Book Review: The Hot Corner

Katie June 27, 2014 0 Comments

I’ve been pretty happy with the abundance of romance novels that have a baseball theme lately, which is obviously why I chose to read The Hot Corner. The story seemed incredibly predictable from the beginning – Dani Young is an author and has been writing biographies of famous athletes. She’s recently broken up with her fiance and her publisher tells her that All-Star 3rd baseman Brad Reynolds has asked for her specifically to write his biography.  Sounds great, right?  Well, it would be – if the two hadn’t dated in college and Dani broke up with him because she thought he was a liar and a cheat.

However, she agrees to write the book (and the large monetary advance probably doesn’t hurt either).  From the beginning we can tell that Brad wants Dani again – and that Dani is trying everything in her power to have that not happen. But it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to end up together.  Then there’s the “twist” that Dani is convinced that Brad had cheated on her with his best friend Bailey – she saw them together at the hotel when she flew in to surprise Brad 7 years ago.  They told each other that they loved each other and then they kissed.  How could it be anything other than that?  But when Brad explains his side of the story – things start to fall apart between them.

Now that Brad knows that there was a time when Dani didn’t trust him, could he be with her again with that in the back of his mind?

While I did end up liking the book in the end, it was very predictable at parts and other parts of the story seemed to drag on a bit.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write my review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Professionally, Danielle Pierce is making a name for herself writing biographies of famous athletes. Her star is on the rise, and her publisher is pleased. Her personal life isn’t going as swimmingly, and she’s recently back on the market after calling off her engagement to Mr. Perfect-On-Paper, not that she’s looking for anyone special. Her career is her focus and it keeps her content.

Her agent and publisher throw her a curveball she never saw coming when she’s assigned to cover the hottest baseball player—on and off the field—Bradley Reynolds. Brad, the Dodgers’ third baseman, spends as much time on the covers of tabloids as on the sports pages, dating models and actresses, each one more beautiful than the last. But he doesn’t let them distract him from his need to excel on the field. Baseball comes first, and it always has, ever since the love of his life walked away from him years ago. Danielle Pierce had been the only woman who ever mattered to him, the only one who ever would.
Dani never thought she’d have to see Brad in person again, let alone spend weeks with him writing his biography. He broke her heart in college, and she’d never risked it since. Seven years later he selects her to write the story of his life, and she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she refuses, she looks like a coward. If she gives in, he wins. Can she be around him without falling for his Southern charm and deadly looks again? Can she show him that he didn’t break her? She doesn’t know what his game is, but she hopes she’s strong enough this time to play without getting burned.

Book Review: The World Series

Katie June 27, 2014 0 Comments

This is a nice short book that explains the history of The World Series with some great photos from past games.  It is only about 60 pages though it is full with a lot of great information – and a lot of even greater photos!  It also has a lot of great information on the history of the sport in general, not just the world series, like why there are leagues and when they were split. (There’s even a bit on the Rockford Peaches – a team you may recognize if you’ve seen the movie A League of their Own!) Another chapter is all about the greatest world series games ever played. A lot of really exciting moments are recapped in this chapter! Chapter 3 is all about those that come up BIG in the big games! World Series MVPs.  Chapter 4 is all about those memorable moments in the World Series – you know, like the bloody sock!  (And Bill Buckner!)  And then the book ends with the future of the World Series. Playoffs keep getting expanded- and a lot of people have some thoughts on that. What might the World Series look like 30 years from now?

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review.

About the Book

World Series each season, team legacies and fans’ hearts are on the line. Author Matt Doeden covers the century-long history of the World Series, from its humble beginnings to becoming a worldwide sensation. Discover the drama behind the statistics and record books that keeps the crowd enthralled!

Book Review: Perfect 10

Katie June 27, 2014 0 Comments

Perfect 10 is a Cosmo Red Hot Read from Harlequin which means that it is a better written short romance book and currently the only romance novels I am considering reading after reading several flops.  In Perfect 10, Katrina is in the middle of a social media disaster when her phone somehow connects her BootyBook app with her other online profiles.  BootyBook is an app where you rank your sexual conquests – and now everyone can see who she dated and what she thought of them.  Her phone is going nuts with all sorts of angry text messages – but one message stands out above the rest.  This message came from one of the guys who was the Perfect 10 – Drew.  They hooked up one night and it ruined their friendship.  Katrina hopes that maybe they can be friends again – but will it be different now that she ranked him as magnificent?

The two end up hanging out again and then end up getting together again.  Maybe this social media disaster didn’t turn out to be such a disaster after all?

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review.  I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Katrina’s Lesson in Social Media Disasters
or How Technology Can Bite You in the A**

Katrina Phillips is an expert social media manager. But that doesn’t mean she can’t make mistakes. Horrible, hide-in-your-closet-forever mistakes…like accidentally syncing her BootyBook app with her online profiles.

Blammo. Now everyone in the world can see who Katrina has dated and how they rated in appearance, sexual performance and (OMG) detailed descriptions of their manly parts! Now her phone is blowing up with angry exes—and an out-of-the-blue text from the only guy who came close to a perfect score….

Katrina has had a thing for Drew Jordan since forever ago, even if a booze-fuelled one-nighter did destroy their friendship. So why is he suddenly texting her now—and is it because she rated his Sexy Staff of Manliness as “magnificent?” Now the only way to satisfy her curiosity is to reunite with Drew…and rate him all over again!

Book Review: Lorde: Your Heroine

Katie June 27, 2014 0 Comments

I didn’t know much about Lorde. I know she’s young. I know she has a couple of completely overplayed songs on the radio. That’s about it. So when I saw there was a biography out about her, I was interested to read it to see what I could find out. Now I know her real name is Ella Maria Lani Yelich O’Connor (I can see now why she shortened it!) and that she is quite a smart kid. While it seems that Lorde may have been somewhat of an overnight success, she had been working for a few years before hitting it big, trying to write songs.  Although she seems to have a bit of an attitude about her that she knew it wouldn’t work out and then magically it didn’t work out. (Funny how that happens?)  Though after returning to school she ended up meeting a song writer that she actually clicked with.

Fun fact – the title of the song Royals came from a photo she saw of a member of the Royals baseball team signing baseballs in a magazine.

I certainly learned a lot about Lorde and how she became Lorde and a household name.  How her boyfriend is 7 yrs older than her and how in the beginning she had trouble taking criticism about him. She is also very involved with what has her name attached to it and will shoot down ideas she thinks are “corny”, which I can’t blame her for.

This book is short, only 85 pages, but I imagine a few years down the line it will be much, much longer with more details of her career as she gets older.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review.  I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Lorde is the voice of her generation, a head-strong, determined young woman who knows what she wants and has known how she was going to get it form an early age.

She’s a renowned feminist, a performer with a minimalist/Goth/Electropop style that is as haunting as it is incredibly enticing and thought provoking.

She’s won two Grammys for her song ‘Royals,’ has captivated audiences all over the world. But guess what? She still lives at home, she still does the dishes and she still goes to school. Quite an accomplishment for a woman who just turned 17.

Marc Shapiro is the NY Times best-selling author of We Love Jenni – An Unauthorized Biography, The Secret Life of EL James, Who is Katie Holmes? – An Unauthorized Biography, Legally Bieber: Justin Bieber at 18, J.K.Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter, Justin Bieber: The Fever!, Game: The Resurrection of Tim Tebow and many other best-selling celebrity biographies. He is a free-lance entertainment journalist covering film, television, and music for a number of national and international newspapers and magazines.

Book Review: Saving Gracie

Katie June 25, 2014 0 Comments

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Saving Gracie is a murder mystery at its core – but there are a lot of other sub-plots going on as well with the characters in this small town in New Hampshire.  The main character is Gracie – she may be crazy and is on several medications.  The book begins with her losing a child after giving birth to it.  We then fast forward 52 years.  Gracie is being visited by a red-headed ghost.  She thinks that she sees her head in the lake – but it turns out to be just a purse.  She brings it to the police and tells them what the ghost is telling her – someone is going to die tonight.  The police kind of shrug her off – she is known for being crazy after all – but figure maybe they should believe her when a body is found in the pond.

Things get all sorts of crazy from there as the local officer and the Staties try to figure out just who it was that killed this man and why.  The local officer, Marcel, realizes that maybe these people that he thought he knew his whole life, he doesn’t really know at all.

At first, it took some time for me to get in to this book. I actually fell asleep after reading the first 2 chapters.  But I looked on GoodReads after that and saw that many, many of the reviews were 5 stars so I figured I should try to stick it out and finish it.  And I’m glad I did! Although things got off to a rough start for me, once the story started unfolding I found it hard to put the book down. (Although I did take another break to sleep for the night after getting 2/3 of the way through, I didn’t want to, but it was already 3am and I needed to!)  This is why I always try to continue through books even if they don’t catch my attention in the beginning – I think the fact that the book was 300+ pages was putting me off – although once I got into things it flew by and didn’t seem like that many pages at all.

There were a lot of characters in town, but I didn’t have trouble keeping track of who was who because they all had their little quirks and connections to each other to help me keep track of them all.  I did have trouble keeping track of who was good and who was bad – but I’m pretty sure I was not the only one with that problem! (I won’t say more because I don’t want to give anything away!)

If you are looking for a great murder-mystery with some romance and drama mixed in for good measure – than Saving Gracie is the book for you!

About the Book
Saving Gracie is a small-town murder mystery with plenty of humor, a touch of romance, a hint of paranormal, and enough suspense to raise your heart rate.

When Gracie is accosted by a redheaded ghost, Officer Marcel Trudeau assumes the old gal is hallucinating. Again. But to Gracie the dead girl is real, and her message is urgent—someone will die tonight.

Sure enough, a body surfaces in Echo Pond, and the town of Coyne Falls plunges into chaos. In the furor that follows, the victim’s widow jumps out a window, a dead man sends text messages, a missing person is duct taped to a toilet, and a beagle runs howling into the night.

Meanwhile, the ghost sends Gracie on a mission: “follow the beagle” to save a life.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.