With This Christmas Ring by Manda Collins

The cover blurb on this one is a bit misleading. Miss Merry Parks isn't exactly a wallflower. After all, she was once engaged to Alex Ponsonby, Viscount Wrotham. That was, admittedly five years ago and she hasn't gone out much in society since but she's about to come face-to-face with the man again because of a deathbed promise.
Alex is delighted to see Merry. He never understood why she left him so many years ago.  He might have been happier had she not shown up with a baby in tow. But when he finds out it is his cousin's child and her mother is dead, his disappointment knows no ends. As the head of the family, he is duty-bound to make sure that the child is well cared for. If that means he can wrangle some extra time with Merry... well, okay.
It's always nice to have novellas where the two main characters already know each other. It means an author can skip the meet cute and head straight to the HEA. The ending  was a little TOO happy, happy, joy, joy it-was-actually-misunderstandings all around for me but a nice enough read anyway.

Three stars
This novella came out October 3

Fowl Language: The Struggle Is Real by Brian Gordon

This was an interesting read as an ebook in that a lot of the punchlines would be on the next page-- an extra swipe and some processing time really disrupted some of the flow of the book. I would definitely get this as a paper book. Those who love Brian Gordon though will still enjoy this book.

Three stars
This book comes out October 10

Necessary Roughness by Julie Brannagh

Tanner Cole was a football star until one bad tackle took him out of the game. Now he’s just struggling to get through rehab and move on with his life. Too bad he doesn’t really know what he wants to do. Physical therapy is not one of the things, he knows that. Too bad his physical therapist is dealaing with his own mending after a car accident which means that Tanner is about to get reassigned.

Jordan loves her job. No, like really, enjoys going to work every day. Until she meets Mr. Full-of-Himself Tanner. Him, she doesn’t like. His house, she does. And since she needs a place to live (not a great plot point) and he has space (and the hots for her), she moves in. So that she can be his in-house physical therapist. Or something. Living together leads the two to believe that the sparks between them might be more than just annoyance with each other.

Wow. This book REALLY struggled with pacing issues. The first 2/3ds was just a discussion of how much Tanner and Jordan really disliked each other with some growth toward friendship. Then, suddenly, in the space of 10 or so pages, they’re suddenly desperately in love and dying to be together even though they’re geographically apart. And whatever happened with Star? She was set up to be a much larger plot point and then just ended up as the psycho ex-girlfriend.

If this weren’t from an author I know could do better, I don’t feel like I’d be as disappointed.

This book comes out October 10

Two and a half stars

Hope for Christmas by Stacy Finz

In a previous Nugget book, we met Emily and Clay McCreedy. She's a famous cookbook author while he's a rancher. They've created a blended family with his two sons but Emily can't ever forget her daughter. Especially now that there are calls claiming that somebody has her. After seven years, can it possibly be true? And what does that mean? Not only for Emily but for her ex-husband and his new wife.
A nice addition to the Nugget series. I like that everything wasn't solved neatly and some ties were left undone. This is definitely not a story for people who haven't read the rest of the series.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out October 10

Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki

I love the Lumberjanes, their friendships, their propensity for exploring, and the tongue-in-cheek stories. This chapter book continues all of those properties created in the graphic novels. And I might have liked this book even just a teeny bit more because we got more story in this book. We've got the adventure (climbing the highest mountain; one that didn't seem to have been there before), the supernatural (the Cloud People), and the humor (the unicorns smell bad, really, really bad.)
Definitely worth reading.

Four stars
This book comes out October 10

Homicide for the Holidays by Cheryl Honigford

It's the Christmas season but Vivian is not so merry. She's back at the family mansion for a command performance and has stumbled on a secret key in her father's study. It's a key that opens up a drawer that has been locked for eight years, since her father's death. In it, a mysterious envelope filled with cash. But it has disappeared when Viv next goes back to look for it. It's a mystery that Viv isn't sure she wants to explore, delving deep into the last few weeks of her father's life. Even though it is eight years past, this murder has repercussions that ripple into Viv's life today.
I'm not sure about the ending on this one. And the story is just a little confused. I am still looking forward to the next one in the series.

Three stars
This book comes out October 3
ARC kindly provided by Edelweiss
Followed by Dig Deep My Grave

The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street by Lindsay Currie

It wasn't Tessa Woodward's decision to move her family from Florida to Chicago. And it certainly wasn't her decision to move them a month after school started. Nor is she especially excited to live in a haunted house. And it's... really haunted. Like, not just a little haunted. The ghost is even communicating through her brother's ventriloquist's dummy. AS if that weren't creepy enough to start with.
But, at least it does help lead her to making friends. While Tessa doesn't actually believe in ghosts, her new friends are willing to help her do research in order to solve her problem.
While 3/4 of the book was fairly intriguing, the end was WAY too sappy for me.

Three stars
This book comes out October 10