Thursday, October 10, 2013

How to Lose a Bride in One Night by Sophie Jordan

Image taken from Goodreads
Definitely my favorite in this series.

 We don't learn very much about Annalise except that she broke her leg and now limps and was in service until her ultra-wealthy father swooped in and picked her up out of obscurity. The story opens with her marrying marrying a duke, the dream of every girl, right? Except that, on their honeymoon cruise, he tries to kill her and then dumps her overboard. Annalise is found by Owen Crawford who is the Earl of Crawford, although he doesn't tend to bandy that about. He finds a gypsy encampment that is willing to take them in. Okay, there is some case for suspension of disbelief
Annalise's foot breaks in such a way that when the gypsy heals her, she no longer limps. Oh, and that extra weight? It drops off during her week-long coma and she is no longer very hungry so she just keeps it off. Um, why did we need all that? She had to be the Ugly Duckling and the Beggar Princess?
It's a fast book and it relies a little bit on the reader having read the previous books. While not absolutely necessary, it does help to know a little bit more about the characters.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Searching for Someday by Jennifer Probst

Image linked from Goodreads
It was really interesting that I kept sort of noticing things as I was reading that really annoyed me, but my overall feeling about this book was one of good will. I enjoyed it quite a bit and devoured it almost in one sitting (darn planes kept landing).
Kate Seymour is a matchmaker with some mystical powers, namely, she can sense a spark between two people who were meant to be together. Okay, yes, hokey
and even more hokey, she loses the power when she denies her own feelings.But it seemed to work.

Slade is a divorce lawyer who doesn't believe in love. He becomes a client of Kate's so that he can debunk the myth of them doing any good in the world (because he's overprotective-ly trying to save his sister from heartbreak.)
This is all very cliched and should have driven me nuts. The sex scenes were a bit more graphic than I like but you can always skim those. I was impressed that the characters were so good about protection, none of this magic hoo-ha or "I know you're a virgin so you must be pure" crap.
The worst part of this review is that I can not tell you why I enjoyed the book so much, especially since, as I noted, so many things irritated me (I didn't put them all in. Why point them <i>all</i>  out if they're  personal rather than storyline peeves? It must have been the writing. And I can't wait for the next books in the series.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Rumor Has It by Jill Shalvis

Image linked from Goodreads
Okay, I know this is an ARC from NetGalley and we're not supposed to ding books since it's not the final copy, but there were three, three, spelling/grammar errors in the first thirty pages. Very distracting. Luckily, I got into the flow of the story and there either weren't any more or I missed them.
Kate is a stereotypical romance heroine. She's smart, so when she gets nervous she gets verbal diarrhea (in the form of scientific facts) or clumsy (as in literally trips over her own feet.)
Griffin has just come back from the war. Not by choice. An IED caused some major damage and he's no longer active. He's back in Sunshine, Idaho for his sister's wedding (Kate's BFF.) Nobody thingks that he'll be good for Kate, including Grif, but somehow, the attraction is just to strong to deny.

One favorite quote from page 151--
Some men brought flowers.
Griffin had brought her mace.
She loved that about him.

Loved the unexpected ending to the storyline about someone watching her. Also loved that Griffin (why spell it "Grif?" It looks like a dog bark and took me out of the story every time) got to work through a lot of his issues but that Kate grew a little as well. The epilogue was unneeded and a little annoying.
It's implied that they're getting their HEA, does it explicitly have to be stated that they're getting married?