A Dangerous Engagement by Ashley Weaver

Amory and Milo have crossed the Atlantic to attend her friend’s wedding. Tabitha Alden was a schoolmate of Amory’s but she returned to New York after her mother’s death. Her father lost a lot of money in the stock market crash but he seems to have recouped his investments, at least if the car that picks up Amory and Milo is anything to go by.
They get to Mr. Alden’s house and meet the rest of the wedding party: Tabitha’s fiancé Tom who seems to have no past beyond four or five years ago; Jemma Petrie, a friend of Tabitha’s and the only other bridesmaid; Rudy Elliot, a friend of Tom’s who is in marketing, most recently for a salad dresssing, his father was one of the men who committed suicide after the crash; and Grant Palmer, a confident man who is rumored to be in with the mob. In a quiet moment, Tabitha confesses to Amory that she believes that Grant is trying to lure her father into the mob business. When Amory overhears the two men talking, it seems they know each other better than they pretend.
Amory also witnesses Tom fighting with Grant; it seems Tom doesn’t want his past to come up again. But that could be for any reason, really. Perhaps he thinks his Midwestern past won’t fly with the high social group that is the circle Tabitha moves in.
And with Grant being the most unpleasant person in this book, it isn't hard to believe that he’s the one who ends up dead, shot several times outside the Alden house. Milo and Amory are dragged into the underworld.
Another great book in the series.

Four stars
Follows An Act of Villainy
Followed by A Deception at Thornecrest
ARC kindly provided by St. Martin's Press and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Anytime Yoga by Ulrika Dezé

This is a "fine" book but I did not connect with it and am not sure children would either. The monkey could be fun but isn't well utilized. Most of this book feels like an 1800s grammar book teaching the itsy-bitsy chidwen how to do their yo-ga. Less conversational than teachy.

Three stars
ARC kindly provided by Shambhala Publications, Inc.and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Big Nate: Hug It Out! by Lincoln Peirce

Once again, Lincoln Peirce gives us a great collection of Big Nate comics. I love reading these books as a bit of a palate cleanser. Clean and fun, Nate never fails to make me smile with his hijinks. And getting to see his grandparents again was a delight. Grandpa and Nate resonate on the same level and it is just so fun to see. We also get to see Teddy and Francis roll their eyes at Nate and Gina is back as his younger arch-nemesis. Older nemesis, Mrs. Godfrey is back as well.

Four stars

This book comes out September 3rd

ARC kindly provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Bakeshop at Pumpkin and Spice -- Anthology

Sweet Magic by Donna Kauffman
Bellaluna's bakery is run by Abriana "Bree" Bellaluna O'Neill and her grandmother, Sofia. Their family has owned the shop for generations and every year at Halloween, Sofia makes special cookies that can help people find true love. Bree is ready to be the one making the cookies but she just can't get the recipe right but you have to be in love. Sofia thinks that Caleb, who is in town to run his uncle's restaurant business, might be the one. But Bree isn't sure... Caleb is a short timer. Can he really be her true love?

A typical Kauffman book. Regular readers will be satisfied.

Love Spells Disaster by Allyson Charles
Cassandra Hie wants to get married but she wants to find the "right" kind of guy. Someone like her boss, Steve.  But then Chip, a local handyman, eats the cookies meant for Steve. Suddenly, blue collar's not looking so bad... plus, he loves Halloween as much as she does.

There was so much time spent on Cassandra changing her mind that not as much was spent on their relationship building.

Sweet on you by Kate Angell
Lara's rent has just gone up and she's in danger of losing her job. Plus her boyfriend recently dumped her. But, Mayor Jack needs help. So he creates a job for Lara, who he is attracted to. And she rocks it.

An okay story but I don't love boss/employee romances, especially if someone has created a job for someone else.

Rival's Break by Carla Neggers

I'm pretty sure I've never read a book that opens with a rash of seasickness, but this one does. Well, really it opens with Colin's brother, Andy, getting married to Julianne (Declan's Cross) but Colin and his marine patrol brother, Kevin, end up leaving the reception to investigate the illness. Colin is surprised to recognize one of the victims as an undercover agent.
From there, they get caught up in the world of nerve agents and mushrooms while Aoife Byrne's work becomes part of the story once again. Were the people on the boat targeted for some reason? Or is someone after the chef whose scientist father is even now in the throes of death?
The mystery was... very confusing. The story was fine but I had really no idea what this did to move anything in the Sharpe & Donovan universe forward.

Two and a half stars
This book comes out August 27th
Follows Impostor's Lure
ARC kindly provided by Harlequin-MIRA and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Hold On to Me by Jules Bennett

Jade Mackenzie doesn't particularly like Cash Miller. So when he ends up being the pilot taking her to her cousin's wedding, she's really not thrilled. Especially when they end up making a crash landing and getting to the wedding late. But when Cash steps up as Jade's "date,", she's confused. They don't do nice things for each other. But somehow, making him her fake boyfriend makes it easier to imagine all the things they could do with each other if they were in a real relationship. And then they start doing them... even after they get home. Neither is very interested in telling their friends (at least at first) because what is the point? They're just going to break up eventually. But then fate steps in and forces Jade and Cash to face the fact that they are going to be tied together one way or another for the rest of their lives.

I don't particularly love the game-changing trope in this book but I do like friends-to-lovers and Ms. Bennett in general. I think the regular Return to Haven readers won't be disappointed and new poeple won't have had to read the other books in the series to like this one.

Three stars

This book comes out August 27th

ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

The Lady Travelers Guide to Happily Ever After by Victoria Alexander

James and Viola didn't expect to be married to one another. In fact, James was engaged to Viola's friend. But one drunken mistake (James's) and one all-to-understood-overhearing (Viola's) later and the two are married and then separated faster than you can say lickety-split.
For seven years, Viola has traveled the world. Both she and James have heard rumors of the romances of the other. And now they'll have to face those rumors, and each other, head on because James's uncle, the Earl of Ellsworth has died, and has left strict instructions that James and Viola must follow in order to inherit his estate since the bulk of it is not entailed and the earl was free to leave it to whomever he wants. At least according to his firm of lawyers.
This book gets us to care about Viola and James and shows us a lot of growth out of each. Along with the help with our Lady Travelers who are the ones overseeing whether or not Viola and James stick to the terms of the will. I didn't love that there were a couple of Big Misunderstandings at the end; they could have been done without, but it was overall a nice read.

Four stars
This book comes out August 27th
Follows The Lady Travelers Guide to Deception with an Unlikely Earl
ARC kindly provided by Harlequin and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews

When the Baylor family became a house, they all quickly realized that Nevada, the oldest, was not going to be a good head of house. So, Catalina stepped up. She's only 21 and her entire family is about to lose their three year stay of execution, the time when no other houses can come at them. So it's a very awkward time for her to take on the case of Runa Etterson whose mother and sister have been murdered. But Runa is a friend, of sorts, and Catalina wants to help both her and Runa's brother discover who would want to murder their mother and take out anyone else in the vicinity.
One big wrinkle, her teenage crush, Alessandro Sagredo is trying to stop her from investigating. He is more than the social media star that he seems and rushing Catalina and Runa out of the morgue where they went to test the DNA of the corpses found in the fire that destroyed the Etterson family mansion.
A wild ride, this book has some soft spots but was a fast read and will be enjoyed by regular Andrews readers.

Four stars

This book comes out August 27, 2019
Follows novella Diamond Fire

Followed by Emerald Blaze
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Reread July 2022

Handle with Care by Marie Harte

During his "real life," Evan Griffith is a high-paid accountant. At the moment, he's helping out with the company he co-owns with his cousins, working as a mover. The physicality is a plus. Also a plus? Meeting the cute gal whose roommate is moving out.
Evan is immediately attracted to Kenzie Sykes but she comes with a lot of baggage. Her physical baggage is her thirteen-year-old brother who she's raised for a long time (although the timing wasn't always consistent in my ARC.) And she's got emotional baggage from the last boyfriend who said he didn't mind that she had sole custody of her brother but then left them both. Now she's just going through her days, running her computer company (details are a little sketchy on this), and trying desperately not to be attracted to Evan. But first she falls into lust and then love (that pesky emotion ever-present in romance novels.) Will she be able to trust that he has her, and her brother's, best interests at heart?
In the main, this was a very good story: I cared about the characters; the overarching storyline connecting the series advanced nicely, and the writing flowed well. Until the end when a few things that had great set ups earlier in the story got chopped down to one sentence resolutions. I had to go back and re-read the last three chapters because I wondered what had happened.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out August 27th
Follows Smooth Moves
ARC kindly provided by SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Party of Three by Sandy Lowe

One night can change your life as friends Sarah, Avery, and Kaitlyn are about to find out. None of them are incredibly excited about the party but Sarah doesn't want to go at all. Her last SO left her with some pretty significant emotional scars, especially surrounding sex. What she needs is someone who can show her that her ex didn't' know what she was talking about.
Avery, on the other hand, is okay with going. But she's startled that the birthday girl's sister is back in town and all grown up. Can this best-friend's-sibling trope work out into an HEA?
Kaitlyn is also in for a surprise. The girl she loved in high school, the one who left, is not only back in town, she means to stay. And to fight for Kaitlyn.
All three stories are fine but none really popped for me. I like a story where I can connect to the characters and I just couldn't.

Three stars
This book came out August 13th
ARC kindly provided by Bold Strokes Books, Inc. and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Normal Sucks by Jonathan Mooney

Starting from the question almost every parent has to answer at some point, "Why aren't I normal?", Mooney uses his own experiences to build a framework around "normal" and how it is determined.  Studied for hundreds of years, humans have tried to find the norm of canceling from our physical selves to our sex lives. But during that study, many scientists have discovered that their is no one person who can completely match the definition.
This definitely reads like a speech that has been adapted into a book. I didn't realize that this was going to be so closely wrapped around Mooney's own experiences and that was a bit jarring for me. I tend toward the nonfiction books written by people who can take a good step back from what they're studying (obviously, autobiographies not included.) There were a half dozen or so studies included in this book but I wish more had been included. If this had been marketed more as a biographical book I may have been on board sooner and enjoyed it more.

Three stars
This book came out August 13th
ARC kindly provided by Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

The Intelligence Trap by David Robson

We all know them, the forgetful professor, the absentminded scientist, and otherwise seemingly intelligent people who do things that make us blink. One example in this book is a prominent scientist who is convince that aliens are among us. This book looks at why it is very easy for experts in a field not belief the evidence that is right in front of their eyes.

I really enjoyed this book. Robson skillfully wove both anecdotes and larger data studies together to show why having a high IQ doesn't necessarily mean that you are the smartest person in the room.

Five stars

ARC provided by W. W. Norton & Company and NeGalley

Opinions are my own

Life and Other Inconveniences by Kristan Higgins

Taking a page from innumerable contemporary romances at the moment, this book is told from alternating first person narrators. The person we hear from the most is Emma London. When her mother died, her father dumped her with his mother, the incredibly well-known designer, Genevieve London. She never quite feels like she belongs. And it becomes official when, at 18, Emma gets pregnant. Suddenly, she is out on the streets without a penny to her name so she goes to live with her maternal grandfather.
Years later, Emma gets a call from Genevieve; Genevieve is dying and wants to surround herself with family in her last days. Emma doesn't want to leave her burgeoning psychiatry practice but a series of events, including her now-teenage daughter, Riley, being bullied by her former group of friends. Now Emma, Riley, and Emma's grandfather are all going to live with Genevieve.
Like many Higgins books, there's a lot going on in this novel. Maybe too much... there are a lot of Big Themes and trying to deal with all of these leaves little room for character or relationship development. I would have thought that Emma and her romantic interest would have been more of a focus... except that this book is categorized in Women's Fiction. And that made it less interesting than Higgins' other books. She's good at big emotions but they hit more with the reader when they're tied to people we care about. And that just didn't happen in this particular Higgins book.

Three stars
This book came out August 6th
ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Invitation to Die by Barbara Cleverly

It's 1924 and the Great War is over but no one knows quite what to do with the soldiers who came back, many of whom have seen conflict beyond what anyone has seen before. In Cambridge, one such soldier has been living on the streets. Well-known for being affable, Richard 'Dickie' Dunne is the latest man to be invited to dine with a group of Cambridge dons. It seems this group of six men enjoy feeding incredibly opulent meals those who they consider "less" (for a variety of reasons) and then slowly tearing them apart. But it's not just the dons who are at this meal, there is also a man with whom Dickie fought; one who shares a dangerous secret. And, at the end of the night, someone ends up dead.
This was very much modeled after mysteries actually written in the '20s - aka- it was very confusing to begin with, had a lot of references to Great Lit-er-a-chur, and lots of focus on the classes. Also, long-winded conversations that can make a person lose track of what, exactly, is going on in the book. I hadn't read the first book in the series but didn't feel like I was missing anything because of it. I did like the character development of Inspector Redfyre but didn't really connect with anyone else. Golden Age mystery fans will probably find this book quite entertaining but I'm not certain about others.

Three stars
This book came out August 6th
ARC kindly provided by Soho Press and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Relative Fortunes by Marlowe Benn

Julia Kydd is in America for one reason only: to get her half of her father's fortune. She hasn't ever really gotten to know her half-brother Philip, he's much older than she is, but she doesn't really like him. He seems to take great pleasure in making her crazy for absolutely no reason.
When her (sort of) friend's sister dies, the role of women in the 1920s comes into stark relief for Julia. Naomi Rankin's family seems to be more concerned about covering up her death than figuring out what was wrong. Her brother controlled the family finances and seemed to take great delight in making the sufragette's life as hard as possible.
Philip makes an off-the-cuff wager that Julia can't figure out what happened to Naomi. If so, he'll stop fighting their father's will and let her have her share of the Kydd money. In doing so, Julia is going to have to confront any number of inequities and a truly horrible family.
This book was so slow to begin with and then piled up so much information into the end that felt overdone. I also had hoped to have a little more history thrown in. For a book that is nearly 400 pages long, we could have gotten some more about that time period. And a little bit deeper character analysis. Everyone felt a bit shallow. It was an okay start to a series but not a barn burner.

Three stars
Followed by Passing Fancies
This book came out August 1st
ARC kindly provided by Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

The Case of the Missing Hippo by Laura James

Oh, how I wish that the illustrations had been included in the ARC I got from NetGalley. The story was fine but I think the pictures might have upped my rating.

Violet, the niece of a local hotel owner, is trying to get the hotel some more business by holding a talent show. One of the judges catches a bad cold so Fabio is asked to step in. During the tryouts, the lights go out and a hippo singer disappears. Fabio is immediately on the case. It takes a race at the nearby athletic event to put him on the right track.
This book will probably amuse parents with the arch jokes and wink, winks but I'm not sure how it will appeal to children.

Three stars
This book comes out August 6th
ARC kindly provided by Bloomsbury Children's Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Lone Wolf Cowboy by Maisey Yates

How much do the scars of our past affect our current relationships?
Vanessa Logan has been mentioned in past books. Her twin Olivia was the perfect child while Vanessa was the one who descended into drugs, alcohol, and debauchery eventually leaving home when she was a teen. Five years ago, she managed to pull herself into sobriety and now she's back in Gold Valley working with at risk kids.
On the other hand, Jacob Dalton is burying his own guilt from spending the day in bed with a one-night stand while his friend covered a wildfire shift and died. He's using alcohol. His family are the ones who set up the camp for the kids and he's being pulled in to just be in the classroom so that the teen boys don't decide that Vanessa is fair game.
One night, Jacob and Vanessa are each dealing with their own dragons and hook up. Neither is very proud of themselves but it does lead them to opening up with each other about their past. It also leads to them being linked in ways that they never expected.
I... didn't love the last half of the book. And I can't articulate why. Possibly because Major Plot Point (MPP) came out of left field for me. More because MPP made it so that everything was fast forwarded and I like a little more relationship development in most of my books.

Three stars
This book came out July 30th
Follows Cowboy to the Core
Followed by Cowboy Christmas Redemption
ARC kindly provided by Harlequin and NetGalley
Opinions are my own