I had a hard time getting into Her Every Wish, and I know that it’s not about HEW, it’s about me. We all have tropes we dislike—also attitudes, characters, and tone. None of these things was a major issue, yet some shade of each made the novella a slog for me at times, particularly in the opening chapters. Needless to say, my reaction made grading problematic as well. I really love Courtney Milan’s writing. Her … Continue reading Her Every Wish by Courtney Milan →
OH MY FLIM-FLAMMING-FLIPPING-FLOPPING-FRICKING-FRACKING GOD! I got 99 fangirl emotions right now and 0 chill, because daaaaamn this book was a firecracker of fun! On the surface it ain’t nothing new; girl meets boy, boy needs to arrest girl, girl & boy have pants-feelings that lead to heart-boners that result in all the things. Mr Shady-As-Fuck orphanage owner hires our swoony-pants hero, Thomas, to catch a bad guy. The thing is though, the bad guy ain’t … Continue reading How I Married a Marquess by Anna Harrington →
Susana and the Scot is utterly adequate. It has a beginning, middle and end. I finished it last night and had to go back and look at the book this morning to remember the hero’s name (it’s Andrew). The writing is perfectly acceptable, even if it does stray into purplish prose on occasion. The plot is relatively easy to remember because there were few surprises. This is a second book in a series, although it … Continue reading Susana and the Scot by Sabrina York →
“Tycoon” is a charming story set in the Gilded Age. I’ve not come across many historicals set in this time period, and it’s a welcome change from the ubiquitous London Season. The novella opens with a “meet cute” – a young woman, Clara, approaches a stranger at a Grand Central Station and addresses him as “husband.” Ted is, needless to say, puzzled, although not so puzzled that he fails to notice how pretty she is. … Continue reading Tycoon by Joanna Shupe →
Falling for the Rancher is someone’s catnip, but it was definitely not a book for me. Overall, I liked the relationship between the hero and heroine well enough. I believed how they came to care for each other and in the things keeping them apart. I have issues with Jarrett, but I liked Sierra enough to believe that she would kick his butt if needed. The sibling dynamic was real and painful and beautiful. I … Continue reading Falling for the Rancher by Tanya Michaels →
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 →
