Review and Guest Post: Save My Soul by Elley Arden

Save My Soul by Elley Arden

Contemporary Romance

Published  3/25/12

Publisher: Crimson Romance
My Rating: 9/10

Psychotherapist Maggie Collins has always been a little off the proverbial wall, but now she’s also knee deep in a delayed quarter-life crisis. With her meager paychecks devoured by student loan debt, a car payment and rent for office space, living at home with a flighty, folksinging mother seemed like a good idea…at first. Now Maggie’s not so sure. She wants space to sort things out and launch a life of her own, but she needs a cushion of cash to get there. When an unexpected phone call brings an offer Maggie can’t refuse, she’s one deal with the devil away from moving out of her mother’s house. The devil of contract negotiations, baseball agent Jordon Kemmons, has a problem the usual experts can’t fix…his star pitcher is too depressed to throw strikes. Even worse, Jordon’s post-divorce grudge against women is turning him into a raging mess. If desperate times call for desperate measures, then cynical Jordon has made the most desperate move of all. He’s hoping sexy psychotherapist Maggie Collins is the answer to all his rusty prayers. Soon Maggie and Jordon are fighting an attraction that threatens everything they’ve ever believed. If it’s not just physical attraction…if it’s something more, maybe two wrongs can make a right.

Not many books start off just right, but this one did. The story began with our main character, Maggie, on a "blind" date with a person who wanted to make her his second wife. Talk about awkward. For Maggie that is, but all the more fun for the reader. I found that hilarious.

I love our main character. She is just too much. Maggie grew up in a setting not as conventional as the traditional family, so that makes her see things in a different way then we would. It was funny to see the various ways she would react to things. She's so sweet and cute and awkward. Reading the story through her character just made it all the more enjoyable.

But the book isn't a comedy though. There are a lot of deeper things in the book. Maggie and Jordon brew their relationship through the therapy Maggie provided to one of his players. That's something I've never seen done before, and probably won't see it again. The unique concept of the book made it so much better than any romances I have ever read. 

I'm looking at you, Nicholas Sparks. 

And the characters. Oh, the characters. I just love them so much. Maggie, Jordon, Carlos, the whole gang is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. 

Save My Soul was awesome, and for that, I give it a 9/10. I know all my hopeless romantics will enjoy it. 

Buy Save My Soul here.

And I can't forget to welcome our guest, Elley Arden, to the Serial Reader for a guest post! Pleased to have you, Elley!

Elley’s Office

My office is boring. It’s my dining room. I used to have a real office, a separate room with a door, where I could be alone and hide my mess, but it was a small room, and I felt cut off from the world. So, all it really did was hide a mess no one used or cleaned up. When we renovated, my office was swallowed by another room, because I swore up and down I didn’t need it. Now I kind of wish I had it back. (But, shhh! Don’t tell my husband. He warned me I’d feel this way.)

Anyhow, back to what my dining room, errr, office looks like… It’s red walls above white wainscoting. My hp laptop sits on a big farmhouse table (six chairs across from each other), while I sit on the world’s most uncomfortable sea grass chair. (I’m pretty sure that’s why I fidget so much and use any excuse I can to get up and move around. I’m not procrastinating. I’m trying to get comfortable. Yeah. That’s it.)

There are French doors to the outside behind me. There are French doors to the living room in front me. (It’s an old house, and I often wonder why all the interior French doors? Besides being able to see beyond to the other room, they’re miserable at blocking sound. I guess they were decorative as much then as they are now.)

The pictures on the walls are framed in gold and consist of two related to my wedding and two related to wine. (I like wine. A lot.) There are wine and liquor cabinets in either corner. (I like whiskey, too. Jameson to be exact.)

And last but not least, the area rug beneath my feet is beige, red, and traditionally floral. Aren’t you glad you know this?

Like I said, boring. Except for the wine and whiskey. I’m willing to bet my “office” is better stocked than most. ;)

Elley Arden is a born and bred Pennsylvanian who has lived as far west as Utah and as far north as Wisconsin. She drinks wine like it’s water (a slight exaggeration), prefers a night at the ballpark to a night on the town, and believes almond English toffee is the key to happiness.
 has been reading romance novels since she was a sixteen-year-old babysitter, sneaking Judith McNaught and Danielle Steele novels off the bookshelves of the women who employed her. She started her first manuscript when she was twenty-five, writing during babies’ naps. A total of three children and ten years later, the manuscript was complete. Little did she know, her journey to publication was only beginning…

Follow Me: @bloggerESP

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