The Accidental Newlywed Game by Jaci Burton

We've sort of seen in previous books in the series that Honor Bellini was probably going to end up with her sister's ex-fiancee, Owen Stone. And, while that's a setup that I don't usually enjoy, I really like Burton's writing and thought she might be one of the authors that could pull it off. I really wish that there hadn't been so much secrecy. Also, the big ending was So Very Public. 

Honor is in Vegas for a conference. Surprisingly, Owen is at the same hotel. After a night out together, they wake up married. The chemistry is undeniable (at least to them; it took me a longer to buy in) and they decide to keep dating, but secretly until it becomes clear that it might be a longer term relationship that either thought. 

Three stars

Follows The Engagement Arrangement

This book comes out June 29th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Called Out by Jen Doyle

Having completely trashed his reputation by sleeping with his best friend's fiancee, Jack "Ox" Oxford, now only has one way to fix it -- to ask for his (former) best friend's, Nate Hawkins, forgiveness. On the way into Nate's hometown, Jack stops to help fix a flat tire. Except that Lola Deacon McIntire (Nate's sister's sister-in-law) immediately recognizes him and is decidedly unhappy that he's in town. Too bad he's immediately attracted to her. And sort of entranced by her oldest son (you'd think her youngest three, the triplets, would be immediate plot-moppets but Doyle manages to avoid that completely).

Jack and Lola very slowly get to know each other but she has to figure out how to overcome the damage done by his parents.

Four stars

This book came out May 29, 2017

Follows Called up
Followed by Holiday House Call

Ebook I own

Opinions are my own

Calling It by Jen Doyle

When she was younger, Dorie Donelli had a fairly large crush on baseball player Nate Hawkins. It was part of the reason she moved to his hometown. But she's over it. Well, until he shows up in her apartment. While she's in the shower. And without her glasses. So, not knowing who he is or why he's in her place, she tries to bean him with a handy baseball bat. 

Nate is back in town recovering from the fact that his (former) fiancee  is pregnant by his (former) best friend. He has three weeks before spring training and is trying to get his head on straight. It's just going to be a fling. They both know that. Except... that they both might be falling harder than they think...

A nice world-building start to the series.

Three and a half stars

This book came out April 11, 2016

Followed by Called Up

Ebook I own

Opinions are my own

Fast Track by Julie Garwood

Cordie and Aidan got their HEA!

I have really been looking forward to this book and can say that if you have been enjoying Garwood lately, you'll like this book.

Cordie has been in love with Aidan since she was five years old. But he's always looked at her as a sister. When her father dies, Cordie decides it's time for her to get over Aidan, move away, and get on with her life.

Her friends are conspiring not to let her leave and, while helping her to search for the mother that she never even knew was alive, Aidan starts to realize that Cordie might just be the woman he's been looking for....

I recently read "Change of Heart" by Jude Deveraux and have been struggling to figure out why that alpha male annoyed me so much more than Aidan. Both were supremely confident and autocratic, but I think that Aidan was more receptive to Cordie and her demands. Also, I think their shared history helped to create more of a bond than what I saw in the other story. Where Eli really did seem to be just a jerk, Aidan actually cared and had a (current) connection to Cordie. 

While this book shows a slightly softer Cordie than I had gotten from previous books in the series, I still enjoyed the ride. And hearing my friend laugh out loud as she read it also opened me up I some of the more hilarious parts of the story.

Four stars

This book came out July 29th, 2014

Follows Hotshot

Followed by Wired

Borrowed as hard copy from the library

Opinions are my own

Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle

Maybell Parrish doesn't really like the real world so she spends a lot of time in her Alternate Universe (AU). But the real world has finally come up with some good luck. Well, sort of. Her great aunt, the one with whom Maybell spent a wonderful summer when she was eleven, has died. And she left Sarah everything. At least that's what Maybell is told to begin with. However, she learns to her horror that she is actually a co-inheritor. The other is a man whose face she knows. It's the face her (now erstwhile) friend used to catfish Maybell. Used to being quiet and now faced with a man that she thought was fictional (and largely is thanks to her imagination), Maybell has a decision. Does she give up the first good thing in her life or does she work toward a brighter future?

I think that Hogle may just not be an author I enjoy. Maybell spent a lot of time in her imagination and I'm not sure how it really ended up serving the story. It meant that we got less time with Wesley who seemed like a good guy with his own issues that might have been interesting to explore. I was also having trouble figuring out how time flowed in this novel and some of that was the fact that these two didn't ever interact with anyone else in the story except for the great aunt's caretaker who was more of a plot point than a true character. 

Three stars

This book came out April 6th, 2021

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

The Engagement Arrangement by Jaci Burton

I had enjoyed the first book in this series and thought that the second looked like it might be fun as well and friends-to-lovers is one of my favorite tropes. Fake relationship is a trope that I don't mind (not catnip; not something I avoid) but it was interesting to me that so little of the book was actually spent with Brenna and Finn actually having to pretend to be in a relationship when it is literally in the title of the book. There are a few chapters where Brenna needs Finn to pretend to be her fiance so that her ex-husband and his new wife (Brenna's high school BFF turned worst enemy) can't gloat. Then there is a larger part where they are moving toward a real relationship with a couple of chapters thrown in for faking the relationship again though that seemed to be mostly for Brenna mending fences. 

Finn Nolan has loved Brenna Bellini ever since he arrived at her family's vineyard after his parents died. Now that she needs a buffer for an upcoming wedding, he's ready to make her see that he can be more than just part of the family. 

Three stars

Follows The Best Man Plan

Followed by The Accidental Newlywed Game

This book comes out June 29th, 2021

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai

Jia Ahmed is on top of the world. Or at least her social media feed says so. In truth, she feels old. She was an early influencer and is now feeling like all of her best ideas are behind her. While recovering from a recent illness, she reconnected with a man she met online, a soap opera star who is part of a Bollywood dynasty. He's recently been put off meeting her but she knows that he's in the States and is going to a party as a part of the role he took on a US TV show. So, she decides to go. But the man, Dev Dixit, doesn't seem to want to acknowledge her at all.

Dev isn't sure who the beautiful woman is who approaches him at a party but she seems to know him. He is astonished when she runs away. But he ends up tracking her down (which, it's built into the story that he would leave her be if she had said so, but she doesn't, so not as creepy as it could have been - a sign of Rai's mastery.) Through an odd series of events, they end up pretending that they are in a relationship. 

I really, really liked watching the relationship between Jia and Dev develop. They are both so aware of each others feelings (sometimes the feelings are misinterpreted but they are at least aware) and both just want the other to be happy so each works toward finding that goal for the other.

Four stars
Follows Girl Gone Viral
This book comes out February 16th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins and Edelweiss Plus
Opinions are my own

Bite Me by Shelly Laurenston

I can't believe I haven't found Shelly Laurenston before this.  I've been enjoying her books -- fast, fun, and fluffy. And the character building is fantastic. Livy, our heroine, is a honey badger shifter. And like her animal counterpart, she has a fairly bad attitude about life in general. It doesn't help that her family likes to steal things -- that part doesn't bother her, but the fact that they refuse to acknowledge her prowess as a photographer does. 
Vic is a half-bear-half-tiger shifter. Apparently he's generally strong and patient but easily startled. He and Livy have been friends for awhile (yes! one of my favorite tropes!) but he is only just now starting to realize that he might feel more for her than just little sister vibes. And Livy feels the same. But she's also distracted by the fact that she's just found her father -- her supposedly dead and buried father, in another woman's apartment. So there's that.
I hadn't read any of the other books in this series the first time I read this book but I was able to catch on fast to the world building. There were a LOT of extra characters that I assumed were from previous books and they were but there are pretty much always this many characters in the books of this series. 

Four stars
This book came out March 25th, 2014
This book follows Wolf with Benefits 
Followed by Hot and Badgered (new series but closely connected with this one)
Ebook I borrowed from Overdrive
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

Wolf with Benefits by Shelly Laurenston

Antonella "Toni" Jean-Louis Parker has pretty much given up her life so that she can care for her parents and her ten siblings. See, they're all geniuses while she's the "normal" one who can cope with the day-to-day but her friends and some of her family (mostly her father) have decided that she needs to get her own life so they've conspired to get her a job.
Ricky Lee Reed works for his brother's security agency. He meets Toni one day and is interested, until she turns him down. But their paths keep crossing and he is consistent in his interest.
I liked this one. Toni didn't get on my nerves as much as come of the other heroines in this series and was actually pretty good at her job once she figured out that she could do it.

Four stars
This book came out March 25th, 2014

Follows Bear Meets Girl
Followed by Bite Me
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston

Lou Crushek is a bear shifter who doesn't like change. At all. So when he's transferred with no notice from his police unit to the one containing all shifters, he's not happy. Who cares if his former foster mother, the head of the Bears Protection Agency, has basically doxxed him? He's also not excited to have picked up a female who seems to relish teasing him about their "dating" life.
Marcella Malone knows that Lou isn't her boyfriend. But he's so fun to tease. And it turns out that her work with the feline protection agency overlaps an investigation that he is very much an important part of. 
The more I read this book the more I enjoy it. Cella has a sly humor that makes her a great character for the series.

Four stars

This book came out March 27th, 2012

Follows Big Bad Beast
Followed by Wolf with Benefits
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

Big Bad Beast by Shelly Laurenston

Dee Ann Smith, the feared wolf-shifter who's not afraid to kill, gets her HEA with Ulrich "Ric" Van Holtz in this book. He's loved her since they were children and, despite the admonitions of all of those around them, the two have finally started moving toward love. 
Of course, we get to see many of the shifters from previous books and there is more going on with the overarching story of people using hybrids as fight dogs. A wonderful book in the series since we get to see so much of their relationship growing.

Four stars

This book came out May 25th, 2010

Follows Beast Behaving Badly
Followed by Bear Meets Girl
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

Beast Behaving Badly by Shelly Laurenston

I like the Pride books. I like Laurenston. I did NOT like Blayne. I think Laurenston really brought through the fact that Blayne, as a wild dog, was frenetic, unfiltered, and erratic and it made for some hard reading and an unlikable character. I never really got why she and Bo were supposed to be together. No one's going to like every book in a series and this one is going to be one that I dislike.
It is better when you skim the Blayne parts. Bumped it up to three stars on the re-reads (I do re-read it often though because I can't stand to skip books in series...) because Bo is really growing on me. He doesn't try to change Blayne and her annoyingness, he loves her as she is and plans to work around her.

Three stars

This book came out May 1st, 2011
Follows The Mane Squeeze
Followed by Big Bad Beast
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

The Mane Squeeze by Shelly Laurenston

We meet Gwen O'Neill and Lochlan "Lock" McRyrie in this book. She is a tigon shifter, a hybrid, never really accepted and sometimes outright despised by other shifters. Lock, a grizzly shifter doesn't care, he just thinks she's hot. The two will have to battle her brothers, deal with a long-time feud with a lion pride, and even take part in a roller derby battle, quite nearly to the death.
Blayne is not nearly as annoying in this book but she and Jessie together can be... over enthusiastic. And the annoyingness of that comes through in every interaction.

Three stars
This book came out November 1st, 2009

Follows The Mane Attraction
Followed by Big Bad Beast
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

The Mane Attraction by Shelly Laurenston

We know from the previous book that Mitch Shaw was an undercover policeman who witnessed an act that would put a bad guy away for a long, long time. So, said bad guy definitely wants to kill him. 

Sissy Mae Smith has been friends with Mitch for awhile. So she's sort of shocked when she wakes up in the lion-shifter's bed the morning after her brother's wedding. She's even more shocked when Mitch gets shot. 

Realizing that the only safe place for Mitch is going to be her hometown, Sissy Mae sweeps him away. There they have to contend not only with the killer but with a brother that hates her and a town full of wolf shifters who definitely hate felines. 

There was a little too much going on in this book but it was still a fun read.

Three stars
Follows The Beast in Him
Followed by The Mane Squeeze
This book came out November 1st, 2008
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

Christmas on Peach Tree Lane by Jules Bennett

 If you don't mind your heroines hyper-perky, this is going to be an okay book. Violet Calhoun is an event planner (with some sort of store front?) who is coordinating the fiftieth anniversary of the Tinsel Tour in her tiny town. With a photographer and journalist from Southern Homes. While planning her mother's wedding. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe the gentleman who owns the crown jewel of the tour (a plantation... with nary a discussion of the problems with plantation owning; just Violet being all moony over the big rooms) passes away in the summer. And his super-hot workaholic grandson won't respond to Violet's many, many, many, many attempts to get a hold of him. 
But it's okay. Brady is super annoyed by her until he notices that she's awfully cute. And she just wears him down. Not okay for a hero, not okay for a heroine. Seriously.
There wasn't even any competency-porn because we didn't even get to see Violet decorating for the tour or even planning the wedding (other than a dress shopping trip that gets interrupted.) I finished the book because I was so close to being done and I really liked Violet's friendships.

Two stars
This book came out November 30th, 2020
Borrowed from CloudLibrary
Opinions are my own

The Beast in Him by Shelly Laurenston

When she was sixteen, Jessie Ann Ward was desperately in love with Bobby Ray Smith. Even though his sisters made her life hell, even though she was an orphan, even though she was a wild dog in a town full of wolves, Bobby Ray (now known as Smitty) was one of the few people who were kind to her.
But he left. And she went out and built her own pack, becoming the Alpha of a wild dog team that also does computer hacking to test security. When they meet again as adults, Jessica wants to put him in his place so she pretends not to know him. And that pisses Smitty off. Because he "knows" that she's faking so he's not going to take no for an answer (not romantic).
I had a lot of issues with the not taking no and Jessie being a little hyper but I did love her family and how they were so accepting of everyone. Except the Smiths; but there was history.

Three stars
This book came out April 1st, 2008

Follows The Mane Event
Followed by The Mane Attraction
Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as borrowed audiobook from Audible January 2024

The Mane Event by Shelly Laurenston

 I've read a later book in this series several times and decided to start from the beginning. I was surprised to find there were actually two stories in this book. They're both sort of short but they are good setups for the Pride world - just the sheer crazy fun that Laurenston has built.
The first features Mace Llewelyn who is back in New York after a stint in the army. And he's ready to track down the woman he never forgot, Desiree MacDermot. While she's never forgotten him either, she's not exactly ready to jump into a relationship with him, especially when she finds out that he's a lion shifter (she's definitely more of a dog person). But their paths are crossing pretty hard when a shifter is killed and Desiree is the cop assigned (and then quickly taken off) the case.
The second story features another lion, Shaw. He's bred twice with a couple of Mace's sisters but hasn't exactly been tied down. It was the relationship to the Llewellyn that led to him very nearly being killed in the first story. He's in the hospital being watched over by Ronnie Lee Reed, a wolf shifter when two men come into his room with guns. Ronnie Lee gets him out of there alive. 
Ronnie Lee knows that she's led a wild life (she's not allowed in more than a few countries) but she doesn't know what she's done to have run into a lion that seems to want nothing more than to settle down with just her forever.

Three and a half stars
This book came out September 25th, 2007

Followed by The Beast in Him

Hard copy I own
Opinions are my own

Reread as Audible borrow January 2024

The Best Man Plan by Jaci Burton

Dumped by an email? Two days before her wedding? To a man she's known since they were kids? This is Erin Bellini's reality. And it sucks. But she pushes through and turns her wedding reception into a celebration for her family's winery. She also decides that she's going to get revenge on her fiance. The best way to do that? Sleep with his best friend (a friend of both of them since childhood,) Jason.

But Jason is having none of that. He's had a crush on Erin for forever and was just working up the courage to ask her out when Owen swooped in. So now that Erin is single again, he's going to make sure that she's coming after him for the right reasons. 

And I wish that there had been even a little bit more time in between Erin getting dumped and her hooking up with Jason. I get that he's her Twu Lurv and thus it is All Okay but it didn't really work for me. Yes, I knew this going into the book but Burton is an amazing author and made it so this wasn't a DNF book for me. I am looking forward to other books in the series.

Three stars

Followed by the Engagement Arrangement

This book comes out July 7th

ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

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.
Jas just wants to keep Katrina safe. Yes, he's been her bodyguard for almost a decade. Yes, he's developed some feelings for her that go deeper than what a bodyguard usually feels but that doesn't mean he's going to act on it. He's just going to do his job and keep her safe.
But this is a romance novel. So that means that means forced proximity might force some of those feelings to make themselves known....
I really liked the first book in this series and that may have placed my expectations a bit too high for this book. This is a fine story and I liked Katrina but the bodyguard trope (which, to be fair, Rai doesn't exactly follow) is not a fave. There was also a lot of concentration on Jas's back story and it felt a little more weighted to his backstory than hers.

Three and a half stars

Follows The Right Swipe

Followed by First Comes Like
This book comes out April 21st
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Bridal Boot Camp Meg Cabot

When a super-built man shows up in her bridal boot camp class thinking that it's yoga,  Roberta “Robbie” James takes pity on him and lets him stay. Ryan Martinez needs help and it doesn't hurt that the super-built guy is hardly hard on the eyes. She kicks his butt in a 45 minute aerobics class and invites him back for the next week. He is up for it since his boss, the sheriff, has required him to take yoga classes to rein back his tension issues and he already has commitments on Wednesday nights.
An interesting start but it's all tease and no outcome.

Three stars
This novella comes out May 28th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins and NetGalley
Opinions are my own