One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: In the Zone, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 272 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by both the author and Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Being traded to a new team isn't fun, but it could be just what NHL player Tim Hollander needs for a fresh start in a new town, a town where he's not as haunted by the memories of the daughter he lost to a cruel disease at too young an age. Now he has to win over the fans of the San Diego Barracudas while he fights to prove himself on the ice to the team that's taking a chance on him. He has to be focused. Work harder than he ever has. Avoid distractions.

It's a good plan. A workable plan. And it's a plan that gets blown to hell the minute he meets the feisty, fiery Erin Collier at a publicity event.

Erin doesn't know a thing about hockey, but she knows the doctor she's interested in catching is a big fan. Seeing the publicity event at a nearby restaurant when she stops to pick up lunch seems kismet. She can get an autograph from a famous player and turn that into the sexy doctor's appreciation.

When that quest for autograph turns into an altercation with a belligerent fan, it's Tim Hollander that comes to her rescue, and soon Erin is forgetting all about that sexy doctor. She's too busy learning all about hockey...and even sexier hockey players.


I love a good sports romance. Doesn't matter the sport, really, though I do favor football and hockey. Great news for me, then, that Kate Willoughby hits the ice with sexy, romance-y, hockey playing fun in this new series. I've had a fan girl crush on Willoughby since her Be-Wished series (paranormal romantica fans should check that out), so when I found out she was working on this, well...lets just say there was squeeing and happy wiggling and leave it at that. It was embarrassing, really.

But I was so happy!

It's a more mainstream romance with a tamer sexuality level than her Be-Wished series, but it has the same depth of emotion and story that got me hooked on Willoughby's writing to begin with. It also has a nice mix of sports and romance. The hockey elements never felt superfluous, or just a convenient backdrop for the romance. Instead, it was given enough attention, detail, and significance to the story and the characters that it became one of the defining factors.

I would have liked more time spent with Tim's teammates and a closer look inside the team's locker room, though. Tim and Erin's story, while charming, cute, and brimming with emotion and sexy good times, was also fairly straightforward and didn't have many ancillary plot threads focusing on detailing Tim's life as a hockey player or his relationships with fellow players. There were a few ancillary characters and plot threads that were introduced early in the book, but the threads petered out and those characters didn't make much of an appearance once the relationship arc between Tim and Erin heated up and commanded the story's focus.

That's not really a complaint, because I liked the story as it is just fine. I just think a few more layers of could've propelled it into the love range for me.

The characters didn't have quite the same level of appeal to me as their story did, though. There was nothing wrong with them. I don't mean that. In fact, I can't imagine a more heartbreaking trauma to survive than the death of a child, so Tim in particular tugged at my heart strings from the beginning. I never begrudged him his completely understandable issues, even though they did telegraph a major wrinkle in the relationship with the husband-and-kids-wanting Erin.

My problem was that Tim was just slightly more in touch with his hearts-and-flowers emotional side than I prefer in my romantic heroes, and a bit too quick to fall wholeheartedly into love with Erin. And Erin, though feisty and determined, with a generous heart and giving nature, was just not the sort of woman I can easily relate to.

She was nice. Truly, there wasn't a single bad thing about her. It's just...the book introduces her while she's trying to catch Dr. O's romantic interest by baking for him until he loves her. That was way too Fifties Housewife for me to feel comfortable with her as the romantic lead and it left me with a less than favorable first impression that lingered well into the book. Even after that improved, I struggled to relate to her long term goals and desires. She was just a bit too much of a gender stereotype for me.

But there were great things in the book, too. Things that touched me, or made me grin, or even tear up a little. The story was great. The hockey was great. The writing was great. The characters just weren't quite up there for me. I still got a total feel-good buzz by the end, and I'm looking forward to Willoughby's next installment. It's sports romance. It's hockey. It's Willoughby. I'm so there.

Quotable:

The cat was not only out of the bag, it was fucking running around knocking shit over.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Razor Bay, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 334 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Harlequin HQN via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Quintessential rolling stone Harper Summerville loves her job. She travels the globe, staying in a place just long enough to investigate the charities that have submitted a request for financial assistance from her family's Sundays Child foundation. It's Harper's job to determine the requesting organization's needs and the quality of care they provide, to make sure foundation funds are going to the best candidates.

It's the sort of job that fits her right down to her toes, because Harper's never been - and never will be - one to let any sort of moss grow under her feet. At least, that's what she keeps telling herself. Now that she's in the Washington town of Razor Bay and has met the delectable sheriff deputy Max Bradshaw, Harper has started to wonder about some of her wanderlust ways.

It's never been hard to move on before, in fact, she gets downright itchy if she stays in one place for too long, but there's something about the gorgeous, kind, but wounded Max. Harper's feeling an itch all right, but it has nothing at all to do with getting out of town and everything to do with one tall, dark, and oh-so-handsome lawman. 


If you haven't read the first book in Andersen's Razor Bay series, don't worry. I haven't either, and it didn't cause me any problems with this book, though it was clear that all the characters and some of the underlying issues were previously introduced. Frankly, I'm okay with not reading that first book, because while I liked Jenny and Jake well enough as secondary characters in this book, I don't know that they would've appealed to me as much in the primary roles as did Harper and Max.

Well...okay...mostly Max.

Not that there was anything wrong with Harper. There wasn't at all. She's a smart, independent woman with a big heart and caring nature. I wasn't totally able to relate to her rolling-stone ways, and I didn't like that the relationship between her and Max got physical before she got honest with him about her true purpose in Razor Bay, but watching her reach out and form deeper connections with friends and coworkers as her character grows in the story was a part of the fun of the read.

The lies and secrecy did make the inevitable relationship conflict too predictable and the buildup to the conflict climax more than a little formulaic, but in this sort of light, sexy romance, predictability and formula aren't huge detractors. In fact, this book is just the sort of reasonably uncomplicated brain candy that I was hoping it would be. There isn't a huge morass of angst or a lot of emotional melodrama, just two good looking characters with varying degrees of personal baggage and a few external complications.

And I loved the heck out Max. He was quite the full package in romantic heroes. Despite the troubled childhood and an adulthood shadowed by elements of darkness, he was still a truly nice guy - but with just the right amount of sexy edge and a dash of social awkwardness that warmed my heart even as it heated my blood. He was so, so yummy.

I liked the slow build in the relationship between him and Harper, too. They fit nicely together from the start, their initial run-ins flavored with sizzling sexual chemistry and the sweetest taste of earnest uncertainty. I was also pleased that the narrative didn't rush to throw them together romantically for the sheer purpose of getting them naked and horizontal. The majority of the first half of the book showed them mostly dancing around one another while each dealt with their own various internal and external issues.

Of course, them getting together didn't suck either. There were plenty of hot times in Razor Bay.

This was just an all around fun read for me, good for a few solid hours of light reading enjoyment. Basically what I expect from an Andersen romance, really. There was even a few teasers for what's to come in the next book in the series. Luc's introduction was a little heavy-handed in the last bit of this book, but there's an interesting dynamic between him and Harper's friend Tasha that's hinted at here and I'll keep my eye out for their book when it comes out.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Country Roads, Book 2
Rating: 1 Star
Length: 400 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Forever publisher Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Small town baker Grace King has loved her big brother's best friend Jaxson Anderson since she was a kid. Problem is, Jax has always treated her like a younger sister, protective and caring. That's great and all, but Grace is no longer a child and her feelings for Jax are anything but immature. He's her one and only. He just doesn't know it. Yet.

As a sheriff in the small Gulf Coast town of Mirabelle, Florida, Jax Anderson sees a broad spectrum of the worst in human nature. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, though, considering his violently abusive, drunken father and utterly disinterested mother. If it weren't for the King family, he probably wouldn't have made it as far as he has. And that's why he's always known he's not good enough for his best friend's little sister, Grace, no matter that he can't remember a time when he didn't want her.

He was doing an admirable job of ignoring the want until that accident that almost cost her her life. Since then Jax has been struggling with his control, haunted by what-ifs. Surely that's the only reason he totally snaps his chain with the woman when she pushes his buttons, wrenching the last shred of control out of his hands with a maelstrom of passion. He still knows he doesn't deserve Grace. Still has no doubt she will realize that eventually and leave him. But maybe, just maybe, he can have a little grace in his life before she does.


I really enjoyed Richard's first book in this series, Undone, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on Jax and Grace's story. That's why it kills me to say that so many things went wrong for me in this one that Undeniable left me...well...undone. From the characters, who I found largely intolerable, to the story, which wavered between boring and extremely frustrating, to the writing, which made me a little nuts in several places, there were just too many things that pushed all the wrong buttons.

The long-suffering, self-sacrificing martyr character type never works for me, and Jax rode the, "We can't be together because I'm not good enough for you," horse until it keeled over dead. It was a refrain that popped up so many times I lost patience with him even before I reached the halfway point of the book.

Honestly, I could never figure out why he was so down on himself. Sure, he has a horrible set of parents and his childhood was traumatic, but only parts of it, because the King family and others took care of him and showed him what love was all about - a fact that is also stressed several times throughout the narrative. He's now a well respected member of the community, has good friends, a good life, and money enough in his pockets to buy his own home. So...not really seeing any real motivation for the I'm-no-good self image. It didn't endear me to him at all. Mostly I just wanted to kick him.

I wish I could say I liked Grace more, but I didn't. Her desperation for Jax and the subsequent heartbroken angst after every single time he pulled the push-me-pull-you act on her was very off-putting. And really, more than once would have been too much, but the number of times she went back to him in a blink after his demons reared their oft-seen heads and he treated her like Kleenex yet again was ridiculous.

Not for nothing, but any man alludes to me as a whore - in public no less - and I don't care how much I love him, he's not going to be climbing back into my bed with just a weak-ass apology. Not without missing a few of his favorite appendages first, anyways. The fact that Grace just accepted his apologies with very little confrontation every time and cozied right back up to the guy didn't make me think too highly of her level of self respect.

Had I liked the main characters more maybe I wouldn't have been so disappointed with the plot of the story, but I was bored through most of it. There were a couple of threads of interest, however. I liked Grace's friend Preston. He had a nice ancillary storyline that added poignancy to the read. I also liked seeing Paige and Brendan again. I love them.

On the other hand, the town biddy was up to her old tricks. I just wish someone would make her a victim of a tragic underwater basket-weaving accident or something, because that bat has to go. She's more than a source of conflict, she's an utterly reprehensible, barely human being and I can't for the life of me figure out why someone hasn't at least sued her for slander. The fact that her behavior continues unchecked is really rubbing me the wrong way. As do the town's bad apples, the trio of terror. They're so over the top ugly that I struggle to believe that their behavior has gone unchecked for so long.

There was an anemic mystery thread surrounding a rash of robberies in town that could have been better developed and incorporated into the storyline, as well. It wasn't a bad idea, but as it was written, it just seemed contrived to put the characters in the position they were in at the climax of the book, and that bothered me. For that matter, I couldn't figure out why what happened in the climax suddenly wakes Jax up when what happened at the end of the previous book didn't seem to.

I wasn't thrilled with the narrative itself, either. It was over-burdened by way too much superfluous information and description. It seemed at times that every single element of a scene was described in minute and unnecessary detail and every ancillary character who was given so much as a mention had their life story and connection to the town detailed to the extreme. And there are a lot of characters mentioned. After a while it all became white noise, and it drowned out the stuff that could have really added to the narrative and the storyline.

There are just too many things about this book that either fell short or didn't work for me. I really enjoyed the first book, so I'm hoping that this was just not a good fit for my reading preferences. I'm not ready to give up on this series just yet. There's obviously something brewing between Grace's friend Mel and Jax's friend Bennett, who caught my eye in the first book. I'm sincerely hoping, though, that Bennett acquits himself better than Jax did here.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Bad Boys of Crystal Lake, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 384 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Sourcebooks Casablanca publisher Sourcebooks via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





A decade after putting his hometown of Crystal Lake in his rearview mirror, tragedy has drawn rock guitarist Cain Black back. One of his best friends is dead, a grim statistic of a war on foreign soil, and Cain has returned to mourn and pay his respects.

And because his own life is in shambles and he could use a break.

One of the first people he sees at the reception after the funeral is Maggie O'Rourke, single mother and redheaded temptress. Not that she's trying to be. In fact, the fiery beauty makes it quite clear that she wants absolutely nothing to do with Cain and would be perfectly happy if he would disappear off the face of the planet entirely.

Not that one of Crystal Lake's former Bad Boys is going to let that stop him. In fact, he's thinking he may as well stay in town for awhile, because there's just something about Maggie that reaches out and squeezes him hard - in all the best places. What surprises him the most, though, is there's also something about the shadow's in her eyes, the wariness and caution, that makes him want to slay her dragons.

There is absolutely no doubt in Cain's mind that the ethereal but haunted Maggie O'Rourke has them.


Maybe I should've stopped before I started this book. It's not a bad romance, and there were parts that really worked for me, but overall I had too many issues with it and some of those issues started early. When the book opens there are several melancholy scenes surrounding the death of one of Cain's best friends. It set a darker tone than appealed to me. I almost put it down at that point, not because it wasn't well written, just because I wasn't really in the emotional place to want to deal with it.

Still, I kept reading, and I was relieved that at least the melancholy waned relatively quickly.

I thought it was going to be good from that point. I liked Cain, even though the rock-n-roll romantic hero isn't a favorite of mine. I liked Maggie, too, even though she's a single mother and that theme also isn't a favorite of mine. I loved her son Michael. I absolutely adored him. More, I was completely and thoroughly enamored with the depth of love in the relationship between mother and son. It was one of my favorite things about the read.

Cain's relationship with Michael was another huge high point. It never once felt forced or awkward, or a footnote just to appeal to readers. It felt truly organic to all the characters involved.

The plot didn't break any new grounds, which normally isn't a huge criticism of mine. It's contemporary romance, and as a fan I expect some formula. Still, there could have been more depth and the last fifteen to twenty percent of the book was almost painfully predictable. I saw the conflict climax coming from the moment Maggie's past is revealed. Other story elements and character choices did provide pleasant surprises throughout the narrative, so I was disappointed that the end truly didn't.

And I began having a problem with Maggie late in the book. She's a very secretive person. Her past is filled with trauma and as a result she doesn't share anything about herself or that past. At all. With anyone. For awhile, I was fine with that, but the longer she was in the relationship with Cain and the more he opened up to her without any reciprocity, my struggles with her character grew. Because she was such a closed book with everyone, even her closest friend in town, I began to have a very hard time maintaining an emotional connection to her character.

That's when it became more than frustrating, it became detrimental to the story.

I also had trouble with the scenes that featured shifting points of view in a congruent timeline. It's a narrative style that rarely works for me because it can and does breed timeline inconsistencies like the one that occurs during the book's climax. For a detail-obsessed reader like me, those sorts of inconsistencies completely derail an intensely suspenseful or emotional scene.

Also, I know he was a secondary character and so not a tremendously big factor in the main story arc, but I had a huge problem with Jake. I don't care how close a friend a person is, or how long our history, if I hear them speaking to another friend of mine (and in this case a grieving widow) the way that Jake speaks to Raine in this book, I'd have his guts for garters. I was infuriated that no one deigned to address it or even made an attempt to rein in Jake's increasingly unconscionable behavior towards that poor woman.

There were just too many things that went awry for me in this book. And I had a lot of unanswered questions, which is uncommon for me in this genre. Unfortunately, they're the sorts of questions that can really compromise the effectiveness of a romantic resolution. Like...is Maggie still married? If not, when, exactly, was her divorce final, because unless I missed something, the way the scant details were divulged, there didn't seem to have been time and she sure didn't seem to have opportunity.

Between of those sorts of questions and my other issues, it was all just too much for me to really enjoy this read. The characters, especially Cain and Michael, were completely lovable, and I even liked Maggie throughout most of the book. And even with my issues, I thought a good portion of the romance between her and Cain was very sweet and incredibly hot.

Maybe with some distance I'd give a second book in this new series a try, but if Jake's going to be the male romantic lead in that one, I'm going to have to wait for awhile to see how the reviews shake out first.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Lucky Harbor, Book 7
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 352 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning. Unfortunately for Ali Winters, that sentiment spans more than just a single morning. It wasn't just getting dumped by her scumbag boyfriend Teddy, though that did suck. It just didn't suck as bad as actually catching him cheating on her, then getting a break-up text from him before she has a chance to dump him first.

To add insult to that particular injury, the text message kindly informed her he hadn't renewed the lease on the rental home they shared and she had to be out by the end of the month, which was, you know...yesterday. Now Ali has no home, no boyfriend, and a whole lotta rage. Not really a surprise that the police think she stole the $50,000 that went missing from Teddy's office after she left a very...detailed...note on his desk - and a voice mail or ten - letting him know just what she thought of him.

Returning to Lucky Harbor for some much-needed alone time after his latest case ripped his life apart, San Francisco cop Luke Hanover didn't expect to find a gorgeous, almost naked, and seriously brassed off woman squatting in his house. He wanted her gone so he could be miserable all by himself, but one look at the injured yet defiant Ali and he finds himself doing things he had no intention of doing.

Things like allowing her to stay at his place, or, when the police treat her like a suspect in a pretty major crime, getting involved to help her out. Which is the absolute last thing he wants to do. He just can't seem to help himself.

Yup, sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning.


Another fun, feel-good Lucky Harbor romance! Shalvis' Lucky Harbor series is my favorite of the ongoing contemporary romance series I read. It's consistently entertaining, often flat-out delightful, and it's chock full of a wide variety of wacky and weird and wonderful characters who are so easy to adore. And of course, the romances between the heroes and heroines in each book are fairly awesome, too.

In this one we meet the irrepressible Ali and the inscrutable Luke as Shalvis kicks off her third set of loosely connected in-series trilogies, this one revolving around the boys of Lucky Harbor, three childhood besties who have grown up all kinds of hot, sexy, and heroic.

Lest I forget, you can't have a Shalvis romance without a quirky, fierce beauty to give the guy's heart his forever home, and I loved Ali. She's a spitfire. Dealt some pretty hard blows at the beginning of the book, Ali responds to each with her chin up and her fists clenched in proud defiance. She's strong and highly independent, but she's also got a softer, more easily bruised side that was very sympathetic. In fact, she sort of stole the show.

That's not to say that Luke isn't a tall dish of sexy goodness in his own right. Brooding, taciturn, and more than a little dented by life, Luke is the quintessential reluctant hero on the outside but total alpha male problem-solver at heart. He got sucked into the dual vortexes of Ali and Lucky Harbor and couldn't quite get himself free, no matter how hard he tried (which, well...wasn't really all that hard). He's a far more internal male lead than we've seen so far in the series, and he doesn't say a whole lot, but his actions speak volumes. I loved him.

As a couple they were a sometimes volatile and always impressive mix of hot sex and sweet, heart-tugging emotion. A very good pair to follow after the nearly incomparable Grace and Josh.

There was a suspense element in this storyline that the other books haven't had, and I liked it a lot. It didn't take a large chunk of story focus away from Ali and Luke's relationship arc, but it added a romantic suspense flavor that I enjoyed. Not that the Lucky Harbor series needed additional elements to improve it, or was lacking in any way, but I definitely thought it brought a new dynamic to the series that I appreciated.

But maybe it took something away, too, because I have to admit, the humor wasn't as prevalent as it was in the previous three books and I didn't feel there was as large an influence of Lucky Harbor residents as I'm used to enjoying. There were several included, obviously, and of course Lucille was up to her usual shenanigans, but overall on a lesser scale than I would have hoped for. Lucky Harbor's Facebook-loving geriatric brigade is always good for a smile or ten.

I also wish that Luke's problems with his job and the threat that brought to his life had been afforded a larger role in the story, with a more comprehensive resolution. Ali's issues, personal and legal, got significantly more page time, so the story lacked the sort of balance between the characters' personal evolution that other books have had. That was a little disappointing, especially as I had gone into this book looking forward to this three-book set in the series focusing more on the men and their lives and friendships, like the sisters in the first three and the female best friends in the second set.

But a little disappointment doesn't make this book a bad bet by any means.

Nothing about this book or this series is a bad bed. Shalvis is clearly at the top of her writing game and keeps cranking out touching stories that deliver on the sexy good times as well as the sigh-worthy love stories. For pure romance reading fun, you just can't do any better than Shalvis and her Lucky Harbor series. And if I ever find the place on a map, I'm so moving there.

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 241 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




The first time they met, they hated each other. Then Matt Scanlon, an MLB catcher riding a self-destruction rocket to rock bottom, got traded to his rival team, the San Francisco Blaze, and comes face-to-face with Kelly Maxwell in a professional capacity. Maxwell is the publicist for the Blaze.

Second impressions - for both of them - were no better than the first.

All Matt wants is to be left alone while he tries to pull his life back together after a long, painful year of bad decisions and worse actions. He refuses to talk to the media vultures clamoring for an interview, no matter how intently Kelly badgers him. If pushing her buttons and being an ass keeps her off his back about it, well, that's not exactly a hardship. Especially when it hits him that Kelly Maxwell, professional ball buster, is pretty damn gorgeous when she's riled.

He's the bane of her existence. The insufferable, boorish jackass is making her job hell. Kelly doesn't know why Matt suddenly went from being the golden boy of baseball to a self-made pariah, nor does she care. She's stuck with him for now, so she'll do whatever it takes to get him to tow the publicity line. And if it just so happens that doing her job forces her to get in that shockingly handsome face of his at every turn, well, maybe that isn't so bad after all.

Matt never expected that sparring with the fiery Kelly would become the highlight of his day. He's not sure what that means, exactly, but he knows one thing. If he can't convince her that he's sorry for their past and he's genuine in his interest in her, she'll toss him out of the game before he can even make it to the plate.


I like sports romance and I love the enemies-to-lovers trope, so I have to admit, I was predisposed to enjoying the heck out of this sexy, fun little reading treat, but Packard really went above and beyond for her readers with this one. Not only were the characters fairly awesome, especially the tomboyish, foul-mouthed (though she's working on that) Kelly, but the plot had enough meat on its bones to satisfy even the pickiest reader.

Baseball isn't really my thing as a sport (I'm a football fangirl), and I don't know much about it, but even my untrained eye was impressed by the authentic-feeling touches Packard put into the story. There wasn't a huge baseball element (a fact I appreciated), but what was there felt very much like it was written by someone who not only understands the sport more than I do but likes it. That was a particularly nice touch and, oddly enough, fairly rare in the sports romances I've read.

Kelly and Matt had a nice bit of depth as characters, too. Kelly, who deals daily with the harsh realities of surviving an eating disorder, isn't your typical romance heroine in form or function, and I liked that about her. Matt, probably the more stereotypical of the two of them, didn't make any better a first (or second) impression on me than he did on Kelly, but allusions to the cause of a lot of his personal demons kept me from writing him off precipitously and he evolved rapidly enough after that to win me over.

That was a good thing, because he had a lot of evolving to do. I've rarely read an enemies-to-lovers themed romance in which the "enemies" part of the plot was so completely justified. If any man ever spoke to me the way that Matt spoke to Kelly on their first meeting, I don't know that I would've been as violence-free as she was. Kudos to Kelly for her ability to handle him with a vicious verbal volley that reverberated long after their initial encounter.

And kudos to Packard for divulging that scene when she did, because if it had come at the beginning of the book, I can't say I would have continued the story long enough for Matt to redeem himself.

My only disappointment with the read came, unfortunately, at the end of the book. The relationship conflict was predictable, obvious, and cliched, and the resolution was downright unsatisfying. After such a great buildup, with a slowly evolving romance and a positively wicked amount of sexual chemistry between Kelly and Matt, the end felt more like a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am and it left me a little agog. A few dangling secondary plot threads lent it an unfinished feel, too, which didn't help matters.

I could have handled the lack of satisfactory resolution on those plot threads, because there was setup in this book for another story in that world (though nothing I could find about this being a series, despite the character connections to Packard's debut novel, Love in the Afternoon), but the romance resolution left a mark. Just about everything that preceded it, though, was great - some was even more than great. It was certainly enough to make me a fan of both the book and of Packard's writing, if not the sport of baseball (nobody is that good).

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: London Legends, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 228 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Country Roads, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 368 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Forever Yours publisher Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Paige Morrison hasn't had the best day...er...well, week...no, it's more like...oh, hell. The past year of her life has pretty much sucked.

She lost her job with an advertising agency in Philadelphia, lost her roommate (and best friend) to a swank job in DC, lost her apartment because she couldn't make the rent alone, temporarily moved in with her boyfriend until she got back on her feet, then got dumped before she got the chance. Forced to leave Philly just to survive, she ended up at her parents' home in the small town of Mirabelle, FL, where for the past three months she's found nothing but closed, prejudiced minds and tightly sealed doors, so no job and no friends there either.

Then, to add insult to the injury of a particularly humiliating interview with the town's resident gossipy, venomous hag, her Jeep dies, stranding her on the side of a very hot, very dusty road to nowhere. Yeah, she's definitely had better years.

Hey, at least her mechanic is hot.

Brendan King has heard of Paige Morrison. Everyone has. He's even seen her jogging around town a few times. Her call for a tow, though, is the first chance he has to see her up close or talk to her. Turns out that's probably a good thing, seeing as how just five minutes with the gorgeous, smart-mouthed, quick-witted, and so obviously down-on-her-luck woman completely rocks Brendan's world to the point where he doesn't know if he'll ever recover. Or if he even wants to.

She's the best thing he's ever had happen to his life, but Paige is a city girl, and Brendan is right where he belongs in the small town of Mirabelle. The problem may not be so much getting the girl as it is keeping her, but some risks the heart just has to take.


I have a few confessions to make. First, I absolutely love romances that have a guy so totally gone over a girl that he's endearingly goofy with it. It's totally sappy of me, I know, and I'm probably ruining my tough-girl cred (I have tough-girl cred...really...I swear. Oh, hush.) but for some reason that sort of over-the-moon-for-a-girl guy just really pushes my Happy Reader buttons, and Brendan was exactly such a guy from the moment he meets Paige. I loved it. I loved him.

I also have to confess that sometimes, just sometimes, no other sort of book will do for me but a light, fluffy, relatively complications-free romance. They're the cotton candy of what I refer to as brain candy reads; airy, not a lot of substance, really, but still so damn sweet and tasty. When I started this book, that type of cotton candy romance was exactly what I needed to cleanse my mental palate after several weightier, less happy reads. For most of this book, I was in reader heaven.

Brendan was by far my favorite character, but I liked Paige, too. Their romance was the sort of cute, fun, slow-buildup (relatively), almost idyllic romantic tale that doesn't come around all that often any more. There was sex, but not before they had been seeing each other for months, and the arc of their romance stretched all the way through a wedding and beyond. Definitely not something you read every day.

While the narrative lacked a measure of sophistication in a lot of ways and the writing style, most notably in the descriptive passages, sometimes read like bullet points, there was plenty of southern small-town goodness to balance it out. There was also a nice number of secondary characters with tons of personality if not definition, and the setup for the next book in the series, Jax and Grace's book, was well done.

The plot wasn't complex. External conflicts were mostly annoyances and relationship conflicts were few and far between. Personal conflicts and emotional baggage didn't come into play all that often, either, even when it would have been more realistic if they had. Occasionally that made the romance arc feel a little saccharine and made the book seem a little long, especially as I reached the last quarter of the story. I also had some minor issues with the timeline, which starts out with a nice day-to-day pace but has some awkward transitions when the timeline starts jumping forward by months. Nothing too bad, but enough to notice and pull me out of the story a bit.

To be honest, a staple diet of this sort of romance would drive me a little batty, but in small doses, it's just what my reading doctor ordered. For me it was a feel good, guilt-free pleasure read with a totally adorable romantic hero and an eminently likable heroine. It was also my first read of a Shannon Richard book, but given how I'm dying to get my hands on Jax and Grace's story, I can pretty much say with certainty it won't be my last. After all, a girl's gotta have just a little bit of cotton candy every once in awhile.

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: Play Action, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 145 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Brazen publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





When NFL quarterback and hometown hero Cade Reynolds returns to Harper Falls for the first time in sixteen years to do a favor for his old high school football coach, the town's welcome is...well...slightly underwhelming. No one even recognizes him. At least, no one but the stunningly sexy woman who is on her way out of the coffee shop when she sees him sitting at a table.

The heated recognition that flares in her eyes puts Cade's blood flow on a southward bound sex train. He should probably meet her first, however, before asking her to be his lusty conductor.

Angie Peterson couldn't imagine what her former high school crush was doing back in Harper Falls after all these years. She knows he's still rehabbing the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the game for almost two seasons, but all reports indicate he should be heading back to the sport soon. She should know, she's followed Cade's career as devotedly as she follows football. One is her life and her passion, the other, well, a different sort of passion. So the frank interest she sees in his eyes when she meets his gaze thrills her to her core.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to remember her. That opens the door for all sorts of delightful recreation. After all, it's not like the illustrious Cade Reynolds is likely to be in town for long.

After a decadent night of unbridled passion, Angie returns to the real world and her job as math teacher and assistant football coach for the high school. Coming face-to-face with Cade at work so soon after relegating their fabulous night together to the past is a shock, but it's finding out exactly why Cade is back in town that really tilts Angie's world on its axis and threatens everything she's worked so hard to achieve.

He may be there to take a job that should rightfully be hers, but when it comes to football, Angie is a master at strategy, and this is a game she has every intention of winning. Even if it is against the only man she's ever truly wanted.


As a mostly cute and wickedly sexy little contemporary romance with heavy sports influences, Barbosa's series debut works nicely and even has a few nifty little unorthodox touches. I enjoyed both characters, even though Cade's character stayed fairly consistent with the wounded sports hero stereotype. He had enough charming traits that went against-type to keep him interesting. It was Angie's character, though, that really brought a breath of fresh air to the read for me.

I loved that she's not only an assistant coach, but she's brilliant with game strategy and play calling. That was a particularly nice touch in a sub-genre where the female protagonists are usually stuck working for a sports team's front office or as some sort of sports reporter.

Angie and Cade had excellent chemistry, too, and the level of competition between them set the evolution of their relationship on a very nice simmer as the story progressed. And it has to be said...Barbosa completely delivered on the page-burning, sizzling sex. It was fan-worthy and positively delicious.

The overall plot wasn't terribly complex, and the few threads of external conflict were fairly anemic in both depth and definition, with a resolution that I found lacking. Still, this isn't the sort of story that necessitates a tremendous amount of complexity to be entertaining. Some elements were pretty far from realistic, others could have been a little more believable with a little more foundation, but those are really pretty minor issues, all things considered.

I didn't like the end of the book, though. That was a problem. And I hate when a book ends an unsatisfying or disappointing note when so much else in the story works for me. Whenever that happens, my overall impression of the read takes a hit. Too much about this ending, though, felt more like a setup for the next book than a satisfying conclusion to this one and I just wasn't happy with it.

I was happy with much of the rest of it, though. It was sexy as hell, with solid characters in a contentious but fiery romance and a story that had just enough individuality to make it memorable. A steamy-hot way to spent a few fun reading hours. Speaking as a football lover, I'd say this one made it to the end zone, even if it missed the extra point.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Getting Physical, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 236 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Plastic surgeon Whitney Vidra is living her dream. Unfortunately for the city girl, that dream has landed her in the ultra-conservative town of Pleasant Park, PA, where her and her two best friends are starting up their own all-purpose medical spa. With no nightlife to speak of and locals who could sweat disapproval and disdain...if they sweat at all, Whitney is feeling a little hemmed in by the very opportunity she and her friends have been scrimping and saving for over a decade to achieve.

When she's approached by the adorable but obviously clueless Matt Fuller at what passes for a bar in her new hometown, Whitney takes one look at the man and is ready to run in the other direction. He's got Needy Nice Guy written all over him, and Whitney doesn't do charity cases any more.

Recently divorced grade school teacher Matt isn't her usual fare for sexy good times. He's got life-long commitment written all over him, and Whitney is terminally allergic to commitment. But when she finds out his marriage ended because of his wife's infidelity, Whitney realizes exactly what Matt needs to put his marriage behind him and move on. Just like she did when she'd had her heart destroyed by the man who cheated on her, Mr. Nice Guy needs a no-holds-barred, completely sexual, no-emotions-need-apply rebound relationship. And Whitney is just the girl for the job.


I went into this book expecting a light, sexy, summer romance read, and for all that unmet expectations usually kill a read for me, that wasn't the case this time. Not that the story wasn't sexy, because wow - it so was. Seriously and intensely sexy, in fact. It just wasn't exactly a light and easy summer fling of a romance.

It's a meatier, more complex tale than I had anticipated, featuring two truly damaged characters. There were moments of light, frivolous fun and an almost I Love Lucy-esque slapstick comedy in places, but those were just surface sheen that added some gloss to a story that had quite a lot of emotional depth.

Whitney carries the scars of some mighty big damage inside her. She could've been a porter for all the emotional baggage she hauls around. Sarcastic, sometimes cruel, often self-absorbed and entitled, she uses her sexuality as both a sword and a shield, honed weapons that attack and defend against the source of any potential emotional vulnerability.

There were moments when she was petulant, rash, childish, and ridiculously immature. Actually, there were a lot of moments when she was darn close to unlikable. Yet, for all that I feel her character went too far over the top at times, and she never quite seemed believable as an accomplished plastic surgeon, I loved those moments when she showed her softer side, her generosity of spirit, and her caring. And I loved her moxie.

Matt was her perfect complement, too. Generous to a fault, good-natured, laid back to the point of almost lacking a pulse about some things, rigid with steely resolve about others, at his core he's just a nice, normal, decent guy. He's also the perfect example of how too much of a good thing really can be way too much of a good thing.

His wife betrayed him, but he doesn't feel it like everyone says he should and he's still more than cordial with the woman. Therein lies the far more subtle flaws in his character. The emotional neutrality and sense of obligation he feels for his ex borders on unhealthy, and the dogged determination to help her whenever she calls is just as much a tell about his personality as Whitney's poor behavior.

Their relationship wasn't traditional but I liked how it evolved throughout the story. There were a few predictable plot elements, and I wasn't crazy about some of the latter story developments. I'm not a fan of the ubiquitous Big Misunderstanding and the resolution to it seemed odd to me. Still, it was a fun read. There was plenty of fan-myself-it-was-so-hot sexiness, just enough borderline-scandalous fun to keep it on the lighter side, and both characters had weighty emotional issues to add some nice depth. I liked it.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: The Alpha Brotherhood, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 192 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Harlequin Blaze publisher Harlequin via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





There's having bad taste in men, and then there's Hillary Wright, whose ex-boyfriend is being indicted for fraud and embezzlement. To make matters worse, the federal government suspects she was complicit in his crimes. In an effort to clear her name, she's flying to Chicago to help the CIA identify her ex's shady partners. Then she's going to try to put the whole sordid mess - and relationship - behind her.

The charming, good-looking man seated beside her on the flight to Chicago may be just what she needs to start the process.

Former hacker and computer wunderkind Troy Donavan is scoping out Hillary for his boss, but nothing about the pretty, funny woman says she knew anything about her boyfriend's illegal activities. He's been called to serve in his role as freelance Interpol agent to make sure his instincts are correct, and if necessary, protect her from the people who may not be too happy with her if she fingers them for criminals.

It's a tough job, spending time with a gorgeous, witty, enchanting woman who stirs his blood, but somebody's got to do it.


I'm a fan of Catherine Mann and have enjoyed several of her books, but this debut of her new series was just okay for me. Maybe part of the responsibility for my lack of enthusiasm lies with the Harlequin Desire line. I don't read a lot of them because they tend not to have the sort of depth and complexity I prefer in my books. They're shorter length novels and while they definitely bring the heat, they don't usually bring much else.

That was pretty much the case for me here. I liked the premise of the group of independent Interpol agents and the backstory that connects them. I liked the main characters well enough, too, though again, not a whole lot of depth or complexity went into either one of them. There were some elements of the plot that were fairly far-fetched, and the romance arc had moments that struck me as being overly and unnecessarily dramatic, but overall, there were few truly eye-rolling moments at any point of the story.

There were just as few moments that really impressed or wowed me.

The book is fairly simple, straightforward brain candy, light on substance but with a bit of a sexy bite. There's no doubt Mann is an accomplished author who can write layered characters and well-rounded plots. I just don't think this particular venue is the place for that to happen. It wasn't a bad read at all, and I certainly didn't dislike it, but it never really went beyond being just an okay read for me. In the future I think I'll get my Mann fixes elsewhere.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Lucky Harbor, Book 6
Rating: 5 Stars
Length: 324 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Forever publisher Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Four months in Lucky Harbor has netted banking specialist Grace Brooks two best friends and a town she adores, but it's still falling short in the career department. Though she takes as many odd jobs as she can get while she searches for one in her field, her savings account is really feeling the pinch of her extended not-quite-vacation. Surely that's the only reason she doesn't correct the delectable Dr. Josh Scott, dreamiest of the McDreamies, when he misdials a number for a dog walker and calls her instead.

She really does need the money, and honestly, how hard can walking one dog be?

Single father, town doctor, brother of a troubled young woman in a wheelchair, Josh has gotten used to wearing a lot of hats in his life, but lately the weight of all his many responsibilities is grinding him down to the bone. Coming home to deal with one more in a long string of catastrophes surrounding his son's dog Tank is just the tip of a very large iceberg. He wasn't expecting to be poleaxed by a soaking wet and distraught Grace, who was still in the ocean searching for the dog she thought she lost.

She may be the worst dog walker on the planet, but there's just something about the woman that brings Josh to his knees. She obviously needs help, and that's what Josh does, he helps...everyone but himself. But maybe, if Josh can loosen up a bit, and Grace can let go and have fun for a change, they'll both find exactly what they need, and more than they ever dreamed possible, with each other.

Okay, so maybe chocolate doesn't make the world go around, but it sure makes the trip worthwhile.

Six books into the Lucky Harbor series and I just gotta say, I want to live there. Seriously, I would totally move there if I could. Like each book in the series, the town is wacky, weird, and unrepentantly wonderful. Filled with a colorful mix of salty and spicy and sweet characters I've come to adore, Lucky Harbor is the perfect backdrop for each installment of this delightful series. And Grace and Josh's book is my favorite of the lot of them.

Feels like I keep saying that, though, with each new book. Funny how that works.

Speaking of funny, Shalvis baked a batch of giggles, snorts, and chuckles into this one. Grace was an absolute riot, and Josh was such a fabulous straight man opposite her charming blunders. I loved both of them, and the chemistry they had together was spectacular. More than just sexual chemistry, they had a genuine way of interacting that just tickled every single one of my Happy Reader buttons.

I loved how their lives slowly intertwined as the story progressed. Yes, they were totally hot for each other, and it was stellar, but equally enjoyable were the family moments, seeing Grace's influence slowly alter the whole Scott family in heartwarming ways. Josh may have been paying her, but the impact she has on his life, on the lives of his sister and son, all of it, just made me feel good.

The whole book made me feel good. I wanted to gobble Toby up every time he said "arf," and Anna was a complicated, realistic terror. Best friends Amy and Mallory were included in nice ways - not overshadowing Grace and Josh time but adding their own well-known and loved personalities to the story. Matt and Ty were there, too, as Josh's best friends. I loved revisiting them and seeing how happy they all are. It's one of my favorite things about romance series and Shalvis did an excellent job incorporating them as secondary characters. She even included - mostly by mention - the characters from the first three books. It added a layer of continuity to this one that I didn't feel as strongly in the previous two stories.

There just isn't anything that didn't work for me in this book. I thought Grace's issues with her parents and Josh's concerns with being a good father and brother added nice layers of personal conflict for both characters. The storyline evolved very naturally around them and those issues added a pleasant level of depth to their relationship.

There were a lot of different elements written into this book, some even struck more somber notes, yet it still managed to be a light, decadent, sexy romantic treat. This is exactly why Shalvis is one of my top go-to authors for feel-good romance. She writes characters that become old friends and stories that touch my heart even as they entertain my mind. She's done that in every book in this series, some to greater effect than others, but this one exceeds them all.

Grace and Josh's romance really is the hot, gooey, sinfully delicious chocolate on top of a fantastic Lucky Harbor sundae. And I truly can't wait to take another bite.

Quotables:

She didn't look ridiculous at all. She looked the opposite of ridiculous. In fact, she looked good enough to gobble up with a spoon. Without a spoon. He was thinking his tongue would work...

"You have more spiders?"
"No," he said without missing a beat. "No spiders."
"You said spiders," she said. "And I saw a big one in the side yard, in the sprinkler well."
"That spider went south for the winter."
"It's summer."
"He wanted to be the first to get out of town."

Ty pointed his beer at Josh. "Want to know what I think?"
"No," Josh said.
"I think you have a case of being a little girl. Maybe you should prescribe yourself a heavy dose of man-the-fuck-up."

Unfortunately, he was a man through and through, and therefore had a penis, which meant that there'd be no reasoning with him.

The Lucky Harbor Series:

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Lucky Harbor, Book 5
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 314 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Forever publisher Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Dedicated bad girl of the chocoholics, the three best friends who bonded over cake and a natural disaster weeks ago, waitress Amy Michaels came to Lucky Harbor to find the hope her grandmother once found there years ago. It had taken her six months, but she was finally searching for it in the mountains that surrounded the town, following a map and the notes from her grandmother's journal. Amy needed to find that hope. The peace her grandmother wrote of wouldn't be bad either.

She didn't want any part of that pesky third thing. Heart. That's the one that tough girl Amy wants to keep well away from her. Anything to do with her heart. She's been burned in that area too many times.

That's why she's so darn cranky when forest ranger Matt Bowers shows up to help her down from the very mountain on which she managed to get completely lost. It's not that she doesn't need his help. She so does. She just doesn't want to need it. And she definitely doesn't want him to be the one to give it to her. He's far too tempting in that damn heart department.

Matt had been circling the tricky Amy ever since she blew into town. There's just something about her that tugs at him. He's been careful, though, because her attitude screams her hands-off stance towards men in general and him in particular. That doesn't mean he can't enjoy goading her a little when she's finally in a position to need his help. Matt's biggest concern, though, isn't getting her off the mountain safely. He can do that in his sleep. It's getting the woman into his arms that's proving to be the biggest challenge.

But Amy Michaels may just be that one challenge that's worth risking everything to win.


I love this Lucky Harbor series so much, and Shalvis just keeps delivering the fun, witty, charming, sexy good reads. Her books, and this series, are even better than brain candy, they're chocolate for the heart. At Last may just be my favorite in the series to this point, and Amy and Matt are two of my favorite characters.

I think the plot of this book had a little more meat on it than its predecessor, too. Or maybe I just related to it better. I was immensely entertained by Amy's search for hope, and thought the addition of Riley's character added all sorts of nifty little elements to the read as it did its work in opening Amy up a bit more and giving her and Matt another point of connection.

And the depth and complexity awarded to both main characters, as well as the nearly perfect chemistry between them, just flat out worked for me in every way.

The friendship between the chocoholics really started to click in this book, too, and the ancillary characters had more impact on the narrative. In a lot of ways, the friendship between the three women appeals to me even more than the relationship between the three sisters in the first three books in the series, but this is the first time I can say I felt the potential for this set of three to be even more entertaining than those.

Shalvis once again secures her position as one of my go-to authors for guilt- (and calorie-) free, sexy, contemporary romance fun. There are always a few serious elements, or things that lean more towards the darker end of the spectrum to add depth and dimension to the story (Lance's cystic fibrosis still kills me), but overall her books just make me feel good as they reliably deliver their heart-warming Happily Ever Afters. This one is absolutely no exception.


The Lucky Harbor Series:

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Crooked Creek Ranch, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 368 Pages
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Bantam Dell publisher Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.



To say that NHL hockey star Luc Baker was loathe to return to his father's home would be a gross understatement, but when the bastard sends him and his sister a wedding announcement that includes a picture of the...bride-to-be, a tarted up twenty-something floozy named Tara Jean Sweet, he's left with little choice. If he doesn't put an end to this farce of a wedding, his sister and his nephew could lose everything. Again. Luc refuses to let that happen. And considering he's spent a career handling some real bruisers on the ice, dealing with one trashy chick with dollar signs where her heart should be will be a piece of cake.

Tara owes Lyle Baker in ways that she can't - and won't - explain, so doing this favor for him, playing a questionable part in getting his grown children back to the ranch before he dies, is the least she can do for the man she's come to care for. She wasn't expecting the reality of a furious Luc Baker getting in her face, though. Sexy, intense, and as cold as the ice he skates on, everything about the man puts her back up and makes her wish she'd never agreed to Lyle's Machiavellian scheme.

His presence threatens everything she's been working towards for years. Her existence is a risk to the two people he most cares about in the world. And the sparks that are ignited while they battle it out threaten to melt more than their determination and burn brighter than either are prepared to handle.


Never, ever judge a book by its cover. Trite, maybe, but in this case, extremely apropos. I was expecting this book to be a sexy bit of brain candy. I mean seriously, do you see the abs on that cover model? Yum. The reality of the read, though, was something else entirely.

Luc and Tara's story is a deep, intricate, emotional journey of two damaged and broken souls. Parts of their tale were ugly and gritty (so were some of the characters, for that matter), and the ride to their HEA was fraught with self-loathing and angst. It was all much more than I was expecting. More, really, than I wanted at the time, regardless of how well done it was.

There were some lighter moments, thankfully, that helped balance out the narrative. Both Tara and Luc were at times sardonic and witty, sometimes wacky and fun, and all of it necessary for lightening the more complex and tortured elements of their characters. I enjoyed them both, and enjoyed the depth and detail in their character definition.

What impressed me most, though, was how deftly O'Keefe managed and maintained the two faces of Lyle Baker, Luc's father. On one hand, he was a hard, brutal man who should have been shot for how he treated his children when they were young. Even as he's dying he's wily and manipulative, unforgiving and cruel. On the other hand, he was a savior to Tara, and took care of her in ways that went far beyond what anyone would expect. As a result, Tara's feelings for Lyle and Luc's feelings for him were about as diametrically opposed as could be - and the reasons for both were equally valid.

I loved that.

Luc's sister, on the other hand...

I loathed Victoria. I didn't actually think it was possible to have as little respect for a character as I did her. She spent most of the book coming off as helpless and weak in a way that pushed every single one of my buttons. At one point, when she was thinking about how she had no identity without a ring on her finger, and she liked a man because he could take care of her and her son, I would have cheerfully read that a house fell on her. Twice.

I get that her book is the second in the series, and imagine her journey to self actualization is going to be part of the arc of that story, but damn, I found her revolting in this one.

Unfortunately she was a significant enough secondary character with enough of her own page time that my feelings for her impacted my enjoyment of the overall read. That, along with the initial mistaken impression of the nature of the book, kept me from loving this read. I was expecting light, fluffy, and sexy. I was in the mood for that sort of brain candy. That I didn't get it threw me off, no matter how great a story this actually was.

Quotables:

"Have a drink, Eli." He checked the ice bucket, hoping for the best, only to be disappointed. "Is there no ice in Texas?"

"It's one in the afternoon, Luc."

"The ice only comes out at night?"

He was going to give this headache a name, try to befriend it, because as an enemy, it was kicking his ass.