Tag Archives: small town romance

Review ~ Cowboy SEAL Homecoming by Nicole Helm

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ABOUT:

Three former Navy SEALs
Injured in the line of duty
Desperate for a new beginning…
Searching for a place to call their own.

Alex Maguire never thought he’d go home again. The perfect soldier, the perfect leader, he’s spent his whole life running away from Blue Valley, Montana—but when a tragic accident bounces him and two of his men out of the SEALs, there’s nowhere left to turn but the ranch he used to call his own…and the confusing, innocently beguiling woman who now lives there.

Becca Denton’s like nothing he could have imagined. She’s far too tempting for her own good, but when she offers to help turn the ranch into a haven for injured veterans, he can’t exactly say no. He’ll just need to keep his distance. But something in her big green eyes makes Alex want to set aside the mantle of the perfect soldier and discover the man he could have been…safe and whole within the shelter of her arms.

Nicole Helm’s story of an inexperienced woman at the troubled SEAL who steals her heart was incredible. Becca was a great character, I would say the perfect romance heroine because she is bright-eyed and naïve but she’s perfectly aware of it and unafraid to start going after what she wants. And what Becca wants is Alex.

Alex spent his adult life as a Navy SEAL and now that his life of service has ended, he’s at loose ends and suffering from PTSD. He insists he’s fine but Becca is tenacious and quickly falling for him, which means she wants her man whole. This is the part of the story I really enjoyed, watching Becca realize just how strong she was, which allowed us to see that Alex was the one truly suffering and in need of help.

Jack and Gabe perfectly rounded out Cowboy SEAL Homecoming, adding both comic relief, back story and a glimpse of the strong bond forged against the backdrop of war. I loved the guys and the way they razzed each other, and quickly opened their arms and hearts to Becca.

Nicole helm penned a perfect small town romance with a hero and heroine that make it easy to root for their happy ending.

Review ~ New Year’s at the Graff by Marin Thomas

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ABOUT:

After being banned from celebrating the holidays with his stepfamily, San Diego businessman Lucas Kendrick arrives in Marietta, Montana, in time to attend the New Year’s Eve celebration at the Graff Hotel. The rodeo-theme party isn’t his style but he’s drawn to the pretty cowgirl running the dice table. When the clock strikes midnight and they ring in the New Year with a kiss, Lucas almost forgets he’s in Marietta on business and not pleasure. He believes he’s found the perfect property for his prized client. There’s just one problem—the pretty cowgirl has her sights set on the same piece of real estate.

Now that single mom Ava Moore has earned a business degree, she wants to help other struggling women get back on their feet by opening a co-op on Main Street. The last thing she expects is competition from the handsome city slicker whose New Year’s kiss she hasn’t been able to forget. Lucas isn’t only stealing Ava’s heart he’s bonding with her daughter. Can Ava convince Lucas that the best business deals are made with the heart and not money?

New Year’s at the Graff is a fun small town romance featuring a single mother, her adorable little girl and the big city businessman who steals their hearts. Ava has finally finished her education and she is determined to move on from being a housekeeper to a business woman helping other single mothers get back on their feet. She isn’t looking for love, so when she spots the handsome well-dressed stranger on New Year’s Eve, she’s surprised by how strongly she’s affected by him. Marin Thomas did a great job of bringing me right back to Marietta and the chocolate shop, Grey’s Saloon and all the happenings in this adorable small town.

The thing that I liked best about New Year’s at the Graff was the low-key, angst free way Lucas and Ava got together. Other than a few hot kisses, they took time to get to know each other and though they both fell fast, they didn’t jump into anything. This is definitely a beautiful romance but the other relationships in the story really made me love it. Tilly, Ava’s mother in law, and her quirks were fun and entertaining, but the way Marin Thomas wrote Lucas and Princess Sophie made them the true scene stealers, in my opinion. Even his relationship with his mother and then his father kept me reading just to see what was happening.

This was a fun and short romance that I’m happy I got a chance to read. Fun times are always had in Marietta.

Review ~ A Teaspoon of Trouble by Shirley Jump

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ABOUT:

Type-A chef Carolyn Henderson has walked away from her job at a trendy NYC restaurant after an abrupt family tragedy. Now, as a guardian to her four-year-old niece, Emma, and a very disobedient mutt – kids and dogs are so not her skill set – moving back to Marietta, Montana seems the best temporary option. But when confronted by her parents’ declining health, Carolyn has to face reality. And she’s going to need some serious help. So who better to ask than Matthew West, a blast from her high school past… and as hunky and helpful as ever.

Vet – and very eligible, if reluctant, Bachelor – Matthew West can’t believe his luck when his high school crush stumbles through his door. Dogs, kids, and gorgeous damsels in distress. Carolyn needs help with the pup, and he needs help whipping up delicious concoctions for the Bachelor Bake-Off. So she wants to make a deal: dog obedience lessons for cooking tips… but Matthew wants to broker quite a bit more…

In A Teaspoon of Trouble we meet Carolyn Henderson, a talented NYC chef who has just lost her sister and brother in law and was now tasked with raising her adorable little niece Emma. So back to Montana the girls go, with Carolyn hoping her parents can help her be the mom her sister knew she could. Only her parents are aging and filled with grief, which means she has to figure it out. But Carolyn runs into the high school boyfriend she’d left without a backwards glance, and Matt is better than she remembered. A small town vet, he loves his life but wishes for more. For love and marriage. Shirley Jump has written a fun small town romance that includes a fun bachelor bake off for charity, moonlight kisses and tons of romance.

Where Shirley Jump excels in A Teaspoon of Trouble is creating the small town atmosphere with fun, small town characters, plenty of adorable animals and we can’t forget little Emma who is absolutely precious. And Matt was incredible; hot and generous and kind. But Carolyn was kind of hard to like for much of the story because she was so focused on what she wanted that she never thought about Emma, only her career. It was kind of repetitive but she got her stuff together in time to redeem herself, at least in this reader’s eyes.

There were also some really great moments filled with emotions, particularly a late night scene with Carolyn and her niece. Those scenes gave this book the depth it needed to be more than your average romance novel.

Happy Holidays!!!

Happy holidays to you and those you love, and thank you all for helping to make 2017 a wonderful year filled with great stories, amazing authors and fun friends. Here’s to an even better 2018!


If you need something to keep you busy over the long holiday, be sure to check out these #99cents reads!

Ally & Archer.
They were the quintessential ‘it’ couple. Young, beautiful and ambitious. Everyone said they had what it took to make it. That they would last. She had stupidly believed it. All of it.
Hook, line & sinker.
Then he’d walked away and never looked back.
Never knew what he left behind.
Years later he finally returned to the place where they’d grown up. Met. Fell in love. Smiling and looking all handsome with his big strong SEAL body, and turning Ally’s carefully constructed world upside down.
But Archer realized his mistake and though it took some time, he was ready to make it right. For everyone involved.
And Christmas in Blissful was the perfect setting for magic, romance and a rekindled flame.
Can Archer and Ally find a way to let go of the past and reach for a future beyond Christmas Day?

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💚💫💚💫💚💫#EmeraldCreekSummer💚💫💚💫💚💫

DRE never returned to Emerald Creek after the man she thought she’d marry broke her heart. But a late night phone call from half way around the world brings her right back to her hometown. And face to face with the man she never thought she’d seen again. Summer in Emerald Creek was everything she remembered—endless festivals, picnics in the park and time with her best friend and her favorite little tykes—and Dre is finding it hard to resist the pull of the chemistry she and Erick still have.

ERICK made the biggest mistake of his life all those years ago but the result, his adorable little girl, was the best thing that ever happened to him. He’d done the right thing, or at least he’d tried to but his marriage hadn’t worked despite all that it had cost him. But now that Dre was back in Emerald Creek the universe had given him a second chance this summer, to put back together what he’d broken. To reclaim the only woman he’s ever truly loved.

Can one summer recall a lifetime of memories and rekindle a love that never really went away?

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After losing her birth parents and her adopted parents Alexis Mabry is used to being alone. So after a year of bad dates with everyone from sugar babies to cross dressers, she decides to stop dating altogether and focus on what matters most: her business and her friends in Mustang Prairie.

When she meets a handsome stranger on vacation she starts to wonder if maybe its time to get back in the game.

Baxter Thompsen spent the last decade building his empire to the exclusion of everything but sex. Now tired of the socialites and starlets, he wants someone real. When he finds her, Alex only wants a vacation fling and it’s up to Baxter to show her that lust is great, but love is everything.

Is it lust, is it like or are Baxter and Alex just a little bit in love?

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Review ~ A Real Cowboy for Christmas by Stephanie Rowe

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ABOUT:

Only a deathbed promise would send Jaimi Hamilton to Rogue Valley for Christmas to track down her brothers, the nine Stockton cowboys who don’t even know she exists.

When Sheriff Dane Wilson discovers the vulnerable, sassy single mom from New England has a secret connection to the cowboys he considers his brothers, the protector side of him kicks in…but whose side is he supposed to be on?

When a wintry first kiss raises the stakes, suddenly there’s more than just family at risk.

 

A Real Cowboy for Christmas is a short, fun read packed with big, rugged cowboys and the women who love them. This is a quick read, following Jaimi and her little girl, Emily on a trip to Rogue Valley to make good on a deathbed promise.

What she finds instead is a hot Sheriff with a lifelong connection to the men with whom she also shared a connection. Dane, he was the STAR of the story. Handsome with a hint of that alpha protectiveness that makes a girl’s knees go weak, he had a killer smile and a way of quickly putting the skittish Jaimi at ease. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go.

For those of you who take issue with insta-love, you’re not going to like this story even though it was absolutely perfect. They didn’t have a lot of time, so they did what adults do; make a decision and hope for the best.

A big, rambunctious family is how all little girls should spend the holidays and the Stockton clan was as big and boisterous as families came.

A very good and super fast read that pulled me right in and didn’t let me go until the story was over.

Books in the Wyoming Rebels series (all books are standalone and can be read in any order):
A Real Cowboy Never Says No
A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss
A Real Cowboy Rides a Motorcycle
A Real Cowboy Never Walks Away
A Real Cowboy Loves Forever
A Real Cowboy for Christmas 
A Real Cowboy Always Trusts His Heart (Coming Soon!)

COMING SOON: Second Chance eX-mas by N.D. Jackson

Title: Second Chance eX-mas
Author: N.D. Jackson
Release: December 21, 2017
Pre-order Link: http://amzn.to/2BxmII3

Ally & Archer.

They were the quintessential ‘it’ couple. Young, beautiful and ambitious. Everyone said they had what it took to make it. That they would last. She had stupidly believed it. All of it.

Hook, line & sinker.

Then he’d walked away and never looked back.

Never knew what he left behind.

Years later he finally returned to the place where they’d grown up. Met. Fell in love. Smiling and looking all handsome with his big strong SEAL body, and turning Ally’s carefully constructed world upside down.

But Archer realized his mistake and though it took some time, he was ready to make it right. For everyone involved.

And Christmas in Blissful was the perfect setting for magic, romance and a rekindled flame.

Can Archer and Ally find a way to let go of the past and reach for a future beyond Christmas Day?

Feels Like Love ~ Just 99 CENTS!!!

I just wanted to belong…
Sadie had never belonged anywhere other than on stage. A soulful singer and musician, she left home at a young age and never looked back. No one missed her anyhow. Traveling the country with one no good boyfriend or another for work, Sadie settled in New Orleans until another d-bag boyfriend decided she wasn’t enough…and the slutty new bartender was.
She left for Mustang Prairie and the open arms of her half-sister Amelia…or so she thought

I just wanted to protect her…
Dylan Parker was retired at the ripe old age of 34. After catching a serial killer who’d tortured Chicago for a decade, he was ready to turn in his homicide detective’s shield.
Needing distance from his high society parents and their social climbing friends he packed up his truck and bought a bar in Mustang Prairie. Getting reacquainted with small town life would be an adjustment…until he met a copper haired amazon with a voice like warm honey.
Sadie was everything he wanted; a friend, a devil’s advocate, a sister, and a confidante. Theirs was a deeply satisfying friendship so Sadie and Dylan fought their mutual attraction.

Can Sadie & Dylan admit that their friendship feels more like love?

What people are saying about Feels Like Love:

Return to Mustang Prairie and get swept away by a sweet and spicy romance!

Meet Sadie Girl, the wanderer with a heart of gold and the voice of an angel. And Dylan, the blue-eyed stud who traded in his cop badge to be a small town bartender.

Both come from cold, unsupportive families. Both have reasons to flee from romance. But eventually these two best friends won’t be able to deny their sizzling chemistry, and the growing tension between them.

My favorite book in this series! You will LOVE these characters and enjoy revisiting the rest of the Mustang Prairie gang.

Feels Like Love (Mustang Prairie Book 3)
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Review ~ Homecoming in Christmas Falls by Ciara Knight

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ABOUT:

Eight years after fleeing Christmas Falls because of a high school prank gone wrong, Ashley Brooks receives a mysterious letter from her mentor asking her to come home. She arrives to face all she left behind—her family, her friends, and the rich boy she’d loved who would never date the girl from the wrong side of town.

Brent Donnelly, high school jock, brainiac, and dutiful son did everything right until the day Ashley returns to Christmas Falls. With one look at the girl who got away he questions all his life choices, including following in his father’s footsteps in the family business.

Faced with a potentially devastating decline of tourism in their hometown, Brent and Ashley must work together to save the magic of their town, but when Ashley discovers he still has feelings for her best friend she must finally face the real reason she left Christmas Falls—to try to heal her broken heart.

Seven fabulous authors bring you this holiday romance series about a group of special friends returning to their hometown at the request of their high school mentor. Each book is a standalone, but read them all to fully enjoy the journey of these remarkable women and their emotional reunion with their mentor, an incredible woman who changes their lives and helps save a small town community forever.

When I first cracked open Homecoming in Christmas Falls and saw that it was written in first person, I nearly closed it right away. It’s just a personal preference of mine, but I have a hard time enjoying stories written this way, but I was SO curious about the story that I pushed past the first chapter and then the second, and soon I was wondering who’s story would be next.

Ashley was a bit of a wild child back in the day, not reckless or even destructive, just energetic for a small town girl who never fit in with her family. Though this is a love story, I really enjoyed watching Ash reconnect with her parents, who she’d always viewed through the eyes of a hurt teenage girl. But nearly a decade apart can change things. Change people and their perspectives. This part of the storyline really enhanced the overall Christmas-y feel of the whole story.

Now Ash and Brent. Ash, despite her gregariousness as a kid, had some self-esteem issues and thought she would never be good enough for the town golden boy, Brent. She thought he’d be better suited—and was already interested in—one of her besties, Piper. So after THE EVENT, she packed up and left town never to return.

Until this year when her teacher, mentor and surrogate mother calls the girls home, setting the stage for the whole Christmas Falls series.

Now that she’s a successful business woman with a clear vision of the past, Ash wants to help the town get back the magic it used to have. She’ll put her business sense to good use, along with Brent, to make the place truly fantastic again.

But this is a romance and Homecoming in Christmas Falls wouldn’t be complete without talking about these two. From the moment they appear on the page together, sparks fly. Brent is gorgeous and sweet, an irresistible combination that Ash succumbs to pretty quickly. Instead of being scared as she’d always been, Ash dives in and lets him know how she feels and her plans for the future.

Then it’s Brent’s turn to chicken out and go running. I was upset with him, but Ciara Knight created really beautiful drama with this part of the story. You could feel Ash’s pain and wanted to do serious bodily harm to a guy that seemed pretty damn perfect…until this moment. But I loved that it allowed Ash to see how strong she really is.

This was a really good read. It was cheesy and sweet and fun and filled with over the top Christmas, and none of that took away my enjoyment of this story.

Review ~ Christmas Glitter by Ann B. Harrison

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ABOUT:

After a rough year involving a serious car accident, painful recovery and broken engagement, Dakota Moore moves to Cherry Lake to rebuild her life. To embrace her new community, she volunteers to coordinate the annual Christmas tree gala.

Adam Clements has come home to help his mother run the family business while his father recovers from a heart attack. For the last decade, he’s been a high-flying soccer player, enjoying the life that comes with his popularity. But something is missing and he can’t put his finger on it… until he returns to Cherry Lake and remembers the feeling of home.

Adam tries to keep his distance because he knows he’ll be leaving, but he can’t deny his attraction to Dakota. With the countdown to Christmas on, can Dakota convince Adam that his home is right there in Cherry Lake, with her?

One of the things I liked most about Christmas Glitter was the overall theme of making choices. Both Dakota and Adam have had some life changing events happen in their lives recently and Ann B. Harrison’s tale is about the choices they make. Do they let these things happen to them or do they make a choice about what their lives will look like next? It’s an interesting choice, but a good one as the story unfolds with Dakota recovering physically and emotionally, and Adam dealing with the realities of aging parents and an aging body as a professional athlete.. With both Adam and Dakota back in Cherry Lake, they will both have to decide what happens next. Her life is now in Cherry Lake but his stay is only temporary, even if the life that’s waiting for him isn’t as fulfilling as it should be.

The thing the author does so well in Christmas Glitter is the way the relationship builds. Not that I’m opposed to it, but there is no insta-love, this is definitely a slow burn that starts with friendship and gradually changes as they get to know each other. Healing, though in different ways, changes their perspectives and as the story moves forward you just know this will cause some drama later on! Aside from the basic relationship drama, I loved the focus on the holiday and the small town calmness.

I am a sucker for a small town romance and Christmas Glitter was the perfect holiday treat.

LIVE!!! ~ The Christmas Fountain by Kait Nolan

Elementary school teacher Mary Alice Reed wanted a nice, stable guy to share her happily ever after. When she thought she’d found him, everyone tried to tell her that the guy she thought was her Mr. Right, was really Mr. Somebody Else’s. Living with a town’s worth of I-told-you-so isn’t easy, but she’s coping. And definitely taking a break from love in order to get past her last disaster to chair her favorite Christmas charity.

Trauma surgeon Chad Phillips gave up the intensity and long hours of a big city hospital to move to Wishful. He wants a home and family, a town with a slower pace, where he can actually build a life. Being one of Wishful’s most eligible bachelors has gotten him a lot of pie and casseroles, but it hasn’t helped him find that special someone to come home to.

When a friend’s accident lands Mary Alice in his ER, Chad finds himself more than intrigued. Part Martha Stewart, part Mary Poppins, and all Girl Next Door, she’s exactly what he’s been looking for. Volunteering for the Fountain of Hope charity seems like the perfect way to get to know his Christmas crush. But just as he seems to be overcoming Mary Alice’s once bitten, twice shy caution, that one tiny thing from his past, that he probably should have told her about, shows up for a Christmas season visit. Chad’s gonna have some explaining to do.

Get it HERE!!!