About the book, Blue Skies
- Publication date : August 31, 2020
- Print length : 106 pages
- Publisher : 8N Publishing, LLC (August 31, 2020)
Life isn’t always a walk in the park, but when Patrice takes her Pomeranians to the park after a rough day at the office, fate steps in. An unlikely h
ero comes to the rescue when one of her dogs gets loose. Short, pale, and kind of cute, Seth doesn’t have a lot of confidence with the ladies, but he hits it off with Patrice.
But some things might be too good to be true. While Patrice wonders if Seth could possibly be “the one”, fate steps in again with a horrible twist. Will it be a deal breaker or just a storm before bright blue skies?
Buy, read, and discuss this book:
Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Goodreads
About the author, Alana Oxford
Alana Oxford is a Michigan author of romcoms, sweet romance, and humorous women’s fiction. She wants her stories to bring sunshine and smiles to her readers. She enjoys improv comedy, moody music, everything book related, and has an ongoing love affair with the United Kingdom.
Connect with Alana:
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
My Thoughts
At only 106 pages, Alana Oxford’s Blue Skies is technically a novella, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a complete story. In fact, it’s a very sweet and satisfying romance and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As a dog lover (though I have four to the main character’s two), I immediately connected with Patrice. I know what it’s like to wrangle multiple pets on multiple leashes. As a woman, I also identified with her struggle to defend her work to her boss. When you work in a field that’s both creative and corporate artist tendencies can be hard to overcome. I appreciated that Oxford included this thread in the story, as it gave Patrice more depth, and also let us get to see more sides of her.
I also liked that Seth, the IT-guy-cum-dog-rescuer whom Patrice meets for the first time in the local park wasn’t your typical hard-bodied romance novel specimen, but more a representative of ordinary guys. Quirky, sweet, and a bit of a geek, he reminded me a little of my husband, who also comes from the midwest. (Midwestern guys are the best.)
All of the supporting characters felt like real people also, and I liked that Oxford broke out of straight narrative to include text conversations between Patrice and her friends.
I liked the way Patrice and Seth’s relationship unfolded with a series of obstacles on each of their first few meetings. It added an element of the kind of humor that comes from life, rather than forced jokes. This is a brand of humor that not all authors can sell, but felt very organic: a testament to Oxford’s craft.
Blue Skies is a short but quite engaging read. Charming, funny, and sweet, it’s the perfect story to put a smile on your face, and make you want to dance in the rain.
Goes well with apples, cheese, crackers, and cold lemonade.
One Kiss Before Christmas (Available November 2nd)
Author of the Best Selling A MISTLETOE MIRACLE and contender for the Joan Hessayon Award 2020, Emma has been a devoted bookworm and secret-story-scribbler since she was 6 years old. When she’s running around after her two daughters and trying to complete her current work-in-progress, Emma loves to read, bake, catch up on binge-watching TV programmes with her partner and plan lots of craft projects that will inevitably end up unfinished. Her latest romantic comedy, SUMMER IN THE CITY, was released in June 2020.
What if you could go back in time and fix the biggest mistake of your life?
Jennifer Joyce is a writer of romantic comedies who lives in Manchester with her husband and their two daughters. She’s been scribbling down bits of stories for as long as she can remember, graduating from a pen to a typewriter and then an electronic typewriter. And she felt like the bee’s knees typing on THAT. She now writes her books on a laptop (which has a proper delete button and everything).
Cozy up with a mug of hot chocolate for some festive sparkle from bestseller Jessica Redland.
Jessica Redland is the author of nine novels, including The Secret to Happiness, which are all set around the fictional location of Whitsborough Bay. Inspired by her hometown of Scarborough she writes uplifting women’s fiction which has garnered many devoted fans.
Nicola May is a rom-com superstar. She is the author of eleven romantic comedies, all of which have appeared in the Kindle bestseller charts. Two of them won awards at the Festival of Romance, and another was named ebook of the week in The Sun. The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay became the best-selling Kindle book in the UK, across all genres, in January 2019, and was Amazon’s third-bestselling novel in that year.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
Maddie Meadows adores her family and loves her work. But she has good reason to keep them separate.
I try not to commit to reviewing books in August, because it’s my birthday month and it’s also the month when I’m usually doing a daily podcast project, but I had a few interactions with the author, Sharley Scott on Twitter when this novel launched, and she was so lovely, I couldn’t not review it.
True love never fades—and old secrets never die . . . 
Melissa Lenhardt is a women’s fiction, mystery, and historical fiction author. Her debut mystery, Stillwater, was a finalist for the 2014 Whidbey Writers’ MFA Alumni Emerging Writers Contest, and Sawbones, her historical-fiction debut, was hailed as a “thoroughly original, smart and satisfying hybrid, perhaps a new sub-genre: the feminist Western” by Lone Star Literary Life. The New York Times called her sixth novel, Heresy, “An all-out women-driven, queer, transgender, multiracial takeover of the Old West”. The Secret of You and Me, her seventh novel and her first contemporary women’s fiction novel, was published on August 4, 2020.
