#TBRChallenge: Silver Belles

 The Book: Silver Belles by Sarah M. Anderson, Ros Clarke, Laura K. Curtis, Yasmine Galenorn and Suleikha Snyder

The Particulars: Contemporary romance anthology, 2016, Self-published, Out of print, two stories (linked below in review) available separately in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Disclaimer that I know Sarah M. Anderson and Laura K. Curtis. Anderson and I presented a workshop together at an RWA conference a million years ago and Curtis and I have hung out together at various events. I suspect Anderson might have sent me a copy of this book once upon a time.

The Review: I had a completely different book picked out for this month's Challenge but when I went looking for it, I couldn't find it. What I did find was this holiday anthology that I had totally forgotten I owned, it fit the theme perfectly, with characters all over the age of 40, and I'm nothing if not an opportunist.

The Christmas Pony by Sarah M. Anderson gets things off to a good start thanks to a very funny meet-cute of an opening. Alice is a divorced teacher with a grown daughter who acts like she's decrepit even thought she's only 50 ("Mom I worry about you all alone..."). She likes her life in her Midwest town and she's friendly with her neighbors. Maybe too friendly since one of them shows up and leaves a pony (yes, a pony) on her doorstep. One of his daughters is her student and while his wife and daughters are citizens, she thinks he may be undocumented. Which she suspects is why he's leaving a pony on her doorstep about one step ahead of the local law.

Kirk Douglas (yes, really - it's joke fodder in the story) lands on Alice's doorstep after getting an anonymous call that someone is keeping a farm animal within city limits. The fact that it's Alice, this attractive, single, straight-arrow school teacher doesn't fit. There's obviously more to the story, and he's more than happy to investigate, as well as ask Alice on a date to an ugly sweater party.

This was a charming story with a fun rom-com style vibe and a very light mystery about the pony (Where did it come from? How did Alice's neighbor come to have it?).  Although not gonna lie - the undocumented neighbor plot element really hits differently in 2024 given current events.  Frankly the happy ending feels positively quaint.

Grade = B

Midnight Clear by Ros Clarke is essentially an inspirational (no sex, but the characters aren't dead below the waist) given the importance faith plays in the story. Allison is a single mom to two teenage boys, having left her unfaithful ex-husband back in South Africa, she's now in rainy, cold England for her first Christmas post-divorce when her dreary mood is interrupted by an rambunctious Irish setter at the local park.

The dog's owner is local vicar Peter. The two soon strike up a friendship and Allison is feeling tingly for the first time since her husband ran over her ego and self-worth. The fly in the ointment? Allison's faith is badly shaken....did I mention her philandering husband was also a vicar? Who cheated on Allison with members of his own congregation?  Yeah, great guy that one.

The presence of this story, with it's strong inspirational themes, is an interesting inclusion in this anthology. The short word count isn't enough to convince me that Allison is really moving on from the betrayal of her ex, but it's a quiet story that packs a punch. It petered out a bit at the end, but still - very interesting.

Grade = B

Sparks by Laura K. Curtis finds Kate Bellows returned home to her small upstate New York town to pull a local moving company back from the brink. The business is losing money and it's her job to right the ship. She starts by interviewing staff, including Adam Miller, the IT guy on staff and local volunteer firefighter. He's also very attractive, but given that she's now his boss - well that's a complication.  It gets even more complicated when her house catches on fire and Adam offers her a temporary place to stay.

I fell right into the first two stories but this one took a couple of chapters for me to find my sea legs. However once Kate's house catches on fire I was settled in.  This is a closed door romance and its strength lies in the details. I have a passing familiarity with upstate New York and Curtis does a fantastic job with the setting. I knew this town and could immediately picture it in my mind. I also loved the inclusion of a volunteer fire department. A good, solid romance with some added workplace complications to juice up the conflict.

Grade = B

The Longest Night by Yasmine Galenorn features the Winter Solstice and a practicing pagan heroine. Merilee Johansson has just gotten out of a bad marriage - her husband changed, she didn't. Things turned emotionally abusive until one day Merilee decided it was time to walk away.  She's relocated to a small artist community in Washington hoping to pick up her paints again - just as soon as she finds her muse. What she didn't expect to find was Chris Hunter, the handsome tech geek who comes to her new home to install her Internet. 

Not much happens in this story as it's mainly internal conflict.  Merilee and Chris like each other, go on dates, the end. Galenorn doesn't try to do too much with a short word count and it's well executed. Mileage will vary on this one. I zipped through it at a fast clip but it felt a little hippy-dippy new age-y for my tastes and anytime "fate" is mentioned in a romance novel my eyes tend to roll back in my head.

Grade = C

A Taste of Blessings by Suleikha Snyder features a lower angst forbidden romance against the backdrop of the Bengali Hindu celebration of Durga Puja. A book editor based out of Chicago, Tiya Chatterjee is coming home to Ohio for Durga Puja. A breath away from 40, single, and with no prospects on the horizon, Tiya is bracing herself for well-intentioned matchmaking, nosy aunties and her mother's disapproval over just about everything in life. She's also bracing herself to see Arnav Biswas, divorced father of two, sexy as sin, and her unrequited crush.  He's single, she's single, sparks start flying right away, so what's the problem?  He's divorced, she's never been married, and well that just won't fly with most of the folks in their community, including her parents.  Given the importance of community and family to both of them, this isn't something to take lightly, even if they want to tear each others' clothes off.

Another story that took me a moment to settle in, mainly because there are a number of secondary characters. But once I figured out who was who it was off to the races.  The fun is in the flirtation between Tiya and Arnav and the sly humor that Snyder infuses into the story.  The forbidden romance trope is not a favorite of mine, but in a novella where the angst is tempered by humor and banter?  It really worked for me.

Grade = B

This was a really strong anthology and a nice way to pass the time. I've been in a slump, put off my TBR Challenge read to the last minute, but had no trouble getting through all of these stories in two sittings. It's a shame that the anthology is no longer for sale and that three of the stories are currently unavailable.  Here's hoping the authors can make them available again down the road.

Review: Falling for Her Fake Fiance

Disclaimer: Anderson and I presented a workshop together at RWA 2014 (San Antonio).

At one point I was caught up on all the Beaumont stories by Sarah M. Anderson.  Oh, those were the days.  With two more books in the original series, plus with three books in the spin-off Beaumont Bastards series - well it's time for me to play catch-up.  I miscalculated (sorry Byron Beaumont - you'll have to wait!) and mistakenly picked up Falling for Her Fake Fiance (Book 5) instead of reading in order.  That's OK though, this one stands alone fairly well and besides - fake engagement/relationship is a favorite here at the Bat Cave.

The Beaumonts are a family brewing dynasty and events in previous books have led to the company being sold.  It's no longer a family business.  The four brothers (featured in the previous books) have all come around on this and have started their own ventures. They've moved on.  That's proving harder for Frances Beaumont.  Without the brewery, without the Beaumont "name" - she's not sure who she is.  I mean, if she's not the provocative wild child of the Beaumont clan, who is she?  It also doesn't help matters that she's lost enough money on failed business ventures to support three dynasties.  She's moved back into the family mansion, sold off most of her designer clothes, and is trying to scrape together enough money to start yet another business.  The problem is her brothers are through with supporting her schemes and Frances sees the mess her life has become as the fault of Ethan Logan.

Ethan was brought in as the new CEO by the company that bought the brewery.  His job isn't to dismantle and sell off - rather to reorganize and restructure.  The problem is that his work force is on the verge of mutiny and for some reason he doesn't just fire the lot of them for insubordination (he at least threatens it).  Anyway, Frances is determined to undermine the takeover - for reasons.  Thin reasons, but they're there.  Also, a little revenge wouldn't be unwarranted.  She waltzes into the CEO's office like a queen and has everybody eating out of her hand.  And that's when Ethan comes up with a plan.  He doesn't trust Frances, but he recognizes he needs her.  He proposes a marriage of convenience.  Help him bring the work force around, get married, pull the plug after a year, and he'll finance her latest business venture.  Naturally Frances agrees - because, you know, romance novel.

I've actually made this sound fairly unpleasant, and it's really not.  It's actually quite interesting from a category trope reversal standpoint.  Basically what Anderson has done is take a Harlequin Presents plot and flip it.  Instead of the bitter hero ticked off about the family business getting sold and looking to exact revenge?  It's the heroine.  Frances is a poor little rich girl whose father doted on her when it was convenient for him - which is why she has an attachment to the company.  The only time her father seemed to notice her was during her visits to the brewery on "donut Friday."  Her brothers weren't around, none of his various wives were (there were four) or countless mistresses (hence the spin-off Beaumont Bastards series).  Without the brewery that "made" the Beaumont name, and the string of personal failures, what does that leave Frances with?  Just the reputation of being the family screw-up - the one her brothers always have to clean-up after.

Ethan has his own warped past, his father a big time corporate raider, his mother an artist who would flit in and out of her son's life when she got tired of playing wife and mother.  His parents' marriage was strictly an arrangement, so it's not a big leap for him to propose the marriage of convenience to Frances.  Likewise, having witnessed her father's many marriages and at least one of the affairs (she caught him macking on his secretary once), Frances is pretty jaded when it comes to matters of the heart.

Of course we all know where this ends up.  Ethan is completely smitten with Frances, who puts the the Capital C in "Challenging."  Frances, when she isn't trying to throw away happiness with both hands, finds a partner in Ethan.  Someone who doesn't treat her like a screw-up, who takes her seriously, and thinks of her as her own person - not an extension of her brothers, or a means to an end.

This won't be the book for everybody.  My years kicking around Romancelandia have taught me that many readers measure heroes and heroines with different yardsticks.  If Frances were the hero she would be chalked up to another Alpha male in a long line of Romancelandia Alphas.  But because she's the heroine she will likely be deemed "unlikeable" and/or "unsympathetic."  Oh, I'll just say it - some readers are going to find her to be a spoiled bitch.  And you know what?  She kind of is.  And it makes the story.  Otherwise this would just be another retread of a story we've all read countless times before.  It's not my favorite of the series thus far, but it's certainly memorable.

Final Grade = B

Mini-Reviews: You Don't Have To Be Lonely...

I know a number of readers don't care for them, but I happen to love novellas.  When they're done well, they're tasty bite-size morsels of satisfaction.  I also happen to be a sucker for continuity series.  Those multi-author series that sometimes (but not always) feature an overarching story arc.  NotMy1stRodeo.com is a continuity novella series from Samhain about an online dating site that caters to country folk who have already been around the block (they're widowed, divorced etc.)  There are currently three novellas in the series (no idea if there will be more?), and I zipped through two of them over the weekend.  As far as I could tell, the only thing holding them together as a series is the dating site concept.  No reoccurring characters or plot elements that I picked up on.

Nothing Like a Cowboy by Donna Alward starts out just fine, but once the conflict kicks into high gear it slid south for me.  Um, to the point where I was shaking my Kindle and calling the heroine not-so-nice names.  Out loud.  In other news, My Man now officially thinks I'm insane.

Brett Harrison was married to a woman who thought being a rancher's wife would be more glamorous than the reality turned out to be.  Baggage he has it.  His twin sister is sick of seeing him mope around, so she signs him up for a dating site and sets a coffee date with Melissa "Melly" Walker, also a divorcee.  Melly was dazzled by her ex, who turned out to be a liar - so baggage, she has it.  Brett agrees to keep the date, mostly because his sister's deception isn't Melly's fault and he comes clean the moment they meet at the coffee shop.  They like each other, they share a smoldering kiss.  A future date leads to them hitting the sheets and that's when all hell breaks loose.  Conflict turns up in the form of an Amazing Coincidence.  The problem being that Melly doesn't think it's an Amazing Coincidence so much as a Big Secret.  Given that she has trust issues already?  Yeah, she freaks out.

This starts out as a very nice read.  It's kind of fun to read about an awkward first date (essentially a blind date) in a romance novel where we're often subject to suave heroes who ooze charm and charisma.  What didn't work for me had everything do with the conflict in the second half of the story.  I get that Melly is upset.  I get that she has baggage.  But her reaction and her subsequent treatment of Brett struck me as extreme.  As in, pull yourself together you stupid, selfish b*tch extreme.  Yes, the groundwork of her trust issues is laid well before, but ugh - I intensely began disliking her and no amount of Her Ex Done Her Wrong could wash the bad taste out of my mouth.  Frankly I could not for the life of me understand why Brett was so patient with her.  I'm sorry, no sex is that good, no matter how long of a drought you've had.  Alward has written better and if you're curious to try her work, I recommend following this tag for recommendations.

Final Grade = D

Disclaimer: Anderson and I presented a workshop together at RWA 2014.

 Something About a Cowboy by Sarah M. Anderson is a surprisingly tender and OMG HOTT! story.  If I wasn't sitting in front of a fan, I was wiping away tears.  It's a real winner.

Six years ago Mack Turner's wife died of cancer.  They were high school sweethearts, got married young, had babies young, and now his three sons are grown and worried about Dad.  He's 46 and alone on his ranch.  Winters get mighty lonely.  It's his youngest son who sets him up with a profile on the dating web site and gives Karen Thompson his Dad's number.  They talk and agree to meet in Billings (a three hour drive for Mack) for dinner and possibly more.

Karen is divorced and her self-esteem is in the toilet.  Her ex was totally incapable of being faithful and Karen just wants to feel desired by a man again.  She's not looking for love.  She's not looking for marriage.  Which is good because neither is Mack.  What she wants is for a man to look at her with passion in his eyes - and when Mack gets a load of her in a slinky red dress?  Yeah, wish granted!

The complaint I think some readers may have about this story is that it's very steamy and that it's short.  It's borderline erotic romance as far as content goes.  There's some "getting to know you" stuff to the romance, but honestly that's not why these two characters hook up initially.  They're there to get back, figuratively, into the saddle.  Naturally when the cold light of morning dawns, Mack finds himself confronted with his past, and needless to say he doesn't handle it well.  It's the resolution to his baggage, the emotional heft of it, that made this short novella such a winner for me.  A picture perfect afternoon read.

Final Grade = A

On a final note, I think it's worth mentioning how well I thought both authors handled the happy endings in these stories.  Again, they're short novellas and I loved that neither one tried to do too much with them.  They're basically happy-for-now, but the reader is left with the solid impression that both couples are together, in a relationship, and will, probably, down the road, make the whole thing official.  Praise the saints that neither of them crammed in a marriage proposal or pregnant with twins epilogue.

Note: The third book in the continuity series is Anything for a Cowboy by Jenna Bayley Burke (sorry haven't read, no review).  You can purchase the stories separately, or in a 3-for-1 edition.

Not The Boss's Baby

ETA: I've provided this disclaimer before on Anderson's work, but forgot to add it here.  We presented a workshop together at RWA 2014 (9/8/15)

I tend to be fairly anal retentive when it comes to reading mystery/suspense series in order.  Romance series?  Another kettle of fish entirely.  My TBR is the graveyard where all third books in trilogies go to die. Or, as in the case with Sarah M. Anderson's Beaumont Heirs series for Harlequin Desire, I read the books completely out of order.  Having already read books two and three, I figured maybe it was time to, oh I don't know, actually read the first book in the series. 

Not The Boss's Baby kicks off the series featuring heir to the family brewing (as in beer) dynasty, Chadwick Beaumont.  Before he was out of diapers, Chadwick was being groomed to take over the family brewing business, and he's the fourth generation to run the company.  Chadwick basically works for the family.  To keep his wastrel brother Phillip in race horses and his sister Frances afloat after her various entrepreneurial ventures go belly up.  But this burning the candle at both ends is taking it's toll.  He's in the middle of the longest divorce in the history of the world, his soon-to-be-ex-wife determined to bleed every last penny out of him.  Then there's the fact that the brewery is dodging buy-out demands left and right.  Chadwick cannot fathom selling the family business, but others on the board aren't nearly as loyal.  So the guy has a lot on his mind, which means acting on his attraction to his personal assistant is probably not the best idea - not only right now, but ever.

Serena Chase broke up with her longtime boyfriend three months ago and...she's pregnant.  Being pregnant with her ex's baby isn't exactly joyous news for reasons besides the obvious.  Serena grew up in a very hand-to-mouth world.  Her parents loved each other, but let's just say family finances were extremely fluid.  Serena is the type of girl who banks her generous holiday bonuses, buys clothes second hand and clips coupons - not because Chadwick doesn't pay her well, but because Serena knows first hand what it's like to lack financial security.  So now she's going to be a single mother and her very stable job may go bye-bye if Chadwick cannot save the brewery from a buy-out.  So acting on her attraction to her boss right now?  I mean, despite the fact that she helped craft the company's fraternization policy?  Yeah, not a good idea.

But we all know where this is going right?  "Not a good idea" doesn't mean much in a romance novel.  As if this weren't enough conflict floating around, Chadwick is haunted by the specter of his long-dead father.  The kind of guy who exchanged wives every other Christmas and had numerous affairs, um - including with his various secretaries.  Chadwick is so hung up on not being "just like Dad," that he has shoe-horned himself into a life where he does exactly the opposite, except of course running the family business.  That's one thing Dad definitely wanted and one thing he never allowed Chadwick to forget.

I've read a lot of Anderson's books and she has three speeds for me: 1) The Awesome 2) The Good and 3) The OK.  This one falls under #2.  It's good, but not great.  What it does well, it does very well - namely setting up the series.  While the various Beaumont siblings do scream Sequel Bait! the author at least introduces them in a compelling manner (at a charity gala) and includes just enough of their baggage to whet the appetite for future books (uh, of which I've already read two).  I also liked that the author touched on the class issues between Serena and Chadwick, illustrating that while they both grew up very differently, that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't have their own challenges.  Chadwick had security, but not love.  Serena had love, but not security.

Where the story stumbles for me is mostly related to the Desire word count.  Chadwick's ex-wife is cookie-cutter harpy, although there's a brief glimmer where you actually feel sorry for her (and then she opens her mouth and you go right back to thinking she's vile - oh well).  There's also the small matter of the romance, which moves quickly.  I get that Chadwick and Serena have been working together for years, but working together and proposing marriage within the span of a few weeks is another matter entirely.  I actually think this would have worked better for me if Chadwick still wasn't in the middle of his divorce proceedings.  The marriage is definitely over (it's been over a year since the papers were filed), but it's another piece of very big conflict looming over the happy ending.  And as stated above - there's already a lot of conflict to go around in a story that clocks in at less than 200 pages.

All quibbles aside, I did enjoy this quite a bit.  It sets up the series nicely, and given Daddy's promiscuous ways, Anderson can keep this series going for a while.  While I unabashedly love the boss-secretary trope (I know, I know - I'm part of the problem), the pregnant-by-another is a bit of a harder sell for me.  But it all works here, despite some abbreviated moments because, you know, category word count.  This series has been pretty solid so far, and now I'm actually at that moment in time where I can read the rest of them in order.  Will wonders never cease?

Final Grade = B

Review: The Nanny Plan

Disclaimer: I presented a workshop with Sarah M. Anderson at RWA 2014

When I first got over myself and started reading category romance, the Desire line was my favorite. But then the Desire line started to shift more towards the Presents end of the spectrum and my interest turned towards SuperRomance and Special Edition. I met Sarah M. Anderson at RWA in 2011. I was Librarian of the Year. She was a newbie author whose first book hadn't quite come out yet. She handed me a card and, hello - cowboys?  She writes about cowboys?  I was there.  I've since gone on to read many of her books, liking them to varying degrees.  The Nanny Plan, despite having a baby on the cover (::shudder::) is balls-out amazing. I loved this book.

Trish Hunter is a long way from the reservation, but she can never forget. Working on her master's degree in social work, she has also started a charity to help kids back home in South Dakota. She has big plans, but for right now her focus is on school supplies. Trish remembers when a teacher once gave her two brand new pencils and it was like being given the greatest gift of all. She wants ever kid on the rez to have new backpacks filled with everything they need for the school year and she just won a $10,000 grant thanks to an award her professor nominated her for.  But Trish has plans and for that she needs more money.  Which means taking her oversized novelty check to a local university symposium where Nate Longmire is speaking. She's going to corner him into matching the grant she just won.  Once his presentation is over, she just has to find the right moment during the Q&A session.

Well. Yay for him acknowledging the state of the Native American reservations in a five-second picture, even if the montage did irritate her. All the people of color had been relegated to the poor section of the talk.

Nate is a tech bazillionaire who made his money on an Instagram-like concept. He now has more money than he knows what to do with, so he started his own foundation. He's new money, having grown up in a comfortable middle-class world, but he's a touch socially awkward. Growing up he was overshadowed by a handsome, jock older brother, and now he's got women falling all over him just to get near his money.  Trish intrigues him and when they meet to discuss her proposition after the symposium, he's sunk.  The attraction is instant and he's comfortable with her business-like approach.  Here's a women who wants him for his money yes, but for her charity. Flirting, banter? Nate freezes up.  But a business traction, dollars and cents?  He's all in.  They agree she should stop by his office in a couple of weeks and that's when all hell breaks loose.

Nate gets word from home - his older brother and sister-in-law have died in a car accident. His six-month-old niece is now an orphan and because of "stuff" his parents cannot raise the child.  Hence, Nate, who was also named guardian in the will.  Except, of course, Nate knows nothing about babies. Like, zero. With all this going on it's only natural he forgot about his appointment with Trish, but when she turns up again, and is frankly a natural with the baby, he convinces her to become a temporary nanny.  Trish has nine siblings and a mother who wasn't much of a mother.  Frankly she's full up on raising babies and tells Nate as much, just not in so many words. But then he says the magic word (money!) and she cannot say no.  For a girl not very far removed from extreme poverty, Nate's offer is impossible to refuse.

She tried to reason that at least Nate had a reference - her mother had hooked up on far less - but it didn't change the fact that, for the first time in her life, Trish had followed in her mother's footsteps. When a good-looking man had said jump, she'd asked how high and tossed everything to the side to take care of another baby.

Similar plots have existed in category romance since the dawn of time, but what makes this one work so well is how Nate and Trish interact with each other.  The attraction is instant, but for reasons (compelling ones I might add), they resist.  Trish having no desire to repeat her mother's history, among other things.

And the reality of the situation was that Nate was not her type. She didn't have a type, but whatever it might be, a Boy Billionaire clearly wasn't it. She would probably never have a total of five million dollars in her entire life - and he was the kind of guy who spent that on a comic book.

While Nate wasn't born into money, there's no denying that his experiences are vastly different than Trish's. That's not to say Nate didn't have hardships, or obstacles - just different ones.  The reason why Nate's parents cannot raise baby Jane are compelling, as is his complicated relationship with his now deceased older brother.  He's ready to fall totally in love with Trish, but her moving on from her baggage is easier said than done.

The intensity of this need scared her. For once in her life, she understood her mother, how she could overlook the health and safety of her children in favor of a man who might make her feel like Nate had made Trish feel. Because if she stayed here with Nate and raised Jane - became a permanent nanny during the day and his lover at night - well, then what would happen to One Child, One World?  How was Trish supposed to look her baby sister in the eyes and say, "Yes, I know I said you should put your education and career ahead of any man, but he's a really great guy!" Because that's what her mother would say. That's what her mother would do. Trish was not her mother. And that was final. 

All this from a book with a baby on the cover.  I know, right?  And even when the author falls down a well-trod romance trope path (Nate's got an ex who did him wrong then of course shows up again having obviously had "work done") Anderson reins it in by actually making the woman somewhat sympathetic.  OK, she's not totally sympathetic, but she's also not cartoonishly vile.

This is a Desire, so every word in the word count is precious.  The author could have spent more time on Nate's family relationships, but I don't think the romance at hand suffers from what the author probably could not address because of word count.  Still, this is a really good one folks.  Yes, with a baby on the cover.  The chemistry between Trish and Nate. The dialogue. The baggage.  It's really good.  The kind of book where I was highlighting every other paragraph good.  Drop everything and read it now.  And yes, I know - baby on the cover.  You won't catch cooties, I promise.

Grade = A

A Beaumont Christmas Wedding

Disclaimer: Anderson and I presented a workshop together at RWA 2014 (San Antonio).

Back in the Long Ago Time when Wendy first discovered the goody-goodness that is category romance, Desire was my favorite line.  I loved the short word counts (less than 200 pages), the sizzle (PG-13ish), and you still got the fairy tale without wading through too many Alphahole sheikh tycoons.  And then, predictably, the Desire line changed to the point where it started smacking of Harlequin Presents II, just with more cowboys and babies.  I strayed from the line, taking my category addiction elsewhere.

Then in 2011 I was standing outside a conference room, on my way to a cocktail party at RWA (this was Wendy's Librarian of the Year year - there were lots of parties!) and I met Sarah M. Anderson a debut author whose first book was slated for a December release.  As tends to happen when I meet authors at RWA, I read her book, and really, really liked it.  It reminded me so much of "old school" Desires that I started to pay attention to the line again.

A Beaumont Christmas Wedding is the third book in her series about an American brewing dynasty that puts the FUN in DYSFUNCTIONAL!  Matthew Beaumont is the PR whiz for the company and has convinced his six months older half brother (remember, FUN!), Phillip and his bride-to-be, Jo to have a big splashy society wedding.  Being one of his father's long string of illegitimate bastards, Matthew has a driving need to prove that he's a "real" Beaumont and his way of doing that is controlling and spinning the press, all while digging his various siblings out of various PR snafus.  What he didn't plan on?  The maid of honor, Whitney Maddox....or should I say Whitney Wildz.

Think of Whitney as an older, wiser Miley Cyrus.  She was a Disney Channel-like pop princess who sex'ed and boozed up her act once she hit 18 to make everyone forget she was a Disney Channel-like pop princess.  Publicity follows Whitney around like Britney Spears back when she had her meltdown and shaved her head.  Anywho, those days are long past.  Whitney is a respected horse breeder, which is how she knows Jo, and lives a very quiet, solitary life.  But this does little to quell Matthew's concerns.  Whitney Wildz at his brother's wedding?  This can only mean disaster.

I wanted to like this story more than I did.  On paper it's a really great idea.  Matthew is damn near wedding obsessed and is wound so tight I wouldn't be surprised if he pooped out diamonds.  These are normally character traits reserved for romance heroines, more so than heroes.  And I liked the idea of Whitney being a reformed teen idol who is now living life as a normal person, but who has enough of a past that she's going to generate headlines once those cell phone cameras start clicking.  Plus both characters have very similar baggage - they essentially don't know who they are.  Is Whitney Whitney Maddox or Whitney Wildz?  Is Matthew Matthew Beaumont or Matthew Billings?  That's compelling conflict for a romance novel.

So where does it misfire for me?  Mostly with execution.  The way Matthew wants to spin the PR after he discovers just who the maid of honor is doesn't make it seem like he's that good at his job - but then I always thought a good defense was a good offense.  Also, there's events during the climactic finish that struck me as not very plausible.  I mean, by all accounts the Phillip/Jo wedding is a big ol' society event with muchos celebrities crawling out of the woodwork (although Jay Z and Beyonce sent their regrets).  I had a hard time believing that a once scandalous teen idol who had dropped out of the public eye would cause that much of a stir at such an event - but hey, what do I know?

There's also the small matter that Matthew is a bit of a jerk.  I actually still "liked" him despite him being a jerk because the author made me believe in his baggage.  But, that being said?  He still does some things over the course of the story that had me muttering under my breathe. Both instances were when he used his family members for his own gain in some way - especially Phillip's alcoholism, which was beyond the pale for me since I loved Phillip's book.  Baggage, Wendy has it.  Also, speaking of substance issues, I felt like this aspect of Whitney's past was not addressed very well.  Or, at all.  Granted the author just published a book where substance abuse was a big, huge part of the conflict, but the surface is barely scratched with Whitney.  Instead we get to read about her klutziness, which I suspect like all klutz heroines before her I'm supposed to find "cute."  But I don't.  I'm just kind of annoyed.  Hold the klutz, give me the Angsty McAngst-Pants please.

Which makes it sound like this is a "bad" book.  No, it's not.  It's really quite readable, I enjoyed most of it, and there were even two instances where I laughed out loud (the name of Whitney's Christmas album is priceless!).  It just didn't tick off all of Wendy's Personal Trope Boxes and I found myself comparing it quite a bit (OK, a lot) to Phillip's book.  Which, you know, I really, really enjoyed.

Final Grade = B-