Unblocked - Episode 1 by Marni Mann Review

~*SYNOPSIS*~

Derek Block seeks revenge. Frankie Jordan seeks professional dominance. He wants her, she wants him. Lines that can't cross begin to blur. Things start heating up as real estate gets real…

This is the first episode of a five-episode novella series.

~*REVIEW BY JODIE RAE*~

I rated Unblocked-Episode One by Marni Mann Five Leaves!

Oh.my.goodness!! Holy sexual tension!!

I was hooked on this book from the hot and steamy moments from the start and I could not put it down until the end! This series is going to be captivating, mysterious, and an intriguing love story. I can't wait to read the other four novellas in this series! Just like every book by Marni, the story-line is addictive, fascinating, and incredibly well-written.  This is going to be one of the series you will be telling all of your friends to read!

I absolutely LOVED this book! Unblocked is the first episode out of five novellas. I am so happy to have a lot of Derek Block! The story is about Frankie Jordan whose father wants her to win over Derek Block from Block Development. Her father wants to sell units of Derek's new state of the art building. Frankie has been working her way to the top of her father's real estate agency and has no doubt in landing this new position.  When Frankie has her meeting with Derek, she is blown away from his appearance.  He is not what she expected, he is not wearing a suite and he is is fronting a beard and looking rugged. (Can I say, yummy?!) Derek is the ultimate alpha male with a domineering personality and sexy good looks that will makes every woman drop her panties. With other candidates for the job, Derek wants Frankie to handle his business and have her in his bedroom too. The connection between Frankie and Derek is off the charts. The book is left with so many questions! Will Frankie and Derek be able to separate pleasure from business? There are also questions that I cannot want to find out more about:  Frankie's ex-boyfriend and Derek's sister. This was a great debut to Derek and Frankie and I am excited to read the rest of the novellas in this series and see where everything goes from here!!

~*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*~

Best-selling Author Marni Mann knew she was going to be a writer since middle school. While other girls her age were daydreaming about teenage pop stars, Mann was fantasizing about penning her first novel. She crafts sexy, titillating stories that weave together her love of darkness, mystery, passion, and human emotion. A New Englander at heart, she now lives in Sarasota, Florida with her husband and their two dogs who subsequently have been characters in her books. When she's not nose deep in her laptop working on her next novel, she's scouring for chocolate, sipping wine, traveling to new locations, and devouring fabulous books.

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Sweetest Temptations by J.C. Valentine Review + Giveaway

 

 Sweetest Temptations by J.C. Valentine  

Blue Collar #1  

Publication Date: February 17, 2015  

Genres: Contemporary, Romance 

  ~*SYNOPSIS*~

From USA Today Bestselling Author J.C. Valentine comes a sizzling story about a young entrepreneur, a hot firefighter, and a first date that will change their paths forever. Tenacious bakery shop owner Abby is following her dreams. She has everything she could ever want in life—except the fairytale ending. Then she meets Kennedy, a hunky firefighter whose killer smile and easy charm makes her heart pound. But with the kind of danger he faces on the job each day, Abby knows there’s no happily-ever-after in the cards. The harder she tries to hold onto her heart, the faster it seems to slip away, but when a series of mysterious events threaten the future of her business and her life, their happiness may be shorter-lived than she realized. Someone is out to get her, and it’s up to Abby and Kennedy to uncover who’s behind the destruction. Can they do it before tragedy strikes? 

~*TEASER*~

  ~*REVIEW BY VANESSA*~

I thoroughly enjoyed this book in one sitting. Abigail is the owner of Sweetest Temptations which is a bakery she just opened by herself. On the grand opening, Abby’s first customer was a hot man that didn’t say much but made quite the impression on her. Once he walks out, Abby doesn’t see him for the rest of the week so she just forgets about him while Abby’s sister Amy tries to hook her up like she does every weekend. When Abby shows up to her sisters, she wasn’t expecting to find the sexy guy from the bakery to be the one her sister hooks her up with. Kennedy is exactly what Abby needs and after two dates these two are burning up the sheets. Finding out that Ken was also a fire fighter was a huge plus in Abby’s book. He is everything she is looking for in a man: great cook/ baker, lover of cats and just enough alpha in the bedroom to keep their sex life interesting. All is going great between them but when one incident after another starts to happen at the bakery, Abby gets suspicious and it turns out she has a right to be.  With a fire and multiple break in Abby’s friends are on full alert. While her relationship with Kennedy grows so does her need to have constant protection.

  ~*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*~

USA Today Bestselling author J.C. Valentine is the alter-ego of Brandi Salazar, whose enjoyment of tales of romance spurred her to branch out and create her own. She lives in the Northwest with her husband, their wild children, and far too many pets. As a university student, she studies literature, which goes well with her dream of becoming an editor. Brandi entertains a number of hobbies including reading and photography, but her first love is writing fiction-in all its forms. 

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Void by Cassy Roop Review + Giveaway

Title: VOID

Author: Cassy Roop

Genre: Adult, Erotic Romance

Release Date: February 23, 2015

 ~*SYNOPSIS*~
I’M A WHORE.

A SLUT.

I screw men and get screwed for money, 

living my life everyday as Jericho Lane. 

My clientele list is immaculate. 

I am sought out, demanded 

and damn good at my job.

I don’t care that these men have families at home, 

or that they are important people. 

I do it for the money.

to survive. 

There is nothing that could make me 

feel a bit of remorse or 

concern about what I do because 

I was born with the inability 

to experience or feel emotions...

I don’t feel PAIN

I don’t feel SORROW.

I don’t feel extreme HAPPINESS or LOVE

I am VOID.

A blank canvas of emotions.

an empty hole in an endless sea of 

circumstances, moods and relationships.

Until one client changes EVERYTHING.

~*BOOK TRAILER*~

  
~*TEASER*~

 

~*REVIEW BY LO*~

I rated Void with 4.5 leaves! This was a great read that was very hard to put down. From the prologue to the very end, I was addicted to these characters. This book has a way of drawing you in with all its twists and turns throughout.

 

Nicola/Jericho is a girl who was born with a disorder where she feels NO emotions. The only time she can actually feel an emotion is when she feels pleasure. This is one of the main reasons she is now a professional escort. She can earn money and experience pleasure at the same time.

 

Dr. Andris Gunn is a psychiatrist who also happens to be Nicola's new Doctor. When their lives intertwine, it will leave you on the edge of your seat. I don't want to give away any of the major parts of the story, so go read for yourself! Cassy Roop definitely proved that she is an amazing writer who keeps you begging for more. I PROMISE you won't be disappointed.

 

~*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*~

Cassy is a work at home mom where she spends her days surrounded by children running her in-home daycare. She loves to cook, read and spend her nights and weekends being a Les Mills group fitness instructor. She has been a lover of all things romance from a very early age. She hopes and dreams that everyone can receive their happy ever after. A good ol country girl at heart, she was born and raised in Arkansas and now resides in Charlottesville, Virginia with her husband and three young children.


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I

The Summer Remins by Seth King Review

Title: The Summer Remains

Author: Seth King

Release Date: Feb 14, 2015

Find on Goodreads

~*SYNOPSIS*~

Twenty-four-year-old Summer Johnson knows two things. The first is that due to a quickly worsening medical condition, she faces a risky surgery in three months’ time that may very well end in her death. The second is that she would like to fall in love before then.

As spring sinks into her namesake season on the Florida coastline, Summer plays the odds and downloads a new dating app - and after one intriguing message from a beautiful surfer named Cooper Nichols, it becomes clear that the story of what may be her last few months under the sun is about to be completely revised. All she has to do now is write something worth reading.

Tender, honest, devastating and triumphant, The Summer Remains explores a very human battle being waged in a very digital age: the search for a love that will outlast this temporary borrowing of bones. In an era when many feel compelled to share and re-share anything about everything, prepare to feel a love so special, you will want to hug it close and make it yours forever.

 ~*TEASER*~

 ~*EXCERPT*~

Chapter 1
On a sunny Tuesday morning towards the end of March, a white-haired man walked into a cold room and told me I might die soon.
I fidgeted on the hospital bed as Dr. Steinberg entered, the late-spring sunlight mocking me as smiled onto the industrial tile floors. I’d known Steinberg since I was four. He’d handled almost all of my throat problems, and I trusted him. He was like a second father to me, and I knew he would always tell me the truth.
That’s why the look on his face scared the living shit out of me.
I listened for the next ten minutes as he gave me the gist of the story. It was all so surreal that my mind could only catch certain phrases before the sentence would run away from me again:
Your esophagus has ruptured again, for good this time…
Your stomach is leaking more and more…
Toxicity levels are through the roof…
Your body just isn’t getting the nutrients it needs from your feeding tube any longer…
And finally, terminal.
“Terminal?” I heard myself squeak, my throat filling up with that weird, shivery feeling you get when you know your life has just changed. Steinberg suddenly became very interested in a fraying string on the sleeve of his jacket.
“T-terminal,” he stuttered. “Summer, the thing is…I’m afraid this is a…well, nobody has ever…”
He finally cleared his throat and met my gaze, tears pooling in the corners of his cerulean eyes. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry to tell you this, but this mountain may be unclimbable for you.”
My mother let out a small, sharp sob in the corner and then clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Okay, unclimbable,” I swallowed, staring down at the floor as I tried to grasp just what that word now meant to me and my family and this weird little life I had created for myself.  “Okay. Unclimbable. Okay.”
But Steinberg wasn’t done yet.
“Hold on. I said it may be unclimbable, not that it definitely will be. I want to prepare you, and I don’t want to give you any false hope, but there may be something we can do, Summer. It’s a small chance, but still, it’s a chance. A Hail Mary, if you will.”
I reached up to rub my temples. “Okay, well, survival sounds good. Better than death, I suppose. What is this Hail Mary?”
Steinberg crossed his arms, studied me for a moment, and then took out a chart and launched into a spiel about something called the Porter-Collins Procedure, an extremely major surgery that would perhaps be saving my life in three months’ time.
“Nobody has ever survived this particular operation,” he concluded a few minutes later, skipping all the medical jargon to keep from boring you to death, pardon my pun. “Nobody. It’s been attempted three times, but none of those were ultimately successful. One person survived for three months in intensive care, but she was fifty-one, and in frail health in general. We think you’re a much more viable candidate, but then again, there is no way to be sure. We can do it in two, maybe three months, after I assemble the specialists and create a game plan – considering your health doesn’t take another nosedive before then, that is. If we’re going to try this, we need you in tip-top shape – or as close to that as we can get you, anyway.”
“Okay,” I said again, sitting a little taller. “And what are the chances that this Hail Mary will even work, and that I won’t just die a few days later, anyway?”
He peered down at me from over his glasses. “I’m afraid to say that it would be stretching things to even tell you eighty/twenty.”
I steeled myself and took a breath. “Okay, well, that’s better than a hundred to zero. Let’s go out with a bang, then, Steinberg. Let’s do this.”
He threw up a fist, triumphant, but I could see the fear in his eyes. “It’s settled, then. Hail Mary it is.”
My mom rushed over to sit beside me and kind of hang onto my shoulder as some counselor woman came in who helped families handle these types of situations – “transitions,” she called them, and just hearing that word threatened to pull me under. Dr. Steinberg watched, an apology on his face, as she said things like “preparations” and “options” and “arrangements.” I tried to be polite and pay attention, but truthfully I didn’t give a damn about what she was saying. It was go time, and things were looking grim. I already knew that. The wet, metallic panic erupting in my stomach was due to an entirely different subject.
“And finally,” the counselor, Angie, said in a hushed, clipped, polite voice that spoke of years of having impossible conversations with worried families huddled in chilly waiting rooms, “I work very closely with Last Great Hope, a wonderful organization that specializes in situations like this, and if there is anything you want before the surgery, Summer – a trip to Tahiti, a cabin in the mountains, whatever – we can do it. Or if-”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said, making her stop short.
“Wh – excuse me?”
“Save the Disney trips for the twelve-year-olds,” I told her. “Spend all that money on a cancer kid or something; I know the truth about those fairy tales now. Make someone else happy – I’ve got everything I need. Or almost everything.” I paused as everyone leaned in. “I do have one request, actually. First of all, all of you are forgetting something vital.”
“Oh no, did we forget your milk?” my mom asked as she reached for her purse. “I thought I put some-”
“No, Shelly, we did not forget the baby milk I pump into my stomach tube every day to keep myself alive because my throat doesn’t work, but that does have something to do with it.”
As she pouted in my general direction I realized what a complete bitch I was being, and then I realized just as quickly that I probably wouldn’t be able to stop myself anyway.
“What is it, then?” my mom asked, stung, and I took a breath and then pushed it back out.
“Frankly, I need all of you to chill the fuck out.”
My mom dropped her purse onto her lap. Dr. Steinberg looked at me like I’d just tried to jump out of the third story window. Angie held her pen in midair and stared at me, the sun turning her brownish eyes ocher.
“Excuse me, young lady?” my mother asked. “We need to what?”
“Chill the eff out,” I said, editing my language the second time around. “Sorry, but all this emotion and drama and doom and gloom crap is already making me freak out. You’re all forgetting I’ve had a broken throat and a tube in my abdomen since I was in diapers, and that I can handle this. I’ve dealt with health scares before, and I will do it again, no matter how much scarier this Scare is than all the other Scares. Like, I know you’re trying to help and stuff, and I love you, but having meltdowns in front of me is not going to help me deal with all this, so please, I beg you, everyone take a deep breath, close your eyes, and get your panties out of a bunch.”
“We’re sorry,” my mom said after an impossibly long and awkward moment. “It’s just that we need to prepare you for…for what will happen, and-”
“Prepare me to die?” I asked. “Guess what, Shelly, I’m going to die one day, be it in three months or sixty years, and wasting all my time crying over it isn’t going to help. Here’s what I want, my one last wish – or my maybe-not-last wish, or whatever the hell this is.” A tear appeared in my mom’s eye, and I softened my voice as I reached up to wipe her cheek. “Okay. Before the surgery, I want to have a normal summer by the beach,” I began as I cleared her eye and shook the water from my finger. “I want to go to the sea and go to work and read my books and go about my business like usual without everyone breathing down my neck and treating me like A Broken Person, because if I am treated like A Broken Person for one more month of my life I will break some faces, no offense. Shelly, if you so much as make one special meal – I mean, not that I can eat or anything, because I can’t – anyway, I’m burning down the house. There will literally be a pile of smoldering ashes where your kitchen used to be, I promise.” Shelly pouted again, but I trudged through. “I’m serious, no special treatment. No Christmases in July, no excessive hugging, not even a midnight run to Target for some trinkets from the dollar section. And most of all…”
I looked around and, seeing sympathy in everyone’s eyes and knowing this request would be completely futile, said – “No sympathy. Please. The sympathy is what breaks me and makes me feel broken. If this is gonna be my last chance to live and have fun and be normal, then I’m going to need to feel as normal as possible, and that means absolutely no pity, because that separates me from everyone else and makes me Different with a capital D. And if I don’t stay in a good headspace I’m gonna spend the next three months in a fetal position in my closet having an endless anxiety attack about the surgery, so please work with me here and keep the pity locked up.”
A sigh and a smile. Shelly put her hand on mine. “I would never pity you, Summer. You’re the strongest person I know, and you always have been. You know that. We all know that. That’s not what this is about.”
I tried to smile back. “Thanks, Shelly.”
“Anytime. And can you please call me Mom, like a normal twenty-four-year-old?”
“Not a chance, Shelly.”
“Okay, fine. So, then…a Jax Beach summer? Is that really all you want?”
I paused as her words hung in the overly sanitized air. It wasn’t all, and I knew it. As I sat there I thought of the one thing I didn’t have, the one thing I’d never had, the one thing that screamed at me from the silence and jumped out at me from the shadows – and now that this upcoming summer had perhaps just become Summer’s Last Stand, my desire was suddenly more urgent than ever. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop the longing from rising to my face, and as I felt the blood burn my cheeks I caught Steinberg’s eyes again, which just embarrassed me even more.
“Well, I mean, since you’re asking, there is one thing…”
“Anything!” Shelly and Dr. Steinberg said at exactly the same time, and I stared out of the window as my eyes got all weird and watery.
“Okay, well, I know something so sentimental is going to sound crazy coming from someone so…well, you know how I am…”
“Honest?” Steinberg offered, trying to be polite.
“Opinionated?” Shelly said.
“Brash?” Angie asked, even though she’d just met me ten minutes ago and it was literally beyond embarrassing that she already held that opinion of me.
“Headstrong and stubborn and annoying,” I finally said, shoving it out of the way, and they all nodded. “Anyway, here goes. Since you’re asking, the thing is…well, I’d like to fall in love.”
I looked down at the ground again as everyone in the room broke my most important rule already: I could feel their pity descending on me, smothering me just like it had my entire life, snuffing out any chance I had at being treated like a normal, living, breathing human, who deserved to love and be loved just like anyone else, as they say in the Hallmark cards.
“Oh, honey…” Steinberg sighed.
“It just wouldn’t be fair to someone…” my mother chimed in, just as Angie the counselor lady threw in her two cents, too.
“Sweetie, you have to understand, your situation is very serious. People get irrational during times like these, and if you get involved with someone and the worst happened, well-”
I crossed my fingers behind my back and shook my head. I’d known they’d react like this – why had I even tried in the first place? Some things, I knew, were just better left unshared.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay, yeah, you guys are right. I’ll try to…put that off, I guess. For now. God knows I have tons of time to think about it – it’s not like I’m dying or anything.”
Everyone forced quick, fake laughs and then got back to business. Unbeknownst to them, however, my mind was quickly leaving the room, flying past the barren oak branches outside the window and soaring above the clouds to someplace only I knew. My desires could not be contained by the circumstances in this room, or by sickness, or even by reality in general, really. I wanted love more than anything – this was true, as much as it humiliated me to admit it. I’d wanted love ever since I was a cookie-cutter little girl being brainwashed by cookie-cutter Disney movies about cookie-cutter princes and princesses falling into cookie-cutter love and then prancing off to their cookie-cutter castles to live out their cookie-cutter lives. And strangely enough, this desire had only deepened after the fairy tale fantasies faded away and melted into a more grown up, real-world entity known as relationship FOMO, when my condition had rendered me an observer from the social media sidelines as everyone my age paired up and got engaged and married and pregnant and then shouted about it from the Facebook treetops as loud as their keyboards would let them while I sat there single as a nun with the flu. But I didn’t want that cookie cutter love from the Disney movies and my social media feeds. I didn’t want some run of the mill summer romance that would fizzle out as soon as the sunrays slanted in the fall and the Facebook Official status went to shit.
Because I, Summer Johnson, Purveyor of Pragmatism, Lover of Logic, Ultimate Believer in the Rational, and Person Who Was Maybe Going To Die Soon, wanted to drown in someone.

 ~*REVIEW BY LO*~

 

 

REVIEW COMING SOON!!!

 ~*ABOUT THE AUTHOR-LINKS*~

Seth King is a twenty-five-year-old author and artist.

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With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men #4) by Linda Kage Review

With Every Heartbeat
Forbidden Men #4
By: Linda Kage

~*SYNOPSIS*~

I used to think everything was black and white, truth or lie, easy or hard, that if I could just escape my strict, overbearing, abusive father, my life would be perfect. But since I’ve found a reason to risk his wrath and leave, to help a friend in need, I’ve come to realize everything I thought I knew is wrong.

Friends have their own agenda, honesty comes with a dosage of lie, easy doesn’t even exist, keeping secrets sucks, and love...love is the most painful thing of all.

Maybe if Quinn Hamilton hadn’t asked me to skip classes for the day and help him pick out an engagement ring for my best friend, I wouldn’t have fallen for him so completely on that sunny Tuesday afternoon and I wouldn’t feel so conflicted. But I did, and I can’t take it back, no matter how hard I try. So I have to deal with the fact that even I’m not as good, or honest, or caring as I’d always thought I was, and no matter what I do next, someone’s going to get hurt. Probably me.

-Zoey Blakeland

*Don't worry! The hero and heroine are not cheaters.*

~*REVIEW BY JODIE RAE*~ 

  

I rated With Every Heartbeat by Linda Kage FIVE LEAVES!!! 

If you have not read any of the books in the Forbidden Men series, you should stop what you are doing and start from the first book in this series. Basically, call in sick for the next three days to read this amazing series. Please take note, while each book in this series is a standalone about a different couple, the series is more enjoyable if you read these books in order.  The connection between all the characters builds form the first book.  Linda Kage's writing hooked me from the first book and I have fallen in love with every character in this series. Every character is beautifully flawed.  Quinn Hamilton made me swoon and I was amazed by Zoey Blakeland.

 

Every Heartbeat is Quinn and Zoey's story. Zoey has escaped from her father was physically and mentally abusing her. She got away and choose to start her life over with her best friend, Cora, and to go to college. 

Cora happens to be very sick and she needs Zoey's help.  When Zoey finds out that Cora is needing a kidney she volunteers and to finally escape from her father. Nobody knows Cora is sick and it is up to Zoey to keep it to herself. Zoey moves in with Cora where she meets Quinn. Quinn is officially my new book boyfriend.  He had me swooning after every word he said in this story. But when Zoey first lands eyes on Cora's boyfriend, Quinn, all feelings are about to explode.  Quinn and Zoey have instant attraction, and they both feel it.  They are both well aware that nothing can cross the line because Quinn is deeply devoted to Cora and Zoey would never betray her best friend. Quinn had a horrible upbringing that no child needs to go through. However, with Zoey in his life he feels like he can cope with it all and will help Zoey heal too.  

This story needs to be read to fully understand why Cora is a horrible person, in my opinion. Beware: you will want to reach through this book and grab her by the throat! When secrets are told everything is going to change between Zoey, Cora, and Quinn.  The story is about love and what some characters have to go through to make the right choice: to always follow his/her heart.

Linda Kage:  outstanding job of creating a world in which I would love to be apart.  This book is just a reminder of how she can make her readers so engrossed in a book. There are so many scenes in this book that really made me feel, pulled my at my heart and made me cry.  I recommenced this book and every book in this series to everyone! Now, call in sick and enjoy this series!

~*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*~

Linda grew up on a dairy farm in the Midwest as the youngest of eight children. Now she lives in Kansas with her husband, toddler daughter, and their nine cuckoo clocks. She works a day job in the acquisitions department of a university library and feels her life has been blessed with lots of people to learn from and love. Writing's always been a major part her world, and she's thrilled to finally share some of her stories with other romance lovers.

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