Guest Blog Post--The Bulletproof Proposal by Rebekah Louise

I am very excited to share this post with you. As most of you will be aware, I have published my latest book ‘The Bulletproof Proposal’.

This is my second book and I decided to write a novelette. I love the idea of a short story, the reader can enjoy it in one or two sittings, fitting it in around their hectic lifestyles.

The idea for ‘The Bulletproof Proposal’ came when a close friend of mine was waiting for her partner to propose. I thought about what someone might do in that situation and I think most people would try and gain control, giving rise to the idea for my new book.

This story was an exciting piece for me to write. I took on Lisa’s character with ease as she was fun to write about (I think I could also see some of myself in her). Authors will tell you to write about a topic that you would want to read yourself and this is a book that I would want to snuggle up with. I also love the cover, which I had great fun designing, and I am guilty of choosing a book by its cover, so I hope it will attract you too. My wonderful husband put together the book trailer and I think it is a wonderful teaser of what’s to come.

‘The Bulletproof Proposal’ was published in November 2017, and my hope is that you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it. Please leave a review if you liked it, on either Amazon or Goodreads, and tell your friends and family about it, it would be much appreciated.

To Download 'The Bulletproof Proposal' for FREE (14^th February only) click here.

Here is the book blurb & trailer.

After five years of dating Lisa is anticipating that all-important question, will you marry me?

Impatient, Lisa decides to take matters into her own hands and propose to Matt, after all it is the 21st Century.

Only she takes it one step further and with the help of her best friend Mandy, she prepares the ultimate proposal.

What she doesn’t know is whether this will be the beginning of her happily-ever- after or the beginning of the end.

Link to trailer.

Thank you to Rebekah for hosting this blog post.  I've read this cute novelette over breakfast this morning.  I'm sure you will enjoy it as much as I did.  The link above takes you to the Amazon UK page, click the book cover below to go to the US Amazon page to get the book for free on Valentine's Day!

Review: Missing Isaac by Valerie Fraser Luesse

Missing Isaac by Valerie Fraser Luesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pete McLean is a young man living in Glory, Alabama during the mid 60's. After school each day and all summer long he helps his grandfather and his father work the farm they own. In his family, black and white work along together to get the job done. When Pete's father dies suddenly and tragically, Pete quickly befriends Isaac who was his dad's right hand man. Isaac helps Pete through his grief my taking him away from the farm to go fishing or to grab a bite to eat. When Isaac goes missing without a trace, Pete won't rest until he finds him. Over four years we hear Pete's story and the journey to find his friend. He will grow up a lot over that time and his life will change dramatically.

Thank you to NetGalley and Revell Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I don't know if Valerie Fraser Luesse has written any other books, but I want to read them. Watching Pete grow into a respectable young man that his whole community admires is what makes this book so great. When you think about the South, especially at this time in our history, it's amazing to me so see how well most of the people in this story treat them. They treat them like members of their family. Allowing the maid to drive the car and put her groceries on your tab, rebuilding homes and churches and never questioning anything.

I really enjoyed this book. It is important even in today's society to learn how to get along with all people no matter their race or gender. You can feel the emotions of each character in this book and each of them have quite strong personalities.

Pete--even though he is a young man, he is strong in his beliefs and his convictions.
Daddy Ballard--even though he is one of the richest men in town, he doesn't brag or boast about all he does for the community.
Lila--Through her grief, she is able to still raise her son to be the man his father would be proud of.
Isaac--his story is brief, but he is a strong man who cares for those around him even if they aren't his family.

I highly recommend this book.

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To order a copy of this which was just released in January, click the book cover below:

AudioBook Review: The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tabitha and Harper Frost are identical twins. Their parents divorced when they were 14 years old, and the twins were split between the parents(like the Parent Trap). Tabitha goes with their mother to Nantucket and Harper goes with their father to Martha's Vineyard. Even though these 2 islands are only a few miles away, they might as well be thousands. After this separation the girls grew farther and farther apart until they stopped speaking all together. When their father, Billy, dies, will it be enough to bring Tabitha and Harper back together as the sisters they once were, or will this drive them even farther apart?

Elin Hilderbrand has put together another enjoyable novel. My travels have never brought me further north than upstate New York, but she paints a picture of the New England coastline as a place I have to visit.

I don't know what it's like to be a twin, but I do have a sister. I think it would be impossible to go years without speaking to or seeing my sister. What happened between Tabitha and Harper that they couldn't work out their differences? Will the death of their father prove to them that whatever it was can be fixed?

For me, I didn't really connect with either of these characters. The person I connected most with was Ainsley, Tabitha's 15 year old daughter. At the beginning of the book, she is struggling through life as all girls at that age do. Trying to find out who you are, who your friends should be, which cliques to be a part of. Ainsley is trying to figure out her place in her world and trying to find her way through that with a parent who is pretty much hands-off.

Harper is also struggling through some things at the start of the book. But unfortunately, this is nothing new for Harper. She always seems to find herself on the wrong side of trouble.

Tabitha as well is going through a tough situation. As the head of her mother's clothing empire, trying to keep the store afloat as well as raise a teenage daughter and have a social life, it's a lot on one person.

Will these three ladies be able to put their differences aside, pull up their big girl panties, and work everything out so that they all will be able to coexist and thrive?

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To order a copy of this book click on the cover below:

Review: After You by Jojo Moyes

After You by Jojo Moyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two yeas after the death of Will Traynor, Louisa Clark is still trying to figure out what to do with her life. With the money and advise Will left her with, she has traveled around Europe a bit and bought a flat in London, but her life still doesn't have much purpose. She works a crappy job and joins a support group. But when she has a terrible accident, she has to find a way to get her life on track and move forward.

In preparation of the release of the third book in the series, (Jan. 30th), I read this book to get caught up with the series.

For some reason, I have trouble connecting with Louisa Clark, but I really enjoyed the story overall and I plan on reading the next book in the series in the next couple of weeks.

There are a lot of things that happen to Louisa in this story. There are also a couple of surprises. She makes new friends where previously she had very few. She helps out a troubled youth, she meets a new man, and she falls off a building. One thing is for sure, she is resilient. I do want to see what the next chapter of her life does to her. Maybe it will make me like her more.

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To order any of the books in the series, click on the book covers below:

January Readin' Roundup!!

This year started out with a bang for me, at least as far as reading is concerned.  I was able to finish 9 books this month.  

I started off the year with Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais.  

Robin and Beauty. Robin is 10 years old and she is quite a curious little girl. She loves her parents and her twin sister Cat, but when tragedy strikes and she loses both her parents in one fell swoop, her world will be turned upside down. Beauty is a mother and a teacher in a remote village in South Africa. She has just received a letter from her brother that her daughter, Nomsa is in trouble. Beauty tries to get to Nomsa as quickly as she can, but will she be able to make it before it's too late? In both of their struggles these two are brought together to be a strength for the other. 

I also finished off an audiobook that I had started at the end of 2017 Invisible by James Patterson.  I didn't do a blog post about this book, but I'm trying to get better about posting my audiobook reviews on the blog this year.  

 Emmy Dockery is on a mission to find out who killed her twin sister Marta. As a research analyst for the FBI she has been researching fires all over the country that are made to look like accidents. She brings her work to her superiors, but they don't believe her. When she takes what she has found to her ex-fiance Books, who is also a former FBI agent, he agrees to take her information to the top, with the caveat that she will do as he says, when he says.

Next for me was Wonder by R. J. Palacio.  I have wanted to read this book for a very long time and when I saw it was going to be a movie, both me and my kids wanted to see it.  We decided that we needed to read the book first.  I was on a long waiting list at the physical library as well as the online library in order to get this book.  Fortunately, they both came in at the same time and me and my oldest daughter we able to read it together.  

August Pullman is not your typical 10 year old. He has never been to school, he has had countless surgeries, and he has a rare facial deformity. But despite all of that, his outlook on life is very positive. This year, Auggie, as he likes to be called, and his family have decided it is time for him to go to school. He has been homeschooled all of this time because of the countless doctor's appointments and medical tests he had to do that it wasn't practical. But he's finally reached the stage of his life where none of that is necessary. Of course, he and his parents are a little skeptical about how this will all play out. How will the other children treat him and will he be able to make new friends? 

A couple of years ago, I was given the opportunity to read and review Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave.  So I was excited to hear about her new book, Hello, Sunshine.  I bought a copy of this book when it first came out and finally got the opportunity to read it.  I liked Eight Hundred Grapes better, but still enjoyed this book.  

Sunshine McKenzie is a the top of her game. Her YouTube show, "A Little Sunshine" has millions of subscribers, The Food Network wants her to host a new show, and she's about to put out a series of cookbooks. But when her Twitter account is hacked an her entire world comes crashing down, she must evaluate what is truly important in her personal and professional life.

 Room by Emma Donoghue had been on my TBR for  years now.  I even owned a copy.  But I decided to listen to this on audio.  This was one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to.  It kept me interested throughout the whole thing.  

Jack is five years old and to him Room is his entire world. He lives in Room with his Ma, Joy, and calls each inanimate object by it's name, toilet, sink, table, plant, etc. What Jack doesn't know is that his Ma was kidnapped 7 years ago and was brought to Room and hasn't left since. No one knows she is there and no one knows Jack exists. When Joy decides it's time to make a great escape, she has to tell Jack about the outside world. Up until now, he has thought everything outside of Room was only on TV. He doesn't know that there are really other people and a great big world outside the walls of Room. Will the plan Joy has mapped out work? How will their lives change if they are able to get away? What happens if they don't?

Marieke Nijkamp is a new author for me, but her books always strike you right in the heart.  The first book I read of hers was This Is Where It Ends about a high school shooting.  Before I Let Go is another YA book that will grab you.  Right now Goodreads is doing a give away for This Is Where It Ends click here to enter(Ends April 9th)

Corey and her best friend Kyra have lived their whole lives in Lost Creek, Alaska. They have been inseparable from the start. But when Corey's mom gets a new job hundreds of miles away, Corey and Kyra will be separated. Will they both be able to survive? Even though Kyra writes to Corey, Corey is unable to write back. She can't bring herself to tell Kyra how happy she is now that she has left Lost. When Corey learns of a tragic accident that lives Kyra dead, she returns home to a place she doesn't recognize. It's no longer the place she called home. Determine to find out why Kyra didn't get the help she desperately needed. Corey has 6 days to find out what has happened to this town and her best friend in the few months she's been gone.

The next book for me was Private #1 Suspect by James Patterson.  My regular readers know by now that I am trying to read almost everything he has written.  This is a series I had started a couple of years ago, and figured it would be easy to catch up on this one since it doesn't have too many titles out right now.  For me, this book was hard to put down.  I think I read it in 3 days.  

Jack Morgan is the head of Private, an Investigation firm out of Los Angeles with offices all around the world. He has an elite team of ex-military and ex-police officers who are all experts in their fields. Jack has just come home from a business trip when he finds his ex-girlfriend dead in his bed. Someone is framing him for murder. Will he be able to find the killer before he is arrested for a crime he didn't commit.

The last two books I read this year, I haven't quite finished my reviews on them yet, but look for them over the next week.  

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand was an audiobook I listed to over the past couple of weeks.  Tabitha and Harper are identical who were separated when their parents got a divorce when they were just young teens.  The parents each went to separate islands, Tabitha and her mother to Nantucket and Harper and her father to Martha's Vineyard.  After the death of their father, Billy, will the 2 be able to come together after not speaking for almost 14 years?

After You by Jojo Moyes, is the second book in the Me Before You series.  Book 3, Still Me, was released this week and I have that on my Kindle waiting to be read thank you NetGalley and Penguin.

In After You, it is two years after Will Traynor's death and Louisa Clark is still trying to find herself.  She has traveled for a few weeks around Europe to the places Will suggested, but now she has settled in a flat in London, working at an Irish Bar at the Airport and just trying to make it day by day.  Then she has a nearly fatal accident, and someone from Will's past comes into her present and she has to finally dig deep and figure out what she is going to do with herself. 

What did you read in January?  Anything good?  I would love to hear about it. 

**Click on the title links above to read my full review on any of the books**

To order any of the books I have reviewed, click on the covers below: