Category: Publishers

A Barb the Zany Old Lady Review:How the Cookie Crumbles (Bluewater Bay #12) by Jaime Samms

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

How the Cookie CrumblesFrederic Jackson pulls up roots and moves to Bluewater Bay after losing first place on a reality TV cooking show.  Frederic is a baker, taught by his gran, but with a natural talent for creating perfect pastries.  He was on track to win the show, but the show’s producer, Blaire Caruthers, the man who Frederic fell head-over-heels for, fixed the win in favor of the hot little twink who stole Blaire from Frederic before the two could even get started.  The potential for scandal was squashed with money from Blaire’s father, who owns the production company. Frederic used part of the money to buy the bakery, with its barely working equipment, and part to settle medical bills for his alcoholic father.

A few months later, Blaire shows up in Bluewater Bay ostensibly to work on marketing and promotion of merchandise for the Wolf’s Landing TV show.  But in reality, he wants to win Frederic back, and he deeply regrets his stupidity with Jerry, the twink who won the competition.  What he doesn’t know is that winning the show would have gotten Frederic all the equipment he needed to operate the bakery.  He really didn’t want the cash because he knew his father would tap him for part of it and that proved to be true.  Now Blaire has the nerve to make overtures to him again? No way!

But fate has something else in store for the men and as they realize how much they’ve each changed, and new people and circumstances combine to keep throwing them together. There might be a way for them to find happiness after all.

I really enjoyed this story.  I like the way the author built on the existing Bluewater Bay series concept but took it much further to develop a completely separate story which works fine as a standalone.

The characters were three-dimensional and flawed but just perfect together.  Frederic’s workaholism, in combination with the emotional tug of war with his father, brought him to a personal health crisis that was both unique and believable.  Blaire’s need to separate from his own father, both emotionally and as an employee, was very evident but proved to be a difficult struggle.  His growth and maturity and his desire to find the freedom in creativity that he had craved for years finally overcame his fear of failure and of disappointing his father. The strength he found to make that break and the compassion and love he bestowed on Frederic were just the perfect mix to make this old heart swoon for Blaire and rejoice when he and Frederic finally found their way back to each other.

I very definitely recommend this story to all lovers of MM romance, especially to those who love an enemies to lovers, a hurt-comfort, or a lovers reunited theme.

~~~~~

Cover Art by L.C. Chase depicts a handsome man in a suit staring back at a young man sitting alone on a pier. This is the perfect representation of Blaire and Frederic.

Sales Links:   Riptide Publishing | ARe | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 345 pages
Published February 13th 2016 by Riptide Publishing
Original TitleHow the Cookie Crumbles
ISBN 162649388X (ISBN13: 9781626493889)
Edition LanguageEnglish
URLhttp://riptidepublishing.com/titles/how-the-cookie-crumbles

Series: Bluewater BayBWBlogo_Web

Books in this Universe include with links to our reviews:

Starstruck (Bluewater Bay #1) by L.A. Witt
There’s Something About Ari (Bluewater Bay #2) by L.B. Gregg
Hell on Wheels (Bluewater Bay #3) by Z.A. Maxfield
Lone Wolf (Bluewater Bay #4) by Aleksandr Voinov
The Burnt Toast B&B (Bluewater Bay #5) by Heidi Belleau & Rachel Haimowitz
Lights, Camera, Cupid (A Bluewater Bay Valentine’s Day Anthology; Bluewater Bay #6)
Wedding Favors (Bluewater Bay, #7) by Anne Tenino
The Deep of the Sound (Bluewater Bay, #8) by Amy Lane
When to Hold Them (Bluewater Bay, #9) by G.B. Gordon
Rain Shadow (Bluewater Bay, #10) by L.A. Witt
Stuck Landing (Bluewater Bay, #11) by Lauren Gallagher
How the Cookie Crumbles (Bluewater Bay, #12) by Jaime Samms
Selfie (Bluewater Bay, #13) by Amy Lane

 

Its Back to Bluewater Bay with How the Cookie Crumbles (Bluewater Bay #12) by Jaime Samms Riptide Tour and Contest

How the Cookie Crumbles

How the Cookie Crumbles (Bluewater Bay #12) by Jaime Samms
Riptide Publishing
Cover Artist L.C. Chase

Release Date February 13, 2016
Goodreads Link

Buy it/Read an Excerpt here

About How the Cookie Crumbles

After losing a rigged cooking show competition—and a potential lover—to another baker, Frederic Jackson packs up his considerable baggage and moves to Bluewater Bay. He uses the network’s hush money to buy a new bakery where he hopes the small town’s revitalized economy will let him start anew.

Blaire Caruthers never wanted to work for his father at Caruthers Industries. He should have known that fixing the company’s show results was a mistake, and that choosing another man over kind, generous Frederic was an even bigger one. But the damage is done. To escape the fallout, he’s gone to Bluewater Bay to oversee the company’s interest in Wolf’s Landing merchandise.

Stuck in a small, nowhere town doing a job he hates, Blaire wants nothing more than to prove to Frederic he’s changed. However, Frederic struggles to trust the man who betrayed him once already. As Blaire loses ground with his father, and Frederic starts falling back into self-destructive habits, they both have to find the balance and control that’s been missing from their lives.

This title is  part of Riptide Publishing’s Bluewater Bay series, a listing of which can be found here. BWBlogo_Web

About Jaime Samms

Jaime has been writing for various publishers since the fall of 2008, although she’s been writing for herself far longer. Often asked, “Why men? What’s so fascinating about writing stories about men falling in love?”, she’s never come up with a clear answer.  Just that these are the stories that she loves to read, so it seemed to make sense if she was going to write, they would also be the stories she wrote.

These days, you can find plenty of free reading on her website. She also writes for Freya’s Bower, Jupiter Gardens, and Total E-Bound, Dreamspinner Press, MLR Press, and Riptide Publishing.

Spare time, when it can be found rolled into a ball at the back of the dryer or cavorting with the dust bunnies in the corners, she’s probably spending crocheting, drawing, gardening (weather permitting, of course, since she is Canadian!), or watching movies. She has a day job, as well, which she loves, and two kids, but thankfully, also a wonderful husband who shoulders more than his fair share of household and child-care responsibilities.

She graduated some time ago from college with a fine arts diploma, and a major in textile arts, which basically qualifies her to draw pictures and create things with string and fabric. One always needs an official slip of paper to fall back on after all. . .

Connect with Jamie:

Giveaway

Leave a comment for a chance to win $20 in Riptide credit. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on February 20, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. Entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

BWB_SeriesCover

A MelanieM Review: Sharing the Pond by Alex Whitehall

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Sharing the Pond by Alex WhitehallBrent shows up on Corey and Shane’s doorstep in the dead of winter needing a place to stay—and hopeful his mates will provide it, and not mind he’s a frog shifter.

Being a shifter is nothing new to Corey and Shane, but neither is being mates. They’ve been together since before they first met Brent ten years ago—back when Brent was Brenda. Bringing a third into their relationship is more than a little complicated, but they’re willing to try.

But change is always easier said than done, and Brent wonders if he ever really stood a chance at being happy with the men he has always loved and admired.

So much wrong with this story, its hard to know where to start.  Maybe with the things I did like. The cover was cute.  And Whitehall’s use of a female transitioning to male but in an entirely different biological take was imaginative and full of possibilities.

None of which really worked well here unfortunately.

Reading through to the finish was actually a fight.

I found the characters of Corey, Shane and Brent blurred together, so similar in tone narratively speaking, that after certain plot points were made, they became interchangeable in my mind (especially two of them),   But Whitehall asks  so much from his readers, those already arriving expecting a shifter story true.  But one where a frog comes from wolf shifter parents?   Hmmm, without much back-history or biological groundwork laid-out?  Then he expects us to believe there is a pull of a mate bond between these two men as well when one is already happily mated?  And doesn’t make a case for it in the interactions between them in the scenes that play out.

With all my diminishing interest in the story playing out, I started to notice other things…such as the huge difference in species. Corey and Shane are Northern Leopard frog shifters. Brent is a Common Reed Frog, a west African frog species that have been known to spontaneously change sex from female to male. A plot element that makes sense, but why did Whitehall have the other two be a pond species?If you are going to go to the trouble to  give your shifters specific frog species you ought to make them compatible.  Green frogs and Bull frogs,  Northern Leopard frogs with Pickerel or Wood frogs, and most certainly a Common Reed Frog with fellow tree frogs like even a African foam-nest tree frog or green Congo tree frog?

But a Common Reed Frog and two Northern Leopard frogs.  Now that might present a problem right there.  the Common Reed Frog?  A small tree frog, found in Burundi (I just love saying that name) and other parts of Africa.  The Northern Leopard  frogs? A once common and now rapidly disappearing pond frog of Northern America.  So yeah, that’s not really happening in a splash about in a bathtub.

Why all this preoccupation with the natural history of the frogs?  Because my mind and interest needed something, anything to grasp onto.  The story wasn’t doing it for me, neither were the characters.

Let’s just  say this was one tough read, from shifter history I couldn’t wrap my head around to characters I just couldn’t connect with.  Even the plot was one tough slog, narratively speaking.  And I love shifter stories.

But that cover was really darn cute.

Sale Links:  Less Than Three Press |   Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 154 pages
Published November 16th 2015 by Less Than Three Press
ASINB0184EQ5BG
Edition LanguageEnglish