Category: Riptide Publishing

A MelanieM Review: Chasing Forever (This Time Forever #3) by Kelly Jensen

Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Old wounds, new directions, and a forever worth chasing.

Malcolm Montgomery was a history teacher and track coach until an accident left him with two broken legs. He’ll recover, but life has knocked his feet out twice now. He’s not sure if he’s ready to try again, especially when it comes to love—and slick guys like Brian Kenway. Still, he needs help mentoring the school’s LGBTQ society, so he asks Brian to take some responsibility.

Brian has been hiding behind his reputation as a liar and a cheat for so long that he actually believes he’s that guy—until his nephew, Josh, turns up on his couch, tossed out for being gay. Brian has never considered being a father, but he knows all about being rejected by loved ones. Now Brian wants to be more: a partner for Mal and a role model for Josh.

But when Mal’s recovery is set back and the sad truth of Brian’s past is revealed, the forever they’ve been chasing seems even further from their grasps. It’ll take a rescue effort to revive their sense of worth and make Brian, Mal, and Josh into a family of their own.

If you haven’t found Kelly Jensen’s This Time Forever series, you seriously need to.  While each story uses a structure like a legacy home or lodge at its heart, it’s the author’s ability to create and bring to life a group of interlocked men of varying ages, often older than your usual contemporary romance, intelligent, each carrying more than their share of life’s baggage.  Some are easily more damaged than others, some emotionally, others physically, some both. Through the stories we’ve met several of the characters over and over through their complicated relationship dynamics with each other, as couples form and ex’s watch from the sidelines.

In Chasing Forever, one of those ex’s, Brian is someone we’ve “seen” through other characters perspectives and the view hasn’t been a pretty one.  Here Brian’s past is revealed, the truth of the man  peeled back, and he’s set on the path to redemption.  One reason? Mal “Malcolm” Montgomery, history teacher  and track coach who is trying to recover from a devastating hit and run accident.  Prior to the accident he was someone who defined himself by his physical ability…to run, to coach…to just do and now it’s a struggle to just walk.  In these two amazingly complicated and damaged men, Jensen brings about both redemption, recovery, hope, love, and, finally an emotionally triumphant future.  All done within a realistic, adult plot with the expectant struggles, arguments, and hurdles to overcome.  What a joy to read!

Threaded through this romance is the series foundation that features, in this case, not a family house or lodge but a bar that needs saving because the historic structure is slated to   be  sold to a developer in town.  This is an ongoing battle in this series, as the developer has made an appearance in a previous story and I expect to see them again  in future novels.  How it all plays out I will leave out to each reader to discover for themselves.  It too is a rich, multidimensional element of this story, just as I would have expected from someone who clearly loves her old structures as much as this author does.

In fact, there are several other floating storylines here that will capture your heart, along with the characters that go along with them.  There are no people here that I could honestly consider “supporting” cast because each feels so meaningful to the town and each other.

It’s like that with each and every story here.  For me they build on each other with their relationships, their place in the town, and in each other’s lives.  This is one series I would go around waving at people, recommending the hell out of it because it’s just that great.  Start with the first one and work your way here.  Get to know the town and its people.  Love them as I do.  Then you will know why I highly recommend this story, this series, and it’s author.  And do the same.

Cover Art:  Natasha Snow.  It matches the other novels in the series in style and element perfectly.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 333 pages
Published December 10th 2018 by Riptide Publishing
ISBN 139781626498426
Edition Language English

Series This Time Forever 

Building Forever

Renewing Forever

Chasing Forever

A Lucy Review : Perfect Match by AG Meiers

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Secrets can derail even the most powerful attraction.

Logger Sven Larson has never found a man worth publicly coming out of the closet for. But his family has other plans. As a thirtieth birthday gift, his mother hires the online dating service Perfect Match to find Sven the love of his life. To say Sven isn’t thrilled is an understatement, but it’s too late to cancel, and Jayden Calver arrives.

Perfect Match’s success rate is unsurpassed, but they don’t come by it honestly: if a client can’t be matched, the agency uses a stand-in to fulfil their guarantee and protect their profit.

Tough luck has left Jayden in debt, and playing Perfect Match’s deceptive game is his only option. So he travels — sparkling toenails and all — to a remote camp deep in the mountains to meet Sven Larson and pretend to be his perfect match for a few days.

Sparks fly on first contact. But as the two men get closer, Sven grows more and more suspicious of Jayden, and Jayden struggles with guilt over his deceit. They both want a future together, but first they must find the courage to be honest with themselves and each other.

I will admit I was fully prepared to not like Jayden.   I thought he would have done something stupid and is now trying to cover for it by working for Perfect Match.  Which is sort of true.  His stupid thing was in a time of stress and I could see it happening and then things got worse, got really bad.  So being a Perfect Match liar was in fact a better choice.  He shows up wet, bedraggled, cold and a bit scared to meet Sven and turns out he’s meeting the whole family.  Who are pretty scary in their own right.   But he’s got to go through with it. 

So we get Sven, who didn’t want anything to do with this matchmaking but realizes it’s important to his mother, and Jayden, who is playing a part for the next ten days.   He plays it well but of course those darn feelings start to interfere with it being just a job.  I liked that they didn’t jump into bed in the first five minutes.  I even liked David, Sven’s ex-boyfriend who had some snarky, petty moments but then proves himself a decent friend.

The moment when the lies come to light and Sven and Jayden have the conversation was heartwrenching.  I felt bad for Jayden but I felt devastated for Sven.  “He’s gotten so wrapped up in his fantasies of him and Jayden together.  Happiness.  Something real.  A future.  He was such a fool.”

The whole of the scam behind Perfect Match makes you want to scream, knowing how they take advantage of people.  And yet, for Jayden it was a way out of a terrible situation.  But

I liked this very much, mainly because the connection between Sven and his family and Sven and Jayden made me care about them.  “…he’d always known he could count on his family, while Jayden had nobody.”  But it didn’t magically erase the hurt Sven felt and that seemed realistic.  It’s an interesting take on a “mail-order bride” sort of story.

The cover by LC Chase, showing Sven and Jayden, is pretty simple but fits the story.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing  | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook
Published January 14th 2019 by Riptide Publishing
Original Title Perfect Match
ISBN 139781626498495
Edition Language English

In the Spotlight Tour and Giveaway: Perfect Match by AG Meiers

Perfect Match by A.G. Meiers

Riptide Publishing
Cover Art:  LC Chase

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing

About Perfect Match

Secrets can derail even the most powerful attraction.

Logger Sven Larson has never found a man worth publicly coming out of the closet for. But his family has other plans. As a thirtieth birthday gift, his mother hires the online dating service Perfect Match to find Sven the love of his life. To say Sven isn’t thrilled is an understatement, but it’s too late to cancel, and Jayden Calver arrives.

Perfect Match’s success rate is unsurpassed, but they don’t come by it honestly: if a client can’t be matched, the agency uses a stand-in to fulfil their guarantee and protect their profit.

Tough luck has left Jayden in debt, and playing Perfect Match’s deceptive game is his only option. So he travels — sparkling toenails and all — to a remote camp deep in the mountains to meet Sven Larson and pretend to be his perfect match for a few days.

Sparks fly on first contact. But as the two men get closer, Sven grows more and more suspicious of Jayden, and Jayden struggles with guilt over his deceit. They both want a future together, but first they must find the courage to be honest with themselves and each other.

Now available from Riptide Publishing!


About AG Meiers

Eighteen years ago, AG Meiers came to the US for adventure and stayed for love. Currently, she lives in New England with her husband and two awesome kids—balancing work, friends and family, and writing.

When she has some free time, her favorite thing to do is travel and visit new places. Her past trips have already brought her to a variety of countries on four continents. She never passes up an opportunity to experience different cultures, diverse people and amazing locations.

Even though she has been dreaming up stories all her life, she has only recently started to write them down and share them with the world. As a writer she loves to put her characters through a lot of challenges, conflict and heartbreak, before she allows them to find their happy-ever-after.

Connect with AG Meiers:

 


Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Perfect Match  one lucky person will win a $20 Riptide Publishing gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on January 18, 2019. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

An Alisa Audio Review: Going Overboard (Anchor Point #5) by L.A. Witt and Nick J. Russo (Narrator)

Rating:  4 stars out of 5

 

It turns out love and sex come easy when you’re falling for your best friend.

 

Second-class petty officers Dalton Taylor and Chris Ingram have been best friends since coxswain’s school. Now they’re stationed together in the Harbor Patrol Unit of NAS Adams. They’re content as friends, but secretly, they both ache for more. Neither makes a move, though; while Dalton is out and proud, Chris is closeted—even from his best friend.

 

Then another coxswain’s negligence nearly drowns Dalton. After a taste of how easily they could lose each other, neither man can keep his feelings hidden anymore, and it turns out love and sex come easy when you’re falling for your best friend.

 

Things aren’t just heating up between the friends-turned-lovers, though. The Navy is investigating the accident, and the Harbor Patrol chief isn’t going to let his star coxswain go down for dereliction of duty, even if saving him means throwing Dalton under the bus.

 

As the threats and gaslighting pile up, Chris and Dalton need each other more than ever—as shipmates, friends, and lovers. But if their chief prevails, the only way they can save their careers is to let each other go.

 

This was another nice story in this series.  Dalton is struggling to keep his feelings for his best friend hidden but when he is injured Chris steps up to help him.  Chris has kept his preferences to himself for so long but when the very real possibility of losing Dalton comes up he jumps in with both feet.

 

I really liked both of these guys and how easily they took to a relationship, but that is what can happen when you have been best friends for so long.  I could see their frustration and worry with how the accident was being handled and how the chief was treating Dalton.  I felt for Dalton when he was feeling down about his feelings for Chris and then his frustration when he had trouble getting back to normal after the accident.  I loved Chris’s endless support for Dalton and how all he wants is for him to be happy and alive.

 

It was so nice to listen to Nick Russo narrating this story as it’s been quite a while since I have had one of his stories and he did a wonderful job.  He continues to portray the characters’ emotions and it makes it easy to connect with them.  The different voices he used for the characters helped me keep up with what was going on and get an idea of the characters personality some more.

 

I like the cover art by LC Chase and it continues follow the pattern for the series.

 

Sales Links:  Audible | Amazon | iTunes

 

Audiobook Details:

Audiobook, 7 hrs 30 min
Published: November 8, 2018 by Riptide
Edition Language: English

Series: Anchor Point #5

ReplyForward

An Alisa Review: Vampire with Benefits (Supernatural Selection #2) by E.J. Russell

Rating:  4 stars out of 5

 

A match between a vampire and shifter could be deadly—but this broken beaver doesn’t give a dam.

 

Silent film actor Casimir Moreau had imagined that life as a vampire would be freewheeling and glamorous. Instead, he’s plunged into a restrictive society whose rules he runs afoul of at every turn. To “rehabilitate” him, the vampire council orders him mated to an incubus with impeccable breeding who’ll mold Cas into the upstanding vampire he ought to be. Or else.

 

As an inactive beaver shifter, construction engineer Rusty Johnson has fought—and overcome—bias and disrespect his entire life. But when his longtime boyfriend leaves him for political reasons, Rusty is ready to call it a day. Next stop? Supernatural Selection and his guaranteed perfect mate, a bear shifter living far away from Rusty’s disapproving clan.

 

But then a spell snafu at Supernatural Selection robs both men of their intended husbands. Rusty can’t face returning to his clan, and Cas needs somebody on his arm to keep the council happy, so they agree to pretend to be married. Nobody needs to know their relationship is fake—especially since it’s starting to feel suspiciously like the real thing.

 

This is another great story in this series, with a very interesting turn.  Cas is dreading his sentence of being married to who the council has chosen and jumps at the chance to throw it back in their faces.  Rusty just wants someone to actually care about him and basically not be a jerk, he isn’t expecting much just to get away from his ex.

 

This story is taking place at the same time as the first book which was interesting.  Cas and Rusty work together from the beginning and grow closer over time.  When they discover how Rusty could help Cas get his life back and help fix something from Cas’s past they jump right in.

 

I easily connected with Rusty, he has always been the outcast and never expects more than that but he is so caring and fierce at the same time.  Cas took a bit to grow on me, but once he stopped trying to defy everything it’s easy to see that he isn’t happy and deeply regrets even becoming a vampire but he would never have gotten to meet Rusty.  I loved the connection these two have and the twist at the end to get a happily ever after was great.

 

Cover art by LC Chase is adorable and I love the style an how it matches the first book too.

 

Sales Links: Riptide Publishing | Amazon | B&N

 

Book Details:

ebook, 300 pages

Published: November 26, 2018 by Riptide Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-62649-856-3

Edition Language: English

Series: Supernatural Selection #2