Covet thy Neighbor

 …leaping into the unknown can lead to all the dreams you never knew you had coming…

 The above statement is never shown more clearly than with Denise Carbo’s contemporary romance, Covet thy Neighbor, the latest in her Granite Cove series.

Single mother of ten year-old twin boys Olivia Banner doesn’t know she’s worth having dreams—because no one has ever told her she deserved them: not her rigid mother who is governed by archaic gender roles, nor her bitter, over-protective ex-mother-in-law; and certainly not her ex-husband, a textbook mama’s boy with a Peter Pan complex. Then she meets the  next-door neighbor, enigmatic writer Luke Hollister, and all of a sudden Olivia starts to question what she was never told, or shown, or given.  

And the fun begins.

       Covet thy Neighbor is chock full of varied characters from an intrepid, selfless heroine with a pack of witty, gutsy women pals at her back; and a man—who understands women and how they think—probably better than he thought he did—until he met the perfect one for him. This is one for the books. Brava, Ms. Carbo!

 On a scale of 1-5 Covet thy Neighbor deserves a 5.

      Kat Henry Doran, Wild Women Reviews

 

 

 

 

Forever, My Vampire by Tony-Paul deVissage

  . . .His orders were simple: make himself accepted by the villagers, make them forget the past vampire stories and settle down . . .

 Forever, My Vampire, written by Tony-Paul deVissage, published by Worldwooze Publishing.

           It is 1926 in rural Ireland and the small village of Ballywalegh is in a proper uproar after the local manor house, uninhabited for more than a century, is reopened by its new owner, Karel Novotny—handsome as any movie actor, he is—with his odd acting staff, their fancy cars and furniture limited to those oversize caskets stored in the master bedroom.

On the eve of the annual Fall Fellowship Festival, old fears and myths start up again about strange happenings at the manor house and illnesses among the young women of the village. So what’s a man such as Seamus Flannery to do, when his lovely daughter Bridey arrives home from her teaching position for a short vacation, intent on attending the Fest?

On the heels of a most successful Festival when  Novotny and Bridey, as well as many of the other young people of the village, had themselves quite the time, illness strikes—just as it did before. Driven to frenzy, the villagers storm the manor house, looking to commit violence—just as they did before.

 Our Review: There are many terrific aspects of this delightful story, one of which is author deVissage’s ability to create the nuances of Irish-speak. Reading this story, for us, was a welcome visit home. Another excellent aspect is his ability to create parallel story lines, populated by intriguing characters, and a hint of mystery which kept us turning the pages.  

 On a scale of 1-5, Forever, My Vampire deserves a 6.

       Kat Henry Doran, Wild Women Reviews