Rise By Moonlight Review

Author: Nancy Gideon
Series: By Moonlight #15
Release Date:  August 3, 2020
Purchase Links: 
Amazon:  https://amzn.to/30LClZF

Nook: https://bit.ly/3f3Q6Io 

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2X8KuGH

My Rating: 5 Exhilarating Hearts

Many thanks to the author for allowing me the opportunity to beta-read this book.
Synopsis & Author Bio following review.

Max and Charlotte return for the explosive conclusion of the “By Moonlight” series . . .
and the stakes have never been higher!

Review:
Tensions escalate and emotions rage as former adversaries begrudgingly unite to stop a deadly invasion of enemies from the north in Rise By Moonlight, the compelling final book in Gideon's By Moonlight series.  Shapeshifter King Max Savoie and his mate Det. Charlotte Cassie offer refuge and support to the displaced Terriot King Cale and his brothers as they join forces along with others to protect their families and the people of New Orleans from the imminent threat posed by Geneviere Savorie and her lethal trackers.  Max and Cee Cee find themselves walking a narrow line between their conflicting worlds yet again as new alliances are formed, battle lines drawn, and loyalties questioned as it all comes down to one final epic explosive showdown.   Fans of the By Moonlight series will be ecstatic over this vividly rendered, intoxicating story, but if you're new to the series have no fear.  Gideon excels at weaving in needed backstory, offering an engaging reading experience to everyone.  I guarantee you'll quickly become addicted to these ferocious, yet sinfully sensuous characters and find yourself one-clicking to purchase previous books.  I highly recommend you indulge your fantasies by starting with Masked By Moonlight, book one.

Gideon pulls out all the stops to deliver an exhilarating, potent finale to fans of this unique paranormal series.  Rise By Moonlight is an intense, emotionally-charged story with all the elements of great paranormal romance suspense.  From page one to The End, my senses were on high alert, and I couldn't turn pages fast enough as tensions escalate, stakes are raised, and imminent danger inches ever closer.  Lies, secrets, and betrayals run rampant threatening to destroy Cee Cee's fragile world and all she holds dear.  Support characters include all the favorites from previous books - both those you love and those you love-to-hate.  Some will prove themselves while others are forced to show their true colors.  As always, Gideon's delivery is spot-on and her trademark banter and sensual chemistry between characters sizzles.  Rise By Moonlight is an engaging, electrifying, non-stop action paranormal romance - the gratifying culmination of multiple plot lines fans have been waiting for.  As the #1 fan of the series, I hate to see it end . . . but oh what a way to go!  Highly Recommended!

My Rating:  5 Exhilarating Hearts

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥

Synopsis:
He’s the Promised One

A Mobster’s attack dog turned legitimate business powerhouse, Max Savoie is the reluctant leader of New Orleans’ shapeshifter clan. They’ve kept to anonymous shadows, working and living unnoticed by the human world until their new Shifter King’s past draws dangerous outsiders who threaten all.

She’s the Protector

A fiercely determined NOPD detective, Charlotte Caissie has sworn to defend her beloved city and her unborn child from both criminals and otherworldly factions at war. While standing boldly at the side of her mate/husband, secrets from the past return to shake the foundation of her beliefs.

They have a Problem

Walking a marital tight rope between opposite worlds,Max and Cee Cee’s paths place truth and trust at odds when outside threats force enemies to become allies. The time to take a stand for their family and their future is at hand. Time to rise together for the survival of all they love!

Website

http://www.nancygideon.com/

Genre

Romance, Paranormal Romance, Romantic Suspense

With over 65 sales to her credit since her first publication in 1987, Michigan author Nancy Gideon’s writing career is as versatile as the romance market, itself. Her books encompass genres from historicals and regencies to contemporary suspense and the paranormal. Her works have been published overseas in Romanian, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Danish, German, Icelandic and Chinese, among other languages.

Also listed on the International Movie Database (IMDB), she collaborated on the indie horror films In the Woods and Savage with screenwriting and ADR script credits, and even played the character “Bar Extra.”

A national speaker on writing in general and romance in particular, Gideon is a Western Michigan University honors grad with a major in journalism and minors in history and communications. She’s a member of Novelist, Inc. and the Mid-Michigan, Greater Detroit, PASIC and FF&P chapters of Romance Writers of America®, and is former vice-president, published author co-liaison and award-winning newsletter editor for MMRWA.

The mother of two grown sons, one married and proud producer of her grandson and the other shanghaied into being her occasional assistant, she also works full time as a legal assistant.

A prolific writer, Gideon attributes her creative output, which once peaked at seven novels in one year, to her love of history and a gift for storytelling. She also credits the discipline learned through a background in journalism and scheduling writing time around diaper changes, Scout meetings, band lessons and outings to the Zoo Boo...and, of course, OCD. The due date for her third book and her second son were on the same day...and both were early! When on deadline, she turns on the laptop between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. to get a chapter in before work.

While the pace is often hectic, Gideon, a Gemini, enjoys tackling diverse projects. One month it’s researching the gritty existence of 1880’s Texas Rangers only to jump to modern themes of intrigue and possibly a legal thriller or two. Then, it’s back to the shadowy netheworld of shape shifters, vampires and movie serial killers. When not working on her latest plot twist before sunrise or filing court appearances, she enjoys indulging in Netflix, hosting her critique group, and feeding all things fur, fin and fowl. And, of course, reading.

More Than Maybe Blog Tour & Review

Author:  Erin Hahn
Genre:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Wednesday Books
Release Date:  July 21, 2020
Purchase Link:  Amazon

3 Musical Hearts

*A special thank you to Wednesday Books for an arc of this book and to Mary Moates for the invitation to join this blog tour!
(Excerpt, Synopsis & Author Bio following review)

Review:
More Than Maybe explores the emotional highs and lows of two teenagers who develop a close connection with each other through their mutual love of music.  Luke Greenly is the son of a punk rock legend of years gone by who puts a lot of pressure on Luke to follow in his footsteps.  Luke has the looks, voice, and demeanor to be a rock star . . . only thing is, he hates the limelight.  His dream is in the composition of music, not performing it.  Vada Creswell is a well-known music blogger who also works at the Loud Lizard, a dive bar run by her mom's boyfriend Phil.  She dreams of writing for The Rolling Stone and attending college on the west coast - partly to escape living in the same town with her alcoholic "ex"-dad.  Vada has a secret crush on Luke . . . who has a secret crush on her.  Cute, right?  They begin to text song titles back and forth as a way of communicating their feelings and offering support to each other.  And that's what takes this story to another level.

More Than Maybe started out as a cute, sugar-sweet, teenage first love/crush story.  During the first part, I thought I was in trouble because this is so out of my wheelhouse.  However, I was soon drawn into the emotional depth of each character as Hahn tackled family, communication, and self-worth issues.  The plot line deepens as more characters and relationships, both functional and unfunctional, are explored. The evolving friendship and sweet romance between Luke and Vada are handled with care - slowly growing as they learn to trust each other with their feelings.  I enjoyed the author's writing style along with the musical references throughout.  It's easy to get lost in the melodies in this one.  More Than Maybe is a peek into the young lives of two teenagers falling in love.  Fans of sweet, young love and low-angst romance will enjoy this story.

My Rating:  3 Sweet Hearts

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥

ABOUT MORE THAN MAYBE:
Growing up under his punk rocker dad’s spotlight, eighteen-year-old Luke Greenly knows fame and wants nothing to do with it. His real love isn’t in front of a crowd, it’s on the page. Hiding his gift and secretly hoarding songs in his bedroom at night, he prefers the anonymous comfort of the locally popular podcast he co-hosts with his outgoing and meddling, far-too-jealousy-inspiringly-happy-with-his-long-term-boyfriend twin brother, Cullen. But that’s not Luke’s only secret. He also has a major un-requited crush on music blogger, Vada Carsewell.

Vada’s got a five year plan: secure a job at the Loud Lizard to learn from local legend (and her mom’s boyfriend) Phil Josephs (check), take over Phil’s music blog (double check), get accepted into Berkeley’s prestigious music journalism program (check, check, check), manage Ann Arbor’s summer concert series and secure a Rolling Stone internship. Luke Greenly is most definitely NOT on the list. So what if his self-deprecating charm and out of this world music knowledge makes her dizzy? Or his brother just released a bootleg recording of Luke singing about some mystery girl on their podcast and she really, really wishes it was her?

In More Than Maybe, Erin Hahn’s swooniest book yet, Luke and Vada must decide how deep their feelings run and what it would mean to give love a try.

Read More Than Maybe Excerpt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ERIN HAHN is the author of You'd Be Mine and More Than Maybe. She teaches elementary, would rather be outside and makes a lot of playlists. So many playlists in fact, that she decided to write books to match them! She married her very own YA love interest who she met on her first day of college and has two kids who are much, much cooler than she ever was at their age. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, aka the greenest place on earth and has a cat named Gus who plays fetch and a dog named June who doesn’t.

Buy this book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250231642

 Author website: https://www.erinphahn.com/

Author Twitter: @erinhahn_author

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17130322.Erin_Hahn

Author Instagram: @erinhahn_author

The Vacation Review

Author: T.M. Logan
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Release Date: July 21, 2020
Purchase Link: Amazon

My Rating: 3 Secret Hearts


Special thanks to St. Martins Press for an arc of this book via Netgalley.
Synopsis & Author Bio following review.


Review:
Four women, friends since their university days, plan the perfect vacation in a luxurious villa in the south of France.  They're each turning forty and plan to celebrate in style.  Spouses and children tag along, and the drama begins.  Recently, Kate's husband has become distant, even cold, and after intercepting some text messages on his phone, she knows why.  An affair.  Her rock solid, handsome husband is having an affair.  What shocks her even more is that the other woman in this affair has to be one of her three trusted friends.  One of them has betrayed her.  Who is it?  Kate will uncover the truth during the next seven days while they're all together.  However, what she discovers may be worse than she expected.

The Vacation begins with a great premise - friends, vacation, a cheating husband, a deceitful friend.  I was immediately drawn into the story, scrutinizing each potential suspect, weighing the possibilities.  Kate is our main narrator, although there are others, but it's mostly through her voice that the story unfolds.  Through past and present chapters, secrets begin to spill, lies mount up, emotions boil over, and it soon becomes clear multiple people, including husbands and children, have something to hide.  While the author utilizes short chapters to move the pace forward over seven days, it began stalling out around mid-point for me - meandering a bit too much.  The focus of the story shifts somewhat and the pace slows more than I would have liked.  What started off as a page turner morphed into a slow burn mystery causing my interest to wander.  At this point, I had already solved part of the mystery but there was still the expected twist and shocker near the end.  The Vacation is a good domestic mystery that could have reached the next level with a little more focus and fewer pages in my opinion.  If you're a mystery fan, grab this one and decide for yourself.

My Rating:  3 Secret Hearts

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥

Synopsis:
Seven days. Three families. One killer.

It was supposed to be the perfect holiday - a group of families enjoying a week together in the sun. Four women who have been best friends for as long as they can remember making the most of a luxurious villa in the south of France.

But Kate has a secret: her husband is having an affair. And a week away might just be the perfect opportunity to get the proof she needs - to catch him in the act once and for all. Because she suspects the other woman is one of her two best friends.

One of them is working against her, willing to sacrifice years of friendship to destroy her family. But which one? As Kate closes in on the truth in the stifling Mediterranean heat, she realizes too late that the stakes are far higher than she ever imagined . . .

Because someone in the villa may be prepared to kill to keep their secret hidden.

Auth0r Bio:

Tim’s thrillers have sold more than 750,000 copies in the UK and are published in 15 countries around the world including the USA, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and the Netherlands.

His debut thriller LIES was one of Amazon’s biggest selling e-books of 2017 and was followed by 29 SECONDS in 2018. His latest thriller, THE HOLIDAY, was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick for summer 2019 and spent ten weeks in the Sunday Times paperback top ten.

His next novel, THE CATCH, is about a father who becomes convinced his daughter is about to marry a man with terrible secrets. THE CATCH will be published in the UK on 11th June 2020.

Tim was born in Berkshire and studied in London and Cardiff before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children, and writes in a cabin at the bottom of his garden.

For exclusive writing and new releases from TM Logan, sign up to the Readers’ Club: www.bit.ly/TMLogan.

Cut To The Bone Review

Author: Ellison Cooper
Series: Agent Sayer Altair #3
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Release Date: July 14, 2020
Purchase Link: Amazon

My Rating: 4 Intriguing Hearts

*Thank you to Minotaur Books for an arc of this book via Netgalley. A special thanks to Senior Marketing Mgr. Joseph Brosnan for giving me a heads up on this book.



A bus full of high school students has disappeared from Washington D.C. and FBI neuroscientist Sayer Altair must hunt down the culprit who has a link to her own past.
(Synopsis & Author Bio following review)

Review:
FBI Agent Sayer Altair is finally moving forward after the death of her fiance, navigating office politics while rebuilding her career one day at a time. As a member of the Critical Incidence Response Group, she gets the call when a teenage girl's body is found at the base of the Einstein Memorial with an ax in her hand and a circle of nine baboon figurines surrounding her.  A police officer that interrupted the ritualistic killer is dead.  As the investigation kicks into gear, Agent Altair discovers that twenty-four STEM high school students are missing along with their bus driver & adult chaperone.  Is this girl one of the missing?  The race for answers and to find the students before more are killed becomes top priority.

Cut To The Bone is a twisted suspense thriller, the third book in the Agent Sayer Altair series.  The author's skillful inclusion of backstory allows readers to jump into the series at this point without major missing pieces.  Having said that, there's no doubt readers will benefit from the character development in the first two books.  The story unfolds at a steady pace through a tangled web of conspiracy, dead-ends, and red herrings.  Someone seems to be throwing up roadblocks to impede the investigation frustrating investigators.  Altair is a smart, tenacious fully fleshed character with a high sense of morality.  When shades of her past arise intertwining into the already complicated case, it becomes personal.  I enjoyed the ancient Egyptian mythology incorporated into the story as its as intriguing as the diverse cast of characters.  Series readers will recognize and enjoy some past characters that step up in this book.  A fast-paced plot that twists and turns, unique characters, and engaging writing means an intriguing read for fans of police procedurals and suspense thrillers.  Highly Recommended!

My Rating: 4 Intriguing Hearts

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥

Synopsis:

After grieving the death of her fiancé and almost losing her job, Agent Sayer Altair is finally starting to rebuild her life. Her research into the minds of psychopaths is breaking new ground and her strange little family is thriving. But Sayer’s newfound happiness is threatened when she is called in to investigate a girl’s body left inside a circle of animal figurines below a cryptic message written in blood. When they discover that the dead girl is one of twenty-four missing high school students, Sayer quickly realizes that nothing in this case is what it seems.

As the investigation draws her in to a tangled web of fake identities and false leads, the trail soon begins to point directly to her own life. Now, Sayer must confront her painful past to uncover her connection to the deranged killer if she hopes to save the missing teens and protect everything that she loves.

Ellison Cooper has a Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA, with a background in archaeology, cultural neuroscience, ancient religion, colonialism, and human rights. She has conducted fieldwork in Central America, West Africa, Micronesia, and Western Europe. She has worked as a murder investigator in Washington DC, and is a certified K9 Search and Rescue Federal Disaster Worker. She now lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son.

IWSG: All We Need Is Love & Respect

A database resource site and support group for writers and authors. Featuring weekly guests and tips, a monthly blogfest gathering, a Facebook group, a book club, and thousands of links – all to benefit writers! #IWSG 

Website / Facebook Group / Twitter / Book Club

Make sure to stop by to visit each of our awesome co-hosts as well as all of our other members!  A big thank you to: Jenni Enzor, Beth Camp, Liesbet, Tyrean Martinson, and Sandra Cox!

July Question of the Month: There have been many industry changes in the last decade, so what are some changes you would like to see happen in the next decade?

I may be slightly off topic here, but there are a couple of things I want to touch on in response to this question.

1)  Has there ever been a time like this for writers?  One where anyone who wants to publish a book can?  I think not.  As a person who reads and reviews a lot of books, I can say the ability to self-publish is a double-edged sword for readers.  The best of times, the worse of times comes to mind.  I've read some amazing self-published books, and I've tried to read others that just weren't ready to be published in my opinion.  But because we can, they were. Is there an easy solution? Should there be?

2)  When thinking of the future for writers and the publishing industry, there's something I'd like to mention that's heavy on my mind right now.  I'd like to see more support, respect and acceptance of fellow writers' work given to both genders of writers, as well as everyone else, in any genre they choose to write.  Does it really matter if we're male or female or black or white when it comes to writing and publishing a well-written book?  Did I miss an unwritten rule that says women writers can't write fantastic suspense thrillers?  Show me a rule that says men can't write steamy romance.  And yet the stigma exists.

Let's open our heart and mind, look beyond the status quo, and accept that great writing is great writing no matter your gender, race, nationality, sexual preference, etc.  If we judge books or people by their "outer package", we're setting ourselves up to miss some great reads as well as potential friends in life.  In my perfect world, all writers support all writers.  All people support all people.  Period.  End of story.  I hope to live to see the day in time when there is no prejudice and discrimination in publishing or life in general.  All we need is mutual love and respect.  Something we all have to give freely.

I'd like to share a personal experience:  One of the publishers I regularly review for recently offered me an arc of a book called Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby.  I accepted it knowing nothing about the story or author (not that it would have mattered to me) other than it was Grit Lit/Southern Noir - one of my new favorite genres.  I read this book without putting it down because it's that good.  After finishing the book, I was anxious to find out more about the talented writer and his work so I looked up the author's bio and learned that he wrote from the personal experience of a black man growing up in the south during a time of extreme prejudice.  No wonder this book is so authentic!  Just another reminder to never judge a book or people by the cover - you never know what you might be missing. For anyone interested, here's my review:  Blacktop Wasteland Review

Have you've read a book that surprised you this year?  Feel free to share it.  How would you like to see the publishing industry change in the future?

See you next time!

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

♥Sandra♥