Her Rancher Rescuer

Her Rancher Rescuer by Donna Alward marks the author's debut with Harlequin American.  It is a move to a new line within the category universe that makes a lot of sense.  Alward's playground of choice for category are ranchers and cowboys, and this transition also marks the sixth, and final book, in her Cadence Creek Cowboys series, which up until this point lived over at Harlequin Romance.  Alward has written many books I've enjoyed, and even a few books I haven't liked all that much, but Her Rancher Rescuer is a new high.  I loved this book.  It's a I Read It In One Sitting book.  It's a I Stayed Up Late To Finish It Because I Couldn't Put It Down book.  It's a When I Woke Up In The Morning I Wanted To Read It All Over Again book. 

The theme of this book is don't make assumptions because you'll just look like an ass.  Our heroine is Amy Wilson, the resident Good Time Girl in tiny Cadence Creek.  Amy is a girl who keeps looking for love in all the wrong places.  She's dated a lot of guys, most of them frogs, and when you live in a small town?  Yeah, gossip.  It's poor Amy, can't find a man.  Poor Amy, just like her Mama who is still smarting over the fact that her husband left to get a quart of milk and never came back. 

Given that it's a small town, and she works for a local florist, Amy's at a wedding for a former Alward couple.  That's when a former hero opens his big fat mouth, says something rather hurtful, and Amy overhears.  Amy doesn't have feelings for this guy (in fact she was trying to play matchmaker for him and his heroine!), but when someone says you're the last person on Earth they'd want to be with?  It's humiliating.  Riding to her rescue is Jack Shepard.  These opening moments, of Amy hiding in the ladies' room and Jack coming in after her are brilliant.  He's essentially, at first, a Harlequin Presents hero.  He's sexy as sin, smart, funny, charming, filthy rich and genuinely likes Amy as a person.  They spend some time together (not like that!), Amy is charmed, but quickly returns back to her normal life.  Hey, Jack lives in Montana, Amy lives in Canada.  He may have family in Cadence Creek, but this is a guy that isn't sticking around.

That is until he finds himself in a jam.  He comes back to town for the holidays and shares with Amy that his place in Montana is a working ranch, but also a corporate retreat.  His right hand woman?  The one who basically runs the office there?  Just broke her pelvis and is down for the count, just in time for a new group of arrivals to show up.  Amy then has a light bulb moment.  She has realized that if she wants a life she needs to get the hell out of Dodge.  She's thinking she wants to go to college and study hospitality, but she'd love to test the waters first.  Plus she helps out a lot with the "business stuff" at the flower shop.  She thinks she can handle it.  Jack, even though he is powerfully attracted to her and naturally isn't a relationship kind of guy, says yes.  So Amy is off to Montana for a few weeks and Jack has to figure out a way to keep things strictly professional between them.

What makes this story so fantastic is the gut-wrenching, sucker-punch heft to the emotional baggage.  Jack is, like I mentioned, on the surface a Harlequin Presents-like hero.  He was a former championship caliber skier until a knee injury shattered his Olympic dreams.  He channeled that energy into starting his own sporting goods company, which has proven to be wildly successful.  Now moving on to a new challenge he buys a failing ranch in Montana and decides to host corporate retreats.  You know, those trips where CEOs can take their underlings and they all work on "team building" exercises together.  Jack is a man who cannot sit still, flitting from one challenge to the next.  And why do you think that is?  Ding, ding, ding!  Yep, a woman.  A woman he couldn't save because it turns out - she didn't want to be saved.  Jack is a fixer with a White Knight Complex. 

Amy is a woman ready to grow up.  She's tired of being stuck, and that's what has happened to her in Cadence Creek.  She knows if she ever wants to be happy that she needs to grab the bull by the horns, take the initiative.  The problem is that she's attracted to Jack and he's not making things easy on her - yep, he's pursuing her.  The fly in the ointment, he may be attracted and he may be pursuing, but that doesn't mean he is emotionally ready.  Because once our couple hits the sheets?  Jack realizes that what he has with Amy, what he feels with Amy, demands permanence, and it scares the shit out of him.

For her part, Amy knows how she feels about Jack - but an adult lifetime looking for love in all those wrong places, of being "poor Amy" from Cadence Creek?  This is a girl who isn't going to settle for crumbs.  Yes, Jack is scared - but you know what?  That doesn't mean she should have to settle and she's not going to.  Amy is tired of trying to fit square pegs into round holes.  She loves Jack, but if he's too scared and unwilling to change?  That's not her problem.  She can't make him do anything, he has to want to do it.  And if he loves her?  He'll do it in a hot minute.  So Amy does what all great romance heroines should always do - she doesn't settle.  She says goodbye.

However, this is a romance novel, so we know these two will eventually find their way together because they need to be together.  It's the emotionally charged moments, the dialogue that rips your guts out, that make this story so great.  I've been a lucky reader of late and read some pretty good stories, but this one was pure magic for me from start to finish.  I loved every moment of it.

Final Grade = A

Sonata for a Scoundrel

Sonata for a Scoundrel by Anthea Lawson is just the sort of historical romance I should love.  While it has the familiar European setting of countless other historicals out there, it has the added bonus of not being another Heroine Lands Herself A Duke story.  Set in 1830, with a rich musical backdrop, the hero is a celebrated concert violinist and the heroine is a composer who publishes under her brother's name.  Because, you know, girls can't write music!  The horrors!  So I settled in for what I hoped would be a suitably gut-wrenching emotional read about a heroine forced to live a lie and falling in love with a man who has no idea that he's playing her music.  Instead?  Yeah, not so much.

Clara Becker grew up in a musical family and at one point they were financially solvent.  Sadly, her mother's long illness drained the family finances leaving Clara, her brother Nicholas, and their father barely living hand to mouth.  Nicholas used to teach piano until he mysteriously lost all of his students due to his fits of melancholy.  Daddy doesn't seem to do much of anything (at least not over the course of the story), so it's up to Clara to keep them afloat, barely, with her composing.  However, as a mere woman, and with the threat of scandal looming over their heads should the truth be known, Clara writes under her brother's name - an open secret among their family of three.  Which is how Darien Reynard comes to find them.  A celebrated violinist, he stumbles across one of "Nicholas'" pieces and knows this unknown, talented composer is just the thing his career needs.  Certainly Nicholas is loathe to have to carry this charade out in the public eye, but damn - Darien is offering them obscene gobs of money.  He accepts the job offer, on one condition.  Dear sister Clara must be allowed to join the tour.

For the longest time this one fell into my dreaded "It's OK" category.  It's readable, I never felt like I was slogging through it, but it was an easy story to put down and not come back to for a while.  The corker was that it took me forever to figure out what "my problem" was with the story - and it finally dawned on me near the 75% mark (thank you Kindle).  My problem was with Clara.  She's totally inoffensive, and that's not really a good thing with a plot of this nature.  I want her to be offensive.  I want her to be bitter and angry and torn about the lie she is being forced to live.  I want her to be angry.  I want her, even if it's in the privacy of her own internal thoughts, to wail at the injustice of her life and be torn about the secret she feels she has to keep - even after she has fallen in love with Darien.  I mean, this is a huge honker of a Big Secret.  Keeping a secret like this, being forced to hide your talent only because of the mere fact you don't have a penis, being forced to let your brother take the acclaim that is rightfully yours?  Yeah, I guess I expected more than just a pale, white-washed heroine who frets over her brother's dark moods and swoons at Darien's talent.  What about your talent cupcake?

The irony is that it's Nicholas, Clara's brother, who struggles mightily with the deception.  The reader literally sees this man fall apart over the course of the story.  Reading between the lines one can deduce he suffers from depression.  Living a lie, having to act his way through the tour with Darien, protecting his sister, and being forced into this lie for the good of the family?  It's easy to see why he collapses under the strain.  However the fact that he's the one that dissolves into a puddle, while the heroine seems to merrily traipse along, just didn't work for me.

Darien seems like an OK sort of bloke.  I liked that, especially early on in the story, he exhibited a bit of an ego.  I also liked that once he deduces Clara's Big Secret he doesn't have a major meltdown snit-fit over it.  However I would have loved more information about his past, especially since the author teases readers with a rather tragic one (born in the gutter, used his musical gifts to rise above etc.).  Instead we get a rather stock villain (a former student, naturally) and a former opera singer lover who threw him over because she disliked life on the road and wanted a more conventional life.

Ultimately I found this to be an OK story where I found myself muttering "What if...." a lot.  I wanted it to be more and it just never quite got there for me.

Final Grade = C+

The Month That Was December 2013

Lemon Drop: ::grumble grumble::  Really?!

Me: What's up cupcake?

Lemon Drop: Auntie Wendy, we need to talk.

Me: Uh oh, this cannot be good.

Lemon Drop:  Every month you talk to me about the books you read....

Me:  And?

Lemon Drop:  And I'm afraid they're giving me unrealistic expectations.

Me: I was right, this cannot be good.  Sigh.  Well let's talk about what I read in December and then we'll address your issues OK?

Title links will take you to full reviews.

Badlands by Jill Sorenson - Romantic suspense, HQN, 2013, Grade = B+

• Third book in series, about a couple I've been DYING to read about since they were introduced in Book #1.  It didn't disappoint.  A great, great read with an uber-wounded hero.

Forged in the Desert Heat by Maisey Yates - Contemporary romance, Harlequin Presents, 2013, Grade = B-

• Hero has inherited the throne but relations are precarious - so when he rescues a neighboring sheikh's betrothed after she's kidnapped he must tread carefully.  A solid read.  Not sure this would change anyone's mind if they don't "like" sheikh stories - but if you do?  This is a good one.

A Christmas to Remember by Kay Stockham - Contemporary romance, Harlequin SuperRomance, 2007, Grade = C

• Heroine's past comes home to roost when the hero who done her wrong returns home from the Army with amnesia.  A lot of promise, but the plot twist pissed me off.

Under a Christmas Spell by Barbara Monajem - Historical paranormal short story, Harlequin Historical Undone, Grade = B

• An incubus and a succubus with a shared past find themselves attending the same Christmas house party.  Liked the holiday atmosphere and the light touch with the paranormal elements.

Under a New Year's Enchantment by Barbara Monajem - Historical paranormal short story, Harlequin Historical Undone, Grade = B-

• The second half of a short story duet, it picks up where Under a Christmas Spell left off.  It details the fallout of the "work" the incubus and succubus have been doing at said house party - and the host and his life-long childhood BFF find themselves unable to resist.

The Wicked Confessions of Lady Cecelia Stanton by Viveka Portman - Historical erotic "romance" novella, Escape, 2013, Grade = F

• Burn it!  Burn it with fire!!!!!!!!

Falling for the Highland Rogue by Ann Lethbridge - Historical romance, Harlequin Historical, 2013, Grade = B+

• Bad girl heroine falls for a pretty-boy younger brother who is a whiskey runner.  I loved this story.

Ripped by Sarah Morgan - Contemporary romance novella, Cosmo Red Hot Reads, 2013, Grade = B+

• Chick lit meets romance meets erotic sexy times!  Funny heroine, steamy sexual tension, a fast, fun read.

When the Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke - Historical romance, Avon, 2013, Grade = B-

• Playboy hero needs to marry for money and needs the help of the matchmaker heroine.  Too bad she's not inclined to help a fortune hunter.  Great dialogue, lots of verbal sparring, cannot wait to read next book in series.

Me: Sweetheart, this is fiction and romance novels are a celebration of women, life and love.  Frankly, yes - they should give you unrealistic expectations - and that is not a bad thing.  Because you're worth it.  There's nothing wrong with expecting someone to love you, and love you in a healthy, emotionally fulfilling way.  You should never settle.  You should be happy in your own skin.  Someday, yes - you will hopefully fall in love and when that happens I hope that person treats you well, makes you happy, and is your perfect partner in crime.

Lemon Drop:  Auntie Wendy, what in the world are you talking about?

Me: Ummmmm, what are you talking about?

Lemon Drop: I'm sitting here, trying to read Daddy's book and it is nothing like the books you talk to me about.  Where are the sheikhs?  The cowboys?  The bosses and secretaries?  Dear Lord, there are no secret babies!  Or amnesia!  Where oh where are the secret babies and the amnesia?!?!? 

Me: So your "unrealistic expectations....."

Lemon Drop: I thought all books had secret babies and amnesia!  Daddy's boring ol' science book doesn't have any of the "good stuff" in it!

Me: Well, yes - I can see the problem now.  Honey, the lesson here is never wander near Daddy's bookshelves.  No good will ever come of it.

Lemon Drop: Now you tell me.

Over at H&H

I'm over at Heroes & Heartbreakers today with my latest "shopping list" of unusual historicals.

January was.....really thin.  Generally speaking December/January tend to be thin regardless of genre, with publishers glutting the market for fall and spring.  My disappointment this month was that I found zip that fit the bill from the digital presses.  C'mon guys!  I know historicals probably have more dismal sale numbers than, say, erotic romance featuring monster billionaire Dom heroes, but take pity on this poor gal.

Anyhoodle, you can see the full list here.  It's a nice reminder that I need to buy some westerns this month.....

To Tempt A Viking

I've always felt that authors should write the story they want to write and not think about readers.  Mostly because, well, readers are nut jobs.  Myself included.  Which is why I think authors (especially those working in genre fiction) should be rewarded for taking risks.  Those risks may not necessarily work, but it's always rewarding, for me, to read a story that plays outside of the usual sandbox. 

That's what Michelle Willingham has done with her Forbidden Vikings duet for Harlequin Historical.  The premise of this series is one of an arranged marriage that is dying a slow, painful death - and in the midst of that death the married couple falls in love with other people.  Romance is a genre that tends to put a healthy emphasis on "traditional" relationships, so an author writing stories set around this idea of a married couple splitting up, then falling in love with someone else?  Forgive my language, but it's risky as shit.  To Sin With A Viking was all about a husband desperately trying to mend the chasm between him and his wife, only to end up being taken captive by a nearly starving Irish woman and falling in love with her.  To Tempt A Viking runs parallel to that story for the first half, giving us the story of what happens to Elena, the former hero's wife, when she is taken hostage by a band of starving Irish villagers and ultimately rescued by Ragnar Olafsson, a fierce warrior and her husband's best friend.

Elena desperately wants children, but five years of marriage to her husband Styr and she's remained barren.  Her inability to conceive has worn her down to the point where she is consumed by it.  She has pushed her husband away, and he thinks Ireland will somehow give them a fresh start.  Instead she gets kidnapped and he gets taken captive.  Ragnar swore to Styr that he would protect Elena, and he immediately joins the fray to rescue her.  He catches up with her, only to be taken captive by the same band of starving young Irishmen.  Biding his time, looking for the right moment, he rescues Elena - only to find himself wounded and both of them stranded with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.  Oh, and the smoldering attraction between them, of course.  Because wouldn't you know it?  Ragnar has been in love with Elena for years, only to realize and be reminded of the fact, repeatedly, that he's not good enough for the likes of her. 

This was a second half book for me, mostly because I have read the first book in the series.  The first half literally parallels the events of the first book.  The only difference being that we're reading about it from two different points of view.  This will likely be fine for new readers who didn't read the first story, but for those of us who have?  It felt too much like a rehash for me.  I found myself going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah - let's move on already, I know all this."  So needless to say when Styr finally shows up on scene and he is reunited with Elena?  I was jumping for joy.  Finally!  I'm past all the stuff I already know and can move on to the "new stuff."

And it's the "new stuff" where this story really cooks.  Because by this point Styr is in love with another woman and Elena realizes that there is no saving her marriage.  She's not happy.  She's miserable.  She just hasn't quite come to the realization that she's in love with Ragnar.  She knows he's her friend and she knows she cares for him - but she's still smarting over the disintegration of her marriage to Styr and she feels very much like a failure for not being the wife her husband wanted or needed.

Some conflict works better in historicals than in contemporaries, and Elena's struggle with infertility is one of them.  Is infertility a heartbreaking struggle for many women?  Yes.  But in contemporaries I find myself annoyed by heroines who somehow think their lives are "over" because they are unable to conceive.  No, it's not.  You are more than a uterus.  And don't get me started on heroines who won't explore foster parenting or adoption because they want their "own babies."  That's a Wendy rant that will send us down an endless rabbit hole.

In historical time periods though?  It's much easier for me to roll with.  As a woman your entire sense of value was your uterus.  If you couldn't squirt out babies, male babies at that, well what good were you?  So it's easy to see how this is a Big Hairy Deal for Elena, not only because her inability to get pregnant is a smear against her husband's name, but she is also a woman who really wants kids.  That's her ambition, to be a mother.

What is very interesting is that Elena eventually comes around to a way of thinking that so many of her contemporary romance heroine counterparts fail to grasp.  Eventually she does realize that yeah, it sucks she can't seem to get pregnant, but that doesn't mean her dream has to die on the vine.  She can still have a family, she just may need to go about it a little differently than other women.

Willingham has a knack for angst, and the final chapters of this story are really gut-wrenching.  Can Elena and Ragnar move past the long shadow of Styr?  Will Ragnar eventually clue into the fact that he is good enough?  I could have done without the epilogue, which I found syrupy and a little disappointing to be honest, but for readers who love those Big Happy Family With Lots O' Kidlets Running Around epilogues, this book has one for you.

I found this to be an interesting and challenging duet.  It was not always an easy read, but I appreciate that the author took a common romantic trope (the arranged marriage) and put a different spin on it without making either Styr or Elena out to be villains.  I also appreciated that at the end of the day both characters ended up with the people they were meant to be with all along.

Final Grade = B-

Sidenote: I'll be honest, beefcake covers tend to be like white noise to me anymore.  I barely notice them and they barely register.  But this cover?  I want to lick this cover.  TMI?

Mini-Reviews: Mystery & Suspense Round-Up

I used to be a full-time mystery/suspense reader until I discovered the romance genre in my early twenties and sold my soul to Harlequin.  However, thanks to a new release from the only cozy series I still read, plus my library's upcoming annual literary event (guess who is moderating one of the mystery panels this year?) - means I've spent a good chunk of January tripping over fictional dead bodies.  Here's the rundown:

Follow Her Home by Steph Cha is a debut novel set in Los Angeles and casts a directionless twenty-something Korean American woman, Juniper Song, in the PI role.  One of her best friends is worried that his father is having an affair with a much younger woman who works at his office, and since the last time Daddy had an affair Mommy almost succeeded in killing herself?  He asks Juniper to snoop around.  Naturally, havoc ensues.

This was a pretty solid debut.  I loved that our protagonist was obsessed with Philip Marlowe and still haunted by a tragedy that pertains to her younger sister.  I also thought the author had interesting things to say about the fetishization (is that a word?) of young Asian women.  The suspense thread could have been a little tighter in spots and this is one of those Bad Things Happen To Good Secondary Characters books, so that was kind of a downer.  I've been waffling on my grade, but probably a B-.  The author has another book featuring Juniper slated for an August release and I'm curious to read it.

Yesterday's Echo by Matt Coyle is another debut and one that I highly enjoyed.  Hero was a cop when his wife was found murdered.  He was the prime suspect, but the DA couldn't make it stick - so Rick leaves the force and moves back to his hometown of La Jolla, California to work at a friend's restaurant.  That's where he meets the femme fatale character, a woman who has a bunch of hired goons looking for her.  If you can get past the set-up (given his past I thought Rick's quick and easy trust of the femme fatale strained), this is a great suspense novel.  It twists and turns and kept me guessing all the way up until the end.  Again it's another Bad Things Happen To Good Secondary Characters book, but between the suspense and the great SoCal setting?  I highly recommend it.  Oh, and at the time of this blog post writing?  It's only a $1.99 on Kindle.  My grade is a B+.

Killing Cupid by Laura Levine is the latest in her Jaine Austen (no relation) series about a freelance writer who keeps stumbling over dead bodies.  This go-around Jaine takes a job writing copy for Joy Amoroso, who claims to run an upscale matchmaking service.  Naturally Joy is pure evil, someone kills her, and since their working relationship was not all champagne and roses, the cops start snooping around Jaine.  This means Jaine starts doing her own snooping and uncovers a whole host of suspects.  Levine used to be a sitcom writer and her books read like it in both good, and bad, ways.  The stories move along at a great clip, there's a lot of humor, and she writes very capable mysteries with enough suspects to keep the reader guessing.  On the downside?  Sometimes that humor can be a tad on the broad side - which it was in this book thanks to a scene involving squirrels (yes, squirrels).  Still, it delivered exactly what I wanted, it was amusing, and the mystery was solid.  Levine is also one of the very few cozy writers who hasn't fallen down the Magical Baking Cupcake Knitting Cats hole and for that reason I think all cozy fans need to be reading her books.  A solid B.

Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak is the first in a four-book series and was, I'm sorry to say, a hot mess for me.  Our heroine, Wollie Shelley, designs greeting cards and runs a Hallmark-like store.  Then her schizophrenic brother calls from the mental hospital claiming to have witnessed a murder.  When she goes to check up on him, she finds a dead body in the middle of the road, and gets "kidnapped" by a man she only knows as "Doc" who has a pet ferret in his coat pocket.  She doesn't call the police and even after "Doc" lets her go - she continues to help him even though he tells her nothing and the mob is somehow involved.  Oh, and did I mention Wollie is going out with 40 guys in 60 days as part of a pop psychologist's "research" project?  I got 120 pages into the book and just couldn't take it anymore.  There was nothing I liked here, and I mean nothing.  I skimmed my way through the rest of the book, skipping chunks of pages along the way.  Humor is one thing, cozy is another, and I'll even read zany - but when the characters don't behave like rational adults?  I'm out.  Hey, I don't read Janet Evanovich anymore either - so there you go.  My grade is a Big Fat DNF.

Digital Review: Now And Forever

Let's get this out of the way right up front: Now and Forever by Logan Belle is "part two" of a story that started with Now Or Never.  It probably could be read as a stand-alone, but I would not recommend it and actively discourage it.  Because why would you want to deprive yourself of the whole story when that whole story is so amazing?  Belle lays exemplary groundwork in the first novella, and part two is where the real meat and potatoes of the romance is.  Part one gets you hooked and part two gives you the pay-off.

Claire is finally moving forward with her cancer treatment.  While the cancer itself was caught early, Claire discovered she has the faulty BRCA gene.  That means double mastectomy, reconstruction (which she opts for) and an eventual hysterectomy.  So our gal really has no time for a relationship.  She found herself caring for Justin, the playboy who helped her create the "Now or Never" sexual bucket list - but after their one night together, and one of the most gut-wrenching emotional scenes I've ever read, he's off in the wind.  Or is he?  Because as much as Justin tells himself that he's not a relationship guy he finds himself unable to stay away from Claire.  The fly in the ointment?  Claire's not sure this is the time in her life that she should be opening herself up for possible relationship disaster.

I don't want to imply that Justin was thinly drawn in the first novella, but readers do really only get to know the surface Justin.  The façade he puts on display for the world.  The devil-may-care playboy who trolls AA meetings to pick-up women, the guy who doesn't have to worry about money because his family has money, the guy who is all surface and flash.  However meeting Claire, spending time with her, and yes - falling in love with her, changes him.  As falling in love tends to do to a person.  The problem is that now he realizes how he feels about her?  Claire is the one running scared.  Not without good reason.  She cares for Justin as well, but she's got a long road ahead of her.  Does she really want to expose him to all that when keeping their time together in a perfect, pristine, bubble - protected from the messiness of her health situation - is more attractive?  She doesn't want Justin to think of her "like that" - with her breasts gone, sporting drainage tubes, in pain, and getting her chest expanded in preparation for reconstruction.  Justin has proven in the past that when life gets messy he runs.  Clare doesn't think she could survive him running, so why not cut him off at the knees now?

It's all very complicated.  However complications are funny things.  Sometimes people make things more complicated than they need to be because they're scared.  And that's our Claire.  She's scared.  Justin has to prove to her she doesn't have to be scared - but that's not easy to do when she seems determined to push him away.

The secondary characters also add a nice dimension, and Belle introduces some new players that were footnotes in the first story.  Readers get to meet the delightful Max, Claire's only son now off at college, and none too pleased his mother kept her health issues a secret for so long.  Also, Justin's completely jacked-up family situation comes into play - with a domineering father, a clinically depressed mother, and wastrel brother.  This really helps further develop Justin as more than a pretty-faced-playboy and molds him into someone more hero-worthy.

While the first novella was all about the heroine's journey, this story gives readers a more finely focused, traditional, romantic story arc.  Justin proves himself, and Claire learns to take a leap of faith.  I didn't love this quite as much as the first novella (which, honestly, was the best kind of emotional gut-punch for me) but this second novella is where these characters firmly cement themselves in my mind as "real people."  Which, of course, they aren't.  I know that.  But when a fictional story tricks me into thinking they are real?  We have a winner.

Final Grade = A-

TBR Challenge 2014: Baring It All

Disclaimer: The author and I go way back.  Back before blogging became a "thing" and I was with The Romance Reader, she was a reviewer at All About Romance.  Over the years we've been friendly online, I'd see her at conferences etc.  So when she helped to concoct the idea that would eventually become Heroes & Heartbreakers (it was simply called "Project X" back in those development stages!), and she asked me to write a couple of columns for her to help pitch the concept?  I said, sure.  H&H took hold, I stayed on as a columnist, and Megan now edits the columns I submit.  So yes, we have a working relationship and I think she's the bee's knees.

The Book: Baring It All by Megan Frampton

The Particulars: Historical romance short story, 2013, Loveswept, digital only release

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I picked it up at RWA 2013 in Atlanta.  Also, see above disclaimer.  I like Megan as a person, I thought maybe I should try reading some of her books.

The Review:

"Why did she have to fall in love with someone so smart?

Oh, that's right.  Because a stupid man just wouldn't do."

And that pretty well sums up what I liked about this story.  It's a quick, frothy concoction with some witty banter, equally witty internal monologues and some sexy shenanigans to spice up the proceedings. 

Lady Violet is betrothed to Lord Christian Jepstow, whom she has known since they were children.  She's, naturally, smitten as all get out - but the man doesn't seem to even notice she's a woman.  A troublesome bit of suspicion for Violet since they do plan to marry.  She'd prefer to have some passion in their marriage, instead of competing with his studies and various dead philosophers to gain his attention and affection.  What ever is a girl to do?  Well, take matters into her own hands of course!  Turns out her BFF and Christian's sister is unexpectedly called away and is unable to complete writing her newspaper column about women's fashion - the topic du jour being undergarments.  Violet proposes that they work on this endeavor together, and naturally the results = sexy times.

Enjoyment of this story hinges on a few things:

1) The reader has to be willing to go with the cotton candy, frothy tone of the tale the author lays out.  This, my friends, is about as far from angst as the Care Bears or My Little Pony.  I'm, generally speaking, an Angst Ho, but I loved the tone of this story and inhaled it in one sitting.

2) It's a short story, and by short story I mean short.  Similar in length to a Harlequin Historical Undone - so about 50 pages.  No sense in whining about it, it's a short story and it's not pretending to be anything else.  I think it works very well in this format and I didn't feel "cheated."  Hell, if anything, see #3....

3) This is, obvious from the first chapter, a short connected to the author's full-length release What Not To Bare, which just came out in October 2013.  I do think this short does what any decent short story connected to a series should do - which is stand alone, but also whet your appetite for other stories set in the same universe.  Mission accomplished!

I have the attention span of a fruit fly, and there are some days when Real Life is sucking out my very soul.  This is why I love reading shorts, because sometimes 50-100 pages is just about all my poor lil' wee brain can handle.  Yet I still want what feels like a complete story, and I want something that is going to entertain me while I'm on my lunch break at work, or trying to quickly unwind once I get home.  That's what Frampton accomplished for me with Baring It All.  One of the better short stories I've read in recent memory.

Final Grade = B+

The Man Behind the Mask

There was some "unpleasantness" in the Bat Cave last week, and I called in sick to work one day.  I always feel guilty calling in sick to work.  When you work in public service and you have "good" coworkers, well I always feel like I'm abandoning them.  Silly, I know.  However if I could spend all my days away from the office reading stories like The Man Behind the Mask, the first in a new trilogy from Barbara Wallace?  Yeah, I'd get over my guilt pretty darn quick.  I'd also start pouring over medical texts to find various "ailments" that could befall me at a moment's notice.

Delilah St. Germaine knows it's stupid, but she's got a horrible crush on her suave, sexy boss, Simon Cartwright.  A mover and shaker at his family's advertising agency, Simon is the kind of guy who attends various and sundry charity events in New York City with beautiful women who are either 1) models 2) actresses 3) aspiring models or 4) aspiring actresses.  He's way out of her league.  Sure, she's a great PA but she knows who and what she is.  She's a girl from Kansas that men like Simon Cartwright look right through.  And now she finds herself having to spend the weekend with him in Boston working to land a big, key new account.  Gee, that's not going to be torturous at all!

Simon is all flash and no substance - so it would seem.  In reality he's a guy who is play-acting his way through life.  Yes he's handsome, wears the right clothes, pours on the charm, and keeps his romantic entanglements strictly superficial.  However that's not who he is.  The real Simon is a man hiding a lot of pain, running away from a traumatic past that he's swept under the rug instead of confronting head-on.  That traumatic past happened in Boston, and now he's on this business trip, back in the city that irrevocably changed him15 years ago.  He's not handling his return all that well, and into this mix, when he's already off balance?  Delilah.  His attractive personal assistant whose mere presence seems to be the only thing keeping him from slipping right over the edge.

Explaining what makes a really good category romance is often an intangible thing.  The simplest explanation, for me, is that you'll know it when you read it.  This story has that indefinable "magic" that all really good category romances do.  It's a perfect tasty morsel, a candy-coated confection wrapped around an emotionally gutting story.  Two characters, perfectly matched, seemingly with nothing in common, but in truth they have everything in common.  They can only belong with each other.  One doesn't make sense without the other.  Which is exactly what happens with Simon and Delilah.  Two characters both hiding secret pain, both characters who have had to "act" their way through life because of pasts that were traumatic and trying. 

So often when it comes to emotional baggage in this vein, events that happened to the characters when they were children or teenagers, it can be easy to dismiss.  It's never fun to read about a character's endless pity party, and the trick for the author is to write it in a manner where the characters don't come off as sad sacks.  Delilah found herself having to tap-dance, put on a brave face, when her father died and her mother fell apart in her grief.  She's "fine."  Everything is "great."  Because in reality?  It's not great.  Her mother has fallen apart and someone needs to keep the ship sailing.  That's an easy act to keep up even after Mom crawls out of her hole.  She can't very well tell Mom when she's "not fine" because what if that sends Mom back into a tailspin? 

Simon's baggage is a doozy.  Readers who love their heroes really damaged?  Yeah, this is your guy.  The best part of it is that not only is it horrifying and gut-wrenching, but it's also sadly believable.  Simon believes himself a coward, traumatized by an event that wasn't his fault, but unable to move forward from it because his method of "dealing with it" was to shut down.  In other words, it happened 15 years ago.  The past is dead.  Well, until the past comes back to bite you in the ass in the form of a key business trip and an assistant who looks at you with all-knowing and all-seeing eyes.  It's a very tough subject for the author to address though a character, but she does it exceedingly well with Simon, an emotional brick wall at the start of this story.  The author also, wisely, gives just enough back story on this event so that the reader is crystal clear on what happened, but we don't find ourselves wading through awful, horrible details.

It's a deceptively simple story, with zero in the way of external conflict (yeah, yeah - there's the mission of the business trip, but it's very minor).  This is all about the characters, their internal conflict, and them somehow getting to the point where they realize that they cannot live without the other one.  Not anymore.  Because that business trip in Boston shows them both that how they have been living?  Is not living at all.  Simon's past isn't something that will magically go away now that he's admitted to himself and Delilah how he truly feels about her - but you know what?  He's taken the first step.  These two kids, I think they're going to make it.

Grade = A-

Reminder: TBR Challenge for January

For those of you participating in the 2014 TBR Challenge, this is a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, January 15.  This month's theme is We Love Short Shorts!  That means category romance, novellas or short stories.  It's a great way to start the new year, and the challenge, by reading something quick.  However, remember - the themes are totally optional and are not required.  Maybe you hate to read short?  Hey, that's OK!  It's not important what you read, just that you pull something (anything!) out of the TBR pile.

It's also not too late to sign up for this year's challenge.  For more details, please see the information page.

Year In Review: 2013 TBR Challenge Wrap-Up

One of the reasons I like to host to the TBR Challenge is that it keeps me on track to actually complete it.  I figure it wouldn't look too great for the host to skip months, plus I also try to adhere to my own "themes" every month (even though I don't require participants to).  Here are the twelve books I managed to unearth out of the TBR Mountain Range last year.

Title links will take you to full reviews

The Things That Make Me Give In by Charlotte Stein (2010) - Theme: Shorts! (B)

• An anthology of very short fiction by Stein.  At turns funny, sad, and thought-provoking.  A great taste, highly recommended for fans and those curious to try her work.

Promote: To Wife And Mother by Jessica Hart (2008) - Theme: Recommended Read (A)

• The best of the TBR reads this year.  Great romance featuring older characters with real life problems.

A Marriage-Minded Man by Karen Templeton (2009) - Theme: Series You're Behind On (B)

• Templeton writes nice romances about "normal" people.  This one features a reunited couple.  I remember liking it while I was reading it, but it didn't have a ton of "staying power" for me.

Seducing the Duchess by Ashley March (2010) - Theme: New-To-You Author (B+)

• A problematic read that found me at the right time.  Great dialogue and banter in this one.

The Drifter by Susan Wiggs (1998) - Theme: Author With More Than One Book In TBR (B)

• Doctor heroine with baggage finds herself helping a drifter hero on the run.  Solid read, nice Americana feel, but felt the story could have been tighter in spots.

Patrick Gallagher's Widow by Cheryl Reavis (1990) Theme: RITA winner or nominee (B+)

• A book that held up surprisingly well even though I read it 23 years after it's publication date.  Great hero and heroine, but felt that the majority of the secondary characters were stereotypes.

High Noon by Nora Roberts (2007) - Theme: Classic (author, book, trope etc.) (B-)

• Loved the suspense thread in this one and after a string of disappointing reads I practically inhaled this in one sitting.  Did feel the characters were a little too "perfect" though.

Training the Receptionist by Juniper Bell (2010) - Theme: Steamy read (B+)

• Completely devoid of reality, but I loved it anyway.  Directionless heroine takes a secretarial job at a mysterious firm that requires S&M play with the bosses.

Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold by Ellen O'Connell (2010) - Theme: Western (B-)

• Great story buried in subpar writing.  Authors, find a good editor and hug them tight.

The Suicide Club by Gayle Wilson (2007) - Theme: Paranormal or Romantic suspense (C-)

• Great story idea that fumbles on the execution.  Also found the lovey-dovey let's make babies crap at the end really, really jarring considering how the book ends.  But maybe that's just me.

The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran (2008) - Theme: All About The Hype (B)

• Loved the first half of this story when it's set in India, but the story lost steam for me when the couple moves to England and there's an introduction of a suspense subplot. 

A Christmas to Remember by Kay Stockham (2007) - Theme: Holiday (C)

• What started out as a really intriguing angsty-read loses me when the author throws in a plot twist that essentially changes the entire complexion of the story.

Looking at all twelve reads laid out like this, I had a pretty solid year digging books out of the ol' TBR pile.  Remember, it's not too late to join in on the fun for 2014.  For more information about the 2014 TBR Challenge - please check out the information page.

Year In Review: The Good And The Great

When I start to compile titles for my yearly "Best Of" post, I only grab those titles that jump out from my spreadsheet and bite me.  While I didn't read nearly as much as I wanted to in quantity in 2013, I cannot have any complaints about the quality! This is going to be a long post....

Title links will take you to full reviews

Category Romance:

Promoted: To Wife And Mother by Jessica Hart (2008) - Two adults post-40 find love amid their real life complications.  Fantastic read!

His Uptown Girl by Liz Talley (2013) - Heroine still lugging baggage around from Hurricane Katrina falls for a younger, sexy hero - much to the horror of her former in-laws and college-age daughter.

The First Move by Jennifer Lohmann (2013) - Hero spies his former high school dream girl at a wedding and puts on the full court press.  What he doesn't know?  She's an emotional mess with a whole lot of baggage on her plate.

Wish Me Tomorrow by Karen Rock (2013) - Normally B- reads don't get a mention in my "Best Of" posts - but this one was different enough to stick out.  Flipping the script on the "cancer romance" - the hero is the one coping (and not well) with his bone cancer being in remission and his screwed up kids.

Historical Romance:

Sins of a Virgin by Anna Randol (2012) - Bad girl heroine and non-titled characters?  Sign me up!

Falling for the Highland Rogue by Ann Lethbridge (2013) - Bad girl heroine and whiskey-runner hero?  Sign me up!

The Beauty Within by Marguerite Kaye (2013) - Plain Jane heroine falls for sexy Italian artist who has lost his muse. 

Rumors That Ruined a Lady by Marguerite Kaye (2013) - Angst Ahoy!  Heroine who leaves her rat bastard husband almost succumbs to an opium overdose before she's rescued by the hero, a man from her past.

Unraveled by the Rebel by Michelle Willingham (2013) - More Angst Ahoy!  Heroine with a Big Secret finds herself reunited with her childhood sweetheart.

Erotica / Erotic Romance:

Now Or Never by Logan Belle (2013) - 40-something woman with newly empty nest finds herself coping with a cancer diagnosis and the fact that she's let her sexual self wither on the vine.

Addicted by Charlotte Stein (2013) - Repressed heroine attends "Sexual Healing" support group and meets the hero, who is randy to say the least.  I love funny erotica (hey, sex should be fun!), and this one was great.

Contemporary Romance:

Sleigh Bells in the Snow by Sarah Morgan (2013) - Small town romance without any of the crap that annoys me about small town romances.  Cannot wait for next two books in trilogy!

The Bridge by Rebecca Rogers Maher (2013) - A dark read about two people thisclose to committing suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn bridge.  By no means a read for everybody, but really different and very brave.

Hurricane Lily by Rebecca Rogers Maher (2013) - Working Class Hero falls for mentally not-well Poor Little Rich Girl heroine.  It sounds like a train-wreck, but again - really different and very brave.

Romantic Suspense:

Aftershock by Jill Sorenson (2013) - The rebirth of romantic suspense.  A thriller about a group of people trapped under freeway rubble following a massive earthquake.  Great characters, exciting read, couldn't get enough.

Badlands by Jill Sorenson (2014) - Desperately anticipated romance featuring two characters who meet in Aftershock.  A young single mother from a super conservative family and the young punk convict plastered with white supremacist tattoos who falls hopelessly in love with her.

Oddballs:

Sea Change by Karen White (Romantic Elements) (2012) - Southern Gothic with light romantic elements.  Heroine impulsively married a man who wasn't entirely forthcoming about his past and is confronted by her own family secrets.

Such A Rush by Jennifer Echols (Young Adult) (2012) - Poor white trash heroine looking to escape the trailer park finds herself torn between two hunky twin brothers (well, sort of - you'll just have to read it!).

Next up, the final post recapping my 2013 reading year - a final rundown of the books I read as part of the 2013 TBR Challenge!

Year In Review: The Numbers And General Observations

With the start of a new year I always like to take a few moments in January to take a look back at the previous year's reading.  Whether people actually want to wade through these posts or not, I always find it interesting to look back and remember, especially, the good, solid books that I spent time with. 

In years past I kept a spreadsheet with somewhat detailed statistics (like publication year, publisher, genres etc.), and I started out that way in 2013 as well.  However, given that I'm still a half-assed member of GoodReads (my reviews over there tend to be rather lax), it seemed redundant to keep statistics at multiple places.  Plus, I'm getting lazier in my old age.  So towards the end of the year I started ignoring the spreadsheet, even though I did have more detail on it, and figured GoodReads was "good enough." 

You can see all the books I read in 2013 over there, but for the sake of boring everyone to tears, here is a brief rundown of my reflections looking strictly at the numbers.

My goal for 2013 was to read 100 books - which is actually my goal every blessed year.  I'm a slow reader, and while I don't have children, I do have a full time job, am in a relationship and watch entirely too much baseball during the summer months.  So trying to hit 100 is an accomplishment for me - and one I'm not above "cheating" to get to.  Yes, novellas count the same as single titles.  Fair?  Probably not.  But my reading universe, my rules.

That said, I only managed to read 86 books last year.  Looking at the total number of pages read (a stat GoodReads keeps that I never have), the average length of the books I read was 251 pages.

Gah, that's just depressing.  Yes, I read a lot of category romance - but geez, at only 251 pages per book you think I would have gotten through more than 86!  In fact the longest book I read was High Noon by Nora Roberts, which clocks in at just over 460 pages.  Sad Wendy, just really sad.

Looking at grades though, my spirits lift somewhat.  I may have only read 86 books, but the quality was pretty darn good.  The bulk of my reading tends to fall in the B/C range, and that held true for this year.  My B reads were nice and high!

5 Star / A Grades = 3
4 Star / B Grades = 51
3 Star / C Grades + lower B- = 19
2 Star / D Grades = 8
1 Star / F Grades = 2
DNF (for whatever reason) = 3

These numbers are super consistent for me.  Digging around in my archives, here are numbers for 2012 and 2011.  Gee, notice a pattern?

A = 6 (2012) ; 2 (2011)
B = 54 (2012) ; 54 (2011)
C = 24 (2012) ; 23 (2011)
D = 10 (2012) ; 11 (2011)
F = 1 (2012) ; 0 (2011)
DNF = 5 (2012) ; 5 (2011)

I actually really like a lot of the books I read, which I guess means I better man up or else I'm going to get kicked out of the Mean Girls Club!

Looking ahead to 2014, there are a couple of things I would like to accomplish. 

1) I really need to dig around in the print TBR mountain range and start cleaning it out.  I've got a massive horde of books, some of which I just know I'll never read or no longer have an interest in reading.  What I need to do is pull a few books every month, read the first few pages of each one and make the Should-It-Stay-Or-Should-It-Go decision. 

2) I probably should be reading more publishers, but damn - it's hard when you're a category romance addict and Harlequin has me auto-approved on NetGalley.  But I'm going to try....

3) Get more consistent with my reading time.  In other words: Wendy stop bringing home baggage from work.  Yes, it's easier to zone out in front of the TV after a crap day, but at least try to get a couple of chapters read every day.

4) Learn to DNF more - especially with TBR Challenge books.  In a perfect world I would love all my 2014 TBR Challenge reads to be A or B grades.  Oh a girl can dream!

Next up?  I want to revisit the really memorable (in a good way!) reads of 2013.  Stay tuned....

Broken Promises for the Baby

Note: I know the author.  She was RWA's Librarian of the Year 2010, and I received the honor in 2011.  We are professional colleagues, and we presented together at Librarians Day at RWA Atlanta in 2013.  This is her third published novel and the third one I've read/reviewed.  I really liked the first two books in this trilogy, the second likely to end up as part of my "Best Of" for 2013.  All this to preface saying I hope she'll still speak to me if she sees this review....

A Promise for the Baby is the third book in Jennifer Lohmann's trilogy about three siblings.  The Milek kids grew up in a Polish-American enclave in Chicago, and what has been great fun about this series is how Lohmann has infused a lot of "small town" sensibilities in these books by setting her stories in a "neighborhood" of a "big city."  The culture, the sights, the sounds, the food!  It makes for such a really great concept.  That being said, I felt the strength of Lohmann's first two books were really her dynamite heroines.  Her heroes?  Were OK blokes, but not as strongly drawn (in my opinion).  So how would I like this last book featuring brother Karl Milek?  Turns out I was fine with him.  Oh the irony that I spent the entire novel feeling stabby towards the heroine.

From the time he was sixteen, Karl Milek has been tied to his clear sense of duty, justice and right vs. wrong.  His older brother, father and uncle were all killed by a drunk driver.  The driver had a history of DUIs, but he stayed on the payroll at his trucking company because somebody bribed a city official to overlook those transgressions.  Needless to say Karl grew up to become a lawyer and now works as the Inspector General for Chicago.  Basically it's Karl's job to ferret out corruption, which I mean - in Chicago?  Karl is a busy guy.  He's all work and no play, with one failed marriage already under his belt.  So naturally his well-meaning, meddling secretary practically pushes him out the door to a conference in Las Vegas, where, when he's confronted by his past, Karl gets rip-roaring drunk in the hotel bar one night.  He meets Vivien Yap in that bar, they get rip-roaring drunk together, get married, and oopsie, guess what?  Vivien shows up in Chicago a few weeks later to tell Karl she's pregnant.

Vivien comes to Chicago not only to tell Karl about the baby, but also because she's out of options.  She's been fired from her casino job and Dear Old Dad has cleaned out her bank account and anything remotely of value from her apartment.  Basically Vivien drives across country and arrives on Karl's doorstep in a car running on gas fumes and $10 in her pocket.  She's broker than broke.  She may not know Karl all that well, but she knows enough to know he's a "fixer."  She also knows that he won't kick her out on the streets - and our girl needs a place to live, time to find a job, and health insurance for her and the baby.

This story started out a little slow for me, mostly because it takes a while for the author to really delve into the characters.  For the first several chapters I felt like I was reading about people I had no firm handle on.  I knew Karl a little from the previous books, but since he's a stiff upper lip sort, he's not exactly forthcoming about, well, anything.  And Vivien is a completely new arrival into this trilogy's universe.

But the character development gains some traction once Vivien's Big Secret is revealed.  OK, this is good.  I finally have a nice handle on the characters and am learning more about them as people.  The problem is the more I learn, the more I loathe Vivien.  The Big Secret involves her father and why she got fired from her casino job in Vegas.  It's a doozy.  And naturally Karl finds out the truth via a third party and he is none too pleased.  I don't blame Karl one bit for being angry, especially 1) given his job and 2) having a deeply ingrained sense of duty.  Is Karl uptight and have a stick shoved up his ass?  Yes.  However this doesn't make him wrong.  And Vivien getting irritated with him when she's the one so clearly in the wrong is just annoying as all get out.  The worst of it is that Karl then spends the rest of the story having to 1) work through his issues and 2) gets treated like a villain even though his wife and her idiot father are the screw-ups.

That's the real problem - Vivien's Dear Old Dad, who is piss-poor con man.  Vivien has spent her entire childhood constantly moving around because Daddy needs to clear out when his schemes blow up in his face.  This is a guy who blew through her college fund, but it's OK because she's such a resourceful girl and she'll find some other way to pay for school.  This is a guy who robs his own daughter blind and skips out of Vegas - leaving her with nothing.  No job (thanks to him), no hope of ever finding another job in Vegas, no money, and nothing left for her to even pawn/sell.  Yet this asshole is still in her life because he was a single father and "did the best he could" and it's wasn't "all bad," Vivien has some "good memories."  And naturally Daddy comes sniffing around her again as soon as he needs something from her - ie. money.  And well she just can't say no to him!  And golly gee, he deserves the chance to know his grandchild!

Where is a shotgun when you need one?

Maybe I'm cold-hearted but if my father did half the stuff Vivien's Dad did to her?  It would go like this:

Dear Dad.  Leave me alone.  Stop contacting me.  I've filed a police report about the money and personal possessions you stole from me.  There's now a warrant out for your arrest, so I'd lay low if I were you.  Oh, and here's a restraining order.  Go to hell.  Sincerely, Me.

But Vivien can't do this because, well, she's a romance heroine.  Dear Old Dad basically gets to keep on doing what he's always done.  Karl sort of deals with the problem at the end by throwing money at him.  Because it will make Vivien happy to have her father stay in her life and get to know their baby (!!!!).

I WOULD NOT WANT THIS LEECH ANYWHERE NEAR ME LET ALONE MY INNOCENT CHILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the lesson here is that Karl is the "bad guy" for being a judgmental prick (which he is, but it doesn't necessarily make him wrong).  Vivien's Dad gets a big check and the opportunity to keep having a relationship (and I use the term loosely since relationship to this man = what can you do for me) with his daughter and his future grandchild.  

This book technically ends happily, but all I can think about is the other shoe waiting to drop.  Oh sure, Karl can tie it all up in a bow, giving his father-in-law stipulations, but once a blood-sucking leech, always a blood-sucking leech.  And Vivien shows that while she can say "no" to him, she doesn't have the balls to cut this toxic asshole out of her life completely and forever.  Because, you know, the baby.  And he was a "good father" who "did the best he could."  Oh really?  Before or after he stole your college fund and then robbed you blind as an adult?

Yes, it would be a cryin' shame if that baby didn't get to know this asshole.  Boo-frickin'-hoo.

Seriously, it left me so very irritated.  I didn't see Karl as a bad guy no matter how unreasonable Vivien thought he was being.  You know why he doesn't trust you cupcake?  Look at your bloody track record.  I wouldn't trust you as far as I can throw a rock.

And I throw like a girl. 

Final Grade = D

Digital Review: Under A New Year's Enchantment

Under a New Year's Enchantment by Barbara Monajem is the second short story in a duet and continues where Under a Christmas Spell left off.  Lucie (a succubus) and Valiant (an incubus) are still at the house party being hosted by Garrick, Lord Westerly.  They were both given a mission - Lucie is to work her sensual magic on Garrick, who has been asexual since returning from the war.  Valiant was to "awaken" the desires of Miss Theodora Southern, who has some foolish notion that she'll never marry.  The problem is that being an incubus and/or a succubus isn't an exact science.  The other attendees of the house party are getting a wee bit hot and bothered as well!

Naturally though some of those erotic dreams and visions are hitting their marks.  Theodora, who grew up with Garrick and impulsively proposed to him (yes, she proposed marriage to him!) before he left for the war.  Garrick let her down gently, but still it's an awkward elephant left standing in the room between them.  So when she slips out at night to look at some old Roman ruins that Garrick discovered on his estate, and he dresses her down when he mistakes her for one of the pushy young thangs trying to finagle marriage out of him?  She's so ticked off she's breathing fire.  Passions already running high from the erotic dreams, Garrick knows he must apologize to Theodora - something not easy to accomplish when every time he sees her he's picturing her naked and in his bed.

I love house party settings in historical romances, and coupled with the holiday atmosphere this makes for a fun read.  I also really liked both the hero and heroine.  I loved that Theodora is refreshingly "modern" and forthright, but still feels true to the time period.  Garrick is suitably surly, and I loved that he recognizes rather quickly that he was 1) an ass and 2) needs to find a way to apologize to Theodora without compromising her reputation (she was, after all, alone on the grounds after dark....).

What didn't work as well for me?  Well, this really is the second part of a duet.  I just don't think this story hangs very well on it's own.  Readers really will get more out of it by having read the first one.  The paranormal elements were light to begin with, but in this second entry they're even more glossed over.  Garrick knows exactly what Valiant is, but even knowing that?  I never felt like Theodora and Garrick were "out of their heads" and not aware of their actions.  These two belong together, it's just the erotic presence of an incubus and a succubus sort of juice up the proceedings a bit.  I also felt like the ending to the whole affair of why Valiant and Lucie were assigned to meddle could have been spelled out a little clearer.

Still, it's a quick holiday read - and I enjoyed the duet technique employed for these two romances.  Both stories were quick, sexy, and had just the right amount of holiday flavor to keep me entertained during a very busy time of year. 

Final Grade = B-