Someone Else's Love Story is Joshilyn Jackson's newest novel, and it's $2.99 all over the place. Jackson is a tremendously talented writer, and a few of you really enjoyed this book the last time it was on sale. But be warned: judging from some of the reviews, I want to add a trigger warning for assault that doesn't seem to be hinted at in the cover copy.
At twenty-one, Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Natty, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced Catholic mother and Jewish father. She’s got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up in a gas station mini-mart and falling in love with a great wall of a man named William Ashe, who willingly steps between the armed robber and her son.
Shandi doesn’t know that her blond god Thor has his own complications. When he looked down the barrel of that gun he believed it was destiny: It’s been one year to the day since a tragic act of physics shattered his universe. But William doesn’t define destiny the way other people do. A brilliant geneticist who believes in science and numbers, destiny to him is about choice.
Now, he and Shandi are about to meet their so-called destinies head on, in a funny, charming, and poignant novel about science and miracles, secrets and truths, faith and forgiveness,; about a virgin birth, a sacrifice, and a resurrection; about falling in love, and learning that things aren’t always what they seem—or what we hope they will be. It’s a novel about discovering what we want and ultimately finding what we need.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo
The Beach House by Georgia Bockoven is $1.99 right now. Is it a law that the best method of communicating that a book is contemporary fiction featuring women is to put a pair of flip flops on the cover? It's like the opposite of steampunk – no gears. Just flip flops.
Anyway. This book was originally published in 1997 with a much less visually interesting cover, and has a 3.5 average on GR. Some readers really love the emotions of the interconnected stories of the different families, and others felt it was too contrived and cheezy.
Georgia Bockoven aims straight for the heart in a tale as timeless as waves beating against the shore. The beach house is a peaceful summer heaven, a place to escape mundane troubles. Here, four families find their feelings intensified and their lives transformed. With equal measures of heartbreak and happiness, this unforgettable story tells of the beauty of life and the power of love, and speaks to every woman who has ever clung to a child or loved a man.
When thirty-year-old Julia, mourning the death of her husband, decides to sell the Santa Cruz beach house they owned together, she changes the lives of all the families who rent it year after year. Teenaged Chris discovers the bittersweet joy of first love. Maggie and Joe, married sixty-five years, courageously face a separation that even their devotion cannot prevent. The married woman Peter yearns for suddenly comes within his reach. And Julia ultimately finds the strength to rebuild her life–something she once thought impossible.
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo
The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman is $1.99 at Amazon and BN right now. This is listed at GR as women's fiction/chick lit, and has a 3.7 average. This is about a woman beginning her life over again post-divorce, and is the third book in a series set in the town of Talyton St. George. The reviews indicate that it's very absorbing writing and character-driven.
Plus, this cover levels up with cartoon cupcakes – you can't have a contemporary starting-over story without someone interacting in some way with some sort of baked good, right? OF COURSE NOT.
If only everything in life was as simple as baking a cake…
Jennie Copeland thought she knew the recipe for a happy life: marriage to her university sweetheart, a nice house in the suburbs and three beautiful children.
But when her husband leaves her, she is forced to find a different recipe. And she thinks she's found just what she needs: a ramshackle house on the outskirts of the beautiful Talyton St George, a new cake-baking business, a dog, a horse, chickens…
But life in the country is not quite as idyllic as she'd hoped, and Jennie can't help wondering whether neighbouring farmer Guy Barnes was right when he told her she wouldn't last the year. Or perhaps the problem is that she's missing one vital ingredient to make her new life a success. Could Guy be the person to provide it?
Welcome to Last Chance by Hope Ramsay is $1.99. This is the first book in Ramsay's popular Last Chance series, about a small South Carolina town named…. yes, of course, Last Chance. This book has a 3.6 average, and readers who enjoyed it loved the charm of the setting and the characters, as well as the hurdles the hero and heroine face as they start their lives over.
Dear Reader,
Yes, our town is way off the beaten path, but strange, wonderful miracles happen a lot around here.
I've owned the Cut 'n' Curl beauty shop for years, and I've seen folks come for a visit, then stay for a lifetime. Take Jane-that pretty firecracker of a girl who just arrived in town. I would swear she's running from something. She came with only five dollars in her pocket but she's worked real hard to make a fresh start. She's turned my son Clay's life upside down without even realizing it.
And thank goodness for that! Ever since Clay left his country western band, he's played everything too safe. He needs to take a chance on Jane. Besides, the more he tries to keep his distance, the more he'll realize that he and Jane are singing the same tune.
But I should quit ramblin' and go check on Millie's permanent wave. Next time you're in Last Chance, be sure to swing by. We've got hot rollers, free coffee, and the best gossip in town.
See you real soon,
Ruby Rhodes
Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo
A note!
If you'd like, you can sign up for our weekly deals newsletter, in which I collect each week's ebook sales and deals by genre and send them out to interested readers. I only send the newsletter on Fridays, unless there's a superb one-day deal I think you might really like. I would not ever sell or share your info, not even for an unlimited book budget.
You can sign up here:
According to Hope Ramsey’s website, the chronological order of her Last Chance series is not the published order. It actually starts with “Last Chance Bride” and the “Welcome to Last Chance” is the 3 story in the series, but looks to be the first full length book.
RG Alexander announced that her newly released third installment of the Shifting Reality series, MY VAMPIRE IDOL, is 99 cents on Amazon (not sure if it’s a limited-time offer or not.)
Also, Heidi Belleau and Violetta Vane’s m/m historical MARK OF THE GLADIATOR is free on Amazon from now through St. Patrick’s Day.
“Is it – Did you make me a metaphor?”
I loved Someone Else’s Love Story. Totally warm in my tummy loved it. When you get to that line you’ll be warm in your tummy, too. And then:
“The radish is happy.”
Sigh, just, sigh.
Am I the only one who finds books marketed as “chick lit” to be mind-numbingly boring (with generally insipid heroines)?
FYI, the Kindle Deals for romance today are Kerrilyn Sparks’ vampire books.
Ooh, I bought the Joshilyn Jackson book. I loved A Grown-up Kind of Pretty and Gods in Alabama.
I too enjoyed Someone Else’s Love Story. It also had a definite twist I was not expecting but which made sense.