Friday, August 16, 2024

#BookReview: A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland




ABOUT THIS BOOK:
Once a young woman uncovers a dark secret about her neighbor and his mysterious new wife, she’ll have to fight to keep herself—and the woman she loves—safe in this stunning queer reimagining of the classic folktale The Selkie Wife.

When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, already drenched to the bone in the freezing cold and barely able to speak a word of English.

Although Jean is the only midwife in the village and for miles around, she’s at a loss as to who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to grow. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?

Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?

#ReleaseBlitz for Fragments of You by Melissa Toppen @GiveMeBooksPR




Title: Fragments of You
Author: Melissa Toppen
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Friends to Lovers/Love Triangle
Second Chance Romance
Release Date: August 16, 2024


BLURB

From USA Today Bestselling Author Melissa Toppen comes a brand-new, standalone, love triangle romance that explores the complexities of first love and what it means to truly follow your heart.

Time is a funny thing. It keeps moving even when it feels like everything around you stops. It is the catalyst for everything. How we grieve. How we heal. How we live. Time was the one thing I tried but could never escape.

Days passed in his absence. Months. Years. And I stood still. Stuck in the past. Paralyzed by the memory of him.

Nash Ketter had been my whole world for as long as I could remember. The person I loved with my entire being. He was the sun, the moon, and the stars. He was everything. And then one day, he was gone… Just like that. Like he had never existed at all. But I knew he had because I still carried fragments of him with me every single day—a reminder of what we had, and what he left behind.

I was so sure I would never find love again after that, that no one could fill the gaping hole Nash had left behind, but Felix Jensen changed all that. He was the last person I expected to fall for, but as it turned out, he was exactly what I needed.

He became the soothing balm to my gaping wounds. He became my friend, my confidant, and then eventually he became something more. Where Nash shattered me into a million tiny shards, Felix spent two years piecing me back together. Even though I was never truly whole after that, he never seemed to care. He loved me, and somehow that was enough.

Or at least I thought it was, until Nash stormed back into town after four years like a tornado, overturning all the carefully placed pieces of the life I had built without him. I hated him for what he did. I hated that he came back. But more than anything, I hated how much I didn’t actually hate him at all.

In the game of love and war, there are rarely ever winners. And when secrets are exposed and true intentions are revealed, I realize I stand to lose a lot more than I ever could have imagined possible.

#BookBlitz: Elements & the Fae by @JillianBea16304 @XpressoTours #Giveaway $20 Amazon gift card

Elements & the Fae
Jillian Beane
(The Elemental, #2)
Publication date: August 12th 2024
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Dirrin is gone, but who took his books? And why?

Cleaning up after the last battle and establishing the newly formed Council of Erist is hard enough, but when Dirrin’s books turn up missing and a chunk of obsidian with a strangely familiar magical signature is found, how will Suleima and her friends figure this out?

When new information about Suleima’s past comes to light, how will her dynamic with her found family change?

Rejoin Suleima and her friends as they face a new threat and discover that Dirrin may have only been the beginning.



#BookBlitz: Son of the Siren by @kristinaebutke @XpressoTours #Giveaway $25 Amazon gift card

Son of the Siren
Kristina Elyse Butke
Publication date: July 2nd 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Sometimes love is a curse, a twisted, unnatural obsession.

Such is the dark magic of a siren’s song, the power of which half-siren Lirien witnesses for himself as he watches his mother sing his father, the King of Ardeth, into the sea. In a fruitless attempt to reverse his father’s fate, Lirien sings the siren song himself, not knowing its true power is seduction. Instead, he ensnares his stepmother, the Queen, with its hypnotic melody.

When Lirien refuses her desperate advances, she turns to forbidden magic to force her love on him. But wishing upon a havoc stone is an invitation to chaos. The queen’s own son and daughters, Lirien’s beloved siblings, are whisked away and transformed into animals. They flee the kingdom, and Lirien chases after them, his beautiful voice also gone.

Through elven mountains, fae forests, and siren waters, Lirien will stop at nothing to find and save his family. Threats come at him from all sides, but there are allies, too—Kitra, a shapeshifting fae fox who vows vengeance on the Queen for killing her brother, and Brandegil, an elf who can awaken the sacred sword Alibrandr to help break the spell on the children.

Together, they’ll bring the stars raining down from the heavens if that’s what it takes to save Lirien’s family, but there’s still the matter of breaking the spell on the Queen. And Lirien’s own deadly curse haunts him should he stray too long from the sea.


#BookBlitz: First Woman by Aren Cappella @RABTBookTours


 


John Christian (Illustrator)

 

Children's Book

Published: March 18, 2024

Publisher: MindStir Media


 

"I am a daughter of the Great Mother Wolf and all the Earth is my home."

Aren Cappella was a writer and artist who lived in the town of Sonoma in Northern California. She was an entrepreneur who owned and operated a small bakery in Sonoma with her business partner. Aren died of breast cancer in 1998 at the age of 42. Before her death she wrote this story, "First Woman." It is the story of the first woman on Earth's spiritual quest to find her place among the other animals on Earth and to discover the qualities that make her uniquely human.