Set the Night on Fire | Romantic Reads and Such

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Book Review, Cottonbloom series, Laura Trentham, Set the Night on Fire

Every trip to Cottonbloom is a treat!

*****

Set the Night on Fire

Cottonbloom, Book 6

by Laura Trentham

Release Date: July 31, 2018

Blurb:

From award winning author Laura Trentham comes Set the Night on Fire, a novel about starting over, finding your way back home—and falling head over heels. . .

Ella Boudreaux has a lot to prove to her family, friends, and foes—and to herself. So when her marriage ends she decides to invest her energy and money into a place that brings back some of Ella’s happiest memories: the Abbott brothers’ garage. Maybe, if she puts her mind to it, she can teach skeptical, stubborn Mack Abbott how to make the business a true success. Which would be a lot easier if the hunky mechanic didn’t make her motor run quite so fast…and hot.

Mack was furious when his brother, Ford, sold his share of the business. He’s in no rush to team up with a wealthy divorcée who shows up to the garage in stilettos—and the longest, sexiest legs he’s seen in forever. But Ella’s grit and determination won’t quit…and soon Mack can see that she’s been down a few rough roads herself. Neither Mack nor Ella can deny the fierce attraction that’s revving up between them. Could it be that true love has been in the backseat all along…and they’ve finally found the key?

Amz: https://www.amazon.com/Set-Night-Fire-Cottonbloom-Novel-ebook/dp/B078X17ZDW

BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/set-the-night-on-fire-laura-trentham/1127802341?ean=9781250131317

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/set-the-night-on-fire/id1333504213?mt=11

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/set-the-night-on-fire-7

GooglePlay: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Laura_Trentham_Set_the_Night_on_Fire?id=-PRFDwAAQBAJ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36797817-set-the-night-on-fire

*****

Excerpt:

“How the—” Mack caught the curse in his hand. “You’re not a mechanic, Ms. Boudreaux.”

“Call me Ella.” At his stony stare, she shrugged and continued. “You don’t need another mechanic. You have plenty of mechanics. What you need is someone to market you.”

“And you know enough about cars to do that?” His skepticism hit her like a kid pulling her pigtails behind the monkey bars. Annoying.

She shouldn’t rise to the bait. Unfortunately, her mouth was less mature than her mind, and she reeled off facts her brother had recited with pride.

“That Datsun 240Z you were under? It’s a seventy-three with a 2.4-liter straight-six and side-draft carburetors. It can hit sixty in 8.2 seconds with 151 horsepower. Top speed is a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. Not that anyone should be driving that fast on parish roads.”

He looked . . . stunned. She confined herself to a small self-satisfied smile. She had a feeling nothing much surprised Mack Abbott, or if it did, he made sure the world didn’t realize it.

“How did you . . . How do you know all that?”

“That’s not important. What is important is that I can help you.”

“We don’t need help.” He shook his head and re-chinked the breaks in his wall of grump.

“Yes, you do.”

“No, we don’t.” The playground-level annoyance continued with his childish denials.

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes, probably not helping to diffuse the situation.

“Name your price.”

“That’s not how this is going to work, Mack.”

“I say how things are run and done in this garage. Not you, Ms. Boudreaux.”

“I have a quarter stake and an equal voice.”

“Except, we handle things democratically around here and my brothers will have my back. Every. Single. Time.”

Dangit. He had her there. Pushing against Mack was like trying to move a mountain. She glanced at the twins. If she couldn’t move Mack, then she’d have to go around him. She wanted to stalk out and slam the door, but forced herself to mosey as if she wasn’t bothered at all by the situation or the man. He followed her to the door. She stopped with one foot out and one in. The breeze caught her hair, and she tossed her head to get it out of her eyes.

“You might vote me down, but at least give me a chance to be heard.”

“Name your price,” he repeated in a growly, grizzly voice that was meant to grind down her dissension.

Where she found the gumption she didn’t know, but she gave his cheek two pats and said, “You can’t afford me, tough guy.”

*****

Review:

I love Mack. He’s taken on a lot, plus the stress that comes with being the de facto head of the Abbott family, after the passing of their father. He’s working hard to keep things moving as they have been … but things are changing and it is all brought to a head with the sale of a part of the business to Ella. He’s happy with his younger brothers finding good women to settle down with but the garage belongs to the Abbotts and that’s one change he’s not going to just accept.

Ella has her reasons for buying Ford out and I admire her gumption in not letting Mack intimidate her. Her fake it until you make it attitude makes her one of my favorite heroines. She’s not going down without a fight and she definitely keeps Mack on his toes, which he so very much needs.

Both Mack & Ella come into the situation with baggage but I love the fact that once they get over the animosity of how their partnership began there really isn’t too much drama. There’s a little difficulty in figuring out how to move from enemies to lovers but there isn’t so much back & forth that it gets annoying. Instead they handle it with the maturity that reasonable people should 🙂

(Returning readers will enjoy the resolution of a few issues in the latest Cottonbloom book, but Trentham does a great job of giving new readers a complete & enjoyable story.)

*****

Author Info:

An award-winning author, Laura Trentham was born and raised in a small town in Tennessee. Although, she loved English and reading in high school, she was convinced an English degree equated to starvation. She chose the next most logical major—Chemical Engineering—and worked in a hard hat and steel toed boots for several years.

She writes sexy, small town contemporaries and smoking hot Regency historicals. KISS ME THAT WAY, Cottonbloom Book 1, won the Stiletto Contest for Best Long Contemporary and finaled in the National Readers Choice Award. THEN HE KISSED ME, Cottonbloom Book 2, was named an Amazon Best Romance of 2016 and was a finalist for the National Excellence for Romance Fiction. TILL I KISSED YOU, Cottonbloom Book 3, is a finalist in the Maggie contest. LEAVE THE NIGHT ON, the latest Cottonbloom book, was named an iBooks Best Book of the Month and a Recommended Read from NPR.

When not lost in a cozy Southern town or Regency England, she’s shuttling kids to soccer, helping with homework, and avoiding the Mt. Everest-sized pile of laundry that is almost as big as the to-be-read pile of books on her nightstand.

Website: https://www.lauratrentham.com

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*****

Giveaway:

The first five (5) books in the Cottonbloom series!

Kiss Me That Way, Book 1

Then He Kissed Me, Book 2