And just like that, in an old red barn at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, I found the elusive magic I had glimpsed only between the pages of great love stories. It fluttered around me like a newborn butterfly and settled in a corner of my heart. I held my breath, afraid to exhale, for fear it would slip out, never to be found again.

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FIRST 6 STAR RATING OF THE YEAR!!!!!

If you’ve been looking for a story that will sweep you away, one that you will feel with all of your heart and soul, one that will take on a journey unlike any you’ve been on, one that’ll break your heart and then put it back together, then this is the book for you!!! From the moment I heard about it, I knew I had to read it. And now, having finished it, I can say with full certainty that THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Leylah Attar’s breathtaking writing depicts vivid imagery with evocative prose that immerses you in the story and makes you feel every moment in your heart. Reading this book was a reaffirmation in everything that makes me love reading. It is a profoundly beautiful and unparalleled reading experience that I can’t recommend highly enough!

Once in Africa, I kissed a king…

“And just like that, in an old red barn at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, I discovered the elusive magic I had only ever glimpsed between the pages of great love stories. It fluttered around me like a newly born butterfly and settled in a corner of my heart. I held my breath, afraid to exhale for fear it would slip out, never to be found again.”

When a bomb explodes in a mall in East Africa, its aftershocks send two strangers on a collision course that neither one sees coming.

Jack Warden, a divorced coffee farmer in Tanzania, loses his only daughter. An ocean away, in the English countryside, Rodel Emerson loses her only sibling.

Two ordinary people, bound by a tragic afternoon, set out to achieve the extraordinary, as they make three stops to rescue three children across the vast plains of the Serengeti—children who are worth more dead than alive.

But even if they beat the odds, another challenge looms at the end of the line. Can they survive yet another loss—this time of a love that’s bound to slip through their fingers, like the mists that dissipate in the light of the sun?

“Sometimes you come across a rainbow story—one that spans your heart. You might not be able to grasp it or hold on to it, but you can never be sorry for the color and magic it brought.”

I found myself smiling so often as I read, not because of what was happening in the story, but from the sheer joy of reading such a beautifully written book. Over and over again, I’d read a certain passage and just stop, take a deep breath, highlight it, and then read it again — savoring the words. It usually takes me a couple hours to read a book, but it took me almost three days to read this one because I tried to read it as slowly as I could — I wasn’t just reading this book, I was experiencing the story. I believe that it’s a reflection of an incredibly perceptive author when they not only weave together a great story, but also show a keen understanding of human nature through their words.

There’s an unspoken rule about how long you can stare like that at another person. No one says it, but we all know it. There is the quick glance we give to strangers, the acknowledgement we exchange with people we know, the private joke, the silent acceptance, the lover’s gaze, the parent’s concern. Our eyes are always different, always speaking. They meet and look away, a thousand nuances expressed without words. And then there’s this. Whatever was passing between Jack and me in the middle of that ancient caldera. Perhaps it was because we didn’t know exactly where we fit — two people bound by a sunny, tragic afternoon, retreating from the edge of attraction — lives that were oceans apart, breaths that lingered in the space between.

I’ve been asked a lot what ‘kind’ of book this is. It feels wrong to try to label it but I can tell you that this book fully fits the definition of a Romance genre novel (complete with an ending that’ll make your heart soar), but it’s more than that. It’s a love story set against a backdrop of a devastating loss, an exhilarating journey, and a thrilling race to save a group of endangered children. It’s a story of loss and love, courage and sacrifice, and the full circle of healing. But ultimately, this is absolutely a breathtakingly beautiful romance unlike any other I’ve ever read.

“How is he now?”
“Intimidating. Sad, angry, bitter. I think he might have a death wish. He was standing under a tree in the storm, by his daughter’s grave, like he wanted to be struck down right next to her.”

“In a thousand lives, I would die a thousand deaths to save her. Over and over and over again.”

It was barely a brush, but his entire body tightened in reaction. I felt the quieting of his breath on my face, the jolt of his thigh against my body, the crackle of awareness where his bare arms touched mine. I felt the kind of chemistry I’d been holding out for, the kind that ignites all your senses, so that you’re more alive in that one second than in all the moments, in all the days before.

Losing someone you love tunes you in to the fragility of life — of moments and memories and music. It makes you want to embrace all the foolish, inarticulate longings that pull at your heart. It makes you want to grasp un-played notes of un-played symphonies. Perhaps that was why Jack and I clung to that moment, eyes locked, breaths stilled, listening to something that only we could hear, something that lived in the fleeting space between hello and goodbye.

As someone who has never visited Africa, I loved seeing the continent through Rodel’s eyes. And despite the intensely emotional backdrop to this story, and the beauty of the culture, I also found myself chuckling over and over again.

To his credit, Jack kept a straight face.
I ripped into the biscuits before he got in the car.
“Not a fan of the local cuisine?” he asked.
“Not a fan of roasted entrails, local or otherwise.”

But on a more serious note… Certain scenes just gave me these full body CHILLS!! Oh my gosh, there’s this one particular scene in the mist by the tent when ****** happens and seriously, I got shivers from head to toe, tears sprang to my eyes, and these waves of emotion just kept coursing through me. ALL. THE. FEEEEEEEELS!!!

The first half of the book is beautiful but a little slower paced — I read it over the course of two separate days. But the second half — OH MY HOLY HEAVENS!!!! I sat down at my kitchen table in the morning expecting to just read a chapter or two and was literally swept away by the rest of the story. I cancelled my day plans the minute I started crying and I honestly wavered between crying and almost crying from that point until the very end of the book. The more I read, the harder I cried, and the more deeply I fell in complete and utter LOVE with this book. ——- I want to stress though that THIS IS NOT A SAD STORY. Yes, there are painful scenes, but these were not tears of sadness. They were just an overflow of the emotions that this story was drawing out of me.

His gaze traveled over my face for a long time, still beat before falling on my neck.
“I can’t bear the thought of you leaving,” he said to the mark his teeth had left there.
“I stop breathing every time I think about it.”

I felt this story in my soul. I will remember it forever. One day, when enough time has passed for the story to be fresh again, I know I will come back and read it all over again to experience the book magic again.

I rate books out of 5 stars. 5 stars is pure perfection in my eyes and is generally the highest rating I will give. However, I reserve a very rare 6 star rating for books that are not only perfect to me but also pull an extraordinary amount of emotion from my heart. There are very few books that ever had as strong an emotional impact on me as this one did. In the last four years, I have only rated one or two books each year with my highest rating of 6 stars. But this book has undeniably earned that rating because I know I will carry this story with me for the rest of my life.

I wish I could explain to you what that voice does to me.
I wish I could explain to you how you make me feel.
I don’t think I’ll ever fall as hard and as fast for anyone, the way I fell for you.
I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone the way I love you.

I now have the book hangover of the century. I’m not ready to let this story go. I can’t let it go. I want to keep reliving it, re-reading it. I want to experience this majestic love story over and over again and let it keep sinking deeper into my heart. Every time I re-read quotes, tears fill my eyes and the feels come flooding back — the beauty, the love, the loss, the healing, all of it. In every way, this is an unforgettable story.

I knew that whenever I thought of love, it would have a face, a name, a voice. And I would hear its heart beating from inside a tent in the wilds of Africa.

It is a truly rare and precious thing to come across a story as powerful as this one — as beautiful, as intensely emotional, as evocative and unique. This book represents the reason I love to read. It’s the diamond in the rough. It’s the book that, ten years later, you think of and your heart skips a beat. It’s a master piece of storytelling. I hope Leylah Attar never writing books because as long as she keeps writing them, I will be reading them.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. Set aside some time in your life to just immerse yourself in this story. It is an unparalleled reading experience you don’t want to miss. I recommend it to everyone with all my heart!

Rating: 6 STARS!!!!! Standalone Romance/Women’s Fiction.

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PS: I know some of you will need to know this, so if you want to know if this has a happy ending, just click below.

“You’re mine,” I heard myself say, and then stumbled to cover the gaffe.
“For this week at least.”

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HOLY HOTNESS!! Oh my! This was such a sweet, sexy romance! Sometimes you just need something FUN to read that’ll make you smile and swooooooon and fan yourself from the heat, y’know?? And luckily, this book delivered exactly that! It’s about a larger-than-life, hunky and heroic Navy SEAL hero who unexpectedly falls in love with a wild, carefree girl who changes everything for him! It is HOT HOT HOTTTTTTT!!!! Like, I mean S.T.E.A.M.Y. and it’s also a really addictive, easy read. So if you’re in the mood for a light-hearted erotic romance, try this!

I was a combat medic. So when I hear someone shout “MEDIC!” training just kicks in. It’s automatic, immediate. I don’t think I even saw the guy whose leg I tended to, not really. All I saw was him. Zane Badd. His tuxedo fit him like he’d been sewn into it, and his eyes reflected the fury and the hardness of a combat veteran, but when he looked at me, he just…softened. By the time I had his brother patched, Zane and I were both covered in blood, and I knew I had to have him.

The trouble with Zane isn’t getting him, it’s keeping him.

And the trouble with me is, even if I could hold onto a man like Zane, I wouldn’t know what to do with him. It’s not in my nature, and if life has taught me anything, it’s to not trust anyone, least of all men like Zane. He’s a warrior through and through, hard, muscular, gorgeous, tenacious, and yet oddly tender toward me.

Experience and instincts are telling me to run from Zane Badd as fast as possible, but my heart and my body are telling me to stay, to hold on and not let go…

There’s a lot of humor in this book, a helluva lot of sexy-times, some heart-warming brotherly bonding, and a surprisingly sweet romance! The hero and heroine are both serial one-night-standers who share a mutual aversion to relationships and commitment. But they both find their lives turned upside down when they begin to have feelings for each other after what was supposed to be a one-time hook-up. This kind of freaks them both out and yet they still don’t want to let each other go so without wanting to dive into anything too committed, and given that she was only in town for a few days, they agreed to just be together during her vacation — no strings, no attachment, just a lot of sex and a carefree few days. But the more time they spent together, the harder they fell, leaving them both wondering if maybe, just maybe, they were ready to take a leap of faith and try something more permanent…

“Trust is… hard, and I’m just cynical, I guess. None of the guys I’ve ever met have seemed like anyone I’d be interested in seeing more than once.”
“And I’m safe, because you’re going back home in a week, so if I turn out to be a raging douchebag, you can just catch a flight home and forget about me.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes cut to mine. “But please, feel free to not turn into a raging douchebag.”
“I’ll do my best.”

This was a genuinely fun and romantic read! Admittedly, it was a little cheesy at times with some definite eye-roll-worthy moments and an overload of dick jokes, but the more serious Zane and Mara got about each other, the more I began to love the story and I have to say that overall, I really enjoyed reading this book!

“Girlfriend, you’ve got it bad,” Claire said.
That got my attention. “What do you mean?”
She waved at me in disgust. “You. I haven’t missed the way you and Zane have been eye-fucking this whole time.”
“We’re not eye-fucking,” I protested.

Claire snorted. “Bitch, please. If you could get pregnant from eye-fucking, you’d be nine kinds of knocked up.”

And I have to give a special shout out to Zane’s brothers! I loved all their bonding and bantering moments!

“I’m supposed to call Mara at four. And if you say a damn word, I’ll castrate you in your sleep.”
“The nurse from the wedding? You’re … calling her… on the phone?”
“No, you dick-turd, I’m gonna stand on the roof and shout.”

“Go. Call your woman. We got this.”
“She’s not my woman. We’re just… practice dating.”
Brock stared at me for a long moment. “There’s so much to unpack from that statement I don’t even know where to start.”

This can be read as a standalone (that’s how I read it) but it’s also the second standalone in a series of standalones aptly called the Badd Brothers Series — here’s book 1 — but personally, I had no problem reading this alone. Basically, the series follows eight brothers (last name Badd, hehe) and each book focuses on a different one of them finding love. Zane was a Navy SEAL, but there’s a pilot, a football player, twin rock stars, a genius, and so on so if you like this book, there are more coming… but if you want to read this alone, that’s fine too.

“That bar, those boys, the city… it all has a way of growing on you, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does. Like fucking tentacles.”
I laughed. “Exactly. But in this case, the tentacles are attached to a really hot, sexy, amazing man.”
“And a beautiful city,” Claire added.
“And a really kickass bar.”
“And a shitload of sexy, funny, loyal brothers.”

Bottom line, if you’re a romance reader looking for some SEXY STEAMY HOTNESS, a sweet and badass Alpha hero, a sassy heroine, and a whirlwind love story that’ll make you smile and swoon, then definitely give this one a try!

Rating: 4+ stars! Adult Romance, can standalone.

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“There is magic in this world beyond any explanation. It exists only because a scale steadies the universe, and it is the unknown that keeps the balance. The human race needs miracles; it needs the unthinkable to happen because without it, hope would not exist.”

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This was one of those books I knew I wanted to read the moment I heard about it because it was a storyline I’d never read before! That doesn’t come along every day and I just couldn’t resist especially since it was written by one of my favorite authors! While the story does have a paranormal twist to it, I want to assure you that it’s quite believable. Just enough of a twist to make the storyline possible, but it’s subtle enough that I’m certain that even hardcore contemporary romance readers will accept it. The hero has a heart of gold and he falls in love with the single mom of a little girl when their lives collide in an entirely unexpected and unprecedented manner. While I’ll admit that this story was much less emotional than I was expecting, I still really enjoyed reading something that was just so DIFFERENT!! So if you’re in the mood for a book that’ll deliver a story that isn’t quite like anything else, try this!

Rock bottom.
Liam had set up shop there.

After an accident left him injured and unable to work, it wasn’t long before he ended up on the street with his dreams in the gutter.

This was it.
This was his life.

Until the day he met Max Porter—a man who appeared to have it all. They didn’t meet so much as made eye contact as Max sneered at Liam, the bum occupying precious space on the sullied New York City street.

When Max stepped into oncoming traffic, a lesser man might’ve let him. But Liam risked his life to save Max only to be left to die without a second thought.

When Liam woke up days later, he wasn’t himself…at least he wasn’t in his body.

He was in Max’s.

And with Liam’s body on life support, there was only one logical conclusion: Max was trapped in Liam’s comatose body.

Somehow the twisted hands of fate had given Liam a second chance; a chance to have it all. But with all the perks of Max’s life also came his problems. Finding balance in his new identity was challenged more so once Liam fell for Waverly, Max’s beautiful ex.

Could Liam live out his life as another man or would he pull the plug and let fate decide?

Would he lose his chance at true love?
Would he lose the chance to have it all?

I really felt for Liam. The poor guy woke up in another man’s body disoriented, confused, and completely helpless in a situation for which there was literally no precent. I mean, who do you call? One moment he was alone in the world with nothing to his name, and the next he woke up in the body of an arrogant millionaire… What do you do?

“There was no witchcraft or alien abduction,” I told her.
“It just… happened.”

But for him, everything changed when he met Max’s ex-wife. He naturally couldn’t refuse when she asked to see him (thinking he was Max) but was stunning when she offered him a divorce so that he would never have to see her or the child that Max apparently wanted nothing to do with ever again. This naturally shifted his entire universe.

Unlike Max, Liam had a heart of gold and there was no way he was going to let a child go without a father. But what were the consequences? He couldn’t tell them he wasn’t Max. What if this switch didn’t last? What if he (as Max) became a part of this child’s life only to have them switch back to their real bodies and have Max destroy everything. It was a tricky situation complicated further by his growing attraction to Waverly and his bond with her daughter…

It’s one thing to have your own problems to deal with, but it’s an entirely separate thing to wake up one day and take on absolutely all of someone else’s problems and deal with the consequences of their actions.

“Few people are given the chance to see life in a different way.”

Overall, I loved how different this story was. I applaud the author for taking such a daring plot line and making it work. However, I felt the story lacked the emotional intensity I know this author is capable of writing, but that would be my only complaint — I just didn’t have as strong a connection to the characters as I’d wished, but generally, I was so drawn to the uniqueness of the story that I’m very glad I read it. And also, I really loved the ending!

This book tackles homelessness, mental illness, parenthood, and romance, gives them a supernatural twist, and brings everything all together in a beautiful story of love and second chances. I mean, how can you resist the premise of a kind-hearted, homeless biker mechanic who wakes up in the body of an arrogant, self-centered millionaire only to fall in love with his ex-wife and daughter… If you’re looking for something really different to read, try this book!

“Do you believe in miracles?”

Rating: 4 stars. Standalone Romance with Paranormal Twist.

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