Holly Mortimer – Worlds Apart (Sisters #3)

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Synopsis: 

Samantha Lane is one of the world’s highest paid actresses, but underneath all the fame and fortune, she’s living a lie. Her love life is non-existent. Her bio is completely made up and to top it all off, she’s reached the ultimate in celebrity status. She’s got herself a stalker. Now filming a career changing movie in Ireland, she’s fighting to take back control of her life before the world finds out just what a fake she really is. Brennan O’Brien has returned to his Irish roots to raise a daughter he never knew existed and to dig the family’s pub out from the brink of bankruptcy. He has no time for spoiled actresses, lunatic stalkers or meddling friends and family, and has vowed to never give his heart to another woman. Unfortunately, he now lives in the land of magic, folklore, and hopeless romantics and will have to decide if he can resist the pull of Samantha Lane or give in to her maddening allure. Follow Sam and Brennan’s twisted path to true love, where these jaded souls test the limits of fate to find a way to come together and overcome their pasts to discover the truth about who they really are and what they really need.

*NOTE* While Worlds Apart can be read as a standalone, it is book #3 in The Sisters series.

Review

This is one of those books that puts the Happily in the Happily Ever After.

It takes a leap of faith to fall in love.  Brennan captures this so well, “She was going to break my heart, I knew it the minute I met her, but it didn’t seem to matter to me.”  The heart wants what the heart wants.

I find names to be incredibly important to a story.  I love when Brennan insists on referring to Sam as Samantha.  “Everyone else gets Sam, but I get Samantha.  I get the woman behind the brand.  I get you, all of you, and that’s only mine to have.”

The primary setting of the story takes place in a small pub in Ireland is incredibly romantic.  The way it is described conjures up images of warm homeyness.  Admittedly, it also brought back a lot of great memories of college as I used to frequent a bar, also known as Murphy’s Pub, at the University of Illinois.

Buy Links for Worlds Apart 

 

Screen Shot 2015-12-05 at 10.18.58 AM to Holly Mortimer!

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Holly Mortimer is a wife, mom and believer in the concept of happily ever after.  She attended Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, where she studied Music Industry Arts.  She wandered the world working in the entertainment and travel industry while filling journals with romantic short stories and heroes and heroines.  She’s finally taken the next step and published her first novel with Butterfly Publishing.

Holly lives in Stratford, Ontario with her husband and two daughters.  She enjoys reading, writing and finding the next inspiring moment to write about.

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Pinterest • Goodreads

Chocolate Ganache – BEST Add-In Ingredient for Ice Cream

There are a lot of different flavor ice creams; BY FAR, CHOCOLATE GANACHE is the BEST.

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Here’s a bowl of peppermint ice cream with swirls of chocolate ganache.  Peppermint is a great flavor for the winter time holidays, but the chocolate ganache could just as easily and tastily be added to vanilla, coffee, mint, cherry, peanut butter, or any other flavor ice cream.

Chocolate ganache is better than chocolate chips, chocolate sauce, and hot fudge!

  1. The taste is rich, creamy, and delicious
  2. The texture is smooth, not hard chocolate chips or magic shell
  3. It stabilizes in the ice cream and doesn’t inhibit the flavor of the ice cream – like adding chocolate sauce that is runny and eventually overtakes the flavor
  4. Doesn’t ruin the texture of the ice cream by melting it

How to add chocolate ganache to the ice cream

  1. make the ganache, see directions below (allow to cool while making ice cream)
  2. make the ice cream, any flavor you choose, see video below
  3. Add 1/3 of freshly made ice to a serving bowl that can be placed in the freezer, drizzle about 1/3 of the ganache over the ice cream, add another layer of 1/3 of ice cream and 1/3 of the ganache over the ice, repeat again with final 1/3 of ice cream and 1/3 ganache
  4. Take a knife and cut through the drizzled ganache (do not blend entirely, you want to leave ribbons of chocolate – see photo)

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How to make chocolate ganache:

Place 1 cup of chocolate chips in a large size bowl.  Heat 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream in pot on stove on high temperature. When the cream is boiling, pour the cream over chips and stir with a whisk until all the chips have melted and smooth texture has been attained.  (allow to cool while making the ice cream)

Here’s a video on how to make 2 ingredient ice cream.

See Related:

Screen Shot 2015-07-26 at 6.06.39 AM Brownie A La Mode

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

D.W. Marshall – Stolen Flame

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Synopsis

Stolen Flame:

Vivian is excited about this weekend. Why wouldn’t she be? She is finally turning twenty-one, and she knows for-a-fact that Liam, the man of her dreams is in love with her too. On the eve of her birthday, her world comes crashing down when she is taken from her home.
Now, instead of spending her birthday in Liam-heaven, she learns that she will be forced to take part in The Chamber, a lavish sex club for the world’s richest and most powerful men. She finds early on that she will not suffer her sentence alone. With the budding sisterhood of the six other women taken at the same time, along with an unexpected ally, Vivian will discover an inner strength and love that she never knew existed.

Review

Wow!!  This story stunned me by altering my perception as the scenes progressed.  The plot is intense and dark and pushes the limit of what I normally can handle in a story.  This wasn’t by any sense of the imagination a typical erotic tale.  The majority of the story takes place where the kidnapped girls are held captive in a sex club and are forced to satisfy 5 men, 5 days a week.  While this is a chilling to imagine, the strength of the characters, particularly Vivian, compelled me to continue reading and I couldn’t book down the book.  The author amazingly weaves a bit of romance into an extraordinary situation.  As a reader I was clinging to the romantic elements as much as Vivian was desperate to hold onto her love.

** Spoiler Alert ** (It’s a romance novel – an HEA is expected)

After the girls are released – the book gets intriguing.  Vivian champions the concept of embracing the bad things in life and continuing on.

Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 8.55.28 AM D.W. Marshall!

Author Bio:

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D.W. Marshall an author of an elclectic array of romance novels writes direct and distinctive dialogue wrapped in sensual imagery. The first in her series, featuring Vivian Travis, is Stolen Flame. As a wife and mother residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ms. Marshall uses the sexuality on the streets of Sin City to fuel her stories. She is in her bliss with pen in hand creating her characters.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SevenChamberSeries

Blog: https://7chambers.wordpress.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19294181-stolen-flame

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwmarshall7

Alice Clayton – Nuts

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Romance for a foodie.  This book is a savory combination of delicious delicacies, wholesome goodness, and spicy desire.

Seriously, there were times that the story talked so much about food that my stomach started to growl and other times when I felt a strong compulsion to go bake.  I loved that the emphasis in the baking was for old fashioned recipes.

Things don’t only heat up in the kitchen.  There’s fire on the porch, on the farm, in the lake, and occasionally in a bed.

Found one of my favorite quotes from the book on Pinterest

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see https://www.pinterest.com/pin/400890804310363598/

The humor is sensational.  Let’s just say that the double entendre for large vegetables never gets old.  I also enjoyed the hippie mom, that can get under her daughter’s skin.

Nuts - Use a condom

 

See Related Posts:

Alice Clayton – Wallbanger

Alice Clayton – Rusty Nailed (Cocktail #2)

Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 8.55.28 AM to Alice Clayton!

 

 

Book Blogging Goals for 2016

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  1. Find New Authors to Read (my goal is 36 – 3 per month)
  2. Rate all books I read on amazon, bn, and goodreads.  I prefer to discuss the things I enjoy most about a book more than I do assigning a single digit number to put a “value” on a book.  However, in the past year I’ve come to realize how important book ratings are to authors.  As in the past, I will never bash an author.  Therefore, if I feel like the book deserves a 1 or 2 star rating, I will refrain from blogging and rating the book.
  3. Read 6 books outside of the romance genre
  4. Create 2 more weekly book-related posts
  5. Archive favorite quotes from books

What are your reading or book blogging goals for 2016?

Release Blitz: Worlds Apart by Holly Mortimer

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Synopsis: Samantha Lane is one of the world’s highest paid actresses, but underneath all the fame and fortune, she’s living a lie. Her love life is non-existent. Her bio is completely made up and to top it all off, she’s reached the ultimate in celebrity status. She’s got herself a stalker. Now filming a career changing movie in Ireland, she’s fighting to take back control of her life before the world finds out just what a fake she really is. Brennan O’Brien has returned to his Irish roots to raise a daughter he never knew existed and to dig the family’s pub out from the brink of bankruptcy. He has no time for spoiled actresses, lunatic stalkers or meddling friends and family, and has vowed to never give his heart to another woman. Unfortunately, he now lives in the land of magic, folklore, and hopeless romantics and will have to decide if he can resist the pull of Samantha Lane or give in to her maddening allure. Follow Sam and Brennan’s twisted path to true love, where these jaded souls test the limits of fate to find a way to come together and overcome their pasts to discover the truth about who they really are and what they really need.

*NOTE* While Worlds Apart can be read as a standalone, it is book #3 in The Sisters series.

 

Worlds Apart – Excerpt

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Saving you.”

“Pray tell, from what? The evil leprechaun who lives in your pub?”

He continued dragging me out to my car, as if I hadn’t spoken. We stopped at my SUV and he looked extremely uncomfortable and royally pissed off about something.

I dug around in my purse for my errant keys, counting the seconds until I could escape this never ending nightmare. “Well, thanks for saving me from whatever you were saving me from. I gotta run now.”

I unlocked the door and went to get in when he spun me around and caged me up against the side with his hands. “Brennan, what the—”

He silenced me with a growl and a punishing kiss. I was so surprised, I gasped and he took advantage of my open mouth to deepen the kiss with his tongue. His beard gently scratched and sparked across my skin, awakening feelings in me that had long since gone dormant. My hands instinctively went to his chest to try to push him off, but it was then he changed tactics and moved to my neck. My area of weakness. My Achilles heel but on my neck, if you will. Oh, he did not fight fair. Whatever the hell he was up to, he was in for it if he thought he could silence me with a kiss. A damn fine, hot as hell kiss, but still. The righteous indignation was spilling out of me. Ha, I was a great liar, turned amazing actress and now I was even trying to fool myself. I was into the kiss. No doubt about it. The heat spreading from ground zero was all the proof I needed.

He came back to my mouth with an aggression that was intense and angry. Abruptly, he ended the kiss, pushed away from me, turned on his heel and walked away without a single sound coming from that luscious mouth. I was so stunned that I didn’t move a muscle or say a word, but lifted my hand to touch lips that I was sure were red and swollen and scratched all to hell.

I slowly turned and got in my car, started it and carelessly peeled out of the parking lot, not caring where in the world I was going, just trying to get somewhere where my life made sense.

Buy Links for Worlds Apart (The Sisters, #3):
 
 

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Synopsis: Georgina has built herself a quiet life following the tragic death of her husband. She moved to LA to start her life over and has no intentions of ever falling in love again. Her hermit existence and passion for reading and writing romance have driven her to fear the real world, but while out on a forced blind date she accidentally meets Finn Lowry. Kind, sensitive, funny and voted one of 2014’s hottest actors, he’s hard to resist, not to mention, totally out of her league. In order to keep her promise to herself, she needs to steer clear of him at all costs.

Finn sets out to pull Georgina back to the surface, showing her it is possible for her to find love again after living with a heart on lock down for so long. Humor, persistence and life in the limelight come together with Finn to conspire to show Georgina the way to her heart. Can she let go of her old insecurities and avoid Finn’s fans for long enough to let him get through to her?

Buy Links for Blindsided (The Sisters, #1):
 
 
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Synopsis: FRANKIE
The only thing I crave is a peaceful existence. I’m scared, I’m tired and I just want to wake up each day not afraid of him finding me. What I never wanted to find was Hardy Hanson. Turns out, cravings, once fed, morph into something different. I couldn’t ignore the need he awakened in me, but giving into it would mean only one thing. We would both go up in flames.

HARDY
When I’m in, I’m all in. I was born to protect and my second chance at redemption came when I crashed into Frankie Windsor. The problem was, she was so damaged, I wasn’t sure even I could save her, but I was willing to put it all on the line to risk enough for the both of us to finally find some peace. What I didn’t know, was just how dangerous loving her would be for both of us.

Buy Links for Ignite (The Sisters, #2):
 

Nona Raines – His Kind of Woman

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Roy knocking on Venetia’s door was a great beginning to this novella.

The emotional honesty in this book is what makes this a book worth reading.  The characters are open about their fears, sadness, regret, and love.  None of the characters feelings are dismissed or ignored because they are difficult.  I really liked how Venetia was strong enough to anticipate Roy’s hesitancy and strip down her clothes and boundaries and bare herself to him.

There was a lot packed into this short novella.

See Related Post:

Nona Raines – Her Kind of Man

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