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Something About You
RECOMMENDED: Something About You by Julie James is $1.99! This is the very first James book I read and it’s the first in the FBI/US Attorney series. James does competence porn really well and this ranks high on my enemies to lovers catnip.
There’s something about the New York Times bestselling Julie James…
FATE HAS THROWN TWO SWORN ENEMIES…
Of all the hotel rooms rented by all the adulterous politicians in Chicago, female Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde had to choose the one next to 1308, where some hot-and-heavy lovemaking ends in bloodshed. And of all the FBI agents in Illinois, it had to be Special Agent Jack Pallas who gets assigned to this high-profile homicide. The same Jack Pallas who still blames Cameron for a botched crackdown three years ago—and nearly ruining his career……INTO EACH OTHER’S ARMS
Work with Cameron Lynde? Are they kidding? Maybe, Jack thinks, this is some kind of welcome-back prank after his stint away from Chicago. But it’s no joke: the pair is going to have to put their rocky past behind them and focus on the case at hand. That is, if they can cut back on the razor-sharp jibes—and smother the flame of their sizzling-hot sexual tension…Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
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Ayesha at Last
RECOMMENDED: Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin is $1.99! Carrie, who will read any and all Pride and Prejudice retellings, gave this one a B+:
Now THIS is how it’s done! Ayesha At Last is a lovely loose retelling of Pride and Prejudice, with a perfect mix of humor, heartbreak, misunderstandings, and humor. It’s a contemporary set in Canada and the characters are described with empathy and with plenty of surprises.
A modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice for a new generation of love.
Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and dresses like he belongs in the seventh century.
When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumors, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself.
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Bringing Down the Duke
RECOMMENDED: Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore is $2.99! This may be the first time it’s been on sale. Carrie read this one and gave it a B+:
This story excels in terms of entertaining characters, and I’d love to see a spin-off story about almost every single one of them.
A stunning debut for author Evie Dunmore and her Oxford Rebels, in which a fiercely independent vicar’s daughter takes on a duke in a fiery love story that threatens to upend the British social order.
England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women’s suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain’s politics at the Queen’s command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can’t deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for.
Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an outspoken commoner who could never be his duchess. But he wouldn’t be the greatest strategist of the Kingdom if he couldn’t claim this alluring bluestocking without the promise of a ring…or could he?
Locked in a battle with rising passion and a will matching her own, Annabelle will learn just what it takes to topple a duke…
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The Swedish Prince
The Swedish Prince by Karina Halle is 99c at Amazon! This is a contemporary romance with Roman Holiday influences, class differences, and a royal hero. I could be wrong, as I’ve only read a couple of Halle’s romances, but I think her writing is either a love it or hate it kind of thing. Try the sample before one-clicking!
A swoon-worthy, sexy & utterly charming STANDALONE romance inspired by the classic film Roman Holiday, from the New York Times bestselling author of Bad at Love and The Pact
I never believed in fairy-tales.
Never held out for Prince Charming.
Growing up poor in small-town California as the oldest of six siblings, I knew I would never ride off into the sunset with anyone. That was even more apparent when a senseless tragedy took the lives of my parents, forcing me to become the sole guardian of our dysfunctional household at the mere age of twenty-three.
Then a fateful encounter literally brought Prince Charming to my doorstep.
At first I thought Viktor was just your average businessman passing through, albeit obscenely handsome, six-foot-five, blue-eyed, and mysteriously rich.
But soon I discovered the truth behind Viktor’s façade.
Beneath his quiet, enigmatic gaze and cocky charm, is a man who is running away from who he really is. A role he’d rather not fulfill.
He is Viktor of House Nordin, His Royal Highness, The Crown Prince of Sweden.
Yet uncovering Viktor’s secret was only the first step.
I didn’t expect to fall in love with him.
I didn’t expect to have my whole life turned upside down.
When you’re from two different worlds, can your hearts meet somewhere in the middle?
Or do happily-ever-afters only exist in fairy-tales?
WARNING: The Swedish Prince is oh-so sweet, enchanting and funny, but it does contain foul language (lots of the F word) and graphic sexual scenes (lots of dirty talk). Reader discretion is advised for those who are sensitive.
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I recently read Bringing Down the Duke and really enjoyed it. There are a few small caveats, but the author made me care about Sebastian and Annabelle, and their future. The silly cover belies a book with a lot of heart and passion.
I’ve enjoyed all of Karina Halle’s royal romances (my favorite being A NORDIC KING). While they are marketed as somewhat “fluffy” royal romances, there’s a vein of seriousness, sometimes melancholy, running all through them. Also, unlike a lot of royal romances that are set in fictitious European principalities, Halle’s books are set in real countries but with fictional royal characters.
Ayesha At Last is wonderful, but I do feel like it needed an epilogue to show that Khalid and Ayesha had worked together as a couple after the identity mix-up. It’s still been one of my favorite reads of 2020.
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is .99 on kindle. I just finished Mexican Gothic last night and was still reeling in the gothic and mythic creepiness of it so I went searching for another of her books.
I read Gods of Jade and Shadow last year (excellent, but Mexican Gothic was better I felt) and she has a way with atmosphere that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. I think Signal to Noise is her debut novel? (Please correct me if I’m wrong) and I can’t resist the cover design either. Now that I think of it, all her covers are amazing
I liked all four of these; a good selection!
Ayesha At Last has been on my tbr for ages, so I’m super hype to grab that one! When I shelved it at work, I definitely carried it around first to show all my coworkers that gorgeous cover. It takes a really remarkable cover design to impress librarians, just saying.
I know lots of people enjoyed Bringing Down the Duke, but it just did not work for me. I thought the idea was promising; heroine wants to go to Oxford and matches wits with a duke who has lots of political influence, trying to get his support for the women’s suffrage movement. But I found the story itself disappointing and the characters often inconsistent or underdeveloped. And frankly I found the hero to be very problematical — his relationship with his brother was really troubling and read as bullying and he was often a dominating jerk around the heroine. Given the reviews I also expected a bit more historical accuracy than this book has — noble titles were done incorrectly, lots of words (e.g., feminists) used that weren’t used in 1870s, clothing details were just wrong, etc. There were some really nice scenes, but they were not enough of them to overcome all the problems in the plot, characters, details for me.
I love Julie James’ series. It is a wonderful combination of competence porn and banter, with some light mystery and suspense thrown in. I have read five of these so far, and not one has disappointed.
Ayesha at Last is high on my TBR pile – it’s one of the few books I have on both eBook and physical format, and I’m really looking forward to it! (I keep my physical shelf fairly limited, and let my eBooks pile up in heaps). I was able to pick it up on a California trip when I had the chance to drop by The Ripped Bodice. I think my suitcase doubled in weight that one afternoon 🙂
Something About You is a fun read – the best of Julie James’ FBI series in my view. (Though it’s definitely understandable if an FBI hero is not appealing at this moment).
I liked Ayesha At Last, it started a bit slow but was quite lovely.
I wanted to like Bringing Down the Duke but like @Kathryn I had a lot of issues with it. I especially did not like the treatment of the ex-girlfriend/ex-lover, or the treatment of the hero’s brother. There was a lot of needless assholery and cruelty in the book and in the end I didn’t like the characters enough to like the book.
@Kathryn, Bringing Down the Duke was a DNF for me around the time she was sick and stuck at his house. I just did not enjoy either character!
On the other hand, love Julie James, hope she publishes again someday!
I was always more of a historical romance reader-but SBTB got me to expand my horizons quite a few years ago. I do remember Julie James as being an author I really enjoyed, and a big part of it was the women were extremely good at what they did.