Like most things in my life, my reading journey proceeds in a convoluted and undirected fashion. The reading cut ends up being about 75% romance, 25% everything else.
Almost all of the books will have been supplied by the publisher in return for an honest review.
The book opens, not unlike many of Krentz's contemporaries, with a murder. We see it through the eyes of the killer. And it seems rather obvious who the killer is as the book goes on, but this is a Krentz novel. To that end, we do get a hero and heroine. Max Cutler is a former profiler. A case went horribly wrong, stirring up ghosts from his past, and he decided (or the decision was made) for him to leave D.C. He ended up in Seattle, working as a private investigator. His current case involves a dead woman who the police believe to have died from an overdose. Her cousin isn't so sure. He things it's murder.
Normally Charlotte Sawyer considers herself fairly boring. She works in a nursing home as an the activities coordinator. It's true that her former fiance left her at the altar, but she's working to get over that. Charlotte step-sister, Jocelyn, says that she is too trusting, and Charlotte agrees. But it doesn't follow that she is also stupid.
Max and Charlotte's paths cross when Charlotte, watching Jocelyn's house while she's on a tech-free month-long retreat, is the one who picks up the package sent to Jocelyn from the dead woman. A packages that sends her on an adventure.
Regular Krentz readers will definitely enjoy the book. It's very much in the rhythm of her recent contemporaries. The love story was a bit fast and furious and the multiple "epilogues" were a bit tedious but overall a fast and fun read. I do hope we get to hear about Max's brothers, Cabot and Jack and find out whether the guru Zane really did die.
Three and a half stars
This book comes out November 29
So, on my Goodreads review, I rounded up my review of this ARC from three and a half stars to four because it just generally gave me good feels. I was a bit disappointed that I could tell you how the whole story would play out after the first 1/4 of the book
that Luke would hire Eva back, that his wife was actually cheating on him, that Eva would get upset that Luke didn't love her EVEN THOUGH HE TOLD HER <i>A LOT</i> that he couldn't love her, that she would be upset that he created a killer based on her, that they would eventually make up at Tiffany's, probably on Christmas Day (though I didn't rule out Christmas Eve)
I just kept thinking "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if [this romance convention] were turned on its head and the characters didn't just do what all romance characters do?" And yet, as I mentioned, this was still a fast, fun, and fluffy read for me that generally made me smile at the end. Even with the not-so-subtle introduction, reintroduction, and further mention of the Bark Ranger twins and their hot-to-trot brother Daniel.
Eva Jordan works for Urban Genie, a company that can make your life easier. She's blue because it's the holidays and this is the second year that her grandmother won't be around (I think it's the second year? She says her grandmother died "last year in the fall" which should indicate a second round of holidays). However, Eva begins this book by deciding to change her attitude, starting with the decorations that she's going to put up in the home of a famous author while he's away working on his book.
Luke Blade hates the holidays for a good reason. His wife died during a storm three years ago. The woman that he had loved (sort of off-and-on) since kindergarten. Theirs was a love story to stand the test of time. At least according to his biography. But this year he's hit writer's block and hard. So when a short, cute, and stacked blonde (this comes up an awful lot) sneaks into his apartment, he is not amused. But then he finds out that his grandmother sent her and then she starts to spark his creativity. He decides to hire her as his muse (and personal chef) so that he can finish his book on schedule.
Generally, books where one of the characters (usually the hero) says they can't love and then their partner (generally a heroine) gets all upset because "he won't love me" (which he's been telling you the whole book, why wouldn't you believe him?) engender a real sense of rage within me (see Book #2 of the Bride Quartet by Nora Roberts) but at least this one got cleared up pretty fast. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the book, I can't explain why this book gave me such good feels when I have so many issues but it did and I can recommend it to others who have enjoyed the "From Manhattan with Love" series and regular contemporary romance readers.
Leigh Holloway is heading home for the holidays. Her parents are under a lot of stress, they're moving to a condo from their family farmhouse and her sister, who just had a baby, has left her cheating husband is living with them. So Leigh doesn't want to tell them that, not only did she and her boyfriend break up, she's out of a job. She's afraid that if two out of her parents three daughters are out of work and out of a relationship, they might try and make her stay on the east coast rather than going back to Texas. Croy (short for Croydon and very hard to read as I kept seeing "Cory" and then having to correct) isn't stoked that Leigh is in town. They used to be good friends but when she convinced the third of their trio, his girlfriend, to move down to Florida with her, the girlfriend ended up finding a new guy. This led to a giant fight between Croy and Leigh. Of course, it has been eight years so he's mostly over it. And noticing how much Leigh has blossomed through the years. Soon they're involved in an undefined relationship that they're having to keep quiet so that Leigh's parents don't think that she's cheating on the ex. I didn't love the ending and, like with most novellas, wish that we could have seen a little more growth with the characters but it was a nice short story that I think most Shannon Stacey readers will enjoy.
Major props for the note saying that the book will end with at about the 80% mark so we weren't expecting more. I was SO impressed that somebody finally put something like that in.
Morgan Hill is a teacher, widow, and mother of five-ear-old twins. She isn't looking for love. Especially not with a big city business man who is only in town to sell off the buildings he owns, many of which are used heavily by the community, a community that Morgan loves. Grayson Taylor doesn't love Temptation. It was a town that thrived off of the reality show that was he and his five siblings, sextuplets. Unfortunately, their reality show tore apart his parent's marriage. Now, as the oldest, he's been elected to take care of his father's estate. But he's intrigued by the woman that he sees. And he seriously falls in love with her children. I really liked the world building and the story but the writing was a bit... rough. and really dragged in places. I hope Arthur gets a better editor because I'm really looking forward to reading more of her stories. Three stars This book comes out November 22
I didn't realize that this book was #3 in a series but the author had a deft touch with adding enough information from the previous books to let you know about Graveyard Falls but without overwhelming the reader.
Beth Fields is an FBI profiler and a former survivor of a serial murderer. When it appears that the man who killed her friend but let her go is back at it, Beth wants to go back and figure out what's going on.
Local sheriff Ian Kimball also wants to find the killer since the man who raised him, his stepfather, was the man who was blamed. The local coach, his stepfather later escaped from prison.
The two have to work together to figure out who buried dozens of girls with white candles and crosses and whether this is the same man who abducted Beth so many years ago.
This was an okay read but somewhat disjointed. Not so much the story as the sentences. And the romance felt less like a part of the story as something that was tacked on as a "hey, mystery reader like some romance too" kinda deal.
I rarely read books set in Montana because I live here and I hate it when authors get it wrong. This book didn't get it wrong because there wasn't much mentioned about the area at all, which was ironically disappointing. It sounded like the author was trying to set up a fictional town right in my area and it would have been nice to get a deeper sense of place, a description of the mountains, the wilderness. Instead, it was just a bunch of names, some that were real and that weren't. Bummer. Also disappointing was the disconnectedness of the story. It seemed more like a series of vignettes somewhat sewn together. There was just SO MUCH going on that it was hard to really get a handle on what it was that really brought Tucker and Laird together.
Tucker is back in Marietta to try and patch up her relationship with her twin sister Tanner. See, Tucker's been sort of the wild child, wandering the states being a rodeo star and trying to make it in Hollywood. She also "knew" Tanner's fiance. Like, in the biblical sense. And she even tried to get him back after the two were involved. So now she's back and trying to heal old wounds. Needing all the help she can get, she stops off at Miracle Lake. While she's there, she meets Laird who is in town trying to figure out what happened to his fraternal twin. See, Laird was adopted from a teenage girl who had two babies but he didn't know until recently and he's not even sure his twin survived. The reader can figure it out pretty darn fast and it's sort of annoying how long it's drawn out. In fact, I wish that had been shortened to make more room for the story between Tanner and Laird. It was just a bit superficial. Wish we had seen more of what made them want to be together other than explosive chemistry.
Aquilla Knox has carefully crafted a persona over the past five seasons that will make her unappealing to suitors. In fact, she wouldn't even be here this year except that Lady Satterfield offered to sponsor her. And now she's accidentally locked herself out of a party and it's the Duke of Deception, actually the Earl of Sutton who comes to her rescue. Edward "Ned" Bishop is known around town for breaking hearts. He leads debutantes on, testing them without their knowledge, but never actually proposes. He's just about to decide whether to propose to a girl when he meets Aquilla. The real Aquilla, not her persona. He is intrigued. Not especially because his family has the DRAMA and he thinks she might be up for it.
I did not like the overly secretive nature of this book. Aquilla had secrets from Ned, she had secrets from her friends and from the readers. Ned had a ton of secrets as well. And with so much going on, the story seemed somewhat fragmented. Especially since there's a former suitor of Aquilla's and a disappointed father that are also upping the dramatic factors of this story. And, quite frankly, the ending is wrapped up just a little too fast and way to quickly.
To that end, we do get a hero and heroine. Max Cutler is a former profiler. A case went horribly wrong, stirring up ghosts from his past, and he decided (or the decision was made) for him to leave D.C. He ended up in Seattle, working as a private investigator. His current case involves a dead woman who the police believe to have died from an overdose. Her cousin isn't so sure. He things it's murder.
