Ripe For Reader: November 2024

Monday, November 4, 2024

Release Blitz & Review - HIGH INTENSITY by Freya Barker

Title: High Intensity (High Mountain Trackers HMT 2G, #2)

Author: Freya Barker

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Release Date: November 4, 2024

Dog trainer and handler, Jillian Lederman, is moving with her pack to Libby, Montana, a place where she has made friends and hopes to find a fresh start. It’s time. For years, she’s just been keeping her wounds fresh by staying in Missoula—where there were regular reminders of all she’s lost—while the rest of the world has continued to move forward.

Perhaps the new house, the beautiful mountains, and a certain pair of clear, blue eyes hold the promise of new beginnings.

Since changing careers years ago, former FBI agent Lucas Wolff has found a much better work-life balance as a member of High Mountain Trackers. Still able to serve his community, he has also been carving out a comfortable existence for himself and is not looking to make any changes to it anytime soon. Not even for a particular bold and ballsy redhead he’s been trying to avoid.

That turns out to be an impossible feat when a plane crash during a blizzard sets both of them on the trail of a young girl, all alone in the mountains. But it soon becomes evident they are not the only ones looking, and staying safe means sticking close together.

AMAZON | APPLE BOOKS | NOOK | KOBO |

“Oh, Jillian, I’d like you to meet my son, Lucas.” I meet those pretty green eyes, now sparkling with amusement. Of course a dog named Peanut would belong to this woman. She named her cadaver dog, Emo, after all. Hell, I knew she recently moved to the area—Sloane mentioned it more than once—but I wasn’t expecting to run into her at my mother’s assisted-living home. That’s a little too close for comfort. “So you do have a first name; Lucas, huh?” “You already know each other?” Mom looks back and forth between us. “We do. How are you doing, Jillian?” She adjusts the small furball she’s holding in her arms. “Good, thanks.” I turn to my mother to explain, “Jillian and I met working on a search last summer.” Despite my immediate attempt to identify our connection as a professional one only, I see Mom’s mind already at work behind the gleam in her eyes. Great.

5 Stars

Ms Barker has outdone herself in this book. We get the same suspenseful story as we are taken to the mountains to look for any survivors of a horrific plane crash. But we get a strong mix of her soft side as we learn of Jillian's past and her healing after a tragedy, that draws her to the crash victim. Be ready to have your heart hurt while the story unfolds but don't stop looking over your shoulder.

Jillian and Wolff have met before and he felt a strong pull to her then but wasn't looking for any sort of relationship. But as the time goes on and he knows she is now there to stay in his town, he can't seem to fight the draw to her. She is a remarkable woman, loving her animals and sharing them with others in comfort and need.

Suddenly Jillian finds herself in a place she never expected to be again. Protector for a little girl. When the need arises, she takes charge like a master and Wolff is right by her side holding them both up.

This series just keeps getting better and I can't wait for what comes next.

**Advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review. **

USA Today bestselling author Freya Barker loves writing about ordinary people with extraordinary stories. With forty-plus books already published, she continues to create characters who are perhaps less than perfect, each struggling to find their own slice of happy. Recipient of the ReadFREE.ly 2019 Best Book We've Read All Year Award for "Covering Ollie, the 2015 RomCon “Reader’s Choice” Award for Best First Book, “Slim To None”, Finalist for the 2017 Kindle Book Award with “From Dust”, and Finalist for the 2020 Kindle Book Award with “When Hope Ends”, Freya spins story after story with an endless supply of bruised and dented characters, vying for attention!

Friday, November 1, 2024

Cover Reveal - SOMEONE KNOWS by Vi Keeland

Title: Someone Knows

Author: Vi Keeland

Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Emily Bestler Books

Genre: Standalone Thriller

Release Date: June 17, 2025

As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher. To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end.

She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end—with the teacher dead. Because she was the one who killed him.

Someone knows what Elizabeth did twenty years ago and her secret is about to be exposed, but who is the mystery student submitting the chapters? In an effort to find out, Elizabeth returns to her Louisiana hometown where it soon becomes clear that no matter how many years have gone by, she can’t escape her past.

ADD TO GOODREADS

Kaylee Ryan has revealed the cover for Merry with Me!

Releasing November 26, 2024

Blakely

When my boss tells me I’m taking over the planning of the annual Christmas gala, I can barely

contain my excitement. Not only is it a huge opportunity, but I also love all things Christmas.

I’m on cloud nine until I realize I have to work closely with the grumpy doctor, who is my

opposite in every way. He loathes the holidays. At least that’s what he says. His eyes tell me a

different story.

That’s why I make it my mission to make him fall in love with Christmas. That’s our family motto after all. I’ll make him love the holidays harder than ever before. How hard can it be?

Oliver

My contract states I have to serve on a committee. When I fail to submit which committee I’d

like to work on, I’m assigned the Christmas gala. Me… the guy who detests the holiday.

In years past, I let the marketing manager handle it all. I was there if she needed me. She never did. I expected more of the same this year, but it turns out, I get more than I bargained for. I didn’t anticipate her. Miss Ray of Sunshine, assistant manager.

That’s how I find myself attending holiday events and attaching myself to her any way I can.

She’s trying to make me fall in love with Christmas. Instead, I’m falling in love with her.

Photographer: Regina Wamba

Cover Designer: Book Cover Boutique

Preorder your copy today!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3TafAKX

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3zfPr6u

Nook: https://bit.ly/4g8D7Wu

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3Tg6Pix

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/4eaL77I

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Kaylee Ryan has been crowned the Queen of Swoon by her readers. With nearly fifty romance books under her belt, she's known for penning happily ever afters with heart. When she's not writing, you can find her with a book in her hand or hanging out with her family where she resides in her home state of Ohio.