Kiss Me Hello is third in Grace Burrowes’ Sweetest Kisses contemporary romance series. Miss Bates isn’t sure how, or why she missed the second, The First Kiss, but she enjoyed the first, A Single Kiss, and you may read about why here. Miss Bates is certain the second was pretty much like the first, and the third is much like the first two. Because Burrowes has her signature and Kiss Me Hello runs true to form: characters are painted in black and white, men are gentle, if brusque, care-givers, and women are nurturing, tough cookies, but a bit of a mess. If her formula works for you, then her books will deliver consistently. Like most romance readers, however, while the genre remains the reading material of choice, the formulas can delight, or grate. Miss Bates has written about how Burrowes can grate here. She would still maintain, after reading Kiss Me Hello, she prefers contemporary to historical Burrowes. The Sweetest Kisses series is built around three brothers who run a successful law firm in small-town Virginia. Kiss Me Hello is the story of the eldest Knightley (and the name is telling, yes) brother, Mackenzie, and newly-arrived-in-Damson-County foster mom, Sidonie Linstrom. What Sidonie doesn’t know is that she inherited the Knightley brothers ancestral home … as well as their two massive childhood horses, Daisy and Buttercup, bringing defence lawyer Mackenzie, in his farrier incarnation, to her door. Continue reading
Tag: Grace Burrowes
REVIEW: Grace Burrowes’ A SINGLE KISS And the Comforts of Hot Chocolate
It isn’t revolutionary to say that a writer has a quirk, or propensity that threads throughout her work: a recurring image, character, theme, trope, etc. It identifies her and can be both bane and strength. In Grace Burrowes’ work, it’s the officiously kind hero. When Burrowes’ first two histroms were published, The Heir and The Soldier, Miss Bates, early in her romance reading journey, read them with relish. By the time she read Burrowes‘ seventh Lonely Lord, Andrew, the officiously kind hero was at saturation point, as Miss B. scathingly wrote about in her review. That quirk/trope/image/style that identifies can also stultify, or stall a writer, or turn to caricature – unless she brings new life to it. Grace Burrowes’ foray into contemporary romance takes a steady writerly predisposition and puts it in a new world, the contemporary world of the courtroom drama of family law and practice. Continue reading
Miss Bates Reads Romance 