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Whiteout
RECOMMENDED: Whiteout by Adriana Anders is $1.99! Elyse gave this one an A-:
I love romantic suspense with survival elements (especially cold weather survival) and I also really enjoyed the espionage/global threat aspect of the mystery. I wish Iâd read the prequel novella first, but it wasnât a huge issue, and Iâm delighted to have a new series to look forward to.
Angel Smith is finally ready to leave Antarctica for a second chance at life. But on what was meant to be her last day, the remote research station she’s been calling home is attacked. Hunted and scared, she and irritatingly gorgeous glaciologist Ford Cooper barely make it out with their lives…only to realize that in a place this remote, there’s nowhere left to run.
Isolated with no power, no way to contact the outside world, and a madman at their heels, Angel and Ford must fight to survive in the most inhospitableâand beautifulâplace on earth. But what starts as a partnership born of necessity quickly turns into an urgent connection that burns bright and hot. They both know there is little chance of making it out alive, and yet they are determined to survive against the oddsâand possibly, the world.
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A Convenient Fiction
RECOMMENDED: A Convenient Fiction by Mimi Matthews is 99c! Claudia reviewed this one and gave it a B:
Readers who appreciate character-driven, slow-burn romance, flawed heroes, and a firm sense of time and place will enjoy this one despite its minor flaws.
She Needed a Husband…
Itâs been three years since Laura Hayesâs father died, leaving her and her invalid brother to subsist on the income from the familyâs failing perfume business. But time is swiftly running out. What she needs is a husband, and fast. A noble gentleman who can rescue them all from penury. When a mysterious stranger arrives in the village, he seems a perfect candidate. But Alex Archer is no hero. In fact, he just might be the opposite.
He Wanted a Fortune…
Alex has no tolerance for sentiment. Heâs returned to England for one reason only: to find a wealthy wife. A country-bred heiress in Surrey seems the perfect target. But somewhere between the village railway station and the manor house his mercenary plan begins to unravel. And itâs all the fault of Laura Hayesâa lady as unsuitable as she is enchanting.
From the beaches of Margate to the lavender fields of Provence, a grudging friendship slowly blossoms into something more. But when scandal threatens, can a man who has spent his entire life playing the villain, finally become a hero? Or will the lure of easy riches once again outweigh the demands of his heart?
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Would Like to Meet
RECOMMENDED: Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters is $1.99! Lara read this one and gave it a B:
I was raised on classic rom-coms like One Fine Day and While You Were Sleeping (which I will never rewatch as I fear theyâve not aged well) and for each new outing of a tried and true trope, I continue to be there, first in line. So my appreciation for the trope is as much nature as it is nurture. As a result, I am delighted to report that this book has SO MANY OF THE TROPES, but its specialty is my personal favourite: the meet-cute.
In this charming, feel-good debut novel, a cynical assistant at a screenwriting agency must reenact the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedy movies in order to help her #1 client get his scriptwriting mojo back–but can a real-life meet-cute be in store for someone who doesn’t believe in happily ever after?
After seven years as an assistant, 29-year-old Evie Summers is ready to finally get the promotion she deserves. But now the TV and film agency she’s been running behind the scenes is in trouble, and Evie will lose her job unless she can convince the agency’s biggest and most arrogant client, Ezra Chester, to finish writing the script for a Hollywood romantic comedy.
The catch? Ezra is suffering from writer’s block–and he’ll only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. With the future of the agency in jeopardy, Evie embarks on a mission to meet a man the way Sally met Harry or Hugh Grant met Julia Roberts.
But in the course of testing out the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedies IRL, not only will Evie encounter one humiliating situation after another, but she’ll have to confront the romantic past that soured her on love. In a novel as hilarious as it is heartwarming, debut author Rachel Winters proves that sometimes real life is better than the movies–and that the best kind of meet-cutes happen when you least expect them.
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Crushing on You
Crushing on You by Jen Trinh is 99c! This is book one in the Burlfriends series, which features rock climbers. One of my fellow booksellers loves this series and I usually trust her recommendations.
Finalist for Best First Book and Best Mid-length Contemporary Romance in the NJRW 2020 Golden Leaf Awards.
Anna Tang doesnât date Asian guys. Her own Chinese family is bad enough, and she’s not looking to double the trouble. Besides, she’s busy chasing her dream of becoming a music journalist, and she’s going to march towards it single-mindedlyâand single, if need be.
But when she meets a handsome stranger on a flight to a wedding, she’s charmed. Intrigued. Seduced.
Too bad heâs Asian, and not her type.
Ian Gao has a great tech job and rock-hard abs from years of climbing. His parents hope heâll settle down soon, but heâs drawn to the fierce and lovely Anna, who doesnât plan on getting married. Ever.
But the more time they spend together, the more it feels like coming home. Does Ian have what it takes to make her to stay? Or are the walls around her heart too hard to climb?
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Amazon US is offering THE SWIMMING POOL by Mary Roberts Rinehart for .99, in case there are any golden age mystery fans here. I loved and still treasure these books, in this case about a formerly-wealthy family struggling after the 1929 Crash. The mystery and creeping dread are quite well done here and there is usually a background romance in many of Rinehart’s books (can’t remember if true in this one).
NB: I remember one story in which a man was described as wearing horrifying “yellow shoes,” which I finally understood meant brown. Apparently men wore only black shoes at that time, something that astonished teenage me. He may even have been the victim/criminal because obviously those shoes indicated some kind of moral decay.
Has anyone read “crushing on you” and what are your thoughts? I’m instinctively squicked out by the “too bad he’s Asian” thing. Imagine if “Asian” was replaced with another ethnicity. But maybe it’s handled well?
Re. WHITEOUT, there was one visibly disabled person, and she was the villain. One dark-skinned woman, and she was the villainâs crony. A definite DNF for me, *but* I hear the follow-up features a disabled MC? So I might give the author another try.
@Liz I found Whiteout to be a bit over-the-top in places, including the villainous characters. I did finish it, but it was just a “C” read for me. I will probably read the next one because this author usually works for me, but I did feel disappointed by this one.
@Egged I read “Crushing On You” and personally wasn’t sure about the way the “too bad he’s Asian”/family dynamics were handled. She’s reluctant to get into a relationship with him because she equates her overbearing (and abusive) family with the culture, and he judges her character and commitment to family because she tries to erect boundaries with her family who has a history of physical and emotional abuse. I felt really uncomfortable with that, though I’m not a POC myself.
There were things I liked about this book though – the writing, the climbing aspect – so I decided to still try the second in the series, and ended up DNFing because the hero supposedly has a crush on the heroine for a month and is best friends with her friend, but he forgets her name, the main character calls her dead husband her “ex”, and it was suggested that there is such a thing as reverse racism against white people,
@Egged: I will say that my friend who recommended it to me is first generation Chinese American, but of course, no group is a monolith and readers’ mileage may vary.
@Egged I’m not a POC and from what I’ve seen there is a mixed reaction on the “I don’t date Asian men” aspect from people who are Asian, but her reason is that she had a history of physical and emotional abuse in her family and attributed that in part to their culture. Ultimately by getting to know the hero, her views change and she realizes that the abuse wasn’t related to her Chinese culture. My hangup though was that she works to erect boundaries between her and her family (her father was physically abusive; her mother was emotionally abusive; many family members looked the other way) and I was disappointed that the hero seems to overlook her reasons and is concerned that she’s not “family oriented” because of it.
@Egged: I haven’t read the book, but as a non-Asian POC, I’m not surprised when I hear/read about POC deciding not to date their race/ethnicity, for reasons. It’s sad but it is absolutely a reality. So it doesn’t squick me out or turn me off if a POC character says this; I’m more interested in how the author handles this belief/ruleset and the ultimate character arc of the MC.
@Egged I’ve read it and her reasons for not wanting to date an Asian man had to do with her fear of other Asian men being like her father and step-father (who were physically abusive)… ultimately she sees that the hero is not that kind of a man, but initially she has concerns about how her culture might have influenced the abuse she suffered since her mother was also emotionally abusive and other family members turned their heads and ignored it.
Can we get a spoiler tag for the post that identifies who the villain of Whiteout is? đ
@The Other Kate Itâs not a spoiler. The villain is shown in separate scenes throughout the book interspersed with the actual narrative.
@The Other Kate And you donât see her in any other context (e.g., interacting with the protagonists), at least not in the first half or so, after which I stopped reading.
@Liz, oh, that makes sense. Thanks!
I absolutely adored “Would Like To Meet”. It’s fun and sweet and the hero is a sexy single dad. I didn’t want it to end!