.Blog Tour:#Review #Giveaway One Week Girlfriend by @MsMonicaMurphy

Happy Valentine's Day and welcome to my stop for One Week Girlfriend.  Don't forget to check out the awesome guest post from Monica as she answers my question, New Adult: Why is it the next big thing? And, of course you won't want to miss my
 review and the two awesome giveaways.
Thanks for stopping by!






One Week Girlfriend

by Monica Murphy

ebook, 185 pages

Published January 11th 2013

Goodreads









New Adult Contemporary Romance

**Mature situations and sexual content - recommended for ages 17+**

Temporary. That one single word best describes my life these last few years. I’m working at a temporary job until I can finally break free. I’m my little brother’s temporary mother since our mom doesn’t give a crap about either of us. And I’m that temporary girl all the guys want to get with because I give it up so easily. According to the rumors, at least.

But now I’m the temporary girlfriend of Drew Callahan, college football legend and all around golden guy. He’s beautiful, sweet—and he’s hiding way more secrets than I am. He’s brought me into this fake life where everyone seems to hate me. And everyone seems to want something from him. The only thing he seems to want though is…

Me.

I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is, I think Drew needs me. And I want to be there for him.

Forever.

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Bio:

Monica Murphy is a writer, a wife and a mom. She drinks too much coffee and spends too much time in front of her computer. She likes to read, she watches bad reality TV and she sometimes acts younger than she really is. Though most of the time she's sure her kids think she's a complete buzz kill.

One Week Girlfriend, a new adult/contemporary romance, is Monica's first book

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New Adult: Why is it the next big thing? 

 

 

New adult. I remember hearing this word buzzing around as the latest and greatest new subgenre back in 2009 (I think St. Martin’s had that contest?). They tried to make it happen and it failed. Epically. 

 

Fast forward to now. The new adult craze exploded in 2012. Self-publishing helped make it happen (I’d go as far to say that it literally did make it happen). Both traditional and digital-first publishers followed suit, snapping up those self-published books or putting out submission calls asking specifically for them. Now you can’t avoid hearing the words new adult buzzing around. It’s an entirely new subgenre that is hot, hot HOT and it doesn’t seem to be dying any time soon. 

 

Thank goodness. Not only do I love reading new adult, I love writing it. Of course, it has its roots in YA. I remember reading Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles almost three years ago. They were seniors in high school but damn. Alex Fuentes was seriously hot. I always wished the author could’ve taken it a lot further… 

 

Okay yes, fine I’m a pervert. I can’t help it. I like the sexxin’. 

 

Thinking back on that book though, I realize it straddles the line between YA and NA—at least in my opinion. Bump the couple up in age to being in college and bam. There ya go, instant new adult. There are other YA books that are similar (a more recent one is Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry—gah, I loved that book so much!), that straddle that line with the main characters being almost adults, but not quite. 

 

I think that’s what I enjoy most about new adult. Those first few years after high school, your late teens to early twenties, are somewhat turbulent times. You’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do with your life. You’re usually in your first relationship. You’ve moved out of the house, you’ve made new friends, you’re in college, you’re working, you’re trying to be responsible but failing miserably. You’re making mistakes…lots of them. 

 

There’s a certain desperate vibrancy to those years. Hey, they might’ve happened to me a long time ago but I haven’t forgot what those years were like. You feel invincible. Yet you’re also extremely vulnerable. You’re afraid to go after what you want yet…you are balls to the wall sometimes and say or do something really crazy. It’s confusing. And exhilarating. 

 

To a writer, it’s filled with material for an endless amount of stories. 

 

Readers in this age group have gone from some fabulous YA books to…hmm. What exactly? I mean, most of the NA books have romance in them and most offer a happily ever after for the couple but not always. So there are some fabulous romances out there but maybe they don’t feel ‘young’ enough for those readers. They want to be able to relate to characters that are going through the same experiences and struggles they are. 

 

Enter new adult. 

 

I had a realization last week while watching Bravo (go ahead, make fun of me, I deserve it). I was addicted to the reality show Gallery Girls which ran a few months ago. I’m now addicted to Vanderpump Rules. What do these shows have in common? Young (early twenties, most of them), beautiful, messed up people trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. They’re new adult for television! No wonder I love them so much. 

 

And no wonder I love both reading and writing new adult so much. The characters are usually young, beautiful, messed up people trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. I mean, who can’t resist that? 

 

Not me. 

 

I have a feeling new adult will be around for a long time…what do you think?

 

 

 

A Pretty Woman vibe, that is a quick read with  great drama that slowly is uncovered and is shocking! With secrets, a growing relationship, and a wicked, wicked step-mother. One Week Girlfriend is a drama filled read!

 

 

 

 

Fable and Drew, are basically two strangers who come together over strange circumstances.

What are those circumstances, you ask? Well Drew is in college, a seemingly all-American guy. Quarterback star, in college, rich, and good-looking, he seems to have it all. He doesn't have a current girlfriend and never really dates. He is heading home over Thanksgiving break and needs a fill-in "fake" girlfriend.

 

That's where Fable comes into play. She's a bartender at the local "college" bar hang-out. Drew has seen her around and some of his friends have bedded her. She's attractive but doesn't have the life Drew has. She comes from the opposite side of the tracks. Poor, not in college, and having to be a mother figure to her thirteen year old brother. Fable has a lot of responsibility, because her mom is less than stellar. She's a drunk and barely keeps a job. So, when Drew approaches her, with his crazy scheme of having her be his "One Week Girlfriend", she's hesitant, at first but when he offers her money in exchange for being his girlfriend, it's an offer she can't refuse, knowing that every dollar will help her household situation.

 

What happens when Drew takes her home to meet his Father and step-mom turns out to be a strange situation. Drew's father seems distant, and his step-mom fits the term "wicked step-mother" to a tee.

What at first turns out to be Fable thinking she'll have a pretty good time with "faking" there relationship, quickly turns out to be the least she expects, as secrets are unfolded, and we learn there is so much more hidden behind that good ole American boy's life, and why he chose to "fake" a relationship in the first place. But after a week of faking it, it seems their relationship could be so much more, and maybe they could have a chance at being together.

 

This book was full of surprises and SECRETS!!! I was thrown at all the drama that slowly unfolds from it, as we learn of Drew's past, and why his step-mom is so creepy, and vile! Without spoiling the rest for you I can say that when you learn of all the secrets from Drew's life, you will be SHOCKED, and emotional.

 

Drew's step-mom was all sorts of bitchiness. She was totally manipulating. She is the type of person who is a cold, calculating, and a conniving bitch. She deceived everyone, and YES, I HATED HER! By the end you really wanted to see her go down on her sorry ass! I'm really hoping she does go down in the next book in the series.

 

I liked Fable, she was a great character. She took care of her family and was responsible. I don't think of her any less because of her decision to be Drew's fake girlfriend. I didn't even think it was weird to do what Drew did when he "hired" Fable. I liked how she was thrown in a situation and stood for herself and fought for Drew. I also loved how she was trying to be there for her brother, and take care of him.

I will most definitely be continuing on with this series. Not only to see where these two will go from here, but I NEED/WANT to see the B*tch go DOWN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tour Schedule:

 

January 11^th – Sinfully Sexy Books and Twinsie Talk Book Reviews

January 12^th – Shh Moms Reading

January 13^th – Sugar and Spice Book Reviews

January 14^th –Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Reviews

January 15^th – I Love Indie Books

January 16^th – Whirlwind Books

January 17^th – Stick Girl Book Reviews

January 18^th – The Boyfriend Bookmark

January 19^th – The Autumn Review

January 20^th – Books Over Boys

January 21^st – Becca the Book Bibliophile and Three Chicks and Their Books

January 22^nd – Shh Moms Reading

 

 

Giveaway for this stop is an e-book copy of One Week Girlfriend

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monica will be giving away a $25 amazon gift card to one winner selected from all stops.

 

 

 

 

Book Tour: #Review Guest Post: Big bad Bite by @JessieLaneBooks

Welcome to my stop of the Big Bad Bite tour. I have a funny guest post to share with you as well as my review. So get ready for a little laughing with these two funny, crazy at times, authors!





Big Bad Bite (Big Bad Bite #1)

by Jessie Lane

ebook

Published January 28th 2013 by Jessie Lane

What would it be like to live in a world where you are considered abnormal to those who are above the norm?

Jenna O’ Conner has been taught her whole life to hide from everyone. Never to let anyone to close enough to know that she would prefer a shotgun for her birthday over of a bouquet of roses. She’s been smothered by her over protective family so that no one learns what she truly is. Which is not human. Nor, is she considered the norm for the supernatural Other community that is benevolent enough to share this world with the humans.

In a desperate attempt to live her own life away from the small town she was raised in, Jenna obtains her dream job as the newest member on the Wilmington Police Department’s SWAT Team. What she didn’t predict was that she would run into trouble her first day on the job, in the form of a deadly, mouthwatering man named Adam McPhee. Who is also not human, but more like a wolf walking around in human skin. He’s determined to figure out exactly what Jenna is, which unbeknownst to him, could very well put her life in danger. He’s also determined to have her all to himself.

As if that wasn’t enough for Jenna to deal with, bad news blows into town. A group of extremist Shifters who think humans are cattle and factions of Others worldwide should stay within their own species - never to intermingle. Chaos ensues. Jenna has to find a way to shut them down, but in the process of trying to do that, discovers things about herself that even she never thought was possible.

Who said the wolf was what you had to worry about?
Welcome to the real world.

7 Things We Need To Write 

 

Hi everyone! We’re grateful that Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Reviews blog reader’s let us stop by today to talk about some of the things we need the most to function as sane writers! (At least we think we’re sane. Our husbands tend to disagree.) During the process of bringing our latest book together, Big Bad Bite, we relied on most of these things day in and day out to get us through writer’s block or pages of dialogue without pulling our hair out.  

Big Bad Bite is a paranormal romance that features a kick ass heroine named Jenna who’s not quite what she seems, and the dangerous Alpha wolf named Adam who wants her. If you read this book you’ll see that Jenna has to have one of her beloved guns while at work to have a functional day. If she doesn’t, well she’d feel naked! Below is our list of items/things we used on a daily basis to write.  

(Please note, no writing was done while feeling naked due to lack of items listed – or being just plain naked. Cause that would be wrong.) 

 

Quiet. Crystal has two crazy girls. Melissa has a berserk dog named Yuffie and a mouthy husband. Needless to say that maintaining a quiet household while trying to write can be a challenge. This is why we’re grateful for two things. Headphones so we can listen to music and duct tape. We plead the fifth on what we use the duct tape for. Melissa’s Dad always says that silence is golden, but duct tape is silver. 

Coffee. We’d rob a Starbuck’s warehouse if we thought we could get away with it. There are days when we live and breathe for coffee. Just coffee. Only coffee. Oh how we love our coffee! We’re waiting patiently for the person who will invent the coffee IV so we can jump on board the caffeine express. Hurry inventive person. Hurry! 

Music. For those days that quiet is impossible to obtain, or when we need a spark of inspiration, we turn to music. Music is a huge factor in both of our lives and we need to have daily doses of it to keep us sane. Who on earth would want to go a day without listening to Halestorm or Black Veil Brides? 

Post it Notes. Seriously, we should buy stock into the Post It Note Company. We have them everywhere and constantly scribble down ideas or sentences on them. Crystal has a bulletin board that overflows with them. In fact, she needs a bigger bulletin board so she can have more of them! How else will she remember that Melissa told her (repeatedly) that if she overuses the tab button one more time that she would find herself buried alive? Eep! 

Internet. We use the internet for so many things. It’s literally vital to us. If we lost the internet we would absolutely perish! Ok, so maybe we wouldn’t croak, but it would probably feel as though we should. We use the internet to connect with each other since Melissa lives in Washington State and Crystal in Kentucky. We also use it for around eighty percent of our research. Why hunt a book down when we have a search engine? HELLO – we’re smart people, remember? Not to mention that when we’re stuck, we pop onto certain websites to entertain ourselves with. How else can we drool over pictures of Alexander Skarsgard, Joe Manganiello, Jason Momoa, and whoever that yummy man in the cowboy hat is? Seriously, we need his name! 

Our story outline. This is necessary because Crystal tends to go all wonky and writes one thing at the beginning of a book, and then tries to change the facts of that thing at the end of the book. Melissa then refers to the outline and sets her straight before threatening her with bodily harm if she does it again. Can anyone tell yet that Melissa has a hard job keeping Crystal in line? 

Chocolate! If Hershey’s is reading this, and feeling generous, how about hooking up two starving artists? We’d be happy to do a study on how much chocolate a writer can consume daily while typing away on their computer. I’m sure the results will stagger you. (We both prefer dark chocolate, just saying.) 

 

We hoped you enjoyed this list of necessities for two crazy writers who belong in a coffee/chocolate addiction group! So now we’d love to hear from you! What’s something you need to have a functional day? Please feel free to share in the comments section below!

Author Bio: 

Jessie Lane is the writing team of Melissa Pahl and Crystal Leo. The two sister-in-laws share a passionate love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters. (They're kind of megalomaniacs - but don't tell them that we said that.)        Crystal and Melissa often live half their lives with their heads in the clouds dreaming of alpha military hunks, werewolves and kick ass heroines crazy enough to chase after creatures that they unquestionablyly should know better than to chase.       Their first YA novel, The Burning Star, was released in May 2012. Big Bad Bite is their second novel, but their first adult paranormal romance. They are now working on their next two novels, Walk On The Striped Side and Secret Maneuvers. With these projects underway, they are looking forward to showing the rest of the world their crazy stories, heroes and heroines that often plague their minds until written, and hope you will join them on their journey!  

 

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Snarky female protagonist? Check. Humor? Check?  Shifters? Triple Check!

 

 

 

 

Right from the start, this book's humor shines through. With a snarky female protagonist, who just happens to be a bad a** cop, and part of the Swat team, we learn there is more to Jenna than meets the eye. She's tough and knows how to handle herself against a male testosterone driven job, plus she has the ability to shift, an ability she has kept secret from the everyone. All that changes the day she meets Adam and learns not only is he a shifter, but figures she is something more, and he is not going to back down from chasing her until he claims her for himself, but that could lead to dangerous consequences.

 

 



The hunt was on. Here I come little rabbit. 

 

 

 

 I did like reading Big, Bad Bite, even though at times I was doing the ole' eye rolling over the humor, that at times seemed forced, but it did have it's good qualities. It was not a fully centered romantic book, although it did have some heated scenes. It had it's share of action and I enjoyed the use of bringing the secondary characters to life, and making them just as front and center as Adam and Jenna.

I also enjoyed the police/swat elements in the book, and how the plot seemed to center around Jenna's job, and paranormal world at the same time. The middle was a little lost in the plot but not so much that would have you completely giving up the book. All in all I would recommend this book to paranormal fans with it's blend of comedy, snark, and action it was a unique mix. Fans of Darynda Jones First Grave On The Right, may find a liking to this book, due to the humor, snark, and the many secondary characters that take front and center at times.

 

 

Quotes

It made her want to chop off his cracker jacks, hang them around his neck like a sadistic messy necklace and say back, ‘Big boy, you’re the prey’ 

 

Her brain said to kick him in the nads. Her body was rather loudly telling her brain to shut the hell up. They would need those nads when she tackled him to the nearest bed and did their best impersonation of what female Viagra could look like if someone cooked it up. Stupid body

 

 

 

4/5 Stars

 

 

 



4/5 Stars