Review – Broken by Maggie Shayne @MaggieShayne

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

I have read Forgotten and Reckless, Books I and II of the Shattered Sisters series by Maggie Shayne, and loved them. I am so excited to get my hands on Broken.

Caitlin Rossi awakes after a car accident and can’t even remember her name. She may have amnesia, but she still feels a great loss and a menacing threat. I think I would be paralyzed with fear, or run away as fast as I could. I can’t imagine what it would be like. Who do you believe? Who do you trust? Especially when you meet the rest of your dysfunctional family and realize you are worth a lot of money.

I feel the danger comes from someone close, someone very close, but Maggie Shayne does throw out a red herring. I already know who ‘they’ are so that doesn’t distract me, but there are enough suspects to keep me guessing.

Caitlin has amnesia, but she still has a working brain. She is determined to get to the bottom of things. I love the character…and Dylan isn’t too shabby either. Secrets…they always come out, one way or another. Maybe that’s a good thing. They can be a heavy burden to carry.

Sure, I expect a happy ending, but I am so loving the twisty journey I will have to take to get there. Broken reads like a true crime story. A rich bitch and her money, and those who hate her. How far will they go to get it? Can’t she save her marriage to Dylan?

It’s Chapter 8 before Toni and Joey are mentioned, then they disappear…until the end. I can hardly wait to read Book IV, Hollow. I wonder how the series will end. How many sisters are there? Surely, the sisters must all come together.

4 Stars

AMAZON SYNOPSIS

Caitlin Rossi’s near tragic accident was no accident at all. With her memory wiped clean, she returns to a houseful of strangers who claim to be her family, and not one of them seems glad to see her. Least of all her darkly handsome husband, Dylan.

Her gothic mansion is cold and filled with secrets. One member of this hostile household wants her dead—and unless she can regain her lost memories, they might just get their wish.

***A substantially revised edition of the story originally titled Kiss of the Shadow Man***

ABOUT MAGGIE SHAYNE

I live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.

My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire–it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.

No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day–there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)

That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!

And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)

Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we’ve acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the “Monster Moon.” Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.

Glory is not amused.

She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She’s tolerating the newcomers. Barely.

My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bookbub

MY MAGGIE SHAYNE REVIEWS

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • Product images are linked/I am an Amazon affiliate.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

Review – Reckless by Maggie Shayne @MaggieShayne

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Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

I found Maggie Shayne through some freebies. Can’t remember if it was her newsletter or someone else’s promoting her work. Doesn’t matter…because now she is a must read author for me. I find a little bit of her personal life leaks into her novels, so be sure and check her out. She writes in several genres, and does them all very well.

I love a series that follows each character in a complete standalone novel. Shattered Sisters has hooked me, and this is my second read in the series. Though it is the first book, it didn’t matter that I read Book II, Forgotten, first. The covers are all fantastic and create a theme.

I love that Toni is an author, writing about a character she wishes she could be. She is tenacious and when she makes up her mind, she does not waver.

Nick is on a mission, but never planned on meeting someone like Toni.

Two damaged characters, brought together by…fate? A mobster that both are determined to bring down.

Romantic suspense is one of my favorite genres. It doesn’t matter if I can figure out the ending ahead of time…boy meets girl, falls in love, happy ever after…maybe even a puppy. It is the journey that I revel in and I look forward to many hours of reading pleasure with Book III of the Shattered Sisters series, Broken.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Reckless by Maggie Shayne.

4 Stars

AMAZON SYNOPSIS

Toni del Rio specialized in turning real-life crime into bestselling fiction, and she was aware that danger came with the territory. This time, however, she was in over her head. While researching the New York underworld for her latest book, she’d witnessed a mob hit. Now a thug was pointing a gun at her in a shadowy alley, and she knew she was a goner….

Undercover FBI agent Nick Manelli wasn’t about to kill anyone, but if he didn’t hide the woman immediately, they would both be dead. So he brought her to the only haven he knew — his place.

Alone with Nick in close quarters, Toni couldn’t help fantasizing about her rugged captor — and the desire, she soon discovered, was mutual…

ABOUT MAGGIE SHAYNE

I live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.

My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire–it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.

No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day–there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)

That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!

And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)

Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we’ve acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the “Monster Moon.” Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.

Glory is not amused.

She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She’s tolerating the newcomers. Barely.

My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Bookbub

MY MAGGIE SHAYNE REVIEWS

  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • Product images are linked/I am an Amazon affiliate.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

The Spotlight is on Maggie Shayne – Forgotten, The Littlest Cowboy and Twilight Guardians @MaggieShayne

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I had these freebies by Maggie Shayne sitting on my Kindle. I am confused about Forgotten. I found it on Amazon under Forgotten Vows as a paperback and a cover I didn’t like as well as this. You can check it out for yourself on Amazon. I would love to know what you think because I think this one is fantastic. Though Goodreads has it as a Kindle cover, I couldn’t find a Kindle link.

Forgotten (Shattered Sisters, #2)

MY REVIEW

A serial killer brought them together…Joey rides a Harley, packs a cannon, has two nieces that are cute as a button and Ash, who wants Suzy Homemaker make an unlikely couple, so I found the characters added to the pacing and suspense that kept me flipping the pages.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
4 Stars

The Littlest Cowboy by Maggie Shayne was an Amazon freebie. How cute a cover is that? The Amazon cover is different,but I think this is sooooo darn cute. Check out Amazon and let me know which you like best.

The Littlest Cowboy (The Texas Brands #1)

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Not a genre I read a lot of but, I couldn’t resist the cover and the manly family quickly draws me in with the humorous dialogue…smiles, giggles, sweetness…and everything happens quickly in this romance with a hint of danger…one for all and all for one.

“She isn’t a stray dog, Jessi…You can’t just decide to keep her.”

“i’ve already decided. Now all I have to do is convince her she belongs.”

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
3 stars

Twilight Guardians was another Amazon freebie.

Twilight Guardians (Wings in the Night: Reborn, #1)

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

The first half or so of the book had me thinking she was a moron, but she was a young naive girl in a hopeless situation with people pulling on her in many directions, and the last half of the book brought it to an action packed, enemies to friends conclusion of this part of her life…making me want to know more.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
4 stars
  • You can see my Giveaways HERE.
  • You can see my Reviews HERE.
  • If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
  • Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
  • Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
  • Product images are linked/I am an Amazon affiliate.
  • Thanks for visiting fundinmental!