Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

Adriana Kraft

Review: Book Lovers, by Emily Henry #RomCom #BookReview #WomensFiction

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Book Lovers is a serious book. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fabulous RomCom, with countless laugh out loud moments. But it is never trivial, always raw and honest. Emily Henry has turned a classic trope upside down and given us the other woman, the other man, who don’t abandon the fast-paced city and don’t save a small town business and don’t fall in love with the simple life.

Why, you might ask? She’ll tell us, in her own words:

Romance is treated as a guilty pleasure, and in the last ten years or so I have asked myself a lot of questions about guilty pleasures and why I am made to feel guilty for enjoying these narratives. It’s as though these novels are just candy for your brain, bad for you, and do not teach you anything like a more ‘serious’ book would. I wanted to challenge that notion. [London Magazine Interview with Emily Henry]

She absolutely succeeds, with all three of the romance novels that have expanded her genre niche from YA to women’s fiction/romance. In order, these are Beach Read, People You Meet on Vacation, and Book Lovers.

I’d never heard of her until last spring, when my next door neighbor gave me her copy of People We Meet on Vacation before she headed back north at the end of the season. I don’t own or read many print books – when we sold our house in 2012 and lived/traveled/wrote across the country in our motor home for the next six years, Kindle was the way to go. Our most treasured print books lived in our son’s basement until we settled in 2018, and we now live in a tiny house that doesn’t have room for shelves upon shelves of books.

I packed People We Meet on Vacation along for my flight to visit a Chicago friend in July – and could hardly put it down. I was a convert. I gave it to my friend at the end of my visit, but I immediately downloaded and read first Beach Read, and then Book Lovers. I loved all three of these books. It fascinates me that the heroines in each book make their living in the world of writing: a RomCom author (Beach Read), a travel writer (People We Meet on Vacation), and a romance/women’s fiction agent (Book Lovers). Write what you know. Somehow Henry is able to both be in the tumultuous world of authors-agents-editors-publishers that make up women’s fiction while simultaneously seeing through it, poking fun at it, and challenging its tropes and assumptions. Brilliantly.

I love seeing a best-selling author dare to do that. Her characters are far more clever than any real people I know, but I love their snappy repartee. What especially captures me is the intense honesty in each of her protagonists – they may start off not being honest with either themselves or each other, but the choices they must make force the honesty to surface, and that’s the arc of each book. Oh, and a happy ending, which by then is both deeply sought and desirable.

I highly recommend all three books, and it doesn’t matter which order you choose to read them in.

Beach Read

https://www.amazon.com/Beach-Read-Emily-Henry-ebook/dp/B07XNKRV83/

People We Meet on Vacation

https://www.amazon.com/People-Meet-Vacation-Emily-Henry-ebook/dp/B08FZNYQJC/

Book Lovers

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Lovers-Emily-Henry-ebook/dp/B09BTQ9HW6/

        

The Mind of the Villain #TBT #RomanticSuspense #KU #Halloween #MFRWAuthor

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Halloween’s almost here! Did you think we were going to give away the villain’s secrets on this last Throw Back Thursday in October? Think again – but what we will do is share the opening of a creepy letter he sent her:

“Dear Detective: You may be good at games, but I am a master at them. I can hardly wait… Rest assured you are the chosen one. You will reign at the fire – no one else will do. Only one more pretender before you will mount the throne.

BLURB

Whose mask will crumble first—
the enigmatic professor of Celtic Studies,
the undercover cop masquerading as a co-ed,
or the campus stalker,
biding his time to strike again?

Is anthropology professor Matt Bayfield the Blackthorn College rapist, or a potential ally? Aloof and unapproachable, Matt has academic ambitions. He can’t escape Blackthorn College soon enough, and he doesn’t want any entanglements to slow down his exit.

Nancy Appleby would like nothing more than to solve the string of campus rape cases before Thanksgiving so she can go home. The last thing she wants is a relationship to complicate her life—but she’ll settle for a fling, especially when the sex sizzles.

The stalker has his own carefully crafted timetable, with a special date just for Nancy. Can Matt and Nancy force him out of his hidey-hole before it’s too late?

BUY LINK

Available exclusively at Amazon

Always free to read on Kindle Unlimited

The Eggplant Story ~ Is This a #MeetCute? #RomCom #RomanceReads

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Since Hubs and I don’t write Rom Com or Chick Lit, we don’t really write Meet Cutes, at least not on purpose. A Meet Cute might set an odd tone for our romantic suspense and erotic romance stories…

But having got this far, I’m thinking that how he and I met might be a true-life Meet Cute. Here’s our story—we’d love to hear whether it qualifies. For that matter, if any of you have a real Meet Cute in your life, we’d love to hear about it!

The first time I ever saw my husband, I was a grad student and an instructor in a new program at my university.

Early that fall, the entire school faculty were gathered in the lobby for the introduction of new hires. There were only two or three new faces, but a distinguished looking bearded man with mischievous eyes stood out to me immediately. It got even better when it turned out he was a new addition to the program I was teaching in. I won’t say I stalked him—but I will say that when I got home, I told my roommate about him, and through her contacts in a similar field, she got me his bio.

Fast forward to a Chicago January: Snow is piled high in streets and on sidewalks, and our program is having a potluck an hour’s drive away. I have a car (which I’ve duly shoveled out). The new professor does not have one. A fellow prof suggests that I give him a ride, he accepts, and we have an hour each way to talk to each other. I had two conclusions at the end of the evening – I was very definitely interested in him (okay, I was crushing on him), and I suspected he was living with someone (someone who wouldn’t share her car? Wasn’t sure).

The following week he materialized in my office doorway to ask me for the recipe of the dish I’d brought to the potluck. Triumph! I shared it – and nothing else happened for five more months. He had some loose ends to tie up, it turns out…

Our first date (finally!) was that June, and we married the following June.

Why is this the Eggplant Story? Because the dish I’d taken to the potluck was one of my favorite veggie recipes of my mom’s, an eggplant-tomato-bacon casserole. Hubs and I had been married for over two years when the confession finally came: He’d had no idea which dish was mine—he was just looking for a way to start a conversation with me, and he hates eggplant.

We’re still married.

Hard Work Pays Off ~ Blood Sugar, Aerobics and Strength Training #LiveLonger #StayFit #IndieAuthor

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I can still hear our now-grown son as he got back in the car on his first day of Kindergarten, in a rush to tell me: “Guess what we learned, Mom? Hard work pays off!” Which may not always be true, but it’s a starting place, at least.

Did I think about working to stay healthy when I was a young adult? Not too much – I just was healthy, without especially thinking about it. I was active, ate reasonably well, didn’t have much flab, and enjoyed activities like hiking, swimming, boating (with a small footwell sailboat, nothing elaborate), bowling on occasion, doing walks for various charities and causes.

Did I ever actively plan to work at being or getting healthy? No. I backed into it. I gained about twenty pounds with my one and only pregnancy; life happened, and I only managed to get ten of those pounds off while that child was growing up.

In 2015, I discovered (or rather my primary care doc discovered) that I had problems with blood glucose levels. My clinic referred me to a six week diabetes education class, where I learned the basics of diet and exercise for diabetes prevention. I’d thought I was a healthy eater, especially after we revised our diet following my husband’s triple bypass a decade earlier. But there were specifics about carbs and fiber that got left out of that training. The exercise information focused on aerobic activities. I bought a Fitbit, started keeping track of steps, and lost the other ten pounds. Living in the Southwest, we have many marvelous options for hiking.

By 2020, those habits weren’t taking care of the problem. I have a genetic load for both diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and I desperately want to avoid having to use medication to control my blood sugar levels. My doc referred me to a year-long weekly class (on Zoom, during the pandemic) which was superb.

There, in addition to further refining diet (and writing everything down while I straightened that out), I also learned about the role of strength training. Strong muscles pull sugar out of the bloodstream and put it to work. After three months of following the new guidelines, I saw my blood sugar drop back down below the threshold. That class ended a year ago, and I’m still maintaining those levels. And the workouts. And the walking.

So I was more than thrilled when Hubs sent me the following article:

Combining weight training with another activity could lower your risk of early death, study finds.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/health/weight-exercise-benefits-lower-death-risk-wellness/index.html

Not only am I likely to live longer, I’m likely to be healthy enough to enjoy a lot of those years.

P.S. If any of you readers are concerned about your blood sugar level, you might be able to access the DPP Diabetes Prevention Program I attended. It’s put out by the CDC (US), and in Arizona it was free to participate.

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/prevention/index.html

The Mind of the Villain #TBT #RomanticSuspense #KU #Halloween #MFRWAuthor

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For Throwback Thursday, here’s another peek into the mind of our villain. Tension is amping up! By now, Nancy and Matt have figured out the villain’s timing, but they still have no clue who he is, who he’ll target next, or how to stop him.

He sobered against the stiff wind. Did Detective Appleby think she was invulnerable to his gift? No goddess could resist the gift of his Robyn. And she was a goddess. Maybe more dangerous than the others, but certainly he knew now what the universe had been trying to tell him.

The irony was that she thought she was hunting him. None of the others were that eager to receive his gift. But she’d have to wait her turn.

BLURB

Whose mask will crumble first—
the enigmatic professor of Celtic Studies,
the undercover cop masquerading as a co-ed,
or the campus stalker,
biding his time to strike again?

Is anthropology professor Matt Bayfield the Blackthorn College rapist, or a potential ally? Aloof and unapproachable, Matt has academic ambitions. He can’t escape Blackthorn College soon enough, and he doesn’t want any entanglements to slow down his exit.

Nancy Appleby would like nothing more than to solve the string of campus rape cases before Thanksgiving so she can go home. The last thing she wants is a relationship to complicate her life—but she’ll settle for a fling, especially when the sex sizzles.

The stalker has his own carefully crafted timetable, with a special date just for Nancy. Can Matt and Nancy force him out of his hidey-hole before it’s too late?

BUY LINK

Available exclusively at Amazon

Always free to read on Kindle Unlimited

That Kiss! #MFRWHooks #RomanticSuspense #Samhain #UndercoverCop #KU

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Welcome to MFRWHooks!
Scroll to the end for more of this weeks tempting excerpts

The Unmasking, by Adriana Kraft

BUY LINK  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDVB6KQ/
Always free at Kindle Unlimited

BLURB

Whose mask will crumble first—
the enigmatic professor of Celtic Studies,
the undercover cop masquerading as a co-ed,
or the campus stalker,
biding his time to strike again?

Is anthropology professor Matt Bayfield the Blackthorn College rapist, or a potential ally? Aloof and unapproachable, Matt has academic ambitions. He can’t escape Blackthorn College soon enough, and he doesn’t want any entanglements to slow down his exit.

Nancy Appleby would like nothing more than to solve the string of campus rape cases before Thanksgiving so she can go home. The last thing she wants is a relationship to complicate her life—but she’ll settle for a fling, especially when the sex sizzles.

The stalker has his own carefully crafted timetable, with a special date just for Nancy. Can Matt and Nancy force him out of his hidey-hole before it’s too late?

EXCERPT

Set Up: It’s Samhain—after leaving Professor Bayfield’s Celtic lecture, Nancy’s determined to smoke out the stalker; she’s pretty sure he spots his victims at a local bar…

At the bar two hours later, Nancy sat on a bar stool next to the open space where patrons came to place their orders. Her purse lay on the stool beside her so there would be plenty of room for her perp to sit down—if he ever arrived. She’d wait another half hour and then make her exit. She was nearly certain the man was somewhere in the smoky bar.

Slowly adding another layer of lipstick, Nancy studied her image in the mirror that stretched the full length of the row of liquor bottles behind the bartender. She hardly recognized herself. Her own dark hair was tucked under an auburn wig. Fake contacts made her eyes appear dark brown instead of gray. The sweater she wore dipped low, revealing much more of her breasts than she preferred, but then she was trying to fulfill every man’s dream. She hoped her red leather mini-skirt screamed availability. Once again, she had on the calf length black boots. They provided her with some sense of being covered up as well as warmth. Now all she needed was a man—the right man.

She took a sip of Coors and watched a new patron enter the room still huddled over from fighting the cold wind. He straightened and stepped into the light.

Nancy raised a hand to cover her largely exposed breasts. It couldn’t be, she screamed to no one. It couldn’t be. She looked away and then peeked back at the man approaching the bar. Holy shit! It was.

Be calm. He won’t recognize you. You’re in disguise. And what in the hell was Matt Bayfield doing here? This wasn’t his kind of scene. She closed her eyes, taking in the lilting Celtic music. Of course it was, tonight. She should have remembered that. She shivered and then warmed to her task. It might be fun observing the man when he didn’t realize she was even nearby.

Nancy concentrated on her beer and nearly snickered when Bayfield came to the bar to order a drink. His fingers drummed against the bar surface no more than two feet from her arm. The bartender was busy at the other end of the bar and Bayfield’s impatience was evident.

At last, the bartender nodded at Bayfield. “What can I get for you?”

“A glass of chardonnay,” Bayfield said, distinctly as if the man might be hard of hearing.

The man wiped his hands on his once white apron. “Drinking heavy tonight, huh?”

Nancy gave Bayfield credit for not rising to the bartender’s bait.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Bayfield accept his drink and change. His gaze swept above her trying to locate a seat in the crowded tavern. His eyes lowered meeting hers. She tried to control her racing pulse. He shook his head. And then his eyes bugged.

“Ms. Cr—”

Before he could mutter another syllable, Nancy leaped to her feet, wrapped her arms around his neck, and planted the biggest, wettest kiss she could muster on his mouth, swallowing the rest of her name and his breath. He stumbled backward. She refused to let him go, imprinting her lips on his.

She started to release him, but then one of his hands pressed against her back and the other curved over her buttocks. Her eyes widened. Professor Bayfield was kissing her! Not about to pass up this opportunity, Nancy closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment.

His tongue pushed into her open mouth; she greeted it with her own. He brought a hand between them and squeezed a breast. Her eyes flew open. Would she burn up right there in the damn bar? As if he sensed her changing mood, Bayfield’s eyes sprang as wide open as hers. He started to pull away.

Applause and hoots broke out from bar patrons. Steins were raised in salute.

Nancy and Matt looked sheepishly at the other patrons. “Don’t say a word, Bayfield,” Nancy said, still holding him close. “I can explain everything, but we’ve got to get out of here, now.” He started to open his mouth. Brushing her lips across his, she whispered, “Please, don’t say my name. It could be a matter of life and death.”

Be sure to click on the links to travel to the rest of today’s excerpts!