Genre: contemporary romance

Review: Night Hawk by Lindsay McKenna + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Night Hawk by Lindsay McKenna + GiveawayNight Hawk (Jackson Hole, #10) by Lindsay McKenna
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Jackson Hole #10
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on December 29th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Once upon a ranch in Wyoming…
After losing his comrade, Sergeant Gil Hanford thought a visit to the man's widow would be the decent way to honor his late friend. But Gil found more than comfort in Kai Tiernan—he had always secretly desired beautiful Kai, but a sudden, mutual passion helped assuage their grief… until duty reared its head, removing him from her arms, seemingly forever.
Four years later, Kai is starting over at the Triple H Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Born a rancher, she is looking for a new beginning—but her new boss is unforgivably familiar. Kai has tried to move past the memory of what happened between her and Gil, even though she's never forgiven him for leaving her. But even as they begin their journey toward something new and oh-so-uncertain, a shadow emerges, determined to claim Kai for itself.

My Review:

Night Hawk is a combination of several themes that I have come to enjoy recently. It’s a small town/contemporary western romance, with two strong ex-military protagonists. And it has just a touch of romantic suspense thrown in.

Also, this particular story in McKenna’s Jackson Hole series is a second-chance-at-love story, and I’m always a sucker for one of those.

However, this is book 10 in an ongoing series, and I’ll confess to not having read any of the preceding books. I picked it up because I read and enjoyed some of McKenna’s romantic suspense in the past, and this looked good. While I know that I missed some nuances among the continuing characters by not having read the rest of the series, this was still a good place to start. Both of the main characters in the book are also new to the series, the ranch and the area. Our hero, Gil Hanford, has only been at Triple H a few months, and heroine Kai Tiernan comes to the ranch as a new mechanic and wrangler.

There was one part of the story where I think my previous unfamiliarity made a difference, and I’ll get back to that after the rating. But for the most part, as we are mostly following Kai’s perspective in this story, as people, places and things are introduced to her, they are introduced to any new readers to the series.

When Kai meets foreman Gil Hanford at the Triple H, it is far from their first meeting. And there lies the romantic and sexual tension in the story, as well as most of the arguments, hurt feelings and distrust.

Like many of the men who have come to work at the Triple H, Gil isn’t merely ex-military, he’s ex-Special Forces. And so was Kai’s late husband Sam. Gil and Sam were in the same unit, and Gil was the one to comfort Kai when Sam was killed in action. Kai was also stationed at Baghram, she was one of the mechanics who fixed vehicles on base for all the units stationed there, including the Special Forces Teams.

As long as Sam was alive, Gil and Kai were never anything more than friends. Gil may have been just as much in love with Kai as his buddy was, but he never let it show. At least not until five memorable days and glorious nights, a year after Sam was killed, when Gil’s brother Rob was also KIA. Gil and Kai shared something special, something that was more than just sex, but still contained a whole lot of heat between the sheets.

On the final morning, Gil disappeared, and Kai felt used. Who wouldn’t? But now they are both out of the service and the small world of western ranches has brought them both to the same place at the same time. With a chance for all the explanations that Gil never gave. And a chance for the wounds to heal so that they can discover if what they had was real, and if it can last.

At least until they discover that someone out there has both of them in his sights, and he’s aiming to kill.

Escape Rating B: First of all, I really loved the atmosphere of the Triple H Ranch. It just seems like a really great place with terrific people. The owner, Talon Holt, is himself ex-Special Forces, and he has a track record of hiring his fellow veterans. He is also struggling, trying to bring his family’s ranch back to profitability after years of neglect. In addition to caring for his mother, who is battling cancer, Talon has also kept his military dog, Zeke, a Belgian Malinois with a grip like steel and a heart of gold.

The Triple H is a place where anyone would be proud and happy to work, and it makes a great setting.

I also enjoyed that this story has a secondary romance between Talon’s mother Sandy and their combination cook and accountant, Cass. Just because Sandy has had some tough knocks in her life, doesn’t mean she isn’t ready to try again, as long as it’s the right man. Cass and Sandy’s love story was sweet and made a nice counterpoint to the sometimes angry hot and sometimes smokin’ hot romance between Gil and Kai.

While there were reasons for Gil’s abandonment of Kai way back when, he did compound the issue by staying away after his duties were done. That his abrupt departure all too closely resembled Kai’s father’s treatment of her created some really deep wounds. They have a lot of trust to recover before they had a chance at happiness, and the author worked through that in the story.

However, the suspense angle of the story hit this reader new to the series as a bit out of left field. It also included an unfortunate misunderstandammit. Everyone in town seems to know that Chuck Harper is a villain. But everyone equally protects Kai from learning that Harper has a history of becoming obsessed with women and making them disappear when they reject him. They all think that just informing Kai that Harper is under investigation for drug trafficking will be enough to keep her away from the dude. At the same time, Harper is courting Kai by offering the services of his ace machine shop at bargain rates, and Kai, and the Triple H, need access to prime tools to keep their old farm equipment operational. The reader sees trouble coming miles away, because Kai doesn’t have the information to evaluate the true threat.

I also think that Harper’s dirty deeds have roots in earlier stories that I haven’t read. So his part of this plot loomed much more annoying than large because of my and Kai’s lack of information.

I still really enjoyed Kai and Gil’s story, and I’ll be happy to take another trip out to the Triple H.

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

Lindsay is giving away a copy of Wolf Haven, book number 9 in the Jackson Hole series, to one lucky U.S. or Canadian commenter.

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Review: Anything For You by Kristan Higgins + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Anything For You by Kristan Higgins + GiveawayAnything for You (Blue Heron, #5) by Kristan Higgins
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Blue Heron #5
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on December 29th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Before you get down on bended knee…
…you should be pretty darn sure the answer will be yes. For ten years, Connor O'Rourke has been waiting for Jessica Dunn to take their on-again, off-again relationship public, and he thinks the time has come. His restaurant is thriving, she's got her dream job at Blue Heron Vineyard—it's the perfect time to get married.
When he pops the question, however, her answer is a fond but firm no. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Jess has her hands full with her younger brother, who's now living with her full-time, and a great career after years of waitressing. What she and Connor have is perfect: friends with an excellent benefits package. Besides, with her difficult past (and reputation), she's positive married life isn't for her.
But this time, Connor says it's all or nothing. If she doesn't want to marry him, he'll find someone who does. Easier said than done, given that he's never loved anyone but her. And maybe Jessica isn't quite as sure as she thinks…

My Review:

If you think of the phrase, “anything for you” as having a similar type of resonance to Wesley’s famous “as you wish” in The Princess Bride, you’ll get an idea of the relationship between Connor O’Rourke and Jessica Dunn, with the reversal that he’s the prince and she starts the story as something less than a stableboy.

This is not a pretty story, because Jessica does not have a pretty life. It does finally have a mostly happy ending, although there are lots of times during the story where the reader rightfully wonders how these two are ever going to get there. Their romance has a lot of roadblocks in it, and while they both contribute to those roadblocks as adults, the ones they start with from childhood are difficult to get past, and with good reason.

Like so many of the stories in Higgins’ Blue Heron series, Anything for You tells a lot of its story in flashbacks. In fact, the entire first half or possibly two thirds of the book is a flashback. The story begins with Connor’s failed attempt at asking Jessica to marry him, and then goes all the way back to their occasionally intersecting childhoods. Connor’s memories of their past move closer and closer to that fateful evening, without any references to their present circumstances until after the story reaches that heartbreaking NOW. And then moves forward into a future that takes a lot of twists and turns to look brighter.

in your dreams by kristan higginsIn my review of In Your Dreams, I referred to Jack Holland’s willingness to be any woman’s date for any function where she needs an escort as him being a gentleman, and that he specifically is not the town bicycle. He helps a lot of women out of emotional jams caused by some other man – he doesn’t have sex with every, or even most of, the women he helps.

On the other hand, Jessica Dunn really was the town bicycle in high school. To the point where most people called her “Jessica Does” instead of Jessica Dunn. It sounds kind of sleazy and sordid, until we find out why. Jessica was gathering a group of strong and caring young men who would be willing to protect her younger brother Davey from bullies in exchange for sex with Jessica Does. Davey was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and needs all the protection that Jessica can give or gather for him.

Both of their parents are alcoholics, and Jessica has been the only person really responsible for Davey since the day he was born. She was 7, and she’s been his parent and his caregiver and his protector ever since.

But in the flashbacks, we see Jessica’s relationship with Connor from the very beginning, and from its rocky start things only go downhill for a long time. Davey’s dog Chico mauls 12-year-old Connor, and Connor’s distant and stuck-up dad drags Connor to the trailer park so he can punish poor Davey by having the dog hauled away to be euthanized. Davey, who can only see the world in black and white, spends his life convinced that Connor killed his dog.

So when adult Jessica and Connor begin their on-again/off-again friends-with benefits arrangement it is with the explicit understanding that it will remain a secret so that the volatile Davey never finds out.

Because Jessica has always and will always put Davey first. Even at the cost of her own happiness. But who is she really protecting? Davey or herself?

best man by kristan higginsEscape Rating A-: Anything for You was not quite as straightforward a romance as the earlier entries in this series. Also, it isn’t necessary to read every book in the series to get what’s going on in this one, but Manningsport is a nice place to visit with interesting people. If you like small town romances, start with The Best Man (reviewed here) to get in on all the fun.

Connor’s life has been relatively easy, and he is perfectly aware of it. He’s not self-centered nor does he think he’s perfect or God’s gift to women or anything like that. He’s just a guy who knows that he has mostly been lucky. His parents were upper middle-class, and while his dad was generally a selfish and self-absorbed bastard, he made sure that his family was well provided for financially if not emotionally. If Connor hasn’t exactly forgiven his dad for leaving their mother for a much younger (and very pregnant) woman, he is also perfectly civil about the whole thing. And his much younger sister Savannah is one of the lights of Connor’s life.

But Connor has loved Jessica Dunn for 20 years, and that isn’t going to change. He has taken whatever bits of her she can manage to give him, and he’s finally realized that it isn’t enough. He’s in his early 30s now and wants to be married to the love of his life and start a family. He’s also not willing to settle for second best – meaning a woman other than Jessica.

So Connor has to somehow get past his past with Davey, who throws a head-banging temper tantrum whenever he sees Connor.

And while Davey may only have an IQ of 50, he is as good as any child at emotionally manipulating his parental figure, in this case, Jessica.

Jessica is caught between several rocks and all kinds of hard places. Growing up as the only responsible party in a house of alcoholics, Jessica has no faith in anyone but herself. Her experience is that she is the only one she can trust not to let her down. She’s also sure that with her background, Connor can’t possibly love her. She’s certain that their relationship is all about the thrill of the chase. And while she is wrong, it is so easy to understand how she would feel that way.

She can’t let herself even think about a future with Connor, or about how she really feels about him, because she is certain that happiness is not for her. And because Davey hates Connor.

The author has done an excellent job of portraying an adult child of an alcoholic. Everything that Jessica is dealing with in the present are a natural response to the unpredictable insanity of her childhood.

Connor’s solution to their many dilemmas is ingenious, and also heartwarming. He has to create a relationship with Davey on Davey’s terms. When things backfire, it is up to Connor to point out how much of Jessica’s reaction isn’t about Davey, but is about Jessica. It’s only when they work things out from there that they have a chance.

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

Kristan and Little Bird Publicity are giving away a copy of Anything for You to one lucky U.S. commenter:

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Review: Where Lemons Bloom by Blair McDowell

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Where Lemons Bloom by Blair McDowellWhere Lemons Bloom by Blair McDowell
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Pages: 278
Published by The Wild Rose Press on December 16th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Romantic suspense that takes the reader on a non-stop thrill ride! Set on the beautiful Amalfi Coast of Italy.
When Eve Anderson meets Adamo de Leone on a ship bound for Europe, she has no idea of the dark secret that will endanger both their lives. She accompanies him to his home on Italy’s Amalfi Coast to open an inn left to him by his grandfather. But then she learns he spent 5 years in prison for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. Could the man she loves be responsible for embezzling eighty million dollars from the investment firm he once owned?
Adamo wants to hold Eve at arm’s length until he can clear his proud family name. But when there is an attempt on his life and Eve is terrorized by a gun-bearing thug, he realizes how much he wants her, and he must accept whatever help he can get to uncover the well-hidden trail of a six-year-old crime

My Review:

Where Lemons Bloom is a non-stop romantic adventure, complete with a dramatic rescue, a romantic cruise, an innocent man trying to clear his name, and his hair-raising confrontation with the ex who did him very, very wrong. All while being helped by an old Godfather in Italy and his younger brother in the States who is trying to stay out of the old family business, but can’t resist a chance to right a wrong – especially when he and his company have been caught up in the mess.

It all starts with a romantic rescue. Eve Anderson gets caught in the undertow off the coast of Barbados, and Adam de Leone rescues her from death by drowning. As she recovers from her ordeal, she wants to celebrate that she is still alive in a midnight tryst with the mysterious stranger, never expecting to see him again.

Instead, they find themselves sharing a table on a romantic trans-Atlantic cruise. For different reasons, neither of them feels ready to explore their intense attraction, but they can’t stop themselves from falling into each other’s company, and into a warm friendship that tries to bury the chemistry they feel.

Of course, they finally acknowledge failure, and as their romance blossoms, Adamo is finally forced to reveal the secret that Eve has sensed he’s been hiding. He’s a convicted felon, but he swears he’s innocent. At first, it seems as if he’s just saying what every criminal would say, but Eve believes him.

Not just because she loves him, but because the crime he is supposed to have committed doesn’t make sense. Or it doesn’t make sense that Adamo committed it. Someone certainly made off with $80 million dollars from his investment firm, but it wasn’t Adamo. His partner supposedly committed suicide to escape his own guilt, but there’s no suicide note.

And someone is trying to kill Adamo. If he’s a threat to anyone, it’s to the real perpetrators. He was willing to put it all behind him, but with his and Eve’s lives on the line, he has to find out who really done it before they do him in.

Adamo certainly has to get over his stupid notion that Eve could definitely do better than a broke ex-con with only a defunct inn in Positano to his name and seemingly a price on his head. Eve knows better, but convincing Adamo is a harder sell than it ought to be.

Of course, they could get killed before the dust settles. Or they could find their happily ever after.

Escape Rating A-: Adamo and Eve are two people who have both been through their own versions of hell. They are both certain that they are not ready to enter into a relationship, but love finds them anyway. Then it takes them on the non-stop thrill ride of their lives.

One of the things that I liked about this book is that the hero and heroine both have a few miles on them. They aren’t teenagers or even young twentysomethings. These are two people who have been around the block, and the trip has left them with some life scars that made them who they are.

Eve’s troubles have been more deeply personal, where Adamo’s were spread across the front pages for weeks. At the same time, the events in Eve’s life also changed who she expected to be, and left her with a load of her own guilt. Eve dropped out of college to become the full-time caregiver for her aging and invalid father as he suffered a series of strokes that left him disabled. She gave up her dreams so that he wouldn’t die alone in a nursing home, and in the end, he died alone while she was out shopping.

She feels both relieved and guilty. When she meets Adamo she is at the beginning of a three-month trip to Europe where she hopes to reset her life now that it is hers again. She needs to find a new purpose. She finds that purpose in helping Adamo reopen the inn that his grandfather left him. After his catastrophic failure and his prison term, the inn is the only asset Adamo has, and the only thing keeping him moving forward. Well, that and the marvelous extended family that is waiting to welcome him home to Italy.

It’s been said that the two most important things in life are love and meaningful work. Re-opening the inn gives both Adamo and Eve plenty of meaningful work. They also find love with each other, but Adamo is holding back because he’s so sure Eve can do better. When his life is threatened, he finally decides that he can’t live and let live, he has to solve the mystery of his past before it gets them both killed.

Once Adamo starts chasing own that old truth, the pace of the story never lets up. Especially once the Conti brothers get involved. With a little investigation, Adamo discovers that whoever tried to kill him is using the Conti organization, or at least its low-level soldiers, to get things done. Neither the “connected” Conti brother in Italy nor the legitimate businessman Conti brother in New York are happy to discover that someone has infiltrated their organizations and is involving them in contract hits and money-laundering schemes that they didn’t authorize.

When the villains find that the tables have been very efficiently turned on them, revenge is sweet, if not quite complete. But there are more than enough just desserts to make you smile at the end.

There has been a recent spate of “Italian Billionaire” romances, but Where Lemons Bloom turns that trope on its head. Adamo has all the makings of the typical Italian romantic hero, but is poor as a churchmouse. There has also been a recent rush of mobster romances, but this story subverts that in a good way. The old-fashioned Godfather is now an old man who is trying to take care of his people before he, and possibly some of the old ways, pass away. His younger brother is legit, but still willing to play the part if it helps the side of the angels.

All in all, Where Lemons Bloom is romantic suspense where the suspense has the reader frantically flipping pages to make sure everything turns out alright. And the romance is absolutely incandescent.

Review: Intimate by Kate Douglas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Intimate by Kate DouglasIntimate by Kate Douglas
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Intimate Relations #1
Pages: 336
Published by St. Martin's Paperbacks on December 1st 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

From bestselling author Kate Douglas comes the first book in a sensational new series set in California wine country—a place where love is always intoxicating...
HER BEAUTY IS POWERFUL.
They call her Kaz. She's a gorgeous model with a good head for business—until now, at least. Kaz has just been fired from her latest photo shoot for having the wrong tattoo in the wrong place at the wrong time. But a chance encounter with photographer Jake Lowell could make everything right again . . . if Kaz is willing to accept his proposition. What does she have to lose?
HIS DESIRE IS DANGEROUS.
Jake has been searching for the perfect model to pose for a body-jewelry shoot—one that will leave no room for modesty. Is Kaz, who is nothing if not professional, ready to bare it all for a man she is not sure she can trust? It's an offer that's too good to refuse . . . and as Kaz finds herself growing more comfortable with Jake, the attraction between them reaches arousing new heights. But while the artist and his subject learn more about each other in the intimacy of wine country, evil lurks in the shadows—and soon it becomes clear that someone else has designs on them...

My Review:

Intimate is the name of a brand that specializes in jewelry that does intimate things or features intimate places. Or both. It is also about intimate secrets that can save or doom a person – or a relationship. And the story is about the intimate relationship that develops between model Kaz and photographer Jake – a relationship whose intimacy neither intended, and one that will force them to deal with intimate secrets in both of their pasts.

This is a story of secrets and lies, and also the baggage that keeping those secrets drags behind us like a noose. Kaz reveals some of her baggage, and that revelation drives Jake to keep his very firmly under wraps – even when it reaches out of the past to put Kaz in deadly danger.

The story begins when Kaz is fired from her modeling agency. Although the ostensible reason is the monarch butterfly tattoo on her midriff, the actual reason is that she complained about the client’s son invading her dressing room while she was changing. And that the owner of the modeling agency is an asshat.

Jake needs a model with tats and piercings in both conventional and unconventional places to model his best friend’s line of high-end jewelry for body piercings. Jake is looking for someone both sexy and edgy, a model who conveys a slight touch of danger and lots of unconventionality. Kaz, with her six-foot-plus height, her bold butterfly tat, and her piercings in her ears, nose, belly button, and other more private places, is exactly the look that Jake is searching for.

That she also appeals to him on a personal and very intimate level is a bonus. Especially when she says that she hasn’t got the time or the energy to invest in a relationship while her career is smoking hot.

Because Jake and Kaz have unfortunate dueling traumas in their respective pasts. Kaz’ beloved little sister Jilly was killed by a drunk driver, and Jake did six years in the California Youth Authority for driving drunk and killing a young mother and her child.

Once Jake learns about Jilly, he is determined to keep his own unsavory past from Kaz. They fall into an intense weekend fling, that neither of them expects to be more – even while they separately hope that it could.

But someone from Jake’s past is sending threatening texts – and trying to frighten or kill Jake with a series of near-fatal accidents. It looks like someone all too sober wants Jake to die the same way that his victims did all those years ago.

When Jake’s stalker turns his attention from Jake to Kaz, Jake is forced to confront the actions he thought he left two decades in the past – before they take the life of the woman he loves.

Escape Rating A-: The romance in Intimate heats up almost instantly, while the suspense does a slow and increasingly frightening build to its bloody climax. Once the suspense ramps up, it is impossible to put this book down. I know, I tried.

One of the fascinating parts of the suspense in this story is that Jake’s secret both is and isn’t what the reader thinks it is at the beginning. It’s a slow reveal that ramps up the tension and drives the reader crazy. Jake and Kaz would have had a much easier time of it if he had come clean a lot earlier – but it is easy to understand why he doesn’t.

At the same time, the story of little Jilly’s death both is and isn’t the one that Kaz initially tells. The bits that she leaves out don’t have the same feel of lies of omission that Jake’s do, but they are still pretty important. And they make the two sets of old baggage match a bit more than the reader first believes.

The chemistry between Jake and Kaz is absolutely smoking hot from the very beginning. These are two people who can’t keep their hands, their minds or their hearts away from each other from the moment they meet. But their mutual hesitancy about taking the relationship further than model/photographer is very real.

The villain of the piece is a bit over the top into absolutely screaming, foaming at the mouth crazy. His motive for all this evil seems logical on the surface, but once we finally get to meet him in the epic conclusion, we see that he has pretty much flung himself off the edge of sanity. To the point where, based on his history, one can’t help but wonder if he was ever ON or even within spitting distance of the edge of sanity in the first place.

redemption by kate douglasThe fast tension of the romance and the slow build of the suspense make Intimate a fantastic story to get absorbed in. And the ending provides a very satisfying conclusion to the dangling threads of all of Kaz’ and Jake’s relationships – especially the one that no one sees coming.

And for the real treat – Intimate is the first book in a series. The teaser at the end for the next book, Redemption, had me well and truly teased. I can’t wait.

Review: Christmas on Candy Cane Lane by Sheila Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Christmas on Candy Cane Lane by Sheila RobertsChristmas on Candy Cane Lane (Life in Icicle Falls, #8) by Sheila Roberts
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Life in Icicle Falls #8
Pages: 400
Published by Mira on October 27th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Icicle Falls is the place to be at Christmas…
Everyone's getting ready for Christmas in Icicle Falls, especially on Candy Cane Lane, where holiday decorating is taken very seriously. Tilda Morrison, town cop, is looking forward to celebrating Christmas in her first house… until she discovers that she's expected to "keep up" with the neighbors, including Maddy Donaldson, the inspiration behind the whole extravaganza. But this year, someone's destroying Maddie's precious candy canes! Thank goodness for the cop in their neighborhood.
Tilda already has her hands full trying to sort out her love life and fix up her fixer-upper. Oh, and won't it be fun to have the family over for Christmas dinner? Not really… Then there's her neighbor, Ivy Bohn. As a newly single mom, Ivy can sum up the holiday in two words: Bah, humbug. But she's determined to give her kids a perfect Christmas.
Despite family disasters, irritating ex-husbands and kitchen catastrophes, these three women are going to find out that Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year!

My Review:

This is a story about what happens when you live next to the Griswold family from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Or at least you feel like you do. When the plastic trappings of Christmas become way more important than any spirit of Christmas whatsoever, you have a recipe for disaster. And comedy.

This entry in the Life in Icicle Falls series is set on Candy Cane Lane, and one of the story threads follows the woman who makes it all happen. Literally. Maddy Donaldson is the person who petitioned the village to change the name of the street to Candy Cane Lane in the first place, and she’s the person responsible for making sure that every resident has their holiday lighting display dialed up to 11. She’s also the cheerleader and organizer who schedules every single woman on the street to serve as Mrs. Claus, standing out in the cold and snow and giving away free candy canes to the carloads of mostly local tourists who come to see Candy Cane Lane in all its electric glory.

(There are plenty of real places that do Christmas to the nth degree the way that Candy Cane Lane does, The Sauganash neighborhood in Chicago is fairly famous, or infamous, in the Chicagoland area.)

But Mandy is so busy organizing the neighborhood, whether they like it or not, that she doesn’t see how often she breaks promises to her husband and daughter in order to play Mrs. Claus or chivvy the neighbors into more holiday spirit. If some of those neighbors are turning to other types of holiday spirits in order to avoid her, she misses that, too.

Mandy isn’t the only woman on Candy Cane Lane having a little difficulty seeing the Christmas around her. Ivy Boch is spending her first Christmas alone. Last December 26, her husband said he’d had enough of being tied down, and left. Now they are sharing custody of their two little kids, and sharing a rather separate misery. Their daughter has written to Santa that all she wants for Christmas is her Daddy back home. Ex-husband Rob has finally figured out that he was a jerk and an idiot, and wants to come home. But Ivy isn’t sure she can trust him again, and who can blame her?

Icicle Falls Police Office Tilda Morrison has just bought a fixer-upper house on Candy Cane Lane. Her love life is non-existent, and she’s decided to quit waiting and just get on with her life. One problem is that her fixer-upper needs way more fixing up than she thought. Her second problem is that one of the local bad boys, Devon Black, would love for Tilda to take him on as her very own personal handyman and fixer upper. And if that wasn’t enough, her new neighbors expect her to solve the sudden rash of Christmas decoration vandals that is ruining everyone’s Christmas displays, right along with Mandy’s and Tilda’s Christmases.

Something needs to change on Candy Cane Lane, or no one is going to have a very merry Christmas.

Merry Ex-Mas by Sheila RobertsEscape Rating B: Just like the previous entry in this series, A Wedding on Primrose Street (reviewed here), Christmas on Candy Cane Lane reads more as women’s fiction than it does a romance. The emphasis in this story is on women’s friendships and women’s relationships, including the fractured relationship between Maddy and her daughter, the tenuous friendship that grows up between Ivy and Tilda, and Tilda’s loving but sometimes contentious relationship with her mother Dot.

Also like a previous holiday entry in the series, Merry Ex-Mas (my personal favorite in Icicle Falls), the women are dealing with the men in their lives at very different stages in those relationships. Maddy and Alan are harried but generally happy with each other; Ivy and Rob are divorced but nothing has been resolved, and Tilda and Devon are still dancing around whether they will have a relationship or not.

Each of the women is in the middle of a crisis. Maddy’s daughter Jordan has become a teenager with a vengeance, and their formerly good relationship is strained by Jordan’s mood swings and increasingly bad attitudes. Ivy is having a meltdown between managing her shop, taking care of her kids, and feeling lonely and stressed to the max. Tilda is worried about her mother, who ends up in the hospital, and has a never-ending series of house-related messes.

Seemingly no one is perfectly happy. But they all get through, often by helping each other. And in the end, they each find out what is really important at Christmas. And the rest of the year.

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Review: A Wedding on Primrose Street by Sheila Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: A Wedding on Primrose Street by Sheila RobertsA Wedding on Primrose Street (Life in Icicle Falls, #7) by Sheila Roberts
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Life in Icicle Falls #7
Pages: 384
Published by Mira on July 28th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

There's nothing like a wedding!
The joy, the fun, the memories—the stress. As a wedding planner, Anne Richardson has seen mothers of the bride turn into Momzillas, and she's determined not to do that when it's her daughter's turn to get married. But once Laney gets engaged, all bets are off. Anne becomes obsessed with giving Laney the perfect wedding she herself never had. And that wedding needs to be held in Icicle Falls at Primrose Haus, the perfect setting.
Roberta Gilbert, owner of Primrose Haus, has been hosting events at her charming Victorian for thirty years. She's an expert on weddings, but not on mother-daughter relations. When her daughter, Daphne, comes home and decides to help with the business, the receptions become truly memorable—and not in a good way. Then there's the added complication of Roberta's gardener, who seems more interested in Daphne than he is in planting primroses…
Tying the knot is a business that has everyone tied up in knots!

My Review:

Although there are a lot of weddings in this entry into the Life in Icicle Falls series, this one isn’t really a romance. The weddings are all for romances that have already reached their happily ever after, we hope. Or to paraphrase one of the wedding planners, her job is to create a perfect wedding, a perfect marriage is not in her job description. Or capability.

Instead of a romance, this story is all about relationships. Specifically, mother/daughter relationships. And it’s mostly about the number of ways they go wrong, although things do get straightened out before the end. Mostly.

The story centers around two women who are both in the business of perfect weddings. Anne Richardson is a Seattle wedding planner who has just found out that her daughter Laney is engaged. Anne wants Laney to have the perfect wedding, a day that she will remember for the rest of her life with no regrets.

Roberta Gilbert is the owner of Primrose Haus in Icicle Falls. Roberta rents out the beautiful Victorian house for perfectly beautiful weddings, and helps coordinate the services of the caterers, florists and all the other myriad minions needed to pull off the event of a lifetime. But Roberta’s daughter Daphne is back home after her third failed marriage. Daphne wants to help her mother in the business and take few weeks or even months to get her life back on track.

Both Anne’s relationship with Laney and Roberta’s relationship with Daphne go through many trials by fire as the two mothers get together to create the perfect wedding for Laney. The only problems are that Roberta really doesn’t want her disappointing daughter Daphne anywhere near her business, and Laney (and her fiancee) don’t want anything like the wedding that Anne has her heart set on.

Readers get a ringside seat as both sets of mothers and daughters have to struggle their way through to a happily ever after for their relationships, as each of the older women has to reconcile themselves to the regrets in their own pasts before they can repair the present, and hopefully the future.

Although love does help conquer all, in this story, it’s really truth and understanding that finally win the day.

Escape Rating A-: Unlike most of the series so far, A Wedding on Primrose Street is a lot more women’s fiction than anything like a romance. There are a couple of romances that get off the ground in this story, but they are background to the main event. That main event is the relationships between mothers and daughters in both Anne’s and Roberta’s families.

Roberta ran away from home in the early 1960s, a pregnant high schooler whose boyfriend abandoned her and whose mother cared much more about her standing in the community than the plight of her daughter and future grandchild. Roberta’s escape to Icicle Falls to have her child was the best thing that ever happened to her. But she never did resolve issues with her own mother, and while she loved her daughter Daphne, held her to such high standards that Daphne never felt capable. When Daphne comes home, all Roberta sees is another result of her daughter’s terrible choices, and another round of disappointment. As far as Roberta is concerned, the only thing that Daphne has done right is to successfully raise her own now-adult daughter.

When Daphne comes home and wants to help her mother, who is in her early 70s and needs to slow down a bit, all Roberta sees is an endless series of business disasters until Daphne falls in love with another loser. She doesn’t see her own part in Daphne’s issues, nor does she see the woman that Daphne has become.

Anne Richardson, although more of a generation with Daphne than Roberta, has also spent her life in a tug of war with her daughter and her own past. Anne always wanted the traditional big church wedding, but married in haste at the courthouse when she found out she was pregnant, and that her fiancee was due to ship out with the Army for the Middle East. Anne is very happily married, but has always regretted that hasty wedding. She’s determined to pull out all the stops for Laney’s wedding, whether Laney wants those stops pulled or not. Laney is just young enough to want to please her mother, even knowing that what her mother wants is not what she wants. Laney is caught in the middle between her mother-the-steamroller and her fiancee who wants to have a destination wedding in Vegas. A wedding that is much more in line with Laney’s (and Drake’s) artistic and very non-traditional life and tastes.

Anne turns into something she dreads, a “Momzilla” and Laney runs and hides from the preparations she doesn’t want. It takes an intervention for Anne to be forced to look at what she is doing to her relationship with her daughter. And her husband.

This is a story that got me in the feels. The ways that things go right and wrong seems so true to life, that it hit too close to home, and to my own issues with my mother. So it was sometimes a rough go for me, not because it wasn’t a good story (it definitely is good) but because it often felt too real.

A Wedding on Primrose Street is a terrific story for anyone who has unresolved issues with their mother, but still wants to see a happy ending. And don’t we all?

Review: The Lodge on Holly Road by Sheila Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: The Lodge on Holly Road by Sheila RobertsThe Lodge on Holly Road (Life in Icicle Falls, #6) by Sheila Roberts
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Life in Icicle Falls #6
Pages: 368
Published by Harlequin MIRA on October 28th 2014
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

How Santa Gets His Christmas Spirit Back…
James Claussen has played Santa for years, but now that he's a widower, he's lost interest—in everything. So his daughter, Brooke, kidnaps him from the mall (in his Santa suit!) and takes him to Icicle Falls. She's arranged a special Christmas at the lodge owned by long-widowed Olivia Wallace and her son, Eric. And yet…Brooke wants Dad to be happy, but she's not ready to see someone else's mommy kissing Santa Claus.
Single mom Missy Monroe brings her kids to the lodge, too. Lalla wants a grandma for Christmas, and her brother, Carlos, wants a dog. Missy can't provide either one. What she'd like is an attractive, dependable man. A man like John Truman… But John's girlfriend will be joining him in Icicle Falls, and he's going to propose.
Of course not everything goes as planned. But sometimes the best gifts are the ones you don't expect!

My Review:

I pulled The Lodge on Holly Road out of the virtually towering TBR pile because I’m scheduled to review the 8th book in this series, Christmas on Candy Cane Lane, early in November. I totally forgot that Holly Road was last year’s Christmas book in the Life in Icicle Falls series. So I get two heaping helpings of Christmas spirit in time for the upcoming holidays.

Merry Ex-Mas by Sheila RobertsWhile Merry Ex-Mas is still my favorite Christmas book in this series, at least so far, The Lodge on Holly Road was definitely a tasty treat.

The first thing readers need to know about this series is that Icicle Falls is really Leavenworth, Washington, a small tourist town that really did change its look to make it seem like something out of an idealized Bavarian Forest. It is just this cute, and in the location relative to Seattle described in the book.

The Lodge on Holly Road is a bed and breakfast in Icicle Falls. In this story, the Lodge is open for its regular Christmas package, but the guests that arrive for this particular Christmas make the holiday a special treat for everyone involved.

Olivia Wallace owns the Lodge, and she and her oldest son Eric run the place. Her younger son Brandon drops in every once in awhile, especially at the holidays. Brandon is still making a way for himself, which currently involves traveling around the U.S. searching out the best ski resorts. He’s a teacher and trainer, but it does seem like a bit of an excuse to be a “ski bum”.

Olivia has been a widow for 14 years, and Eric, as much as he’d like to settle down and get married, hasn’t found the right woman in the small town he loves. And as he and his friends lament at the beginning of the story, most women who visit Icicle Falls from Seattle or wherever live in those other places because they don’t want to actually live in a small and sometimes remote place like Icicle Falls.

Brooke Claussen just wants her dad to recapture not just his Christmas spirit, but a little bit of his spirit in general. As James Claussen often spends the holidays as a department store Santa, he really needs a little Christmas, but has lost his heart. His wife (and Brooke’s mother) died last Christmas Eve after a long struggle with cancer. In his grief, James has turned inward and is shutting himself off from the world.

One of the really sweet things in this story is that Olivia and James are pretty much perfect for each other, and it is especially lovely to see their burgeoning romance take a chunk of the center stage in this multi-romance holiday treat. It’s also good that Brooke and Eric both have their own experiences with caretaking and jealousy, and need to figure out what their places are in their parents’ lives, and what place they might find in each other’s life as well.

But the heart of the story revolves around poor deluded John Truman, and Missy Monroe, the single mother he rescues on the way to Icicle Falls a couple of nights before Christmas.

John believes that his big city girlfriend, Holland, will just love Icicle Falls, the vacation he has meticulously planned, and the engagement ring he plans to present to her on Christmas Eve. It is pretty obvious to the reader and most of the other guests at Holly Lodge that John is seriously deluding himself, but as is so often said, “love is blind”. In Truman’s case, it’s even blind that what he feels is love.

Missy Monroe is a single mother with two young children by different fathers. She’s the first to admit that her choices in men have not been stellar, but her children are the light of her life and she is doing her best to raise them with much more love and care than she received from her alcoholic mother. Missy’s problem is money. It’s pretty clear that she isn’t collecting any child support, and her wages and tips at the low-end beauty salon where she does hair isn’t enough to make ends even wave at each other, let alone meet.

Missy has saved all year long to give her kids a beautiful Christmas someplace nice. But the presents that Carlos and Lalla want are beyond her budget and control. Carlos wants a dog that she’s not allowed to have in their apartment. And Lalla wants a grandma, which is even harder to magic up.

As John Truman finds himself more and more alone on what should have been a romantic holiday, he spends more and more time with Missy and her kids. Missy sees instantly that John is just the kind of man that she would love to be with – he’s caring, sincere, funny, willing to try new things and most of all, loyal. That he’s a stable accountant and not a flake doesn’t hurt either. But all the things that Missy likes about John, including his steadiness and his desire to settle down in a small town just like Icicle Falls, are all the things that his erstwhile fiance finds boring, if not downright low-class.

The Christmas miracle in this story is that everyone who comes to the Lodge on Holly Road this Christmas finds their happily ever after, no matter how remote a prospect it seemed at the beginning. There’s even a puppy and a grandma for Missy’s kids.

Escape Rating B+: Everyone gets what they need for this Christmas, even if (or especially because) it wasn’t what they thought they wanted. I also liked the way that Olivia and James’ romance was treated. We so seldom see romances that feature, frankly, anyone over 40, let alone anyone around 60. While both of their children have issues seeing their living parents with someone other than their dead parents, the fact is that 60 isn’t dead and they both have plenty to give a new partner that doesn’t take anything away from each of their happy first marriages or their relationships with their kids.

It was icing on the cake that when Eric and Brooke stopped squabbling over their parents getting together, they discovered that their parents had the right idea. The two families do belong together, and Eric has as much in common with Brooke as his mother does with her dad.

Icicle Falls is always lovely, and when John Truman’s would-be fiance Holland finally gets there and acts like the whole place is beneath her, we all know she’s evil and he needs to find someone who will love him as he is. Not wanting to go out clubbing every weekend is not a character flaw. And when he finally figures out that he was just Holland’s “starter boyfriend” in a new city and that now that she knows her way around she’s ready to trade him up for someone flashier, we know he’s WAY better off without her, whether he gets the clue to start a relationship with Missy or not.

While it is not necessary to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy The Lodge on Holly Road, the ambiance of Icicle Falls provides a nice backdrop for this story. We get to catch up with a few people that we’ve already met, but those old favorites are a side note to a story that is all about the newbies in town and in the story.

For a tasty bite of Christmas cheer, The Lodge on Holly Road is a lovely story. And Olivia’s mouth watering recipes for her Lodge will make you hungry for a holiday getaway of your own.

Review: Rock Redemption by Nalini Singh + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Rock Redemption by Nalini Singh + GiveawayRock Redemption (Rock Kiss, #3) by Nalini Singh
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Rock Kiss #3
Pages: 316
on October 6th, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Kit Devigny could have loved rock guitarist Noah St. John. Their friendship burned with the promise of intense passion and searing tenderness…until the night Noah deliberately shattered her heart.
Noah knows he destroyed something precious the night he chose to betray Kit, but he’d rather she hate him than learn his darkest secret. All he has left is his music. It’s his saving grace, but it doesn’t silence the voices that keep him up at night. Chasing oblivion through endless one-night-stands, he earns a few hours’ sleep and his bad boy reputation.
When a media error sees Noah and Kit dubbed the new “it” couple, Kit discovers her chance at the role of a lifetime hinges on riding the media wave. Wanting—needing—to give Kit this, even if he can’t give her everything, Noah agrees to play the adoring boyfriend. Only the illusion is suddenly too real, too painful, too beautiful…and it may be too late for the redemption of Noah St. John.

Rock Redemption is a powerful story. It is not an easy story.

Both Kit and Noah have a lot of baggage about their pasts and their parents. But there’s a big difference. Kit has learned to deal with her parents’ benign neglect combined with extreme protectiveness. She loves them, they love each other, but they don’t hurt her anymore. Not because they aren’t still occasionally selfish idiots, but because Kit has learned not to count on them for anything. It’s a hard lesson, and it’s had some overlap into the rest of her life, but she has learned to deal with it.

Earning her own as an actor has helped her, not just for the fame and fortune, but for the validation. And the fame is certainly a mixed blessing – it’s brought her great movie parts, but also a vicious stalker.

And some of Kit’s baggage was dropped in her lap by Noah’s crap.

Noah has had a much tougher row to hoe, and has way more baggage as a result. His rich parents are cold and distant. They occasionally require his presence, but can’t look him in the face. We don’t find out what happened until fairly close to the end of the book, although there are clues dropped early on. But what happened was bad at the time, and it’s worse now in lots of ways because Noah has never had any help getting past it. The wounds are scars that he keeps picking at, and one of those ways that he picks at those scars is to pick up lots of women and have hard and meaningless sex.
rock hard by nalini singhAnd there are lots of women to pick up – Noah is a member of Schoolboy Choir, the rock bank that has featured in Singh’s Rock Kiss series. Lead singer Fox found his true love in Rock Addiction (reviewed here), drummer David, found his happy ever after with their publicist Thea in Rock Courtship (review at The Book Pushers) and in a lovely kind of side-story, businessman Gabriel woos and wins Charlotte, the very best friend of Fox’s Molly in Rock Hard (review also at The Book Pushers).

Noah has gone through his life believing that he isn’t worthy of being loved. And this in spite of the fact that he and Fox have been best friends for 20+ years. But now that he sees his friends fall in love and find real happiness, Noah is starting to envy them a bit. But he thinks he is too messed up for happy ever after. He’s sure that he’ll ruin anything he touches.

And that’s where Kit comes in. Before this story opens, Noah and Kit fell into a deep friendship that masked very real love on both their parts. But Noah, doing a classic “I’ll hurt you now so I don’t destroy you later”, let her find him with another woman. Noah and Kit weren’t even dating, but it was a betrayal and he knew it and did it on purpose.

A lot of the story in Rock Redemption is Noah and Kit recovering their original friendship and trust, to set the stage for that more that Noah can’t believe he deserves.

Escape Rating B+: There are a lot of classic elements to this romance. It is definitely a friends-into-lovers story, while at the same time being a second-chance-at-love story. It has some of the feel of good-girl-reforms-bad-boy, and it has oodles of fake-romance-turns-real.

At the same time, it’s an absolute heartbreaker. Part of the bedrock of the story is that Kit knows she loves Noah, but she is absolutely unwilling to let him off the hook on dealing with his own shit. She’ll help him, she’ll sit up with him, she’ll run with him in the middle of the night, but she won’t let him use her as an emotional punching bag. He has to own up to what went wrong in the past, and work to get beyond it. Over it isn’t possible or reasonable, but he has to stop using his past as the reason to screw up the present, and do it without booze or drugs or endless parades of women to numb the pain.

I really lRock Addiction by Nalini Singhiked Kit. She both stands up for herself and fights for what she wants. She knows just how far she will go, and doesn’t waffle on her line in the sand. She’s scared and hurt and she still does everything she can to get where she wants to be.

She also lives her life on her own terms, in spite of the crazy stalker who has broke into her house, sends her sick notes and drops presents where she trips over them. The stalker seems to be escalating their level of insane possessiveness, and it’s a constant menace to Kit’s life and happiness. But as much as I admired Kit’s strength in the face of this adversity, the reveal of the stalker seemed a bit anti-climactic at the end.

The setup of the fake-romance plotline also seemed a bit contrived, but it was necessary for the story, and it was lovely to watch the way that Noah would just about beat himself up to do whatever he could to help Kit’s career – no matter how much he hurt himself in the process.

But I still loved this story. It is, in some ways, the exact opposite of Rock Addiction, which sometimes seemed like all sex all the time. In Rock Redemption, we have a very necessary very slow burn as Noah and Kit have to find their way back to trusting each other before they are ready to love each other.

For another take (actually several other takes) on Rock Redemption, check out the Group Review over at The Book Pushers.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

ROCK REDEMPTION BLOG TOUR

Nalini is giving away a $50 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter on this tour!

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Review: Christmas in Mustang Creek by Linda Lael Miller + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Christmas in Mustang Creek by Linda Lael Miller + GiveawayChristmas in Mustang Creek (The Brides of Bliss County, #4) by Linda Lael Miller
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, large print, audiobook
Series: Brides of Bliss County #4
Pages: 272
Published by HQN Books on September 29th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

No one does the holidays like Linda Lael Miller, whose Christmas novels have warmed the hearts of millions of readers the world over!
Charlotte Morgan grew up in Mustang Creek, Wyoming, and couldn't wait to escape to the big city. But life in New York isn't as fabulous as she'd like to admit—she's lonely, doing a job she doesn't love and dating too many frogs she meets online.
There was one potential prince, though—Jaxon Locke, a veterinarian with definite possibilities—but his move to Idaho to fill in at his dad's vet practice ended things just as they were getting interesting. What Charlotte doesn't know is that he misses her, more than he expected…
Meanwhile, Charlotte's great-aunt Geneva—the woman who raised her—needs to enter an assisted-living facility. So, just before Christmas, Charlotte moves back home. When Jax catches wind of her move back West, he's determined to get to Wyoming and do whatever it takes to win her back.
Christmas in Mustang Creek is a magical time in a magical place, not least because of a mysterious visitor named Mrs. Klozz. She knows that love is the greatest gift of all, and she's ready to help out Santa by giving these two a push in the right direction!

On the one hand, it’s barely October and I’m reviewing a Christmas book. I feel like there should be someone throwing a flag on this play – “Ten yard penalty for rushing the season”.

On the other hand, Christmas in Mustang Creek is a lovely story with a heaping helping of holiday magic, so if you can sit back and check your willing suspension of disbelief at the door, it’s a sweet little holiday treat. And it was cool enough this weekend to make reading a holiday book into a reminder that the season is just around the corner. Or maybe two corners.

Winter is coming, but this little story makes that seem like a good thing.

marriage pact by linda lael millerChristmas in Mustang Creek is a follow-up novella to Miller’s Brides of Bliss County series. While that series was lovely (start with The Marriage Pact (reviewed here) to find out how Charlotte’s friends found their happily ever afters) it is definitely not necessary to read Brides in order to enjoy Mustang Creek. There’s enough recap to place the other women in their context, but this Christmas belongs entirely to Charlotte, Jaxon, Charlotte’s great-aunt Geneva and especially Mrs. Millicent Klozz.

Charlotte comes back home to Mustang Creek after seven years as a marketing executive in New York City. She loved New York and her life there, but her great-aunt Geneva, the woman who raised her, has moved into an assisted-living complex after a few incidents with her memory. Geneva feels more comfortable in a place where she can’t forget that the stove is on, or forget whether she’s fed her beloved dog and cat 10 times or none that day. Not that Mutley didn’t enjoy the extra meals.

Charlotte feels the need to go home to take care of Geneva, the dog Mutley, the cat Can-can, and figure out what to do with Geneva’s marvelous Victorian house, which is gorgeous but in serious need of a new roof, and that’s just for starters. And since Charlotte has just been laid off, returning home will give her a chance to recoup and regroup, and figure out what she wants to do next.

She also has a hard time admitting that Mustang Creek, a place she couldn’t wait to get away from, is calling her heart back home.

Meanwhile, the only man that Charlotte was ever serious about in New York, veterinarian Jaxon Locke, is moving to Mustang Creek to join his college roommate’s veterinary practice. And Jaxon is definitely chasing Charlotte. When they met in New York, he was just there on a temporary assignment – he’s from Idaho and knew he would be returning to the Big Sky Country. At the time, Charlotte seemed determined to stay in New York, and Jaxon eventually returned home.

But now that Charlotte is coming home to Mustang Creek, Jaxon has decided that her hometown in Wyoming will fit his dreams just fine, as long as she’s there to share them with.

They all get a little help from the holiday magic of Aunt Geneva’s friend Mrs. Klozz, who seems to know everything before it happens and spreads more than a bit of holiday magic to make sure that everyone gets the present their heart desires this Christmas.

Escape Rating B+: I think that how people are going to feel about this story may depend a lot of what people think of Mrs. Klozz, her extremely successful “manipulation” of people and events (all to the greater good and the course of true love) and even who they think she really is.

I have my own opinion on that last, but it’s a spoiler. Maybe. If I’m right.

Back to the story – Mrs. Klozz aside, it’s easy to see where Charlotte is coming from. Possibly easier for us than Charlotte. Her parents were killed when she was very young, and she has some serious and understandable issues about being dependent on anyone else, which definitely affects her relationship with Jaxon.

Mustang Creek is a very small town, where everyone knows everybody else’s business the moment it happens, or possibly before. It’s easy to understand why Charlotte might want out, and might feel conflicted about coming back.

Also there are way more single men in New York City, but she keeps finding frogs. The only handsome prince she dated in NYC turns out to be Jaxon, a man from a small town in Idaho just like Mustang Creek. The difference is that Jaxon is upfront about wanting to go back home and settle down. He just wants to do that settling down with Charlotte, and she’s having none of it.

Charlotte has a lot of fears that just because Jaxon wants to return to his small town roots, he also wants Charlotte to be a “traditional” wife who stays home and takes care of lots of (their) children. While they have definitely had the painful discussion of where they each see themselves living, they never seem to have had the discussion about how they see themselves living. Which makes this a fabrication of Charlotte’s fears rather than a real problem.

Jaxon sees Charlotte as a woman who will always want a career, and that’s part of what he loves about her. But this is a question that never comes up. Also, Charlotte fears that she will need to find another big city job to pay for her aunt’s care, which she wants to do. While this turns out not to be necessary, again, this is a fear that she does not share with Jaxon. High-paying jobs for marketing managers are non-existent in Mustang Creek, but Mrs. Klozz’ idea to turn Aunt Geneva’s beautiful house into a much needed bed and breakfast is a challenge that will engage Charlotte, require the use of her brand marketing skills, help the town and make enough money for Charlotte to take care of the house, herself and Aunt Geneva if necessary.

It’s a win-win-win (admittedly one with a LOT of work attached) if Charlotte can let go of some of her fears and listen to her hopes and dreams.

The author does a good job of setting up Jaxon’s move to Mustang Creek so that it doesn’t feel like creepy stalkerish behavior. Yes, he is moving there in the hope that it will give him a chance with Charlotte. But his best friend really does need another vet, Jaxon is good at his job, and he tries very hard not to put any pressure on Charlotte.

Of course, he has Mrs. Klozz in his corner, moving obstacles out of the way and setting him up for success. It turns out that having Mrs. Klozz in his corner was all the help that Jaxon really needed, because this is a love story where the heroine just needs a chance to listen to her heart instead of wrestling with every manufactured worry in her head.

And a little holiday magic always helps!

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

Linda is giving away a copy of Christmas in Mustang Creek to one lucky U.S. commenter:

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