Happy Birthday Blog, Be Home By Curfew

17 years ago, when dinosaurs were still roaming the Internet, social media didn't exist, Amazon/Google/Facebook weren't vying for The Literal Worst Award, and I knew a lot less about the dirty laundry lurking in corners of book publishing, I started this blog. I was still a young, optimistic, entry-level-ish librarian working in a one-horse Midwestern town and shopping at Waldenbooks.  For those of you now asking the question "Walden What Now?!?!" you have no idea what you missed out on. Seriously, those were the days.

And here I am - all these years later.  Older, crankier, but still loving romance, still believing in the job that gets me out of bed everyday and pays the bills but now working in an area where eleventy billion live with not enough affordable housing to go around. The world's on fire, I know WAY more than I ever wanted to about publishing and authors in general, and yes...I still love romance.

I've been around so long, have written for so many defunct online publications (The Romance Reader, Reader's Gab, Romancing the Blog, Heroes & Heartbreakers...) but the one constant has been this mighty blog. There were years I wrote great blog posts and years I've written terrible ones and years I've barely hung on by my fingernails (pretty much where I've been in the last 3-4 years).  I have all the authority and gravitas in Romancelandia as a slightly wilted plant you forgot that you stuffed in a corner, but 17 years here and 21 years in Romancelandia (in general) affords me...well something.  Probably a secret decoder ring in the bottom of a cereal box.  So in honor of this auspicious occasion I thought it was time to offer some advice to Romancelandia that nobody asked for but I'm going to give anyway.  Because, again, old and cranky.

1) Read. What. You. Want. Yes, even if the cool kids aren't reading it.

2) That being said, don't be afraid to try a new author, revisit a trope you may not be wild about, expand your horizons. There's A LOT in the genre these days. Sample the buffet.

3) So much I want to say here along the lines of "don't be a racist bigoted jackhole" and "stop denying anyone their right to basic humanity" but I think I'll just settle for the more succinct Don't Be A Jerk.  Love is an amazing, beautiful universal human emotion. People who read and write romance (for cripes sake!) should have no issue with embracing that and yet here we are. 

4) Unplug for your mental health. Or as I like to call it - get the hell off Twitter every once in a while. However long that needs to be to maintain some shred of sanity.

5) It's OK to like problematic sh*t.  No, really - it is.  But recognize it. Own it. Don't get your hackles up about it. You know what's sexy? Self-awareness. Maybe unpack some of that personal baggage. Nobody is saying you have to flaunt it all over the Interwebs but my kingdom for a little reader and writer introspection.

6) And for the record - ALL Y'ALL LIKE PROBLEMATIC SH*T.  You're not special.  It smells like fertilizer left out in the sun just like everybody else's problematic faves.

7) There are no cool kids.  Oh sure, everybody THINKS there are cool kids which just leads to massive inferiority complexes.  I feel like I need a button that says Radically Uncool Blogger Since 2003.

8) It's totally OK to not like something. Even if it's a book that all the mythical cool kids are raving about.  Oh the books I've disliked over the years.  The books I'm like, "Really, what now?!"  You're not alone.  It's just that thanks to social media vacuums and sucky people sucking it's super hard to find any hint of "discourse" when talking books anymore.  It's all a Cacophony of Squee.  Which leads me too...

9) Not everything is a squee. For the love of all the deities.  Reminder: I'm old and cranky and yell at clouds a lot.

10) Find your voice, raise it up, support folks in Romancelandia you want to support.

11) Never, ever be ashamed of reading something that makes you happy.  Don't let anyone dim your sunshine. Even cranky old librarians who yell at clouds.

It's been a wild 17 years on this blog. A lot has happened. Some for good, some for ill. But I still love ya Romancelandia. Shine on.

Unusual Historical Top Picks for February 2020

Here we are in February 2020 and I feel like this year is out to get me. I’m starting to take it personally. My reading so far has been fairly lackluster and the continued RWA crisis has now devolved into me keeping a small pillow on my desk for fear of repeated concussions. Hey, at least I have half-priced Valentine’s Day candy and a new crop of unusual historicals to cheer me up. Here are the February publications catching my eye:

An Unconventional Affair by Stacy Reid (Kindle Unlimited)

Maximillian Langdon, Earl Kentwood, is the author of the ton’s most salacious erotic literature: A guide to passionate romps between a lord and his lady. His name whispers on the tongues of gentlemen and ladies in shocked and admiring tones. Everyone believes he is London’s greatest lover, except Lord Kentwood is still a virgin. Now he's determined to rectify that situation before being revealed as a fraud, and London’s latest on dit!  

With a reputation forever tarnished by scandal, Lady Amelie Weatherston is resigned to an unfulfilled life. She is also a member of a secret widow’s club. Her mission: to seduce London’s most delectable lover and report her findings to help her wicked widow friends keep their protectors happy! A passionate affair de Coeur starts and for a time banishes the loneliness in her heart. The earl of debauchery is not what he seems, and Amelie finds herself falling in love with a man who might never see her as more than a wicked widow not worthy of his heart. 

Get. In. My. Eyeballs. Now. Yes, we’ve all read this story before but Reid takes it, flips the script, and puts the shoe on the opposite genders’ foot. The virgin hero (not heroine) writing salacious novels. The rakish heroine (not hero) who has been tasked with unmasking the debauched writer’s secrets. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Into the Lyon’s Den by Jade Lee (Kindle Unlimited)

Intrigue makes for strange bedfellows...  

Elliott, Lord Byrn, often found himself in strange places, but none is more bizarre than the infamous Lyon’s Den gaming house in a tony part of London. The gambling doesn’t surprise him, nor the salacious things rumored to happen in the upstairs rooms. What shocks him is a slip of a girl jeweler/fence who bargains with him over a missing brooch. He needs her to refashion the thing before anyone else realizes it is missing and she drives a hard bargain.

Harder than he can imagine...  

Amber Gohar lives her days in the gray world of a gambling hell, but she dreams of escaping into the vibrant world of the ton. When the opportunity arises for her to spend just one night at a society ball, she grabs it with both hands, never expecting that she would also be taking hold of a man who set her heart on fire. But once she realizes what she’s done, she won’t let go. She can’t. Happily ever after doesn’t come easily, or for free, in the world of The Lyon's Den.  

How these two unlikely bedfellows discover their best bargain will set both the ton, and The Lyon’s Den, on fire. 

A hero with his back against a wall and a heroine who drives a hard bargain to parlay her way into catching a glimpse of life among society’s elite. The promise of built-in tension with a cross-class romance and how the author is going to work that into a happy ending is always something I’m intrigued by.

Uncovering the Merchant's Secrets by Elisabeth Hobbes

A man with no past… could she hold the key to his future?  

Shipwrecked merchant Jack Langdon wakes with no memory and steals a kiss from a beautiful stranger—widow Blanche Tanet. As he recovers in her castle, passion flares between them. Jack’s fascinated by her independence and courage but, discovering his identity is not what it seems. Jack must first uncover the secrets of his own past if they’re to have a future together… 

I like medievals but to be brutally honest, it’s a lot of knights. Hobbes is one of my go-to authors writing in this time period and hello there, we have a merchant hero with amnesia! And a widowed heroine! And flaring passions! Huzzah!

Freedom’s Price by Jenna Kernan (Kindle Unlimited)

Gritty, sweeping tale of love, resilience and tenacity in the New World wilds of Virginia.  

To survive on his newly cleared land outside Jamestown, Thomas Deed needs a field hand, not a wet-nurse. But instead of doing the rational thing, he fulfills a deathbed promise to protect his sister’s son, borrowing against his land to acquire a woman to care for the babe. Mary Price surprises him, adapting to her harsh surroundings and quickly becoming a godsend.  

Newly arrived mother, Mary Price, must stay with Deed during the term of her service or lose all hope of reunion with her sister. She vows to work so hard that he will never give her up but succeeds in ways she never expected. As they struggle against the wilderness, his spirit to protect and provide for her and the babes stirs her to unrealized desire and makes her long to stay at his side.  

But when fate tests them both, will Deed give her up or find a way to keep her for a lifetime? 

Kernan wrote this book on the advice of an editor who suggested she try a different time period. What the editor failed to mention was that the publisher wouldn’t buy anything in the American Colonial time period. However it was too late, Kernan was hooked on the idea and completed the book even though she was advised by nearly everybody that the audience for such a book would be too small. Well here’s your chance colonial fans! Prove ‘em wrong!

Duke Darcy’s Castle by Syrie James

Lance Granville, the Tenth Duke of Darcy, was none too happy to give up his career in the Royal Navy to inherit the family title, complete with an ancient castle he needs to renovate. When an architect arrives on his doorstep, Darcy is astonished to discover that she’s a woman.  

Kathryn Atherton has one goal: to become the first woman architect in Britain. Marriage doesn’t figure in her plans. Despite the odds, her schooling is behind her. Now she needs experience. When she’s sent to a small tidal island in Cornwall to remodel a castle, the last thing Kathryn wants is to be attracted to its roguishly handsome owner.  

Kathryn is determined to keep things professional, but the sizzling attraction between her and the duke quickly blazes out of control. When Darcy learns that Kathryn is an heiress whose fortune would save St. Gabriel’s Mount, he wages the most important battle of his life: to woo and win the woman who’s captured his heart. But duchesses can’t be architects. And Kathryn has worked too long and too hard to give up her dreams… 

Two words: Lady. Architect. OK, two more words: Ancient. Castle. One word: Swoon.

What unusual historicals are you looking forward to reading?

#TBRChallenge 2019: A Temporary Arrangement

The Book: A Temporary Arrangement by Roxanne Rustand

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin SuperRomance #1362, 2006, book 3 in trilogy, out of print, not available digitally (at time of this review posting).

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: The used bookstore price stamp was still on the front cover.  My guess is I read a plot description somewhere (most likely RT Book Reviews) and it made me curious enough to pick up a copy.  It's the only book by this author I had in my print TBR and 2006 was before I converted my Harlequin spending habit to digital.

The Review: I had a brain fart this month and picked my read based on the incorrect assigned "optional" theme.  I still managed to make the Friends theme work with this book, but unfortunately that didn't elevate the story.  This one is a mess y'all.

Abby Cahill is a nursing instructor who is looking to brush up her resume with some more recent clinical experience prior to moving to California. She accepts a job offer at Blackberry Hill Memorial, a small hospital in picturesque small town summer tourist area Wisconsin.  The director of nursing is retiring and the replacement can't come on board until September.  Abby has agreed to serve as an interim director for the summer.

Unfortunately the apartment complex she was slated to move into has had a fire and now she has no place to live.  Tourist season is underway and housing options are limited to non-existent.  She rents a place from a cantankerous old coot with super-sonic hearing and she's quickly evicted thanks to her BFF's kids (more on that in a bit).  The answer to her prayers?  Ethan Matthews, a reclusive wildlife biologist who shows up in the ER needing emergency surgery.  Surgery that requires him to be evac'ed to The Big City hospital. That leaves his son without someone to watch him (Ethan's ex-wife is out of town on business), Abby steps in to watch the kid overnight, and eventually the arrangement is extended.

Lord above, where to start?  Abby rolls into town and takes the apartment from the cantankerous old coot because she's desperate. OK, fine. But she knows UP FRONT what sort of guy he is.  What does she do?  Volunteer to babysit her BFF's three kids (2 boys, 1 girl - all under the age of 12) who are described as "a handful."  Was her BFF in a bind?  Was there a dire emergency?  No.  BFF is pregnant and tired and Abby wants to help her out.  Look, nothing wrong with this. Admirable even.  BUT ABBY KNOWS WHAT SORT OF MAN HER LANDLORD IS!  Does she send the BFF off to a hotel out of town  to get away for a few days and watch the kids at her house?  No.  The boisterous brats spend the night at Abby's place and viola! Evicted. Plot contrivance right on cue...

I won't even get into the fact that her apartment burning down before she moves in and not a whiff of a mention of renter's insurance is discussed.  Who knows? Maybe she hadn't signed the lease yet?  Maybe she hadn't contacted the insurance company yet?  Loss of Use is something you think about when you've had to evac because of a wildfire - just sayin'.

When Ethan shows up in the ER they immediately pump him full of painkillers and he's adament about the hospital social worker not placing his kid in the system, even if it's temporary.  There's also NO DISCUSSION about locating another relative.  I mean, it's possible it's just Ethan, his ex-wife and the kid - but the "let's call a family member" suggestion isn't even mentioned.  Instead it's let this total stranger head of nursing watch my kid - here's the keys to my house.  All this after Ethan makes a snap judgement about Abby's parental skills (he thinks the BFFs "handful" kids are Abby's kids) which then leads to nonsense about "city girls" and "career girls" the rest of the frickin' story.  Shoot me now.

Besides the fact that Abby and Ethan aren't really on page together much (outside of the ER visit) until after page 70 (yes, a longer category romance but still - less than 300 pages y'all!) they don't spend an exorbitant amount of time together.  Abby's working.  Ethan is working and brooding.  There's his kid.  There's a pile of secondary characters.  Oh, and someone is lurking around Ethan's remote ranch sabotaging stuff and someone is out to discredit Abby at work.  So you've got two half-baked suspense threads wedged in with all the stuff that already isn't working.  When the couple decides they might have feelings for each other, I have to wonder...how, exactly?!? There's really no build up of the relationship to lead up to that point.

To be honest I should have DNF'ed this.  I pretty much knew 50 pages in that it wasn't going to work for me - but I'm in a dismal slump at the moment and wasn't left with enough time to complete the challenge.  Yeah, this could have been a DNF review, but soldier on and all that.  Done. Moving on. Hoping for better things on the horizon.

Final Grade = D-

Review: The Sun Down Motel

Hi Future Wendy, it's Past Wendy. I'm writing to you from August 25, 2019.  About a week ago your mind got blown when Berkley actually approved your NetGalley request for The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. The book isn't actually out until February 18, 2020 (um, that's tomorrow for you Future Wendy...) but Past Wendy knew that as much as she would end up regretting it later, she had to read this book Right. Now.  Why regrets?  Because it would mean just having to wait that much longer for St. James' next book.  Past Wendy, having read this book 6 months before the release date is now waiting 6 months longer than Future Wendy for the next book (got all that?).  But seriously, I had to read this book right away.  And, of course, it was all the happy book noises you can imagine.

In 1982, 20-year-old Vivian "Viv" Delaney runs away from her small Illinois town to escape an overbearing mother.  Her parting shot? I'm going to New York City to be an actress!  Where Viv ends up is in upstate Fell, New York.  The town is a bit dark, a bit odd, but something about it speaks to Viv, so she stays.  She gets a job as the night clerk at The Sun Down Motel, one of those seedy around the edges places that never realized it's full potential. However, like Fell itself, there's something not quite right about the motel.  There are unexplained events, ghosts that walk the halls, and given how small Fell is, they sure do have a problem with missing and dead girls.  Then, one night, Viv disappears...without a trace.

Fast forward to 2017 and Viv's niece, Carly Kirk, has landed in Fell.  Carly was born after her aunt's disappearance.  She's presumed dead, but a body was never found and her death left a chasm in the family.  Carly's mother, Viv's younger sister, succumbed to cancer, haunted by her older sister's disappearance.  20-year-old Carly, still grieving for her mom, not sure what she wants to do with her life, decides a break from college is in order. What she knows for sure is she wants answers.  How does a pretty 20-year-old in a small town just vanish? And her body never recovered? It's not right, and Carly decides she's going to go to Fell and get some answers.  She's not even in town for a day before she finds herself a roommate (in her aunt's old apartment no less!) and a job working the night shift at the Sun Down - still just as haunted 30 years later.

St. James' work generally skirts around the fringes of "romantic elements" and while Carly does get a "love interest" over the course of the story, it's very much a secondary element with the suspense and Gothic setting taking center stage.  As creepy as I thought St. James' last book was, this one is even creepier.  As in, it left me feeling unsettled - which having cut my teeth on Nancy Drew and reading Patricia Cornwell by the age of 16 well...unsettling Wendy takes some doing.  Fell is a fictional town, but the upstate New York setting is inspired, the town locked away in time (Carly finds herself pulling old newspapers at the library because the archives haven't been digitized yet) with spotty cell reception, and seriously, No Name Motels are right up there with vans that don't have any side windows.  Creepy.

But the genius of this story is how St. James centers it on the female gaze.  This is, by far, the most interesting female-centric suspense novel I've read in a while because ALL the female characters are interesting, multi-faceted and calling the shots. Viv, realizing nothing is being done about all the murdered women that keep turning up in Fell decides to play amateur sleuth and...solves it.  The cops cannot seem to find a connection between the victims, but she does.  Carly, grieving and determined, wants answers to what happened to Aunt Viv, which means retracing her steps and stumbling across the same mystery of the murdered women.  There's Alma, the only female cop on the Fell police force, dealing with rampant 1982 sexism on the job, and relegated to the night shift because...of course she is.  She's an unvarnished straight-shooter but also kind of sly and slick, which I tend to gravitate towards in female cop and PI characters.  And then there's Marnie, a photographer getting by, occasionally doing freelance for the cops at crime scenes, and entering Viv's orbit because she was hired to tail a married woman meeting her lover at the Sun Down.  These are also women cognizant of the road blocks they face because, men.  The 1982 story line in particular.  It's enraging, but riveting to read about the women circumventing these obstacles thrown in their way.

If I have any gripes about this story it's that I felt the beginning was a little slow to start and the ending a little too rushed - but it's creepy, it's compelling, and it's filled with dynamite female characters working to solve the mystery and find justice.  It's not my favorite of St. James' oeuvre (which is basically splitting hairs anyway) but it's so very good.  Dark, compelling, creepy, the kind of book that keeps you up at night flipping the pages.

Final Grade = A

Retro Review: Under the Covers

This review of Under the Covers by Rita Herron was first published by The Romance Reader in 2002. Back then I rated it 3-Hearts (C grade) with a sensuality rating of PG-13.

+++++

Dr. Abigail Jensen is the latest media sensation thanks to her new book, Under the Covers. Abby is a marriage counselor who wrote the book to help monogamous couples communicate more effectively. Unfortunately, all the media can harp on is the s-e-x - even calling her the Dear Abby of the bedroom. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, on the same day that her book is released, she gets a Dear John letter from her husband. Seems Lenny likes men just as much as Abby does.

Mortified, she also learns that her marriage is a sham - they were married by a con man. However, the hits just keep on coming - what if Lenny was in on the scam from the very beginning? With her book poised to be a big success, her publicist wants a media blitz - and everyone wants to meet Dr. Abby’s new husband.

Hunter Stone is a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution who is eager to climb up the ladder - and Dr. Abby Jensen is his first class ticket. He just knows this woman is hiding something and he’s going to dig up enough dirt to get him that investigative reporting job he’s been gunning for. Not only that, it sure would feel good to get back at the woman he feels is responsible for the break-up of his first marriage.

Abby’s publicist isn’t going to budge, so she figures her only option is to hire an actor to impersonate Lenny. Her younger sister happens to be a budding actress. Not so lucky is that the man Chelsea has hired to play Lenny is none other that Hunter Stone.

Under the Covers works when the focus is solely on Abby - she’s really a likable heroine. Lenny’s deception has sent her self-esteem in a tailspin. How can she be giving advice to couples when she couldn’t figure out the man she thought she married was not only a con artist but also gay? She’s a natural born caregiver, having spent her childhood being more responsible than her parents. She has a grand relationship with her two sisters - Chelsea, the free spirit and Victoria, the no-nonsense lawyer. 

Original Cover

It takes considerably longer to warm up to Hunter - mainly because he’s an idiot. He blames the failure of his first marriage on Abby. Why? Because his wife attended one of her seminars. Uh huh. Thankfully, once he begins to spend time with Abby he starts to reevaluate his preconceived notions. It’s during these moments when Hunter is questioning what he thinks he knows, and what he thinks he feels, that his character begins to polish up as hero material.

Unfortunately, Under the Covers tries too hard in the madcap, zany comedy department and it detracts from the love story. There are all sorts of wacky adventures that only resorted in my groaning, and rolling my eyes - most of which involve Chelsea. Whether she’s dressing up like a banana to land a TV commercial or passing herself off as a stripper - when she’s not spending sisterly time with Victoria and Abby she firmly sits in too-stupid-to-live territory. The final straw was the farting dog.

There’s also the small, very annoying matter of Hunter’s five-year-old daughter, Lizzie. She’s among the insufferable crop of romance novel children who talks in unending baby-talk, dripping enough sugary sweetness on the page to put a diabetic in a coma. I kept hoping someone would smother her in her sleep - maybe along with the farting dog.

Strip away the wackiness, as well as the cutesy kid, and Under the Covers is a fine contemporary read. It may register higher marks for readers looking for screwball comedy. This reviewer was just worn out from wading through wacky land to get to the romance.

+++++

Wendy Looks Back: I know the last several retro reviews I've posted will look like I'm "picking on" cartoon covers - but seriously, is it any wonder I have trust issues?  I know they're the hot thing du jour in 2020 but....I've been down this road before it was bumpy y'all. 

Anyway, not a lot of recall on this one other than I really should have trademarked "wading through wacky land." Also reading in between the lines of this nearly 20-year-old review, something tells me the gay con man ex was not necessarily written with nuance and/or sensitivity. 

Reminder: #TBRChallenge Day is February 19!

A reminder that #TBRChallenge day is Wednesday, February 19.  This month's (always optional) theme is Friends.

In a bid to shake some dust off the Challenge, I decided to toss in a few more "open-ended" themes this year.  Friends can be whatever wish it to be. Take a look at your TBR and see how this theme could tie into some of the books lingering there.

However, if you're not in the mood, can't be bothered, whatever your reasons may be....no problem!  Remember, the themes are always optional.

You can learn more about the Challenge and see the list of participating folks on the Information Page.

Retro Review: Runaway Hearts

This review of Runaway Hearts by Katie Rose was first published by The Romance Reader in 2001.  Back then I rated it 4-Hearts (B grade) with a sensuality rating of PG-13.

+++++

While many young ladies may think a lack of suitors disastrous, Mary Lou Finch has resigned herself to a life of spinsterhood and scholastics. That is until she learns daddy invested their entire life savings on a thoroughbred that has turned up missing. Mary Lou was counting on using her dowry money to support herself! Determined to not be a destitute spinster, she makes her way to Milltown, NY and the scene of the crime.

Seems like a good plan, until the owner of the missing horse finds her snooping in his stables. Pierce Thorndike has had his eye out for suspicious characters. Not only was his prize thoroughbred stolen, but also the horse’s trainer was found murdered. Mary Lou immediately intrigues Pierce, and when she stammers that she is at Graystone Lodge to apply for the governess position - well he knows she’s not being entirely truthful. Nevertheless, the fact is, his son needs a teacher, and Edward has already managed to chase off a good many.

By day, Mary Lou tutors Edward, coaxing the boy out of a shell he erected after his mother’s death and the trainer’s murder. By night, she takes to snooping for clues, only to have Pierce turn up at inopportune times. The closer she gets to unraveling the mystery, the more she is drawn to the handsome, brooding man of the house.

Runaway Hearts is a fun, light-hearted romance. There may be a murderer on the loose, but this book is anything but dark. Mary Lou is an interesting heroine, and one that I immediately liked. She is described as unfashionably plump, with voluptuous curves, and a weakness for sweets. My kind of girl. On the inside, she is quite intelligent, having been to university, with a compassionate nature that works wonders on both Edward and Pierce.

Pierce is a widower, all business, and out of sorts where is son is concerned. The child needs a firm hand, but also understanding. As Mary Lou helps Edward, she in turn helps Pierce, who feels guilty over his wife’s death and that of his trainer. What is refreshing here, is that while his first marriage was the typical unhappy one found in thousands of other romance novels, he does not think that all women are evil, and doesn’t even actively loathe his former wife. This displays maturity in him, and makes him a worthy match for the inquisitive Miss Finch.

While a sweet romance, I was less satisfied with the mystery in Runaway Hearts. It is pretty simplistic and rather on the light side, which may be just the thing for strict romance readers. However, if you are an equally rabid mystery fan, as I am, you will likely figure this one out rather early on. Moreover, while Mary Lou is a worthy romance heroine, she isn’t going to put my favorite amateur sleuths out of business. The way she happens upon clues, and formulates theories is nothing extraordinary, but the men surrounding her find her deductive reasoning skills exceptional. Pierce would do good to look into hiring a more competent police force, who are unable to crack the case, while a governess comes in and ties everything up in a neat package.

I was swept up in the romance as the author provides some well done tender moments between the couple. While the mystery needed some oomph, Rose’s nicely done characterizations were such that what could have been a big problem for this reader, became nothing more than a minor quibble. Her creation of Mary Lou alone kept me turning the pages, adding Pierce and Edward into the mix only sealed the deal.

++++++

Wendy Looks Back: Sorry guys, I have literally zero recall on this book.  Of course it's been 19 years ::shrug emoji::.  Rose eventually made the move to contemporary sports romance (baseball) and her last published book was in 2016.