Anthea, Author at Proud Book Reviews

March 13, 2023March 13, 2023

Freezing the Puck – Lasairiona E. McMaster

This book contains:

Cheating, both with a partner and academically
Discovery of adoption and it’s emotional impacts on all involved.

Justin is the captain of the Cedar Rapids Racoons, studying, working AND trying to build up his career as a published author. He left Minnesota almost as quickly as he could in an attempt to get away from his past and the false rumours that isolated him throughout high school.

Savannah has recently found out that she’s adopted and because of this is trying to distance herself from her “parents”. Which means she’s desperate for a job. She’s also stuck on the things she likes, to the point that trying a new flavour for her coffee is impossible, and so incredibly phobic of planes it’s a wonder she manages to step foot on them at all.

While Justin and Savannah went to the same high school in Minnesota, they’ve somehow never crossed paths even though they’re both attending the University of Cedar Rapids and have been there for a couple of years. Once they’ve crossed paths, it’s hard to put the cat back in the bag, especially when the attraction between the two of them is so strong.

I had such a fun time reading this, especially because Savannah so clearly hated Justin, and yet he couldn’t help but be his kind, caring self regardless of how much hate she threw his way. This was especially evident when he helped her escape her family after his mum warned him that she’d just found out she was adopted and wasn’t taking it well.

And then there’s that one scene at about 75-80% of the way through the book where Justin does his big speech, and it leaves Savannah shocked. I can’t spoil it for you, but it honestly had me cracking up because of how accurate it is. It also reminded me of the Wheel of Time podcast I listen to and how they talk about communication. It just came together to create a hilarious moment for me to laugh at while on the plane to visit my mum.

When I did finish this, I was actually disappointed I couldn’t jump straight into the next book, because let’s face it, it’s been a while since I read Two for Taco’s and I somehow need more of Las’s hockey romances!

March 9, 2023March 10, 2023

These Violent Nights – Rebecca Crunden

This book contains:

Extreme class segregation and persecution
“Ownership” of people similar in some ways to slavery
Descriptions of and the aftereffects of genocide
Drugging
Attempted rape
Attempted and completed murder.

Thorn is the primary character we follow for roughly two thirds of the book, however, we also spend about one third following Lucien.

Thorn is a human who’s suffered immense trauma from the Suriia and is hell bent on revenge for the murder of her family while also trying to do her best to protect her “little sister” Thistle. She’s a tough nugget, strong willed, suspicious of all and entirely dedicated to her cause.

Lucien is a Suriia of unknown origins (until the last third of the book) who’s suffered immensely at the hands of humans. Not initially from the same Earth as Thorn is, he’s suffered similar trauma but responds in quite a different way. For him, he’s all about creating a safe space for his family to live out their days without drawing more attention to themselves than they need to.

Thorn and Lucien are battling their own demons while trying to find a better life for themselves and their loved ones. We follow Thorn until she meets Lucien and then go back a bit to get a bit of Lucien’s history until he meets Thorn. And then everything changes, and we learn exactly how intricate everything is, and follow them as they do their best to fix it.

I’ve read and reviewed the entire of The Outlands Pentalogy, and really enjoyed Rebecca’s writing. So when I discovered she’d entered this book into the 2022 Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA), I thought I knew what I was getting into. But boy was I wrong!

Although I did have mixed feelings about this as I read it. I loved the first third, then was super confused for the entire of the second third and felt betrayed and so conflicted. But then my trust was restored in the final third. If you read this, please give the second third a chance! It will make sense and work out for the best by the end of it!

I promise!

By the very end I was so happy, and while I’d kinda like to know what happens further in the future for all of them, I’m not disappointed in how it ended.

March 6, 2023March 6, 2023

Her Orc Mate – Zoe Ashwood

This book contains:

Sexual assault
Attempted murder.

Rose lives and works in a small village tavern. While life isn’t perfect, she’s got a roof and a bed for the winter season to get her by, and unless she’s willing to risk losing that she puts up with the wandering hands and leering eyes of some of the local patrons.

Uram is a warrior Orc from the Black Bear Clan who’s recently been travelling. While he’d love to find his fated mate, he knows it’s a long shot, especially since he hasn’t met her after his travels and he’s now on his way home.

As it’s a short story there’s not a lot I can say here without giving it away, but basically Uram meets Rose while she’s working and discovers that she’s his mate. From there he’s committed to ensuring her safety and happiness, even if it doesn’t include him, but he hopes it does.

Knowing Zoe is working on the next full book in this series, I had to make an effort to read this now that it’s available as a standalone short story. I don’t know how, but Zoe has managed to pack Uram and Rose’s story FULL of drama and action.

How she did this in just 40 pages I have no idea. But it works. There’s a great balance of the drama and action alongside the softer romance that she’s known for (with some extra spiciness), which has you just flying through the pages wishing it won’t stop.

If you’ve been waiting for Her Orc Protector for a while and need your Zoe-flavoured Orc romance, you should definitely grab this for a quick fun read.

March 2, 2023March 3, 2023

Never Too Late – T.A. Williams

This book contains:

Substance abuse, both recreational and addiction to the point of death
Depiction of a serious stroke.

Steph lives and works in London while making her way within the music industry. While her passion is for classical music on the keyboards, she knows the skill and dedication to make it in classical music is beyond her capabilities. So instead, she tried to make it as a session musician then moved onto a job as a sound technician for a recording studio for stability.

Rob on the other hand has made it big as a classical violinist soloist, and has garnered quite the reputation as a playboy. Living full time in Italy and touring the world his career is going great and he’s enjoying life to its maximum benefit.

Steph and her boss-cum-boyfriend get offered the deal of a lifetime to travel to Italy for a month to record a new-come-back album for a world famous band who’d separated a decade earlier. While the timing isn’t great, it’s too good of an opportunity to turn down, so they pack and jet off to Italy where they find themselves staying with the band.

When they arrive, they discover that recording the album won’t be as simple as they’d thought, and not just because they don’t have a keyboard player anyone.

It’d been a while between reading blurb and agreeing to take part in this tour and me actually reading the book, so I found myself a little confused as to who Steph was meant to end up with for quite a while. Then when it was apparent, I could only see it working out in a couple of ways (I was pretty close to being right) which then had me questioning how it could possibly be wrapped up properly in the short bit left of the book.

The way Steph’s life direction seemed to constantly shift depending on a variety of variable kept you on your toes and reminded me of how I’d plan my chess moves. You could make your choice based on the information available to you, but when guessing what might happen you also needed to consider all the possible ways the cast of characters might behave or actions, they might take to get us to the end goal you know needs to happen.

Partner the shifting sands of possibilities with the beautiful Italian coastline, you can definitely lose yourself in the story and the locations and just soak it in. Such a great story that had me wishing I could be with them out in the sun and relaxing with good food and wine.

Author Bio

I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I did languages at university a long time ago and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to Italy for seven years as a teacher of English. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little village in Devonshire. I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only nine years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.

The fact that I am now writing escapist romance is something I still find hard to explain. My early books were thrillers and historical novels and I now also write cozy crime, but my first love is romance. Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to provide something to cheer my readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations, even if travel to them is currently difficult.

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023

City of Strife – Claudie Arseneault

This book contains:

Strong racism and class system themes, depictions and impacts.

Characters

We follow quite a few characters, almost in a Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time level of complexity and interweaving of characters. There seem to be three main groups of characters broken up into the Lower City, the Dathirii and the Myrian’s.

Arathiel, Larryn, Hasryan and Cal are all from the Lower City, all coming from different backgrounds but united in the fact that they’re otherwise excluded from society.

Diel, Jaeger, Branwen and Camilla are part of the Dathirii family who hold a position of power in the Upper City. While in a position of power, they’re different to the other families in that Diel (as the head of the family) can’t stand for injustice and abuse and makes a stand against it, and his family support him.

Nevian, Varden and Master Avenazar form the main Myrian characters, and they almost couldn’t be more different. From the scared and scarred apprentice, the racially hated-should-be-a-slave Head Priest and the sadist crazy man with a ridiculous amount of power.

Arathiel arrives back in Isandor after more than a century away from home, and while he’s changed significantly, much of the city hasn’t. As he finds his place, we meet more and more characters and discover the intricacies of the Isandor society and the individuals who live within it.

As they form bonds and new alliances, the webs weave and strands break as the story develops.

I loved the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones vibes I was getting almost right from the beginning. While I’m sure following so many characters could be hard for some readers, I love it, especially when you have a world as complex as this.

All the way throughout, as the story unfolds, I found myself being drawn more and more into it and becoming more and more invested in the characters. By the end, I couldn’t wait to get started on the next book. While it’s out, I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but I will DEFINITELY want to come back to this series to keep reading!

There’re 4 books in the series out now, and this is only the first book.

I have my own theories about where this is going to go, but I’ll have to get to the rest of the series to find out!

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Zealot – C. Vonzale Lewis

This book contains:

Depictions and descriptions of a cult and it’s impacts to the members and their families
Description of paedophilia
Description and depiction of both protective and ritualistic murder
Emotional and psychological control.

We continue to follow Nicole, picking up almost immediately after Lineage finishes. While she’s gained more confidence, has a stronger sense of herself and her beliefs; there are still huge gaps missing for her that she’s trying to puzzle out.

Nicole formally joins the group hired to find the killers of a young woman and joins the hunt to find all Blood Magick users. As they search, Nicole discovers more and more about her past and her place in the world today while more and more Gods seem to congregate on Tulare Island.

In their search for answers, they discover more than they ever thought possible.

While I really enjoyed this, I didn’t think it was as captivating as Lineage. The main reason for this stems more from the pacing than anything else I think.

It felt like the main story was written, then they realised that some context was missing and found places to shove it in at random points. The end result being that some parts felt like a normally paced book, and others felt like we were trying to shove 3 chapters worth of content into the space of like 3 pages.

It felt weird and made it hard to keep up with each of the details. And for reference, I barely had an issue keeping up with everything that happened in Game of Thrones throughout all the currently published books. I think if the book was a little longer, maybe not spaced over a couple of days, this could have been much better.

I still enjoyed it though!

The action, following along as each piece of info is delivered and figuring out how it all pieces together. That was definitely interesting. I just think I would’ve preferred a little bit more time taken in certain parts to help it flow easier, be easier to remember and also feel more realistic.

February 13, 2023February 14, 2023

Nobody Puts RomComs in the Corner – Kathryn Freeman

This book contains:

Reference to cheating
Suggested familial financial extortion/violence.

Sally is the romance loving, café owner with a room to let after her younger sister has moved into her boyfriend’s place. Her life is all about romance. Romance movies of all kinds, a café themed on love and creating early love experiences for other couples and wanting to find her own perfect match.

Harry on the other hand is a total love cynic. He’s a builder by trade whose parent’s marriage has been falling apart more and more since his dad retired. While he never had a loving home growing up, what he’s experiencing as their marriage deteriorates solidifies his belief that love doesn’t exist.

Thanks to Sally’s sister moving out and the debt she needs to repay, she’s forcing to let her sister’s old room out. A friend of a friend puts Harry in touch with Sally because he’s in desperate need of renting a room on a short-term basis.

As they live together, they learn more about each other, most prominently, their difference of opinion about love. One night after a few drinks, they re-create the famous lift scene from Dirty Dancing, and overnight become a Tik Tok sensation.

As the name suggests, this fun love story is basically a rom com the whole way through. While I don’t think I’ve seen EVERY movie they recreated or referenced, I’ve seen most and I loved reading about their adaptations.

I had such a fun time reading this. I think pretty much every time I picked this up, I found myself giggling and laughing at what they were up to.

And in amongst all those funny moments, Harry is beating the gender stereotypes in his industry as a builder. I won’t say how, because that might spoil the surprise, but it was so nice for this to be popped into the story in such a natural way.

Overall, a hugely fun book that is quite inclusive in such a natural way that I kinda wish more authors could do.

Continue to find out about the author.

Author Bio

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to write a book. It may have had something to do with my obsession with reading romance. Real life interfered and I headed off in a different direction – into the world of science, becoming a pharmacist before joining the pharmaceutical industry. I did end up writing, but it was about disease and medicines. Decades later, I’m finally doing what I always wanted to do.

With a husband who asks every Valentine’s Day whether he has to buy a card (yes, he does), all the romance in my life is in my head. Then again, his unstinting support of my career change proves love isn’t always about hearts and flowers – and heroes come in many disguises.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023

An Island in the Sun – Kate Frost

This book contains:

Discussion of miscarriage and the lasting emotional impacts
References to drug use and addiction
Depiction of and discussion around absentee parents, being a mother and having a career and the impacts this has on individuals’ mental health and their relationships with others
Lost pet.

Tabitha is a songwriter who also pet sits around the world constantly travelling from place to place to take on pet sits. Since leaving a difficult relationship after suffering a miscarriage, she’s moved from place to place hoping to heal.

Raff is the son of a wealthy couple and up until recently, lived in London. Thanks to a difficult relationship with his parents, he comes to Madeira while his parents are meant to be travelling hoping to get a couple of weeks respite before needing to figure out his next move in life.

Tabitha arrives in Madeira to begin her latest pet sit for a wealthy couple heading off on holidays for a couple of weeks. On her first night after they’ve left, she’s woken up to the sound of someone in the house. Unsure of what she might find the last thing she expects is Raff claiming to be the son of the homeowners. The son they never so much as mentioned once in the time Tabitha spent with them.

Tabitha has only a couple of weeks to sort out what to do with Raff, what to tell the homeowners, and whether she’s going to try and reconnect with an old friend while she’s on the island.

While I didn’t enjoy every moment of this books, I believe that was done purposely as you’re not meant to like Raff all that much when he first arrives. He’s impulsive, drinks and appears to be a bad influence on others to the detriment of everyone around him and them. Those moments that I didn’t like were the exact moments that were created to portray him in that manner and it’s expertly executed.

Once you piece together all the little pieces however, there’s moments of profound sadness, happiness, hurt and longing. All emotions that I’m sure all of us can relate to. The way each and every character is relatable either to ourselves or someone we know is amazing and a skill not many writers have.

Continue to find out more about the author.

Author Bio

Kate Frost is the author of several bestselling romantic escape novels including The Greek Heart, and The Love Island Bookshop. She lives in Bristol and is the Director of Storytale Festival, a book festival for children and teens she co-founded in 2019.

January 30, 2023December 26, 2022

Dreams Come True at Glendale Hall – Victoria Walters

This book contains:

References to a relationship broken up by parents
Financial stress.

Lorna Ferguson is the middle child of her family and shares a dream with her older brother, Adam, to turn a local art-deco home into a B&B. Like a lot of people, Lorna is also plagued by doubts when things don’t quite go just right although she tries to stay optimistic like Adam.

Unlike the other Glendale books I’ve read, this one felt more like a self-worth and confidence kind of story rather than a romance. Yes, there were elements of romance in it, but the story felt like it more heavily rotated around Lorna and Adam doing up Dove House into a successful B&B.

We go from the house coming on the market again, purchasing the house and then all the drama’s that come with renovating such an old house back into its prime and ready to open as a business.

The biggest thing that I noticed with this one compared to previous books in the series is the style in which it’s written. All the others felt like it had a natural flow, super relatable characters (even if they were more relatable to people I knew rather than me personally) and realistic problems cropping up.

But this time, a lot of the conversations felt a bit stilted and forced, and the biggest financial setback shouldn’t have even been a setback unless the insurance industry in the UK has completely deviated to how Lloyd’s first established it back in the 1800’s (sorry yes, I work in Insurance and Finance designing the training for teams so I know very well what is and isn’t covered by insurance).

While I understand writing it that way to increase the drama, my work brain wouldn’t shut up and let me enjoy the twist. Instead it was shouting at me how wrong it was. And I completely acknowledge that insurance in the UK may be different enough to here in Australia, but this was a fairly basic part of insurance that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t be different… At least, not based on people I’ve spoken to in the industry.

But, if you don’t have that level of insurance knowledge you’ll have a great ride following the highs and lows of setting and setting up Dove House to be a great B&B with a side of just there romance that is super sweet and turns into the happy ending we all know we want.