Tag: Up Close

Book Review | #ChocLitSaturdays (a feature of #JLASblog) | “Up Close” by Henriette Gyland A Romantic #Suspense you tuck inside and do not want to step outside it’s world.

Posted Saturday, 7 February, 2015 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

#ChocLitSaturdays banner created by Jorie in Canva

Acquired Book By:

I am a ChocLit reviewer who receives books of my choice in exchange for honest reviews! I received a complimentary copy of “Up Close” from ChocLit via IPM (International Publisher’s Marketing) in exchange for an honest review! I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein. 

Why I love reading Romantic Suspense:

Don’t get me wrong — I love curling inside a lovely light and sweet Romance (although at first I took grievance with the ‘term’ Sweet Romance) yet there are moments where I like a bit of mysterious suspense underwrit into the Romance itself! I like feeling my heart pulse, my breath catch, and that sense of urgency — is whichever ‘something’ going to be found, caught, discovered, uncovered, or overcome? One of my favourite Romantic Suspense novels was actually a bit of an experiment for the writer herself, as she teamed up with a bloke who enjoyed writing traditional psychological suspense (to be honest, this is the category I am akin to myself!) whereas she appreciated writing stimulating INSPY Historical novels for modern women who wanted ‘a different turn of the page’ to traditional INSPY offerings. I’m referring to Deeanne Gist’s Beguiled which left me wanton for more!

I had the chance to enquire if there would be more books of this nature alighting on shelves in the future from her (as I used to take part in the author to reader conversations by live streaming video on YouTube and/or direct to author reader phone conversations by landline! via the now defunct and dearly missed BookTalk Nation!) to which she remarked she wasn’t quite as keen as I was to walk down that road again. She took me by surprise (not just in the reply but with the book itself!) as previously it was Dee Henderson who wrote psychological suspense with romantic undertones that gave me just enough ‘chill for me bones’ to keep me glued to me seat and the page whilst not growing hypersensitive about the nature of the story I was reading!

I’ve attempted to read mainstream Romantic Suspense novels (outside the INSPY world) but too oft-times I find myself pulling back — either from the dangerous vortex of ‘living too close to the action’ of the characters themselves or feeling a bit overcome by the story to where the joy factor left to read it. Then I discovered ChocLit’s method for publishing Romantic Suspense — and I must say, it’s now perking my appetite for what I appreciate!

Why do I love it as much as I do? Hmm, why did Helen want to go with her husband on a mission in True Lies? I think sometimes you want to break up the ruts you fall into during the patterns of your reading wanderings — mix it up, try something completely outside your level of comfort or go for the pulse of an adventure you can safety survive without having to leave your house! I’m sure even Jason Bourne wishes he hadn’t left the house sometimes!

Book Review | #ChocLitSaturdays (a feature of #JLASblog) | “Up Close” by Henriette Gyland A Romantic #Suspense you tuck inside and do not want to step outside it’s world.Up Close
by Henriette Gyland
Illustrator/Cover Designer: Berni Stevens
Source: Direct from Publisher

Too close for comfort…

When Dr Lia Thompson’s grandmother dies unexpectedly, Lia is horrified to have to leave her life in America and return to a cold and creaky house in Norfolk. But as events unfold, she can’t help feeling that there is more to her grandmother’s death than meets the eye.

Aidan Morrell is surprised to see Lia, his teenage crush, back in town. But Aidan’s accident when serving in the navy has scarred him in more ways than one, and he has other secrets which must stay hidden at all costs, even from Lia.

As Lia comes closer to uncovering the truth, she is forced to question everything she thought she knew. In a world of increasing danger, is Aidan someone she can trust?

Genres: Romance Fiction, Romantic Suspense



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

Also by this author: Blueprint for Love, The Highwayman's Daughter

Published by ChocLitUK

on 7th December, 2012

Format: Paperback

Pages: 369

Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Coffee and Tea Clip Art Set purchased on Etsy; made by rachelwhitetoo.

Published by: ChocLitUK (@ChocLitUK)

Formats Available: Paperback, Audiobook, Large Print, & Ebook

Converse via: #ChocLit & #HenrietteGyland

Cover Art Design by: Berni Stevens @circleoflebanon | Writer | Illustrator

About Henriette Gyland

Henriette lives in London but grew up in Northern Denmark and moved to England after she graduated from the University of Copenhagen. She has worked in the Danish civil service, for a travel agent, a consultancy company, in banking, hospital administration, and for a county court before setting herself up as a freelance translator and linguist.

Expecting her first child and feeling bored, she picked up the pen again, and when a writer friend encouraged her to join the Romantic Novelists’ Association, she began to pursue her writing in earnest. Her debut Up Close won the New Talent Award in 2011 from the Festival of Romance and a Commended from the Yeovil Literary Prize.

Novels: Up Close, The Elephant Girl, Blueprint for Love & The Highwayman’s Daughter

On how beautifully lovely this is bang-on brilliantly British:

I have blogged about my affection for British phrases and turns of speech, inasmuch as my particular penchant for British words in the more general sense as being the bits of language and speech I become quite giddy over discovering anew in the past. Yes, except, this novel (and there are a few before it too!) by Ms Gyland has truly lit up my eyes with such a delish array of *new words!* and small inklings of how to express oneself if you were bourne in Britain rather than an American bourne British descendant thrice over (such as I) to where you can start to piece together a patchwork of modern British vernacular! Read More

Divider

Posted Saturday, 7 February, 2015 by jorielov in #JorieLovesIndies, 21st Century, Blog Tour Host, British Literature, ChocLitSaturdays, ChocLitUK, Crime Fiction, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Jorie Loves A Story Cuppa Book Love Awards, Modern British Author, Modern British Literature, Modern Day, Suspense, Vulgarity in Literature

#ChocLitSaturdays vs #ChocLitSaturday : Two ChocLitUK features of #JLASblog in 2015! (Exciting news!)

Posted Saturday, 27 December, 2014 by jorielov , , , , , , 1 Comment

#ChocLitSaturday header created by Jorie in Canva Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sebastian Boguszewicz

Last year, in late 2013 I made quite the extraordinary discovery, as I had found this wickedly delightful Indie Publisher for Romance Novels hailing from England called ‘ChocLitUK’! I started to host for them as a book reviewer, and quickly realised that I wanted to host their lovely authors as well, which is why I started to offer Guest Posts and Author Interviews! I had meant to keep the author features running in conjunction to each ChocLit novel I was reviewing, but due to different reasons I mostly posted the book reviews without the extras!

Then, in Spring 2014 in the middle of my weekly chats in the twitterverse, I had this scathingly wicked idea! Perhaps I should help promote my #ChocLitSaturdays book reviews & guest author features by hosting my own hour-length (an approx. time, we do like to chat past noon!) weekly chat! I will be forever grateful to the inspiring encouragement of the collective known as #StoryDam as they not only helped me realise what my idea involved but they were the ones who originally turnt me onto using Canva for creating my own blog banners, Twitter cards, and other badges you see throughout my tweets and bookish blog! (such as the main header’s on Twitter like the new one for #ChocLitSaturdays!)

The main idea behind creating #ChocLitSaturdays was explained previously, but what I wanted to explain today is why I am separating the two hashtags: #ChocLitSaturday vs #ChocLitSaturdays! The main hashtag I used from the beginning was #ChocLitSaturdays, as a way to encourage romance readers & romance writers to realise I was celebrating a genre I am truly passionate about on the weekends! However, when it comes to Twitter chats, the only way to safeguard your hashtag is to create a supporting account, hence why I created @ChocLitSaturday! You’ll notice the ‘s’ is missing? Apparently, the name ‘ChocLitSaturday’ is the full amount of available letters your allowed to use! Thereby, no one can ‘take’ the tag in theory as there is no way to create an account to lock it in! I was thankful to have this safeguard in place for both #ChocLitSaturdays and as a back-up #ChocLitSaturday!

One of the hiccups in hosting a chat on Twitter, is that due to the fact hashtags are public and able to be used by absolutely anyone who finds them, I started to notice a lot of non-kosher tweeting happening on the weekends for #ChocLitSaturdays, on interests outside the scope of where a book blogger like myself would like to see the tag promoted! I am not entirely sure why the weekends are a bit dicey at times for promoting “Romance Novels” as this has only been after the popularity of the chat #ChocLitSaturdays started to have more tweets & convos flying through the twitterverse! Laughs.

I have known about #Nurph (@Nurph) ever since I started chatting regularly with #LitChat (@LitChat) where readers & writers of fiction across the board (with a direct empathsis on literary fiction) meet-up to converse with each other on Wednesdays. Nurph is a pro-positive platform for tweet chats because if the host (such as myself) has any issues whatsoever, all I have to do is ‘tweet’ @Nurph and I have immediate assistance! Nurph also monitors the hashtag and tries to only keep the chatters in the visible stream! Chatters can RSVP through the “Upcoming Chats” section and I can alert those who attend #ChocLitSaturdays of when new chats will be hosted in quite an easier way than having to CC everyone on Twitter!

Nurph also allows a ‘replay’ option when chats have ended which help for archiving purposes, but I also know they are easier to find if I archive them myself, which is a bit of why all my archiving time has been lengthened for nearly half a year! In truth, there have been a lot of technical issues between Summer & Autumn; making it quite hard to archive the chats and I sort of fell behind to be honest! It is hard to archive a chat if you cannot even get a ‘tweet’ to stick inside a transcript! A few chats are still amiss, but I’m going to be releasing all the ones I have up to this point!

One of the hardest things to remember when tweeting in a weekly chat is to ‘add the hashtag’ and this is why I previously advocated for platforms such as Twubs, or tchat.io or even TweetDeck. However, in the months since I hosted my first #ChocLitSaturdays, I have discovered a few things:

  • Twubs has (supposed) email support with a support team who never responds back!
  • Twubs is easy to set-up but if a problem occurs your blocked from entering again!
  • Twubs was simply abandoned due to never being able to login!
  • tchat.io was brilliant until I realised my account was nearly hacked & compromised! ack!
  • TweetDeck is quite lovely but has become unstable & unreliable in high volumes!

In regards to using Nurph, I have never experienced anything but a soothing chat, where you can easily click the “favour”, “re-tweet”, or “quote” options per tweet as the chat is happening! It is easy to login as you just click the link and authorise Nurph to be used. The hashtag is auto-added to your tweets and therefore it provides any easy streamlined experienced! The main reason I hadn’t used Nurph originally is due to not opening the supporting account on Twitter until late Autumn, early Winter 2014! I also wasn’t sure if I should change the hashtag or spilt the tag between the blog features & the weekly chats, until I realised it was getting difficult to separate the two from each other!

At long last, I feel the best way I can help promote my passion and love for ChocLitUK is simply to have two different channels of threaded conversations:

  • #ChocLitSaturdays | tweeted mostly through @JLovesAStory will anchour my book reviews and author guest features (which are resuming in 2015!)
  • #ChocLitSaturday | is the new hashtag for the weekly chat on Saturdays which is explained here:

ChocLitSaturday 2015 badge created by Jorie in Canva

JOIN US:

http://nurph.com/choclitsaturday

Full Archive of #ChocLitSaturday Chats via my blog

  • To be added lateron today! Drop back when you see my updated tweet!

I look forward to hosting #ChocLitSaturday throughout the coming New Year, and seeing where the bookish conversations take all of us next! I am welcome to suggestions for topics of discussion which can be pitched to me in the comment threads below! Be sure to bookmark the new Nurph Channel for visiting & chatting with us on Saturdays! And, I will be tweeting out the book reviews via this account as well as a cross-promotion between my blog’s Twitter account and this one for the chats!

I have a special surprise for everyone who is enjoying my ChocLitUK book reviews! I am going to be posting my final three book reviews for ChocLit in 2014 between today and New Year’s Eve! The books you will be finding threaded through my @JLovesAStory tweets and my blog are as follows:

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Amanda JamesUp Close by Henriette GylandDance Until Dawn by Berni Stevens

I am truly blessed with getting to know three authors I haven’t previously read, with the exception of Ms. James as I previously posted my book review on behalf of her time travelling series A Stitch in Time with the first novel “A Stitch in Time”! Her sequel published in December 2014, Cross Stitch!

I cannot think of a better way to close 2014 than by expressing my thoughts on these lovely novels! I am going to be reading through the library of Christina Courtenay throughout January & February as I have her full collection of historical novels set during the high sea epics I adore reading so very much! There is a lot to celebrate with ChocLit, including the lovely ‘ChocLit Treats’ or super short stories which you can receive by email direct from ChocLitUK! I have somehow managed to forget to blog my bliss with these lovelies, so if you want a bit of ‘ChocLit’ in your Inbox, be sure to sign up to receive their ‘ChocLit Treats’!

{Sources: #ChocLitSaturday header created by Jorie in Canva Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sebastian Boguszewicz. #ChocLitSaturday 2015 badge created by Jorie in Canva. Book covers for “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, “Up Close”, and “Dance Until Dawn” were provided by ChocLitUK and used with permission. Twitter Header Banner for #ChocLitSaturday created by Jorie in Canva. Photo credit: Sebastian Boguszewicz (Public Domain Image via UnSplash).}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014

Divider

Posted Saturday, 27 December, 2014 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, ChocLitSaturdays, ChocLitUK

#OTBHorrorOctober | Schedule of Events & Bookish Delights of a Cosy Horror Girl! {1st Year Participant}

Posted Saturday, 18 October, 2014 by jorielov , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Horror October 2014

Calendar of Events on Oh! the Books Host Site

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

{ Reading Selections for Horror October 2014 }

 Focus One: Psychological Suspense | Thriller:

(note: all book synopsis links re-direct to Riffle>

  1. A Stitch in Time by Amanda James <synopsis> (moving to 1st November for SFN)
  2. The Anatomist’s Wife by Anna Lee Huber <synopsis>
  3. Mortal Arts by Anna Lee Huber <synopsis> (moved to November)
  4. A Grave Matter by Anna Lee Huber <synopsis> (moved to November)
  5. The Rose in the Wheel by S.K. Rizzolo <synopsis> (moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  6. Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Amanda James <synopsis(moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté <synopsis> (on hold)
  8. Up Close by Henriette Gyland <synopsis> (moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  9. Blood for Blood by S.K. Rizzolo <synopsis(moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronté (Part II of my journalling) <synopsis> (on hold)
  11. The Ripper’s Wife by Brandy Purdy <synopsis>
  12. Category 5 by Paul Mark Tag (synopsis) (previously read(moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  13. Prophecy by Paul Mark Tag <synopsis>(moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  14. White Thaw: The Helheim Conspiracy by Paul Mark Tag <synopsis>(moved to #IndieWriterMonth)

Focus Two: Cosy Horror | Cosy Horror Suspense (including ghosts):

  1. Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman <synopsis>
  2. An Uninvited Ghost by E.J. Copperman <synopsis>
  3. Old Haunts by E.J. Copperman <synopsis>
  4. Sinking Down by E. Chris Garrison <synopsis> (moved to SFN)
  5. The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull <synopsis> (moved to #IndieWriterMonth)
  6. Dance Until Dawn by Berni Stevens <synopsis> (moved to SFN)
  7. Dracula by Bram Stroker <synopsis> (moved to SFN)
  8. The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James <synopsis> (moving to November)
  9. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill <synopsis> (re-scheduled for 2015)
  10. Ghost Stories by Edith Wharton <synopsis>
  11. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson <synopsis> (re-scheduled for 2015)
  12. The Door through Washington Square by Elaine Bergstrom <synopsis(re-scheduled for 2015)

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

The following is the tentative schedule for my 1st Participation in Horror October. Most of the schedule should remain as it is seen, however, there could be spontaneous changes to the line-up &/or I might include a few extras as I go through the fortnight!

Read More

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • Horror October Bingo
Divider

Posted Saturday, 18 October, 2014 by jorielov in #HorrorOctober, Anthology Collection of Stories, Blog Hop, Blogosphere Events & Happenings, Blogs I Regularly Read, Book Blogosphere Regular Haunts, Classic Horror, Cosy Horror, Cosy Horror Suspense, Cosy Mystery, Crime Fiction, Ghost Story, Ghosts & the Supernatural, Good vs. Evil, Haunting & Ethereal, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense, Horror, Horror October Bingo, Horror-Lite, Indie Author, Inspirational Fiction & Non-Fiction, Library Find, Light vs Dark, Local Libraries | Research Libraries, Psychological Suspense, Reading Challenges, Supernatural Fiction, Suspense