The Whole Man by C.F. Rose

The Whole Man was a pleasant read about two wounded people trying to get beyond their personal hang-ups to fight through on a second chance at love. Evan O’Cleary and Jesse Walsh had met and had a passionate two-day love affair. Jesse was a rising baseball player just about to make it to the majors when a family tragedy tore him apart and he abruptly abandoned Evan. He still hasn't recovered from that loss. She went on to fall into an abusive relationship from which she has just recently fled back to Southern California. There she encounters Jesse who had abandoned his chance at a major-league career in order to be a high school baseball coach.

Evan and Jesse are still very attracted to each other, but they blow hot and cold with each other. First Jesse doesn’t feel ready for a serious relationship. Then Evan finds out a highly suspicious coincidental connection between Jesse’s father and her mother. So then she isn’t ready for a serious relationship. It gets a bit irritating as each trade off on who is more insecure about getting serious beyond a bit of sex.

There’s a subplot of Evan getting ominous messages from her abusive ex that have her broken down in fear and asking Jesse to come over to her house because she is so scared. Being a good guy, he’s quick to oblige her. Then that plotline is put aside for some of their personal angst and she’ll go from unable to go home alone one night to going a few weeks without needing her own personal bodyguard. It just seems rather convenient how her fears appear and disappear. I thought that whole plotline seemed rather weak. And (SPOILER ALERT) then when her ex shows up, as you know he will, it’s all rather meh as a suspenseful moment.

What I enjoyed the most was the relationship each major character had with their friends and family members. If there are going to be follow-up books about Evan’s and Jesse’s brothers, I’d be interested in reading them.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Stripped Bare by Heidi McLaughlin

Stripped Bare is basically a Cinderella story mixed in with some erotica and real pathos. The heroine is Macey who got pregnant at 17 and has had to raise her beloved daughter in terrible circumstances living with her drug addict mother. To make ends meet she works as a waitress by day and stripper at night in a seedy strip bar. Even with the two jobs, she’s barely making ends meet so she decides to travel to Las Vegas where she’s heard that a stripper can make a few thousand dollars in one week. Leaving her daughter with the ever-helpful best friend, she heads off to Sin City.

Needless to say, things don’t go quite as planned and she ends up losing all her money. Because desperation and playing for high stakes in a casino are never are a good mix. She gets noticed by the owner of the casino, Finn, who recognizes her for a girl he had a one-night stand with in high school. He is still irresistibly attracted to her and offers her $30,000 to spend the week with him and be his escort for a few fancy fundraisers. He buys her a new wardrobe and puts her up in his amazing penthouse apartment.

And then they have sex all the time. The book is told with shifting narrations and Finn’s narration is mostly about how he wants to have sex with her in every location in his enormous apartment. While Macey is a bit sarcastic with him, she still can’t help succumbing to his massive sex appeal every time he touches her.

Add in an evil ex of Finn’s, Macey’s adorable 10-year old daughter, a miracle-working security/does everything aide of Finn’s and you have a very readable novel. The author was especially good at portraying the dreary filthiness of the life of a low-class stripper.

There are a couple of twists in the plot that aren’t all that surprising, but I still found myself staying up late to read until the end.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wrecking Ball by P. Dangelico

I really enjoyed Wrecking Ball by P. Dangelico. The plot combines several rather well-worn tropes from the pantheon of romance novels, but I still was interested and involved enough to stay up late finishing the novel. Cam DeSantis is the widow of a man who created a ponzi scheme and defrauded a lot of people out of their earnings. Ever since Bernie Madoff, I’ve seen this trope quite a few times with a woman having to recover from the damage her husband or father had done. I guess it’s a good way to make the heroine have to start over without money or a job or reputation. Because, of course, she got fired from her job as a third-grade teacher and can’t find another job. I rather suspect it wouldn’t be that hard for an experienced teacher to find a new job, but we’re supposed to believe that, even by using her maiden name, people will recognize her anywhere she goes and start yelling her. Does anyone think they could pick Bernie Madoff’s wife or children out of a lineup? I seriously doubt it, but roll with that.

She needs to make money to pay her parents back for emptying their savings to pay for a lawyer to defend her from suspicions of having known about her husband’s fraud. So she ends up taking the job as nanny/home-school teacher to the sad nephew of the New York team’s star quarterback. Poor Sam has been left with his uncle, whom he barely knows, while his mother is in drug rehab. His uncle, Calvin Shaw, is a superstar, Super-Bowl winning quarterback. Think of a Tom Brady type complete with all the health food fetishes.

Of course, he is attracted to his hot nanny. And she’s attracted to him. And she helps to bring the reclusive superstar closer together with his shy nephew. And she gets him to quickly abandon his health food diet.

She ends up agreeing to act as his fake-girlfriend to help protect him from all the groupies. Did I mention that there are a lot of tropes in this novel? These aren’t all, but I don’t want to provide too many spoilers.

What I liked best was that Cam is not quite the typical heroine-in-distress for a romance novel. She’s a spunky New Jersey girl and she doesn’t take any garbage from Calvin even though he’s a multi-millionaire. She has a great relationship with her parents and her best friend.

This is be set up to be the first in a series and I’d definitely read the rest in the series. There were quite a few typos and grammatical mistakes in the review copy, but I’ll assume those will be cleaned up by the time the book is published.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wild Kisses by Skye Jordan

Wild Kisses features a romance between two hard-working and dedicated people who have each suffered in the past. Trace Hutton is a contractor trying to build a business after having served three years hard time for buying a few illegal prescription drugs (which seems like a harsh sentence for a first offender) while taking care of his father who suffers from dementia. He’s renovating a former bar for Avery Hart who has returned to the town of Wildwood after eight years of an unsatisfying marriage to an army soldier. She’s pouring everything into building a bakery and cafe business.

Each of them is working long hours to build up their businesses and have a lot to lose professionally and financially if their gambles on themselves don’t pay off. Avery seems to spend all her time baking innumerable incredible sweets that she’s selling and giving away all over town. I found it hard to believe that she could bake such a variety of goods in the tiny apartment kitchen that is described. She doesn’t just make two or three sweets in an assortment, but makes eight or nine plus a whole other assortment that she sells in a local grocery. I found myself getting distracted by trying to compute how much time it would take to make all those desserts in any one day. No wonder she’s exhausted and day-dreaming about hot sex.

They’re both deeply attracted to each other but worry that the time isn’t right for a romance. Trace worries that he’s not good enough for such a sweetheart as Avery. Avery worries that she’s not experienced enough for such a good-looking player as Trace. Of course, they eventually succumb to their sexual attraction and have some hot sex. And then some more.

There is a sense of threatening doom as we’re told over and over again how thinly stretched the H and h are financially and how everything is riding on Avery being able to make a go of her bakery and for Trace to get some new contracts from people impressed by his work on her building. Throw in a former ex-con who seems shifty and a policeman who has an irrational resentment of both Avery and Trace. I spent the second half of the book waiting for the hammer to fall.

The sense of tension as well as two likable main characters make this a very enjoyable read.

Texas Rose Always by Kay Graykowski

Graykowski always has a light touch with humor and this book, Texas Rose Always, is no exception. She’s made an interesting switch on the whole secret baby plot by introducing a couple, Daisy and Houston who meet up only once a year at the Burning Man Festival. And wouldn’t you know it, but Daisy ended up pregnant and no way to tell Houston since they didn’t exchange real names or cell phone numbers. When they meet up the next year, she hints that she wants something more permanent and he resists her as he does for her her hints for the next several years. And he is adamant that he doesn’t want children. So she keeps silent and finally decides not to return to Burning Man.

And then Daisy, who is really Justus Jacobi, gets the contract in her own business as a landscape architect to pretty up the family ranch where, of course, Houston “Rowdy” Rose is one of the sons. She brings her wonderfully appealing son, Hugh, with her to the ranch where she falls in love with his family and they love her right back. The scenes with her son hanging out with the men no one realizes are really his uncles and grandfather are just so endearing as they swap bits of strange trivia.

Then Rowdy returns and everything becomes clear as to Hugh’s paternity. There are misunderstandings as Rowdy doesn’t react well to not having been informed that he has a son, but it all will eventually reach a HEA.

I found I just couldn’t find too much sympathy for either the H or h. Rowdy’s hangup is that is secretly a great artist but doesn’t want to tell his family because he figures a bunch of ranchers would be fine with his becoming an award-winning winemaker, but wouldn’t love him if they found out that he paints? That’s just not believable, especially when we meet his family who happen to be simply the kindest and most loving people anyone could imagine. It’s not clear where his hangups come from so it’s hard to buy that he could be falling for a woman he meets for one week out of the year and yet he is too much of an emotional coward to even get her phone number. And Justus has hangups because her mother abandoned her and is a selfish witch, but she also had a loving father and stepmother. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell Rowdy/Houston that he has a son. She’d prefer to deny her son a father and relatives simply because she can’t find the courage to tell her lover about her son. If he flipped out and didn’t want anything to do with them, that would be tragic, but at least she’d know. Instead she hooks up with him year after year without telling him.

I enjoyed the book, but I found the behavior of the two lead characters so irritating; I just wanted to shake them. I’d take the son and grandparents any day over those two.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Meet Me Halfway by Kim Carmody

In this second book in Kim Carmody’s Off Field series about players on a fictional New York football team. I really enjoyed the first book, Lexington and 42nd, about a young Australian woman who came to New York to work for the team and ended up falling for the star quarterback. This book, Meet Me Halfway, is about a hot sports journalist, Olivia Callahan, who is shooting a documentary about a young first-round draft pick to the NY football team. She goes to interview Nate Sullivan, the new player as he graduates from college and prepares to play in the NFL.

Olivia and Nate fall for each other while she’s filming the documentary. She’s five years older than he is and a true city gal when he’s never been to the city before. They don’t seem to have much in common and I just couldn’t buy that this sophisticated professional woman was falling for a football player who just graduated college. I’m not a big fan of romances when the woman is several years older than the guy - I guess I’m old-fashioned like that, but I find the five-year gap when the guy is 22 years old. The differences in age when they’re older are not as stark as when a guy is basically just a college kid. Of course, he’s the nicest guy and a serious young man. In fact, he’s more appealing than Olivia who is a bit too driven and seems willing to use Nate both sexually and professionally.

I found a lot of the plot predictable. As soon as they came together halfway through the book, it was clear that her documentary was going to come between them. There is some mystery about a fight that Nate got into when he was a freshman, but it was pretty obvious what the story was behind that story.

I actually enjoyed the glimpses of the two characters of Emma and Will from the first book more than I did the romance between Nate and Olivia. I still enjoy the author and the team and would read another book in the series. This one was just a bit disappointing from the first book.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My Valentine Seduction: Love Comes Later Book 3 by Serenity Woods

This is simply a lovely book. My Valentine Seduction is the third book in Woods’ series, “Love Comes Later,” about three thirty-something friends running a software business in New Zealand and how they found love. This book concerns Teddi who is blind and depressed on New Year’s Eve remembering her former boyfriend who had died four years ago. She ends up talking with Ethan whom she knows online since he plays the game that had made Teddi’s business a fortune. He doesn’t know that she’s one of the heads of the company or that she’s blind. He’s also depressed that New Year’s Eve thinking of his beloved wife who died two years ago leaving him to figure out how to be a good father to their two daughters.

I hadn’t thought I’d enjoy a book about a blind woman, but Woods handles Teddi’s blindness with such insight and care that I wondered if the author knows someone who is blind. Either that or she is overestimating how independently a totally blind person can live. Ethan is a totally real character. He’s a fireman and he’s having trouble coping with his nine-year old daughter who is still full of pain and anger over her mother’s death. He enjoys his late-night conversations with Teddi, but has honest worries about falling for a blind woman and the difficulties that might bring into his already difficult life. And he also isn’t comfortable being with a woman who is so very much richer than he is.

Their romance takes a long time to become a sexual one. Instead they take the time to become really good friends while they get to know each other. That seems so rare in romance books these days. But it also seems much more real than these books where the H and h take one look at each other and immediately fall in lust and love simultaneously. Real relationships don’t begin like that so it’s nice to see a relationship develop from late-night online conversations and to know that Teddi can’t see Ethan so she’s falling for the person he is rather than for his hunky fireman’s body. Of course, they do end up having a very satisfying sexual relationship, but that isn’t what binds them together.

Another thing I appreciated was Ethan’s lingering love for his wife. Too often with the H having had a wife who died, she is painted as someone with lots of flaw without whom he’s much better off. Instead, she seems to have been a wonderful woman and mother and he is lost without her. He also just misses the everyday comfort of being part of a couple. That seems a much more realistic portrayal of a widower’s grief. If anything, the book paints a much less sympathetic picture of Teddi’s former partner who was the twin brother of one the other owners of the company. In her memories, he comes off as a rather selfish, careless man.

I’ve really enjoyed this series. I was given a free review copy in exchange for an honest review, but I would have happily paid to read the book.

The Reluctant Cowboy by Kate Pearce

While The Reluctant Cowboy was mostly enjoyable, it was also a bit too long with the supposed conflict overdone. The hero is Chase Morgan, a multi-millionaire who has made his money from some sort of unidentified cyber invention, who has finally returned to the family ranch when his grandmother writes to ask for help. He has avoided the ranch because of his family’s tragic history when his mother disappeared and his father descended into alcoholism and abandoned his four sons. Chase is the oldest and hasn’t seen his brothers in years.

When he returns to the ranch, he meets January Mitchell, a history graduate student who is writing her dissertation on the Morgan ranch and its history while helping Ruth, Chase’s grandmother. Ruth and January want to preserve the ranch while Chase wants to sell it. But he also agrees to spend a few weeks helping out on the ranch which brings him in close contact with January. And guess what happens? They have to fight their irresistible sexual attraction. And what’s not to like about a brilliant, hunky guy who also has cowboy skills and is extremely rich to top it all off?

For someone who is writing a dissertation, January seems to spend most of her time riding around the ranch and helping out with chores. She doesn’t seem to have done much research until Chase arrives and rides around with her and helps her find a diary from his ancestor. Mostly what she does is stick her nose into Chase’s business. But, of course, that is all forgiven because he’s troubled and he finds her sexy.

There are hints about the Morgan family tragedy and what exactly happened, but it takes a long time until that is all explained. And there are hints about January’s past and her marriage, but that also takes a long time to figure out. There is the financial mystery that Ruth originally asked Chase to investigate, but that takes a long time to figure out also. Meanwhile, Chase and January spend a lot of time doing chores and riding around without much happening. There was a point when I figured that the book must be almost over since it seemed that I’d been reading for a long time and then I checked the Kindle register and I was less than 30% through the book. That’s not a good sign.

This is the first of a series of books about the Morgan brothers. Hopefully, without having to set up the family dynamic, the future books will not have such tedious stretches.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love, Always and Forever

This is the third book in Morgan’s series, Sergeant Joe’s Boys, about three boys adopted by Joe and his wife, Marlene, and the men they grew up to become. All three boys had a very hard time of it as children until they were adopted by Joe and Marlene. From Joe they learned how to become good men and were inspired to join the military. From Marlene they learned how to treat a woman and what it means to love. I’ve enjoyed all the books in the series and this is no exception.

Love, Always and Forever is the story of Mikhail who has recently retired from the Marines and is now working as a fireman. He has his demons from his time in the military, but is learning to cope as he settles into his new life. Then he meets his very attractive neighbor, Amy Short. The two soon become good friends, working together on their neighboring gardens. Amy is eager to try new experiences such as learning to ride a motorcycle and adopting a pit bull puppy. And Mikhail is more and more attracted to Amy and wants to take their relationship beyond simple friendship.

It’s hinted throughout the book that Amy has moved away from her home in order to escape the smothering love of her family who are extremely protective of her because of a past unspecified health problem. We also know that Mikhail carries a load of guilt for not having been able to save his drug-addicted mother when he was a child and then not to be able to save civilians in Afghanistan or the victims of the fires he is fighting.

You know where this is going and how it will end up. But it is still a very pleasant ride to travel along with Mikhail’s and Amy’s journey to finding love. And I enjoyed the interactions between Mikhail and his brothers and the boy that his oldest brother adopted in the first book. Mikhail has his problems with his tempter and his PTSD, but he’s working through it and his brothers understand because they went through similar difficulties transitioning back to civilian life. Perhaps being a firefighter is not the best career choice for him; I’d think he’d do better in the family construction business, but I guess the reader doesn’t get to give career advice to fictional heroes.

I also enjoyed the relationship between Mikhail and his adopted mother. She is loving, but knows when to back off.

One thing that Marlene and Amy share is a love of cooking. Amy seems to cook up batches of cookies every day and then chows down on enormous banana splits when things are tough. I guess when you’re recovering from severe medical problems, you can afford all those calories without any noticeable way of working them off. But that’s just a minor complaint.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Raphael's Fling by Alix Nichols

Raphael's Fling is the second in Alix Nichols’ series featuring French brothers named Darcy. The first book, Find You in Paris, had a deliberate connection to Pride and Prejudice. I was hoping for another Austen tie-in, but didn’t detect it here. Our heroine, Mia, works at D’Arcy Consulting where she has been having an affair with the hunky, womanizing boss, Raphael D’Arcy. They have a meet-cute at a Christmas party where she is dressed as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and he’s come as Olaf the Snowman. They have a fun, flirty discussion on the balcony with her having no idea that the snowman is actually her boss. They get to know each other without having their attraction simply based on sexual attraction.

The book switches back and forth between current time and flashbacks. So we meet Mia and Raphael once their affair has already started. We just have to find out what complication is going to ensue and how they’re going to meet it. We need to find out if Raphael can get over his reluctance to get involved in a serious relationship and whether Mia where get over her reluctance to carry on an affair with her boss. She also is ashamed of her behavior because her parents are very socially conservative and apparently think that she and her sisters are virgins. That plotline was a bit unbelievable. And she seems to have an easy time finding jobs whenever the plot demands it of her. I somehow expect that jobs for specialists in medieval Europe aren't that easy to come by.

I was really enjoying this book through the first half. It all gets resolved rather quickly and easily. Given the plot complications that pop up in the latter half of the book, I would have anticipated a little more angst and difficulty with settling everything.

I always enjoy Nichols’ style and the contemporary French settings for her novels.

I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Could've Said Yes A Thistle Bend Novel by Tracy March

Tracy March continues her series about romance in a small, mountain town in Colorado with Could've Said Yes. This one features an attractive artist, Ellie London, who encounters a nunky EPA inspector, Collin Cooper who is temporarily in town to investigate pollution leaking from a site in the area. The two meet up when he’s out mountain biking and she encounters him and takes his photograph. She has an art technique of painting in photographs that I really had a hard time picturing, but we’re assured that the touched-up photos are striking.

The two are attracted to each other and find that they share a lot especially in their love of nature. Then there is a terrible environmental accident that threatens the economy of the town and Collin seems to be at fault. Think of last year’s horrible Gold King Mine disaster in which the EPA truly was at fault. He has to fight to minimize the damage as well as the politicking from the EPA. I thought it was rather interesting that, for a book with a definite environmentalist focus, it was still very critical of the work by the EPA.

Collin has to overcome his own fear of serious romance since he’s coming off of a failed engagement to a woman who is nothing like Ellie. He’s rather chicken, but we know he’ll come around in the end. I’m not too fond of the plot device where one of the characters has such cold feet from a former relationship that he or she thinks the best thing is just to abandon the new love interest for her/his own good. Do people really do that these days? But the interactions between the two are basically enjoyable so, overall, I recommend this book.

I was provided a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Back Check by Kelly Jamieson

Back Check is the fourth book in Jamieson’s sports-romance series about Chicago hockey players. I’ve read and enjoyed them all. I think the best part of each book is the interaction among the players as they get together and try to puzzle out romance in their clueless alpha guys’ way. This story involves Tanner Bennett who has to be the best man in his pal’s wedding. Bennett thinks that he is bad luck for weddings including his own short-lived romance. The wedding is for Marc Dupuis, the protagonist from the first book in the series, Major Misconduct.

The wedding planner for the wedding is Katelyn Medford who just happened to be Tanner’s first love from college. They had experienced a lovely romance but she had broken it off when he got his pro contract and he’d always resented that she didn’t give them a chance to carry on the romance. Little does he know that Katelyn had a legitimate and tragic reason why she couldn’t follow him to New York.

This is a sweet second-chance romance. We know that they’re going to fall for each other once again. The author doesn’t hold out forever to let the reader know what the reason was that Katelyn had had to break it off with him. I get irritated with books that try to hide the reason for the major misunderstanding until the end of the book so I was glad to get that out of the way. Another fault of other sports romances is that the sports is just an excuse to have a hot hero, but there isn’t much sports in the book. Jamieson is sure to include enough actual hockey to rise above that. And she includes the interaction among the guys for humorous interchanges among the guys to continue the fun.

I was provided a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Teach Your Heart by Tracey Alvarez

Teach Your Heart is the third book in Tracey Alvarez's series of novels taking place in New Zealand's northern reaches. I really enjoyed this book and I've read the previous two books, but didn't remember a lot of the details. Alvarez has the habit of carrying forth characters from past novels without much exposition of their past stories. I would have preferred just a couple of students reintroducing the characters and their back stories so I didn't have to go online to remind myself about these people.

This book involves two likable people who have their own insecurities to overcome. Gracie, the daughter of a supposedly soulless corporate lawyer, has fled her father’s expectations to drift around Europe. Now she’s returned and needs a job to escape the future her father has lined up for her. She takes a job as nanny/au pair/homeschool teacher to Owen Bennett’s lovable nieces and nephew. Owen, a workaholic doctor in Botany Bay, has had to suddenly take custody of his sister’s children. He doesn’t know much about the day-to-day concerns about taking care of children and can’t keep someone employed.

He offers the job to Gracie despite his misgivings about his attraction to his new employee. Well, you know where this is going. The children fall for Gracie; she helps Owen relax and enjoy the kids, and they give in to their sexual attraction to each other. There is a minor complication and misunderstanding, but overall this is an enjoyable read following two lovely characters find each other and their new family.

I was provided a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Silver-Tongued Devil (Portland Devils Book 1) by Rosalind James

I’ve read all of Rosalind James’ novels and Silver-Tongued Devil is one of my very favorites. The charm stems from the clever repartee between the hero and heroine. There is rather a Cinderella plot as the hero, Blake Orbison, is a multi-millionaire and just to make him even more yummy, a former Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Apparently, he’s spent his money making lucrative real estate deals and, now that an injury has ended his career, is building a luxury resort in a small Idaho town.

The heroine, Dakota, has a small painting business that she handles for her stepfather who was injured in a terrible accident on one of Blake’s other construction projects. She’s returned home to help out and earn money to help pay off her stepfather’s mortgage. She’s also an extremely talented artist creating sensual glass mosaics. Think of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower paintings done in glass. They sound lovely.

She and Blake hit it off right away and the sexual sparks and witty conversation flies between them. However, she’s wary of him because of his wealth and resentment over her stepfather’s injury for which he received very little help from the company.

The good guys are very good and appealing in this novel and the bad guys are irredeemably bad. Dakota’s father was a Lakota and so she has suffered a lot of prejudice in this small town and sexual assault when she was a teenager.

Blake had thought that he wanted to settle down with a sophisticated woman who would be happy to stay at home and raise his children. Little did he know that what he really wanted was a sexy, smart artist who dreams of traveling beyond this small town with all its prejudices.

Blake reminds me a little of Dean Robillard in Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Natural Born Charmer, with his charming wit and his attraction to a woman totally unlike the usual type of woman he was attracted to. I’ve never met anyone as witty and charming as these two fictional heroes, but I sure enjoyed reading about them.

My New Year Fling (Love Comes Later, #2) by Serenity Woods

My New Year Fling is the second book in Woods’ series, “Love Comes Later,” which revolves around the billionaire owners of New Zealand’s largest gaming company. They’re good friends, but have suffered the devastating loss of the twin brother of the company’s main programmer, Rich. To top it off, the deceased young man was engaged to the sister of the other owner. And Rich, the identical surviving twin has always been in love with his brother’s fiance. So on top of having a hard time overcoming the death of his twin, he has to fight the guiltt and anger he feels of having been jealous.

It is now Christmas and the fourth anniversary of his brother’s death and Rich has retired to a small beach house in northern New Zealand to get through the hard time by drinking himself into a stupor. But the young woman staying in the beach house next to him, Jess, is there for her own recovery from feelings of inadequacy and sadness. She is recovering from a disastrous love affair and having to face the fact that she’s in her mid 30s and doesn’t have a partner, family, or job.

The book is about these two sad, but decent people meeting and having a short fling over the holidays. She doesn’t know that Rich is a billionaire and he doesn’t know all of her sad secrets. But they find that they can help each other get beyond their pasts and embrace the present and future.

And hot sex between two good-looking people doesn’t hurt either.

There isn’t much plot in this book - it’s all about two unhappy people coming together and finding that they can help each other. And one thing that I really like is that Woods shows why they fall in love instead of just making it the result of irresistible lust as so many romance authors do. She gives us the conversations between them instead of just telling us that they get along. Few romance authors actually do that these days. We are told that they relate to each other, but the author can’t be bothered to come up with a conversation, much less several conversations, to demonstrate why they do.

This was a lovely book. The one complaint I would have had is that everything gets resolved pretty easily and painlessly. Jess worries that she’ll feel uncomfortable in his world of wealth and feel too dependent on him, but then decides not to and that seems enough. However, I couldn’t put the book down, not because I needed to know how it came out - being a romance, we know how it’s going to come out - but because I enjoyed riding along with these two good people finding each other.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book

Take Me Back by Rosalind James

This is the fourth book in James’ series of romance with a dollop of suspense set in the Idaho town of Paradise. This book opens with the death of a thoroughly despicable multi-millionaire. He chokes on an ice cube while an unnamed person watches him die and does nothing. We learn that he has divided his money between his daughter, Hallie, and an unacknowledged son. Hallie had once had a night of romance and lovemaking while in high school with Jim Lawson, the older half-brother of Hallie’s newly discovered half-brother. And when they were discovered making love, her father forced Jim out of town. He’d joined the army and has now returned to be a deputy sheriff in Paradise where he’s raising his daughter after his wife tragically died of cancer.

So there is a whole lot going on in this novel. We have the second chance romance between Jim and Hallie even though Hallie’s father had left a clause in his will that she can’t inherit his millions if she has a sexual relationship with Jim for six months after his death. Hallie and Jim rediscover their attraction though they have to hide everything. And then Hallie has to decide what she wants to do with her life and whether she wants her father’s money. The young son has his own problems. We find out how abusive and evil Hallie’s father had been.

If that weren’t enough, there is also the lurking presence of the guy who witnessed her father’s death. He just can’t leave everything alone and still keeps threatening and attacking Hallie. There didn’t seem any reason for him to keep doing that since he’d gotten away with the first death, but he keeps escalating his attacks on Hallie. And that of course brings Jim to help protect the woman he’s realizing that he is still attracted to.

I read this all in one sitting. Even though I didn’t buy that the bad guy would keep going after Hallie and it wasn’t that difficult to guess who it turned out to be, James builds up suspense interspersed with the growing feelings between Hallie and Jim as they both discover the strength to build a deep relationship on the sexual attraction between them.

Harmony and High Heels (Fort Worth Wranglers #2) by Tracy Wolff and Katie Graykowski

Harmony and High Heels is a sequel to the authors' earlier romance, Lyric and Lingerie. The romance in this book involves Harmony, the twin sister of the heroine of the first book. Harmony lives a rather confused life. She pretends to be the good daughter that her mother demands. She dresses conservatively and bakes delicacies in the bakery that she and her mother co-own. But deep down, she prides herself on being a bad girl. She hides tattoos and body piercings and her participation in a combo baker/cage-match TV show. And now the producers of that show want her to star in her own TV show, Bad-Ass Baker.

In her desire to change her reputation as a good girl, she drags her twin sister to a biker bar where they get in a fight and are rescued by her brother-in-law, a retired quarterback, and Dalton, the GM of the Super Bowl winners, the Fort Worth Wranglers. Dalton is immediately attracted to Harmony and likes her for her bad-girl vibe.

There are cute moments in the book, but the whole set-up is just too unbelievable. We’re supposed to believe that Harmony wants to change her reputation, yet every time she does something the slightest bit shocking, people think it’s her astrophysicist twin sister. The woman is so insecure yet also willing to be outragerous.

The book starts out with her throwing a rather immature fit because Lyric, the twin, cannot go BASE skiing with her in South America because her husband worries that his wife’s klutziness would endanger her. Harmony screeches up and down about how her sister is letting her husband dictate her life, but she knows that her sister is a klutz; why would she want her sister to take on a dangerous sport when she’s not experienced at it. Harmony just comes off as an immature and insecure harridan. I liked Dalton a lot but Harmony just got on my nerves.

But if you don’t mind suspending disbelief about the plot and character, the book was funny and there were some cute scenes. I would have liked more on Dalton’s job as GM of a football team. It just seemed like he was given that job title and a few events to go to, but he could just as easily have had any sort of business job. What’s the point of having a sports romance if there isn’t any sports in it?

Thank you to the authors for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Flawed by Tracy Wolff

This is the fourth in a series of book about Ethan Frost.  But it isn’t about Ethan Frost, but about his brother-in-law.  And since I hadn’t read the first three books, I didn’t care.  The heroine, Tori, is a hot mess.  She’s a wealthy socialite living off her trust fund but searching for love in all the wrong places because her parents are cold to her and her father is a ***hole.  She seemed like a Paris Hilton sort of character.  Add in her hair dyed a rainbow of colors and a body full of tattoos and I was having a hard time warming up to her.

The hero, Miles, is one of these guys who appear only in romance novels.  He’s a computer genius with mad hacking skills that the Russians must covet.  He’s also extremely tormented by what had happened to his sister in the earlier novels when, we learn early on, their parents reacted to her being raped by a rich guy by accepting money from the guy’s family to fund Miles’ research so they could all become rich off the sister’s rape.  He didn’t know about that but blames himself for being so oblivious.  

Tori is the sister’s best friend.  While Miles and Tori can’t forgive Miles for profiting unknowingly from her rape, the sister has forgiven and gone on to marry Ethan Frost who is so wonderful and rich that he got this whole series of novels named after him.

Bad stuff happens to Tori because she has made bad choices about the guys she slept with.  Her father disowns her and basically flings her to the paparazzi.  She ends up having to stay in a house with Miles.  Of course, they get over their mutual antagonism and have hot sex.   They have some more hot sex.  And then Miles uses his mad computer skills to get revenge on Tori’s behalf.

I couldn’t warm up to Tori.  She seemed immature instead of simply “flawed” as the title indicates.  The H and h go from her strongly disliking him and his being contemptuous towards her to hot sex in the middle of her crisis.  This did not make her more mature in my eyes, but that is basically what we’re supposed to believe.  In the space of a couple days they fall deeply in love and all their flaws are fixed.  I found that I didn’t care about her or her problems.  

If Miles were as hot and smart as he’s depicted, he could have done much better, but I guess he was too flawed to leave the house to find another, more mature woman, so had to make do with the flawed woman who suddenly showed up ready to distract him from his research into making a miracle desalination  process that would save California from its drought.  Because computer programming nerds also can be desalination engineers.  And also very muscular and hot because they have all that time to build up their muscles while being nerds.  Just go with it.

Thank you to Net Galley for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The Billionaire’s Stubborn Lover (The Maxfield Brothers Series Book 3) by Leslie North

The Billionaire's Stubborn Lover is the third in a series of books about the Maxfields. I hadn’t read the previous two books and that might have helped. First of all, as romance writers do these days, the title has “billionaire” in the title. Isn’t anyone a millionaire anymore? Well, if I read a billionaire romance, the guy’s level of wealth and position in the world should be part of the story at some point. That’s fine, but don’t try to cash in on the billionaire romance craze by sticking it there in the title. If I didn’t see the title, I wouldn’t have thought that Nathan Maxfield, the hero, was even a millionaire. What he is is an architect who wants to design interesting buildings that use green energy. He’s come to work at his family’s firm and now has the assignment to design a building where there is a series of small businesses for a conservative-minded businessman who isn’t interested in anything besides a functional box. For a billionaire business, the three Maxfield brothers seem to be extraordinarily dependent on getting this contract. That was never made clear why that was, but maybe it was clarified in the earlier books.

Nathan is falling for Carolina, the sister of the wife of his brother. She is working managing her mother’s Mexican restaurant which just happens to be one of the businesses to lose its spot where Nathan’s new project will go up.

Carolina has been married three times and has three small children. And her mother is a pain who resists any changes she wants to make in the restaurant and seems unreasonably hostile which she seems to take with more equanimity than I would have.

Carolina and Nathan fall for each other. There are lots of complications from their families and businesses and romantic histories. Don’t be surprised that they are able to fight through those complications to find their HEA. Maybe I would have enjoyed the book more if I'd read the first two so I could keep the other family members straight, but without that background, the book was just mildly entertaining and occasionally irritating. I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review

Giving It All by Christi Barth

This is the third in Barth’s Naked Men series. No, the series isn’t about what you might be thinking from its title. It concerns five young men who are in a bad accident in the Alps while in high school and how that one crisis had an impact on all their lives. Now that they’re grown up, they had a blog and then a podcast called Naked Men which was just them discussing guy stuff. I’m not sure how many guys would hang around discussing topics like their relationships, but women probably enjoy thinking that they did.

Giving It All is about Logan who has just flown back from Kazakhstan upon hearing that he has a younger sister he never knew about. That sister is Madison from Wanting It All. Logan works in disaster relief traveling to places where a catastrophe has ruined the lives of so many so that he can help them rebuild their lives. He’s a genuinely good guy with somewhat of a hero complex. On the way back while stopped on a Caribbean island, he happens to run into Brooke Gallagher, the girl he had a crush on in high school. They enjoy a fling during a hurricane because well, who wouldn’t? They bond in that one night together.

They both return to Washington, D.C. where Logan reconnects with his four best friends and gets to know his new sister. And he and Brooke, of course, continue their fling.

Nothing in this book is that surprising. The reader can figure out pretty quickly that these two former friends are going to fall in love instead of just having a fling. And he’s going to want to leave to return to disaster relief, but hate to leave Brooke behind.

The fun is in the journey of following along as Logan and Brooke learn more about themselves and what they need to be happy and fulfilled in their lives.

It was a plus for me that they do this while exploring unexpected sites in Washington, D.C. where I lived for four years and enjoyed revisiting some of these locations. It made me want to follow in their tracks and explore some of those hidden, romantic locations.

I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review

Dream Maker: A Nashville Nights Novel by Erin McCarthy

If you can suspend disbelief, Dream Maker is an enjoyable read. Avery O’Leary is a naive Kentucky girl who has just wasted 8 years on a romance with a guy who treats her badly and won’t even sleep with her. And he’s not all that great looking either. They’ve both come to Nashville hoping to break into the country-music business. Avery is an aspiring songwriter and she also wants to find her half-brother who doesn’t know that his father had a brief little affair and abandoned Avery and her mother. As soon as they arrive in Nashville, she finds out that the guy who refuses to make love to her has been sleeping around. She jumps out of his truck in the middle of the night forgetting to bring her purse with her. How clueless is this girl?

But lucky for her, Shane Hart, a successful music manager just happens to be right there to help her out since he can’t leave a young woman alone without money or a phone in the middle of the night in the city. He’s a guy who sleeps around a lot, but refuses to get close to any woman because he fears his own demons.

Of course, they’re attracted to each other and spend an unforgettable night together. They can’t forget the other and when they finally meet up again, the attraction is as strong as ever despite Avery’s reluctance to get involved with such a successful guy because no one will then believe that she made it on her own with her music.

It’s a good sign that you’re enjoying the book if you wish it would be longer. But it can also be a bad sign that the author hasn’t developed the characters and their relationship enough. I liked the set-up, but it all got resolved too quickly and neatly. Once that first night is over, the book goes into overdrive to wind it up. I would have liked more depth and a more leisurely finish. But I still enjoyed the book and would definitely read more in the series.

I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review

Top Shelf: An Aces Hockey Novel by Kelly Jamieson

Top Shelf is another in Jamieson’s enjoyable series revolving around hockey players for the fictional Chicago Aces. The hero in this book is Jared Rudd who also owns a restaurant/bar called the Sin Bin. Into the bar walks Sidney Frayne who, without realizing that Jared is the owner, starts criticizing the martini menu. He finds her hot; she finds him hot. You know where this is going, right?

He hires her to revamp his martini menu and they quickly fall into bed together. They both agree that neither wants a romantic relationship; they just want sex. You know what happens to those vows, right?

So the basic plot is pretty predictable. The fun is in seeing their relationship develop, learning about martinis and eavesdropping on Sidney and her friends and Jared and his teammates. Sometimes, it seemed that Jamieson was taking shortcuts as the plot developed. There would be a set-up for the two to do something together and then we’d go to the next chapter and that scene was in the past. It makes the book read faster, but I was enjoying the characters and the dialogue and would have enjoyed reading the anticipated scene play out instead of just being passed over. All this is interspersed with a lot of sex - more than I remembered from her previous books. I would have preferred more character development and less descriptions of her giving him oral sex. I’m not a prude in reading contemporary romances, but I didn’t need to read that more than once.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Hard to Fall by Marquita Valentine

There was just too much stuffed into Hard to Fall. There were so many different plot elements going on and it would have been better if the author had done more to build up a few of the plots instead of just introducing new elements and resolving things too quickly.

The hero, Hayden Walker is a hunky firefighter who loves his job and has risen to be a leader of his crew. However, he’s also the oldest son of a North Carolina U.S. senator who wants Hayden to run for office, something Hayden has no interest in doing. He resents his father’s derision for his job, but can’t seem to make his father understand this. Saylor Dean is the only daughter of a world-famous actress and the unacknowledged child of a selfish politician. She has never met her father.

Spoiler Alerts: Add in a drunken, secret marriage, Hayden’s father blackmail that Hayden get married or run for office, Saylor’s meetings with her father and half-sister who just happened to be Hayden’s one-time fiance, a surprise pregnancy, an arson investigation, threats to Hayden’s career, and the need to foil a villain.

All of these plot devices get thrown into the story lickety-split and then get resolved pretty quickly and easily instead of building a more realistic plot. I mean how likely is it that a guy could be so drunk for two days that he has total amnesia about making love with a woman and then marrying her? I just don’t buy that. And the believability declines from there. Since when can a US senator crush the career of a local fireman? Since when does a politician hire an arson investigator to throw the investigation just to get some info on a political rival? And do it all by email on an unsecured private server that is easily hacked? I guess Hillary Clinton’s server woes are now becoming plot devices in romance novels.

The hero and heroine are very likable and I was pulling for them. If only the author had had more faith in her characters to build a plot with a bit more realism in it.

I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Becoming a Legend by Sarah Robinson

Becoming a Legend is another book in the a series about the Kavanaughs who are associated with MMA fighting. The hero is Kane Kavanaugh who is preparing for a national title bout. But he’s distracted by his attraction to Nora, the best friend of his brother’s wife. Their romance was told in the second book in the series, Saving a Legend. The book starts out with Kane and Nora supposedly clashing with each other every time they meet. They get over that very quickly, so quickly that it was rather unbelievable that there had been that antagonistic sexual tension between them. They then start an affair, but Nora blows hot and cold since she has her own problems with her family.

She doesn’t feel loved and is bankrupting herself to give money to her selfish mother so she can go out gambling. Really? I just wanted to shake her and tell her to grow a spine instead of endangering her own education and career possibilities in order to feed her mother’s gambling problems.

There are also some shenanigans involved with the fight Kane is preparing for that are hinted at in the prologue. That intrigued me and kept me reading to find out how that was going to be resolved.

I didn’t read the first book in this series so I missed any explanation of how the Kavanaughs got so very wealthy and influential in their community. They own a gym, but there are hints that the father has mob connections but isn’t a member of the mob himself. There are also references to the plotline from the second book which I had read but didn’t remember very well. I don’t want authors to spend a lot of time rehashing previous books, but it would help to have a few clarifying sentences to help readers who hadn’t read the earlier books.

I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review

Dark Corners: A True Heroes Novel by A. M. Madden

Dark Corners was a captivating read. I couldn’t put it down. It started out as a rather standard story as a wealthy woman, Maygen, literally bumps into a super sexy guy and spills coffee all over herself. He’s charming and they end up seeing each other. The hero, David Cavello, is the rather mysterious brother in Madden’s previous book, Glass Ceilings, who had worked to protect his younger sister from the threat from a former lover who is in the mob. We find that David is tormented by PTSD from his time serving in Iraq. Maygen has a rather ill-defined job working for a prominent dress designer. I never could figure out exactly what her job was. She’s the daughter of a prominent PR agent who is super overprotective of Maygen. She rejects his protection and insists on making her own way.

For the first half of the book, we’re just riding along as the romance slowly develops between David and Maygen. David has some unspoken reason why he doesn’t want to take the relationship deeper even though he is really attracted to Maygen and finds that being with her helps reduce his PTSD symptoms.

Then suddenly, halfway through the book, there is a surprise plot development that I hadn’t seen coming, though looking back, I could see how she had provided clues for the surprise. Then the story revolves around whether Maygen can forgive David underlaid with a suspense plot.

The book kept me interested all the way through. The sexual attraction is hot, but it did seem that, after they finally consummated their relationship, there were way too many sex scenes. After a while, I just wanted the plot to go forward and find out what was going to happen. THe suspense part of the plot was introduced too quickly and then resolved too quickly. I thought the author could have done more with that part of the plot. I am finding more and more romantic suspense novels where there is a somewhat suspenseful build-up and then it gets resolved in a few pages more quickly than most of the sex scenes.

I had read the previous book, Glass Ceilings, but hadn’t remembered the details. There were quite a few references to that book and I had to go back and read my review of that book to remember what had happened. I enjoyed that book also so I recommend reading both of them.

I received an ARC of this book, from the publisher, via NetGallery, in exchange for a fair and honest review

Catch Me, Cowboy by Jeannie Watt

Catch Me, Cowboy is a first in what will be a series of rodeo-related romances. This story is about a champion rodeo star Ty Harding returning to the town where he grew up and to his first and true love, Shelby O’Connor. She had begged him not to leave, but Ty had felt that he needed to give the rodeo a try to see what he could do before he settled down. His father had settled and gotten married and always regretted it. His father had then channeled his frustrated ambitions into his sons’ rodeo careers. Ty doesn’t want to turn int a bitter man as his father had so he left even though he lost Shelby’s love with his decision.

Now he’s back and Shelby can’t deny what she feels for him. He volunteers to help out her grandfather to fence in some of his ranch land and then, wouldn’t you know it, he and Shelby recover what was between them.

This was a sweet second-chance romance. I was a little irritated with Shelby since she was the one who refused to try to keep their relationship going when he went on the circuit. I don’t have much patience for her all-or-nothing attitude and her refusal to let the man she purportedly loves a chance to pursue his dreams. With some wisdom from her very wise grandfather, she comes to see what she could be giving up.

Of course, everything works out and the two likable protagonists manage to find what they had lost four years ago. It was clear where there was going, but I enjoyed hanging in there for the ride.

I was provided a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Take Me Deeper by Jackie Ashenden

I enjoyed the first book in this series, I enjoyed the first book in this series, Take Me Deeper, about bounty hunters or “fugitive recovery agents.” But this one...not so much. Nora is supposed to be this tough, smart bounty hunter who always brings in her target. Now she’s assigned to go after a biker who is the second in command of a biker gang with an outlaw background. So what does this clever girl decide to do - march into the biker bar and confront a whole crowd of them including the head of the gang, who turns out to be the guy she hung out to dry when she was just 18. And then, when she realizes who the new head of the gang is - because she’s so tough, she didn’t do any research ahead of time - she continues to confront them and him and make her demands like everyone is going to smile and hand over their guy. Come on. What follows is a whole lot of sexual tension and then sexual action and not a lot of plot. We are presented with all the angst about how she did him wrong and then they have sex and then we see how he’s still angry and they have some more sex and she is still getting over her daddy issues and then they have more sex. You get the idea.

The whole set-up of her trying to bring in his best buddy is quickly and easily resolved at the end. I just couldn’t find myself to care about either the H or h and it was irritating to get this whole set up that is basically dropped. Hopefully, the next book in the series will do more to deliver on the promise of the first and not skimp on either plot or character development. I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.">Take Me Deeper, about bounty hunters or “fugitive recovery agents.” But this one...not so much. Nora is supposed to be this tough, smart bounty hunter who always brings in her target. Now she’s assigned to go after a biker who is the second in command of a biker gang with an outlaw background. So what does this clever girl decide to do - march into the biker bar and confront a whole crowd of them including the head of the gang, who turns out to be the guy she hung out to dry when she was just 18. And then, when she realizes who the new head of the gang is - because she’s so tough, she didn’t do any research ahead of time - she continues to confront them and him and make her demands like everyone is going to smile and hand over their guy. Come on.

What follows is a whole lot of sexual tension and then sexual action and not a lot of plot. We are presented with all the angst about how she did him wrong and then they have sex and then we see how he’s still angry and they have some more sex and she is still getting over her daddy issues and then they have more sex. You get the idea. The whole set-up of her trying to bring in his best buddy is quickly and easily resolved at the end.

I just couldn’t find myself to care about either the H or h and it was irritating to get this whole set up that is basically dropped. Hopefully, the next book in the series will do more to deliver on the promise of the first and not skimp on either plot or character development.

I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lured In: A Fishing for Trouble Novel by Laura Drewry

Lured In is the second book in Drewry’s series about a small, remote fishing vacation lodge, the Buoys, owned by the O’Donnell brothers. In this story, the heroine, Jessie, has lived there since she was 17 and has almost single-handedly kept the place running. The only problem is that she is terrified of water so she lives a pretty isolated life in this remote location that is accessible only by boat and helijet. The youngest O’Donnell brother, Finn, has long had a crush on Jessie, but he’s afraid of making any move on her so he just is her very good friend. When the star of a popular fishing program who once had an affair with Jessie decides to come film at the Buoys, she decides that it’s time that she learn to overcome her terror of the water and Finn is just the guy to help her. What I liked about this book is that the romance between Jessie and Finn develops on a realistic trajectory. They’ve been friends for years and, in the process of helping her to overcome her fear of the water, they realize they love each other. There are a few complications, but nothing that is unrealistic to the characters or impossible to overcome. The O’Donnell brothers truly love each other, but they relate to each other the way guys seem to do in romance novels with lots of jokes and playful physical abuse. I always enjoy friends-to-lovers romances, maybe because that’s how it developed between me and my husband, but also because I find that the most realistic way to understand romance instead of these novels where the two meet each other and immediately feel some sort of physical electric connection. I really liked Finn - he’s just a good guy. Both he and Jessie have complicated personal histories and hang-ups, but he’s more open than she is and was willing to open up to her about his past and then to express his feelings to her. The setting is interesting - this remote fishing lodge in the Pacific Northwest. There is no one else there except the family, the love interest of one brother, Jessie, and the cook. It sounds pretty bare as far as modern conveniences. You either like to fish or you’d have very little to do there. It doesn’t appeal to me and I find it hard to believe that they could make a financial go of it, plus I can’t imagine the logistics of bringing everything in to run their lodge and feed guests by boat. It’s obvious that the next book will be about the oldest brother. I wonder how Drewry will bring in some female character for him to fall in love with. I know I’ll be reading it to find out. The story follows an arc of build-up of the romance which is then consummated and they’re a match a little past the midpoint. There are then some financial complications introduced that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone. That all gets resolved very quickly and easily with somewhat of a deus ex machina development by the end of the book. I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Always Be True: Tino by Alexis Morgan

Always Be True is the second in Morgan’s series of Sergeant Joe’s Boys about three boys adopted by Joe and his wife and the men they grew to being. All three went into the military in honor of the man who taught them what it means to be honorable men. Now Joe is dead and they’re one-by-one returning home to help out their adopted mother. The first book, Always for You, was about the oldest son, Jack. This book is about the second son, Tino, and is similar to the first in that it is sensitively written about quite likable people.

Tino has returned from ten years serving around the world in the Military Police. His life is at a crossroads and he just can’t decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life. His mother sends him to volunteer at a local community center seeking volunteers to help in remodeling. There he meets Natalie who is in charge of the community center remodel. She and Tino are attracted to each other and start dating. He is surprised to find out that she is very wealthy and the head of the charitable foundation funding the center’s remodel. As a blue-collar guy who has been through the foster-care system, he’s uncomfortable with the disparities in their backgrounds, but he’s willing to give their growing relationship a try.

So many romances just tell us that the couple are attracted to each other. This novel shows us by including the witty banter between them as they first meet and then expanding the scope of their conversations as they grow to know each other better. Tino is just the nicest guy. Sure he’s hunky and a bit alpha, but he’s also working hard to fit into Natalie’s world. The scenes with Natalie’s grandfather are quite charming. And Natalie is a lovely woman who is dedicated to using her family’s money to help others. She’s not concerned with where people are from, but who they are. The only questionable aspect is why such a delightful and kind woman would have ever been engaged to the jerk who was her ex-fiance. I found that unbelievable, but he provided a bit of tension in what is really a gentle, love story about two fine and admirable people.

I was also glad to see Jack and his adopted son Ricky from the first book. This is a really enjoyable series and I’m looking forward to reading about the third brother, Mikhail.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Glass Ceilings by A. M. Madden

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but I can tell you that Glass Ceilings by A. M. Madden would have been worth purchasing if I hadn’t gotten it from free. In fact, as soon as I finished it, I went online to buy the book that preceded it, Stone Walls. The story begins with undercover FBI agent, Nick Farley, meeting an attractive, but shy and reserved brunette, Angela Cavallo, at the bar where he’s been working to take down an organized crime family in Chicago. He and Angela get together for a short time and fall deeply for each other. However, Angela fears that her past will threaten Nick’s life, so she breaks it off with him, hiding the fact that she is pregnant. Fast forward a couple of years, and the two reconnect when she is a person of interest in a murder that Nick and the FBI are investigating. I’m always a sucker for hidden baby storylines. This one is especially well done as Nick falls for his baby son. Soon he and Angela are rediscovering their love while Nick worries about protecting his new family. I was really caught up in their story and couldn’t put the Kindle down until I’d finished the story.

Lyric and Lingerie by Tracy Wolff and Katie Graykowski

Lyric and Lingerie is a very funny, lighthearted romance. It gets a big slapstick and silly at points which I usually don’t like, but it worked for this novel. We first meet the heroine, Lyric, as she’s rushing to catch a plane from Hawaii to Texas to see her father who is in the hospital. In her hurry she hasn’t been able to change out of the short, sexy dress she was wearing at a cocktail party. The dress rips and a hilarious airplane steward, Tre, wraps her in duct tape to preserve a modicum of decency. Really? There aren’t any sweaters or uniforms on the airplane? Just roll with it because it’s a novel. I would have enjoyed more of Tre - he was a hoot! And, of course, as happens only in romantic novels, she is seated next to Heath Montgomery, the extremely hunky quarterback whom she was best friends with in high school and had a deep crush on as a teenager.

For reasons unclear to the reader, Lyric chose to lose her virginity to him without making it clear to him that she was the one making love with him, not her identical twin, Harmony. Then she felt humiliated when he calls her by her twin’s name. Come on. How can she blame him when she didn’t make it clear? Then she and her twin broke off all contact with him from that time to the present. That part of the plot could have been a little bit more, er...fleshed out. Heath grew up to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, but now he’s suffered a career-ending injury. He has to figure out what he’s going to do for the rest of his life. While he’s thinking it over, why not hang out with his former best friend who has grown up to be a very hot lady? She’s also shy and insecure because, as often happens in the world of romance novels, she’s been dumped by her former fiance. She’s a brilliant astrophysicist. You wouldn’t think that a genius-level astrophysicist would have much in common with a former quarterback, but so it is. After all, have I mentioned that they’re both hot. Heath maneuvers Lyric into a pretend engagement so we can hit another romance-novel trope, but it’s very sweet how he’s trying to win her back. What I enjoyed most about the book was the witty dialogue between Lyric and Heath. Heath seems like a very nice man who deserved better than how Lyric and Harmony treated him back in high school. The book is funny and enjoyable.

I received a free review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Three Wise Men Box Set by Serenity Woods

This is a great series of novels and I highly recommend them. The Perfect Gift I’ve read several books by Serenity Woods in her Treats series and enjoyed those, but this is my favorite novel from her so far that I’ve read. Yes, it’s a billionaire guy falls for a poor, single mother plot and we’ve seen way too many of those, But it’s not in a 50 Shades of Gray sort of book. Instead, it’s a very sweet story about Brock who has had a hard time recovering from the too-early death of his beloved wife from cancer. Erin is a poor woman whose boyfriend took off as soon as she got pregnant. Now she has an adorable, little boy about to turn three years old. Brock and his two brothers have made a fortune having cooperated to invent medical devices for children with pulmonary diseases. Brock has met Erin online at the website that he and his brothers created for parents to talk to each other and ask questions. Erin’s son has asthma. Brock and Erin have become friends as he’s helped her understand her son’s condition. She has no idea that she’s talking to a billionaire. When they finally meet, Brock falls for her and goes after with a determined push to win her heart. She has her own doubts wondering if his money is what is really attracting her and if he will ever grow to doubt that she loves him for who he is rather than what he can provided for her and her son. Bkrock is almost too good to be true. He’s a sexy doctor with a heart of gold who just wants to help children and he also happens to be a billionaire. (And seriously, isn’t any guy a millionaire any more? They always seem to be billionaires. Inflation has hit the romance novel.) Brock’s character is what made this story stand out among so many billionaire love stories. These were two kind-hearted, good people. They are working to find each other and their HEA. Sure, there are some sexy scenes, but the story is really about how a poor woman can grow comfortable with loving a good man who just happens to be monster rich. I enjoyed their story. I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. An Ideal Present This is the second book in Serenity Woods’ Three Kings series about a group of three brothers who are super rich. In a switch from some of the more typical billionaire/poor woman romances, these brothers have earned their money because they developed medical devices to help sick children and decorated the devices with characters from a series of popular children’s books that one of them has written. Two of the brothers are doctors and one is the author. These are not your average alpha billionaires featured in so many romance novels since Fifty Shades of Grey. I appreciate that. I am tired of all the young, gorgeous, alpha billionaires who just want the woman for sex until they have some sort of realization that they actually love her. I’m afraid that too many billionaires today are more likely to look like Donald Trump than Jamie Doman. The hero of this story is Charlie King and he is just a wonderful guy. And he’s a different sort of hero. He has an Asberger’s-like personality which manifests itself in uncertainty in how people are reacting to him and what they want of him. He’s brilliant; he’s the brother who invented the medical devices that have made the brothers so rich. He had a relationship end badly because his old girlfriend wanted him to be more aggressive in bed and he just couldn’t fathom why any woman would want that sort of abuse. He’s a good guy who wants a relationship but doesn’t trust his own instincts. The heroine is Ophelia, but she’s no weak woman as Hamlet’s Ophelia was. She has just left her husband of seven years because she has had it with his manipulative personality. She has a daughter who suffers from cystic fibrosis. I think this must be an aspect of this series - to have the heroines have sick children. While Charlie is hunky in looks and rich, what attracts Ophelia is his kind personality and his brains. She understands what he goes through in his difficulties in relationships but doesn’t mind. She’s willing to tell him quite openly what she wants and what she thinks so there isn’t any of the contrived misunderstandings that some romances have. Instead, they just talk things out like mature adults. Imagine that in a romance novel. I really liked the mature relationship between these two. Charlie doesn’t feel he has to be an alpha guy when Ophelia is hurt by her former husband because, as he tells her, while he’d like to go medieval on the guy, he knows that she can fight her own battles. Although he does have a creative threat for the ex-husband. And another thing - too many times the ex-husband is an evil, threatening guy. Ophelia’s ex might not be the guy she wants now, but he loves her deeply and is a good and loving father to their sick daughter. I appreciated that. I also liked that the little girl is treated as more than a plot prop of a sick child. She is a person and more than a victim of her disease. Charlie says that he is working on a research possibility to use gene therapy for CF patients. That made me curious and it seems that that is indeed where the research is focusing today for CF. There is one little mistake in the book. At one point her phone is broken and a few pages later she gets a text on it. But that didn’t detract from the book. If I had a complaint, it would be that the books is too short. I think this was supposed to be a novella and then the author decided to write it as a novel. It seems to get wrapped up and present the happy ending quite quickly. But maybe the fact that I thought it ended too quickly is a function of my having enjoyed spending time with these characters. I’ll definitely be looking for third book that tells Matt King’s story. I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. A Secret Parcel I have enjoyed the earlier two books in this trilogy, Three Kings, about three New Zealand brothers, the Kings, who have become billionaires . They made their fortune designing medical devices to help children with lung diseases and one element of the devices is that they feature the characters from the brother, Matt, who is an artist and author of a best-selling children’s series of books. Georgia is a single mother who has applied for a job managing one of the offices of their foundation to handle charitable enterprises. Matt immediately is interested in George from the moment he spots her waiting for an interview. But he has bided his time before making his move to go from employer to boyfriend to everything else he wants from her. George is coping with a rebellious 11-year old son who is having a lot of trouble dealing with the tragic death of his father. She has moved to the northern part of New Zealand to get away from an overbearing mother who has been making both her and her son miserable. While she sends her son to visit her parents, she and Matt indulge in a romantic affair as they realize how much they have in common. He’s much more than a wealthy playboy, the role she’d slotted him into. In fact he is practically perfect except for his insecurities that he doesn’t measure up to his brothers because he’s not a doctor or inventor. But he’s a great artist and writer and she helps him see how much he has given children. In fact, I found him so much more appealing and there didn’t seem to be a real reason for him to love Georgia other than that he was attracted to her looks. I appreciate the difficulties she was having with her son, but once we find out the backstory to her marriage, her sending him off to stay with her parents by himself when he begs her not to seems either terribly insensitive or just a plot device to get the kid out of the way so she can romance it up with Matt. For fans of other Serenity Woods novels, it was nice to catch up with Mozart the rescue dog her book, A Festive Treat. You don’t have to have read the earlier books in the Three Kings series to enjoy this one, but I recommend them. I really have enjoyed the series as each brother meets and falls for a single mother whose children have problems in their health or dealing with personal problems as Georgia’s son does in this one. The three books take place simultaneously as we come to find out as the brothers talk on the phone about their romances. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for my review, and I was not required to write a positive review. The opinion expressed here is my own.