Tag: book reviews

Books, great reads, Reviews

Snowflake Bay by Donna Kauffman

debra

Hey everybody,

Snowflake Bay is a contemporary romance written by Donna Kauffman, one of my go-to authors.  This story is the second book of the Brides of Blueberry Cove series which is a follow-up series to the Bachelors of Blueberry Cove.

First of all, I am a sucker for books set in small-towns inhabited by wonderful everyday folks with hopefully a couple of quirky characters thrown in for fun!  Donna Kauffman is delivering that with this series set in Maine. The main characters are Fiona and Ben and they grew up together.  He was her brother’s best friend who had a crush on her sister.  Oh, nothing quite like unrequited love!  She is determined that he will not hurt her again and he, having never known he had hurt her, has finally noticed the grown-up Fiona and she is unsure what to do about it.  This book has plenty of emotion to go around but what I thought made it successful was that the angst between the characters did not come from some crazy misunderstanding that they have to work through.  What they have to come to terms with involve their future endeavors and the impact on them due to illnesses in immediate family and the obligations arising out of those.  That is refreshing in a contemporary romance story.  I think the author does a pretty good job of describing each of the character’s emotions with this. A solid story from Ms. Kauffman.

Happy Reading,

Debra

Books, great reads, Reviews

Playing With Seduction by Erika Wilde

debra

Hey everyone,

Playing With Seduction is an erotica story from Erika Wilde.  I found this author years ago under the name of Janelle Dennison.  She decided to venture into erotica fiction and so uses the name of Erika Wilde for this genre.

This is the 3rd story in The Players’ Club Series. This book tells the story of Kendall and Jace.  Kendall is 8 years older than Jace and at different places in their lives.  After a devastating divorce, Kendall wants children now and Jace wants children, just not yet.  The Players’ Club is a member-only adult club where members are able to pursue all their adult fantasies.  Jace is determined to have a relationship with Kendall after he works past her reservations.  After receiving an invitation to the Club, Kendall and Jace hook up and begin their relationship and the story proceeds through a series of events that affect the relationship.

I have been a fan of Erika/Janelle’s for a number of years and I enjoyed the story.  It is a quick read, although somewhat predictable and is light on angst but sometimes light on angst makes for a fun and enjoyable read.  Besides, I liked both characters and I felt that the descriptions of Kendall’s concerns about pursuing the relationship with Jace were well-done. Of course, there is enough erotica in the story to keep it interesting!!  This book can be read as a stand-alone book, but I think you will enjoy the series.

Happy Reading,

Debra

Books, indie author, Out of the Box Blogs, Reviews

Bad Review or No Review At All?

Karen

I’ve been wrestling with a problem as of late, as our blog is growing and my presence on goodreads is getting larger: Is it better to put a bad review up or just no rating at all? Let me put this question in context. Authors need ratings, and recommendations, hey it’s how the world goes round in the book business, so in order to get that you have to get your books into people hands. The trend, and it’s not just indie authors since I’m also a member of netgalley, is to give away free books to people that will give you a review or blog about your book. Press is important. But as the old adage bad press is better than no press applicable here? I always tell authors, please be prepared I will be honest in my reviews, and that’s true I don’t hand out five stars just because I got a free book. But what if I hated it? What if I felt it was a one star flop? Still review? Tell all? Or just stay quiet? Let me know what you think in the poll I’ve attached, and this is not just for authors to vote on please do if you review books, or even if you just read tell me which would you prefer?

Out of the Box Blogs

Are You a Series Sucker?

Karen

I noticed today that a book that I absolutely despised released a second book in the series and found myself going to my library to order it so I could read the next book. Why? Cause I think I’m a series sucker. What’s that? It’s someone who continues to read a series to see what happens even if you didn’t like the story or the writing style. Once you’ve got me I feel compelled to at least read 2-3 books (the only exception to this was 50 Shade, I just couldn’t do it) regardless of how much I liked or disliked the actual book. It’s not as if I don’t have enough to read, I have a waiting list of 10 books right now that I have to finish by the end of the month, or a true interest in the characters, in fact most of the time I end up frustrated and angry. So why do I do it? Yeah….I got nothing, but that book, I’m gonna read it. And I’ll drag Les down with me 🙂

So what about you, can you stop a series if you don’t like the way it’s going, or are you like me forced into finishing reading just a little more?