My Tangled Skeins Book Reviews: December 2013

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Winter Reads Book Blast and Giveaway

Sit back, relax in your favorite reading chair and enjoy 15 Winter Reads from 15 bestselling YA authors. There is something to delight every reader in this box set – paranormal romance, futuristic sci-fi, historical, time travel, and contemporary. Many of the Indelibles have given you access to both the first and second books in their series – you’ll be reading well into the New Year!

LIMITED TIME BOX SET - from 15 bestselling YA authors ON SALE 12/29 - 1/11 for just $1.99

Amazon * Barnes & Noble

15 Winter Reads includes:

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Book Tour: Christmas in Dogtown by Suzanne Johnson

Christmas in Dogtown

Suzanne Johnson

Genre: Sweet Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Story Vault

Date of Publication: December 2012

ASIN: B009RBKTSG

Number of pages: 30

Word Count: approx. 11,000

Amazon Barnes and Noble

Book Description:

A woman who spent years escaping her rural past learns that Dogtown, Louisiana, hides more family secrets than just the recipe for boudin blanc…..

Resa Madere’s on the verge of losing it all. The boyfriend’s gone. The job’s history. Her beloved house is on the brink of foreclosure. She’ll do anything to save it—even spend a long Christmas holiday working in St. James Parish, Louisiana, helping her uncle run the family meat business. But the community of Dogtown, which has been home for seven generations of the Madere and Caillou families, has deep roots and deeper secrets. For Resa, going home is one thing.

Getting out might not be so easy.

My Review:

★★★★☆

This was a fun, quick read. The main character, Resa, is determined not to run back home, even though she is facing financial and personal troubles in her life. She does agree to go home, temporarily, to help out an ill uncle at a family business. Little does she know, the whole town has a secret that she is soon to find out. This trip back home could change her whole life.

Add into the mix a childhood friend that everyone is certain she will end up with, some wonderful characters, the surprise twist, and you have a very entertaining story that is perfect for any time of year! I really enjoyed this novella. It is quick to read, entertaining, and imaginative. I really liked the surprise shift into a more paranormal tale towards the end.

I recommend this to anyone that enjoys reading a quick, well written story that has family, love, tradition, and a supernatural element. There are no explicit, in your face scenes, so this is great for younger YA readers as well as adult romance lovers!

Short Excerpt:

“You are stupid,” Resa told her reflection in the tiny, scratched mirror of the White Castle’s rose-pink bathroom. “Stupid, ridiculous, and absurd.”

She’d been wrestling with her curly black hair for a half hour, and the brown eyes that stared back at her from beneath freshly plucked brows and carefully applied eyeliner looked more jittery than sexy. “And idiotic.”

First, it had been almost a week since Chan had asked her to the Saturday night community dance, popping the question almost shyly as they hacked at the bodies of gigantic dead fish. They’d both been covered in blood and smelled like they’d been rolling in bait, which should have tipped her off that anything in Dogtown reeking of romance, well, reeked.

Second, her potential date had left immediately after asking her out so he could catch an alligator that had eaten somebody’s poodle in one of those backwater houses near the swamp. He burned rubber out of the Madere’s driveway after making sure he had enough duct tape to wrap around the gator’s jaws. Adequate duct tape was not an attribute she’d ever sought in a man.

About the Author:

Suzanne Johnson writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance (under the name Susannah Sandlin) from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual. She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis' birthplace, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick. She’s the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series and, as Susannah Sandlin, the Penton Legacy paranormal romance series.

Website: www.suzanne-johnson.com

Blog: http://suzanne-johnson.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Suzanne_Johnson

FB: http://www.facebook.com/Suzanne.Johnson.author

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5046525.Suzanne_Johnson