The Daring Exploits of a Runaway Heiress by Victoria Alexander

For those readers who hate a plot based on a Big Misunderstanding, one that would negate the whole rest of the story, I will counsel you now to run away.
For those readers who have enjoyed Ms. Alexander's books in the past, I can only tell you that this book is just as wonderful as the rest of her Millworth Manor series with the addition of a tie-in to the next generation of Effingtons.
Cameron, "Cam," Effington is the youngest son of Jonathon and Fiona from "Let it Be Love." He is somewhat irksome to the duke, who has become somewhat more staid in his older age, since Cam insists on being a reporter for the Cadwallendar papers. And the duke has just now realized that this particular paper is a bit more controversial than he had realized. At a family dinner (setting up Cam's three brothers and sister to be sequel bait), he challenges Cam to write a book (since that would be something more respectable, I guess). Which leads to Cam needing a story. Which he finds when he visits his investigator friend, Phineas. It seems that Phineas has just been engaged to keep an eye on a young, American heiress, something he is loathe to do. But Cam sees the beginnings of a serial which he can turn into a book. What he's not expecting to find is Lucy.
After losing her long-time fiance to another woman (The Shocking Secret of a Guest at the Wedding), Lucy is relieved to finally be free. She can live the life she wants, starting with checking off the list of regrets her great-aung left. Luckily, her great-aunt also left her a bundle of money so Lucy has the means to do what she wants. Adventures, with Cam in tow, ensue.
An absolutely infuriating book in that Cam kept failing to admit his ruse, even when given the chance multiple times. And, as seems to be very popular in romances these days, there is a distressingly public denouement but overall, I enjoyed this story.
In addition to the Effington siblings, I very much look forward to the further adventures of Phineas and his partner, Miss Clara West.

This Heart of Mine by Brenda Novak

Brenda Novak is a straight three-mile author for me with occasional forays into the four-mile category (A random note, I give very few five-mile reviews so three is darn good). Part of the reason that I keep reading her books is that her stories make me so darn uncomfortable, often tackling hard subjects. In this book, it's the return of a girl who got knocked up as a teenager and was accused of running down the girl her ex dumped her for. 17 years later, she's just getting out of prison and returning home to Whiskey Creek to live with the obese, hoarder mother who has just gotten worse since she's been gone. No, Phoenix Fuller is not your ordinary romance heroine.

The story opens with Phoenix meeting her now sixteen-year-old son along with his father, Riley Stinson. Riley is understandably cautious. After all, this is a woman who was convicted of killing someone.
Phoenix keeps reminding herself that she was wrongly accused (do we need to know this so many times?) but that doesn't seem to help her confidence levels much. After all, it's not like she has a lot to live for.  And going to prison didn't help.
But somehow, Riley and Phoenix work together to find a way to integrate themselves back into a family, complete with an HEA.

She was not a very likable character. Do we really want a martyr who has forgiven all her enemies as a heroine? Most of the book was spent propping up her self-esteem and she wasn't even the one to set up a confrontation with Penny, Riley had to set it all up for her. And then to have no consequences for Penny... It's hard. But, actually, now that I think of it, very consistent with Novak's writing style.
I also wasn't really sure of the romance between these two. It was a little tepid and I didn't really see the attraction between Riley and Phoenix. The plus side was that there was no insta-love. The relationship between Phoenix and her son was perfect though

The Duke's Disaster by Grace Burrowes

And this is the reason that I keep reading Grace Burrowes. Not every story of hers connects with me but every once in awhile, there is one that just poings my happy reading nerves. It's not an all out adventure running from villains book, just a book about two people who have already gotten married, and are trying to sort out what to do about it.
Noah Winters, Duke of Anselm, has had enough of courting. The SYT he was after married someone else so he proposes to her companion. Simple enough, right? And now he's married.
But Thea Collins has her own reasons for getting married. Well, she tried to resist at first but Noah was sort of insistent. When he discovers one of her secrets on their wedding night, it changes the nature of the relationship. But he isn't a complete dick about the whole thing, as many men of his time would have been (even some "heroes" in romance novels.) Instead, he tries to figure out how they're going to live given that neither really came to the marriage without secrets. Because yes, he has a few of his own...

Still the One by Jill Shalvis

Darcy Stone is still recovering physically from the car accident that nearly killed her eleven months ago. Emotionally, she has never been stable, especially since her parents were so remote and unforgiving. All of which explains why she's keeping herself so emotionally distant from everyone, even A. J. who is friends with both her brother and sister.
A. J. has always liked Darcy. Yes, in that way. After her accident, he even comped her a large, large amount of money for physical therapy after her insurance company stopped paying. He's trying to keep his distance from Darcy, especially after refusing to have a one night stand to take away her pay. 
But now A. J. needs Darcy's help. He's trying to raise grant money to help veterans whose money has also run out and the man he was supposed ot take has backed out. Darcy doesn't particularly want to spend hours in a car with A. J. and then be stared at, but he's offering to help fund her rescue of unwanted dogs that she's rehabilitating for veterans.
Didn't love that there was no condom use. At least there was some discussion of testing but... meh. I really enjoyed getting to know more about Darcy and A. J. Now I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with her pilot sister, Zoe.

Hold Me by Susan Mallery

I have an ARC and I'm hoping that the population listed on page 8 (125,482) is a printing error. How in the world is anything over 10,000 considered "small town?" Hell, even just calling anything over 100,000 "a town" is pushing it. I live in a very small... well, let's call it a town... of under a thousand year-round residents. From the description of Fool's Gold, even in this book (only a few stoplights, one bar - soon to be two, everyone knowing each other, etc.) I've been imagining something around 2-3,000, 5,000 max. Up to this point, I've been ignoring any inconsistencies of small-town living because I haven't noticed any listings of population and the fact that so many of the former books H/Hs have to be wedged into the new books. It's interesting that my major peeve with this series has finally taken a back seat.

>>Reading more, there is both a community college and a 4-year college how is this a small town? Are both just really teeny?

>>Note: after really wondering about this for about half of the Fool's Gold series, and having it bother me to the point that I couldn't keep reading without at least checking the internet, I finally found a note on Wikipedia that the state of California considers "town" and "cities" to be synonymous. Okay, fine. But a good editor would figure out that it means something entirely different outside that state. A quick search on the internet has most folks agreeing that a "small town" is at least less than 10,000 and certainly less than 15,000. If Fool's Gold indeed has over 125,000 people living in it, it is a mid-sized city and there is NO way that "everyone would know everyone else." And there would be more than one bar. We have 3 that are open year-round in my town and 7 during the summer months when we have around 4,000 people in town.
And traffic regulations would sure as hell call for more than "a few" stoplights. The next town up, just over 4,000, has 6 or 7.
I realize that there is such a thing as suspension of disbelief but this done broke my suspension.

>>Okay, on to the rest of the review:
Finally, a story with a former Olympic-worthy athlete and he's NOT bitter about it. As a skier, Kipling Gilmore knew his career was limited and, after a career-ending injury is doing something else with his life instead of moping about it. I'm sure there are other books out there like this but I can't think of any offhand. His major failing is that he likes to fix things for people. Doesn't consider what they want or offer suggestions, he just fixes it. Which. Got. So. Annoying.
Destiny Mills is in Fool's Gold for a short time. She's helping to set up a new Search and Rescue (SAR) computer system. She doesn't like to make forever friends (or lovers). She prefers to swoop in, do her job and get out with a clean break (could that work in today's age of social media? I guess if you just unfriended people as soon as you left.
Her biggest problems are that she is the talented daughter of two country mega-stars and her half-sister has been dumped on her.

I did not like the unexpected pregnancy line. Yes, girls can get pregnant if they're virgins and it can happen only once. That was a nice touch. But it was just too much in an already full book.
I did like that Kipling's problem of getting excited about projects rather than people was addressed. It was getting so blatant and it was nearing the end of the book with nobody talking about it.
Another thing that bothered me- I get that Kipling might not have talked to Jo about opening another bar, but how come none of the other guys did? Or had their wives talk to her? They were nervous about it from the beginning, kept mentioning that the Man Cave might not survive without her support, so why did none of others ask anything?

Follows Fool's Gold #15.5 Yours for Christmas
Followed by Fool's Gold #17 Kiss Me (link will be live June 23, 2015)

First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan

Oh, Sarah Morgan. I love your writing but your heroes... oof. If you don't mind your heroines apologizing because the hero lied to them and she got mad about that (which is is obviously a no-no for the heroine,) this is going to be an okay book.

First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan

Emily Donovan is not in a good place. Her half-sister (an evil, evil character) has died and left Emily custody of her daughter. Emily knows nothing about children and she's terrified of the ocean so she decided to bring Emily to an island. Someplace to escape the paparazzi.
Ryan Cooper helped raise his siblings and doesn't want to have anything to do with any more children. So why is he so attracted to Emily?
I will probably try at least a few more Sarah Morgan stories because I really do enjoy her writing. But I wish I could connect with the heroes more. Not that wishy-washy Emily whose troubles with swimming seemed to clear up really, really fast.
It comes out next Tuesday.

Perfect Homecoming by Julia Lonon

Well. This is certainly going to be a divisive book. The heroine is not very likable. Correction, she's just not likable at all. She's confrontational, not a people person, and a kleptomaniac boot. Notice that I didn't comment on her sleeping with around. Frankly, her lack of feeling guilty attached to that was the thing I like most about her.
Yes, we know that she took the medal that Cooper Jessup is looking for but there's this prolonged dance around the subject.
Cooper... was okay. But a little too perfect. I do like a hero with flaws.
I generally like Julia London and I think that it's awesome that she took on the task of trying to create an unlikable character that we could relate to. But I just never really connected with either the hero or the heroine.