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...

Still the One by Jill Shalvis

Darcy Stone is still recovering physically from the car accident that nearly killed her eleven months ago. Emotionally, she has never been stable, especially since her parents were so remote and unforgiving. All of which explains why she's keeping herself so emotionally distant from everyone, even A. J. who is friends with both her brother and sister.
A. J. has always liked Darcy. Yes, in that way. After her accident, he even comped her a large, large amount of money for physical therapy after her insurance company stopped paying. He's trying to keep his distance from Darcy, especially after refusing to have a one night stand to take away her pay. 
But now A. J. needs Darcy's help. He's trying to raise grant money to help veterans whose money has also run out and the man he was supposed ot take has backed out. Darcy doesn't particularly want to spend hours in a car with A. J. and then be stared at, but he's offering to help fund her rescue of unwanted dogs that she's rehabilitating for veterans.
Didn't love that there was no condom use. At least there was some discussion of testing but... meh. I really enjoyed getting to know more about Darcy and A. J. Now I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens with her pilot sister, Zoe.

Hold Me by Susan Mallery

I have an ARC and I'm hoping that the population listed on page 8 (125,482) is a printing error. How in the world is anything over 10,000 considered "small town?" Hell, even just calling anything over 100,000 "a town" is pushing it. I live in a very small... well, let's call it a town... of under a thousand year-round residents. From the description of Fool's Gold, even in this book (only a few stoplights, one bar - soon to be two, everyone knowing each other, etc.) I've been imagining something around 2-3,000, 5,000 max. Up to this point, I've been ignoring any inconsistencies of small-town living because I haven't noticed any listings of population and the fact that so many of the former books H/Hs have to be wedged into the new books. It's interesting that my major peeve with this series has finally taken a back seat.

>>Reading more, there is both a community college and a 4-year college how is this a small town? Are both just really teeny?

>>Note: after really wondering about this for about half of the Fool's Gold series, and having it bother me to the point that I couldn't keep reading without at least checking the internet, I finally found a note on Wikipedia that the state of California considers "town" and "cities" to be synonymous. Okay, fine. But a good editor would figure out that it means something entirely different outside that state. A quick search on the internet has most folks agreeing that a "small town" is at least less than 10,000 and certainly less than 15,000. If Fool's Gold indeed has over 125,000 people living in it, it is a mid-sized city and there is NO way that "everyone would know everyone else." And there would be more than one bar. We have 3 that are open year-round in my town and 7 during the summer months when we have around 4,000 people in town.
And traffic regulations would sure as hell call for more than "a few" stoplights. The next town up, just over 4,000, has 6 or 7.
I realize that there is such a thing as suspension of disbelief but this done broke my suspension.

>>Okay, on to the rest of the review:
Finally, a story with a former Olympic-worthy athlete and he's NOT bitter about it. As a skier, Kipling Gilmore knew his career was limited and, after a career-ending injury is doing something else with his life instead of moping about it. I'm sure there are other books out there like this but I can't think of any offhand. His major failing is that he likes to fix things for people. Doesn't consider what they want or offer suggestions, he just fixes it. Which. Got. So. Annoying.
Destiny Mills is in Fool's Gold for a short time. She's helping to set up a new Search and Rescue (SAR) computer system. She doesn't like to make forever friends (or lovers). She prefers to swoop in, do her job and get out with a clean break (could that work in today's age of social media? I guess if you just unfriended people as soon as you left.
Her biggest problems are that she is the talented daughter of two country mega-stars and her half-sister has been dumped on her.

I did not like the unexpected pregnancy line. Yes, girls can get pregnant if they're virgins and it can happen only once. That was a nice touch. But it was just too much in an already full book.
I did like that Kipling's problem of getting excited about projects rather than people was addressed. It was getting so blatant and it was nearing the end of the book with nobody talking about it.
Another thing that bothered me- I get that Kipling might not have talked to Jo about opening another bar, but how come none of the other guys did? Or had their wives talk to her? They were nervous about it from the beginning, kept mentioning that the Man Cave might not survive without her support, so why did none of others ask anything?

Follows Fool's Gold #15.5 Yours for Christmas
Followed by Fool's Gold #17 Kiss Me (link will be live June 23, 2015)

First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan

Oh, Sarah Morgan. I love your writing but your heroes... oof. If you don't mind your heroines apologizing because the hero lied to them and she got mad about that (which is is obviously a no-no for the heroine,) this is going to be an okay book.

First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan

Emily Donovan is not in a good place. Her half-sister (an evil, evil character) has died and left Emily custody of her daughter. Emily knows nothing about children and she's terrified of the ocean so she decided to bring Emily to an island. Someplace to escape the paparazzi.
Ryan Cooper helped raise his siblings and doesn't want to have anything to do with any more children. So why is he so attracted to Emily?
I will probably try at least a few more Sarah Morgan stories because I really do enjoy her writing. But I wish I could connect with the heroes more. Not that wishy-washy Emily whose troubles with swimming seemed to clear up really, really fast.
It comes out next Tuesday.

Perfect Homecoming by Julia Lonon

Well. This is certainly going to be a divisive book. The heroine is not very likable. Correction, she's just not likable at all. She's confrontational, not a people person, and a kleptomaniac boot. Notice that I didn't comment on her sleeping with around. Frankly, her lack of feeling guilty attached to that was the thing I like most about her.
Yes, we know that she took the medal that Cooper Jessup is looking for but there's this prolonged dance around the subject.
Cooper... was okay. But a little too perfect. I do like a hero with flaws.
I generally like Julia London and I think that it's awesome that she took on the task of trying to create an unlikable character that we could relate to. But I just never really connected with either the hero or the heroine.

Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery

Oh, I do enjoy the Mallery books that tend more toward chick-lit than true romance. Yes, Shannon Rigg find love in this story, but there is so much more. We see a marriage wracked by devastation and another on the brink of disaster. Not only do we really get to know these characters (I like Fool's Gold well enough but do we have to hear about EVERY couple EVER mentioned in the series in EVERY book? It leaves little room for the main story) but we also get to see the gritty realities of life, not just the glitter and glamour. Don't get me wrong, I love my "fluffy-happy" romances but, in Mallery's case, I like her more serious books more.
In this book, we again see a group of three women who are at differet stages in their lives. Nicole, a pilates instructor, has a young son and a husband who decided to quit his job (without talking to her) and become a screenwriter. Sharon, wildly successful, is now in her forties and wondering if family life is for her. And Pam who is in a relatively happy marriage but feels restless nonetheless.
This book come out on February 24th, 2015.

Earls just want to have fun by Shana Galen

A pickpocket and housebreaker, Marlowe has dim memories of a time before. A time with a woman who sings to her and loves her. But she thinks that is just something she made up to comfort herself while growing up in her hard-knock life.
Lord Dane's brother is a private investigator who is currently trying to figure out Marlowe and he pulls Dane in. Now he's trying to help Marlowe, a girl who has spent her whole life trying to fig in with the boys, figure out how to deal with society.
A premise we've seen before, the lost heiress, but with an Oliver Twist...twist (sorry, couldn't not put that in.) Did we have read about her bubbies on ever other page? Drove me nuts. And, yet another heroine who eats a lot with impunity.
I think that Shana Galen's frequent readers will enjoy this book, even if it wasn't one of my favorites.

Followed by: The Rogue You Know