It’s Day 7 of our 12 days of giveaways and we’re giving away romance books! I’ve read so many great romances this year that it’s hard to pick just a few to recommend! Before We Were Strangers by Renee Carlino, When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare, The Billionaire Takes a Bride by Jessica Clare, Enslaved by Virginia Henley, Abigail Roux’s Cut and Run series, as well as Jessica Lemmon’s entire backlist are my top choices from 2015. They either had me laughing, sobbing, or falling head over heels in love. (And we all know how much I love love.) With that being said I hope that you too can love love by winning one of the three romance packages below!
Romance Package 1:
A Silver Wolf Christmas by Terry Spear – C.J. Silver is eager to help the new she-wolves in town renovate the old hotel in time for the holidays, especially if it means spending time under the mistletoe with the alluring Laurel MacTire.
The bustle in the long abandoned hotel attracts the attention of human ghosthunters out to prove the place haunted, but the bigger problem is keeping them from discovering the werewolves in Silver Town. CJ and Laurel have to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. Working together is a surprisingly hot holiday treat for two attractive and clever wolf shifters.
(Giveaway is a mass market paperback ARC)
Dark Witch by Nora Roberts – With indifferent parents, Iona Sheehan grew up craving devotion and acceptance. From her maternal grandmother, she learned where to find both: a land of lush forests, dazzling lakes, and centuries-old legends.
Ireland.
County Mayo, to be exact. Where her ancestors’ blood and magic have flowed through generations—and where her destiny awaits.
Iona arrives in Ireland with nothing but her Nan’s directions, an unfailingly optimistic attitude, and an innate talent with horses. Not far from the luxurious castle where she is spending a week, she finds her cousins, Branna and Connor O’Dwyer. And since family is family, they invite her into their home and their lives.
When Iona lands a job at the local stables, she meets the owner, Boyle McGrath. Cowboy, pirate, wild tribal horseman, he’s three of her biggest fantasy weaknesses all in one big, bold package.
Iona realizes that here she can make a home for herself—and live her life as she wants, even if that means falling head over heels for Boyle. But nothing is as it seems. An ancient evil has wound its way around Iona’s family tree and must be defeated. Family and friends will fight with each other and for each other to keep the promise of hope—and love—alive…
(Giveaway is a paperback)
Romance Package 2:
Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James – As a young girl, Emilia Gwendolyn Carrington told the annoying future Duke of Pindar that she would marry any man in the world before him—so years later she is horrified to realize that she has nowhere else to turn.
Evander Septimus Brody has his own reasons for agreeing to Mia’s audacious proposal, but there’s one thing he won’t give his inconvenient wife: himself.
Instead, he offers Mia a devil’s bargain…he will spend four nights a year with her. Four nights, and nothing more. And those only when she begs for them.
Which Mia will never do.
Now Vander faces the most crucial challenge of his life: he must seduce his own wife in order to win her heart—and no matter what it takes, this is the one battle he can’t afford to lose.
(Giveaway is a mass market paperback)
The Wedding Vow by Cara Connelly – Sexy billionaire Adam LeCroix has a mission: hunt down the sultry spitfire he blames for his troubles, demand her help, and exact revenge while he’s at it. Maddie St. Clair will help him . . . or else.
Former prosecutor Maddie damn near nailed Adam for stealing, but the lucky bastard walked. Now, five years later, he’s back, arrogant as ever, giving her an ultimatum—work for him to collect the insurance money, or she’ll never work again.
Maddie’s all about right and wrong. Adam’s shades of gray. So when he uncovers the hot body under her hard-ass veneer and she finds he’s a thief with a heart, can the law-and-order lawyer and the fast-and-loose felon put their prickly past behind them?
(Giveaway is a mass market paperback)
Vision in White by Nora Robert – With bridal magazine covers to her credit, Mackensie “Mac” Elliot is most at home behind the camera—ready to capture the happy moments she never experienced while growing up. Her father replaced his first family with a second, and now her mother, moving on to yet another man, begs Mac for attention and money. Mac’s foundation is jostled again moments before an important planning meeting when she bumps into the bride-to-be’s brother…an encounter that has them both seeing stars.
Carter Maguire is definitely not her type: he’s stable, and he’s safe. He’s even an English teacher at their high school alma mater. There’s something about him that makes Mac think a casual fling is just what she needs to take her mind off dealing with bridezillas and screening her mother’s phone calls. But a casual fling can turn into something more when you least expect it. And with the help of her three best friends—and business partners—Mac must learn how to make her own happy memories…
(Giveaway is a mass market paperback)
Romance Package 3:
With Seduction in Mind by Laura Lee Guhrke – London Society is harsh for a young woman with no family connections who has to work for a living. But when Daisy Merrick is sacked from yet another job, the feisty and outspoken miss comes up with a plan that could give her a future beyond her wildest dreams. There’s only one problem. Her success depends on a man, the most infuriating, impossible, immovable man she’s ever met.
Sebastian Grant, Earl of Avermore, is England’s most infamous author. Known for his notorious reputation, he is more interested in play than work, and has no intention of cooperating when Daisy shows up on his doorstep with a mad plan. The provoking, fire-haired beauty stirs his senses beyond belief, and Sebastian knows he has only one way to stop her. Seduction.
(Giveaway is a mass market paperback)
The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine by Alex Brunkhorst – A modern-day Gatsby tale of forbidden love, family secrets and the true price of wealth.
The story begins with a dinner party invitation. When young journalist Thomas Cleary is sent to dig up quotes for the obituary of a legendary film producer, the man’s eccentric daughter offers him entree into the exclusive upper echelons of Hollywood society. A small-town boy with working-class roots, Thomas is a stranger in this opulent world of private jets and sprawling mansions.
Then he meets Matilda Duplaine.
Matilda is a beautiful and mysterious young woman who has never left the lush Bel-Air estate where she was raised. Thomas is immediately entranced by the enigmatic girl and the two begin a secret love affair. But what starts as an enchanted romance soon unravels a web of secrets and lies that could destroy their lives and the lives of everyone around them forever.
Filled with unforgettable characters and charm, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine is a sparkling love letter to Los Angeles and a captivating journey beyond the golden gates of its most glamorous estates. Timeless, romantic and utterly absorbing, it is a mesmerizing and poignant exploration of life’s unexpected riches.
(Giveaway is a paperback ARC)
Giveaway Instructions – (Special thanks to Sourcebooks and MIRA for our ARC giveaway copies!)
Three lucky winners will have the opportunity to win ONE of the three packages listed above! For your chance to win simply leave a comment below about your favorite romance trope. Comments will be accepted through midnight on Thursday, December 31, 2015. The winner will be picked at random and announced on Friday, January 1, 2016. Open to US residents only. Good luck!
The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant – Héctor is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Those left behind have no choice but to wait.
The Marauders by Tom Cooper – When the BP oil spill devastates the Gulf coast, those who made a living by shrimping find themselves in dire straits. For the oddballs and lowlifes who inhabit the sleepy, working class bayou town of Jeannette, these desperate circumstances serve as the catalyst that pushes them to enact whatever risky schemes they can dream up to reverse their fortunes. At the center of it all is Gus Lindquist, a pill-addicted, one armed treasure hunter obsessed with finding the lost treasure of pirate Jean Lafitte. His quest brings him into contact with a wide array of memorable characters, ranging from a couple of small time criminal potheads prone to hysterical banter, to the smooth-talking Oil company middleman out to bamboozle his own mother, to some drug smuggling psychopath twins, to a young man estranged from his father since his mother died in Hurricane Katrina. As the story progresses, these characters find themselves on a collision course with each other, and as the tension and action ramp up, it becomes clear that not all of them will survive these events.
What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan – In a heartbeat, everything changes…
Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg – It’s the thrill of a lifetime when Sophie and Natalie, single mothers living in a trailer park in North Carolina, meet their idol, the mysterious musician known only as “the Whistler.” Morning finds them covered with dried blood, their clothing shredded and their memories hazy. Things soon become horrifyingly clear: the Whistler is a vampire and Natalie and Sophie are his latest victims. The young women leave their babies with Natalie’s mother and hit the road, determined not to give in to their unnatural desires.
Independence Day by Ben Coes – Dewey Andreas, former Delta and newly recruited intelligence agent, is sidelined after screwing up his last two operations. Still drowning in grief after the tragic murder of his fiancé, Dewey has seemingly lost his focus, his edge, and the confidence of his superiors.
Blood Ties by Nicholas Guild – Homicide detective Ellen Ridley of the SFPD is tracking a serial killer terrorizing young women in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ridley is sure she’s cornered her most likely suspect: Stephen Tregear, a hacker and code breaker who works for U.S. Naval Intelligence. But Tregear is not the killer… he’s the killer’s son.
Firebrand by Gillian Philip – At the end of the sixteenth century, religious upheaval brings fear, superstition, and doubt to the lives of mortals. Yet unbeknownst to them, another world lies just beyond the Veil: the realm of the Sithe, a fierce and beautiful people for whom a full-mortal life is but the blink of an eye. The Veil protects and hides their world…but it is fraying at the edges, and not all think it should be repaired.
Bloodstone by Gillian Philip – Bloodstone is the second novel in Gillian Philip’s critically acclaimed Rebel Angels series, debuting in the United States for the first time.
Wolfsbane by Gillian Philip – It’s tough being the foretold savior of your race. Rory MacGregor, kept a virtual prisoner in his own father’s dun and hunted by the Sithe queen, needs a break now and then—and what better fun than tearing the Veil no one else can tear and escaping to the Otherworld?
Icefall by Gillian Philip – Death stalks Seth MacGregor’s clan in their otherworld exile. Kate NicNiven is close to ultimate victory, and she is determined that nothing will keep her from it. Not even the thing that took her soul: the horror that lurks in the sea caves. But Kate still needs Seth’s son Rory, and his power over the Veil. And she’ll go to any lengths to get him. Seth’s own soul is rotting from the wound inflicted by Kate, and survival for his loved ones seems all he can hope for. But might a mortal threat to his brother’s daughter force him to return to his own world to challenge Kate? And will Rory go with him? Because Rory suspects there’s a darkness trapped in the Veil, a darkness that wants to get out. But only one Sithe knows how near it is to getting its way: Seth’s bound lover, the witch Finn. Nobody gets forever. But some are willing to try…
The Three-Year Swim Club by Julie Checkoway – In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. 
Year of the Dunk by Asher Price – We all like to think that (with a little practice) we could run faster, learn another language, or whip up a perfect soufflé. But few of us ever put those hopes to the test. In Year of the Dunk, Asher Price does, and he seizes on basketball’s slam dunk–a feat richly freighted with distinctly American themes of culture, race, and upward mobility–as a gauge to determine his own hidden potential. The showmanship of the dunk mesmerized Asher as a child, but even with his height (six foot plus) and impressive wingspan, he never pushed himself to try it. Now, approaching middle age, Asher decides to spend a year remaking his body and testing his mind as he wonders, like most adults, what untapped talent he still possesses. 
This is Only a Test by B.J. Hollars – On April 27, 2011, just days after learning of their pregnancy, B. J. Hollars, his wife, and their future son endured the onslaught of an EF-4 tornado. There, while huddled in a bathtub in their Alabama home, mortality flashed before their eyes. With the last of his computer battery, Hollars began recounting the experience, and would continue to do so in the following years, writing his way out of one disaster only to find himself caught up in another. From tornadoes to drownings to nuclear catastrophes, he is forced to acknowledge the inexplicable, while attempting to overcome his greatest fear―the impossibility of protecting his newborn son from the world’s cruelties. Hollars creates a constellation of grief, tapping into the rarely acknowledged intersection between fatherhood and fear, sacrifice and safety, and the humbling effect of losing control of our lives.
Leave the Dogs at Home by Claire S. Arbogast – Claire and Jim were friends, lovers, and sometimes enemies for 27 years. In order to get health insurance, they finally married, calling their anniversary the “It Means Absolutely Nothing” day. Then Jim was diagnosed with cancer. With ever-decreasing odds of survival, punctuated by arcs of false hope, Jim’s deteriorating health altered their well-established independence as they became caregiver and patient, sharing intimacy as close as their own breaths. A year and a half into their marriage, Jim died from lung/brain cancer. Sustained by good dogs and gardening through the two years of madness that followed, Claire soldiered through home repairs, career disaster, genealogy quests, and “dating for seniors” trying to build a better life on the debris of her old one.Leave the Dogs at Home maps and plays with the stages of grief. Delightfully confessional, it challenges persistent, yet outdated, societal norms about relationships, and finds relief in whimsy, pop culture, and renewed spirituality.
Samurai Rising by Pamela S. Turner – Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life Game of Thrones.
The Psychology of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo edited by Robin S. Rosenberg PhD & Shannon O’Neill – Lisbeth Salander, heroine of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, is one of the most compelling, complex characters of our time. Is she an avenging angel? A dangerous outlaw? What makes Salander tick, and why is our response to her—and to Larsson’s Millennium trilogy—so strong?
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit by Al Gore – Re-released on the heels of Al Gores #1 New York Times bestseller, An Inconvenient Truth, comes the paperback edition of his classic bestseller, Earth in the Balance. First published in 1992, it helped place the environment on the national agenda; now, as environmental issues move front-and-center in the public consciousness, the time is right to reflect deeply on the fate of our planet and commit ourselves to its future. While An Inconvenient Truth closely examines one menace to our environment–global warming–Earth in the Balance takes a broader approach, focusing on the threats that everyday choices pose to our climate, water, soil, and diversity of plant and animal life. A passionate, lifelong defender of the environment, Gore describes in brave and unforgettable terms how human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard the vulnerable ecosystem that sustains us.
Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett – Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive.
The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley – Kate Darling’s enigmatic mother–a once-famous ballerina–has passed away, leaving Kate bereft. When her grandmother falls ill and bequeaths to Kate a small portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Kate’s mother, Kate uncovers a mystery that may upend everything she thought she knew.
This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger – From the acclaimed author of The Darlings comes an incisive, hilarious, and tender exploration of fatherhood, love, and family life through the story of a widower who has to become the father he didn’t know he could be.
Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shumway – A radiant debut novel about stumbling through the early years of adulthood; and a love letter to the role models who light the way. 
Mãn by Kim Thúy – Following on the Giller Prize-nominated and Governor General’s Literary Award-winning success of Ru, Kim Thúy’s latest novel is a triumph of poetic beauty and a moving meditation on how love and food are inextricably entwined.
The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March – In the bestselling tradition of The Friday Night Knitting Club and The Jane Austen Book Club, three women find unexpected answers, happiness, and one another, with Meryl Streep movies as their inspiration. 
The Middle of Somewhere by Sonja Yoerg – A troubled, young widow hikes from Yosemite Valley deep into the wilderness on the John Muir Trail to elude her shameful past in this emotionally gripping story from the author of House Broken.
Still Life by Louise Penny – Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny – “Hearts are broken,” Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead.”
The Long Way Home by Louise Penny – Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. “There is a balm in Gilead,” his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, “to make the wounded whole.”
Killing Trail by Margaret Mizushima – When a young girl is found dead in the mountains outside Timber Creek, life-long resident Officer Mattie Cobb and her partner, K-9 police dog Robo, are assigned to the case that has rocked the small Colorado town.
And She Was by Alison Gaylin – 
Sweet Revenge by Andrea Penrose – England, 1813: Lady Arianna Hadley’s desire to discover her disgraced father’s murderer has brought her back to London from exile in the Caribbean. Masquerading as a male chef, she is working in one of London’s aristocratic households in order to get close to her main suspect. But when the Prince Regent is taken ill after consuming Arianna’s special chocolate dessert, she unexpectedly finds herself at the center of a dangerous scandal.
The Drowning by Camilla Läckberg – Christian Thydell’s dream has come true: his debut novel, The Mermaid, is published to rave reviews. So why is he as distant and unhappy as ever?
Hello readers! Today I’m kicking off Reflections of a Book Addict’s 2nd annual 12 Days of Giveaways!! Over the next 12 days you’ll have the opportunity to learn about and win several books. (Read: 60 books!) No matter your taste in books, from science fiction to romance to thrillers to non-fiction, there is something for everyone. Just leave a comment on the post of the day and you’ll be entered to win! It’s always nice to curl up and relax with a good book, and this is never truer than during the holidays. So, make sure you come back each day, check out the new post, and enter to win!
Reflections of a Book Addict 