Winter Kisses At The Homestead Inn (Billionaires in Hiding #4) by Kimberly Krey

 

 

There has been one happy ending after the next at The Homestead Inn, but two of the Duran brothers, Maverick and Emmitt, are still looking for love. Find out who's next in line to find the love of their lives.

Emmitt’s about to fall for a private investigator and he doesn’t even know it.
Sloane is going to fall for him too, just before she learns that she’s working for the wrong side.

The suspense is kicking up in Winter Kisses at The Homestead Inn.

*** This series is best read in order. ***

Billionaires In Hiding Series includes:
1. Springtime Love at The Homestead Inn: Country Boy & City Girl
2. Summer Nights at The Homestead Inn: While He Was Sleeping
3. Autumn Romance at The Homestead Inn: Do Nice Guys Finish Last?
4. Winter Kisses at The Homestead Inn: Flirting With The Enemy
5. Spring Fever at The Homestead Inn (Coming March 2022) 

 * Amazon * Goodreads *  

Let's hear it for book 4 in this series and Emmitt, who finally gets his very own love story!  We're working our way through this whole family of siblings and while each sibling gets their own love story, there is a slow, overarching, building sense of danger.  It's a cool thing and I really like it.  It keeps me coming back for more!

I think Emmitt and Sloane have a great build to their relationship.  It felt natural and believable.  I settled in with the easily and quickly, even knowing how it was all going to blow up.  This Duran family is resourceful and resilient though and they know how to support and help each other.  I really like that strong sense of family in this series.

As stated above, this series is best read in order.  They are all in KU if you have that which is where I picked up this book.  This author is a favorite of mine and I love when she adds some suspense and danger into her books.

Content:  kissing

 

Kiss the Girl by Melanie Jacobson

 

 

Not even the hottest teacher in town can convince Grace to date a small-town guy.

At 26, Grace Winters must her promising career on pause to run her dad’s hardware store. She can’t wait to leave Creekville again, and she’ll keep everyone at arm’s length until she’s out of there. That especially means the new high school coach…no matter how cute and charming he is.

Noah Redmond knows Creekville is just a detour for Grace, the funniest—and sexiest—woman he’s ever met. He even joins forces with her to defeat the matchmaking schemes of . . . well, just about everyone trying to get them together. But when he and Grace must also tackle building a Christmas booth for the town’s biggest event of the year, he sees his chance for escape from the friend zone.

When Grace agrees to a fake relationship to convince Noah’s boss he's ready for a promotion, the plan works perfectly until they share an unplanned kiss that changes everything. With the lines between friendship and romance blurred, is their undeniable chemistry worth risking their friendship when their future is anything but certain?

 * Amazon * Goodreads * 

This book was yummy!  The tension and build up were fantastic and gave my belly all the flutters of anticipation.  I love when that happens.  Even after the first kiss, it was all charged tension.  Chemistry swirling.  Mmmmm, yummy.

Grace and Noah are both great characters.  I'm definitely a Noah fan, if we are picking sides, and I am.  Noah is such a stand up guy- making his sister and her daughter his priority, working hard and keeping a level head with a great dose of humor.  See?  Why wouldn't I be his fan?  Plus, the way he looks at Grace?  Sigh. . .

I loved the feeling of family and community in this book and the setting around the holidays.  There was a lot of fun happening in these pages.  We start with a wedding, and then have both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It's the perfect book to read right now!

Content:  some mild cursing, including hand gesture.  Kissing.

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Love and Lavender (Mayfield Family #4) by Josi S. Kilpack

 

 

Hazel Stillman is a woman of rare independence and limited opportunities. Born with a clubbed foot, she was sent away as a child and, knowing her disability means a marriage is unlikely, she devoted herself to scholarship and education.

Now working as a teacher in an elite private girls’ school, she is content with the way her story has unfolded. When her uncle Elliott Mayfield presents her with the prospect of a substantial inheritance if she marries, Hazel is offended. What kind of decent man would marry for her money? Besides, she loves her freedom as a professional, respected woman. When she hears rumors of the school possibly being sold, however, she knows she must consider all her options.

Duncan Penhale has a brilliant mind and thrives on order and process. He does not expect to marry because he likes his solitary life, shared only with his beloved cat. When Elliott Mayfield, his guardian’s brother, presents him with an inheritance if he marries a woman of social standing, Duncan finds it intrusive. However, with the inheritance, he could purchase the building in which he works and run his own firm. It would take an impressive and intellectual woman to understand and love him, quirks and all.

Hazel and Duncan believe they have found a solution to both of their problems: marry one another, receive their inheritances, and then part ways to enjoy their individual paths. But when Uncle Mayfield stipulates that they must live together as husband and wife for one year before receiving their inheritances, Hazel and Duncan reluctantly agree. Over time, their marriage of convenience becomes much more appealing than they had anticipated. At the end of the full year, will they go their separate ways or could an unlikely marriage have found unsuspecting love?

 * Goodreads * Amazon * Deseret Book * 

If ever there was a sweet and gentle book, this is it.  Author Josi Kilpack is excellent at writing characters and weaving humanity into them so that as a reader, I connect and feel for them.  In this particular story, Hazel and Duncan are slightly off what people considered at the time, normal.  Hazel has a physical deformity in her foot and Duncan has what I think would be high functioning autism.  Both Hazel and Duncan have keen intellects and have been highly educated.  It draws them to each other and connects them in a way that differs from most other people.

I really loved the unconventional approach to marriage between Hazel and Duncan.  It was so interesting to see the characters through the authors eyes.  This was less of a love story in the traditional sense but more a showing of how love can look and feel differently and still be beautiful.  It was sensitive and well written.  I enjoyed it very much.

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Josi S. Kilpack has written more than thirty novels, a cookbook, and several novellas. She is a four-time Whitney award winner, including Best Novel 2015 for "Lord Fenton's Folly, and has been a Utah Best of State winner for Fiction. Josi loves to bake, sleep, eat, read, travel, and watch TV--none of which she gets to do as much as she would like. She writes contemporary fiction under the pen name Jessica Pack.

Josi has four children and lives in Northern Utah. 

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | GOODREADS

 

 

A World without You (Terms of Inheritance, #3) by Dana LeCheminant

 

With a video channel that gets millions of views, Sara Hawthorne is the authority on convincing women around the world to live their best lives. If only she was practicing what she preached… She’s never felt a part of her perfect family, and the only person who truly knows her is her best friend, Rohan, who’s in love with her.

And she doesn’t feel the same way.

After her mom kicks her out of the house with an impossible task to earn her inheritance, Sara takes a job in the family hotel and crashes on Rohan's couch until she can find her own place. The more time she spends with him, though, the more Sara starts to question how she feels about Rohan, and she's hit with heartbreak when he starts dating someone who totally deserves him.

Trapped between her love for him and her desire to see him happy in his new relationship, Sara does everything she can to hide her feelings. But doing so risks the only friendship she's ever known, and letting Rohan live his best life might mean she has to live in a world without him.

 * Amazon * Goodreads *

Yesterday was release day for book three in this Terms of Inheritance series!  I would highly recommend reading this series in order but I wouldn't say you HAVE to.  It will just make more sense and provide more of a background for the characters.  Especially since I came to LOVE Rohan in the previous books.  I was so excited to see a story with him in the very center of things.

I wasn't sure how the author was going to get me to like Sara though.  She sure doesn't make a great case for herself in the previous books and I have a really hard time liking people I think are mean.  Sara is pretty self absorbed and honestly throughout the whole time she has known Rohan (since childhood), she has always been a bit mean to him.  It was good to be able to understand Sara better through flashbacks and memories and it helped me to like her more.  Luckily, Sara has many redeeming qualities and it was easy see her growth through the book.

Rohan is really amazing.  The world would be a better place if filled with people just like Rohan.  Generous, kind, forgiving, attentive.  Rohan has a good head on his shoulders.

I'm really enjoying this series.  We get a little glimpse of the next book at the end of this one and it looks like it's going to be interesting!  One family member left.

Content:  kissing. 

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

A Sleigh Ride Kiss (A Christmas Match #2) by Jen Geigle Johnson

 

A man she disdains and a man she loves. What happens when she finds out they’re the same person?

Odette Goodson lives with her grandmother in the beautiful Cheshire County. This Christmas she wishes for caroling, snow, sleigh rides, plum pudding, and a lit yule log, with friends and neighbors all around. Her matchmaking grandmother wishes for her to marry the Marquis of Wilmington. She’s heard only unflattering things about him. To her grandmother's consternation, Mr. Wardly shows up on a country lane, a man who seems to be everything the Marquis is not.

Henry Wardly, the Marquis of Wilmington, arrives from the East Indies in Cheshire County six months after his mother’s funeral. Mourning her loss, with a new shipping line at stake, and his own estate to salvage, responsibilities in Cheshire county frustrate him and slow his progress. But he cannot help but be jolly at Christmas time particularly after he runs into the lovely Miss Odette Goodson. Things grow complicated when she confuses him for a gentleman farmer and has shown nothing but disdain for the heretofore unknown Marquis.

Grandmother Amelie Laurent Goodson will work her matchmaking magic, but will it be enough to overcome the strong prejudice in Odette’s preconceived notions or the immediacy of Henry’s needs to be in London?

 * Amazon * Goodreads *

Are you ready to start reading Christmas books?  It's a little early for me but you will want to pick this one up, even if you just store it away for a month or so.  It's ever so sweet and will bring all the feelings of good cheer and the spirit of winter and the holidays.

Henry and Odette are great characters.  It was so easy to like them from the very beginning.  I just loved how hard Henry tried to please Odette by paying special attention to her.  It was all the little things.  And it was all Odette from the very beginning for Henry.  Sweet, sweet Henry.  Sweet Odette and a very sweet Christmas romance.

This book is on Kindle Unlimited if you have that.

Content:  sweet kisses

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Fire & Ash (Fate of Eyrinthia #0.5) by Heather Frost

 

When Desfan Cassian, the future ruler of Mortise, skips his fifteenth birthday celebration so he can gamble in the slums, he knows his father won't be pleased. Then again, the serjan hasn’t been happy with him in years. And while Desfan anticipates a reprimand for his latest transgression, he doesn’t expect to be thrown out of the palace and exiled onto a patrol ship for the next year.

Then from the ashes . . .

Furious to be trapped on the same sea that stole his family four years ago, Desfan is fully prepared to hate his new life. After all, the Phoenix is run by a strict captain, and Desfan's annoying new bodyguard, Karim, is his constant shadow. But when Desfan learns that a group of dangerous pirates may have been behind the deaths of his mother and sisters, he's suddenly committed to hunting down the truth—no matter the risk.

He will rise.

***Fire & Ash is a novella set in the world of the Royal Decoy series. While it is a prequel story, it is best enjoyed after reading Royal Spy.***

 * Amazon * Goodreads *

Oh Desfan.  My heart breaks for you.  Your life has not been easy and your own heart is battered.  My mama heart wanted to swoop in to save Desfan, to love him.  Lucky for Desfan, Karim enters his life.  It's a long, hard road to friendship but Karim just doesn't give up.  I loved him for that.  He is such a good guy.

It was so good to get a look into the life of Desfan and see what made him into the person we see in the previous books.  It's kind of like having "the rest of the story."  I know this is novella length but it really felt like a wholly developed story.  Maybe that's because of the previous books?  I just know that I was worried it would be too short for me but it wasn't.  I loved it beginning to end.  It was nice to have something from this world of Eyrinthia to tide me over until the next MUCH ANTICIPATED book.  😍

Content:  peril, violence, drinking and drug addiction

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Charming Artemis (The Lancaster Family #5) by Sarah M. Eden + Win A Copy of This Book!

 

Charlie Jonquil is mild-mannered and kind—except when it comes to his one true adversary, Artemis Lancaster. Though Charlie has a brilliant mind for mathematics, Artemis poses a problem he can’t seem to comprehend: how can one be so lovely and so infuriating? A party in London brings him into the company of the maddening young lady, and it is clear that Charlie’s disdain is mutual. But when an unfortunate incident between the pair involving Charlie’s jacket and a glass of raspberry shrub leads to scandal, the sworn enemies are left with only two options: be ruined or be married.

So it is that Artemis finds herself in a most outrageous predicament: she must wed a gentleman she’s hated for years—and she pledges to avoid him at all costs. But it is only when they enter into this mockery of a marriage that Charlie and Artemis learn things are not as simple as they once appeared. As their tentative ceasefire leads to friendship, it seems their marriage born of desperation might lead them to a love that was destined to be.

 * Goodreads * Amazon * Deseret Book * 

This book is like a big, giant family reunion.  All the characters from both the Jonquil and Lancaster families are present as well as some of the Gents.  More than half of the book is devoted to those characters as a way to bring it all to a beautiful happily ever after, blending of families type ending.  For those who follow this author and have read all these books (I've read most of them!), this book will probably be a lovely reminder of all the characters you loved and why.  If you haven't read these books, well, you are going to be very confused.  There are SO MANY characters.  You won't be able to keep them all straight.  My advice?  Start at the beginning.  😊

I did love Charlie and Artemis.  I just wish there could have been more of just the two of them.  I feel like they sort of became secondary and blended in with all the other characters.  But, it's okay.  They figured it all out with the help of many, many people who cared.  That's great too.  Charlie was the star for me.  He has such a good heart.  I adore him.

I'm not sure I completely bought into the whole Papa/Princess thing.  It was probably my biggest hang up in the book.  I won't go into details but will just leave it at that.

Content:  kissing

- I received a complimentary copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own.

 

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