Saturday, February 15, 2025

Book Review: My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh

My Phony Valentine

Author:
Courtney Walsh
Series: Holidays with Hart
Publication: Sweethaven Press; 1st edition (February 8, 2023)

Description: A chance meeting. A hunky hockey player. A fake romance.
Hardly an ordinary day in the life of Poppy Hart.


My days usually consist of agonizing over my failing restaurant, worrying about my mountain of debt and nursing my broken heart.

Everything changes when I bump into a man in the coffee shop and claim him as my new boyfriend. To my absolute horror, he turns out to be hockey’s most renowned bad boy, Dallas Burke. To my absolute delight, he goes along with my story. />When his no-nonsense manager and meddling grandmother jump in the picture, they see a win-win solution for my failing restaurant and Dallas’s less-than-stellar reputation.

A full-fledged fake romance complete with contract negotiations, pretend dates and phony PDA.

But as I get to know the real Dallas Burke, who is not the man the press says he is, it becomes clear that if this isn’t real. . . someone better tell it to my heart.

My Thoughts: Middle sister Poppy Hart makes a rash decision while standing in line at a coffee shop. Tired of being bullied by local mean girl Margot who also happened to steal Poppy's sister Raya's boyfriend, she claims the guy standing in line in front of her is her boyfriend.

Dallas Burke, right wing for the Denver Comets hockey team and famous hockey bad boy, is quite willing to play along. 

That simple event leads to a fake relationship to help Poppy build up business at her restaurant and Dallas to clean up his reputation. It comes with a contract, a rehabbing Gram - Dallas's, and Dallas's agent who also wants to rehabilitate Dallas's reputation. 

And their fake relationship seems to be going great despite conflicting advice from her older sister Raya who keeps telling her to look before she leaps and her younger sister Eloise who is all for leaping - thinking optional.

It doesn't take long for both Dallas and Poppy to want to change fake dating to real dating but neither is quite ready to tell the other about their change of heart.

This was a sweet romance filled with engaging characters. I loved the small-town setting and its juxtaposition with the world of professional sports. 

I bought this one February 12, 2024. You can buy your copy here.

Friday, February 14, 2025

Friday Memes: My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh

 Happy Friday!


Book Beginnings is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader. She asks that the first sentence is posted along with the author and title of the book and the reader's initial thoughts on the sentence, the book, or anything else it inspires. 
Carrie at Reading Is My Superpower.org also provides a linky for sharing first lines and connecting with others. This meme asks that the chosen books be PG or marked as Mature if they are not.  

Beginning:
I don't know why I did what I did.

I mean, I know why I did it--I just can't believe I did it. 
Friday 56:
Dallas reaches out to take a tote, but I step back. "This is like Jenga. If you pull the wrong bag, it's all going to come down."
This week I am spotlighting My Phony Valentine by Courtney Walsh. I added this one to my TBR Stack on February 12, 2024. Here's the description from Amazon:
A chance meeting. A hunky hockey player. A fake romance.
Hardly an ordinary day in the life of Poppy Hart.

My days usually consist of agonizing over my failing restaurant, worrying about my mountain of debt and nursing my broken heart.

Everything changes when I bump into a man in the coffee shop and claim him as my new boyfriend. To my absolute horror, he turns out to be hockey’s most renowned bad boy, Dallas Burke. To my absolute delight, he goes along with my story.

When his no-nonsense manager and meddling grandmother jump in the picture, they see a win-win solution for my failing restaurant and Dallas’s less-than-stellar reputation.

A full-fledged fake romance complete with contract negotiations, pretend dates and phony PDA.

But as I get to know the real Dallas Burke, who is not the man the press says he is, it becomes clear that if this isn’t real. . . someone better tell it to my heart.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Audiobook Review: Legacy of Lies by Robert Bailey

Legacy of Lies

Author:
Robert Bailey
Narrator: Eric G. Dove
Series: Bocephus Haines (Book 1)
Publication: Brilliance Audio (June 1, 2020)
Length: 8 hours and 23 minutes

Description: A small-town attorney takes on prejudice and corruption in this powerful legal thriller.

Small-town lawyer Bocephus Haynes comes home late one night to find District Attorney General Helen Lewis waiting for him. Her ex-husband has just been killed. She’s about to be arrested for his murder. And she wants Bo to represent her.

There’s a lot working against them. Just before his death, Helen’s ex-husband threatened to reveal a dark secret from her past. Bo has been in a tailspin since his wife’s death. What’s more, his whole life has been defined by a crime committed against his family, and he continues to face prejudice as the only African American litigator in Pulaski, Tennessee.

Bo’s back is against the wall, and Helen resigns herself to a dismal fate - but a stunning discovery throws everything into chaos. There’s a chance for justice, but to achieve it, the cost might be too much for Bo to bear.

My Thoughts: The first Bocephus Haines mystery stars a lawyer who has gone through a difficult time including the shooting death of his wife and the loss of custody of his two teenage children, He also has the hanging death of the man he knew as his father by the Ku Klux Klan when he was five which led to his pursuit of the law and of those who were involved. Along the way he learned that one of the men who was involved in the hanging was a white man and his biological father. This cascade of things caused him to go into a state of depression.

When District Attorney General Helen Lewis comes to him one evening and wants to hire him because she believes that she is soon to be arrested for the murder of her ex-husband, Bo turns down the case at first. He comes around to accepting the case despite the overwhelming evidence that Helen did murder her ex. 

As the investigation goes on in preparation for the trial, all sorts of secrets are exposed both in Helen's life and in the movers and shakers of Pulaski, Tennessee. Among the villains is a man who has come to town after inheriting a bunch of money from his deceased parents and who plans to bring in a Japanese automaker who promises 1000 jobs. However, his accusation of the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl stands in the way of the business deal and Helen Lewis is the one who wants to bring him to trial. 

This story was filled with twists and turns and suspense. 

I bought this one November 7, 2020. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: The Dead Letter Delivery by C. J. Archer

The Dead Letter Delivery

Author:
C. J. Archer
Series: The Glass Library (Book 4)
Publication: Self Published (March 5, 2024)

Description: The discovery of long-lost mail delivers a marriage proposal, a missing person, and a magical mystery.

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads Sylvia to discover more about her mother’s veiled past yet throws up several questions, too. The stack of unopened letters addressed to her family will hopefully provide answers. As she delves into the contents, a startling revelation emerges: the letters allude to a clandestine union between two magician families, hinting at the elusive identity of Sylvia’s father.

Full of hope, she embarks on a quest to find the author of the letters, only to discover an artless youth who vanished decades ago, a dead man with the wrong name, and a hospital for former soldiers that connects them. The further Sylvia and Gabe delve into these mysteries, the more lies they expose, including long-buried secrets that certain individuals will stop at nothing to protect.

When danger strikes, Sylvia wonders if finding answers is worth the risk.

My Thoughts: The fourth book in the Glass Library continues threads begun in earlier books. Sylvia is still on a quest to find out more about her mysterious mother and the magical gift for paper that she has discovered in herself. 

A road trip with Gabe and her friends leads her to discover who her mother was but not what she did in the years before she died. A cache of dead letters reveals a possible suitor for her mother who could have potentially been her father. 

Most of the story is spent trying to track down this mysterious suitor which leads to stolen identities and a shady doctor running a hospital which is now trying to cure shell-shocked World War I victimes but which had earlier been a site for the artless of magical families who wanted to see if their magic could be activated by medical treatment. 

Sylvia learns to use a paper spell which strengthens paper and proves (mostly to herself) that she is an actual paper magician. However, questions about who her father was are still left unresolved.

Also unresolved is her growing relationship with Gabe. 

This was an engaging episode in the series even with the slowest of slow-burn romances. I like the worldbuilding and the setting of an England in an alternate 1920 which is mostly like our own but with the addition of magic. 

I bought this one March 8, 2024. You can buy your copy here.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

ARC Review: Unhallowed Halls by Lili Wilkinson

Unhallowed Halls

Author:
Lili Wilkinson
Publication: Delacorte Press (February 18, 2025)

Description: DARK ACADEMIA...WITH DEMONS.

A teen girl travels to an exclusive boarding school after a deadly incident at her old school, but the wood-paneled halls of Agathion are built over centuries of secrets—including an ancient society which may have ties to demonic magic—in this dark academia fantasy perfect for fans of Curious Tides.

Page Whittaker has always been an outcast. And after the deadly incident that destroyed her single friendship at her old school, she needs a fresh start. Which is why when she receives a scholarship offer from Agathion College, an elite boarding school folded deep within the moors of Scotland, she doesn’t even consider turning it down.

Agathion is everything Page has ever wanted: a safe haven full of dusty books, steaming cups of tea and rigorous intellectual debate. And for the first time in her life, Page has even managed to become part of a close group of friends. Cyrus, Ren, Gideon, Lacey and Oak help her feel at home in Agathion's halls--the only problem is, they're all keeping secrets from her.

Page doesn't know it yet, but her perfect new school has dark roots--roots that stretch back to its crooked foundation, and an ancient clandestine society with rumored ties to demonic magic. Soon, Page will be forced to learn that not everyone at Agathion is who they say they are. Least of all, her friends.

Agathion claims to teach its students history…but some histories should stay buried.

My Thoughts: UNHALLOWED HALLS was an excellent paranormal thriller. 

Page Whittaker is offered a scholarship to the mystery Agathion College in Scotland. This Florida girl has been looking for a new start after a disturbing incident that has left her with burn-scarred palms. Page has always been a loner. She's smarter and stranger than average teens and finds herself an outcast at whatever school she has attended and there have been lots of them. Every "incident" has resulted in her parents moving her to another school.

At first, Agathion College looks like just the place for her. She loves the atmosphere, the steaming cups of tea, and classes filled with intellectual debate. And it looks like she might finally be making friends. She finds herself in a group with Cyrus, Oak, Ren, Gideon and sometimes Lacey. 

But everyone has a hidden agenda and has slotted Page into place to further it. Even her friends are keeping secrets from her. And then the weirdness begins... Cyrus "graduates" early and Page sees him taking part in a strange ritual. 

She learns that her friends are part of a secret society who want to overthrow the school's Masters and stop the evil they have been perpetrating for centuries. But ancient evil isn't that easy to overcome, and all of the group will be tested to their limits before the thrilling finale. 

I loved the complex worldbuilding complete with ancient goddesses and demons, and I loved the personalities of the members of Page's group. Page grows and changes a lot through the course of the story as she battles demons and finds love and friends.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Audiobook Review: Rest in Pink by Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer

Rest in Pink

Author:
Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
Narrator: Cris Dukeheart & Eric G. Dove
Series: Liz Danger (Book 2)
Publication: Brilliance Audio (February 6, 2024)
Length: 9 hours and 40 minutes

Description: From the NY Times Bestselling duo that wrote Agnes and the Hitman, the second book in the Liz Danger series.

Liz Danger is a ghostwriter, trapped in her old hometown for the summer. Good thing she has Vince Cooper, her recurring one-night stand living down by the river in his old diner car, making her feel happy and safe and normal until September when she’ll be leaving again, although she’s starting to wonder if she really wants to.

Vince Cooper is a cop in a town with a shady new housing development that’s bringing a lot of armed strangers, a corrupt mayor, a police chief boss under fire, and an idiot blogger stirring up trouble. Good thing his recurring one-night stand is sticking around for the summer. The only drawback? He’s not looking forward to the empty space Liz Danger will leave behind her when she goes in September.

Treacherous small-town politics, a rust belt biker gang, a widowed ex who doesn’t understand the word “no,” a seven-year-old in need of a temporary mom, a flamboyant blonde boss who needs watched at all times, exploding family secrets, arson, murder, and three hundred and ninety-two soaking wet teddy bears later, Liz and Vince will come face to face with the madman burning down their town, and even worse, with their imploding relationship.

My Thoughts: The second book in the Liz Danger series is filled with small town politics and romance. Liz is a ghostwriter who fled her hometown at eighteen but who has reluctantly come back home. Luckily, Vince Cooper is there to keep her occupied while she deals with family drama.

Vince is a New York City transplant to Burnie, Ohio, who has found a home there. He lives in a restored diner on the banks of the Ohio. His one-night-stands with Liz which are happening almost every night has him rethinking his plan of staying a loner. 

Meanwhile, there is a shady housing development going in, Liz's ex not knowing when to let go, arson, and a needy seven-year-old woven into the plot. Then there's Liz's flamboyant client who has decided to follow Liz so that they can finish her book. 

This was an engaging story told in alternate chapters by Liz and by Vince. The dual narrators did a good job with a complicated story and with the very complicated feelings between Liz and Vince. 

I bought this one October 24, 2024. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong

Cold as Hell

Author:
Kelley Armstrong
Series: Haven's Rock (Book 3)
Publication: Minotaur Books (February 18, 2025)

Description: New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong returns to Haven’s Rock in Cold as Hell as Casey Duncan hunts down a dangerous killer during a deadly blizzard.

Haven’s Rock is a sanctuary town hidden deep in the Yukon for those who need to disappear from the regular world. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are starting a family now that they’ve settled into their life here. As Casey nears the end of her pregnancy, she lets nothing, including her worried husband, stop her from investigating what happens in the forbidden forest outside the town of Haven’s Rock.

When one of the town's residents is drugged and wanders too close to the edge of town, she’s dragged into the woods kicking and screaming. She’s saved in the nick of time, but the women of the town are alarmed. Casey and Eric investigate the assault just as a snowstorm hits Haven’s Rock, covering the forest. It’s there they find a frozen body, naked in the snow. With mixed accounts of the woman's last movements, the two begin to question who they can trust―and who they can't―in their seemingly safe haven.

My Thoughts: With meticulously vetted residents and Casey and Eric's supervision, serial killers aren't supposed to be able to sneak into Haven's Rock. It looks like one has managed it though.

When a resident is attacked and barely escapes, Casey who is eight months into a difficult pregnancy sees a gap in their security. With less than 100 residents, Haven's Rock should have to worry about roofies and date rape. At first, that is the conclusion that Casey and Eric come to. 

But when Lynn disappears during a blizzard and is found staked out on the lake when the weather breaks, it becomes clear that a murderer has made it into Haven's Rock. An unknown murder that is. Haven's Rock is a refuge for a couple of people, including Casey, who have committed murder. 

With Casey nearing the end of her pregnancy and suffering from potential complications, it becomes necessary to leave the investigation and fly out to Whitehorse to be nearer to medical help. Casey is tron between the needs of her unborn child and the needs of the investigation. 

This was another excellent addition to the Haven's Rock series. I like the way Eric and Casey are growing their relationship. I also like catching up with some of my favorite residents including Mathias and Sebastian. The story was very suspenseful. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.