Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Monthly Archives: May 2022


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Light & Pol-dark in ‘Stone Ruins and City Smoke’

Stone Ruins and City Smoke

By Charlie Martyn

Dark Edge Press, 2022

Genre: Fiction/Romance/Travel

Via: Zooloo’s Book Tours

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

You might hear Winston Graham rippling through the pages of this light romance novel set in London and the lush countryside of Cornwall, stompin’ grounds of Ross Poldark.

Widower Tom Maynard owns the Wheal Neft (hi, Ross) Hotel in Cornwall. It’s a small, unique “bijou” hotel that caters to the rich and famous who yearn for sanctuary and privacy from prying eyes. Wheal Neft has also caught the eye of Owen Taylor, owner of the posh, upscale Carillion Hotel in London. His daughter, snooty Melanie Taylor, has been tasked to visit Wheal Neft and wangle a partnership deal.

Tom is less than thrilled at the prospect. To put it mildly. Mel has the personality of battery acid, with a caustic tongue to boot. Her haughty insolence doesn’t exactly sweeten the deal.

Meanwhile, Tom’s fourteen year-old daughter, Amy, decides her dad is lonely and needs a woman. She talks him into signing up at an online dating site. Hilarity ensues.

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TTT: One Word Reviews for the Last 10 Books I Read

“Mom is gonna love this weeks’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic!” spake I, Kimber the Magnificent and Bookish Border Collie Extraordinaire. You know this is so because I say it is.

Anyway, this week’s topic is One Word Review for the Last 10 Books I (We) Read. Sounds easy, no? But when one of us sat down to actually come up with a list of same, we discovered three things:

  1. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.
  2. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. (That’s not a redundant typo, okay?)
  3. Once Her Momness finally got the lead out and got rolling, it was hard to limit the list to just ten. It was easier to limit the list to the last 10-ish good or at least reasonably decent books we read. (We left out the real stinkers. You’re welcome.)

So here ya go:

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New Karen Kingsbury Novel Doesn’t Disappoint

 

Forgiving Paris

By Karen Kingsbury

Simon & Schuster, Inc., October 2021

Genre: Christian Fiction

Pages: 273

 

Her darkest secret.

Her gravest mistake.

Can she make peace with herself… and Paris?

Kimber here, being my usual Magnificent Self. Telling you that Her Momness is doing that sparkly-eyed, sniffly nose thing again. Cuz of a book she just finished. Hang just a sec while a grab a hankie for Mom.

Ready, Mom? Okay. I’ll let her tell you more:

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