One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: McCormack Security Agency, Book 3
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 273 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.




When the father of a good friend is murdered and her friend is viciously attacked, MSA operations manager Vicky Hastings is determined to have her first field assignment be the undercover investigation that will identify and catch the perpetrators. There's just one small problem. Her partner for the mission is Ryan Brennan.

Okay...the MSA agent and undercover specialist is not a small problem. Sinfully sexy problem, yes. Small, no. Unfortunately, the gorgeous but frustrating man sees her only as a friend and is completely dismissive of her talents and her contributions to the agency. He's none too thrilled with the idea of being her partner on this assignment, either.

Well he'll just have to suck it up and deal with it, because Vicky is determined to catch the killers and gain Ryan's respect as a valued member of the MSA team. She just hopes she doesn't die trying.


There were things I liked about this third installment of Curtis' McCormack Security Agency series. Despite a limited amount of exposition to set this book into the series and a perplexing setup for the plot conflict (why was a security agency doing what police are supposed to do?), the story starts with a vicious killing that sets the sort of dark, edgy tone that I like in romantic suspense, and there's no doubt that the killers are Bad Guys riding the Crazy Train. That worked for me, as did several crafty, well-conceived and executed plot points in the suspense thread. Overall, I was surprised and pleased by the big picture of the conflict when it's finally revealed late in the book as it reaches its climax.

There were also elements of the romance that amused and charmed, and the cute, sometimes goofy, sexy heat between Vicky and Ryan made up for some of the less favorable points in their relationship. Despite a hearty dose of emotional immaturity on both their parts, and the confusing, difficult-to-believe premise of friendship between them (I never bought that setup, no matter what they said), they sort of worked for me as a romantic couple.

Unfortunately, the lighter tone of their relationship was at such odds with the severity of the opening sequences and the seriousness of the suspense, that I found the two elements jarring when taken together in context. Instead of blending and weaving together cohesively, the suspense threads and the romance threads never came together for me and ended up feeling very disparate throughout the book.

And I'm sorry, but I have to vent. When you and your partner have just found a viciously assaulted young woman bleeding out and dangerously near death, then you have to toss the dying woman over your shoulder to race away from the scene before the bomb that was planted kills you all, the very last thing on your mind should be the fine bum of your friend/partner.

I think Ryan having to tell himself not to stare at Vic's ass mere moments after bearing witness to horrific brutality and nearly getting blown to bits was supposed to be cute, but to me, it was so completely inappropriate in the moment that it didn't give me much of a first impression of Ryan's character.

That situation wasn't helped by the borderline incompetence and lack of professionalism evidenced by Vicky and Ryan once they were undercover. The whole premise of them going undercover as a married couple was a pretty heavy-handed and overused romantic suspense trope to begin with. And once they've inserted into the scenario, they spent so much time bickering at each other and flagrantly one-upping each other with ridiculous cover story that the investigation got lost in the shuffle.

I was also a little unhappy with Vicky's naiveté, nerves, and discomfort with Ryan's proximity once they were under. For someone who fought so hard to get where she was, claiming over and over that she was ready and more than able to do the job, desperate to prove herself, she came off as a complete powder puff at crunch time, or worse, a very disappointing gender stereotype.

Truth is, though, for me it was really all about the tone. Because of how the story started, the lighter elements weren't as successful for me as they could have been. On their own and in a different setting, I could really have enjoyed the romance arc and would have had more patience for the characters and their quirks.

Had the lighter romance been more in line with the darker suspense threads, this could have been a very solid read for me. As it is, the disparate pieces just didn't quite fit right. There were good points for sure, just not enough of them to elevate the story as a whole.

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: Paranormal Romance
Series: London Undead, Book 1
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 89 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 scream that rips through the night while Seth is on patrol is, sadly, not an uncommon sound for the werewolf shifter and London pack's Alpha. Not since the zombie outbreak turned London into a literal dead zone. As common as it may be, though, Seth has no intention of letting it go unheeded. Chasing the echoes of the scream into the nearby park, Seth is stunned to see a pretty human woman standing over a small family, fiercely protecting them, her guns blazing at the horde of walking dead attacking them.

Maisie knows she's in a world of trouble. Her ammo is running out, the people she's trying to save are so petrified they can't even help themselves, and the zombies attacking aren't acting like the zombies she's depressingly familiar with. These are faster, their attacks coordinated.

The huge, half-shifted werewolf that suddenly appears and starts tearing through the zombies with brutal efficiency startles her at first, but Maisie can hardly complain about the much-needed assist. Maybe she'll live through the night after all. But if these new, faster, more intelligent zombies are indicative of a shift in the zombie population, it's going to take more than a sexy alpha werewolf and a tough chick with guns and a limp to save what's left of London. It'll take a miracle.


Wow, this was such a fun read. Frankly, I wasn't expecting to like it nearly as much as I did. I'm not a fan of zombies, so I tend to avoid books that feature them, but I was curious about the mix of shifter romance and zombie apocalypse in this novella. I thought I'd give it a chance, but my expectations weren't high. By the end, every one of those expectations were greatly exceeded.

Despite the short length of this novella, there is an abundance of world building, plenty of action, and enough depth of character that both Seth and Maisie were more well-rounded than I'm used to reading in stories of this length. And the tale is written with a fast, engaging style and has a healthy serving of humor that appealed to me, despite the bleak post-apocalyptic London setting and the zombies that made it that way.

Both Seth and Maisie were quirky, completely likable characters, especially the indomitable Maisie, who I adored, and their chemistry was off the charts.

The relationship between them built up a lot faster than I normally prefer in my romance, as the entire story timeline takes place over a couple of days, but Seth and Maisie acknowledge that in the narrative, and that, along with the fact that Seth's werewolf nature allowed for a bit more leniency from me about that, served to mitigate any serious issue with how quick they get to their Happily Ever After. Or...well...potential HEA, as the Ever After in the story is fairly dependent on those zombies being dispatched sooner rather than later.

One of the things I liked most about this story was the wealth of emotional baggage each character is dragging around. Seth has the weight of his responsibilities as pack alpha and the lingering damage from his former lover's betrayal. Maisie is still struggling with the guilt from surviving the zombie attack that killed her family and has a damaged leg and a permanent limp as a daily reminder. Neither one of them were exactly normal and well-adjusted, but both of them were just three dimensional enough to keep from coming off as cardboard cutouts of real people.

There were a surprising number of twists and turns in the plot given the story's shorter length, but I do wish there had been a bit more attention given to fleshing out and better defining the external conflict of the story. That particular plot element was fairly thin, with so much of the story space having already been allotted to building up the foundation of the world and the characters themselves.

It actually took me awhile to recognize that there was a specific thread of external conflict going on in the unusual zombie attacks occurring around the city. There was just so much else to focus on that it didn't even occur to me that the tidbits of information about them were being woven into both this particular story's arc as well as the larger series arc until the story started cresting into its climax. Because of that, the end of the story seemed a bit rushed to me and didn't quite answer all the questions I had, nor resolve all the issues.

Some of that is understandable as part and parcel of being a series debut, but given how everything else was given such perfect attention, I felt the loss. But because everything else was given such perfect attention, and Seth and Maisie did such a good job stealing my heart, it was a loss I can easily live with.

I wish this had been a full-length novel. And not because I would have liked seeing one or two elements have a bit more room to really be explored in the story...though that is part of the reason. Mostly, though, I just wasn't ready to be finished with Seth and Maisie's story. I loved them so much as characters and a couple that I wanted to spend more time with them both. On the bright side, if Schnyder's goal, like P.T. Barnum's, was to leave them wanting more, Schnyder achieved the hell out of it. I want more from her as an author and more of this series.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Realm Walker, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 189 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.




In a world that's been knowingly coping and coexisting with magic and magical creatures since the Rending, half-dark fae, half-mage Juliana Norris is a Realm Walker, an officer of the International Law Enforcement Agency that polices the Altered. She is most often assigned to tracking and, when necessary, hunting those nonhuman creatures who are causing trouble with their human neighbors.

Given as she can see the signature that every being leaves as it travels along its way, sort of like a magical scent trail, and identify them by their colors, she is uniquely qualified for the job. The only creatures she can't see, that leave no signature behind in their wake, are demons. That does, however, make more than a little problematic the fact that someone has summoned one and set it on a course of death and destruction straight at Juliana.

Then there's the vampire she once loved, Thomas Kendrick. Seven years ago he took her as his mate, then disappeared from her life before the blood was even dry. Losing him nearly destroyed her. The aftermath of his leaving changed her irrevocably. Now he's returned and is of the opinion that it would be the perfect time to force his way back into her life. Because she obviously doesn't have enough to worry about.

With a demon slaughtering everything in its path and Thomas dogging her every step, Juliana is running out of time to save the city and is in serious danger of losing her heart. The vampire has already proven he is just as capable of ripping it out of her chest as the demon is, and while the demon may provide a bloodier and more deadly sort of evisceration, it may not be the most devastating in the long run.


This series debut by Collins marks the second time in a handful of months where I had to stop a few chapters into a book and make sure there wasn't a preceding book or novella, or even a main series from which this one spun, because I felt like I was missing a lot of previously laid groundwork almost from the very beginning. There's plenty of tidbits of information about things that happened in the past to set up the story, but the characters, their backstory, and significant elements of the world-building are disclosed in a way that seemed far better suited as reminders than introductions.

Julianna and Thomas have a lot of personal history, that much is plain, but I never felt like I was given a good grasp of it. Details about their past were either glossed over or doled out in drips and drabs throughout the tale and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was supposed to have already known the whole story before I started the book. Though I'm not really sure how.

That problem wasn't limited to Thomas, either. All of Julianna's friends and acquaintances suffer similarly. There are several who have obvious history with her, but without the all-important context to let me know how and why they were as valuable to her as we're told they are, I never really felt any of those connections. That put a big crimp in the emotional impact of several crucial scenes as the conflict with the Big Bad heated up, and it confused me in general when it came to characters like Raoul and Michael.

And not for nothing, but I'm still not sure how I feel about Thomas. I was completely thrown by the weird way he showed up and inserted himself into Juliana's life, offering sketchy detail on what he does and doesn't know about her origins and her life since he left and making some pretty high-handed demands with all kinds of attitude. My first impression of him was of an overbearing, utterly egotistical asshat, and while that did improve the longer I read, it didn't completely go away.

Maybe it would have if he hadn't kept referring to Juliana as "his bride." Ugh. Not only did that bug me with its repetition, it seemed pretty offensively objectifying to me. Like he didn't see her as her own person with her own identity, she was just his bride. It was weird. Not sexy. Weird.

On the other hand, it quickly becomes clear that Juliana is absolutely everything to him and he would do anything for her. I would have preferred seeing a bit more of that in application, though, and a smidge of honest communication wouldn't have been remiss, either. I'm starting to wonder if there is just no other way to breed conflict between two stubborn, self-sacrificing characters, as often as that has been the sole source of major relationship conflict in stories I've read lately. Still, his devotion to her did temper my negative opinion of the guy and kept him from being utterly unlikable, but he was definitely not to my personal taste in romantic hero types.

There were, however, some very nice things going on, too. It was nice reading an urban fantasy series debut that didn't make me want to poke the heroine with something sharp. First time that's happened in a while. And no inklings of a love triangle, either, which is virtually unheard of in the genre of late. Those were two big positives in a book with a well-conceived (if not perfectly defined) world and solid story, and that's what kept my feelings generally positive overall as I dealt with some of the less favorable elements.

I actually liked Juliana. She's not the most original character, is in fact fairly typical for the genre. In Juliana's case, thankfully, her emotional maturity seemed slightly higher than that of an average twelve year old (a welcome change), and she's more palatable than most I've read recently. She's certainly the sort of smart-mouthed, kick-ass rule breaker I seem to gravitate towards most in the genre. You know the sort: she would sacrifice herself to save anyone she considers "hers" but guards her heart and her secrets like a jealous lover and doesn't actually let anyone in very far.

It's a common malady in urban fantasy heroines, but one I've always sort of enjoyed, or at the very least, never minded.

I did enjoy the glimpses of the world I got in this book, and there were several secondary and ancillary characters with nice page presence, though Michael in particular needed a hell of a lot more explanation. There is also a solid plot conflict going on around and in addition to Juliana's personal crisis with Thomas. It lacked sufficient setup and didn't come close to answering all my questions, especially after that rather odd but revealing climax, but on the surface it provided plenty of action and certainly a high body count.

Without the sufficient framework for everything that went on in this book, though, it just wasn't quite executed well enough for me to feel completely satisfied with the story as a whole. And did anyone figure out how Juliana knows who her father is if she can't remember anything from her first twelve years? I think I missed something there.

Well...I missed something in a lot of places, but that one still niggles me.

The plot execution may have been a bit odd, and it had some pacing issues and abrupt transitions, inconsistent progression and a general lack of the sort of detail found in the more complex urban fantasy series, but it still managed to keep me entertained. With more fleshing out in some crucial areas and another fifty or so more pages this could have really built into a gripping, multi-layered, complex tale with memorable characters. It didn't quite reach that level this time, but the potential is definitely there for the series.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Monster Haven, Book 3
Rating: 3.5 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.





Inveterate wedding planner by day and sole Aegis in the whole of the country by night...and day...and, well, every moment in between, Zoey Donovan is feeling the strain of the growing needs of the Hidden who are showing up at her door. The influx of magical, mystical, and beastly traffic has gotten so bad that even with the help of her closet monster Maurice and several other good friends of both the human and Hidden variety she's just barely squeaking by.

With a dire message about impending doom looming on the horizon and refugees with tales of Hidden loved ones being abducted, it's quite clear that things are just going to get worse. Something is coming. Something bad. And if the pattern of the mass exodus of Hidden and reports of the missing bear out, that something is heading right for the only Aegis left who can do anything at all to stop it...if it doesn't stop her first.


I'm a huge fan of this series. I love the world and I couldn't be happier with the wide array of wildly colorful and eminently lovable characters. Zoey is quirky and fun and one of the more unique heroines I've read in urban fantasy, but it's really the secondary characters who have stolen my heart. Closet monster Maurice in particular and the rest of Zoey's crazy coterie of friends in general elevate each book and make almost every single moment of each one of them a real good time to read.

I can't say this was my favorite of the three books, though. It started a little slow for me. Despite my rabid adoration of the veritable cornucopia of Hidden misfits who find their way to Zoey's home, I felt the development and execution of the story's main plot conflict got off to a rocky and anemic start in the first half of the book. For the first time in the series, I felt my attention waning more than once, wondering when the meat of the plot was going to really get going.

Fortunately it does get going, and when it does, there are several intense, action-packed, emotional moments (one of which broke my heart) and a couple of big developments that helped broaden and deepen the series plot arc. There's some very solid and highly entertaining storytelling going on in this book, for sure. I just I felt like the story tread water for too long before all that goodness really started.

I also can't say I cared for the return of a character we met in the first book. I wouldn't call Councilwoman Alma Dickson a Big Bad, really. She wasn't the story's main antagonist in this book any more than she was in the first, but she was just as big a tertiary source of conflict in this one as she was before. That felt a little too much like double-dipping into the character pool for me to really appreciate the conflict with her here.

On a brighter note, this is the first time in the series that I didn't have issues with Riley, Zoey's main squeeze. I haven't been impressed with him in the series to date, and still can't say he thrills me as Zoey's romantic interest, but he played a larger role in this one than in either of the previous books and I didn't mind having him around at all. He just seemed to have more of a presence in this book, and I liked it. His relationship with Zoey also gets some much-needed evolution in this one and I liked that, as well. I just wish they had more chemistry.

Naquin keeps surprising me, too. Zoey's wacky life and the wonderful weirdness that comes from the Hidden lend a lighter, more humorous tone to the series than the grittier, more dystopian urban fantasy series out there. That said, in each book there have been elements that remind me that Zoey's world isn't all fun and games by any stretch. There are Bad Things that happen to and around her characters. Very Bad Things. I won't discuss any spoilery stuff here, but the Bad Thing that happens in this one hit me hard and left me reeling.

This wasn't a perfect book for me, but I think it was an important one for Zoey's continued development and the evolution of the series. The issues I had with the external conflict were a bit more serious than they were in the previous book, and I'm a little worried that neither one was quite up to the fun level of the series debut. I love this world and the characters so much that I want to love everything else, too. I hope to get another chance to try soon, because I really can't wait to spend more time with Zoey and her fabulous friends.

The Monster Haven Series:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Maggie's Grove, Book 2
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Length: 224 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 mayor of Maggie's Grove, Dragomir "Dragos" Ibanescu, has a problem. Actually, a host of them. Four weeks after his town barely survived an attack by a psychopathic witch with a vamp obsession, the residents of the town are still trying to pick up the pieces and heal from the damage. Some of his people have gone missing. His father, a male Dragos has more than just an acrimonious relationship with, has contacted him for the first time in centuries. His ex-bed partner is stirring up trouble and teetering close to the line of black magic, if she hasn't crossed it already. And his sotiei, the dyrad queen Mina, who suffered the most under last month's vicious attack, not only isn't healing, but she refuses to even speak to him.

And that alone is enough to make his inner bad boy want to roar with frustration.

Being stretched thin isn't a new feeling for the vampire, but if Dragos can't convince Mina to at least give their relationship a try, the rest of his problems are going to disappear under the avalanche of destruction his inner beast will leave in its wake, and there is absolutely nothing Dragos will be able to do to prevent it.


It didn't take me long into this book to guess my feelings about it were going to be in the minority, because my biggest issue with the story is related to my personal preferences for my romance heroines. I have a very low tolerance for exactly the sort of wallows-in-her-misery damsel that Mina was for far too long in the book, and she just never redeemed herself enough for me to find her tolerable. And if I don't like one of the romantic leads, I can't like the romance.

Mina, who by all accounts should be one of the strongest females in the series as the queen of her people and the ruler of the Throne of Oak, just didn't cut it for me in this book at all. I would have had no problem being sympathetic to the grievous wounds she suffered if she'd been more proactive about dealing with them, but she wasn't, and every attempt by friends and potential loved ones to assist her was rebuffed out of a mix of fear and pride. I found that very unappealing.

As much as I love Dragos and enjoy the world that Bell has created for the series, with its imaginative mythos and fun, often funny, always quirky cast of characters, Mina alone was enough to temper the majority of the enjoyment I could have felt with the story.

But she wasn't the only problem. Like Dragos, I had a host of them.

Over two years have passed between the release of the first and second book in this series. That's a long time for a reader to remember details from a series debut. Maybe that's why Bell spent so much of the first part of this book outlining the events in that one...if outlining is the right word. To me it felt more like I was being force-fed a condensed version of the debut with all the info dumping that was in the first several chapters here. Much of it was completely tangential to this story's plot and characters, so it became a quagmire of unnecessary minutia that slowed the pace of the narrative to a crawl and distracted from the story threads that were being introduced here.

And tangential is the word of the day, too, because the narrative had a bad habit of trotting off on useless tangents rife with superfluous information throughout the whole book, a habit I found particularly annoying during several pivotal scenes. Something serious would be going down and everything for the characters would be tense or emotionally charged, then the narrative would veer off into a long-winded dissertation about something else completely unrelated to what was happening. Yes, details like those provided can add to the tapestry of world-building for the series, but in the wrong place it just yanks me out of the story and hinders the emotional impact of a scene. It was far too often in the wrong place in this book.

I also had issues with the plot's jerky timeline, abrupt transitions, and lack of relationship evolution in Dragos and Mina's romance. There was also a dearth of character definition, most notably but not exclusively when it came to secondary and ancillary characters.

Thing is, though, there were also several things I truly enjoyed about this book. I love Maggie's Grove and the imaginative, creative history of the town. I thought Dragos was a great romantic hero, and even though I never warmed up to Mina, I'm glad he got his HEA. The secondary characters, though two-dimensional, were another source of entertainment. That's where most of the humor was found, and I'm very fond of the sort of humor that Bell excels in weaving into her stories. There were a lot of lighter, chuckle-worthy moments that I enjoyed.

And of course the sex is always smoking hot. Bell gives great smutty good times, and she doesn't skimp on the number of them.

As a whole, though, the good bits didn't provide enough balance to the less favorable elements for me to be okay with this one, and I was pretty far removed from liking it. I still have hope for the series. There's a lot of great story potential and a cornucopia of characters I would love to see mix it up in their own books. I just think there has to be a tighter, more controlled execution of the plot and a bit more depth given to the characters and their romantic evolution before any of that awesome potential is reached.


The Maggie's Grove Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Monster Haven, Book 2
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.


You'd think finding out you're an empath and monsters are real, then dispatching a deadly incubus and saving the lives of countless women would have granted wedding planner extraordinaire Zoey Donovan at least a small reprieve from the crazy, but no. No such luck for the intrepid helper of the Hidden. Between delivering sea monster babies and doling out love advice to closet monsters, keeping half her life a secret from her best friend, and pining for her missing sorta-boyfriend, EMT/not-so-grim reaper Riley, Zoey's life has not just taken a turn for the surreal, it's parked there and grown roots.

Now she's managed to annoy Death.

Apparently Zoey has the extreme misfortune of still being alive, despite being slated to die on two separate occasions. Death gets mighty cranky when that happens. Throws the whole cosmic balance out of alignment. Now she's got to deal with Riley's supervisor and a craptastic bit of bad mojo tripping her up at every turn. If she survives the next two weeks she'll get taken off death's To Do list, but it will out her as an Aegis to the Hidden head honchos.

If that happens she'll be snatched from her life and everything she knows and be consigned to work for the Hidden council for the rest of her life, so it's sort of a whole damned if she does, dead if she doesn't sort of situation. Which...when you consider just how Zoey's life has been going lately...isn't really all that surprising when you think of it.

Just another day in the life of Zoey Donovan and her creepy coterie.

Quotable:

Friends don't let friends get felt up by the supernatural.

It was love at first paragraph. Seriously, all it took was the first paragraph of the first book to know I would adore this series, and the kicks and giggles just keep on rolling in this second installment. I love the characters, I totally dig the author's voice, and the stories keep me entertained for hours of pure reading bliss.

Zoey is so much fun as the heroine. She's wacky, weird, and wonderfully socially challenged. With a heart as big as Texas and a penchant for trouble, she's easy to root for when her life spins out of control. Which it does. Constantly. Love it!

Even more than my appreciation for Zoey is my absolute worship of her inner circle of monsters and other non-human creatures. Maurice! Molly! Iris! It doesn't matter how much page time they get, they steal every scene. Especially Maurice. I was even more bummed than Zoey when Maurice went to visit his estranged wife for so much of the narrative. And don't even get me started on Andrew's fennec fox, Milo.

No, really, do not get me started. I'm still struggling with forgiving Naquin for that. Bad author! No cookie for you!

We get to see some new faces in this one, of course. As the title suggests, we meet a wonderfully pervy little pooka who, while not as universally appealing as Maurice, did add a good amount of chaotic amusement. And then there were the gremlins. I loved the gremlins. Bump and Glob and Bink were in what? Two scenes? They stole the book, I swear. So cute! So fun!

With this wonderful cast of characters, I have to admit, the story doesn't really need to be that spectacular to keep me entertained, which is probably a good thing, because in both books, the external plot conflicts were my least favorite parts of the books. And this one was just a bit less engaging than the last. I love the chaos of Zoey's life, but for about three quarters of this book the storyline centered around her surviving all the bad luck thrown her way.

It was fun, sometimes hilarious, it was even occasionally heartbreaking, but it wasn't exactly layered or complex. Towards the end of the book the plot starts to add some interesting elements, and there are some twists and turns I wasn't expecting as the book rolls towards conclusion, but it ended up seeming almost like an afterthought, or some heavy-handed foreshadowing of a more meaty conflict for the next book. It didn't quite fit as seamlessly into this one as I would have liked.

I have one more slightly dissatisfied confession, too. Despite my rabid fandom of romance, Riley didn't work for me as Zoey's erstwhile romantic interest in this book. We met him in the first book and I liked him just fine there, but in this one he just seemed more of a character appendage than the story contributor he was in book one. Most of the time here he pops up looking wild-eyed or acting worried for Zoey, is good for a lip lock or two, then slips beneath the surface again until the next time he is brought into a scene. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for romance man candy, but he just didn't offer me much beyond that in this story. I hope there is more done with his character in the next book.

It certainly goes without saying that I'll be slavering to get my hands on that next book. I can't wait to see how the developments in this one translate to upcoming events in the next. I can't wait for more of Zoey's wacky day-to-day life, either. That's some of the absolute best of both books!

Speaking of both books, I think new readers could probably start the series here and catch up to what's gone on with little trouble. Naquin explains previous events well enough, and she has an ease with reminding readers what went on before that I appreciated. I wouldn't recommend you do that, though. Start with the first book. Don't miss out on any of what went before. You'll thank me for it. Trust me.

More Quotables:

"Did you ever hear the song, 'Don't Fear the Reaper?'"
"Sure."
"Did you ever think that song wouldn't have been written if people didn't already fear them? Nobody's written a song called 'Don't Fear the Kittens,' have they? Of course not. Nobody's afraid of kittens. That would be stupid. Everybody in their right mind is afraid of reapers."

We talked and laughed, and for a while, I thought we were safe from anything else going wrong. Never say that. Never think it. That's usually when the screaming starts.

The Monster Haven Series:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Vampire Hunger, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 240 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.


Born vampire Sebastian Kent guards the ruling council of the same vampire community that ostracizes him for his unknown heritage. A heritage Bast has spent hundreds of years researching in an exhaustive search to find out who his father is. Who he is. But Bast may have run out of time. He's in a human club on the hunt for the blood he needs to survive when he's overcome by a wave of scorching heat he doesn't understand and laid low by a debilitating sickness he can't control.

Alice Bowman has hit rock bottom. Fighting an illness that is slowly killing her, broke and homeless, she ekes out a pitiful existence in the dismal days between meager disability checks. She's just found her dinner in a dumpster next to a club when she hears someone being violently ill in the alley.

Helping a sick stranger get home isn't the safest thing she's ever done, but something about the man compels her to help him. Maybe it's just his obvious wealth combined with her desperate need. And Bast has his own motives for wanting to keep Alice close, not the least of which is that her touch soothes the searing agony that's threatening to destroy him. Letting her into his world is against the very rules he's sworn to uphold, but letting her go screams against every instinct he has.

Working together may provide their only hope of survival, if being together doesn't first get them killed.


Every once in awhile I read a book that I like way more than I should. This second installment of Carney's Vampire Hunger series is one of them. I had quite a few issues with the story. The plot, which didn't extend much beyond Alice and Bast dealing with what's going on with him and his mysterious illness, was straightforward but a little one-note. There were some fairly tenuous connections, too, like the genealogy work Alice was so adept at, and the real stretch to provide her ancestry as a reason their connection was so intense. That bordered on eye-rolling to me.

Bast came off as a callous douchebag in the first chapter, then seemed to get a personality transplant without much story development to support it. He and Alice had some depth of character, though. More than the secondary and ancillary characters, anyway, as they were very two dimensional - when they were featured at all. And the big secret, Bast's paternal side, was blatantly, painfully obvious long before either character caught on to what he was becoming.

All of those issues really should have made this book more of a struggle for me, but to be honest...they didn't. I really enjoyed this book. I liked Alice very much from the moment she's introduced in the story, and once Bast's personality had that about-face, he was a great male lead as well. I liked how they related to each other and took care of each other when each was at their worst. They had great chemistry both in and out of the bedroom, and while definitely not very complex, the plot was more than enough to keep me invested in finding out their fate.

I haven't read the first book in the series but didn't need to. The world is fleshed out well enough in this book to provide a loose framework for the series. There are a couple of characters I assume were featured as the main romantic pair in the first book, but they're not involved until late in this one. They didn't have huge roles, but Carney introduced them in a way that provided sufficient exposition for their participation without bogging down the narrative with a big info dump.

There is one word of caution I'd like to give about one element of the read. There's a lot of sex, and it's nice and hot, but I know some readers are put off by the "c" word when referring to a woman's naughty bits, and that happens a lot. I'm sort of ambivalent about it myself, as it's certainly not the most romantic terminology, but it didn't so much bother me as it just sort of disrupted the flow of the sex scenes a little. That may be a larger issue for some.

Though this certainly isn't what I would consider a perfect book, I was still thoroughly entertained. I'm not sure, after just this one read, where the series is heading, exactly, but I think I'll stick around for the ride. I'd be thrilled by a more layered plot and a bit more meat to the story, but honestly, Carney did quite all right in this second installment without it, so I won't really complain, either.

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: Urban Fantasy
Series: Night Runner, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 146 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.


She tried retirement. It didn't agree with her.

Vampire courier Sydney Kildare survived a turf war in Alaska and retired to Hawaii, a wonderfully vampire-free state. She was enjoying island life just fine (being bored senseless) until the goons of a sucker with a grudge showed up and tried to kidnap her. That's about when she realized the danger was the most fun she'd had since she retired.

Now Sydney is in Chile with her vampire sorta-boyfriend Malcolm, who had been sent to South America to manage the holdings of master vampire Bronson in his continued absence. Sure, Sydney can't speak the language beyond a few important phrases, she's stuck with the low-money newbie routes at her new courier agency, and the car she's driving is a real POS, but the thrill being a runner is universal.

All in all, life is going pretty well for her. At least it is until vampires on her route start dying under highly disturbing circumstances and an old enemy of Malcolm's decides that the best way to piss him off is to break the little human courier he's so fond of. As she is that little human courier, that's a plan that just doesn't work for Sydney. Whether or not she'll survive long enough to lodge a formal complaint is another matter entirely.


There's just something about Sydney Kildare, and because of her, this series, that makes me smile. There is a lot of charming...and sometimes not-so-charming quirks in her character. She's an inveterate adrenaline junkie, but she's not foolhardy with her safety. She runs messages, a dangerous occupation on lots of levels, and that puts her into direct contact with vampires she mostly fears and dislikes, but she is hyper-vigilant around them. She keeps everyone she knows at a distance and looks at the world through street-wise, sometimes jaded eyes, but throws herself into a relationship with a vampire she doesn't exactly know that well.

Those sorts of quirks, when paired with an inner monologue peppered with sarcasm and attitude, make her a very appealing and interesting heroine. She's certainly not out to save the world, just survive it while making the most money possible. I have to admit, her prosaic approach to her life appeals to me.

I like the stories Summer writes surrounding her, too. This is not a warm, fuzzy world. It's dark and gritty, and while vampires may have an excellent PR firm, Sydney is under no delusions about their nature. That's probably a good thing given how often she seems to find herself in situations that show off the worst of it. Meanwhile, her relationship with Malcolm, which is really more of a subplot of the story, is fraught with the sort of growing pains one would expect from two people who not only don't know each other well, but are in very different places in their lives, despite the obvious chemistry between them.

I like Malcolm a lot. I like his relationship with Sydney, too, and I literally laughed long and loud when he cooked (or tried to) paella for her. I'm just not on real firm footing about the potential longevity of that relationship. There is a lot about them together that works, but there's also a hell of a lot of things that could explode them at any given moment, and they don't actually seem to really have a place in each others world. It makes me leery of becoming too attached to him.

I'm already attached to the series. I do wish there'd been a bit more resolution of the plot thread left dangling in Don't Bite the Messenger, but that got only a passing nod a time or two in this story. It looks like it was being set up to be addressed in the next book, so hopefully we'll see resolution some day. I still believe that reading DBtM before this one is the way to go, even if you're like me and prefer to avoid prequel novellas. In this case, it was integral in setting up the world and the relationship between Sydney and Malcolm, and shouldn't be missed if you're going to read this book.

And really, if you like urban fantasy that's just a step outside the box with a heroine who can drive like a demon and the vampire who will brave electronic equipment for her, you should read this book. I just hope like hell we'll see a "second" book in the series soon.


The Night Runner Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Night Runner, Book 0.5
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 91 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.




Being a courier for the technologically challenged vampire population is a balls-to-the-wall adrenaline rush that pays very well, but it doesn't come with any of those nifty bennies that safer, tamer jobs offer. Like a long life. In fact, at twenty-six, Sydney Kildare is the oldest runner in Anchorage, and she's just a few runs shy of her goal of retiring somewhere hot and sunny. And vampire-free.

Unfortunately for Sydney, one of her runs lands her smack in the middle of a vampire turf war, and as excellent as Sydney is at staying off vampire radar in normal situations, the grim fact is that they are the ultimate predators. If they focus their attention on finding you and using you, you get found and used. For whatever nefarious purposes they have.

Well, either that or you get real dead, and that would definitely put a crimp in Sydney's retirement plans.


Novellas and short-length novels are often hit-or-miss with me not so much because of what's written on the pages, but because of what isn't. Novellas such as this one, which appealed to me on a lot of levels, can still leave me feeling like I was missing something from the read. When the story is especially promising, or the characters particularly likable, as was the case here, I can often feel very frustrated by the end.

I loved Sydney, and the gritty, dangerous life she's living as a vampire runner. Her character, which is nicely rounded out with several quirks and peccadilloes to make her interesting, had enough heart and inner strength to make her an easy champion for the series. The brief but tragic glimpses into her past were especially nice. I loved Malcolm, too, though I still don't feel like I've got a complete handle on his character just yet.

The world they inhabit felt fresh and original, and the amount of world-building was excellent for novella-length fiction. For all that goodness, though, I felt several key elements of the external conflict lacked the definition and explanation necessary to make it really work for me.

The bulk of the plot conflict revolves around Sydney's significance to the vampire community in general and the master vampire Bronson in particular, but I never really felt that the importance of her job and her uniqueness in doing it had been defined well enough to allow me to accept the amount of effort spent in targeting her. Because of that, and despite how much fun her being targeted was to read, the reasons behind it fell flat, which crippled the plot for me.

I was okay with the abrupt ending and lack of resolution to a big portion of the external conflict, though, which surprised me. Maybe the fact that I had the "first" book in the series to read at the end of this "prequel novella" tempered my feelings in that regard. I will say this, though, I can't imagine, given where and how this novella concluded, that reading the "first" book in the series would be a good idea without first reading this "prequel." This story just contains too much groundwork for a world and conflict that, if not resolved in this story has to at least be given some attention in the next.

With Sydney's appeal as the heroine, and the intensely awesome burgeoning relationship between her Malcolm, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Summers can do with it all in a full-length novel. Using this novella as a measuring stick, this series has a ton of potential to rock my Happy Reader buttons in all the right ways.

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 142 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.




Princess Kimri of Anagard is furious with her brother the king. He has traded her hand to the King of Helsmont for an alliance and weapons. A worthy enough cause, given the toll the ongoing war with Kenasgate has taken on her land and people, but that doesn't excuse him bartering her like a piece of property.

Especially not to the enigmatic king rumored to have a dragon guarding his mysterious kingdom.

Arriving in Helsmont to meet her betrothed brings all manner of surprises to Kimri. The king is neither old nor unpleasant as she'd feared. In fact, he's quite arresting in stature and gracious in nature, and instead of a quick wedding, he is abiding by mountain custom and allowing her a year to make sure they suit before committing to the marriage.

As Kimri settles herself into an unfamiliar kingdom and acquaints herself with her betrothed and his people, finding acceptance and freedoms she hadn't even enjoyed in her own land, Kimri can't help but start to think that when it comes to betrothals to a handsome and kind mountain-king, perhaps a year is too long.


This was a lovely little tale, and despite having some issues with several elements of the storyline, I enjoyed it. The characters were likable and the writing was well-crafted and wonderfully descriptive. There was a fantastic amount of world building, especially throughout the first half of the book, and Kimri's character, as well as a couple of secondary characters, were memorable.

It's good that I enjoyed Kimri's character as much as I did, though, as she was the sole main character, and that's where my problems with the book started. At best, Tathan was an ancillary character in the story, sharing only a handful of scenes with Kimri. They spend a bit more time together off page, as Kimri refers to sharing their morning meals and accompanying him around Helsmont, but it still wasn't close to enough for me to be able to consider him a romantic lead character.

Kimri spends far more page time with Prince Herrol of Kenasgate, and while those scenes were nice enough to build towards the plot elements late in the book, it hampered my appreciation for the romance between Kimri and Tathan. That romance was understated nearly to the point of nonexistence and I felt Tathan, who I liked very much from what little I saw of him, was painfully underutilized. It was truly a shame, as this could easily have been a story I absolutely loved had he and their romance had more presence in the tale.

I did love the big reveal during the book's climax, even though I saw it coming, but that's about all I loved in the final quarter of the book. The storyline, which had been evolving at a relatively slow but pleasant, steady pace once Kimri arrived in Helsmont, started to come apart a bit for me as layers of external conflict were added into the plotline. The pace definitely picked up, and that would have been fine, but I thought the various plot points and elements of conflict got glossed over and rushed through as the story reached its climax.

Still, there were very many good points in this read, and I enjoyed Lee's authorial voice. Had the story evolved just a little differently towards the end, and had Tathan had a much larger role, this could easily have been a five star read for me. It fell short in that regard, but I would still love to revisit this world if given the opportunity. Several characters, Commandant Beatris in particular, left a lasting impression. I was saddened by how her role in the story ended and would love to know what becomes of her.

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.