Season of Desire by Theresa Romain

Lady Audrina is NOT having a good day. She's been drugged and kidnapped by the same man who took her only commodity.
Giles Rutherford isn't exactly in a good mood either. His father has dragged him across the Atlantic after a puzzle box that supposedly holds a diamond parure owned by Giles' mother. And Giles is starting to feel the same symptoms of arthritis that crippled his mother.
But the two are forced together when Audrina's father forces Giles and his father to help rescue her and then to take her to the wilds of York so that he can ensure her kidnapper arrives in London separately and she can arrive later, suitably chaperoned by the sharp-tongued Lady Irving.
But while in York, Audrina and Giles get to know each other in a way they couldn't have if they were merely highly-ranked lady and brash American.
It was lovely to see a heroine who was bold about what she wanted and a hero who was willing to hold back. Their story was fun as were the secondary romances (though one was really only hinted at.) All of the characters were well-rounded and this was just a fun read.
Comes out today!

He's So Fine by Jill Shalvis

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Oh man, I think I'm going against the grain by not giving this five stars. At least for the Advanced Readers. But I can say that regular readers of Jill Shalvis will like this book.
When the story opens, Cole Donovan is working on one of his company's boats. He gets distracted and slightly electrocuted and ends up in the water. That's when Olivia sees him, assumes he's drowning and jumps in to save him.
She's in town to disappear. See, Olivia Bentley isn't the name she was born with. Or even the name she's known by. But it is the name she's using to rebuild her life. Which could be a problem since Cole is incredibly rigid... especially about people lying to him.

I just couldn't connect with Olivia. She never really grew as a character. And we didn't really see past growth either. She was a child star, then a wild child, then, magically, she's an adult. An adult who keeps her lips sealed every single time Cole reveals something.
Cole, who we're shown (and told) over and over, is an easygoing guy... until we're told he's really actually very rigid. Wha huh?
And, oh, I'll probably get some comments from this... I thought the opening scene was over the top. And for me, not in a cute way. More in an excruciating sort of "people don't really do this" kind of thing.
The thing I like about Jill Shalvis is that not all of her endings are over-the-top, massively public proposals. Except... that they have been for this series. It's like each boating partner has to outdo the last.

Previous Book in this Series: It's in His Kiss

Murder in Real Time by Julie Anne Lindsey

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I didn't read the first two books in this series but it wasn't absolutely necessary. It might've helped a little but I didn't feel like I was missing any of the story.
Why grab this book? The cover reminded me of Ellery Adams' books and I like those so...
Patience Price lives in a tourist town. Living in one myself, I really appreciated the description, especially the relief that comes at the end of the season. I'm a little doubtful about the number of food trucks, but since an actual number was never mentioned, it might have been three or so and that could work.
But the mayor of the town doesn't like down time. He wants more profit for his people. So he allows a reality show to film on the island. Which turns out to be a problem when Patience's boyfriend rolls back into town and discovers two of the cast members dead in his normal room.
This sets off a chain of events where (refreshingly) the heroine doesn't want to get involved. She's been involved in two murders recently (maybe more, this is the third book) and just wants some down time. But when shots start flying at both her and her friends, she gets reluctantly pulled in to investigating.
This book came out yesterday and I would recommend giving it a chance.

In your Dreams by Kristan Higgins

I absolutely devoured this book. Read it all in one sitting. While I was reading it, I was loving it. But thinking back, I have a few issues. I'll hide those behind spoilers in case other people don't share my opinions. I don't want to infect you if you didn't notice them.
First things first. What was with the prologue and epilogue. It would have been a good hook had it been done in the rest of the series, but it just seems odd coming up now. The good news is, you don't have to have read the rest of the series to get into this book.
Jack Holland is the perfect man. Built like a Greek god, good to his family, a conscientious entrepreneur (wine, hello!), and honest-to-God hero. It's that act of heroism that's currently haunting him. When Emmaline Neal, policewoman, part of his hockey team, needs an out-of-town date, he's only too happy to leave town.
Definitely in line with the rest of the Blue Heron series. The past characters are involved, but in ways that totally make sense with te story, nobody shoehorned in. Definitely worth reading.

I had this nagging feeling that Jack was too perfect. But then I remembered how he dicked Emmaline over when it came to his ex-wife being locked in a cell. I guess that was my problem. He was soooo perfect in every other aspect and then comes up a dick? It was jarring.
And Emmaline, though a strong woman, we saw waaaaay to much of her issues. It's fine for real women to have issues. It's good for fictional heroines to have issues. But when she stutters, can't get over her ex, is a little too whiny, and her relationship with her family is just painful... especially in comparison to the Greek god. It just didn't seem like an equal match.

Followed by: Anything for You (posts on Dec. 22)

Miss Fellingham's Rebellion: A Regency Romance by Lynn Messina

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Whoo. The beginning of this story was a little rough. But if you can soldier past the first twenty or so pages, it's a really fun story.
 The book opens with Miss Catherine Fellingham finally having her eyes open to her family's dynamics - and it's not pretty. Turns out her father is gambling at a pace that puts the family's finances in order and her mother thinks that selling commissions (a treasonous effort) is the way to recoup their fortunes. Her younger, much more beautiful sister has been so cossetted by the family that she is a vapid and insensitive person and her younger brother, though supposedly an adult at nineteen, doesn't seem to have grown up much at all. It is up to too-tall, too-serious, wall-flower Catherine to save the family.
But when she meets a handsome stranger while visiting the Elgin marbles (against her mother's wishes) with her youngest sister (possibly the only other pragmatic family member), she doesn't realize that she may be meeting her fate. However, the next time she sees the Marquess of Deverill, it's while he's talking with Lady Arabella. I'm pretty sure we met her in The Harlow Hoyden making the books loosely related. For Catherine, this discussion is mortifying. Lady Arabella is instructing Deverill to make Cathy "popular." Telling him that he is the only one with enough consequence to do so. Something to cure his boredom. We don't see much of the Marquess' thoughts until the end of the book, which I really liked. Being with Catherine, not really knowing his motives (although, as a removed reader, we're better able to guess than our protagonist), was a nice smooth reading with only one POV. Something you don't get to see in every book.

The big misunderstandings at the end were overdone. There were way to many.

A good book. I liked the Harlow Hoyden better but I definitely can't wait for the next ":A Regency Romance."

Harbor Island by Carla Neggers

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I would most definitely read this series in order. There's a mystery that's been building since book one and, while you can maybe drop in, I wouldn't recommend it.
The story starts off with Emma Sharpe getting a phone call from filmmaker Rachel Bristol, saying that she (Rachel) has information that can help solve a decades-old art theft. But when Emma gets to the meet site, Rachel has been killed. We then spin into one of Neggers books, neither better nor worse than the previous books in the series. If you've read the first three in this series, you're well-prepared for this book.
We get new insight into old characters as well as meeting new people. The cast of characters is getting a bit unwieldy but it's not as bad as some other series. At least the people all fit in with out being shoehorned.

Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney

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Oh, man. I love Mary Jo Putney. I love the Lost Lords series. And this book... was just not up to the standard set by the previous five. It was really, really not at the same level. This was an ARC, and while the technical (proofreading) editing was fine, the story-line (line and substantive editing) really needed some work. Maybe some of this will be cleaned up before the book is put into print.
A lot of Putney's books start with some action, but this one starts with our hero falling ill, getting mugged and beaten, ending up on the heroine's door, and then a passionate encounter after eleven years of separation. What the what? The story then slows considerably before continuing in odd fits and starts, culminating in a realization that would be fine in a Christian/Inspirational romance novel but seemed odd in a more mainstream book that had heretofore only infrequently (though with heavy, heavy hand) referred to the heroine's religion.
Anyway, the story - Lauren and James married young and then separated when James did something So Horrible that Lauren just couldn't stand to be with him anymore. So she left and went to Bristol with her brother (a doctor) to help him with his work. They also opened a home for abused women. When Lauren... encounters... James, she comes up pregnant. Which can happen. And they decide to reconcile. Okay. But it all seems so... forced. And somewhat boring. The middle of the book reads more like a regular Putney novel. More exploring the characters than a ton of action which is good. But...
There is exposition. Dear God. The exposition. It's like some newbie editor said, "We need to know everything about the other couples in this series, can you do a mini-recap for each and every one of them? Yeah, that's what readers want." This is not the way to entice people to read other books in the series at it cuts each character down to two dimensions from the wonderful pictures that were painted in their own stories.
And while we do get to learn more about Laurel in this middle part of the book, none of it seems to fit very well. It's like her personality traits were plucked at random from some jar and had to be wedged into the story. At least for Laurel. She's supposedly this rigid, almost Methodist, person but she is also incredibly wild in the bedroom for someone who left her husband eleven years earlier and only after their honeymoon (deciding to fall into bed with him after their absence.) She left her husband but is ready to forgive. Even when he repeats his actions, which she finds out were justified, but she still can't get over it.
And what was the point of meeting Laurel's parents? We're already hammered over the head with the fact that she wants their approval. Again, it seems that someone decided that every... single... thing... had to be explained.
If the book had started out with the scene that caused Laurel to leave her husband, then jumped to the start and proceeded chronologically from there, had excluded the rather tedious exposition, this could have been a very good book. This is still a very high 2 for me, but I just couldn't give it a three miler, especially since the rest of the books in the series were so good.
Previous book: Sometimes a Rogue