#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.

Mini-Review: Her Other Secret

It's time to play everyone's favorite game - Do You Think Like a Romance Heroine!

You live on a remote (and fictional) island off the coast of Washington state.  For the past couple of days you've noticed a yacht, that looks disabled, from the shore.  What do you do?

1) You live on an island! You call the Coast Guard and report what you've seen.

2) Hmmm, that boat looks in trouble.  You call the local cop, he's the only law enforcement on the island.

3) You call the local handyman who is hot as hell, but has the personality of a bear you woke up from hibernation even though you've barely been civil to each other ever since you first met.

If you picked #1 or #2 please go to the back of the line.  You have a problem with thinking logically ergo no way in heck you could possibly be a romance heroine.  At least not the heroine in Her Other Secret by HelenKay Dimon.  The improbable set-up of this romance only gets worse when a mystery man, dressed in a suit, walks out of the water without a backward glance at the hero and heroine standing on the shore.

Tessa Jenkins moved to remote Whitaker Island to outrun a scandal not of her making.  Hansen Rye is the local handyman with a surly personality laying low after his life imploded back east.  Then the man who walks out of the water turns up dead and Hansen starts looking guilty as heck given the man was tied to Hansen's mysterious past.

And there's the rub.  Hansen looks VERY guilty.  I mean, I know he's not guilty because he's the romance hero but...NOBODY ELSE IN THIS STORY KNOWS THAT!  They all immediately jump to his defense even though Hansen has kept everyone at arm's length and has a barely housebroken personality.  They just all immediately KNOW he's innocent.  The word "trust" is thrown around a lot but I'm never convinced on WHY they trust him.  He's tight-lipped and slow to share the truth - I mean, that warrants at least a tinch of suspicion in my opinion.

The further I got away from the improbable set-up, the better the story got.  I got wrapped up in the mystery.  Although with the small population on the island, this reads like a locked room mystery where it really can only be ONE person - you just have to wait to have the motive unraveled.

Dimon does a great job of creating a small town atmosphere with her island world-building, which is also a slight issue since I was often times way more interested in the secondary characters (OMG - Ben the cop!) than the main romantic couple.  To say I'm a little disappointed that the next book in this series is about Hansen's brother (who never appears on the page in this book) is a disappointment.  Jury still out if I'll make the pit stop with him, or just set this series aside until, hopefully, Ben's romance finally appears.

YMMV

Final Grade = C

Mini-Reviews: Dukes and Black Ops

If you're predisposed to hate on all "light historical romance" you'll just want to waltz right past Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare.  Everything about this book will likely have you pulling your hair out and screaming into the abyss.  But if, like me, you believe there is such a thing as "good light historicals" and "soul-sucking kill me already light historicals" - well, this is one of the good ones.

Isolde Goodnight's father made a name for himself writing insipid romantic tales where "little Izzy" played a central role. Think of her like Christopher Robin.  Daddy has died unexpectedly leaving Izzy with nothing other than the goodwill of his many fans (who treat her like a little girl and not a grown spinster of 26) and she's down to her last pennies when she finds out her godfather has bequeathed her Gostley Castle.  One small problem - the castle has a resident, Ransome, the Duke of Rothbury.  Ransome was grievously injured in a duel gone wrong and has been hiding out (all Beast-like) in HIS castle.  So needless to say when Izzy shows up proclaiming the castle is rightly hers he's a might put out.

This is light, charming and achingly romantic in parts - but it helps to go into it with your Fairy Tale Glasses firmly in place.  This is one of those light historicals that take place in Regencyville, Romancelandia with no discernible sense of place (Regency? Early Victorian? I got whiffs of both).  There are some silly inclusions, like Izzy's pet ermine and her father's cosplaying fans.  There are even what I felt were references to The Princess Bride (the movie) and Star Wars (I'm not sure if these were intentional on the part of the author, but it's how I read them.  I could be wrong.)

Some of you are already probably reaching for the vodka, and if you are?  Just save yourself the time and inevitable annoyance by staying far, far away.

That said, there is some depth here - but it tends to reside within the characters' emotions, and their reactions to various situations.  These were the moments that stuck with me and had me happy sighing my way through the book.  Yes, it's silly - but it's a fairy tale wrapped up with a big ol' giant escapist bow.  A pink one.  With maybe some glitter on it.  If that sounds like the sort of thing that appeals you'll love this and beg for seconds.

Final Grade = B

Let me share with you some of the reasons I've enjoyed HelenKay Dimon's books in the past.  1) She writes good action/adventure plots 2) She writes really good, bantering dialogue and 3) She has a knack for writing secondary characters you desperately want follow-up books about.  So it pains me to say that Playing Dirty didn't work for me at all.  In fact I DNF'ed it at the 25% mark because I was bored and didn't care.

Ford works Black Ops for Alliance, a secretive undercover unit for MI6 and the CIA.  There's anywhere from 3 to 25 hot hunky guys running around in the first 7 chapters, all of them interchangeably hunky and hot, swearing when a operation goes south (which it does - twice in the first 7 chapters) and really, I don't care.  Some wunderkind scientist has invented some evil chemical thingie that some bad guy has stolen and Ford is leasing an apartment in the heroine's building, getting close to her, because she's wunderkind scientist's cousin.  He's naturally boning her every chance he gets and explains his constant travel and workaholic tendencies on a fictional IT job.

Shay is the heroine and basically her job in the first 7 chapters is to talk in innuendo with Ford, stay off page when he's out playing Black Ops stud with all those interchangeable hunky future heroes, and have sex with him when he is around.  Seriously.  Seven chapters, three sex scenes.  Oh wait, she does have a conversation with her uncle!  So she can do something else besides stand around and wait for the hero to bone her.

Here's the problem: I am a very heroine-centric romance reader.  If you're all about hot studly manly heroes because OMG THEY ARE SO HOT AND HUNKY!!!!! -  maybe you'll love this.  There is nothing in the first 25% to give me an inkling of why I should care about Shay and all Ford seems to do is feel guilty that he's deceiving her and get cranky about work.  Blah, blah, blah - whatever.

Here's the thing: I've enjoyed similar set-ups like this in the past.  Dimon's Harlequin Intrigues feature Black Ops-style military-like units with a bevy of hunky guys standing around and I really enjoyed those.  I think I know why - short word count = tighter pacing and plotting.  Here?  None of this was holding my attention and I was getting more unreasonably annoyed by the minute.  Having liked this author's work in the past (quite a bit!), I'm chalking this up to This Series Is Not My Jam.

Final Grade = DNF

Digital Review: Everything You Need To Know

When I first heard about Harlequin teaming up with Cosmo to launch the new digital line "Red Hot Reads," I'll admit I had certain preconceived notions.  When I think of Cosmopolitan magazine I think of sex, fun, a bit of glamor, a bit of that "upwardly mobile" stuff and hot guys.  Frankly walking into this new publishing endeavor thinking Heavy Soul-Crushing Angst would just be plain ol' nutty.

HelenKay Dimon has spent the last couple of years working within the Harlequin Intrigue universe.  Because of that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that she started her career publishing with Kensington Brava.  Brava, while probably considered tame in the wake of all that has followed, was one of the first mainstream erotic romance imprints - which means to say they're "sexy books."  Oh sure, Dimon writes a very good romantic thriller, but she's hardly a stranger to writing sexy, and Everything You Need To Know is a good reminder that she's not a one-trick pony.

Single women dating in Washington D.C. should get hazard pay.  After breaking up with her disastrous ex (he sort of forgot to mention he was already engaged!) and getting downsized from her job, Jordan McAdam gets a genius idea.  She starts a membership only dating web site called Need To Know.  For a fee, women join the site and can get the dirt, from other members, about the men they're dating.  For her part, Jordan is now working as a secretarial temp following up on some of the dirt that gets dished on her web site.  Which is how she meets elusive eligible bachelor Forest Redder.  Forest is at Jordan's latest temp job to put the kibosh on a deal with Jordan's temp boss - a guy who urinated on his last date's front porch after she wouldn't invite him in for an after dinner "drink."

Needless say, sparks fly.  Forest is so intrigued that he ends up running Jordan to ground even though he only has her last name to go by.  In turn, Jordan is intrigued by this sexy, successful man - even though he's the type of guy she has vowed to stay away from.  The fly in the ointment?  Their own personal baggage (he's the family black sheep, she's got a mother who has been married more times than Elizabeth Taylor) and the wee small fact that Jordan's identity as the owner of the infamous Need To Know web site is a big ol' secret.

This novella basically details "the chase" and "the fallout" once both characters learn to trust and let go of their secrets.  What I appreciated is that even with a Big Secret plot, Dimon doesn't have her characters resort to silly misunderstandings or temper tantrums.  In other words, Forest doesn't throw a big ol' hissy fit and behave like a toddler when he discovers that Jordan hasn't unloaded all her secrets to him the moment they hit the sheets.  It was nice to read about two characters, while both screwed up in their own ways, that didn't behave like petulant babies.

What didn't work quite as well for me was the pacing.  I cannot quite put my finger on it, but even reading this story in one sitting, it just felt a little "off" to me.  Maybe Jordan spending too much time with her BFF Elle in the beginning?  Maybe taking a little too long setting up the tango between Forest and Jordan?  Or maybe I'm just a deviant and wanted the Sexy Times to show up a teensy bit sooner.  Honestly, I could see some readers being surprised by that (pleasantly and unpleasantly).  There is hot sex in this story, but the novella isn't wall-to-wall-nothing-but-bumping-uglies.  There's, you know, an actual plot here.  So depending on what type of reader you are?  That could be a good or bad thing.

I mostly found it a very good thing.  I enjoy Dimon's cat-and-mouse-style thrillers, but I also really liked a number of her sexy contemporaries prior to her move to the Intrigue line.  Reading this novella is a good example that an author really can go home again.

Final Grade = B-

Review: Copy That

Suspense readers come in two different varieties: 1) Those who cannot tolerate even a whiff of "the love cooties" and 2) Those of us who have been inoculated.  Even long before I was a romance reader, I was firmly in Camp #2.  Copy That, the latest Harlequin Intrigue by HelenKay Dimon is the sort of book I would have enjoyed reading back in my Pre-Romance Just Give Me Dead Bodies days.  Sure there's romance, but it's pretty light given the Intrigue word count, and Dimon keeps the pages flipping with non-stop action.

Jeremy Hill is a Border Patrol agent on some forced R&R thanks to an injury he sustained on his last assignment.  He has plans to lay low in Coronado, California, where he has a house with his twin brother, Garrett.  However, when he gets there he finds himself rescuing a tenant he didn't know he had, and knocking out a Very Bad Man who was systemically searching the house.  Then, because that's not enough, the house blows up.

Meredith Samms is an elementary school teacher still picking up the pieces from a Very Bad Relationship.  The apartment she rents from Garrett is the size of a matchbox, but it's the price one pays for living in paradise.  Her landlord is nice, and travels a lot - which means normally it's a pretty ideal place to live.  That is until she interrupts a burglary in process and meets the twin brother that Garrett never bothered to mention.  What exactly does Garrett do for a living that would warrant a hired goon?  There's secretive, and then there's just plain spooky.  Now she's homeless, scared, apparently in danger - and the only choice she has is running off with Jeremy while he tries to figure out what is going on.

The first half of this book is all about secrets - of which Garrett has many.  His job is mysterious, he has a twin brother he never mentioned, and apparently.....a fiancee'.  That troubles Meredith not because she was attracted to him, but because, who doesn't mention a fiancee'?  She does find herself attracted to Jeremy though, and that spells trouble for her.  Meredith doesn't have the best track record with authoritative, secretive men and Jeremy might as well have Alpha Dog tattooed on his forehead.  But attracted she is, not that she has a lot of time to dwell on, what with all the bullets flying around.

I tend to not care for twin stories, mostly because they can easily descend into cliches I get annoyed with.  Evil Twins, the ol' "Sometimes I'm hot for him and sometimes I'm not - how come?," the ol' Separated At Birth, Raised Separately thing, yada yada yada.  Dimon avoids all that.  We've simply got brothers, who happen to be twins, who both happen to have secretive law enforcement type jobs.  She also avoids that tedious "which brother is which?" when it comes to the women in this story.  Meredith knows, from the moment she meets Jeremy, that he may look like Garrett - but he ain't Garrett.  Same goes for Garrett's fiancee'.

The action and suspense here is very good, and pretty much fits the Action Movie profile.  Lots of bad guys, lots of guns, and the twins trying to figure out who is behind it all.  The romance is much thinner.  The back cover blurb sells this as a romance between Meredith and Jeremy, but there's also a secondary storyline involving Garrett and his fiancee' - who isn't all that happy with him at the moment.  It's the sort of thing that I think suspense-heavy readers will enjoy, because the love cooties aren't blatantly in your face.  But if you're primarily a romance reader, and you want just a romance?  This one could leave you a little dissatisfied.  It's more like an appetizer than say, a main course.

I still enjoyed this story though.  Dimon does very well writing action-oriented stories, and I really enjoyed the San Diego/Coronado back-drop.  I also liked that she gives us two very different female characters, and twin brothers who, while unique in their own ways, shared some similar traits and played well off each other.  I did feel the declarations of love a bit rushed, but the author avoids the sappy epilogue trap and doesn't go anywhere near a marriage proposal (thank you Lord!).  A story that won't be for everybody, but might be for you depending on what you're looking for.  Personally, I think it would make an ideal addition to any Labor Day weekend beach bag.

Final Grade = B 

Review: When She Wasn't Looking

I've always read a fair amount of category romance, but it wasn't until I started reviewing at The Good, The Bad And The Unread that I made a concerted effort to branch out from just reading my "tried and true" lines.  I've been floundering about a bit with Harlequin Intrigue.  When they work for me, they're super-quick, action-packed reads.  When they don't work?  Meh.  Lucky for me I've discovered one author who consistently has been delivering for me in Intrigue - and that's HelenKay Dimon.  When She Wasn't Looking, a rare unicorn of a stand-alone book, features a nicely involved suspense thread and non-stop action that had me staying up way past my bedtime.

After his career took a nose-dive in Los Angeles, Jonas Porter relocated to Oregon and is working as a deputy sheriff.  It's been a long day, and he's tired.  He just wants to go home and crawl into bed.  However he's got one last stop, a "wellness check" on a woman whose husband has been unable to get a hold of her.  However when he arrives at the house?  It's not some little old blue-haired grandmother, but a sexy young woman.  What the aces is going on here?

Courtney Allen has been in hiding for pretty much her whole adult life.  When the cop shows up at her door dropping various names from her past, she knows that it's time to run.  However, Jonas just won't seem to take the hint and keeps asking questions she does not want to answer.  Worse still, he wants to haul her into his office.  And while she's trying to extricate herself from the deputy?  Bad Guy #1 shows up, and all bets are off.

What I tend to really like about Dimon's Intrigues is that she works well with what I call The Slow Reveal.  She teases readers along, laying out just enough tasty morsels of plot and suspense to keep you flipping pages.  It takes a while to learn Courtney's whole back-story, why she is hiding and why she's so cagey with Jonas.  Jonas' baggage helps to define him as a cop, but also gives him the tools to be well-prepared for the crap he has to wade through in this story.  One innocent wellness check has turned into killers coming to his sleepy Oregon town, with the body count rising, and Courtney somehow being in the eye of the storm.

The suspense here is very good, and quite involved for an Intrigue.  The author weaves in a nice amount of twists and turns, and throws in a suitable number of red herrings.  Readers meet The Head Bad Guy fairly early on, which makes this story more action-style cat-and-mouse, although Dimon does throw in a wee bit of mystery to spice up the details.  She also keeps that action flowing easily from chapter-to-chapter, making this a hard book to put down once you start it.  "I'll just read one more chapter," quickly turns into finishing the book, and me staying up too late.  I also really appreciated that she avoids the pit-fall of making her characters "super human."  In other words?  Jonas and Courtney have to make more than one trip to the hospital over the course of the story.

The romance here is pretty much standard Intrigue, which means it's not without some issues.  Readers need to be willing to roll with a romance that develops on a very short time-line, against a back-drop of danger and suspense.  It's the sort of thing that never strikes me as having much staying power in real life, but you like Dimon's characters so much, and their shared dialogue alone has enough sizzle and spark to convince me of a long-term happy-ever-after.

When She Wasn't Looking is exactly what I want out of my romantic suspense reading.  Lots of action, good suspense, and lively chemistry between the romantic couple.  And in probably the highest compliment I can give a book?  I stayed up late and finished it in one sitting.

::yaaawwwwnnnnn:: (and it was totally worth it)

Final Grade = B+

Guns And The Girl Next Door

I read a grand total of five books by HelenKay Dimon in 2010, so it seems fitting that the first Bat Cave review of the new year is for her latest Harlequin Intrigue, Guns And The Girl Next Door.  Newly minted with a miniseries title (the rather generic "Mystery Men" - c'mon Harlequin you can do better than that!), this is the second book in a series that started with last year's Under The Gun.

Holden Price is former military and was working as an agent for the supah-secret Recovery Project.  However, because of events that transpired in Under The Gun, there's been major fallout.  The Recovery Project has been shut down and a congressional hearing/investigation is looming.  This all translates to Holden being unemployed, sitting on his couch, in his cabin, in the middle of the woods.  However his solitude is short-lived when Mia Landers comes crashing through his front door.  Literally.  She drives her car through his front door!

Mia is completely disoriented, scared, and running on enough adrenline to fuel a grizzly bear.  A congressional aide, her boss has driven her out to the middle of nowhere, made wild accusations, and physically threatened her.  She manages to escape, only to crash into Holden's house.  Nothing is making any sense - and now she has hired goons chasing after her.  Her options are limited but one thing she knows for sure?  Holden isn't a bad guy to have around.  And it turns out they both have a common enemy.

The Intrigue line can be tricky business for authors to pull off, and Dimon has made her stories work by writing them a bit like they were action movies.  I'd classify this series (so far) as more thriller-oriented than traditional romantic suspense.  You have lots of fighting, lots of gun play, and lots of bad guys chasing after our couple.  Even factoring in The Love Cooties, if this story were to be made into a movie, I could so see my Dad (the aficionado of action films) eating this up.

With all this danger and intrigue flying around, the concern on the part of the romance reader is always "what about the romance?"  Well, readers who want their romance first and their suspense second are probably not going to be wildly enthralled here.  The romance does take a little of a backseat to the Bad Men With Guns chasing after our couple.  However, that's as it should be in a story of this ilk.  Frankly it would have been wildly unbelievable and improbable to have the Mia and Holden hash out their feelings and engage in heavy petting while dodging bullets and knocking out bad guys.  The romantic elements in this story fit, the author includes them in all the right places, and it instills some hope in the happy-ever-after even considering the short time frame.

Now that this has morphed into a mini-series, readers should expect some series baggage.  The author does a lovely job of bringing the reader up to speed (I read the first book all the way back in April, so I appreciated this!), but there's no denying this is a series.  All the pertinent questions swirling around Mia and Holden are dealt with, but there are some dangling threads left loose presumably for future installments.

I've always considered myself, in my heart, a mystery/suspense girl.  I discovered the romance genre later in life, and while I love it with all my heart, sometimes I just want the thrill read.  I want villains, hand-to-hand combat, and fast-paced action.  This series has been giving me that.  They're fun.  They're exciting.  They're what I consider perfect vacation reads.  And oh happy day, the next three installments are all due out in 2011.

Final Grade = B

Lose Myself In Your Kiss

Contrary to popular opinion, not all secondary characters in romance novels need their own stories. They just don't. But in the case of HelenKay Dimon's books - well, they do. Whatever that magic ingredient a secondary character has to have to snag a reader's attention, hers seem to. So when I got around to reading Holding Out For A Hero earlier this year, I found myself turning into a squee'ing rabid fangirl hoping that Eric Kimura (yes, Asian hero alert!) would get his own romance. In Impulsive, Eric gets the girl, although she's not exactly the girl anyone would ever imagine him falling for.

Eric is at his ex's wedding (see: HOfaH) when he catches a waitress making eyes at him. Before you can say, "My ex screwed me over and not in a good way" he's doing the dirty deed with Katie Long in the nearest restroom.

Ahhhh, romance! But honestly, hotter than hell. Just sayin'.

Complications naturally abound. Eric is running for political office (prosecuting attorney), and even though his ex just got married, there are plenty of rumors that they're sneaking around. Enter stage left, Katie, who was hired to keep an eye on Eric and see if the rumors about the ex are true. The plan did not entail having hot and steamy McLovin' with Eric in the bathroom, but minor detail that. There's also the small matter of Katie's checkered past and her 25-year-old "lifestyle" (as in, she was a total screw-up and is just now trying to get her life on track) to Eric's 37-year-old lawyer-running-for-political-office lifestyle.

See, I told you there were complications.

Impulsive follows the trajectory I seem to have with a lot of Dimon's books. Great dialogue, a yummy hero I wouldn't mind taking into the nearest bathroom myself, and a heroine that I don't start out liking all that much. It's entirely possible I'm being too hard on Katie. I mean, I was 25 once. Not as much of a disaster as Katie is, but she's young and hasn't had the easiest life. Bless her heart, she is trying. And just like other Dimon heroines before her, the longer I hang around Katie, the more she grows on me.

Eric makes this book for me. He's just as yummy as I remembered him, but the author doesn't fall into the trap of making him "too good." The guy has his faults. He sometimes says and does the wrong thing, when he really thinks he's doing the right thing. Honestly, there were moments when I thought Katie should have been more mad at him about certain things. But he's also a nice change of pace from many romance heroes. He's intelligent, reserved, and he's not exactly a demonstrative guy. Well, outside of the sex at any rate.

And that's sort of where this book stumbles a bit for me. Even after Katie grew on me, I'm not entirely sold on the romance here. First, there's the age difference (admittedly, an issue for me!). Also, Katie and Eric are so......different. That being said, I felt better about the ending once I got all the way through the book, because by that point I felt more confident that Eric wouldn't spend their entire lives together cleaning up after whatever mess Katie stumbled into. She figures it out over the course of the book, and so does he.

I didn't love this one as much as HOfaH, but I still found it quite enjoyable. If you're already a Dimon fan this new one has everything you've come to expect from one of her stories. If you're a newbie who is a sucker for great dialogue and drop-dead hunky heroes who talk and act like men? Yeah, what the heck are you waiting for?

Final Grade = B

If You'll Be My Bodyguard

I remember when the Kensington Brava line first launched. For those of you who weren't active in the online romance community during this period, the only thing I can compare it to is like someone dropping a bomb in your bedroom. There were vocal factions on both sides of the "issue." There were those readers who thought that Brava was nothing more than porn for woman and an End Of Days sign that meant the eventual death of the genre (sadly, I'm not exaggerating here). Then there were readers like myself who threw their clothes on a bonfire, ran naked into the street and danced a jig. I read a lot of Brava early on, especially when I was still affiliated with TRR, but over the years I sort of drifted away. Other publishers launched more "erotic" lines, I got distracted, and Brava and I grew apart. That is, until I started doing my homework reading for my library's recent literary event. Discovering HelenKay Dimon's books have reminded me that when done right, there is nothing quite like a Brava.

Leave Me Breathless tells the story of Bennett "Ben" Walker, former military man turned Judge, who is not terribly happy with his big brother, Mark, Homeland Security agent. Even though a car bomb destroyed Ben's car, he's not convinced he's in any danger. He thinks the bomb was meant for his colleague, Judge Emma Blanton, who made some inflammatory statements regarding a defendant in her courtroom. Determined to keep his brother safe, Mark hires Callie Robbins, a former FBI agent, who is extremely grateful for the job. That is, until she meets Ben, who just might be the most obstinate, pig-headed, stubborn man she's ever run up against. She's used to being underestimated, but this guy's refusal to acknowledge that his life just might be in danger really grates on her nerves.

What follows in your classic lust-hate relationship. Callie and Ben both rub each other the wrong way, but there's no denying there is a definite, and mutual, sexual attraction. Naturally it doesn't take long for them to succumb, which is probably the main stumbling block. Readers used to getting burned by romantic suspense stories where the cop/FBI/ATF heroine loses her brain the minute she has an orgasm will likely have their doubts. Blessedly, Dimon doesn't go this route. Callie is intelligent, tough, and got a raw deal from the FBI. I like that the author didn't render her stupid just so the hero can swoop in at the end for a Rescue Fantasy Moment. I also liked that Callie called Ben on pretty much all of his bullshit. I liked this girl. Lots.

I often bemoan the fact that publishers and authors are determined to make every book part of a series these days. That nothing can just be a "stand alone" anymore. Which means readers are subjected to a lot of blatant, subtle-as-a-sledgehammer series-baiting. The thing about Dimon's books (that I've noticed anyway) is that as the reader I actually want all of her secondary characters to get their own books. Not sure how she does it. I think it might be the male-bonding thing. Anyway, instead of sequel-baiting brother Mark, he's the secondary romance in this story. I have to admit, that I found myself, at times, more interested in Mark's story than in the Ben and Callie romance - but the author does a good job of drawing both story lines together. I also thought the brother relationship between Ben and Mark was particularly well-done. They both survived a traumatic childhood event that left scars, with each of them channeling that emotional baggage in different ways.

This was a quick, sexy read that I managed to zip right though once I tuned out distractions, planted my butt in a chair, and started reading. It features all those things I've come to enjoy in Dimon's books - snappy dialogue, interesting suspense threads, and yummy heroes. For Leave Me Breathless I can also add the solid heroine to that list. Damn, I feel a glom coming on. The last thing I need right now is a glom....

Grade = B

He's Gotta Be Fresh From The Fight

Since my library's literary event is coming up in (very) early April, I'm past due to get truckin' on my "homework reading." When preparing for the romance fiction panel discussion, it's honestly completely incidental whether or not I "like" a featured author's book(s). It's much more about familiarizing myself with their work, and being able to moderate the discussion while sounding like I know what the heck I'm talking about.

But I ain't lyin' - this job is a lot easier when I "like" the book(s).

Holding Out For A Hero by HelenKay Dimon is the most recent in her Hawaii Heroes and stands alone very well. I think it's a good "test" for an author when they can make series stories stand alone (this is one of my personal reading quirks) and I'll be honest - the plot sounded delicious.

Deana Armstrong needs a private investigator. Her nephew (the family fuck-up golden boy) is rotting away in prison for a crime he couldn't possibly have committed. Unfortunately for Deana, the best man for the job is Josh Windsor and their history is a bit....complicated. Not only did Josh once arrest her nephew, he didn't take kindly to her hiring a team of investigators to dig around in his life, trying to find anything to discredit his good name in court. She hardly thinks he should hold that against her though. All she learned was that the guy was so honorable and squeaky clean that even his ex-girlfriends wouldn't talk trash about him. Now to convince him to take the job.

Josh has just left the DEA thanks to his boss trying to pass the buck of a botched investigation on to him. The whole incident has not only confirmed that his boss is a prick, but that he's damn tired of rescuing people. He's done. He's out. Then Deana approaches him with her job offer, and he somehow keeps it together long enough to not laugh in her face. This woman, and her family, have repeatedly shown that they are more than willing to throw their money around to try to weasel out of trouble, and now she wants his help?! He should be telling her to go to Hell, but damn, he finds himself saying yes.

What we have here is your classic adversarial romantic relationship. Countless authors have tread this ground before and many, many of them have failed (sorry, you have) because they forget a key ingredient in the mix. The adversarial "stuff" has to be believable. It can't be trumped up and stupid. Josh has a very credible reason for disliking Deana and her family. Not only did her mother try to blackmail him once - but Deana herself once hired a team of investigators to dig through his life, looking for evidence to discredit his good name.

The author takes a very big risk in this story in the form of Deana. I'll be blunt - the girl just doesn't "get" it for a good chunk of this story. It's easy for her to accuse Josh of hating money, as opposed to admitting that what he really hates is her family trying to buy their way out of trouble. She's also still lugging around guilt for a past event that I suspect many readers will balk at. Romance readers love wounded characters when they're "wrongly" wounded. It's a lot trickier when said wounded character makes the choice that ultimately leads to their downfall. Deana is risky enough that, I'll admit it, during my reading, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. But ultimately, that is what makes this story so interesting. That the heroine doesn't fit into a safe mold where you always "like" her. Plus, it helps that she eventually does "get" it.

It's been a while since I've read a book where I literally wanted to drop everything (oh, like my entire life!) to keep reading. The dialogue is fantastic, the story is solid, and the final chapters are just....wow, amazing! If I had been on the ball at all, this easily would have made my Best Of 2009 list. As it stands right now, don't be surprised if Holding Out For A Hero makes my Best Of 2010 list.

Final Grade = B+

Hey, I'm Working Here!

In one week I'll be on a plane, on my way to Washington D.C. for the annual RWA conference. This will be my fifth time attending, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to nerves and excitement-induced jitters. I will say though that this year is proving to be much more sedate than last year. Why? Because this time last year I was sweating over the fact that I only had one confirmed romance author for my library's literary event. Which meant that I spent a lot of time at RWA in San Francisco passing out my business card, giving my "sales pitch" and trying not to look too desperate. It all worked out in the end, and thankfully the trip helped me net two more authors.

D.C. should be much more "relaxing," at least in terms of Wendy Doing Her Librarian Thang. Why? I broke a land-speed record in securing three authors for the romance panel for my library's fourth annual literary event in April 2010.














Once again, I've outdone myself. See how modest I am? My only goal in securing the romance fiction panel is that I get authors who all write "different." Which means every year I shoot for historical, contemporary and paranormal representatives. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this up indefinitely, but so far this is the third time I've managed to pull it off.

As for the mystery panels I'm supposed to be working on? Well, they're almost done. I really only need to secure one more author, which I'm thinking will have to wait until after I get back from vacation. Still, it's all shaping up quite nicely.