Thursday, July 18, 2013

Three Little Words by Susan Mallery

Image from Goodreads
The world of Fool's Gold continues to wreak romance on all of it's inhabitants. Even temporary residents like Isabel Beebe. Yes, she had a crush on her sister's ex-fiance and wrote to him for years. But that was a long time ago and she's over him. Even if he is in town now. And uber-hot. With a mother who just wants him to be married.
Nope. Isabel just wants to keep her parents wedding dress shop afloat so that they can sell out and she can go back to New York and open up her own shop.
I love childhood-crush-to-adult love stories. This one was pretty good but like most of the Fool's Gold series, suffered from an overabundance of old and prospective characters. Also, we got to see the romance between the feisty Consuelo Ly and Ford's brother Kent. It was a good story but I wish that they had gotten their own book. It would have been great to hear more about Kent's ex, Consuelo's fear of her own past, and the way their relationship grew.
A steady addition to the series and if you religiously read this series, I'd definitely recommend this book.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

At the Duke's Wedding-multiple authors

At the Duke's Wedding (A romance anthology)The first three stories were... okay. The last did not interest me at all. I rounded up from the two and a half stars that I would have given it if Goodreads did halves. I saw this listed on the Kobo site and was intrigued by the blurb. I had a little extra time and money and went for it.
I've read novellas around one event before and have enjoyed them. This one wasn't as well done.
The first story is "That Rogue Jack" by Maya Rodale. Henrietta Black is resigned to being a spinster companion for an irascible old lady. But right now she needs to get the Duke's ancestral ring from Jack, Lord Willoughby but he's not only a rake. He's something of a wastrel.
It was a hate-to-love story that felt rushed. I realize that this is a novella but it was still awfully fast.
"P.S. I Love You" by Miranda Neville came next. I like Neville but this one was... not her best. It's a Cyrano story where the man behind the letters takes a lot of liberties with the supposed woman he loves. Luckily, she figures it out pretty fast so that part held up but... meh.
"When I Met my Duchess" by Caroline Linden rounded out the trio that I was able to read. The Duke from the title figures out that he wants to marry his intended's vivacious sister. But he sort of blackmails her into it. Blergh.
I was already falling out of this book when I hit "How Angela Got Her Rogue Back" by Katharine Ashe. It's  a time-travel story. Don't love those to begin with and this one just stretched my suspension of disbelief too far. This was a DNF.

You know, looking back, this really was just a two star book. Novellas tend to be underdeveloped just because of their length but these were especially not good.