The Reunion by Meghan Quinn

Three siblings are heading home for their parents' anniversary, each with their own issues. Oldest brother Ford is a workaholic who doesn't see his secretary, Larkin, as a love interest until they return to their home town. Middle brother Cooper would like to help if only his siblings would listen. Oh, and he slept with his ex-wife's best friend... and would like to again. Youngest Palmer doesn't want to admit that her life as a travel blogger (influencer?) is over. She gets drunk her first night back home and breaks her arm, getting her in touch with her old crush Beau (also Larkin's brother).

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, the set up, getting to see the characters, etc. I didn't mind the fact that all of the relationships were really only a third of the book because they were engaging. The second half, however, dragged. There was just so much quarreling and missed connections that it got to be a slog to finish the book.

Three stars

This book came out February 22, 2022

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas

A second generation of Wallflowers is on the loose. Pandora Ravenel grew up in a household where girls were not valued. She and her sisters were pretty much allowed to grow up feral (really? Even if boys were the prime offspring, girls needed to be married off so they would have had at least a nanny or something) so she never learned she was supposed to be stupid and interested in marriage. Instead, she wants to market her board games and run an industry. Of course, if she gets married, all of her property will automatically become her husband's.

Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, though super-eligible, isn't really ready to get married. He's too busy being ashamed of himself for banging a married woman because she's tied him to her with super-kinky sex (or so we're told.) But all of that falls away when he accidentally compromises Pandora and immediately falls in love. No, really, he pretty much decides that, after five minutes of conversation, she will be his wife. And then he gets upset because her family doesn't immediately force her to marry him. So they all get invited to Evie and Sebastian's country house (my faves from the Wallflower series) where they get to know each other better. 

And then the story starts to get really crowded with Gabriel's ex (and, even though he was all angsty about his "dark side," Pandora's innocence makes him learn to love vanilla sex again (?)) and a plot to blow up the aristocracy.

Overall a nice book with just a few to many things included as well as a few thing not really explained.

Three and a half stars

This book came out February 21, 2017

Follows Devil in Disguise

Followed by Hello Stranger

Hard copy I didn't keep

Opinions are my own

A Borrowed Boyfriend by Angela R. Casella

Casella has begun this new series with a corker that is just as fun and enjoyable as her previous books. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

Nicole and Damien are back, working to implement their plans to right wrongs and be fairy godmothers to those who have been kicked in the pants by life. Marnie Jones is sure one of those people having gone viral for tripping on her wedding gown after her groom announced, at the altar, that he could no longer marry her. It became huge because her sister is an actress on a long-running series of a teen detective (and her sister hasn't been a teen for a good long time.) Marnie one night tells her sister that she is doing just fine, dating a new man. 

Nicole and Damien decide to help her find that man. Overhearing their conversation, Griffin, co-owner of a bar with the two of them, volunteers himself as tribute. He saw Marnie earlier and is entranced. She is entirely too good for him (tragic backstory alert!) but he decides to take his chance.

There were a few sticking points in this book and it does, as Casella's books do, push the bounds of wacky but I did enjoy it thoroughly.

Four stars

This book came out June 9, 2022

Followed by A Stolen Suit

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

The Meaning of Love by Stephanie Laurens

We saw when Melissa and Julian met, she was fifteen and he was twenty-two. They recognized that they were meant for each other but they were both so young and the age gap was... ew. Now Melissa is twenty-three, about to be on the shelf, and Julian is thirty and has succeeded his father as earl. Neither believes the other to be unmarried. But they are. And they meet again at a ball. Well, Melissa is trying to avoid Julian by going out into the garden with a man she doesn't realize is his cousin, Gordon. Gordon, who needs money, decides that will be the time to try and take advantage of her but she saves herself and then Julian intervenes. When he intervenes, a torrid embrace occurs and the two are discovered. Well, an engagement is announced. But the two do something startling in a romance book and talk about it and decide to take the time of their engagement to decide whether they should actually suit. And that would be fine except someone just keeps trying to kill Julian. And trying to kill Julian. Then a little trying to kill Melissa. And then trying to kill Julian. There is Just So Much Attempted Killing. it was overly wrought. Otherwise, a normal story in the Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Chronicles series, fast, fun, and fluffy.

Three stars

This book came out October 14, 2022

Follows Lady Osbaldestone's Christmas Intrigue

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

How to Keep House While Drowning by K.C. Davis

I really liked that Davis give you options for how to read her book. She very much says right off the bat to take the things that help you and leave the rest behind. I liked that she said to decide what is care and what doesn't actually need to be done. Being organized does NOT equal being clean. Nor is staying organized as easy as some authors would have you think.

There is a difference between rhythm and routine: if you get off beat for a little bit, you can always get back into the rhythm. I especially liked the three rules at the end of the book: I rule the list, the list does not rule me; Missing days off your list is not good or bad but morally ambiguous; I do NOT have to complete the whole task. A very refreshing turn from the books, etc. that say that we have to be perfect in order to be "good." 

Four stars

This book came out April 26, 2022

Borrowed as audibook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Better Homes and Hauntings by Molly Harper

Nina Linden has gone through it in the last few years: cheating husband who took her to the cleaners. She is trying to rebuild her gardening services. To that end, she accepted a job where she has to live on a private island for weeks to help get it in order. It seems that everyone else who has previously held the position has left quickly. 

Cindy Ellis runs a cleaning/organizational service. She has become the go-to person for the rich and elite. She knows one of the other people on the boat out the island, Jake. He took her on a date years ago and then ghosted her. And now he's pretending he doesn't know her. But he is one of the people on the island, along with his best friend Deacon, the tech mogul whose family owns the island and the man financing the renovations. 

This is a bit of an adventure with dual romances, a madcap cousin, ghosts/reincarnations/something that causes visions, an ancient mystery, and Nina's ex-boss who isn't quite sane and is trying to sabotage her new business.

Four stars

This came out June 24, 2014

Audiobook from Audible

Opinions are my own

The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman

I had read a handful of the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries and thought this series might be interesting as well. There are only two books but it is a fast, fun, and fluffy book which Gilman shows her talent as she adds layers to each of the mini-mysteries that come around and pay off in the end. I think a lot of my enjoyment came from  Ruth Ann Phimister, the narrator. 

The book opens with a dream. Madame Karitska dreams of a street, not a fashionable one, but one she can afford to live on. On the street is a yellow door. As she is walking down the street, she notices a sign in the window. There is a room for rent. The sign went up only 5 minutes ago. Once in the rooms, she slowly builds her clientele and proves to the police that her gift is real. Along the way, she picks up a couple of other psychics as well, one is a wealthy man who just came into his gift and one is a child whose family is at the heart of one of her mysteries.

Four stars

This book came out in 1975

Followed by Kaleidoscope

Audiobook from Audible

Opinions are my own