Oh, the problems of being a handsome, wealthy duke. Silvester has to get married and decides that the one woman for him is Yasmin, the beautiful, but scandalous, toast of the season. His wise mother advises him that she’s not for him and the woman who has the most strength of character is Stella. Apparently, Stella has demonstrated that by refusing to not wear her glasses as other young lady might to put up a false facade of perfection. Well, of course Stella is the exactly right woman for him and Silvester comes to realize this and, in the way of romance novels, Stella becomes more and more attractive to him as he falls for her. Add in a marriage of convenience that soon turns quite passionate. I had read the earlier book about Yasmin’s romance which is contemporaneous with the plot of this book. I hadn’t remembered much of that book, but it didn’t end up mattering much. If you don’t like a plot where the hero is attracted to another woman for the earlier parts of the book, you can read and enjoy this story. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

I Flipping Love You by Helena Hunting

This book was so much fun! It had the right mix of hotness along with character and plot development. It is always a pleasure when an author writes dialogue that is both witty as well as capturing why two characters are attracted to each other. Too often we’re told they talked and liked each other, but not shown what it is that they said because the author is not talented enough to write the sort of dialogue that we’re being told happened. Not in this book.

Rian meets the hot and wealthy Pierce in a grocery store. He’s immediately attracted to her and enjoys setting her off just to see her give him sass right back. He goes after her and she turns him down several times despite being attracted to him. But, as they get to know one another (and have hot sex together) she comes to realize that he’s more than the sexy, arrogant, rich guy in the Hamptons that she thinks he is. Well, he’s all that, but he is also just a really nice guy. Sure, he’s arrogant especially as he goes after, but it’s sexy on him.

Rian has her own family history that she’s hiding from him, but we know already that Pierce is basically a good guy so it will all come right in the end. And we’ll have fun flipping for Pierce and this book as the story goes on.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book that I received from Netgalley; however, the opinions are my own and I did not receive any compensation for my review.

Too Scot to Handle by Grace Burrowes

I always enjoy Grace Burrowes’ writing. She has intelligent and decent characters who actually talk to each other. Too often in romances, we’re told that a couple had a long conversation and grew closer. But we don’t get to read more than a couple of sentences from that conversation. We just have to take the author’s word for it that they bonded over that conversation. Burrowes actually gives us that dialogue. We can understand why these two fell for each other and see what connects them. We can read Colin’s respect for Anwen as a person instead of being told that he feels it.

The plotline in Too Scot to Handle isn’t all that extraordinary. Colin MacHugh is hanging around in London to accompany his sisters while his brother, a newly-made duke is on his honeymoon. Colin is tired of the phony sorts of London women who are suddenly attracted to him because his brother is a duke and he runs a profitable distillery, but don’t give a hoot about him personally. The one woman who interests him is the sister of his brother’s new wife Anwen Windham. She might appear quiet and demure in public, but he senses that there is a lot more to her.

Anwen isn’t interested in the London bachelors who are interested only in her dowry. Sensing a pattern here? Her main interest is finding funding for the orphan’s home of the most adorable young boys that she sponsors and that is running out of money. Colin is interested in her so he helps with the boys and the House of Urchins.

Colin and Anwen quickly fall for each other and are perfectly matched. The only tension in the plot comes in the last quarter of the book regarding Colin’s selfish friend and Anwen’s selfish friend. You can see how closely these two resemble each other and how well suited they are just from this description. Some people might object to the lack of conflict separating the lovers and minimal barrier that they have to overcome. I didn’t mind that because the fun of the book is Burrowes’ fine writing and the delightful conversations.

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

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.