Category: Novella

Taming A Christmas Wallflower by Tammy Andresen

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Novella, Regency Era (1811-1820)3 Comments

Taming a Christmas Wallflower (Taming the Duke's Heart Book 7)Taming a Christmas Wallflower by Tammy Andresen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: Taming the Heart #7
Publication Date: 12/4/18
Number of Pages: 90

This is a delightfully romantic short novella. The story is excellently told. Being a short novella, you might think that you’d feel as if you were missing a part of the story, but you don’t. You feel as if you get to know the characters and can understand their connection. We actually got a romance and a half, so I’m hoping that we get the other half in a later novella. Otherwise, I’ll be sad to have missed it.

Lady Amelia Chase is a wallflower because she is very shy and very, very intelligent. She spends her time reading books and she tends to quote facts from those books when she is nervous in a social situation. When she does that, eyes glass over, people glance around and soon find an excuse to leave her company. So, she is happy to spend her time against the wall conversing with her friend, Lady Ethel Stark, who has a physical deformity from a childhood illness. Both ladies are lovely, well dowered and they come from excellent titled families – yet, nobody seeks them out.

William Maddox is the oldest son of a very wealthy shipping company owner. He hadn’t been thinking of marriage, but he has been thinking that some of his activities and friendships need to change since they are getting stale – particularly his friendship with Lord Riley. He might even have to re-think his friendship with Michael Wayne unless his attitude changed.

Will and Michael are attending a house party near Will’s country estate for some Christmastide entertainment. Will let himself get suckered into a bet with their friend Lord Riley and regretted it as soon as it happened. However, it was done and he’d keep his word – at least he thought he would before he met the lovely Lady Amelia. The bet was to manage to get a kiss from either Amelia or Ethel.

Will is immediately drawn to Amelia and Michael is drawn to Ethel. As Will and Michael spend time with the ladies, they find that they want more than just winning a bet. Will the bet come back to haunt them? Can they court and win the ladies of their choice? It is a really delightful and romantic read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but, as always, it is filled with errors of one sort or another. The author also uses a monetary (or other) term that I just don’t understand. The wager was for one thousand galleons. What is that? Surely it isn’t a wager for ships – that would surely be a whopper of a bet. So, is it some kind of money? I don’t know, but it just jarred me a bit every time I read the word.

I hope you will enjoy the story.

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“I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”

Tied Up In A Bow by Sheila Connolly

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, Mystery, Novella3 Comments

Tied Up In A Bow(A County Cork Novella #1)Tied Up In A Bow by Sheila Connolly

Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: A County Cork Novella #1
Publication Date: 11/29/18

The ‘Thing’ and Christmas are both arriving in Leap, County Cork, Ireland and they are bringing a mystery and some suspense with them. This lovely, well-written, well-plotted novella goes along with the County Cork Mysteries series. It nicely whets our appetite for the next full-length novel, The Lost Traveller, that releases in January.

Maura Donovan, the owner of Sullivan’s, a pub in the small Irish village of Leap, is mystified by the construction going on across the street. When they discover that what is being constructed, Maura calls it the ‘thing’, is a secret and will be revealed in a ceremony the following Sunday, the crew at Sullivan’s decide to have a drawing to see if anyone can guess what it is. They’ll charge one euro per entry and then they’ll donate the proceeds to a worthy cause.

In the midst of all the guessing about what the ‘thing’ will be and collecting those guesses, Maura notices a small boy sitting on the bench outside her pub. She goes out and sits beside him and learns that he and his mother are new to Leap and that his name is Danny. Since it is much too cold for Danny to be sitting outside, Maura brings him a cup of hot chocolate. She can’t bring a small boy inside the pub, so she sits and visits for a while. When she returns inside, she is convinced that there is a big mystery about Danny and his mom. There is trouble there somewhere.

As Maura learns more about Danny and his mother, that trouble arrives in Leap and it’s looking for Danny and Hannah. All of the folks in Leap band together to help them. We have lovely visits with our favorite Garda, Sean Murphy, our young and lovely aspiring chef Rose, Maura’s love interest Mick, and the ever-present Seamus who is thinking he’s just having too much fun with this mystery.

Please check out my reviews at:
Blog: https://flippinpages.blog/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/flippinpages…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlippinPagesRev
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BarbBookReview

“I requested and received this e-book at no cost to me and volunteered to read it; my review is my honest opinion and given without any influence by the author or publisher.”