One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Moorehouse Legacy, Book 4; Silhouette Special Edition
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 256 Pages, 2967 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


French chef and tattooed roughneck Michael "Spike" Moriarty met the woman of his dreams, world class sailor Madeline "Mad" Maguire, when she walked out of his friend's bathroom and straight into his fantasies. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and way out of his league. He has a lot of darkness in his past, things he's done that he could never change...wouldn't even if he could, but he was well aware his past wasn't likely to bode well for a relationship, even if Mad was interested. Didn't stop him from aching for her, dreaming of her, wanting her.

When Mad asks him to accompany her to her family estate as backup while she deals with her unpleasant half brother and the responsibilities of her trust, he's offended. The gorgeous, rich woman wanted a rough looking thug to twist a bunch of hoity-toity panties. The thought doesn't appeal. He shows up anyway. And when he does, and sees what Mad's family is really about, sees through Mad's wallflower nature to the grace and insecurities that lie beneath that killer body and amazing face, Spike is both glad he had...and terrified. Because in that one weekend, the woman of his dreams became the woman of his heart.

In this fourth book of the Moorehouse Legacy series, Jessica Bird (aka J.R. Ward) tells the story of Spike and Mad with her typical aplomb. It's a solid contemporary romance, and while the plot and characters didn't have quite the complexity and depth of the first three books in the series, and the development of the relationship followed a familiar formula, the likability of the characters makes it a worthy read.

I didn't feel like the non-relationship aspects of the characters stories were quite as comprehensive as I'm used to in this series. Mad's issues with her brother and her own insecurities were well developed and both understandable and sympathetic, but the resolution wasn't as satisfying as I hoped, and I would have enjoyed more story surrounding her half sister. Spike's past was brushed upon a few times, and there was a poignant scene between him and his sister concerning it, but I would have liked to have seen that expanded. Secondary characters were also more briefly featured than I'm used to with Bird's romances.

Regardless, I liked A Man in a Million and Spike in particular. He was a good guy, and I enjoyed his endearing uncertainty and the tenderness and understanding he showed for Mad. I thought Mad was a nice heroine, as well, and I loved the choices she made in her career and how she dealt with her brother and their supermarket empire. She was a little quick to jump to erroneous conclusion when something brushed against her insecurities and past pain, but she's a strong, competent woman with a good head on her shoulders. She had a lot of spine when needed. Together they were a sizzling and sweet couple, and their tale was a quick, satisfying bite of brain candy.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Moorehouse Legacy, Book 3; Silhouette Special Edition
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 256 Pages, 2933 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


Alex Moorehouse has loved her from the moment he first laid eyes on her, and the guilt of that forbidden love, desperate and intense, pushed him into staying as far away from Cassandra Cutler as possible. She was his best friend's wife. Well...she used to be. Before Alex and Reese had been on the boat that got caught in a hurricane. Alex survived - barely - with a crushed leg that required a titanium implant and months of physical therapy. Reese didn't. He went overboard and was lost to the monstrous waves and high winds.

Alex blamed himself. If he hadn't wanted Reese's wife so deeply, so irrevocably, maybe...just maybe he would've been able to hold on to Reese long enough to drag him back on the boat. Maybe some part of Alex wanted Reese gone. Maybe Alex killed him.

The once proud and unflappable captain has come home to the old family house, White Caps, now a Bed & Breakfast run by his sister and her new husband. He's been recuperating for months. Taking stock of his life. Well...mostly getting drunk and pushing away every member of his family and every one of his friends. He's been acting like a sullen, spoiled boy and he knows it, so when a chance meeting with Cassandra wakes him up to a few harsh realities, Alex starts to get himself back together. His goal: get as far away from the woman now heading the reconstruction of White Caps as possible. Get back to the sea that is in his soul. Forget Cassandra once and for all.

Cassandra Cutler hadn't seen Alex in a long time. She knows he hates her, has felt his antipathy and disdain for years. She's never understood what she ever did to make him loathe her so much. Now that her husband Reese is dead, she carries her own guilt about his loss, but knows she can never share it with Alex. She can't ever share anything with Alex. And if sometimes, in the deepest recesses of her heart, she yearns to, well, that's just her tough luck. And Cassandra knows all about tough luck.

Two people, one badly broken, the other struggling to survive, are on a collision course that will either heal their wounds, or rip their souls to shreds.

Once again Jessica Bird (J.R. Ward) has created a solid romance with flawed and, to various degrees, broken characters. If you're familiar with the Moorehouse Legacy series, you've met both Alex and Cassandra in the previous books, and Ward...er...Bird did a nice job laying the groundwork for her main characters in those books. Alex hasn't been the most sympathetic of them, to be fair. He's surly, standoffish, and his self pity has hardly been appealing. The way he left his two sisters in the lurch when his parents died ten years ago did nothing to endear him to me. I've long thought him selfish and self absorbed.

And honestly, though much of this book, my opinion didn't improve much, though Bird did add some nicer, more family-friendly aspects to his character. Cassandra, on the other hand, I've liked since the beginning, and was quite pleased to see her character evolve from what I'd originally thought was a classy, worldly socialite into a classy, worldly woman who married for a wide range of reasons but at her roots is a successful contractor and renovations expert. The additional facets of her character rounded her out and gave her an added depth. I admit, I prefer strong, competent women who know their minds and hearts and are willing to put themselves out there. Cassandra is, and does.

The plot is fairly easy to see coming a mile down the road, and doesn't offer up much in the way of surprises, but I have no problem with that, given the formulaic nature of contemporary romance. And frankly, Bird/Ward's strengths lean towards character creation and definition. The problem with this book, though, is because of Alex's nature, he isn't going to be a very sympathetic character, nor is his redemption that noticeable unless you've read the first two books in the series and see the whole arc of his development. I'd recommend the first two books, Beauty and the Black Sheep and His Comfort and Joy anyway, as I enjoyed them both, but definitely suggest you read them first if you're interested in From the First.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Moorehouse Legacy, Book 2; Silhouette Special Edition
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 256 Pages, 3073 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


Joy Moorehouse has loved Grayson Bennett for years, despite only seeing the successful political consultant a few times a year. She may be the provincial younger sister of Frankie and Alex, the baby of the family, but she's well aware that he doesn't even see her - not as a woman, anyway. Sure, he's always polite, but she and the older, powerful man aren't exactly in the same social circles. Still, she couldn't help but be thrilled at the opportunity of helping Frankie and her fiance Nate cater the birthday party that Gray is throwing for his father. Several hours of surreptitiously sneaking peeks at the dashing man may not do much for her equilibrium, but it'll definitely thrill her.

Gray Bennett has no illusions about his job. It's all about getting his hands dirty, being a political shark and knowing when the blood was in the water. Or tossing the blood in the water himself as needed. It made him powerful in D.C., but it didn't do much for his soul. But then, Gray has no illusions about himself, either. The product of a loveless marriage...at least on his slut of a mother's side...he learned young - too young - that women came in two categories. The innocent and guileless Joy Moorehouse was in the good category. Ever since he'd seen her in a bikini at the lake, all lush curves and faint blushes, he hasn't been able to get her out of his head. It's driving him crazy. Making him do wild things just to get near her, and even wilder things to get away.

She's too good for him, too young for him, too innocent for him...and she's all he wants. But his past and present conspire to keep him from being the man he knows she needs.

Jessica Bird (J.R. Ward) has penned another surprisingly complex and sweet contemporary romance with three dimensional primary and secondary characters and an enchanting backdrop of gorgeous upstate New York scenery and New York City high life. Bird/Ward has an innate ability to layer plot threads and bulk up a story with characters who evolve in genuinely organic fashion over the course of a series. It's an ability that has always impressed me with her BDB series and it translates nicely to contemporary romance.

We met Joy as the nearly angelic and giving younger sister of Frankie Moorehouse in the first book in the series, Beauty and the Black Sheep, but she really impressed me in her own book. Her character is likable and despite her innocence, has an inner strength and self respect that serves her well. She could have come across a bit too sweet or a bit too easily trod upon, but instead, her growth and evolution over the course of the book was handled very well as she gets a chance to both spread her wings and stand up for what she wants. I enjoyed her.

Gray...well...okay, I have to admit, I have a soft spot for men who act like total goobs over the women they can't admit they love. Especially when they're so uber-cool in every other aspect of their life and work. And Gray was a total goob over Joy. He did have a tendency to seem a little disturbingly self-loathing in some spots, though, and that was less fun, and he had an annoying habit of making assumptions based on incorrect answers to questions he was too stubborn to ask. As a general rule, I don't have a lot of love for romances that have primary conflicts as simple to resolve as miscommunications or misunderstandings, yet still drag on for any length of a book. It frustrates me. That aspect of this book didn't thrill me.

The rest was enjoyable. Jessica Bird (J.R. Ward) certainly manages a smooth, flowing narrative that balances description and action nicely, dialogue that has a genuine conversational flow, and a layered plot that complements the preceding book and sets up the following book even as it enhances and fleshes out this one.

At its core, this contemporary romance is simple and predictable. But then, at its core, what romance isn't? The devil...and delight...is in the details. Gray's Mommy issues, his growing distaste for his job, his love and care for his father, his charming bumbling with Joy, Joy's burgeoning fashion career, her yearning to spread her wings beyond her family's Bed & Breakfast, the guilt from the pleasure of being in the big city, and more...all of that juicy stuff is what elevates this simple romance beyond the parameters of feel good fluff. I'm hooked on this series, this family, and Jessica Bird's (J.R.Ward's) contemporary romances.

Try the Moorehouse Legacy Series:

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Moorehouse Legacy, Book 1; Silhouette Special Edition
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 256 Pages, 2912 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


When her parents died ten years ago, life as Frankie Moorehouse knew it ended. At twenty-one, she was thrust into the role of parent for her teen-aged sister Joy, caretaker for her grandmother, who suffers from dementia, and manager of her once wealthy family's home, now a  Bed & Breakfast in the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York. That's a huge responsibility for someone so young, but given her older brother Alex had taken off to the sea years ago, she was the only one who could keep it all together. And so she did. Barely.

Now thirty-one, Frankie is hanging on by her fingernails as the old family home deteriorates and the bad economy chips away at the tourists who are their livelihood. She's behind on the mortgage and things keep breaking and flooding and growing mold. It's a bleak, scary time, and the sixteen hour days, seven days a week that she's putting in still haven't lead to any headway. So when her cook dashes off to Vegas with no warning, Frankie is stuck taking on yet another responsibility for her floundering business. Too bad she's not exactly a world class chef.

Once heir to a massive family fortune, now disowned black sheep of the family, Nathaniel Walker is a renowned chef with Cordon Bleu training. On his way up from the city on a leisurely trip to Canada, he's taking the summer to find the perfect location for his and his friend and partner Spike's new restaurant. He was driving through the Adirondacks when his car Lucille gives up the ghost, and a tumble into some poison ivy, along with a sprained ankle, left him with limited options for the night. He makes it to the Moorehouse back door just as Frankie is in a panic over the scorched chicken and scorched temper of hungry guests. Fortunately for her, there's only one other thing Nate does better than cook...and he'd like to try that out on Frankie, too.

Nate may have saved her bacon, but his presence burns Frankie's buns. She's a control freak of the first order and he's impossible to control. Thing is, if she's going to save her family home, it's obvious she needs him. Doesn't mean she has to like it...or be at all civil to him. If she can just remember that his employment is definitely short term, they may be able to make something for the B&B if they work together. Problem is, the looks he gives her definitely raises her temperature, and his advances, while confusing, are the stuff of which dreams are made. Before she can even figure out if she can survive employing him, an even scarier question arises. Can she survive loving him?

Kicking off the Moorehouse Legacy series, Jessica Bird (aka J.R. Ward), starts with feisty, core-of-steel Frankie and big bad chef extraordinaire Nate. I loved these two. Though, admittedly, Frankie was such a thankless shrew at first it took me some time to warm up to her. I ended up admiring her strength and her tenacity in the face of monstrous responsibility and sacrifice. And Nate just tickled me. Bird has a gift for characterizations, that's for sure. I also adored the backdrop of this series. Reminded me of my grade school years in Glens Falls, and my childhood memories of the mountains up there.

I had a couple of issues with the book, which started with a bit too convenient an introduction between Frankie and Nate. I'm all for kismet, but still, that seemed pretty contrived. Fortunately, the pace of the plot and the presence of the characters was strong enough coerce me into forgiving that too-convenient beginning. Frankie was a bit unsympathetic for much of the beginning of the book, and her wild hair over Nate's presence in "her" kitchen felt a bit overdone, but again, that smoothed out as the book went along. I do wish more development had been given to Nate and the impact of his break with his family. That could have added another dimension to his character.

Likable (in Frankie's case, eventually) lead characters, charming and interesting secondary characters and a solid, if slightly unsurprising romance were pluses for Beauty and the Black Sheep, but I would definitely have appreciated a bit more depth to Nate's background and some added complexity to both of their personalities. The plot was classic contemporary romance fare, but it was well written and nicely paced, with a smooth narrative and realistic dialogue, all framed by picture postcard scenery. I enjoyed it and look forward to continuing the Moorehouse Legacy series.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: O'Banyon Brothers Trilogy, Book 1; Silhouette Special Edition
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 256 Pages, 3002 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


Nurse Lizzie Bond was crushed that she wasn't there when her friend and landlord Mr. O'Banyon suffered his second, fatal heart attack. In the two years since she moved into his downstairs duplex apartment, they had become close. She took care of many of the infirm man's needs, running errands and getting him to his doctor, and he was someone to care if she made it home from her two jobs safe and sound. Losing him was painful. Contacting the son he'd asked she call only after his death was hard.

The news of his father's death didn't hit multi-millionaire and Wall Street Wunderkind Sean O'Banyon as hard as a ton of bricks so much as it felt like it lifted that ton from his shoulders. Returning to the blue collar Southie duplex he grew up in, though, dragged him back down into the morass of fear and nightmare familiar from his childhood. His father had not been a kind man and had left he and his two brothers emotionally and physically scarred in ways that he would never express.

Driven to demonic levels to succeed in life hadn't prepared Sean for the daunting task of boxing up his father's things and selling the house that still gave him night terrors, but meeting the genuinely kind and generous Lizzie both eased him and enticed him. With monstrous trust issues scalding his soul, though, allowing himself to love may be the one thing no amount of success can guarantee.

Okay, color me stupid, because until recently I'd either not known, or have since forgotten, that one of my favorite paranormal romance authors, J.R. Ward, writes contemporary romance under her maiden name, Jessica Bird. I'm a huge BDB fan; I should've known this (or remembered it) much sooner! Quite obviously, there are huge differences between contemporary romance and the UF/PNR megaworld of the BDB, so I really didn't go into this book with much more than curiosity for earlier, non-fantastical incarnations of her talent, but I was interested enough to try it out.

I am so pleasantly surprised. Yes, The Billionaire Next Door was published as a part of the Silhouette Special Edition series, and that (along with the slightly corny title) did set up some preconceptions that weren't all that positive. Maybe that's a part of why I was so very pleased by this book. I didn't have much in the way of expectation. What I got, though, was a darker, more complex story with far more complicated and three dimensional characters than I would have expected, given the vehicle.

I suppose I should have remembered that while this is a vastly different tone than her other works, she's still a skilled author, and one of Ward's talents is the ability to write tortured, sympathetic characters whose motivations are realistic and whose actions are understandable, and to do so with a flair and flavor that makes them seem like friends.

The depth of the issues and the darkness of the memories of a brutal past were handled so deftly as they were incorporated into Sean's personality. The poignancy of being responsible for a mother with diminished mental capacity struck close to home for me personally and added a lovely dimension to Lizzie's character. Secondary and ancillary characters were just as well done, most especially in Sean's younger (but larger...definitely larger) brother's case. He was in just two scenes and yet he was thoroughly real and ultimately sympathetic.

While the theme of rich man/poor girl isn't new and is, in fact, the most cliched aspect of a pretty predictable plot, the underlying issues of child abuse, alcoholism, and the ghosts of childhood trauma that haunt us as adults were a force to be both reckoned with and admired. Those things combined with solid, likable characters with genuine depth and elevated this romance beyond its trappings, even as it was setting up those trappings with fine authorial plumage.