Hideaway by Nora Roberts

Caitlyn "Cate" Sullivan comes from Hollywood royalty. Her great-grandfather, grandfather, her dad, her entire family are actors. She herself started acting at twenty-one months.  Now, at ten, the drama of the screen has become real life. Caitlyn has been kidnapped. She manages to free herself (already a kickass heroine!) and is helped by a boy named Dillon. Once she gets home, she helps unmask the people who plotted to get ten million dollars from the Sullivan family.
We get to see more of Cate as she grows up, decides against being an on-screen actress and eventually turning to voice acting. She returns, occasionally, to the estate she was kidnapped from and sees Dillon as he grows up too. By Part III of the book, they are both fully grown and heading toward a serious love. But someone from the past still blames them for the path that night took so long ago and believe revenge to be a dish best served cold.
I liked this ARC better on the second read. The third part is a little mushy on timeline that made it hard to follow and, on the second read, I didn't have to work so hard to figure it out. I gave it a second read because I think that part may be better edited before the book goes to print and I wanted to give it a fair shake.  Regular readers of Roberts will recognize her touches in this story and probably enjoy it as much as any of her other contemporary stand-alones. I still connected more with Abigail in The Witness or Fiona in The Search but the family ties in this book were what made it shine.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out May 26th
ARC kindly provided by Macmillan and Edelweiss

Opinions are my own

The Demigod Complex by Abigail Owen

Back in the day, Lyleia, a water nymph, refused a werewolf. He got super pissy about it and (long story short) he engineered the removal of her spring as well as her banishment from her family. These days she's the executive assistant to Castor Dioskouri who is a demigod son of Zeus. She's also in love with the man despite being hired specifically because she should have been able to avoid that fate.

Castor is in love with Leia and is trying to get her to figure that out, rather than quitting on him. So he asks her to attend a shifter mating ceremony. Hormones run high and he needs a shield against the women who would through themselves at him. 

Leia agrees to go but when an enemy from the past shows up, their budding relationship may be the only thing that saves her from certain death.

A fast and fun read. Didn't really get to know the characters much and I wish we had seen a little bit more of their relationship but I am excited to read the next book in the series.

Three stars

Followed by Shift Out of Luck

This book (2nd edition) came out February 17th, 2020

Borrowed from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

Sloan Monroe was introduced in "The Friend Zone." She was the best friend of the heroine and was engaged to be married. But at the end of the last book, her fiance was killed. Now, it is two years later and Sloan is still grieving the life, and the promise of a new life, that has been lost to her. She's on her way to the cemetery one day when a dog runs in front of her and then leaps into her car. The dog has a tag with a name and number. For two weeks, Sloan tries to get a hold of Tucker's owner but then decides to keep him.
Jason thought that the woman he was sort of seeing would take care of his dog. Mostly because she said she would. Instead, she took off for New York. Now Sloan has his dog. She isn't swayed that he is out of the country and won't tell him her address but she does reply back to his flirty texts.  And their conversations go back and forth with their alternating viewpoints on how the relationship is going.
Like The Friend Zone, this book starts off incredibly strong. Good relationship development is one of my catnips. Unfortunately, the slow build at the beginning of the book starts speeding up as we get to the back half. It's like going down a hill as they start moving faster and faster so, while we get to see some of the bumps in the relationship road, we miss more of the reasons that these two might make it to an HEA.

Three stars
Follows The Friend Zone
This book came out April 14th, 2020
Borrowed this as an ebook from the library
Opinions are my own

Remind Me by Samantha Chase

Mallory Westbrook had a hot and heavy affair with her great-grandfather's next-door neighbor, Jake Summerford. But it ended and then she overheard and misunderstood a conversation Jake and her great-grandfather were having about her.
Years later, she is back in town after a hurricane destroyed her great-grandfather's house as well as for his funeral. Jake now owns the house next door and he wants to help Mallory get through her grief. As well as maybe convince her to stay.
This was an okay book but a lot happened in a short time because it is a shorter story. I was alternately irritated with Mallory and wondering why we didn't get to know more of her. I'm still looking forward to the next book in the series because light and fluffy is just what I need right now.

Three stars
Followed by A Girl Like You
This book came out March 12th, 2019
Borrowed as ebook from the library
Opinions are my own

Beach Read by Emily Henry

When two authors, both with writer's block, live next door to each other for the summer, will they be able to help each other through? Short answer, yes. Longer answer, there is a history between the two authors than the blurb demands. And did we need to have that backstory? I don't know. It built on their history but it took up pages that could have gone to developing their current relationship. Usually I like a second chance romance but this book almost would have been better without it so the readers could have discovered the romance along with the main characters. The beginning dragged a bit (our romance writing heroine has had her happy-ever-after-believing soul shaken twice recently; both stories are ruminated on a lot but wrapped up oddly quickly) and the end could have developed a bit more (though I did like the image of linked Happy-For-Right-Nows rather than an HEA) but the middle was a lovely story of two people falling slowly in love.
I always wonder if stories like this come from someone who had writer's block but overall, a nice story with some interesting glimpses into the life of a writer.

Three stars
This book comes out May 19th
ARC kindly provided by Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Scoring the Player's Baby by Naima Simone

Kim Matlock got divorced from a football player after it came out he had been extensively cheating on her. Feeling burned, even a year later, she is excited to have a one night stand with a man she meets at a bridal show (I know, right? but he's there with his sister). And she's loving it ... until she learns he is also a football player. And she just can't handle that. Until they meet again and she becomes pregnant. Now he's trying to get past the guilt of loving someone other than the ex who died and she's trying to prove to herself that she's good at her job, even if her father (who has literally told her he wishes she weren't born) doesn't think so.
And, to some extent, it felt like these two characters were in different books. This wasn't as good as the first two books but not as bad as a two star book. I really wish we had seen Ronin's mom... at all. She seemed like she would have been a fabulous character.


Three stars

This book came out July 9th, 2018
Follows Scoring off the Field
Ebook from Kindle
Opinions are my own

Say Yes to the Duke by Eloisa James

Viola Astley knows she's not a real Wilde. Her mother married into the family when she was two. Though the Duke and all of her siblings have accepted that she's a true "Wilde Childe," Viola has worked herself into such a thought pattern that she is physically ill before balls, even before just meeting eligible men. She isn't a Wilde by blood and, shorter than the rest, plumper than the rest, she doesn't even look like she belongs. But then she meets the new local vicar and falls in love. Too bad he already has a fiancee. And really too bad that a duke seems to have set his eyes on her.
Devin Lucas Augustus Elstan, Duke of Wynter, is ready to get married. He might as well marry a Wilde, but not the adopted daughter. Instead, he'll check out the one who is generally known to not be a Wilde by blood but is by name. Even his uncle pushing him to meet Miss Astley doesn't make him interested in Viola. But when she stands up to him, well, that catches his notice.
This is a fairly quiet book. Not a lot of conflict and that was just lovely right now. Even the last misunderstanding wasn't a Big Misunderstanding because they actually talked to each other.

Four stars
Follows Say No to the Duke

Followed by Wilde Child
This book comes out May 19th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Reread as hard copy from the library June 2024