Book of the Month Poll August 2018
IT IS THAT TIME AGAIN!
Welcome to our Book of the Month Poll for August 2018!
Here are your voter chosen top two from each week in no particular order. Please vote for your favorites and you can vote for as many as you want, but as with our Book of the Week Poll you only get one visit, so make it count!
Remember, the top two go through to the Book of the Year Poll!
POLL SCHEDULE:
This poll will remain open until at least 6PM, Amsterdam time next Friday. The actual closing time will vary depending on blog staff schedules…
Looking Forward (Unconditional #2) by Michael Bailey
Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Looking Forward
SERIES: Unconditional #2
AUTHOR: Michael Bailey
PUBLISHER: self-published
LENGTH: 258 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 21, 2018
BLURB:
Owen Hannity was nineteen when he lost almost everyone he thought he could trust. Each loss more painful than the last.
With the unwavering support of his best friend, Andy, Owen put the pieces of his life back together. Now, more than two decades later, Owen owns and operates a successful comic shop. Despite his modicum of success, he still feels like a shell of a man, carrying the emotional scars from his past.
Without warning, Owen’s past returns. Secrets come to light. Secrets that could either destroy Owen or finally give him the strength to re-evaluate everything he thought he knew about Andy, himself, and the way in which he views the world.
To see that he is truly worthy of loving himself and finally begin…
…Looking Forward.
The Enchanter’s Flame (The Ellwood Chronicles #1) by Michele Notaro
Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: The Enchanter’s Flame
SERIES: The Ellwood Chronicles #1
AUTHOR: Michele Notaro
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 245 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 18, 2018
BLURB:
Strange things are happening all around Brinnswick. Things that remind me of a piece of my past I’d rather forget. Girls are being killed, drained of blood, and left with strange markings on their bodies. When I finally connect the cases together, a specialist is called in—though, what he’s a specialist of is beyond me.
When the chief assigns him as my new partner for the case, I can’t help but groan on the inside. Why of all people would I be assigned to Ailin Ellwood? The man is a disaster waiting to happen and a jerk to boot. A sexy jerk, but a jerk nonetheless.
What will Sebastian think when he discovers Ailin’s specialty? Will he make a run for it or will he stick around and discover a world of magic hidden beneath the city’s surface?
Reckless Behavior by J.J. Harper
Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: Reckless Behavior
AUTHOR: J.J. Harper
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 257 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 16, 2018
BLURB:
Framed and imprisoned at eighteen, six years later Santiago ‘Santo’ Valentine is not the frightened teen he once was. Taught by Master Salvatore Moretti, and with walking papers in hand, Santo is determined to turn the family name around and distance it from the drugs and prostitution his father’s legacy is built on.
Santo seeks revenge on his father, the man who framed him, and the whereabouts of his younger brother, Luca.
When he finds him, in the worst place a child could ever be—a children’s home simply known as “The Pound”, where unwanted children disappear—Luca has a friend he refuses to leave behind.
At the first sight of Ezra’s brilliant, ice-blue eyes, something shifts in Santo and he knows he has to help this boy, too.
Ezra, dumped at The Pound when he was ten years old, takes one look at Santo and knows his heart is lost. He also knows he has no chance with him. He might be seventeen, but he’s nothing more than Santo’s little brother’s best friend.
After a massive error in judgment, Ezra runs, obliterating all trace of him.
Santo, sent to investigate a dancer for his club six years later, crosses paths with Ezra. Santo’s reckless behavior shocks them both and leaves them stumbling to trust their hearts.
Private Charter by N.R. Walker
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Private Charter
AUTHOR: N.R. Walker
PUBLISHER: Self Published
RELEASE DATE: August 24, 2018
LENGTH:
BLURB:
Stuart Jenner’s job is high stress, high stakes, and everything he’s strived for. So why, when the apex of his career is within reach, does he stumble? At his doctor’s insistence, he books a privately chartered yacht to sail around the Whitsundays for two weeks of sun, surf, and sex. When his friend-with-benefits bails on him at the last minute, Stuart decides to go alone.
Foster Knight left the rat race behind six years ago, bought a yacht, and now calls the Great Barrier Reef his home. Sailing tourists around tropical waters is all in a day’s work, and he’s never been happier. When his next client arrives alone, the two-week charter will be the most private job he’s ever had.
Foster can see how stressed and exhausted Stuart is, and he promises him extensive rest and relaxation. Stuart slowly realises his original plan for two weeks of sun, surf, and sex might not be lost yet. Confined to a yacht, isolated by aqua-coloured oceans and the sweltering sun, Stuart and Foster are about to find out just how hot the tropics can get.
Amazon
Aftershock by Tanya Chris
REVIEWED BY CINDY
TITLE: Aftershock
SERIES: Ever After Book 2
AUTHOR: Tanya Chris
PUBLISHER: Tanya Chris Publishing
LENGTH: 198 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 14, 2018
BLURB:
Being acquitted of Jamie’s murder won’t bring him back. Syed might be free, but he’s lost his lover and his sub, along with his sense of control, his libido, his friends, and the stomach to inflict the kind of pain Jamie thrived on. Even his high-rise apartment doesn’t suit him anymore.
Dashiell is drawn to the handsome man he represented in court, but he’s promised himself never to get involved with another confident playboy. His next boyfriend—if he can find such a thing—will see him as something more than a backup plan for a better offer. And how could he ever give a man like Syed what he wants anyway?
Dashiell fears the day Syed will ask him to bear more pain than he can handle as Syed struggles to reconcile how he’s coming to feel about Dashiell with how he still feels about Jamie. Can their fledgling relationship survive the discovery that Syed’s new sub might be representing the man who murdered his last sub?
Jamie deserves justice, Dashiell deserves love, and Syed wants to be the one to give both these men exactly what they need.
Living on Air by Susan Mac Nicol
Reviewed by Becca
AUTHOR: Susan Mac Nicol
PUBLISHER: Boroughs Publishing Group
LENGTH: 236 pages
RELEASE DATE: February 21, 2018
BLURB:
PIERCING THE NIGHT
Cary Stilwell has been existing since he was ten years old, and each year it gets harder to find meaning in his bleak life. The only exception – his work. As a top-billed aerialist in a popular travelling circus, he enjoys accolades and applause, but little else. When notable photographer, Rhys McIntyre, joins the circus to catalogue its inner workings, Cary fights the attraction that hits him from the moment they meet. But a kind soul wrapped in a beautiful body has a way of battering all the walls Cary has built around his cold, dark heart.
WITH LIGHT
Rhys McIntyre is on his third iteration of reinventing himself. Once a hotdog financier, he embraced his passion for photography and became an eminent war photo journalist. Until one too many bullets lodged in his body, and he gave up the front lines for the softer side of chronicling life. When he accepts the assignment to record life in a circus, the last thing he expects is to find the man crush of his dreams. Except Cary Stilwell is a cold, tortured man who seems incapable of any warm emotion, never mind love. But Rhys is known for his persistence, and this time the pay-off might be more than he could have ever imagined.
Smoke in the Mirror (Road to Blissville #5) by Aimee Nicole Walker
Reviewed by PizzyGirl
SERIES: Road to Blissville #5
AUTHOR: Aimee Nicole Walker
PUBLISHER: Chasing Rainbows Press
LENGTH: 214 pages
RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2018
BLURB:
Memphis Sullivan thought he was coming to Blissville to help his cousin out, but instead, he gained three meddlesome females, a tribe, and a permanent home. More than a year later, he owns a popular comic book and vinyl record store and doesn’t think his life could get any better. That all changes when the star of his favorite television show and bad-boy fantasies rides into town and spices up his vanilla world.
Lyric Willows’ decision to visit an old friend in Blissville will change his life in ways he never dreamed possible. The paranormal investigator is immediately drawn to the mysterious disappearance of the town’s founder in 1850 and rumors that his former home is haunted. More alluring to Lyric than the history of Bliss House is the immediate connection he feels to the adorably geeky owner of Vinyl and Villains, who also happens to be his friend’s cousin.
Lyric becomes Memphis’s houseguest when he decides to stay in town to conduct a paranormal investigation. Tight spaces lead to sexy encounters, and before long, ghosts aren’t the only things that go bump in the night. The more they unravel about Anthony Bliss’s disappearance, the more tangled in one another they become. How is it possible for two virtual strangers to feel like they’ve known each other for their entire lives? Was their love written in the stars, or is it nothing more than an illusion?
Smoke in the Mirror is the fifth book in the Road to Blissville series. Each book can be read as a standalone book or part of the series. This book contains sexually explicit material and is intended for adults 18 and older.
Goal Line (Harrisburg Railers #6) by R.J. Scott and V.L. Locey
REVIEWED by Jen B.
TITLE: Goal Line
SERIES: Harrisburg Railers
AUTHORS: R.J. Scott and V.L. Locey
PUBLISHER: Love Lane Books
LENGTH: N/A
RELEASE DATE: August 8, 2018
BLURB:
Fear and sadness mark Bryan’s life, can Gatlin show him that you have to trust before you can love?
Gatlin Pearce is creeping up on thirty-eight and is still single. It’s not that he wants to be alone, it’s just that he’s too damn old to be in clubs filled with glittery gay boys who can’t even tell him who the Rolling Stones are.
Better to just spend his evenings at Hard Score Ink – his tattoo and artwork shop – creating masterpieces on human flesh, listening to the Railers games, and nursing a cold beer.
His solitary life is about to end when Bryan Delaney, the new Railers backup goalie, shows up at his shop looking for new artwork for his helmet. There’s some sort of sad story in those beautiful eyes of Bryan’s, and Gatlin finds himself more than a little infatuated with the tender new goalie.
Bryan Delaney leaves home at fifteen to live with a billet family. He just wishes that he could have escaped his alcoholic father and strictly devout mother earlier. Drafted to the Arizona Raptors he finds a new family, and his first love affair even if that relationship is marked with violence.
Being traded to the Railers is a shock to the system but the team isn’t like any other he’s ever played on and they truly seem to care about him. It’s only when he meets artist Gatlin, with their shared love of music and hockey, that he realizes how hard it is to escape the past.