I’ve never taken any risks or left anything to chance.
I do what’s expected of me. Make the safe choice. Go with the sensible option.
Kade is none of those things. He’s a crush from my past. I should leave him with my high school memories.
I’ve wanted him since senior ditch day. His artistic passion glows from his eyes. His hands are masculine, yet exude creativity. He’s burned into my head even though I haven’t said a word to him in a decade.
I’m surprised by the electricity in his touch when I bump into him.
I was the golden child. The one all the Cerberus guys looked up to. I was on my way to becoming the next career Marine. But after my last deployment to Syria, being a Marine was no longer an option.
Unfortunately, my not so honorable discharge from the Corps didn’t get rid of the demons created while I was enlisted.
Not even my childhood friend can save me. I’ll destroy her just like I destroyed everything else I touched.
I’ve never taken any risks or left anything to chance.
I do what’s expected of me. Make the safe choice. Go with the sensible option.
Kade is none of those things. He’s a crush from my past. I should leave him with my high school memories.
I’ve wanted him since senior ditch day. His artistic passion glows from his eyes. His hands are masculine, yet exude creativity. He’s burned into my head even though I haven’t said a word to him in a decade.
I’m surprised by the electricity in his touch when I bump into him.
Title: Coached In Love Author: A.M. Williams AMAZON Series: Boys of Summer; Prequel Genre: Contemporary Romance GOODREADS | BOOKBUB
Hot men, baseball, and … love? Emma Carlisle never expected to find love in her workplace, and she did. But she sure did try and avoid it and him. Chase Anderson has a chip on his shoulder and a need to prove he’s still the best since the injury that took him off the pitcher’s mound. They both fight the attraction between them, neither wanting to give in to the inevitable. Will they allow themselves to drop the pretense?
Coached in Love is the prequel to A.M. Williams newest series, The Boys of Summer. It’s a short introduction to the Somerville Spartans. If you like men in tight baseball pants, sizzling chemistry, and a happily every after, this is the book for you.
Follow the Author WEBSITE | NEWSLETTER | FACEBOOK | FB GROUP | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | BOOKBUB | BOOKSPROUT | GOODREADS | AMAZON | ALL AUTHOR About the Author A.M. Williams is just a simple girl from the south that found herself abroad. When she’s not annoying her cat or reading, she’s spending time with her husband and traveling as much as possible. She has a serious case of wanderlust and wants to go as many places as possible while she can. She loves Cheerwine, sweet tea, and North Carolina (eastern style) BBQ as well as those crystal clear waters on the North Carolina coast.
Sometimes novellas are fully realized, and you get a whole
story packed into a short amount of time. Others skate over points of the story
to get to the end. Heat Stroke by Skye Turner started as the former but unfortunately
ended up more like the latter.
I was intrigued at the beginning. I mean, how can you not
get behind a gal who works at a lumber mill and isn’t afraid to jump in to get dirty
work done? That was one of my favorite aspects of the entire plot. It was a unique
setting, and Wren was comfortable in it. It seemed as if the lumber mill gave
Wren a lot of confidence and strength.
She needs that strength when the bane of her high school
existence, Blaze Carrington, shows up in the mill and the two get thrown
together to work on a project. And herein lies the main issue I had with the
book.
The fact that Blaze and his friends made Wren’s life a
living hell in high school is a significant point, and both characters refer to
this several times. However, there is never a lot of detail given as to what
exactly they did (except make her feel bad). I would have liked some more
specific examples to provide the animosity with some depth.
As it was, Wren mentions it quite a few times but says in chapter
four that she is over it. She sure mentions it a lot of times if she is actually
over it.
I also made notes that there seemed to be a bizarre
obsession with Wren’s hair – she refers to the weight and thickness of it often.
It was weird.
All that aside, the chemistry between Blaze and
Wren is palpable, and their HEA is enjoyable. I do just wish that there had
been a more in-depth backstory to give their reconciliation a boost. But if you
know that it’s a quick read, you should like this book.
They both want to run, but they want each other more.
Charlotte was not living the life she’d dreamed of. Dead end job, tiny apartment, no family left, and forever trapped in the small town where she lost it all… that was her life, until the man she’d spent ten years working to forget walks in as if he’d never left. Owen ignites her like no one else, but can she really trust him again? Charlotte had been burned by him before, and she knows in her heart that she will not survive saying goodbye a second time…
When she looks at him, does she see the man she loved, or the man she left?
Owen worked hard to build a life for himself in the Navy, but ten years later, fate calls him back to the little town where he lost everything. When he sees the woman he’d spent a decade running from, he finds himself at war in his own mind. Sparks begin flying, and he finds the wall he built around his heart slowly crumbling down. He wants to forget the past, but he doesn’t know how to see beyond her betrayal… or trust that she won’t do it again.
Can true love really get a second chance, or was their romance always doomed to end in tragedy?
Brittany Anne is a hopeless romantic and an unrelenting dreamer, forever shoving logic aside for the sake of love and “happily every after.”
She is a writer of romance dabbling in multiple sub-genres which include but are not limited to contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense. Her stories typically center around flawed but lovable alpha heroes and strong, compassionate heroines.
When she isn’t writing, you can find Brittany Anne reading steamy romance novels, studying history, spending time outdoors in nature, and loving life with her very own alpha hero.
It started as a reasonably straightforward plot; a woman (Caroline)
finds out her husband (Jason) is cheating and finds solace in another man’s (Aidan’s)
arms, then deals with the aftermath of the “affair.”
Or is that the truth of the matter?
It isn’t long before events start happening that make both the
reader and Caroline question everything. Or should the reader believe Aidan?
The author deftly manipulates the action to keep the characters
off-balance, and in turn, that keeps the reader off-balance as well. And that
is the beauty of the book. I kept going back to re-read passages to see if I
could figure out what was happening. By the time I got to the end, I wanted to
read the whole thing over again to find possible clues.
As I mention in my Goodreads review (below), the twists come
periodically at first. But roughly halfway through, the tension and the action
speed up, and the hits and twist come fast and hard.
Reading this book was the absolute equivalent to a roller
coaster. There is a slow build, but then holy hell, hold on to your seats for
the rest of the ride.
It’s an excellent page-turner and a great way to spend a few
days – especially if you need an escape from the coming school year or pressures
of work. Lose yourself in this twisty thriller. You won’t be disappointed.
I loved this book! Through the first part of it, the author did an outstanding job of planting seeds that made me doubt who was telling the truth and who was lying. At any given moment, I could swing my “allegiance to the truth” between Aidan and Caroline. By Chapter 26, I was convinced that Aidan was a creepy stalker. By Chapter 42, my notes read, “Wth is going on?” and “What’s real and what isn’t?” And by 52, my notes were nothing but “Omg, no way!” (and variations thereof). I cannot stress what a fantastic book this was. It is an absolute page-turner and a perfect “end of summer” novel. I cannot recommend it enough. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for a complimentary, pre-release digital ARC.
I’ll be honest: the main reason I wanted to read this book
is that I share a last name with the titular sisters. And I will admit, it was
kind of odd to see that name repeated in the book. But that uniqueness faded as
I became absorbed in the story.
Lindy left town over 17 years prior, which caused her sister,
Delia, to take over the family business – something Delia never wanted. However,
when their mother, Meredith, suffers a “brain event,” Lindy returns home. Her
return is the catalyst for long-buried secrets to surface, forcing the sisters,
Meredith, and Delia’s family to face the events that caused the family rift.
I realize that this description makes it sound like a simple
family fight that the sisters need to get over, but it is so much more than that.
The author draws so many parallels. One example is how Delia’s daughter, Brin,
looks like Lindy and acts exactly how Lindy acted at the same age. Another involves
a boy who Brin likes who is similar to a mystery boy from the past. It quickly
becomes apparent that there is something deeper and more sinister that occurred
to cause the family to split.
The descriptions of the repercussions from Meredith’s brain
event are extremely well-described, and the imagery invoked in several passages
made her experiences feel especially real. (They reminded me of dad’s health when
it began to fail). But what I liked the most about the story is that the author
didn’t get bogged down with minutiae and meaningless events; everything in the
plot had a purpose (even though some weren’t clear until the very end).
I appreciate the attention to tying events together, which
allowed the reader to draw conclusions (albeit sometimes incorrect ones) on
their own.
And about those incorrect conclusions; I especially liked
how the author planted a few details that kept me guessing up until the last
page of the book. Although this wasn’t a mystery or psych thriller, it was more
engaging than some books in those genres. It was just that well-written.
As I look over this review, I realize that the book is many
things: a family drama, a cautionary tale, a mystery…but it’s all so subtle
that it ultimately is just a superb story. Don’t miss this one.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book at first. What I got was a heartfelt story about family secrets and the lengths one might go to protect the people they love. I thought that everything from the characters to the plot to the setting was carefully thought out and well-described. I liked that I only got bits and pieces of the backstory as the plot progressed. The impact of the secrets that had been kept hidden coming to light was not unlike a storm crashing on the lake. The small mystery propelling the plot, and the role each of the McAvoy women played made this into a page-turner that I finished in a day. I highly recommend this compelling book. For more thoughts, please visit my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks Fiction Reviews. This review was written based on a complimentary, pre-release digital ARC of the book.
Now she just needs to tell her family about the secret she’s been keeping from them.
Returning to my hometown of Jefferson, Colorado was always my plan after attending cooking school in Paris. Taking over the reins of the restaurant in the family-owned ski lodge and resort from my grandmother was my lifelong dream.
However, being in the City of Love was an experience that changed my life in so many ways. Now, the life I’ve created in Paris is colliding with the dream that’s coming true. Let’s just hope – unlike oil and water – they mix well together.
