Lineage – C. Vonzale Lewis

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 50 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 10 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

Smart-mouthed Nicole Fontane has a way of getting herself into trouble.

She’s been fired from every job she’s had but still refuses to work in her father’s apothecary shop because of his practice of Earth Magick.

On Tulare Island where Nicole grew up, Magick has always been a way of life—one she’s determined to avoid at all costs. With less than two hundred dollars in the bank and rent due, Nicole is forced to take a job at Tribec Insurance as a last resort. Little does she realize, the moment she sets foot inside the building, she becomes a pawn.

Tribec’s proprietors, the Stewart family, are curiously preoccupied with the Naqada, the mysterious pre-dynastic Egyptian society. It seems creepy but harmless at first, until the eerie atmosphere, disappearing Magick wards, and the smell of blood inside Tribec bring Nicole to a startling conclusion. The Stewarts are practicing Blood Magick—the deadliest of the Five Principles.

By the time Nicole uncovers the truth, people near and dear to her are going missing, and all signs point to the Stewarts and an archaic blood ritual to an Old One. To prevent catastrophe, Nicole must confront a hidden past and unlock the Magick buried within. But can she set aside her deep-rooted fears to work with a team of vigilante Mages? Or will the clock run out on Nicole and those she loves?

Author Bio

My name is Carla Vonzale Lewis and I like my martinis shaken… never stirred.

Carla was born in Georgia, but please don’t mistake her for a Georgia peach. She’s more like a prickly pear. Speaking of being born, someone asked her recently if she remembered her birth. And she had to say, “Yes, I do remember that handsy doctor pulling me out into the cold. Right Bastard!!!”

Despite being born in the South, she grew up in California. Every once in a great while she gets to experience all four seasons. But mostly, it’s just heat.

When not writing, Carla enjoys reading, binge watching shows on Netflix, and trying to convince her husband that getting a dog is a wonderful idea.

And one day, she will discover how many licks it actually takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Fear and Fury – Jamie Jackson

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

Meet Megaera, Meg for short. She’s like Deadpool, except for funner.

For a girl with the power of fear the recruitment attempts from both sides are never-ending. A self-described not-a-hero, villain-leaning humanoid, Meg just wants to live her life, work her dead-end job and have everyone else (especially the heroes) leave her alone. But when a bigger fish who can turn superpowers back on their users enters the picture and threatens the person Meg loves the most (herself), she must turn to the last group of people she would admit she needs help from.

Forced to team up with the heroes she despises (but won’t murder, because let’s face it, orange is not the new black), Meg will have to face the choices from her past that she won’t get therapy for. Self-centered, snarky, sarcastic and a little bit dramatic, she’s going to have to save the world, even if that wasn’t her intention. And try not to get shot in the process. Because that shit hurts.

Author Bio

Jamie lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, three feral children and two badly behaved dogs.

She has BAs in English and Theatre, her favorite part of which was working backstage on traveling Broadway productions.

You can find her on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram under @VillainLeaning or follow her Facebook page, Adventures of a Villain-Leaning Humanoid.

Elle’s A to Z of Love – Claire Huston

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 50 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 10 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

Haileybrook, a beautiful village in the peaceful Cotswolds countryside, is most people’s idea of heaven on earth.

Born and raised in this small slice of paradise, Elle Bea can’t wait to leave.

It should be easy, but every time she packs her bags for exotic adventures, old loves and loyalties pull her back.

Will Elle be forced to forget her dreams of far-flung places and epic romance, or can she grab one last chance to have it all?

An uplifting, romantic story about friends, family and the relationships that make a place a home.

Author Bio

Claire Huston lives in Warwickshire, UK. She writes uplifting modern love stories about characters who are meant for each other but sometimes need help figuring that out. A keen amateur baker, she enjoys making cakes, cookies and brownies almost as much as eating them. You can find over 150 recipes on her website. This is also where she talks about and reviews books. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram (get the links at Claire’s Linktree).

Hideaway in Iceland – Victoria Walker

Anna is a hot shot PR professional based in London, she knows who she is and what she’s worth and she makes sure things go to plan. Being a strong, independent woman; she’s capable of facing off any challenge to make her life the best it can be.

Ned has just left the boyband he’s been a part of for the past decade and he’s figuring out what to do with his life now. Leaving behind everything he’s known before; he’s taking the time to figure out how to navigate life and relationships without a team of people and his bandmates there to support him. All the while trying to keep out of the paparazzi’s way.

Anna and Ned run into each other at the wedding for one of Ned’s ex-bandmates while still in the UK. After the events surrounding the wedding, both Anna and Ned find their way to Iceland where they bump into each other again.

When the chance encounters continue to happen, they decide to explore the attraction they both feel. Over the span of a few months, with a few bumpy points along the way, they figure out exactly what it is they’re feeling between themselves.

I had such an amazing time reading this. The descriptions of Iceland and Reykjavik were so magical I just wanted to hop on a plane to visit.

As I was reading this, I got the sense that Rachel and Jonas had had a book of their own prior to Anna and Ned’s story, and I was right. So, if you do like these fairly sweet but emotionally complex romances set in beautiful scenery, then you might like that (judging by how much I liked this book). While you don’t need to read Rachel and Jonas’ book to enjoy this, if you like to read a series in order, just be aware that this isn’t the first book in the series.

While there were a few things that I confused me (Brun and Olafur for instance, took me ¾ of the book to realise they were two different men!), overall I just had a great time enjoying the romance in a beautiful location.

Continue to read further down to find out about the author.

Author Bio

Victoria Walker has been writing romantic fiction since a visit to Iceland in 2014 inspired her first novel. As well as writing, she spends her free time dressmaking, knitting and reading an inordinate amount of contemporary romance, occasionally punctuated by the odd psychological thriller and saga.

In the past she has worked as a cinema projectionist, a knitting and sewing tutor and has owned a yarn store, all things which will no doubt appear in her books if they haven’t already.

Victoria lives in the Malvern Hills with her husband and occasionally her two adult children.

After the Party – A.K. Ritchie

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 55 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

The last thing Peyton Young expects on New Year’s Eve is literally crashing into the lead singer of her favourite local band, Forever July. Chase Reid knows her name, that she wrote the not so flattering blog post about his band, and he wants her opinion on their new song. Their exchange, while brief, kindles an unlikely friendship and opens up Peyton to new friends and an unexpected turn for her blog, Eternal Spin.

As Chase and Peyton’s feelings for each other develop, Peyton can’t help but wonder how she fits into Chase’s world. While it makes things more complicated, it’s not just Peyton’s toxic boyfriend and Chase’s perfect girlfriend standing between them. The insecurities that followed her from the past have Peyton trapped in a loop of self doubt that could jeopardize what she has with Chase.

Just as Peyton gathers the courage to make a choice that will change the direction of her life, a figure from her former life appears, forcing her to confront the memories she tried for years to bury.

Can Peyton face down the demons from her youth that whisper she isn’t good enough for Chase Reid? A man whose entire career is unfolding before him. Or will she let the old fears drag her down before she can take her chance at happiness?

I read an excerpt of this and liked it enough to ask for a review copy. Sign up to my newsletter to know when I release that review!

Author Bio

A.K. Ritchie hails from a small city in Ontario, Canada. She loves writing contemporary fiction with a focus on Romance and Coming-of-Age stories. The music she loves influences most of what she writes.

When not writing in coffee shops or curled up in her bed scrolling through social media, A.K. Ritchie enjoys seeing live music, spending time in nature, going on road trips, all of which inspire her work.

Meet Me on Platform 3 – Zara Stoneley

This book contains:

  • Mention of abortion
  • References to and discussion about the death of a loved one/parent.

Millie and Joe both grew up on the Moors in Northumbria (northern England region) but dreamed of moving to London and being successful. While Millie pursued London despite the setbacks that seemed to make it as difficult as possible, Joe was supported by his family every step of the way.

As a writer, Millie’s security in London is only as good as her last piece of work. And recently that’s been questionable. Joe on the other hand works in a more solid industry where contracts often run longer than initially intended but working for a company that contracts him out means he could be sent somewhere other than London at the end of any project.

Millie, literally, walks into Joe and has such a sweet meet-cute she has to include meeting him in her next weekly column. She just needs to make it funnier.

As it turns out, readers of her column love the meet cute and want more of Joe which means Millie’s now on a mission to find Joe again even though she has no idea what train he was getting when she bumped into him, if he regularly gets the train on a Thursday or Friday (if at all) and if there’s any chance of seeing him again.

I smashed through this on holidays (while recovering from being horribly ill, who needs that on a holiday?) enjoying almost every minute of it. The little bit’s I didn’t enjoy so much are the bit’s you’re not meant to, because they add drama. So, it was totally fine!

Not only were both characters highly cute and sweet, but they also had depth in their flaws as they tried to find a way to work together. Since I’m not usually a fan of sweet romances, that depth and complexity added the little spicy-ness I needed to truly enjoy a romance set on the train lines of England.

I think the only thing that confused me a little as I was reading it was how the train systems worked. Sometimes if they didn’t get their train it meant they’d be without a ticket for a later train, but other times it was fine if they just waited for a later one?

That little detail probably wouldn’t be so obvious if I didn’t pretty much read the entire book in one sitting, but I did so I noticed it. If those tiny little things don’t bother you as you read your latest romance fix, then you’ll be totally fine to enjoy a sweet but complex romance.

Continue to read further down to find out about the author.

Author Bio

USA Today bestselling author Zara Stoneley was born in a small village in the UK. She wanted to be a female James Herriot, a spy, or an author when she grew up.

After many (many) years, and many different jobs, her dream of writing a bestseller came true, and more than half a million copies of her books have now been sold worldwide.

She writes about friendship, dreams, love, and happy ever afters, and hopes that her tales make you laugh a lot, cry a little, and occasionally say ‘ahhh’.

Hidden in the Mists – Christina Courtenay

This book contains:

  • References to drug use
  • Set up of illicit drugs with the intent to distribute
  • Attempted and committed murder
  • Attempted rape
  • Various forms of theft.

Skye lives in a remote part of Scotland where she’s easily gone months without seeing another human. While part of this comes down to the success of her self-sufficient property, some of this comes down to an unwillingness to be go into town unless strictly necessary.

Rafe on the other hand has been living on the road for a couple of years and is looking for something, not that he knows what that is just yet. When he hears about Skye potentially needing an extra set of hands for the summer, he offers his services in exchange for a place to park his camper van and food. He’s a fairly simple man, just wants to live a happy life, but he’s found that difficult in recent years for reasons you’ll discover as you read.

Skye’s been trying to do everything herself after her husband left, and money is fast running out. Trying to make her slice of Scottish heaven profitable so she can remain on the land is difficult to say the least. Especially after everything her husband has done to her and the village locals.

Cue Rafe coming into town and needing some seasonal work, who just also happens to have the skillset Skye needs to make a difference.

As they work together they come to grips with their own pasts and what they want from the future, while also facing down the history of the area (in a very time-slip kinda way) and their own pasts that keep wanting to be a part of their present.

While this Viking era-esque novel is quite different to the previous books I’ve read from Christina Courtenay, it keeps the hallmarks of her style. Romance, danger, time travel, a mystery and forces beyond their knowledge and comprehension pushing the main characters in a certain direction.

The best part about this was actually the little nugget of info I got from reading the Author’s Acknowledgements (I never read these and I think I accidentally started accidentally) which gave me an insight I wouldn’t have otherwise known. In this case, that Christina has actually never been to the part of Scotland this story is set in and she normally likes to travel to the locations she writes about to ensure it’s authenticity.

I was following along some of the locations on Google Maps, and as an Aussie who’s never been to Europe let alone Scotland, I would never have known she’d never been! Instead, she enlisted the help of some friends who lived in the area and made sure she stuck to that area to ensure it stayed authentic. That’s the kind of dedication you don’t expect from an author when they write a book while stuck in lockdown!

This dedication is also part of why Christina’s books feel so real. You can imagine the trees, the smell, the feel of the earth and all the sights wherever she set’s her books. That’s the kind of immersion into a book not all authors are capable of achieving, especially about a location they don’t live in themselves.

Continue to read further down to find out about the author and any extra giveaways available.

Author Bio

Christina Courtenay writes historical romance, time slip and time travel stories, and lives in Herefordshire (near the Welsh border) in the UK. Although born in England, she has a Swedish mother and was brought up in Sweden – hence her abiding interest in the Vikings. Christina is a former chairman of the UK’s Romantic Novelists’ Association and has won several awards, including the RoNA for Best Historical Romantic Novel twice with Highland Storms (2012) and The Gilded Fan (2014) and the RNA Fantasy Romantic Novel of the year 2021 with Echoes of the Runes.  Hidden in the Mists (timeslip/dual time romance published by Headline Review 18th August 2022) is her latest novel. Christina is a keen amateur genealogist and loves history and archaeology (the armchair variety).

Giveaway – Win a signed copy of Hidden in the Mists Viking tea-towel and Viking carved butter knife (open internationally)

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

The Dark Matter of Natasha – Matthew R. Davis

This book contains:

  • Suicide described and depicted and its effects on their loved ones
  • Drug use and addiction
  • Teen drinking
  • Descriptions of rape (girls were 11 and 12 at the time)
  • Reference to abortions
  • Description of murder
  • Description of threatening to kill someone.

While the story is told from the perspective of a man reflecting on his youth, we never know his name. In his youth, the key people he’s remembering are Caitlin and Natasha.

Caitlin is a sweet girl who’s seemingly innocent in all ways and everything that Natasha isn’t. Natasha has a past that haunts her in more ways than one that get explored as we progress through the novella.

From moving to Lunar Bay through to the culmination of Natasha’s darkness we follow our un-named man as a teenager. Throughout his time in Lunar Bay, he’s confronted with some pretty intense topics, from struggling to understand girls and sex through to the more traumatic themes of rape, abortions and suicide.

For a small town, a lot seems to be happening in some pretty big, illegal and emotionally traumatic ways. For a thriller, it doesn’t have the same level of “what is happening?!” that I’m used to. But it makes up for it with the sheer intensity of what’s happening emotionally and hormonally to teenagers who’ve been through a lot.

The way Matthew was describing the events and the man’s feelings as the events unfolded made the story feel almost autobiographical. Especially as we moved to how he left Lunar Bay and how his life was playing out as an adult.

I mean, how do you come up with a story like that without it being based off of truth?

Surely those events are just too intensely traumatic to be something that someone can come up with to happen to fictional characters in a small town before hitting 18?

Over the course of the afternoon where I read the novella, I was definitely pushed to think, contemplate and left wondering at how these kinds of events could happen. Especially what drives people to the point where they do that. In that sense, the story followed the same theme as a thriller but in a different context to the types I’ve read before.

The Only Exception – Claire Huston

This book contains:

  • Serious cardiac event of a minor character
  • Invasion of privacy (online/background search).

Lucinda is a chef with her own catering business with serious doubts about the concept of love even though she’s previously been engaged (to the man she’s still sharing a house with). And yet, for all her convictions, romance seems to find its way into her life at every turn.

Alex is an actor living with his girlfriend who annoys him to no ends. And yet, he can never bring himself to do anything about it.

Lucinda and Alex meet in an elevator where a freak cardiac event draws them together in ways they couldn’t expect. While Lucinda is trying to keep her business running smoothly after losing a key client, Alex is trying to get over some unwanted notoriety and extricate himself from his tiring relationship.

I had such a strong feeling for a significant portion of this book that cheating was going to happen and I was really nervous about that. I really didn’t want it to happen, but at the same time it felt like Lucinda and Alex needed to be together.

Luckily that never happened, so no need to fear there!

Instead, I was treated to a “will they – won’t they” feeling romance as they navigated their complicated situations while trying to save both their careers and domestic lives. The nervous adrenaline I was feeling as I read this meant I skipped uni work just to find out what would happen because I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus if I didn’t find out.

Continue to read further down to find out about the author.

Author Bio

Claire Huston lives in Warwickshire with her husband and two children. She writes uplifting modern love stories about characters who are meant for each other but sometimes need a little help to realise it.

A keen amateur baker, she enjoys making cakes, biscuits and brownies almost as much as eating them. You can find recipes for over a hundred sweet treats at clairehuston.co.uk. This is also where she talks about and reviews books.

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