aaron was a truly horrible character right from the start and any scene that he was in had me wanting to put the book down, sure things were going to turn out badly. His behaviour was classic of an abusive partner and I hated the way he treated Tess.

I loved Jared, the local police officer, he had a big job to do trying to keep up with escalating burglaries.

When Tess lets herself get roped into taking a group of teens out on a trek for a week, I was perplexed at her change in behaviour, because she had been so adamant it wasn’t a good idea, and I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but even I had no idea just how badly things were going to go.

There are several different threads going on during this novel, all becoming tangled up together by the end and not in a good way.

This was a great read and despite the terrible things that happen throughout this novel, I’d love to go trekking in Tasmania at some point, I just hope the bad guys are busy elsewhere when I do.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Australia for a digital copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

Published date 8th July 2020

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20Backlistin2020 book review: Out of Luck by Kendall Talbot

Out of LuckOh my god, this book has sat on my digital shelf for 11 months, I am so glad I finally got to it because it was an action-packed read that kept me guessing until the end.

When Charlene’s father is murdered in front of her it is the catalyst that sets of a series of events that after a while she has no control over, as secrets and lies begin to come unravelled, Charlene throws herself into the path of danger.

While I couldn’t even begin to imagine running off to Cuba to hunt down my past, that is exactly what Charlene does. Her only saving grace is that she is lucky enough to have landed sexy ex-naval officer Marshall as her skipper to get her across from the US to Cuba, an illegal and potentially dangerous journey in itself.

These two have an instant connection, but both fight it as they have their own agendas and their own personal issues to deal with.

Charlene was one tough young woman, her father had given her lots of training over the years, and this is the only thing that kept her alive. While I thought some (most) of her decisions were really not the best idea, she was running completely on her emotions and to her, they seemed to be the only decisions to make.

While Marshall is determined not to care about Charlene, when she doesn’t make the rendezvous, he is, of course, determined to try and save her.

There is plenty of action, suspense, and chemistry in this fast-paced romantic suspense novel and I am going to try and hunt down the first book in the Maximum Exposure series. I remember reading and enjoying book 2 Out of Mind but it looks like these are being rereleased, so I might have to wait to read book 1 Out of Reach.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for a digital copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

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