#BookReview: Checking Mr. Wrong by @annekempauthor @XpressoTours #Giveaway $25 Amazon gift card

Checking Mr. Wrong
Anne Kemp
(Love in Maple Falls)
Publication date: August 27th 2025
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance, Sports

She’s a grump with a grudge. He’s a sweetheart with a slapshot. Sparks were expected, but the fireworks? Pure magic.

Mabel
Returning to Maple Falls wasn’t part of my five-year plan—or my backup plan. Or any plan, really. But here I am, back in my quirky hometown, dodging my mother’s judgment and trying not to cringe every time someone mentions the viral moment. (Yes, that one. No, I don’t want to talk about it.)

When my editor sends me to cover the NHL’s shiny new team, the Ice Breakers, I’m all in—until I meet Asher Tremblay. He’s their too-charming defenseman with a knack for wrecking my focus and my sanity. Equal parts infuriating and irresistible, but falling for him? Not on my agenda. Nope.

Asher
I’ve worked my whole life to make it in the NHL. A new team means a fresh start, and I won’t let anything distract me—least of all a snarky reporter who seems determined to hate me on sight.

But the more I see Mabel, the more I want to know what’s behind her walls. She’s fire and chaos, and I’ve spent my whole life playing it safe. Maybe she’s exactly what I need. I came to Maple Falls to chase my dream, but now all I want is her.

***

Checking Mr. Wrong is part of the Love in Maple Falls sweet hockey romcom multi-author series. It’s a grumpy sunshine story with forced proximity in this small town romance with all the sizzle and chemistry, but none of the spice.

Welcome back to Maple Falls—the small town where hockey players fall in love! This is a multi-author series of seven full-length books that could be read as standalones, but we think you’ll enjoy them best in order.

Fake-Off with Fate by Whitney Dineen
Offside and Off-Limits by Kate O’Keeffe
Checking Mr. Wrong by Anne Kemp
Skating and Fake Dating by Ellie Hall
Goalie and the Girl Next Door by Elsie Woods
Soulmates and Slapshots by Melissa Baldwin
The Icing on the Cake by Grace Worthington

#BookBlitz: Ashes and Echoes by Jo-Anne Van Gelder by Jo-Anne van Gelder @XpressoTours #Giveaway

Ashes and Echoes
Jo-Anne Van Gelder
Publication date: August 22nd 2025
Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller

A missing friend. A locked estate. A note that says, I know what you did.

Three friends. One is missing. The truth won’t stay buried.

Mara hasn’t seen Elise in years—until a handwritten invitation pulls her back to the crumbling estate they swore they’d never return to.

But Elise isn’t there.
Her handbag is.
So is the daisy.
And a note that reads: I know what you did.

Now Mara and Jodie—the third in their fractured trio—are trapped. No cars. No signal. Nowhere to run.

The house is full of locked doors and old ghosts.
Every secret points back to that night.

Elise’s absence is only the beginning.

Some friendships end in silence.
Some secrets refuse to stay dead.

#BookBlitz: The Sweetest Getaway by @sashaprestonwriter @XpressoTours #Giveaway for $20 Amazon gift card

The Sweetest Getaway
Sasha Preston
Publication date: August 26th 2025
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Women’s Fiction

Jennifer used to be a wholesome daydreamer who’d never broken a law in her life.

In a moment of weakness, she lets her roommate, Nari, rope her into a money-making scheme that isn’t exactly…legal.

How could she have known that stealing from bad guys would be so much fun?

Soon, Jennifer is so busy leading a double life that she barely has time to fantasize about the hot, dimpled stranger she met at one of Nari’s parties.

Everything is going smoothly, until someone rats them out to the cops.

Now, Jennifer and Nari need help from a team of seasoned criminals to pull off a heist that’ll either set them up for life…or get them locked up for a very long time.

Can Jennifer find a path to happily ever after that doesn’t include an ugly prison jumpsuit?

There’s only one way to find out…

The Sweetest Getaway is a no spice, cozy heist novel with laughs, a diverse cast, and the smartest heroines since Ocean’s 8. Perfect for fans of women’s fiction and crime capers. Get it today for a criminally good time.

#Teaser: Changing Woman's Hair by @jandpayne.author @RABTBookTours

 

Marin Sinclair, Book 2

Suspense Thriller

Date Published: 09/15/2025

Publisher: RabbitHole LLC

When Marin Sinclair discovers teenager Garret Washburn in danger from a deadly conspiracy involving bootlegged alcohol, wolf-witches, an election campaign, murder, and an unknown bomber, she looks to Navajo Nation Police Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes and Federal Agent Cullen MacPherson to help protect Vangie Tso's son from the dark forces at play.

#BookBlitz: Diary of a Cult Girl by @crystalballigw @RABTBookTours

Cult, Memoir, Diaries

Date Published: June 26, 2025

 

A Historical Account of Fear, Control, and Escape

“When you’re raised to fear the world, you never question the cage.”

Before she ever knew what freedom felt like, she documented captivity.

Told through the actual journals and letters written while trapped inside one of America’s most quietly dangerous religious cults, Diary of a Cult Girl is a chilling first-person account of life under the rule of Bill Gothard’s teachings—what many now recognize from the “Shiny Happy People” movement.

Raised in rural Alabama, in poverty, with church at home, school at home, and six younger siblings to raise, Crystal Ball’s childhood was shaped not by freedom, but by an addiction to control. Not drugs. Not alcohol. But military-grade submission, inside a cult franchise that gave abusers unchecked authority in God’s name—a system that weaponized fear, shame, and guilt like narcotics to keep women and children quiet and compliant.

In the spirit of The Diary of Anne Frank, this is not just a memoir—it’s evidence. A record of indoctrination. Of blind obedience mistaken for faith. Of a young girl awakening to the unbearable cost of survival.

Alongside her firsthand accounts, Crystal introduces the 3P Framework—Personal Psychological Perceptions—to examine how control systems form in the mind and how they keep victims psychologically trapped, even long after physical escape.

This is the tragic story of a beautiful mind locked in the chains of repression, desperately longing for a better life she was told didn’t exist—until she found the courage to leave it all in the red clay Alabama dust that almost choked her.

 

#AudiobookTour: Elk Love by #LynneSpriggsOConnor @RABTBookTours

Memoir

Date Published: 06-30-2025

Publisher: She Writes Press

Having spent ten summers on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park, part of her doctoral fieldwork for a PhD in Native American Art History, forty-two-year-old Lynne Spriggs thinks of Montana as her healing place. When she moves to “Big Sky Country” from the East Coast in a quest to reset her life, she has high hopes for what awaits her.

Great Falls, a farming and military town in central Montana, is not what Lynne imagined when she decided to leave city life behind. But her dream of being more connected to nature in the American West comes alive when she meets Harrison, a handsome rancher thirteen years her senior. Wary but curious, with her dog Willow by her side, she leans into the seasonal rhythms of Harrison’s hidden valley and opens her heart to a wild language that moves beyond words. In a modern world where listening is rare, Elk Love explores an intimate place where loneliness gives way to wonder, where the natural world speaks of what matters most.

#BookReview: The Secret History of the Rape Kit by @pagan.kennedy

Synopsis:
In 1972, Martha "Marty" Goddard volunteered at a crisis hotline, counseling girls who had been molested by their fathers, their teachers, their uncles. Soon, Marty was on a mission to answer a question: Why were so many sexual predators getting away with these crimes? By the end of the decade, she had launched a campaign pushing hospitals and police departments to collect evidence of sexual assault and treat survivors with dignity. She designed a new kind of forensics tool—the rape kit—and new practices around evidence collection that spread across the country. Yet even as Marty fought for women's rights, she allowed a man to take credit for her work. 

When journalist Pagan Kennedy went looking for this forgotten pioneer, she discovered that even Marty Goddard's closest friends had lost track of her. As Pagan followed a trail of clues to solve the mystery of Marty, she also delved into the problematic history of forensics in America. The Secret History of the Rape Kit chronicles one journalist's mission to understand a crucial innovation in forensics and the woman who championed it. As Pagan Kennedy hunts for answers, she reflects on her own experiences with sexual assault and her own desire for justice.