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Act Like It
RECOMMENDED: Act Like It by Lucy Parker is $1.99! If you haven’t read this yet, it was one of Sarah’s favorite reads in the past couple years. She says, “I mean, I could squee at you some MORE beyond my review but I think you’ve heard me already. I loved this book. You should read it. It’s delightful.”
This just in: romance takes center stage as West End theatre’s Richard Troy steps out with none other than castmate Elaine Graham
Richard Troy used to be the hottest actor in London, but the only thing firing up lately is his temper. We all love to love a bad boy, but Richard’s antics have made him Enemy Number One, breaking the hearts of fans across the city.
Have the tides turned? Has English rose Lainie Graham made him into a new man?
Sources say the mismatched pair has been spotted at multiple events, arm in arm and hip to hip. From fits of jealousy to longing looks and heated whispers, onlookers are stunned by this blooming romance.
Could the rumors be right? Could this unlikely romance be the real thing? Or are these gifted stage actors playing us all?
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When the Marquess Was Mine
When the Marquess Was Mine by Caroline Linden is $1.99! This is part of the Wagers of Sin historical romance series and features a hero with amnesia. If the cover looks familiar, we featured it on Cover Snark because of the hero’s missing belly button.
In the game of love…
Georgiana Lucas despises the arrogant and cruel Marquess of Westmorland even before learning that he’s won the deed to her friend Kitty’s home in a card game. Still, Georgiana assures Kitty the marquess wouldn’t possibly come all the way to Derbyshire to throw them out—until he shows up, bloody and unconscious. Fearing that Kitty would rather see him die, Georgiana blurts out that he’s her fiancé. She’ll nurse the hateful man back to health and make him vow to leave and never return. The man who wakes up, though, is nothing like the heartless rogue Georgiana thought she knew…
You have to risk it all
He wakes up with no memory of being assaulted—or of who he is. The bewitching beauty tending him so devotedly calls him Rob and claims she’s his fiancée even as she avoids his touch. Though he can’t remember how he won her hand, he’s now determined to win her heart. But as his memory returns and the truth is revealed, Rob must decide if the game is up—or if he’ll take a chance on a love that defies all odds.
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Murder at the Brightwell
Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver is $2.99! This is the first book in the Amory Ames historical mystery series that Sarah recommends:
That’s a delightful series, not least of which because Amory is terrific, and the instability and questions of her marriage, which are slowly being resolved, is another mystery on top of each book’s crime being solved. If you like historical mystery series, that one is fun.
Amory Ames is a wealthy young woman who regrets her marriage to her notoriously charming playboy husband, Milo. Looking for a change, she accepts a request for help from her former fiancé, Gil Trent, not knowing that she’ll soon become embroiled in a murder investigation that will test not only her friendship with Gil, but will upset the status quo with her husband.
Amory accompanies Gil to the Brightwell Hotel in an attempt to circumvent the marriage of his sister, Emmeline, to Rupert Howe, a disreputable ladies’ man. Amory sees in the situation a grim reflection of her own floundering marriage. There is more than her happiness at stake, however, when Rupert is murdered and Gil is arrested for the crime. Amory is determined to prove his innocence and find the real killer, despite attempted dissuasion from the disapproving police inspector on the case. Matters are further complicated by Milo’s unexpected arrival, and the two form an uneasy alliance as Amory enlists his reluctant aid in clearing Gil’s name. As the stakes grow higher and the line between friend and foe becomes less clear, Amory must decide where her heart lies and catch the killer before she, too, becomes a victim.
Murder at the Brightwell is a delicious mystery in which murder invades polite society and romance springs in unexpected places. Weaver has penned a debut in the tradition of Jacqueline Winspear.
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Time Served
RECOMMENDED: Time Served by Julianna Keyes is 99c! This is a contemporary romance with an ex-con hero and it was mentioned on a previous podcast with Jane, who recommends Keyes if you like “moody loner dudes.” Last time it was on sale, there was some great discussion in the comments!
Dean Barclay had nothing to do with my decision to flee my old life, but he is 100 percent of the reason I vowed to never look back.
I’ve never forgotten how it felt to follow Dean—dangerous, daring, determined—away from the crowd and climb into his beat-up old Trans Am. I was sixteen and gloriously alive for the first time. When I felt his hand cover my leg and move upward, it was over. I was his. Forever.
Until I left. Him, my mom, and the trailer park. Without so much as a goodbye.
Now Dean’s back, crashing uninvited into my carefully cultivated, neat little lawyerly life. Eight years behind bars have turned him rougher and bigger—and more sexually demanding than any man I’ve ever met. I can’t deny him anything…and that just might end up costing me everything.
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I’m going to say this right now, because every time TIME SERVED is on sale it comes up, but I love, love, love it—it’s one of my favorite romances of all time and a reliable comfort reread, HOWEVER—there is a scene where the hero confessed to having a never-acted-upon revenge-rape fantasy (I know that’s undoubtedly problematic, so you’ve been warned). Also, there are instances of slut-shaming in discussions of one of the heroine’s coworkers. (Her story is told in the next book, IN HER DEFENSE.)
tl;dr: I love TIME SERVED, but it’s not without problematic elements.
I LOVED ACT LIKE IT. I also loved Time Served.
Please please if you are new to the series, do yourself a favor and pick up Act Like It by Lucy Parker. Her entire London Celebrities series is absolute delightful!
I was so-so on Time Served, mostly because it just didn’t seem like the two main characters liked each other very much. But I really loved the two follow ups, In Her Defense and The Good Fight.
If you haven’t read Act Like It, then you are missing out. This is my go to feel good book. I think I’ve read it five or six times.
@EmilyB: I do think you need to read TIME SERVED in addition to IN HER DEFENSE to get the full arc of the heroine’s story. She’s really portrayed in a negative light in TIME SERVED, but you see a whole different side of her in IN HER DEFENSE. I feel as if the third book, THE GOOD FIGHT, can be more easily read as a stand-alone, but I love how you get little snippets of Rachel & Dean (from TIME SERVED) in the subsequent two books.
I literally just finished Act Like It yesterday after seeing the glowing reviews here at SBTB for years. I’m officially joining the double thumbs up bandwagon–it’s delightful and just the kind of the thing I want to read right now. I do have sad face, though, because there is a (small–just me) wait list for book 2 at my library:-(
Amazon has the first 3 in an anthology for $7.99
Not a romance, but Tor has The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi free, for today only and book two is a KDD. The final book comes out in a couple weeks.
I snagged the Caroline Linden. Amazon has it listed as an eTextbook. A textbook to looooove?
@Karen D
If your library has it, the audio of the series is great
I usually love Caroline Linden but I just can’t with amnesia storylines. Why is this such a trope?
@Lizzy: I can’t speak for everyone else, but I think, when it’s done right, the amnesia storyline can add angst and poignancy to a story, along with some suspenseful elements. As I said, it has to be done right or it just becomes a running joke (PREGNESIA, anyone?). Last year, I read two amnesia-themed stories that I enjoyed: REPEAT by Kylie Scott (lived the second-Chance romance between the amnesiac heroine and her tattoo-artist boyfriend, I thought the mystery element was less successful) and SHATTERED WITH YOU by J. Kenner, which was all kinds of angsty goodness with a hero who remembers absolutely nothing about his life and his wife, who, because of reasons, can’t tell him who she is even while they have to work together.