An Improper Arrangement by Kasey Michaels

This book starts off with a Big Secret... which could lead to a Big Misunderstanding and I was a bit trepidatious, but this was Kasey Michaels so I trusted her. And I was so glad I did. She not only had the hero talk to the heroine about the Secret, she gave the heroine a Big Secret of her own and they talked about it. It was so lovely to read.
Okay, so the Big Secret is actually introduced after the prologue wherein our hero and his three friends entrust some instructions for a large battle to a young man who, instead, runs to safety. And then his father bought a medal for him. So Gabriel Sinclair is pissed. Well, not as pissed as he used to be since it's over a year later. Instead, he's more concerned that his uncle, the duke, has retired to his bed. It seems the last five dukes have all died close to their sixtieth birthdays and he is rapidly approaching that age. Meanwhile, Gabe's aunt has just returned from the United States and is bringing a surprise.
Dorothea, "Thea" Neville is twenty-two and this trip seems to be her last chance for marriage. She's not particularly interested in Gabe, even though he's the ducal heir. But there's something about his wit (he feels the same about hers), and their mutual attraction that seems to be pulling them together.
A fast and fun read. I also enjoyed the B plot of Thea's maid, Clarice, being elevated to companion and getting engaged to Gabe's friend Rigby (the requisite "silly" one of the group.)
Next up, is Cooper Townsend, recently given the title of Baron, who also had several pamphlets written about him. He needs to get married so women will stop chasing him. I do love those stories.
Book comes out December 29, 2015.

The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray: A Critical Appreciation of the World's Finest Actor by Robert Schnakenberg

I'm not a HUGE Bill Murray fan (I like his work, but am not obsessive) but thought this looked like a fun book offered from NetGalley so I requested it. I guess Murray is pretty darn private so there didn't seem to be anything groundbreaking about the book. I'm guessing that this book might be more geared toward the hard-core fans but I could be wrong. For someone who doesn't know much about Murray other than his general body of work and the fact that he seems to photobomb an ungodly number of people, it was just okay.

Meditations on Intention and Being by Rolf Gates

A really interesting read. I loved most of the meditations and even got some ideas for some new ones of my own. There are many that could be adapted for yoga classes or other group settings. I wish there had been a bit more background about meditation but maybe that is more in his first book which I haven't read. Definitely a book that could be read by beginners to expert level.
4 stars
Comes out Dec. 8, 2015

Broken Resolutions by Olivia Dade

Being a librarian, it can be hard to read a book that has one as the main character because the setting/people are often so far off what a professional librarian would be/do. However, Olivia Dade was a librarian (assuming in a public library since that's where she set her book) so this rings a bit more true. Although few librarians I know would have been able to run as many "risque" programs as Angie. Although she didn't really run the New Year's program this is centered around. She tricks her friend Penelope into it. Penelope is wanting to spend the evening at home with a burger and TV but she trades all of the Saturdays in January for this one evening (assuming that they are both salaried, this could work (What? it's harder for me to suspend disbelief for librarian books, this thought actually crossed my mind). While at the New Year's Eve party, Penelope meets Jack Williamson and they are instantly and majorly attracted to each other. There are library shenanigans as games are played (it's a singles event), all of which are again, risque being fairly focused on erotica.

I was annoyed with the last little twist. Especially considering that they both thought they had found their soulmate after less than 6 hours of first laying eyes on each other but it was overall a fast and fun story and I wanted to know what happened with Angie so I immediately got the next book (review to come on Jan. 12, 2016).

This book comes out Dec. 8, 2015

Secret Sisters by Jayne Ann Krentz

The publisher provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Madeline "Maddie" Chase has inherited a B&B empire upon her grandmother's recent death. As the contemporary portion of the book opens, she's breaking up with her current boyfriend with backup provided by her security consultant, Jack Rayner. If you've read JAK before, you can probably figure out who the boyfriend at the end is going to be as well as how the roles for the rest of the main players will fall out. The first chapter shows an incident in her past that ended in death so she has reasons for trust issues in the present. And then the caretaker at the site of that incident calls and says he needs to talk to her. When she gets to Cooper Island, the caretaker has time to gasp out his dying words before he expires. And then it all goes down hill from there.

Okay. So-- the title. The phrase seems to imply girls that would have a) at least stayed in touch with each other over the years and been very close or b) had more interaction in this book, or maybe even c) been newly discovered siblings after a parent died, but no. Or we could have had some more explanation of how that came to be-- was it actually tied to the opening chapter? But, no, none one of these occurs. It was annoying because throughout the whole book, I just kept trying to figure out why this book was given this title since that part of the story is such a small aspect (though it is occasionally shoe-horned in). Even Maddie's suggestion of "Nightmare at Aurora Point" would have been better-fitting.
I have and always will auto-add any of JAK's books (under any of her pen names) to my TBR books because they're usually so enjoyable. This one... just didn't work as well. I liked both Trust No One and River Road (the latest two new (i.e. not re-released) contemporaries) better. (Actually, that's just based off of my reviews. I'm off to re-read those as well. Just for research ;-) )

There was a LOT going on in this book and it did get a bit hard-going.The B plot of Daphne and Abe was rather well glossed over and I would have liked to see more of it. On the second reading, it was a little easier to pick up all the threads of the plot, but will every reader have a chance for a second reading?
First read for me was 3 stars, second bumped it up a bit higher. And, after working out and thinking about it a bit more, I'm going to bump it up to 4 stars. I really liked Maddie and Jack. I just really wish we had seen more of Daphne and Abe. Maybe a novella from their point of view...?

For all that this is a rather long review, I think that regular JAK readers will enjoy this story. And the excerpt from "'Til Death Do Us Part"? ... I can't hardly wait!

Secret Sisters comes out Dec. 8, 2015

I'll be There by Samantha Chase

I was SO looking forward to the story of Zach and Gabby. Wounded hero and dedicated assistant? And the glimpses of their story in the previous book? HAWT. But then... came the last 60 or so pages. Why? Why were these included. We've seen Zach being an alphahole. We've seen him do it a LOT. So why one more instance? Why not explore more with Gabriella and her family instead of wrapping up a rather large story line in two paragraphs? This was a definite three-to-four star book for me and then... yet ANOTHER Big Misunderstanding. Blergh. Just Blergh.
After a climbing accident leaves him in a long recovery, Zach Montgomery is cranky. So cranky that his family is threatening to remove him from his position in their company (but of course, they wouldn't, they love him but want to try and knock some sense into him.) They also want to hook him up with his assistant, Gabriella. The two have been circling around each other for years.
Gabriella isn't sure why Zach went from being a friend to being an asshat and she's tired of putting up with it. But she doesn't want him to lose his job so she decides to help out, just one more time. (and one more time and one more time...)
Two stars.

Controlled Burn by Shannon Stacey

When Jessica Broussard was contacted about her grandfather taking a fall, she was shocked. She knew her father hadn’t spoken to his parents in years. But he wasn’t dealing with the problem and she was curious about the family she’d never known so she hopped on the plane from San Diego, deciding along the way that she was going to help them however she could, even if that meant helping them move into a new home.

Rick Gulotti also thinks that Joe and Marie need to move out, but he doesn’t think they should do it just because some granddaughter they never even knew about is pushing them out. He has been renting their third floor for years and has been taking care of them the whole time. This long-legged blonde from California isn’t pushing them out before they want to go.

This is a romance, so of course they start to find some middle ground. And that does start with some great sex. It was a little… shallow. I never got the sense of a deep connection between the two but that didn’t destroy the book for me. Maybe not as good as the early Kowalskis but still good.

I didn’t finish the first book in the series before reading this one and was just fine with catching up. Quite frankly, I appreciated the light touch of bringing in some of the characters from the first book without being hit over the head with them.

Three and a half stars
Followed by Fully Ignited