How we ended up here I picked this book because I love a good forced proximity via snow romance. There’s nothing better than a good snow day when you’re all stocked up on food and books and you’re probably not going to lose power. I’d hoped for a novella with good character development pushed along by forced proximity. But this book? It did not do it for me. The okay things Holly and Sam end … Continue reading Let It Snow by Jeanette Grey
I picked this book mostly because it had a pretty title, which is the e-book variant on judging a book by its cover, I suppose! I don’t read in the Mainstream / Women’s Fiction genre much, and I like to use the RITAs to broaden my horizons. Usually, this makes books a little easier to review, because I am slightly less immersed in the experience, and can be more usefully critical. The Color of Promise … Continue reading The Color of a Promise by Julianne MacLean
I have been debating about how I feel about APB: Baby for a week. And I still haven’t really come to a resolution. It’s not a bad book, which I was totally expecting from the title. I mean, c’mon, that title promises so much crazysauce. As I started reading, I was a little overwhelmed (there is So Much going on), and then I really started liking it, and then I started reading everything with a … Continue reading APB: Baby by Julie Miller
APB: Baby, the first of Julie Miller’s new The Precinct: Bachelors in Blue series, is a romantic suspense novel that sets up not one, but two mysteries. The book opens at Olivia Watson’s wedding. Olivia is the youngest of the four Watson siblings and Dr. Niall Watson has been put in charge of keeping his other brothers Duff and Keir in line during the wedding. Once the vows are made, there’s a shooting that weirdly … Continue reading APB: Baby by Julie Miller
This novella would have been much better if I knew less about universities. Ella is….what sort of professor? Adjunct? Assistant? Associate? Is this a tenure-track job? Where was she before this? It really, really matters to professors. Really. The reality is that if she were an adjunct she would probably be teaching a ton of classes, maybe at other colleges, too, scrambling for work to make a living. Was that what she was doing before? … Continue reading Searching for Mine by Jennifer Probst
Having devoured the reviews in last year’s RITA Reader Review Challenge, I was chomping at the bit to get involved this time around. What better way to discover some new authors? Hence “Searching for Mine” being my first pick, as I wasn’t familiar with Jennifer Probst before this. This book is a novella-length spin-off from Probst’s Searching for… series, which in itself is a spin-off from her earlier Marriage to a Billionaire series. …And it’s … Continue reading Searching for Mine by Jennifer Probst
I chose this book to review because I read a couple of Madeline Ash’s books earlier this year, as preparation for meeting her at a ‘Romance Author Speed Dating’ session. Fortunately, I genuinely liked her books (note for those who plan to read books by unknown authors in order to avoid social awkwardness in such situations: this can actually lead to bonus extra awkwardness if you don’t like the books – beware!). So I was … Continue reading Breaking Good by Madeline Ash
I don’t know how to start this review other than to say that “Let Us Dream” by Alyssa Cole is really, really good and you should go and buy it immediately. “Let Us Dream” is the story of Bertha, a black suffragette who owns a club in Harlem in 1917, and Amir, an immigrant from Bengal with socialist leanings and a hell of a way in the kitchen. If you’re sick of upper and upper-middle … Continue reading “Let Us Dream” by Alyssa Cole
Marietta “Etta” Hawkins is the twenty-one year-old daughter of a ranch owner in 1892 in Texas. She runs the household and takes care of all the woman-slash-house stuff. Her father is extremely protective and warns all his ranch hands not to even think about “making advances” or they’ll be fired. He has fired several men. Daniel Barrett is the ranch foreman who has been breeding and training mules on the side and is in the … Continue reading “The Husband Maneuver” by Karen Witemeyer
There are so many things right about Pansies, and I loved the author’s For Real so much, that it feels like a betrayal that I did not love Pansies with the same deep and abiding love that I felt for For Real. Although I loved the writing, as I wrote this review I kept seeing more problems with the story and the grade plummeted as a result. The story focuses on Alfie, a man’s man, … Continue reading Pansies by Alexis Hall
Tall, dark, and damaged are three good adjectives used to describe Sarah Andre’s hero, Devon Ashby. Or Devon Wickham, depending on which villain you choose to support in this fast moving family-based romantic intrigue. Other adjectives that might serve: drop-dead gorgeous, resilient, ruthless, and afraid. Because Devon is afraid to expose his heart to more pain. At the age of nine, he had to cope with a distant and forbidding father, but his day-to-day existence … Continue reading Tall, Dark and Damaged by Sarah Andre
