Review: Kinfolk by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Kinfolk by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Publisher: Champagne Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Heat Rating: 2

Blurb

The last thing that writer Katherine Vaughn expects when she flees California for her native Arkansas is to fall in love, especially not with a former Navy SEAL and her cousin’s widower. Nor did she expect that the thugs seeking retribution for her late husband’s drug debts would follow her back to Arkansas.

As she and Ben Hatfield fall in love, their happiness faces trials that include an unexpected illness and his grandfather’s death. But Katherine has little time to mourn her own losses as the California drug lord’s minions kidnap her in a final effort to collect on the debt.



Wendy's Review

Katherine Vaughn comes home to Arkansas to regroup and stay one step ahead of the people who killed her husband. The drug lord that wants Katherine dead because he knows that since she now takes over her dead husband's debts to him. Arkansas is where Aunt Ruby was and she needed to seek refuge there not realizing in doing so that she was going to meet Ben her deceased cousin's husband who helped Ruby and worked at the local plant.

Ben was a former Navy Seal and he knew he could protect Katherine if only she would give up the shelter wall she built around her from her former husband's drug abuse. Ben not only takes care of Ruby but his grandfather who raised him is in the nursing home dying and he predicts the future for Ben and Katherine.

The romantic suspense is a great read. Ben and Katherine lives dwell around their kinfolk and it has you laughing, crying and enjoying being part of their world. The trust that is built quickly comes to head when danger lurks and finds Katherine and Ben doesn’t disappoint her with that trust.

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy wrote a well meaning and intriguing story with a subtle hint of suspense and a lot of romance.

5 Tea Cups!

      

Review: Hot Commodity by Linda Kage

Hot Commodity by Linda Kage

Publisher: Champagne Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Heat Rating: 2

Blurb

Thinking to assure a business merger with the wealthy, successful Cameron Banks, Olivia Donovan’s mother drags her to Las Vegas for a business convention, demanding she meet Banks and seduce him into wanting to marry her. But Olivia’s finished being Little Miss Yes-mother-whatever-you-say-mother. So, she sneaks away, intending to rebel and marry the very antithesis of Cameron Banks.

Who she finds is a drunk hottie that takes her to new heights of pleasure and shows her a side of herself she never knew existed before.

But after her amazing night in her new husband’s arms, she awakens the next morning only to discover she married and slept with the very Cameron Banks she’d been trying to avoid.


Dodie's Review

Olivia has been pushed around by her mother for years. For years, she has been subject to her mother's every whim. Her mother controls every aspect of her life from her work, to her wardrobe, to her
pin money. When her mother orders her to bed and wed Cameron Banks, its finally the last straw. Olivia finally attempts to disobey her mother, but it backfires.

Olivia turns out to be a strong heroine; determined to help her man overcome his demons and become the best husband he can. Cameron ends up being the perfect husband for Olivia, determined to help her break her mother's hold on her and help her learn to be independent. AND, they have hot, steamy, explosively good sex every time they are alone together.

This book was a wonderful romance. I became invested in Olivia and Cameron's story, and was cheering for their HEA from the sidelines all the way.

5 Tea Cups!

      

Review: Dustin Time by June Kramin

Dustin Time by June Kramin

Publisher: Champagne Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Heat Rating: 2

Blurb

A successful veterinarian, Kaitlyn thought she was content with her life. That is, until she turns thirty and realizes that her current 'boy toy' is simply not the father material she was looking for. As her biological clock ticks loudly in her ear, both her 'toy' and fate strongly disagree.

But something happens and over the next several days, she starts traveling between her birthdays of an altered present and those of her past, leaving her more confused than ever. With the help of a kindly old custodian named Frank, Kaitlyn comes to terms with her feelings for Dustin. And can Dustin Time quiet the ticking she's trying so desperately to ignore?


Hunter’s Review

Kaitlyn wakes up on her thirtieth birthday (though she insists its 29. LOL) and has great sex with her friend and sometimes sex partner, Dustin. They’re not serious about each other, even though they’ve been ‘dating’ for a long time. At the end of the day, as she thinks about her life, Kaitlyn decides she really wants more out of life and muses aloud that while she and Dustin have to break up because at her current age she needs more than ‘I like you’ if she’s going to have a family, she wishes they had met earlier and differently.

The next morning she’s gotten what she wishes for. She wakes up in her room—but it’s different, Dustin is there, they are married, and they have a baby girl Ali. Kaitlyn loves this reality but at the end of the day when she goes to sleep—boom—she’s back to her previous existence—then that that night—boom she’s back in college meeting Dustin but differently that she did in her first reality.

Kaitlyn travels through times finding things that have gone wrong and then travelling back to the time when she can fix them. All of these travels do have a downside (I don’t want to give this away) and it ends up being very emotional.

I really enjoyed this book immensely and I thought it was very, very well written. One complaint. Initially, when Kaitlyn meets Ali and sees her alternative future she makes a big decision to seek that future and we are not given, in my opinion, enough Dustin in that time to justify her fast change and adoration. But, we get a lot of him later and certainly he is a great hero.

I think readers who enjoy Time Travel stories, as I do, will love this book.

4 1/2 Tea Cups!