I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Call on Me by Roni Loren, a fun erotic romance featuring a lot of phone sex and a rock star.
Tag: Disability (Page 3 of 3)
Why I read it: This was recommended by Jane from Dear Author so I bought it.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) The sport she loves is out of reach. The boy she loves has someone else.
What now?
She expected to start Harkness College as a varsity ice hockey player. But a serious accident means that Corey Callahan will start school in a wheelchair instead.
Across the hall, in the other handicapped-accessible dorm room, lives the too-delicious-to-be real Adam Hartley, another would-be hockey star with his leg broken in two places. He’s way out of Corey’s league.
Also, he’s taken.
Nevertheless, an unlikely alliance blooms between Corey and Hartley in the “gimp ghetto” of McHerrin Hall. Over tequila, perilously balanced dining hall trays, and video games, the two cope with disappointments that nobody else understands.
They’re just friends, of course, until one night when things fall apart. Or fall together. All Corey knows is that she’s falling. Hard.
But will Hartley set aside his trophy girl to love someone as broken as Corey? If he won’t, she will need to find the courage to make a life for herself at Harkness — one which does not revolve around the sport she can no longer play, or the brown-eyed boy who’s afraid to love her back.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): Okay, this one grabbed me from the start and made me stay up too late last night finishing. I’d say it’s a fairly low conflict story even though each main protagonist has plenty of “shit to shovel”. Corey and Hartley become friends quickly and that friendship builds and grows over time. Corey basically falls in love with him but they are just friends because Hartley is taken. His extremely high maintenance girlfriend is studying abroad for a few months. So there is chemistry and some light flirtation which neither acknowledges as flirtation because he’s taken, and a very slow build to the romance.
I’m at Dear Author today with a review of Hold on Tight by Serena Bell. It’s a contemporary secret baby book – and it works. Promise.
Why I read it: My Goodreads feed was buzzing so I bought it.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) The diagnosis of a chronic stomach condition leaves thirty-two-year-old Sergeant Jed Cooper with little choice but to call time on his Army career. Then on the dusty streets of Kirkuk, an ambush gone tragically wrong decimates his team, and he returns to the US with a shattered leg and the memory of his best friend dying in his arms.
Life in his sleepy hometown proves intolerable until he finds solace in a lakeside cabin with vivacious young carpenter, Max O’Dair. In the shadow of the epilepsy that periodically plagues Max, he and Jed form an unspoken bond. After a late night episode, Jed realizes how much Max means to him, and life has taught him not to waste time.
But the lines between contentment and complacency are blurred. Things left hidden resurface to tear through their world, and before they can repair the damage, death comes to call again. Faces, past and present, rally around them to weather the storm, but before long, they are left with only love.
What worked for me (and what didn’t): I liked this book quite a bit but I have to say it doesn’t have the usual romance structure. Or, at least, the structure I expect anyways.
Jed Cooper returns to Ashton, Oregon after being medically discharged from the Army. He suffered some severe burns to his left shoulder and a serious wound and break to his left leg (multiple surgeries and pins in his femur) in a mortar and air attack while on convoy in northern Iraq (circa 2006). Those injuries were so severe he was shipped stateside and he was in hospital for months. They are the obvious injuries. But he also has a condition called gastroparesis. It is a paralysis of the vagus nerve which controls the stomach and means that the stomach doesn’t move food on into the small intestine in the timely manner it should. It causes abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, anemia (iron is much harder to absorb through food) and is a lifelong incurable condition. Eating is difficult and it can obviously be a very debilitating condition. Jed, being the person he is, doesn’t tell anyone about the gastroparesis. He’s a man used to being relied upon, not one to rely upon others.
Why I read it: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Gifts of Honor releases on November 21.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) I’ll be home for Christmas…
A batch of special Christmas cookies helps a wounded ex-Ranger remember the love of his life. A surprise phone call reunites a woman with the soldier who once broke her heart. There’s no place like home for the holidays, and there’s no better way to spend them than with the one you love.
Starting from Scratch
Christmas is the perfect time to start from scratch
Lieutenant Sully Jax saved his unit during an IED attack, but he couldn’t save his marriage. He can’t even remember it. Recovered from his injuries, he’s come home to the family and friends he knows—and an ex-wife who’s a stranger to him.
Lucy Crabtree was heartbroken last Christmas when Sully announced his plan to go on one last tour of duty, and devastated when he asked for a divorce after he awoke in the hospital with no memory of her. She’s finally moving on from her hurt and from losing the man she loved more than anything, and her cookie-baking business is taking off just in time for the holidays. But now Sully’s back, and she can’t deny she still loves him. But how can she trust her heart to someone who breaks it every time she sees him?
Sully might not remember Lucy, but something inside won’t let her go. With every bite of her cookies, he finds a new love for Lucy, and he soon realizes he wants to rebuild his life with her by his side.
Hero’s Homecoming
Six months ago, being snowed in at Christmas with the amazing woman he met on R & R at Fort Riley would have been a dream come true, yet now, as a blizzard swirls outside Beth Tate’s house, Captain Chris Walker knows he shouldn’t be there. Blinded in combat and emotionally scarred, he never wanted Beth to know the man he’s become—but stranded by the storm, he had no one else to call.
Hurt and bewildered when Chris abruptly ended his faithful contact from Afghanistan, Beth tried to put him and their whirlwind romance out of her mind and prepared for a quiet holiday alone—until the phone rang. Now that he’s here, she’s more confused than ever, torn between love for the man she once knew and anger at the one who broke her heart.
A life with Beth was everything Chris wanted, but the wounds of battle are nothing compared to the agony of heartbreak. It will take more than mistletoe, but perhaps this holiday season Chris will find his way home.
What worked for me (and what didn’t):
Starting from Scratch by Stacy Gail
I do like second chance at love stories and I think they often work well in a novella, as I can more easily accept a HEA when the characters know each other already. Except… – well Lucy knows Sullivan but Sullivan can’t remember Lucy. After he woke up in hospital Stateside to a woman at his bedside he didn’t recognise and didn’t remember, Sullivan asked Lucy for a divorce, thinking to release her from a marriage of strangers. When the story begins, Sullivan has been released from hospital/rehabilitation and has returned home to Bitterthorn Texas, where Lucy works in a local bakery. Lucy has always and still loves Jax but she is crushed that he cannot remember her – in fact, it seems that she is the only one he doesn’t remember. The previous Christmas relations were very strained between them, as Sullivan had re-enlisted for another year without discussing it with his wife (which is a SHITTY thing to do). This Christmas, it’s even harder for Lucy because Sullivan is back home safe, but she’s lost the love of her life nonetheless. Even though Sullivan can’t remember Lucy, he is nevertheless drawn to her and he has an inexplicable craving for cookies.
Why I read it: Jane from Dear Author told me about this one and that she thought I would like it (she was right). So I begged asked the publicist for a review copy. Lucky for me, she said yes.
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Cami Broussard has her future all figured out. She’ll finish her senior year of high school, then go to work full-time as an apprentice chef in her father’s French restaurant, alongside her boyfriend, Luke. But then twenty-year-old ex-Marine Julian Wyatt comes to live with Cami’s family while recovering from serious injuries. And suddenly Cami finds herself questioning everything she thought she wanted.
Julian’s all attitude, challenges and intense green-brown eyes. But beneath that abrasive exterior is a man who just might be as lost as Cami’s starting to feel. And Cami can’t stop thinking about him. Talking to him. Wanting to kiss him. He’s got her seriously stirred up. Her senior year has just gotten a lot more complicated….
What worked for me (and what didn’t): Stir Me Up covers Cami Broussard’s senior year of high school. Just about to turn 18, her French chef father is pressuring her to go to college after she graduates. Cami wants to be a chef but her father thinks that job takes too much away from family time and wants her to have another option to fall back on should (okay, when) she get[s] married and have/has children. Cami’s father didn’t have the opportunity to go to college and it is clear he feels regret about not being around for her more.
Cami wants to cook. She’s been working in her father’s restaurant since she was 10 years old. She doesn’t need to go to cooking school and going to college won’t get her where she wants to go. For all, that Cami isn’t exactly sure what kind of chef she wants to be. She doesn’t want to work in her father’s restaurant for the rest of her life; she knows she wants to cook, but beyond that? Well, she’s got some things to work out, assuming she can convince her father she’s not going to college.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
