Entangled Minds by Roseanne Dowell

Blurb:

Strange, realistic visions and dreams invade Rebecca Brennan’s mind. When she experiences someone’s pain, she’s determined to find out who shares her mind. Her search leads to a small town filled with Victorian homes and interesting people and puts her life in danger.

Review:

Rebecca Brennan wakes up screaming, “No!” and then feels a burning pain in her shoulder and something warm and wet running down her arm. Has she been shot? No, but someone has—someone whose feelings she’s been sharing for the past few years, someone with whom her mind appears to be linked. He lives in a small town filled with Victorian homes and she thinks he must be a cop. At least she hopes she's linked to a cop and not a criminal.  She decides she has to find him, because whoever wounded him isn’t finished.

Hooking a reader on the first page is an important tool for a writer, and Ms. Dowell really pulls you in with Becca’s rude awakening in Entangled Minds. Is she linked to a cop? A civilian? Or a killer? Or is she linked to both the shooting victim and the shooter? You’ll have to read the book to find out, because it’s too good to give away any of the plot, except to say Rebecca searches for the town in which this mystery takes place and finds it full of Victorian homes, quirky people, and plenty of suspects—enough to keep even me guessing until the very end. I really did not have the perpetrator anywhere on my list of suspects! If you’ve read my reviews, you know how difficult I usually am to fool. Brava Ms. Dowell.

Length: 136 Pages

Price: $2.99

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Minds-Roseanne-Dowell-ebook/dp/B00H8XP5IY/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393700024&sr=1-3&keywords=entangled+minds

Thanks for visiting. RIW

Rodeo Daze by Elle Druskin

Blurb:

It’s the Liberty Heights Stampede! B-grade actress Paulette Stone finally lands a great movie role. The catch? Equestrian skills required. Clueless Paulette turns to Jim Kildare for help but Paulette is hopeless. The solution? Import former rodeo champion Grandma Dixie Sue Kildare so Jim can concentrate on trying to romance Renee Landis, winner of the world’s worst first date contests.

While Renee does her best to ignore her feelings for Jim, Dixie Sue runs riot in Liberty Heights with her riding school, backyard sales and matchmaking. Then there’s the ghost haunting LouAnn Freedbush’s house complicated by sister BettyAnn’s failure at witch college and root beer addiction. What does psychic Wayne predict? Who is the ghost haunting LouAnn’s basement? Can Jim lasso Renee and win her heart?

Review:

Look out Grandma Baumgart, Dixie Sue Kildare’s in town and The Kildare Gang’s ridin’, ropin’ and shootin’ up Liberty Heights!  Grandma Baumgart’s not the only one who knows how to pick a girl for her grandson.  Dr. James Kildare (yup, just like the TV show and that was thanks to Dixie Sue, too) has his heart set on Renee Landis.  Fortunately, Grandma Dixie Sue approves of his choice and sets out to help him catch her.  Poor Renee doesn’t stand a chance.  Good thing she feels the same way, despite her track record of horrible first dates and never any seconds.  But this is Liberty Heights, New Jersey where normal doesn’t exist, but hilarious does.

Why do Liberty Heights books go so fast?  Why can’t they take longer to read so I can stay there awhile longer?  Oh, I’m not asking Ms. Druskin to pad her books.  The story is what it is and padding doesn’t improve a book at all.  I just love Liberty Heights and its crazy denizens old and new, human and animal.  I loved watching Lou Ann Freedbush trying to help her sister, Betty Ann dry out from her root beer addiction, while coping with the ghost in the haunted house she bought.  I love Wayne the psychic beagle, Dizzy the practically comatose horse and even Phantom, the “killer” horse.  Oh, yeah—and there’s Betty Ann’s search for a familiar.  That’s one of the reasons she flunked out of witch school.  She couldn’t find a familiar, and that failure sapped her courage when finals time came.  She knew the material; she just couldn’t get it out of her head and onto the page, knowing that without a familiar she still wouldn’t be able to get her license and join RWA—Registered Witches of America even if she aced her final.

If you follow this blog and you haven’t fallen in love with Liberty Heights yet, you may want to start at the beginning with Animal Crackers.  If you’re a fan like me, maybe you’ve been waiting for Book Five.  You will laugh just as hard as you have been.  I promise.

Length:  215 Pages

Price:  $5.95

Buy Link:  https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/museitup/romance/contemporary-romance/rodeo-daze-detail

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.  RIW

"More Please, Ma'am..." The Coven—War n Wit, Inc., Book 3 by Gail Roughton

Blurb:

 

Daytona Bike Week. Biker’s paradise. The perfect place for Chad and Ariel Garrett to take a few days off and relax with Chad’s buddy Spike and Ariel’s little sister Stacy. But nothing ever goes as planned with that magical duo. Trouble just stalks them like a black cat. Maybe because a black cat is stalking them. A missing agent riding with an outlaw biker gang, a call from Chad’s past, and War-N-Wit, Inc.’s riding again. On Harleys! 

Review:

Writing a series is darned difficult.  People keep asking me when the next book in my Moon Rock series will be coming out and I don’t know.  I think my characters have said all they want to say, and they’re just going about their everyday lives now, and nothing exciting is happening to them.

So when someone doesn’t just manage to keep a series going, but also keeps it fresh, exciting, funny, and so- entertaining-I-couldn’t-put-The Coven-down-even-though-I was-on-deadline.  (Take a long, slow, deep breath.  There ya go.)  I only planned to take a few minutes to gulp down a quick lunch, but I sat for an hour reading and made myself go back to work.  Well, kudos to Ms. Roughton.

My only complaint is that the story wasn’t long enough.  I forgot the War N Wit series were novellas and was really disappointed at how quickly I got through it.  I worked until 11:30 that night and then finished The Coven before I went to sleep.  I highly recommend this book, but be warned—it’ll leave you wanting more! 

Length:  100 Pages

Price:  $2.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/War-N-Wit-Inc-Coven-Book-ebook/dp/B00C6QUK38/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2 

Thanks for visiting.  RIW