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Three Reasons You Should Read This Romantic Thriller:
Rattlesnake Road by Amanda McKinney is a very gritty, but quite sweet at times, romantic thriller.
I don’t usually put warnings here – but there are a couple of scenes that I found difficult to read – so please read the author’s warning before starting.
The suspense and mystery kind of creep up on you, then fade away until you almost forget them before jumping back out again. It was an interesting way of presenting the plot, but I really enjoyed it.
From bestselling and multi-award-winning author Amanda McKinney comes her most evocative and twisted small-town Thriller…
Welcome to 1314 Rattlesnake Road—the perfect hideaway to escape your past.
After leaving her posh NYC life behind, fashion editor Grey Dalton escapes to the small, southern town of Berry Springs to pick up the broken pieces of her life. On impulse, she purchases a rumored-to-be-haunted house where she finds herself thrown into decade-old murder mystery, and onto the rocky road of recovery and self-discovery. Men are the last thing on her mind—until she meets a tattooed cowboy and a dashing businessman. One will steal her heart, the other, her soul.
Rattlesnake Road pushesthe boundaries and blends genres in this raw, emotional, no-holds-barred story.
(Due to serious subject matter and mature content, please be aware that this book might be an emotional trigger for some readers.)
Rattlesnake Road by Amanda McKinney was not what I expected. And before I get too far, pay attention to the author’s warning. While some are overdone, this book definitely needs it, so read with caution.
It starts out innocently enough, with Grey Dalton running from the city and her terrible life there. She buys a house on Rattlesnake Road, sight unseen, and starts to clean it up and start over. The people of Berry Springs are incredibly welcoming, especially the older lady in her flashy tracksuits and ATVs that likes to bake cookies. Yes, please. Can I have one of them live down the way from me?
The new house isn’t too bad, but her far away neighbor, Declan, points out some things that need to be done. But there’s also this rich developer poking around trying to buy up all the land in the area. Both men give off some serious danger vibes, but Grey’s mental state isn’t the best, so she doubts all the warnings she picking up at first.
Then she finds some really creepy old letters (trigger warning here) and discovers a girl was murdered nearby and no one knows who did it. With all these stories drifting around, Amand McKinney does a great job of weaving them together in a way that forms mostly complete cloth.I felt like there was a little bit of a cop-out plot point towards the end, but overall, a very well-written book.
I’ve never loved someone quite like my high school sweetheart. But she shattered my heart to pieces when she moved to California for college and never came back.
Now she’s back in Drakesville and for the first time in sixteen years, I’ve come face-to-face with the only woman I’ve ever loved. Kissing her was a bad idea. Spending countless nights tangled in my sheets was an even worse idea.
She’s only here long enough to make sure her parents’ bar stays afloat. I can’t get attached, when I know she’s just going to leave again.
And I know I’m not reason enough to make her stay.
Temporarily In Love is a small-town second chance autumn-themed romance book. If you love fall and Halloween, you’ll love this book.
Declan’s dark eyes seared across the length of my body like he remembered all the times he had stripped me out of my clothes. He always did like the knee-high boots I wore during the fall.
“You cold?” he asked.
I nodded. “Been in California too long.”
He shed his zip-up hoodie and put it over my shoulders. “Here.”
A memory of this exact scene played through my mind’s eye. Of me not wearing proper attire because I wanted to dress cute for him and him giving me his jacket. But that was sixteen-year-old Declan and Lila; we weren’t those people anymore.
“Dec…”
“Come on, love, let’s go on the zipper,” he said and took my hand.
I didn’t question his slip up. The old pet name rolled off his tongue like it hadn’t been sixteen years since I broke his heart. Like I hadn’t stood in his driveway all those years ago and told him I got accepted to Stanford and wasn’t going with him to Penn State. I told him I wanted to break up, because long-distance relationships never worked, but I’d always love him. That part had been true, was still true, but I never came back to him. I went to California and stayed there while he stayed in our gossipy small town and made a name for himself.
The pad of his thumb brushed against the back of my palm. “Love?”
“Right. Let’s go on the zipper!” I said excitedly, pulling myself away from the trip down memory lane.
We walked over to the ride and waited in line for a few minutes, but neither of us wanted to sever the connection of our hands. I wondered if he was thinking about all the times we had done this before. Of those times back in high school when he was the one dragging me toward the rides. Adult Declan was quiet and reserved, and I couldn’t get a read on him. He wasn’t the boy I fell in love with, but yet, at the same time, he was.
He led me into the cage and made sure I was seated before he slid in next to me. We pulled the lap bar down, and the ride operator clicked us in before shutting us inside the metal cage. We were pressed so close together, I felt his thigh against my own.
I didn’t know why I did it, but I turned to him and found he was staring back at me intensely. He didn’t jerk back when I brushed my lips against his. He threaded his hands through my hair, one of them gripping my neck possessively as he deepened the kiss. We kissed like we hadn’t forgotten, like it hadn’t been years since we were pressed together. We still fit so perfectly.
Then the ride lurched, and I pulled away to grab onto the handlebar above my head as we moved upwards. We screamed our heads off as our cage flipped us around. I held onto Declan’s arm when the ride took us up to its full height and then brought us back down to the ground, all the while flipping us upside down in our cage.
I felt dizzy by the time we were back on the ground, and the ride operator opened the cage for us. Declan got out first, then offered me a hand when I stumbled out.
He studied me. “Okay, love?”
I could only nod.
My heart was doing somersaults, and it wasn’t because I was motion sick from the ride. It was singing with the way this man still turned me inside out. But I couldn’t get ideas like that. I didn’t deserve him after what I did. Not after I had been such a coward and cut him out of my life.
Danica Flynn is a marketer by day, and a writer by nights and weekends. AKA she doesn’t sleep! She is a rabid hockey fan of both The Philadelphia Flyers and the Metropolitan Riveters. When not writing, she can be found hanging with her partner, playing video games, and reading a ton of books.
It wasn’t wedding day jitters. Something was up. I stood up and headed to the door. The camera guy and sound guy tried to stop me, but I ignored them. I opened the door, and Mackie was there in her bridesmaid dress. “Did you need me?” she asked. “No, wait here. I’m just going to talk to Peter,” I said. I marched down the hall toward the groom’s suite. Even more people tried to stop me. That only confirmed that some shit was going down, and everyone else knew but me. I knew exactly what was going on. The security guard stepped in my way. “Get out of my way, or there is no wedding.” I said. The large man stared down at me and didn’t move. “I will have you fired,” I said, in my iciest bitch voice. The man cowered and stepped aside. I threw the door open. There was my groom, making out and groping Cindy! “I knew you were fucking cheating on me, Peter!” He started to speak, but I threw my hand up, signaling him to stop. “Don’t bother. He’s all yours, Cindy,” I said, and then I hightailed it out of there, tearing off the lavalier mic they’d strapped to me as I ran. My slippers slowed me down, so I kicked them off and ran barefoot. I tore down the hall and out onto the church grounds. “Meredith!” a male voice yelled. I looked up to see who it was, and I spotted Nick’s Spyder at the valet. I sprinted over to him, tears streaming down my face. But I didn’t care. Those camera crews would never catch me. Their equipment was too heavy. I jumped into Nick’s car and yelled at him. “Drive!”
Do you enjoy funny, contemporary romances with spicy love scenes?
Because if you do …
You’ve landed in the perfect place.
I’m Tina Gabor, and it’s so much fun getting to write the books I love reading. Gorgeous men and fierce, feisty, and funny women are my jam.
And since there’s nothing like a love story with a dash of sun and fun …
I set most of my in Southern California and Florida. I grew up in South Florida, and now I live in Southern California with my fiancee and a stray cat we named Fred.
To get special deals on new releases and updates on what your favorite book couples are doing after the story ends, go to SparksFlyRomance.com/Tina
