December 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
January 25, 2020 03:53 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
During December, I read four full-length novels and four novellas and short stories. All but one of the novels received four stars or higher from me, including two five-star reads, but one stood out a little above the other one as my favorite read of the month. It was a story by my favorite romantic suspense author who I haven’t yet featured in my Book of the Month. This author usually writes pretty chunky books, but this one was one of her shorter works that is probably in the range of a long novella/short novel. I wondered how she would handle this shorter format, and as it turns out, the answer is extremely well. It’s the story of two people who were very good friends in high school, but who drifted apart and lost touch over the years. Then while the heroine is cleaning out her dead husband’s belongings, she runs across an old high school yearbook in which she finds a love letter written to her by her friend. She’d never read it before and feels badly for leaving him hanging all these years, so she looks him up. They reconnect and fall in love while evading a killer who is murdering his graduate students.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Karen Rose
November 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
December 16, 2019 06:43 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
Overall, November was a good reading month for me. Out of the five novels and two short stories I read, only the short stories failed to garner at least four stars from me. I had a couple of five-star reads as well, but one of the two edged out the other for the top spot as my favorite read of the month. It’s a historical romance that’s the final installment of a series by a favorite author that was a clean-sweep of perfection for me. It has an enemies to lovers vibe with our hero and heroine being a little bit at odds and stubbornly insisting that they don’t like each other in spite of sharing some smoldering kisses that always seem to take place in a library. However, once the blinders are removed and they start seeing each other as more than just the uncouth colonial and the pampered society miss, they begin falling for one another. Still, it takes the hero’s old nemesis threatening the heroine’s life for our hero to finally realize that he can’t imagine being without her. This was such a fun, sweet story that I couldn’t resist featuring it this month.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Jacquie D'Alessandro
October 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
November 23, 2019 07:20 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
October was a good reading month for me. I was able to rate everything I read, with the exception of one short novelette, four stars or higher. However, there was only one romance that rated the all-important five stars to receive Book of the Month status from me. It’s a paranormal romance that’s part of a favorite series by a favorite author of mine, but somehow, she’s one that I haven’t yet featured before. Her books are usually a bit more on the lighthearted side, but still nearly always give me all the feels I’m looking for in a romance. I also love her characters and think that the series is very unique and innovative. The majority of the books in the series that I’ve read so far have been big winners, so I’m very pleased to finally be recommending this author’s work.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Kerrelyn Sparks
September 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
October 19, 2019 06:52 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
September was a very good reading month for me with all of the books/novellas I read being winners. However, there was only one full-length romance that hit that all-important five-star mark to earn Book of the Month status from me. It’s the latest release in a favorite series, by a favorite author, who I seem to keep featuring again and again. That’s because her books are just so well-written and always seem to resonate with me. In this one we have a hero who is assisting with the investigation of the brutal murder of a female vampire, which appears to be connected to the murder of the heroine’s sister eight months earlier. As they work together to find answers, the pair develop a tender and passionate love affair. But the killer is still on the loose and may be looking for another target, leaving our heroine and possibly other vampire females vulnerable.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: J. R. Ward
August 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
September 15, 2019 03:24 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
I didn’t read very many books in August, but those I did read were all winners. However, one stood out among the rest. It’s the seventh volume of a long-running, epic, romantic series that I first discovered nearly twenty-five years ago. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been following Jamie and Claire’s story for this long, and now that I’ve named the main characters, I’m sure most hard-core romance readers know exactly what series I’m talking about. This couple have been through so many adventures and hardships, joys and sorrows, and yet they’re still together and still experiencing all that life (or perhaps I should say the author :-) ) has thrown at them. In this installment, they’re trying to avoid the American Revolution, partly as a matter of survival and partly so that Jamie doesn’t risk facing his own son, a British officer, across a battlefield. But as is often the case in this series, fate has other plans in store for them, and they end committing piracy before winding up in a couple of the more significant battles of the war, then finally reaching their original goal, a return to Scotland.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Diana Gabaldon
July 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
August 18, 2019 04:06 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
Overall, July was a really good reading month for me. Nearly everything I read rated four stars and up, and I even had two five-star reads. Both of them were so good, they ended up in a virtual tie, making it extremely difficult to choose between them. After a great deal of nail-biting indecision, I finally decided that one edged out the other by a mere hair’s breadth. It’s a paranormal romance that’s part of a long-running series, one that I recently became hooked on. In it, we have a couple who were best friends in childhood, but after she witnessed him tearing her abusive foster father apart in his beast form, she basically ran, leaving him believing she was dead. Now, twenty years later, she’s returned needing his help finding a street kid she’s been working with who’s been kidnapped before he suffers the same brutal fate as several others who’ve been found murdered. Unsure if they can trust one another, they form an uneasy alliance that gradually heats up into a passionate romantic relationship. But meanwhile, she finds herself a target of the killer who wants her to stop investigating the murders.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Nalini Singh
June 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
July 14, 2019 03:08 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
June was a so-so reading month for me. Out of the six books and novellas I read during the month, only half rated four stars or higher, and out of those three, only one received that all-important five-star rating to be in the running for Book of the Month. It’s the companion guide to one of my all-time favorite romance series, one that has been very popular over the years since its publication. I found this to be a very informative book that gives readers all sorts of insights and background that you don’t get merely from reading the novels and which can help to enhance the reading experience.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
May 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
June 14, 2019 10:39 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
My May reading was kind of hit and miss. Most of what I read was quite good, but there were a couple of “meh” stories, too, and only one that I ended up rating five stars. Since that’s my main requirement for a book to be featured as my Book of the Month, my choice this time was easy. :-) It’s a historical romance by a favorite author of mine who I’ve showcased before, and it’s part of a series -- that, thus far, has been a clean sweep of perfection -- about four friends who form a book club, reading popular and sometime salacious stories. The ladies book choices always parallel events in the story, and in this one, they’re reading a fictional ghost story that mirrors the mystery of a ghostly intruder who is robbing and murdering aristocratic women. Our heroine who has a major crush on our hero, who is a Bow Street Runner, concocts a story about hearing a ghost outside her bedroom window, leading to her father hiring him to protect her. But soon the threat turns real, placing her life in imminent danger, while this couple fall madly in love and must buck society’s rules to be together. It’s a sweet, emotional, and lightly mysterious story that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I did.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Jacquie D'Alessandro
April 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
May 17, 2019 12:27 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
April was a mixed reading month for me. I had several great reads, including multiple five-stars, but there were a couple of not-so-good ones, too. With there being more than one highly rated book, though, I had my work cut out for me deciding which one to feature as my Book of the Month, but I ended up choosing one that was a pure delight, a fun, sexy, romantic story that really put a smile on my face and a spring in my step. As a bonus, it’s written by a popular indie author I’ve never featured before, and I love offering up new authors to my readers.
Nick is a cartoonist whose popular comic strip, The Adventures of Mister Orgasm, was turned into a hit, late-night, animated television series. A formerly shy, nerdy guy, he eventually found his confidence, and now prides himself on being a top-notch lover who craves learning what a woman wants in the bedroom and giving it to her in spades. He’s not a total man-whore, though. He is, in his own words, a “serial monogamist,” sticking with just one lover at a time until the relationship has run its course, but none of those women have tempted him to make a more permanent commitment. Instead, Nick can’t seem to help lusting after his best friend’s sister, even though he considers her off-limits. But when they start hanging out together as friends and she asks him to be her dating coach, that coaching soon turns into flirting, then sexting, and finally he just can’t resist her charms any longer. Ah, Nick! [dramatic sigh] Nick is totally my dream guy in every way, from the physical aspects (dark hair, short trim beard, glasses, and a hot body) to his single-minded focus on giving a woman the best orgasms of her life, he simply makes me swoon. But when he realizes he’s fallen in love, he’s also a touch vulnerable and uncertain, and I absolutely loved him to pieces.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Lauren Blakely
March 2019 Book of the Month Giveaway
April 14, 2019 04:12 PM Posted by juliannadouglas
March was a good reading month for me. Everything I read rated four stars or higher, and I had multiple five-star reads. This made my choice of which book to name my Book of the Month a tough one, but I finally decided on the lesser-known of the two romances that garnered this rating and the one that gave me tons of feels. It’s the second book of a series that follows the same couple throughout, and they are such wonderful characters that I wanted to share them with my readers, too.
Makenna and Caden started their journey in book one, while stranded in an elevator in the pitch dark. This made getting to know one another a true meeting of hearts and minds, since they couldn’t see each other. As book two begins, they’re still together and going strong, but things don’t exactly go as well as hoped for when Caden accompanies Makenna to meet her family on Thanksgiving. After that trip, he starts to think that perhaps she deserves someone better than him, someone not quite so broken in mind and spirit. This sends him into a downward spiral of clinical depression and a major flare-up of his PTSD. He has to fight hard on his journey back to wholeness, and in turn, they must fight as a couple for that elusive HEA ending.
Categories: Book of the Month, Giveaways
Tags: Laura Kaye
