Tag: Karen Ranney

Guest Review: To Bed the Bride by Karen Ranney

Posted January 29, 2020 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: To Bed the Bride by Karen RanneyReviewer: Tracy
To Bed the Bride by Karen Ranney
Series: All for Love #3
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: November 26, 2019
Format: ARC
Source: Edelweiss
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Politics has introduced MP Logan McKnight to many fascinating people, but the lady he encounters on the lands bordering his ancestral Scottish home outshines them all. Eleanor Craig of Hearthmere seats a Thoroughbred like a queen, knows as much about world events as any of his colleagues—and is engaged to one of the worst men Logan knows. She also seems lonely, so Logan brings her a friend. Thus should their acquaintance end, yet it’s only just begun.

The puppy Logan delivers is every bit as irresistible as the man himself. How could this stranger sense the isolation Eleanor suffers among her scheming, snobbish extended family and fiancé who control her life? It’s even worse in London—until she begins meeting Logan secretly in a secluded park. Their passionate connection frees Eleanor, body and soul. But discovery threatens disgrace—or worse.

Eleanor‘s father dies and leaves her care to her uncle specifies that her uncle and his family must live at hearthmere, her lands in Scotland, until she reaches her majority. When she does reach her majority, then it’s up to her whether her uncle and his family shall continue to live there. Unfortunately Eleanor‘s uncle dies and she is then taken care of by her aunt who hates Scotland and Hearthmere so she immediately decamps to London with her family and Eleanor.

Once they get to London the aunt never wants Eleanor to return to Scotland to check her property, it’s the solicitor that finally talks her aunt into letting her go for one month a year. When the story begins she’s making her yearly trip but this time she’s only allowed two weeks.

While she’s out riding one day she comes across a shepherd and his sheep. The shepherd is quite handsome. Eleanor shows that she is afraid of the sheep dogs and the shepherd can’t understand it. He then brings her a puppy as he thinks it’s ridiculous that anyone would be afraid of dogs. When she tries to return the dog she finds an older man who says he’s the only shepherd for that property. Eleanor is greatly confused and ends up keeping the puppy.

When Eleanor returns to London the family hates the puppy, but she has come to love it and it’s her best friend.

Eleanor meets the “shepherd” again in London, finding out he’s Logan McKnight, an possible future MP. He arrives at Eleanor’s house hoping to sway Eleanor’s step-uncle and her fiancé. That doesn’t go as planned but he does arrange to meet Eleanor.

The pair begin a lovely friendship but they both know it’s wrong. Eleanor is having doubts about her fiancé (he’s a completely self-centered ass) but her family is so happy about the match she’s scared to break it off. She knows she’s falling for Logan so she just doesn’t know what to do.

This was a friends to lovers story and was well done. I really liked Eleanor and Logan together and the slow burn worked for me.

There was a couple of things that happened in the story that I didn’t care for. One was View Spoiler ». That’s a big no in my book, even if Michael was a douche. The second was the way her family treats her in order to get her to agree to stay with Michael. I won’t go into detail but they almost kill her. IDK, something about this rang false. It absolutely could have happened, but it seemed a bit extreme. I loved the ending of the book but wish I could have seen Eleanor’s snooty family’s faces when they saw her again. (That’s obviously my vindictive side showing through.😂)

Overall I thought this was a great story and definitely recommend it.

Rating: 4 out of 5

All for Love

four-stars


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Booksgiving with Book Binge: Day 13

Posted November 19, 2018 by Rowena in Giveaways | 10 Comments

November is a month of giving and a month of sharing so we had a thought. We’ve been at this book blogging thing for over eleven years now and to show our appreciation for all of you lovely readers taking this journey with us, we’ve got books to give away! We’re making this a month of Booksgiving and we hope you’ll join us.

Today’s giveaway includes the following:

Immortally Yours by Lynsay Sands
Four Weddings and a Sixpence by Julia Quinn, Elizabeth Boyle, Laura Lee Guhrke, Stefanie Sloane
The Texan Duke by Karen Ranney

To enter, please use the Gleam widget below. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, answering the question included in the widget and you are good to go.

Booksgiving with Book Binge, Day 13

What about today has been better than yesterday?

Good luck!


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What I Read Last Week

Posted May 27, 2014 by Tracy in Features | 2 Comments

Hey guys!  Hope you’re having a nice Monday.  For those of you in the US…Happy Memorial Day.

Nothing much has been happening around here lately so I guess I’ll just get down to what I read last week:

I started the week with The Witch of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney.  This story is about Mairi Sinclair who lives in Edinburgh and runs her deceased father’s printing press.  She is getting more involved in women’s rights and this ends up butting heads with the Provost of Edinburgh.  The pair squabble but they can’t deny their attraction to each other.  This was a really great story and I very much enjoyed both Mairi and Logan’s characters.  4 out of 5

Next was Don’t Blackmail the Vampire by Tiffany Allee.  Rachel is trying everything to get her sister away from her loser of a fiance and Charles is trying to figure out if the loser fiance, Brent, is making threatening phone calls to his sister-in-law.  Rachel finds out that Charles is a vampire and attempts to blackmail her into help her with her sister.  The story is cute and fun.  I’ll post a review later this week.  3.5 out of 5

The Reiver by Jackie Barbosa is a short story about a Laird who captures a reiver on his land and throws him in the dungeon.  Then he figures out he’s a she and ends up falling in love with her.  Too bad he doesn’t anything about her. It’s a pretty fast story as it’s so short but it was cute.  3 out of 5

Blind Faith by Rebecca Zanetti is Nate’s story in the Sin Brothers series.  He’s still looking for the codes to deactivate the kill switches and tries using his connection with his old love to get them.  He doesn’t realize that’s he’s never stopped loving her and that poses a problem when he’s trying to stay objective.  A good book – I’ll post my review later this week.  4 out of 5

There’s Wild, Then There’s You by M. Leighton is the story of Violet who meets Jet at a Sex addicts anonymous meeting and neither can get the other out of their minds.  The problem is that Violet stood up and said she was a SA but she’s not.  She hates deceiving him but she likes him so much and is afraid to lose him.  I’ll post my review of this one soon. 4 out of 5

Last for the week was Planning for Love by Christi Barth.  This is a cute story that involves wedding planner Ivy who ends up falling for Bennett.  Ivy is a head in the clouds, everything’s rainbows and butterflies type of girl and Bennett is an anti-romance, cynical, the glass is half empty kind of guy.  They make a strange pair but Ivy is determined to make Bennett fall in love with her.  It’s cute but a little slow in the middle.  It wrapped up with a nice bow at the end which was a little disconcerting as I just didn’t see Ben changing his mind about love.  shrugs 3 out of 5

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
crickets

Happy Reading!


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Review: The Devil of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney

Posted August 14, 2013 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

For Virginia Traylor, Countess of Barrett, marriage was merely the vehicle to buy her father a title. Widowhood, however, brings a host of problems. For her husband deliberately spent the money intended for Virginia and her in-laws, leaving them penniless—unless she produces an heir. Desperate and confused, Virginia embarks on a fateful journey that brings her to the doorstep of the only man she’s ever loved…

He’s known as The Devil, but Macrath Sinclair doesn’t care. He moved to a tiny Scottish village in hopes of continuing his work as an inventor and starting a family of his own. He bought the house; he chose the woman. Unfortunately, Virginia didn’t choose him. Macrath knows he should turn her away now, but she needs him, and he wants her more than ever. Whatever game Virginia’s playing, Macrath intends to win—one wickedly seductive deed at a time… 

Virginia is in a pickle. Her husband of 9 months is dead and her and her in-laws, who she’s come to know as family, will be kicked out with no money as soon as the new Earl takes his place. Should she take the chance that she will be able to find work or will she take her mother-in-laws suggestion and get pregnant by another man and pass it off as her dead husband’s heir? Virginia chooses option B and heads to Scotland to see her once and only love, Macrath Sinclair. 

Macrath and Virginia had fallen in love the year before and planned to get married. Unfortunately Virginia’s father didn’t want him in the family for many reasons. Instead he contracted for Virginia to marry an Earl who ended up hating her. Now Virginia is in Macrath’s home and they realize that even though time has passed they still love each other. Macrath sees her in his home forever but after only a day, Virginia leaves again.

The plan works and Virginia ends up giving birth to a bouncing baby boy who then becomes the eleventh Earl of Barrett. Of course Macrath knows nothing of the baby as Virginia never told him she was pregnant. Of course Macrath can’t leave Virginia to go back to her life now that she’s free so he eventually goes to see her in London and finds out the baby’s his. When Virginia’s sick and out of it he takes the baby back to Scotland but of course she follows but he’s not about to give up his son – ever.

I’ve only read about 5 books by this author and the majority of those I really liked. This one was no different. I think she does a lovely job writing her characters and they draw me in and I end up wanting to read more and more. Of course all those burly Scots in her books are wonderful! Lol

In this book I really liked reading about Virginia’s strength. Did she make some big mistakes – oh yeah, most certainly, but she learned from them and tried not to make them again. She was incredibly stubborn but not so much that she couldn’t see when she was wrong. I did think that she could have gone to Macrath and asked him to help her and her deceased husband’s family after he died and I know he would have helped but then we wouldn’t have had the book, would we? 🙂

Macrath was part stubborn fool, part romantic, part sensitive father. I really enjoyed reading about him and frankly the fact that he couldn’t stay away from Virginia endeared him to me. He wasn’t so pigheaded that he thought “she left me once after she was a widow, why try again?” He swallowed his pride (ok, it took him months!) and went to see her hoping for the best. He really was a great character. 

Overall I really liked the story and can’t wait to read more about Clan Sinclair.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Karen Ranney


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What I Read Last Week

Posted August 12, 2013 by Tracy in Features | 1 Comment

Well it was another interesting week around Tracyland. With hubby still gone – he got back this past Saturday – I felt like a freakin taxi service running my oldest and her friends around. And of course none of them live nearby, it’s always to the other side of town and back which shoots about 40 minutes. sigh No time to read (or do anything else for that matter)! lol The kids start school this week so I know things will calm down now crosses fingers 

When I said there was no time to read I wasn’t kidding. My first book of the week was Guardian Demon by Meljean Brook. This book was so so so so good I didn’t want to put it down but with my schedule it ended up taking almost 5 days to read it. It was sheer unadulterated torture. lol The wonderful think about Meljean’s books is that there’s so good that it doesn’t lose any of its punch when you have to put it down for a while. This was Michael and Andy Taylor’s book and I loved every moment of it. I can’t say enough good things about it and think everyone should read it. 🙂 5 out of 5 (read for Book Binge – my review will post on 8/14/13, fyi) 

I then read a very short story in the Iron Seas series by Meljean Brook called The Hook. Very short – like 5 pages, very good with Mina Wentworth and Constable Newberry. You can read it here on Meljean’s website by clicking here. 4 out of 5

Next was The Devil of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney. The story is about Virginia and Macrath who fall in love but then Virginia’s father contracts her to marry someone else. After about 9 months her husband dies and when the new earl takes over her and her in-laws (all women) will be left destitute (the husband was a true bastard). The mother in-law and Virginia devise a plan to get pregnant and pass the child off as her husbands. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Yep, she has Macrath’s child but doesn’t tell him about him and then when he finds out he takes the baby. This was a really great story and I loved the characters and the way they were written. You can read my full review on Wednesday. 4 out of 5 

Fighting Fate by Linda Kage is a New Adult read about a girl who goes to college and ends up falling in love with the guy who killed her brother. That sounds bad but it really was a true accident and he suffered from it as well. The story was really good and though there was a lot of tragedy to read about, most of it was in the past. I’m looking forward to reading more in this series when they’re released. 4 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

That’s it! I know – there’s hardly anything there. Oh well, I’ll hopefully have more time to read now that hubby’s home. 🙂

 
My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
Neanderthal Seeks Human by Penny Reid

Happy Reading! 


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