Author: Andrew Grey Series: Bad To Be Good (Book 3) Genre: M/M
Contemporary Romance, Gay Romance, LGTBQ Publisher: DreamSpinner Press Release Date: Nov 23 2021 Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print Blurb/Synopsis:
For glass artist Ashton Weller, Longboat Key seems like the perfect place to start over. It’s warm, sunny, and far from the dangerous ex he left behind in Chicago, even if his glass studio does get even more uncomfortable in the Florida heat. It’s also home to Terrance Manetti, a man who turns into Ashton’s inadvertent hero when he saves him from some unsavory types at a local restaurant…and may turn into more than that.
Former mobster Terrance has been in Witness Protection with his “brothers” ever since they turned state’s evidence against their former employer. His brothers have a different life here, filled with family and small-time, honest jobs, and Terrance doesn’t know whether to be jealous or derisive.
Not until he meets Ashton, anyway. With Ashton, Terrance could build the kind of life he’s never dared to want—the kind of life where he won’t need the skills he learned in organized crime. Or so he thinks—until Ashton’s past comes looking for him….
I’ve been lax as I and my fellow writers from The Wild Rose Press promote our holiday cookie stories. If you haven’t checked them out yet, please do! They’re great little stories. None is longer than 100 pages so you’ll read them quickly and enjoy them! I know I have been.
Also, you’ll note the menu at the top is much less cluttered. I’ve moved all the review pages to “Reviews” and you’ll find the individual links there. I know it’s one more click, but it’s much easier for some people to read this way.
Now, to reviews:
Under LGBTQ, Andrew Grey has two coming out and they’re both in the “Bad to be Good” series. And both are good. 🙂 They are Bad to be Merry (a 4 Sparkler short Christmas-themed story) and Bad to be Noble (4 Sparklers).
Under Mysteries:
Thanksgiving Pizza Murder by Pattie Benning (3 Sparklers). Short, with a good ending, but a little bit slow in the beginning.
Don’t Wake the Dead by C.C. Wood (5 Sparklers)
Food, Fools, and a Dead Psychic by Maria Grazia Swan (3 Sparklers)
Witch Way to Halloween by Misty Simon (5 Sparklers)
After an undercover mission goes awry, DEA agent Jarrett Brandt hides out in the last place he wants to be—his hometown. Now he’s stuck with his judgmental parents and the memory of his perfect brother hanging over his head. His one bright light? Marissa Reinn Brandt—his high school sweetheart and former sister-in-law.
Marissa lost Jarrett once before. No way will she let him back in; then her son offers him their guestroom. His wicked charm and smoldering stares are hard to resist, but she’ll make him work to reclaim his spot in her bed.
When his enemies close in, how will Jarrett keep Marissa and her son safe, or will he lose his shot at redemption?
– Triggers: drug use (discussed) and a brief assault of the heroine
– A Hero’s Heart is a smoking hot second chance, romantic suspense novella. No cheating. HEA guaranteed.
– Second edition. Newly revised and edited.
Excerpt
“You can trust me, Jarrett. I won’t tell your parents anything you don’t want me to.” She sighed and stood as well. “You used to tell me everything. We never kept secrets.”
Jarrett paced between the coffee table and fireplace. “My parents’ opinion doesn’t matter. Dad would still throw up my juvie record or the fact that I’m not a cop, even if I was a model citizen. I’m not that lost, angry kid anymore. I know who I am now, and it’s not someone you’d want to know.”
“I disagree.”
“God, you don’t understand. Marissa, I’ve missed you so damn much. I’ve laid awake so many nights wondering what my life would’ve been like if I’d stayed here.” When he made love to other women, he imagined Marissa beneath him or above him, panting his name. When the nightmares of blood and gore faded, he dreamed of her. Those bittersweet memories and what if scenarios were almost worse than the nightmares. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“I hated you after you left, but I’ve gotten over it. Everyone feels regret and guilt over something. It’s all about being human.” She dashed away her tears. “I told you mine last night. Will you please show me the same courtesy?”
“I can’t.”
“At least tell me what you did last Christmas. Jason made it crystal clear that he didn’t want you alone. He wants you to have a tree.” She pointed at the Douglas fir. “Well, there you go. What did you do last year?”
Jarrett licked his dry lips, heat swelling in his cheeks.
He’d joined the Consuelo gang last December and spent the holiday in a slummy apartment with five thugs who sold cocaine on the streets of Albuquerque. Living around his drug of choice had nearly destroyed him.
“What about your last birthday?” Marissa blocked his path and braced her hands on her hips. “Did you have cake or go out with a bunch of buddies and get drunk? Did something horrible happen? Why won’t you tell me anything?”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “Damn it, Marissa. Yeah, I got drunk. A few of us went to a strip club where I fucked two dancers in a backroom. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Her eyes widened as she stepped back.
Way to go, you fucking idiot. He brushed his shaky hands on his button-down shirt to steady them. “Marissa—”
She strode past him with a high head and left the room.
Her cold shoulder skewered him, but he didn’t deserve better.
Amber Daulton is the author of the romantic-suspense series Arresting Onyx and several standalone novellas. Her books are published through Daulton Publishing, The Wild Rose Press, and Books to Go Now, and are available in ebook, print on demand, audio, and foreign language formats.
She lives in North Carolina with her husband and demanding cats.
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Blurb: Haley can’t face Christmas. Her super-critical family hate her presents and her life. It’s her turn to prepare the holiday diner, but her apartment kitchen is too small for anything but toast. Which is the only think she knows how to cook. When her cookie fortune turns out to be an ad—Madam Zelda, Fortune Teller—she makes a desperate decision. Zach is the mastermind behind the ad. He and Zelda show Haley that a fortune cookie can be full of surprises, solutions, and love.
Note from Sparkling Book Reviews: this got a 5 Sparkler review. For a short, fun read with jut a little heat, pick this one up. See the full review under “Holidays”
First grade teacher Desiree Tucker is on the brink of winter holidays with her new, romantic boyfriend when danger encroaches on her joy. Ominous, untraceable texts buzz on her cell phone. Terrifying secret Santa gifts show up for her in the classroom. As the stalker moves closer to the prey, Desiree doesn’t know who she can trust. Her charming new man is a prime suspect. Is he a deadly stalker? If not him, who? What can she learn from the legend of the snow kiss cookie? Just when she’s starting to believe in magic again, she finds herself fighting for her life.
Tagline: When Mel O’Rourke traded in her LAPD badge for a spatula, she had no idea baking could be so hard…or deadly
After injuring herself on the job as a Los Angeles cop, Mel O’Rourke leaves the force battered both physically and mentally. Looking for a fresh start, she moves to a quiet mountain town and opens the Babbling Brook Inn. Excited for her new life, Mel decides to participate in the town’s holiday cookie contest, but her newfound joy goes up in smoke when one of her guests turns up dead in her lobby.
Mel is tempted to attribute the death to natural causes but when another guest dies, her cop instincts kick in. The local Sheriff tells her to stand down, but Mel can’t let it go. With everything on the line, she has to push through her fears to catch the killer before more bodies drop, perhaps even her own.
Computer geeks write code… and sometimes they bake them in gingerbread.
BLURB: Clay Blackstone, avowed bachelor, is an ambitious computer design engineer at a prestigious firm. When an accident puts his dad on crutches, he returns home to help with his family’s Christmas tree farm, never expecting to find romantic entanglement with an alluring woman he remembers as a tomboy in braids.As a single mother launching a bakery business, Shelby Turner has experience with measuring cups and watercolor paints, but not handsome, intriguing men—especially one who is her secret schoolgirl crush. Between her sweet treats, his tech savvy, and their combined chemistry, will they risk their hearts and discover the code to their happily ever after?
Competitive, work-obsessed Bella Simonetti has just been fired from her high-paying job at a Manhattan law firm. At an all-time low, she returns home and helps her parents at their small-town gift shop, but the business is failing and may not make it past the Christmas holidays.
Successful landscape architect Dean Jackson is like a son to Bella’s parents. But he’s a persistent annoyance to her—he seems to have forgotten his unforgivable blunder thirteen years earlier.
When Bella transforms her parents’ gift shop into a cookie cottage, Dean’s generosity and magnetic smile are hard to resist, and those feelings of unrequited adolescent love come rushing back. But can Bella let go of the past and accept Dean for the man he is today?
Bio
Maria Imbalzano is a retired matrimonial lawyer who now writes full time. Instead of drafting motions, legal memoranda, and briefs, although fascinating, she now spends her days creating memorable characters and taking them on their emotional journeys through her contemporary romance novels.
In addition to writing fiction, Maria is on the Friends of Thomas Edison State University Foundation Committee and serves on the finance committee for The Present Day Club. She has received the distinguished Family of Edison Award for her work with The Thomas Edison State University Foundation, the Iron Mike Professional Achievement Award from Trenton Catholic Academy, her alma mater, and was inducted into the Italian American National Hall of Fame.
Her novel, “Unchained Memories,” won the Wisconsin Romance Writers Write Touch Readers’ Award and the ACRA Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence Award. “Sworn to Forget,” the first of the four-book Sworn Sisters Series was a finalist for the illustrious RONE award as well as the Book Buyers Best Award. Two of her novellas won first place awards in the NEST (National Excellence in Story Telling) contest. “The Blueberry Swirl Waltz” won in the short historical category and “A Song For Another Day” won in the short contemporary category. Both of these novellas are also finalists for the Beverley Award.
“I agree with Dean. Barb’s Gift Cottage has been in Princeton for thirty years. You don’t decide one day to revamp the entire business. Get rid of the old, make way for the new. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Bella bit her tongue before responding, reminding herself to stay cool. “Okay. I’m open to anything. Let’s talk about your ideas to stay afloat.” She sat, poised with her pad in front of her, pen in hand.
Silence.
She looked directly at her dad first, eyebrow arched. “I’m listening.” Then she scanned over to Dean.
Her gaze moved up to his eyes—sea green in the harsh kitchen light but beautiful just the same.
His gaze locked with hers and held her hostage— an unwilling prisoner to his warden. All ire morphed into a swirling eddy of primal lust, and she felt herself disappearing into his aura. She needed to save herself as well as her ego. Fighting the pull, she surfaced, blinking to clear her eyes, inhaling to bring her back to the present.
She disconnected and glanced at her parents. Had they noticed she’d been missing?
The smallest smile quirked Dean’s lips—surely acknowledging her lapse into Dean-land. She reached for the annoyance she’d let slip from her grasp and pulled it back into her arsenal.
Christmas tours brim with cookies, lights, and…unexpected romance?
Divorced, empty nester Merilee is on a roll. Filled with scrumptious cookies and old-fashioned fun, her Christmas bus tours aim to add festive spirit to her hometown and new meaning to her lackluster life. Too bad her reserved driver slams the brakes on fun.
Widowed farmer Ross needs a little joy to combat his December blues. Behind the wheel, he wears a Santa suit but can’t muster a convincing ho-ho-ho. Too many memories block his road to happiness…until irrepressible Merilee sparks a snowstorm of unexpected feelings.
In two weeks of holiday tours, Ross might drive Merilee crazy…or will romance snowball inside their lonely hearts?
House calls and Christmas cookies . . . a sweet combination or recipe for disaster?
Before she can let up and enjoy some holiday cheer, real estate agent Alana Drake has work to do. With Christmas moving in fast, she has clients to meet with, houses to show, and cookies to bake. Every open house deserves her special touch—homemade and hand-decorated sugar cookies for a warm welcome. And she needs several dozen for upcoming holiday events and open houses.
But a poorly timed stop at the grocery store could upend more than her bag of groceries. Running into Doctor Justin Teague—literally—shakes up Alana’s tidy world. The chance encounter leaves her with a bum ankle, forces her to reconsider some dating ideals, and reveals new information about a longtime nemesis.
Sparkling Book Reviews 