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.