Those books I never got around to reviewing in 2015

Like most of you, I hope, I have a stack of books (not a literal stack, they are e-books) that I've never gotten around to writing about. I'd like to get those out of my mind to start over fresh in 2016. These books really have nothing else in common...

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande.  This book was everything you've heard. It was heartbreaking and fascinating and really got to me. I've put off a review for weeks because I feel like I just can't do it justice. The book addresses life and death and elder care. It's not dry and boring and is mixed with personal stories of choice and what happens when we don't make a choice. It's about quality of life verses quantity of life. This book will stick with me for a very long time, and I highly recommend it to everyone (yes, EVERYone.)  For a better review I recommend Janssen's or Amy's.

You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day. I was first introduced to The Guild, and it's creator Felicia Day after reading Max Wirestone's The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss. I knew then that I'd need to read this memoir.  Day does something you rarely see in a(n interesting) memoir- she talks about her life without getting terribly personal, or criticising anyone else.  Starting with her life in Huntsville, Alabama, and ending with the creation of Geek and Sundry, this is interesting and funny from beginning to end. I don't read a ton of memoirs, and even fewer celebrity memoirs, but I enjoyed this one completely.

When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare. I read all of Dare's Spindle Cove series back to back last year and loved them, but for some reason put off reading the Castles Ever After Series, despite owning the first two. This is the third book in the series. I loved the idea behind it- painfully shy Maddie invents a suitor, who comes true and insists they marry. I loved both the hero and heroine, and all of the side characters. In hindsight, I don't know how believable it is, but it's a fun ride and definitely makes me want to read the others in the series.

Love Irresistibly, It Happened One Wedding, and Suddenly One Summer by Julie James. The name of this series is the FBI/ US Attorney series and that should give you the hint that these are books about smart, accomplished people.  I stayed up too late with all three of these, binge reading my way through. If you're hesitant about romance novels because you worry about insipid plot lines, these are a great choice. Hot, sexy, fun with people who know who and what they are. I'm very happy to have one more left, with another coming out next spring.

Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare

The Duke of Halford’s mother is desperate. Her only son, the 9^th Duke of Halford, has not married and she needs a grandchild.  To speed things along, she kidnaps him to Spindle Cove, where there are an abundance of unmarried women. She tells Griff to pick any woman in the room and she will make her into a suitable Duchess.  Griff is not on board with this plan. He has his own reasons for remaining unwed, reasons that he is not willing to share with anyone else. After a properly scandalous youth, he has withdrawn from society and is a bit bitter than no one really noticed. In order to get back at his mother for this scheme, Griff picks the least likely woman in the room, the serving girl.

Pauline has her own reasons for agreeing to the plan. She’s been promised a grand sum of money when she fails, if she’ll only play along to prove his mother wrong.  She dreams of opening her own lending library, and a grand sum of money would certainly help. However, she also cannot leave the village for more than a week, so Griff’s mother has only a week to make the transformation.  But what happens when the Duke falls in love with the serving girl?

A spectacularly good romance, that’s what!  I loved this one completely.  I had my doubts, the scene at the very beginning when he chooses Pauline and it appears he’ll make a joke out of her had me squirming, but he quickly pulls her into the plan and I forgave him. There are several points in the book where I feared my discomfort of embarrassment would cause me to dislike it, but each time it is handled deftly.  The book is over very quickly, with Griff and Pauline falling in love in just under a week. I'm not entirely sure why he falls for her, but it is fairly believable, while Pauline falls in love for reasons other than his title and money, which was lovely.

Griff's character is probably one of my recent favorites in a romance. He has a really great reason for being withdrawn, and when he finally admits it to his mother it's heartbreaking. The possibility of a serving girl actually marrying a Duke is entirely far fetched and both Griff and Pauline never really lose sight of that. My favorite scene in the book is one in the library in which they discuss just how far apart their statuses really are- Griff forcefully drives home his point and Pauline accepts her role in it.  It's hard to believe that it'll be possible for them to end up together, but once again Dare manages to stretch the boundaries just a tiny bit so that you can accept it.

I've now read three Tessa Dare books in quick succession and I can honestly tell you that she's high on my list of favorites. A Week to be Wicked is good, but Any Duchess Will Do and A Lady by Midnight are both terrific. They are smart and funny, and manage to poke fun at the "bodice ripper" genre while still being incredibly romantic, and, well, hot.

My copy of Any Duchess Will Do was provided for review by Edelweiss.