Today, I'm kicking off the tour for McKenna's debut cozy mystery series. This was such a fun book to read while I was on vacation, lounging by the pool. Read my review and then be sure to enter to win a $25 Amazon GC!

Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.


Hi All! Yes, it's been a while. And those of you that have been reading my blog regularly know that when I'm missing in action it's because stuff is happening.

So this is what's been happening: I have decided to pursue my professional career and, therefore, on July 1, 2019 I sold my business iRead Book Tours and passed it on into the very capable hands of Lauren Carr!

Some of you may know that I am a Special Care Counsellor by profession. As I mentioned in previous blog posts, in February of this year, I was offered an opportunity to join the psychogeriatrics team in the Monteregie-Ouest area (just south of Montreal) to help with the growing need of assisting families who have a loved one with dementia. I specialize in the management of behavioural and psychological symptoms (depression, aggression, agitation, psychosis, wandering, etc). It’s a field I love and I’m ready to move on permanently.

​For "Matt's swirly world," I worked with a psychologist who specialized in child development and attachment parenting. That's because, I am above all, convinced of the immense potential every child has and their absolute innocence. I know from experience that raising kids can often feel quite differently, and challenging. I am convinced that the way to turn that potential into peaceful family lives and well-balanced kids - is both intuition and science (and patience). Being emotionally available as a parent, being present for them and for yourself, to keep your own emotional highs & lows in check. Because they are good at triggering us, aren't they? When I was 8, I had no money to buy my mother gifts; I really wanted to create joy in her heart, so I started dedicating poems to her. That's what got me started writing.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram


Matt'sSwirlyWorld

Winter Frost is the second book in the Chris Matheson Cold Case Mystery series. After reading ICE I was eager to read this second instalment.

Ivy is the third book in the Montgomery Sisters series and it was also an enjoyable read. You can read my reviews of the first two books: Fern and Poppy. Be sure to enter the giveaway too!
Book Details:
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Book Title: Ivy (The Montgomery Sisters Book 3) by Kat Flannery
Category: Historical western romance, 164 pages
Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Publisher: Picco Press
Release date: November 11, 2018
Tour dates: July 1-31, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (swearing and mild violence)

Book Description:

Ivy Montgomery is tired of her sister’s constant nagging and protectiveness. Blind, she decides to escape in the middle of the night when she is captured and brought far from home. With no understanding of the outside world, Ivy must use her keen abilities to navigate the wilderness around her. Anger and hopelessness are her only defenses against the things she cannot do.

​Until she meets a strong-minded Lakota Chief, who will not let her cower to the blindness any longer. Lakota Sioux Chief of the Paha Sapa, Hotah is on a hunt for his brother, Kangi. Cast from their tribe five years before, Kangi has grown a dark spirit and a hatred for all white people. Now on reserved land, Hotah makes a deal with the General to capture his brother in return for his people to have the provisions they need. After rescuing Ivy, he promises to take her home, but danger is near and Hotah soon realizes it is not just his brother he should fear.


Ivy is the third book in the Montgomery Sisters series and it was also an enjoyable read. It is the story of the youngest of the sisters, Ivy, who happens to be blind and feels stifled by both of her very capable sisters. So she escapes and gets kidnapped. She's rescued by a Lakota Sioux chief and learns to become resourceful and brave as they encounter danger on their way back home. It was refreshing that the author included a main character that was an American Indian.

I like that each of the Montgomery sisters is unique and different both in character and in personality. Ivy is certainly different from both her sisters and I initially thought that there had to be a better way for her to ascertain her independence than to run away. I did find her immature but she did grow as a character, although the ending tied everything up too quickly and neatly.

Once again as I mentioned for the first two books, this book also starts with action and pulls the reader in quite quickly with no dull moment until the very end. I think this one could have had a more prolonged ending, though, with a more realistic conflict resolution. However, it was nonetheless a fun western romance.

It was also fun to read all three books consecutively. They are clean reads that are entertaining and can satisfy the reader who wants a light fun read on a hot summer day.




Kat Flannery’s love of history shows in her novels. She is an avid reader of historical, suspense, paranormal, and romance. A member of many writing groups including the National Romance Writers of America (RWA), Kat enjoys promoting other authors on her blog. When she’s not busy writing or marketing Kat volunteers her time to other aspiring authors. She’s been published in numerous periodicals throughout her career and continues to write for blogs and online magazines. A bestselling author, Kat’s books are available all over the world. The BRANDED TRILOGY is Kat’s award-winning series. With seven books published, Kat continues to write two novels a year.
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Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
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After having read Fern the first book in the Montgomery Sisters series, I was eager to read the second book that focuses on the middle Montgomery sister named Poppy. This is another fun western romance by Kat Flannery.

Book Details:

Book Title: The Revolutionist by Robert Tucker
Category: Adult Fiction, 649 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Tell-Tale Publishing Group LLC / Wise Words Publishing
Release date: 12/03/2017
Tour dates: May 27 to June 28, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (This book does not contain any gratuitous violence. Any depicted violence is relevant to the historical period, as are scenes of white slave prostitution, sexual and physical abuse, and one of an abortion mill. They are written with sensitivity as to time and place and with appropriate literary language.)

Book Description:

Two different families escape from the political tyranny of their respective homelands, the Josephsons from Sweden and Matias and Kurt Bauman, brothers from Germany and Austria Hungary, with the aid of a Viennese opera diva, Sophie Augusta Rose, and Jean Guenoc, a former Jesuit priest, family friend and protector and partisan of the French underground. Their journey brings them to America in the throes of the industrial revolution during the 1890s and early 1900s.

Ingrid and Olaf Josephson settle on a small wheat farm in North Central Minnesota to raise their children, Newt and Julie. Among the Jewish entrepreneurs forced to leave Germany and Austria-Hungary, Matias and Kurt Bauman re-establish their transportation company in Chicago, Illinois. In search of a secret list of insurgent social democrats, the bounty hunter assassin, Luther Baggot, tracks his victims to the American heartland. Following the murder of their mother and father, Newt, Julie, and their friends, Aaron and Beth Peet, hide from the killer in a Northern Minnesota logging camp. Believing the children have taken possession of the list, Luther tracks them down and they are forced to flee again, this time to Chicago where a different world opens up to them as they are thrust into the turmoil and violence of an urban society and economy careening into the new century.


There are some writers that are born storytellers with the capacity to make all characters stand out and to write with ease about places, professions, and times in history as if they had lived them. Robert Tucker is such a writer. It's been awhile since I read a chunky book (this one is 649 page) and The Revolutionist reminded me of the sagas I used to read in the 80s and 90s.

The story begins in Europe with two different families whose lives converge at some point after their immigration to America. The first part of the story which begins in Germany with the Bauman family sets the background for the upcoming main character of Julie Josephson, whose tragic loss of her parents and the ripe-for-change turn-of-the-century atmosphere in Chicago among the immigrants shapes her into an intelligent open-minded woman who strives to continue the ideology her parents believed in.

I enjoyed the storytelling very much as under Tucker's hand the characters come alive and we see both the affluent way of living and that of the misfortunate immigrants who toiled under harsh conditions and who were taken advantage of. Julie's story is one of a coming-of-age, although at some point the secondary characters took over and we lost sight of Julie's growth and transformation. I would have forgone some of the minor plot lines for more of how Julie became revolutionary. I think Tucker's keen sense of characterization, multiple plot lines and extensive backstories could also have make an excellent book series out of this one book.

If you love historical fiction sagas with strong female characters, a storyline that spans two continents with a variety of unique characters, along with some good writing, then I recommend you pick up The Revolutionist.

Oh my...it's been a while since I read a book that made me cry. I'm counting this one as one of my favorite reads in 2019. Check it out and enter to win a copy! But hurry, the giveaway ends very soon. Book Details:

Book Title: The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani
Category: Adult Fiction, 399 pages
Genre: Literary
Publisher: Lake Union
Release date: September 2018
Tour dates: June 3 to July 12, 2019
Content Rating: PG-13 (There are some non-explicit sex scenes)

Book Description:

An Amazon Charts, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller!

From the bestselling author of Trail of Broken Wings comes an epic story of the unrelenting force of love, the power of healing, and the invincible desire to dream.

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past. Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation.

​Through her courageous grandmother’s arrestingly romantic and heart-wrenching story, Jaya discovers the legacy bequeathed to her and a strength that, until now, she never knew was possible.



Oh my...it's been a while since I read a book that made me cry. Well, Sejal Badani succeeded in doing just that with The Storyteller's Secret. I enjoy books set in India and this one was quite atmospheric, taking me back to when India was under the British occupation. The story has a dual timeline, with Jaya who lives in present-day New York City and Amisha, her grandmother, who lived during the 1930s in a small village in India.

Jaya is experiencing grief after her third miscarriage and the painful separation from the husband she loves. She decides to travel to her grandmother's hometown after her mother receives a letter with the news that Jaya's grandfather is dying. Jaya has a strained relationship with her mother who refuses to go back to India. She doesn't understand her mother's closed personality and longs for a better connection with her. Once Jaya is in India, she meets Ravi, one of India's untouchables who had once been her grandmother's servant. Ravi is now an old man who slowly unravels the story of Jaya's grandmother and passes on her legacy.

I loved Amisha's story because she was a woman ahead of her time, struggling to explore her gift of writing at a time when women were considered inferior. This is a story about mother and daughter relationships, about the grief of miscarriage and how it affects couples, about searching for one's roots and heritage, about exploring one's culture, and about friendship and love.

If you love literary fiction or women's fiction with strong female characters, The Storyteller's Secret will take you to a small village in India where a woman tried to make a difference although stuck in tradition and her female role in a patriarchal society. I loved this book and was so overcome with emotion with that heartwrenching ending. I'll count this as one of my favorite reads of 2019. I am now a fan of Sejal Badani and have her first book Trail of Broken Wings on my TBR list.

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Book Details:
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Book Title: Fern (The Montgomery Sisters Book 1) by Kat Flannery
Category: Historical western romance, 182 pages
Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Publisher: Picco Press
Release date: April 4, 2018
Tour dates: July 1-31, 2019
Content Rating: PG + M (The occasional swear word, not the F-word, mild violence)

Book Description:

Can one woman heal the heart of a lawman? A gardener who uses plants to heal, Fern Montgomery is an outcast who refuses to be pushed out of town. When her friend is murdered and all fingers point to Fern as the only suspect, she must find a way to prove her innocence while fighting off unwanted feelings for the sheriff. Sheriff Gabe Bennett has his mind set on arresting Sarah Fuller’s killer. But his key suspect isn’t what he expected. He soon realizes there is more to the quiet gardener than he’d first anticipated. As passion blooms, Gabe is forced to face his feelings—and the woman who has stolen his heart.


I've discovered a new Canadian author whose historical western romance books are so much fun to read. I've read all three books in the series and enjoyed every single one. The first book introduces us to Fern, the first-born of the three sisters. Fern is the serious sister who feels responsible for taking care of her sisters (as first-born myself I can totally relate!) especially since they lost their parents to tragic circumstances.

Fern is an intelligent woman who has the gift of using plants to heal. She is independent, strong and courageous. When Gabe, the new sheriff, begins to investigate a murder that points to Fern as a suspect, they are thrown together and feelings blossom despite their being at odds with each other.

Flannery starts all her novels with action, pulling the reader in quickly with never a dull moment until before you know it, you've read the whole book! Despite this being a short novel, the characters are well-developed, the pace is excellent, the dialogue realistic moving the plot forward. I did wish this was a longer novel because I loved the characters, the setting and the plot.

Best of all this was a clean romance novel. Although labeled a romance, there is plenty of action, a good plot, and a murder mystery rendering this book a fun page-turner. If you're looking for a quick read with a strong female lead character, look no further.

My review of Poppy, the next book in the Montgomery series will be posted next week.
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To read reviews, please visit Kat Flannery's page on iRead Book Tours.

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Meet the Author: 

Kat Flannery’s love of history shows in her novels. She is an avid reader of historical, suspense, paranormal, and romance. A member of many writing groups including the National Romance Writers of America (RWA), Kat enjoys promoting other authors on her blog. When she’s not busy writing or marketing Kat volunteers her time to other aspiring authors. She’s been published in numerous periodicals throughout her career and continues to write for blogs and online magazines. A bestselling author, Kat’s books are available all over the world. The BRANDED TRILOGY is Kat’s award-winning series. With seven books published, Kat continues to write two novels a year.
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Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
a Rafflecopter giveaway