First Impressions by Nora Roberts

I'm hoping that this is an early book of Nora Roberts (I looked, it is). While eminently listenable, it contains a prototypical nineties Alpha male. Vance Banning is trying to get away from it all. When Shane Abbott (the ubiquitous sunny heroine who's trying to making it on her own and fix the world around her) mistakes him for a carpenter, he decides to go along with the charade. He helps her fix up her grandmother's old house, weathers the emotionally-charged scenes with her cold, emotionless mother, but neglects to tell her that he's really a very wealthy business man who was hurt by (who else?) his first wife.

Not the best of stories but nowhere near being a wall-thumper.

Re-read twelve years later and didn't remember a single part of this story. Same frustration with the alphamale who just didn't want to share his feelings and Shane who is just a little too sweet.

Three stars

This book originally came out April 1984

Ebook borrowed from Libby

Opinions are my own

Flash by Jayne Ann Krentz

Olivia Chantry has recently inherited 49% of her late-uncle's business. This is a problem for her and the rest of the family are nervous about an outsider joining the company. Jasper Sloane is slightly more excited about inheriting the other part of the company. He's been out-of-sorts lately and this job seems like it will be a good challenge, one he's looking forward to. If only he can get Olivia to see things his way... and work on figuring out who a murdering blackmailer is.

One of Krentz's works from the late 90's that I re-read every couple of years. Of course, some of the technology is dated but the love story holds up pretty well.

Four stars

This came out in 1998

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

Sure Shot by Sarina Bowen

Oh. I was so disappointed in the ending of this book. The rest of it was fine and a nice addition to the Brooklyn series but the ending was so out of place with the rest of the book and could have been skipped.

Years ago, Bess Beringer fell into some pretty good insta-lust with Mark "Tank" Tankiewicz. She ended it when another sports agent told her that it wasn't good optics for female agents to sleep with male clients. Tank wasn't her client but she still decided to break it off. Now, he's been traded to the Brooklyn Bruisers and he's met Bess again. She is the only bright spot in his trade since he just came from the arch-rival Houston team and his style of play is very different from the man he is replacing. But they're just going to keep things light. Right?

Three stars

This book came out May 12, 2020

Follows Moonlighter

Followed by Bombshells

Borrowed as ebook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

Matchmaking Mischief by A.R. Casella, Denise Grover Swank

I liked Willow, the sunshine-y baker, and I liked Alex, who was maybe a little bit of a grumpy/brooding writer, but I missed any sense of chemistry between them. Like most of the Bad Luck Club series, this book was fast, fun, and fluffy but the enjoyment was more in the friendships and the matchmaking than in the romance.

Alex met previous heroine Molly at a writer's retreat and she convinced him to come down to Asheville and live with Bear. She assured him that his writer's block would be solved. Instead, he gets caught up with Willow and her matchmaking antics.

Willow left her hometown and her family's legacy but can't help herself in trying to match up couples. Alex accidentally distracts one of the matches and she yells at him. Of course, out of character for the sunshine one. He is bemused at first but then decides to join Team Sunshine and starts working to get at least two of our favorite characters from the series together.

Three stars

This book came out

Follows Fraudulently Ever After

Followed by Bringing Down the House

Followed by new series starter Matchmaking the Billionaire

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Witch Please by Ann Aguirre

Living as a witch in a mundane world can be dificult. And Danica Waterhouse is navigating just fine, working in her family's fix-it shop (her talent is that she can make things work again, most of the examples are related to appliances). Then she meets baker Titus Winnaker and sparks fly. Almost literally. But Danica's grandmother has drummed into her that their family has a hex whereby, if they fall in love with a mundane, they will also lose their magic. Danica's own mother is pointed to as an example. 

While Danica is fighting her feelings Titus is also having issues. His mother died, his father remarried six months later and now the new wife is pregnant. But Danica helps him through that as well.

I liked the relationships that Danica and Titus had with Clementine (Danica's cousin) and Maya (Titus's sister). There was also some sequel bait with the rest of Danica's coven and potentially Titus's circle of friends -- also good relationship building there. It was a nice book with a nice balance of world building and relationship building which can be hard to do in a first book.

Three and a half stars

This book came out September 7, 2021

Followed by Boss Witch

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Not the Witch You Wed by April Asher, April Hunt

Violet Maxwell is in town for her sister's Witch Bond Announcement weekend celebration (engagement party). Not just her sister, one of her triplet sisters. So when she tries to bow out of some of the celebration with slightly younger sister Olive and they are then caught by Rose, she does feel some guilt. And that compounds the guilt she feels by not picking up her grandmother's place as the Prima Witch. Luckily, Violet was born a dud. No magic whatsoever. She still decides to go skiing with her sisters, even though she's not very good. In fact, she encounters Lincoln Thorne as she's laying in the snow after having fallen over while standing in place (it's not that hard to do, really...) While she doesn't recognize him, he sure as heck recognizes her. He's happy to see her and his Wolf (Lincoln's the Alpha of NAP, the North American Pack) is even more so because he's had a lot of downs in his life recently. He's trying to make it so that all shifters are on more equal footing but there is one particular man, Rose's fiance in fact, who is trying to undo all of his work. He also has a limited time before his thirty-third birthday. If he doesn't have a mate by then, he either has to step down from the Supernatural Council or accept a mate chosen by the Elders. He's also trying to dissolve the Elders but that's a whole other story. He's not quite resigned to fate but the chance of finding a partner who satisfies both he AND his animal are practically nil. 

Through mistakes and a lot of accidental relationship building, Violet and and Lincoln do end up together.  

There is a LOT of world building and so the first couple of chapters really do read like an info dump and that doesn't really even out but I still enjoyed the read. I'm tracking some of the characters for my own benefit because... there are a lot. 

Adrian -- Lincoln's friend, lion shifter

Vi's best friends -- Bax, Guardian Angel -- Harper, succubus coworker at Potion's Up, magic themed bar, Vi brewmaster, virgin, host of radio show Sexy Talk with Savannah They also work together at the Kid Command Center (B&GC for supes?)

Four stars

This book came out February 8, 2022

Followed by Not Your Ex's Hexes

ARC kindly provided by St. Martin's Press and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Wildfire by Ilona Andrews

Just because Nevada Baylor is a Prime doesn't mean that she's comfortable with her level of magic. Nor with the fact that her family is going to have to come out of hiding in order to avoid being put under her grandmother's family tree. And if life weren't complicated enough, she involved, like, involved-involved with Connor "Mad" Rogan. And his ex-fiancee's husband has gone missing so she's come to Connor for help.

This was maybe not as good as the previous two but only a little less weak. I didn't love all of the fiancee and Connor interactions (especially since he was so willfully dense about them) but overall a lovely addition to the series.

Three and a half stars

This book came out July 15, 2017

Follows White Hot

Followed by Diamond Fire

Borrowed as audiobook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Reread July 2022, September 2023