Review: Her Lady's Honor

Her desires could be trampled by anyone else, simply because Beatrice was the spinster sibling with no rights of her own. She'd often wondered if being married would give her slightly more power, or if she'd end up as a shell of herself like Mother had.

Her Lady's Honor by Renee Dahlia has a back cover blurb that has been haunting my dreams since I first read it months ago.  So I was all set to love this story to the moon and back when I finally settled in to read it.  How did it turn out?  Well, it was kind of a mixed bag.

Lady Eleanor "Nell" St. George, daughter of a second son, niece to a Duke, used her wits and her family connections to join the war effort as a veterinary assistant.  Dreadfully close to the front, it was the job of Nell's unit to tend to the horses, keep them alive, patch them up and send them back into battle.  Now the war is over and Nell is delivering on a promise.  Her captain, gassed and hospitalized, asked Nell to ensure his horse is returned to him in Wales.

Beatrice Hughes is the captain's oldest, and spinster, daughter, seen as nothing more than a servant in her own home.  Her mother is a shell of her former self after her three oldest boys were killed in the war.  The captain is an abusive man who beats his wife and sees little to no value in his girl children.  Her sister Grace is selfish, still bemoaning the death of her fiance overseas, so it's up to Beatrice to keep the farm running, the smaller children cared for while her mother acts the ghost and her father drinks himself into oblivion.  Beatrice's life is not her own - and then in walks Nell, a beautiful, brave adventuress that her father treats respectfully because she's "a Lady."

Dahlia does some interesting things with this book in terms of conflict and the internal character struggles.  Class is a very big deal in this story.  Nell is a Lady.  Nell has privilege.  But her years in the war have made her less polished, a bit more crass, to the point where she's almost dreading going home to her family.  She misses them terribly, she longs for the comfort of home to process her war experiences, but she also recognizes that she's not "Lady Eleanor" anymore.  She's "Nell."  The war has changed her and there's no going back.  But at the end of the day, even with her baggage, Nell has choices.

In contrast, Beatrice has no choices.  She's a heroine trapped in a life that promises nothing but drudgery and uncertainty.  Stuck in place by family obligations, nothing to look forward to - not even dreams.  Because what good are dreams when your reality is so soul-sucking.  She could marry, but who's to say that she wouldn't end up saddled to a man just like her father, and Beatrice is well aware she's a lesbian. There's no questioning of her sexuality. So marriage, even as a possible escape, is out.

Nell has respect for the captain prior to showing up on his doorstep and once she meets his wife and children she has to reconcile the good solider she served under with the abusive man terrorizing his family.  Then Beatrice's mother goes missing and the captain's temperament takes an even more unsavory turn.

It's a weighty book with weighty themes and Dahlia does introduce moments of levity, but they don't always work.  The tone feels off when she does so. Also, while I sympathized with Beatrice a great deal it's still hard to not find her insufferable at times.  Girl, Nell is trying. Nell has issues, and says some callous things that hurt Beatrice.  But then Beatrice pouts and throws Nell's apologies back in her face even when, as the reader, you can tell Nell's apologies are heartfelt. That she's sorry, that she'll do better.  As for the romance, it's OK but not great.  It's very heavy insta-lust and while the chemistry is there, I never quite figured out how they fell in love.  Lust, sure. I got that.  Love?  Not so much.

However the setting is well drawn (the incessant rain, the farm, the small Welsh village...) and the cast of characters vast and interesting.  In a genre that tends to ignore class because it's inconvenient (and readers do seem to love Dukes living happily ever after with governesses...) the fact that Dahlia doesn't ignore it, addresses it even, adds compelling and realistic drama to the romance.  It wasn't everything I wanted it to be, but there was still plenty here for me to admire.

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2020: Blissful Summer

The Book: Blissful Summer by Cheris Hodges and Lisa Marie Perry

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Kimani Romance, 2015, Out of Print, Not Available in Digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: My print copy looks brand new, but it's not autographed and I went almost exclusively digital with Harlequin well before 2015. Best guess is that I snagged it in a conference goody room.  I'm at conference + Harlequin not tied down = of course I grabbed it.

The Review: This month's optional theme is Getaway, and I decided to interpret that as "vacation destination."  Make You Mine Again by Cheris Hodges kicks off this anthology with a reunion romance set in Atlanta, New York, Paris and Jamaica.

Jansen Douglas is an in-demand supermodel who is preparing for the next phase of her career.  She's not getting any younger, and realizing the shelf-life for models, has visions of opening up her own agency.  But first she needs to attend her BFF's wedding in Paris.  The fly in the ointment?  Her BFF's brother, Bradley Stephens, is the one that got away.  Well, more like she showed him the door.  She supported Bradley's dreams and ambitions, but when she told him she wanted to kick-start a career in modelling - well, it didn't go well.  She left him, and neither one has gotten over it.

This story only clocks in at 100 pages, and the couple doesn't actually land on page together until the halfway point.  Which, I know this is a reunion romance, but it's still a problem.  So what's happening in the first 50 pages?  A lot of info-dumping, setting up a Big Misunderstanding and secondary character introductions that felt like series filler to me.  But then I can't find any mention online that this is actually a series?  So that means it felt like a series idea that the author cut back to fit a 100 page novella and it just didn't work for me.  There's too much here for a novella. Also, to be perfectly blunt, I completely understood why Jansen walked away from Bradley all those years ago and I'm wholly unconvinced he's "changed" and seen the light.  Jansen is a fierce heroine and gurl, you could do so much better.  

Grade = C

There's a bit of plot absurdity in Unraveled by Lisa Marie Perry but there are some nice moments in this novella.  Ona Tracy was a scholarship kid at her prestigious Philadelphia performing arts school with Most Likely to Succeed written all over her - but life has not spun out as planned.  She gave up Broadway dreams for a worthless man, then her career in advertising took a hit when she fell for a double-crossing colleague.  She's at a low ebb, but has managed to convince her former high school that she's the event planner who can tackle the Glee Club's 10-year reunion.  She's got big plans to seduce her high school crush who has turned out to be Mr. Successful Stability. She just needs it all to go off without a hitch and survive her Mean Girl Nemesis.  But trouble starts brewing right away when the ship she booked turns out to be an "erotic cruise" to the Bahamas.  But our gal is determined to make lemonade out of lemons, and no sooner does she start exploring the ship than she makes the steamy acquaintance of ex-Marine, Riker Ewan.  Sparks fly immediately with this working class bartender from Boston, but wouldn't you know?  There's more to Riker than meets the eye.

I'm a bit of a sucker for high school reunion stories, and Perry does some interesting things with her cast of secondary characters.  The high school crush who didn't notice Ona back in the day, the propositioning jerk that Ona has to smack down repeatedly, but it's the Mean Girl Nemesis that's really interesting.  She's uppity and prickly to Ona's pure sassy goodness.  The scenes between these two are great, especially at the end when insecurities come pouring out.  The chemistry with Riker is also good, and I'm a sucker for a blue-collar hero paired with a polished heroine like Ona.  Ona's life might not be great at the moment, but she's a never let 'em see you sweat sort - again, extremely attractive in a romance heroine.

The issue is conflict. Ona's conflict, the high school reunion cast, the botched cruise booking - more than enough to power a 100 page novella.  Riker really could have just been a guy going on a cruise after getting stood up by a woman.  But no.  Riker has a Big Secret and he's on the cruise for other half-baked reasons entirely - which of course means family baggage. It's too much. The Riker baggage feels completely unnecessary - Ona's is more than enough to carry the show.  Still, a fun read and frankly a bloody shame that Perry doesn't seem to be writing anymore.  If anyone can tell me otherwise, I'd love to hear it.

Grade = B-

While I wasn't madly in love with this short anthology, it did the trick of kick-starting my flagging reading mojo.  Presumably it's not available anymore because rights have reverted back to the authors.  I'd like to see what Hodges could do with her characters if she spun them out into an entire family series and the Perry story has some fun moments.  Hopefully digital reprints are on the horizon.

Overall Final Grade = C+

Mini-Review: The Au Pair

On the very day Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother Danny were born at home on their family's Norfolk estate their mother committed suicide by throwing herself off the cliffs, their older brother's au pair fled and the small village's love of superstitious nonsense kicked into overdrive with talk of witches and changelings and sprites.  Twenty-some-odd years later, Seraphine still lives on the family estate mourning the recent accidental death of her father.  It's while she's going through some things that she discovers an old photograph, presumably taken on the day of her and Danny's birth.  Their father, their mother, their older brother Edwin and....one newborn baby in their mother's arms.  Is that baby Seraphine or Danny and where's the other one?  Seraphine, who has spent her life being called a sprite, remarked upon that she looks nothing like her siblings or father, and saddled with grief, is determined to find answers.  And for that, she needs to track down Edwin's former au pair, Laura.

So begins Emma Rous's debut suspense novel, The Au Pair: family secrets, with a sprinkling of Gothic, told in time slip fashion - Seraphine in present day and Laura the au pair in the early 1990s.  The first half was a bit rocky for me mostly because Seraphine comes off as borderline hysterical (save me from hysterical female protagonists in suspense novels) but it smooths out a bit as the story lines converge and threats surface to warn Seraphine about snooping around in the family's dirty laundry.  There's even a very light romance thread to spice up the proceedings, making this one of the more nostalgic Gothic throwbacks I've read this year.

The ending is, well OK.  I'll be honest, it's really light in the pants on motive.  All the family secrets come tumbling out but why The Bad Guy did what they did doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.  But it's an ending, I guess?  And it helps distract from the other large issue in this story, which is that all the adults are really gross.  I mean, I think I'm supposed to not like Laura in the end and be a Judgey McJudge Pants about the choices she makes back in 1992 - but Laura was an 18-year-old girl with a mountain of baggage thanks to her Mum, Stepfather, and a relationship gone bad.  Did she make good choices?  Well, no.  But frankly she was 18 and the frickin' adults in this book were ADULTS and yes I'm going to hold them to a higher standard.  But then we wouldn't have had much of a story.

In the end this was better than OK for me but I wasn't in love with it.  That said, there's enough on the page of this debut novel that I would definitely be interested in reading Rous's next book.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Hold Me, Cowboy

Because he was the kind of man a woman could make a mistake with. And she had thought she was done making mistakes.

Hold Me, Cowboy by Maisey Yates gives readers the romance of Sam McCormack, the hermit-like, grumpy older brother of Chase, who got his romance in Take Me, Cowboy.  Chase is the business guy.  Sam is the artist. His iron sculptures of typical western motifs (horses, longhorns, you get the idea....) dot the town of Copper Ridge and are bringing in a nice income for the family business thanks to tourists happy to throw around some cash.  But Sam is in the midst of an artistic crisis - inspiration has fled the building.  I mean how many horses and cows can one guy sculpt?  So he heads to a mountain retreat only to find himself face to face with a woman who drives him to distraction.

Madison West, daughter of the town's most prominent family has an ice queen reputation. Sam still swings by her family's estate to make sure her horses stay in shoes and she's always staring down at him with a haughty attitude - like she's supervising "the help."  Truth is Madison has baggage - the kind of baggage that has kept her celibate for 10 years.  Ten. Years. Well, she's over it. She's rented a cabin up in the mountains for a weekend get-away with a guy named Christopher.  Except snow arrives, Christopher can't get up the mountain, and the electricity goes out in her cabin. So she heads next door for help and runs smack dab into Sam.  These two are like oil and water but they're snowed in, they're both horny - what happens up on the mountain stays up on the mountain AMIRITE?!?

But eventually they head back home and naturally they both still have an itch that needs scratching.  It's 12 days until Christmas - so they agree on a 12 day fling.  Have some fun, scratch the itch, they're totally wrong for each other so it's not like they're going to fall in love or anything.  Ha ha ha ha!  Silly romance couples.  Will they never learn?

I've been reading category romance a long time, and Desire is one of the shorter lines - typically clocking in a smidge over 200 pages.  I've been reading this line for close to 20 years, I know the rhythms.  What Yates does here is kind of fiddle with that rhythm - which didn't entirely work for me at first and it took a little time for me to find my footing.  Basically this book opens with chapter one then boom! Smoking hot sex scene.  Character development, what makes them tick, their baggage, the internal conflicts - Yates eventually gets the reader there but it all comes after the characters decide to hit the sheets.  And of course what happens is that these two people who think they're oil and water, actually have a lot in common - and that's when the story gets interesting.

Yates has a way of sucker-punching the reader with emotional heft in what you think is going to be a quick, sexy beach read.  The reason why Madison has been celibate for 10 years? She was a naive "in love" 17-year-old taken advantage of by a much older man, in a position of power. And when she went looking for a safe haven?  She didn't find one.  On the other foot, Sam has been celibate for 5 years after a tragedy nobody, not even his brother, is aware of.  When all this comes bubbling to the surface in the final half the book, Madison bravely stands in front of Sam and just lets it all out. The anger, the guilt, the blame, and ultimately the realization that she's fallen in love with him.  The question is - will our self-pitying hero pull his head out of his butt in time to realize it.

As great as the emotional stuff was, the pacing on this book didn't work quite as well.  I "get" why the early sex scene but it threw me off my stride for half a minute.  Also, I was confused where this book fit in the Copper Ridge series timeline for a while.  It seems like it's much later after Take Me, Cowboy but then it turns out it's only a few months?  And there's a lot of West family stuff here that I wasn't lost or confused about - but it's kind of dropped into the story, and I think it will work better for those readers who have read the single titles about Madison's various siblings first.  I'm admittedly reading out of chronological order.

But, typical Yates, this was a quick, steamy read that kept me engaged in flipping the pages.  Sexy with a heavy dollop of emotional angst.  The glom continues....

Final Grade = B-

Library Loot Mini-Reviews: Earnest Pretentiousness

Yes, librarians use the library.  At least this librarian does. I also, apparently, haven't figured out that I can suspend my holds because they all came in at once.  So it's time for more library reading mini-reviews!

I read about Pulp by Robin Talley over at Love in Panels and was intrigued by the set-up.  Present-day teenager, still pining for her ex-girlfriend, troubled by her parents' unraveling marriage and, normally an exceptional student, letting her studies slide at her chichi Washington D.C. magnate high school. She has a big project due in her creative writing class, the kind that's pretty much thesis-like, and in a mad scramble for an idea (an idea!) lands on writing about 1950s lesbian pulp novels.  That's how she learns about "Marian Love," who wrote a seminal lesbian pulp novel in the late '50s and dropped off the face of the Earth.

This is a time-slip novel that goes between our heroine in present day and "Marian Love" in the 1950s - an 18-year-old girl, in the closet, living at home with her McCarthy-disciple parents.  This one took a while to catch fire for me, mostly because I found the characters in the present day storyline earnest in the extreme.  They're activist kids (not a complaint) but also self-absorbed in that special way that teenagers have about them.  But look, I'm old. I'm not the target audience. And I was a teenager once upon a time. Pretty sure my parents' generation thought the same thing about me and my friends. YMMV.  Anyway, what kept me moving forward on this book was the 1950s storyline and the present day heroine's sleuthing to find the real "Marian Love."  Oh how I wanted to get to that moment when these two meet!  It's romantic elements but doesn't have a traditional happy ending - which honestly, is fine.  The final "lesson" is that teenage girls, well your life is just beginning.  Grab it by the giblets.  Final Grade = B-

I'm Your Huckleberry by Val Kilmer is a memoir that should be good. Instead it's scattershot and gets lost in the weeds.  He talks about his movies, but on a superficial level.  He talks about his past girlfriends, but doesn't really unpack that baggage.  Why did they break up? Why is he divorced?  Insert shrug emoji.  Reading in between the lines, and through this book, it's probably because Kilmer is borderline insufferable.  There's lots of spiritual talk in this book - Kilmer being a practicing Christian Scientist.  But he wanders off into these spiritual musings and...not why I'm reading your book dude.  I mean, I guess I should have clued in sooner when I realized he was a great friend and admirer of Marlon Brando.  Insert hand smacking forehead emoji.

If you're read any of the articles or reviews for this book, honestly you've already got all the juicy bits.  The only revelation missing so far is this one I'll share with you.  Contrary to press coverage from when she was dating John-John, Daryl Hannah and Jackie O were great friends.  Jackie LIKED Daryl.  They spent time together before Jackie died.  Although I'd argue that Jackie may have liked Daryl but possibly becoming the wife to the Crown Prince is another kettle of fish entirely.

I burned through this on audio in a matter of a couple of days, but mostly to be done with it.  This should have been good.  Narrator: It was not.  Final Grade = D

Library Loot Mini-Reviews: Sexy Times and Gothic Gone Wrong

I realize this is going to sound silly coming from someone who has a TBR pile that can be seen from space, but I miss being able to just casually wander into public spaces where books congregate.  Never mind that I don't read a ton in print these days - I miss the ability to walk into a bookstore or library just to browse.  COVID-19 has had a way of making me appreciate life's small joys.

I find myself spending a lot of time at The Day Job right now trolling through our digital collections and naturally, I find myself putting my own name on some holds lists.  Since all my holds seem to be coming in at once? I thought it would be fun to highlight some of my recent library borrowing with mini-reviews.

I'm always game when Harlequin launches a new line but to be honest none of the blurbs on the early Dare books sparked my imagination.  There's been a few recently however, and Hotter On Ice by Rebecca Hunter is the most recent.  How do I want to phrase this?  How about meh.  My issue so far with the Dare line (or at least the books in the Dare line I've read...) has been that while the sex is hot, the books lack what drives me to read romance in the first place - all the angsty emotional messiness that can lurk between the pages.  There's just not a ton of emotional oomph and I LOVE emotional oomph.  That being said, my sample size so far on the line is ridiculously small so it could just be I haven't found the right book yet.

This is book four in a series about a bunch of guys who work at a security agency.  Our hero in this book is former law enforcement who was injured in a drug raid gone wrong and he's now the computer surveillance guy for this agency.  Anyway, the heroine is a model who's ex-boyfriend turned out to be a stalker douchebag.  He hasn't been bothering her for a while, but she's also been keeping a lower profile.  She's landed a modeling gig in Sweden (at an ice hotel) and her former bodyguard just married her younger sister - so she needs a new bodyguard.  Enter our hero.  There's some slow burn angst in the backstory (he was monitoring her security cameras prior to them meeting in the flesh) and it's got a Beauty and the Beast vibe.  Liked that the douchebag ex stays firmly off-page and that the heroine stands up for herself in the end but the romance felt very "surface" to me - again, because the lack of emotional oomph.  But it's a quick read and this is very much a YMMV sort of critique.  My final grade is waffling between a B- and C+

I heard about The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni at the PLA (Public Library Association) conference and the magic word was used: "Gothic."  My Pavlovian response kicked in and the rest is a whole mountain of regrets.  Warning: THERE SHALL BE SPOILERS!

The heroine, an only child, whose marriage is on the skids and whose grandparents AND parents are all gone - finds out she's the heir to a frickin' castle in a remote mountainous area of Italy.  She goes to said crumbling castle which is home to a few creepy servants, a great-aunt by marriage and whoa-ho! Her creepy great-grandmother.  Her grandfather fled Italy right after the war - why?  Creepiness, of course!

The book starts out in classic Gothic horror fashion. The great-grandmother is painted as a monster, there are shenanigans afoot and then whamo! Turns out there's a secret tribe of lost people living in the mountains (painted as genetic ancestor-like throwbacks) that Dear Old Granny has been taking care of.  The heroine runs off to the mountains to live with them and it's part white savior narrative, part Dances With Wolves rip-off.  All that Gothic horror stuff in the first half?  Completely out the window.  Now it's all genetics and how the heroine's great-great whatever douchebag lived with the tribe and felt the only way for them to survive was for them to mate with regular ol' people like himself - but instead it all kind of goes sideways.

I just - what the heck even is this?!  And why did I keep listening to this audiobook?!  Especially when evil monster great-granny turns out to be some misunderstood white savior looking after these poor ol' tribal folk who can't take care of themselves?  Honestly, it's all kind of gross and SOOOOOO disappointing.  Stupid Pavlovian response. Regrets, I haz them.  Final Grade = D-

#TBRChallenge 2020: The Lady Flees Her Lord

The Book: The Lady Flees Her Lord by Ann Lethbridge

The Particulars: Historical romance, 2008, Sourcebooks, Out of Print, Rights Reverted / Available Self-published digital edition

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: According to my notes I picked up the Sourcebooks edition of this historical romance (published under the author's Michele Ann Young name) at RWA 2009 (Washington D.C.). So yes, this book has been in my TBR for over 10 years. Don't hate the player, hate the game.  Anyway, I know I picked this up because, if memory serves, Sourcebooks was fairly new to the whole romance thing at the time and I knew that Young was also Ann Lethbridge, who I was familiar with from her work with Harlequin Historical.  So taking a flier to pick up this book, for free, seemed like a safe bet.  Ahem, even if it did languish in my TBR for 10 years....

The Review: I haven't read many historical romances so far in 2020 and this one went down like comfort food.  Like if macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes had a baby.  It didn't hold a lot of surprises, and it gets a wee melodramatic at the end, but the pages easily turned and I liked the characters.  It didn't change my life, but believe me I've stumbled on way worse lurking in the depths of my TBR.

Lucinda, Lady Denbigh is married to a vile man. Oh she once thought she was so lucky - a plump, full-figured gal who bagged a handsome, very eligible man - only to discover he only wanted her for her father's money and to be a broodmare.  Years into the marriage, she's barren, he berates her as a cold fish, and heaps emotional abuse on her.  Worse still, his gambling is out of control and he's fallen in with a distasteful crowd.  She has no choice but to flee in the middle of the night.

Through a series of happenstance she picks up an orphaned infant girl along the way.  Yes, it's the height of melodrama but stick with me here.  Anyway, Lucinda tries to find the child's "mother" fast because she needs to get the heck out of London.  But that doesn't happen, there's no time, and the idea of placing the child in a foundling home turns her stomach.  She's ached to become a mother, so why not now?  Plus the kid provides a certain amount of camouflage. Lady Denbigh, after all, is barren.

Original Cover

She ends up in Kent, renting the dower house from Lord Hugo Wanstead, a fact he only learns after he nearly runs her daughter down with his horse.  Newly returned from the war, where he was injured, Hugo finds his country estate in disrepair thanks to Dear Old Dad.  His injury pains him, he's Brooding with a Capital B, and wants Lucinda gone - only to realize 1) she paid a year's worth rent in advance (which, that's explained) and 2) he's flat broke and his estate manager was desperate for the infusion of cash.

We all know where this is going.  Hugo and Lucinda are a perfect match but she is holding back the mother of all secrets and he's got emotional baggage up the wazoo thanks to his father and a dead wife.  He's in lust with Lucinda from the moment he lays eyes on her - he's a rather large man and she's all soft, lush curves in all the right places.  Soon she's bringing him out of his shell, he's playing Lord of the manor, and everybody in town is taken with her.  But wouldn't you know it? Her past comes back to haunt her. Because of course it does.

This was a quick one-day read for me (and it's single title length - so right book, right time - a true Calgon-take-me-away read) although anytime Lucinda's husband is on page it's a tough go.  I understand that infidelity is a non-starter for a lot of romance readers, but seriously this guy is such an a-hole that you want him to get absolutely everything that's coming to him.  His emotional abuse is hard to read, berating her for her weight, her frigidity, forcing her on a diet etc.  He's also prepared to essentially prostitute her out, which is ultimately what tips the scales to her fleeing in the dead of night. 

Extricating Lucinda from Denbigh was a definite factor in the speed in which I kept turning the pages. This was Regency England, so a woman divorcing a husband, albeit an abusive a-hole of a husband, would not have been easy (heck, it's not easy now) and Lethbridge puts a clever bow on that particular package.  Oh sure, it's the height of melodrama and a bit out of left field but it IS interesting and I'm down with interesting.

The sex scenes got a bit purple for my tastes, but I believe these two crazy kids are well-suited and well-matched, although Lucinda reverting back a bit at the end to damsel annoyed me a tinch.  I liked this world that Lethbridge created, and since republishing this book she's followed it up with a sequel about one of the heroine's brothers.  Good, not great, but time I don't regret spending.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Slow Dance with the Best Man

I've said it before, I'll say it again - I'll suspend a lot of disbelief when there's a skilled writer driving the bus.  I'm not sure where Sophie Pembroke has been all my category reading life, but if Slow Dance with the Best Man is any indication I need to go diving into my Kindle to see what else I have languishing there.

Eloise Miller has spent a lifetime fading into the background thanks to an actress mother (big fish, small pond of local theater) who had a habit of falling in love with her leading men, humiliating Eloise's father (who always took her back, natch) and made Eloise the target of local mean girl, Melissa Sommers.  Well, Melissa Sommers is now an "actress" - or at least another Hollywood pretty face ("actress" might be overstating things) and she's engaged to "actor" Riley Black and has a giant ring to prove it.  Now Melissa is back in her small English hometown, at Morwen Hall, the Gothic manor estate that is now a world-class hotel to get married and run everyone ragged.  Eloise worked there as a teen and once she finished university she went back to her hometown and is vying for the manager role.  Pulling off Melissa's wedding will be a serious feather in her cap, assuming she can keep from strangling the bride.

Noah Cross got his start in traveling Shakespearean theater troupes, but these days he's the personification of superficial leading man - shallow action movies where lots of stuff blows up and parts that play heavily on his charm.  He feeds into this with superficial relationships and being seen about town with an impressive variety of pretty faces.  But he's getting restless and his agent has sent him a script for a part he would kill to land.  The problem? It's a serious movie, a serious part, and Noah has been placed in his typecast box.  So when his agent somehow manages to get a video call set up with the script's writer and director, she makes Noah promise to keep a low profile and behave himself.  The problem being he keeps getting distracted by a certain pretty hotel manager....

This is a light, fluffy concoction set around The Wedding Of The Moment that ticks all the boxes.  You've got Melissa, a villain you can't help but hate, and a main couple both hiding behind past baggage neither has begun to unpack.  Given Eloise's childhood she thinks of actors in much the same way as cockroaches in a kitchen, and Noah has been playing Mr. Superficial Good Time in response to a past tragedy he's refused to deal with.  However once these two lock eyes, they both recognize that there's something between them - something that frankly scares the heck out of both of them.

How well a reader enjoys this story depends entirely on how much they can suspend their disbelief.  Noah and Eloise fall for each other right away and the flirting kicks in immediately.  They fight the attraction until they can't any longer, tumble into bed, and then do a disaster job of trying to keep the fling (which isn't really a fling but they're both deluding themselves at this point) on the down low.  Until, of course, it all comes tumbling out into the open.  We're talking a matter of days here.  So the reader has to buy into the idea of a Hollywood star falling in love with A Nobody in a matter of days when they both have baggage that have kept them from "serious relationships" for some time.

I could do that, mostly because I was utterly charmed by the story, the couple and the sparks shooting off between them.  The Romance line is an on-the-page low heat line but that doesn't mean the books can't sizzle - and this one does, thanks to Noah's roguish charm and Eloise's push back to his flirting.  The sex scenes may be closed door but believe you me, I had no doubt these two were hot for each other in the all the right ways.  It also doesn't hurt matters that Pembroke can write.

A new-to-me-author, an enjoyable romance, a pure fun escapist delight.  Now I'm off to scour my TBR for more Sophie Pembroke....

Final Grade = B+

Retro Review: If This Bed Could Talk

Original Cover

This review of If This Bed Could Talk by Liz Maverick, Kimberly Dean and Lynn LaFleur was first published by The Romance Reader in 2006. Back then I rated it 4 Hearts (B grade) with a sensuality rating of NC-17. 

+++++

Yes, another erotica imprint. After catapulting to popularity thanks to smaller presses and electronic publishers, the latest major house to jump on the bandwagon is Avon. Despite being marketed as “hot, sexy fiction” romance readers will be happy to note that every story in this launch anthology features a happily-ever-after. They also feature some wicked sexual tension, effectively dispelling the myth that erotica is nothing more than mechanical sex with no emotion behind it.

Liz Maverick gets things started with Agent Provocateur, which features some unsavory plot devices that would sink this story in no time flat if not for the incredible chemistry between hero and heroine. Vienna James is a gunrunner who has just been arrested for the third time. Three strikes and you’re out in this futuristic world means one thing – slavery.

Vienna is on the auction block and the only thing that will save her from execution is if someone buys her. Michael Kingston buys Vienna because she’s the spitting image of his brother’s traitorous former fiancé. He wants Vienna to seduce their enemy, and steal back something he took from his brother. However when he goes to “train” her, he finds himself falling under her spell. It makes handing her blithely over to the villain a bit more complicated.

A hero who buys the heroine and a revenge plot could have made this a disastrous story, but the sexual tension is enough to peel wallpaper. This is one hot, sexy read – well advertised and delivered. 

Next up is Kimberly Dean with Unrequited. Trista Christiansen is on a date. Her divorce from her professional baseball player ex has been final for eight months and her friends have been urging her to get back out there. Thanks to her date’s ineptitude, they end up eating dinner in a sports bar. The same sports bar where her ex-brother-in-law is enjoying a game of darts and a beer after a long day at work.

Ty cannot believe that Trista is on a date! Especially with such a weenie. He’s had a thing for her for a long time, but she was always Denny’s girl. Well Denny screwed up, and he’s ready to take a shot. Now to convince Trista that they belong together.

Unrequited love is such a great, bittersweet theme. Ty is a blue-collar guy who stayed away from Trista out of respect for his selfish baby brother. Trista is hesitant to get involved with Ty even though she’s wildly attracted to him. Plus, she always considered him a “friend.” That’s the last thing she wants to mess up. Like the Maverick story, the sexual tension leaps off the page, and the final moment when Trista realizes that Ty is the one for her is sweet, sexy and touching.

Last on the list is Lynn LaFleur’s Victim Of Deception, which features one of the more imaginative plots I’ve come across in a while.

Karessa Austin has just inherited a Victorian house from her Aunt Grace. She was thinking of selling, but once she sees the old girl she decides to renovate and move in. Maxwell Hennessey is a professional treasure hunter who is sure a very old, very valuable bearer bond is hidden in the Victorian. One small problem, he used to date Karessa and betrayed her over a “job” he was on. No matter, she’s renovating – he’ll use his connections to get on the job site.

LaFleur’s tale is actually a story within a story – with the Victorian being haunted by Karessa’s great-great grandparents who were murdered. Mary and Aaron have been stuck in limbo over the last 100 years, and feel the key to their freedom is through Karessa and Max reuniting. Luckily, they don’t interfere too much – as Max and Karessa have never truly gotten over each other. All they need a little nudge.

The sex in all of these stories is hot, hot stuff – with LaFleur pushing the envelope almost off the table. That said, all of these characters truly care about each other – giving all of the stories a depth of emotion, and ratcheting up the sexual tension into the stratosphere. With many jumping on the growing erotica bandwagon, I’ll admit I was skeptical. What a pleasant surprise to find three authors, all in the same anthology, getting it all so right. Sit back, enjoy the ride, and lose yourself in the fantasy.

+++++

Wendy Looks Back: The mid-2000s was when The Big Five decided to jump on the erotic romance bandwagon, and this included Harpercollins, who launched Avon Red in 2006.  In fact this anthology was one of the launch titles, hence the first sentence of the first paragraph in this review.  Also, remember 2006. I'm aware I called it "erotica" and that's misleading.  Remember we were still fumbling around in the dark and hadn't settled on labeling such books as "erotic romance" as of yet.

The anthology itself is hard to find, but all three stories are available to purchase as stand-alone novellas (thank you digital boom).  I have very little recall on any of these but something buried in the back of my lizard brain makes me think the Kimberly Dean story was my favorite of the bunch.  And not gonna lie, I'm half tempted to reread the LaFleur story to see if I still think she pushes the envelope off the table.  (Ghost sex? I'm wondering if it was ghost sex....)

#TBRChallenge 2020: The Greek's Nine-Month Redemption

The Book: The Greek's Nine-Month Redemption by Maisey Yates

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Presents, 2016, out of print, available digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Yates is an autobuy.  My print copy is autographed which means I picked this up at an RWA conference, although my cataloging notes are incomplete (my guess, probably the 2016 conference - which would have been San Diego).

The Review: Yates is such a pro at writing short contemporary that even when her books don't hit all the right buttons for me they're still highly readable.  I hadn't even picked out a TBR Challenge book until Sunday afternoon, grabbed this one because it was near the top of the Harlequin print pile, and proceeded to inhale it in one sitting.

Elle St. James is a poor little rich girl whose father has installed her as CEO of the family business.  Not because he believes in her. Perish the thought! Because her step-brother, Apollo Savas, is dismantling her father's empire brick by brick.  When the old man's empire faltered, Apollo swooped in like a savior, only to reveal his true identity - that of avenging angel.  Daddy St. James done him wrong, done his mother wrong, and now the man must pay.  Their parents married when Elle and Apollo were teenagers, and the sexual tension between them has always been thick.  Instead of acting on it, it has taken the form of sarcasm and back-biting - which honestly is half the fun of this story.  Apollo is a proto-typical Presents ass, but gods bless Elle - this girl can certainly dish it out.

What tends to happen in Presents stories happens here.  Apollo wants his revenge, Elle is conveniently standing right in front of him, there's all this delicious Enemies to Lovers tension clinging to the pages - well of course his pants are going to fall off and oopsie doodle...over and over again.  But will Apollo be able to set aside his blind quest for revenge, especially when Elle ends up pregnant?

This is pretty standard Presents fair.  Apollo is an ass and frankly needed to crawl over broken glass and grovel - which makes it highly annoying that there's no grovel to speak of in this book.  What kept this book from flying across the room, and what tends to make Yates' Presents highly addictive, is that the heroines tend to have just as much fire as the heroes.  Elle has underlying vulnerabilities, but this kitten has claws and draws blood even when Apollo is painting her into a corner.  She's got gumption and I love gumption.

So if there's no grovel, and Apollo is an ass - what saves this book?  Yates can write.  And she writes stuff about forgiveness and love and sacrifice over the course of the final chapters that are...well, there's depth here.  The kind of depth that naysayers of "those trashy Harlequins" think the format lacks because it merely exists and people like to read them (readers like Harlequins ergo they must have absolutely no merit at all).

Is it perfect? Well, no. Apollo, his need for revenge, and him using Elle to get said revenge are nothing if not problematic  But the epilogue is perfection - showing the couple 10 years later, with Elle living her best damn life and they're still blissfully in love - even despite the complicated baggage.  Yes, Apollo is an ass.  And yes, Elle plays the role of the good woman who thaws his frosty heart, but it sings from page one to the last sentence and I don't feel the least bit guilty inhaling this in one sitting.

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2019: Holiday Kisses Anthology

The Book: Holiday Kisses by Jaci Burton, Shannon Stacey, HelenKay Dimon and Alison Kent

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Carina Press, 2011, three out of four stories part of series (exception: Alison Kent), stories available in anthology edition and sold separately.

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I had a print copy of this, which means I must have picked it up at an RWA conference...but it's not autographed. Maybe I picked it up as part of a Carina/Harlequin spotlight? My personal cataloging notes are sketchy (to put it mildly).

The Review: I've always liked anthologies as a way to "sample" authors without having to expend a lot of time and energy.  I don't read nearly as many of them these days because thanks to digital many shorts are now available separately. I've obviously had this anthology languishing for a while, short works well for me this time of year (even more so than usual) so I landed on it pretty quickly for this month's challenge.

A Rare Gift by Jaci Burton kicked things off and suffered a bit because I personally have issues with the sibling's ex trope.  As someone who has sisters, the idea of boffing one of their exes (not to mention an ex-husband!!!) is an immediate no-go for me.  Calliope Andrews moved back home and started up a daycare center.  She's outgrowing her space though and wants to add an addition.  For that she calls Wyatt Kent, whose family runs a small construction outfit.  Wyatt was married to her sister, Cassandra, and they divorced two years ago.  It was not a happy fun-time divorce (are they ever?), he's still surly over it, and Calliope has had the hots for Wyatt since she was 15 (because, of course).

Cassandra isn't a dead ex (it works better for me when they're dead) and Wyatt, while not pining over his ex, still obviously has not "let it go."  So while I appreciated that Calliope was a heroine who knew what she wanted and went after it - the neatly tied up ending, the rushed "lets get married and start making babies yesterday" in the last chapter - it just didn't work for me.  Gurl, HE HAD A DISASTER MARRIAGE WITH YOUR SISTER!  Holidays are gonna be awkward.  But I'm a big enough person to admit that this is very much a personal preference thing and YMMV.

Final Grade = C

Mistletoe and Margaritas by Shannon Stacey was a novella that damn near ripped my guts out and was my favorite in the anthology.  Justin McCormick has loved Claire Rutledge since he first laid eyes on her.  The problem being that his BFF got there first. Brendan and Claire dated, got married, and had five years together before he died in an accident. Claire has been grieving for 2 years and during that time her and Justin have become inseparable BFFs.  It's getting harder for Justin to hide his feelings and Claire's starting to have very not-just-friend thoughts about Justin.  One holiday party, a couple of cocktails and some mistletoe kicks open the door.  This one features another fast marriage proposal, but works a bit better given the long friendship.  My only quibble in what is an engaging and emotional romance.

Final Grade = B+

The only reasons I didn't DNF It's Not Christmas Without You by HelenKay Dimon is because it's a novella and Dimon is an engaging writer.  Carrie Anders left her small West Virginia hometown for a dream job at a museum in Washington D.C. two hours away.  She broke it off with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Austin Thomas, who runs a Christmas tree farm with his father and brother.  Austin thought that Carrie would get this crackpot idea of moving to The Big City out of her system and come home...but it's been six months.  So he drops serious cash, persuades his brother, and they rent a lot outside the heroine's apartment building to sell Christmas trees.  He's going to convince her to quit her job, come home, and marry him.

The hero in this story is a thundering jackass, borderline Neanderthal who completely disregards that the heroine has dreams and ambitions of her own separate from his precious man fee-fees.  To make matters worse, the heroine doesn't knee him in the giblets and send him packing. She puts up with his BS and keeps coming around the lot because she can't stay away.  I stuck with this story because I like Dimon's writing and it's short and it's kind of worth it in the end when the light finally dawns for Austin and he realizes he's an ass.  The problem being that I'm not sure I believe that he's reformed.  I mean, what are we talking here: a long distance relationship that consists of a 2 hour commute. This is not insurmountable IMHO and yet he's bound and determined to haul her home by her hair.  He sees the light but he's such a jackass for the majority of the story I'm not convinced they survive the first rough patch that happens after the happy ending.  And knowing Austin?  That rough patch probably happened within the first week.

Final Grade = C-

This Time Next Year by Alison Kent is a well done snowed-in-cabin-romance.  Brenna Keating is driving through the North Carolina mountains on the way to her grandmother's for Christmas when the predicted snow forecast shows up early. She's almost there when she swerves to avoid a deer and lands in a ditch. She's trapped, the snow is falling fast, and she probably would have frozen to death in her car if local doctor, Dillon Craig didn't happen upon her.  He's friends with her grandmother, and knows she's expecting Brenna. He frees her from her car and, the weather still terrible, takes her back to his cabin.  What you think happens next...happens next.

Brenna, a nurse, is spending one last Christmas with her grandmother before heading to Malawi for volunteer work. Her grandmother and her parents have all done similar work - kind of like a family calling.  Yet Brenna knows that her grandmother isn't getting any younger and this could very well be their last Christmas together.  Dillon served in Afghanistan as a medic, haunted by his war experiences and the fact that he was thousands of miles away from home when his father (who left him the cabin) died of a heart attack.

This is a nice, emotional, engaging romance featuring two grown-up characters who talk to each other.  I liked these two kids together and they form a partnership that naturally makes sense in my mind.  I've read several stories by Kent over the years and this is probably my favorite to date.  It's a nice contemporary romance.

Final Grade = B

Whew! Another year and another TBR Challenge complete.  I hope you all had fun participating and/or following along.  We're doing this again in 2020!  Be sure to check out this blog post for more information.

Review: Dancing in the Dark

Cheryl St. John was one of my go-to authors over at Harlequin, having published some very good books with Harlequin Historical and Love Inspired Historical.  She took some time away from writing for personal and family reasons - and has reemerged thanks to self-publishing.  She's reprinted several of her older Harlequin Historical titles and Dancing in the Dark is the first in a new self-published continuity series, Aspen Gold, she's doing with several of her writer pals.  The series is set in a fictional small resort town in the mountains of Colorado where everybody seems to be distantly related (by blood or marriage) - so naturally, plenty of opportunity for drama and shenanigans.

There's no way for me to talk about this book, my experience reading this book without spoilers.  I'll try to keep them at a minimum but you've been warned: SPOILERS!

Kendra Price grew up in Spencer, Colorado "raised" by a single mother who had more boyfriends than good sense and a spiteful sister.  She had an aunt (her mother's stepsister) who took her under her wing and encouraged her love of dance.  Kendra was so passionate about dance, and so good at it, she's made a career for herself - touring with various companies and now parlaying her way into teaching.  During this time she also became fast friends with Dustin "Dusty" Cavanaugh.  Kendra spent a lot of time with the Cavanaugh clan, her and Dusty fell in love, made plans - and naturally it all went to hell in a hand-basket one fateful night when Dusty slept with another girl and got her pregnant.  This broke Kendra's heart and she hightailed it as fast and far as she could away from Spencer.

Oh, did I mention that the Other Woman who Dusty got pregnant is Kendra's evil sister, Erica?  She carried the pregnancy to term, signed away her parental rights, and now Dusty is a single dad raising his son with the help of his large, supportive family.

Unfortunately for Kendra the mountains and Spencer are in her blood.  Kendra inherited her aunt's lake home after she passed and Kendra spends the summers in Spencer, teaching dance.  She's also looking to regroup.  The grind of touring and performing are starting to wear her down.  Spending time in Spencer is dangerous - given her strained relationship with her mother, sister and the possibility of running into Dusty (not to mention her young nephew!) - but she can't stay away.  Naturally what happens, happens.  She and Dusty finally reconnect and secrets come home to roost.

You have to hand it to St. John - the conflict cannon is definitely loaded for bear.  The revelation of Dusty's Baby Mama doesn't come right out of the gate, and when it hits - it's a whammy.  I love emotional conflict where you really wonder how the heck the author is going to pull off the HEA - it's that intense.  And unfortunately? That's kind of the problem with this book.  The conflict and resolution of said conflict is problematic.  Because the only way to get to that happy ending is for Dusty to be absolved of his sins - and for that to happen?  The author has to villainize the Evil Other Woman to cartoonish proportions.  In the end Dusty = victim and Erica's motives are never really clearly defined other than she is a not a nice person.  I  also found the compare/contrast between the sunshine and roses Cavanaugh clan with Kendra's trailer trash slutty mom and sister to be uncomfortable. 

I'm not going to sugar-coat, it's problematic.  Especially if you're a reader like me who finds the Evil Other Woman trope problematic on it's face.  To be honest I'm not sure of any other way St. John could have resolved this conflict to get to the happy ending as long as Dusty was the hero.  Part of me wishes that Kendra's hero would have been some other dude and part of the conflict would have been her "forgiving and moving on."  But that's not the story St. John wrote and there's a lot I liked in this book.  It showcases how well St. John can wring out emotion in even the most deceptively simple passages and moments, plus I inhaled it in one sitting.  Yes, there's a fair amount of set-up and yes, there are a bunch of secondary characters, but I got invested and will continue on with this series even though I've never read a single book by any of the other authors.

I even signed up for their newsletter.  Seriously.

I'm not going to lie, this book is problematic and some of you may read it and think I'm totally insane - but this conflict is nothing if not gutsy.  If you're a new St. John reader I wouldn't recommend starting here, but if you're already a fan? It's an interesting read.

Final Grade = B-

Review: The Painted Castle

I picked up The Painted Castle by Kristy Cambron because former RWA Librarian of the Year, Robin Bradford, tweeted about it. As part of her work as a Collection Development Librarian, Robin will regularly tweet about books she comes across in the course of her Day Job.  This was one of them, and she hooked me with the mention of "a lost painting of Queen Victoria."  We had it at work, and in no big hurry, I stuck myself on the wait list for the ebook copy.

I should mention that this book is published by Thomas Nelson (which is owned by Harpercollins).  For those of you who don't know publishers, Thomas Nelson publishes Christian books.  Outside of an epilogue where the God mentions get pretty heavy - this book is extremely light on the religious elements.  Like, seriously, the author could have wiped out a couple of sentences prior to the epilogue and this could have been published by plain ol' Harpercollins.  It's also more romantic elements than romance, but readers get three happy endings and some hot smooching action in the present-day story line so if you dig historical romance? You might dig this.

Keira Foley is an art historian whose career flamed out in New York. She's come home to Dublin to work in her family's pub, lick her wounds, and try to convince her overprotective brother, Cormac, that really, she's OK.  That's where Emory Scott finds her, a disreputable character and rumored art thief (although he was never charged).  He offers her a job at a rundown East Suffolk manner house, Parham Hill, where a walled off library and a long-lost portrait of Queen Victoria has been discovered.  At first Keira resists, but then her curiosity gets the better of her. Because of course it does.

As a young girl, Elizabeth Meade witnessed her father's murder and has vowed vengeance on the man responsible.  But it's 1843, and with she and her mother on shaky financial footing, only an advantageous match with do.  When Elizabeth meets her betrothed, the man her mother has brokered a deal with, she realizes that she's one step closer to closure on her father's murder and vengeance will soon be hers - she just needs to finish putting the puzzle pieces together first.

At the height of World War II, Amelia Woods is the mistress of Parham Hill, a young war widow watching over the estate's beekeeping operation and refugee children from London and Germany.  When her house is commandeered by American soldiers stationed at a neighboring airfield she finds her heart thawing to a dashing American pilot with his own pain and secrets.

This story is told over three alternating time periods, which is a tricky endeavor to pull off.  Unfortunately, I didn't always find it successful.  The long lost painting loosely ties together the three stories but....it's loose.  It felt, at times, like the author was writing three separate stories and crammed them all into one book.  The painting doesn't have enough secrets and isn't featured prominently enough in all the stories.  In the end, I think the story would have been better served if the history of Parham Hill estate had served as the focal point.  The long lost painting angle implies mystery and...there's just not a ton of mystery to be had.  Great history? A nice feel?  Yes.  A mystery?  Not so much.  And it's not helped much by the resolution of the 1843 storyline - with the bit about Elizabeth's murdered father never being fully fleshed out to my satisfaction.

But, it's still a pretty interesting historical fiction piece even though I wanted the threads tying all three storylines together to be stronger.  And you have a romantic couple in each story, all get their happy endings - and really, that's pretty awesome.  It's also a inspirational fiction book where I didn't feel like the characters were neutered.  Oh sure, there's no sex - but there's tension, "feelings" and some good smooching action, so it left me the romance reader pretty satisfied.

I'm not sorry I read this, but I didn't feel like the parts came together into a fully formed whole.  It's the third book in a series (the first two books feature Keira's brothers) and it's doubtful I'll go back for their stories, but I certainly would read this author again.  So I'm counting it a success.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Herons Landing

There are two types of contemporary romance readers: those who turn up their nose at category and novellas because they're "too short" and those who look at single titles and think, "Dear Lord, how much filler crap am I going to have to wade through to get to the good bits?"  If you've been following this blog for any length of time you'll know I'm definitely the latter.  And yet?  I still occasionally dip my toes into the single title contemporary pool looking for...I'm not sure exactly.  One that doesn't make me feel like I'm wading through filler, I guess?  Herons Landing by JoAnn Ross is the first book in her Honeymoon Harbor series that sort of read like it was probably spun off another series.  While there's plenty of "filler" in this story, I'm here to tell you that if you love world-building and you love small town contemporaries?  This one is very, very good.  Even a hater like me has to recognize.

Brianna Mannion is in the hospitality business, a concierge at a ritzy Las Vegas resort/casino. She's used to the comically bizarre,  but after a run-in with a guest she not-so-lovingly dubs "Dr. Dick," she quits her job and heads home to Honeymoon Harbor, a quaint small town in the Pacific Northwest.  "Dr. Dick" was the final straw and when she sees a grand Victorian home that she's been obsessed with her entire life, Herons Landing, up for sale?  She takes it as a sign.  She's going home to open her own bed & breakfast - and for that she needs a contractor to help her restore the old gal to her former glory.

The best contractor in town is Seth Harper, her former childhood crush.  Like, serious crush.  Brianna has been pining after this guy since she was in short pants.  But Seth only had eyes for her BFF, Zoe - who went to nursing school on the Army's dime and was killed in a hospital bombing in Afghanistan.  That was two years ago and Seth is still heavily grieving. His routine of getting through the days, weeks and months since Zoe's death is so consistent that the town residents can set their watches by what Seth is doing at that moment.  Seth is at Quinn Mannion's brewery picking up dinner, so it must be 6:00PM on a Tuesday.  He's still got Zoe's car in the garage.  This guy might as well have "no fly zone" stamped on his forehead.

Brianna was Zoe's BFF and Seth is still mourning - so they share in that grief.  But as they begin to work on Herons Landing they are reminded of how much they think alike, how much they have in common, and naturally what happens in romance novels starts happening between Seth and Zoe.

Look, I'm going to be brutally honest.  If you strip out all the small town "stuff" from this book the romance between Seth and Zoe is essentially category romance length.  Like, probably the length of a Harlequin Desire (around 200 pages).  It's kind of frustrating actually because while I do think the author does eventually get there with the ending, I wanted a lot more of Seth working through his grief to see Brianna standing on the other side.  In the end I have every confidence that Seth is ready to move on - that he'll always love Zoe - but Brianna is a new happiness, a promising future if only he can get past his survivor's guilt.  I just wanted more lead-up getting to that point.

Ah, but that small town "stuff."  I have a low tolerance for such shenanigans, often suffering from cutesy overload - but Ross's world-building is so, so good.  Her characters are interesting without being overly saccharine.  She teases that some characters have a "past" that could become fodder for later books.  Plus she includes some added drama with Seth's parents - whose marriage has hit the skids. It's really clever - showing another side to Seth's character through his parents' pasts.

It did feel overly long to me at times and I did feel the pacing (especially early going) took a while to get anywhere - but oh how it pays off in the end.  Because y'all know what happens right?  Seth is a jackass, Brianna gets her heart broken, and the emotional aftermath that plays out is gut-wrenching.  Like cold-hearted Wendy almost leaked out some tears while listening to the final chapters of the audiobook gut-wrenching.

So, yeah.  Look.  I'm probably never going to be a reader to fully embrace long-ass single title contemporaries and I've never completely gotten on board with the small town contemporary craze - but folks, if this is your jam?  This book is a good one.  And the set-up of the series is also very promising.  Even I'm invested, which is saying something.

Final Grade = B

#TBRChallenge 2019: Her Knight in the Outback

The Book: Her Knight in the Outback by Nikki Logan

Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance #4466, 2015, Out of print, Available in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: It's not autographed and I've switched over to digital for nearly all my Harlequin reading desires - so I suspect I picked this up impulsively in a used bookstore (yes, those do still exist) or a library book sale.  The cover and back cover blurb caught my eye.

The Review: I have a fair amount of baggage that I lug around thanks to my love of Harlequins. Not only do I take crap from people who sneer at romance in general, but I take crap from romance readers who sneer at Harlequin. Fun times!  This book though - this is the sort of book I like to keep in reserve and chuck at people (aiming for their heads, although they are obviously empty and it probably wouldn't do much damage - but whatevs...) when they dismiss category romance out of hand.  There's an emotional heft to this story (yes, despite the cutesy cover image) and the ending is not pat nor easy.  I'll be thinking about this book for a while.

Evelyn "Eve" Read's younger brother is missing and the police aren't remotely close to potentially finding him.  He's 18 (still a kid in Eve's eyes) with a history of depression and anxiety.  Their alcoholic mother dead thanks to a motorcycle accident (that Travis witnessed) and their father broken down by life, Eve decides to sell her house, quit her job, and buys a converted bus/RV.  She's going to paper every town in Australia with fliers of her missing brother, hunt up leads, find him and bring him home.

It's on a lonely stretch of highway that she meets Marshall Sullivan after his motorcycle has an altercation with an emu.  He's dressed in leather (smart man) with an overgrown beard and at least one tattoo (that she can see).  She's naturally wary.  Words are exchanged, bargains struck, and Eve drives him to the next town for help.  Of course their paths keep on crossing and of course they are soon traveling together.

Marshall is one of those great heroes who isn't who he appears to be.  He's hit the road on his bike for work.  He's a meteorologist (yes, really) who volunteered to check out various weather stations across the country.  It's a way for him to separate himself from his past, a brother and mother he's cut off communication with (for reasons...) and an ex-girlfriend who did him wrong.  So he knows something about being closed off emotionally and he immediately connects with Eve on that level even though our girl is a mess.

Eve is a woman on a desperate mission, consumed by her brother's disappearance, desperate to find him, and is basically no longer living any sort of life.  Marshall knows she cannot keep going down the path she's traveling, but our girl is stubborn and HER BROTHER IS MISSING!  It's hard to think of more compelling conflict and it's easy to understand why Eve is the way she is even if, intellectually, you know that Marshall is right on a basic level.  They slowly and cautiously develop a connection and relationship in just a few short weeks, but when feet are put to the fire, how can they possibly move forward?  Eve will never give up her quest to find Travis and Marshall knows this.

The Black Moment in this book is suitably black and simply gut-wrenching.  It's one of the few that I've read in a long while that feel utterly hopeless.  As in "how the heck can this story end happily?" hopeless.  And I think that's what makes this romance so notable.  Here's the thing, I've criticized many a romance in my day where the characters didn't need a romance - they needed therapy.  And these characters?  Yes, they do need therapy.  But here's the important distinction - while I do think life won't necessarily be sunshine and roses all the time for them?  I think they're stronger together and that these two crazy kids will actually weather any storm that comes their way.  She has issues, he has issues, and while I see arguments and more hurtful Black Moments in their future?  I have every confidence that they're a couple that could come out the other side, stronger for it.

There's some passionate kissing in this story, but true to the Harlequin Romance line the sex is of the closed door variety and the mystery of what happened to brother Travis is resolved (nondescript spoiler: he's found alive).  While I love a good road romance, what I'll remember most about this book is how emotionally gut-wrenching The Black Moment is - when the hero and heroine are driven apart and need to find their way back to each other.  It does come perilously close to a hero "telling" the heroine what's best for her, but Logan writes it the only way I think she possibly could have and both characters need to meet in the middle to close the distance between them.  Very well done, and now I've off to scour my unorganized digital TBR to see if I've got any more Nikki Logan books waiting to be discovered.

Final Grade = B+

Retro Review: Deadly Double

This review of Deadly Double by Adrianne Byrd was first posted at The Romance Reader in 2005.  Back then I rated it 4-Hearts (B Grade) with a sensuality rating of PG-13

+++++

Dr. William Hayes hasn’t been working at the Keystone Mental Institution very long, but he knows one thing for sure – the patient everyone is calling “Michelle Andrews” isn’t Michelle Andrews. She’s the girl he loved and lost one summer while vacationing in Paris – Josephine Ferrell. It’s a mystery he can barely wrap his mind around, and “Michelle” is so doped up that she is unable to give him any answers. Worse still, “Michelle” is a long time patient of a doctor on staff, and that doctor assures Will he is mistaken.

Through a sense of loyalty, and the fact that he’s still in love with her, Will ends up putting his career on the line and kidnaps a patient.

“Michelle Andrews” is indeed Josephine Ferrell. A crazy woman is trying to steal her life, and has nearly succeeded. Josie’s pleas for help with hospital staff only lands her on the wrong side of a hypodermic needle. She is soon swimming in a sea of drugs, so William not only has to figure out what is going on, he also has to help Josie detox. With dead bodies piling up, time is running short. Will Josie and Will be able to clear her name before they end up in the morgue?

Author of several contemporary romances, this is only Byrd’s second foray into romantic suspense and it is quite accomplished. The author literally drops the reader right in the middle of the action and slowly unfolds the nuances of all her characters. While this technique can often prove confusing and frustrating, Byrd makes it work by setting a frantic and exciting pace that kicks off with Will spiriting Josie away from Keystone. The suspense is then revealed through real time and flashbacks.

Will and Josie share a poignant and heartbreaking past. When they met in Paris, Josie was an aspiring jazz musician and Will was a first year medical student. They fell in love, but Josie had made promises to another. They went their separate ways; both of them still half in love with each other. Josie’s current predicament throws them together, but they still have some leftover baggage from their affair 16 years earlier. Josie in particular has a haunting vulnerability about her, which makes it easy to understand how she fell prey to the villain.

Byrd keeps the action humming with several secondary characters – most notable being the female, Asian-American police detective assigned to the case. Her story is equally as compelling as Josie’s thanks to the inclusion of at-home moments between her and her husband. These added another dimension to her character, making Ming Delaney a full flesh and blood character as opposed to a mere bit player.

Original Cover

The conclusion of the story is particularly well done, as while Josie starts out vulnerable, she’s soon out for revenge. Will may be her knight in shining armor, the man who rescued her from Keystone, but Josie isn’t about to sit idly by while someone tries to steal her life. The minute she makes the decision to fight, even with the lingering effects of detox, she becomes a true heroine - a woman no longer willing to sit back and take it any longer.

The only missteps occur in the love scenes. Byrd can write credible sex, but has a tendency to use silly euphemisms. Otherwise sexy and romantic moments are ruined with the inclusion of phrases like “moist cave” and “vortex of euphoria.” These scenes stick out like a sore thumb in a novel that is otherwise finely written.

However overlooking the unfortunate tendency towards purple prose, Byrd has written an exciting story. I could very easily have finished it in one sitting had I not had to go to work. Readers who like women in peril stories where the woman fights back will find a lot to like here. Fans of tender reunion stories shouldn’t be disappointed either. Here’s hoping Byrd continues her foray into romantic suspense, this is certainly the most memorable one I’ve read in ages.

+++++

Originally published by HarperTorch, rights have reverted back to Byrd so there's a reasonably priced self-published edition available.  Byrd is still writing and self-publishing, her most book, Milk and Honey, released in August 2019.

Retro Review: The Courting of Widow Shaw

This review of The Courting of Widow Shaw by Charlene Sands was first posted at The Romance Reader in 2004.  At that time, I rated it 4-Hearts (B grade) with a sensuality rating of PG-13.

+++++

After a shaky start, Sands’ latest effort for Harlequin propels itself into four-heart territory with a sweet romance and charming Beta hero.

Steven Harding has always admired Gloria Mae “Glory” Shaw from afar, and due to circumstances feels indebted to her as well. So when he spies her home engulfed in flames, her no-good husband stabbed to death, and a physically battered and unconscious Glory holding a bloodied knife, he spirits the young woman away. While it appears he had it coming to him, Steven knows that Glory will surely be arrested for the murder of her husband – which he cannot let happen. The problem is there is only one suitable place to hide her – a place no one would think of looking for her.

That place is Rainbow House – the brothel that his mother owns and that Glory has been trying to shut down. The town preacher, Glory’s father, was shot and killed during an altercation outside his church between a dissatisfied customer and Steven’s mother, Lorene. Glory naturally blames the existence of the whorehouse on her beloved father’s death, and while her efforts have proved fruitless thus far, she hasn’t given up her crusade.

Glory awakens having no memory of that fateful night, and more than a little disconcerted that Lorene Harding’s son is her rescuer. She’s also not terribly pleased to be convalescing at Rainbow House, and “the girls” that are employed there don’t exactly give her a warm welcome. With a crisis of faith looming, the long arm of the law lurking, and her brother-in-law telling anyone who will listen that she’s a murderer – Glory has no choice but to trust Steven Harding, even if she does see Lorene as her enemy.

Things get off to a shaky start entirely due to Glory. I could understand how a preacher’s daughter would be horrified to discover she was recouping in a whorehouse. I could also understand Glory’s strong opposition to prostitution. What I couldn’t understand was her reaction to her circumstances. Our girl immediately likens her room at the whorehouse to a “prison” and begins lamenting on how bored and useless she feels. Call me crazy, but I found it a little bizarre that our heroine felt “bored” when she should have been worried, scared out of her mind, frustrated by her memory loss, or all of the above.

However, things do get better – including Glory. What is interesting is how the author handles her transformation. While the hookers here all have the requisite hearts of gold, Glory is fairly unyielding in distaining their profession – that is until she gets to know the girls. As she begins to see them as real people who made choices, she too looks at the choices she’s made in her own life – including marrying a man who was entirely unworthy.

Steven is my favorite kind of hero – a sweet Beta guy who has always admired Glory but felt as a madam’s son he was unworthy of her. He rescues her, protects her, and with his caring nature ultimately woos her. While he does feel indebted to her for her father saving his mother’s life, he’s also not about to make excuses for his mother’s profession. Lorene made her choices, just as he made his by rescuing Glory.

While Glory’s behavior didn’t instill much hope in the beginning, by the end of the novel she really is a changed person. She’s better for her stay at Rainbow House, and even makes peace with events of the past. Steven endears himself with his what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude, his steadfast vow to protect Glory, and his gentle wooing of her, even if he doesn’t think he’s wooing her at all. While the love scenes have some punch to them, they are sweet all the same – making The Courting of Widow Shaw one of the more tender romances I’ve read this year.

+++++

Wendy Looks Back: This obviously worked for me back in 2004, but I'm curious if it would hold up for me on a reread.  That may take a while though.  Even though it was published by Harlequin Historical, it's currently not available in digital or listed on the author's web site.  My guess?  Rights reverted back and the author just hasn't done anything with them yet.  Sands is one of those authors who sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn't.  She's been concentrating on contemporaries in recent years - publishing with both Harlequin Desire and Tule.

Retro Review: Outlaw's Bride

This review of Outlaw's Bride by Maureen McKade was originally posted at The Romance Reader in 2001. Back then I rated this 4-Hearts (B Grade) with an MPAA sensuality rating of PG-13.

+++++

Clint Beaudry made a pit stop in Green Valley, Colorado only to have the owner of the local boardinghouse refuse to give him a room. Mattie St. Clair knew a hired gunman when she saw one and Clint was too tall, dark and dangerous looking to be anything but. Giving up, Clint camps out for the night in the woods behind Mattie’s house, only to be shot by the man he was tracking down. 

Mattie’s 10 year son, Andy, and her hired man, Herman, discover Clint back shot and take him home. The town doctor has to go to a neighboring settlement because of flu epidemic, so he leaves Clint with Mattie.

Clint is not happy to be laid up. The man who shot him was also the one who raped and murdered his wife, Emily. A U.S. Marshal at the time, Clint has been racked with guilt ever since, because he wasn’t home at the time to protect her. He made a promise to find the man responsible, but now is in too much pain to get out of bed, much less on his horse. Besides that, Mattie is as stubborn as a mule and watches him like a hawk.

Mattie was married to the town’s sheriff when his inexperience and short fuse got him killed. Widowed for 10 years, she makes ends meet by taking in laundry and boarders. She vehemently hates guns, and is more than a little overprotective of her son, the only person she has left in this world. She despises everything she thinks Clint stands for, and even though the two soon find themselves attracted to each other, they find that promises stand in their way. Clint is unable to break the promise he made to find his wife’s killer and Mattie is unwilling to fall in love with a man who lives by the gun.

Outlaw’s Bride is standard western fare that is sure to be a real crowd-pleaser. Mattie and Clint sizzle on the page, both of them exuding some heavy sexual tension. They both are lonely and drawn to each other, but their pride and mutual stubbornness keeps them from acknowledging how much they need one another.

Mattie’s first husband was killed before they could even finish the honeymoon. In her youth, she believed herself in love with Jason, but she was more in love with the idea of being needed. By the time she was eight, both of her parents were dead, and Mattie found herself in an orphanage. When Jason came along with all of his sweet talk, she quickly tumbled into bed with him and was just as quickly rushed to the altar.

Clint was more in love with his job than his first wife, and he believes his reluctance to quit led to her death. Guilt ridden, he doesn’t care whether or not he lives through the manhunt. While he’s immediately drawn to Mattie, he is unwilling to give up his search, believing that it is the only way he can do right by Emily now that she is gone.

McKade includes some nicely drawn secondary characters in Andy, Herman and Amelia, a local woman with a past. Children in romance have always been hit or miss characters for me, and the author’s depiction of a 10 year old desperate to be seen as a grown-up, but smothered by his overprotective mother, rings true.

My only minor complaint with this otherwise enjoyable western, was the fact that Mattie later suspects Clint of having an affair with Amelia, which just boggled my mind. The man is recovering from a gun shot wound, and doesn’t leave the house until page 150, how the heck could he carry on an affair?

Aside from that, Outlaw’s Bride is a tried and true story sure to please western buffs. McKade’s ability to write likable and wounded characters will undoubtedly win her more fans and a loyal following. I know I’ll be picking up her books in the future.

+++++

Wendy Looks Back: I was as good as my word with that last sentence - this was my first read by McKade and I've gone on to read a number of her westerns over the years.  While rights have reverted back to a number of her books and she's gone on to self-publish them, I believe she's retired these days.