#TBRChallenge 2018: Cinderella's Wedding Wish

The Book: Cinderella's Wedding Wish by Jessica Hart

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance #4084, 2009, Out of Print, Available Digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Hart is probably my most favorite author in the Harlequin Romance universe.  She's an autobuy.  This was one of her backlist titles I picked up when I "discovered" her with a later 2009 release.

The Review:  I like category romance for a lot of reasons, but it's hard to deny that it's a format that is laden with tropes.  So for this month's Favorite Trope theme, I decided to go into my Harlequin TBR and read the first book that caught my eye.  Lo and behold, this Jessica Hart was right on top and it's a Boss/Secretary book!  Yes, yes - I'm part of the problem.  I love Boss/Secretary books.  I know, I know!  Don't hate the player, hate the game.  Turns out though this really isn't a Boss/Secretary romance - it's more general office romance with some Cinderella and Fake Relationship tossed into the blender.

Miranda Fairchild is the plain middle child, while her two sisters are raving beauties.  Miranda left college to try to save the family business (a department store) but it was too late.  The damage was done, her father having ignored the signs of impending doom for far too long.  Her younger sister's answer to this little problem is to try to bag a rich husband (older sister is already married), while ever practical Miranda goes the old fashioned route.  Yeah, she finds a job.  The problem is her resume isn't all that impressive (the stored died on her watch after all), so she's working as a temp at the Knighton group and working evenings at a friend's catering business.

Rafe Knighton is an only child, a reformed bad boy that still managed to inherit the family business even though his father disapproved of him (ultimately though Daddy did leave him the company).  The problem is that even though he's "grown up," Rafe cannot shake his reputation.  It's while walking the halls of his company that he meets Miranda accosting an uncooperative copy machine (girl, I'm been there...) and he's taken with her.  Her temp assignment is almost up, and Rafe knows she's just the woman he needs....to help him find a wife.  He asks her to organize a charity gala to help him look for a potential spouse.  Someone intelligent, accomplished, and beautiful certainly wouldn't hurt.  He's ready to settle down and certainly a wife will convince everyone (the press, his own board of directors etc.) that he's no longer a "bad boy."

Eventually Rafe's plan to land a wife has him turning to Miranda to pose as a temporary/fake fiancee, but there's tap-dancing to get through first.  We all know what happens next, they soon learn there is more to the other one than meets the eye.

This is pretty much standard issue, right down to Miranda hiding behind an ill-fitting, less-than-flattering wardrobe.  While Miranda certainly stacks up with her sisters in the looks department, she never saw herself that way so...why even bother?  Rafe is drop-dead gorgeous but has never been given much credit in the brains department because of his reputation. 

This is a very pleasant, straight-forward and sweet romance.  There's one off-page sex scene and there's some nice chemistry between the main characters.  But this all sounds like damning with faint praise, doesn't it?  That's because it kind of is.  I hate to judge an author by previous (and future) work, but this one doesn't have the emotional gut-punch I've experienced with other books by Hart.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice.  It's a good, solid, romantic read.  But it didn't leave me swooning or weepy like a lot of her other books have.

But there's nothing wrong with straight-forward and honestly, this is not "bad."  It's a good, pleasant read that I tore through in a couple of sittings.  It's just nowhere near the best of what Hart can showcase in the Harlequin Romance format.  Good, but not a favorite and not the first book I would recommend to a newbie by this author.

Final Grade = B-

Review: The Baronet's Wedding Engagement

Let's address the elephant in the room shall we?  2017 has been a crap year.  Every morning sees me slowly gaining consciousness, grabbing my phone, checking the news, and immediately regretting that decision while wondering how on Earth people can be 1) this stupid 2) this ignorant and 3) such deplorable human beings.  Needless to say, it has made reading for pleasure rather difficult.  At a time when I desperately want to fall into a story?  I can't.  I simply can't.  It takes me weeks to get through a category length novel.  At this point, audio books are the only thing keeping me afloat while I'm aimlessly floating adrift at sea.

Which makes the return of Jessica Hart to romance a welcome respite.  A couple years ago Hart put that pseudonym on the shelf to focus on her historical fiction novels written as Pamela Hartshorne.  And since Hart was my absolute FAVORITE author working in the Harlequin Romance line?  I'm not proud - I pouted.  But she's been temporarily lured back by Tule Publishing and is part of a new continuity series centering around a royal wedding in the fictional country of San Michele.  People, I fell into The Baronet's Wedding Engagement.  It was comfort food.  Like macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes had a baby.

Flora Deare left her tiny English village of Combe St. Philip to train as a chef.  She loves London, even had herself a steady boyfriend, and then her beloved grandmother died.  Her grandparents basically raised her, and with her grandfather slipping into dementia, she puts her London life on hold and comes home to take care of him.  Naturally her relationship goes kaput and with her grandfather recently passed, she's staying behind in Combe St. Philip to take care of his beloved cat, eventually sell the cottage, and she bakes amazing pastries for the local merchants to sell.  Then wonder of wonders?  Her best friend gets engaged to a Real. Life. Prince!  Hope wants a "small" wedding at the family estate and she wants Flora to cater it.  So she strikes a bargain with Hope's brother, Max Kennard.  She'll cater the wedding at a cut rate, cook meals when he has his children, and in exchange she can use his huge kitchen for her catering business.  Win, win.

Max Kennard is a man with a lot on his plate.  His family, the pride of Combe St. Philip, took a tumble when his father was sent to prison over financial shenanigans.  The family finances in ruins, it was up to Max to save the day, which meant selling everything not tied down in the hope of saving Hasebury Hall (which he did).  But now his sister is marrying into royalty, wants the wedding at her family home and the place is looking a little worn around the edges.  Never mind the fact that it's largely empty of furniture.  The family scandal had a detrimental effect on his marriage, although his ex and he get on fairly well for the sake of their two children.  He's a loner.  A borderline recluse.  He's a pinstripe suit to Flora's bright vibrancy.  And naturally they are perfect for each other.

What we have here ladies and gents is a quiet romance where the characters spend a lot of time talking to each other - which may sound boring, but isn't.  It's happy sigh wonderful.  Max and Flora are both attracted to each other but recognize they have "nothing in common."  Flora is the life of the party, a tall girl with a big personality so different from the willowy wisps that Max seems to favor.  Max is still struggling under the weight of the family scandal and Flora seems well-adjusted on the surface, but is largely marking time and delaying grief over the death of her grandparents.

Inevitably what happens is that for the sake of satisfying a protocol driven future mother-in-law, Max and Flora pretend to be a couple to smooth things over for Hope.  They're both going to be in San Michele anyway - so why not pretend to be a couple to get the Crown Princess off Hope's back about "seating arrangements."

There's nothing flashy here, it's simply a lovely story, lovingly written, about two nice people.  The royal wedding provides a suitably romantic backdrop with the author taking readers through the English countryside and a fictional Mediterranean country (seriously, how romantic can you get?).  The contrast in personalities play well off each other, and when Max finally admits his feelings to Flora it is One. Big. Happy. Romantic. Sigh.

The characters do consummate their relationship, but this is a lovely closed door romance with all the fairy-tale trappings a reader could want.  Although book two in a series, it stands alone fairly well and I sunk right into this story desperately wanting to do nothing else but spend my time reading.  A minor miracle given the dumpster fire of 2017.  Now I'm off to pick up the other three books in the series.

Final Grade = B+

#TBRChallenge 2016: How Times Have Changed

Title: No Mistaking Love by Jessica Hart

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance, 1993, Out of print, not available in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: A few years ago I fell in love with Jessica Hart's Harlequin Romances, and naturally she has a ginormous backlist that I've been collecting ever since.  This is one of her oldies.

The Review: One of the misconceptions about genre fiction that tends to annoy me the most is when people seem to think that genre doesn't evolve.  That it doesn't change.  That the romance novel published today is going to be identical in style and tone as a romance novel published 20 years ago.

Um, no.

No Mistaking Love is a perfect example.  Cracking open my battered used copy, reading the first few paragraphs, I knew I was reading a Jessica Hart story.  This is truly amazing, but her style and her skill in the category format was just as strong in this 23-year-old book as it is in her more recent works.  The words sing off the page.  Her way of setting her stage, of developing her characters - I knew these people inside and out before I was clear of the first chapter.  Where this book shows genre evolution?  Baby, it's all in the content.  I wanted to gut the hero before I got out of Chapter Two and my opinion of him never rose above garden slug.

And that's probably an insult to garden slugs everywhere.

Kate Finch had a horrible crush on Luke Hardman (get it? "hard" and "man?") when she was a gawky, awkward teen girl with Coke-bottle glasses.  She's all grown up now, but that doesn't mean she's not above feeling flummoxed when she spots Luke at the theater one night.  After all, most girls don't forget their first kiss.  But it's a brief moment, they don't even speak in fact, and she's put it all out of her mind until she shows up to a job interview she has the next day.  You guessed it - that too-good-to-be-true sounding secretarial job?  Turns out Luke Hardman is now her boss.  Oh, and he doesn't recognize her - which any romance reader worth her salt knows is going to come back to bite Kate in the butt during the final chapters.

Luke is cookie-cutter, high-handed, Alpha jerk.  The author tap dances a bit around his insecurities of "not being good enough," but this is so minimally explored he merely comes off as a boorish AlphaHole.

"Oh really?  In my experience, women have a fine disregard for the truth when it suits them!  I'm sure you can type, I'm just not convinced that you haven't increased your speeds - oh, just an extra ten or twenty words a minute! - to make your CV look more impressive."

And this would be on page 29.  DURING THE JOB INTERVIEW!!!

Luke is like this for the whole blessed book.  Right down to telling Kate she WILL get her hair cut to look more stylish and sophisticated and he WILL buy her a new wardrobe for the same effect before they go on a business trip to Paris.  And even though he told her to be polite and charming to the French businessmen he wants to broker a deal with, when she is polite and charming he accuses her of forgetting that it was a "business meeting":

"Instead of tarting yourself up like a dog's dinner and leaning all over Xavier so he could get a good look at your cleavage?  Anyone watching you would have known that business was the last thing on your mind!"

This is Luke for the whole blessed book.  When he's not being insufferably rude, he's being a possessive jerk.  I seriously loathed him from the moment I met him to the close of the final chapter.

Kate on the other hand?  Despite the fact that she falls for Luke (thereby making me question her intelligence) - this was the early 1990s.  Which means romance heroines were starting to push back a bit more against brutish heroes.  They'd still swoon, but at least they'd do some pushing back.  Kate verbally spars with Luke to the point where you can almost confuse this with an Enemies To Lovers story.  She gives as good as she gets - it's just a shame that Luke doesn't seem to learn his lesson.  At all.  They're blissfully in love at the end (because of course), but there's nothing on the page to make me think Luke will change his ways AT ALL.  He was a high-handed jerk at the start of the story, he remains one at the end.

And did I mention that at the start of the story he's dating a model Kate knew growing up?  And that towards the end of the story he's sending Valentine's Day flowers to not only Model Helen, but some chippy named Lynette as well?

RUN KATE!  RUN AND SAVE YOURSELF!

Sigh.

However, I'm not entirely sorry I read this.  Hart's writing and style sing for me, even when it's 23-years later.  The way she weaves a story is just marvelous.  This is also an interesting book when looking through the lens of category romance history.  The story is entirely the heroine's point of view (as it so often was back in the day), but she's got some backbone.  This isn't a damsel waiting to be rescued.  It's just too bad it's 1993 and we were still stuck on this sort of insufferable hero.  Although really, these days the genre is boasting criminals, mafia bosses and stalkers as "heroes."  Luke is positively Boy Next Door in comparison.

If you're a Hart fan, I do think there is some merit to reading this - if only to further immerse yourself in the history of her writing.  As a category romance history nerd?  There's also some merit to be found here (did I mention the fairly graphic - by 1993 standards - sex scene?  In a Harlequin Romance!).  However if you don't nerd out on old categories and you've never read Hart before?  Yeah. It's not worth a treasure hunt through library sales or used bookstores.

Final Grade = D+

TBR Challenge 2014: A Sunday Kind Of Love

The Book: Mistletoe Marriage by Jessica Hart

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance, 2005, Out of print, Available digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: It's 1) a Christmas book and 2) by Jessica Hart.  Of course it's in my TBR pile.

The Review: The romance genre, at this moment, is on a High-Angst Alert.  Heroes who are either Billionaire Alphaholes With Mommy Issues And Red Rooms of Pain or Emo Dudebros.  So it's easy to forget that sometimes romance novels can be nice.  About nice, normal people who find themselves in, sometimes, extraordinary circumstances.  Given my own current state of reading emo, I was past due for a Jessica Hart romance and lucky me, she published Mistletoe Marriage in 2005 (fitting nicely into this month's Holiday theme).

Sophie Beckwith thought she had met The One.  Nick is the stuff of fairy tales.  Exciting, passionate, she falls hook, line and sinker.  And then he meets her sister, Melissa.  Melissa who is amazingly beautiful and the sort of fragile creature that seems to kick up men's protective instincts.  Sophie sees the writing on the wall even as her heart is breaking.  She cuts Nick loose, he pursues her sister, and naturally Nick and Melissa get hitched.  Sophie is slow to get over the passionate connection she had with Nick and now that the happy couple has settled back in her hometown?  She only visits her parents when Nick and Melissa aren't around.  But now her mother has poured on the emotional guilt.  You will come home for your father's birthday.  You will be home for Christmas.  What Mom does not know?  That Nick once dated Sophie (their relationship was still new when he met her sister, hence he never met the parents as Sophie's beau).  Mom just thinks, "Oh Sophie broke up with that boy she was seeing who also happened to be named Nick."  I mean, Nick is a pretty common name.

Anyway, Sophie is reeling and goes to her BFF since childhood, Bram.  Once upon a time (10 years ago), Bram and Melissa were engaged.  He now owns the family farm, making a go of it, and still reeling a bit from his mother's sudden death.  He's alone on the farm and knows he needs help.  He also cares for Sophie.  They're not getting any younger, they are fond of each other, why don't they get married?  Sophie is, naturally, reluctant to agree.  She doesn't want to ruin Bram's chances of finding The One.  She cares too much for him to marry him simply out of friendship.  But before you know it?  Stuff happens and Bram and Sophie are officially engaged with Mom gunning for a Christmas wedding.  All while Sophie has to navigate the waters of seeing Nick and Melissa again, drunk in love.  Blergh.

Sophie is a heroine without an anchor.  Her life in London is falling apart (she realizes the city isn't for her plus her employer is downsizing) and she wants to come back home to the country.  But Nick is in the country and Sophie cannot see spending her days as the lonely spinster pining for a man she cannot have.  She knows she can make a great farmer's wife, and she wants that life - but with Bram?  How is that fair to him?  Of course what neither of them realize is how much they really care for each other.  Yes, they are friends.  But the love is there as well - they just need to recognize it. 

This is a "quiet romance."  Yes, there's a bit of jealousy flying around and yes the angst quotient concerning Nick ramps things up a bit.  But Bram and Sophie together feels right from the first page to the last.  These two go together like peanut butter and jelly or Bogey and Bacall.  It's a classic friends-to-lovers set-up that hits all the right notes.

What is great here is that the author somehow manages to not make Melissa completely despicable.  She's clueless and careless, but not evil.  Nick is, well more of an ass.  It's easy to see how Sophie fell for him as he's charming and exciting on the surface.  Also, their affair didn't last very long before he locked eyes on Melissa.  Had the relationship run a natural course?  She probably would have kicked him to the curb.  Melissa, however, has not.  He's a raging egotist, but Melissa is a different bird from Sophie.  Maybe those kids can make it work?  I was kind of hoping Nick would end up getting the snot kicked out of him by the end - but alas.  Not to be.

On Wendy's Jessica Hart Scale - this isn't my favorite by her so far, but it's good.  It's pushes all my romance trope buttons in just the right way (I adore friends-to-lovers stories! Squee!).  These are nice people who quietly come to realize that they love each other more deeply than mere friendship.  I inhaled it in one day, which at this moment in time seems like my very own Christmas miracle.

Final Grade = B+

TBR Challenge 2013: When Grown-Ups Fall In Love

The Book: Promoted: to Wife and Mother by Jessica Hart

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance, 2008, Out of Print, Available Digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  After reading and enjoying some other Jessica Hart book I reviewed (We'll Always Have Paris?), Janet picked up this book as a follow-up read, really enjoyed it, and then sent it on to me to share the wealth.  Janet is officially my favorite person for the next few days.  The rest of y'all need to stand in line.

The Review:  OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG, this was such a good book.  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!  Such a good book!  I even got choked up at one point.  Seriously, SUCH a good book!

Ahem.  Where was I?  Oh yes.....

Perdita James is at one of those uselessly boring "leadership seminars" because the guy who just bought the company she works for thinks it will be "good" for the employees.  All she can think about it is how it's a massive waste of her time (girlfriend, I totally feel you).  Now she's sitting off in a corner by herself because after some stupidly pointless personality quiz she finds out she's a peacock.  A peacock!  Not a dolphin or an owl like everybody else.  No, a peacock!  But turns out she's not alone because up walks a fairly handsome man, although not in a classical sort of way.  No, he's not a peacock, he's the only panther in the room.  They get to talking, Perdita's mouth gets away from her, and before you can say insert foot - she finds out he's Edward Merrick.  Ed Merrick, her new boss.  Oopsie daisy!

What follows is an attraction that neither can explain but both try to deny because there are "complications" in their lives.  Ed is a widower with three teenage children and he has just uprooted his family from lively London to the staid country-like existence of Ellsborough - which you can imagine the teenagers are just thrilled about! /end sarcasm.  Perdita moved back to her hometown after her father passed away unexpectedly and her mother's health started taking a shocking turn toward dementia.  She also is just getting over a spectacularly failed relationship with a man she deeply loved - a man who was a single father and whose responsibilities to his family constantly left Perdita out in the cold.

There is so much I liked about this book, and so many subtle risks that the author takes, that I'm probably not going to do it justice in this review.  In most other books, Perdita would be a villain.  She's head-strong, driven, has "sharp-edges," organized and always stylishly put together.  In contrast, Ed's deceased wife (whom he loved deeply) was gentle, kind, and sacrificing, with a classic beauty that meant she didn't have to try too hard.  Perdita is nothing like his wife, and at first Ed isn't all that sure he likes her even if he is drawn to her.  It's hard to not be drawn to Perdita - she's the kind of woman that people notice when she walks into a bar.

Naturally, as self-assured as Perdita is, she has her hidden vulnerabilities.  Her last relationship really did a number on her, and then there is her mother, who was prickly at the best of times, and now with her health declining she's become a real challenge.  There's a moment in the latter half of the story, where Perdita is taking care of her mother, a small household crisis occurs, and she's so totally overwhelmed that I got choked up for her.  She's a 40-year-old woman who is overwhelmed and alone - with no one to help her share her burden.  She's also resigned herself to the fact that she's more than likely going to be alone for the rest of her life, because how many men in her age bracket have time for a relationship?  And if they do?  They're probably not great relationship material.

What drives this story forward is how is the author going to get these two people together when they both have so much already on their individual plates.  With Ed's kids and Perdita's mother, plus their full-time jobs - will they find a way to a happy ending?  Of course, this being a Harlequin Romance, we know they do.  That said, while I didn't find this ending abrupt, it's certainly not a Sunshine Happy Puppy Dogs Kitty Cats Rainbow sort of ending.  Oh, our couple gets together, but realistically we know that their relationship together is going to be a work in progress.  It just is.  There's too much "real life" stuff floating in their orbit.  So don't expect Happy Happy Skipping In A Meadow ending.  Expect a We Love Each Other Need To Be Together We'll Figure It All Out With Understanding And Compromise ending.  Which you know, is how life and relationships really are.  The best part?  I have no doubt that while Perdita will do her fair share of compromising, so will Ed.  One of those magical stories where I close the book, sigh deeply, and truly feel that these two people are on the very same page.  Together.

Final Grade = A

Comforting Vs. Tired

I tend to file away all genre fiction in the same file cabinet I keep in my brain.  Which is to say, I don't think they're all that different from each other.  It's "genre" for a reason.  There are conventions, there are expectations - it just varies depending on the genre you're talking about.  For example, hero(ine) quests are pretty darn popular in fantasy, in romances you get the "happy ending," and in mystery/suspense I expect there to be some crime-solving involved.

One thing though that I think does make the romance genre unique is this concept that many readers have of a Comfort Author.  Those authors we turn to when we want and/or need "comforting."  It's the genre reading equivalent of drinking hot chocolate by the fire place on a cold winter's day; Or having a crappy day at work, and coming home to have macaroni and cheese for dinner.

What makes an author a Comfort Author for me is that I know exactly what I'm going to get even before I read the first sentence.  I know this concept is enough to turn up the noses of every stuffed literary shirt on the planet, with English professors falling into a swoon and tutting, tutting an awful lot.  I know, it sounds absurd.

Which begs the question - what is exactly the deciding factor on what makes a Comfort Author....well....comforting?

Ask any reader on the planet if they stopped reading an author because "all their books were the exact same thing over and over again," and every single one of us has at least one.  Besides the sloppiness of the final product - it's why I ultimately quit Patricia Cornwell.  I've heard other readers say it's why they've quit Janet Evanovich, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lora Leigh and Danielle Steel (just to name a few).

But then there are other authors who employ similar themes and tropes consistently throughout their body of work, and we continue to lap it up - begging for more.  Or in my case with Maggie Osborne, bemoan the fact that they retired.  Because as much as I love Maggie?  Yeah, she had a tendency to beat the ol' "rough around the edges, tomboy heroine" drum pretty dang hard.  Then there's Pamela Morsi - whose historicals tended to all be set in a similar backwoods settings, all with "salt of the Earth" style characters.

My latest Comfort Author?  Just might be Jessica Hart, who has such a major category romance backlist that I'll probably get through it all by the time I'm 85.  I'm currently reading her latest release, We'll Always Have Paris (review eventually will land over at TGTBTU), and I was struck by the fact that she definitely has her favorite pet themes.  This story features a stuffed-shirt hero and a bubbly, extroverted heroine who will undoubtedly breathe some life into his gray, drab world.

It's a familiar trope for me, and for Hart.  She's used it before in Oh-So-Sensible Secretary (stuffed shirt heroine, free-spirit hero) and Juggling Briefcase and Baby (stuffed shirt hero, free-spirit heroine).  She's also fond of the heroine who is the polar opposite of the rest of her family members (see We'll Always Have Paris and Under the Boss's Mistletoe).  And yet?  I'm sucked in.  To the point where I'm kicking myself from here to eternity for starting the book when I darn well knew I was going to have to put it down and go to my job.

Stupid job.  Stupid boss for expecting me to do stupid work while I'm at my stupid job.  I knew I should have called in dead when I had the chance.

So what is it about Maggie Osborne, Pamela Morsi and Jessica Hart that keeps me reading, even when the book has striking similarities to other books written by those very same authors?  What has turned them into Comfort Authors as opposed to Old Tired Authors I've Broken Up With?

Honestly?  I'm not entirely sure.  It might be that they're working with tropes and themes that I've grown so particularly fond of over the years that they don't feel "tired" to me (yet, at any rate).  It could also come down to the elusive magical element we call Voice.  Some authors just have that little bit of magic, that element to their writing that sucks you in to the point where you'd read their grocery list.  I'm not sure how to define it, and I'm not even sure what those elements are in an author's "voice" that end up striking a chord with me.

Whatever it is, I probably shouldn't try to over-analyze it or question it too much.  I should just be happy that I have such a relationship with more than one writer.  Enjoy the ride Wendy, enjoy the ride.

What is it for you that makes an author a Comfort Author?  Are there striking similarities shared between their books that you've overlooked for one reason or another?  What makes you quit one author because all their books "sound the same," yet continue on with others and deem them "comforting?"

Finding The Reading Mojo

Every reader has a "method" for breaking out of a dreaded reading slump. Whether it's to reread old favorites, or pick up a book by an author who usually delivers for them. Me? I tend to suck it up and try to power through it. In other words, just sit my ass in the nearest chair, pick up a book, and read it. My slumps usually are the result of reading several lackluster books in a row, and it's amazing how quickly I get the mojo back when I actually read ::gasp:: books that are entertaining me. Last week I managed to read six books. Yeah, six. OK, so they were all Harlequins - but still that's already two more books than I managed to read all of last month. Since I took the weekend off from blogging, I thought I'd jump-start the Bat Cave by taking an opportunity to talk about a couple of these recent reads:

Under The Boss's Mistletoe by Jessica Hart is a November Harlequin Romance with a lackluster title and back cover description, but ooooh, look at the purdy cover! I'll be honest. I like reading the hot sexxoring in romance novels. I love erotica. I love erotic romance. Truly. But sometimes I need a sweet read. And by sweet I don't mean saccharine, toothache inducing either. I just want a nice, straight-forward, "traditional" romance. I devoured this story in record time, charmed by the wedding planner heroine and the former bad boy hero who is wound fairly tight. Glory be, characters who actually talk to each other? Well-done sexual tension and chemistry? Be still my heart! My review has been posted over at TGTBTU and I'm thinking I might have to buy a Dead Tree copy to add to my collection (yep, read this one as an ebook).

Longtime readers of this blog may remember a time when I was severely burnt out on Regency historicals. When I say burn-out, I mean downright crippling. It lasted for years. It got to the point where I was reading maybe one Regency-set book a year. That's how bad it was. However, now that the burn out has begun to lift, I'm getting back into the Regency groove, "discovering" authors that others have been likely reading for years. My latest find is Julia Justiss. I read her latest (and insipidly titled) From Waif To Gentleman's Wife (an October Harlequin Historical) over the weekend, and really enjoyed it.

One reason I suspect it's easy for me to get burnt out on this sub genre is that after a while I get fed up with reading about rich, privileged people. Just do. Honestly, that probably explains my rabid devotion to the western romance more than anything else ever could. What struck me about Justiss' latest was how "real" it felt. The heroine comes from a "good" family, but she's broke. When her solider husband dies, and her in-laws wash their hands of her, she's left with few options, so she becomes a governess. When the Lady of the house catches her husband accosting our heroine, she fires her. Because, you know, it's all her fault that the Lord is a lecherous asshole. Getting fired means no references for future employment. None. With only a small stash of coins to her name, our heroine is well and truly screwed. Which is how she ends up meeting our hero. With her back up against the wall, and hoping to throw herself on the mercy of her brother (who, it turns out, has gone missing).

It's the sort of book that makes me infinitely happy to have been born in the latter half of the 20th century. Because this is how it was for women back in the day. You were at the mercy of men and the circumstance of who you were born to. It was also nice to read about a hero, who while titled, wasn't anywhere remotely near "bad boy" or "rake." No debauchery, no string of mistresses, no drinking, no gambling, no endless litany of how all he needs is the "love of a good woman" to reform him.

A review is forthcoming over at TGTBTU, but yeah - this one earned a B from me. Which means I'm definitely entertaining the idea of reading more books by Justiss. Anyone have any recommendations for either her or Jessica Hart? Because I am listening.