Welcome to the blog tour for BETTER WITH SUGAR, the fantastic debut novel from Katrna Kirkpatrick. This is a book you NEED to read. So one click this book, add it to your TBR, and make sure Katrina is on your author watch list. Check out more about this book, Tina’s Thoughts, excerpts, teasers, and a fabulous giveaway below!
Better With Sugar
Cranefly Romance #1
Katrina Kirkpatrick
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: April 10, 2015
War veteran Ethan Quill’s horse doesn’t like people. And that’s okay because neither does he. Broken by their pasts and shunned by the community, they keep to themselves on Ethan’s rundown farm. And then along comes a brown-eyed baker who turns their world upside down.
Heiress by birth, optimist by heart, Elly Baptiste has left Manhattan behind and picked up her spatula in Cranefly, a quaint Adirondack town. She’s looking for love and finds the promise of something unexpectedly delicious with the local recluse. But how does a woman who’s running from life find happily ever with a man who’s hiding from it?
Elly knows sugar. Ethan knows war.
She knows sweet. He knows defeat.
When put to the test, can they prove that love and life really are better with sugar?
You can purchase your copy today at the retailers listed below!
Amazon US | Amazon UK
I am a girl who loves a good love story and a fabulous book cover. Well, I got both when I read Better With Sugar. What first drew me to this book was undoubtedly the cover. I LOVE cupcakes and that one on the front cover looks good enough to eat in 3 second flat. Then I read the synopsis and knew that this book was going to be sweet and I couldn’t wait. I was not prepared for what was coming. Better With Sugar is a fantastic story of finding your place when the world around you feels like it is crashing; learning what home truly looks like and fighting to make it a reality.
This book is not only sweet and happy like I expected; it also has many moments of despair, heartache, and hopelessness. This book is not the overly sweet romance I was thought it would be. Instead it was a book that is powerful in its themes and better than I had could have ever hoped. Elly is the new baker in town, a woman who is living her life for herself for the first time. She left behind a bad break-up and a family in which she never felt she belonged. She moved to a new city to embrace who she was as a whole person and not just what people wanted to see. Elly is a fantastic heroine. She is feisty, loving, kind, and full of infectious joy. She knows what she wants and goes after it with everything she possesses. Ethan is Elly’s opposite in every possible way. He is hardened and on a path of destruction. He returned from war a man so broken that his family hardly recognizes who he is. When you put these two characters together, the tension is high and their chemistry is undeniable.
There are so many incredible themes within this book that could have easily run amuck with the storyline. Instead, Katrina has proven herself and woven a tapestry that is created with talent well beyond the status of a debut novel. There is a strong sense of family (both negative and positive)- for both Ethan and Elly. There is love and happiness in this story but also a strong pull to truly understanding what PTSD looks like and the way it can affect so many. While reading this book, the moments and situations seemed so real. Elly struggles against the misunderstanding of her family and finding her place in the world on her own two feet. At times I wanted to shake some sense into her family but their dynamic was different and each member had to learn how to mold together into a unit. Ethan’s family is so broken. When Ethan came back from war a different person, that devastation not only destroyed his life but those of his family. The heartbreaking reality in which this theme was written creates a story that is deeply moving.
Despite the hard themes and sadness, there is also beauty and hope. Ethan and Elly are two who seem completely opposite yet exactly what is needed for one another. They balance so well and their attraction is perfect. The relationship is not all rainbows but a struggle that they fight for daily. The chemistry between them is not only hot and sexy but also sweet and slow. They fit, and despite the somewhat overwhelming darkness, they make a spot of sunshine to reside in. Their romance is full of highs and lows but that is what makes it believable and beautiful. There is forgiveness, hope, despair, and a wide gambit of human emotions. As the reader, you experience them with our hero and heroine, forever cheering these two on to find peace.
If this is what a debut novel from Katrina Kirkpatrick looks like, then the world had better be prepared for a shining star in the literary world. Better With Sugar is a story that will leave you wanting more, craving another sugar high. I am excited for more form Katrina and I cannot wait to see what she has in store for us next! Don’t miss this fantastic debut novel!
The evocative creak of bed springs jerked him into motion. He barely saw the floor in front of him as he moved through the apartment, his mind too busy imagining every curve on her body. The shape her mouth would take in pleasure.
He stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, her scent curled out like tiny fingers begging him into the space. But for a moment, he just stood.
The moon had already set, chased from the sky by a sunrise that wasn’t even yet discernible. It left the room a part of the night, only as well-lit as the stars were pale, but the white of her bedspread glowed like snow on a winter landscape. She had already disappeared under it, now just the vague outline of a body.
Her naked body.
Every cell in his body clenched tight.
Two dark pieces of cloth draped off the edge of the bed.
Her apron, his suit jacket.
There wouldn’t be any turning back after this.
Fear touched the back of his neck, driving a shiver down his spine. He’d none nothing the past few years but give everything up. Because if he hadn’t given it up—it would’ve been ripped from him anyway. And tonight was going to give him so much to lose.
Not just Elly, but himself.
Maybe she sensed his hesitation because she moved under the blanket, pulling it down just enough to reveal a ridiculous mass of hair and two round eyes that didn’t so much reflect the light as they did absorb it, feeding it into her creamy white skin until it seemed to glow. He meant to only go as close as the edge of the bed, but found himself pressing one knee on the mattress and leaning over her. Her eyes widened ever so slightly and the moment hung between them. This would be the end or the beginning.
To celebrate the debut release of Better With Sugar, Katrina Kirkpatrick is hosting a fun giveaway! Enter this Rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win a $10 Amazon GiftCard or one of 2 eBook copies of Better With Sugar. All you need to do is follow the instructions listed and you will be entered for a chance to win! Don’t miss out on this awesome giveaway!
A love of language led Katrina Kirkpatrick to a degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Illinois, a love of her babies led her to the illustrious title of Stay-At-Home-Mommy, and a never-ending, lifelong delight of storytelling led her to pursue publication. She infuses love with laughter because love might make the world go round, but laughter lights up the scenery.
She has two daughters who call her Mommy Queen, two dogs, two cats, lots of chickens and a husband happy to call this chaos home. They reside in central Illinois.
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