A Great Story by Dorothy Wiley - 'Whispering Hills of Love'

A Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

Kelly McGuffin has been through a horrific trauma one that’s age old to women throughout the world.  Suffering a rape by two unsuspecting men Kelly is rescued by two of the Wylie brothers and leaves her remote mountain home to travel to Boonesborough to a new life.  Kelly is although she is sorting through her traumatized and demeaning affair she is a strong minded young woman and looking forward to a better life and just maybe someone that will take the demons from her dreams.

Sheriff William Wiley was instantly drawn to the traumatized Kelly when he and his brother happen upon a small cabin tucked away in the mountains where he finds two men raping the young girl.  They quickly put away the rapists and secure Kelly with their traveling family en route to a new life in Kentucky.  William, a single, ladies sort of man has been one that loves all the women with his blond locks and good looks he’s never settled down to just one woman.  He’s not sure that he can until Kelly McGuffin comes into his life.  Williams is bound by the law acting as Sheriff in the town of Boonesborough and studying law to eventually become a lawyer, his heart is fatefully tied to the blond haired beauty that he and his brother rescued.

This book is another winner from Dorothy Wiley and the third one I’ve read.  I just love this series and this one in particular as the author touches on the subject of rape, it through her depth of the subject gives women who has suffered a traumatic event like this a sense of hope.  True love can overcome the inner demons that women face after a brutal invasion of their body and soul.  I think the author has broached a subject that victims of rape need to know, that life does go on and there are good men out there that can help their minds to heal in a healthy way through endearing and continuing love of life.

A Western Book Review - 'Loving Lucas'

A Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

Well I have to say I absolutely hate to read these short books.  This one has a good storyline but just when things start happening, ‘The End’.

I loved Audra and Lilah, they are two strong women having lost both father and mother are trying to stay on their homestead and carve their life in a man’s world.  Life was tough in those days especially for young women, but these two are full of spunk and tough as nails.  As always in the old western days women aren’t worth much more than a piece of you know what to some men and others looking for a wife and some of those men weren’t worth squat.  But there were good men looking for good wives and in Audra and Lilah’s case men from all over were after them.  When two hardened men from a neighboring ranch decide to visit the young women one night they decide to scare them by shooting at their log home, but to their surprise the women shoot back and then steps in a savior.

Lucas Blake steps in just in the nick of time and takes a shot at one of two men sending bullets in a homestead.  Lucas a lawman just cannot let this sort of thing happen and to his surprise there are two lovely women inside alone.  One of which he is instantly drawn too.  But Lucas is on his own mission and offers his help to the young Audra and Lilah Canton as a hired hand on their small homestead. 

I really can’t go into much more since the book was so short, it has no depth, if the author would have expanded on this story line it would have been top notch in my opinion, but it is what it is.  It will instantly grab your interest and you’ll enjoy the antics of the main characters but just when the going gets good you’re at the end.

If you like the little quickie reads then you’ll like this book but in my opinion, no I would not recommend this one, there’s just not enough there.

A Regency Romance Review

A Regency Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

Gwen and Sebastian are both strong characters but both with a family past that will rear its head to thwart their budding love and fated marriage.  Gwen a woman with her own mind but bound to be a dutiful daughter is distraught when her controlling father announces that his health is failing and has arranged a loveless marriage to a man that she detests.  As fate steps in and Sebastian comes back into her life her heart is torn.  She and Sebastian grew up playing together as kids and meet by chance in a crowded ballroom and renew their lifelong friendship.  But love sometimes comes with a price.  Is this price too much to pay?  Can they get past the deceit that comes alive with an overbearing powerful father?

Sebastian sees Gwen across a crowded room and is instantly smitten with her.  What he doesn’t realize is that this is the same little Gwen that used to follow him and her older brother around when they were kids.  She has grown into a beautiful, sensuous woman and he has to have her.  They renew their friendship and Sebastian is determined to make her his, the only problem is, her father has arranged a marriage between her and a Scot but that is not going to stop Sebastian, he will make her his at any cost.  And he does!  But it comes with a huge cost, one that may destroy their young love in its tracks.

This story was a breath of fresh air for me as I’ve been on Paranormal now for the last six books or so, this was a good read.  I loved the characters of Gwen and Sebastian although I got a little perturbed with Gwen being so hell bent on being the dutiful daughter and falling for her father’s deceptions.  But when you consider the time period, women were like that in those days.

A Contemporary Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

First of all let me say that this is the first book of author Sophie Moss that I’ve read and I now have a new favorite author.  Get a load of this!

Becca Haddaway is a second grade teacher on a speck of land called Heron Island, a little island with the warmth and depth of a small community.  She’s about to take the big plunge of marriage in two weeks to her teenage sweetheart Tom, a man that shared a traumatic life event with her in the past, therefore they had formed a very close bond with one another.  She’s comfortable with Tom, it’s a romantic notion for her to grow up and marry her long time sweetheart.  But if this is really real, is the bond they share the same thing as love and if so, why is she attracted to another man?  And why does she keep hearing the magical sound of tinkle tinkle twink when she’s around this other man?  What’s up with that?

When Becca learns that Heron Island Elementary School is in the middle of a plot of deceit and revenge on the verge of being shut down she takes matters in her own hands.  This is her town, she grew up here, her mother taught at that school, she went to that school as a child and she’s not going to just get married, move off her beloved island, and let this terrible tragedy happen.  This school is part of the make-up, part of the island’s history and she has to do something.  And, she has to question her true motives about why she is about to marry one man when all she can think about is another.

Colin Foley, an ex Navy Seal and the son of an affluent Senator, after losing part of his leg on a mission gone bad in Afghanistan, is forced out of the military and is trying to come to grips with what he wants out of his life.  After being dumped by his fiancée because he’s an amputee he has finally found a cause in which to focus his life on.  He wants to open a wounded veteran’s rehab center, to be able to give others like him a purpose to go on living.  One where they can feel needed, to be able to feed their families, to have a goal once again in their torn lives.   When he starts having feelings for an elementary school teacher on the path down the aisle, he has to stop and re-access what he really wants out of life.  He still wants a family, a home, kids, and he loves the small town feeling of Heron Island.  He wants to make this his home but he has to have the right woman.  One that will accept him for who he is, and not show pity for the fact he only has one leg.  He cannot suffer that pain again.

A Paranormal Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

‘Harvest Moon’ (Night Hunters Book 1)

by:  Helena Shaw

Jennifer at eighteen has run away from home and a powerful abusive step-father on the run she ends up in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains.  She has changed her hair color, her eye color and her new name is now Dawn, working as a waitress in a small local bar.  When a flurry of murder begins happening to young blond haired women the little town is set upon by not only the local police but FBI agents and a gruff bunch of hunters all hunting for the so-called bear that they believe to be behind the attacks.  

As the authorities are dubbing this as a ‘bear attack’, there is one agent that has other beliefs. Jase is just not in line with the rest of the law, he’s special and not who he says he is.  Dawn is just trying to lay low and not call any attention to herself when one night her co-worker and friend disappears and has yet to be found.  She is suddenly thrust into the middle of the investigation side by side with the dark and mysterious Jase, a hunter of the paranormal.

This is an awesome book that I couldn’t put down.  It literally kept me on the seat of the couch while I was reading the story of Dawn and Jase.  There is so much suspense waiting for a bear to strike or wolf or whatever is going on, you’re just not sure, but you’re glued to the pages.  I loved the characters of Dawn and Jase, they were real people, both with secrets and are finding that they are drawn to one another by fate which is all powerful in the matters of the heart.

A Contemporary Review - by Diana (RTAnnie)

‘Wind Chime Cafe’
 Book 1

by: Sophie Moss

Annie Malone a single mother of a little girl that has gone through the most horrific trauma that a child should never ever have to experience has decided to leave D.C. and move somewhere quiet where her and her little girl can get some much needed reprieve from hounding reporters..  She and her daughter move to Heron Island off the Maryland coast where she plans to live her dream.  She purchases a little café with an apartment above where she has plans of opening a fancy French restaurant (bistro) on the auspice that a big time hotel company is purchasing property to build a fancy high dollar resort.  She can hardly wait after all the years of saving she has finally taken the big step into ownership and management.

But we all know that often times the best laid plans go to squat when fate steps in and changes the events and path of our lives.  Annie has no clue what she has gotten herself into on Heron Island but she’s about to find out that the powers to be have other plans for her life and that of her little daughter.

Will Dozier has no intentions of selling his grandparents home on the little sleepy Heron Island.  It’s been in his family for and the inhabitants depends on his property for the preservation of many species of birds, butterflies, etc.  He wants a buyer that will preserve the charm and substance of the house, someone that won’t over develop the land and destroy all that his grandparents lived for.

Will is a top notch Navy Seal dubbed as ‘The Escape Artist’ but he’s suffering flashbacks of a mission gone terribly badly.  He was the only survivor that came out of the mission unscathed.  He lost members of his team and another was badly injured and lost his leg.  Will has gone through a terrible trauma himself and is still suffering, but his life is about to change.  He is going to meet a little girl that is going to steal his heart and make him face his own nightmares.  One that she herself can relate too.  They will be a balm to one another’s souls and then there is her mother.  Uttt ohhhh!

A Time-Travel Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

‘Just in Time Cowboy’

by Jillie Rivers

Kelsey Winters a mining engineer in present day Mule Stop, Wyoming gets struck by lightning and is thrust back in time to 1892 to the old days of Mule Stop.  She’s landed right smack in the middle of the prairie and into the hands of Pete Jackson.  They spat, fight and try to avoid the inevitable in every romance, the big four letter word Love.  Now Kelsey doesn’t just take to this time travel stuff, she’s a strong willed modern day woman and has a hard time believing and adjusting to her present where a bouts and situation. 

Peter Jackson the son of a prominent New York banker is in Wyoming just being free and doing what He wants to do.  This is the deal he made with his father before he returns to New York and picks up his position in the family bank.  When a beautiful woman pretty much drops out of a thunderstorm, his life takes a whole different turn.

This all in all is a good book and it gets better the more you read it.  I ended up liking the characters but not so much at first.  The heroine at first to me just isn’t taking her situation as serious as you would think finding herself back in time by one hundred and twenty years.  The hero, well he was followed by a bad reputation as a ladies’ man, but I just thought he was a jerk.  But the story line is really good and the more I read the more I began to like the characters and the story line just kept getting deeper and deeper.

I did have a problem with the Indian tribe in the story.  I really don’t think Indians back in 1892 especially those not on a reservation would have been able to read and speak a fluent English but this one did.  The whole story is based on an old Indian prophecy that has been told down through the generations of the Indian tribe where they are awaiting ‘The Wise One’. 

A Paranormal Book Review by Diana (RTAnnie)

'Immortal Flame'
by:  Jillian David

First off let me say that I could not put this book down and read it in one sitting and I was glued to my tablet.  The story line was a fresh take for me and I commend this author on her unique imagination and the ability to listen to her characters tell their story.

Peter Blackstone after surviving World War II comes home and marries the girl of his dreams.  But when she is stricken with a deadly illness he realizes that nothing can be done for her he is forced to watch her suffer to get life giving breath.  He realizes the horrors he faced in the war was nothing compared to the heartbreak he was experiencing.  Feeling that he has nowhere to turn with the fear of losing his beloved wife he makes a pact and sells his very soul to the devil.  He’s not dead but yet he is and now he is at the mercy of an unforgiving employer, Jerahmeel.  His sins are insurmountable and unforgivable in his eyes.  He’s no good to anyone and can never have the life he dreamed of having.  A wife, kids, a home it’s all gone for him.

Peter is in a deadly car crash and is taken to a local hospital where the ER Dr. Allison LaCroix desperately tries to save his life.  She soon realizes that there is something different about this man.  He’s healing at an astronomical rate, a man that should be dead.  But when she touches him she sees nothing but horrendous death, all these people whose lives are brutally wiped out.  You see, Allie has her own special ability, one that she has bore since she was ten years old.  When she touches someone skin to skin she sees death, most of the time the person’s own death.  She experiences gripping pain when this happens and she has no warning as to when this ability is going to show itself to her.

But what Allie and Peter don’t expect is the attraction that they have to one another.  Peter is a huge man, one of great power and strength and built like a brick.  Allie is a broken woman with shattered dreams trying desperately to find a way in her life to make up for the deaths that she believes is her fault.  Can these two come together in the midst of both their life altering abilities and find love?