Sunday, June 30, 2019

Painter Place by Pamela Poole'

 June of 1985, Caroline Painter's uncle whisks her away from her island home at Painter Place to film an art video in the harbor village of Mevagissey. But instead of clearing her head, the young artist becomes entangled in adventure on the English Channel when she influences a rock star's contract and the media launches her into fame. When she returns home, she discovers a shattering secret that makes her question everything in her life. Can she trust the only one who says he understands?







Pamela Poole's love for the South inspires all her books and paintings. She has written three novels and two short stories that take place on the fictional island in the Painter Place Saga, and she will launch the fourth book in 2019. Pamela is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and various author and artist organizations. She and her husband Mark live in Raleigh, North Carolina.




Author Social Media
Pamela Poole, Artist and Author, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PamelaPooleArt

Pamela Poole, Artist and Author, Twitter:https://twitter.com/PamelaPooleArt

Pamela P. Poole, Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/pamelapooleart

Author blog on Southern Sky Publishing:
https://www.southernskypublishing.com/blog


Tweets
"A young artist's life is upended by a shattering secret"
"An island, an artist, a secret"
"Caroline will never live an ordinary life"
"It's always been you"


Easy hashtags:
#cleanromance
#inspirational
#womensfiction
#mustread
#christian
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#womensfictionInstagram hastags:
#fridayreads
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I know this story is a love  story and a story about  a second chance at love but my favorite part of the story is where Caroline explains to the children how God making clothes out of animals's skins was a picture of what God did when He sent Jesus. I know you are thinking, Why is that your favorite scene, it is because it is a reminder of something that we all forget to often, that Jesus's blood has covered all our sins like a pure what robe.This scene was in the book because Caroline is an artist and a young boy tells her that his mother told him not to hang around authors because they painted people with nothing on them but their skins.

I really enjoyed "Painter Place". I am really looking forward to reading the other three books in this series. I love how Caroline's faith changes a rock band's focus and how forgiveness is also part of this story.

This was such a great story from the beginning to the end. 

I recommend this book to everyone that loves clean romance with a twist. The scenes were written so well that I felt like I was seeing the places described.

I received a complementary copy by the Celebrate Lit and the author. These opinions are my own.


"HARBOR SECRETS" BY MELODY CARLSON


A Peaceful Coastal Town…Threatened by a Storm of Secrets

It's 1916 when newspaper woman Anna McDowell learns her estranged father has suffered a stroke. Deciding it's time to repair bridges, Anna packs up her precocious adolescent daughter and heads for her hometown in Sunset Cove, Oregon.

Although much has changed since the turn of the century, some things haven’t. Anna finds the staff of her father’s paper not exactly eager to welcome a woman into the editor-in-chief role, but her father insists he wants her at the helm. Anna is quickly pulled into the charming town and her new position…but just as quickly learns this seaside getaway harbors some dark and dangerous secrets.

With Oregon’s new statewide prohibition in effect, crime has crept along the seacoast and invaded even idyllic Sunset Cove. Anna only meant to get to know her father again over the summer, but instead she finds herself rooting out the biggest story the town has ever seen—and trying to keep her daughter safe from it all.



Melody Carlson has written more than 200 books (with sales around 6.5 million) for teens, women, and children. That’s a lot of books, but mostly she considers herself a “storyteller.” Her young adult novels (Diary of a Teenage Girl, True Colors etc.) appeal to teenage girls around the world. Her annual Christmas novellas become more popular each year. She’s won a number of awards (including RT’s Career Achievement Award, the Rita, and the Gold medallion) and some of her books have been optioned for film/TV. Carlson has two grown sons and makes her home in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and yellow Lab dog.


Tweets

Melody Carlson has an exciting new historical series set in Oregon of 1916! Family, romance, homecoming, and an ambitious newspaperwoman make a recipe for fun. #READatWhiteFire #amreading #ChristianFiction

Have you checked out Melody Carlson's new historical series yet? Oregon's prohibition sets the perfect backdrop for danger and romance! #READatWhiteFire #ChristianFiction #LegacyofSunsetCove

Authors Social Media
"HARBOR SECRETS" BY MELODY CARLSON is a wonderful book. It is the first in the series.  It is a story about a woman who is a newspaper  reporter and she returns home to her father with a secret, her daughter.  But in the end her father has a secret to tell her as well.But before she learns his secret, she takes over as the boss of her father's newspaper and with the help of 3 want to be boyfriends tries to stop some criminals.

This book really kept me turning the pages and I am looking forward to reading book 2 because the book sorts of ends in a cliff hanger. While reading this book I was thinking "Oh no, don't let it be true" I so not want this to be like this.

The ending is good for some of the characters but not of the characters have a happy ending. I was hoping this one character, that didn't have a happy ending, would turn out to be different from  what he seemed to be.

I was given a complimentary copy by Celebrate Lit and the author. These opinions are my own.


"THE CERTAIN HOPE" by E.C. JACKSON

 THE CERTAIN HOPE by E.C. JACKSON


Love at first sight. It’s every girl’s dream. But Tara Simpkins is finding out it’s not as easy as it seems. Is this truly the man God sent to be her husband, or is she just desperate to escape her loneliness? The recent loss of both parents has left her reeling, and close friends don’t think she’s in any position to make major life decisions. She and her new-found love are convinced they can live happily ever after in the home of their dreams. His family thinks he’s moving way too fast and might disappoint the kind-hearted woman he’s fallen head over heels for. And then there’s Leah. Leah is supposed to be part of his past, but what if she decides she’s his future? Tara’s match made in Heaven may be over before it truly begins.




E. C. Jackson began her writing career with the full-length play Pajama Party. For three and a half years she published the Confidence in Life newsletter for Alpha Production Ministries, in addition to writing tracts and devotionals. Teaching a women’s Bible study at her church for eleven years naturally led to her current endeavor of writing inspirational romance novels and teen and young adult fiction. Her mission: spiritual maturity in the body of Christ through fiction.

Social Media
Website
Facebook Author Page
Amazon Author Page
Goodreads Author Page
Twitter


Buy Link

"THE CERTAIN HOPE"  by E.C. JACKSON is the third book in the third book in the series and I liked it but it wasn't my favorite of the third.  I think it was because even through the book was a clean read and the characters were Christian, I felt the book was filled with too much talk of sex. 

I felt the character's pain because both of the main characters have lost both parents.

This book is definitely a fairy tale story. Both characters are rich and fall in love at first sight.  

This is another book to read if you are in the mood for a fun read.  This book can make you believed that real love is possible in an unlikely way.  The characters are like you and me except, I am not rich, and could be your neighbors and friends.

I received a complimentary copy by Celebrate Lit and the author. These opinions are my own.








Friday, June 28, 2019

"The Cabin" by Erin Unger Booktour and GiveAway

The Cabin FB Banner

About the Book

Book: The Cabin
Author: Erin Unger
Genre: Romantic suspense
Release date: June 14, 2019
The CabinLeah Kettridge’s writing career is over before the first book lands on the shelf, when a famous author has claimed she’s stolen his work. If it wasn’t for a story brainstorming luncheon with her sister, he’d have never overheard her conversation about the novel she was writing. Who will she ever trust again if not her most favorite writer? And what about the one fabulous date they had before she knew what a traitor he was?
Keenan Brinner has it all. He’s a best-selling author who’s only headed toward more greatness. And he must be the most gorgeous guy Leah’s ever seen. But he’s also a liar and a cheat.
When they end up at the same cabin to write, emotions explode. But an unexpected snowstorm traps them deep in the mountains. Is he bent on destroying her in more ways than one? How will love find them amidst all their anger and distrust?

Click here to purchase your copy.


 "The Cabin" by Erin Unger is a book that I really wanted to like, while I did enjoy parts of it, I have to say I didn't really like it all that well. I did like the theme of the story. I mean, what reader wouldn't like a story based on a writer stealing someone story and passing it on as their own.  I thought this story was going to be a mystery, which I supposed it was based on the fact that the famous author found a body in the woods a long time ago but nothing is really solved with that mystery. Another mystery is how did the cell phone keep track of the time with no power. I don't usually let little things like that bother me but this book kept talking about no power but the cell phone always kept time! How is this possible? 

The two characters were enemies until a snow avalanche fell on the roof and landed up top of Keenan and then it turned into a love story. 

I was glad that the book was really short till I have finished reading it and then thought this should have been a longer book.  It just left me feeling like there was a lot of the story left out.

I did like the ending when Leah and Keenan came up with a future writing plan.

I went to Amazon and read the reviews there and of the 6 reviews 4 are five stars, I guess it is a good things, readers and authors like different things in their stories. And while looking at the reviews I notice that the listing for this book is A Christian Romance, I didn't see much to much Christian inspiration except that the character said he was a Christian.

I won't go as far as saying the book was a total waste of my time as there were parts that kept me turning the pages, like when Leah was drawing through the eaves spaces.

I received a complimentary copy by the author and Celebrate Lit. These are my own opinions.


About the Author
Ering UngerErin Unger was raised in the hills of Virginia, exploring abandoned houses and reading the scariest books she could find. After marrying so young it would make a great romance novel, she has enjoyed an exciting life with her hubby. But her fast-paced life sometimes rivals the suspense in her books thanks to all her mostly grown children and a couple grandkids. Her next novel, Fateful Fall, releases August 9, 2019.

More from Erin

Glittery snow. The perfect cabin in the mountains. And sworn enemies trapped together. How could anything go wrong?
Welcome to the cabin where writers like to go to get away from the noise and bother of life to write. I hope you don’t mind the two guests already here. They’re stuck together after one stole the other’s novel. But the famous one has firsts rights to the work. Who’d dare believe he’d be the perpetrator of the crime? Or is it the newbie writer who longed to be known for more than her graphic designs who plagiarized?
Stay and enjoy a mug of instant coffee and some potted meat. And make sure to bring in your warmest blanket, since this eclectic home has lost power in the storm.
You’ll also find a complementary cordless phone with no connection for your accommodations.
Enjoy your stay! And take a moment to check out our amenities folder laden with an expert below.

Read an excerpt from The Cabin

Betrayal is such a benign looking word on paper. In real life it could kill a person. Like me. I was dying on the inside as I flipped from one page to the next of the bestselling novel in my hands. And all because of Keenan Brennan—the hottest bestselling author I knew and dated some time ago. Yet some part of me kept praying it wasn’t true as I pressed into the sofa cushion and continued to read.
It just couldn’t be.
But the book with the startlingly dark cover said it all.
“No, no, no.”
Hot tears stung my cheeks as I ripped the well-designed cover off the book and then launched it across the living room. It smashed against the refurbished brick wall and landed with its pages bent. Good. It deserved a worse fate than just bent pages.
How? When had he stolen my book idea?
I face-planted my palm against my forehead. “At the restaurant.”
Why didn’t I keep my big fat mouth shut and tell my sister Aeris the storyline in the privacy of my home? Tears stung my eyes. Who’d have guessed my lowdown almost boyfriend would stoop so low. He didn’t need my work.
I stared across the room, not focusing on the heap of a good—terrible—book. Well it was on the NYT bestselling list. Not bad for a nobody writer like myself. And since it was my story—not his—then I allowed myself a moment of self-satisfaction.
My gaze dropped to the torn book. I had to take another look. Couldn’t it be a coincidence? Maybe the rest of it was different. In a scramble, I grabbed it up and found the page I last read.
By chapter forty there was no doubt.

Blog Stops

Carpe Diem, June 29
Remembrancy, July 7
Moments, July 10


Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Erin is giving away a themed basket that includes a copy of The Cabin!!


Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter. https://promosimple.com/ps/e50d/the-cabin-celebration-tour-giveaway

"Bipartisan Love" by Caryl MacAdoo Book Tour and Giveaway

About the Book

Book: Bipartisan Love
Author: Caryl MacAdoo
Genre: Historical Christian Romance
Release date: June 20, 2019
Bipartisan_LoveDon’t lean to your own understanding. Acknowledge God in all your ways, and He will direct your path.
Does time truly heal a broken heart?
Cody thought it had until she walked into the diner like she owned the world and back into his life as if she owned him.
Can betrayal ever be completely forgiven?
Cindy thought it could until she saw him with the bleached blonde. Her Cody!
Separated eighteen years, Cody Wayne Buckmeyer and Cindy think they can put the past behind them and work toward a common goal, a congressional seat . . . but is that possible?

Click here to purchase your copy.

First, I am going to say that I have really enjoyed this as I have every other book that I have read that was written by Caryl McAdoo. At first I didn't think I would because I know it was about politics. I was wrong, yes Cindy was trying to get Cody elected to congress but it is really a love story. It is a story about a second chance after 18 years and about honesty and forgiveness.

Cody and Cindy love each but when Cody receives no more letters from her, he moves on and promises to marry Amy. Cody is a man of his word and Cindy is a campaign agent and Amy is a money hungry. Who does Cody end up with? I know and if you read the book you will know too.

This book does deal with the subject of rape and thoughts of abortion, marijuana use, racing fast cars, premarital sex and the Vietnam War. There are no explicit sex so I recommend"Bipartisan Love" by Caryl McAdoo if you enjoy reading about small-town life, politics, family, and love. The theme throughout the book is Christian even through these topics are written about.


I have read of all the  "Texas Romance Series" which this book is a  Companion to the series. You don't have to read the series or the other companion books to enjoy this story. But, I will say personally I am glad I have read then all and I encourage you to read them all and the Buckmeyer family just might become one of your favorite fictional literacy families.

I was given a complimentary copy by the author and Celebrate Lit. These opinions are my own.

About the Author
Caryl McAdooPraying her story gives God glory, award-winning, best-selling author Caryl McAdoo loves revisiting beloved characters in her novels. And her readers are glad she does! She’s blessed that her titles earned over fifty-percent 5-Star ratings and eighty-five to ninety percent 4 & 5-Stars! With forty-four novels (thirty-four in the last four-and-a-half years), it’s obvious she loves writing, but singing the new songs the Lord gives her also rates high. (Listen to a few at YouTube.)
Married to Ron, her high school sweetheart, she counts their four children and eighteen grandsugars life’s best blessings. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door.

More from Caryl

I totally enjoy revisiting characters from previous stories! That’s one reason I love writing ‘Family Sagas” like the Texas Romances that has ten full length novels and Cross Timbers Romances with two books and counting! The third launches this coming September.
In BIPARTISAN LOVE, we get to spend time again with the Buckmeyers—Travis and Emma Lee from Texas Romance Book Ten CHIEF OF SINNERS. My heart could barely leave these dear people after book ten, so I’ve written a few “Companion Books” (five and counting 😊) that go with the Texas Romance series—either going back to meet ancestors or forward for their descendants or just more stories with the characters you already love.
Readers first met Cody Buckmeyer and his kissing cousin (by marriage) best friend Cynthia Kramer as pre-teens in SON OF PROMISE. In that story, Emma Lee, so longing to be a mom, gets her heart’s desire in Cody, her husband’s son she’s never known about. The two youngsters became fast friends, but Cindy went overseas when LBJ gave her father an ambassadorship.
It’s been eighteen years, and Cody’s engaged to another. After her letters stopped, he gave up all hope. A liberal Democrat, Cynthia comes home after working in Hubert Humphries’ losing bid for the presidency, and wants Cody, a conservative Republican, to run for a Congressional seat with her as his campaign manager!
How’s this supposed to work?

Blog Stops

Simple Harvest Reads, June 26 (Spotlight)
Power of Words, June 30 (Spotlight)
Artistic Nobody, July 4 (Spotlight)

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Caryl is giving away
Grand Prize – $50 Gift Amazon Card
1st Prize – Signed, Paperback copy of CHOICE of all my books
2nd Prize – Signed copy of Bipartisan Love
3rd Prize – eBook copy of Bipartisan Love
and
4th Prize – eBook copy of CHOICE of all my books!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter. https://promosimple.com/ps/e4f6/bipartisan-love-celebration-tour-giveaway

Monday, June 24, 2019

"The Second Yes " by Chautona Havig and 4 other authors BookTour And Give Away

The Second Yes FB Baer

About the Book

Book: The Second Yes
Author: Chautona Havig
Genre: Fiction / Christian / Romance
Release date: May 15, 2019
The Second YesThe Second Yes: Five of today’s Best-selling Christian Authors weave six brand-new, unique, interconnected stories of what happens after the bride says yes to him and yes to the dress.
Something Borrowed, Someone Blue: A borrowed dress, half-completed marriage counseling, and a last-minute theft.
Let’s face it. Weddings equal stress for the families involved. Preachers, however, have it easy. Or so they say.
Ty Jamison’s first parishioner is getting married. Though he’s performed many services at the little chapel in New Cheltenham–grand affairs, all designed to give the illusion of simplicity–all of them were strangers to him.
So when Lara Priest asks him to perform the ceremony at her wedding, and to use the chapel, of course, Ty is thrilled. That joy fades as one by one, things go wrong. From a groom who refuses to attend pre-marital counseling to Lara discovering that her dream wedding dress is a no-can-do, what can go wrong seems to.
And like so many weddings that movies are made of, things go from bad to worse to “worser.”
All the while, Ty tries to remind himself that he only has to provide a little premarital counseling, show up, perform the service, and find a way to hide his broken heart through the whole ordeal.
All in a life’s work.

Click here to purchase your copy.

"The Second Yes " by Chautona Havig and 4 other authors is a collection of five stories about weddings and second chances. These  stories causes readers to believe in love, especially if love seems to be missing in their everyday love because these stories show that God is always at work in our lives and knows what is best.

These stories included a search for a wedding dress that is sold by mistake, a bride that is chosen because of her resemblance to a former bride, a wedding that is all about butterflies, old boyfriends , and sick babies and old wedding dress.

Some of these stories are just feel good stories because they are about real love. Two of these stories made the tears fall because they weren't just about love between a man and women but about a mother and daughter relationship, and sick babies. Even through these two made me sad they were also my favorite.  I think this is because these were fill of hope and love as well as sadness.  I recommend having some tissues around if you are have a tender heart because you might shed a few tears because I am telling you that these stories are full of real life.  My favorite story in the collection is "Sewn Together". I think it is because of the style it is written in.  I believe any reader would enjoy all these stories.

I really enjoyed this collection more than other collections that I have read because each story was different even through the theme was basically the same.

Ok, I need to wrap up this review because I am starting to cry again  because the stories, although not the wedding and the dresses, reminded me of events that have been in my life in the last couple of years, such as the mother-daughter relationship, butterflies and babies.

I received a complimentary copy by the authors and Celebrate Lit. These opinions are my own.



About the Author

ChautonaChautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her on the web and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona

The tiny bridal shop held dozens of dresses. Frothy princess dresses, twenties dropped-waist dresses, straight, short, silky, shiny satin, lace, beaded appliques… I looked at them all and found an ivory jacquard, tea length, dress by Jessica McClintock. It was a hundred dollars. To a girl making $4.25 an hour and too broke to buy food, it might as well have been a thousand. Still, it was also cheaper than any other dress in the store and just my style.
I pulled out the twenty-dollars I’d saved by doing extra work around my apartment for the landlord and said I’d put it on layaway.
My maid of honor protested.
The dress wasn’t fancy enough. It didn’t reach the floor. It wasn’t white. I didn’t look good in ivory (she was right on that one, anyway), and the veil I’d fallen in love with—you know the $120 veil I could never afford—wouldn’t look good with it.
Duh.
Look, I was eighteen (barely), and had parents who would have paid me to elope in Las Vegas in lieu of the wedding. Two months later, we did go… And we still had the wedding, but that’s a story for another day.
I left the store with my choice on layaway. Went home and later told my fiancé about the thing. He said to get the one I wanted. And I had. Still, I got the impression that he thought I actually wanted the other one… and maybe he meant that I should get that one.
That left a conundrum. Did he like the sound of the other one more? Was that why? The traditional white and floor-length thing? I went back to the shop the next day to look again. Seriously, if we’d had cellphones back then, I would have taken a picture and asked him.
That’s when I found out the white one was now on layaway—not the ivory I’d chosen. The decision had been made for me.

AND SO WENT THE REST OF MY WEDDING PLANNING.

I made one decision. It was countermanded as not grand enough, not traditional enough, too cheap, not enough… One decision, I’d made involved flowers. I called to ask about something after I’d ordered them and found they’d been changed to something else. I lost it—informed the florist that if any changes were not made in person with my driver’s license as proof of me making them, then when the wedding day came, if the flowers were wrong, I’d do without flowers. We wouldn’t have any. And I wouldn’t pay for them.
I wish I’d have had the backbone to do more of that.
But come on, I was eighteen. My mother didn’t have anything to do with wedding planning. They’d agreed to show up in whatever clothes we told them to, and that was it.
Back to the dress. I think it’s important to note that I did love that white, floor-length dress. It was beautiful, it looked good on me, and it would make for lovely pictures. It would.

IT JUST WASN’T WHAT I’D CHOSEN.

You see, I’d said “yes” to a dress—just not the one that I had agreed to pay for. Instead, it was the one that was almost four times the cost of the one I already couldn’t afford.
I’d always planned to tell the story—fictionalized, of course—but I figured it would be about Rockland’s wedding planning company, “The Agency.” So, when it came time to do my book for the next Crossroads collection, The Second Yes, I was surprised to discover that elements of my own wedding kept cropping up in different ways.
The motivation is different in Something Borrowed, Someone Blue, but the result is the same—a girl who, no matter what happens, can’t seem to have the wedding she envisions.
The question is… is that a good thing?

Blog Stops

Quiet Quilter, June 19
Cultivating Us, June 22
Carpe Diem, June 23
Power of Words, June 26 (spotlight)

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Chautona is giving away a grand prize that includes a Spa Basket designed to soothe any bride’s nerves (or to make any reader feel as though she is part of the bridal party and getting pampered before the big day) and also includes a $25 gift certificate to Amazon (Image not reflective of actual contents)!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter. https://promosimple.com/ps/e514/the-second-yes-celebration-tour-giveaway