Tanya Anne CrosbyRecensioni

Thirty years ago, the prince of a small European country promised to marry the daughter of a Scottish earl, and she bore him twins. Then he decided to marry another woman. When they separated, they each took one of their infant sons and told the boys falsehoods about the other parent to protect them from the truth.
Now, in 1831, Crown Prince Merrick Welbourne IV of Meridian knows something is amiss with his father. The king is miserable, and Merrick goes to the wilds of Scotland to find out why. While en route to Glen Abbey Manor, a group of highwaymen attack his carriage and hold Merrick at knifepoint, but the face of his captor is all too familiar. He’s knocked unconscious, but nothing is the same when he wakes up. The thieves believe Merrick is their leader, Hawk, and Merrick must pretend to be so for his own safety and to get the answers he needs.
Chloe Simon is Lady Fiona’s nurse, and she despises the lady’s pompous son, Ian, the Earl of Lindale. When Ian (Merrick) returns one night, injured and seemingly drunk, she lets him know just how much she despises him. Attraction sizzles between them for the first time, and she knows something isn’t right. Once she realizes the mysterious highwayman, Hawk, a man she idolizes, is also Ian, she finally accepts the love that’s been building in her heart. But Ian (Merrick) has another secret, one she’s desperate to uncover.
This is an amazing story. I love it. There are so many twists and turns. All the characters are lying to one another, but everyone knows that the others are lying, and everyone is just too stubborn to give in and talk about everything they know. Normally, this type of plot would annoy me, but I found it very intriguing. The author wrote in a compelling manner from multiple POVs, so the reader would never be confused and to know all the characters’ motives behind the lying. I enjoyed the banter, the half-truths, the coaxing, and teasing between Merrick and Chloe, as well as with Fiona.
Merrick and Ian’s mother was a wonderful, strong-willed woman who’s trapped in a cage of relentless mistakes. I felt so bad for her and completely despised Julian, her ex-lover the king and the twins’ father. But, at the same time, I feel bad for Julian. Yes, the bad situation was his fault, but he does love Fiona deep down.
Merrick and Chloe are wonderful together. They learn and grow, and realize what’s truly important in life and not to judge others before you get to know them. It’s a beautiful story and my favorite of the two books in this series.
In the sequel, The Imposter Prince, Ian takes on the mantle of “prince” and begins to live Merrick’s life. I’ll be sure to post a review for that story as well.
I definitely recommend this book!
5 Stars

Disclaimer – I bought this book for my own enjoyment. I am not paid or compensated in any way, shape, or form for this honest review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion.

Thirty years ago, the prince of a small European country promised to marry the daughter of a Scottish earl, and she bore him twins. Then he decided to marry another woman. When they separated, they each took one of their infant sons and told the boys falsehoods about the other parent to protect them from the truth.
Now, in 1831 Scotland, Ian MacEwen is in charge of protecting the people of Glen Abbey, but the area has fallen to poverty and neglect. He moonlights as a highwayman but never expected to rob the carriage of his identical twin brother, a brother he never knew he had. In a spur of the moment decision, he decides to trade places with Merrick to finally find the answers he’s been looking for. Once Ian and Ryo—Merrick’s trusted friend, servant, and carriage driver—return to London, Ian must pretend to be his brother and live a very pampered but confining life as the Crown Prince of Meridian.
Lady Claire Wentworth is in dire need of money to save her kidnapped brother Ben. When a carriage almost runs her over, she finds herself pitted against the most gorgeous man she’s ever seen. It’s too bad he’s also infuriatingly rude, questions her honor, and accuses her of thievery. Time and again Claire and Ian bump into each other around London in the most unseemly of circumstances, but things finally come to a head when he spots her a royal galla. She soon learns Ian (as Merrick) is a prince, and even more shocking, he’s chosen her to be his bride!
I sooooo love this book. Ian and Claire are two very determined, stubborn characters. Their banter and witty sarcasm and criticisms are hilarious. They have great chemistry, but I think they fell in love a little too easily since Ian is often busy looking for her brother and Claire is stuck at his house with his disapproving father.
Ian’s father, Julian, the king, is a troubled man who’s made a lot of mistakes, but he’s not as mean and horrible as he seems.
I love all the scenes that jump to Lady Fiona (the twins’ mom), Merrick, and Chloe (Merrick’s fiancée)—the characters from book one. This book and the first one, The Imposter’s Kiss, tie in together and occur almost simultaneously with both books being fully concluded in this one. The books are complete standalones, however, but you can understand all the characters and their motivations better if you read both stories.
There are a few inconsistencies between the two books, but nothing major. For some reason, in this book, it’s never said that Ian is an earl, Lord Lindale. I find that odd, but the fact that he’s nobility doesn’t factor into the story anyway. I just wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t read the first book.
The epilogue is super sweet, told in both Julian’s and Fiona’s POV, and I would love to know more about what will happen to the parents and about the future of Meridian. I really wish that would’ve been elaborated more.
Anyway, this is a great story and I highly recommended it.
4.5 Stars

Disclaimer – I bought this book for my own enjoyment. I am not paid or compensated in any way, shape, or form for this honest review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion.

I was so excited to read this as it contains 2 of my favorite authors - Ashley and Byrne. The book has 6 novellas in total and the aforementioned authors were my favorites (no surprise), but the other stories too were fun! The stories revolve around a tavern and they range from a ghost story to one filled with action to a missing hero one. The first story was sweet but was more of a set up for the second one which was truly a great novella.

This is a great collection of stories for the holidays and most of them are sprinkled with that little extra holiday cheer.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

3.5 stars.
The book was well written and the descriptions were vivid. The relationships were relateable - three sisters whose mother withheld their inheritances unless they lived together in the home they grew up for a period of one year, a chance to reconnect. The romance between Jack and Caroline was palpable, but the part that annoyed me (and this is probably a personal preference) was seeing the killer's POV sporadically in case we didn't know he was out there. I deduced a different ending, but in reading the "bonus material" at the end, I suspect the next book will address the alleged killer's arrest.

This book is recommendable - nice romantic suspense.

The Highlands, 1118

I'm not going to rehash the synopsis for you.

Ms. Crosby has written in the style of the times, so it was a bit like reading Shakespeare-awkward at times. I was determined not to like this book when I started, but I quickly discovered that she'd written multi-layered characters, survivors, and their adventure together was enough to keep my interest throughout, in spite of arguing for Stockholm's Syndrome and the odd phraseology and "fun" words she felt it necessary to include. The story transcends all of this. It is a well-done Scottish historical complete with clan loyalty, men in kilts, a traitor amongst them and the hated English.

Well worth the read.

DNF. I rarely stop a book part way through, but the writing was cliched and clunky and the heroine was driving me crazy in a way I don't think she's meant to grow out of by the end. She 'acted before she could think' with alarming regularity for a situation where people's lives are genuinely at stake *eye roll*, and was just kind of childish and entitled. I think her self sacrificing for particular individuals was supposed to help endear her, but it seemed much more to do with her own martyrish tendencies, or heavy-handed need for an excuse to take some 'bold stance', than it was actually about the other people.

From the blurb I knew that the Vikings were coming to attack but she had foreseen it. Which had definite potential. I imagined she'd likely have used that information to put some sort of plan in place even. No. She has the dream, which isn't the first time she's had a premonition of future events, and her mother apparently had the sight as well, so it's a little strange she's so skeptical, but whatever, she's concerned enough to go stand out on the ramparts waiting, (but not enough to maybe wake up the sleeping guard apparently). And in fact *does* see the Vikings approaching... and just continues to stand there. She's very concerned about tipping anyone off to the danger because 'what if they ask her questions?!', *even after she's seen them with her first sight, you know, her actual eyeballs!* lol. Like the people who might survive by escaping into the woods before the Vikings reach the keep will return and be like 'hey, the important question is really- why were you awake!?!?' Even if they did she could say that she 'couldn't sleep', or 'needed fresh air', or 'heard a noise', or 'had a bad feeling', or anything in the world besides 'I might be a witch actually, better start the fire!' that she's apparently so worried about. I can't even fathom getting a prior warning, confirming it, and then *still doing nothing* about it, when it's maybe the difference between life and death for her people. Gah! I went on with several more scenes, but overall I just can't take it.

I really enjoyed this! I’m shaving off a half-star because the heroine was basically no longer disabled when she grew up. It’s not ideal as a standalone, as there is quite a bit of plot built off from the earlier books. Kinda sad that it doesn’t seem like Alison and Leith had their own story? I’d have liked to read their romance. (3.5)

Short story and free on Amazon. The plot concerns a woman, Zoe, about to leave her abusive husband. She is wondering if she really has the strength to go through with it.

If my review seems short well..this story is just a few pages..it is short even by short story standards. That does not mean it was not suspenseful because it was. It was just a "blink and its over" type story.

Apparently it is the prequel to another book, this one full length. And I would like to read the full length one, because The things we leave behind, while short,left an impression on me and was quite well written. Highly recommended for short story fans.½

The heroine is a shrew

I think the writer thought she was making Page sassy but she was a shrew. For most of the book, she argued and said rude things to everyone. That's not sassy, that's just being nasty.

It wasn't all bad but it wasn't up to the standards of what I'm used to in my historical romances.

Allow two days for this PG15 second book of The Golden Child Prophecy which picks up where The Cornish Princess left off with Gwendolyn married to Locrinus and all far from well.

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Probably best to allow two days for this historical fantasy mystery romance set in Cornwall after the Romans have mostly left.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

In the conclusion to the Daughters of Avalon series, we focus on Rhiannon, the most powerful of the sisters, who has been jailed for the last few years by Cael d'Lucy, lord of Blackwoods and adherent of King Stephen. She needs to win him over to help defeat her mother, but it means he must betray his king and lose the power he has acquired.
This has been a good historical series. The history is good and there's just enough fantasy woven in. It's been a joy to read and the conclusion is excellent.

Seren Pendragon is the most beautiful and the least magical of her sisters. But she's in peril so Wilhelm, bastard brother to the hero of the last book, is sent to retrieve her and save her from the schemes of her witch mother. They journey across England to find her sisters, finding romance along the way.
Another good book in a good series, combining history with fantasy in a very satisfactory manner.

Rosalynde steals her mother's grimoire and heads north in disguise to find her oldest sister. She and her sisters are descendants of Talesin, Welsh bard and wizard. She runs into Giles de Vere, the man who is supposed to wed her sister Seren by arrangement of her mother. He doesn't recognize her under her glamour, but aids her in her journey. Gradually, they learn to trust each other and fall in love. They still need to defeat her mother, the witch Morwen, but this is another good addition to that story.

Elspeth is the daughter of Henry I and a Welsh witch. In order to escape an arranged marriage, she escapes and is rescued by Malcolm Scott, one of King Stephen's men and an enemy of her half-sister, the Empress Matilda. She has inherited some of the magic powers of her family who go back to the bard Talesin.
Ms. Crosby does a wonderful job of interweaving real history with fantasy and magic into a romantic intriguing story. Elspeth worries for her sisters and Malcolm worries about his divided loyalties, yet they match well and I enjoyed their story. I'm looking forward to the continuation of the story and the next sister.

Bit odd. Not for me.
Too descriptive at the start, bit boring.
Flashbacks for a different character explaining history.
Love interest, ex husband.



ARC.

The Girl Who Stayed by Tanya Anne Crosby is a dramatic, and mesmerizing Southern story that grabs your heart strings and holds you in awe of a haunting and traumatic story of Zoe Rutherford and her sister's tragic past. Taking place on Sullivan's Island. THE GIRL WHO STAYED is Book 2, Book 1: The Things We Leave Behind".
Well defined plot with charming and enduring characters. A gut- wrenching tale of tragedy, suspense, realistic, and moving forward. Very emotional, page turning, powerful and compelling. A must read! Well done, Tanya Anne Crosby!!
#TheGirlWhoStayed, #TanyaAnneCrosby

"I voluntarily received a complimentary copy, however, these are my honest opinions. I was in no way required nor compensated to write a review."

Rating: 4.5
Heat rating: Sweet
Reviewer: AprilR½

I didn't realize until part way through that this book had been edited to remove the course language and content, which left it with a really weak plot. The word choices often bothered me, too many "forsooth"s and "Scottish slang".

The Girl Who Stayed by Tanya Anne Crosby is a leisurely-paced emotional journey of healing.

Haunted by her younger sister’s still unsolved disappearance thirty years earlier, Zoe Rutherford left home at eighteen and never looked back. Now thirty-nine years old and finally free of an eight year abusive relationship, she returns to Sullivan’s Island to fix up the family home then put it up for sale. Unprepared for the onslaught of memories, Zoe cannot stop thinking about her childhood and the devastating loss of her eight year old sister Hannah.

Those long events shaped Zoe’s entire life and she has not been able to escape its lingering effects. Her childhood was far from idyllic and in the aftermath of Hannah’s disappearance, Zoe took the brunt of the blame. Her relationship with her father deteriorated after an unfounded accusation that Zoe was responsible for Hannah’s disappearance and she suffered both emotional and physical abuse in the years before leaving home. Traumatized by both the accusation and abuse, Zoe continues to remain stuck in the past.

Zoe is a desperately unhappy and tormented character. She is standoffish, emotionally distant and fiercely independent. Although professionally successful, she has low self-worth and she is full of self-loathing. Zoe is unsure if her memories are accurate and she is confused by her impressions of those long ago events. Despite her close relationship with her sister, she was also extremely jealous of Hannah and she cannot help but obsess over her bewildering feelings about her sister and her unsolved disappearance. In the midst of her attempts to come to terms with her unhappy childhood, Zoe is also striving to understand how she allowed herself become trapped in an abusive relationship for so long.

Zoe’s memories of the past are revealed through a series of flashbacks as she reminisces about key events from her childhood. Viewing these memories as an adult provides her with a different perspective of her parents’ reactions. With this new understanding, Zoe recognizes how profoundly her dysfunctional childhood motivated her decisions and choices once she reached adulthood. Hoping to break this destructive pattern, she begins making more of a concerted effort to repair her fractured relationship with her brother and his family. Zoe tries to be less distrustful of the new people in her life but will opening herself to new friendships lead her into danger?

With an eclectic cast of characters and a haunting yet realistic storyline, The Girl Who Stayed by Tanya Anne Crosby is a captivating novel of new beginnings. Beautifully rendered and quite atmospheric, this poignant yet ultimately uplifting story will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

I received an ARC of this book from The Story Plant in exchange for an honest review.

I remember being excited when I saw the description for this book in my emails with Story Plant. It sounded like a good combination of a thriller and women’s fiction, which would soften a few of the edges that I’ve come to expect in thrillers. (For one, the body count would likely be lower.) A story about a woman coming back to her childhood home, facing the demons of her past, and getting more out of the experience than she expected. Solid premise.

And for the most part, the book delivered. …For the most part.

Zoe Rutherford is a woman with issues, and she’d likely be the first to agree with you. Her sister disappeared as a child, her father was abusive, and her mother turtled up into her own personal shell, unable to figure out how to save her family. Her parents are gone now, and she needs to go back to the old home and prepare the house for sale. Zoe herself is coming out of an abusive relationship (in many ways, this trip is her first action of leaving him) and her brother is caught up in his own life, the two having drifted too far from each other since their childhood to be close enough for support.

Needless to say, all the pros and cons of coming back to your old home show their face. Names she remembers. People she once knew. Places with too many memories. Mysteries she never managed to solve. You know, the usual. And as with so many things, nothing is quite as clear-cut as she remembered.

There isn’t a great deal that’s really surprising about this novel. Zoe suffers from Plot Syndrome: everything that happens to her would be fixed if she ever said anything to anyone, but of course the plot can’t keep going if she doesn’t stay silent and keep causing problems. I don’t blame the author or the character for this; that’s how plots run. What I have trouble with is when there’s not much else going for the character for us to root for. In romantic comedies, we put up with the shenanigans because we love the main character and/or their romantic interest and we want to see them finally come through the trials and tribulations and get their happily ever after. I don’t have that with Zoe. Her character is built on running away from anything and anyone she can, so we never see her with much of a relationship with anyone, aside from her missing/dead/something sister.

A character cannot exist in a vacuum, and though there are plenty of people around Zoe doing things, she lives in a vacuum, and that makes growing attached to her difficult. When we finally do see her make a connection…well, I won’t give any spoilers. But by the end, it gives you a “well that figures” sort of reaction.

Some word choices and trope choices in the books frustrated me. In the first 100 pages or so, Zoe is “accosted” by memories something like 4-6 times. First time is good, if it’s a particularly strong and/or traumatic memory. Second time it starts sounding redundant. After that, I’m looking for a thesaurus. Add in the trope of her scar/battle wound from the idiot ex-partner, and she’s starting to sound like Harry Potter. (Also, I didn’t get a clear idea of how long ago the scar incident happened. Some times it sounded like an old scar which could have inspired phantom pains, other times it was still healing and fresh…and thus not a scar yet. I don’t know.)

The ending felt like it was intended to give us all a nice sense of completion and understanding…but the way it was phrased and presented left me confused. I’m still not sure what really happened, nor who did it, and I’m even more confused about Zoe’s involvement than I was at the start. Not optimal for a book which centers around that case. (IN THE WOODS did this as well, though it was tempered by the fact that they never truly made an effort to clear up the cold case, where GIRL WHO STAYED does.)

By a third of the way through the book or so, Crosby hits her stride and the book flows nicely. The setting is clear and the characters multi-dimensional, and the book never plodded. The tempo stayed consistent, which was a saving grace of a sometimes baffling and/or frustrating plot. It’s a good beach book: something to take with you and just read for the sake of reading. I’d just hoped for a little bit more than that.

Rating: *** (Worth a Look)

THE GIRL WHO STAYED hits shelves April 19th, 2016.

One of the downfalls of reading books in the same genre for a little over twenty years, is the repetitive feel they sometimes get. This wasn't bad but it definitely had a been there done that feel to it; it had faint echoes of a Scottish Garwood.

Along with the nothing new feeling I had, the insta-lust and the immature heroine had me skimming some pages. The story arcs of the villain feeling wronged and Page's father not wanting her were ok along with the developing romance between Iain and Page but again, not particularly original. There was never an anticipation or feeling of fun to their journey.

This was a kindle freebie for me and because the writing and grammar was good, I'd say if you're not an old hat to romances, this is definitely worth the free download.

The Girl Who Stayed is billed as a mystery/thriller, but trust me when I say that it's so much deeper than that. This is the story of Zoe Rutherford's return to her childhood home of Sullivan's Island. A place of memories, most of them unpleasant. What begins as a quick trip to clean and fix up her childhood home, quickly turns into an introspective look at Zoe's life. Be warned, there are a plethora of emotions here, with childhood and adult abuse mixed in. This isn't the easiest story to read, but it was definitely more intriguing, than I expected it to be.

Zoe's head is a tough place to be. She's a prickly, and initially rather unlovable character. There's a wall miles tall between her and everyone else, set in place to protect her from more hurt. The fact that she obsesses over the same things, in an endless loop, makes for a tough read at times. As her abuse at the hands of both her father, and her recent ex-boyfriend started to come to the surface, I began to understand her more. It takes a lot of guts to finally walk away from something so damaging. Zoe ended up being stronger than I expected her to be, and I slowly grew to appreciate her for that. She may have been a bit broken, but only because she kept all the people who could have helped at arms length.

The mystery part of this is two-fold. One the one hand, Zoe has never let go of the unsolved disappearance of her younger sister Hannah. Her childhood was broken enough as it was, but Hannah's possible death has never let Zoe go. Crosby slowly unearths snippets of this traumatic event, bringing the reader further and further into Zoe's mind. When the second part of the mystery is presented, which I won't spoil for you, it actually fits in quite well. While I was pretty committed to this story for most of the book, the ending was what really brought it all home.

This wasn't a perfect story. It dragged at times, and Zoe isn't a character that everyone is going to love. However The Girl Who Stayed pleasantly surprised me. It ended up being much deeper than I expected it to be, and well-written at that. If you're in the market for a mystery/thriller that has a contemporary feel to it, this fits that bill. It's a worthwhile way to spend a few hours.

Zoe Rutherford has come home to Sullivan's Island to deal with cleaning up and preparing for sale the house she and her brother grew up in, which they've rented out for years since their parents died. At least, that's the ostensible reason. In reality, the house and its problems give her a place to go and a problem to work on. Zoe has, after eight years, left her abusive boyfriend, Chris, and right at the moment has no idea what she's doing next.

The problem is there's an unsolved mystery on Sullivan's Island: What happened to her sister Hannah, who disappeared when she was eight and Zoe was ten? Neighbor kid and Hannah's friend Gabby Donovan claimed Zoe did it, pushing Hannah into the water where the currents would carry her away. Zoe knows she didn't, and there was never any evidence that she did, but no other culprit or cause was ever found. It's haunted her all the years since. It's why she's never returned to Sullivan's Island.

But she still wants to know what happened to her sister. And she returns to the news that two young women have disappeared without a trace in the last few months.

She starts to work on the house, repairing the damage done by years of tenants, and discovering that, with no tug rope to pull down the stairs, no one had ever bothered to go up into the attic.

The attic where, she and her brother Nick had stored their parents' and grandparents' things that they hadn't wanted to either toss or take.

Zoe spends the next weeks uncovering her past, reexamin There'sing her past, rethinking her relationship with her often hostile father and loving but withdrawn mother. There's the matter of rebuilding her relationship with Nick, just six when Hannah disappeared, and retracing her own steps the day of that disappearance. There's the problem of her grumpy but unexpectedly kind neighbor, Walter Donovan, Gabby's uncle. There's re-meeting the people she grew up among--some who remember Gabby's claims and, some of them, simply remember a younger Zoe, whom they grew up with, played with, went to school with.

Zoe keeps telling herself and others that she's not staying, even while re-experiencing both the bad and the good of small town life. And Chris remains an ongoing concern. Is he really going to let her just walk away?

And the whole time, she's looking for clues to her sister's disappearance.

It's an atmospheric and character-driven story, well worth some of your time. Recommended.

I received a free copy of this audiobook from Audible in exchange for an honest review.

Scottish Highlander Iain MacKinnon captures an Englishman’s daughter in retaliation for the kidnapping of his young son. As he bargains for a trade, it becomes clear that the Englishman has no interest in his daughter Page. While Iain gains his son, he also must ponder what to do with the girl. Feeling that no one should be denied by their father, he takes her with him. The bulk of the story encompasses the growing relationship between Iain and Page. This is an old school romance novel with an emphasis on inner dialogue and lengthy love scenes, and I loved it. Iain is a tortured and compelling hero, and Page is a plucky heroine despite the circumstances. The romance was smoldering, and I cheered the ultimate happily-ever-after.

SENSUALITY RATING: NO Profanity; NO sexual encounter (never ever written but reader can come to certain conclusions)

GENRE: Scottish Medieval Historical Romance

SETTING: starts in Scotland 1118; skips to Scotland 1124

CENTRAL FEMALE CHARACTER: PAGE is strong considering how much she has taken from her father. When she makes up her mind, it is difficult to tie her down.

CENTRAL MALE CHARACTER: IAIN, laired of the clan. Well respected, compassionate, the best of fathers.

SYNOPSIS: A clan leader has come to rescue his son. What he gets in the mix is a rejected woman. He returns to his homeland with all of kinsmen and one to whom he keeps a secret. The threat to Malcolm, his son, has not ended.

WHAT I LIKED: I love Malcom so much. I love how much he loves his da and his da loves him.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE: I can understand the parts written about the body but I admit it was rather gross.

OVERALL RATING: (5) stars because a CLEAN Scottish romance that is truly clean. Has all the ingredients of 2 major characters, danger, mystery and romance.