Genre: contemporary romance

Spotlight + Excerpt: The Friendship List by Susan Mallery

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Excerpts> Spotlight
Spotlight + Excerpt: The Friendship List by Susan MalleryThe Friendship List by Susan Mallery
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance, women's fiction
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on August 4, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

[ ] Dance till dawn

[ ] Go skydiving

[ ] Wear a bikini in public

[ ] Start living


Two best friends jump-start their lives in a summer that will change them forever…
Single mom Ellen Fox couldn’t be more content—until she overhears her son saying he can’t go to his dream college because she needs him too much. If she wants him to live his best life, she has to convince him she’s living hers.
So Unity Leandre, her best friend since forever, creates a list of challenges to push Ellen out of her comfort zone. Unity will complete the list, too, but not because she needs to change. What’s wrong with a thirtysomething widow still sleeping in her late husband’s childhood bed?
The Friendship List begins as a way to make others believe they’re just fine. But somewhere between “wear three-inch heels” and “have sex with a gorgeous guy,” Ellen and Unity discover that life is meant to be lived with joy and abandon, in a story filled with humor, heartache and regrettable tattoos.

Welcome to the Excerpt tour for The Friendship List by Susan Mallery. Susan always manages to write stories that sweep me up and take me away, and I’m sure that The Friendship List will be no exception. I’m so sure, in fact, that I’ll be reviewing this book next week! I’m definitely looking forward to reading this, and I hope you will be too!

Excerpt from The Friendship List by Susan Mallery (continued from yesterday’s Excerpt at Moonlight Rendezvous)

When Unity had driven away, Ellen returned to the kitchen where she quickly loaded the dishwasher, then packed her lunch. Cooper had left before six. He was doing some end-of-school-year fitness challenge. Something about running and Ellen wasn’t sure what. To be honest, when he went on about his workouts, it was really hard not to tune him out. Especially when she had things like tuition to worry about.

“Not anymore today,” she said out loud. She would worry again in the morning. Unity was right—Cooper was going to keep changing his mind. Their road trip to look at colleges was only a few weeks away. After that they would narrow the list and he would start to apply. Only then would she know the final number and have to figure out how to pay for it.

Until then she had plenty to keep her busy. She was giving pop quizzes in both fourth and sixth periods and she wanted to update her year-end tests for her two algebra classes. She needed to buy groceries and put gas in the car and go by the library to get all her summer reading on the reserve list.

As she finished her morning routine and drove to the high school where she taught, Ellen thought about Cooper and the college issue. While she was afraid she couldn’t afford the tuition, she had to admit it was a great problem to have. Seventeen years ago, she’d been a terrified teenager, about to be a single mom, with nothing between her and living on the streets except incredibly disappointed and angry parents who had been determined to make her see the error of her ways.

Through hard work and determination, she’d managed to pull herself together—raise Cooper, go to college, get a good job, buy a duplex and save money for her kid’s education. Yay her.

But it sure would have been a lot easier if she’d simply married someone with money.

*

“How is it possible to get a C- in Spanish?” Coach Keith Kinne asked, not bothering to keep his voice down. “Half the population in town speaks Spanish. Hell, your sister’s husband is Hispanic.” He glared at the strapping football player standing in front of him. “Luka, you’re an idiot.”

Luka hung his head. “Yes, Coach.”

“Don’t ‘yes, Coach’ me. You knew this was happening—you’ve known for weeks. And did you ask for help? Did you tell me?”

“No, Coach.”

Keith thought about strangling the kid but he wasn’t sure he could physically wrap his hands around the teen’s thick neck. He swore silently, knowing they were where they were and now he had to fix things—like he always did with his students.

“You know the rules,” he pointed out. “To play on any varsity team you have to get a C+ or better in every class. Did you think the rules didn’t apply to you?”

Luka, nearly six-five and two hundred and fifty pounds, slumped even more. “I thought I was doing okay.”

“Really? So you’d been getting better grades on your tests?”

“Not exactly.” He raised his head, his expression miserable. “I thought I could pull up my grade at the last minute.”

“How did that plan work out?”

“No bueno.”

Keith glared at him. “You think this is funny?”

“No, Coach.”

Keith shook his head. “You know there’s not a Spanish summer school class. That means we’re going to have to find an alternative.”

Despite his dark skin, Luka went pale. “Coach, don’t send me away.”

“No one gets sent away.” Sometimes athletes went to other districts that had a different summer curriculum. They stayed with families and focused on their studies.

“I need to stay with my family. My mom understands me.”

“It would be better for all of us if she understood Spanish.” Keith glared at the kid. “I’ll arrange for an online class. You’ll get a tutor. You will report to me twice a week, bringing me updates until you pass the class.” He sharpened his gaze. “With an A.”

Luka took a step back. “Coach, no! An A? I can’t.”

“Not with that attitude.”

“But, Coach.”

“You knew the rules and you broke them. You could have come to me for help early on. You know I’m always here for any of my students, but did you think about that or did you decide you were fine on your own?”

“I decided I was fine on my own,” Luka mumbled.

“Exactly. And deciding on your own is not how teams work. You go it alone and you fail.”

Tears filled Luka’s eyes. “Yes, Coach.”

Author Info:

#1 NYT bestselling author Susan Mallery writes heartwarming, humorous novels about the relationships that define our lives-family, friendship, romance. She’s known for putting nuanced characters in emotional situations that surprise readers to laughter. Beloved by millions, her books have been translated into 28 languages.Susan lives in Washington with her husband, two cats, and a small poodle with delusions of grandeur. Visit her at SusanMallery.com.

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Review: Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Real Men Knit by Kwana JacksonReal Men Knit by Kwana Jackson, K.M. Jackson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction
Pages: 336
Published by Berkley on May 19, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

When their foster-turned-adoptive mother suddenly dies, four brothers struggle to keep open the doors of her beloved Harlem knitting shop, while dealing with life and love in Harlem.
Jesse Strong is known for two things: his devotion to his adoptive mom, Mama Joy, and his reputation for breaking hearts in Harlem. When Mama Joy unexpectedly passes away, he and his brothers have different plans on what to do with Strong Knits, their neighborhood knitting store: Jesse wants to keep the store open; his brothers want to shut it down.
Jesse makes an impassioned plea to Kerry Fuller, his childhood friend who has had a crush on him her entire life, to help him figure out how to run the business. Kerry agrees to help him reinvent the store and show him the knitty-gritty of the business, but the more time they spend together, the more the chemistry builds. Kerry, knowing Jesse’s history, doesn’t believe this relationship will exist longer than one can knit one, purl one. But Jesse is determined to prove to her that he can be the man for her—after all, real men knit.

My Review:

Strong Knits is a mainstay in the small-town-in-a-big-city that is Harlem. And just like any small town, everybody knows everyone else’s business. But this is a community that has just lost one of its beloved pillars, Mama Joy, the owner of the knitting and yarn shop Strong Knits.

The community is reeling from their loss, but so, especially are her four officially adopted sons, Damian, Noah, Lucas and Jesse, as well as her unofficially adopted daughter Kerry. While they may all be technically adults, they all also relied on Mama Joy for love, stability, support (whether financial or emotional) and the occasionally necessary kick in the pants, administered lovingly, whenever she thought it was needed.

The neighborhood relied on her and her store as well. It was a place where a young person could find a piece of calm and support, learn a skill and some discipline, be safe and just be when needed. With cookies and milk. The women found in Mama Joy not just a sympathetic listener but a place where they could set burdens aside for a few minutes in an otherwise all too busy and all too tense life.

It was a haven. And now that Mama Joy is gone, suddenly, taken away by a heart attack, everyone wonders and worries whether and how and even if Strong Knits can continue.

Particularly the Strong brothers. Mama Joy saved them, and they want to save her store, the place where they – and so many other children in the neighborhood – grew up.

But they all have lives of their own now. They may still keep their rooms above the shop, but except for Jesse, they all mostly live elsewhere. Damian near his job on Wall Street, with his mysterious “partner”. Noah on the road as a Broadway dancer. Lucas at the firehouse, as he’s a member of the FDNY. Only Jesse, the youngest, still lives at home.

Because he can’t manage to settle on what he wants to be when he grows up. If that ever happens. So Jesse is mostly a player and only occasionally employed and seems least likely to keep the store going. But he’s surprisingly the one who wants it the most. And has the time to make the attempt.

It’s an attempt with a much closer deadline than he originally planned on. Mama Joy took out a second mortgage on the building. Now that she’s gone, the $100,000 loan has been called in. Not even the bank thinks they have a shot at making this work.

However, Jesse has an ace in the hole. Or at least a secret weapon in his corner. Kerry, the young woman their mother unofficially adopted, has been working part-time in the store since she was a little girl coming in for a refuge. Now Kerry is all grown up, working part-time at the community center and part-time in the store while she finishes her degree. She hoped to move up and out when she finished.

But with the death of Mama Joy, she steps in to help Jesse with the store. Between them, with the support of the community, they have the passion and the energy to make a go of it.

The only problem is that working in such close proximity has them wanting to make a go of each other. Even though Jesse and his brothers have all considered Kerry as untouchable. And especially because Kerry knows that Jesse is a player who loves ‘em and leaves ‘em and never leaves his heart behind. She knows that if she lets him into her heart, he’ll leave it on the floor in pieces.

Or will he?

Escape Rating B+: I mostly loved this book. Not just the way that the community rallies around the store and takes Jesse and Kerry’s attempt to make a go of it to their hearts – although that’s certainly a big plus. Even with just a bit of deus ex machina in the way that this part of the story ends.

It’s such a plus that in a lot of ways this felt more like relationship fiction than it does a romance. Because it feels like the story is all about the sometimes fractious relationships between the Strong brothers, the relationship that Mama Joy had with the community, the relationships that Kerry has with her friend and co-worker Val AND their work at the community center, and especially Kerry’s relationships with ALL of the Strongs. Including, especially, the late and very much lamented Mama Joy.

Because it’s not just about Kerry’s relationship with Jesse. Even though she and Jesse have been dancing around each other ever since they were teenagers. Kerry’s always known that Jesse was a player, and Kerry had no interest in being played – no matter how much interest she’s had in Jesse over the years.

But the brothers have always seen her as a bit of a little sister. They’re very protective of her, to the point where Kerry is a bit sick of the protectiveness and wants to be seen as the grown-ass woman she actually is.

So a lot of this story felt like it was about Kerry getting her act together, doing her best for the memory of Mama Joy, and figuring out what she wants to do next. She decides that while she’s helping Jesse get the store back on its feet, she’s going to do Jesse. Whatever her heart may want, she knows it’s a short term thing – because Jesse never sticks around.

That he eventually figures out that he wants to, stick around that is, this time is what sets up the actual romance. He’s finally growing up. And that’s a terrific part of the story. But, as much as I wanted this to end in an HEA, I’m not sure that either Kerry or Jesse is ready for that commitment. It felt like we didn’t quite see him do enough of the work to get there. And that Kerry still has plenty of work to do on her own-self as well.

So that HEA that ends the story, while it definitely feels like an HEA for the store and its future, feels a bit more like either a slightly shaky HFN for Kerry and Jesse, or the beginning of working towards an HEA that isn’t quite there yet.

But this was still a fun story and I had a great time with these characters. I found myself wishing that this was the first in a series, and that we’d see all of the Strong brothers find their own HEAs, one romance at a time. I’m REALLY curious about Damian’s mystery person!

Review: Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Party of Two by Jasmine GuilloryParty of Two (The Wedding Date #5) by Jasmine Guillory
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, romantic comedy
Series: Wedding Date #5
Pages: 320
Published by Berkley Books on June 23, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A chance meeting with a handsome stranger turns into a whirlwind affair that gets everyone talking.
Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe's mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia has zero interest in dating a politician, but when a cake arrives at her office with the cutest message, she can't resist--it is chocolate cake, after all.
Olivia is surprised to find that Max is sweet, funny, and noble--not just some privileged white politician she assumed him to be. Because of Max's high-profile job, they start seeing each other secretly, which leads to clandestine dates and silly disguises. But when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny means people are now digging up her rocky past and criticizing her job, even her suitability as a trophy girlfriend. Olivia knows what she has with Max is something special, but is it strong enough to survive the heat of the spotlight?

My Review:

Once upon a time, a guy and a girl got stuck in an elevator together. He needed a fake date to his ex’s wedding, and she wasn’t interested in dating but thought he’d be fun for a fling, so “why not?” But the chemistry that began in that elevator led to their very own HEA – and four more lovely books – at least so far.

That was The Wedding Date, the author’s debut novel, which I still can’t believe. But when Alexa Monroe and Drew Nichols tied the knot, they started a chain reaction, one that is still going strong.

After stories about his best friend (The Proposal), her two best friends (The Wedding Party) and one of those same best friends and her mother (Royal Holiday), the series has come back around again.

Not to Alexa, but to her sister Olivia, meeting and clicking with a guy in a hotel bar in LA. He has a house in LA, but he has also had a plumbing disaster, hence the temporary hotel stay. She doesn’t have a house yet, but she’s looking for one. Olivia and her best friend Ellie are in the process of setting up their own law firm together because they’re both tired of working for big law firms, having no say in their work and no life outside it.

Ellie wants to have time for her husband and kids while still being able to do work that she loves. Olivia has been too busy climbing the ladder to partner to even have a life, and she’s ready for a life outside it – once the firm is off the ground, that is.

There is definitely a “meet cute” between Olivia and Max, that guy she meets in the hotel bar. But they don’t exchange last names, phone numbers or bodily fluids during that one meeting, so Olivia chalks it up to experience, albeit a good one, and gets on with her life.

Only to discover that the terrific guy she exchanged banter and chemistry with was the seriously hot junior senator from California, Max Powell. She never expects to see him again, but their meeting makes for a really EXCELLENT story.

Until they meet again, almost as accidentally as the first time. She knows she’s coming to hear him speak, but he has no idea she’ll be in the audience. She has little expectation that he’ll recognize her, and none that anything will come of this second meeting, but she’s just as surprised as he is when he finds her in the crowd.

This time they do exchange enough information to find each other. Or at least enough for Max to send Olivia cake instead of flowers, because that’s one of the many (many, many) things they talked about in that bar.

Cake leads to flowers, both lead to dates, dates lead to more dates lead to weekends spent in each other’s houses and outings with Max in a fairly lame disguise. But it’s enough. Until it’s not – at least for Max. Until Max wants to go public, and Olivia lets herself get pulled along for the ride.

While dating Max was fun, dating a famous senator is something else all together. And as much as Olivia loves him, it’s not something she can live with. She could live with Max just fine, but the reporters following them around and digging into every tiny detail of her past push her way outside her comfort zone.

To the point where she pushes Max out the door.

Escape Rating A-: The story of Party of Two feels a bit like the movie The American President crossed with the real-life story of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (which was sorta/kinda touched on in Royal Holiday). Complete with all of the racist overtones and thinly veiled threats and insults that Princess Meghan has had to deal with. The stories do parallel more than a bit – at least on the surface.

But this felt like a story about opposites attracting, and as is wonderfully usually for this author, the ways in which they are opposite and the difficulties those differences lead them to felt organic and real. This is a romcom without a heinous misunderstandammit. Yes, they did need to work on their communication, but the problem isn’t simple and the fix isn’t either.

Max is rich, white and very, very privileged. While he has become aware of his privilege and is doing his best to both make up for some of the dudebro assholish things he did before he knew better and use his position to do some good in the community and in the world, he is still privileged in the way that only a white, rich, heterosexual man can be in America. And that perspective has shaped his personality in ways that, while not bad in and of themselves, clash directly with Olivia’s perspective of the world.

Basically, Max’s whole outlook is to leap and assume that the net will appear. Because in his life, at least so far, it always has. So he can be very impulsive, even in public situations, because so far at least his mouth hasn’t written any checks that his body can’t cash – or at least can’t cash with the help of his staff, his money, or both. This doesn’t make him a bad person, but it does make him speak or act before he thinks things through. Fairly often.

As a black woman, Olivia’s experience is very different. She’s never impulsive, because her entire life experience is that if she leaps, she will fall. The net will not appear for her and she will never get the benefit of the doubt. (This is true for women in general and is doubly or triply true – if not more – for her) Olivia goes through life with a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C and all the way up to Plan Z. She tries her best to never act before she thinks things through. She did that once in high school with what could have been catastrophic results. The results weren’t exactly catastrophic, but they were plenty disastrous and it took her years to get past them.

It’s not that Olivia and Max can’t have a relationship, in spite of Olivia being certain from the get-go that it can’t work. It’s not that they don’t love each other enough to make a relationship work. But they have a fundamental difference in how they see the world, and while they can work past that difference, it’s going to take compromise on both their parts. And it’s going to take talking about it openly and honestly to get there.

And that’s where they stumble. And it felt real and true to the characters and the story. Which goes back to why I love this series so much.

If you want to read a romcom that works deliciously for readers who don’t generally fall for romcoms, this entire series is a delight. You could start with this book, because it doesn’t rely on knowledge of the previous books in the series, but they’re wonderful and if you love one you’ll love them ALL!

Review: The Marriage Game by Sara Desai

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Marriage Game by Sara DesaiThe Marriage Game by Sara Desai
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance, women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Berkley on June 9, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A high stakes wager pits an aspiring entrepreneur against a ruthless CEO in this sexy romantic comedy.

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he's forced to share his space with the owner's beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

My Review:

To kick this off, just let me say that if you like Sonali Dev and Nisha Sharma you’re going to love Sara Desai, and very much vice versa – all the way around.

I had The Marriage Game in the virtually towering TBR pile but managed to lose track of having signed up for this blog tour. The reminder came just in time and I am SO GLAD it did.

Because this was lovely and awesome with just the right amount of fluff overlaying just the best amount of serious to make this both a terrific summer read and an absolutely wonderful book for getting my reading mojo back and taking me away from all the crap going on in the world.

Mental breaks are good for the soul.

And that’s kind of where this story begins, because Layla Patel definitely comes home to her parents’ and their Michelin-starred restaurant in need of some family TLC, a mental break from the mess she left behind in New York City, and a bit more than her vague plans to open her own recruiting agency.

Then it all goes pear-shaped, in some ways even more so than the events that led to her rather abrupt departure from New York City.

Her father has a heart-attack. Her parents’ restaurant is in financial trouble. And the office that her father planned to let her occupy rent-free to get her business started is already occupied – by the most uptight, order-driven, stick-up-his-ass but gorgeous man that Layla has ever met.

Not that Sam Mehta isn’t having a similar set of thoughts about Layla. She is chaos, she’s a trouble-magnet, she’s free-thinking and free-wheeling, she’s disorganized and unprofessional and utterly captivating.

They are complete opposites. And they get along like kerosene and matches – absolutely combustible every two-steps-forward and one-step-back of the way.

Escape Rating A: This marvelous piece of contemporary romance is one of those stories that absolutely brims with witty, snarky and frequently panty-melting banter. Well, at least Layla’s panties certainly end up melted on more than one occasion – even the gray granny panties. It’s an opposites-attract/frenemies-to-lovers romance that really pulls out all of the stops on both of those well-loved tropes.

It’s also a story NOT to read if you’re hungry. Layla’s family owns a restaurant, her office is above said restaurant, the food is frequently described in loving detail and it all sounds absolutely delicious. To the point where I’m pretty sure I’ve already decided on exactly where we’re getting takeout from this weekend. But I digress. Slightly. But I also repeat: DO NOT READ WHEN HUNGRY!

There’s also more than a touch of relationship fiction mixed into this romance, as Layla’s family is a big part of the story – as is Sam’s lack of relationship with his.

Although this one begins with Layla pretty much hitting rock bottom, her journey in this story is, while not easy, fairly straightforward. For her it’s about getting out of her own way, stepping out of her late brother’s very long shadow and determining what she wants out of life – then reaching out for it and settling for nothing less.

She’s Buttercup whether Sam is Westley or not, and she just needs to figure out how to save herself from the evil prince – even if that evil prince turns out to be Sam.

Sam actually has the much harder road. He has to forgive himself for something that wasn’t his fault but that he blamed himself for. He’s been running away from that guilt and that grief by telling himself that his current pursuit is vengeance. But he’s made himself a monster in order to catch the monster, and only he can make himself step back from the abyss before it’s too late.

Before he loses Layla.

There is just so much to love about The Marriage Game. Except Sam’s business partner Royce. He’s a real piece of work. But possibly redeemable if the author ever returns to this family. There are plenty more stories here, and I would love to read them all!

Review: The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra PatrickThe Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 336
Published by Park Row on April 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A single father gets an unexpected second chance at love in the heartwarming new novel from the author of
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper


It’s summer in the city and passions are soaring along with the temperature—for everyone but Mitchell Fisher, who hates all things romance. He relishes his job cutting off the padlocks that couples fasten to the famous “love story” bridge. Only his young daughter, Poppy, knows that behind his prickly veneer, Mitchell still grieves the loss of her mother.

Then one hot day, everything changes when Mitchell courageously rescues a woman who falls from the bridge into the river. He’s surprised to feel an unexpected connection to her, but she disappears before he can ask her name. Desperate to find out her identity, Mitchell is shocked to learn she’s been missing for almost a year. He teams up with her spirited sister, Liza, on a quest to find her again. However, she’s left only one clue behind—a message on the padlock she hung on the bridge.

Brimming with Phaedra Patrick’s signature charm and a sparkling cast of characters, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge follows one man’s journey to unlock his heart and discover new beginnings in the unlikeliest places.

My Review:

I picked up this book because the premise reminded me of our trip to Dublin last year, particularly the Ha’penny Bridge, officially known as the Liffey Bridge. And it shouldn’t have, because the Ha’penny Bridge is not a love lock bridge, at least not officially. Although I’m sure it happens.

On the other hand, the fanciful, ultra-modern, slightly fantastical bridge that lies at the heart of so much of the heartbreak in Mitchell’s past sounds exactly like the Samuel Beckett Bridge (pictured below), which we walked across every day while we were in Dublin.

Mitchell’s story is a story about bridges. Not so much about designing them, as he did when he was a practicing architect, or about denuding them of illicitly placed locks, as he is doing when the story opens.

(Not that the denuding doesn’t need to be done. As romantic as the love lock concept sounds, it’s actually dangerous to the bridges. Padlocks are heavy. Lots and lots and lots of locks all together are VERY heavy. If the bridge wasn’t designed to bear the extra weight – eventually it won’t – with disastrous results.)

But the bridges in this story are the kind of bridges that span the distance between yesterday and tomorrow. Between the past and the present, Between a father and his daughter, both grieving the loss of their partner/mother in their own – unfortunately completely antithetical – ways.

And most especially, the bridge between clinging to the hurts of the past and searching for a brighter future.

Escape Rating B: This is a story that rewards patience. There’s a point in this story, just about at the halfway point, where a switch flips and it shifts from being a bit of a downer to a story where it’s not just that things are finally happening, and Mitchell is shaken out of his rut, but where things actually look up and get brighter.

Which does happen because Mitchell gets shaken out of his rut when he leaps over that bridge in pursuit of the mysterious woman who fell off – a mystery that seems to deepen as Mitchell learns more about her. In the process he learns more about himself, or finds the road back from the slough of despond he’s been wallowing in for the past three years, or both.

Or one could say that his act of spontaneous heroism breaks him out of the straitjacket of plans, goals and objectives that he has been trapped in since his partner’s death. A straitjacket that he has been using to keep himself from feeling the grief he needs to get through.

Once his daughter’s music teacher, Liza Bradfield, reveals that the woman he rescued is her sister, a sister who has been missing for the past year, his carefully planned and somewhat stale life moves, awkwardly at first, into Liza’s more colorful and much more spontaneous world.

At first the endless circling of his thoughts tries to drag him back into his safe but sterile existence, only for him to be taken by the hand by his daughter Poppy and pulled into the world that she wants to inhabit. A world with friends and fun and definitely with Liza.

But it takes Mitchell about half the book to start climbing out of that rut, and it’s a bit dark and gloomy down there. The story only begins to shine when Mitchell starts letting things happen instead of trying to plan them to death – and he’s all the better for it. So is Poppy. So is the story.

The second half of this book really sings, as Mitchell starts to shake himself loose, finally lets himself grieve and move forward (the catharsis is much needed) and gets himself involved not just with Liza but with her entire slightly crazy family.

His heart opens, his world expands and sunshine comes back into his life. A big part of that expansion consists of the wave of letter writing inspired by his plunge into the icy river. Those letters let him see just how many people he’s touched – and they touch him in return.

I enjoyed Mitchell’s story, but I really wish we could have seen more of those letters, because the ones we got were a delight – even when Mitchell wasn’t ready to see it.

Review: The Ingredients of You and Me by Nina Bocci + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Ingredients of You and Me by Nina Bocci + GiveawayThe Ingredients of You and Me (Hopeless Romantics, #3) by Nina Bocci
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, romantic comedy, women's fiction
Series: Hopeless Romantics #3
Pages: 320
Published by Gallery Books on April 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From the USA TODAY bestselling author of the “heartwarming and refreshingly sweet” (Lauren Layne, New York Times bestselling author) On the Corner of Love and Hate comes a sizzling and sweet small-town love story that follows a bakery store owner who decides to take her chances on a truly hopeless romantic.

After selling her successful bakery back in New York, Parker Powell decides to visit her best friend Charlotte in Hope Lake, Pennsylvania to figure out her next steps. As she acquaints herself with the people in town, she begins to wonder why she ever loved city life in the first place. Between the Golden Girls (a.k.a. the senior citizen women who hold court), the response from the town to her sweet treats, and Nick Arthur, the ever-charming local owner of a landscaping business she spent time with during her last visit, Parker finds a community of cheerleaders who encourage her to get her baking mojo back.

At first, everything is great—she collaborates with the Golden Girls to put new twists on traditional confections, and thanks to Nick’s advice, she’s quickly learning the stark differences between big city and small-town business practices. Although Nick has quickly become her friend and confidant, Parker’s determined to keep things platonic—especially since his girlfriend isn’t a fan of their friendship. But just when things fall into place so they can finally be together, Parker’s dream bakery is threatened by a major corporation who wants to take her down using the very bit of advice that Nick gave her.

With a recipe for disaster looming, Parker must cook up a new scheme, figuring out how to keep the business—and man—she’s come to love before she loses it all.

Perfect for fans of Amy E. Reichert and Jenny Colgan, The Ingredients of You and Me is a scrumptious romantic comedy that lets you have your cake and eat it too.

My Review:

I picked this up at lunch and got completely sucked into it. I’d say it was like opening a bag of potato chips and not being able to eat just one, but it was much more like opening a box of Girl Scout Cookies, where the serving size is supposed to be 2 cookies, is really more like an entire sleeve, and is, just occasionally and for the right cookie, the entire box. (Samoas for me, but your cookie mileage probably varies)

The story in The Ingredients of You and Me is both a fairly direct followup to the previous book in the series, Meet Me on Love Lane, and a complete standalone at the same time. It’s a followup because the heroine ingredient of this book was the NYC best friend of the heroine in that second story. And Parker met Nick, the hero of this one, while visiting her bestie Charlotte in Hope Lake.

But the sparks that flew between Parker and Nick at that first meeting, and all their subsequent – and clandestine – meetings, were kept very much a secret from everyone who knew either of them. No one was cheating on anyone, this is not that kind of story. They just wanted to see what their relationship might be – if it was even going to be anything beyond a series of hot, long-distance booty-calls – without the pressure of all their mutual friends watching every move they made – or didn’t.

So when Nick ghosted Parker at Thanksgiving – just when she wanted to tell him that she had sold her successful NYC bakery and was hoping they could have more time together, she was left at very loose ends.

Not that she sold Delicious & Vicious for Nick, because she didn’t. She sold it for herself and did very well out of the deal. But she did hope that while she was deciding on the next phase of her life that Nick might be interested in being factored into those decisions.

Now that the bakery has sold, Parker is at loose ends. AND she’s lost her baking mojo. So she sets out for an extended – OMG winter – vacation at chilly but heartwarming Hope Lake PA, to spend time with Charlotte and see what she, meaning Parker, wants to do next in her life.

That’s where the fun begins – along with just a bit of melodrama. While Charlotte reconnected with Gigi, the grandmother that she left behind in Hope Lake, Parker finds herself “adopted” by the entire gaggle of Hope Lake “Golden Girls”. It’s through her relationship with the group that becomes famous – and sometimes infamous – as “The Baked Nanas” that Parker figures out who Parker Phase Two really is. And she gets her baking mojo back by helping the Nanas translate their old family recipes from imprecise old-fashioned measurements – like jelly jars and fists – to modern day equivalents that will allow them to pass those recipes on to their own families.

It’s in the process of Parker’s healing and reinvention that she learns where Nick went and why he ghosted her. Now Nick is torn between his unfinished but still smoldering feelings for Parker – and his new relationship with “Miss Suzy Perfect”. Who is, of course, anything but.

But this is Parker’s show every step of the way. She’s in Hope Lake to figure her life out for herself. Nick can be part of that, or not. But he can’t be half in or half out. It was fun sneaking around when there was no one to be hurt, but she won’t be his dirty little secret while he’s making a relationship with someone else.

Whether Nick will see the light and fix himself is anyone’s guess. But Parker is taking care of Parker, and doing a damn fine job of it with or without him. Thanks in no small part to those “Baked Nanas”.

Escape Rating A-: I loved this one even more than I did Meet Me on Love Lane, and I liked that one quite a lot. But this one had a compulsion to it that the earlier book, sweet as it was, didn’t quite.

And even though this story directly follows from that earlier book, this one still feels like it stands alone. Because the story here is really about Parker losing herself and finding herself, and it all happens in this story. The characters from the previous books (I haven’t read the first one, On the Corner of Love and Hate) are in the background here, but getting involved in Parker’s story doesn’t depend on any in depth knowledge of the first two. This one is all her and it’s all here.

Howsomever, like the previous book in the series, The Ingredients of You and Me mixes the ingredients of contemporary romance with women’s fiction, and it feels like the women’s fiction is the stronger part of the story.

Parker is at a crossroads. She’s sold the bakery that she put her heart and soul into in NYC, and it was the right choice for her. She was overtired, overstressed and burned out. She had no life, only work and sleep. Her fling with Nick did bring that home to her, that she wanted more time for a real life and couldn’t have it if she kept on the bakery treadmill.

She has time and enough money to let herself be, to figure out who she wants to be and where and how to do it. She just doesn’t have a plan – and Parker is usually all about plans. Staying in Hope Lake lets her reconnect with friends, make new ones, take a breath, look around, and let inspiration come to her.

And it does in the larger-than-life-size personages of the Baked Nanas, especially the outrageous Mancini who adopts Parker instantly upon her arrival. It’s through the relationships among all of the women that Parker is able to let herself be herself and muddle through to where she wants to be.

Nick is more than a bit of ass through the whole thing. And Parker doesn’t try to fix him or change him – or herself. She takes care of herself and if that means putting distance between them, so be it. That she cares but never bends over backwards or begs or grovels is one of the things I liked a LOT about this story.

Parker doesn’t always take the high road, but she does take the honest road. That she gets her reward at the end is icing on a very lovely cake.

One final comment. The series title, Hopeless Romantics, has given me a terrible earworm that I have to pass along. It’s part of a line from the Eagles’ song New Kid in Town. And the line from the song certainly fits the series, “Hopeless romantics, here we go again.”

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

I am very happy to be giving away a copy of The Ingredients of You and Me to one lucky US commenter on this tour. It’s a terrific story, but the winner may need to exercise a little more patience than usual while waiting to receive their copy in these uncertain times. But I promise you that the book is worth the wait!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Girl Gone Viral by Alisha RaiGirl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2) by Alisha Rai
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance
Series: Modern Love #2
Pages: 400
Published by Avon on April 21, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In Alisha Rai's second novel in her Modern Love series, a live-tweet event goes viral for a camera-shy ex-model, shoving her into the spotlight—and into the arms of the bodyguard she’d been pining for.

OMG! Wouldn’t it be adorable if he’s her soulmate???

I don’t see any wedding rings [eyes emoji]

Breaking: #CafeBae and #CuteCafeGirl went to the bathroom AT THE SAME TIME!!!

One minute, Katrina King’s enjoying an innocent conversation with a hot guy at a coffee shop; the next, a stranger has live-tweeted the entire episode with a romantic meet-cute spin and #CafeBae is the new hashtag-du-jour. The problem? Katrina craves a low-profile life, and going viral threatens the peaceful world she’s painstakingly built. Besides, #CafeBae isn’t the man she’s hungry for.

He’s got a [peach emoji] to die for. 

With the internet on the hunt for the identity of #CuteCafeGirl, Jas Singh, bodyguard, friend, and possessor of the most beautiful eyebrows Katrina’s ever seen, comes to the rescue and whisks her away to his family’s home. Alone in a remote setting with the object of her affections? It’s a recipe for romance. But after a long dating dry spell, Katrina isn’t sure she can trust her instincts when it comes to love—even if Jas’ every look says he wants to be more than just her bodyguard…

My Review:

I absolutely adored this author’s Forbidden Hearts series (start with Hate to Want You and just BINGE!) but bounced fairly hard off of the first book in the Modern Love series, The Right Swipe. Howsomever, I did love Forbidden Hearts, and I heard good things about Girl Gone Viral, so I decided to see if this one would bring me back

And I was in the mood for another romance after yesterday’s lovely book, so this looked like it would certainly fit that mood. And it did. It so did.

There are two tropes going head to head in this romance, the ever-popular friends-to-lovers, and the hot, awesome but less frequently invoked bodyguard romance. And this was a time when these two tastes definitely tasted GREAT together!

The story doesn’t quite match the blurb – or at least the intensity of the feelings involved aren’t quite conveyed by the spritely tone of the blurb.

Kat doesn’t just crave a low-profile life – she needs one desperately in order to cope with her excruciating panic attacks and something that feels like PTSD after a traumatic kidnapping several years ago. Letting that cute guy sit at her table in the crowded coffee shop was Kat sticking a toe out of her comfort zone – only to discover that there are sharks outside that comfort zone. Seemingly literally, as the live-tweet of the complicated fabricated romance takes on a life of its own – probably with the active connivance of both the tweeter and the cute-but-clearly-an-asshole guy.

Kat is spooked. Completely, totally and utterly spooked. Partly because spooked is her default setting – something she’s changing very slowly – and partly because becoming a viral internet sensation can be a two-edged sword at the best of times. She wants this to fade away, but the Streisand Effect is a real thing. So is doxxing. So are death threats – particularly if you’re living online while female and try to claim your own space in the world.

So there’s a lot going on in this story, and not just on Kat’s side of the equation.

Her bodyguard – and secret crush – Jas has plenty of his own stuff to deal with. Including his own PTSD from his military experience in Iraq. Something that he deals with by, essentially, not dealing with it. By shoving it down into a hole so deep that he doesn’t even let himself see what’s crawling around down there. He deals with it by pushing his loud, loving and very intrusive family away. And he keeps telling himself that he doesn’t feel anything for Kat beyond friendship.

Of course he’s lying to himself about pretty much all of it.

So Kat needs to escape and Jas both wants and doesn’t want to visit his family, so he uses Kat as an excuse to go home – while pretending to most of his family that he’s not really there.

Like that ever works.

But out of the city, alone together in a house where Kat can just be and Jas doesn’t have to be on guard 24/7 because it really is safe, they let themselves get close to each other. And finally tear down the walls that have been keeping them apart.

Escape Rating A-: The bodyguard crush is a trope that isn’t seen all that often in contemporary romance, as, after all, most people don’t need a bodyguard. Add to that, at least on the surface, Kat doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would need a bodyguard. She’s not political, she’s not a superstar, no one seems to be threatening her. And yet, she does need Jas, not just as a bodyguard but because her own traumas make her need the safety of having a bodyguard. And, well, Kat just needs Jas but isn’t ready to admit exactly what she needs him for as the story opens.

They are friends. Even if Jas in particular would have a difficult time labeling their relationship that way. Especially because Jas isn’t used to having friends, period. And his tense interactions with his family make it clear that he’s having difficulty with personal relationships in general – among other things.

Which leads directly to a third element to this story that almost put it over the top for me. So often, reaching their HEA solves all of everybody’s problems. Love conquers all, after all. But in real life it doesn’t. Love makes things better, it makes the world look brighter, it makes the hard stuff easier to get over, past or through. But it doesn’t erase the past, nor does it magically sweep away all the baggage we all carry around.

So the great thing about the way that Kat and Jas find their HEA is that love gives them the courage and the impetus to deal with their own shit. Neither can magically fix the other’s PTSD or panic attacks, each of them HAS to do that work for themselves. Love provides support, as it does, but there is no magical healing for the crap they both have to deal with, and it doesn’t. Instead, a big part of the HEA is that they both do better at taking care of their own messes so that they have more room to love each other. And that’s an ending and a message I definitely believe in.

But there’s this niggle. I still feel like we’ve all been left hanging about the fake viral setup that started the whole thing. It feels like a setup. It reads like a setup. I wish there was some resolution to it. Kat gets past it and turns it back on the original posters, but it still felt a bit unresolved. It’s not so much that I wanted them to be exposed – although that would have been really, really terrific – but I wanted some acknowledgement that the whole thing had been a deliberately put-up job from beginning to end to promote his new business and his flagging career. YMMV.

All in all, I’m really glad I read Girl Gone Viral, and I didn’t feel like I’d missed too much by not having read The Right Swipe. There’s enough backstory here to let new readers pick up the series here. And I really loved the characters, not just Kat and Jas but the entire mad and crazy bunch. I definitely would not mind seeing this crew back for more with a new couple at the heart – finding where their hearts belong.

Review: The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay AdamsThe Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1) by Lyssa Kay Adams
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, romantic comedy
Series: Bromance Book Club #1
Pages: 352
Published by Berkley on November 5, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The first rule of book club: You don't talk about book club.

Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.

Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.

Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's top alpha men. With the help of their current read, a steamy Regency titled Courting the Countess, the guys coach Gavin on saving his marriage. But it'll take a lot more than flowery words and grand gestures for this hapless Romeo to find his inner hero and win back the trust of his wife.

My Review:

I was looking for something light, fluffy and fun, and remembered this was in the TBR pile. It got a lot of terrific buzz when it came out last year, and it felt like it was high time to see what all the fuss was about. After all, this is a GREAT time for fluffy.

All of that buzz was right. Absolutely right. This was marvelous and lovely and fun. But not as fluffy as I expected, and I mean that in the BEST way possible.

The romance is one that doesn’t get done nearly enough – and it definitely should. Because as the story begins, Gavin and Thea are not only already married, they’ve been married for three years and have twin daughters. This should be well into their HEA. But right at the moment, it definitely isn’t.

Nobody’s happy at the moment. Even the little girls know that something is not right between mommy and daddy.

What makes this story work is that Gavin and Thea are in the mid-20s. They married young. They married because Thea was pregnant with the twins. They married while very much in love, but not really knowing nearly enough about each other. And people change a lot in their 20s, a lot when they become parents, and in Gavin’s case, a lot when they get their big break and move up from Major League Baseball’s minor leagues to the “Bigs”.

Life changed. Life changed a LOT. With Gavin on the road all season, and Thea left to cope with two daughters she adores, a husband who is never home, and a life she had not planned on. A life that suddenly bears entirely too much resemblance to the life her mother got trapped in. A life that Thea wanted to avoid at all costs – but didn’t.

Thea coped by trying to blend into the group of WAGs, that’s Wives and Girlfriends, of the Nashville Legends. Trying to be the best and most organized wife and mom she can be – while putting her own dreams on indefinite hold.

And by faking the fact that she’s miserable and lonely and trying to pretend that everything is all right – until it isn’t. When Gavin finally pays attention enough to figure out that she’s been faking a whole lot of their married life – both in and out of bed – the situation explodes, their marriage implodes, and talk of divorce is in the air.

A divorce that Gavin doesn’t want. He loves Thea, he loves his daughters, he loves the life he thought they had. He wants it all back – and he’ll do anything to get it.

And that’s where the Bromance Book Club comes in.

Because in his hour of pretty much darkest need, Gavin discovers that he’s not alone. That a whole lot of the guys on his team have been in something like the place he is, and that they’ve all found a way out.

By banding together. By supporting each other and giving each other advice about relationships. Advice that they have all garnered by reading, discussing and analyzing romance novels.

The first rule of book club is that they don’t talk about book club. But they do talk IN book club. A lot. And to the point. Not just the point about relationships but also the points about feminism and agency and the toxic patriarchy and all of the things that make living while female so much more difficult than any of them ever imagined.

The best part of the story – this isn’t about Gavin picking up a few moves or learning to manipulate Thea or any of that. It’s about him figuring out his part of what went wrong. It’s about learning what’s holding BOTH of them back.

It’s learning that love both is, and is not, enough.

Escape Rating A+: The Bromance Book lived up to every bit of last year’s buzz. It’s a terrific romance AND a marvelous story about relationships at the same time. So if you’re looking for a book to really pick you up and make you smile, The Bromance Book Club is a winner.

First there’s the romance. We just don’t have nearly enough romance books about existing relationships. Everything is about the rush of falling in love and finding that HEA. But real life is that we find it and we go through dark patches and we lose it and sometimes we recapture it and sometimes we give it up – or just give up. The issues between Gavin and Thea feel real, and so do they.

But there’s also plenty in this one about friendship, sisterhood and brotherhood. Thea’s relationship with her sister Liv is supportive in so many ways. They are so good for each other when the chips are down. At the same time, Liv is conflicted when Thea’s life gets better, both fearing that there’s no place for her in that life, and fearing that Thea is recreating patterns from their family’s less-than-stellar past and that she’s only going to get hurt again.

At the same time, there’s also the story of the brotherhood of the Bromance Book Club. In a sense, their story is also that of an existing relationship, and we also come into it in the middle. All of the guys are Major League Baseball players. They are all alpha males who could have been, and in some cases undoubtedly will be later, the heroes of their own romances. And yet, they all admit to being vulnerable, they all buy into the idea that they don’t know it all and can’t solve it all on their own, and they get together to help each other.

The book club, and the romances they read, are not played for laughs. There are some laughs, but then romance novels can be funny. But there is also fascinating, interesting and serious stuff between those pages, and the guys do some equally serious textual analysis of what is really happening in those stories and why they work. It’s never about manipulation, it’s always about learning and growing.

The Bromance Book Club is a winner from beginning to end. I’m very, very much looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Undercover Bromance, the next time I need a reading pick-me-up!

Review: Mission: Her Shield by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Mission: Her Shield by Anna HackettMission: Her Shield (Team 52 #7) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance
Series: Team 52 #7
Pages: 202
Published by Anna Hackett on April 19th 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

She’s the one woman he’s always wanted and the one woman he’ll never let himself have, but former Delta Force soldier Axel will risk everything to save his covert team’s beautiful archaeologist.

Axel Diaz knows that fighting the bad guys requires getting down in the muck. He’s done too much and seen too much to ever inflict his nightmares on a woman. Especially a gorgeous, smart archaeologist who ignites his blood like no one else. Axel focuses on his work with the covert, black ops Team 52. He’ll work alongside Dr. Natalie Blackwell as they safeguard pieces of ancient technology, but he’ll never let himself touch her.

Then everything changes when Nat calls for help. Her archaeology conference in Greece has gone horribly wrong…

Dr. Natalie Blackwell loves her work with Team 52. A lonely childhood and an indifferent family have taught her to be independent. She’s been attracted to Axel for a long time, but refuses to be another notch on his very notched bedpost. But when she finds herself in terrible danger, being hunted by something terrifying, all she wants around her are Axel’s muscled arms. She is in the fight for her life, and she’s praying her team—and the man she can’t resist—can find her in time.

My Review:

I keep expecting Team 52 to discover a Stargate, or maybe just a DHD (Dial Home Device), but neither of those are dangerous in and of themselves – although a box of staff weapons or zats certainly would be. Or they could turn up the Tesseract from the MCU – that would certainly make a big mess – as we already know.

In spite of that reference to the MCU, I still say that the Team 52 series has a big Stargate vibe to me. It’s the whole idea that there is just MORE to the world than history teaches us, that civilizations have risen and fallen more time than we were ever aware of, and that those that fell left behind dangers and wonders that we are just not ready for.

And that it’s all science-based rather than magic based, even though Clarke’s Law applies. You know, the one about “any sufficiently advanced technology” being indistinguishable from magic. The humans who lived at the time of some of these great but fallen civilizations saw their advanced tech as magic, and enshrined it in myth and legend. But it was science – perhaps science gone very, very far amuck, but still science.

Take, for example, the virus that disrupts Team 52 archaeologist Nat Blackwell’s scientific conference in Athens. A pot is broken, a fellow archaeologist touches something that he really, really, really shouldn’t, and suddenly there’s a MINOTAUR in the room goring bystanders with his horns and scooping up women to make up his expected tribute.

Seven women, just like the myth says. One of whom is Nat. A Nat who fully expects her Team to come and get her. Whether she can survive long enough for rescue is a much bigger question. The team is in Las Vegas. Athens – or wherever the Minotaur has taken his captives – is very far away.

When rescue arrives, it brings a whole host of other problems with it. The initial Minotaur transformation may have been an accident, but now that the possibility is known, there are plenty of, let’s call them basty-assed-nastards, who want to see it weaponized – and sold to the highest bidder.

Nat and Team 52 find themselves exchanging weapons fire with mercenaries from The Hannibal Syndicate in order to prevent those mercs from capturing the Minotaur for study, experimentation and weaponization by whoever will pay them the most.

Nat wants to save the Minotaur, to see if there’s a chance of turning the monster back into the scientist she used to know.

After all, Nat has a thing for saving monsters. Or at least saving men who see themselves that way. Whether they want to be saved – or not.

Escape Rating B+: I had a lot of fun with this entry in the Team 52 series. The books in this series (start with Mission: Her Protection) have generally been a good reading time, something that we all need these days. They do a great job of providing the same kind of escape as something like Stargate, where the exploration of those “brave new worlds” has been brought home to Earth.

This one in particular lived up to my earlier references to both Stargate and the MCU, as the sideways dive into myth and legend has parallels in both worlds, AND Nat, the heroine of this particular entry in the series, shares a name with Natalya Romanov, the MCU’s Black Widow. While Nat Blackwell isn’t badass in the same way at Nat Romanov, I think they have plenty in common, and would have LOTS to talk about, including the stubbornness of their respective teams.

Like all of the books in this series, the adventure of battling the evil mercs and capturing, stealing or re-stealing the dangerous, mythological macguffin is interwoven with a romance between at least one member of Team 52 and someone who is either part of their world or is introduced to it – usually in either a hail of bullets, or by being taken prisoner or hostage by something slightly supernatural.

The romance between Nat and Axel Diaz manages to combine a whole bunch of those elements, as Axel is also a member of Team 52, and Nat is not only a member but manages to get taken hostage – or at least threatened with it – multiple times by both the Minotaur AND the mercenaries.

Nat and Axel have always had seriously explosive chemistry between them, a chemistry that both have denied – for different reasons. Actually, for a bit of the same reason, too. Admittedly Axel has been a bit of a manwhore, and nobody needs to get involved in that kind of drama where they work. But both of them have a bad case of the “I’m not worthy” syndrome. Axel because his former military service had him doing very bad things to people who may or may not have been bad themselves, and Nat because her parents treated her as an obligation or a showpiece instead of a child.

While this is not my favorite romantic trope, it was certainly done well in this particular instance – especially from Nat’s side. Her parents were definitely “pieces of work”. Most people would end up with the same kind of emotional baggage in that situation. In the end, Nat and Axel do an excellent job of making each other strong in their broken places – and of realizing that they make each other better.

So an exciting adventure, a romance that overcomes the odds, another monster down, another merc band out and a good time had by all. A fun action-adventure romance all the way around.

The series feels like it’s winding down. This author has a tendency to have the head honcho find their HEA as the closing of the series. Based on events at the end of this one, it looks like Team 52’s director, Jonah Grayson, is heading for a fall sometime later this year. I’m sure a good ass-kicking and romantic time will be had by all!

Review: Matzah Ball Surprise by Laura Brown

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Matzah Ball Surprise by Laura BrownMatzah Ball Surprise by Laura Brown
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, holiday romance
Pages: 249
Published by Entangled Lovestruck on March 16, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

This Passover is starting to feel like the ten plagues might be coming back to haunt them before the weekend is over...one hilarious misstep after the next.

Gaby Fineberg just wants to get through Passover Seder without her “well meaning” family playing matchmaker. She needs a date, just for one simple meal - that includes singing, the history of her forefathers, and not one bit of yeast. The hot guy at her gym would be perfect. He probably hates bread, anyway, with a body like that. But when she finally works up the nerve to ask him...he doesn’t hear a word she said.

Levi Miller is deaf and happily single. Initially, he doesn’t know why this beautiful woman is talking to him, but it’s clear she needs help - and suddenly so does he. In a very complicated situation, Levi finds a simple solution. Gaby will pretend to be his new girlfriend to bail him out, and he’ll return the favor. But he didn’t bargain for a family dinner quite like this one...

My Review:

Passover starts this evening, which is why this review is scheduled for today. I’d say to just call me Captain Obvious, but a romance wrapped around one of the Jewish holidays isn’t all that obvious at all – or all that common – so I wanted to celebrate that this story exists at the time when it seemed the most germane. Especially since it’s a light and fun romance that is just perfect for this holiday season.

The story in Matzah Ball Surprise is a lovely little romance that combines the ever popular “fake boyfriend” trope with a little bit of insight into living with a disability (the hero is deaf), the celebration of one of the major Jewish holidays and the trials and tribulations that revolve around a large family gathering, particularly a family gathering that occurs in the wake of a family tragedy.

It’s also a story that feels a bit nostalgic right now, as most of us are remembering other holidays with family and friends and wondering how this holiday season (Easter is this coming Sunday) will be when we are all sheltering in place and away from the people we would normally travel to see.

But Gaby Fine is definitely of two minds – if not more – about her imminent trip back home to spend Passover with her family. Because reasons. Lots and lots and LOTS of reasons.

In her early 30s, Gaby is newly unattached after her recent breakup with her latest boyfriend. Tom was basically a judgmental asshole who did his best to ridicule everything Gaby said and did. His whole purpose in the relationship was to sap her self-esteem, and he did an unfortunately good job of it.

But that means that her mother, and the rest of her family, will spend the holidays making extremely unsubtle digs at her unattached state – especially as mom seems to have liked the asshole and blames Gaby for the breakup. Anyone who has ever shown up to a wedding or family function under these circumstances will know all too well just how constant the digs are and how terrible they make a person feel.

So Gaby, with the encouragement of her friend Riley, cooks up the idea of taking a fake date to Passover. When she gets up the nerve to ask the hottie at the gym she’s been eyeing up for months, she’s flummoxed when he tells her that he is deaf, astonished that he agrees, and bowled over by the fact that her need for a fake date meshes with his need to get his pushy ex out of his life and space.

Gaby and Levi Miller come to a mutual accord over an intense round of in-person texting. He’ll come to Passover with her, for two days in Connecticut, giving him the perfect excuse for avoiding his own family gathering that weekend in Maine.

She gets her mother off her back, and he gets the space for his ex-fiance to finally admit to both their parents that their relationship is over.

Of course, nothing is remotely that simple, and neither situation was exactly all that simple to begin with. Because neither Levi nor Gaby expected to fall in love with their “fake date”. And Levi didn’t expect the house of cards he was holding up to collapse in the middle – and all around the edges. And break both of their hearts.

Escape Rating B: For the most part, I really, really liked Matzah Ball Surprise. Especially because I was certainly surprised to see a mainstream romance that was wrapped this much around Jewish holidays and Jewish culture. I really liked Gaby and Levi as characters, and loved watching their relationship blossom.

As much as Gaby’s mother reminded me of my own, and as much as that drove me crazy, I could understand EXACTLY where Gaby was coming from about that whole side of the equation. I don’t have quite the need that Gaby does for things to stay in place, but the unrelenting familial pressure – been there, done that, still have some of the emotional scars.

The struggle that Levi and Gaby went through just to communicate felt like it was right on target. It’s not something I would know but the author certainly would as she herself is hard of hearing and many of her previous books feature characters who face similar challenges to Levi, so she knows whereof she speaks – or writes.

But there was one part of this story that didn’t work for me, and it was enough of an issue that it keeps the story from being an A or even A-. A reason that is wrapped up in all the secrets that Levi is keeping, and the reasons for those secrets.

Levi’s stuck in the middle of a small problem that he makes into a huge dilemma, at least as far as Gaby is concerned. He broke up with his fiance, Monica, but she is sorta/kinda blackmailing him into not revealing that they broke up to their parents because she is trying to get a business loan from her dad and he doesn’t trust her. Multiple problems on that front, because she’s not trustworthy in the truth-telling sense, and hasn’t gone into detail about her business plans, which might actually be trustworthy.

And Monica comes off as a manipulative bitch – only because she is.

Levi promised her he wouldn’t tell ANYONE, which means he appears to be an engaged man cheating on his fiance with Gaby. Or, at least it sure looks that way, especially when their fake date starts to turn real, and he STILL doesn’t reveal what’s going on.

That whole piece of the puzzle felt like one giant, contrived drama-llama. It didn’t seem like a big enough secret to keep under the circumstances – and probably one he shouldn’t have promised in the first place. So the revelation of his lie was appropriately devastating, but the lie itself seemed like small potatoes that should never have been baked in the first place. I’m mixing metaphors but the lie didn’t make enough sense to become that big of a deal.

So come to the seder. Drink the wine and stick around for the family drama. The couple are a terrific match, the romance is lovely, and there aren’t too many bitter herbs mixed into the charoset.