Stories in the Spotlight | [the stories on Jorie’s readerly radar] feat. notes and an extract of “Simply You” by Maggie Wild

Posted Saturday, 16 January, 2021 by jorielov Hope Valley Romances, Maggie Wild, Simpy You, Steel Rose Press 0 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

Welcome to a New Year of discovering stories with me on Jorie Loves A Story! The past few weeks, I admit, I’ve been struggling to get back into the rhythm of reading. After a hard-won Christmas and New Year’s this year as Mum worked over 130+ hours within a fortnight which re-arranged our holidays quite a heap and after a turbulent beginning to our New Year 2021 (ie. collectively, per current events) – I’ve been tucked offline, focusing on my health & wellness this January rather than soaking inside books which is how I thought I’d spend the first weeks of the New Year.

Happily I’m seeing improvement with my health (ie. #migrainefree), increased stamina through actively pursuing hiking in nature and redirecting myself to eat less but eat more purposefully by augmenting healthy protein shakes and a heap of greens into my regular diet. I’ve missed focusing on my health with a dedicated passion which is why Mum and I decided if we could make one change this New Year, it was going to be a decided co-effort to get back to basics and see true change in how we approached the year on a personal level.

Thus, whilst I work on getting my health squared away, I am also in the process of sorting out my shelves – wherein I’m getting some organisational totes to decrease what is visible on my shelves in order to read better this New Year, 2021 as well. The books left on the shelf will reflect my current reads and once those are consumed, the ones in the totes will be up on the shelf until I reach my goals of erasing my backlogue! This is in conjunction with developing a TBR dice game I’ll be revealling at the end of January – stay tuned for those details, especially if you find reading stories off your TBR is always a wrenching hard choice and you’d like to spice things up by removing making the ‘choices’ of what to read from your TBR List.

All the while, I have a keen eye on the horizon for new stories and authors who are itching a thirst of interest to be read. This particular Contemporary Romantic Comedy stood out to me and as lovely as it sounds, I have to await a format I can enjoy reading – as this is strictly a Digital First release at this junction of time. If it goes to print or audio, I hope to update you in future when I’ve had a chance to get a copy to read.

I am reading more Contemporary Romances but I am still a bit under-read in RomComs as they have the tendency of being a harder sell for me as a reader. The reason why this is one might suit me is the premise of it – especially for the series as a whole – the setting, the community concept and the promise of hope in finding relationships which are strongly built between the characters. Plus, who doesn’t like a romance spilt between city and country life? Wherein you have to truly choose the kind of life your heart beckons to be lived vs the life you expected to have? I love those kinds of romantic dramas and the fact this is spun with a comedic touch I felt sounded like a wicked brilliant read!

Be sure to read the extract and my thoughts about the story to see if this perhaps might wink an interest into your own readerly wanderings this year! Especially if you’re able to read ebooks – you won’t have to wait for future formats and can dive straight into it! Remember – brew your favourite cuppa and enjoy your stay!

Simpy You
Subtitle: A Heart Valley Romance | All you need is love... and a bit of luck
by Maggie Wild
Source: Chapter Sampler

She needs someone she can count on.
He’s gun-shy after being hurt.
Can a brush with fate in a rained-out English village turn into enduring love?

Sarah Tildon thinks she’s found the perfect man. But after her overbearing future mother-in-law insists her quiet country wedding become a high-society shindig, she sets out on a two-week ride to rethink her plans. Stranded when her bicycle is stolen in a picturesque hamlet, she’s touched by the kindness of a handsome young farmer who comes to her rescue.

The big city failed Michael Marsden’s ample ambitions. After his fiancée cheats on him, he turns his back on the hustle and bustle and takes on a farm to prove he can lead a self-sufficient life. And taken by surprise when a charming outsider helps sing his hens into laying, he realizes his newfound Eden is missing its Eve.

Unexpectedly falling for the sweet homesteader, Sarah is torn between the security of a gilded cage and the precarious freedom of raising chickens. And when her fiancé arrives to bring her back to London, Michael fears she’ll leave him with yet another shattered heart.

Will this unlikely couple throw caution to the wind and embrace a destined second chance?

Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance Fiction, Romantic Comedy (Rom Com)

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ASIN: B08NY3421P

Published by Steel Rose Press

on 12th January, 2021

Format: Chapter Sampler | Online

About the Hope Valley Romance series:

Simply You is the first book in the heartwarming Hope Valley Romance series. If you like fun heroines, pastoral backdrops, and endearing courtships, then you’ll adore Maggie Wild’s sweet tale.

Read Simply You to start fresh today!

The second novel is Back Home to You ← forthcoming 31 May, 2021!

Converse on Twitter via: #SimplyYou and/or #MaggieWild
as well as #HopeVallyRomance and #ContemporaryRomance

About Maggie Wild

Simply You novel promo badge for Maggie Wild's Hope Valley Romance series provided by Xpresso Book Tours and is used with permission.

Maggie Wild lives in California Wine Country with her own Mr. Right and a small collection of furry friends. A native of Yorkshire, England, she returns “home” every day through her fictional worlds. When not writing her fun, contemporary romance stories, she loves to watch the birds in her garden and hike through the local redwoods.

Posted Saturday, 16 January, 2021 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Book Blitz, Book Spotlight, Contemporary Romance, Indie Author, Romance Fiction, Romantic Comedy, Xpresso Book Tours

#EnterTheFantastic Book Review | Exploring the first installment of the Light of Faerie series within “Fly Free” by Allison Rose

Posted Wednesday, 13 January, 2021 by jorielov Allison Rose, Fly Free, Light of the Faerie series 0 Comments

Acquired Book By: During my 3rd Year of co-hosting @WyrdAndWonder, I was able to participate on my first blog tour with Storytellers on Tour which was featuring the author Brianna Sugalski on her “Disenchanted” blog tour. What I appreciated about Storytellers on Tour is their dedication to Indie Authors of Speculative Literature and their ability to find authors who are telling stories in Fantasy which intrigue me to read. Fantasy has been a challenging genre for me to explore even a bit moreso than Science Fiction – which is why I feel blessed to be on their blogger team. Whilst some of their tours I might seek out a book to consider for review, I also actively enjoy hosting creative content using book photography and/or featuring their authors in conversation (ie. interviews) or giving them the breadth of joy to write a guest post based on a topic of my choosing. Overall, Storytellers on Tour are dedicated to creating community and for championing those of us who are choosing to share our readerly lives each day we bring content to our book blogs.

I received a complimentary copy of “Fly Free” direct from the author Allison Rose in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

What initially drew me into “Fly Free”:

I’ve been delving into the realms of the fey ever since I became a book blogger as I knew I wanted to explore Fantasy more than I had before I blogged. For me, Speculative Fiction was a harder branch of literature to explore as a non-blogger because of the overwhelming stigma attached to girls’ who love reading it. I would run into hurdles at bookstores to seek out new voices in Speculative Fiction whilst other readers themselves never seemed inclined to think girls’ should be reading Fantasy; almost like it was exclusively a male-dominated genre of stories! Never one to let anything deter me, I trudged on with my own wanderings in the genre but what I was missing were the Independent voices of SpecFic – of which have fast become my favourites to read as a book blogger and as a reader!

Whilst book blogging opened the door wider for me to dive into genres of interest, it also presented a unique new issue of sorting out what kinds of stories within those genres I love to read I most wanted to explore. Finding literature about faeries has been a unique journey – from the Tipsy Fairy Tales by E. Chris Garrison to my discovery of #OctoberDaye and my first fey-centred Fantasy Romance by H.L. Burke!

I realise the October Daye series isn’t an Indie Fantasy series – however, as I read stories by all routes of publishing, I have found when I tabulate how many stories I read by Indie voices of genres I love against traditionally published authors – the Indie side of the ledger tends to yield a larger number of #booklove from me! Hence why I love hosting Indie authors of Fantasy during an event celebrating Fantasy I happily co-host every May called @WyrdAndWonder!

I first learnt about the two courts of the fey (generally referred to as the Seelie & Unseelie) when I read the anthology A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie Court. Concurrent to this, I also borrowed a few books from my library about the seelie and unseelie courts but those stories were a bit too dark for me to appreciate whilst the concept of the fey and their courts never fully left me. Which is why I had to smirk when I picked up my first October Daye novel, it was by extension re-examining the fey from a wholly different perspective than the one I had become attached to inside the Tipsy Fairy Tales!

You could say, a lovely niche I love to explore within Fantasy is the world of the fey and faerie and that is why dear hearts, I jumped at the chance to read this lovely novel by Allison Rose! Meanwhile, I have the final installment of the Tipsy Fairy Tales I’ll be reading this New Year 2021 (ie. Mean Spirit) whilst I will also be picking up where I left off with the October Daye series as well – as lo and behold, my local library completely surprised me and *bought!* the whole series!!

Fly Free
Subtitle: Light of the Faerie : Part One
by Allison Rose
Source: Author via Storytellers on Tour

In the land of Faerie, lies are easily disguised as truths.

They were raised like sisters, the heir to the Court of the Day and her guardian.

And as rebellion darkens the land of the Day—and the faeries of Court fall under a dark magic that disconnects them from the land, dooming them to a slow, agonizing death—they will question all they know to be true.

Sevelle, the Light of the Day, is destined to rule one day. She possesses a rare form of magic, the ability to heal the powerful connection between faeries and the magic in the land, the connection that gives them life—if only she could figure out how to use this magic, or even find it within herself.

Jae lives in the shadows, watching over Sevelle as her guardian and listening to the whispers of Court brought to her by the winds. She longs for a life outside of Court, but knows her duty to Sevelle is more important than her own desires.

But when an unexpected proposition comes from none other than Lex, son of the rebel leader, Sevelle and Jae realize their lives will never be the same—and that evil may be within their own court more so than in the rebels that oppose them.

Walking paths far different than they imagined separates the sisters, but then a secret is revealed that may break them apart forever.

Fly Free is the first installment of the Light of Faerie series. Enter a land of magic in the midst of a power struggle, where all is not as it seems and love may be found in the most unlikely places.

Genres: Fantasy Fiction, Mythological Fantasy, YA Fantasy

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1733077651

Published by Allison Rose Creations

on 17th September, 2020

Format: Trade Paperback

Pages: 250

This is the first installment of the Light of Faerie series!

This is a Self-Published novel and series!

Converse via: #Fantasy, #YAFantasy or #Fey, #Faerie
as well as #StorytellersOnTour # & #EnterTheFantastic as #JorieReads

About Allison Rose

Driven by a lifelong passion for words and reading fantasy novels, award-winning author Allison Rose writes YA fantasy stories featuring faeries, magic, and strong heroines. She has a BA in psychology and is fascinated by how other people think, but her love for reading and writing is greater. When Allison isn’t writing, she is editing and proofreading the works of others. Allison lives with her husband, collie mix, bunny, and chinchilla in the place of wild weather also known as Buffalo, New York.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

#EnterTheFantastic

Posted Wednesday, 13 January, 2021 by jorielov in #EnterTheFantastic, Blog Tour Host, Dark Arts (Dark Magic), Faeries & the Fey, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore and Mythology, Indie Author, Self-Published Author, Storytellers on Tour, Supernatural Creatures & Beings, YA Fantasy

#BestBooksOf2020 Retrospective | The 2020 End of the Year Reading Survey : The stories behind #JLASblog’s 7th Year!

Posted Monday, 4 January, 2021 by jorielov Jorie Loves A Story, Jorie Story 7 Comments

The Questions for the 2020 End of the Year Survey are posted by Jaime @ the Perpetual Page Turner, who created this survey as a personal reflection of her year of bookish wanderings and readings, and never thought it would turn into a book blogosphere yearly event! I am thankful she encourages us all to participate even though over the past five years I haven’t had the best track record of joining in on the community in which she’s curated to share a summation of our readerly lives.

*Please be Advised:*

This *End of the Year Survey* first landed on Jorie Loves A Story in [2016] whilst celebrating the previous year of [2015] and I made a determined effort to bring it back in [2017] except those plans are still in my Drafts folder for #JLASblog! Smiles. I have decided to create #timecapsule posts this Happy New Year 2021 to re-explore what my top favourites were as a book blogger for the *missing years!* of the Survey itself! Stay tuned for some bookish revelations,… whilst I have decided this year to bring back the Survey in its rightful place of cheerfully championing a signal of #booklove as one year exchanges itself for a new one – rather than withhold my responses til my next blogoversary as I had done in year’s past on the 31st of March.

As you already realise if you’re a ready reader + follower of Jorie Loves A Story – these posts become EPIC and MASSIVELY descriptive as I reveal my final thoughts, ruminations and musings about the STORIES which truly left the impressions this survey attempts to reveal about our past twelvemonths as a reader and inquistive book blogger.

This being said – this post is a full balance OF all the stories I’ve read and discovered giving a fuller scope of how I ended my 2020 as a reader who happily is blogging her life as a book blogger. As well bringing myself back to centre with my ruminations – allowing me the chance to re-think about the stories I’ve read and to put to rest the final thoughts I’ve had on behalf of the stories themselves.

Be sure to brew yourself a cuppa joy as you sit, read and ponder which of my #BestOf2020Reads need to seriously become added to your own #TBR!

If you’ve filled something out like this survey (OR this actual one!) – be sure to share your link to your post(s) in the *threads below this post so I can take a gander at which stories | authors | series | genres joyfully intrigued you throughout 2020! As I would like expand my own TBR with the stories you’ve read yourself which could be a wicked good fit for me.

REMEMBER: if a story wasn’t my cuppa it could be one better suited for you and vice versa if you had a story which you felt fell short of your own expectations and might resontate with me better. Reading is subjective to our individual experiences within the stories themselves and all our reactions are valid and important as they are markers of our readerly lives.

Let’s break this down a bit, shall we?

You can use this as a ‘preview guide’ of how to use my Story Vault. <— fully updated!

Posted Monday, 4 January, 2021 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, End of the Year Survey, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story

Happily hosting my second #TheWriteReads Ultimate Blog Tour | showcasing “Amari and the Night Brothers” (Supernatural Investigations, Book One) by B.B. Alston

Posted Wednesday, 30 December, 2020 by jorielov (Illustrator) Brittany Jackson, Amari and the Night Brothers, B.B. Alston, Balzer and Bray, Egmont Books, HarperCollinsUK, Supernatural Investigations series 1 Comment

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

You might be curious where Jorie’s been since the days leading into Christmas,… I had a lot of lovely plans of how I wanted to round out the year – stories I earmarked to read, a series I wanted to showcase Christmas week and weekend as much as a few final posts I was looking forward to composing in order to properly send out the year with a bit of a glow of joy rather than the angst I had felt off/on throughout 2020.

However, as Christmas and New Year’s weeks turnt into a working fortnight for my Mum rather than the first bout of holidays wherein Mum would be able to spend the hours with us as a family – you could say I was the busiest elf behind the holidays this year! I felt like I had lived through most of the hours Mum worked as she totalled nearly (or even surpassed) 112 hours in less than two weeks by the time her hours conclude on New Year’s Day! She was the only one who could accept emergency holiday shifts and as thankful as we were for the increase in hours – Dad and I missed having her for Christmas and we’ll be celebrating separately for New Year’s this year as well.

Due to the shift in what we were doing this year and how those upturnt hours left me fatigued and exhausted – I haven’t picked up a book in more than three weeks, nor have I sorted out anything on my blog in over two – if you wanted my updates, they were flickering into my tweets, as I did manage to microblog my Christmas. I decided to re-shift my #yearendreads into a New Year’s readathon courtesy of Mum’s emergency shifts New Year’s Eve & Day, whilst I am hoping to release some posts to conclude my thoughts about the past year on Jorie Loves A Story, too.

Today – I have the pleasure of showcasing a new book which I am quite sure by now with #TheWriteReads blog tour in full swing is on everyone’s bookish radar – is a new Middle Grade Fantasy novel I’m wicked excited about having in my hands to read, too! It can take me half of forever to find the kinds of Fantasy stories I want to read because I’m not really into all the topical Fantasy series (save Harry Potter) as I tend to read a predominately high level of Indie Fantasy authors, such as this year’s Esme’s Wish.

In fact, I read another Indie Fantasy novelist (Owen Crane) this year for Wyrd And Wonder (@WyrdAndWonder) as much as I showcased interviews with Indie Fantasy novelists as well for the event. Indie Fantasy (and all the stories within the Speculative realms) is where my readerly heart tends to lie these last years due to how Indie authors are writing stories I not only *devour!* but they are told in a way which appeals to my fantastical sensibility especially if you consider the adult side of the ledger with the Tipsy Fairy Tales by E. Chris Garrison: Blue Spirit, Restless Spirit and my forthcoming review of Mean Spirit.

Yet, what drew me into this world of #AmariAndTheNightBrothers is simply the breadth of the world-building in the description of the book! I love Fantasy stories which give you a proper sense of themselves at the jump point and build this wicked sweet layer of anticipation prior to reading the story itself. I am hopeful my library will buy a copy of this lovely story and I’ll be able to read it come January when its released! I did enter the bookaway by the author but as I hadn’t heard from him, I’m presuming those copies went to other readers. Thereby, enjoy the bits I’ve found online to help introduce you to *Amari!* and let’s get ourselves wicked happy for a lovely NEW YEAR full of fantastical reads!!

I love being part of the community of #TheWriteReads and I hope in future to continue hosting the authors on their blog tours – I keep an eye out on the stories I most desire to be reading in order to host a guest feature as print copies are a bit rare for these tours to request. I love hosting the conversations because it helps me feel a bit more rooted in the stories and I hope you’ll have the same takeaway yourself. Although when a conversation isn’t available to host, I like featuring the stories themselves to help give them a signal boost in case one of my readers and followers hasn’t yet discovered the story (or series) which has caught my bookish eye!

Brew yourself a cuppa and enjoy the book trailer!

Amari and the Night Brothers

Quinton Peters was the golden boy of the Rosewood low-income housing projects, receiving full scholarship offers to two different Ivy League schools. When he mysteriously goes missing, his little sister, 13-year-old Amari Peters, can’t understand why it’s not a bigger deal. Why isn’t his story all over the news? And why do the police automatically assume he was into something illegal?

Then Amari discovers a ticking briefcase in her brother’s old closet. A briefcase meant for her eyes only. There was far more to Quinton, it seems, than she ever knew. He’s left her a nomination for a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is certain the answer to finding out what happened to him lies somewhere inside, if only she can get her head around the idea of mermaids, dwarves, yetis and magicians all being real things, something she has to instantly confront when she is given a weredragon as a roommate.

Amari must compete against some of the nation’s wealthiest kids—who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives and are able to easily answer questions like which two Great Beasts reside in the Atlantic Ocean and how old is Merlin? Just getting around the Bureau is a lesson alone for Amari with signs like ‘Department of Hidden Places this way, or is it?’ If that all wasn’t enough, every Bureau trainee has a talent enhanced to supernatural levels to help them do their jobs – but Amari is given an illegal ability. As if she needed something else to make her stand out.

With an evil magican threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

Genres: Fantasy Fiction, Middle Grade, Paranormal Suspense, Middle Grade Fantasy

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-0062975164

Published by Balzer and Bray, Egmont Books

on 19th January, 2021

Published by: Egmont Books (@egmontbooksuk)
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers UK

This is the first installment of a trilogy!

Available Formats: Hardback, Audiobook and Ebook

Converse via: #Fantasy, #Paranormal #MiddleGrade or #MGLit
as well as #TheWriteReads & #AmariAndTheNightBrothers

Posted Wednesday, 30 December, 2020 by jorielov in #TheWriteReads, Blog Tour Host, Book Spotlight, Fantasy Fiction

A #Blogmas Retrospective | On all the lovely #ChristmasRomances I’ve showcased this December!

Posted Wednesday, 23 December, 2020 by jorielov Jorie Loves A Story 3 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

You might be dearly curious about my #blogmas rollout this year – as I admit, I originally had ideas of a more *predictaable hour* of revelation for these lovelies! My blog apparently has had a more unique approach to how these spotlighted posts with featured extracts arrived into my blog’s archive and for that, I hope you’ve at least enjoyed them once they blinked onto your feeds via email and/or WP Reader!

→ And, for those of you who are hitting the like button to alert me of your presence on my blog – bless you!! I cherish those clicks as I do not always receive notes under my posts. It is lovely to see a wink and a nod from my regular readers,.. likewise I hope to be doing more of that kind of activity myself in the New Year.

I presume most of you are enjoying my posts by those sources as much as being routed here on Jorie Loves A Story courtesy of my updates in the twitterverse! As this is what I’ve been surmising throughout December as I watch which way my blog posts are being clicked upon out in the wider scheme of the net. I find those stats a bit interesting to gain a small insight into how people find my blog – especially during my Decembers wherein I turn a bit more showcasey in what I present rather than full-on reviews filtering through the month.

Though to be frank, my reviews have been a bit delayed this year from alighting as I’ve had readerly fatigue for most of 2020 and almost complete readerly burnt out for the rest of it. It wasn’t even any one specific moment though I know it began in the hours waning out of 2019 & into 2020 – as the close of the former year into the new one last New Year’s week was a muddling nightmare for world events (ie. wildfires, wildlife loss, earthquakes and other disasters and all of *that!* predated the pandemic,..) which was soul wrecking in of its own right. Ergo, my yearly reads were built on a shaky start to 2020.

As the months stacked onto each other, I found myself withdrawing from reading – from my backlogue of reviews and from the blog tour reads I desired to be focusing on most. Not to mention how clogged I am in non-completed reads for @SatBookChat featured guests! :O It is quite shocking and I have had to deal with that guilt as well though part of me gives me credit for hosting the chats & organising the discussions for those authors without cancelling the chats themselves. Save one or two due to health and/or a no show for an author whom I still hope to reschedule in Winter 2021.

With all of *that!* weighing on a girl’s mind, I happily dove into an abridged schedule for the #FantasyForChristmas blog tour whilst trying to keep on schedule for the showcases I wanted to feature for the secondary blog tour this December which is the Sweet Romance for Christmas. During which I concluded my abridged foray into #SciFiMonth is going to remain shelved and blogged right where it was the first week of December. Again, readerly fatigue is real. I’ll update about those final reads for #SciFiMonth in a forthcoming yearly recap post lateron this December right before 2021 winks into starsight.

These final showcases for Prism Book Tours tucking me into featuring lovely #newtomeauthors alongside newly discovered authors has been a delight of joy as it gave me a further chance to blog some Christmassy themed journalling – you’ll have to backtrack through the Fantasy & Romance blog tours to see everything in all its glory this year – as each post was left with a different mind map of thoughts which spilt into the top anchour of those featured posts in both events! Some were more Christmas minded than others, some were happily referencing IRL binge watches of tv series or Christmas films and others, were notes from yours truly about the story, the author or what I hoped to reveal in connection to the featured book of the hour. In essence, I tried to remain mindful of the spirit of #blogmas whilst hosting both tours back to back on Jorie Loves A Story.

For those of you who were (or still are) in final preps for Christmas and Christmas weekend – this recapturing of the posts themselves will give you a keen overview of the stories I most desire to read throughout 2021 as much as a snapshot of why these stories caught my readerly eye this #blogmas 2020! You can easily click-over to my posts and/or you can happily search for these authors and their stories on your ownsome if one (or more hopefully!) winks its nod of curiosity into your own readerly heart.

And, without further adieu, let’s see which stories on this lovely romantic tour gave me a boost of bookish joy to host during the Sweet Romance for Christmas blog tour of 2020:

Posted Wednesday, 23 December, 2020 by jorielov in #blogmas, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, JLAS Update Post, Jorie Loves A Story, Prism Book Tours