Best of My Love by Susan Mallery

I am getting very excited because with numerous mentions of Aidan's brothers being in Happily, Inc. (a destination wedding town) it seems like we might get a similar series to Fool's Gold but one where every-single-character from the series won't have to be added into every-single-book. Ugh.  Although, the wedging is getting more subtle. Which is nice.
And this whole book was just nice. With Shelby trying to make friends with Aidan Mitchell so that she can heal her psychic scars and figure out how to find a good man. She figures he'll be able to move past seeing women as conquests.
Aidan likes his life. He sleeps with tourists and there is therefore no chance that any of them will be wanting to turn it into anything more. Until one day, one of them returns. And it causes him to take a good hard look at himself. So when Shelby suggests a friendship-nothing-more, he's up for it.
This is a romance novel so the idea of just being friends is a LONG shot. And it would have been nice to see more friendship and less pining but regular Susan Mallery readers won't be disappointed.

Three stars
Comes out April 26, 2016

Pistols and Petticoats by Erika Janik

This is an interesting history but very broad and very shallow. I do enjoy histories like that but there was a lot of sacrificing of a deeper story in order to fit in more information. I really wish this had been two volumes of a hundred or so years each. More details would have made this book more compelling. Instead, it's just story, story, story with no deeper information. But a good book for that all the same.
Women have been detectives in fiction longer than they have IRL. In both streams, it took a long time for them to be more mainstream.
I do wish this had been more chronological as well. It jumped around a bit in time which got a bit confusing. The author marched through the fictional detectives up through the 1950s then jumped back to the nonfictional 1910s. With some fictional touches.

Mug Shot by Caroline Fardig

Juliet Langley is only just beginning to recover from finding a dead body and a murderer in the first book and now she's found another! At least she finds it with her ex, cop Ryder (though why this somehow clears her of suspicion seems odd to me.) The book actually opens with Juliet hanging out with Stan at his grandmother's funeral. She doesn't really like Stan but her best friend Pete is also there with his super snotty girlfriend, Cecelia who is also Stan's sister. Cecelia is a bitch but that doesn't mean it's okay for someone to stick a coffee thermometer in her neck. And it's really not okay that the police seem to think that Pete did it. So Juliet dives feet first into trying to help her friend out so that he can leave jail.
I really didn't like Juliet in this book. She made a lot, a LOT of stupid (I started with "questionable" and then realized that wasn't quite right) choices that made me question what kind of idiot she is. And it wasn't just the typical "oh, isn't she kooky" sort of trouble that most contemporary cozy mystery heroines get into. The woman is thirty years old and barging into murder situations all while lying to herself and everyone around her about what she's doing. Even after being physically assaulted and getting not one but two friends in trouble because of her investigations, she still keeps on keeping on.
Even with my dislike of Juliet growing as the book went on, I still mostly enjoyed this book and will probably still read the next in this series because I do like Ms. Fardig's overall style. I just really hope that A) this love triangle finally gets figured out because, really, why? It's just annoying and B) Juliet stops putting herself in such stupid situations.

Three Stars
Book comes out April 19
Follows Death Before Decaf
Followed by A Whole Latte Murder

'Til Death Do Us Part by Amanda Quick

There's a preface that states that this book is a little outside the normal Amanda Quick world. I didn't think it was that far (except that it's not Arcane) but that wasn't a disappointment. In fact, I quite enjoyed the book.
Calista Langley is being stalked. Little memento moris are being left in her house, on her bed. She's starting to get really frightened. And annoyed. Which is why she can't deal with her ex's ish when he shows up, begging her to take him back. And why would she? As soon as he (Nestor's the name by the way, obviously a tool (sorry if there are still any Nestors in the world)) found out that she hadn't inherited her money, she was earning it (gasp! the stain of trade!), he skedaddled right into the arms of another woman. One he's been married to for awhile now. What could make the encounter even worse? Her newest client, famous mystery author Trent Hastings, overhearing it? Yep. That would do it. Oh, and the fact that he's only checking her out because he thinks she's a con artist trying to steal his sister's money? Just icing on the cake.
But there is something more there. Something that brings Trent back right after Calista gets a message explicitly threatening her life. And, being a man not unlike his hero, he steps in to help. Actually, not in an entirely pushy way.
A story that regular Quick readers will adore and a nice glimpse into the Quick world for new readers. I wish there had been more relationship development but there was a nice look at both the characters and I generally liked both Trent and Calista, as well as their siblings.

Four stars

This book comes out April 19, 2016

Reread as ebook from Libby July 2024

The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish

A really well-written book with a history of pizza that felt like it was explanatory and shallow (rather than a super-deep dive into the topic), but still gave a lot of information. Would have liked some more depth on some of the topics and it was a book only about pizza but an okay read.
Unfortunately, the ARC I got from NetGalley actually looked like a galley (had both pages of a book layout on one screen) which made it really hard to read because I had to keep switching pages and text. I didn't count it against my rating but if I had bought this book or gotten it from the library, it probably would have been a DNF because it was so difficult to read. It may be fine on a larger iPad but horrendous on my small Nook and impossible on my phone.

This book come out April 19
Three and a half stars

Built to Last by Aurora Rey

I've been trying to expand my reading habits so I requested this book from NetGalley. It was my first F/F book and I, for the most part, enjoyed it. Of course, there was a Big Misunderstanding at the end that threw everything off but generally I enjoyed Ms. Rey's writing. The situation with Gerard... didn't seem like it got resolved. And while I generally liked Joss, Olivia was okay but a bit self-involved and it didn't seem like she changed all that much.
Olivia Bennett has just bought a fixer-upper. But she's a professor at Cornell, not a carpenter. So she hires Joss Bauer to help with updates. But sparks start to fly and soon the two are living together.
I did like that Joss and Olivia's relationship problems were all because of relationship-type-things, not people having issues with their relationship. It was interesting watching them work through their issues.
Three stars
This book comes out April 12

Cooking Up Trouble by Judi Lynn

I honestly can’t remember why I asked for this book from NetGalley, I think I've been trying to branch out and try new authors. If I hadn’t wanted this review to be honest about the whole book, this would have been a DNF for me. The heroine is a definite Mary Sue. In fact, the whole book is. Tessa is supposed to be this sweet heroine who has locked her emotions away after her fiancé cheated on her. Even he can’t be a totally bad guy, stopping around to tell Tessa that she still deserves love. I think it’s supposed to be kind or something but comes off as smug and patronizing. And speaking of smug and patronizing, Tessa’s a romance writer. But she doesn’t write books with sex in them. She writes sweet romances and is aghast at the suggestion. (There is a sex scene in this book though).
Ian is from the “Big City” but has bought the land next to Tessa’s in order to start a vacation lodge. He fits the city slicker stereotype to a T, not being able to change a tire, buying the wrong kind of car, etc.
Everything is wrapped up so quickly and neatly, it’s eerie. Problem-solved, problem-solved. It’s like stack ‘em up and knock up down one at a time. And, good lord, we know Indiana is in the Midwest and that the people in this book have "Midwestern values," but repeating it 8 times in the first 80 pages is a bit overkill.
This book really reminded me of reading Trixie Belden. It was sort of blandly good. I know there are readers out there for whom this kind of romance is a nice read, but definitely not to my tastes.

Two Stars
This book comes out April 12