His Grumpy Childhood Friend by Jackie Lau

The book opens in the middle of Charlotte Tam's worst nightmare, her boyfriend proposing to her at a Toronto Blue Jays game on the big screen. She loves the Jays, hates the public. So why didn't her boyfriend get that? 

Years later and Charlotte is generally happy in her job that lets her work from home without having to put on real pants (we hear about that a lot; since I agree with her sentiment, it didn't bother me) and generally not going out except to occasionally meet her friends at a cider bar. One night, she recognizes the boy who used to live next door, Mike Guo. He left suddenly one night and she never heard from her best friend again. But now he's all kinds of grown up and hot. Surely he must have women crawling all over him. He'd be the perfect person to get her back into the dating game!

Mike isn't exactly the stud that Charlotte thinks he is but he has missed his old friend and is delighted  to spend more time with her. The fact that he now has grown up feelings for her is just icing on top of the cake. 

I loved that the fake relationship didn't last too long. I loved that most of the conflict from these two was external to their relationship because they talked to each other. The timeline was maybe a little fast but I really enjoyed this book.

Four stars

This book came out October 27, 2020

Follows Her Big City Neighbor

Followed by Her Pretend Christmas Date

Borrowed as audiobook from Hoopla

Opinions are my own

Death Down the Aisle by Verity Bright

Lady Eleanor Swift has really gotten herself into it this time. Her good friend Constance is getting married on Saturday but Ellie has just promised to help organize and lead a suffragette march to the police station with a petition to let women onto the force on the same day. And she has to go to the wedding. Poor Constance is already withering under her soon-to-be-mother-in-law's constant disapproval. But Eleanor can't let down the ladies of the village either. It's especially complicated that the wedding might not go off since the groom-to-be, Lord Peregrine Davencourt, was just discovered over the body of his dead former fiancee. Or maybe not so former after all. 

On a timeline, Eleanor has to figure out how to juggle the march, preparing to be in the wedding, solving a murder and doing it all without un-endearing herself to her beau, Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon. 

Not a lot of character development in this one but Hugh and Eleanor's relations does progress a bit. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out August 31, 2022

Follows The French for Murder

Followed by Murder in an Irish Castle

ARC kindly provided by Bookouture and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

A Colorful Scheme by Krista Davis

We saw Professor Maxwell and his author and second wife Jacquie fall back in love with each other in the first few books of the series. Now, they are finally going to be married again. And Florrie's sister is planning the wedding and Florrie is helping. When the book opens, she is helping find Jacquie who has suddenly disappeared. Luckily, she does turn up in time for the wedding; the wedding that has any number of odd characters popping up.

Some of the guests include other authors. One in particular stands out, Arthur Bedlingham, as he is a former flame of Jacquie's. He wasn't actually invited but somehow managed to show up anyway. Also in attendance is a critic who has had harsh words for almost every author there. 

The characters are lively and interesting. The mystery is really loosely put together and there is a lot in this story that relies on coincidence but I think regular readers will enjoy this story and new-to-the-series readers will be able to follow along. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out August 30, 2022

Follows Murder Outside the Lines

ARC kindly provided by Kensington Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Three Kisses, One Midnight by Roshani Chokshi, Sandhya Menon, Evelyn Skye

If I had realized this was an anthology about high school kids, I may not have picked it up. But this was a pretty good trio of stories all revolving around Halloween, a night when the Lady of Moon Ridge is said to walk every 400 years. Perhaps, this year, she might bring a few high schoolers true love.

Onny believes that she belongs with Alexander-the-Great-Looking, but could she be overlooking someone closer to home?
Ash has had a crush on his next-door neighbor Cassidy, the track star, since she moved in. But could it truly be that she returns his feelings?

True was hurt by her last boyfriend, Brad (obviously Chad-adjacent). But can she find love with Orion? A guy who believes in ghost while she is science-all-the-way?

Great respect to the authors who managed to pull parts from each other's stories to really create a nice overlap of details. 

This book come out August 31, 2022

ARC kindly provided by Macmillan and Edelweiss

Opinions are my own

Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole

We've seen glimpses of this love story in other books of this series. A dark werewolf who has been watching over a Valkyrie archer who cannot miss or else she feels excruciating pain. The pain Lucia feels is the result of a pact made with a god when she nearly died. 

Many, many years ago, Garreth, prince of the Lykae, realized that Lucia was his one true mate. He also realized that she wasn't ready to acknowledge it. So he's been watching over her from afar (don't do this is real life, folks; this is stalking and super creepy). 

Lucia has a life mission and that is, every five hundred years, she has to make sure that an apocalyptic evil doesn't occur when Crom Cruach rises. As that time is nearing, she cannot be distracted by a werewolf right now, matter how intriguing she finds him.

There is a long stretch where we read about their history, another where they finally start to sort of get together, then a lot of travel over the world ending up with a long stretch in the Amazon where they awaken another potential world ender but end up with an arrow that can kill a god. Then, as usual, everything is wrapped up in a whirlwind in the last 50 pages or so.

Four stars

This book came out January 25, 2010

Follows Deep Kiss of Winter

Followed by Demon from the Dark

Hard copy I kept

Opinions are my own

Silkie Stalkings by Erik Henry Vick

It's been a little while since I listened to the first three stories but I don't remember Dru talking like a little girl so much. It's REALLY annoying. She's one of the princesses of darkness and a detective on the New York police force but uses words like "Mommy" and several times her speaking is literally described as being a little girl voice. The premise of these stories has always been interesting and Vick does a great job of weaving in lore from the original shows and from myths but this story just didn't work very well. 

Dru and Leery are on a new case. Three men have recently thrown themselves off the George Washington Bridge. Strangely, none of the three have no soul on record as having gone to the afterlife. The two detectives realize that all three victims were using an app of "proprietary magic and technology," Sinder. The app is owned by none other than the King of Sin himself, Dru's uncle Luci. Of course, he will not let any information go easily so there are some battles, both mental and physical.

Two and a half stars

This book came out June 26, 2020

Follows Mitzvah

Followed by They Ate Gatsby

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle

Opinions are my own

Tangled Reins by Stephanie Laurens

When the book opens, our hero (the Marquis of Hazelmere) mistakes our heroine (Dorothea Darent) for a country miss out picking blackberries and decides to steal a kiss. When she reacts undecidedly unlike a country miss, he has to reevaluate. What he finds is a girl outside what he's used to dealing with. For one thing, she's a bit older (twenty-two and unmarried, gasp!) and also a bit less than impressed by his prestige.

He again encounters her in an inn yard where she is being heckled by some of his compatriots. After coming to her rescue, Marc is only more entranced by her innate beauty and lack of artifice.

Of course, there are going to be trials and tribulations but these two strong-headed characters will eventually fight their way toward love.

There is a lot of tell don't show when it comes to Dorothea in this book. The entire book roles around the premise that she is so much more than the other debutantes but nobody tells her anything that's going on. Of course she ends up in the situation she does. Blergh.

Two stars

This book came out September 11, 1992

Borrowed as hard copy from the library

Opinions are my own