EFR REVIEWS

CRAZY HEART At the age of fifty-seven, Bad Blake is on his last legs. His weight, his ticker, his liver, even his pick-up truck are all giving him trouble. A renowned songwriter and "picker" who hasn't recorded in five years, Bad now travels the countryside on gigs that take him mostly to motels and bowling alleys. Enter Ms. Right. Can Bad stop living the life of a country-western song and tie a rope  around his crazy heart? ***NOTE: There is a spoiler quote for the book / movie Beguiled at the end of this post*** ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Fifty-seven year old "Bad Blake" is a country-western singer / songwriter in the twilight of his career. His body is beginning to give out from years of wild living and hard drinking. There's also the matter of his estranged, now grown son whom he hasn't seen since the guy was a little one of four. Put it all together and Blake has a life chock full of regrets he's usually trying to play down. Blake ha

COAST GUARD COURTSHIP (#1) Coast Guard Officer Braeden Scott's life  is all about freedom and adventure.  Being assigned to a tiny Virginia coastal  village is the last thing he wants. But thanks  to a feisty redhead, he's soon discovering  the charms of a small-town life. Amelia Duer  is all about home and hearth. Taking care  of others is her whole world. As Braeden  spends more time with her and her nephew,  his hopes for a family begin to resurface.  Could Amelia prove to be the anchor this  charming Coastie needs to stop wandering  and create a home for good? ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ NC based writer Lisa Carter places her Coast Guard centered romance in the small town of Kiptohanock, Virginia, where CG officer Braeden Scott gets stationed and quickly finds himself tangled up with feisty redhead Amelia Duer. Being a redhead myself, I had to chuckle at one point in the story where a comment is made about redheaded women in general being "insidious&quo

*** WARNING: BEWARE! SPOILERS BELOW!! *** UNBLEMISHED (#1) Eliyana is used to the shadows. With a birthmark covering half her face, she just hopes to graduate high school unscathed. That is, until Joshua hops a fence and changes her perspective. No one, aside from her mother, has ever treated her like he does: normal. Maybe even beautiful. Because of Joshua, Eliyana finally begins to believe she could be loved. But one night her mother doesn’t come home, and that’s when everything gets weird. Now Joshua is her new, and rather reluctant, legal Guardian. Add a hooded stalker and a Central Park battle to the mix and you’ve gone from weird to otherworldly. Eliyana soon finds herself in a world much larger and more complicated than she’s ever known. A world enslaved by a powerful and vile man. And Eliyana holds the answer to defeating him. How can an ordinary girl, a blemished girl, become a savior when she can’t even save herself? Amazon.com ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Eli

   Hannah Thomas left the South and all that was familiar to marry her beloved John. But the fact that she’s never been quite accepted by his mother and sister and that she doesn’t quite fit the strict Massachusetts Puritan community only becomes more difficult when John is killed in one of the first battles in the war for freedom. Hannah is allowed to continue to serve as lightkeeper for the twin tower lighthouses on the lonely coastline, but it is grueling work for a woman alone. One of the first shipwrecks washes ashore a handsome captain she thinks is a Tory, but she soon finds out he’s working as a spy for Washington. Much stands in the way of their happiness including the need to protect his secret, pressure from John’s family to marry another, near-constant disapproval from the townspeople, and the appearance of Hannah’s wayward sister. Coupled with the strain of war, Hannah isn’t sure she’ll ever see the light of freedom. Amazon.com ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Some time ago, young