H is for Harlequin Holiday #a2zchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr9

Harlequin Holiday Collection: Four Classic Seasonal Novellas: And a Dead Guy in a Pear Tree\Seduced by the Season\Evidence of Desire\Season of Wonder ♥♥♥

Synopsis

Four seasonal novellas

And a Dead Guy in a Pear Tree- Holly owns a bed and breakfast. She finds a dead guy in the Christmas tree she bought. Zach is a reporter. She needs to keep him from finding out about the dead guy because that could mean bad publicity for her inn.

Seduced by the season – Sophie is a waitress in Dublin. Clint is a FBI agent investigating an international art theft ring.

Evidence of Desire – Olivia is a scientist working at a crime lab and unfortunately for her, she has a stalker. Jacob works at the same lab and is attracted to her but does not want to act on it because he thinks she is too young.

Season of Wonder – Allison is a divorcee with a daughter suffering from health problems. She is disillusioned when it comes to love because she had a nasty divorce. David is a childhood friend who is happy Allison is back in his life.

Opinion

As most novellas are, these were short on length and substance. Fluff romances. All but Season of Wonder had elements of suspense. I think that Season of Wonder seemed like a Christian romance and out of place after reading the first three.

In “And a Dead Guy in a Pear Tree”, Holly’s grandparents brought a lot of humor to the story which made it the most interesting of the lot.

“Seduced by the season” is an insta-romance story because they fell in love so quickly.

“Evidence of Desire” had the most suspense, but Jacob was too weird to me. I do not understand how Olivia was attracted to him.

Should you buy? I suggest buying if it is on sale. It is light romance. None of the stories are particularly outstanding. All are short stories to pass the time. The characters are not so annoying that I have any strong feelings one way or the other.

Book Details from Goodreads
Kindle Edition, 485 pages
Published (first published January 1st 2011)
Available on Amazon

G is for Going #atozchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr8

Going Down (Holding Out For a Hero Book 1) ♥♥

Synopsis
Eleanor (Ellie) is from Chicago but is hiding in Oregon from her drug trafficking ex-boyfriend and the dirty cop making threats against her life.

Tyson is the sheriff in the small town in Oregon where Eleanor ends up staying. He is attracted to her but is suspicious because her story does not add it.

Opinion
The story was okay. The trope girl-on-run-falls-for-law-enforcement was overdone. Maybe I am jaded because I read a lot of books, but there was nothing new.

Tyson is so intrigued by her secrets that he cannot keep his hands out of her pants…

This turns to love a few days later.

It is funny to me that in these types of books, the policeman is so sure of his judgement of the heroine’s character. The girl is acting suspiciously and her story seems like she invented on the spot.

Dude, you are blinded by lust.

Another thing, I did not like Tyson. He was supposed to be the law-abiding man who could get kinky with his lady. I do not mind kink, but something about his character put me off, like he was too grimy for my taste. I actually read the book twice because I was trying to identify what exactly it was that I did not like about him. Logically, it would seem that I should have liked him especially when he said stuff like:

“I can go from vanilla to red velvet in under ten seconds.” -Tyson

Maybe it was the insta-love. After 1 day, he is already taking her to meet his family?

Should you buy? If you can get it on sale, it is not terribly bad. It is a time filler but do not expect too much in relationship development. If you like the girl-on-run-falls-for-law-enforcement trope, then this will appeal to you. The love scenes were (to borrow Tyson’s expression) more red velvet than vanilla. That might appeal to you.

Book details from Goodreads
Kindle Edition, 105 pages
Published July 20th 2010 by Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (first published July 17th 2010)
Series Holding Out for A Hero #1

Available on Amazon

F is for Fall #atozchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr7

Fall Hard: Navy SEAL contemporary romance (SEALs Undone series Book 2) ♥♥♥

Synopsis

Jared is a Navy SEAL and Cassie is a divorcee living next door. They are good friends that like hanging out with each other.

“She was in a man-free period in her life and happy for it.”

After a while, Cassie began to see things with Jared differently.

“She’d started to want him to play with her.”

Jared wants her too, but thinks that his secret might turn her off. **NO SPOILERS**

Opinion

This seems like your typical friendship turn lover scenario. Jared’s secret put an interesting twist to the whole story. I had to read the sentence twice. Trust me that his secret was unexpected to say the least.

At any rate, his secret does not mean the end of the relationship. This was a good thing in my opinion because Jared was a sweet guy. Cassie deserved some happiness as well.

This is a short novella, so there was not much character development or fluff to the story.

As with all books with SEALs as main characters, there was a lot of profanity.

Also, the loves scenes were very detailed.

Should you buy? Yes. I say read for Jared’s secret alone! I do not know why this fascinated me so much but it did. Plus I have a soft spot for SEAL romances. The story is short enough that you will finish in an hour or two.

Book details from Goodreads
90 pages
Published December 26th 2014 (first published December 23rd 2014)
series SEALs Undone #2

Available on Amazon

E is for Embattled #atozchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr6

Embattled Hearts (Military Romantic Suspense) (Lost and Found Book 1) ♥♥♥

Synopsis
John is an ex-Marine who is now wheelchair bound due to an injury. He now works at an investigative agency with other veterans.

Shannon is the office manager for the same company. When a stalker begins terrorizing her, John moves in to watch the house and her feel safer.

Opinion
This was cute in the sense that John and Shannon both had crushes on the other person. Shannon tried to be nice to John, but he was so surly all the time. She lusted after him from afar.

“The man was sex on wheels, literally, and it was all she could do not to jump into his lap.”

“The man was too sexy for her peace of mind.”

John was a total grump because he wanted Shannon but thought that she deserved better. He would rebuff her niceties but still put out the vibe to all the other guys in the office that she was his. In a way, it was good that she had a stalker terrorizing her, because it gave John something else to do than feel sorry for himself. The conflict allowed his alpha-male to manifest itself. While he maybe have been in a wheelchair, it did not prevent him from fully taking care of business.

The villain in this book was off the charts crazy. When it is revealed who all is involved, I was surprised that I did not figure it out sooner. There were a few red herrings that the author threw in along the way.

Should you buy? I think this is a good book to buy if you like suspense romance. The suspense is not too intense or gory but I think you will still be entertained. If you can figure out the villain before they are revealed, let me know in the comments. There is explicit language (should be a given considering John is ex-Marine).

Book details from Goodreads
Kindle Edition, 262 pages
Published December 13th 2013 by J.M. Madden (first published February 1st 2013)
series Lost and Found #1

D is for Dangerous #ABCofRomance #a2zchallenge @aprila2z

Apr4

Dangerous ♥♥♥♥

Synopsis
Prudence is 25 (old maid by Victorian standards) and meets with Sebastian in the middle of the night to request that he not fight her brother in a duel. Sebastian is intrigued that Prudence has such a lack of regard for social conventions, that he grants her request. Additionally, they share an interest in investigating mysteries.

It seems that Prudence is constantly getting into precarious situations and Sebastian feels obligated to stick close to her in order to help her. Prudence has nothing but confidence in Sebastian’s abilities to protect her because she thinks he is a gentleman despite his supposed reputation.

Opinion
Before I begin, I must preface this opinion by saying that I have loved Amanda Quick’s writing style since I was a teenager (all her heroes are my book boyfriends). Even though a lot of her books have a very consistent formula using a surly, but honor bound hero and a very independent, sometimes rash thinking heroine, I find her books very entertaining. This book met expectations and did not stray from the proven base formula.

One of the things that I most enjoyed about this book is the dialogue between Sebastian and Prudence.

“My dear, there are occasions when I don’t know quite which it is that I admire most about you: your cleverness or your passionate response to me in bed.” – Sebastian

Prudence’s reply, “I know it is a difficult choice.”

Of course, Prudence rarely listened when Sebastian told her to stay in one place. This led to many potentially risky situations. Sebastian took it all in stride. He knew his woman.

“I had a hunch you wouldn’t follow orders” – Sebastian

He only had himself to blame for marrying a woman who shared his enthusiasm for investigation.

Prudence was not my favorite heroine of all of the books that I have read by Amanda Quick because at times I thought she seemed to be shrewish. However, I think that Sebastian’s personality was so strong that it didn’t matter as much that she was too bossy because he’s only going to let her get her way when he wants her to. The most important aspect is how she made him feel and that was all that mattered.

She was so warm and he had been cold for so long.