Reading on the Rocks: May 2015

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Repost: Hot Summer Nights by Lisa Marie Perry Cover

I saw this cover from the Harlequin Kimani Line on Twitter and thought that I would share it on the blog.....For more information and to read the book summary, you can click on the link below.

#CoverThursday! Coming July 2015 http://t.co/3Y7jUgYnP4 HOT SUMMER NIGHTS by @PerryOrdinary #CaliforniaDesertDreams pic.twitter.com/XrMIWaKEWb
— Harlequin Kimani (@Kimani_Books) May 28, 2015

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Cover Reveals & Giveaway: Dark Embrace & Dark Paradise by Angie Sandro

Today, I’m excited to have Angie Sandro on the blog as she reveals the covers for her paranormal new adult novel DARK EMBRACE and the new cover for DARK PARADISE. In addition to the amazing new covers, you’ll also find more information about each book and buy/preorder links below.

And the excitement doesn’t stop there…

Dark Paradise, the first book in the series, will be on sale for $.99 from June 1-28, 2015.

But that’s not all…

The author is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner, so don’t forget to enter for a chance to win!

Now, scroll down and enjoy!!!

About DARK EMBRACE

Reader favorite Angie Sandro returns to the bayou with a bewitching paranormal romance perfect for fans of Beautiful Creatures . . .

Rescued from the brink of death by her cousin Mala, Dena Acker returns to the land of the living with a terrifying gift. Still connected to the darkness that almost claimed her, she can tell when someone’s about to die—but there’s nothing she can do to save them. Desperate to rid herself of this cursed ability, Dena has only one chance at peace . . . and it comes from an otherworldly stranger.

For centuries, Ashmael has seen more souls than he can count but he’s never been drawn to anyone the way he is to fragile, beautiful Dena. She fills the dark void of his days with light, and he would do anything to ease her suffering. Even if it means sacrificing his only chance at a flesh-and-blood existence to truly be with her.

Expected Release Date July 14, 2015

Buy links for DARK EMBRACE

B & N Kobo Amazon

About Dark Paradise

Is this love affair their destiny? Or is it doomed?

Paradise, Louisiana, is far from idyllic for Mala LaCroix and Landry Prince. Haunted by strange visions, the pair are drawn together by a mystery concealed beneath the polite facades and the murky swamps of the Deep South.

Landry had a crush on Mala all through high school and was her greatest defender, but now-up close and personal-he is starting to suspect that the rumors of witchcraft and voodoo are true.

But he can't let his doubts tear them apart because a day of reckoning is coming. As Mala struggles to conceal her powers and avoid the curse that has struck generations of LaCroix women, Landry will have no choice but to face his own demons. Both of them will soon be caught up in a web of deceit that reveals the dark side of Paradise.

Buy links for DARK PARADISE

B&N Kobo iTunes Amazon

About Angie Sandro

Angie Sandro was born at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Within six weeks, she began the first of eleven relocations throughout the United States, Spain, and Guam before the age of eighteen.

Friends were left behind. The only constants in her life were her family and the books she shipped wherever she went. Traveling the world inspired her imagination and allowed her to create her own imaginary friends. Visits to her father's family in Louisiana inspired this story.

Angie now lives in Northern California with her husband, two children, and an overweight Labrador.

Goodreads Facebook Website

Newsletter Sign Up Pinterest @AngieSandro

Giveaway

$25 Amazon gift card

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, May 25, 2015

ARC Review: When Love Happens by Darcy Burke

Title: When Love Happens (Ribbon Ridge, #3)

Author: Darcy Burke

Publisher/Expected Publication Date: Avon Impulse; May 26, 2015

Format/Source: E-ARC, Publisher/Edelweiss

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Amazon Barnes & Noble Goodreads HarperCollins

About When Love Happens

In a town as small as Ribbon Ridge and with a family as large as the Archers, even the best kept secrets don’t stay buried for long...

Tori Archer is married…well, on paper anyway. She hasn’t actually seen her husband since the disastrous morning after their impulsive Vegas wedding. The memories of their intense passion may still make her weak in the knees, but Tori knows their marriage was a mistake.

After six months filming abroad, television producer Sean Hennessy wants nothing more than to track down his sexy, captivating wife and get her into bed… fast. So when his boss sends him to Oregon to persuade the famous Archer sextuplets-the former stars of a reality TV show-to do a reunion special, Sean sees the perfect chance to win Tori back.

Only, Tori wants nothing to do with him and is determined to push him away. But their attraction is as hot as ever and Sean will do anything to prove their relationship was more than just a fling…because he knows that when real love happens, it changes everything.

My Thoughts

When Love Happens by Darcy Burke simply takes readers on an emotional whirlwind.

I appreciated that this wasn't just another contemporary romance novel in which there was love at first sight without any struggles. I haven't read the previous books in the series; however, I have read the summaries. When Love Happens picked up several months after Sean and Tori were married. The Archer family continued to deal with the death of Alex, one of the Archer sextuplets. Tori especially had a hard time dealing with it all—the guilt, the grief, the marriage. There was definitely a good chemistry between Sean and Tori, and there were moments when they emanated enough heat to melt the snow. Yet, they remained on a roller coaster ride throughout this novel.

The pacing in the beginning was slow. And initially there weren't enough details to make me feel like I was in the moment. However, as the story progressed the descriptions, especially those that dealt with the characters' emotions, were more vividly portrayed.

The supporting characters were depicted realistically. I liked how they helped Sean and Tori work through their issues. Yet, there were elements of family and reality show drama that complicated matters and raised additional questions as to whether Sean and Tori would stay together or call it quits.

Although I was cautiously optimistic about this book in the beginning, it turned out to be an enjoyable read. I am definitely looking forward to reading the other books In the series to find out how it began.

Rating-4/5

I received an E-ARC of When Love Happens from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Darcy Burke is the USA Today Bestselling Author of hot, action-packed historical and sexy, emotional contemporary romance. Darcy wrote her first book at age 11, a happily ever after about a swan addicted to magic and the female swan who loved him, with exceedingly poor illustrations.

A native Oregonian, Darcy lives on the edge of wine country with her devoted husband, their two great kids, and two Bengal cats. In her “spare” time Darcy is a serial volunteer enrolled in a 12-step program where one learns to say “no,” but she keeps having to start over. She’s also a fair-weather runner, and her happy places are Disneyland and Labor Day weekend at the Gorge.

For more information visit Darcy Burke's Website!

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Giveaway Alert! Enter for a Chance to Win an ARC of Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2) by Tessa Bailey

Title: Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2)
Author: Tessa Bailey
Publisher/Expected Publication Date: Entangled Select; June 23, 2015
Genre: Contemporary Romance

For more information visit Entangled Publishing

Book Summary from Goodreads

Connor Bannon is supposed to be dead. Dishonorably discharged from the Navy SEALs, he's spent the last two years working as a street enforcer in Brooklyn for his cousin's crime ring. Through a twist of fate, he's now in Chicago, working undercover to bust criminals. But when a cute little arsonist joins the team—all combat boots, tiny jean shorts, and hot-pink hair—Connor’s notorious iron control slips.

Erin "she's getting away" O'Dea knows two things. She hates authority. And… Nope, that's it. When she's forced to operate on the “right” side of the law, her fear of being confined and controlled blazes to the surface. The last thing she expects is a control freak like Connor to soothe her when she needs it most. Worse, something behind the sexy ex-soldier's eyes ignites a dangerous inferno of desire. One that invites Erin to play with fire. And one that could get them both killed…

Giveaway

Click on the link below for a chance to win an ARC of Up in Smoke. And hurry, there are only hours left to enter!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday, May 15, 2015

Blog Tour, Excerpt, Review & Giveaway: Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your skin...Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons

FAT GIRL WALKING: Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It

by Brittany Gibbons

(May 19, 2015; Hardcover; $24.99; ISBN: 9780062343031; E-Book ISBN: 9780062343055).
Format/Source: Hardcover, Publisher

In FAT GIRL WALKING, Brittany—acclaimed blogger and body image advocate—shares the often funny and often painful true stories of her life as an overweight girl growing up in the Midwest. From coping with mental illness and obesity in her family, to her struggles with dating (it’s hard—no matter your size!), dealing with anxiety issues that forced her to drop out of college, falling in love, getting married, having three children, battling with bulimia, launching a successful writing career, and to finally getting the confidence to say goodbye to diets and body hating for good, Brittany’s new memoir is a soul-baring account of her quest to learn to love her shape.

Brittany admits that for all of the hobbies she has picked up and put down over the years, body hating has been her most dedicated and consistent. But when her young daughter started holding her stomach in the mirror and imitating her mom, she realized something needed to change. Brittany had no idea what to do first, only that she knew she had been ignoring all of the amazing things she had achieved in her life despite her size.

She began to change her perspective by making a pledge to tell herself three things she liked about her body every day, no matter how awkward it seemed. She bought clothes to actually fit her body shape—not the size on the label—and actively stopped glorifying women (in her head and in her writing) as “beautiful” only if they were also thin. That adjective became the last thing Brittany decided she would say to her daughter after brilliant, hilarious, curious, creative, and daring. Brittany also started to recognize that her “flabby parts aren’t problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook” a scrapbook that contains memories of places she’s been, meals she enjoyed with loved ones, and the amazing children she has had.

Soon, she took her new powerful outlook to Times Square and stripped down to her bathing suit for a national women’s body image campaign and then did it again during a TEDx Talk in 2011 on a journey to start changing the societal conversation about body image. “I saw this as a chance to become a point of reference and authority for plus-size women online…Plus-size people were often portrayed in society as villains. We affected your health-care costs with our diabetes and our heart attacks. We all wanted gastric bypass and lap-band surgery as an easy way out. We were eating all the fast food from the dollar menu. We were lazy, lacked self-control, and were unpleasant to look at. We were an epidemic.”

Today on her successful blog, www.brittanyherself.com, fat shaming is all too real amongst the anonymity of the internet. Instead of being beaten down by it, she’s come to realize that people are allowed to say whatever they want about her weight but it’s entirely up to her how much power she lets those words have. In FAT GIRL WALKING, Brittany wants readers to learn that despite our background, upbringing and thoughts we have about ourselves, we are ultimately in charge of providing the narrative for how other people perceive us. “People treat me like a sexy and confident woman because I act like a sexy and confident woman; my behavior doesn’t give them any other options.”

FAT GIRL WALKING is not a diet book. It’s not one of those memoirs about how someone battled, and won, the fight against fat. Instead, it is a book that reminds us all that being chubby doesn’t mean you’ll end up alone, unhappy, or the subject of a cable medical show. Learning to love your shape is the important step of learning to live a life of the same joy, heartbreak, oddity, awkwardness and wonder as anyone else’s. Just with better snacks.

Amazon Barnes & Noble HarperCollins

Excerpt

NOW WHAT?

My fitness and body aspirations at thirty are different from my aspirations at twenty. At twenty, I just assumed I’d work out until I was so tiny, people became concerned for my health and I’d roll my eyes at them from my Victoria’s Secret bras and Abercrombie jeans. Now I just want to maintain my current weight so I don’t need to buy new clothes. When you look at weight loss, it’s often clothing driven. Weddings, vacations, and high school reunions, all things you are supposed to be thin for. But what if you have a gorgeous wedding dress in your current size, loads of flattering bathing suits, and a killer pair of jeans? Starving myself has suddenly become a moot point. I have options; I’m no longer a fashion pariah. So where does that leave my weight? Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business.

I like to put good food in my mouth, and while I am aware of the calories I ingest, instead of cutting them I make them count. I have a full-on love affair with food, appreciating the different cultures and processes within it. In fact, I take entire vacations around eating. It’s how I remember where I’ve been; I’ve either eaten, thrown up, or started my period without the proper supplies there.

Beignets with my best friend in New Orleans. Too much rum on the beaches of Playa del Carmen on our second honeymoon. Orlando, Florida, the city of emergency men’s tube sock maxi-pads.

You see, these flabby parts aren’t problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook.

Review

We’ve all read or heard those stories of people who use extreme measures to attain their ideal body weight. Well Fat Girl Walking provides a different take on dealing with being above the ideal BMI. Fat Girl Walking is Brittany Gibbons’ (AKA Brittany Herself) personal and absolutely raw account of her experiences with sex, love, and life as an overweight woman and her journey to self-acceptance. She details her bouts with anxiety and agoraphobia and the turning point in her life at which point she realized that there was life after failure.

It was nice to read a book in which the author shed light on fat shaming and the role that the media plays. Although it’s important to live a healthy lifestyle, I was impressed that Gibbons stressed that one can learn to be happy where they’re at. Her story just proves that one size does not fit all—not every overweight person has low self-esteem and vice versa. It’s just a matter of whether a person has learned to deal with inner conflicts and love oneself despite what society has to say about them. Overall, Aka Brittany Herself has presented an inspiring and heartfelt story on love and acceptance.

Rating 4/5

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BRITTANY GIBBONS is a humorist, internet personality, model and nationally recognized positive body image advocate. She began her blog www.BrittanyHerself.com in 2007, and later founded the magazine, CurvyGirlGuide.com, and she hosts “Last Call Brittany,” a weekly Google talk show. She lives in Toledo, Ohio with her husband and three small children.