Release Day! The Last Port of Call by Elizabeth Bromke ~ My Thoughts #TheLastPortOfCall @ElizabethBromke

Congrats Elizabeth

on the recent release of 

The Last Port of Call!

The Last Port of Call by Patricia Sands

(Sail Away Series Book 9)

Friendship Fiction, 161 pages

Published March 20, 2023

Set sail to new adventures and escapes with eight best-selling authors in the exciting new Sail Away series!

Marie Stern is two things she doesn't want to be: freshly divorced and turning fifty. But if that isn’t bad enough, the messy dissolution has cost her much of her life savings and many of her friends.

So, the newly single Marie moves back home with her mother, a ornery octogenarian with a penchant for entering to win radio contests. Once back, Marie realizes her mom is in worse shape than she expected. Joan needs help, and Marie worries she was almost too late...

When Joan Stern’s adult daughter returns home, the timing couldn’t be worse. After entering and losing thousands of vacation contests over the years, the retired hairdresser has hit the jackpot. She just won two tickets to an all-expense-paid Alaskan cruise for a week. And she already promised the ticket to her boyfriend.

Marie doesn’t think it's wise for her mother to travel, especially on a cross-country boat trip. She's ready to put the kibosh on things, but it's too late. Not only is her mother going on this vacation, but she's taking with her a secret boyfriend. That is, until he dies, leaving Joan with one extra ticket and a zest for life so powerful that Marie must either pray that Joan doesn't fall overboard, or...

She can join her mother before the ocean liner reaches its last port of call.

Will the mother-daughter duo embark on a wild ride, full of laughter and tears and second chances? Or will they drown in their respective sorrows?

Drift into the beauty of Alaska aboard the Opal of the Seas in this feel-good and feisty women's fiction about a mother and daughter, life and love by USA Today bestseller, Elizabeth Bromke.

My thoughts about The Last Port of Call ~ 

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)

First line—"'Enjoy this one.' Marie Stern taps a finger on Moby Dick then gives the worn paperback a gentle push. 'It's a classic.'"

Mothers and daughters—always an interesting and sometimes, stressful dynamic. And then to take that dynamic onto a cruise ship, where there is no getting away from each other. Yikes! 

Joan wins a cruise for two and definitely does not expect to take her daughter along. Her situation changes and it seems like the two of them are going to be spending some quality time together. Will either of them survive the week?

This was a fun cruise for me—maybe not for them—as I watched their two personalities clash. Putting two strong women together always makes for an interesting storyline. 

I'm a huge fan of this series and I highly recommend Last Port of Call, as well as this whole series, as an escape and as a way to experience the fun of a cruise or two, or eight. 

I received a copy of The Last Port of Call from the author and this is my honest opinion.

About the author

Elizabeth Bromke writes women's fiction and heartwarming romance. In her stories, she weaves together family dynamics and the triumphs and trials of modern relationships. Echoes of the past flavor her books with nostalgia.

Elizabeth lives in the mountains of Arizona. There, she enjoys walking, reading, and cooking with her husband, son, and their sweet Golden-mix, Winnie. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Elizabeth

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram | Twitter

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Get ready to set sail on the trip of a lifetime! Eight amazing authors have come together to create this fun series, each book set on a cruise ship but with individual stories and characters. I have read a few of these authors, and love them already. Some are new-to-me authors but I'm excited to give their books a try. 

Welcome Aboard contains the prologue to each story so the reader can get a taste of the story before it comes out. I have to admit that I am intrigued by all of them and can't wait to read all of the stories. Some of the characters have already grabbed my heart. 

You can snag Welcome Aboard for free right now. Check it out and then sit back and wait in anticipation for each release, like I will be. I know it's going to be fun!

Welcome Aboard is available for FREE on Amazon.

Get your copy now and get started on this fabulous series!

*********************

★ Don’t miss a Sail Away book! ★

Book 1: Welcome Aboard – prologue book

Book 2: The Sound of the Sea by Jessie Newton

Book 3: Uncharted Waters by Tammy L. Grace

Book 4: A Not So Distant Shore by Ev Bishop

Book 5: Caroline, Adrift by Kay Bratt

Book 6: Moonlight On the Lido Deck by Violet Howe

Book 7: The Winning Tickets by Judith Keim

Book 8: Lost At Sea by Patricia Sands

Book 9: The Last Port of Call by Elizabeth Bromke 

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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? March 20, 2023 #IMWAYR

         

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It's an opportunity to visit other blogs and to comment on their reads. And ... you can add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are! 

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Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a good week. 

Happy reading!

What I'm currently reading

The Echo of Old Books

by Barbara Davis

eARC

Pub date ~ March 28

The Widow

by Kaira Rouda

Narrated by Donna Postel, George Newbern, & Nancy Wu

audio-book from my TB shelves

What I recently finished

The Last Port of Call:

(Sail Away Series #9)

Elizabeth Bromke

eARC

Pub date ~ March 22

Yet You Cry When It Hurts

(Nothing is Promised #4)

Susan Kaye Quinn

eARC

Pub date ~ March 9

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

by Marie Benedict

print from my TBR shelves for a challenge

What I am going to read next

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown: Adapted for Young Readers from the Best-Selling Novel

by Heather B. Moore & Allison Hong Merrill

print ARC

Pub date ~ April 11

I really love my reading life!

What are you reading this week?

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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!

This OR That #Giveaway № 96 ~ My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley OR The God Game by Danny Tobey #MyExLife #TheGodGame

 

I have sooooo many books!

The This or That Giveaway! feature that I post every Saturday is a way for me to cull my collection and to share some of the many books I have. I get to clear off some of my shelves to make room for more books and give someone else the chance to enjoy these treasures.

Good luck and be sure to stop back next week!

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My Ex-Life
by Stephen McCauley
ARC ~ Published May 2018

The time for Stephen McCauley's breakout novel has come and My Ex-Life is it in a major way. A delicious novel for fans of Tom Perrotta, Maria Semple, and Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney about how sometimes the only way to move forward is to go back.

David Hedges’s life is coming apart at the seams. His job helping San Francisco rich kids get into the colleges of their (parents’) choice is exasperating; his younger boyfriend has left him; and the beloved carriage house he rents is being sold. His solace is a Thai takeout joint that delivers 24/7.

The last person he expects to hear from is Julie Fiske. It’s been decades since they’ve spoken, and he’s relieved to hear she’s recovered from her brief, misguided first marriage. To him.

Julie definitely doesn’t have a problem with marijuana (she’s given it up completely, so it doesn’t matter if she gets stoned almost daily) and the Airbnb she’s running out of her seaside house north of Boston is neither shabby nor illegal. And she has two whole months to come up with the money to buy said house from her second husband before their divorce is finalized. She’d just like David’s help organizing college plans for her 17-year-old daughter.

That would be Mandy. To quote Barry Manilow, Oh Mandy. While she knows she’s smarter than most of the kids in her school, she can’t figure out why she’s making so many incredibly dumb and increasingly dangerous choices.

When David flies east, they find themselves living under the same roof (one David needs to repair). David and Julie pick up exactly where they left off thirty years ago―they’re still best friends who can finish each other’s sentences. But there’s one broken bit between them that no amount of home renovations will fix.

In prose filled with hilarious and heartbreakingly accurate one-liners, Stephen McCauley has written a novel that examines how we define home, family, and love. Be prepared to laugh, shed a few tears, and have thoughts of your own ex-life triggered. (Throw pillows optional.)

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The God Game

by Danny Tobey

ARC ~ Published January 2020

You are invited!

Come inside and play with G.O.D.

Bring your friends!

It’s fun!

But remember the rules. Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.™ Lose, you die!

With those words, Charlie and his friends enter the G.O.D. Game, a video game run by underground hackers and controlled by a mysterious AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone-screens and high-tech glasses, the teens’ realities blur with a virtual world of creeping vines, smoldering torches, runes, glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them with expensive tech, revenge on high-school tormentors, and cash flowing from ATMs. Slaying a hydra and drawing a bloody pentagram as payment to a Greek god seem harmless at first. Fun even.

But then the threatening messages start. Worship me. Obey me. Complete a mission, however cruel, or the game reveals their secrets and crushes their dreams. Tasks that seemed harmless at first take on deadly consequences. Mysterious packages show up at their homes. Shadowy figures start following them, appearing around corners, attacking them in parking garages. Who else is playing this game, and how far will they go to win?

And what of the game’s first promise: win, win big, lose, you die? Dying in a virtual world doesn’t really mean death in real life—does it?

As Charlie and his friends try to find a way out of the game, they realize they’ve been manipulated into a bigger web they can’t escape: an AI that learned its cruelty from watching us.

God is always watching, and He says when the game is done.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Release Day! Scent of Magnolia by Ashley Farley ~ My Thoughts #ScentOfMagnolia @AshleyWFarley

Happy Release Day!

Congrats Ashley

on the release today of

Scent of Magnolia!

Scent of Magnolia by Ashley Farley

Women's Friendship Fiction, 314 pages

Published March 15, 2023 by AHF Publishing

“A riveting new family drama by the queen of southern fiction.”

Scout Montgomery has turned her search for her missing brother into a career. She finds her professional life as a homicide detective meaningful, but her personal life is nonexistent. She’s stuck in the past. In order to move on, she must find closure. When she returns home to Alabama for the death of a childhood friend, she uses her acquired investigative skills to discover new clues concerning her brother’s disappearance.

Beneath Kate Baldwin’s public persona as fashion designer lies a young woman carrying a heavy burden of guilt. Her relationship issues and inability to find happiness stem from the secret she’s been keeping for nearly two decades. She yearns to reveal the truth–an unexpected trip home to her childhood home in Alabama provides the opportunity—but doing so will destroy the lives of the people she cares about the most.

June Montgomery is married to a prominent politician, lives in a magazine-worthy home, and leads an active social life. But she lives in constant fear the past will come back to haunt her. She approaches Scout’s homecoming with trepidation. Her daughter has the power to unravel the seams of her intricately crafted lies.

When family and friends reunite, old hostilities resurface and the discovery of new evidence regarding Ford’s disappearance endangers lives.

My thoughts about Scent of Magnolia ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)

First lines—"Scout adds her unmarked car to the cluster of Seattle's first responder vehicles parked haphazardly at the crime scene." 

Oh my gosh. Hold on to your hat when you start this one. This is a story full of family drama, lies, secrets, abuse, affairs, estrangement, missing family members, and lost friendships. I'm sure I forgot to list even more of the hard situations that are within the pages of this book. There is so much there! 

Scout dedicates her life to finding missing people because she knows the trauma of missing someone you love. Her brother went missing many years ago and she's never given up. Getting the phone call to come home because one of her best friends from childhood has died has sent her into a tailspin as the past comes slamming back at her. Will she finally get some answers or will her digging drive her family and friends further away? 

Scent of Magnolia is an intense story with so many secrets and lies that you never know what is going to be revealed next. Once again, Ashley has created a wonderful, interesting world that captured my heart and attention until the very end. I loved every bit of it and I can't recommend it enough. This is family drama at it's finest. 

I received a copy of Scent of Magnolia from the author and this is my honest opinion.

About the author

Ashley Farley writes books about women for women. Her characters are mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives facing real-life issues. Her bestselling Sweeney Sisters series has touched the lives of many.

Ashley is a wife and mother of two young adult children. While she's lived in Richmond, Virginia for the past 21 years, a piece of her heart remains in the salty marshes of the South Carolina Lowcountry, where she still calls home. Through the eyes of her characters, she captures the moss-draped trees, delectable cuisine, and kindhearted folk with lazy drawls that make the area so unique. For more information, visit www.ashleyfarley.com ~ Goodreads

Connect with Ashley

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter | Instagram

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Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

New Release! Lost at Sea by Patricia Sands ~ My Thoughts #LostAtSea

Congrats Patricia

on the recent release of 

Lost at Sea!

Lost at Sea by Patricia Sands

(Sail Away Series Book 8)

Friendship Fiction, 183 pages

Published March 12, 2023

For every family that is Italian going back several generations, this will sound familiar: It's a known fact that Italian women are passionate about everything, especially family, and they know that food is the essence of life.

Stephanie (Stevie) Valentini's story begins with her Bisnonna (great-grandmother) Paola in a village in Italy after WW2. In 2021, she is searching for something. She's just not sure what that something is.

The chef in her family's trattoria, Stephanie's life has imploded. Suddenly single, suffering from Covid burnout, and about to turn thirty, she impulsively agrees to help best friend Kim with her pop-up jewelry shop on a Mediterranean cruise. Feeling lost, she's not convinced she even needs to be found. What she discovers on this voyage is magic that might change her forever.

This gourmet food cruise is on a small ship with ten stops of three days in exciting ports from Barcelona to Venice. Time with Kim can only help heal Stephanie's wounded heart as they have laughed and cried their way through life together as only besties can. They will be crew on this cruise and not paying passengers. Kim understands Stephanie does not want anyone to know she is the TikTok star of Stevie Valentini's Pasta Party. Nor does she want any romance.

With each passing port, adventures continue, surprises occur and the final outcome once Venice is reached could not have been anticipated, particularly by Stephanie.

Join bestselling author Patricia Sands as she whisks you away in the latest adventure in the Sail Away series. Lose yourself on the sparkling Mediterranean in a story of family, friendship and food.

My thoughts about Lost at Sea ~ 

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)

First line—"For every family that is Italian going back several generations, this will sound familiar: It's a known fact that Italian women are passionate about everything, especially family, and they know that food is the essence of life." 

I'm a huge fan of this series and I especially love the work of this week's author. Patricia Sands' stories always take me on wonderful, little vacations, allowing me to escape my life for a bit. Lost at Sea was just the mini vacation I needed right now. I was able to spend time on a wonderful cruise full of fantastic people, beautiful scenery and tempting, yummy-sounding food. 

Stevie Valentini is burnt out and goes on this cruise with her best friend, to get away from her career and to reset her life. Not wanting to outed for the wonderful chef that she is, she makes friends and keeps her identify a secret. That was fun to watch, as she tries to rein in her foodie expertise. 

Like all the books in this series, Stevie learns so much about herself while cruising and is on the path for figuring out her life. Lost at Sea will sweep you up and land you in an amazing place, enjoying the beautiful scenery just as if you were there. I could almost smell the wonderful aromas of the food they all enjoyed. Thanks, Patricia, for once again allowing me to enjoy this little trip to another world. 

I highly recommend Lost at Sea, as well as this whole series, as an escape and as a way to experience the fun of a cruise or two, or eight. 

I received a copy of Lost at Sea from the author and this is my honest opinion.

About the author

Bestselling author Patricia Sands lives two hours north of Toronto, Canada, in The Blue Mountains, when she isn't somewhere else, and calls the south of France her second home. An admitted travel fanatic, she can pack a bag in a flash and be ready to go anywhere … particularly the south of France. With a focus on travel, women’s issues and aging, her stories celebrate the feminine spirit and the power of friendship.

Her award-winning 2010 debut novel, The Bridge Club, is a book-group favorite, and The Promise of Provence, which launched her three-part Love in Provence series (followed by Promises to Keep and I Promise You This), was a finalist for a 2013 USA Best Book Award and a 2014 National Indie Excellence Award, an Amazon Hot New Release in April 2013, and a 2015 nominee for a #RBRT Golden Rose award in the category of romance. Her fifth novel, Drawing Lessons, was released by Lake Union Publishing on October 1, 2017.

Lavender, Loss & Love, A Season of Surprises and The First Noel make up the the Villa de Violettes series, based on the Love in Provence characters.

The Bridge Club ~ Tenth Anniversary edition ~ was released in September 2021 and is now in Kindle Unlimited.

On August 25, 2022, her novel The Secrets We Hide will be released.

Sands also contributes to such Francophile websites as The Good Life France and Perfectly Provence and loves to visit Book Clubs either live or on ZOOM! Info on her website.

Find out more at Patricia’s Facebook Author Page, Amazon Author Page or her website. There are links to her books, social media, and a monthly newsletter that has special giveaways, photography from France, and sneak peeks at her next book. She loves hearing from readers.

Patricia has led six 10-day tours of the French Riviera and the countryside of Provence. She will be co-hosting another 'Sold Out' women's tour of Provence in September 2021 with her good friend Deborah Bine aka The Barefoot Blogger.

Find out more at Patricia’s Facebook Author Page, Amazon Author Page, Goodreads or her blog where you will find links to her books, social media, and monthly newsletter. She loves hearing from readers, so don’t hesitate to email her. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Patricia

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

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Get ready to set sail on the trip of a lifetime! Eight amazing authors have come together to create this fun series, each book set on a cruise ship but with individual stories and characters. I have read a few of these authors, and love them already. Some are new-to-me authors but I'm excited to give their books a try. 

Welcome Aboard contains the prologue to each story so the reader can get a taste of the story before it comes out. I have to admit that I am intrigued by all of them and can't wait to read all of the stories. Some of the characters have already grabbed my heart. 

You can snag Welcome Aboard for free right now. Check it out and then sit back and wait in anticipation for each release, like I will be. I know it's going to be fun!

Welcome Aboard is available for FREE on Amazon.

Get your copy now and get started on this fabulous series!

*********************

★ Don’t miss a Sail Away book! ★

Book 1: Welcome Aboard – prologue book

Book 2: The Sound of the Sea by Jessie Newton

Book 3: Uncharted Waters by Tammy L. Grace

Book 4: A Not So Distant Shore by Ev Bishop

Book 5: Caroline, Adrift by Kay Bratt

Book 6: Moonlight On the Lido Deck by Violet Howe

Book 7: The Winning Tickets by Judith Keim

Book 8: Lost At Sea by Patricia Sands

Book 9: The Last Port of Call by Elizabeth Bromke 

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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!