Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 291

Review: THE BABY BARGAIN by Crystal Kaswell

“I’m sorry, Ariel” were the last words she expected to hear. Then he has the gall to tell her, “It’s not you.”


“That's ridiculous. I'm the one with the ticking clock. With the ultimatum. With the expiration date that changes everything.” (2) Ariel doesn’t have much time and she was getting desperate.


Four months. That’s all she has to find a guy to knock her up.


Chase, a friend of her brothers, has also been recently dumped. If only he can just finagle some meaningless sex to get over it.


Solution: a sex arrangement so that they both get what they need.


Story was pretty good, but it was written in chopped sentences (a lot of fragments,) which were good to convey exaggeration and drama, but it could also be a nuisance after a while.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: WHO’S THE DADDY by Taryn Quinn

First off for the guy on the cover: shave your beard!


Kelsey is a kindergarten teacher on a stalemate in the dating department, unless you count the random hook-up with her ex at his granny’s funeral.


I don’t think I ever got past Kelsey’s part because she tended to yammer too much, and the overall story didn’t go anywhere for me.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED by Victorine Lieske

Madison needed a job. Even though she was an actress, she felt she could play the role of admin assistant. At the job interview, she “accidentally” becomes her new boss’ date for a family reunion. Well, she hopes that he’ll be her new boss. The only contingency is that she play the part.


Jared was a world-class jerk. No wonder he needed to pay for an escort.


I loved the tormenting jab she put him through at the family function. But did she really have to announce that they were engaged? Yeah…she did, because she was having way too much fun tormenting him.


It wouldn’t be such a bad ruse, except a dying aunt’s last wish was to see the couple get married. Oy vey! And it 2 weeks!


Well, it would be tough, but the pair would reluctantly play along. The thing was that after a magnificent kiss in front of everyone, the two become smitten with each other, but try not to show it, because, they just didn’t want to feel anything during this ridiculous charade.


It gets much too involved in the wedding planning, but I enjoyed the snarky jabs throughout. I thought this was pretty good overall. I liked the concept, but the story tapered down for me with all the wedding talk. The rest of the Married series sounds too similar for me to continue the series. It’s like they all pretty much had the same concept and “fake marriage” scenario.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: MARRIED BY MISTAKE by Lindsey Hart

June just woke up next to a hulking stranger with a massive hangover, no memory of the night before, and a wedding band on her left hand. WTF?!


At first the two could not believe what they done and they didn’t like each other. And all over a stupid bet! Then he comes up with the idea of a marriage of convenience. Oo-kay.


The characters have a tendency to babble incessantly and annoyingly, yammering on and on ‘til it grows borderline obsessive. It got tiring for me. I thought this might be a nice, sexy, comedy romp, but I just couldn’t stand these characters.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: V IS FOR VIRGIN by Kelly Oram

Valerie is a virgin and plans to stay that way until marriage. Unfortunately, her boyfriend of 3 months didn’t understand it and took it badly. Couldn’t he understand that Val didn’t want to end up like her birth mother, who had to give her up for adoption after having her at 16?


The next day at school, the rumors spread how he dumped her because she was bad in bed, prompting Val to announce her virginity to the whole school, thus, committing social suicide. Heck, there was even a video of her embarrassing declaration on YouTube! From that point on, she was branded as Virgin Val, and the V around her neck was her Scarlett Letter. But perhaps she could use this media attention. Thus, begins her abstinence campaign. V is Virgin.


I love how Val stands up for herself, but she never expected things to go so far. Heck, she even gains notoriety from a recent high school drop-out-turned-rock-star, making her an instant celebrity.


Kyle was so infuriating, just goading Val to break her streak on this whole virginity thing. On top of Kyle’s incessant badgering, Val is torn apart between her campaign, her jewelry design, and overall celebrity status that they get in the way of her friendships. The whole thing turns into a world of crazy for Val.


Was Val’s thinking delusional? Was she waiting for Mr. Perfect, who might not even exist? Could there actually be something between Val and Kyle? Can Val change Mr. Playboy to change his philandering ways?


Her story is not about having sex; it’s about making choices for yourself. And Val was making her choice, which what I liked best about her.


Full of drama, tension, and big changes for everyone.


A great read! It just gets you hooked from the start.


My rating: 5 stars

Review: PUNCHLINE by P.A. Fenton

BOHICA: Bend Over, Here it Comes Again

It was time to “ditch the childish dream of making it as a writer and embrace the job that paid wages.” (LOC 28)


“Whether or not you like your job is immaterial—being fired is like being stamped defective.” (LOC 100)


The beginning definitely captured my attention. It was witty and smart. Story had a promising start, but really tapered off with the character’s constant BS. I didn’t even know who this character was. All I know was that he was whiny, sniveling, little b#tch.
DID. NOT. LIKE. IT.

My rating: 2 stars

Review: THE MAGIC SAPPHIRE by Alba Arango

An auction bid presents an old suitcase with cross-swords and a skull, so, naturally Steve bids on it. It turns out that there was an old map hidden in there of The Grim Reaper's Mine. Suddenly, the Decoders must configure the cryptic poem and seek the answers behind the mysterious papers.
Could there still be gold in that old mine?
Through research ,the kids find out the legend of The Magic Sapphire and the power it supposedly gives to whoever owns it. Interesting. Only a good person can find the stone. A real live treasure hunt!
Can they find the treasure before the jewel thief does?
This is another fun adventure book. It seems like these kids are always figuring out a code and going on a treasure hunt, making most of the books in the series pretty much the same. The bulk of the story is the actual decoding―going line by line, analyzing each lame text, to figure out the special meaning.
Still, these kids are smart and witty, and young readers will enjoy this little tale.
My rating: 3.5 stars

Blog Tour: 13 STEPS TO THE CELLAR by Teresa Mathews

MysteryDate Published: September 4, 2019Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing

Thirteen Steps to the Cellar. They were steep; they were narrow—but was a fall down them enough to have caused the twenty-seven deep lacerations to her aunt’s head? 
Callie Harris travels from her home in Alabama to her aunt’s former mansion in Maine to unravel the haunting forty-year-old mystery of Dr. Laverne Harris Doss’ brutal death.
Why wasn’t a murder weapon found? Was her uncle justly convicted of the killing? Was his mistress involved? Or was the murderer the bearded stranger rumored to have arrived by train that night?
In the charming town of Richmond, located on the banks of Maine’s historic Kennebec River, Callie uncovers the community’s darkest secrets—a botched police investigation, a betrayed widow’s lie, a dead woman’s blackmail, and a wealthy philanthropist’s shame. The web of intrigue extends far beyond her suspicions and its connection to her personal story pierces Callie to her core.



My review: Callie has always held a soft spot for the passing of her Aunt Laverne, her father’s sister. Now, both she and her father were gone, and, since the funeral, Callie has been having recurring nightmares. Newspaper clippings confirmed her aunt’s body was found in the cellar—a detail that certainly established the brutality of her death. However, no other details were shared. What’s even scarier was that Callie looked just like Laverne. So, naturally, she decides to visit the house in Richmond, Maine—where her aunt lived, worked, and died. Chilling!


Intent on learning more about her aunt’s murder, Callie seeks answers from a small town and historical records. But it certainly seems like the townspeople are hiding something. And who was the man in Callie’s dreams? Were these visions? Or memories of a past life?

Evidently many people in town had reason to leave the dead buried and certainly didn’t want the old story revived. Perhaps there were a few too many people in the story. I kind of wished that would’ve been narrowed down to a select few.
It’s an interesting mystery that sparks a curiosity in readers. What happened that night in the cellar? What secrets are these people hiding? And is there a killer still out there? Clues and speculation slowly drip into this old mystery like oil from a rag. Although not a fast-paced tale, it does lend eeriness into a dark quandary.
An okay read that mystery lovers would enjoy.
My rating: 3 stars


About the Author
TERESA MATHEWS is a graduate of The University of South Alabama.  She’s a member of the Mobile Writers Guild and serves on the Board of Directors for the Alabama Nursery and Landscape Association.
An avid gardener and artist, she has multiple book covers to her credit. Several years ago after visiting the site of her real-life aunt’s murder, Teresa discovered a third passion–storytelling. Although inspired by an actual tragedy, Thirteen Steps to the Cellar is fiction.
Raised on the Gulf Coast, Teresa, her husband, and son now live on a farm with a second home on the sparkling white sands of Fort Morgan, Alabama. This is her first novel.
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Review: RAINING MEN AND CORPSES by Anne Tan

Raina is up to her eyeballs in lawyer fees while begging her ex-boyfriend for money owed to her. All the while faking a pregnancy to boot!


Somehow the ex-boyfriend turns up dead.


I thought this was okay reading, witty and crafty at times, but it had such awkward phrasing like “inventoried the room.”  ???? Mmmm….


Author tries to be funny, but she might have been trying too hard as the whole thing was pretty slow for me. 

My rating: 2 stars

Review: GHOSTLY INTERESTS by Lily Harper Hart

At the age of 7, Harper Harlow said goodbye to her grandfather. Actually, she said goodbye to his ghost.


20 years later, she runs a ghost hunter business, sending ghosts on their way to the afterlife. But when the ghost of a murdered woman shows up, she must find her killer and put her spirit to rest. With a ghost that can’t remember, a handsome and skeptical police detective, and a gay best friend, Harper must keep her wits about her to solve this mystery.


I thought this was sharp and witty, but I thought the whole thing revolved too much around the crush angle between Harper and Jared. C’mon, people, focus more on the dead woman in front of you! We got a murderer/rapist on the loose.


A pretty good read. 

My rating: 3.5 stars