definitely, possibly, maybe

the pied piper of hammelin  is kind of a dark fairy tale, and it's retelling is no less dark. as frequency opens, fiona jones witnesses something horrific 9 years ago. something that connects her to the darkness that lies beneath the surface of her hometown of hamm. she sees her father and two councilmen beat up a guy for fulfilling their request. the town of hamm had been overrun with teens who were into drugs and other undesirable things. so the pit viper took them away. and got beat up for his troubles. except he promises to return and fiona gave him an apple. that moment of connection shouldn't mean anything, but when fiona's boyfriend gifts her a pit viper record the name is too distinctive to belong to anyone else. and just when she'd started to believe that small town life wasn't so bad, everything starts to change for the worse. all her friends are obsessed, only fiona finds the pit viper's music off-putting. it turns out she has ...

sean and molly finally get their story in just this once , we really got to know them in the wedding date bargain , and even then it was obvious that there was something there. when things become undeniable, they decide to cross the lines of best friendship and try and get their feelings out of their system. it's just sex. except it's not just sex. it's everything. they've been a couple without being a couple for so long. they don't know how not to be. distance and boundaries aren't their thing. and it's messy and it's everything they never thought they wanted. but it's also them and it's perfect. molly gets a little too stubborn in the end, because she keeps turning this guy who is telling her he wants her and is showing up every day for her, because she'd rather believe something he said before. so that was a challenge, especially because there's this scene where he is so utterly wrecked and beside himself and so freaking in lov...

in the follow up to garden of thorns , rayce and rose need to find their way through their conflicting interests. everything is still rolled up in the gardener. even captive, he holds too much thrall over rayce for rose's peace of mind, and too much thrall over rose for rayce's. but these two still love each other, they would do anything for each other. even when they are at odds. so their journey isn't easy. what they have to do to win isn't a walk in the park. It's war, the war of the wilted . and it's not just the rebellion that's at stake. it's the fate of two kingdons. it's life and death. and this story remains just as captivating as it was in the first book. i can't wait for this story to continue. even as rose and rayce overcome great odds, it seems like there's another twist to the game. **war of the wilted will publish on october 1, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publihsing (entangled...

i think some of this scene was inspired by a date with my now-husband...

 Laurelin Paige is proud to launch the first book in The Ryder Brothers, the first series in her new Spark line!  Short, steamy sparks of romance, these quick reads will be released in Kindle Unlimited and will deliver the steamy passion that Laurelin Paige is known for. Even more exciting, fellow authors Kayti McGee and JD Hawkins have joined Laurelin to bring you The Ryder Brothers - Three complete stand-alones featuring ex-boy band members Nick, Jake and Jonas Ryder! Keep reading for more information on the series...

I spy a pretty cover after the jump...

after surviving the ordeal of having her father convicted of running a ponzi scheme, the last thing lenore bradshaw, lenny to her friends, needs is halsey sherwood, of the con artist sherwoods hanging around and claiming to help her. the problem is he is helping her. and in fool me forever , the problem isn't lenny and halsey's attraction to each other. it's that they aren't supposed to end up together. he's a con artist from a long line of con artists, and lenny is trying to play it straight and do good. and how can she do good if she's constantly surrounding herself with criminals. the sherwoods do bad things for good reasons. the con the con and redistribute the ill-gotten goods. when lenny is tricked out of money by a perfect sherwood target, she finds herself partnering up with halsey to bring the bad guy down. and the more she sees of halsey the clearer it is that he is not the villain she's made him out to be. but can he be the hero in h...

a potion for passion   finds miss flora hartington indulging in her fascination with itinerant medicine man, lawrence campion. posing as dr. l.e. champaign he has a whole host of tisanes and medicinal tonics that he sells at fairs and markets in small town england. part criminal, part quack, part healer, lawrence is many things, and flora doesn't always see them. she tends to see the best of him. he's been her hero for so long, that even when he behaves shadily she finds excuses for him. but she's sheltered and he's been her hero for so long. when he accidentally gives her a bottle of hair dye instead of hair tonic and her hair turns red, she's furious and sets out to find him to ensure that he can help her change it back. somehow he convinces her to join in his show. and soon she is his partner in all things, madame julietta. being julietta gives flora a taste of freedom and of independence she never truly enjoyed before. and the halfway in love turn...

funny story, so the while you were sleeping reference here is literally lifted from a conversation i had with my high school boyfriend. we watched it on our first date and that was literally the only scene he enjoyed. it remains one of my favorite comfort movies, so his dislike of it, and our eventual break up had no bearing on my love for the movie.

the first book in the fire's edge series, the boss  finds crew chief finn conleth trying to figure out why fires have been chasing delaney hamilton. across the country. especially since they seem to be dragon-made and not natural fires. finn's crew are the huracán enforcers, a coalition of specialist dragons who are in charge of keeping humans safe from dragon-created fires and hunting down rogue dragons and ensuring that justice is served if they've caused harm. finn finds himself incredibly attracted to delaney but he refuses to act on this. he's been haunted by the death of the woman he'd thought he was mated to and can't bear to put another woman at risk. delaney doesn't even bear the markers of a potential dragon mate so his unnatural possessiveness and desire for her makes no sense. soon they determine that delaney is being stalked by a dragon convinced she is his mate. but it makes no sense, identifying dragon mates has been a long-estab...

emma chase returns to wessco in royally yours  but travels to the past, to a time before queen lenora was the queen she became. she's princess lenora and he is edward the adventurer, and perhaps the woman raised to be queen will meet her match in the man who willingly walks away from it all. keep reading to sneak a peek at the gorgeous cover and read the full blurb....

the sin trilogy continues with guilty as sin and the twists and turns keep coming for whitney and lincoln. as with richer than sin the story unfolds in both the present and the past. the family issues that mired lincoln and whitney in drama ten years ago are just as prevalent in the present day and you wonder if they will ever be able to rise above it. what makes this couple so compelling is the crazy amount of history they share. it's not just the history of them as a couple, it's the history of their families, the history of their town. the stakes aren't just about whether or not whitney and lincoln can find a way to be together, it's whether being together, getting that happily ever after is really in the cards for them. because the deck is stacked against them. and they aren't dealing the cards. but the kind of love these two have is epic, life-shattering, and unbreakable. their connection should have been broken by their pasts. both lincoln and whitne...

i read vi harris's story back when it was first released as that one moment . it was actually my first amy daws book. and like a gateway drug sucked me into a whole new world for binge-reading. officially, this was a london lovers book, but because i read it first and then read challenge  and endurance next, and it's always felt like a harris book to me. so when amy daws decided to re-release it with a new cover and some additional content to fit in with the harris brother books more fully, i was not sad. vi and hayden's story is really beautiful. it's deep and emotional and meaningful. falling in love is such a risk for both of them. he's broken in so many ways, and vi's got her own set of scars from childhood that she doesn't even realize require healing. you need this book to fully grasp the harris brothers, so if you've somehow read that series without realizing vi had her own story, then you really should grab this o...

stella lane is used to carrying the world on her shoulders. all her worries, all her problems, all her grief is something she's always handled alone. with her father's veterinary practice on the brink of bankruptcy and no obvious solution to her money woes, the serendipity of sargeant zach mason coming into town wanting to partner up as a fellow veterinarian (a vet who happens to be a vet) and share her troubles seems too good to be true. in never expected you , stella starts off wary, but zach is persistent and determined. he can tell stella is wary for a reason, but he also has his reasons for wanting to be part of her life and for making it work. he tries to avoid the obvious thread of attraction between them, especially because he wants a long-term working partnership with her, not just a romantic one. but it's too hard to stay away. and when zach makes the mistake of trusting the wrong person, everything he's worked to hard for, including stella might be pus...

basically picking up where the truth about lies  left off, the truth about us  lets us in right away on the fact that there were twists and turns and lies and truths that had yet to be revealed. i feel like giving any of it away would ruin the experience of this heart-pounding story. above everything what penn and cora feel for each other is achingly real. but everything in their pasts, everything that has brought them to this moment is crucial to understanding how deep things go. their connection is beyond anything either of them has ever experienced. but that doesn't make things easier. knowing the truth doesn't make it easier. the lies don't either. everything is a tangled web and laying everything out in the open is well worth the wait. **the truth about us published on september 13, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of inkslinger pr. keep reading for more info on the book.

i love sports romances, i think because you’ve got these tough guys exposing their squishy hearts for a girl. big stick has all the right elements. a veteran hockey player in love with his best friend’s girl. she loves him too. but she won’t forgive him for something. and they’ve been estranged for seven years. and the problem i have with this book is that they don’t have a reasonable conversation about their past. yes, he’s holding something back, and it’s a pretty significant piece of information, but it should make actually it easier for her to forgive him once it is revealed. and the way it all plays out, i just found myself incredibly frustrated by these people. i understand there has to be a central conflict in a romance, but i think there are better ways to incorporate conflict than by having the heroine be irrationally angry at the hero for half the book, have a sweet period of détente, and then go back to being super angry. i’m not saying that all of her anger is unjustif...

The conclusion to the heart-stopping Truth Duet by Aly Martinez just went live! My review is coming on Saturday. Today we are celebrating the release of the second book in The Truth Duet by Aly Martinez. The Truth About Us is now available! The first book in the duet, The Truth About Lies , is available too and both titles can be read for FREE as part of KindleUnlimited! ABOUT THE BOOKS Truth: Penn Walker entered my life like a summer storm—dark, ominous, and filled with thunder. After witnessing my husband’s murder, I didn’t have much of a heart left to offer a man. But Penn took it all. Every jagged shard. Every broken bit. Even the dirty and twisted pieces that I wish never existed. Lie: I didn’t need him to save me. Lie: I knew exactly who he was. Lie: Losing him wouldn’t destroy me. But that’s the thing about lies—you never know who to believe. BUY THE BOOKS THE TRUTH ABOUT US   (The Truth Duet, #2) Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU...

it's totally weird that a couple of days ago i reviewed a new book from melinda metz, and here i am posting fanfic about her old books. life is weird sometimes.

at first i thought this was going to be a ya book, given the title, but it's a ten years post high school story, and given the sexytimes that's probably a good thing. olivia had a traumatizing time at prom, her crush was named prom king and she was, shockingly, named prom queen. only to find out it was a cruel joke engineered by high school mean girl, sasha. who sadly hasn't changed in the ten years since. at reunion she encounters her crush, former prom king, adam carlisle. and when he makes a point of seeking her out and apologizing for not doing more to stand up to sasha and not having the courage to tell her how much he liked her. it's like all of ollie's alternate reality fantasies have come true. and when adam and ollie act on the crazy chemistry that blazes between them, it's pretty clear that these two are it for each other. adam has some awkward secrets that have the power to hurt olivia. but he really means well, and is clearly all in with...

book 2 in the murphy brothers series, irish on the rocks , finds sean murphy's best friend, grace walsh, tangling with his older brother, jack. the premise of the series is that the brothers will inherit their family business, which is a wide-ranging brand of irish pubs if they meet the conditions of their father's will, which is that all three of them must be married within a year of his death. in the first book of the series, straight up irish , the inheritance issue is seamlessly integrated into the romance. unfortunately, in this book, the condition doesn't work so well. too many people know about it and offer opinions on what the main characters should be doing about that and their attraction where i wanted just more of jack and grace. because when jack and grace are alone, interacting without thinking of the inheritance thing, this book is so good. all the scenes with jack and jane pawsten are fantastic. the scenes with jack and grace in the market a...

steeped in ancient mythology, i do not trust you  finds memphis "m" engel paired up with ashwin "ash" sood on a search for pieces of a statue that could cause the end of the world. traveling to sacred sites all over the world, ash and m find themselves at odds over the plan, what to do with the pieces, even their next step. but when they do start working together, it's the secrets they haven't shared that can tear them apart. and being on opposite sides could mean the actual apocalypse is upon us. i really began enjoying this story when m and ash really begin to click as partners. while it made sense for m to be mistrustful, she is almost too smart to be likable? this trait becomes endearing over time, so the back half of the book flows in a way the front half didn't. i don't want to reveal much more of the plot, because there is enjoyment to be found in the twists and turns of this story. **i do not trust you will publish on september 11,...

saddle up continues the clean slate ranch series, and finally tells us miles and reyes's story. from the earlier books, wild trail and roped in we know that both miles and reyes are carrying around bad things from their pasts. how they overcome them and find their way to each other is the heart of this story. one of the things i found so refreshing about this, is that from the beginning both miles and reyes are honest about their interest and attraction to one another. the issues between them are more about timing, than anything else. miles has been dealing with a cycle of abuse that being at the clean slate ranch is finally helping him break. he needs to find his way to solid ground before opening his heart of someone. reyes cherishes the ground miles walks on. there is nothing he wouldn't do for the other man. but there is this dark secret that weighs him down. and until he can actually open himself up to the people who matter most to him, there's no way t...

when bad boy brett sillinger gets one last shot at a team to keep his hockey career alive in taking a shot , he's determined to avoid distractions and the unwanted media attention that got him his reputation in the first place. the truth about brett is that he's actually a really good guy whose image problem has little to do with who he is as a person, and more about how circumstances out of his control have made him look bad. meanwhile, chelsea london wants to take a walk on the wild side. a one night stand should be enough to prove to herself and her lame ex that she is not boring. she doesn't know the man at the bar is the latest addition to her father's hockey team. even more confusing is the intensity of the connection between them. it's supposed to be just one night. but somehow she keeps finding her way back into brett's bed. into his life too. the more she sees of him, the clearer it is that brett doesn't deserve his reputation. he's one of...

bad girl tabby green has the most awkward meet cute with chad tucker. she's trespassing and skinny dipping with a minor, and he's new to town and in uniform. it's a year later and the sting of embarrassment lingers, though chad only remembers how she looked getting out of that pool. he's been fascinated by tabby since, and now that he's settled into his role in the small beach town, he's ready to let things get interesting with tabby. both tabby and chad have baggage about their pasts, their parents, their upbringing. but there's something about them that just clicks. and even though tabby keeps making the mistake of thinking that chad is too good to want a bad girl like her, he proves her wrong every chance he gets and in the most swoony ways. this is an enjoyable read. and tabby and chad are characters you can't help rooting for. **when we kiss published on september 6, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of candi kane pr in ex...

most of the time i was a polarist when shipping couples on  roswell . but every once in a while i explored other options. i started out as a dreamer, but by season 2 was a solid polarist. then toward the end of the show's run i saw the appeal of the loyalist ship. this fanfic is one of the few loyalist ones i wrote, and i have to say, i still kinda like it.  i may be a polarist first, but i'm a loyalist second. liz was my favorite character on this show, so my ships basically revolve around her. a while back melinda metz had this twitter thread about liz and the fact that she had been whitewashed on the television show, even though she was latina in the books. even though she had been whitewashed, i think there was a part of me that always thought of her as latina. and that's a big part of why i loved her. anyway the first part of this cheesily named story is after the jump. (you get an explanation for the cheesiness early on.)

mallory worthington finds the perfect escape from her overprotective parents in a nanny job in key west. a nanny for the reclusive billionaire  finds rhys dalton coming back to life when he meets the nanny he hired to care for his four-year-old son, oliver. mallory is running from a life that only knows her as a cancer survivor, and rhys and oliver are recovering from the loss of beth, rhys's wife and oliver's mom. mallory and rhys start off on the wrong foot. but soon things change and mallory becomes indispensable to their happiness. this category romance has some surprising emotional depth. these two characters have gone through so much, the connection they find in each other makes for a really satisfying read. **a nanny for the reclusive billionaire will publish on september 10, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/entangled publishing (indulgence) in exchange for my honest review. 

this is a must-read for fans of serial, s-town, criminal and all the other million true crime podcasts that have cropped up recently. i'm a total wimp, so i will admit that i have no personal experience listening to these podcasts, but that doesn't mean i wouldn't like them. i am easily spooked and affected by true crime, in a way that i am not by fictional horror stories, though let's be honest, i still get spooked. sadie  is told from two perspectives. a fictional true crime podcast, the girls, and sadie's own point-of-view. it all begins when mattie southern is discovered dead. sadie, her older sister, sets off on a journey to find her murderer and avenge her past, her younger sister's life, all the terrible things that have happened to her. west mccray, the podcast producer is compelled to take her story on because something about sadie speaks to him. the truth about what happened the night mattie died is slowly untangled. and the web of abuse and...

so dominate finally released in audiobook format, and i know i've already told you how much i adored this book. and i got my paperback versions in the mail and am swooning over them. but again, i just have to gush about how absolutely fantastic the audio versions of these books are. i adore the duet style narration. the narrators do such a good job of bringing these characters to life. i feel like it's almost a stage play, except i'm imagining all the action. it would be a bit too sexy a stage play to do in real life. the encounters between gareth and sloane continue to be hot in part two of the story, but there's an added emotional element. in dominate these two are committed to their relationship, committed to making things work, even through misunderstandings. this chapter of the harris story is about healing and forgiveness and moving on. and it's beautifully told. even if you've read the e-book or the paperback, this audio version is an absolute mus...

seraphina dovetail hasn't had an easy life. the seventh born child of a witch, she's cursed with being the cause of her mother's death and labeled a second class citizen for the rest of her life. her status is marked on her body with a tattoo at her wrist and scars on her back. when professor nikolai barrington takes her under his wing, it's meant to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. he wants her help in seeking out a murderer. her seventh born status gives her the ability to communicate with spirits, and the magic she holds in reserve only needs to be properly controlled in order to allow her strength as a witch to truly shine. their relationship is forbidden, and yet everything about their friendship, their feelings for each other simmers beneath the surface of their interactions. barrington fights for sera because he cares, because he wants her to be safe, because there is something about her that calls to him, that inspires him to be a better man. this ...

the beekeeper's curse is particularly terrible. the beehive at their core one they coexist with. the horror of what they are, what they do, something they are too conscious of. dresden is a unique beekeeper, however. as tortured as the other's we have met, but he's got something of a soul still. he has a friend, another harbinger of death. one who he's been with since the end of the napoleonic wars. it's not a friendship that makes sense. it's not a friendship he welcomed or intended. but nonetheless, it's a connection. it's a bit of humanity. most of the time dresden feels like a monster. his form generally ignored by others. when he arrives in concordia, in the opening pages of keeper of the bees ,  hungry and needing to sting, he's originally drawn to a girl. but something keeps him from allowing his bees to sting her. she sees him. she sees the shifting faces, the horror that is his presence and she doesn't run. and that intrigues him. ...