All He Ever Desired by Shannon Stacey

I am apparently really good at reading books out of order. I started Fool's Gold in the middle. I started Lucky Harbor in the middle. And now I've started The Kowalskis on book 5, All He Ever Desired . Sadly, my library doesn't have the others so unless they show up at the thrift store I won't get to read the others.

Picking up in book 5, Ryan Kowalski has returned home to help his brothers renovate the failing family inn.  He's trying hard to avoid Lauren, who he was in love with in high school, but it is a small town. Lauren, who has a teenage son and a divorce (from Ryan's ex-best friend) behind her, has often had thoughts of "what if?" but plans to never ever Go There.  So of course they run into each other, and of course they Go There.

Lauren struggles to do the right thing with her son, who is basically a good kid but is having problems with his dad's new family. Money is realistically tight, and when he gets in a little trouble at the inn, he has to work off the debt to Ryan's family. I appreciated that they didn't just buy him out of trouble, even as I saw it as a device to force Ryan and Laura together.  Money is treated realistically, even though Laura and Ryan have vastly different amounts of it. Ryan is never a snob about it and Laura never thinks she won't want her because she has none. This doesn't mean that they don't have problems. For one, once the inn is done, Ryan will return home to Boston, eight hours away. Laura's ex lives in the same small town, and they share custody so moving out of town seems impossible. Laura doesn't want more children, and Ryan always thought he would have kids one day.  They have to work out  a way around all of these things, none of which ever feel like they are quite the obstacle they should be.

While I did find this one satisfying, I didn't find it completely original. Perhaps I've read too many small town extended romance series and need to go find some single titles, but now, weeks after reading it, I struggle to remember the details. Family inn has been done to death at this point, I think. I've also read several books lately with one half of the couple returning home to their small town and their old crush, who is now divorced with a child. (This one, Back to the Good Fortune Diner, Wild for the Sheriff.) You could argue that this part is my fault as they are all three NetGalley requests, but I would argue that, like renovating a family inn, it's a recent theme.

Overall, nice and easy, satisfying, but not memorable. I would read the others if they are available, but I won't seek them out.

You can find Shannon Stacey online here and on Twitter.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my review.

The Other Side of Us by Sarah Mayberry

Do you ever operate under the assumption that you really enjoy specific authors, make mental notes of when they have new books out, and then carefully track copies down, only to one day realize that you really aren't that impressed by said author?  This has happened to me with Sarah Mayberry. I just finished my third book by her, but for the life of me I don't even remember reading the first two (Anything for You in 2008 and Her Best Friend in 2010.)  When I started to see reviews of The Other Side of Us, and found it available on NetGalley, I requested it. While it wasn't particularly a bad book, it wasn't particularly noteworthy either.

So what is The Other Side of Us about? Mackenzie has been in a horrific auto accident. A year later, she's still recovering physically, and fighting hard to get back into her old life. All she can see is how hard she's trying and how fast it's slipping away. Oliver has escaped to his late aunt's beach house to escape his soon-to-be-ex-wife and their divorce. He's bitter and angry and distrustful of marriage. They are forced to interact with each other because their dogs refuse to stay apart.

What did I enjoy about it? I enjoyed that both parts of the couple were incredibly honest with each other. There was no hiding from what they felt and no big misunderstanding. Oliver knew without a doubt that he was distrustful of his ex-wife and himself, and that it wasn't about Mackenzie at all. Mackenzie was aware that she wanted him, and was willing to go after him without holding back. They are both adults and they both act like adults for the entirety of the book.

What I didn't like so much?  It's a very fast book, the entire thing takes place over a couple of short weeks. This isn't usually something I dislike, but I didn't feel like it completely worked here. They both have so much other emotional stuff going on in their lives (which is addressed) that it seems unlikely they'd have time to really fall in love. Additionally, Oliver is only a few months out from finding out that his wife was cheating, not even a few months out from the divorce, which is still pending. Last, Oliver is really really perfect. He has a terrific sense of humor (he really does!), he is smoking hot, he's genuinely nice, and he's very self aware. He's completely unbelievable.

Final thoughts? It was good, but it wasn't great, and I won't likely seek out Sarah Mayberry. I will still look up specific titles of hers based on great recommendations.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.

Virtual Advent Reading Escape (#wwread)

I'm so excited that it's my turn on the Virtual Advent Tour that I'm taking this chance to write one post for both the Advent tour and Where in the World are you Reading?!

For this month's theme on Where in the World are you Reading? we are asking you about your Holiday Reading Escapes.  If my life this month is any indication, everyone is running around like crazy in December. I personally have a thousand balls in the air, as you may have noticed by the dearth of blog posts lately.   This doesn't mean that I don't have a million books sitting here to be read tho. So in between the Christmas sewing:

and replacing the ornaments on the tree, and the mall shop hours, and the kid shuttling and the biopsy waiting and the secret stuff I can't tell you, I've been eyeing a few Christmas books.  Last year the lovely and beautiful Christine sent me these Christmas e-book novellas, which I am totally going to finish this year. (I read a couple last winter, but didn't get to them all.)

Holiday Kisses: A Rare Gift\Mistletoe and Margaritas\It's Not Christmas Without You\This Time Next Year

I picked up this one at the library, and what a cute cover and plot it has!

Together for Christmas

Then on the day we left town for the Bug's biopsy (no word yet!) the UPS man stopped me as we were literally climbing in the car to deliver a package from Grand Central Publishing containing two more Christmas romances and two more e-book novels, one of which is this one that I am super excited about (you know I'm a total Shalvis fan girl):

Under the Mistletoe



The two print books are:
Last Chance Christmas
Hunk for the Holidays

With all these great choices, one day soon I'm determined to crash out on the couch with a couple of these and ignore all the rest of my obligations. I'd love to spend a couple hours thinking of nothing else. If you have any interest in the Grand Central Publishing titles, be sure to check back on Saturday, when I'll be hosting a giveaway! (I'll put a link here too.)

Meanwhile, what does your Christmas Reading Escape look like? Do you enjoy Christmas themed books? Are you already sick of the Christmas spirit? (If you are, you probably haven't read this far down this post!)  Do you enjoy a nice glass of spiked egg nog with your books? Post about it, and then link up here!

Sullivan's Woman by Nora Roberts

This is the worst romance novel I have ever read, and that is saying a lot. This is the kind of romance novel that gives romance novels a bad name (minus the bodice ripping and sex- this one has no sex. At all.) Originally published in 1984, but republished in 2003, Sullivan's Woman features a moody jerk of an artist and a completely innocent dreamer of a writer. Of course she's stunningly beautiful, so he must paint her. Over the two months of their sitting she manages to fall completely in love with him, but hell if I can figure out why. So far as I can tell, they didn't actually talk and he just yells at her a lot. In the very final chapter we find out that he can't live without her and they live happily ever after. What? Huh?  This is exactly the stereotype of a romance that makes everyone think they are all crap. Spoiler: They aren't all crap.

If you're looking for a great romance you might try the following:

The MacKade brothers by, yes, Nora Roberts.
The Fool's Gold series by Susan Mallery
The Lucky Harbor books by Jill Shalvis
In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind (my favorite romance ever, in fact.)
Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
The Hathaways series by Lisa Kleypas
The Bride Quartet by Nora Roberts
Going too Far by Jennifer Echols (YA)
The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen (YA)

Actually, you know what? Pretty much any romance novel you pick up is gonna be better than Sullivan's Woman. If it had been any author other than Nora Roberts I'd have abandoned it, but I just kept thinking it had to get better. It didn't.

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

It seems that lately whenever I'm feeling a bit aimless about my reading, that I reach for a contemporary romance novel by a tried and true author. One that I know will a) have a happy ending and b) compell me to read it almost straight through. There is a certain type of romance that fits this slot nicely for me, typically they are full length novels that revolve around a town or a family, and are often part of a series. Examples of this feel-good, quick read, series that I've loved include:

• Nora Roberts' MacKade brothers
• Nora Roberts' Cheasepeake Bay brothers
• Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold Series
• Many of Nora Roberts' stand alones
• Robyn Carr's Virgin River series (even though I have some quibbles with them.)

So despite having quite the haul of library books, and the entire Black Dagger Brotherhood series on stand-by, I picked up Midnight Bayou.  Midnight Bayou has been on my TBR shelves for years. I'm pretty sure I got it from Paperbackswap and it's managed to stay on the shelves through the moves and the purging. Due to Ms. Roberts incredible success, her paperbacks often have tons of blurbs, and a glossy full length picture of the author, but no easy to locate plot summary. So I knew it was a romance, and I knew it took place in or near New Orleans, and I knew I could expect some paranormal activity. I'm a huge sucker for a New Orleans/ Cajun / Bluesy setting (In the Midnight Rain by Ruth Wind being an all time favorite book, not just romance!) so I dived in.

Midnight Bayou is a standalone romance (I wonder if Remy and Effie might have their own book, but have been too lazy to figure out). Our hero, Declan, has purchased a large plantation in a state of disrepair and has moved from Boston to restore it. Lena is a descendent of the house, and is now a moderately successful bar owner. Dec is down right perfect. Seriously, no flaws. None. And is rich. Lena isn't perfect, she's pretty cynical and distrustful of love, and it takes her a while to come around. I love that the conflict is never about how they feel about each other, or how much they trust each other. There is no big misunderstanding. In fact, there's very little conflict at all, except with the ghosts, and I liked that.

Here's the thing though, while Midnight Bayou hit the spot exactly, I didn't really love it. It did have quite a few flaws- the paranormal aspect is heavy heavy. Really heavy.  If you don't want a story with ghosts, skip this. Unlike Roberts' new Boonsboro Inn series, the ghosts are very very prominent.  Additionally, it seems that Roberts has recycled Lena's mom Lilibeth into Mac's mom in Vision in White. In both cases, I think the new versions are better, but overall I hate that I noticed at all. And last, the book ends very abruptly. I read it in two long sittings, but for several hours after I finished I kept having that feeling that I was at the very end of a book and needed to see how it ended. It was annoying.

In the end, typical Roberts, I'm glad I read it, but not a favorite.

Friday Harbor novels by Lisa Kleypas

My recent binge on Lisa Kleypas' Hathaway novels led me to pick up the first two novels in her new Friday Harbor trilogy at the library. (Oddly, it's a trilogy of four books about three brothers. I can not explain.)  The first two in the Friday Harbor trilogy are Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor and Rainshadow Road. It seems that maybe Christmas Eve is a prequel of sorts, although it is the story of the oldest brother.  I read them back to back and am pretty curious who the 4th book will be about.


Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor opens with a tragedy. Mark Nolan's sister has died in an accident and left him custody of her 6 year old daughter Holly. Because of his horrible childhood, Mark is pretty committed to being a bachelor.  He moves in with his brother Sam (also a bachelor) and they start raising Holly. Holly hasn't spoken since her mother's death, but a chance meeting with a toy shop owner has her find her voice. Mark is drawn to this woman (Maggie) and they fall in love fairly quickly.  This one is really short, only 211 pages of fairly large print, so it all happens quickly and you're left feeling a bit short changed, for a novel. I think maybe this would have been better suited to being a short story prequel. I enjoyed it, but I didn't really fall for any of the main characters and I think if I didn't already have the next one sitting here I might not have gone on.


Fortunately, Rainshadow Road is much more fleshed out. Rainshadow Road is called book one of the trilogy, and is about the second brother, Sam. I enjoyed Sam much more than Mark, even in Mark's book. Sam has a great sense of humor and is a charming, handsome geek.  He finds himeslf falling for Lucy, who has recently been dumped by her boyfriend and had to start her life over. Lucy is cautious about jumping into a new relationship, for about a week. Sam, like his brother, is never getting married.  This one takes place over a much longer time frame and I felt like it was possible that these two did fall in love.  Despite this, I did have some issues with the book. First, the problem if her ex-boyfriend is neatly wrapped up emotionally fairly quickly. Secondly, this one introduces an element of fantasy that I wasn't sure needed to be there and was completely absent in Christmas Eve. I didn't mind it so much, but it made Christmas Eve seem even weaker and less thought out.

Overall, the series so far has been good, but not great. I'll certainly pick up the next two (the last brother and someone unknown!) as they show up at the library, but I won't be waiting with as much impatience as I am for the next Nora Roberts.

Lisa Kleypas's Hathaways Series of romance novels

Last week while my husband was out of town, I sat myself down and read a book a day for three days. It was crazy. And lovely. I chose to finish up the Hathaway series of romance novels by Lisa Kleypas.

There are five Hathaway novels, to be read in this order:

1. Mine Till Midnight (my thoughts here)
2. Seduce Me at Sunrise (my thoughts here)
3. Tempt Me at Twilight
4. Married by Morning
5. Love in the Afternoon

I recommend that you try to read them in order, if for no other reason than to see how the men come to interact with each other. 

Now that that's out of the way, what about these three?

Tempt Me at Twilight is the story of Poppy Hathaway and hotelier Harry Rutledge. Poppy, like all the Hathaways, is intelligent and unusual and at the end of her third season is still unmarried. She has secretly fallen in love and finds that all in uproar when a ferret steals her love letter. Harry discovered said letter, and Poppy, and decides he has to have her.  So. Harry is kinda a jerk at the beginning, albeit a smart and sexy one, and you really wonder if he's going to be able to overcome it. Poppy is just perfect, of course. It's ok, as romance novels go, but not one of my favorites. The entire book takes place over about a month, and it's just too fast for both the falling in love and for Harry to overcome his own person issues. Harry isn't a peer and has made his own money, and of course the Hathaways are a bit unusual, so it's not the typical romance.  Additionally, there is a bit of unnecessary drama at the end that could have been left out altogether.

Married by Morning is Leo's story. Leo is the only brother in the Hathaways series, and he really reforms over the course of the four books, from complete reprobate to respectable gentleman. In his defense, he had a good reason for falling off the deep end, so you always kinda like him. Leo finds himself inexplicably falling in love with his younger sister's companion, who he has always fought with and who, of course, has a secret. Married by Morning is a variation on my favorite plot (friends turned lovers) and as such, I loved it. Leo steps up and takes care of Catherine and the scene at the inn is one of my favorites in a long time. Catherine holds onto her fears a wee bit too long, but I'm looking at it from the prospective of 2012, not the time she lived in.

Love in the Afternoon is the most different from the others, as it takes place at the Hathaways estate in the country. Beatrix is the most free spirited of the Hathaway girls. She prefers to be outdoors in the woods and she adopts every special needs animal she finds. When a shallow friend of hers refuses to write letters to Captain Phelan, whom Beatrix can tell is wounded inside, she steps in and writes the letters, and signs them from Prudence.  Of course they fall in love! But Bea is a real weirdo (for her times) and she can't admit it was her because it would shame Phelan to know that he fell for her. Captain Phelan is, understandably, hurt and angry by the deception, but then, suddenly (too suddenly?) he is over it and they are in love.  There are still problems but of course they overcome. As with Tempt Me at Twilight, there is a bit of "extra" baggage near the end that was completely unneeded.

Taken as a whole, a very good series. My memory of the first two is a bit hazy, but I loved the family interactions, and in particular the way all the men relate to each other. I would enjoy nothing more than having dinner with the Hathaway family. Kleypas does write a bit more sex in her books than Julie Quinn, but otherwise I'd suggest them to the anyone who enjoys Quinn.

Christmas, Easter, Romance

• Mike was gone from early Sunday until this morning.  The kids and I have had enough togetherness to last the next year.
• My sister-in-law Anna and her husband are coming today to spend a couple days. I am so excited for adult conversation! These last two bullet points are like Christmas.
• I pretty much did nothing while Mike was gone, so last night and this morning I scrambled to clean house. It was worth it.
• I should deal with the issue of my flat tire this morning. It remains to be seen if I will.
• I cut out the potential Easter dress for the Princess. The Pirate took one look and christened it her Fire Flower dress. So it is.
• I went to the YMCA twice this week to work out. I left the Bug and the Princess in the nursery. They didn't even notice I was gone.
• Are you watching American Idol this year? Is it just me or are the girls WAY stronger than the boys? I loved Hollie and, after this week, Jessica.

Bookish Thoughts

• Instead of cleaning, I read 3.5 books while Mike was gone. I haven't done that in years, just sit and read. It was nice.
• 
  I finished Tempt Me at Twilight (Hathaways, Book 3), Married by Morning (Hathaways, Book 4), and Love in the Afternoon (Hathaways, Book 5) by Lisa Kleypas.  More on these later.
• 
  I read a good bit of Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life by Lauren E Winner. Well on my way to finishing it.
• 
  I started Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean. I had really enjoyed Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, so requested this one by InterLibrary Loan.