Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
I had fully intended to have a mixture of reviews and #blogmas spotlights running throughout the first week and a half of December – however, when your struck down by a naughty Wintry cold and your father is having some serious health issues with his BP levels, it gives you a bit of a pause for knowing what you can juggle, handle and execute! Therefore, a happy switch of sails right now – as we move into the latter half of my featured spotlights spilt between Fantasy & Sweet Romance authors – you’ll start to see reviews and perhaps a few memes or features pop up amongst the #blogmas posts as we tuck closer to Christmas!
Especially considering I can *finally!* find a comforting break from sneezing & coughing (or rather, hacking my lungs into oblivion!) fits of discomfort where reading is once again a pleasurable joy and where blogging isn’t broken by the cold’s influence! Hence why I was more of a turtle in her shell recovering than trying to face being online whilst consumed by the cold itself! Some days and weeks you just have to throw in the towel on your plans and resume them as soon as you’re well again.
Which brings me to my first featured spotlight for the *Sweet Romances!* event hosted by Prism Book Tours! This is the first year I remember they hosted an event like this one – although, I could be mistaken? What I like about the allure of ‘Sweet Romance’ are a few things really – one, it could be a nod towards an INSPY novelist or story-teller if they are writing shorter form fiction (ie. short stories, novellas, etc) or it could be a mainstream writer who wants to exclude explicit and graphic content from their realistic Romantic stories (ie. no stong language, graphic violence, etc) which parlays into my own readerly interests as that is a heady topic which I regularly explore through my ‘Fly in the Ointments’ sections! lol
I admit, I prefer Romance to be on the ‘cleaner’ side of the ledger as per what the publishing industry is disclosing as being a Clean Read or a Clean Romance or in this instance what they denote being a ‘Sweet Romance’. I don’t need all the details of the bedroom explored on-scene nor do I flinch if there is a bit of heat in the sequencing either – I’d rather have a nice balance of romantic overtures & encounters but *nothing!* which suggests a romance is moving into the headwaters of the ‘other side’ of the genre either! Hence why I happily host @SatBookChat featuring the kinds of Women’s Fiction & Romance novels, novellas and short stories I personally love reading and cheerleading for in the bookish community of the twitterverse!
This is also why I’ve been championing & celebrating hosting for Prism throughout the past few years as they helped me *discover!* the Harlequin Heartwarming imprint of stories as I had previously already fallen in love with their Love Inspired Suspense (& the ill-fated Historical imprint) stories. Heartwarming is truly the kind of sweetened romance you can curl up inside even within a realistically convicting narrative and find the kind of romance your bookish heart can celebrate as being lovingly focused on relationship-based romance! As those are my preferences of what I regularly seek out myself!
Thus, today marks the first day where I am featuring #newtomeauthors of *Sweet Romance* story-tellers who are giving me a lovely curiosity to start seeking out their stories in either print or audio formats throughout the New Year of 2020! Join me for the next 11 days I see which of their stories resonates with me and how their stories become ‘introduced’ to us all as their featured spotlights run on Jorie Loves A Story! Join the celebration, shall you?
Published by: Stone Hall Books
Converse via: #RomBks4Chris19 and #SweetRomance
as well as #RomSusp and #RealisticFiction
Published: 5th October, 2018 | ISBN: 978-0999794623
After a year of recovery, wounded war veteran Jonah Harrison comes home for Christmas. No longer the outgoing high school track star, he just wants to be left alone, away from well-meaning friends and neighbors. But when a blizzard strands him withKami Jackson—the girl who once knew him best—he can’t hide anything from her, no matter how much he wants to. Kami has a wounded heart of her own, though, and it might take a miracle—or at least two matchmaking dogs—for them to find the healing they both long for and the courage to reach for a chance at love.
Enjoy an Extract from Truth or Dare:
Being here brought back so many warm memories for her, like sunshine chasing away all her shadows. The reality was, though some things seemed the same, their lives were very different than what they had been. She needed to keep that in mind.
Kami ran a hand through her damp hair and suppressed another shiver. She caught chills easily; that hadn’t changed. Back in the day, no matter what season it was, Jonah would be hot and she’d always be cold. He usually had his arm around her to warm her up, though. That was one thing she wished hadn’t changed, even if it was just for tonight.
She stole a peek behind her. The military had been good to Jonah. He’d always been athletic and good-looking, but now he was powerful and had a ruggedness to him. His blond hair was cropped, military-style, but the short-sleeved T-shirt he wore that proudly said Marines on it pulled across a broad chest and showed off some muscular arms. On the outside, he seemed more like his old self, but every now and then his change in demeanor told her there was a lot going on behind those blue eyes, and he didn’t seem in the mood to share. For now, anyway.
I do gravitate towards stories about military families and of singletons who are re-shifting back into civilian life. If you look towards which of my favourite Christmas Romances are during Hallmark Channel’s infamous #CountdownToChristmas celebrates each year – Mum & I are always bringing out our dvd for The Christmas Card to re-visit how Cody Cullen fell in love, found family & re-directed his path post-service in the Army. This year we found *two!* more military focused Christmas Romances being featured which have tucked into our hearts and they are on our list to purchase as soon as we find their dvds available.
I also have a soft spot for stories which involve *weather!* at the holidays – blizzards and Nor-easters are a good way of keeping people ‘in place’ and rooted to a setting or a towne. Nearly all my favourite stories in print or in film for Christmas feature this technique and honestly I never tire of seeing how people who are ‘stranded’ in one particular place have to learn something about themselves before they can properly move forward with their lives. These are stories of second chances (for love & romance), new beginnings (for resolving their past or present circumstances) and of delightfully finding yourself tucked into this setting as wickedly as the characters are finding themselves a bit musefully intrigued for what they are finding there themselves.
Like most stories of this nature – you want to take the journey with the characters to see what is going on in their minds & hearts. To see what will cause the healing and the closure for whatever is afflicting them and seeing how they will have a better tomorrow. Definitely sounds like a delightful story to be read and I was thankful this one is availabe in print! As sometimes I find most novellas are strictly digital first.
About Julie Coulter Bellon
Julie Coulter Bellon is the author of nearly two dozen romantic suspense novels. Her book All Fall Down won the RONE award for Best Suspense, Pocket Full of Posies won a RONE Honorable Mention for Best Suspense and The Captain was a RONE award finalist for Best Suspense. Most recently, her books The Capture and Second Look were both Whitney finalists for Best Suspense/Mystery. Julie loves to travel and her favorite cities she's visited so far are probably Athens, Paris, Ottawa, and London. In her free time she loves to read, write, teach, watch Hawaii Five-O, and eat Canadian chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.
This blog tour is courtesy of: Prism Book Tours
Click through via the badge to find out what else awaits you!
Each day, a new author is showcased – I selected the authors I wanted to feature ahead of time – therefore, return to see which of the authors I am focusing on throughout the 11 days!
Similar to blog tours where I feature book reviews, as I choose to highlight an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog. I provide the questions for interviews and topics for the guest posts; wherein I receive the responses back from publicists and authors directly. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them; I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers.
{SOURCES: Cover art of “Truth or Dare”, the author’s photo (for Julie Coulter Bellon) and biography, the extract from “Truth or Dare” as well as the blog tour banner and The Prism Book Tours badge were all provided by Prism Book Tours and used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #blogmas 2019 badge and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2019.
I’m a social reader | I tweet my reading life
LOVE finding #newtomeauthors of #SweetRomance esp feat. realistic contemporary romance themes of interest; this Christmas happily enjoyed two #ChristmasMovies which felt honoured the kind of story this novella celebrates by @juliebellon #blogmas??https://t.co/u7wKrbakgY
— Joriebelle rings a bell for #blogmas ??? (@joriestory) December 12, 2019
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