Sarah R. Yoffa

Sarah R. Yoffa is a Mechanical Engineer and has been an actual Rocket Scientist but her first love is writing. She abandoned a career in IT Management to pursue a career in publishing just as the Digital Publishing Age was dawning.

Sarah was raised in a traditional Jewish home but left organized religion behind for most of her adult life. In a miraculous stroke of Divine Intervention, Sarah was led back to God and her Jewish roots by Evangelical Christians at the Faith Fellowship Church (EFCA) in central Florida. She didn’t convert but learned from them how to have a personal relationship with God. Her Jewish God.

In the late 1990s, Sarah simultaneously attended both Faith Fellowship and Chabad of the Space Coast, rediscovering what it meant to be Jewish--and sharing that knowledge through Bible study classes in both congregations! By communicating between the two, Sarah was like a “bridge” between them, translating what words cannot convey. Sarah continues to connect with believers of all faiths--and non-believers who seek answers.

Sarah made Aliyah (emigrated to Israel) in 1999, and it was the best decision she ever made! Unfortunately, the financial collapse in the wake of 9/11 necessitated her return to the U.S. Sarah’s dream is to return to The Land and retire in Arad, Israel, where she can get up to have a cup of coffee with God in the Holy Desert and write all day--except, of course, on Shabbat!

Website: http://www.goodreads.com/webbiegrrlwriter
Twitter: @webbiegrrl
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah.r.yoffa
Blog: http://webbiegrrl.blogspot.com/

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• Double Dog Dare on Aug. 23, 2011
  
  Awwww, this story was kind of basic, kind of simple, and even kind of predictable but it was told well enough, sweetly enough and succinctly enough to make me go "awww!" at the end. Thanks!
  
• Deliberately Unbound (Bound Series Book 2-1/2) on Sep. 14, 2013
  
  I've never read anything by this author before so this was my first exposure to her style/voice and to these characters. I did feel I got a good feel for the characters so there was no loss due to it being a sort of "cut out" from an existing series. I didn't "need" the series to get into this story. What I did need was a little less "mystery" and a little more "to the point" during the lead in to the big sex scene. Part of my annoyance might be that I am in no way a fan of Regency romance or period pieces. That doesn't stop me from reading them and evaluating them as storytelling; it just has to be taken into account as a factor in my diminishing enjoyment. Some period writers can actually get the worldbuilding across without being quite so stuffed shirt in my face about it...though TBH a shirt stuffed into my face sounds okay :) And that brings me to the sex scene. Awesome job. I got the book specifically to read the sex scene as I am totally new to m/m romance and gay erotica. I write m/f romance and het sex in non-romance genres but I have gay characters so eventually, I need to have a gay sex scene, right? So I was here for an education and THANK YOU AVA MARCH, good job on showing me how it's done. I'm not entirely against BDSM-y activities though I'm a het female not into anal so I didn't personally find the scene very arousing, but it was tension-filled in an erotic-tension kind of way if that makes sense. I got the sense that if I weren't personally adverse to the activities being described, I would've been sufficiently aroused by The End to give this 5 stars. I was DEFINITELY able to envision exactly what was going on, what the characters were feeling about it at the moment and I loved the chemistry between the Dom and his sub. The D/s roles were PERFECTLY done which is actually a rare thing these days with all the comers trying to fake it. So I was at 3 stars for not liking the sex and not liking the period-ness of it but had to raise it to 4 because the D/s dynamic was soooo spot on. Thank you for showing how it should be done! I also got Deliberately Bound while I was collecting samples to read here on Smashwords and I look forward to reading more about Vincent and Oliver, though I'm not sure I'll enjoy the anal sex or time period aspects any better than I did here (haha) Again, won't stop me from reading, just from liking every bit of it but I appreciate GOOD WRITING and Ava March has got it.
  
• Deliberately Bound (Bound Series Book 3-1/2) on Sep. 15, 2013
  
  Again, this is my first foray into Ava March's Bound series and as I said yesterday in my review of "Deliberately Unbound," Regency is one of my least favorite genres because I dislike period pieces, generally. All that said, once more I got a good feel for the characters right away and had no sense of loss from not having any pre-existing knowledge of the series. I didn't "need" the series to get into this story but I did feel I "knew" the characters well enough after one story (yesterday) that I should recognize them. I did...sort of. In this story, the D/s roles are reversed and while Oliver finds it easy to be a switch, Vincent struggles with the role reversal. This fit with the men's personalities as I knew them from "Deliberately Unbound" but I didn't feel like the lead-in to the sex scene adquately addressed the emotional states of the Dom-turned-sub. I've been a switch myself more D than s and it's quite the mental trick, more than "flipping a mental switch" to change roles. I wanted Vincent to struggle with it more before he became a happy go lucky sub. He didn't need to "talk about it", just have mental doubts, fears, trepidation. That wasn't there. Took one star off for the lack of credibility there but then added it back in once I finished the sex scene because Oliver as a sub turned Dom was amazing. Plus THIS time, unlike when I read "Deliberately Unbound," I definitely got a good arousal going from the sex scene so it worked for me despite still being focused primarily on anal penetration (not my personal interest). I felt the characters in this story had a better-developed chemistry here than in "Deliberately Unbound" but couldn't really say why. I felt the sex was better but again, couldn't say why. I felt the writing was top-notch except for that lack of character development mentioned above. All in all, I would read more by this author but probably won't. I really dislike Regency. If I "had to" read Regency, I would probably not mind reading Ava March's tales of Oliver and Vincent (whereas other Regency romance annoys me all to hell). Despite not being interested in period pieces, I did particularly like the fact Ava March makes a specific point to try to describe sex toys of the time as they might really have been. Accurate or entirely fictionalized, the author's effort to lend authenticity in the details to the period she's depicting was admirable. Highly recommended for anyone who likes period pieces.
  
• The Stranger (Jem & Carlton #1) on Sep. 16, 2013
  
  I got a copy of this story while it was priced at FREE but I definitely would have paid 99 cents for this story. I have no clue if it's part of a serialized novel or meant to be a standalone in a series of standalone stories. I notice the last page of the ebook file has a listing of 7 different "Jem and Carlton" stories so I had to wonder. If it's a serialization, then the abrupt "ending" to this section is all right--like a chapter ending abruptly while the book goes on. If, however, this was intended to be one of seven related stories in a series, each a story unto itself, then there's an issue here that is hopefully not propagated to the other 6 stories. Any story, unless a chapter in a larger book, should always have a beginning, middle and end. There needs to be an arc. I felt this story had a fantastic lead in, a good and solid middle but then lacked an ending. Other than that structural issue, it had a few grammar problems (see below for more) but I'd say this story is 110% entertainment. The characters are vibrant and charming. Jem is adorable and I liked him right away. The chemistry between them is good and I have no clue who Carlton is or how/why he's shown up in Jem's life but I am immediately intrigued and want to know more about these guys. I had a little issue with credibility about Jem's dysfunction (see my statuses on Goodreads for more on that - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/721234570) but really, it was such a trivial issue to me that I don't feel it's worth detracting anything from the star rating. It was enough to jerk me out of the story--never good--but the story was already so engaging that I found it easy to move on and get back to reading. I simply couldn't wait to see where the characters were going next! Carlton has a simply delicious edge to him without coming off as a buffoon or abusively rough around the edges. The mystery that is Carlton, hopefully, gets explained in later installments of this presumed serialization. If not, then I guess that's another gripe about this but only because I soooo enjoyed Carlton I definitely wanted to get to know him better! Who wouldn't? Roowwwrrrrrr All in all, it's a fantastic little vignette by an author I have never read before. Now the issues. I had a few issues right from the first screen with the grammar and sentence structure. It wasn't a matter of British versus American English; it was a straightforward grammatical issue--verb tense and such. I've read a lot worse so I'm mentioning this but would only say it loses 1/2 a star for that and then, only because it was a pervasive issue throughout the entire story. Not all the time, but an outside editorial editor (i.e., "fresh eyes") could have caught these issues and fixed them. If this is a serialization that will ultimately become a novel, I'd suggest the author get all of the piece-parts to an editorial reader (could just be a free group of beta readers on Goodreads!) and have those grammatical glitches corrected before piecing the story together into a collection for sale as a novel. I've taken another 1/2 star off because the story ends so abruptly. In fact, the story ends with the big sex scene and that is abruptly cut short (if one can actually still be abrupt after coming 3 times in short succession! LOL). It was a hawt enough sex scene and did go on for a bit but then it just felt as though I were reading and *bam* the author decided to make that the end of the book. Not quite in the middle of a sentence but it nearly felt that way. I had no sense of closure at "The End." Even if this is a serialization, I should have a sense of closure--just of the scene if not the book! Despite the glitches, I thought Alex Jace did a great job here! I would definitely read more by this Author and I am interested in these characters enough (without qualifications) to read future stories about them. I highly recommend this story to anyone who can download and read :) It's fun, lighthearted and engaging. Get it and decide for yourself. It reads so quickly and entertains so easily, you won't regret it!