Blitz: Tamari Island by Joy Allyson with an excerpt and a giveaway

TAMARI ISLAND

by Joy Allyson

GENRE:  Historical Romance

BLURB:

Emmie Prescott, the smart, pretty granddaughter of a United States senator, leaps at an offer to work on Tamari Island, a remote South Pacific island after a disastrous family exposé crushed her dream job aspirations. Her first day on the island sparks fly when she meets handsome Jack Manderly, a reporter who works on ambiguous stories for the same paper that sabotaged her career hopes. Once serious problems emerge in her new role at the designer silk plant, Emmie chooses to ignore the man whose very presence leaves her breathless.

Jack harbors a bitter sense of betrayal against Washington politicians who pressured his editor to exile him to Tamari after he linked stories of Emmie’s grandfather’s alleged activities while posted in D.C. His new assignment, tracking rumors in Southeast Asia years after the Vietnam ceasefire, is increasingly perilous. Embroiled in a dangerous mission where love and sacrifice can’t coexist, Jack strives to erase Emmie from his mind.

Despite their intentions and forced proximity, Emmie and Jack’s attraction deepen as alarming incidents occur around the island. Amidst the swirling chaos, Tamari Island deals her own hand. Will Emmie leverage her fashion connections and escape to Paris or go home and grow her political roots? And will she ever forget the man who makes her body and soul sing?

EXCERPT:

Every cell in Emmie Prescott’s body slammed into a wall. She stopped running and bending, placed her palms on her knees, and took slow, measured breaths to calm her racing heartbeat. Glancing back, she checked for anyone behind her.

Only her lone deep impressions in the sand followed her. She straightened, hands on hips, and scanned the horizon. Foam-crested waves battered the shoreline as the afternoon tide rolled in. Clear skies and blinding sunshine magnified the dazzling white beach. She swung her arms, crisscrossing, stretching the muscles as she studied the different seascape for the first time since landing. 

Too late to back out now. 

She swiveled her head from side to side, working out the slight crick in her neck. Sitting on a plane for thirteen hours was murder on her butt, too. Moaning, she rubbed her backside. Minutes earlier she had abandoned her unpacked suitcase in her appointed room and startled her hostess and servants, escaping through the butler’s pantry and pushing open the outside service door. 

“Where are you going?” Charlotte Amhurst had demanded. “Our guests will arrive in less than an hour.”

Pleading jet lag, she flew down the rock steps to the beach for a quick jog. Charlotte, her mother’s closest friend and whose hospitality she currently benefitted from, threw up her hands. “Stay where you can always see the house,” she warned. “You’d think with the war over, it would be safe out there. It’s not as harmless as it looks. 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

As the daughter of a United States military officer, Joy Allyson grew up with a deep appreciation of history and a love of travel. A former teacher-turned-writer, she has an unquenchable thirst for historical romances in her reading choices and loves inserting historical nuggets in all her romances. Her favorite characters–are rebel heroines and salvageable scoundrels. She believes the best romances are the ones you want to read over and over again.

Whiskey Love, her debut novel, was selected as a 2023 Killer Nashville Best Historical Silver Falchion Award Finalist. Whiskey Secrets was chosen as a Top Pick for the 2024 Silver Falchion Awards. She has just published her third novel, Tamari Island, which has a South Pacific Island setting, and is currently writing another story to complete her Whiskey Love Trilogy. 

Joy loves classic movies, chocolate, coffee, cards, and carbs. She and her husband call the beautiful hills of Tennessee home, and her two daughters and six grandchildren are nearby.

Website: https://www.joyallyson.com/

Amazon Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Tamari-Island-Joy-Allyson-ebook/dp/B0DFQKF1FG/ref=sr_1_1

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GIVEAWAY 

Joy Allyson will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f5165/

Check out these other blogs on this tour:

June 2: Joanne Guidoccio

June 2: Romance Novel Giveaways
June 3: Sandra's Book Club
June 4: Sarcastically Yours, Jen review

June 4: Gina Rae Mitchell
June 5: A Wonderful World of Words

June 5: The Key of Love
June 6: Read Your Writes Book Reviews
June 9: Dawn's Reading Nook
June 10: Punya Reviews...
June 11: Iron Canuck Reviews & More

June 11: Long and Short Reviews
June 12: Locks, Hooks and Books

June 12: The Avid Reader
June 13: Maggie Blackbird

Book Review: You Should be so Lucky by Cat Sebastian

 

Blurb: 

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

Amazon: You Should Be So Lucky: A Novel - Kindle edition by Sebastian, Cat. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

B&N: You Should Be So Lucky: A Novel by Cat Sebastian, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Kobo: You Should Be So Lucky eBook by Cat Sebastian - EPUB Book | Rakuten Kobo United States

Google: A Season with Her Forbidden Earl by Julia Justiss - Books on Google Play

Bookbub: You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian - BookBub

Goodreads: You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian | Goodreads

My Review - 4 of 5 stars - 

I enjoyed Mark and Eddie as they slowly made their way to each other and through their own issues. Basically pushed together, they need to find their way and accept the feelings between them. At moments, I felt that we were bogged down in too much minutiae, details. This was definitely a slow-burn, but their journey was an interesting one in the long run.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of Avon Books, and this is my unsolicited review.