Life has dealt city girl Olivia Porter a series of bad hands, but just as she’s about to fold, fate intervenes and leaves her with a full house. Out of other options, she moves to the countryside, hoping Lady Luck will follow along. Olivia’s decision to embrace the single life is soon challenged by the arrival of two men—a local lawyer, Tate, and cab driver Warren, both determined to win her … determined to win her heart. But not everyone is so pleased by her arrival in Upper Foxford, and one person in particular will stop at nothing to get her to leave.
As her opponent ups their game, Olivia’s friends rally around and send a private investigator to help her out. Will they uncover the village’s secrets before Olivia pays the ultimate price?
Joker in the Pack is a standalone romantic suspense novel in the Blackwood UK series. No cliffhanger!
more
Each of Elise Noble’s Blackwood books is a breath of fresh air! The humor ~ the laugh-out-loud-funny plots ~ the characters ~ I want to meet Emmy & Black and all the rest ~ and I can’t wait to see what’ll happen next!!!!
Another Amazing Blackwood Book – with a UK Flair
Wow! Just WOW! Elise Noble does it again; this time with a UK flair! This book is the first in the Blackwood UK series and is set in London and the quaint little village of Upper Foxford. Non-UK readers get an introduction to some British things like flapjacks (sweet dense cake – not a pancake), crisps (potato chips), biscuits (a small baked unleavened cake, typically crisp, flat, and sweet), knickers (a woman’s undergarment), etc. This UK flair makes this book super charming (to me as a US reader)!
Poor Olivia is down on her luck. A cheating boyfriend who supported her financially, an embarrassing moment plastered on Facebook for the world to see, a leaky pipe because she turned down the heat to same money, getting evicted, and not being able to find affordable, safe housing options all happen to Olivia in the first six chapters.
Luckily, Olivia finds out that she has inherited her late aunt’s cottage and figures it couldn’t get any worse. Oh, but it can! Olivia moves in to this hoarder’s haven and then starts getting harassed as vicious rumors about her are spread like wildfire around the town. Can Olivia get help from one of her three interested suitors? Tate, the rich, smooth lawyer, Will, the cab driver, who always offers to help, and Nye, the security expert who comes to help Olivia after her friend calls in a favor, are all vying to help Olivia.
This book opens with… “the joker in the pack ~phrase~ A person or factor likely to have an unpredictable effect on events”. After reading this book, I think all the men in Olivia’s life could be described as the joker in the pack!
As this book goes deeper (yes, it actually does go much, much deeper), the threats escalate, and Olivia digs in her heals and refuses to leave her run down cottage that she now calls home.
The character development in this book is off the charts, just like all of Elise Noble’s other books! The characters become your friends, which makes the book very hard to put down. I wish I had a best friend like Maddie and Nye looking out for me! 🙂
Joker in the Pack is action packed, funny, sassy, sexy and addictive! If you have read any of the Blackwood Security Series books (why haven’t you is a better question!) you will recognize Nye, Emmy, and Janelle (and Dan even gets mentioned). If you like romantic thrillers with strong manly men, strong leading ladies with a bit of sass, and a touch of sex, you’re going to LOVE this book! Buy it now! Do it! You won’t regret it!!! 🙂 If I could pick only one book to read this month, this would be the book I would choose!!!