Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT Bev reviews Dare To Lose by E.L. Lindley

Today’s book review is from team member Bev.

She chose to read and review Dare To Lose by E.L. Lindley.

Dare To Lose by E.L. Lindley

I enjoyed this book over Christmas.

After a gentle start, the plot gets exciting when a young waitress disappears under mysterious circumstances.  Dare to Lose is essentially a ‘whodunnit’ incorporating a twist of romance, with a skilful measure of violence, danger and suspense.  The story is well constructed with great tension at times, and the characters, some of them extremely undesirable, are well drawn.  Nicola is a middle-aged woman who risks all she has built up over the years to start up a café, serving homemade meals and delicious cakes.  She’s a kind person who suffers from a range of mild neuroses, especially when it comes to men.  She is in need of someone to love.  I especially like the protagonist’s mother, who is a frank, fun-loving, well-balanced person not afraid to break the stereotypical descriptors associated with ‘being old’.  Although Jack, the American love interest, is rather one-dimensional, I was interested in what would happen as his relationship with Nicola, deepened.

Apart from a couple of spelling slips, the writing is almost flawless (which is important to me) with an easy style that flows and hardly ever jars.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT Dare To Lose by E.L. Lindley

Today’s book review comes from team member Cathy, she blogs at http://betweenthelinesbookblog.wordpress.com/

Cathy chose to read and review Dare To Lose by E.L. Lindley

After being forced out of her job as a school teacher after upwards of 25 years and being on the receiving end of some nasty school politics, Nicola opens the cafe she’s always dreamed of and her life begins to turn a corner. That is, apart from having her mother as a permanent houseguest and until her young American waitress, Jessica, doesn’t show up for work one day and is nowhere to be found. As Nicola becomes increasing worried she phones Jessica’s family in the United States. Nicola has no idea how this will impact on her life.

Jessica’s good looking but very uncommunicative and aloof father, Jack Nash, arrives in response to Nicola’s call. The local police aren’t making Jessica’s disappearance a priority so, as he is a detective in Chicago, Jack decides to start his own investigation and search for his missing daughter. Nicola, Jack, Nicola’s mother and her boyfriend, Ron, find themselves embroiled in a situation they could never have envisioned and are drawn into something very threatening and dangerous.

It was the voice which caught her attention first and she felt her hands freeze as, knife in hand, she turned to find herself face to face with a large, scowling mass of a man. The Texan drawl left little doubt that he was somehow connected to Jessica, as Nicola put the knife aside and picked up the tea towel to wipe her hands.

There’s a lot of action and suspense throughout the story which held my attention fully. I can’t make up my mind if Nicola is very brave or very foolish. Maybe I’ll settle for a mixture of both. It’s a nice change for the main protagonist to be an older woman and Nicola is easy to like, and someone who puts others first. She’s also someone to rely on. All the characters are well drawn and easy to picture in the vivid scenes and places running through my mind.

Nicola and her mother have a complex relationship and they exasperate and comfort each other in equal measure. I like the role reversal, Nicola being the one shocked and embarrassed by what she sees as her mother’s irresponsible behaviour. In the end though, Nicola realises family, friends and dependability are everything, finding love is a bonus.

I enjoyed the story, the humour and E.L. Lindley’s writing style, very much.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Good Deeds Challenge Year 2 Week 22

Welcome to my second Year of Good Deeds, a challenge I set myself during April 2013. I decided to do at least one Good Deed a day for a whole year, now I an into my second year.

During my week I’ll also being updating you on My Kindness Challenge which I’m also doing. I read about a new challenge to make the world a better place to live in. “Speak Kind Words, Receive Kind Echoes” see the inspiration on  The Kindness blog . During my learning process I’m donating money to charity for my slip-ups to make me work harder to achieve results. I earn no money from any of my book reviews, so having little to spare should focus my mind.

September 14th – Dark Gothic romance is Jane Godman’s book Echoes in the Darkness, Day 14 of Romancing September. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5Hk

Am putting together plans for my next tour, this one will feature mystery books and their authors and will take place in November.

September 15th – Laura E James featured in Romancing September today with her book Follow Me , Follow You. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5xp

A school morning and I’m getting to know my new set of children that I listen to as they practise their reading. This year I have twins amongst my group, luckily they are not identical.  Donated a series of books to the school for their library that I had finished reading. Have been and bought a load more books again today, taking full advantage of the sales going on.

September 16th – Mary Forbes joins us on the Romance tour today with her book One Dance With A Stranger, Mary hails from Canada, it’s so great meeting all these people from across the world and bringing them together. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5yC

Getting lots of interest for the November Mystery book tour, busy sending out Q&A sheets and creating pictures to use on Twitter. I enjoy the challenge and the skills that I am learning from this task.

September 17th – Monica La Porta is the featured author on Romancing September today with her book The Lost Centurion, set in a stunning Italian landscape it mixes paranormal with hot romance. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5Er

Am off out to dinner this evening with friends, a rare treat, and it’s another good deed opportunity as it’s my turn to drive.

September 18th – E.L. Lindley is chatting about her book Dare To Lose today on Romancing September. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5DE

What a 24 hours! The blog is SO busy at the moment it’s truly wonderful, thank you to everyone who reads and reviews book, signs up for tours, comments and shares posts and tweets and everything else you do for me.  So here is a little something back for anyone going through an anxious and stressful time at the moment and with children in the Uk off the University this month, I know there will be a few Mums out there in need of a little TLC, firstly why not circle the date of your birthday on every month of the calendar and give yourself a little treat once a month for a whole year. Plan out what you could do, it could be time out for yourself, meeting with a friend, 15 minutes meditation, buying a new book randomly in a genre you don’t normally read, anything, but give yourself a well deserved treat.

Have been helping out my dearest friends with some support at their own emotional times. Plus recommending books for them to read. If you want to read them too, try these, get them in paperback, you’ll want to flip back through them too often to read on Kindle.

You Can Heal Your life by Louise Hay

Heal Your Body/New Cover: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them by Louise Hay

Next watch this video on Tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique http://eft.mercola.com/

September 19th – Today it was the turn of Rock Chick Nicky Wells and her book Fallen for Rock on the Romancing September Tour. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5DR

I’ve been out buying more books as gifts for people. Still at bargain prices.

September 20th –  The Dating Game by Susan Buchanan was our book on the tour today. http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5CO

Have been delivering a birthday present for my Dad this morning, it’s his birthday tomorrow.

Romancing September #RomancingSeptember – Day 18

Welcome to Day 18 of Romancing September Across The World Tour. Today our guest is E.L. Lindley. Catch up with more from E.L in a few hours with the second part of our tour when Stephanie chats to her.

 

Where is your home town? 

Sheffield – it’s where I was born and grew up and then I returned to live here about 10 years ago and I’m really glad I did.

How long have you been writing romance? 

I’ve been writing officially for about five years. I published my first book, Business As Usual in 2011. I don’t really consider myself a writer of romance per se although my books do have lots of romance in them. However, they could also be categorised as thrillers or mysteries or family drama. One of the nicest things a reader has ever said about my books is in a good reads review, where a lovely lady wrote, “She’s a very versatile author and seems to write very different books each time.” And this is really what I try to achieve, I hope readers get whatever it is they are looking for within my books, be that romance, drama, mystery or whatever.

What is your favourite sub-genre of romance? 

As a writer, I tend to veer towards mysteries and these are the kinds of books I enjoy reading as well. I don’t mind if they are light-hearted fun mysteries in say the Janet Evanovich style or more serious, gritty thrillers but, I do like there to be at least a hint of some romance in there as well. Don’t we all?

Where is Dare to Lose set? 

Dare To Lose is set in Brighton, which is a place very dear to my heart because I lived there very happily for a number of years. It’s a wonderful place to live or visit as it has something for everyone. It’s on the coast but it has a vibrant city life as well. It’s got culture, countryside, family fun and best of all the sea – what more could anyone want?

What are Nicola’s dreams? 

Nicola’s dream is to be in control of her own destiny. She has worked hard in her career as a teacher and always done the right thing but she finds herself at odds with the modern world of education. She has a passion for cooking and always wanted to own her own cafe but never had the confidence to go after what she wanted. When she loses her job, it sort of galvanises her into following her dreams. Part of the appeal for Nicola in owning her business is so that she can be control of her own life. She had a chaotic childhood being moved around at the whim of her mother, who is a bit of a wild one even in her 70s. Nicola just wants a calm ordered life but fate, as is often the case, has other ideas.

Who goes missing? 

Nicola is a very caring person and when she employs a student to work as a waitress, the young woman quickly becomes like part of her family. Jessica disappears and Nicola feels duty-bound to look for her, especially as she’s an overseas student and all of her family live in the USA.

Tell us about the love interest for Nicola.

Eventually Jessica’s father, Jack, arrives in Brighton to search for his daughter. He is a police detective so he knows what he’s doing but, he’s obviously at a disadvantage in a strange country, so he needs Nicola to help him navigate his way around both physically and culturally. He’s divorced from Jessica’s mum and not in the market for romance but, as he stays in Nicola’s home; they inevitably become closer and closer.

Tell us about the criminals that she finds herself involved with.

Nicola has no experience of the seedier side Brighton and finding herself in the company of gangsters is a bit of a shock. Brighton, like all cities, has areas where social deprivation and drugs are massive problems and, in Dare To Lose, criminals from Albania have joined forces with local gangsters to control the drug flow and prostitution. In their search for Jessica, Nicola and Jack find themselves plunged into this world, which proves very dangerous for both of them.

Tell us what you are working on at the moment. 

I’m currently working on the fifth novel in my Georgie Connelly series. It’s proving to be great fun to write and I’m hoping that it will provide just as much entertainment for readers.

Where can readers find out more about you?

All of my books are available on Amazon where I have an author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/E.L-Lindley/e/B006S2GRCE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1407160410&sr=1-1 (for UK readers)I’m also on Twitter @LindleyE

and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/EL-Lindley/205011402903349?ref_type=bookmark

And http://www.amazon.com/E.L.-Lindley/e/B006S2GRCE/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1369223835&sr=1-2-ent (for US readers)

If readers want to find out more they can visit my website at ellindley.weebly.com where there‘s lots of information about all of my books and I also have a blog.

Find out more about E.L from Stephanie Hurt’s blog and all our Romance writers http://stephanie-hurt.com/