Tag: Bedroom-Door-Slightly-Ajar Romance

Review: Jeannie Chin’s THE HOUSE ON MULBERRY STREET (Blue Cedar Falls #3)

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House_Mulberry_StreetTruth be told, I wanted to read Chin’s romance, and she a new-to-me romance author, because of the adorable cover. Cute house, great old-lady-pantsuit violet, and a puppy! (I love puppies, though I’m virulently allergic to them, which means a puppy-infused romance novel is an auto-sell; sadly, the puppy doesn’t show up till the last act…) For the most part, the goodness without was matched by the goodness within. I found humour, a wonderful hero, great friend-group, interesting family dynamics, and a great setting. The romance? I wish I could say I believed whole-heartedly in it. Here’s the set-up, thanks to the publisher’s blurb:

Between helping at her family’s inn and teaching painting, Elizabeth Wu has put her dream of being an artist on the back burner. But her plan to launch an arts festival will boost the local Blue Cedar Falls arts scene and give her a showcase for her own work. If only she can get the town council on board. At least she can rely on her dependable best friend Graham to support her. Except lately, he hasn’t been acting like his old self, and she has no idea why.

Graham Lewis has been secretly in love with Elizabeth forever, but it’s past time that he faces the cold, hard truth: vivacious, amazing Elizabeth will never see him as anything but a platonic pal. He’s going to help her get the festival off the ground, but after that he needs to forget his one-sided crush. Until one impulsive kiss changes everything. Can they really rebuild their entire relationship—and the festival—from the ground up? Or will it all come crashing down? (more…)

REVIEW: Sonali Dev’s RECIPE FOR PERSUASION (The Rajes #2)

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Recipe_For_PersuasionI admit I was super-pumped to read Dev’s second “Rajes” romance because I adored Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavours. Moreover, though I can never quite come to a conclusion, it’s possible Persuasion, with its older, melancholic hero and heroine and their second-chance-at-love romance, may be my favourite Austen. And Recipe For had that rom-com publisher designation and a compellingly-Bollywood-ish storyline, signature Dev. From the back cover blurb:

Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn’t a complete screw up? When she’s asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She’s a chef, what’s the worst that could happen? Rico Silva, that’s what. Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster.

FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn’t too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he’s definitely over her. But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce…and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico.  Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak—or a recipe for persuasion…?

This “rom-com” publisher hint may drive me batty. Hear this, fellow readers, Dev’s novel is light on rom and zilch on com. I had issues with Recipe for Persuasion, but I don’t fault the author on how publisher’s choose to market books. (more…)

Mini-Review: Kaki Warner’s ROUGH CREEK

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Rough_CreekIf you are looking to read great historical Western romance, you’re in for a treat with Kaki Warner’s Blood Rose Trilogy. Because I’d loved it and despaired of seeing more from Warner, I was delighted to see she was back with contemporary Western romance. I’m not keen on cowboys and I hate horsey stories, but, hey, Warner! And I happily plunged into Rough Creek. The blurb made me nervous there would be too many horsey details and I was right, but the protagonists are always what’s best in Warner. The blurb was encouraging:

 
I do love me some simmering “heart-pounding tension”. Sadly, it’s not what I got: instead, a story about two careful, caring people who hadn’t exercised their heart muscles, or any others for that matter, in ages, a drawn-out dance of closeness, then distance, and a halting pace to the HEA.

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Michelle Douglas’s REDEMPTION OF THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE

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Redemption_Maverick_MillionaireI adore a reunited-lovers trope and Michelle Douglas has given us a gem of a treatment in Redemption Of the Maverick Millionaire. She has penned a betrayal story that is NOT a sexual betrayal and yet, is viscerally compelling. With my beloved category romances at a minimum of goodness and telescoping my category reading to a handful of authors, a great category is always welcome. Redemption Of the Maverick Millionaire is a great category romance, well-written, tightly-paced, and driven by character and sentiment.

Damon Macy encounters Eve Clark at a moment when he cuts a deal to buy property in her beloved town of Mirror Glass Bay. What she doesn’t know is that he’s motivated by one sole desire: to make up for how he hurt her four years ago and gain some measure of peace by redeeming his then godawful actions. Hence, the title. What he doesn’t know is that Eve wanted that property to be developed, not to keep it pristine. Mirror Glass Bay can’t afford that: to keep their town’s essential services, like an elementary school and clinic, residents like small-business owner Eve need to drum up investment. For a few minutes, Eve believes Damon has foiled and upended her life again … and Damon is mortified. He swiftly moves into Eve’s beachfront hotel, the only deal in town, and goes about ensuring that Eve gets exactly what she wants: investment, development, and the revivification of her beloved home, where she’s lived since his betrayal, with her gran, having left Sydney and the corporate world behind. (more…)

MINI-REVIEW: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White’s ALL THE WAYS WE SAID GOODBYE

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All_Ways_We_Said_GoodbyeI love these three authors and looked forward to reading their joint effort, All the Ways We Said Goodbye. While I enjoyed the multi-narrative-threaded novel, I prefer the Co. of Williams, Willig, & White seule over ensemble. There was so much here and not quite enough; the novel’s last quarter was stronger than its first half. Overall, a mixed-bag with a mixed response from me: bits I loved, characters I adored, and, in the best lingo from The Great British Bake-Off, a soggy middle (okay, “bottom” for them, but you get my drift).

All the Ways We Said Goodbye is ambitious, I’ll give it that. Three women, three stories, intertwined by war, betrayal, passion, love, and honour, the male protagonists following likewise in their wake. One narrative follows WWI-set Aurélie de Courcelles, the Demoiselle, whose family heirloom/talisman is a cloth seeped in the blood of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc. Aurélie leaves her mother ensconced at the Paris Ritz and makes her way to the ancestral home, now behind enemy lines. She carries the talisman with her, legendary because as long the Demoiselle holds it, France cannot fall. Given that most of the Great War was fought on French soil, a symbol of French hope and pride. Aurélie finds her home occupied by some nasty German officers. She machinates to protect her people and finds herself embroiled with one kind, handsome German officer …
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REVIEW: Liz Talley’s ROOM TO BREATHE

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Room__BreatheI was a great fan of Liz Talley’s Superromances, indeed one of my favourites ever is her Sweet Talking Man. There was no doubt then, though I’m not a WF fan, I’d follow her on her new-ish path into WF. So I read Room to Breathe, with uneven results: I still love Talley’s ethos and writing and I still don’t like WF. Room to Breathe is funny, witty, and offers loveable characters. It is organized around two main characters, not a hero and heroine as in a romance, but a mother and daughter: nearing-40 Daphne Witt, aka Dee Dee O’Hara, children’s author, and her 23-year-old daughter, failed fashion designer, Ellery. When the novel opens, Daphne, now a long-established divorcée, is feeling the effects of a dormant sexuality. Her ex-husband left her, claiming her then-new-found career interfered with their marriage. Like many women who married young and became mothers, Daphne is hurt and disappointed at the loss of her marriage, but loves her new-found freedom and independence.
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MINI-REVIEW: Wendy Roberts’s A GRAVE SEARCH (Bodies of Evidence #2)

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Grave_SearchI’m loving these two contemporary murder mystery series I’m following. I don’t look forward to the day I can only await the next book rather than my present glom of Griffiths’s Ruth Galloway mysteries and Wendy Roberts’s Bodies of Evidence. I finished #2, A Grave Search, today. The Roberts series, unlike Griffiths’s, has a healthy dose of an ongoing romance, which I’m especially enjoying.

Roberts’s heroine, Julie Hall, aka Delma Arsenault, has the power to find dead bodies with dowsing, or divining rods. In book #1, Julie’s supernatural abilities took her into the dark heart of her childhood and ended on a note of high, painful drama. Book #2 sees further resolution to the drama, but also greater peace and yes, even happiness, for Julie-Delma. In Book #1, her romance with older-man and FBI agent, Garrett Pierce, had the desperation of two unhappy, tragic people finding solace in each other. But Book #2 finds Julie and Garrett with an ironed-out relationship, still sexy and bantery, still an overprotective Garrett to a where-angels-fear-to-tread Julie, but they feel like a solid couple, past the first throes of getting to know each other (though the sexy still burns bright). (more…)

MINI-REVIEW: Kelly Hunter’s Emma (Outback Brides #4)

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Emma_Outback_BridesI went into Kelly Hunter’s Emma not expecting much more than a pleasant, “forgettable” read and got a whole lot more. The cover, though pleasant enough, doesn’t do it any favours. Hm, I thought, alpha-male outback hero, like a Montana-Texas-etc. cowboy but with an Oz accent, meets poor-little-English-rich-girl heroine, overwhelms her with his manliness and bedsport prowess and done! Not exactly. Yes, hero Liam McNair is the proprietor of acres and acres of Australian outback and yes, he does muster cows and such, but he’s also environmentally savvy and conscious, seeing himself more as a steward of the land than owner. He’s humble, diffident, still huge and gorgeous, but definitely thoroughly unaware of how attractive and desirable he is. Enter what the blurb calls our “English rose” heroine, Lady Emmaline Charlotte Greyson, recently defunct lawyer and she-who-abandoned-the-family-firm-and-obligations to run away to Australia to her friend Maggie’s wedding-venue-ranch, one she runs with husband Max and adorable toddler, Bridie, also Emmaline’s god-daughter. Enter Max’s friend, Liam, who’s sent to pick up Emmaline at the airport (they share some past, mild history) and tara! Insta-lust! NOT! Attraction, liking, interest, yes. And how it plays out? In a surprisingly adult and compelling romance narrative. Emmaline answers Liam’s call for mustering help (she’s a great horsewoman) and they find themselves aloft his helicopter for the four-hour drive. Thus begins a lovely weeks-long courtship …
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REVIEW: Lauren Willig’s THE SUMMER COUNTRY

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Summer_CountryLauren Willig’s “summer country” is early nineteenth and Victorian-Era-set Barbados. A young women arrives in Bridgetown in February 1854, Miss Emily Dawson, to claim her inheritance, the ruined sugar-producing estate of Peverills, only to discover a family history that alters everything she has known about who she is.

Since the *sniff* end to the Pink Carnation series and we can see vestiges of this theme there too, Willig’s novels centre around a heroine’s journey of unearthing familial and historical identity. Willig’s specializes in, to nay-say the Bard’s Hamlet, a “discovered country” that alters and then cements a new future for our heroine. The Summer Country‘s Emily Dawson is such a heroine, as she delves into the Barbadian history of slavery, white privilege and exploitation of others, and the personal tragedies and triumphs of parallel stories, one set in 1812-1816, and the heroine’s present, 1854, the 1812-16 narrative bearing on Emily’s present and future.
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MINI-REVIEW: Jasmine Guillory’s THE PROPOSAL

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ProposalNew-to-me-author Jasmine Guillory’s The Proposal certainly starts off with a bang. I was quite taken by the premise. Heroine Nik (Nikole) Paterson meets hero Dr. Carlos Ibarra at an LA Dodgers game when he rescues her from the Jumbotron-drama of having her man-bunned boyfriend proposing to her before thousands of people … not counting the ones watching on TV. This is a “proposal”, hence the title, that Nik neither wants nor anticipates. Her boyfriend Fisher, an actor with more ego than talent, is a sleep-with boyfriend and no more than that. As Carlos, at the game with his sister Angela, watches Nik’s horror-stricken face on the Jumbotron, he and Angela, only a few seats away, ward off the cameras coming at Nik when she refuses Fisher. Angela, Carlos, and Nik join Nik’s besties, Dana and Courtney, for drinks after the game and Nik and Carlos strike a friendship with some incipient attraction. They text, call, and meet for drinks, go to dinner, enjoy each other’s company, cook together, watch baseball games, and generally have a great ole time. Not soon after a few get-togethers, they become lovers.
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