Do NOT Bring Your Dragon to the Library by Julie Gassman

I've grabbed quite a few children's books from NetGalley and Edelweiss lately. Almost all of them (including this one) have had double-page illustrations that would make infinitely more sense if we could see both pages at once. An almost every page, the dragon is split between two pages that means that we have to knit them together.
The rhymes in this book mostly flow very nicely and this is definitely a very fun (and incredibly inclusive) story.

I highly recommend this book with the caveat that it should be read in a hard copy.

This book comes out August 1
Four stars

Die Like an Eagle by Donna Andrews

Twenty books in and I am still enjoying the Meg Lanslow mysteries. Okay, so they're slightly formulaic but that's part of the comfort of reading these cozies. I really enjoy that the books take place as time goes by with at least a year between each book. It makes it slightly easier to believe that so many people are dying in one small town.
Meg has taken on a new role in this book, Team Mom to her sons' baseball team, the Eagles. Michael is one of their coaches. They are mostly having fun except that the regular league head has cancer and his replacement is the head of the old league that everyone left (mostly to avoid Biff.)
So there are a lot of people that dislike Biff Brown. He's petty, vindictive, sexist and just pretty much adjective a good villain needs to have applied to him. And his business dealings are shady as well. It would be no surprise to have him turn up dead. Except that it's his half-brother Shep who's found in the (disgusting) port-a-potty that Biff had supplied for the baseball field.
Who killed Shep? And was he the intended victim? How can Meg do a runaround Biff to make sure her boys have fun this summer?
A nice addition to the Lanslow series. Can't wait to read the next one.

Four stars
This book came out August 2, 2016

Meg Langlsow #20

Follows Lord of the Wings
Followed by Gone Gull

Reread as audiobook from Libby August 2023, November 2024 as Audible book

A Duke to Remember by Kelly Bowen

The book opens with Elise, dressed as a (male, of course) doctor in the bowels of Bedlam. She's examining the Duchess of Ashland. The elderly woman has been declared insane and is now being held captive and kept under heavy sedation. Chegarre and Associates have been hired by the duchess's daughter to find out where her mother has gone. Elise has discovered that the woman's nephew has had her declared insane. Why? Is it perhaps that the duchess is correct when she says that her son is still alive (meaning that the nephew will be unable to inherit the duchy and the fabulous wealth that comes with it)? When the enigmatic crime lord King comes to tell Elise that he will pay for her to discover the whereabouts of the presumptive duke, she becomes even more curious.
But when she meets Noah (miraculously quickly, her own words), she finds that he is not a dimwit nor even a haughty duke but a man very much to be admired. Not only physically but because of his spirit.
Of course, there are issues. Mainly, the duke's cousin very much wants him dead. But the two work through and also manage to fall in love.
What? A heroine who isn't a virgin? And has actually enjoyed a man's bed before? Love it. A man who can admit that a woman might be better at him than something? In a manner that isn't overwhelmingly preachy from the author? Also loved. Would have liked a bit more build up to the end but overall an enjoyable book.

Four stars
This book comes out July 26

Inspired by the National Parks by Donna Marcinkowski Desoto

If you love quilting, I think you'll like this book. The same may be true if you love national parks but I think this is more for quilters. I work in Yellowstone so this book appealed to me. I was startled to learn that I knew the woman who did the introduction part of our park. She's a wonderful person and a great writer. Though the same isn't true for every park, it is overall a nice introduction to our national parks and a look at some nice quilts.
I was disappointed that more of the quilters weren't from the parks. There is a large community of people who quilt in Yellowstone (in fact, all longtime employees get a quilt when they leave) and it would have been nice to see some of those featured.

Three stars
This book comes out July 28

The Secrets She Kept by Brenda Novak

Keith gets his story in the follow-up to The Secrets She Kept. It's five years after the first book in this series and he's moved to Los Angeles, cleaned himself up, and runs a super-successful business. When he gets the call that his mother, Josephine, has committed suicide, he's flabbergasted. Josephine just wasn't the kind of person to have done something like that. She was too self-involved for one thing.
When he gets back to the island, he's confronted with his past. Not only with his past drug habits but the people he harmed while using them. Especially Nancy.
It's been a long time but Nancy was hoping to have lost a bit more weight before Keith finally returned. He's always been the one who got away. And I didn't really love that about her story line. She was so obsessed with her weight and it never really got resolved. I guess that's more true-to-life but it was repeated so many times that I thought it would play more into the ending.
This was a really circuitous book, never really sticking to one plot point without wandering all over before it got to the end but I think regular Novak readers will enjoy it.

Three stars
This book comes out July 26

A Reckless Promise by Kasey Michaels

Another romance where someone (Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne) makes a battlefield promise to become his friend's guardian if something happens to the friend. But, while a lot of romances have the guardian falling in love with his new ward, Michaels instead has Darby falling into a convenient marriage with his ward's aunt. At first, Darby is bemused to find that seven-year-old Marley comes with a fearsome protector, Sadie Grace Boxer, but then he finds that it may be easiest just to marry her. He's a viscount of a certain age and the mamas of some young ladies are looking at him with a certain gleam in their eye. Sadie is fairly good-looking and seems reasonably intelligent, so Darby decides to go for it.
Some of the story lines are a bit thin but regular Michaels fans will be thrilled.

Four stars
This book comes out July 26
Follows A Scandalous Proposal

To Have and to Hold by Lauren Layne

Brooke is a wedding planner whose own wedding got canceled when the FBI showed up to take her husband-to-be away in handcuffs for putting together some Ponzi schemes.
Seth is a multi-billionaire hotel owner whose girlfriend told him he was a mean and heartless jerk and now he has no feels. Except that's only because he actually has all the feels. Or so we are told.
Their paths cross when Seth's little sister wants to get married to a guy she's been dating for three months. And, newly crossed the country, Brooke is their bridal consultant. But Seth wants input since a) he'll be paying for the wedding and b) he's never even met the guy.
This book was the low end of three stars for me. Brooke was kind of a wimp and Seth was really, really domineering which was a sticking point for both his sister and Brooke but it was never resolved. He was still the same asshat that he was in the beginning. Which is fine if other people come to terms with it but Brooke didn't. Not really. And to have him do a big gesture six weeks after they essentially broke up and they're immediately moving in? It just doesn't seem like an HEA, more like a happily-for-the-next-six-months.

Two and a half stars
This book comes out July 26
Followed by For Better or Worse