Book & eBook reviews from a mom who forgets to do the housework because she's busy reading chicklit, romance, Christian, YA, mystery, paranormal, fantasy or other ebooks. Seriously, I'm phoning in pizza tonight!
Cambria Hebert is a bestselling novelist of more than twenty books. She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest assured her characters will always have good hair.
Besides writing, Cambria loves a caramel latte, staying up late, sleeping in, and watching movies. She considers math human torture and has an irrational fear of chickens (yes, chickens). You can often find her running on the treadmill (she’d rather be eating a donut), painting her toenails (because she bites her fingernails), or walking her chorkie (the real boss of the house).
Cambria has written within the young adult and new adult genres, penning many paranormal and contemporary titles. Her favorite genre to read and write is romantic suspense. A few of her most recognized titles are: Text, Torch, Tryst, Masquerade, and Recalled.
Cambria Hebert owns and operates Cambria Hebert Books, LLC.
Kindle YA Fantasy This special edition of The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter contains parts I-VI, the complete collection. Fourteen-year-old Chloe witnesses her mother’s murder at the hands of a vampire. Before the vampire can kidnap her, there is an unexpected rescue by a group of vampire hunters. Overwhelmed by the feeling of safety, Chloe passes out and they whisk her away to their small community.
Title: #Selfie
Series: Hashtag Series #4
This is not a standalone
Release date: May 18, 2015
Genre: New adult college romance
Author: Cambria Hebert
Format: Ebook and Paperback
Synopsis:
It’s all about the #Selfie. She was the one girl I never wanted. Until I had her. One night. One mistake. Something we both wanted to forget. I got rid of the proof. The one piece of evidence that could remind us both. At least, I thought I did.
Kindle Christian Romance After acting on a dare and kissing the hottest guy at Granbury High, Molly Parker was left with a broken heart and a legacy she couldn’t live down; Dustin McKinley left town the very next day, taking her hopes and dreams along with him. A decade later…they meet again.
Molly assures herself she won’t fall for Dustin’s charms this time, yet with his good looks and dimpled smile, guarding her heart proves to be more of a challenge than she ever expected.
Kindle Nook Fantasy Romance Enter The World of the Trylle SWITCHED When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers she is a changeling who was switched at birth. Now she is about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. Nothing Is as It Seems
Kindle Nook Audible Alexia has fought hard to over come a tragic illness in her past. Barely getting on with her life, she finally leaves home to enter the real world. This first big step makes her appreciate all that she has struggled with. This next step in her life, also leads her to a possible heartbreak. How can Alexia keep up with all of her struggles and keep going on?
TITLE – Liberty, second edition
AUTHOR – Kim Iverson Headlee
GENRE – Historical Romance (ancient Rome)
PUBLICATION DATE – Dec. 2014
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 462 pages/118K words
PUBLISHER – Pendragon Cove Press
COVER ARTIST – Natasha Brown
BOOK INFO - http://kimiversonheadlee.blogspot.com/p/liberty.html
BOOK SYNOPSIS
They hailed her “Liberty,” but she was free only to obey—or die.
Betrayed by her father and sold as payment of a Roman tax debt to fight in Londinium’s arena, gladiatrix-slave Rhyddes feels like a wild beast in a gilded cage. Celtic warrior blood flows in her veins, but Roman masters own her body. She clings to her vow that no man shall claim her soul, though Marcus Calpurnius Aquila, son of the Roman governor, makes her yearn for a love she believes impossible.
Groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps and trapped in a politically advantageous betrothal, Aquila prefers the purity of combat on the amphitheater sands to the sinister intrigues of imperial politics, and the raw power and athletic grace of the flame-haired Libertas to the adoring deference of Rome’s noblewomen.
When a plot to overthrow Caesar ensnares them as pawns in the dark design, Aquila must choose between the Celtic slave who has won his heart and the empire to which they both owe allegiance. Knowing the opposite of obedience is death, the only liberty offered to any slave, Rhyddes must embrace her arena name—and the love of a man willing to sacrifice everything to forge a future with her.
FINGERS CRAMPING AND shoulders aching from having wielded the pitchfork all day, Rhyddes ferch Rudd tossed another load of hay onto the wagon. Sweat trickled down her back, making the lash marks sting. Marks inflicted by her father, Rudd, the day before because eighteen summers of anguish had goaded her into speaking her mind.
Physical pain couldn’t compare with the ache wringing her heart.
She slid a glance toward the author of her mood. He stood a few paces away, leaning upon his pitchfork’s handle in the loaded wagon’s shade to escape the July heat as he conversed with her oldest brother, Eoghan. She couldn’t discern their words, but their camaraderie spoke volumes her envy didn’t want to hear.
Her father’s gaze met hers, and he lowered his eyebrows. “Back to work, Rhyddes!” On Rudd’s lips, her name sounded like an insult.
In a sense, it was.
Her name in the Celtic tongue meant “freedom,” but the horse hitched to the hay wagon enjoyed more freedom than she did. Her tribe, the Votadini, had been conquered by the thieving Romans, who demanded provisions for their troops, fodder for their mounts, women for their beds, and coin to fill the purses of every Roman who wasn’t a soldier.
If those conditions weren’t bad enough, for all the kindness her father had demonstrated during her first two decades, Rhyddes may as well have been born a slave.
She scooped up more hay. Resentment-fired anger sent wisps flying everywhere, much of it sailing over the wagon rather than landing upon it.
“Hey, mind what you’re doing!”
Owen, her closest brother in age and in spirit, emerged from the wagon’s far side, hay prickling his hair and tunic like a porcupine. Rhyddes couldn’t suppress her laugh. “’Tis an improvement. Just wait till the village lasses see you.”
“Village lasses, hah!” Sporting a wicked grin, Owen snatched up a golden fistful, flung it at her, and dived for her legs.
They landed in the fragrant hay and began vying for the upper hand, cackling like a pair of witless hens. When Owen thought he’d prevailed, Rhyddes twisted and rolled from underneath him. Her fresh welts stung, but she refused to let that deter her. He lost his balance and fell backward. She pounced, planting a knee on his chest and pinning his wrists to the ground over his head.
Victory’s sweetness lasted but a moment. Fingers dug into her shoulders, and she felt herself hauled to her feet and spun around. Owen’s face contorted to chagrin as he scrambled up.
“Didn’t get enough of the lash yestermorn, eh, girl?” Rudd, his broad hands clamped around her upper arms, gave her a teeth-rattling shake.
When she didn’t respond, he released her and rounded on Owen. “As for you—”
“Da, please, no!” Rhyddes stopped herself. Well she knew the futility of pleading with Rudd. Still, for Owen’s sake, she had to try. Her father’s scowl dared her to continue. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “’Twas not Owen’s fault. I—” Sweat freshened the sting on her back, and she winced. “The fault is naught but mine.”
“Aye, that I can well believe.” Rudd grasped each sibling by an arm and strode across the hayfield toward the family’s lodge. “Owen can watch you take his lashes as well as yours. We’ll see if that won’t mend his ways.” The thin linen of her ankle-length tunic failed to shield her from his fingers, which had to be leaving bruises. Rhyddes gritted her teeth. Rudd seemed disappointed. “I doubt anything in this world or the next will make you mend yours.”
“You don’t want me to change. You’d lose your excuse to beat me.” Sheer impertinence, she knew, but she no longer cared.
“I need no excuses, girl.”
The back of his hand collided with her cheek. Pain splintered into a thousand needles across her face. She reeled and dropped to her hands and knees, her hair obscuring her vision in a copper cascade. Hay pricked her palms. Owen would have helped her rise, but their father restrained him. Owen blistered the ground with his glare, not daring to direct it at Rudd for fear of earning the same punishment.
Not that Rhyddes could blame him.
Rudd yanked her up, cocked a fist… and froze. “Raiders!”
Rhyddes whirled about. Picts were charging from the north to converge upon their settlement, the battle cries growing louder under the merciless afternoon sun. One of the storage buildings had already been set ablaze, its roof thatch marring the sky with thick black smoke.
Rudd shed his shock and sprinted for the living compound, calling his children by name to help him defend their home: Eoghan, Ian, Bloeddwyn, Arden, Dinas, Gwydion, Owen.
Every child except Rhyddes.
She ran to the wagon, unhitched the horse, found her pitchfork, scrambled onto the animal’s back, and kicked him into a jolting canter. The stench of smoke strengthened with each stride. Her mount pinned back his ears and wrestled her for control of the bit, but she bent the frightened horse to her will. She understood how he felt.
As they loped past the cow byre, a Pict leaped at them, knocking Rhyddes from the horse’s back. The ground jarred the pitchfork from her grasp. The horse galloped toward the pastures as Rhyddes fumbled for her dagger. Although her brothers had taught her how to wield it in a fight, until now she’d used it only to ease dying animals from this world.
But the accursed blade wouldn’t come free of the hilt.
Sword aloft, the Pict closed on her.
Time distorted, assaulting Rhyddes with her attacker’s every detail: lime-spiked hair, weird blue symbols smothering the face and arms, long sharp sword, ebony leather boots and leggings, breastplate tooled to fit female curves . . .
Female?
The warrior-woman’s sword began its descent.
From the corner of her eye Rhyddes saw her pitchfork. Grunting, she rolled toward it, praying to avoid her attacker’s blow.
Her left arm stung where the sword grazed it, but she snagged her pitchfork and scrambled to her feet. Unexpected eagerness flooded her veins.
As the Pict freed her weapon from where it had embedded in the ground, Rhyddes aimed the pitchfork and lunged. The tines hooked the warrior-woman’s sword, and Rhyddes twisted with all her strength. The Pict yelped as the sword ripped from her hand to go flying over the sty’s fence. Squealing in alarm, the sow lumbered for cover, trying to wedge her bulk under the trough.
With a savage scream, the warrior-woman whipped out a dagger and charged. Rhyddes reversed the pitchfork and jammed its butt into the Pict’s gut, under the breastplate’s bottom edge, robbing her of breath. She reversed it again and caught the raider under the chin with the pitchfork’s tines. As the woman staggered backward, flailing her arms and flashing the red punctures that marred her white neck, Rhyddes struck hard and knocked her down.
The warrior-woman looked heavier by at least two stone, but Rhyddes pinned her chest with her knee. She dropped the pitchfork and grasped her dagger, yanking it free. Grabbing a fistful of limed hair, she wrestled the woman’s head to one side to expose her neck.
The Pict bucked and twisted, trying to break Rhyddes’s grip. ’Twas not much different than wrestling a fever-mad calf.
Rhyddes’s deft slice ended the threat.
Blood spurted from the woman’s neck in sickening pulses.
Rhyddes stood, panting, her stomach churning with the magnitude of what she’d done. ’Twas no suffering animal she’d killed—and it could have been her lying there, pumping her lifeblood into the mud.
Bile seared her throat, making her gag. Pain lanced her stomach. Bent double, she retched out the remains of her morning meal, spattering the corpse.
After spitting out the last bitter mouthful and wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she drew a deep breath and straightened. As she turned a slow circle, her senses taking in the sights and sounds and stench of the devastation surrounding her, she wished she had not prevailed.
The news grew worse as she sprinted toward the lodge.
Of her seven brothers, the Picts had left Ian and Gwydion dead, her father and Owen wounded, the lodge and three outbuildings torched. She ran a fingertip over the crusted blood of her scratch, and she couldn’t suppress a surge of guilt.
Mayhap, she thought through the blinding tears as she ran to help what was left of her family, ’twould have been better had she died in the Pict’s stead.
The surviving raiders were galloping toward the tree line with half the cattle. The remaining stock lay stiffening in the fields, already attracting carrion birds.
Three days later, the disaster attracted scavengers of an altogether different sort.
CHARACTER BIOS
I am Rhyddes ferch Rudd, which in your tongue means Freedom daughter of Red. The blood of ancient Celtic warriors flows in my veins, though I am a farmer's daughter by the circumstance of my birth. My life spans much of the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of a very few men ever to claim that title who did not abuse his power for personal gain—but I care not who rules and who dies in this gods-cursed empire.
More than anything—even more than my freedom—I yearn to be my lover Aquila’s equal. As a foreign slave in an empire where citizenship stands paramount, where an arena fighter such as I can only be considered the equal of other gladiators, actors, undertakers, and whores, this goal seems impossibly remote. Although Aquila is the son of a powerful Roman, he has declared that he would renounce his aristocratic status, wealth, and power for me, but I cannot in good conscience allow him to destroy himself on my account.
And yet the gods have granted the impossible to other mortals. I pray that I am worthy to receive such a boon from them, for surely divine assistance is the only way for Aquila and I to bridge the vast social chasm that separates us from enjoying a future together.
Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, and assorted wildlife. People & creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins—the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-20th century—seem to be sticking around for a while yet.
Kim is a Seattle native (when she used to live in the Metro DC area, she loved telling people she was from "the other Washington") and a direct descendent of twentieth-century Russian nobility. Her grandmother was a childhood friend of the doomed Grand Duchess Anastasia, and the romantic yet tragic story of how Lydia escaped Communist Russia with the aid of her American husband will most certainly one day fuel one of Kim's novels. Another novel in the queue will involve her husband's ancestor, the seventh-century proto-Viking king of the Swedish colony in Russia.
For the time being, however, Kim has plenty of work to do in creating her projected 8-book Arthurian series, The Dragon's Dove Chronicles, and other novels under her new imprint, Pendragon Cove Press.
Today I'm sharing my most recent read Moon Crossed by +Bella Roccaforte
I had another book planned for today but I loved this so much it couldn't wait!
Kindle Kindle UK The Complete First Season! Claire O'Conlan is a hunter, her kind were created to protect humans from feral werewolves. She's desperate to find a cure for the moon-touch. Until she does, the hunt won't stop. Despite being raised among supernatural creatures, Claire is determined to make college as normal as possible. But childhood habits die hard. She can't seem to stay away from the wolf-borne, and worse, she's falling in love with Cole Jackson, the big bad wolf.
Have you heard of Kindlescout? Some of you may be familiar with it already, but for those who aren't let me roll it up in into a tight little nugget of simplicity (since we all know Amazon doesn't make much simplistic, but this time they did!). Kindlescout is a program where READERS get to pick the BOOKS that get published by Amazon! Sound too good to be true? It's not, this is the real deal. This is how it works. If you have an Amazon US account you click the link that says KindleScout nomination and it takes you to the book's nomination page. It will go on your nominations bar and as long as you leave it on there until the nomination period is over if Liberty Belle wins, you get an early reader's copy before Amazon publishes it! Simple AND cool, right? Below I share with you a little bit from the author about Liberty Belle and if you click the nomination link you can read an excerpt and a Q&A with the author.
Photographer Bram Alexander has his viewfinder focused on the only sweet thing in Snowberry, Minnesota - the beautiful Liberty Belle. Handed the reins to her family’s bakery early in life, Liberty works nonstop to protect their legacy. When Bram finds her on the bakery floor injured and alone, Liberty must decide if her tattered heart can trust him with her secret. Armed with small town determination, and a heart of gold, Bram shows Liberty frame-by-frame how falling for him is as easy as pie.
As a fan of the Snowberry Series I asked Katie if we got to see any of the characters from the other books in Liberty Belle. This is what she told me.
"Because Liberty Belle is about Bram Alexander, you get to see all of the Alexander gang again! Dully, Bram's older brother and the main character from Snow Daze, has a new baby and Bram stops in to pick up the baptism cake from the Liberty Belle. That is the first time you get to see Bram and Liberty interact. You also get to see Noel and Savannah (from Noel's Hart), Jay and December (From December Kiss) and April and Crow (From April Melody). Dully's wife, Snow, helps Liberty through a particularly difficult time in this book, and you can't help but love her, Sunny and their new little girl Lila Jo. Of course, if you know the Alexanders, then you would except them to be a big part of this book. Who you might not expect to see again is Adam McGregory.
Excerpt from Snow Daze:
“Hi
Adam! We missed you in class again yesterday,” I said enthusiastically, setting
my bag down.
“Mr.
Dully!” Adam exclaimed, happy to see me.
“Hi
Dully, it was nice of you to come,” Adam’s mother said from her perch in the
recliner, next to his bed.
I
reached out and patted her shoulder gently, “I miss Adam every day he’s not in
class, Ms. McGregory. I thought I’d stop over and see how he’s doing. I also
brought….” I drew out the sentence waiting for Adam to answer.
“UNO!”
he shouted exuberantly.
“You
guessed it Adam, how do you do that?” I asked feigning surprise.
“Mr.
Dully, you always bring Uno when I’m sick,” he pointed out very maturely.
“That’s
‘cause I know it’s your favorite game Adam, and...” I reached in my bag and
pulled out a bag of fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls.
“Tootsie
Rolls!” he said excitedly, and I winked at him.
“One
now, and the rest you gotta earn.” I handed him the bag, so he could pick out
his favorite flavor. I looked over to see tears in his mother’s eyes. The
stress of raising Adam alone must be overwhelming sometimes. Born with Down
syndrome, he was often in the hospital because of his heart, and I know how
hard it is for her to juggle all her responsibilities. Thankfully, she works
here at Providence and can still do her job, and be close to Adam.
“Why
don’t you go ahead home get a shower and a break, Ms. McGregory, I’ll stay with
Adam. I’ve got the whole day free,” I explained, and she looked to Adam, then
back to me.
“It’s okay momma, you deserve a break. I’ll be okay with
Mr. Dully,” Adam assured her.
Dully is a special education teacher and Adam was one of his students. He's mentioned in the above scene in Snow Daze and he settled into a special place in my heart. My husband is a teacher, and though he doesn't teach special education, he does teach in a district where there are kids with many social problems. This year has been an extremely tough year for him, and much like Dully, there have been nights when he doesn't sleep because he's worried about a particular student. I think that's why when I started writing Liberty Belle Adam kept trying to come out again. I knew readers would love to find out more about him. Liberty Belle was the perfect place to tell more of Adam's story. In Liberty Belle, Bram has an encounter with Dully one Sunday night at a family dinner and this is what he says.
Excerpt from Liberty Belle:
I laid my hand on his shoulder, “Dully are you okay? You seem
very, very down.”
He rocked a little on the bench as though that was supposed
to be him nodding. He swiped at his nose and I realized my big brother was
crying. “Dully, my God, what’s going on?” I asked, and dropped to one knee next
to him.
He rested his head in his palm and closed his eyes. “I think
I’m having a mental breakdown or something,” he tried to joke. “I can’t get
this student out of my mind, or my heart, and it’s killing me slowly. I can’t
sleep, and I can’t even look at my babies without wanting to cry. I come to
Sunday dinner and look around the table at my wonderful family, and I can’t
stop the tears. All I can think about is how sad he must be right now. I don’t
know why this is happening to me. I’ve never been this way with my students.”
The student he is worried about is Adam McGregory. As the book goes on we learn more about the place Adam is in, no longer a 10 year old boy, he's now 16 and he's facing a very lonely life. Well, anyone who knows the Alexanders knows that's just not going to happen. I love Adam and the positivity he brings to the book. He is always high-fiving someone for their awesomeness, he loves being Swiper to Sunny's Dora, and he adores Snow and little Jo-Jo. More than that though, for the first time in his life, he gets to experience having a dad, and I defy anyone to tell me that Adam doesn't add depth and enjoyment to the town of Snowberry. There is SO much more to Adam's story, and you will see him again in the next book for Halloween, but I will let the reader discover how that will come about when they read Liberty Belle. :)
Katie Mettner writes inspirational romance from a little house in the Northwoods
of Wisconsin. She's the author of the four part epic family saga, The Sugar Series, Sugar's Song being runner up for sweet romance in the eFestival of Words contest. Her other romance series, The Northern Lights Series and the Snowberry Holiday Series, are both set in Minnesota and are a mix of new adult and romantic suspense. Katie lives with her soulmate, whom she met online at Thanksgiving and married in April. Together they share their lives with their three children and two leopard geckos. After suffering an especially bad spill on the bunny hill in 1989, Katie became an amputee in 2011, giving her the much needed time to pen her first novel, Sugar's Dance. With the release of Sugar's story, Katie discovered the unfilled need for disabled heroes and heroines! Her stories are about empowering people with special circumstances to find the one person who will love them because of their abilities, not their inabilities. Katie has a slight addiction to Twitter and blogging, with a lessening aversion to Pinterest now that she quit trying to make the things she pinned.
They hailed her “Liberty,” but she was free only to obey—or die.
Betrayed by her father and sold as payment of a Roman tax debt to fight in Londinium’s arena, gladiatrix-slave Rhyddes feels like a wild beast in a gilded cage. Celtic warrior blood flows in her veins, but Roman masters own her body. She clings to her vow that no man shall claim her soul, though Marcus Calpurnius Aquila, son of the Roman governor, makes her yearn for a love she believes impossible.
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