Super-smart and well trained in the art of the hunt, Miki takes no prisoners. And in Conall's case, she doesn't want to be caught with him either. But trying to make it through her dissertation may prove harder than she originally thought.
Great character development, awesome world building, and a happy ending. All things that make me happy. I did skim a couple of sections but not very much.
And that is part of my problem with this book. Cade is a private investigator but he leaps to all of these conclusions about Bailey. Yes, I do remember that this was put out as a Harlequin Romance but, c'mon.
Lord Asher Holt lives under the shadow of his father, a man who patently has a gambling addiction so deep he's put not only himself into debt but is trading on Asher's name as well (is that even a thing? I decided to go with it.) If he can put together a thousand pounds, he can join his friends on a hunt for hidden treasure. But seeing his father one night and then being captured by two debutantes delays his plans. It's the third debutante, Winnifred Humphries, who really captures his interest. Partly because she is an heiress but it's mostly her attractive form. So when she barrels into his carriage the day she's supposed to be getting married, he starts by wanting to get some money but it turns into something more.
Angelina wakes up swinging. She never expected to wake up in the house of a man she flirted with briefly. Nor did she expect to fall in love so fast...
I read the first six Kowalski books practically in one sitting and had to wait a couple of months to get this one. I couldn't wait to find out about Liz and Drew. Unfortunately, this just wasn't as good as the other books in the series. Better than most contemporary romances though so still got three stars.
Chase Radnor is an investigator and the perfect choice for his cousin to reach out to for help. His cousin has inherited a dukedom but the vast wealth that their uncle collected was not left to anyone in the family. Rather, it was parceled out to three women that no one knows. Finally, Chase has found the first one, though breaking into her house might not have been the best idea.
Ellen and Unity have been friends... forever. When Ellen got pregnant as a teen, Unity stuck by her. When Unity's husband died, Ellen stuck by her. Now Ellen's son is heading off to college and her life is about to change irrevocably. Meanwhile, Unity is still stuck in the mourning phase for her husband. Everyone gets to grieve differently but Unity's friend's seem to think that three years are enough. Both are fairly young to be in the position of about-to-be-empty-nester and widow so they decide to push each other to live a little by creating a list of things to get themselves out of a rut. Ellen finds herself getting closer to a long-time platonic friend while Unity's moves end up opening her up to her friend's son.
It's a night of pirates and gaming when Mercy discovers she needs more ingredients to bake cookies. She goes out but then wakes up battered and bruised in a cube with two vampires, her pack and mate bonds seemingly severed. She is on her own. Luckily, Mercy is underestimated once again and she manages to escape (because the pack was practicing their Jackie Chan moves, she knows how to run up the corner of a wall.) But now she's in Europe. Alone. With no known allies (and a lot of enemies), Mercy needs help more than ever but her pack doesn't know where she is.
Katrina King grew up with an abusive father who pushed her into the spotlight. She married a much older man to get away. When the man died, Katrina was left a fortune that she quickly developed. She also struggled with agoraphobia but has largely conquered it. She enjoys her life and her routines. That's what makes her new notoriety so heartbreaking. She shared a table with a guy in a coffee shop, shared several sentences with him, all of which were captured by an enterprising blogger, and now the world wants to know who she is and whether their meeting has led to an epic romance. Katrina wants none of it. So she escapes with her bodyguard to his family's fruit farm.
Well, it turns out that Ryan has always loved Lauren, even when she was married to his best friend. And he betrayed his best friend by asking Lauren to run away with him (it's in the first part of the book, not exactly a spoiler).
Holly Glen has had a hard life. She was in a car accident that took the life of her parents and put her younger into a coma. That was three years ago and her younger sister's care is more than she can afford. So when she can steal a parking space from her high school crush, Sam Wylde, who was kind of a jerk back then, she figures the fates are just aligning. She doesn't expect him to propose marriage.
The werewolves are out. Humans now know that they exist. They also know about the fae. And the humans are frightened. So when there is a troll on a bridge, the werewolves are on the list to help take care of it. And while dealing it, some old friends show up to help and they bring a small boy. Mercy agrees to take care of the boy for 24 hours and accidentally declares that her wolf pack is in charge of the tri-cities (which is more than three, really.) But the small boy turns out to be both a blessing and a curse - he has spent a long time in Underhill and has been changed in ways that make the fae jealous. Mercy will have to protect him from the Grey Lords themselves.
Beck Ryder is a lot of things, including famous. He was in a boy band then became an underwear model. It's that fame that makes the tweet that was supposed to be a private message to his sister go viral. And not in a good way. No he's America's #1 hated man and his charities are floundering. He needs some help to get out of it.
A mystery written by the author of Winnie the Pooh? I wonder how many people have read this book for exactly that reason? And it's not bad, a pretty fast read. I liked the summary on the Classic Mysteries podcast.
It's the first World War and most of the young men are off to war. That means that women are stepping into the roles traditionally held by men, even police work. There is a small group that has been authorized to work for the police. Their cases are assigned to them but so far, there's only been one and at least one person in the group is getting restless. Then, the daughter of a duchess is found dead, apparently suicide by hanging but her mother is convinced that that can't be the case. Indeed, though the woman was hated by many (she was a gossip columnist who reported on the upper classes and also stooped to blackmail), she was too self-involved to want to die.
I read a review of this book on Dear Author and thought it sounded good. And the first half was wonderful. But the second half suffered from So Much "if they had but talked to each other."
After moving to LA to follow her boyfriend, Daphne Walters, like so many before her, has been summarily dumped. While moping about it, she wanders into a courtyard with a pool and decides to dip in. While underwater, she sees her first ghost. It seems that the courtyard is surrounded by an apartment building that houses ghosts from a number of decades. But not all of the ghosts are friendly and Daphney is about to find that out the hard way.
Another common romance trope (friends-to-lovers) with another common theme (Wha-huh? My best friend is a girl?) that Stacey manages to breathe some new life into.
It's the height of summer and lots of strangers are in town but only one is a silver-haired teen with purple eyes who is caught for stealing. But there's more to her than meets the eye....
Mitch Kowalski is in town to help out at the family lodge while his brother recuperates from a broken leg. He left town to evade the gossip and the past that everyone thinks they know about him. But, as long as he's back, he might as well scout out the fresh meat (my terms, Stacey's words are much classier.)
Would you want your husband's ex-wife living with you? A wife who is known for manipulating the people around her? I sure wouldn't. But Mercy Thompson is a kind person who wants to help everyone, especially her stepdaughter's mother. Even if that means that she's made to feel uncomfortable in her own house as the ex hides from a recent bad breakup. Like, he killed her last boyfriend bad breakup. And... it might be that he's a slightly crazy fire-godlike-creature. Oops.
In the first book of the series, Kitty Underhay discovered that she had more family than she knew. Now, she's been invited to go visit. And the family lives in a grand estate and have several people other than Kitty visiting. Kitty meets many of them on the first day, including Nanny Thomas who was her cousin Lucy's nanny and is now companion to Kitty's aunt. She is a dithery sort of old woman who is ruthlessly bullied by the lady of the house. But she doesn't know much of anything about anything. So why, after a set of papers relating to the Ministry of Defence go missing, is Nanny the one who ends up dead?
Six months into her pregnancy, Lady Kiera Darby has been invited to Duchess of Bowmontʼs Twelfth Night party. She and her husband Sebastian Gage are looking forward to relaxing and having some fun. But some of the relationships among the Bowmont family seem strained and it only gets worse when a body is discovered in the catacombs below the house.
23andMe is uncovering a lot of long-held family secrets. Serenity, Reagan, and Lorelei have discovered they are half-sisters and have decided to spend a weekend together in Lake Tahoe to try and get to know each other. Serenity is dealing with the fall-out of her eight-year marriage ending; Reagan had and affair with a married man; Lorelei's husband has just admitted that he cheated on her with her best friend. The three ladies spend enough time together to realize they need more than just the weekend they originally planned for.
Naomi and Nicholas are supposed to get married in three months but neither of them especially likes the other. Naomi wants out but she can't afford to help out with any of the money that's already gone into the wedding planning (mostly done by his mother) since her job is currently precarious at best. She also has no family and her best friend hates Naomi after having been set up on a date with a friend of Nicholas's who turned out to be a scumbag. The more she thinks about it, the more Naomi realizes that she really doesn't like Nicholas and she really hates his overbearing and controlling mother. So she decides to sabotage the marriage. While doing that, she starts to notice that he may have been ahead of her.
Hilda Adams has just gotten home from her last job when the phone rings again. She doesn't want to take the case but she knows the name Eliza Fairbanks and she remembers seeing the wedding of Fairbanks' daughter (though the marriage eventually ended in divorce.) So Hilda packs up herself and puts a cover on her birdcage and heads over to the Fairbanks mansion.