How to Hack a Heartbreak

How to Hack a Heartbreak

Kristin Rockaway

Graydon House

Mel Strickland works the help desk in Hatch, a NYC tech incubator company. It’s a soul-destroying job in an atmosphere of toxic masculinity. Nobody appreciates Mel’s coding skills and her love life’s a mess. Luckily she has her great friends Lia, Dani, and Whitney to back her up. When yet another loser sends her a dick pic on the dating app Fluttr, Mel decides enough is enough. Figuring out she can’t be the only woman who’s sick of the whole internet dating scene, Mel sets up her own site—JerkAlert—where women can share information and warnings about ghosters, smash-and-dashers, and dick pic senders.

Mel’s instincts prove right. JerkAlert becomes the new internet sensation and her little project soon attracts interest from the management of Fluttr itself. But nothing in Mel’s life is ever straightforward. She falls hard for Alex, one of the incubator crowd, apparently a true gentleman—but is he leading a double life? Fluttr’s once in a lifetime offer for JerkAlert has dollar signs dancing in front of Mel’s eyes, but the offer’s full of hidden snags. And maybe her ownership of JerkAlert isn’t as solid as she thinks. Mel’s personal and professional life seem headed for disaster when inspiration strikes, and she goes out on a limb with a new project, one that’ll alter the internet dating scene forever. Will it be enough to get her career and love life back on track?

By turns smart, funny, and always engaging, How to Hack a Heartbreak’s tale of a modern Big Apple woman taking on the world will have you rooting for Mel all the way.

Match Making for Beginners - review

Match Making for Beginners,

by Maddie Dawson

Lake Union

Marnie McGraw, an ordinary young woman from Florida, is all at sea when she encounters her fiance Noah’s Old Money Virginian family for the first time. An innocent faux-pas immediately sets her at odds with Noah’s mom – but earns her a firm ally in the formidable shape of his great-aunt Blix Holliday. Blix sees much of herself in the younger woman and is elated by the discovery, because she’s dying and needs to find someone to replace her as magical matchmaker extraordinaire.

Marnie’s wedding to rich, feckless fly-by-night Noah is a disaster. Divorced within weeks, a shell-shocked Marnie is rescued by her family and renews her teenage love affair with Jeremy, now a doctor of physical therapy. Maybe this time she’ll settle with a nice, stable, boring guy and live the suburban life she thinks she wants. But Fate has a surprise in store when Blix passes away, leaving Marnie an eccentric brownstone house in Brooklyn, two lodgers – and a whole host of problems to solve. 

There’s Jessica, still in love with her ex-husband, although she won’t admit it. There’s Lola, Blix’s old friend and neighbor, reluctant to show her attraction to her late husband’s best friend. There’s Patrick, a physically scarred man with a shining soul who’s reluctant to show his face outside the brownstone’s basement apartment. And then there’s Noah, crashing back into Marnie’s life with his own agenda. Torn between Florida and Brooklyn and a growing attraction to Patrick, can Marnie negotiate the perils, pitfalls and magical chaos of Blix’s world and find the life and love she needs?

Match Making forBeginners is a lovely, lyrical, funny and moving story about lost souls and those who find, love and guide them. Marnie and Blix are great characters with true personalities you’ll love to read more adventures of. 

Tiffany Blues

Tiffany Blues

by M J Rose

Atria Books

Jenny Bell is a gifted young artist with a harrowing past making a new life for herself in New York City. She thinks her history will stay buried until her best friend, wealthy socialite Minx Deering, contrives to gain their admittance to the prestigious Tiffany Foundation. An annual eight-week summer event held at Laurelton Hall, the fabulous estate of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Foundation is a hothouse for artistic talent. Whoever wins the jury's accolade at the end of the term is set for a glittering artistic career.

Even at Laurelton Hall with all its wonders Jenny feels adrift until she meets Oliver Tiffany, the great man's grandson, and falls in love for the first time. Oliver draws Jenny out of herself and away from her serious monochromatic style of art to embrace color as she embraces him. Champagne flows like water and jazz fills the air, but a series of unnerving incidents intimates that someone among the contestants knows of Jenny's past and is using their knowledge to handicap her chances to win the prize. Jenny doesn't know if she can trust Minx any more. Is her best friend back to using opium, an addiction she supposedly kicked? What kind of influence is Minx's boyfriend Edward having on her, and why is he so hostile to Jenny? Events culminate one night into a confrontation that threatens to ruin everything, and only a desperate act of love can avert disaster.

Tiffany Blues is a story as elegantly crafted and as colorful as Tiffany's own artwork. M J Rose brings Jenny, Minx and Oliver to life along with the heady, sometimes desperate lifestyle of the Lost Generation. 

Fairy on the Christmas Tree

Fairy on the Christmas Tree
Lark Westerly
eXtasy Books
Author Web Site link
Purchase Link

Frances finds herself in a most unfortunate situation on Christmas Eve in Lark Westerly's romantic romp Fairy on the Christmas Tree. Her lover keeps making excuses for not paying his half of their holiday cruise, and finally he tells her over the phone he has to go to his so-called ex-wife's business dinner with the boss. Her patience with him at an end, in a huff Fran accidentally drops her cell phone into a pot of boiling custard on the stove. So much for a long, drawn out, sad good-bye. 

Fran decides to do her best to salvage her lonely holiday. She strikes out on her own to purchase a new angel topper for her grandmother's old artificial Christmas tree. But wouldn't you know it? There's not a single angel to be had in all of Sydney--amazing! Finally she meets a sympathetic shop assistant named Egbert who locates an old "fairy topper"  in the back room. Fran decides the price is right and what the heck? She buys it sight unseen and heads home with her dinner for one.

Grandma's tree looks sad after she decorates it with the old and tired decorations. Fran sighs and wishes she could be in Brisbane with her folks.  She opens the box, hoping the fairy topper will perk up her holiday, but it turns out to be just plain ugly. She wipes its freshly painted make-up off its face--odd that--and takes off its hideous pink gauze dress only to discover a  real live--and extremely randy--male fairy underneath. Niall tells Fran that her magic has made him ready to fulfill her every Christmas wish and then some... Let the loving begin!

Fairy on the Christmas Tree is a funny and fast read sure to please all who have ever wished not to be alone on a holiday, and to find that magical someone who can fulfill their ever secret pleasure. Fran is a heroine with pluck and determination, and she meets her match in the sexy and playful Niall Le Fay, a fairy with a saucy wit and a strong desire to please. Don't wait until December to enjoy this comedy-erotic-romance set Down Under.

Rating: 4 sushi rolls