Dark Witch by Nora Roberts

Iona Sheehan has just arrived in Ireland. She knows that she's special, that her family has powers.

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She is to be the third, the witch that will help to put away and ancient Big Bad for good.
The Big Bad is delighted that she is there. He sees her as the weak chain in the chain that could take him down. Of course, Iona is tested.
At the same time, she falls into lust with her new boss, the owner of a local stables, Boyle McGrath and has to juggle her burgeoning powers with the feelings that she has starting for this rough man.
Perhaps it's not fair to judge Nora Robers against herself, but this is just not one of her most stellar books. It doesn't have as much depth as some of her other books and just seems to skim along. The bad dude isn't as well developed and neither are her characters. Of course, she is introducing six people and all of their backgrounds and that can be hard to do but I feel like we learned about them all on a superficial level and didn't really get to know our hero and heroine or their relationship.
So far, not as good as the Sisters Island trilogy but I am always willing to keep an open mind.

Love Game by Elise Sax

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I thoroughly enjoyed the first and second books in this series (four and five milers respectively), so when I got confirmation from NetGalley that I could review this book, I did a little shimmy in my seat. Literally. What? Books make me happy.
Unfortunately, the shimmy was a bit premature.
This book, like the other two, is a cross between chick-lit and a cozy. Gladie Burger is still living with her grandmother, learning how to be a matchmaker. She's still stumbling across dead bodies and mysteries with a few tweaks. One such being that there's a new matchmaker on the scenes, one who is stealing her grandmother's clients and also blocking her energy. Another is the new man on the police force, Remington Cumberbatch. A hottie UFC fighter who is incredibly attracted to Gladie. In the other two books, I enjoyed the frenetic pacing that kept the books moving. "Love Game," however, has the dial turned up to 11. Make that 15. The action really starts with Gladie's friend Lucy crashing into Ruth's tea shop (if you've read the other two books, you already know these characters) while taking Gladie to Uncle Harry's. But they can't stop so they just head on their way where Gladie learns that Harry has been "matched" by the spurious matchmaker (and Lucy's hella jealous)and Lucy's car goes over a cliff with Gladie's keys inside. And that's just the beginning. I'm going to hide the rest as spoilers, but believe me, there is WAY to much packed into 186 pages of novel. If there had been some time and care taken in expanding on some of these, it would have been a much more enjoyable book. Instead, it felt like we just hippity-hopped from plot point to plot point with no threads woven in between. Will I read the next book? I honestly don't know. The first two were so darn wonderful but this one...

There's a new cupcake shop with some suspicious characters, Bridget's number accidentally being published as a sex line (which she takes as a chance to teach some of the callers why what they're doing is wrong), the point at which Gladie and something like 10 other people are locked into two panic rooms, a bear in a car (literally. Now, I live in a place where this happens at least once every other year, so I can appreciate the scenario. But it's given about four paragraphs until the fight), a UFC fight where Spencer (one of Gladie's erstwhile love interests and the chief of police) fights his newest colleague. Two other quibbles. You can't split something between three people fifty-fifty (p. 124) and what the killers did when they pretended to be trapped in the other room wasn't gaslighting (p. 173) like Bridget says. Gaslighting involves a long con where you make someone believe they're crazy. Yes, I understand that a particular character might misuse the term but Bridget hasn't been set up to be that character and Sax equates it to smoke and mirrors. Big deal? Maybe not. But as a mystery writer, Sax should know the concept since it's pretty ubiquitous in the genre or at least her editor should have caught it.

How to Lose a Bride in One Night by Sophie Jordan

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Definitely my favorite in this series.

 We don't learn very much about Annalise except that she broke her leg and now limps and was in service until her ultra-wealthy father swooped in and picked her up out of obscurity. The story opens with her marrying marrying a duke, the dream of every girl, right? Except that, on their honeymoon cruise, he tries to kill her and then dumps her overboard. Annalise is found by Owen Crawford who is the Earl of Crawford, although he doesn't tend to bandy that about. He finds a gypsy encampment that is willing to take them in. Okay, there is some case for suspension of disbelief

Annalise's foot breaks in such a way that when the gypsy heals her, she no longer limps. Oh, and that extra weight? It drops off during her week-long coma and she is no longer very hungry so she just keeps it off. Um, why did we need all that? She had to be the Ugly Duckling and the Beggar Princess?

It's a fast book and it relies a little bit on the reader having read the previous books. While not absolutely necessary, it does help to know a little bit more about the characters.

Searching for Someday by Jennifer Probst

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It was really interesting that I kept sort of noticing things as I was reading that really annoyed me, but my overall feeling about this book was one of good will. I enjoyed it quite a bit and devoured it almost in one sitting (darn planes kept landing).
Kate Seymour is a matchmaker with some mystical powers, namely, she can sense a spark between two people who were meant to be together. Okay, yes, hokey

and even more hokey, she loses the power when she denies her own feelings.But it seemed to work.

Slade is a divorce lawyer who doesn't believe in love. He becomes a client of Kate's so that he can debunk the myth of them doing any good in the world (because he's overprotective-ly trying to save his sister from heartbreak.)
This is all very cliched and should have driven me nuts. The sex scenes were a bit more graphic than I like but you can always skim those. I was impressed that the characters were so good about protection, none of this magic hoo-ha or "I know you're a virgin so you must be pure" crap.
The worst part of this review is that I can not tell you why I enjoyed the book so much, especially since, as I noted, so many things irritated me (I didn't put them all in. Why point them <i>all</i>  out if they're  personal rather than storyline peeves? It must have been the writing. And I can't wait for the next books in the series.

Rumor Has It by Jill Shalvis

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Okay, I know this is an ARC from NetGalley and we're not supposed to ding books since it's not the final copy, but there were three, three, spelling/grammar errors in the first thirty pages. Very distracting. Luckily, I got into the flow of the story and there either weren't any more or I missed them.
Kate is a stereotypical romance heroine. She's smart, so when she gets nervous she gets verbal diarrhea (in the form of scientific facts) or clumsy (as in literally trips over her own feet.)
Griffin has just come back from the war. Not by choice. An IED caused some major damage and he's no longer active. He's back in Sunshine, Idaho for his sister's wedding (Kate's BFF.) Nobody thingks that he'll be good for Kate, including Grif, but somehow, the attraction is just to strong to deny.

One favorite quote from page 151--
Some men brought flowers.
Griffin had brought her mace.
She loved that about him.

Loved the unexpected ending to the storyline about someone watching her. Also loved that Griffin (why spell it "Grif?" It looks like a dog bark and took me out of the story every time) got to work through a lot of his issues but that Kate grew a little as well. The epilogue was unneeded and a little annoying.

It's implied that they're getting their HEA, does it explicitly have to be stated that they're getting married?

Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap--Anthology

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Where There's Smoke by Donna Kauffman

Clara Parker is not at a good point in her life right now. She's just been dumped (while on speaker phone, in the local grocery store.) Her job as a dating advice columnist is, quite obviously, not going to be an option. Her boss's suggestion that she do a baking column isn't going well either (she set her kitchen on fire.) Luckily, her old buddy, Will Mason, was nearby. He's a hunky (like, in a calendar, causing riots in a bookstore type hunky) firefighter. He and Clara never quite hooked up, though both wanted to. Maybe now is their second chance...

An interesting story, best of the group in my opinion.

The Gingerbread Man by Kate Angell

Abby is one of Clara's closest friends. She lived withher grandmother who has passed away. Lately, she's been amusing herself with an online business making erotic gingerbread cookies. During the local fundraiser, a stranger comes in, buys a box of her cookies, and then disappears. Well, at least until Abby finds his car off the road and takes him to her house. Lander Reynolds is grateful to Abby Denton for saving his life. And as they spend more time trapped in a snowstorm, they start to get to know each other, in a romantical type way.

An okay story. I liked Abby and Lander and this reminded me of Christmas shorts from the nineties but it was a little... slow.

Sugar And Spice by Kimberly Kincaid

Lily Callahan is a caterer who wants to expand her business. And winning the local bake-off is an easy way to do it. But she's up against Pete Mancuso (the guy who dumped Clara in the first story) who is a pastry chef who has dreams of his own. The sparks that fly between them in a partnership round make the ratings go through the roof. It's an attraction that the sponsors want to exploit and one that the two of them can't deny.

A bit to syrupy for me but an okay story.

Take Me Home for Christmas by Brenda Novak

As always, Brenda Novak writes a fiercely compelling book with hard-to-deal-with themes.
I've been wondering about Sophia's story. She was the golden girl of high school, the bitch who treated everyone with disdain, including Ted Dixon. But in past books, she's been working her way back into the group of friends Novak has been centering her books around.

And that's what I didn't love in this book. She's obviously been abused and is trying to make amends but everyone seems to still blame her for not only what she did oh so many years ago but also for the pyramid scheme her husband set up.

Now, it seems that her husband, Bill, a real jerk who has defrauded most of the town with a Ponzi scheme, had died and Sophia's left holding the bag. She has no working skills and a daughter to care for.
The only person semi willing to help is Ted, a guy she unceremoniously dumped in high school. He, and his mother both still hold a grudge. Besides, he's dating another girl in their group of friends. But that doesn't mean that he is completely heartless. He gives Sophia a job as his housekeeper (did I mention that he's come up in the world?).
A familiar romance trope with a uniquely Novak-spin. The characters are fully-developed and evoke a feeling of camaraderie in the reader. It can be heartbreaking but definitely worth the read.