Category Archives: Family Orientated

#Review – Ashenland (Love Through the Sands of Time, #1) by Gianna Scannell

Ashenland (Love Through the Sands of Time, #1)

It is the year 1197 BC in Troy of the Dardanelles.
Calypso is seventeen, mistrusting and mischievous. She should be; she’s a princess. She hates her town and everything in it, and dreams to one day fly away from there. She hates royal chores and responsibilities and wants nothing to do with it, but on her death bed her mother makes Calypso promise that the rebellious princess will care for her dad and her people. Uncapable to fulfill her pledge, Calypso plunges into deep depression. She’s on the verge of suicide when, one night, a fiery snake flies over her city and burns it to the ground. Alone, confused and scared, tears streaking her soot-plastered face, Calypso invokes her dead mother now understanding how much she really loved everyone she has lost.

Mother Earth hears her, and standing on the ashes of the burnt city the two forge a pact. Calypso and her father will live, but she must not fall in love, marry or have children. She must find and bring back from the future a special person, a boy who loves ancient Earth. With his help, the princess will have a chance to change the destiny of the people she once despised.

Daniel Hiempsal is also seventeen, and has a passion. He studies ancient climates with the guide of his father, a famous archaeologist. A vision comes to him, in the shape of a girl, and she asks that he follow her to her past. Temptation is great; he could see with his own eyes the world he loves so much. But when Calypso returns to Troy with Daniel, time travel has turned him into a ghost.

Daniel is not a common ghost, like, say, a ghost from the past who has gone through some horrific ordeal and finds himself undead. No, Daniel is a ghost from the future, who carries in his brain information unheard of in the Bronze Age, and he sure needs all of his wits if he wants to make it through this neck-breaking, dizzying adventure and return to his normal times.

Started on a bad note and with a lot of mistrust and insecurities, the relationship between Daniel and Calypso slowly blossoms. In the end, they forge a friendship that overcomes the barriers of space and time.

 

Goodreads

 

I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

 

This is a story where the past and the future collide, literally. Calypso is the princess of Troy and she is a spoiled princess at that. Extreme tragedy starts when her mother, lying on her death bed, makes Calypso promise to take care of her father and her people. Next thing you know her whole world is being destroyed by a huge fiery snake. Her village is burned and destroyed. With very little life left, she calls on the gods, Mother Earth specifically, to help her. She is sent on a quest to go to the future to find Hiempsal and bring him back to help free Mother Earth. She is unhappy as no one believes in her anymore. The journey takes Calypso to the future to Daniel and then back to her time and on the quest to save the world. The journey leads them into lands with extreme prejudices and some full of love. The relationship between Daniel and Calypso is fun and eye opening. They have a connection that at the end will bring a tear to your eye. This story is full of history and gods of the past with an amazing tale of friendship. A fun story!

 

 

 

Gianna Scannell

Years have passed since Gianna Scannell became an adult. Though she went on to a very serious and at times heartbreaking profession, she never lost the sense of wonder that is typical of adolescents. She sees herself as an eternal teen and enjoys writings by teens or for teens. She was born in Italy, the country of poets, opera composers and singers. She is an eternal optimist and still believes in the future.

She wrote Ashenland after years of education about the Bronze Age, particularly about the people who inhabited Asia Minor during the Bronze Age. It is fortunate that recently many landmark discoveries were made about that age. This added a sense of place to her novel, the first of a series of four.

She is a retired US-trained trauma surgeon and a former professor of Basic Sciences at the St James School of Medicine-Anguilla. She lives in St John US Virgin Islands with her husband Denis and her german shepherd dog Kiki.

Beside the many technical publications in medical journals, Dr. Scannell is one of the authors of the Memoir ‘Being a Woman Surgeon’ published by Gordian Knot Books. Her story carries the title of ‘Dissecting the Soul of a Woman Surgeon’.

#Contemporary #NewRelease #Review Inked Memories (Montgomery Ink book 8) by Carrie Ann Ryan

The Montgomery Ink series by NYT Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan continues when the final Denver Montgomery sibling refuses to fall for his brother’s former flame—the company’s new plumber.

Wes Montgomery watched his entire family fall in love, and now finds himself ready to settle down. Except the one person he seems to find chemistry with is not only his twin’s ex, she also works for Montgomery Inc. But when the two find themselves in one compromising situation after another, Wes realizes he’s having second thoughts about the dynamic woman who’s burst her way into his life. Sure she sets off his temper, but she also makes him hot in every other way possible.

Jillian Reid never loved her best friend like everyone thought she should, so she pushed him away so he could have his future. Now, despite fighting it, she finds herself attracted to the one man she shouldn’t. When her father’s health takes a turn for the worse, and a danger no one saw coming show its face, she’s forced to turn to Wes for help. The two of them have fought off their attraction long enough, and each cave to the desire. But this enemies-to-lovers tale might have an ending no one ever dreamed of.

 

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader’s Copy of this book.

I was both sad and excited to start Wes and Jillian’s story. Sad because Wes is the end of the Denver Montgomery family; the start of it all, excited because we will soon be starting on a new branch of the family,
Wes and Jillian have had a heck of a start. Jillian is the Montgomery Inc.’s new head plumber, her best friend and ex “friends with benefits” is Storm Montgomery, who is also one of her new bosses.
Wes has a hard time understanding the relationship between Storm and Jillian. How can they be so friendly after ending their relationship? How is she so friendly with his new fiancé? Why do he and Jillian do nothing but fight and why is he so attracted to her?
Jillian is super excited for Storm and Everly, yes they were a thing, but they weren’t really together. She also is busy with her new job at Montgomery Inc and taking care of her father, but she decided that it’s time for her to find her happy like Storm and Everly have found theirs.
Wes and Jillian are so attracted to each other, thus the fighting, and neither know what to do about it. It’s crazy!! Lol
They decide to stop fighting it and go for it and boy do they go for it. Wes and Jillian are perfect for each other and now that they decided to try to be a couple the realize that the fighting was just fore play and they are perfect for each other.
There are lots of things going on in this book that keep you reading. Wes is jumped, there is lots of mysterious break ins and vandalism at a new job site, a death, a Montgomery Family Reunion, the feels are all over the place and it’s great.
Ryan could not have ended this branch of the Montgomery family on a better note or with a better couple.

Goodreads

Amazon

Montgomery Ink Series

Carrie Ann Ryan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary and paranormal romance. Her works include the Montgomery Ink, Redwood Pack, Talon Pack, and Gallagher Brothers series, which have sold over 2.0 million books worldwide. She started writing while in graduate school for her advanced degree in chemistry and hasn’t stopped since. Carrie Ann has written over fifty novels and novellas with more in the works. When she’s not writing about bearded tattooed men or alpha wolves that need to find their mates, she’s reading as much as she can and exploring the world of baking and gourmet cooking.

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