Review: One Purrfect Summer (Purrfect Pairs, #2) by Robyn Neeley

All’s fair in love and coffee wars.

Madison Porter loves Honey Springs, but her days are one big rinse-wash-repeat routine of working for the mayor’s office and caring for the town’s matchmaking cat, Belle. She once bid on the town’s ice cream shop with hopes of running it herself, but the sweet deal seemingly wasn’t meant to be.

Patrick Manning moves to the tiny town of Honey Springs to start over. After outbidding his competition for a building space, he now owns The Bean & Brew—and refuses to name his coffee shop with a bee-inspired moniker as per town tradition.

Madison soon uncovers paperwork proving she actually won the bid and is the rightful owner of the shop, but no way will Patrick forfeit his claim and rebuild his life again when he’s worked so hard. So when the town magistrate suggests a competition to see which business should prevail, they’re both all in. The winner earns the space, but soon their hearts are at stake.

 

My Review:

A sweet romance featuring a matchmaking cat.

Three years ago, Madison Porter was excited about buying the Honey Cone ice cream shop when she was outbid by an out-of-towner.  Ever since then, Madison has avoided Patrick Manning and his coffee shop, The Bean & Brew.  When Madison discovers she actually won the bid, it comes down to a little competition to see who will take ownership of the building.  But anything can happen in Honey Springs, especially when Belle, the matchmaking cat, decides Patrick is Madison’s purrfect match.

This book was so much fun to read.  I enjoyed the previous book in the series, so I was glad to get this one in my hands.  The author made the story a lot of fun with the competition between Madison and Patrick along with them co-chairing the Hometown HoneyBee Festival.  The quirky characters and storyline really made the story come to life.  This book is perfect for anyone looking for a sweet lighthearted story with a small-town feel and cute cats. 

 
 

 

Review: My Kind of Cowboy (Blackstone Ranch #3) by Pam Crooks

 

He’s barely given her a passing glance…

Shandi Flanagan has lived in Paxton Springs, Texas, her whole life. When the bar and grill she’s been working at since high school comes up for sale, she vows to find the money to buy it. But when her house goes up in flames, so do her entrepreneurial dreams. The only good thing to come of it? Being rescued by the hottest cowboy around, Jace Paxton.

Jace has his hands full finding a way to grow his family's vacation resort and tracking down the rustlers who stole his new herd of calves. At least being able to save Shandi, the town's favorite sweetheart, goes right. She needs a place to stay, and there's plenty of room on the Blackstone Ranch.

But he needs the bar and grill as much as she does. And while he's a formidable competitor...she's not. How can he take away her dream and future? How could she love him if he did?

 

My Review:

An intriguing, friends to lovers story.

This book had a little bit of everything that I was looking for in it; romance, cowboys, family, small towns and a little bit of a mystery.

Shandi Flanigan worked hard for everything she had.  She even continued to pay off her father’s debt after he passed away.  So, when Shandi found out the owner of the Greasy Bull, the restaurant she worked at, was going to sell, she made it her goal to buy it.  But there was competition she didn’t expect, one of them was Jace Paxton, the man Shandi has crushed on nearly all of her life.  He wanted to buy the building and tear it down and build offices for his family’s new resort.  This made Shandi want to work even harder for it.  When a tragedy sidelines Shandi and Jace is there to pick up the pieces, it brings them closer together.   But Shandi still doesn’t trust Jace and ends up pushing him away again.  Now it’s up to Jace to prove to Shandi that he is a good person and will do anything to make her happy.

I have enjoyed every book in this series and it seems each one is better then the last.  If you like small town cowboy romances, this is definitely the book for you.    

Review: Nothin' But a Good Time by Tom Beaujour & Richard Bienstock

Nothin' But a Good Time is the definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1980s hard rock and hair metal, told by the musicians and industry insiders who lived it.

Hard rock in the 1980s was a hedonistic and often intensely creative wellspring of escapism that perfectly encapsulated—and maybe even helped to define—a spectacularly over-the-top decade. Indeed, fist-pumping hits like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” are as inextricably linked to the era as Reaganomics, Pac-Man, and E.T.

From the do-or-die early days of self-financed recordings and D.I.Y. concert productions that were as flashy as they were foolhardy, to the multi-Platinum, MTV-powered glory years of stadium-shaking anthems and chart-topping power ballads, to the ultimate crash when grunge bands like Nirvana forever altered the entire climate of the business, Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock's Nothin' But a Good Time captures the energy and excess of the hair metal years in the words of the musicians, managers, producers, engineers, label executives, publicists, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies, and hangers-on who lived it.

Featuring an impassioned foreword by Slipknot and Stone Sour vocalist and avowed glam metal fanatic Corey Taylor, and drawn from over 200 new interviews with members of Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Winger, Warrant, Cinderella, Quiet Riot and others, as well as Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford and many more, this is the ultimate, uncensored, and often unhinged chronicle of a time where excess and success walked hand in hand, told by the men and women who created a sound and style that came to define a musical era—one in which the bands and their fans went looking for nothin’ but a good time…and found it.

 

My Review:

If you ever wondered what really took place behind the scenes with your favorite 80s rock bands, you will want to read this book.  There is a lot of fun and interesting information packed inside.  I only thought I knew a lot, but this book was a real eye opener.  You will learn the good, the bad, and everything in between, about your favorite rockers.  This book is a must read for anyone who loved, or still loves, that era of music.   

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.