FIRE AND ERMINE by Andrew Grey

Fiction, Contemporary Romance, LGBTQ, Level 5 heat

4****

Blurb: When Prince Reynard escapes his gilded cage, he runs as fast as he can in search of a taste of freedom. Predictably, he gets pulled over. State Trooper Fisher Bronson doesn’t know the handsome stranger in the rental car, but he does know the guy was driving way too fast. Still, Fisher takes to protect and serveseriously, so he helps Reynard find a hotel for the night. Then the hotel catches fire. Apparently, Reynard hasn’t covered his tracks as well as he thought. But is it paparazzi on his tail, or someone much more deadly? Either way, when Fisher offers him a room for the night, he’s grateful for the refuge. Reynard is generous and kind, but Fisher knows he’s hiding something. Finally, Reynard confesses the truth: as prince of Veronia, his life is structured and ordered for him, but as Reynard, in Carlisle with Fisher, he has the freedom to become a person he actually likes. To Reynard’s surprise, Fisher likes him back—not for his title, but for the man he is. But duty, family expectations, and whoever is after Reynard could spell the end of their relationship before they get past once upon a traffic stop.

Thoughts: Prince Reynard is not having a good day. Though he manages to escape the confines of being a prince with the help of a friend, he gets stopped by a cop for speeding. Then his car breaks down. Then, when he gets to a hotel, there’s a fire. Then there are no other rooms in town. Fisher doesn’t know what to think of the handsome man who’s had more than his share of bad luck that day, so on the spur of the moment, he invites him to his home. And thus begins the romance between the prince and the cop. They know their whirlwind romance can’t last, but the feelings are so strong between them that they can’t deny them either, even when they are half a world apart.

What I liked: Reynard trying to understand life without valets, maids, and all the other stuff that goes with being rich and famous. And Fisher trying to understand life with all that stuff. The two are definitely from two different worlds, but they can’t let each other go. Reynard’s mother was great, as was Fisher’s grandmother. Loved them. And the conflict as the two men try to figure out where and how to fit into each other’s lives.

What I didn’t like: very little. This was a nicely done story, typical of an Andrew Grey romance.

Recommendation: Recommended.Disclaimer: all thoughts and opinions are my on with no influence from anyone or anything and I was not required to give a review of this book.

Hannah Clein will always remember the day she went to a department store with her mother to buy her first bra as her last best day, “B.C.” before the cancer. She considered herself an ordinary child who loved challah bread, reading, and her family – often in that order.

With a normal life in the rear-view mirror, we follow Hannah over three decades, as she navigates the tricky transition from girlhood to womanhood. All her life, she just wants to belong. Be normal.

In a tale that explores a women’s complicated relationships with her body, and the love of her life, we learn the psyche is a funny thing. What are the perfect breasts? And how does the loss of a loved one affect those left behind?

The Perfect Breasts mixes family lore with imagination in a compelling tale of loss, longing, and love.

I have published it on Amazon Kindle for breast cancer awareness month, and all the profits will be donated to cancer research. If you are a member of Kindle Unlimited set your calendar for Sept. 29^th – when it will be available for reading.

Buy link for The Perfect Breasts: Amazon Hyperlink and link

The Perfect Breasts Amazon

Editorial Reviews of The Perfect Breasts:

Brilliantly written, The Perfect Breasts is a riveting tale that chronicles the lifelong impact that breast cancer has on every aspect of the lives of each member of the Clein family. Author Cara Bertoia has penned a tautly emotional plot driven by love, loss, trust, family ties, and the inner strength one must summon to face adversity created by both human fallibility and fate rather than turning away.

The story moves at a comfortable pace with flawed, but believable characters who drive the plot. Readers find themselves rooting for the protagonists from the beginning to the end of the story. The characters evoke strong emotions in readers right from page one. This reader found herself wanting to hug Hannah on one page and throttle her on the next.

The Perfect Breasts is a book that should be required reading for every woman because it does not soft-soap the emotional effect of a life-threatening disease and forces readers to face a hard truth: The ultimate symbol of femininity and womanhood can either be a source of great strength and pride or when lost, a weapon to destroy one’s faith in life and one’s self. — Susie Black author of The Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series

The Perfect Breasts is a heartfelt story about breast cancer and how it affects all of our lives. Because, yes, almost everyone knows someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. 

In this story we follow, Hannah, a Jewish girl through three decades, from the death of her beloved mother from breast cancer to becoming a self-sufficient woman. Cancer itself becomes a character burrowing into Hannah’s psyche. Knowing oneself is difficult enough, but with this added fear, Hannah struggles to find happiness.    

Cara Bertoia handles the issue with sensitivity and compassion. She takes us on Hannah’s journey. leaving us with hope and a promise for a good future.  This is a story which should be read by everyone. — Janie Emaus author of Latkes for Santa Claus

From the Author:

When I was a child, I grew up in a very crowded house. I have three sisters. The way I would escape all the mayhem was by reading. From the time I could read I became a voracious reader. By the age of eight I was reading my parents’ novels, whatever books I could find. At night instead of counting sheep I would tell myself Cinderella type stories where I got to be the heroine. But my first real writing class was when I worked in high-tech in Boston. I took a class at Harvard Extension, and the professor read my story aloud to the group. He asked me to read it, but I was too self-conscious, because it was the first story I had ever written. From that day on I was hooked.

Author Bio:

Cara Bertoia grew up in a strait-laced Southern family, but she was always fascinated with casinos. In her twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, she drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. She discovered that after teaching high school, handling an unruly gambler was a piece of cake. Her mother highly disapproved of her working in a casino, “a place so bad it has ‘sin’ in the middle.”

Eventually, she succumbed to pressure from the family and returned east to take a hi-tech job in Boston. She also began working on her MFA in writing at Emerson. Her goal was to write the first realistic novel about casino life from the perspective of an experienced table games dealer. She is always amazed that normal and sometimes quite intelligent players become absolutely clueless in the casino. They repeat superstitious nonsense and no amount of logic can change their position, maybe her novel will.

While in Boston she was offered the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. Jumping at the chance, she spent the next five years circling the globe. Sometimes life exceeds your dreams. She was awed by the wonders of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in St. Petersburg.

Cara returned from ships with a very special souvenir, her Scottish husband Ray. They went to work at the Spa Casino in Palm Springs, and now live in Hollywood, Florida, where she writes about her casino years while wistfully gazing out at the ocean.

She loves to connect with her readers. Please send her a picture with any or her work. She will post those pictures to social media.

mailto:carabertoia@yahoo.com

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Birthdays: Hannah Webster Foster (1758), Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880), Carl Van Doren (1885), Franz Werfel (1890), Cyril Connolly (1903), Charles Kuralt (1934), Mary Oliver (1935), Jared Diamond (1937), Stephen J. Gould (1941), Neale Donald Walsch (1943), Bill O’Reilly (1949), Andrei Makine (1957), Marian Keyes (1963)

Carl Van Doren won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Charles Kuralt was a traveling journalist famous for his “On the Road” series on TV and in books.

Mary Oliver was an American poet who won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.

Quote: “It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn’t in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.”― Charles Kuralt

“If you want the best the world has to offer, offer the world your best.”― Neale Donald Walsch

“The story begins when things change. The adventure begins when things go wrong.” – Dennis McKiernan

Tip: On the first page, you should have the answers to three questions: Whose story is this? (main character) What’s happening? What’s at stake?

Jumpstart: You work at a pet shop and arrive in the morning to find cages opened and animals everywhere—including the snakes—what happens next?

OATHSWORN by Sebastian Black

Fiction, Contemporary Paranormal Romance, LGBTQ, Level 5 heat

3***

Blurb: Can love set a mage free? Former chef Jasper Wight has been magically ensnared in his apartment for over three months. Cabin fever doesn’t begin to cover it. All he can do to pass the time is indulge in his hobby—painting portraits of his neighbors. But once a handsome new man moves into a swanky nearby penthouse, Jasper is no longer content merely to watch. Following his gut, he reaches out through astral projection…. Finn Anderson is the CEO of a food app funded by his parents, but he struggles to believe in the dream. When a mysterious someone starts leaving messages on his mirror, he learns the world holds more possibilities than he ever imagined. When a chance encounter brings Finn to Jasper’s door, the pair are soon as enamored with each other as Finn is of the magic he’s just discovering. But navigating a relationship that spans two worlds is only the tip of the iceberg. They still have to figure out how to free Jasper from his apartment, how to make Finn’s business into a success, and whether an outsider can be trusted with the secrets of the magical world.

Thoughts: I loved the character of Jasper. He’s a frustrated magic person who’s stuck in his apartment. He uses astral projection to visit his handsome across-the-street neighbor Finn. He tries to make contact by writing in the steamy mirror while Finn is in the shower. All it does is freak Finn out because he thinks he has a ghost. Jasper can make chef-level food from scraps his friends supply him with. And he is a painter. But he wants out.

Finn isn’t quite as well-rounded. He seems like a whiny, bored rich guy who runs at the first sign of conflict (his co-worker). I keep wondering why he doesn’t just stand up to the guy. He’s the boss! Why doesn’t he act like one? Okay, he doesn’t like the hand-shaking and kissing up that comes with the job, but very few do. He just doesn’t work well for me. What’s going to happen when the new venture gets going? Is he going to drop out there too? 

The romance is okay – but there seems to be more heat than romance. Yes, Jasper can’t get out, but Finn could do more to woo him. 

The best part for me – though it was also the shortest – was when Jasper finally got free although it took a few beats for him to realize why he got out. 

Recommendation: I do recommend the story – it’s a good story with a satisfying ending. But understand that you’re reading it for the heat level and the romance, not necessarily for what’s going on. 

Disclaimer: All thoughts and opinions in this are my own and not influenced by anyone and anything. 

Birthdays: Frederic Mistral (1830), Siegfried Sassoon (1886), Jane Arbor (1903), Grace Metalious (1924), Michael Frayn (1933), Jack Prelutsky (1940), Jon Scieszka (1945), Marianne Wiggins (1947), Ann Beattie (1947), Michael Shemer (1954), Terry Tempest Williams (1955), Christopher Kim (1962)

Frederic Mistral won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Grace Metalious is best known for her controversial novel “Peyton Place”

Jack Prelutsky was the American Children’s Poet Laureate.

Jon Scieszka (rhymes with “Fresca”) is best known for his children’s books like “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairy Stupid Tales”

Quote: “If every man, …ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to backbiting.” ― Grace Metalious, Peyton Place

“My ideas come from all different things: my kids, kids I’ve taught, kids I’ve learned from, watching movies, playing with my cat, talking to my wife, staring out the window, and about a million other places. But what turns the ideas into stories and books is sitting down and writing and re-writing and throwing away writing and writing some more. That’s the hard part.” – Jon Scieszka

“You know that you are a writer if you are imaginative. You know that you are a writer if you are curious. You know that you are a writer if you are interested in the things and people of the world. You know that you are a writer if you hold a minie ball in your hand and wonder about its story. You know that you are a writer if you like the sound of rain on the roof. And if you want to tell someone else about your heart and how waiting for the thunder sometimes makes you feel, if you work to find the words to do that, then you are a writer. –Maureen O’Toople in the short story “Your Question for Author Here”

Tip: Avoid indirect negatives. For instance: He wasn’t very nice to us. Vs. He was rude to us. (The second one is better.)

Jumpstart: “The only way to keep a secret between two people is if one of them is dead,” she said as she pulled a gun from her pocket…

Birthdays: Edith Sitwell (1887), Taylor Caldwell (1900), Margaret Landon (1903), Michelle Paver (1960), Jennifer Egan (1962), David Levithan (1972),

Jennifer Egan won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “A Visit from the Goon Squad”

Margaret Landon is best known for her book “Anna and the King of Siam” which was translated into twenty languages and made into the movie “The King and I”

Quote: “The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.” – Edith Sitwell

“I print out and save all my drafts and I number them so if I start to have that experience of something good having disappeared, I can go through them and I can dig back to what I’m looking for. I distrust the continuous present of a screen because there’s no history there.” – Jennifer Egan

Tip: There are six basic types of conflict: man against nature (where someone is trying to survive in the wilderness or facing a storm of some sort, like Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” or Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”). Man against himself (as in “Hamlet” where the character is conflicted internally- literally fighting himself). Man against man (any book with a hero and a villain). Man vs. society (The Scarlet Letter). Man vs. technology (“Blade Runner” or “The Terminator”). And Man vs. the supernatural (Harry Potter). There may be other types of conflict, but these are the basics and you should have at least two in your story.

Jumpstart: When he got off the elevator, he noticed the door to his apartment was open…

CAPTAIN COOKED by S.P. Grogan

Fiction, Mystery

3***

Blurb: A new style and modern update to the old fashioned culinary mystery…not your Mother’s cozy read. All she wanted-A quiet beach where she could go topless–Not happening. Captain Cooked is a foodie travel mystery featuring special recipes from the top chefs on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Videographer Madison Merlot Dayne arrived on the Big Island to shoot the HDTV of her culinary father’s popular television food show. From her arrival on, Madison and her father are caught up trying to discover who may have poisoned a revered Hawaiian singing star. Her working vacation involves riots, suspicious accidents, earthquakes, flowing lava, dangerous Hawaiian war weapons–and a ‘real cliffhanger’. Madison is likewise having men problems. She desires island romance but not prepared for three men in her life…at the same time. And there is the mystery of the boiling cauldron. Will Maddison get off the island alive? 

Thoughts: Right from the beginning, I was sure I wasn’t going to like this book – it definitely needs better editing. The tenses are all over the place and more. But then… the story pulled me in. It is a good story – just poor editing. Madison and her father, Jeffrey, arrive on the big island of Hawaii to shoot a portion of her father’s TV food show. Things go wrong from the beginning with the death of a popular singer from eating what was supposed to be Madison and her father’s buffet meal. Though I pretty much had the killer pegged from the start, there is more than one death – and more than one killer. And just when you think the story is over… it goes on.

What I liked: all the recipes from actual chefs and restaurants on the island. And the facts about Hawaii (including correct spellings of things). The mysteries were pretty good, too. It’s obvious the author has visited (or lived) on Hawaii and did his research, though some of the facts could have been cut just a little.

What I didn’t like: Madison was a little too “I want to get laid” for me. She’s there for a job and all she can think about is how to get laid (which never happens). It got old real fast. Also the relationship between her and her father is a little…off-putting at times. And the end with the Hawaiians… um…ick.

Interesting fact: “Captain Cooked” is a Quest Mystery involving GPS; a real shark teeth war club is geo-cached (hidden) somewhere on the Big Island and when discovered can be redeemed for a cash prize. The clues are in the book. Twenty five cents ($.25) of each book sold will be contributed to the Food Basket — Hawai’i Island’s Food Bank. 25 recipes featured from the top chefs and restaurants on the Big Island. Local artists are showcased in the book. There is a Hawaiian war club hidden somewhere on The Big Island of Hawaii. When found and redeemed it is worth $5,000. The clues are in the book or at the website CaptainCooked.com

Recommendation: Maybe. As noted before, this is a good story, but needs a competent editor to make it better.

Disclaimer: Disclosure of Material: I received a final and/or advanced reader copy of this book with the hope that I will leave my unbiased opinion. I was not required to leave a review, positive or otherwise, and my opinions are just that… My Opinions. I am posting this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”

Birthdays: Arthur Koestler (1905), John Cage (1912), Frank Yerby (1916), Justin Kaplan (1925), Ward Just (1935), Jonathan Kozol (1936), Sam Hamill (1943), Cathy Guisewite (1950),  Paul Fleischman (1952),

Justin Kaplan won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Mark Twain.

Quote: “Brain-washing starts in the cradle…The individual is not a killer, but the group is, and by identifying with it the individual is transformed into a killer.” – Arthur Koestler

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage

“Writing a novel is like building a wall brick by brick; only amateurs believe in inspiration.” – Frank Yerby

Tip: An antagonist is a person (or thing) that opposes the protagonist. It doesn’t have to be inherently bad, but it does have to throw roadblocks in the hero’s way.

Jumpstart: Your character opens a fortune cookie and the strip inside says: “You will receive a legacy from a distant relative.” What is the legacy and why is she the one receiving it?

Birthdays: Mary Renault (1905), Richard Wright (1908), Syd Hoff (1912), Craig Claiborne (1920), Joan Aiken (1924), Forrest Carter (1925), David Lagercrantz (1962),

Syd Hoff is best known for his classic children’s book “Danny and the Dinosaur”

Quote: ““It’s not what one is, it’s what one does with it.” ― Mary Renault, The Charioteer

Stories ought not to be just little bits of fantasy that are used to wile away an idle hour; from the beginning of the human race stories have been used – by priests, by bards, by medicine men – as magic instruments of healing, of teaching, as a means of helping people come to terms with the fact that they continually have to face insoluble problems and unbearable realities.” – Joan Aiken

Tip: Confusing pronouns: “The lazy dog sat on the sofa. It was soft and plump.” – The second sentence could apply to either the dog or the sofa. The “it” makes it unclear. You need to be specific here. This often happens in books where there are multiple characters of the same sex. Using “she” or “he” for everyone gets too confusing as to who is whom.

Jumpstart: It’s spring and the birds are coming home. All of them. We need to be ready…