Winter Takes All by M. L. Erdahl

Crystal Rainey starts every year with a list of new resolutions. This year, she creates her list and then accidentally opens her list from the year before. They are eerily similar. A year ago, she was in the exact same place. So she pulls a Jerry Maguire and quits everything. Too bad she actually needs money to live. So she bluffs her way into a job with an outdoor company. And her first trip's co-guide, Connor is pretty cute. Too bad the guests are fairly unpleasant and then, of course, one of them dies from means that seem less than natural. Crystal inexplicably decides that she should investigate the death and inserts herself right in, almost getting killed.
I could not get sympathetic to Crystal. She lies about her experience as an outdoor guide and, having worked with outdoor guides and knowing how easy it is for things to go wrong, it made me very hard for me to suspend my disbelief that everything would be "just fine." For other readers, this may not be a problem but it dropped my reading experience down a star. I also have less patience than I used to for well-meaning characters bumbling into an investigation but thinking that they are "helping."There are too many crime TV and podcast shows out there that mention that you should never mess with evidence and Crystal seemed like the type of character that would devour those shows.

Two and a half stars
This book came out October 23rd, 2019
ARC kindly provided by The Wild Rose Press, Inc. and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

F*ck No! by Sarah Knight

What a fun book! I never would have thought that there were that many examples of ways to say no. And that is the bulk of the book. There is a lot in the beginning about why saying no is good and how to divorce yourself from assuming that you need to help with everything. This was a little redundant to other books I had read but just enough difference to make it a fun read.

Four stars
This book came out December 31st
ARC kindly provided by Voracious and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

To Night Owl from Dog Fish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer

What would happen if you were raised by a single parent and suddenly discovered that your parent was dating? What if it was serious? What if the other person was also a single parent? Would you want the other kid to know? Bett does. It's why she starts emailing Avery. Their dads are dating and it looks like lurv. Enough that the two men are planning on sending the girls to the same camp in the hopes that they will learn to like each other. But Avery and Bett aren't so sure about that and through the course of a year (plus a little), Bett, Avery, and readers will get to learn what it means to be family.

Four and a half stars
This book came out February 12th, 2019
Book from library
Opinions are my own

Panic Broom by Sara Bourgeois

Brighton is ecstatic. Six months (or so) after the last book and she's dating the man of her dreams, in fact, he's just proposed. Too bad there are shenanigans afoot. Well, if you can classify zombies as shenanigans. It seems that her fiance's family has been dabbling in dark magics and have caused a worldwide epidemic (is that the word for zombies?).
This book, like the others in this series, is short so it's light on story and character development but it's pretty fluffy and fast to read.

Three books
Follows A Clean Sweep
Followed by Sweep-Stakes
This book came out July 10th, 2019
Audiobook from library

Catch Me if You Can by Donna Kauffman

Tag Morgan is the oldest of four boys whose emotionally and physically abusive father has just died. He discovers that his father has been sending money to a woman in Scotland and it has something to do with the Morgan family history, the one his father tried to beat out of he and his brothers. But something about the letters the woman caring for the castle, Maura Sinclair, sent to his father draws Tag to Scotland. In a wild snowstorm, he meets a woman who takes his breath away but she leaves without him learning her name. He is shocked to find her again at the Sinclair castle; she is, of course, the woman who has so intrigued him.

The whole time I was reading this book, I was really trying not to judge Maura for stepping out of one man's bed into another. The ex was a complete scumbag anyway and she had just had a near death experience as well as dealing with the crushing responsibilities of being the laird of a clan that had little interest in staying put. And I think what kept confusing me the most was that this seemed so out of line with the Kauffman books that I had been reading recently.  Finally, I figured out that this was a reissue from 2003 and it explained So Much. If you have only read recent books by this author, please note that her style has changed a bit. Other than that, the relationship development is a bit thin (a lot of heat with some off-page talks but nothing that let us see why they would stay together) but it is a perfectly fun read.

Three stars

This book came out December 31st

ARC kindly provided by Kensington and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Take Me by Bella Andre

I heard about this book on one of my romance podcasts. It was supposed to be a book with a larger size heroine. And Lily Ellis is larger, a full size 16. Her best friend doesn't treat her any different but his twin brother, Travis Carson, has always been disdainful of her. Which is too bad because Lily has always been attracted to him. And she immediately recognizes that it is him in the audience, rather than her best friend, when she gets pulled into modeling some of her sister's clothes.
And it's modeling the well-fitting gorgeous clothes that finally make Travis notice Lily. So they have one wild night. But then he hires her to help decorate a house and they have to travel to Italy together. There, they really get to know the attraction that is burning between them.
The language in this one was a bit odd as though it wasn't edited very well. And I didn't love the way Lily was treated. I didn't feel it was as bad as some readers reviewed.

Three stars
Followed by Love Me
This book came out November 15, 2005
I had a hard copy that I passed on to someone else

Your Endless Love by Layla Hagen

Summer Bennett is the only one of her 9 siblings not married. She certainly doesn't expect to find her HEA with a Hollywood A-lister.
Alexander Westbrook has (according to the gossip rags) just gotten out of a relationship. Really, it ended months ago but he is under contract to not appear with another woman until the latest movie in their franchise series gets released. But he's getting hammered in the press and he doesn't want to pull Summer into that. Too bad they are meant to be.
An okay story but a bit on the surface.I didn't really see what would have them stick together other than Summer was "different" from "all the other women."

This book came out February 3, 2018
Follows Your One True Love
Borrowed from library
Opinions are my own