#TBRChallenge 2020: Blissful Summer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grade = C

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

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

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

Grade = B-

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

Overall Final Grade = C+

#TBRChallenge 2020: The Lady's Companion

The Book: The Lady's Companion by Carla Kelly

The Particulars: Traditional Regency, Signet, 1996, Out of print, available in digital edition

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and ebooks weren't "a thing," books went out of print - sometimes quickly. If you didn't buy a category romance or Trad Regency the month it was released you were then at the mercy of scouring used bookstores. Given how many trad fans rave about Kelly, I made it a point to always buy her books when I stumbled across them in used bookstores. So they then, of course, could languish in my TBR.

The Review: I fell for romance just as the Trad Regency was gasping it's last few breaths and it's not a sub genre I gravitate towards naturally.  In those early days I was drawn to westerns, got burnt out on the Regency era just as Light Historicals were glutting the market, got my head turned by erotic romance and my love of short, tight reads fixated on short contemporary category romance.  But I got in the habit of buying up Carla Kelly and Mary Balogh books as I stumbled across them during used bookstore jaunts.  It's been an indecent age since I've read a Trad and boy howdy - this one was a gem!

Miss Susan Hampton is an old maid of twenty-five who has been patiently waiting for her come out that her father has been promising for years upon years.  The problem is that Daddy is a degenerate gambler.  They're still in their London house by the skin of their teeth, with barely any servants left, not enough coal to keep them warm, and furniture being sold off bit by bit until, you guessed, Daddy loses the house in a turn of the cards.  They have no choice but to move in with her father's sister, a woman who in no uncertain terms says she has the futures of her own daughters to secure.  Susan sees her life stretching out before her.  Her father determined to keep them on this long, slow road to ruin, their name whispered about among the ton, a poor relation who will be her Aunt's fetch-and-carry girl.  What man will want a woman with no dowry and a father-in-law who would surely bleed him dry?  Her father is horrified when Susan suggests he might, oh, get a job (good Lord, their kind do NOT work!) and fed up with her destiny being left to the whims of others - she decides she's going to get a job.

She lands as a lady's companion to the Dowager Lady Bushnell, a hard-as-tack widow who followed her husband, a colonel, across the continent on various campaigns and raised two children.  Her husband, son and daughter all gone, she's living in the country determined to keep her independence much to the chagrin of her daughter-in-law who wants to see her cossetted and well cared for in her old age.  But the dowager is made of sterner stuff and has chased off a few companions already.  What Susan needs is an ally - who appears in the form of the bailiff, David Wiggins.  A former sergeant under Lord Bushnell's command, he owes the Bushnells his life.  He takes one look at Susan and inevitably, sparks fly.

Original cover art

What we have here is a romance novel for grown-ups.  Characters who have real problems and don't act like flibbertigibbets.  Coy verbal flirting between the hero and heroine.  And honest-to-goodness obstacles true to the time period and not swept under the rug.  Susan's family name is most definitely tattered but her blood is still blue and David?  Welsh, raised in an orphanage, a former poacher and thief who found himself on the continent fighting Napoleon and being disciplined at the end of a whip when the Dowager intervened.  Even if you disregard Susan's useless relations, the classism alone is enough worthy romantic conflict to propel a whole shelf full of novels, let alone a tightly plotted, song-worthy 200 page Regency.

It sagged a tiny bit in the middle for me, but Kelly pulls out all the stops with an emotionally gut-churning finish.  There's a moment at the final chapters when Susan's aunt does something so heartbreaking I wanted to shove my hands through the pages and happily throttle the woman.  And the *chef's kiss* Black Moment between Susan and David - when words are spoken in anger and the reader KNOWS by this point how perfect they are together, how deeply in love, and it was like Kelly ripped my heart from my chest and happily danced a jig on it before resuscitating me back to life with a swoony happy ending.

I'm not doing this book justice, but take my word for it - it's so, so good.  It's a minor miracle that cooler heads prevailed and I didn't stay up half the night to finish it (but only because I literally could no longer keep my eyes open).  Mature, lovely, wonderfully romantic with a pitch-perfect hero and a heroine with gumption in an era when that would not have been easy.  When I finished I wanted to turn back to Chapter One and fall back into this world all over again.

Final Grade = A

#TBRChallenge 2020: The Lady Flees Her Lord

The Book: The Lady Flees Her Lord by Ann Lethbridge

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

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

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

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

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

Original Cover

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

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

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

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

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

Final Grade = B-

#TBRChallenge 2020: Her Summer Crush

The Book: Her Summer Crush by Linda Hope Lee

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, 2016, Harlequin Heartwarming #134, out of print, available in digital, Book #2 in Return to Willow Beach series

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: I had a print copy and it was autographed which means I picked this up at an RWA conference. 

The Review: This is going to be a damning with faint praise review. To be perfectly blunt, it was exactly the right book to read in this moment of my life, with the world on fire and any semblance of work/life balance I normally have getting chucked out a 15th floor window. It bares little resemblance to reality, which was just what I needed even if the story and writing itself are flawed.

Luci Monroe has just graduated college and landed her dream job back in her hometown of Willow Beach (somewhere vaguely Pacific Northwest) doing PR for the Chamber of Commerce.  Tourist-y magazines, brochures, promoting the local businesses - that sort of thing. She's super close to her family so returning to her hometown has always been in the cards.  Not in the cards? Cody Jarvis - the man she's had a crush on since high school.  The man who is now a world-class photographer, travels the world, who doesn't want to settle down in his quiet hometown. Turns out he's in-between gigs and has agreed to take a temporary summer job at the Chamber of Commerce as their go-to photographer. Oh, and Luci is going to be his boss.  Worse yet, her crush is still there, Cody is still as handsome as ever, and still doesn't know she exists other than they're "good friends."

That's basically it.  Luci has an unrequited crush. Cody actually likes her more than as "just a friend" but he's such a GUY it takes him the whole book to realize it.  There's a whole bunch of small town shenanigans - including eleventy billion characters (really, in book 2?!),  Luci navigating her new job/boss, getting saddled with a teenage intern, her family ties fraying at the seams, a wedding, a 4th of July celebration, a sandcastle building contest etc. etc. 

The romance itself is very slow and leisurely, but lacks spark.  It's a low-heat novel, which is fine - but even low-heat novels need something, and this romance is lukewarm to tepid.  (Note: you can still write passion even if you don't have a sex scene and there's nothing like that to speak of here). The first kiss scene is pretty decent and there's some nice dancing scenes but other than that?  Meh. I've read worse, I've read better.

But I kept flipping the pages and once I started reading I didn't come up for air. Even though this book lacks all semblance of reality.  It felt like Mayberry. Like the small town that everybody thinks exists but rarely does in real life.  The clincher for me was a moment in the story when the heroine buys three newspapers (two local-ish, one out of Seattle) to, ready for this?, CHECK THE HELP WANTED ADS!  In a book published in 2016.  In a local small town rag? Sure, maybe (even that strains at the seams of credibility) but SEATTLE?!?!?!?!

So if you want some semblance of reality? Yeah, not this book. If you want an escapist, Hallmark Movie-style setting completely devoid of reality however (and hello, see current events) this is a decent small town romance if you go for that sort of thing.  I found it pleasant, but otherwise meh.

Final Grade = C

#TBRChallenge 2019: A Temporary Arrangement

The Book: A Temporary Arrangement by Roxanne Rustand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Grade = D-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Grade = B-

Thoughts on the Future of the #TBRChallenge

The #TBRChallenge has been floating around Romancelandia for a lot of years and in 2012 I took over hosting duties.  I wanted to keep it alive and frankly it was a way to force myself into reading something out of my giant horde of books at least once a month.

However, times they are a-changing.  Blogs are starting to dry up (for various and sundry reasons), more readers are migrating to social media platforms and podcasts, and even though my hosting tenure has birthed a hashtag (#TBRChallenge) - our numbers have dwindled down to a loyal few.  Also, to be perfectly blunt, while I'm still holding on to this blog by my fingernails, my life has changed quite a bit since 2003 and the time I can devote to blogging ain't what she used to be. Reading to theme (even though the themes are optional) and getting reviews up on a specified day - it's hard even for me, and I'm hosting this thing.

But I don't want to just kill the #TBRChallenge like I'm some Supreme Romancelandia Overlord.  I'm proposing a slightly altered version for 2020:

1) Participants commit to reading out of their TBR at least once a month (1 book? 25 books? Whatever!)

2) Reviews/commentary can be posted at any time during the month.

3) No provided themes.  But participants should feel free to create their own (ex. I'm toying with the idea of doing an All Harlequin Print TBR Challenge...)

4) Use the #TBRChallenge hashtag on your blog/social media etc.

For those of you who have been participating regularly, does this sound like a welcome change or a terrible idea?  And for those of you who have never or sporadically participated - do these changes sound like something that may tip you into joining the fray?

Opinions welcome.