The Color of Love by Radclyffe

I heard about this author on a podcast and when I saw this book cross my NetGalley read, I grabbed the ARC. And enjoyed it. I liked the character development and the love story. I haven't really read a lot of w/w romance but if they are all this sweet, I think I will read more.
Derien Winfield is living the high life, coasting around the world, avoiding her controlling father. But when her aunt has a heart attack, Dare has to come home to protect her aunt's legacy.
Emily May is there when Dare's aunt goes down. She's the top in line to run HW's company, but she's not family. And there is a problem with her visa (I didn't really get this part, where was her passport for? Aren't American's born someplace else still given at least a dual citizenship?) so she might have to leave the States anyway.
Dare and Emily are immediately attracted to each other and their falling in love is very sweet. I felt like there were some story arcs left unresolved but overall had happy feels about the way that Dare and Emily finally came together in the end.
Four stars
This book comes out July 12

Daughters of the Bride by Susan Mallery

Fans of Susan Mallery's one-off books will enjoy this one as well. While it doesn't have the complicated feels of Blackberry Island or Three Sisters, it does have the fun characters and good story lines that regular readers will enjoy. There is one tiny reference to another one-off book that seemed a little out of place but was only mildly irritating.
The sisters are somewhat pigeonholed. Courtney is the awkward, stupid one, Sienna is the pretty, successful one and Rachel is the overweight divorced mother. But each of them has their scars and secrets, especially after being raised by a mother who had leaned on their father and was sort of lost when he died. It's the regular Malley sort of story and mostly okay.
Except. The mother. I think we were supposed to somehow see her as someone to sympathize over but she came off as wholly self-concerned. I didn't feel like she ever sat down and recognized her own culpability in why her girls each turned out the way they did. Which would have been fine, except that other characters seemed to want to make that recognition for her. We were told that she had changed but never really shown it.

Three stars
This book comes out July 12

Arsenic with Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde

I wish there had been some mention of the Christian undertones of this book in the description. It threw me off to be expecting a regular cozy and then to have religion tossed into the mix.
It's an otherwise unremarkable book. A college English teacher inherits a fortune from her aunt who, though eighty-seven, appears to have been murdered. She returns to the seaside town where she once spent her summers and encounters her childhood love as well as more bodies.
The book was a bit frenetic with a lot of storylines and characters and the ending was a little bit odd but it was an overall okay read.

Three stars
This book comes out July 5

Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen

I definitely think that this book of entwined novellas is going to be compared to Love Actually. And this works just as well. The book opens with a southern girl who has just moved to New York to become a model and gets to wear THE dress of the season. It's a dress that touches the lives of many people whose stories are all told in the first person (not all of them women, despite the title of the book.) We get to meet the designer of THE dress, several people who work at Bloomingdale's, a Muslim girl visiting New York, a widower lawyer who is dating a much younger woman even though his loyal assistant has loved him for years, a private detective and a host of others.
Did we get to really learn about the characters? No. It's too hard to do in a book like this though I wish there had been a little more.
Overall, a fast, fun, and fluffy read that's perfect for the beach.

Four stars
This book comes out July 12

The Duke of Daring by Darcy Burke

This was a good book. Not exceptional and the story was a bit surface (even for me) but Darcy Burke fans will enjoy the story and I think new readers will as well. There is absolutely no need to have read the first book in this series.
Miss Lucinda Parnell had the misfortune to be born to a man who, mourning the lost of his wife, squandered all of his money, leaving her penniless. So now, she's decided to walk into a man's world, gambling to make enough money to support herself and her grandmother. Her grandmother is hoping that Lucy will get married but she's had four seasons and no one has looked at Lucy twice.
The Earl of Dartford is startled to realize that the young man who's been winning all evening is actually a woman. He's also intrigued. What could cause a woman to do something so unusual? And why has he never met her before?
I wish this book had been a little bit longer so we could have gotten to know Lucy and Andrew a bit better. Or to see more of their adventures. Also to see more of the interaction between Lucy and her friends. I often complain that too much time is spent on the sequel-bait but in this book we barely get to know chatterbox Aquilla and the icy Ivy.

Three stars
This book came out July 5
Followed by The Duke of Deception

Housebroken by Laurie Notaro

I picked this book because of the similarity of the author's name to Tig Notaro (who the author TOTALLY references). I loved Lauren's breezy style and her conversational writing didn't grate on me as much as another recent read. I especially loved "Frankly, if I walk into your house and you don't have two hundred books in there somewhere that you haven't read yet, I don't trust you. I don't want to know you as a human." (27-28).
Fast and fun, this is most definitely an author I want to read again.

Four Stars
This book comes out July 5

You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein

So. I obviously skimmed the description on this one. I really thought it was either about coming out as gay or transitioning (I think I also got that from the title). And it made sense when the author started describing herself as a "tom man" but it got a little confusing from there until I finally figured out that the author is actually a straight woman. Yep. But she is a funny lady, evidenced by her bio at the end that enlightened me to the fact that she's the head writer on the Amy Schumer show. Finally got it figured out!
But this was a collection of essays she put together over the course of a couple of years. Reflections on her life, some about growing up, others about past loves. I liked it quite a bit. Not a ton of laugh out loud moments but some nice gentle humor that I enjoyed.

Four Stars
This book comes out July 5