Truth or Dare by Jayne Ann Krentz

I like this second book in the Whispering Springs series. 

Zoe Luce married Ethan Truax in the last book in order to be safe from being returned to the mental hospital she escaped. In this book, her fellow escapee, Arcadia Ames is the target. Her presumed-dead husband, Grant Loring, is back and wants the information about his shady business dealings that Arcadia tucked away. Zoe and Ethan have to help out Arcadia, deal with their own professional problems and try to balance their own marriages.

Whispering Springs #2

Three stars

Follows Light in Shadows

This book came out September 1, 2003

Borrowed as audiobook from Audible Plus

Opinions are my own

State of the Union by Marie Force

There are SO MANY PEOPLE in this series which can be good but I think Force tried to catch up with every single one of them in this book and it got overwhelming and repetitive (even some of the dialogue, while true to life, was repeated.) The mystery suffered a bit because of it as well.

A young woman has been raped and murdered in a DC park. Sam is not at full speed after falling on some ice and fracturing her hip. All she had wanted to do was enjoy a vacation with her family at Camp David and she still got called back to work where the storm of the season took her out. 

Nick is dealing with his own problems trying to get the Vice President into office and write his first State of the Union address. I really hope we find out soon why Sam's radar went off around Gretchen as it has been discussed so many times.

Three stars

This book came out September 20, 2022

Follows State of Grace

Followed by State of Shock

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

State of Grace by Marie Force

Like other books in this series, there is a LOT going on. Not only do we read about one of Sam's cases, we hear about her adapting to the role of First Lady of the United States and all the side stories of the people in her orbit (and there are a lot of them.) Still, a fast and enjoyable read.

Sam is shocked when a typical suburban mom is found tied up and left for dead in the back of the woman's minivan. She and her team are going to have to do a lot of work to uncover exactly why this woman was murdered. This is, of course, taking place while Sam is trying to navigate the world of politics while still maintaining her own identity. 

This is all set against the backdrop of Christmas which Sam is looking forward to with her family. The family that is also under threat because the twins' grandparents have filed for custody and are trying to blackmail Eli into turning them over.

Four stars

This book came out December 21, 2021

Follows State of Affairs

Followed by State of the Union

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

Murder Most Actual by Alexis Hall

I liked this book based on the cover and even more based on the author. The chapter titles? Adorable. The blend of "Clue" and "Murder By Death"? Laugh out loud funny. The relationship between our two heroines? Rocky but we really get to see how they are working on repairing it and why their relationship of ten years will last at least that much longer. 

Hanna and Liza are floundering. Neither feels like their relationship is sustaining them any longer. Hannah has peremptorily gotten them a weekend in Scotland. It's a castle, but a castle in the middle of a snowstorm. And a castle with murders. Six of them to be exact. 

With characters like Emmeline Wright, Ruby, a man dressed in green, etc., this is a contemporary take on a locked room mystery with the characters of Clue. Only better. The deft flourishes of language add little tidbits of delight and it takes a writer of great skill to show us two characters finding their love in the middle of a murder-filled vacation.

Four and a half stars

This book comes out November 9th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Kobo Original and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Reread as audiobook from Libby September 2023

State of Affairs by Marie Force

At the end of the last book (even though this kicks off a new series, I guess), Lt. Sam Holland and her husband Nick Cappuano, Vice President of the United States, have gotten a call that the President has died. This throws their world into chaos. Nick had just the week before announced that he didn't want to run for president and now he's being sworn into office. 

For Sam, this is a nightmare. She has her dream job in the police force. Yes, there are always rumors about how she got there (either sleeping with people, riding her father's coattails, or both) but it's not like she wants to climb the ranks. She just wants to be able to work in the streets. But how will that work when no other First Lady has ever held a job before? 

This book was a little less emotionally fraught than others in the series because there was so much going into the world re-building. And I actually enjoyed the book all the more for it. These things happen in people's lives, seismic shifts change how we view the world, and we have to start from where we are. I can't wait to read the next book.

Four stars

This book came out April 20th, 2021

Follows Fatal Accusation

Followed by State of Grace

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

Oh my. This book starts with one of my favorite first chapters ever. We meet the hero, we meet the heroine, we get a nice snapshot of them both, their attitudes, their personality, and a little bit of their background. Emma Gladstone is a seamstress, a vicar's daughter, who worked for months on a dress for the Duke of Ashbury's fiancee. When he was wounded in the war, his fiancee decamped and never paid for the dress. But Emma needs that money. So she shows up at the duke's residence. In the wedding gown. And he proposes.
The Duke of Ashbury (name currently in dispute), was horribly disfigured in the war. His fiancee was horribly disgusted by him and the wedding was called off. But he needs  a wife because his current heir is... well, a prat. When he meets Emma, he's charmed by her and... well, he proposes.
The rest of the story is the two of them finding their way to an HEA with some delightful twists and turns along the way.
Emma's friends are most definitely sequel bait - animal loving Penelope, the clock winding Alexandra and the mad scientist Nicola - but not in an obnoxious way. They were handled with the lightest of touches. There are a lot of romance tropes (including a ripped "bodice") and some modern, but not overt, references (false news, anyone?). There are two potentials for One Last Big Misunderstanding and they are deftly avoided. This book is the best kind of mix of Beauty and the Beast with a touch of Batman and a soupcon of Gone With the Wind, I  read this book in one fast and furious sitting, grinning fiercely the entire time. Absolutely delightful.

Five stars
This book comes out August 22

The Unromantic Lady by Lucy Gordon

I generally enjoyed this re-issue of a 1996 book (I like the new cover much better) but the ending really killed it for me. It was a book with fairly low-level drama until the end when it suddenly got ramped up rather needlessly. I feel like this was rather typical of historical categories but I honestly wasn't really reading those at the time so it's a vague sort of notion.
Diantha is a major heiress who has all sorts of fortune hunters who are after her money, even though she's only <gulp> one generation removed from having earned it. But her mother's family is posh so the most needy gentleman are willing to overlook her background. Too bad she can't be tricked into marriage because she doesn't believe in love. In fact, the man who finally manages to convince her is Rex, the one man who also doesn't believe in love. Rather, he puts the marriage to her as a sort of business deal. And those are terms she can accept. They deal rather well together, even her mild flirtations cause no Big Misunderstandings (so refreshing!). There are some rather nice subplots with marriages of love that start to have both characters questioning their earlier stance and then... Big Misunderstanding! Drama! And... le sigh. This may not be a deal breaker for others but it dropped the book a full star for me.

Three stars
This book came out September 5

The Lady's Command by Stephanie Laurens

We so rarely get romance books that start at the marriage, I was really excited to read the latest from Stephanie Laurens (well, over and above the usual Laurens excitement level).
Declan and Edwina Frobisher have only been married three weeks when his top-secret government job pulls him back into play. While Declan was happy to marry Edwina and delighted to discover her link to Neville Roscoe ("The Lady Risks All"), he wants to tame some of her more...  adventurous tendencies. Oh, not all of them, just the ones that might lead her into danger.
This one didn't have the... overwhelming sense of urgency running throughout the entire book that many of Laurens' adventure novels have. And yet, I didn't feel like it suffered. And there was only one mention of someone's [adjective] [soul/spirit/etc.] which was a great relief since it got more than a little repetitive even when I first noticed it in Chillingworth's book.
A very nice addition to the Laurens canon and I can't WAIT to read the next one.

Four stars
This book comes out December 29, 2016

Followed by A Buccaneer at Heart

Hard copy from Publisher

Opinions are my own

Reread as hard copy from library April 2023

Updated review: I think this book is better read right after the other series because it took me SO LONG to get into it and re-read it. It's fine and I'm looking forward to the next books in the series but it wasn't the sense of delight I had reading it originally. 

Death Wears a Mask by Ashley Weaver

Oof. I am loving this series as much for the exploration of Amory and Milo's marriage as the mysteries that Amory keeps tripping into. After the reconciliation of the last book, Milo (seemingly?) continues his amorous ways after only a couple of months.

But the book doesn't start out that way. It begins with a dinner party. One where the hostess, knowing of Amory's involvement in solving a murder, pulls her aside and asks for help discovering who is stealing her jewels. The group that is gathered at her party is comprised of the same people who have been in the house for each theft. An injudicious statement by the hostess' nephew sets Amory and Milo back onto a bumpy road and it's not helped when Amory insists on investigating the death of that same nephew.
While the enjoyment I had for this book makes me desperately ready to read the next book, I truly hope that the push-pull of this marriage and Amory's feelings don't continue past that tome. It's nice now, but it's getting repetitious fast. We either need to see more of Milo's feelings or have Amory actually stick with her resolution at the end of this book.

The Duke's Disaster by Grace Burrowes

And this is the reason that I keep reading Grace Burrowes. Not every story of hers connects with me but every once in awhile, there is one that just poings my happy reading nerves. It's not an all out adventure running from villains book, just a book about two people who have already gotten married, and are trying to sort out what to do about it.
Noah Winters, Duke of Anselm, has had enough of courting. The SYT he was after married someone else so he proposes to her companion. Simple enough, right? And now he's married.
But Thea Collins has her own reasons for getting married. Well, she tried to resist at first but Noah was sort of insistent. When he discovers one of her secrets on their wedding night, it changes the nature of the relationship. But he isn't a complete dick about the whole thing, as many men of his time would have been (even some "heroes" in romance novels.) Instead, he tries to figure out how they're going to live given that neither really came to the marriage without secrets. Because yes, he has a few of his own...