Wanderlost by Jen Malone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a completely awesome book! Wanderlost is this thrilling, travelogue told from the perspective of a teenager that has never been away from home. I received an early release copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. I can honestly say this was a great book. Aubree has just graduated from high school and what starts out as a small house party while her parents are away overnight celebrating their anniversary, turns into a drunkfest with underage drinking. Of course the police are called. But, Elizabeth, Aubree's older sister is home from college and things go from crazy to worse than crazy when the police show up. Elizabeth is in a real bind and she has a Summer job as a tour guide for several senior citizens who are touring Europe for three weeks. She is not able to go, however, she has a brilliant plan. Aubree can go in her place. It's the least she can do since Elizabeth was covering for her. Aubree, who has never left the city they were raised in, let alone, leave the country. The baby sister whose mom still does pretty much everything for her. I'll leave the details of how they work that part of it to the reader because it is one of the best parts of the story.

Aubree is in trouble from the time she steps off the plane in Amsterdam. She meets awesome people along the way. They are friendly and helpful which is completely amazing when you are traveling alone in another country where you don't speak the language. The seniors she is traveling with are great, quirky and colorful. But, the tour group owner's mother is on the trip and Aubree is in more trouble than she even realized. She is even taking some fun, flirty calls from an employee of the tour owner, Sam, who makes things a bit easier for her and she is not as homesick when she gets to talk to him each evening and she gets the biggest surprise when she gets to meet him in person and see wonderful parts of Europe with him and the zany seniors. The thing about the characters in this story is the reader can see a bit of themselves in Aubree and Elizabeth. The people Aubree meets along the way help her grow and mature as she prepares to head to college after the Summer. Following Aubree as she works through the knots of lies she and Elizabeth have created is fun. I look forward to reading more by this author.

The Judas Contact by Heather Long
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Judas Contact was an action-packed thriller that I received an early release copy of in exchange for an honest review. It is the first book in a new series by Heather Long. Ilsa is a scientist working on a chip designed to help owners find their missing pets. She has had some success, but, like all scientists there has been some failure along with those successes. She is contacted by an old roommate, Rory, whom she has not talked to in quite some time. Rory is seeking Isla out because she has been helping a group of time travelers who are all too familiar with the chips since many years in the future the chips have advanced beyond anything that Ilsa can even imagine. Of course, she can't imagine time travel so not seeing her work morphed into what it becomes is not a stretch.

The Boomers, the time traveling group from the future, consists of all males including Garrett, who has the ability to poison with a touch. He is assigned to guard Ilsa and the chemistry between them is off the charts. It is too bad that Garrett's touch poisons, to the point that he has never been touched by another human being. The company that Ilsa is working for want her to start working on research which would be against the law and inhumane. She has declined to work on anything so controversial. But, her company is at the point where they might just insist on it despite Ilsa's morals. The Boomers and Rory are what stand between her and an evil corporation that has no moral boundaries.

The Judas Contact also is an endearing romance. The reader gets the chance to see two people fall in love and keeping pace with Garrett and Isla's story makes this book an even better read. It is a great introduction to each of the members of the Boomers and we get a good introduction to the future they came from, however, I look forward to learning more about why they traveled to the future. One of the surprises is how long they have been in Isla's time so I can't wait to read more about that part of the storyline.

Fool Me Once by Katee Robert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started Fool Me Once not sure how things would work out. I had not read the synopsis but, I wanted to help out by giving the book a try. I received an early release copy in exchange for an honest review. I can honestly say there was only one thing that did not work for me with this book and that is the "big girl pants" saying that I totally dislike in all books. However, Fool Me Once is a great book. I was not aware of this series prior to receiving this book. Aubry, whose name I almost forgot after Quinn gave her a nickname that sticks with you, is a loner in a small town. She has one friend who owns a really cool cafe. She has had a hard life which has taught her to keep to herself and not trust other people. Despite having a family she does not appear to be close to them so the reader expects some horrible things to have happened to her. Quinn was raised by rich parents that he does his best to stay away from, with the exception of family dinners. Quinn and Aubry have one thing in common. They both have events coming up where they need a buffer and agree to be each other's buffer, despite how hostile they have been towards each other in the past. What ensues is a crazy, sex-filled, fall into each other.

Quinn and Aubry are very well described. The reader gets a good feel for Aubry's no nonsense, tough, smart mouth attitude. You also get a feel for what she goes through when surrounded by a crowd of people. We empathize with Aubry because we can hear her start to hyperventilate. Quinn is leading a drama free life, though he can’t help be antagonize Aubry whenever he sees her. Aubry and Quinn typically have Aubry’s and Quinn’s friends around as buffers. They are on their own for an entire week as they go from one event to another where each is being tested. They both find out that they like each other a bit more than they thought and they especially like sex with each other. When the stress levels highest, will Quinn and Aubry come out of these two events as a couple or hating each other more than they did before the trip started? The reader cannot help but hope Quinn really does not want one of the socialite girls that keep throwing themselves at him and that Aubry will let down her guard and let Quinn into her life. One great thing about Quinn is that he does not mince words too often. When he decides he has something good with Aubry he goes for it.

Oxblood by AnnaLisa Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oxblood is one of those books where I did not necessarily love everything that happened at the end, but, the author took a great risk and still wrote a great book. I received an early release copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Of course, I would be drawn to this book since it took place mostly in Italy. It is the story of Vic who receives a package from her brother who is studying abroad in Italy for a few months. The contents make her realize that her brother, Gil, is in trouble. When she does not receive her nightly email from him she gets on the first flight to Italy to look for her only living family that she knows. When she arrives at the last hotel she was able to trace him to she finds out that everything with Gil was not what she thought and she becomes involved in the same trouble in which Gil was involved and she meets Ian, the leader of a secret agent group called Rogue.

As much as I would like more on Italy, this is a thriller with a lot of action. It does a great job with characterization. Vic speaks and acts in a manner that the reader can understand why she might be called Vic instead of her full name of Victoria. You can imagine what Ian sounds like with his British accent. We do not spend a lot of time with her brother Gil, however, we do learn so much about him through Vic's eyes and memories. The reader can understand why they are so close and why Vic cannot stand by and wait for someone else to find and help her brother. But, she gets involved in something that is a lot more dangerous than she realizes.

If there were anything the book was lacking it would be that the book does not give much information on Italy, but, this is not a bad thing since it was not intended to be an armchair travel mystery. It does a great job of allowing the reader to see where each scene in the book happens, so it stages the scene very well. There is a great mystery and a lot of great fight scenes. The story line is plausible and Vic does not magically kick butt and suddenly know how to do the things that the agents can. I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

Dial Em For Murder by Marni Bates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dial Em for Murder was a great, action-packed YA thriller with a really good play on book names. I received an early release copy through Edwelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Emmy is a 16 year old high school student who is obsessed with becoming a romance book author. She daydreams about characters she creates and rewrites real life situations in how she can envision them in a romance novel. She has two best friends, Audrey and Ben, with whom she shares everything with, even her unstable home life. She lives with her mom and her string of live-in boyfriends that come and go quite often, to the point where sometimes she is more the adult than her mom.

Em is busy working on her most recent romance novel at a Starbucks and steps away from the borrowed machine where she is working to order a drink. Unfortunately, she witnesses a man walk off with her drink and being the gutsy girl she is marches over to ask for her drink back. This begins the start of Emmy's troubles. The man did not accidentally take the wrong drink. He is trying to get her attention to warn her about what is about to happen to her life. This leads to a crazy chain of events where Emmy is thrown into several life and death situations. To remain safe she begins attending a secure private academy a few hours from home where things do not go quite like she planned. But, she is one step closer to one of her goals in life, finding her father. Now I have to wonder one thing. How long do I have to wait for the next installment in this series?

Loving Roxie by G.G. Vandagriff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, it's Florence, Italy. Who wouldn't love to read a book based in Italy? I know that is what attracted me to it. I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review from eBooks for Review. Roxie and her friend who has just lost her husband and is suffering another personal loss, Georgia, decide to go to Florence, Italy looking for healing when they have a particularly bad session at their group therapy meeting. They check into an awesome family owned B&B and meet some great people, Beta, the owner of the B&B and her son, Cosimo, and Stefano. It turns out that Roxie is also suffering from a personal loss. The problem is she is not quite able to name the loss. It's right at the tip of her memory but, she cannot reach it. Of course, the problem is she really does not want to reach the memory.

Stefano, a professor, and researcher at two universities in Italy. He and Roxie seem to have hit it off but, Roxie is not stable, but, Stefano is really interested. The reader is drawn into the ups and downs of Stefano trying to find a way to possibly build a life with Roxie, but, so many questions arise. Will Roxie go back to the US? Can she get through the trauma she has obviously suffered and let Stefano in so they can possibly be a couple?

One of the best parts of this book is the imagery of Florence, Siena, and the Tuscan countryside. I will be visiting all of these places in a couple of months and Loving Roxie just drew me in and made this book even better for me. There are some really heavy topics handled in the book, and the author handles it very well. The reader is able to still enjoy the beautiful parts of the book even with all of the dark topics that are handled. I am definitely interested in seeing more from this author.

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Seriously amazing book! Kendra, an FBI agent who finds herself 200 years in the past, not in her own country, but, in England, in the countryside. A serial killer is at work and this is before Jack-the-Ripper and before there were organized police forces. No Scotland Yard! I actually did not request a copy of this from NetGalley because I did not think it would work for me. I don't read a lot of historical mysteries or romances. I was worried about the time travel piece of it, but, Julie McElwain does a great job with it. The characters were excellently developed. The mystery was exciting and progressed well and had a wonderful buildup that keeps the reader on edge. What really strikes me is that the brilliant FBI agent from 200 years in the future did not just show up and solve the crime and nail the perp because she was more advanced than the people she was surrounded by in the past. I would definitely buy the next book in this series and cannot wait for it to be released! Just a great book!