Publisher: Forever

Review: As Seen on TV by Meredith Schorr

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C- Reviews
Review: As Seen on TV by Meredith SchorrAs Seen on TV by Meredith Schorr
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: Chick Lit, contemporary romance, romantic comedy
Pages: 352
Published by Forever on June 7, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Fans of the Hallmark Channel and Gilmore Girls will adore this delightful rom‑com about a city girl who goes in search of small-town happiness, only to discover life—and love—are nothing like the TV movies.
Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real . . . and maybe even find her dream man in the process. 
Only Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who’s more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can’t seem to find—even if he does work for the company she’d hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time?

My Review:

As Adina Gellar discovers, life is NOT like a Hallmark movie. Except when it is.

It could be said that 25-year-old Adina Gellar is experiencing a “failure to launch”. She’s still living with her mother in their rent-controlled NYC apartment. She’s graduated from college, but she’s looking for a job in journalism – and that’s one field that very much isn’t what it used to be. So she has two low-paying jobs as a spin instructor and a barista so that she can contribute something to household expenses. And she keeps cold-calling the editor of one lifestyle publication hoping that one of her ideas will click. She’s trying, but it seems like not very hard because her nest is much too comfortable.

She’s also fed up with the dating scene after yet another first date where the guy can’t be bothered to show up. She’s done.

But she’s addicted to Hallmark movies, so when she sees a profile of a big time New York City real estate developer who has bought up a huge building site in a little town about 2 hours outside the city, she thinks she’s found a story straight out of one of those Hallmark movies she loves so much.

She even manages to sell the story to that editor she keeps calling. Now all she has to do is spend a week or two in beautiful, rustic Pleasant Hollow and write a story about its wonderful small town ambiance, close-knit community, and fears of losing its identity and heritage in the face of a big, bad developer coming in and gentrifying the place.

Adi assumes that Pleasant Hollow is going to be just like all the quirky, plucky, welcoming little towns that she’s seen in all those Hallmark movies. And that she’ll find a hunky, handsome local who will sweep her off her feet.

None of Adi’s Hallmark fueled hopes and dreams about Pleasant Hollow turn out to be remotely true. Except for one. She does find a hunky, handsome man who does sweep her off her feet – after he laughs at her rather a lot – and justifiably so. But Finn Adams isn’t local.

He’s the on-site representative for that supposedly greedy developer that Adi was planning to cast as the villain in her story. But bad boys need love too – and so do slightly naïve would-be journalists.

Escape Rating C-: I really, really wanted to like this and I just didn’t. The idea had the potential for so many happy feels – rather like the Hallmark movies that inspired it. But it was let down by its main character.

Adi is naïve to the point of ridiculousness. We’re not surprised that Finn has fun misdirecting her, we’re just surprised that she’s so gullible as to fall for it. I know that I lot of people LOVE Hallmark movies – and I’ve certainly enjoyed the books that some of them have been based on, but does anyone believe that anything in them is real? Seriously?
That being said, I kind of liked the schadenfreude of Adi discovering that small towns – or at least the small town she was visiting, were absolutely nothing like what she’d seen on TV.

While I did like Adi’s relationship with her mother, as well as her lovely friendship with her lifelong bestie Kate, Adi herself just wasn’t enough to carry the book. Although it certainly made for a fairytale ending that she not only got the guy but that she managed to fail upwards in her journalism career in a way that would be perfect for a Hallmark movie – but in real life only happens to cis, straight, white men who got much luckier in the difficulty setting for their life than the even the regular lowest difficulty setting would allow.

Your reading mileage may definitely vary, but I think the next time I’m looking for the equivalent of Hallmark movie feels I’m going to go back to Virgin River – even though that’s on Netflix.

Review: Not the Duke’s Darling by Elizabeth Hoyt

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Not the Duke’s Darling by Elizabeth HoytNot the Duke’s Darling (Greycourt, #1) by Elizabeth Hoyt
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical romance
Series: Greycourt #1
Pages: 496
Published by Forever on December 18, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt brings us the first book in her sexy and sensual Greycourt Series!

Freya de Moray is many things: a member of the secret order of Wise Women, the daughter of disgraced nobility, and a chaperone living under an assumed name. What she is not is forgiving. So when the Duke of Harlowe, the man who destroyed her brother and led to the downfall of her family, appears at the country house party she's attending, she does what any Wise Woman would do: she starts planning her revenge.

Christopher Renshaw, the Duke of Harlowe, is being blackmailed. Intent on keeping his secrets safe, he agrees to attend a house party where he will put an end to this coercion once and for all. Until he recognizes Freya, masquerading amongst the party revelers, and realizes his troubles have just begun. Freya knows all about his sins—sins he'd much rather forget. But she's also fiery, bold, and sensuous—a temptation he can't resist. When it becomes clear Freya is in grave danger, he'll risk everything to keep her safe. But first, Harlowe will have to earn Freya's trust-by whatever means necessary.

Features a bonus novella from New York Times bestselling author Grace Burrowes!

My Review:

This is going to be a mixed feelings review. I’m all over the map about this one – and I didn’t expect to be. While I haven’t read ALL of the author’s Maiden Lane series, I’ve generally liked the ones I have read quite a bit.

But this one, well, yes and no.

On the one hand, it starts out with a bang, with Freya helping a desperate woman and her child escape from the man who wants to abuse them both. This particular escape isn’t about sex, it’s about money. The child is the rightful earl, her husband is dead, and his cousin plans to basically imprison the little boy and ransack the estate during his minority while keeping the boy’s mother away from him so she can’t support or protect him.

Women and young children were chattel, this chilling scenario was entirely possible – and legal. Freya has rescued both the mother and child, and is spiriting them away to a ship bound for America. But her pursuers are relentless, so she jumps into a nobleman’s carriage – only to discover that the nobleman in question is someone she knows – and loathes.

It should have been the start of a wild adventure, but the tension kind of fizzles out. Or at least it did for me.

While we do eventually find out why Freya hates the Duke of Harlowe so much (and those issues do reach resolution) what we really don’t get nearly enough information about is why Freya is participating in the rescue in the first place.

Not that the woman and her baby don’t need rescue, and not that someone shouldn’t do it. But how Freya got involved in the situation is murky. She’s a “Wise Woman”, a member of an order of independent women that has existed since the Roman occupation, if not before. She’s the “Macha” of the Wise Women, a title that seems to mean covert agent and spy as the situation requires.

But the Wise Women, while potentially interesting, never seem to get enough explanatory background, or at least not for this reader. What it felt like was simply a quick and dirty way of providing the 19th century heroine with the education, attitudes and perspectives that would appeal to 21st century readers. She’s so close to us that she feels anachronistic for her time.

That also seems to make her perfect for Christopher Renshaw, the aforementioned Duke of Harlowe, if they can get past the gigantic amount of baggage that stands between them.

Because the real backstory of this series seems to be the long-ago Greycourt scandal. Fifteen years ago, Harlowe, Freya’s brother Ranulf, and Julian Greycourt were the best of friends. Until one night when Julian’s sister tried to run off with Ranulf de Moray, and somehow she got herself killed and Ran got the blame. As well as a beating that cost him his dominant hand and his family’s place in society.

Freya has blamed Harlowe all these years, but as he eventually explains to her, he never believed that her brother was guilty of murder. And all three of the young men were, in fact, very, very young, only 18, and none of them had the position or the maturity to prevent the ensuing mess. Now he does, but the damage has already been done.

Personally, I believe that the overarching story in this series will be the eventual discovery of what happened that night, and that the individual books in the series are going to focus on all of the people who were affected by the scandal. Not just Harlowe and Freya, but eventually Julian Greycourt, the Greycourt sisters who were Freya’s friends once upon a time, Freya’s brother Ranulf, and whoever the hell the guilty party or parties turn out to be.

But we are not there yet. Much of this particular entry instead focuses on Freya’s activities with the Wise Women and their foes the Dunkelders, who believe that the Wise Women are witches who should be burned at the stake. They aren’t witches, but then, the great majority of those who were the victims of the witch hunts weren’t either.

Along with yet another rescue of another woman who desperately needs it.

The problems I have with the story all come back to the Wise Women. We don’t know enough for that piece of the story to really work. The Greycourt scandal grabbed my interest, as did the eventual romance between Harlowe and Freya, but it always felt like there was a hole in the back of the story – like a tooth cavity that you can’t stop sticking your tongue into – even though it hurts every time.

Escape Rating B-: I keep harping on the problem with the Wise Women, or rather the lack of enough information about the Wise Women. That’s because Freya’s participation in the group provides her with too many 21st century attitudes for too little data. One of the issues with historical romance is the difficulty of giving readers a heroine who has enough agency that we can identify with her while still having her fit into her time and place. And Freya doesn’t manage to walk that tightrope, at least not for this reader.

Your mileage may vary, or your version of the tightrope may be a bit wider than mine.

Review: Total Bravery by Piper J Drake + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Total Bravery by Piper J Drake + GiveawayTotal Bravery by Piper J. Drake
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: romantic suspense
Series: True Heroes #4
Pages: 304
Published by Forever on April 24, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

True heroes will do anything to protect the women they love...

As the newest recruit at Search and Protect, Raul has a lot to prove. Luckily, he's got the best friend and partner a man could ask for: a highly trained, fiercely loyal German Shepherd Dog named Taz. Together, Raul and Taz make an unbeatable team. But their first mission in Hawaii really puts them to the test when an international kidnapping ring sets its sights on the bravest woman Raul's ever met . . .

Mali knows her latest job has put one hell of a target on her back. And on this small island paradise, there's nowhere to hide. With a service dog like Taz, Mali feels safe. Sharing close quarters with a smoldering muscle-for-hire like Raul, she feels something else - an unexpected wave of desire. Raul feels it too. But when the kidnappers make their move, he's got to turn that slow-burning passion into hard-hitting action - and save the life of the woman he loves.

My Review:

Although I read the previous book in this series, Absolute Trust, this book does not feel like it followed from that one. At all.

That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a good time with the people and dogs of Total Bravery, but it does mean that if you want to get into this series and haven’t read the previous books – no problem at all. They are equally good (more on that later) but don’t seem to connect up.

There is one way in which Total Bravery is very much like the previous book in this series. In both cases, while the heroine is in jeopardy and needs the hero’s help to stay safe and alive, said heroine is not the victim of a stalker, or a evil ex (evilex™) or any man with a sexual agenda directed at her. Nor were either of them in danger merely because they are women.

In both cases, the suspense part of the plot revolves around what the heroine does, specifically what she does for a living. It’s her agency that gets her into trouble, and it’s her agency that helps get her out. Nor in either case is the heroine TSTL (that’s Too Stupid To Live) so that she puts herself in unnecessary trouble.

Mali in particular is smart and savvy and knows just what to do when her research partners are suddenly swept off the streets of Hawaii by overheated men in tailored suits. No one wears dark suits in Paradise – unless they are up to something no good and are willing to advertise that fact.

While Mali follows the safety protocols set up by her research team, but she also has an ace in the hole – her sister Arin is part of Search and Protect, a private security and investigation firm that does just what the name implies – and is located in Hawaii.

So Mali doesn’t just hide out – she calls for help from people she knows can definitely help her. In fact, they are experts at it. But with her sister Arin off the island, Mali’s rescue falls to the company’s newest recruits, Raul Sai and his German Shepherd Dog Taz. Once Raul and Taz meet Mali, the three of them form an almost instant team – even in the face of big sister Arin’s confused disapproval.

Arin still sees Mali as the little girl she once protected from bullies, while Mali still sees Arin as the scary big sister who took care of her by displaying her dark side to anyone who threatened little Mali.

Mali may still be a lot smaller than her big sis – but she’s a grown up now with a job that takes her into places as dark and dangerous in their own way as her sister’s military service. Mali and her team are researching human trafficking on the streets of Hawaii, and they’ve gotten into someone’s way.

It’s up to Search and Protect to find her missing team and rescue them, and protect Mali from bad people who want to kill or kidnap her, without trying to shove her into a tight little box the way that her sister wants.

And while Raul and Mali do their best to alternately ignore and explore the explosive chemistry between them – before they have to go their separate ways.

Escape Rating B+: I really, really like the fact that Mali never loses her agency in this story. It’s refreshing, because so often in romantic suspense the heroine gives up her ability to act for herself in order to get rescued, and Mali never does.

I also loved the way that Raul and Taz, along with the other teams in Search and Protect, are so obviously a team. It is a joy to read the way that the two of them work together and are growing towards each other in a true partnership – and that both of them, in obviously different ways, see Mali as a part of their “pack”. Taz is possibly even more protective of Mali than Raul is, but then again, Taz has considerably less emotional baggage to deal with.

In spite of the obvious physical differences, one of the things that is emphasized in this romance is that Raul and Mali, if they pursue a relationship, can hurt each other. All too often it’s all about the woman getting hurt, and about her giving up essential pieces of herself to stay with the man. That doesn’t happen here.

And it’s both that Mali will have to deal with Raul’s focused and deadly military side, as well as the things he has to do and the acts that he has committed to stay alive, and that Raul will have to deal with the fact that Mali will put herself in danger for her work. It’s also that they live as far apart in the U.S. as possible (Boston vs. Hawaii) and that they will have to compromise to be together, but without giving up anything essential to either of them. The author makes it work.

Another thing that worked for me in this story is that Raul never minimizes or discounts anything that Mali says. Not only does that happen too often in fiction, it happens entirely too damn often in real life, where women’s words, intelligence, warnings and gut instincts are ignored or discounted because they are women. He takes her seriously every step of the way, and by example makes sure that the rest of the team does too.

The romance in this story takes a bit of a back burner to finding and rescuing Mali’s teammates, and that’s as it should be. That both sides of the story do resolve happily is what made this one so much fun.

As much as I am a cat person in real life, I love this trend of smart, protective dogs as characters in military romance and romantic suspense. Bring on the puppies!

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

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Review: Back Home at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Back Home at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + GiveawayBack Home at Firefly Lake (Firefly Lake, #3) by Jen Gilroy
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Firefly Lake #3
Pages: 368
Published by Forever on December 5th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A heartwarming small-town romance that will make you believe in love and second chances.

She has a million reasons to leave. Can he give her the one she needs to stay?
Cat McGuire's return to Firefly Lake is turning into much more than she bargained for. Sure, she missed the crisp pine-scented air and the comfort of having her family around her. But being home makes her feel less like the successful single mom she is--and more like the awkward teen who never fit in. It doesn't help that hockey-pro Luc Simard is back in town, too. Luc was her childhood crush, the hometown hero who never noticed her, and yet somehow he still makes her heart skip a beat.

Luc's homecoming has been bittersweet. He's lost his wife and his career, but there's no better place to start over than Firefly Lake. Coaching the local kids' hockey team makes him feel alive again, and he thinks his life is complete--until Cat arrives. The shy girl he always wanted to protect is now the gorgeous woman who's stealing his heart and making him believe in second chances. But how can he convince Cat that Firefly Lake is where she truly belongs?

In the tradition of New York Times bestselling authors Susan Wiggs and RaeAnne Thayne comes an emotional story about finding love in the most unexpected of places from Jen Gilroy.

My Review:

Second chance lake strikes again!

Firefly Lake really does deserve to be renamed “Second Chance Lake” because it seems like everyone who goes there, especially those who go back home there, discover a second chance at love, and sometimes even a second chance at life.

Cat McGuire needs a do-over. Or a restart. Or at least enough time to consider what her next step in life should be. As the sister of Nick McGuire (hero of Summer on Firefly Lake) she has some of the same baggage that Nick did. Their dad didn’t just leave their mother when they were kids, he ran out of town just ahead of everyone finding out that he’d cheated a whole lot of people out of their money. Think of him as a small time Bernie Madoff who faced fewer consequences.

But Cat, already considered the town oddball as an intellectual whiz kid, found herself the center of more attention than any child could reasonably cope with. Which she, of course, avoided by retreating even further into her books, making her stand out even more.

The one person who stood up for her against all the bullies was budding hockey star Luc Simard. So of course Luc became her hero, and her first crush, and her big brother’s best friend all rolled into one.

Cat comes back to town to look after her mother a bit, after the cancer scare, but also to use a research grant to work on a book about women’s sports in Vermont history. She hopes that getting the book published will finally put her on track for a tenure-track teaching position – something that is really hard to come by for history Ph. D.s, even when they get that Ph. D. from Harvard.

And Cat is hoping that Firefly Lake will give her daughter a chance for a do-over at school. At 12, all Amy wants to do is play hockey. But her dyslexia has held her back academically, and her Boston team was ready to kick her out for not meeting academic standards. The Firefly Lake team is a community team and not a school team, so her grades are not an issue. But Cat worries just as much, because there is no separate girls hockey team in tiny Firefly Lake. Amy will have to play with the boys. And while she’s plenty good enough, if not better, than the other players on the team, as puberty kicks in she just isn’t as big.

But Luc Simard has retired from the NHL and come home. As the new head coach of the team, he sees something in Amy that he doesn’t often see. She can feel the ice in a way that only great players can. It’s a talent he’s happy to nurture. not just for the joy of coaching but also as a way to “pay forward” to the sport that he loves and that has given him so much, even though it has also taken so much away.

Like it took his late wife, who was  herself a women’s hockey star. But now Maggie is gone, two years dead after a brain aneurysm burst. He wasn’t there because he was on the road with his team. And he can’t manage to let go of his grief or his guilt.

So when he discovers that Cat, the little girl he used to protect, is all grown up, he discovers that she touches a part of his heart that he thought he had buried with Maggie. He feels even more guilty.

But the ice has melted, and he can’t stop feeling. Even if he doesn’t know what to do about it. And even as he mucks things up again. Second chances are rare. Third chances are almost – but not quite – impossible.

Escape Rating B+: This series, heartwarming from its beginning in The Cottage at Firefly Lake to its end with this book, with its small town centered around a lake and its second chance at love stories reads a lot like Mary McNear’s equally lovely Butternut Lake series. Although the two are several states apart, these little lake towns and the people who populate them have a very similar feel. If you like one, you’ll like the other – even if Firefly Lake in Vermont sounds BRRRRR cold this time of year!

Although both Luc and Cat need the second chances offered by a return to Firefly Lake, the second chances that they each need are different.

In some ways, Luc’s story is a bit more obvious. In his mid-30s, Luc has been a widower for two years. His wife died suddenly and tragically, while carrying their child. Her aneurysm may have been caused by her high-risk pregnancy. He feels guilty, both about persuading her to try again after a series of heartbreaking miscarriages, and because he wasn’t there when she died. He’s grieving the loss of his soulmate, their child and the future that they had planned together.

And he’s grieving the loss of his career in the NHL, after an illegal hit took out his shoulder. And even though the reality is that if he had not retired when he did, he hadn’t had many years left at the top of his sport, and if he weren’t retired by now, it would be coming soon. Which doesn’t make that loss any easier to deal with.

Cat’s circumstances are different. She isn’t eligible for a second chance at love because she’s never let herself be vulnerable enough for a first chance. Her beloved daughter Amy is the result of a leaky condom and what she thought might be the beginning of a relationship while the guy in question was trying to win a bet. That circumstance, on top of her dad’s betrayal, has left Cat understandably gunshy about men and relationships.

But she does need to step back and do a re-think of her choices and her options. She’s been so focused on achieving her academic goals that she hasn’t been able to look at the big picture. A picture that makes the future look a lot like the past and present, stringing together enough temporary teaching gigs to make barely enough to keep Amy and herself fed and clothed by working 16 hours a day for too little pay. Liberal arts Ph. D.s are unfortunately on the wrong end of a buyer’s market. There are too many candidates and not nearly enough tenure-track jobs.

Both Luc and Cat are back in Firefly Lake at the point of a kind of “time-out” in both of their lives. Even though neither of them is looking for it, both of them are in a position where they need to re-think both their pasts and their futures.

And what they discover is that the affection that they’ve always had for each other is still there, but that now they have the possibility of more – if they can get past the baggage that they are both tripping over on the way there. As their chemistry heats up but the roadblocks multiply, their HEA looks like it might derail before it even leaves the station. It’s only when they all (including Amy) finally decide to go for it anyway that they are able to reach for the future, together.

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

Jen is offering one (1) lucky Grand Prize winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a paperback copy of Back Home at Firefly Lake. Five (5) runner-up winners will receive a paperback copy of their choice from the Firefly Lake series! This giveaway is open internationally. To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:

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Review: Summer on Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Summer on Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + GiveawaySummer on Firefly Lake (Firefly Lake, #2) by Jen Gilroy
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Firefly Lake #2
Pages: 368
Published by Forever on July 25th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A Firefly Lake Novel
Sometimes love is better the second time around . . .
Mia Gibbs spent her marriage putting her husband's needs before her own. And now, after a painful divorce, she's building a new life for herself and her two daughters back home at Firefly Lake. The last thing she needs is a man to complicate things. But former bad boy turned friend Nick McGuire-and the one kiss they've shared-has turned everything upside down . . .
Attorney Nick McGuire wasn't meant to be a family man. His career has always been his focus and after taking time out to help his mother, he's ready to get back to the city . . . until Mia and her daughters arrive at Firefly Lake. Mia is beautiful and intriguing, and it doesn't take long to realize being "just friends" will never be enough. As the summer nights turn colder, Nick will have to choose between the life he's always wanted . . . and the woman he can't live without.

My Review:

Firefly Lake is clearly a lovely place to live. It also seems to be just down the road from Mary McNear’s Butternut Lake, in spirit if not in miles. And both of these little towns seem to be perfect places to find a second chance at love, and a second chance at being sisters.

The first book in this series, The Cottage at Firefly Lake, focused on Charlie Gibbs, her teetering relationship with her sister Mia, and her rekindled romance with local resident Sean Carmichael It was a lovely story, with happy endings almost all around at the end. It also feels like it leads directly into this second book in the series.

In this Summer on Firefly Lake the focus shifts from Charlie to her older sister Mia, and Mia’s long-ago crush on Sean’s best friend, the former town bad boy Nick McGuire. Except that Nick has changed from the town rebel to a workaholic lawyer with a failed marriage behind him and a strong desire to leave Firefly Lake again as fast as he can.

He just needs to get his mother settled first. And that’s where Mia comes in.

Nick is absolutely certain about what his mother should do. Gabrielle McGuire is widowed, 62, and has just survived a bout of cancer. Nick is sure that her big rambling house is just too much for her. And while he may be right, it’s not what Gabrielle wants and moving to a retirement bungalow is not what she’s ready for. It’s also not the only possible solution – it’s just the only that Nick can see in his rather desperate tunnel vision.

Nick needs someone to help his mother clean out all the old closets and attics and storage rooms and cabinets and cubby holes at Harbor House that are filled with over a century of family junk. Mia, recently divorced and looking for work, is happy to step in and help. Her daughters will be spending the summer with their dad, her house is currently under renovation, and she needs both a place to stay and the money the job will bring her.

And Mia loves Gabrielle almost as much as Nick does. She’d help Gabrielle anyway, so it’s nice to get paid much more than the job is worth for something that would be a labor of love.

It also provides a reason for Nick and Mia to spend time together. They are friends now, but once upon a time she was the town princess and he was the local bad boy, and of course they had the teenage hots for each other. Nothing ever came of it, but those feelings are still there, down deep. But at the moment, each of them is convinced that their friendship is too important to risk, that neither of them has the time or inclination for a relationship, and that the other is only interested in being “just friends”. And they’re both certain that they are too damaged to be capable or worthy of being loved.

But as the summer goes on, many, many issues, not just between Nick and Mia, but also Gabrielle’s health, Sean and Charlie’s impending baby, and most especially Mia’s relationship with her pre-teen and teenage daughters and the mess that her ex has already made of their lives and wants to make again, change the dynamic.

Nick and Mia both agree that all they want is friendship “with benefits”. But the closer they get, the harder it is to keep their hearts behind that line. Even if only one of them is able to admit it.

Escape Rating B: At heart, this feels like a story about lessons. And not just lessons in love.

Nick needs to learn to let go, which may seem a bit contradictory for the hero of a romance, but really isn’t in his case. Nick is holding onto a whole lot of things that he shouldn’t, as well as trying to hold onto something that he simply can’t.

His mother’s health scare reminded him just how fragile life is. He’s not ready to lose her, so he’s trying his level best to wrap her in cotton wool and protect her however he can. But life happens, and bad things happen in it, and there’s no way to protect someone you love from cancer. It takes Nick a lot of the book, along with a lot of help from Mia, to stop arguing with his mother over what he thinks is best and listen to what she really wants.

He also needs to let go of his resentment at and anger with his father. Not because the man doesn’t deserve every scrap of opprobrium Nick has in his heart, but because the negativity is hurting Nick way, way more than it could ever hurt his old man. Mia, on the other hand, needs to learn to stand on her own two feet and advocate for what she wants and what she needs, instead of placating the strongest voice in the room – usually her ex-husband.

Speaking of Jay, he’s a douchecanoe. And saying that is actually kind of an insult to douchecanoes. He’s not evil, he’s just awful. It’s also ironic but so often true that women see their father’s big flaws (and did her late, unlamented father ever have a ton of them) and say that they won’t marry a man like dad. Then they end up marrying a man just like dad, and he’s just as awful and in just the same ways.

Mia couldn’t stand up to her father, and she didn’t stand up to Jay as he cut her down at every turn, tried to erase her personality, was a constant cheater who in the end got one of his many, many side-pieces pregnant and finally divorced Mia to marry her. As I said, Jay is a douchecanoe. And Mia was his doormat, but she isn’t any longer.

Mia is way better off without him, and she knows it. But when he threatens her custody of their daughters, both covertly and overtly, Mia has to steel herself for the challenge. Not just because she can never be with the asshat again, but because seeing her cave in to him when they all know he’s a lying, cheating, selfish scumbag is bad for her daughters.

It’s terrific watching Mia take charge of her life, even if she does dither a bit about the past at times. She finally learns to go after what she wants. And if Nick is too stuck in the past to see what’s right in front of him, she’ll manage. It will hurt, a lot, but she’ll manage. And that’s just the example he needs to kick him where it hurts enough for him to finally see the light.

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

Jen is offering one (1) lucky Grand Prize winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a paperback copy of both The Cottage at Firefly Lake (the first book in the series) and Summer on Firefly Lake. Five (5) runner-up winners will receive a paperback copy of Summer on Firefly Lake! This giveaway is open internationally. To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter below:

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Review: The Cottage at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Cottage at Firefly Lake by Jen Gilroy + GiveawayThe Cottage at Firefly Lake (Firefly Lake, #1) by Jen Gilroy
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Firefly Lake #1
Pages: 368
Published by Forever on January 31st 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Some mistakes can never be fixed and some secrets never forgiven . . . but some loves can never be forgotten.
Charlotte Gibbs wants nothing more than to put the past behind her, once and for all. But now that she's back at Firefly Lake to sell her mother's cottage, the overwhelming flood of memories reminds her of what she's been missing. Sun-drenched days. Late-night kisses that still shake her to the core. The gentle breeze off the lake, the scent of pine in the air, and the promise of Sean's touch on her skin . . . True, she got her dream job traveling the world. But at what cost?
Sean Carmichael still doesn't know why Charlie disappeared that summer, but after eighteen years, a divorce, and a teenage son he loves more than anything in the world, he's still not over her. All this time and her body still fits against his like a glove. She walked away once when he needed her the most. How can he convince her to stay now?

My Review:

The Cottage at Firefly Lake is a book about second chances. Not just the second chance at love that forms the backbone of the story, but also a second chance at family, and a second chance at life. Or perhaps that last would be better referred to as a “do over” at life. You be the judge.

Charlotte and Mia Gibbs have returned to Firefly Lake to sell their late mother’s cottage. It’s the place where they spent their summers, and it’s all they have left of their mother. It’s also a place they both love and resent, and now it represents a chance for both of them to get some financial security at the cost of losing their last connection to their mother.

And possibly their last real connection to each other.

Charlotte and Mia were “summer people” in the community, but for Charlie it was much, much more. Charlie didn’t feel like she fit in with her family, with her perfect homemaker mother and her seemingly equally perfect sister Mia. Instead, Charlie wanted adventure, and she spent those childhood summers with her best friend, local boy Sean Carmichael.

Their intense childhood friendship matured into an equally intense teenage love. But Sean was tied to Firefly Lake and the boat crafting and marina business that had been in his family for generations. Charlie was off to college and a career as a foreign correspondent. And even though she didn’t know exactly where she would end up, she knew at 18 that what she wanted was to travel and explore, not tie herself to the tiny Vermont lake town, no matter how much she loved it, or Sean.

But instead of a natural breakup over time and diverging interests, Charlie left Sean suddenly and inexplicably, and neither of them ever got over it. They’ve never gotten past the intensity of that teenage love, even though Charlie has had a terrific and exciting career, and Sean has been married (now divorced) and has a son turning 16.

There’s too much unfinished business between them.

Charlie and Mia need to sell the cottage. Badly. Mia fears that her husband is about to leave her with their two daughters and no career to fall back on. And she’s right. Charlie recently survived an IED attack while on assignment, and her insurance didn’t cover all the resulting medical bills. Her savings are tapped, and she is all too aware that she has no one to rely on in a crisis except her current shaky self.

But the only offer on the table is one that will change Firefly Lake forever, and not in a way that anyone wants. It’s up to Charlie to find a way to make things work – for the town, for her sister, for herself, and most of all, for any possible future she might have with Sean.

If he can get his head out of his ass long enough to finally figure out that he has to meet her halfway – wherever that might be.

Escape Rating B+: It was terrific to read something a bit light and fluffy after yesterday’s much more serious book. The Cottage at Firefly Lake was a great little pick-me-up.

It also felt more than a bit familiar.

Separated by several states, Mary McNear’s Butternut Lake series (start with Up at Butternut Lake) has the same feel as Firefly Lake. It is also a small town with a lake at its center and heart. And it is also a place where people get a second chance at love, and where sisters get a second chance to find each other, particularly in the most recent book in the series, The Space Between Sisters. Anyone who loves Butternut Lake will also enjoy Firefly Lake, and very much vice versa.

Meanwhile, back in Vermont at Firefly Lake, this story is a lovely introduction to the place and to the series. It’s a story with several threads, and they blend together pretty well.

The big story isn’t the romance, it’s the relationship between sisters Charlie and Mia. They’re sisters, and they love each other, but they are also distant and don’t know each other. There’s also a whole lot of sisterly envy going on, as each of them believes that the other has the “perfect life” and each of them believes that the other had a happier, or at least easier, childhood and adolescence with their late parents.

And there’s a whole lot of family history bound up very interestingly in this story. Not just the Gibbs’ family, but also Sean’s family. And let’s just say that the late Dr. Gibbs was a real piece of work, with all of the negative connotations of that phrase. He’s still messing up everyone’s lives, even from the grave.

One of the great things about this story is the way that the romance develops. Even though Sean and Charlie never really got over each other, they also both recognize that they are not the same people they were half a lifetime ago. They don’t exactly take it slow, but they also don’t gloss over the fact that if they want to have a relationship, it has to be in this present and not the past. Nothing about this is easy.

There’s a lot to love at Firefly Lake. I’m looking forward to a return visit in Summer on Firefly Lake, appropriately scheduled for this summer.

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

Jen and Forever are giving away 10 paperback copies of The Cottage at Firefly Lake to lucky participants in this tour!

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Review: Absolute Trust by Piper J Drake + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Absolute Trust by Piper J Drake + GiveawayAbsolute Trust (True Heroes, #3) by Piper J. Drake
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: True Heroes #3
Pages: 320
Published by Forever on December 20th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

LOVE IS THE GREATEST RISK OF ALLAfter multiple tours of duty, Brandon Forte returns to his hometown on a personal mission: to open a facility for military service dogs like Haydn, a German shepherd who's seen his share of combat and loss. It also brings him back to Sophie Kim, a beacon of light in his life . . . and the one woman he can't have. But Forte's success means he's made enemies in high places. Enemies who are now after Sophie . . .
When Forte enlisted and left without saying goodbye, Sophie did her best to move on. But with her first love back in town, looking sexier than ever, she's constantly reminded of what they could have had. Then after he risks himself for her, Sophie realizes she'll have to put her life in the hands of the man who broke her heart, knowing the danger -and the sparks between them- could consume them both.

My Review:

This was a case of the right book at the right time for me. I really needed a straightforward romance suspense, and with its terrific combination of hot romance and nail-biting tension, Absolute Trust completely filled that need.

With a tiny bit of quibble at the very end. We’ll get there.

The story is all about Sophie and Brandon (and Haydn and Tessa) and getting out of the “friend zone” and moving towards the future. If everyone survives, that is.

Brandon and Sophie were friends in high school. And they are friends now. In the middle, there was a giant rough spot that Brandon wants to paper over and Sophie needs to just get over. But first she has to know what happened way back then.

Sophie has always loved Brandon. And seemingly vice-versa. But Brandon never believed he was good enough for Sophie, and her father certainly agreed with that assessment. So instead of sticking around and pursuing a relationship, Brandon joined the military the night of their high school prom.

Sophie never even got to say goodbye. And she never got over him. She also never managed to get past that her first lover dumped her without a word, turning all the dreams they shared that one night into dust. Brandon may have bravely run into the fight, but he also rather cowardly ran away from Sophie.

Brandon comes home after his deployments, and opens Hope’s Crossing Kennels. And Sophie steps up to be his friend, because that’s all she believes they can ever have. And she believes it’s worth staying in the “friend zone” just to keep Brandon in her life.

Until someone plants a bomb under her car, and she barely escapes certain death through sheer luck. Brandon just happened to be out walking Haydn, a new “recruit” at the Kennels. The big German Shepherd dog has a prosthetic leg, and a nose for sniffing out explosives. It’s Haydn’s alert that saves all their lives.

And plunges Sophie’s entire world into chaos, leaving her with her life in tatters and only Brandon to hang onto. Hiding from Sophie’s would-be killers, on the run for their lives, Brandon and Sophie finally manage to open all the cans of worms they’ve been stepping around for years.

Once all the baggage is finally dropped, can they have a future together? Do they have a future at all?

Escape Rating B: I picked up Absolute Trust after I discovered that Piper J. Drake is also PJ Schnyder. I loved her science fiction romance series, both London Undead and The Triton Experiment, so I was thrilled to see that she was still writing in a different space.

From her SFR, I knew she was good at mixing romance with suspense. The worlds of both series are not exactly safe or sane. And that she was good at throwing her hero and heroine together in the midst of life-threatening danger.

So it proves in Absolute Trust. Whatever they were before, the relationship between Brandon and Sophie in this story has to survive a crucible of fire, as do they. And whatever baggage they have hanging around, and it’s a ton. They also have to figure out if they have a chance as the people they are now. Brandon in particular has been tried by fire, under fire, and the compartmentalization necessary to be a military operative is still very much a part of him. He is scared, and rightfully so, that the deadly side of his nature might frighten Sophie away.

But because he has managed to paper over all the issues that made him leave Sophie the first time, he has difficulty understanding that the biggest problems between them aren’t in the present, but in the past. He left her once without a word. How can she ever trust that he won’t do it again?

True Heroes SeriesAbsolute Trust is the third book in the author’s True Heroes series. Although this is the first book in the series that I have read, I did not feel lost at all. The previous heroes and heroines appear just enough to provide a sense of continuity and the feel of a working community, without being so much a part of the story that the reader needs more than the background provided. This story isn’t about the past of the group, it’s about the past between Brandon and Sophie, and that’s all here.

I also liked Brandon and Sophie as the hero and heroine quite a bit. Absolute Trust is a twist on the friends-into-lovers trope, and its done well. The very real dilemma of whether it is worth risking their solid friendship to grab for more is handled well on both sides. As is Sophie’s intense realization that she has been taking the easy, non-conflict path her entire life, instead of doing the hard work of sticking up for what she truly wants. I loved the way she figured out that she needed to make some serious changes, whether or not Brandon remained a part of her life.

Something I particularly enjoyed about this story is that the danger to Sophie was caused by her work. She didn’t have a stalker or a vicious ex. She wasn’t a victim in need of a rescue. Her difficulties were the result of her own actions rather than her inactions, in spite of the fact that her epiphany about her life did have to do with taking a too easy path. There are too many suspense stories where men become endangered because they did something, where women become endangered merely because they are women. I liked this trip to the danger zone much better.

The one issue I had with Absolute Trust is that it didn’t quite stick the dismount. The story is completely absorbing from beginning to end, but it doesn’t seem to end with complete resolution. Sophie and Brandon are still trying to work things out. They need a bit more time for the ending to feel like an HEA. At the same time the bad guys that they are fighting against don’t seem unequivocally gone. Probably gone, but not quite certain. If there is a fourth book in the series I hope that some of these issues get resolved.

Haydn and Tessa were the secondary stars of this show, and provided heroism and comic relief at the appropriate moments. As a tiny feline, Tessa seems to just embody “cat”. Brandon’s description of her pointedly washing ALL her bits right in front of him as the equivalent of a cat giving him the finger was perfectly hilarious. Also perfectly true.

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

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Piper and Forever Romance are giving away 10 copies of Absolute Trust to lucky winners on this tour.

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Review: Size Matters by Alison Bliss + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Size Matters by Alison Bliss + GiveawaySize Matters (A Perfect Fit #1) by Alison Bliss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Perfect Fit #1
Pages: 336
Published by Forever on November 29th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

The rules of (fake) engagement . . .Leah Martin has spent her life trying to avoid temptation. But she's sick of low-fat snacks, counting calories, and her hyper-critical mom. Fortunately, her popular new bakery keeps her good and distracted. But there aren't enough éclairs in the world to distract Leah from the hotness that is Sam Cooper - or the fact that he just told her mother that they're engaged . . . which is a big, fat lie.
Sam sometime speaks before he thinks. So what started out as defending Leah's date-ability to her judgmental mother soon turned into having a fiancee! Now the plan is to keep up the fake engagement, stay "just friends," and make Leah's family loathe him enough to just call the whole thing off . But Sam has an insatiable sweet tooth, not only for Leah's decadent desserts but her decadent curves. Her full lips. Her bright green eyes. Yep, things aren't going quite according to plan. Now Sam has to convince Leah that he's for real . . . before their little lie turns into one big, sweet disaster.

My Review:

This story may be the longest misunderstandammit ever. But it works. Mostly.

Sam and Leah spend most of this story talking past each other, and even past the best parts of their own selves. And they are stuck in a situation where just asking for what the other person meant just isn’t gonna happen.

It’s not exactly a meet cute. Sam and his friend Max meet Leah and her friend Valerie at one of the local dives. Max wants to hit on Valerie, and asks Sam to keep Leah occupied while he dances with her friend and tries to talk her into a whole lot more.

But Max and Valerie are not the couple who end up going home together. Just not in the way that anyone expected.

Leah is not exactly a size 2. She’s may be bigger than average, which in the US these days is more like a size 14 or 16 than anywhere near a size 2. She never actually says what size she wears, and that’s really not the point. The point is that Leah has absolutely terrible body-image problems. It’s not just that society keeps pushing the stick-thin model as the ideal, but that Leah’s conventional and uptight mother picks at Leah about her weight every single minute every time she’s with her family. Oh, and her ex-fiance broke up with her in favor of a Barbie-doll Leah calls Miss Anorexia.

Her mother’s harping and carping would be enough to give ANYONE a complex of one kind or another.

So when Sam starts dancing with her at the bar, and then blows hot and cold in turns, Leah is just sure it’s all about her size. Sam, on the other hand, finds her curvy body incredibly hot. But he’s decided to take a break from relationships after his last girlfriend got more than a bit psycho.

It really isn’t her, it’s him. But he’s such a complete doofus about it that Leah easily slips into her go-to response, that the problem is all her. That there’s just too much of her. So she tries to drink away her pain and Sam ends up taking her home.

The problem is that Sam really likes Leah, and also seriously has the hots for her. He just keeps telling himself that he doesn’t and that he shouldn’t. But his inner conflict means that every time they run into each other, he puts both his feet in his mouth up to the knees, and gets both of them further and further into hot water.

And that’s how their fake engagement comes about. He keeps saying he’ll help Leah find a halfway graceful way to end it, but every time he thinks he’s going to try, he just lands them both deeper in the soup. And he keeps hurting Leah over and over, which is the last thing he wants to do.

It takes a big man to admit he’s made a terrible mistake. Especially when he keeps making it over and over. And over. It’s time for Sam to finally tell his head to STFU, and listen to his heart. Before he breaks Leah’s.

Escape Rating B: Misunderstandammits don’t normally work for me. This one pretty much did, because it’s not so much about the heroine and hero not listening to each other as the hero and heroine (particularly the hero) not listening to themselves. It’s difficult to be upfront with another person when you’re that messed up inside.

I liked Sam, but I felt for Leah. Those messages that a woman can never be too thin (or too rich) are very hard for all of us to ignore. We’ve all told ourselves the same terrible self-talk messages that often spout out of Leah’s mother, or in her own head. But the way that her mother constantly cut her down, not just in private but also in public, made my blood boil. When Leah finally tells her to stuff it, I wanted to stand up and cheer for her. Even if the book didn’t end in a romantic HEA, that scene made the story for me. By that point I was beyond sick and tired of her mother’s crap, and it needed to end. As much as I felt for Leah in this regard, the vicious backbiting went on far too long.

The fake engagement trope is always a fun one to play with. This time was a bit different. Yes, the fake fiances turn the fake into real, as expected. But before the end, Leah was the one who stood with her head held high, and Sam was the one who had to seriously grovel to make up for his many, many shortcomings. There are too many romances where the hero is forgiven everything with very little effort on his part. Sam grovels both sufficiently and well. As he should.

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

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Review: Last Kiss of Summer by Marina Adair + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Last Kiss of Summer by Marina Adair + GiveawayLast Kiss of Summer (Destiny Bay, #1) by Marina Adair
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Destiny Bay #1
Pages: 336
Published by Forever on August 30th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

He's one bad apple she just can't resist . . .
Kennedy Sinclair never dreamed she'd own a pie shop and an orchard in a small town like Destiny Bay. But nestled between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean, it's the perfect place to cross something off her "Life's short so eat the icing first" list and start her life over from scratch. Her shop, Sweetie Pies, is famous for its hot, flaky apple turnovers and sinfully delicious deep dish pie. For Kennedy though, nothing is more enticing than the tall, strapping slice of temptation who keeps coming back for more.
Luke Callahan is determined to make his hard cider business a success. With his beloved father's cider recipe and the opportunity of a lifetime in his grasp, he'll stop at nothing to get this deal done. There's just one catch: he needs Kennedy's apples. At first, he thinks it'll be as easy as pie to charm those apples right off her trees. But Kennedy isn't falling for his tender charms or his wicked ways. When the negotiations start heating up, so do the feelings they have for each other. And it takes just one kiss to seal the deal . . .

My Review:

What could be a more appropriate book for the last days before the unofficial end of summer than one with a title that perfectly captures the feeling, that Last Kiss of Summer before the fall sets in?

Our story begins in a way that is not atypical for contemporary romance. Our heroine discovers her about-to-be-ex-fiancee in flagrante delicto with someone other than herself. In the midst of his “it’s not me, it’s you” speech, the heroine takes her life into her own hands.

Unfortunately that means leaving behind the life she currently has. She works at the same place as Mr. Ex., they live together, and they share a circle of friends. It’s all gone, and Kennedy returns home to her grandmother. Grandma Edna has always taken her girls back in, whether it’s Kennedy’s flighty mother who abandoned Kennedy when she was 12, or Kennedy herself, now that she has to start over again.

Unlike so many times when this happens, Kennedy doesn’t stay with her family. Instead, Grandma pushes her out of the nest, and into the life that Kennedy has always dreamed of, if she can just manage to hang onto it. And remember to “eat the icing first”, because life is way too short to abandon your dreams.

Kennedy has always wanted to own a bakery shop. Edna’s best friends are ready to sell theirs – all the way across the country. All Kennedy has to do is put all of her hard earned savings into Sweetie’s Pies, trek alone from Atlanta to the Oregon coast, and begin her life again.

The deal on Sweetie Pies is a bit too good to be true, but it takes Kennedy a while to figure out what the catch is. The catch, both literally and figuratively, is Luke Callahan. His mother and his aunt are the now-former owners of Sweetie’s Pies. And as part of the deal on the shop, his mother gave Kennedy three acres of prime heirloom apples at cost in perpetuity.

Kennedy needs those apples to make the shop’s award winning pie recipes. But Luke needs those apples too – to use in his signature hard cider and take it to the next level of distribution all over the west coast.

Luke will do anything to get his hands on those apples. Only to discover that the only apples he really needs are Kennedy’s. But after everything he’s done, she may never let him touch those apples again.

Escape Rating B-: I enjoyed my first trip to Destiny Bay. It’s a friendly place, and the people are pretty nice. I liked our heroine, Kennedy Sinclair, quite a bit. She has a lot of grit and determination, and she’s stubborn in the right kind of way. But our hero, Luke Callahan, not so much.

There’s a point about halfway through the story where the hero’s mother calls him a horse’s ass. I would say that she was right, but that’s an insult to the horse.

Kennedy, unfortunately, is used to being abandoned. After all, it’s what her mother did, and Kennedy has never gotten over that feeling that she isn’t good enough for someone to want to hang onto for the long term. She also has the feeling that she will never make a home for herself or really put down roots. So when she comes to Destiny Bay and discovers a place that might take her in, she jumps in with both feet and fights every step of the way to realize her dream.

Luke is all too used to being the golden boy. Obstacles have always fallen before his charm. And he comes off as extremely smug and smarmy about it. He’s just sure he can find a lever to pry Kennedy away from “his” apples, and he never denies that he’ll use any underhanded means he can find to get them.

Which he eventually does.

There are two misunderstandammits in this story. One is understandable and somewhat forgivable, while the other is ALL on Luke. The previous owners of Sweetie Pies got all their apples for free, and those free supplies are what made the place profitable. Kennedy didn’t ask and Paula and Fi forgot to tell. When Paula figures out the problem, she does her best to straighten things out, only her son Luke is the biggest roadblock.

But Luke charms his way into bed with Kennedy on the one hand, and does his best to undermine her on the other. So much of the conflict in the story comes from him not being upfront about exactly why he needs the apples and working out a way that he and Kennedy can both get what their businesses need. He begins their relationship by trying to charm and smarm a woman who has been burned too many times, and he never stops trying.

So while I liked the town and loved the heroine, I didn’t buy their romance. Luke always seemed so fake that I didn’t buy their chemistry. But I did love the way that the whole town took Kennedy into their hearts. That relationship is a winner.

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

10 copies of Last Kiss of Summer will be given to lucky entrants on this tour:

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