Too Hot to Handle by Victoria Dahl

So much better than the previous book in this series (Close Enough to Touch) but still not up to the level of my favorite Victoria Dahl book. Merry, the heroine of this book, is the best friend of Grace, the heroine from the previous book. She is definitely easier to connect to although she still wasn't completely likeable. A lot of this is personal prejudice about an inexpert people trying to do restoration. If she really loves this ghost town, she should be trying to get an expert in to save it. #Reallifeintruding
Merry is supposedly a "good girl" and Shade, the hero, is supposedly a cad. But, we don't really see either of those qualities in these two. Merry is the one who is trying to keep the relationship light and the worst thing Shane does is hide that he's the actual owner of the ghost town Merry is trying to restore. And he doesn't want it to be fixed. She, on the other hand, is sneaky (the mailbox, trying to get "secret" work done on the town) and vacillates between wanting and not wanting him, then hiding the relationship from her friends.
And on top of all that, the condom use is only... okay. Used in the first encounter and not thereafter.
And yet, I liked the book. A HUGE step up from the last one, as I mentioned before. I think most readers won't have the issues I had with the conservation and therefore will be more willing to suspend disbelief.

Headed for Trouble by Suzanne Brockmann

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...<quick pause for breath> ...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Okay, my perception of this book may have been colored by the fact that I got it for free from NetGalley. The description of the book is rather misleading (i.e., doesn't mention that a lot of the stories are repub) and I don't always remember to check stories before I buy books, my own fault I know, but it doesn't lessen the disappointment.  If I had paid for it and not known that a lot of the stories were repeats from the end of other books, I may have been less favorable, like, maybe only three stars instead of five.
But this is Suzanne Brockmann. One of my go-to-authors and there was a lot of added content like author commentary about how she wrote stories or where ideas came from. There were quite a few new stories including one I particularly enjoyed about Sam, Robin, and Gina being stuck with three kids and the flu in a country that has been hit by a terrorist event.
A great collection of stories and a must read that sent me back to my library to re-read the entire Troubleshooters from "The Unsung Hero" (Troubleshooters 1).

Five stars

This book came out April 28, 2013

Follows Breaking the Rules

Followed by Some Kind of Hero

Opinions are my own

Reread in June 2022

Seven mile

2 mile lunch run

Making Him Sweat by Meg Maguire

Jenna Wilinski didn't know much about her father much less about the club that he was running. So when she shows up to claim her inheritance (which she plans to turn into an office for her newly franchised matchmaking business), she's more than a little surprised to find an MMA training facility.
Mercer Rowley is the driving force behind the gym, the man who is keeping it all going. He knows that they're just about to pop, he just needs the time to keep the gym open.
I don't know why, but I just couldn't invest myself in this story. Maybe it was that there was nothing I connected with in the characters. Jenna seemed a little flat; she wants to immediately close down the gym but is easily swayed to keep it open, she's been raised to believe that her father was a bad dude but accepts that he really might be okay with little proof and no animosity toward her mother.
I've never read Ms. Maguire before but I loved her attention to details. She painted realistic scenes that I could see in my head but without being too heavy-handed. That was what really kept me reading. The story was sweet without too many misunderstandings and a satisfying ending. The setup for the next book in the series was not overpowering.
I got this book from NetGalley because I had heard the Harlequin Blaze.

Back to You by Robin Kaye

Thank goodness Kaye is back on her regular track of fast, fun reads that can grab the reader and not annoy the hell out of them.
The only reason Storm Decker came back to Red Hook is because his adoptive father is in the hospital. Of course, this brings him face-to-face with the reason he ran from Red Hook in the first place, Breanna Collins.
Bree has been running their family's bar, updating and upgrading it to something fabulous. She's also been helping out with Storm's father's latest adoptee, ten-year-old Nicki.
Storm and Bree have a lot of trust issues to work through and for most of the book, I enjoyed watching them make their way closer to each other. Alas, the book is marred by the overused last-minute-unexpected-wrinkle just when the characters are safely at their HEA. However, still a great book and I look forward to reading Logan's story.

A Most Scandalous Proposal by Ashlyn Macnamara

This wasn't a perfect story, but highly enjoyable.
Miss Julia St. Claire doesn't believe in love. And she's made that clear in the ton. Even though her mother wants both her and her sister to marry well, Julia isn't worried about it. She's seen how it affected her parents' marriage and how love has ruined her sister's life. Her sister, Sophia, has been in love with the Earl of Clivesden for years and it has caused her nothing but misery because the man does not return her affections. In fact, the latest rumor and attentions has him focused on... Julia.
Benedict Revelstoke, though a second son, has been a friend of the family for years. He has never allowed himself to acknowledge his feelings for Julia until it appears that he is about to lose her to the Earl, a man who is a bully and just an all-around jerk (one who is sleeping with his best friend's fiancee).
Sophia is in something of a jam when she faints at a ball and the Earl of Clivesden leaves her alone with Earl of Highgate, compromising them. He is much older than her and the gossips would have it that he murdered his first wife. Sophia is still in love with Clivesden at this point so he agrees to an fake engagement until the end of the series.
Julia doesn't do the same. Instead, she asks Benedict for a more... scandalous solution.
I think this is the first book from this author and as such, I'm willing to give her a little more leeway. It's a good book, definitely some rough spots but I really cared about Julia and Shopia and what happened to them.