Welcome to the book tour for Maren Jenner’s Sweet Nothing’s romance, The Cupcake Standard!
The Cupcake Standard (Sweet Nothings Series #1)
Publication Date: August 15, 2023
Genre: Romance/ NA Billionaire Romance/ Fake Dating
Avery doesn’ t believe in true love, so fake dating the man of her dreams should be a piece of cake.
Avery Milbourne will do anything to get out of dinner with her famous, overbearing mother. Even kiss a stranger. It doesn’ t hurt that he’ s tall, dark, handsome, and wearing a very grabbable tie.
Gearing up to finish college, along with everything else happening in her life, Avery has no time for a relationship. But when the stranger turns out to be wealthy billionaire Derek Elgin, she thinks twice. Accepting Derek’ s offer to enter into a fake relationship and move in with him seems to solve all her problems. She doesn’ t expect to fall for him, but within Derek’ s quiet steadiness, Avery finds a retreat she is loath to give up.
But true love is a myth, and Avery’ s relationship with Derek isn’ t real, so where does that leave her?
Maren Jenner lives in Michigan with her supportive husband and spunky daughter. She loves writing, and, when she’s not working on her next book, she’s got her nose in a different one. Her summers are spent on any lake she can visit, but the beaches of Lake Michigan are her favorite.
The Cupcake Standard is her debut novel, though she’s been writing for as long as she can remember. It’s always been a dream to become a full-time author. Her dreams wouldn’t be possible without the love and support of her family and friends.
‘Angelica had always known her lack of high birth, fortune or influence debarred her from being presented as an eligible young woman worthy of marriage. To cap it all, being an actress assured she was utterly beyond the pale of respectability.’
Nightly at the Covent Garden Theatre in London, an enchanting actress is wowing the crowds with her affecting portrayal of Ophelia. Preyed on by rakes and opportunistic young bucks, feted by dukes and earls, even the Prince Regent himself, Angelica Leigh is a sensation. But in Regency England, beauty and talent are not enough to be considered marriage material, so when the eminently eligible Lord Charles Latimer sets his heart on Angelica, his uncle is sent to intervene. As a highly respected, hard-working and wealthy lawmaker, The Honourable Ivor Asprey, is himself seen as desirable husband material, but widowed with an eleven-year-old daughter Elinor, he has forsaken all thoughts of romance. Lord Latimer’s mother, the Duchess of Arlington, despairs of her son, despite being reassured by Ivor that his infatuation with the actress will pass. But there is something about Angelica Leigh that demands attention, and even the austere and upstanding Mr Asprey isn’t immune to her charms.
Sunday Times bestselling author Jane Dunn brings the Regency period irresistibly to life. Perfect for fans of Jane Austen. Janice Hadlow, Gill Hornby, and anyone with a Bridgerton-shaped hole in their lives.
Jane Dunn is an historian and biographer and the author of seven acclaimed biographies, including Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters and the Sunday Times and NYT bestseller, Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens. She comes to Boldwood with her first fiction outing – a trilogy of novels set in the Regency period, the first of which, The Marriage Season, was published in January 2023. She lives in Berkshire with her husband, the linguist Nicholas Ostler.
My thoughts: I really enjoyed this Regency romance with its spirited heroine and romantic storyline. Angelica is an actress, currently playing the doomed Ophelia on stage, and being wooed by a young lord. She’s fully aware that they can’t really have a future, being from such different classes and with her career. But when the lordling’s uncle warns her off, she finds herself furious.
However as the story progresses and she gets to know Ivor Asprey, she admires him and possibly more. He’s raising his daughter alone after the death of his wife, and as an MP is pushing some pretty important reforms through Parliament. Ones Angelica is supportive of, her own childhood having been one of poverty and hardship.
She becomes friends with a young heiress, finds herself in trouble and in need of Asprey’s aid more than once, and through their growing connection, and the machinations of his young daughter, a spark is ignited.
Angelica is a fantastic, charming protagonist, a modern woman living in an age of propriety where reputation is all, but she’s surrounded and supported by loving friends and family, and knows she can handle almost anything with their help.
Perfect for anyone who enjoys historical romance with a woman who knows her own mind and a man who believes in what’s right at the heart of it. Delightful.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Lost memories. Lost loves. Can they find their way back to each other?
When Will wakes up after a car accident, he’s lost three years of memory. All he wants is his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart, Gem, beside him. Instead, nothing is as he remembers.
Gem has finally moved on from hers and Will’s break-up. With a new life and boyfriend, the last thing she expects is a call to say Will needs her – the man who nearly destroyed her.
As Will recovers, he is determined to prove to Gem that he is the man he once was. But by unlocking the secrets of his past, will he be able to piece together what caused him to change so dramatically? And, faced with the choice, will Gem continue with the safe new life she has built for herself, or will she go back to the man she used to love?
Heartbreaking and twisty, perfect for fans of Dani Atkins, Jojo Moyes and Colleen Hoover.
Author Bio – Eve Ainsworth is a public speaker, creative workshop coordinator and award-winning author who draws from her extensive work with teenagers managing emotional and behavioural issues to write authentic, honest and real novels for young people and adults. Eve’s adult debut, Duckling, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. She has had short stories published in magazines such as Writers’ Forum and Prima and articles posted online for The Guardian, Metro and BookTrust. Eve is also a champion for working class voices, has set up the Working Class Writers Network and is an experienced mentor.
We are thrilled to share The Star and the Strange Moon this week. Read on for more details!
The Star and the Strange Moon
Publication Date: November 2023
Genre: Historical Fantasy From the author of A Witch in Time comes a haunting tale of ambition, obsession, and the eternal mystery and magic of film. A vanished star. A haunted film. A mystery only love can unravel…
1968: Gemma Turner once dreamed of stardom. Now the actress is on the cusp of obscurity. When she’s offered the lead in a radical new horror film, Gemma believes her luck has changed—but her dream is about to turn into a nightmare. One night, between the shadows of an alleyway, Gemma disappears on set and is never seen again. Yet, Gemma is alive. She’s been pulled into the film. And the script—and the monsters within it—are coming to life. Gemma must play her role perfectly if she hopes to survive.
2007: Gemma Turner’s disappearance is one of Hollywood’s greatest mysteries—one that’s captivated film student Christopher Kent ever since he saw L’Étrange Lune for the first time. The screenings only happen once a decade and each time there is new, impossible footage of Gemma that shouldn’t exist. Curiosity drives Christopher to unravel the truth. But answers to the film’s mystery may leave him trapped by it forever.
Constance Sayers is the author of two best-selling novels: A Witch in Time (Hachette, 2020) and The Ladies of the Secret Circus (Hachette, 2021), the latter receiving both a Publishers Weekly and Library Journal starred reviews. Her work has been translated into six languages and her third novel, The Star and the Strange Moon will be published by Hachette on 11.14.23. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, and her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
She received an MA in English from George Mason University and a B.A. in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She lives outside of Washington D.C.
My thoughts: the premise of this was so intriguing I had to read it as soon as I received a copy and my goodness. This book is so mindbendingly ingenious and clever and I was hooked from the off.
Christopher has spent much of his life fascinated by why his mum once freaked out and smashed up a picture of a film star in a hotel. He can’t ask her, as sadly she died after a long battle with her mental health. His aunt doesn’t know either.
Meanwhile in the 60s Gemma Turner has been offered a role in a Nouvelle Vague film shooting in the French countryside. It needs to be a success as her career’s on the slide. But things take a strange and terrifying turn…
As the two lives play out and slowly start to collide, strange occurances and a haunted movie dog them both.
Utterly brilliant and written so you really feel for these two lost souls as they search for answers and try to build something for themselves. It’s also an achingly sad story of a young man’s search for answers about where he comes from, and a woman’s about where she belongs.
Meet Me in the Dark is LIVE!!! The final book in the Bad Heroes trilogy is now available on Amazon! Get your copy today!
Meet Me in the Dark (Bad Heroes #3)
Publication Date: January 11, 2024
Genre: Why Choose/ Dark Navy Seals Romance
🖤Why Choose 🖤Bad A$$ FMC 🖤Touch Her/Him and Di3 🖤Blud Play 🖤Forc3d Proximity 🖤Second Chance 🖤Sword Crossing 🖤CNC 🖤Guaranteed HEA
Obsession tied them together. She won’t let anything tear them apart.
For Micah, Luke, and Conor, there are no limits to what they’ll do to win Kara’s heart. Lie, cheat, steal…and kill. But just when it seems like they’ve succeeded, an old enemy strikes. The ex-Navy SEALs will do anything to keep Kara safe—including surrendering to the predator intent on destroying them.
But Kara refuses to lose them. After years of them protecting her, it’s time to return the favor. And if it involves payback against their enemy, well, she’s not the woman she used to be. Running was easy when she had nothing to lose. But now? Forged into someone stronger, she’s no longer afraid of her own power. Kara’s determined to fight—for her men, for their family, and for herself.
Even if it means the fight of her life.
Meet Me In The Dark is the third and final book in the Bad Heroes series, and ends with an HEA. The heroine never has to choose between the heroes for her HEA, and the heroes choose her and each other. Please check the author’s website, jobrenner dot com, for content notes.
You Can Follow Me is Now a #1 Amazon New Release
Meet Me In The Dark is the third and final book in the Bad Heroes series, and ends with an HEA. The heroine never has to choose between the heroes for her HEA, and the heroes choose her and each other. Please check the author’s website for content notes.
Happy publication day and congratulations to Amanda Aggie on the release of the next Realm of Monsters book, This Wicked Bond!
This Wicked Bond (Realm of Monsters #3)
Publication Date: December 28, 2023
Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance
🐉 Dragon Shifters
🐉 Enemies-to-Lovers
🐉 Robin Hood Inspired
🐉 Found Family
🐉 Morally Grey Hero
🐉 Fated Mates
🐉 Magical Bonds
🐉 Spicy Dream Manipulation
🐉 Crew of Thieves
🐉 Who Hurt You?
🐉 Banter for Days A captive princess. A rogue dragon shifter. A bond that could save or doom them all.
Unlike my sisters, I was never arranged to marry a monster. I was imprisoned from birth.
I have a unique gift and my father– the King of Solaria–fears it. Yet, he’s far too curious about how my magic works to let me go.
Everything changes the day I’m pulled from my cell. It’s never happened before. The only explanation is that I’ve outlived my usefulness. Except, it’s not a chopping block awaiting my head. It’s a handsome rogue in a green cloak.
The man’s a thief who owes the dungeon warden a life debt. To repay it, he’s been tasked with smuggling me out of the kingdom.
I know nothing about him. Not his name. Not even his species. Yet, his alter ego has made it clear that this isn’t just an assignment. I’m his, and though he’ll see me safely out of Solaria, he has no intention of letting me out of his sight.
The monster might want me, but I can assure you the man housing him does not. My father murdered his twin sister and devastated his kingdom.
All it would take is for him to go back on his word, and I might become the means of how he gets his revenge. This Wicked Bond is an enemies-to-lovers tale featuring a morally gray, shifter hero with a slew of red flags. The world is dark, but it’s also full of adventure and magic. This story is a spellbinding fusion of Robin Hood, dragons, and monsters, and takes place within Amanda Aggie’s Seven Realms World.
Best known for her #1 Amazon bestselling series, Dark Halos, Amanda Aggie writes steamy dark fantasy romance. She’s a wife, a mother to two beautiful tiny humans, and has a stellar caffeine addiction. More importantly, she writes choking-hazard fantasy romance that will have you laughing out loud, swooning, and biting your nails all in one sitting.
Almost all of her books take place in the seven realms of Hell, which she’s often described as, “If Hell and Wonderland got together and had a baby.” You’ll find creatures of all kinds—fae, demons, dragons, witches, and more—along with morally gray villains, and steam. So, grab you some pearls to clutch before you enter the seven realms, and get lost in the chaos.
This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.
If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
BOOK ONE IN THE FATED PARTNERS TRILOGY
In the Twin Realms of Nos and Sol, Ceridwen Moonshade anxiously awaits the Fated Pair Choosing; she hopes to be partnered with her best friend, Malakai Ostara.
But the Fates have other plans.
Something insidious lurks amongst the shadows, and Ceridwen’s whole life will turn on its head, when an ominous prophecy is foretold. In order to save the realms and stave back the horrors of the lower realm of Fog, she must put aside her own growing feelings for Malakai and do what is right.
But in the process of discovering who she really is, and what she is capable of… will she realise that Fate isn’t always set in stone?
E.G. Tudor is an award-winning multi-genre author from the original land of myth and legend; Wales. She lives on the beautiful coast with her husband, four children and crazy dog. She loves to connect with her readers and can be found on Twitter: @E_G_Tudor or on Instagram: @from_the_shelf_of_e_g_tudor
Welcome to the tour for To Kiss the Sea by C.H. Carter. Read on for more details!
To Kiss the Sea
Publication Date: October 31, 2023
Genre: Sapphic Fantasy/ Fairy Tale Fantasy
🌊 Fairytale retelling
🌊 Mermaids, pirates, and spies – Oh my!
🌊 Force proximity
🌊 Enemies-to-friends
🌊 LGBTQ/Queer normative society
🌊 Found family
🌊 Mental health rep
🌊 Multi-POV
In the Birde Isles there’s a saying: You cannot take what the sea is not willing to give.
Ally Kingfisher never gave it much thought until she experienced the sea’s wrath firsthand. But after a near-drowning leaves her with a deeply ingrained fear of the water, Ally still finds herself inexplicably drawn to its depths. As if something is calling to her from beneath the waves, and it only grows louder each year.
Pasha is being punished for something she didn’t do, sentenced to a life of solitude until her kin return. But mermaids aren’t meant to live alone. Desperate for companionship, Pasha makes a deal that goes spectacularly awry, affecting the lives of everyone on the Isles for years to come.
When a pirate captain kidnaps Ally’s mother and demands Ally deliver the ransom personally, she is forced to leave land for the first time. Turning to Pasha, the one creature whose help she doesn’t want but whose power over the water she needs, Ally strikes a new bargain to get her to her mother. But she’ll have to confront more than her fears along the way…
Because even those in favor are still at the mercy of the sea.
This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.
If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
Sometimes it’s the family you can’t choose who are the ones to save you.
un·sound /ˌənˈsound/ adjective not safe or robust; in poor condition. not based on sound evidence or reasoning and therefore unreliable or unacceptable not competent, reliable, or holding acceptable views.
As I watched the rich Washington landscape of mountains and thick green forests, I didn’t know what to expect. Granted, I was watching it from the back of a squad car, so it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.
High school is hard enough—dealing with hormones, grades, the pressure of college, social media, prom, sex ed… the list can go on forever. I wished for that kind of normalcy. Instead, I was being shipped way up to the middle of nowhere woods of Washington state—a serene community of cozy cabins, the smell of burning firewood… and enough troubled, drug-addicted, almost-criminal teens to make me wonder if this was a better option than juvie.
Little did I know that these drug-addled, societal misfits were exactly what I needed to become myself again.
Written in four cohesive POV’s, Unsound follows a tight-knit group of troubled teenagers living at a boarding school for at-risk youths up in a remote forest in Washington State. These kids have had childhood ripped away from them but they’re on the journey to take their lives back.
345 page standalone with a sequel is in the works!
But no cliffhangers, because who really likes a cliffhanger!?
There are TRIGGER WARNINGS ranging from mental abuse, eating disorders and depression to underage drug & alcohol use, underage sex and mentions of rape. But I promise, it’s not as dark as the warning sounds.
I’m an author in Brooklyn, trying to promote my first book Unsound. Unsound is a 20+ year project and I’m so proud of where it is now from where it was in 1999 coming out of a 14-year-old brain.
I love Manhattan. I love my cat. I have the best boyfriend in the world who tries not to show his frustration when I want to write and therefore need to ignore him for hours.
I love music, my latest obsessions being Bastille, 21 Pilots, Old Dominion, Dan+Shay, and AJR. I love having the radio play all day long in the background. I love old school WB: Buffy, Dawson’s Creek, Charmed, just to name a few.
And most importantly, I’m constantly reading. After all, Stephen King said: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Besides the sequel to Unsound, I’m also working on a new project that is fantasy based.
We’re celebrating the release of Katie Richard’s latest romance, More than Our Fake Vows! Read on for more details and visit one of our Bookstagram hosts for a chance to win a book box!
More than Our Fake Vows
Publication Date: December 12, 2023
Genre: Contemporary Romance
🎵Marriage of Convenience
🎵Friends to Lovers
🎵Slow Burn
🎵Small Town
🎵Spicy
🎵Country Music Star
After catching her fiancé cheating, Natalie leaves the city she’s grown to love. Starting over in Hickory Valley, Georgia, a one-redlight town that makes for the perfect escape, or so she thought. Natalie makes quick friends with a local bartender and they both decide to make a pact- no men for a year. Natalie doubles down on her career until a handsome stranger strolls into the bar and threatens her resolve.
Teagan’s gold-digging ex is threatening to ruin him, his band and anything else she can get her greedy hands on. Hickory Valley looks like just the place to hide out while the press calms down. Nobody would think to look for him in this dust covered farm town.
With a cruel twist of fate, Natalie finds herself needing a husband, and fast! A fake marriage could fix both of their problems and what did they have to lose? Neither Teagan nor Natalie wants an actual relationship, it only has to look real to everyone else.
A string of events, tests their friendship and when emotions run high are they able to keep their feelings at bay? Or will they fall victim to the other’s charm and throw caution to the wind?
Katie is an Indie Author who lives in Vermont with her husband and their children. When she’s not busy working, writing, or spending time with loved ones, she enjoys getting lost in a good book. Katie loves all types of gardening but especially enjoys flowers. When she’s not hard at work writing the next novel in the Destiny Of Graystone series or the standalone romantic suspense novels, she likes creating things in Canva or Procreate!
