Family Tree: A Novel by Susan Wiggs

Blurb...

Sometimes the greatest dream starts with the smallest element. A single cell, joining with another. And then dividing. And just like that, the world changes.

Annie Harlow knows how lucky she is. The producer of a popular television cooking show, she loves her handsome husband and the beautiful Manhattan home they share. And now, she’s pregnant with their first child.

But in an instant, her life is shattered. And when Annie awakes from a year-long coma, she discovers that time isn’t the only thing she's lost.

Grieving and wounded, Annie retreats to her old family home in Switchback, Vermont, a maple farm generations old. There, surrounded by her free-spirited brother, their divorced mother, and four young nieces and nephews, Annie slowly emerges into a world she left behind years ago: the town where she grew up, the people she knew before, the high-school boyfriend turned ex-cop. And with the discovery of a cookbook her grandmother wrote in the distant past, Annie unearths an age-old mystery that might prove the salvation of the family farm.

Family Tree is the story of one woman’s triumph over betrayal, and how she eventually comes to terms with her past. It is the story of joys unrealized and opportunities regained. Complex, clear-eyed and big-hearted, funny, sad, and wise, it is a novel to cherish and to remember.

This is a thought provoking story of one woman's journey to reclaim her dreams, her heart, and her life. It's more women's fiction than contemporary romance or chick-lit, but the romance is there and it's sweet. I enjoyed getting to know Annie and Fletcher and the rest of Switchback, Vermont's residents, but I have to admit that I had a problem with Annie who I found rather selfish in the relationship department. I get needing to focus on your career but too often, it seemed, Fletcher played second fiddle to Annie's. One last thing; this isn't a light read. It's actually quite emotional, and even a bit depressing at times, though understandably so. However, there is also humor, poignancy, and so much foodie talk that all I could think about was snacking!

Overall, Family Tree is compelling and entertaining, and I'm looking forward to reading more by Susan Wiggs.

An ARC was provided by William Morrow publishing. In appreciation I'm giving them an honest review.

Love at First Sight by Lori Wilde

 

From the author of the Twilight, Texas books comes the first in a dazzling new Cupid, Texas series. Lori Wilde welcomes us to Cupid, where every wish for love comes true...

Natalie McCleary couldn't believe her eyes-a lean-muscled, darkly tanned, nearly-naked man stood in her path…and then it hit her: love. Everyone always told her it'd hit like a thunderbolt, and she never believed them. But now she knew: practical, sensible Natalie was head over heels in love-with a stranger.

But ex-Navy SEAL Dade Vega wasn't about to be a stranger for long. He'd ridden into Cupid on his motorcycle, vowing to keep a promise he'd made to a military buddy. But a single glimpse at Natalie-soaking wet and unexpectedly tempting-changed his life forever.

But how can he offer her is love, when he can't even promise to stay in one place for longer than a week?

*****

 Love at First Sight is the first book in Lori Wilde’s new Cupid, Texas series. It’s a fun story that kept me turning the pages, loving every moment of “Cupid” working his magic in this small Texas town. Lori Wilde is a name I’ve seen around Goodreads, but surprisingly, not often, and I say “surprisingly” because if her other books are anything like this one, I’m not sure why more people aren’t reading her stories!

Cupid, Texas is a quaint, quirky town filled with quaint, quirky people. It’s a close knit community of friends and family, and would be such a fun place to live.

I enjoyed getting to know Natalie and Dade. Natalie opens the story with the tragic loss of her parents in a plane crash when she was just a child. Sad as it is, it gives us a poignant glimpse into what made Nat the woman she was, and how she got the strength to become the woman she now is. Dade had a difficult, heartbreaking childhood as well, and it made it difficult for him to trust Nat and open himself by telling her the truth. But all his hurt, his brutal past, just made Natalie – and myself – love him all the more.

The bottom line: While there were times when things seemed to drag a bit, but all-in-all, this is such a sweet story! Passionate,sexy, exciting, fun… Lori Wilde has created a truly great world in Cupid, Texas, and I can’t wait to visit again, soon.

My thanks to Avon Books and Edelweiss for providing me with a copy of Love at First Sight in exchange for an honest review.

Half Moon Hill by Toni Blake

Trying to escape her troubled past, Anna Romo has come home to Destiny determined to carve out a place for herself. When she buys the old Victorian house on the hill with the intent of furnishing it into a Bed and Breakfast, she’s thrilled by the possibilities.

Ex-biker-gang member Duke Dawson is as much a fish out of water in Destiny as Anna, but he’s handling it fine until an accident scars not only his body but his mind. When Anna stumbles across him in an old cabin in the woods near her newly acquired house, at first she’s terrified. But they work out a deal - she’s willing to keep his solitary living arrangement a secret if he’s willing to help her with some of the heavy lifting at the house.

Working together on the rennovations, romance brews between Duke and Anna. That is, until war hero Jeremy Sheridan returns home in a blaze of glory and sets his sights on Anna. Suddenly torn between the outgoing and charming Jeremy and the intriguing Duke, Anna’s heart is torn between two paths and left with only one solution.

*************

This sixth book in Toni Blake’s Destiny series is a sweet, poignant, sexy story. Even though I adore this series, I was a bit apprehensive about this book because, to be honest, I had a bit of a problem with Anna in Willow Springs, and wasn’t sure I’d feel much differently about her now.

Hah! Silly me! I should have known better, because this is Toni Blake, after all.

Anna’s story is sort of a two-parter, told between Willow Springs and Half Moon Hill, and as I said, I really didn’t like her much in the previous book, but upon reevaluation, I guess it’s not so surprising, after all. I mean, there wasn’t a lot to get happy about with her coming between Logan and Amy at every turn, and even though Logan was somewhat clueless, Anna was not. She knew about Amy and still made a move on Logan, and that did nothing to endear her to me, so yeah… wasn’t sure I’d be able to get behind her story, this soon, but what I learned about Anna changed that.

If you’ve followed the series you know that Anna is Mike and Lucky Romo’s little sister, the one who went missing when she was just 5 years old, leaving her family without answers as to what had become of her. Well, she finally came home in Willow Springs and did everything she could to fit in, find acceptance, and come to grips with her past while facing her future. To me she seemed selfish, arrogant, ungrateful… but in truth, she was just lost, and that’s what I learned about her, and why I was able to come to care about her.

Duke Dawson is such a fantastic hero, but everything about him makes you want to run for cover - he’s gruff, crass, scarred inside and out, and looks like he’s devolving into a caveman. His story, which comes out in bits and pieces, is heartbreaking! I’m not sure many women would be able to love a man like Duke, but with Anna’s past, with all she’s been through, she’s able to see the man he truly is. Over time, she finds the chink in his emotional armor and sets him free, and for that reason alone I care about her and respect her.

This is a really nice addition to the series, and I truly enjoyed spending a lot of time with the other couples. In addition to watching Anna and Mike work out their problems and become the family they should have always been, there are a couple of side stories that were tugging at my heartstrings, and I love how they all worked out.

The bottom line: Toni Blake is such an amazing storyteller! The Destiny books are very sexy, some bordering on erotic, but there’s so much story there… so much life and love! Even with all the passion and sex, Ms. Blake's stories never fail to evoke deep, powerful emotions, and I know that once I've turned the final page, I'll be left with a smile on my face and a sigh in my heart.

My thanks to Avon Books for providing me with a copy of Half Moon Hill in exchange for an honest review.

Sacrifice the Wicked by Karina Cooper

THE AVON AFFAIR IS A 14-DAY AVON BOOKS REVIEW EVENT
ORGANIZED AND HOSTED BY CURRENT AND ALUMNI MEMBERS OF
THE AVON ADDICTS.

Today I'll be reviewing Karina Cooper's exciting book, Sacrifice the Wicked! 

 

Parker Adams has always done what’s expected of her . . . until a double agent with nothing to lose ignites a passion she doesn’t dare give in to.

Mission Agent Simon Wells is everything Parker Adams has been trained to fight: manipulator, murderer, spy… witch. But for her, what makes Simon most dangerous is his mesmerizing sexual magnetism, powerful enough to tempt even the famed ice queen of the Mission. Though she knows better, each encounter with the deceptive agent leaves her craving more.

Simon isn’t a man to let go of what’s his, and his pursuit forces Parker, a woman he can’t get out from under his skin, to make a stand that could destroy her. If they can work together, they might survive the politics that have enslaved their devastated world—or fall victim to the pitfalls of desperation, bone-deep mistrust, and a hunger that threatens to consume them.

*****

Sacrifice the Wicked is the fourth book in Karina Cooper’s Dark Mission series, and is an intriguing, exciting, sexy story!

I began this book having not read the previous installments, and I’ll say this right up front – I really don’t recommend it. If you have the opportunity, I strongly encourage you to start at the beginning and work your way through

Based on this book alone I can tell you that the world Ms. Cooper has created is complex, compelling, and without a doubt, fascinating, but it was Simon and Parker’s relationship progression and their off-the-charts sexual chemistry that drew me in and kept me turning the pages. The storytelling is so well done that even though I probably should have set it aside until I could read the other books, I couldn’t put it down.

I’m looking forward to reading the series from the start because this is one hell of a world and I want to explore every bit of it!

My thanks to Avon Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Be sure to visit the other blogs participating in the Avon Affair:

A Tasty Read
Rusticating In The Tropics
Toot's Book Reviews
S.O.S. Aloha
The Book Queen's Personal Book Palace
Romancing The Readers
The Book Cellar
The Romance Reviews
Tempting Reads

 

 

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

 She gave him her innocence . . .Lady Aline Marsden was brought up for one reason: to make an advantageous marriage to a member of her own class. Instead, she willingly gave her innocence to John McKenna, a servant on her father's estate. Their passionate transgression was unforgivable -- John was sent away, and Aline was left to live in the countryside . . . an exile from London society . . .and he took her love.

Now McKenna has made his fortune, and he has returned -- more boldly handsome and more mesmerizing than before. His ruthless plan is to take revenge on the woman who shattered his dreams of love. But the magic between them burns as bright as ever. And now he must decide whether to let vengeance take its toll . . . or risk everything for his first, and only, love.

*****

Lisa Kleypas has done it again, and in a big way. Again the Magic is a wonderful story with so many dimensions and so much depth that I was up until the wee hours of the morning, unable to put it down. This story is actually a “prequel” to the Wallflowers series. While I’ve never seen it listed as a numbered book in the series, the characters in Again the Magicare featured heavily in It Happened One Autumn, book 2 of the Wallflowers,  as well as in the other Wallflower novels.

There are so many good things to say about this book that I don’t know where to start. As usual with Kleypas’ writing, we have characters who are so well developed that they cease to be words on a page and become living, breathing people. We can imagine them as friends, family, lovers and even enemies.

Again the Magic actually tells 2 stories. There is the main hero/heroine theme revolving around Lady Aline and McKenna, and a secondary hero/heroine theme revolving around Lady Olivia Marsden, Aline’s younger sister, and Gideon Shaw, McKenna’s American business partner. However, I find it difficult to describe Olivia’s and Gideon’s part of the story as secondary because it was so full, so detailed, that it felt to me as though it were its own, singular novel. And that made me very happy!

I found Again the Magic to be refreshingly more honest than your usual fluffy historical romance novel. The reactions of the characters were more in keeping with what I would have expected given the depth of their feelings for one another and their lack of control over certain situations.

Anger and frustration are emotions that linger near the surface and are often the first emotions we feel when being faced with situations that are beyond our ability to change. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the people we love just can’t seem to trust us to love them enough to see past their flaws, be those flaws physical or emotional. Such is the case with Lady Aline and the scars she carries from an injury she received in a kitchen fire. I don’t want to go into detail here and give away too much of the story, but her shame over the deep, severe scars keeps her from accepting McKenna’s love. She just can’t seem to trust him to love her enough…

McKenna has no idea why Lady Aline keeps pushing him away, but finally he has had enough and is ready to return to America, alone, a heartbroken man. But through a unexpected intervention by an unlikely person, Aline is given the opportunity to finally unload her burden and tell McKenna the truth and I loved his reaction. He didn’t just pat her on the head and say “It’s going to be ok, love, I forgive you and we’ll get past this.” Nope, in fact, he let her have it with both barrels. He held nothing back when he described the hell she had put him through and this is the type of reaction I would have expected from a man so desperately in love. He made her listen as he poured out the anguish he had been feeling, and then he summed it all up in just a few simple words:

“My God.” The blood rose higher in his face. “What if the situation were reversed and I was the one who had been hurt? Would you have left me?” 

“No!”

“Then why did you expect anything less of me?”

The entire exchange was so well written, so perfect and exactly the reaction I would have expected (and hoped for) from a man who thought he had forever lost the love of his life. I was cheering him on with every word he spoke, and when he finally took her to bed I loved how he wouldn’t allow her to hide her scars from him.

And again we see, between Olivia and Gideon, the same honest reaction from Olivia regarding Gideon’s drinking problem when he asked her to marry him and she turned him down. She didn’t sugar coat anything, nor did she give him an ultimatum, but told him, "…I won’t subject myself to the process of losing you little by little, until you’ve either killed yourself or become someone that I don’t recognize.” Again, this is the kind of reaction I hope for from my heroes and heroines. She wasn’t going to sit by and watch the man she was in love with slowly deteriorate by his own actions.

As I said, there are so many good things about this story that I really don’t know where to start or how to cover them all. Suffice it to say that Again the Magic has a charm, an honesty and a depth and breadth to it that has earned it a place on my list of all time favorite reads.

 Whether you’re looking for an excellent stand alone novel or want a series to read, I highly recommend Again the Magic and the Wallflowers.

Reading order:


Again The Magic - Prequel to the Wallflowers

1.Secrets of a Summer Night

2.It Happened One  Autumn

3.Devil In Winter

4.Scandal in the Spring

5.A Wallflower Christmas

Willow Springs by Toni Blake

THE AVON AFFAIR IS A 14-DAY AVON BOOKS REVIEW EVENT
ORGANIZED AND HOSTED BY CURRENT AND ALUMNI MEMBERS OF
THE AVON ADDICTS.

Today I'm reviewing Toni Blake's Willow Springs!

This lovesick matchmaker has finally met her match! 

        

Amy Bright might be the best matchmaker in Destiny, Ohio, but she's desperately shy when it comes to her own love life—and helpless when it comes to Logan Whitaker, the best friend whom she's head-over-heels in love with. So Amy decides to become Logan's secret admirer, sending him sensual love letters steamy enough to unseal their own envelopes. One letter leads to another, one thing leads to another, and then comes an unplanned kiss…

Overcoming a tragedy from his life as a firefighter, Logan needs a friend. Thank goodness for Amy. But when a woman from Logan's past resurfaces right as some anonymous letters send Logan's pulse hammering, suddenly he doesn't know what he needs—a reliable friend, or a passionate lover? One smoking-hot kiss could change everything…but will it ruin a one-of-a-kind friendship, or show Logan and Amy that they've already found everything they need, right here in Destiny?

 *****

 
Willow Springs is the fifth book in Toni Blake’s Destiny series, and one emotional story. I’ve never shed so many tears while reading any book as I did with this one, and it’s not even story of hardship, illness or death. This is a tale of “first love” and all the pain, heartache, hope and joy that comes with it, even when that love doesn’t find you until you’re 30 years old.

Let me get this out of the way right up front – this is not a light read. It’s angsty, dark, and heartbreaking… but it’s also comforting, hopeful and romantic. There were times I was so angry with both Logan and Amy that I wanted to scream, and other times I was completely understanding of their actions. Times I cheered for them because I could see what they could have, times I wanted them to throw in the towel and just move on because they couldn't see what they could have. And as hard as this was to read sometimes, I never even once considered giving up because I knew once it finally came, their happily ever after would be worth every minute it took to get there.

There were people and things I liked, people and things I loved, and people and things I could have done without, but any book that can evoke such strong feelings, a book that keeps me up until 3:30 in the morning and then is the first thing I think of a few hours later when I wake up... that's a story I won't soon forget because it touched me deeply. Through the tears, the smiles, the anger, the understanding… I couldn’t stop reading, just had to find out what would become of Logan and Amy, and that is the beauty of Toni Blake’s writing.

Because I so related to Amy's feelings of being just average - not gorgeous like her friends, not talented, not special, I’m going to leave you with my favorite scene, one that was heartbreaking, but so filled with hope. What makes this my favorite? It's because this is when Amy finally understood that she deserved better. That she was worth more than she was getting.

****SLIGHT SPOILER****

“Logan, what you said about figuring out what you want to do about us—you don’t have to figure it out. Because . . . I already did. I don’t think I’m interested anymore.”

She could feel his surprise, even without glancing his way. “Interested in what?”

“You. Us. That way. Romantically.” She opened the door now, preparing to go.

But his shock was so great that it practically filled the car, even if she saw his eyes widen on her with only her peripheral vision. “What do you mean?”

“The thing is,” she began, “if it’s such a hard decision . . . well, I’d rather be with somebody who doesn’t have to decide, who just knows. Who knows I’m amazing. Who knows I’m the best thing that ever happened to him. Who takes me with my faults. That’s what I deserve. And if you’re not that guy—then a relationship with you would never be enough for me.”

And with that, she got out of the car in her bikini and sarong, said, “Thanks for the ride. Goodnight,” then shut the door and walked away. 

****END SPOILER****

My vision of Logan Whitaker

 

 Check back tomorrow for my review of Again the Magic, by Lisa Kleypas!

And be sure to visit the other blogs participating in The Avon Affair:

A Tasty Read
Rusticating In The Tropics
Toot's Book Reviews
S.O.S. Aloha
The Book Queen's Personal Book Palace
Romancing The Readers
The Book Cellar
Blithely Bookish
The Romance Reviews
Tempting Reads