Plum Deadly (by Ellie Grant)

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Cozy Murder Mystery

After being falsely accused of embezzlement and fired, Maggie returns to her home town in North Carolina to lick her wounds.  Penniless and all but unemployable, she finds herself waiting tables at her aunt’s pie shop, Pie in the Sky.  

Then her former boss turns up at Pie in the Sky and tells her he knows who stole the money and has called a press conference in which he will name the real thief and clear her name. But after he turns up dead that very night she has gone from fry pan to fire and become the number one suspect in his murder.

With a little help from Ryan, a local newspaper reporter, she sets about clearing her name and finding the murderer.

Plum Deadly reminded me a lot of the Cats in Trouble mysteries by Leann Sweeney and the Coffee House mysteries by Cleo Coyle.  If I have a criticism it’s that some things were left unexplained and hanging. But it’s possible those things will be revisited in the next books in the series and for the most part I enjoyed this book.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and Gallery Books for providing me with this ARC

The Hero (by Robyn Carr)

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Contemporary Romance

After escaping from a secretive cult, Devon finds herself walking along a back road with her young daughter. When Rawley sees her on the side of the road he knows she is running and offers her a lift and a safe place to stay until she can decide where to go next.

Recently widowed, Spencer is still in mourning over the death of his wife.  Thunder Point is a chance for a new beginning as the coach of the local high school football team. So when Rawley helps Devon to find a job and start building a life in Thunder Point he immediately pushes thoughts of the beautiful blonde from his mind.

But as the weeks pass he finds himself drawn to her and they take some tentative steps towards a relationship. But both have baggage. Both have children. And Devon has a controlling and manipulative cult leader on her trail.

The Hero is what readers expect from Robyn Carr.  It is a well written contemporary romance which is about more than just Devon and Spencer.  Stories from previous books are revisited and characters are introduced who will appear in future books. The Hero reminded me a little of Shelter Mountain (Virgin River Book 2).  That’s not a bad thing, Shelter Mountain is probably my favorite in the Virgin River series and I enjoyed this book almost as much.

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

Love Overdue (by Pamela Morsi)

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Contemporary Romance

DJ is the poster girl for prim and proper librarians. She is conservative and staid, she wears muted tones and safe shoes. That is who she is and it’s who she wants to be. Except for one night, eight years earlier when she decided it was time to see what she was missing. She went out for a night of drinking and dancing with friends and ended up in the bed of a stranger.

Now in her late twenties she has accepted the job of Library Administrator in a small rural town in Kansas. But when she arrives she finds things are not going to go as smoothly as she had hoped. The acting librarian is recalcitrant in the extreme; she is living upstairs from her landlady; and the landlady’s son is the stranger she hooked up with eight years earlier.

DJ is trying desperately to avoid Scott. He’s a player who cheated on his wife and had an affair with a married woman. But those things don’t quite gel with the man she is getting to know. Still she needs to fight their growing attraction to each other and hope he never remembers that one night eight years earlier.

Love Overdue is cute and quirky small town romance which every now and then becomes something a little more. The characters in this story are wonderfully odd and just a little broken.
It doesn’t always work. The repeating of the same events from the different points of view of the heroine and the hero got a little confusing and I’ve never been a fan of flashbacks as a plot device. I actually thought I had missed something when I got to the end and went searching for a few missing pages. Only after rereading the ending did I realize I hadn’t missed anything.
But those are small things and I enjoyed this book a lot. Enough that I’ve bought a couple of other books by Pamela Morsi.

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

Heart of Venom (by Jennifer Estep)

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Urban Fantasy

Many years earlier Sophia was kidnapped and brutalised by Harley and his sister, both powerful fire elementals.  She escaped with the help of Gin’s mentor and surrogate father Fletcher, but it nearly killed them.  Now Fletcher is dead and Harley has returned and dragged Sophia back to his mountain fortress.

Gin launches a suicide mission to rescue Sophia and kill Harley once and for all, but when Harley and his sister combine their fire magic they are all but unbeatable.

In Heart of Venom Jennifer Estep turns her attention to Sophia, one of my favorite characters from the series. The entire series is brash and in your face, and this book is quite possibly the best yet.

I also want to say, that cover is superb. The artist has absolutely nailed it.

Many thanks to Pocket Books and Edelweiss for providing me with this ARC.

Beautiful Bad Man (by Ellen O’Connell)

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Historical / Western Romance

1866

Caught stealing from a group of free settlers, a starving boy faces mob justice. Norah, herself just a child cannot accept the injustice and sets him free before he can be lynched.

“Everyone you see is either predator or prey, wolf or rabbit. Wolf is better.”

1880

Caleb Sutton (Cal) is Webster Van Cleve’s newest gun for hire. Van Cleve’s goal is to run farmers off their land and claim it for himself. Arriving at a run down earthen house with a group of hired guns, he discovers a defeated widow just waiting to die. When he realizes the woman is the girl who saved him many years earlier, he steps in and stops the other hired guns from raping her and forcing her from her land.

Norah has lived the hard life of a farmer, taking the little the land gives and stretching it as far as it will go. After her husband is murdered by Van Cleve there is little she can do but wait to die. When Caleb steps in and starts helping her, she is mistrustful of the hired killer, but over time she comes to accept him and then love him. Cal lends his strength to Norah and Norah gentles Cal.  But as the range war escalates and a bounty is placed on Cal, the only option left to them is to either abandon the land and run, or fight and become outlaws.

“Put that rifle down, Mrs Hawkins. I don’t want to shoot a woman, but I will if I have to.”
Her hands stayed steady, and she didn’t let the rifle waver. “Mrs Sutton. And I don’t want to shoot a sheriff, but I will if I have to.”

I feel I should say, I don’t really know anything about this period of American history, apart from what this book and Wikipedia told me. If I’ve made mistakes in using incorrect terms, I’m sorry for that.

Beautiful, Bad Man is a great book. It’s completely captivating from start to finish. It’s one of those rare books that I can’t fault in any way.  Highly recommended for anyone who reads romance, but especially for fans of Western Romance.

“He’s a bad one.”
“Oh, Mabel, yes he is. He’s a very bad man, but he’s a beautiful bad man.”

Home to Whiskey Creek (by Brenda Novak)

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Contemporary Romance (with a dash of Suspense)

After one traumatic night, a night when she was gang-raped by a group of young men from the school’s baseball team, Adelaide left Whiskey Creek and the grandmother she loved. Now 15 years later her grandmother is too old to care for herself so she must return to the town where the men who raped her still live as respected members of the community.

When Noah finds Adelaide at the bottom of a mineshaft his protective instincts take over. But he can’t understand why Adelaide is so hesitant in sharing the details of her assault. As their relationship develops, the men who attacked her are watching nervously.

Home to Whiskey Creek is contemporary romance with a little suspense thrown in for good measure. There were a couple of missteps…I think Baxter’s story which has been bubbling away in the background for the last couple of books didn’t really add anything to the story. The conclusion felt a little rushed and I can’t help but think those pages devoted to Noah and Baxter would have been better spent fleshing out the ending.

But overall I liked this book a lot and those small criticisms don’t make me like this book any less. It’s probably my favorite in the series so far.

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Tell the Wolves I’m Home (by Carol Rifka Brunt)

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Young Adult

June is a shy and awkward 14 year old. She lives in the shadow of Greta, her popular and gifted sister who hates her. The one person in her life who gets her –– her only friend –– is her uncle Finn. When he dies of AIDS she is left alone and bereft.

Then one day she receives a package containing a teapot that belonged to her uncle. His lover Toby has sent it to her and wants to meet her. But with her entire family blaming Toby for Finn’s death they need to meet in secret.

As the weeks pass they are able share in their grief and remember Finn who they both loved. But Toby also has AIDS and as their friendship grows, his health declines.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home is the heart-wrenching story of one young girl who is dealing with grief and loss. It really is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I loved it so much that I bought more than one copy for myself and have given copies to some close friends. I want everyone to read this book.

Wallbanger (by Alice Clayton)

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Contemporary Romance

Caroline’s O (orgasm) has deserted her. It happened six months earlier after a less than impressive bedroom encounter with “machine-gun f_cker” Corey Weinstein. Now she has a new apartment, a faithful cat, good friends, but no O.

On her first night in her new apartment she is woken in the early hours by thumping. She quickly realizes her neighbor is getting himself some and the thin wall which separates their bedrooms is copping the brunt of his exertions.

Simon is not short of female company. He has three very different women who will keep him company on a cold night, and none of them want any strings which suits him just fine. When Caroline, sick of his very loud late night liaisons pounds on his door in her pink nighty he immediately knows she is a woman who will need more than he can offer. But she is so damn sexy that he just can’t stay away.

Wallbanger is great fun and completely addictive. In a market that is filled with books that are all trying to grab my attention, this one is somehow a little better. It’s a laugh-out-loud funny romp that manages to take a storyline I’ve seen a dozen times and make it refreshing and entertaining.

Much love for this book.

Recommended to me by Aurelija

A Lady Risks All (by Bronwyn Scott)

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Historical Romance

Mercedes is a highly skilled billiards player. But as a woman she is denied entry into the halls where men play billiards and gamble. When her father takes on a new protégé he convinces her to train him in the hope he can become a champion.

As the second son of a nobleman little is expected of Greer and he spends his time playing billiards. He is a talented player but he lacks the subtlety and finesse to ever be a great player. He joins Mercedes and her father on a tour of billiards halls around the country. Though increasingly uncomfortable with the hustlers lifestyle, if he leaves he will lose Mercedes who he has grown to love.

I honestly don’t know all that much about historical romance. Google tells me this book is Regency, though only just. In some ways it doesn’t feel like an historical romance but that could just be my lack of experience with the genre showing. What it does, it does well. It’s likeable characters and a simple story well told. You don’t really need anything else.

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.  

The Newcomer (by Robyn Carr)

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Contemporary Romance

Mac is a single father of three children. Since his wife ran off with another man many years earlier, life has been one of financial hardship.  Now, though still not well off by any stretch of the imagination, he has finally found a measure of security for him and his family.

As a teenage girl Gina fell pregnant to the local bad boy. When she told him he ran off leaving her alone to raise their child. Money is tight but through hard work and determination she has managed to find a place for herself and her daughter in Thunder Point.

After many years of putting their families first Mac and Gina have finally taken the first steps towards a future together. But just when things are starting to look good for them, Mac’s ex-wife returns to Thunder Point and wants to reconnect. Adding to the dramas, Gina’s daughter Ashley has been dumped by her boyfriend for another girl and falls into a deep depression.

Robyn Carr writes in a mosaic style. Characters are introduced whose stories will be told in future books. Some stories are concluded within the pages of a single book while other stories will be revisited in future books. It’s a style that works well for Robyn Carr. I thought book one, The Wanderer felt a little busy, perhaps even clunky, but with The Newcomer Robyn Carr has definitely found her mojo.  It’s entertaining and polished and augurs well for this series.

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.