A Review – Take Me Now by Nancy Jardine

How can anyone ever say no to a free book? There's a reason it's my favourite thing to come across!

Free books means so many more stories to read, and I never pass up the opportunity to get my hands on a free book – no matter the genre, author, anything. It's like Christmas every time I come across one!

The bonus always comes when it's an author I'm already familiar with, and I get a chance to read a book I likely would have read anyway, and I get to go into it already knowing I will enjoy it before even reading the first sentence.

So, let me introduce my most recent read!

Conclusions jumped at too soon. Sabotage and attempted murder? Hilarious predicaments.

Patience isn’t Nairn Malcolm’s strong point when someone sabotages his business. It gets much worse when he, too, is under attack. He needs someone who can transport him from his Scottish island castle base to destinations across the globe and also help him keep his business interests running smoothly. Who could be all that, and available to him 24/7?

Aela Cameron’s skills are perfect for Nairn’s current predicament. Transporting him across the globe is a pushover. Dangerous situations don’t faze her, in fact they make her more determined to solve the mystery of Nairn’s saboteur. She’s not into passing flings – yet how can she resist her new boss as time runs out on her temporary contract?

Is Nairn seeking the impossible? Can Aela find a compromise?

Grab a copy!

My Review!

One of my favourite kinds of book are ones that you are drawn into instantly, and don't want to put down. They are the kinds of book that you hold close and simply devour. This was one of those such books.

Nairn Malcolm is incredibly business minded. He can't simply sit by and let his employees do the work for him, but instead has an intense need to be in the know, to keep up with everything happening in his companies, and stay up to date with any changes or developments. When a motorbike accident leaves him in plaster casts, and struggling to even walk around his house, he knows he can't keep going in the same way he always has, but still tries to hold on tightly to his control.

Enter Aela Cameron. She holds the relevant licences to drive, fly, or sail all of Nairn's different vehicles and forms of transport, and knows her way around administrative responsibilities. Taking the job as his PA would open up opportunities for her, and give her the funds to help set her up for further education. But she never anticipated the job being quite so demanding, nor her boss being quite so handsome and frustrating.

Nairn expects of Aela the same level of commitment to his companies that he himself has. A 24 hour contract means that she is constantly on call, no matter what time he decides to fly to a different country, or attend business meetings. The work is difficult, but rewarding, and Aela finds herself enjoying her new role, if not growing increasingly more frustrated with her new boss. Nairn is infuriating, his moods changing like the wind. One moment, he is charming and pleasant, and the next, Aela battles with a short-tempered and rude man. The constant switches in Nairn's personality give Aela cause to push down whatever she might feel for him during his more pleasant moments. Although, she can't deny, he is incredibly attractive.

I found myself increasingly sympathetic towards Nairn. He is used to being able to do everything for himself, whether it is driving himself around, keeping on top of his multiple businesses, or even simple things such as cutting up his own food, or doing up the buttons on his shirt. Multiple injuries have left him reliant on others to help him, and the frustration is clear. Despite his understandable mood swings, he is an incredibly kind character, and his business sense and abilities to keep track of so many things at once is remarkable.

Aela, too, I found myself liking almost instantly. She doesn't put up with Nairn's snarky comments, and pulls him up on things that others wouldn't dare to mention. She is smart, witty, and brings a whole other level of humour to this story, as she is not afraid to back down, and speaks her mind. Between her and Nairn, there is a lot of miscommunications, and when they both jump to conclusions, which happens often, things seem to get lost in translation. Arguments and misunderstandings lead to some fairly humorous situations and conversations, which lighten the story and make the characters all seem so much more real.

Of course, this is not just simply a sweet romance of a grumpy boss and his sarcastic PA, although that is certainly an important element of the novel! There is a mystery afoot – sabotage is rife within Narin's businesses, products arriving damaged, orders tampered with, accidents resulting in property damage. There is even cause to believe that Nairn's motorcycle accident was not simply an accident. With someone in the company causing problem after problem, and Nairn relatively unable to intervene due to his injuries, tensions rise quickly and as he and Aela travel the globe attending business meetings, it quickly becomes apparent that whoever is behind everything is not finished yet. With this extra level of tension, this novel escalates from an office romance to an in-depth mystery, with hidden dangers around every corner. Trying to figure out who is causing such mayhem, and their motive, creates a fast-paced story that you can't possibly put down!

This is a novel I absolutely devoured. It didn't take me long to get through this book at all, I read most of it in one sitting because it drew me in and I couldn't step away. If you are after a romance with a twist, with characters you will simply fall in love with, look no further!

And done!

I actually read most of this book at work, on a really quiet day when there was not much else to be done... shhhhhh!

Anyway, that's all for now...

Bye!

Bumblebee Pebbles – Chapter Four

Summer

“But what actually happened?” Jeanie asked as she leaned across the table. I shrugged, picking the seeds off the bun of my burger. 

“I don’t know, one minute we were fine and then she just started accusing me of all these things and we got into a massive argument,” I kept my gaze fixed on the bun and the little pile of seeds that I had been making.

“What was she accusing you of?”

“Cheating on her,” I looked up and met Jeanie’s gaze, “talking about her behind her back, not loving her,” I continued, dropping my gaze again.

“But none of that’s true, it’s so easy to see how much you love her,” Jeanie said, a hint of anger coming into her voice. “And how could she even think that you’d cheat on her, you wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone do anything like that.”

“Yes, thank you, Jeanie. I already know what I have and haven’t done, I don’t need to be reminded,” I snapped, before sighing and running my hands through my hair. In frustration, I grabbed the strands and pulled, but my hair was firmly stuck in my head, not that ripping it out would have solved anything.

“Sorry,” Jeanie mumbled and I immediately stopped her.

“You didn’t do anything, I shouldn’t take it out on you.” She nodded slightly, clearly having no idea what to say or do. 

I looked around at the other tables around us. Families, couples, friends, sitting around tables, laughing and enjoying their food. Then mine and Jeanie’s table, two lonely people who weren’t with the people they should be with.

Jeanie and Luke had a massive fight a couple of weeks ago. She had pointed out to him that a lot of the girls at school were still trying to get his attention, even though everyone knew that they were going out, and he had said that there was nothing he could do to stop them. Everything had escalated when she suggested that perhaps he stop winking at people and he had gone on the defence, saying that he wasn’t doing any harm, and she needn’t be so controlling. She had picked up her bag and walked out of the room, and they had barely spoken since. I should know, Grace and I had been the ones stuck in-between. With Luke’s past break-ups, we had made fun of the drama, but with this one we couldn’t. We liked Jeanie, she had joined our little group quickly, and fit into the gap.

The day after Grace and I broke up, I walked into the cafeteria and stood in the doorway, looking around. Grace had moved back to her corner, a book open in front of her, but it looked like she was just staring at the pages instead of reading it. Luke was sat in the middle, like usual, and waved me over, but I turned and walked the other way instead, to the table that Jeanie was sat at. Why sit with someone who would immediately try and set me up with someone else, who would say that it never would have worked out anyway in an attempt to console me, when I could sit with someone who understood instead? 

“Do you want to go somewhere? Do something?” Jeanie asked and I shrugged again, pushing around my little pile of seeds, the bun now devoid of them. “Come on, bring your burger,” she said, standing up and reaching across the table, picking up my food and packing it away in the little takeaway boxes it had come in.

“Where are we going?” I asked as Jeanie stacked the boxes and picked them up.

“I don’t know yet, just somewhere,” I followed her out of the restaurant and took the food from her so she could unlock her car. She was unlike Grace in every way. Grace’s car had been tidy, and she had always been ready to make a picnic from scratch. Jeanie? I had to push receipts off the passenger seat when I got in, and instead of little containers of fruit, we had boxes of fast food fries and burgers.

I sat quietly as Jeanie drove, staring out the window as her radio struggled to find a connection due to a faulty areal that she had known about for months but still hadn’t fixed. 

I looked around when the car rolled to a stop and Jeanie turned the engine off. 

“Where are we?” I opened the door and climbed out, bringing the food with me. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” She pointed towards the path leading from the car park, littered with leaves and branches, and overshadowed by tall trees. “We’re going to take a walk through the woods and we won’t be able to think about all the sad things in our lives because the birds are singing and the flowers are out and it’s not fair for us to give all our sadness to the happy things.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I told her and she shrugged.

“When does anything?” She reached for her boxes of food, and I let her take them because when they were stacked on top of mine they were at a high risk of sliding off and landing on the ground. 

I walked after her as she marched along the path, down a steep slope. I almost lost my footing at one point, my shoes skidding along the ground and causing the dried mud on the ground to rise up in a little cloud of dust.

“Don’t fall,” Jeanie said and I rolled my eyes.

“Wow, thanks, I won’t now that you’ve said that,” I said sarcastically and she threw me an equally sarcastic smile over her shoulder. 

“Come on, the food will be cold by the time we get there,” she picked up the pace and I struggled to keep up while feeling confident that I wouldn’t slip and roll down the entire hill, breaking every bone in my body.

“Where exactly is ‘there’?”

“You’ll see.”

I sighed and tried to keep up with her, breathing a sigh of relief when we reached the bottom of the hill, until I remembered that we would have to climb back up it to get to Jeanie’s car.

I followed Jeanie through a field of grass that was yellowing in the sun, feeling the rays starting to scald the top of my head, and over a small bridge, a small stream trickling under it. 

“We’re nearly there,” Jeanie stated, leading me off the trail and between the trees. Twigs snapped under my feet, as I blindly followed her, a faint sound of trickling in the distance. The sound only grew louder as we walked, and turned from a trickle to the sound of crashing water as I tried to dodge branches that Jeanie could just walk under. 

“Is there a river?” I asked and Jeanie turned to grin at me.

“There’s a waterfall,” she said, turning around again and speeding up.

“How have I never known about this place?” I asked and Jeanie shrugged.

“You spend too much time in that park, you probably never thought that there were any other bodies of water nearby.”

“Oh, of course,” I said, “I totally believed that the only place I could find water is in the park. You mean there is water in other places? Amazing,” I retorted and Jeanie snickered in front of me.

I was almost starting to believe the sound of the water was a recording and we would never actually find a river when the trees opened up into a clearing, the floor carpeted in old leaves centre pieced by a ring of rocks, presumably used as a barrier for campfires. A wide river was running directly across our path, and although it didn’t look too deep, I was sure if I wasn’t careful I would end up falling in. 

“Come on, come and look at the waterfall,” Jeanie turned and walked along the river, the water getting deeper as the sound of crashing water got louder. We reached a small pool, where a river higher up had met with a drop, and was falling directly down to join the pool. “Isn’t it pretty?” Jeanie asked and I nodded, dragging my eyes away from the splashes when I realised she wasn’t standing next to me anymore. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m sitting down,” I watched as she set her food down on the forest floor and sat next to it. “Are you going to join me?”

“On the ground? Isn’t there mud and insects?”

“It’s too hot for mud, and are you seriously scared of a few ants and flies?” She asked and I felt the words ‘are you a wuss’ coming on so I walked over to her.

“I’m not scared of ants, but I’m not welcoming any spiders to crawl up my back.” I said as I hesitantly sat down.

“See, it’s not so bad,” she said as she reached for her food.

“It’s not exactly comfortable,” I said but she had stopped listening. I looked up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, creating patterns on the floor below, the birds sending messages back and forth as they flitted between branches. Grace would love it here. She would be walking in the river by now, or trying to climb up the rocks jutting out of the steep hill to stand at the top of the waterfall. 

“You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?” Jeanie asked and I nodded absentmindedly as I imagined her laughter catching on the breeze as she looked down at the waterfall, disregarding my concerns about her falling.

“I don’t understand why she would think I would even look at another girl,” I mumbled, looking down at the ground and picking up a crispy brown leaf.

“I’m a girl,” Jeanie said, and I rolled my eyes as I started tearing the leaf to pieces.

“That’s different, you know what I mean,” I dropped the small pieces of leaf and picked up another one.

“I know,” Jeanie said quietly as she stared at the waterfall, eating her cold burger. “I know.” She repeated, putting the burger down as I turned to look at her, a frown coming to my face when I saw the look of realisation on hers. “I know!”

“What do you know?” I asked and she grinned up at me. 

“A couple of weeks ago, Luke told me that he had heard a rumour that someone had caught me and you kissing. By the way, I don’t appreciate the look of disgust,” she added and I tried to wipe the expression off my face. “Anyway, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it, things like that are usually mistakes or people trying to start some gossip, but Luke asked me if it was true and we got in our fight a couple of days later.”

“So?”

“Honestly, James, it’s a wonder Grace put up with you for so long. You’re so utterly clueless.”

“Just explain it, Jean!”

“Okay, okay. Whoever had been talking about it was clearly trying to start a rumour. Are you with me this far?” She asked, grinning, and I scowled at her. “They were clearly upset that Luke had a girlfriend–“

“How did you get to that conclusion?”

“Don’t interrupt me, James. Let me explain!” I held my hands up in surrender and gestured for her to continue. “Luke and I broke up days later and do you know who’s been hovering around him since?” I shook my head and she frowned. “Seriously? Do you pay no attention to what’s going on around you?”

“Jeanie!”

“Lucy has.”

“You mean the girl he broke up with about a year ago?”

“Yes! She’s been trying to get back with him for months–“

“How do you know this?”

“Because I pay attention. Anyway, she succeeded, obviously, with breaking me and him up, but her methods meant that she had to throw someone else under the bus. She went around telling people that me and you had been caught making out, which means that at some point, Grace must’ve heard that you had been kissing someone else and there was nothing to indicate that it wasn’t true.”

I closed my eyes and groaned. I felt like banging my head against a tree, but somehow I wasn’t sure it wasn’t going to help.

“I need to talk to her.” 

“Okay.” Jeanie stood up and brushed dirt and leaves off her shorts. “Let’s go then.”

And done!

I hope you enjoyed reading Bumblebee Pebbles. It's probably one of the most feel-good cutesy stories I've ever written. These characters were lucky enough to skip the trauma I normally hand out to my creations!

If you need to catch up on the previous chapters, you can do so HERE!

And if you have read all four chapters, thank you for humouring me and my writing, and I hope you enjoyed!

Anyway, that's all for now...

Bye!

Bumblebee Pebbles – Chapter Three

Spring

“You two are so cute it’s disgusting,” Luke announced. We were sat in the park, at a bench by the pond and Grace had walked up to us, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek as she sat down. The bench wasn’t really meant for three people, so she had sat across my lap, not that I minded. The trees that had previously been bare were sprouting with green, the new type of green that meant life, not the duller kind of leaves that had been around for a year already. Around the pond, snowdrops were blooming, their delicate flowers dancing in the breeze, and the beginnings of daffodils were growing amongst them. 

Despite the weak sun, it was starting to get warmer. The three of us all had jumpers on, but it didn’t escape my notice that the jumper Grace was wearing was most certainly mine and I wondered when she had stolen it.

“Thanks, Luke, we appreciate the compliment,” Grace replied, pulling her hair over one shoulder. She started digging through her bag and pulling various pieces of food out, laying them out on her lap. Luke rolled his eyes.

“You’re answering as each other? We,” Luke rolled his eyes again and his gaze settled on a packet of crisps Grace had just pulled out of her bag.

“Keep your hands off, only I’m allowed to steal her food,” I warned him, earning myself a smack on the arm as Grace lunged for her crisps.

“You are not, they’re mine and I’m not sharing,” she leant down and put them back in her bag, which was resting on the floor, and I frowned.

“That’s not fair,” I started to complain, but she cut me off.

“If you wanted food, you should’ve brought your own,” she told me and I stuck my tongue out at her. Luke pretended to throw up.

“When’s whats-her-name getting here?” Grace asked Luke as she opened a plastic container of grapes, popping one in her mouth.

“Her name is Jeanie, and I don’t know,” Luke looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was approaching.

“And how long have you been going out with her?” 

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, though,” I said, “how long?” Luke glared at me, obviously trying to decide whether or not he wanted to answer.

“Four days,” he finally mumbled and Grace snickered, covering it up by putting another grape in her mouth when Luke turned his glare onto her. “I actually really like her, though, so don’t completely embarrass me,” he warned and I raised an eyebrow at him as Grace chewed another grape.

“You actually really like her? For real?” he nodded and I made a facial expression that said ‘wow’, not believing my ears.

“Then why are you on a double date with us at the park? You should be somewhere alone, talking to her and getting to know her, not forcing her to put up with us!” Grace told him and I turned to look at her.

“What do you mean ‘put up with us’?” she shrugged innocently and I narrowed my eyes. “We’re not annoying, not at all,” I told her and she nodded, pretending to agree with me. Narrowing my eyes even more, I held my hand out, palm up. “Give me a grape.” Grace looked down at her little pot, seemingly picking a grape for me. Whether she was looking for a nice one or the worst one she could find, I wasn’t sure.

When she finally picked one out, she bit into it, leaving the smallest bit possible to place in my hand, the juice making my palm sticky as I sat staring at her incredulously. 

“Why would you do that?” I asked and she giggled. Luke hit my arm as I put the tiny bit of grape in my mouth, trying to lick the juice off my palm, but only making it more sticky.

“She’s here, be cool,” he whispered, waving someone over, and I turned to look at Grace, expecting the mischievous look on her face as the cogs in her head turned at double speed.

“Be nice, no sarcastic jokes,” I told her, waggling my finger in her face.

“But I was going to ask if his STD is getting better,” she pouted, thankfully talking quietly so Jeanie couldn’t hear what she was saying as she approached. I bit the inside of my lip as I tried not to laugh at her face and Grace could tell, as she was doing the exact same thing. It always amused me how she laughed at her own jokes, usually more than anyone else laughed at them.

“Jeanie! How are you?” Luke asked and Grace and I both turned to look at her, to see who this person was and what it was about her that made Luke want to get to know her mind, not just her body. 

As if someone had mashed a bunch of keys on a keyboard, my brain crashed. The tall, skinny blonde I had been expecting was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a short girl with a smattering of freckles across her face and bright orange hair bouncing at her shoulders was walking over, every step bouncy and making her hair bob up and down.

“What?” Grace whispered in my ear and I blinked several times to make sure what I was seeing was real. “Look at Luke,” she whispered and I turned away from Jeanie to look at Luke. He might as well have been drooling. If I was obsessed with Grace when I met her, Luke was infatuated. 

“Hi!” Jeanie said as she reached us. She was wearing a dress, still very different from the old, stained jeans that Grace had on, but it fell past her knees. Not that Luke was paying much attention to what she was wearing. It was almost comical how he stared at her, a smile on his face, until I realised this is how I probably looked when I was obsessing over Grace. It was less amusing after that.

“Sorry, there’s not much room,” Luke said and Grace immediately grabbed her snacks from her lap and stood up.

“No worries, I wanted to go and see the flowers anyway,” she said, looking down at me expectantly. 

“Oh, yes, the flowers…” I stood up, picking up Grace’s bag from the floor, as her hands were full with the food she had scooped up in her arms. “We’ll go and… look at them, then…” Grace elbowed me and I shut my mouth.

“It was lovely to meet you, Jeanie, we’ll meet up with you both later?” Grace asked and Jeanie looked down at Luke, seemingly confused as to who we were, why we were acting so strangely and why we knew who she was.

“Sure, Grace,” Luke said as Jeanie sat down next to him, crossing her legs and reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. Grace flashed them both an award-winning smile and turned to walk away. I followed, looking over my shoulder as Luke shuffled a little closer to Jeanie on the seat. When I was sure Jeanie wasn’t looking, I sent Luke a thumbs up, which I’m certain he saw and simply ignored.

“The flowers?” I asked, “you wanted to look at the flowers?”

“I couldn’t think of anything!” Grace exclaimed, almost dropping one of her little pots.

“Do you want to put those back in the bag?” I asked and she nodded. The both of us stopped and I held open her bag as she let everything fall out of her arms and into it. Why she felt the need to put various fruits in separate little tubs would always confuse me. A pot of apple slices missed the bag and fell to the floor, which Grace leant down to pick up as I slung her bag over my shoulder. 

“Do you think it’ll last?” I asked, taking the pot from her and stuffing it in her bag, which was weighed down from all the useless stuff she kept in it. The fruit I could almost understand, at least it was food. Her purse and keys, yes. Tissues, pens, moisturiser, random pieces of jewellery, a cassette tape? No, I did not see the need for any of those things and, in case you were wondering, her car does not have a cassette player. She does not own a cassette player. The tape is blank.

“Jeanie and Luke?” Grace asked, glancing over her shoulder as our hands found each other. “Maybe, she’s so different from anyone else I’ve ever seen him with.” She started swinging our hands slightly as we walked past the pond and towards the path that led to another pond, a smaller one. 

The park was quiet as we walked, the occasional sound of chatter cropping up when we got closer to another couple or group of people walking. Grace’s bag kept slipping down my shoulder, which was honestly starting to ache from carrying it, but I didn’t want to give it back to her and admit defeat. How she carried it around all day was beyond me. 

The pond was bursting with greenery. While the larger one was open, with no plants, this one was teeming with reeds and grasses, a willow tree growing at the edge and an old wooden bridge lead straight over it. We walked onto the bridge, the sound of our footsteps changing from the crunching of the path to the louder, hollow sound of our shoes on the old wood. I was very tempted to try and shake the bridge because I knew it would annoy Grace, but I wasn’t sure it would actually move and I didn’t want to face the humiliation of being weaker than an old bridge.

“Oh, look at the ducks!” Grace pointed and I stopped walking, looking over the railing at the ducks gliding across the water. “Do I have anything they can eat?” she asked, reaching for her bag. I was glad for a moment, thinking she was going to take it from me, but she just opened it, leaving it on my shoulder as she rifled through it.

“I don’t know if ducks can eat mango, Grace,” I said as I watched her and she threw me a look that said ‘yes, thank you, I know’. “Why on earth did you chop up mango?” I took a closer look at the contents of her bag. “How long did you spend putting fruit into little tubs?” 

“About forty minutes,” she replied, giving up on her quest to try and find something to feed the birds. 

“Why? You could just have put an apple in your bag, why did you cut it?” 

“Because then we can share,” she said, entwining her fingers with mine again as she looked back out at the ducks. 

“I thought you weren’t sharing your food?” I asked as Grace got bored of watching the duck move one way, then turn and move the other way, walking away from the bridge, pulling me along gently by my hand.

“I’m not sharing my crisps. I said nothing about not sharing my apple,” she replied as I half run a step to catch up with her.

“Oh, I see how it is,” I grinned, “share the healthy food, but keep the nice things to yourself, huh?” She looked up at me, grinning and shaking her head.

“If you would try mango, you might like it.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? It looks gross, it’s slimy and horrible and it’s stringy,” I complained, fully aware of the fact that Grace was still smiling.

“One day you will try it and love it, and you will have no choice but to lie about your love for it because of how petty you are being right now,” she barely took a breath as she continued, “and you will have to eat your mangos in secret because otherwise everyone will know that you should’ve listened to us and tried a mango earlier instead of lying to us all about how gross they are.” 

“Are you done?”

“I will never be done, not until you eat some mango.”

“I’ll have blueberries,” I tried, but apparently blueberries are an inferior fruit to mango. Who knew? 

“Hey, Grace?” I stopped walking and she stopped as well, turning to look at me, a slight frown on her face.

“What?”

“Do you think Jeanie and Luke have kissed more than we have today?” I felt a grin tugging at the corner of my lips and Grace rolled her eyes, grinning.

“I think, maybe, we’d better rack up the number, just in case,” she replied, trying to keep a straight face and failing.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” my hands came up to cup her face, bringing her up and leaning over to meet her halfway, her lips grinning against mine and her bag sliding down my arm and settling in the crook of my elbow as I tangled my hand in her hair and sighed against her mouth.

And done!

Aren't they just so adorable? I love this chapter so much. It's just so cute!

One more chapter to go now, so make sure to check back in next week for the finale. If you need to catch up on the previous chapters, you can do so HERE!

Anyway, that's all for now...

Bye!