CELTICLADY'S REVIEWS

Reviews!

To any authors/publishers/ tour companies that are looking for the reviews that I signed up for please know this is very hard to do. I will be stopping reviews temporarily. My husband passed away February 1st and my new normal is a bit scary right now and I am unable to concentrate on a book to do justice to the book and authors. I will still do spotlight posts if you wish it is just the reviews at this time. I apologize for this, but it isn't fair to you if I signed up to do a review and haven't been able to because I can't concentrate on any books. Thank you for your understanding during this difficult time. I appreciate all of you. Kathleen Kelly April 2nd 2024

26 June 2017

Luca by Sarah Castille Book Blitz and Giveaway!

Luca
Sarah Castille
(Ruin & Revenge #2)
Published by: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Publication date: June 27th 2017
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense

Luca is the second book in a full-length, standalone series by New York Times bestselling author, Sarah Castille, set in Las Vegas and featuring deliciously sexy mafia bosses and the women who can’t help but love them.
Luca Rizzoli was nearly destroyed by a brutal betrayal that cost him his family. Now a ruthless crime boss in Las Vegas, he lets nothing touch his frozen heart…until a smoldering encounter with a beautiful stranger ignites his passion. One night isn’t enough for a man who takes what he wants—and Luca will do whatever he can to possess his mysterious temptress…
Police detective Gabrielle Fawkes lives for revenge. She lost everything at the hands of an unforgiving ruler of the Vegas underworld. Now she wants to see him six feet under. But when a near-fatal attack leads her into Luca’s arms, what was meant to be one night of unbridled passion becomes something forbiddingly more. Luca has his own agenda, but when strong, determined, kick-ass detective Gaby sets her sights on her target, Luca feels compelled to stand by her side and protect her at all costs. However, pursuing danger comes at a high price—and both Gaby and Luca must work together in order to eliminate the dark enterprise that threatens them.

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RUIN & REVENGE SERIES

PRAISE FOR LUCA:

“An engrossing erotic crime drama that will leave readers wanting more.” – Library Journal

“With sizzling love scenes, taut plotting, and a hair-raising finish, Castille’s romantic thriller will appeal to her existing fans and win her new ones.” – Publishers Weekly Starred Review

“Luca is a fast-paced, action-packed tale balanced by humor, heart and family.” – RT Book Reviews 4.5 stars, Top Pick

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Excerpts for LUCA by Sarah Castille

“You’re mine, Gabrielle. You were mine from the moment we met. Nico wants me to end our relationship after we find Garcia, but we will find a way to make it work, even if I have to leave the family.” He claimed her with a kiss, fierce and demanding, so passionate her knees went weak and she had to clutch his shoulders to stay upright.

She wanted to believe him, but it seemed an impossible task. From what she understood, there were only two ways out of the Mafia: death and witness protection. And after what he’d just told her about his father, there was no way she could let him make the choice that would mean losing the one thing he’d been struggling for all his life. She didn’t want Luca without that chunk of flesh. She wanted him whole.

“What were they going to do to you?”

“Hurt me. Maybe break a few bones.”

“Because of me,” she said bitterly.

“Because I broke the rules.” His rough hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing lightly over her jaw. “Mio angelo. I would endure any hardship for you. I will welcome the pain because it gives us time to be together. Every extra day I get to spend with you is worth a dozen bruises.”

“Luca.” His name was a prayer on her lips. She had lost David. She wasn’t going to lose Luca, too. There had to be a way for them to be together that didn’t involve him getting killed or beaten with a baseball bat or losing the honor that was such an important part of his life. “I think I just showed you I would make the same sacrifice for you.”

“And you will be punished for it.” He wrapped his arms around her so tight she could barely breathe.

“Punished?”

He buried his face in her neck, nuzzled behind her ear, his five o’clock shadow a sensual burn over her skin. “I will give you more pleasure than you can bear.”

Gabrielle swallowed hard and all her awareness suddenly centered on the pulse of arousal between her thighs. “I want you to be rough.”

“I’ll be rough.”

“I want you to tear me apart so you understand that how you feel about me is how I feel about you. How your pain is my pain. How I couldn’t sit there and watch you suffer.”

He drew in a ragged breath. “I will break you and then I will put you together again. I will mark you so that every time you look in the mirror you think of me, and every man who dares look at you knows you are mine.”

“I want to be yours, Luca,” she whispered. “And I want you to be mine.”

“Sei mia per sempre, anima e cuore. Senza di te non vivo piu. You are mine forever,” he translated for her. “Body and soul. Without you, I couldn’t live.”

She surrendered to him, unable to do anything but feel as he feathered kisses down her throat to the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder.

And then he leaned down and bit her so deliciously hard she screamed.

Author Bio:
Sarah Castille is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Redemption Series, Ruin & Revenge Series, Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club series, Legal Heat series and the Club Excelsior series. A recovering lawyer with a fondness for dirty-talking alpha males, she now is a full-time writer, who lives on Vancouver Island. Sarah’s books have been listed as Publisher’s Weekly’s Top Ten Picks and Best Summer Reads, and Amazon’s Best Romance Books of the Year, and have won numerous reader’s choice awards including the Holt Medallion.

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The Stable Vices Affair The Chandler Affairs Book 1 By G.W. Renshaw Book Tour and Giveaway

The Stable Vices Affair

The Chandler Affairs Book 1

By G.W. Renshaw

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

Veronica Chandler has worked hard to become a private investigator. At the age of eight she got a baton for Christmas—just like Mummy’s. At 12, she started working at her father’s restaurant so she’d have the money for the investigator’s course. At 16, she became an intern with the Calgary Police Service. And now, at 18, she's the youngest licensed PI in Alberta.

As her ex-boyfriend can attest, she has the skills. As a psychotic killer discovers, she has the will. Now she’s ready to take on the world: To find the lost and expose the faithless.

None of which prepare her for a house that can’t decide whether it’s empty, one or two perverse dwarfs with a bizarre hold over their victims, a kinky pony show, and a secret global organization. Every clue leads to more questions. Four lives depend on Veronica finding the answers.

And then there’s that pesky losing-your-soul thing.

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The Prince and the Puppet Affair

The Chandler Affairs Book 2

Alyssa Blakeway is so submissive it’s a miracle she left her house, let alone asked Veronica to find out if her abusive husband is also cheating on her.

When Veronica finds out who Collin Blakeway is actually going to see, things go from bad to worse to deadly. They also challenge Veronica’s most deeply held beliefs as she discovers that demons and magic are real.

It’s no longer a matter of saving a marriage. Now she has to save the lives of Alyssa, her sister Kali, an unknown woman, and herself. All while avoiding being killed by her sister for acting stupidly.

If an arborist, a coven of Witches, the Vatican, the Freemasons, a Native Elder, and an old bicycle can’t save them, who can?

Goodreads * Amazon

The Kalevala Affair

The Chandler Affairs Book 3

Being shot at and landing in protective custody certainly cramps a PI’s style, so when a group of collectors want Veronica to track down an historical artifact in England, she jumps at the chance. They’ll even handle recovery, so all she has to do is find the item. It’s a piece of cake.

There are a few details that were left out. Everybody is after this thing. Veronica has to dodge bullets meant for another PI, get chased all over Europe by Finnish terrorists, tries not to violate every national park in the world, and has to put up with an English investigator who insists on accompanying her.

Of course, the artifact turns out to be more dangerous than she was led to believe. Veronica has to trust somebody who tried to remove her head, decide the fate of the world, and survive an angry volcano. At least she’s getting paid for it. If she can collect.

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The True Love Affair

The Chandler Affairs Book 4

Veronica has just gotten home after solving a minor case in Mexico involving kidnapping, betrayal, bank fraud, and a Colombian drug cartel when an old acquaintance show up to hire her. Somebody has been committing impossible murders all over the world, and Veronica is the only person qualified to stop the killer before the body count soars.

The problems start with her client. Can she trust a demon prince not to send her back to therapy or worse for another year? What, if any, is his hidden agenda? Is anything at all as it seems?

Veronica thought she had a handle on magic and demons, but as soon as she starts investigating it’s obvious that all the rules have changed. She’s playing in the big leagues now, and she’s going to have to move heaven and hell to keep humanity alive. Starting with herself.

Now, if she can only survive dinner with her family, a blind date, a small immigration problem, and working with the federal cabinet, it’s possible that all will be well.

Or at least as well as it can be when you have to deal with insane immortals and a talking cat.

Goodreads * Amazon

G.W. Renshaw lives in Calgary, Alberta with his lovely wife and Romulus the cat. He likes to write stories that range from the unusual to the bizarre.

He has picked up a variety of skills over the years: gunner in the Canadian Forces, practitioner of Iwama-style Aikido, Krav Maga, and Chito Ryu Karate, computer programmer, Linux druid, Search and Rescue manager, caving, rock climbing, and archery. He learned man tracking from Terry Grant (the original ManTracker on TV). He also learned a variety of medieval skills while in the Society for Creative Anachronisms.

G.W. writes when he isn’t maintaining the web site for When Words Collide, being beaten senseless by his young padawan, or working at Mount Royal University, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, or the Cumming School of Medicine.

He claims to have a firm grip on reality, but seems unaware that it is slowly turning purple. He will happily watch just about any film with monsters in it.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Amazon * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!

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Broken Little Melodies by Author: Jennifer Ann Book Tour and Giveaway!

Title: Broken Little Melodies
Author: Jennifer Ann
Genre: Contemporary Rockstar Romance
Release Date: June 26, 2017

Blurb:

Star-crossed lovers…

Deep among the Jeffrey Pines of Lake Tahoe, Isabelle Martin and Roman Stone find comfort in each other at a summer camp for musically gifted teens where their love grows stronger every year. But they couldn’t be more different. She’s an orphan from the West Coast running with the wild crowd, and he’s a rich kid from New York hiding the scars of an abusive home. When their worlds finally collide, the future they planned comes crashing down around them and Belle is forced to cut Roman from her life without any explanation.

Five years later…

Roman’s on top of the world. His successful rock band is preparing for their first headlining tour, but when he unexpectedly runs into Belle, old feelings for her come rushing back, and his new found bravado fails him.

Belle has learned that some things in life have the power to break your spirit, and trying to forget Roman has made her bitter—she’s merely a waitress headlining a bar-band, and he’s had everything handed to him on a silver platter. Seeing him again makes her question whether time can mend a broken heart.

Their struggles brought them together, and their differences tore them apart, but now that they’re together again, can they repair the broken pieces and get a second chance at love?

Find out more at: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

Excerpt:
When she spun around to look at me, arms crossed over her already large breasts, I was so nervous that I feared I’d throw up all over her. Her gaze slipped downward, appearing humored by my $10 sundress. Or maybe she was amused by my flat chest.

Part of me wanted to bolt from there and run after my aunt. But the stubborn side of me remained rooted in place, matching the girl’s calloused smile. Looking into her heavily made-up eyes, I was slightly embarrassed that I didn’t even own mascara.

“Are you sure you’re in the right place?” she asked with narrowed eyes. “I would think the entrance for help would be out back somewhere.”

“I’m here to sing, same as you,” I replied, crossing my arms over my stomach. Thankfully, I sounded a lot braver than I felt.

She pressed a manicured hand to her lips. “Oh, my god! You must be one of those welfare cases, here on a free ride! Am I right?”

“Stop being a bitch, Brooke,” a tenor voice snapped behind me.

A lanky boy with sandy colored hair and a wide nose appeared at her side, only slightly taller than either one of us. Though he had a nerdy presence and appeared awkward, as if he had yet to grow into his features, it was glaringly obvious he came from money like the other kids. Even his neatly trimmed haircut looked expensive. He was dressed in khaki pants and a sea green polo shirt the same cool tone as his eyes. They were the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen, surrounded by thick lashes and peppered with a little cluster of golden specks that reminded me of the kind of beautifully starry nights I saw the time my dad took us camping in the Sequoia National Park.

And those mesmerizing eyes were locked on me.

A weird little flush crept over my skin.

“She’s just pissed her parents shipped her out here for another summer because she hates singing,” he told me as his lips pressed into a friendly smile. “I’m Roman, and this is Brooke. We’re from New York. How ‘bout you?”

“Isabelle,” I mumbled in reply. It was obvious he was friends with the bitchy girl the way he draped his arm over the edge of her shoulder. At the time, I really didn’t want anything to do with him.

“Isabelle, from…” He cocked his head, waiting for me to answer.

“Down by Fresno.”

The friendly smile grew. “A California girl. Is this your first time here?”

Brooke laughed with an annoyingly high cackle. I knew then and there she was a first soprano. I also decided that I hated her. “Obviously. Look at her, Roman. She’s as scared as one of those stray kittens you can only get rid of by drowning.”

For a split second, Roman’s eyes warmed with sympathy before he reeled on her. “You know, Brooke, just because my father works for yours doesn’t mean I have to kiss your ass all the time. You could be nice for once in your life.”

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Like you really expect me to be friends with this girl? She doesn’t belong here.”

Roman flashed me another sympathetic look—one that took my breath away. In that moment I saw the type of worldly kindness you didn’t normally see in kids our age, like he knew of my struggles.

“I’ll catch up with you later, Isabelle.” His gentle smile did nothing to erase the pain in his eyes.

About Jennifer Ann:
Jennifer Ann is the author of ten contemporary romance novels with complex love stories. Like her characters, she's in love with the city of New York, trips on airplanes or the back of her husband's Harley, and everything rock and roll. Sometimes you can catch her driving a tractor alongside her husband in southern Minnesota while trying to keep up with the madness of their four active children.