Review: Don’t Touch My Petunia by Tara Sheets

Don’t Touch My Petunia by Tara Sheets
Series: The Holloway Girls, Book 2
Publisher: Zebra Shout
Genre: Contemporary Romance with Paranormal Elements

ISBN: 9781420146288
Release Date: September 25, 2018
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Audible

Pine Cove Island is the kind of enchanting place where anything is possible…

The Holloway women each have a special gift, passed down through generations, each one a little different. Juliette possesses a magical green thumb, which makes her job managing the local florist shop a dream. She may be a bit wild, but she knows what she wants: to save enough money to buy the shop from her boss. Then in marches Logan O’Connor, more annoyingly handsome than ever, turning all her plans upside down.

Logan hasn’t been back on Pine Cove Island since he was eighteen and broke Juliette’s teenage heart. Now it turns out he’s her boss’s nephew—and will be spending his days remodeling the shop and barking orders. At her.

For the sake of the business, Juliette will have to ignore their simmering attraction and work with Logan. But that doesn’t mean she has to make things easy for him. Because no one knows better than she that one tiny, perfectly planted bit of garden magic could uproot Logan’s own plans and keep him out of her way. And nothing would make her happier. At least that’s what she thinks…

Tara Sheets has the magic touch when it comes to sweet, utterly charming romances. I adored her first Holloway Girls book, Don’t Call Me Cupcake, and was pleased to find the enchantment didn’t wear off with Don’t Touch My Petunia.

Juliette has a magical connection to plants that someone with a black thumb like me envies. She’s vibrant and endearing, but she also had a vulnerable side that tugged on my heartstrings. Aside from her cousin Emma, everyone she has ever loved has left Juliette so she guards her heart fiercely. She relies on no one but herself, has walls a mile high, and is wary of change. Only someone like Logan could manage to scale those walls around her heart. Logan is the perfect hero without coming off as cardboard. He’s patient, kind, quiet, strong, and though he doesn’t take any flak from Juliette, he doesn’t scare easily when she resists change or her self-preservation instincts kick in and she tries to push him away. They have great chemistry that shows from the start as they banter and bicker, then slide into love. Their romance made me sigh more than once and there are so many sweet moments I don’t want to spoil by revealing. I really enjoyed watching them heal from the ghosts of their pasts with each other’s help and I liked them together so much that I hated having to put the book down.

A cast of lively secondary characters round out the book but never take the focus off of Juliette and Logan. I love the world of Pine Cove Island, the charm of the shops and the welcoming residents who each have their own fun quirks. I’m so glad Ms. Sheets will keep the magic going and give new Pine Cove Island resident Kat her own book because I don’t want to leave this place behind. If you enjoy sweet romances with a touch of magic, you’re sure to delight in reading Don’t Touch My Petunia.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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Review: The Librarian and the Spy by Susan Mann

The Librarian and the Spy by Susan Mann
Series: Librarian and Spy, Escapade 1
Publisher: Zebra Shout
Genre: Contemporary Romance

ISBN: 9781420143300
Release Date: April 25, 2017
Source: Publisher
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N

Shelve under: Libraries, Spies, Falling in Love, London.

Adventure-hungry Quinn Ellington solves mundane mysteries for library patrons while indulging her taste for intrigue with her favorite spy novels. But her latest research project entangles her in a mission to decode the whereabouts of a weapons cache from a priceless work of art before arms dealers beat her to it. Her adventure is filled with fast cars, stolen treasures, international intrigue, and a budding romance with suave, handsome “insurance” agent James Lockwood. Daring rescues and intense covert flirting ensue.

The Librarian and the Spy is a cute story with a fun premise that didn’t quite meet its potential. It’s a book I desperately wanted to like, mostly because author Susan Mann includes enough detail about Quinn’s job as a librarian to delight my bibliophile self. But while there’s a wonderful amount of trivia in this story, the actual plot dragged, the romance was missing spark, and the characters never came alive on the page. It took me a long time to get into this story, mostly because the plot took some time to find its footing. And while Quinn and James are certainly likeable, they never felt three-dimensional to me. Their romance is sweet, but again, was missing something. I felt a lot of the romance was a case of tell rather than show, which could have been part of the problem. As for the action, there was no real sense of danger or excitement when it came to the espionage work, and overall I was just left wanting more.

The Librarian and the Spy isn’t a bad book, only disappointing in that it could have been so much better had the characters and the world come to life. It had the potential to do so, for Ms. Mann’s writing definitely shines in any scene involving research. I absolutely loved those bits because I could feel Quinn’s excitement come through the page and I loved the way her mind worked. There’s also a fun twist at the end of the story that left me smiling and feeling optimistic about Quinn’s future. So while The Librarian and the Spy wasn’t quite my cup of tea, there is enough potential to the series that I’d like to read A Covert Affair.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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