The Dating Charade
The Dating Charade by Melissa Ferguson is $2.99! This is more fiction with romantic elements, as reviews say the main characters’ storylines deal heavily with being caretakers. It’s also an inspie, if I believe. Have you read this one?
Just when you think you’ve met your match . . . the charade begins.
Cassie Everson is an expert at escaping bad first dates. And, after years of meeting, greeting, and running from the men who try to woo her, Cassie is almost ready to retire her hopes for a husband—and children—altogether.
But fate has other plans, and Cassie’s online dating profile catches the eye of firefighter Jett Bentley. In Jett’s memory, Cassie Everson is the unreachable girl-of-legend from their high school days. Nervously, he messages her, setting off a chain of events that forces a reluctant Cassie back into the dating game.
No one is more surprised than Cassie when her first date with Jett is a knockout. But when they both go home and find three children dropped in their laps—each—they independently decide to do the right and mature thing: hide the kids from each other while sorting it all out. What could go wrong?
Melissa Ferguson’s hilarious and warmhearted debut reminds us that love can come in very small packages—and that sometimes our best-laid plans aren’t nearly as rewarding and fun as the surprises that come our way.
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The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley is $2.99 and part of today’s Kindle Daily Deals! Guest reviewer Malin gave it a B+:
It’s a big book, which takes its time to reveal all its secrets, and I especially loved the sections set in St. Petersburg, which I was lucky enough to visit about five years back. This book really made me want to return.
Two Women.
One Mysterious Relic.
Separated By Centuries.Nicola Marter was born with a gift so rare and dangerous, she kept it buried deep. When she encounters a desperate woman trying to sell a small wooden carving called “The Firebird,” claiming it belonged to Russia’s Empress Catherine, it’s a problem. There’s no proof.
But Nicola’s held the object. She knows the woman is telling the truth.
Beloved by readers as varied and adventurous as her novels, you will never forget spending time in New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Susanna Kearsley’s world.
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Mistletoe on Main Street by Olivia Miles is $1.99! This is a small town second chance romance set around the holidays. It’s also the first book in the Briar Creek series. Readers say this is a great slow burn romance. However, others didn’t really get the reasoning behind the hero and heroine not getting together. Have you read this one?
Sleigh bells, snow, and second chances . . .
Briar Creek’s quaint shop windows, cozy homes nestled in snow, and neighborly residents are what Christmas dreams are made of–for everyone except Grace Madison. She left her hometown years ago to pursue a writing career. But when her father’s death leaves his bookstore empty, Grace must return to face why she fled Vermont in the first place: Luke Hastings, who still heats her up like a shot of smoky whiskey on a cold winter’s night.
Grace is back, and Luke is worried. How much has she changed as a bestselling author in the big city? What memories will she stir up? And was the choice he made five years ago the biggest mistake of his life?
Now, with their past, present, and future rocking around the Christmas tree, it’s time for Grace and Luke to face the music . . . and the mistletoe.
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The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly is $1.99 at Amazon! This is a fantasy novel first published in 1982 about a medieval scholar pulled into a fantasy world. I’m very curious about the setup, though I’m worried it could feel a little dated. The original cover is a riot, with a grizzled, old wizard just chillaxing in a messy kitchen.
A California medieval scholar is pulled into a far-off magical world—and a fight to save mankind—in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author.
As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows well the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams. She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat. Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil’s world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
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I’ve read almost everything Hambly’s written, a lot of it multiple times. The Time of the Dark has a place in my heart, but it is her first work.
My go-to starter-Hambly is the standalone Bride of the Rat God, which is also $1.99 right now.
Description
It is 1923, and silent film reigns in Hollywood. Of all the starlets, none is more beloved than Chrysanda Flamande, a diva as brilliant as she is difficult to manage. Handling her falls to Norah, widow of Chrysanda’s dead brother. She has always done her job well, but she was never equipped to deal with murder. When a violent killing shocks Chrysanda’s entourage, and other weird happenings swiftly follow, Norah begins to suspect that some strange power is stalking the star. In Chinatown she receives warning that a curse has been placed on the actress as vengeance for wearing a sacred amulet in one of her films — and this curse could mean death for all who surround her.
Except a lot funnier than that sounds, with bonus dogs and great period details. There’s a bit of content that’s of its writing-time, but not a lot, and of its time more than ugh-hard-nope.
A couple of comments:
1. Hambly isn’t a romance writer but she does have some quirky romances in her books. For instance, she used a Star Trek tie-in novel to write a happy ending for all the characters from the 70s TV show Here Come the Brides, including the show’s villain who turns out to be Spock’s ancestor. I believe in the series that The Time of the Dark is based on that the grizzled old wizard becomes the heroine’s love interest!
2. The Dating Charade evidently has two sets of three homeless waifs that the hero and heroine care for and hide from the other? That’s definitely an unique plot! I wonder if it ends with the couple adopting six children.
Oh wow, Hambly set me on my path of being a life-long fantasy reader. My first book of hers was Stranger at the Wedding, but I read Time of the Dark not long after — it was always pretty easy to find her books at the used bookstore or thrift store, a big boon when you are a broke teenager trying to get your parents to feed your reading habits 😉 I can picture the original Time of the Dark cover in my mind, even though it’s been a good 25+ years since I read it.
I loved Hambly back in the 1990s. I sold a lot of my books when I moved to the UK and I think she was one of the casualties. This book looks like the one I really liked! I am definitely gping to check it out
The Firebird is lovely too. The hero was a little boy who plays a pivotal role in the Shadowy horses and it’s nice to see him all grown up and definitely swoonworthy.
Back in the 1980’s my teen self loved the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman Beauty & the Beast but this being 1980’s Ireland and the fact it was airing on a UK channel (which we did get here), if I didn’t record them on VHS on a Friday evening, I didn’t get to see the episodes. Imagine my delight when I discovered that Barbara Hambly had written a novelisation of the first few episodes. I had to order it specially from the local bookstore who had to order it from the UK and it was a BIG DEAL. And I read it and devoured it. So I have a soft spot for Barbara Hambly since then. (Novelisations of TV shows such as Robin of Sherwood and other UK serials were my DVD boxsets back in the day. I still have them, I could never give them away).
That was a quick-ending sale for The Time of the Dark. It’s showing up as $7.99 for me. (I’m pretty sure I have all of these upstairs in paper copies, but I would happily rebuy them on sale for my kindle to reduce my bookcase needs.). My favorites were the books with Antryg— The Silent Tower, The Silicon Mage, and the third one with the brown star in it (can’t recall the name; it’s upstairs somewhere). I’m pretty sure I have all of the various Antryg and Joanna novellas and short stories as well.
I also liked her vampire books, too, though my general exhaustion with all things vampire is affecting my ability to read the more recent ones. I’m not a fan of the sequels to Dragonsbane. I understand why they’re the way they are, but they didn’t work for me.
@WS, it’s Dog Wizard. Love that trilogy. I have them all in ancient paperback. Antryg looks like Fabio on the cover of Dog Wizard. It’s hilarious.
I really enjoyed Hambly, and was horribly disappointed to discover she bans fanfic and filk about her worlds and characters…. I was so disillusioned, I just stopped reading her.
That is interesting to see, @Bea. My favorite of her books is Ishmael which @Ms. M alluded to above. It’s a Star Trek novel so approved fan fiction.
@Ms. M – My junior high self can not wait to read Ishmael. I found a copy on eBay! I was the biggest fan of “Here Come the Brides” and hope to see Jeremy & Candy find their HEA in this book. It makes total sense that Aaron Stempel is Spock’s ancestor. And Robert Brown (who placed Jason Bolt) was also in an episode of Star Trek.