Tag: Strangers on a Train

Review: Back on Track by Donna Cummings

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews
Back on Track by Donna CummingsFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Strangers on a Train
Length: 55 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Date Released: April 2, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

What’s a little lie between strangers?

A Strangers on a Train Story

Allie Whittaker is in a dating slump, too busy getting her fledgling marketing company off the ground to have a personal life. All that could change, though, if she can get baseball superstar Matt Kearns on the cover of a charity calendar. Except Matt won’t even talk to her.

Matt is in a slump, worried his career might be over. A Napa Valley wine tour isn’t enough to take his mind off his troubles–until sexy, funny Allie plops into the adjacent seat and tells him three things about herself. One of them, she says, is a lie.

Matt can’t resist playing along, and soon the afternoon getaway becomes an interlude with lies, truths, and desire flowing as fast as the wine. Then Allie lets slip one truth too many…and they both realize they’re playing for keeps.

Warning: A handsome hunk, a determined lady and a few glasses of wine. Throw in a little on-the-run action, and what more do you need to while away an afternoon?

My Review:

What do a dating slump and a pitching slump have in common? Allie Whitaker hasn’t had a date in too long to think about, and Matt Kearns is coming off an injury and looking at the end of his professional baseball career. They shouldn’t have much to talk about.

The one thing that there is a LOT of on a Napa Valley wine tour, especially a train tour where none of the guests have to drive is, well, Napa Valley wine! Allie’s friends dare her to chat up a stranger on the train.

She’s so nervous that instead of using the line about telling him “three things about herself, and one of them is a lie”, she says she’s telling him three lies. She lies by omission, she pretends not to recognize him.

They spend a fantastic couple of hours, getting to know their fake selves, exploring the possibilities of being just two people who might be fooling around, or maybe two people who might have a future. It’s the most fun either of them have had in much, much too long.

Until a fan reveals the unavoidable truth, and Allie has to confess that she’s known all along. Then Matt believes that she’s just like everyone else in his life–out for what she can get from him. In Allie’s case, a photo shoot for her charity calendar.

How much misery will it take for Matt to realize that he was wrong?

Escape Rating C+: This short story was cute, frothy and fun. Matt and Allie have terrific chemistry together from the very beginning, and I enjoyed their banter. A lot. Since they both knew from the beginning that they were playing a game, the story would have been better if they had skipped the misunderstandammit near the end.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Thank You For Riding by Meg Maguire

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Thank You for Riding by Meg MacguireFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Strangers on a Train
Length: 64 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Date Released: April 2, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The last train of the night might just be the start of something good.

A Strangers on a Train Story

Stung ego or not, Caitlin’s relieved her fizzling relationship is over, even if she’s just been unceremoniously dumped between the copier and a dead ficus tree. At least she has an excuse to ditch the lousy office Christmas party in time to catch the last subway home…to her cat, and early-onset spinsterhood.

Instead of a lonely, chilly ride, she gets an unexpected holiday treat in the form of a nearly familiar face—a handsome stranger she encountered last week at the blood drive.

At the end of the line, neither can seem to let their chance meeting end—until their extended flirtation finds them facing the prospect of spending a frigid winter night locked in an unheated subway station. And they wonder if keeping each other warm is merely a delightful form of rebound therapy…or a memorable first of many more dates to come.

Warning: Contains dorky, harmless flirtation that heats up into some spicy, third-base action.

My Review:

Caitlyn and Mark meet, not across a crowded room, but across a crowded Red Cross donation center. They’re both giving platelets. There’s some rather adorable eye contact, but otherwise, they don’t communicate. Caitlyn resists temptation because she believes she’s still in a relationship.

Her supposed boyfriend dumps her at the office holiday party shortly thereafter. So much for the relationship. Of course she meets Mark again on the train going home. Sometimes there is a karmic reward for good behavior.

But in their mutual desire to get to know each other, Caitlyn and Mark linger much too long in the very-late night MBTA station, and it closes around them, locking them in. In late December. In Boston. Brrrr!

Of course they have to snuggle together to keep warm. All night. And if all that snuggling, not to mention the very mutual attraction thing they have going on, leads to more active ways to keep warm, well, neither of them is complaining.

As long as this turns out to be more than just a one-night phenomenon.

Escape Rating B: This should be squicky. Really. And it’s so not. Instead it ends up being a completely hot fantasy ride. I think because (thank goodness) they don’t do the nasty on what has to be the totally disgusting floor of the MBTA station. That’s what keeps it in the realms of an adorable fantasy making out session with more to come later and away from “hells no”.

Caitlyn and Mark are both very likeable. Their banter is sexy and sweet. I did find some of Caitlyn’s internal dialog a bit over-the-top, but I still liked her, and I was rooting for her to find her HEA with Mark. He seemed like a way, way better man than what’s-his-name who dumped her by the dead ficus.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Big Boy by Ruthie Knox

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Big Boy by Ruthie KnoxFormats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Strangers on a Train
Length: 57 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Date Released: April 2, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Meet me at the train museum after dark. Dress for 1957.

When Mandy joins an online dating service, she keeps her expectations low. All she wants is a distraction from the drudgery of single parenthood and full-time work. But the invitation she receives from a handsome man who won’t share his real name promises an adventure–and a chance to pretend she’s someone else for a few hours.
She doesn’t want romance to complicate her life, but Mandy’s monthly role-playing dates with her stranger on a train–each to a different time period–become the erotic escape she desperately needs. And a soul connection she never expected.
Yet when she tries to draw her lover out of the shadows, Mandy has a fight on her hands…to convince him there’s a place for their fantasy love in the light of day.

Warning: Contains sexy role-playing, theatrical application of coal dust, and a hero who can rock a pair of brown polyester pants.

My Review:

For a relatively short story, Big Boy lives up to its name. It packs in a surprisingly large amount of storytelling in very few pages.

Mandy is an accidental single parent and the accident wasn’t even hers. Her sister and brother-in-law were killed, leaving Mandy as the single parent of their baby son just as Mandy took her first job as a history professor in Green Bay Wisconsin.

Being the lowest person on the academic food chain in a small college is the dictionary definition of overworked and underpaid, along with insecure into the bargain. Added to that Mandy has the need to cobble together child-care and the added expense of a baby. But she loves her son and feels blessed. Also exhausted.

She signs up for the online dating service with incredibly low expectations. But instead of normal, or even the usual run of whatever, she finds a man who has multiple, costumed profiles on the service.

Mandy picks the guy who will give her a vacation from reality. One night a month. Because that’s all the time that she can manage to slice out of her life with her son, and sometimes she feels guilty about that.

It takes a lot of those “one night a month” dates before she starts to want something more, and to wonder why her stranger on the train is willing to settle for so little. Can something that starts out as a vacation from reality be a bridge to a better real life?

Escape Rating A: We see this story from Mandy’s perspective, her exhaustion, her slight desperation, her need to carve out just a tiny slice of life for herself, but at the same time, her knowledge that she loves her son and that this unplanned life is terribly fulfilling, no matter how it came about. It’s just also isolating.

Her interludes with Tyler start out as escapes. At first there’s a little fear along with the excitement; who is this guy really and why does he have access to the train museum at night? Is this dangerous? Why the costumes? But the role-playing adds to the escapism, and she needs that. Who Tyler really is, or isn’t, doesn’t even matter at first.

But as the months roll by, she starts to want something real. Her grief at the loss of her sister lessens, and she gets used to her routine. This is her life now. Tyler is fun, but what about the rest of her life? Who is he and why can’t they have a relationship? Then they meet in the real world and she starts to wonder why he needs the escape. Then she finds out.

The length of the story is just right. Normally I think that stories this short are either too surface or end too abruptly. This one is just right. All the way around.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.