Mistress by Mistake by Kim Lawrence

Mistress by Mistake by Kim Lawrence
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not bad, but I never did come to like Drew very much. He commits the cardinal sin of being way too 'entitled'. He's entitled to judge Eve at first glance, and when he gets enlightened on the situation, he feels like it's his right to seduce her into bed, even knowing that he doesn't want a commitment. So what, his heart was broken by his childhood sweetheart. No reason to become a commitment avoidant jerk. I couldn't really believe in their romance together, so that's why I didn't like this book more. Otherwise, it had a distinct atmosphere. No exotic locations or extravagant throwing of money around. It's set in a small town and Eve is just about done raising her younger brother since he's about to go to college. Drew is the uncle of Eve's brother's best friend. He's got his nephew in awe of him because of his reputation as a ladies' man and a tough city businessman. Eve is as down to earth as they come, and I really liked that about her. I think she could have done better with a love interest. I kind of liked the end, although I don't think I would be wanting to get amorous in my great-aunt's house. Not one of my favorites by this author, but it wasn't bad. I think it just caught me in a picky mood.

By the way, the name is completely erroneous.

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Separate Rooms by Diana Hamilton

Separate Rooms by Diana Hamilton

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars


This had a rocky start, but I liked it quite a bit overall.  Honey was feisty.  In fact, it kind of reminded me of "Taming of the Shrew" because Honey was so prickly and rebuffed any attempts at seduction.  Ben isn't a flashy charmer who gets off on being offensive like Petruchio, but rather takes the tactic of disinterest.  Surprisingly, it does hurt Honey's feelings, although she's sick of being seen as a sex object because of her beauty and curvaceous body.  The "Taming of the Shrew" aspect is more that Ben actually woos Honey into relaxing the icy walls around her heart and wins her by loving her for her.  She has some valid reasons for being wary of men who seem only attracted to her looks.

I think Ben did play a little too lukewarm at times.  If was I was Honey, I would have thought he was disinterested as well. I think that's part of why I didn't give this four stars. I like when the hero is crazy about the heroine and it's easy for me to tell that as a reader, even if the heroine can't because of her issues.  In the end, Ben finally came clean, but it left it almost too late.

I liked this quite a bit in the end, even though the "hot and cold' back and forth got a bit tedious at times. It was a nice diversion and I'm a sucker for a good marriage of convenience storyline.  

Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.



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One More Valentine by Anne Stuart

One More Valentine by Anne Stuart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reread on Kindle Text to Speech completed in the month of August, 2014

Anne Stuart has taken the events of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and created a "What If?" scenario that turns out to be a very satisfying romance.

James Rafferty and six of his friends were murdered in the infamous massacre, but they didn't stay gone. Every year, they came back for 48 hours between February 13 and February 15th. And the lucky ones, if they fall in love with a woman, they are able to stay and lead a normal life.

James has been doing this for sixty years. He has given up on the the idea that he can find a woman who will love him. Instead, he merely enjoys his 48hrs of existence, before next year comes after again.

This time, he has to help an old friend out of a fix, and meets Helen Emerson, not his 'type of girl' at all. But is she the woman who will finally end his limbo?

Only Ms. Stuart could take a dodgy concept like this and make me eat it up like dessert. I think a lot of that hinges on the incredible chemistry she creates between Jamey and Helen. Not to mention that Jamey is the kind of bad boy that you can't help loving, even when your rational brain tells you he's a bad bet. He's just all kinds of charismatic. Helen is very likable, a woman who holds her own against a compelling man like Jamey, without compromising who she is. I liked that she was still a virgin at the age of 29. Her experience is somewhat opposite Jamey's, coming up in a cop family and he was on the wrong side of the law.

Billy is a sweetheart. Not what you'd expect for a gangster, but that was the point of this story. Maybe those guys weren't all as bad as we think, considering they were gangsters and were part of a gangland war that tore the city of Chicago apart. Maybe some of them were family men trying to do the best they could for their situation during a tough time.

I actually liked the idea of these guys getting a 'second chance' until they made it right. I'll always be romantic enough to believe that love conquers all. In fiction, there is no getting over exploring that concept for me. In fact I seek out books where love does win out against incredible obstacles.

Another thing I love about this book is the setting of Chicago. I grew up a half hour from this great city of the Midwest, and it still holds a charm for me. Since I don't get to go back often, it's always a treat and a welcome experience to visit in the fiction I read.

As much as I admire all her work, I really do miss Ms. Stuart's contemporary romances she wrote for Harlequin. At least I can revisit those in rereads.

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Tangled Hearts by Carole Mortimer

Tangled Hearts by Carole Mortimer
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

I don't have anything grand to say about this reading experience. It was pretty good. I liked Garrett a lot. He was actually a very kind, decent man. Sarah was a good person as well. She did a lot of harsh judging of Garrett based on the limited understanding she had of his marriage to her sister. She judged him wrongly, as it turns out, and didn't see her sister realistically. Her young age was actually a factor in that. I'm glad that she did realize the truth in time to give her the chance at love with Garrett. Yeah, I know it's sort of icky on the surface that her sister was married to Garrett, but reading this book takes that sting away. It's one of those books where you have to go with the flow and things will turn out right in the end.

What I thought about specific aspects of the story:

(view spoiler)[ I found the aspect about her being so terribly in love with Garrett as a sixteen-year-old, and that being the cause of why she was so hostile to him, hard to swallow. I was like what? I didn't think she had spent enough with Garrett to be that in love with him. Okay, whatever. Go with the flow.

As far as her sister having an affair with Garrett's brother, despite him being so in love with his wife, and his wife being oh so forgiving....Yeah, that's true love, ain't it? Especially when he tried to go into Sarah's room, half-believing she was her sister (like ten years after the sister was dead). And having your brother clean up your mess by marrying Sarah's knocked up sister? And look, he's a US Senator. Awesome! Not! That was a more digestible piece Harlequin Presents wacky goodness drama than Sarah being so in love with Garrett since she was sixteen. It made me feel some love for Garrett that he did step up and be a dad to his brother's child. And how he claims the boy as his own. Very sighworthy. (hide spoiler)]

Points for the cute ending!

This one was a 3.5 star read.

A good vintage HP for readers who like a more betaish hero.

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Tomorrow--Come Soon by Jessica Steele

Tomorrow -- Come Soon by Jessica Steele

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you like the stories where the heroine is hopelessly misunderstood by the hero, then you’d like this one. The hero is drawn to her, but he knows she’s a ‘bad girl’ in some way. In this case, Grant thinks that Devon’s demanding, spendthrift ways lead to her father embezzling money from his company to keep her in the style to which she had become accustomed. He showed up on their doorstep the night before Devon leaves for Sweden, not for an extravagant vacation like he thinks, but for a surgery that promises to give her full use of her hip, which was injured in the car accident that killed her mother.
Devon comes back from Sweden to find that her father has been terminated from his job at Grant’s business, and will likely be prosecuted. She approaches Grant and asks him not to prosecute her father, and she’ll do anything he wants in return. His proposition is that she live with him as his mistress. Devon is willing to do this so that she can save her father from prison.

I liked that Grant wanted to be the ruthless seducer, but he didn’t really have it in him. He was clearly in love with Devon early on. He was kind of grumpy about it, but he had every opportunity to seduce her, but he didn’t take them, after he finds out that she had a bad hip and the money was spent to get her well. From that point, he does everything he can to get her to rest as she’s supposed to so she can get the all clear at her follow up.

I thought it was cute how Devon kept throwing herself at Grant so he would go ahead and fulfill his part of the bargain before her father comes back from the business trip in Scotland that Grant sent him on. Grant seems to come up with excuses for them not to be ‘together.’ Although Devon was clueless about Grant’s feelings for her, I as the reader, was not.

I really liked this book. It was a fun read. Devon was a nice girl, and Grant finally looked past his cynicism to see that, because Cupid’s bow had struck him dead center in the heart.




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Island of Dolphins by Lillian Cheatham

Island Of Dolphins by Lillian Cheatham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh, Drama! This was just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes I crave these older Harlequin chock full of drama. The hero is a real b*stard in this book. He needed a slap or two, to be honest. I can't imagine why he thinks that being mean to a woman shows his love and devotion. I didn't really like Mark at all. He was just a bully in my opinion. But, there is something about Lillian Cheatham's writing that keeps me reading and enjoying her books, even if the hero is a putz. I did like Juliet. She had some gumption, although she turned a little weak-kneed at Mark's punishing kisses.



I can't explain why these oldies appeal to me. They are like my soap operas, but even better. The whole, "I hate you but I want you, and you will be mine." And the "Oh, you are such a brute! Stay away from me, but I can't help seeing that you are very sexy!" storylines make for great reads. And then there's Mark's geeky (that part was cool) but spineless brother (not cool) who throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way. He even lies and says Juliet has been sleeping with him because he's jealous of Mark taking her away from him (although she's only his assistant and doesn't have any romantic feelings for him). Throw in an evil ex-mistress (also the island nurse) who wants to get back her short-lived status in Mark's revolving bed. And then there is a scheming teen who has been promised by her overbearing mother that she will net Mark as her husband. Classic!



Great scenery with the Caribbean island setting, and a heroine who is a skilled editor and knows her subject (her stepfather was an expert in cetaceans and she actually wrote his book for him although she didn't take credit). There are a couple of scenes with the dolphins, which add to this book's appeal.



Really, Juliet was a lovely heroine. She was worth fifty of Mark. He was a real jerk, who didn't know a good woman when he saw one. He needed his mouth washed out for some of the nasty things he said to Juliet. Just when I was starting to think he might be a decent person (when he saves a local boy after a near-fatal stingray bite), he turns into Mr. Octopus Hands with a bad mouth. Sigh. The fool was very much in love with Juliet, but he was very clueless on how to show it. And, somehow Juliet fell in love with this creep. It was fun to read.



This really gave me my needed Vintage Harlequin drama fix. If you like this sort of thing, I think you'd enjoy this book, because it was very well written. Too bad Lillian Cheatham wasn't a very prolific Harlequin author. Her books always satisfy.



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Hostage by Madeleine Ker

Hostage by Madeleine Ker


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Intense Vintage Harlequin Romance that reads like a Harlequin Presents. It certainly has all the trappings: incredibly beautiful but cold and unawakened heroine, dark, brooding, and scary hero. Revenge, oh the revenge. Leo, the hero calls himself "The Eagle", and he tells Sabrina that he's her enemy. Actually, her father is his enemy. But he died before Leo could exact his revenge. Sabrina wasn't that fond of her father, either. In fact, she hated him for who cruel he was to her and her mother. But Daddy Dearest left all his holdings to Sabrina, and she's not going to sit idly by and let the board do all the dirty dealings her father was known for. I was very impressed with Sabrina in how she went into the board meeting, and showed the good old boys that she knew her stuff. She made them well aware that she wasn't going to stand for their old way of doing things, while they were willing to put a thousand people out of work, and maintain their high expense accounts and corporate cars. She got a bravo for that.

In her dealings with Leo, Sabrina was in over her head. Leo is definitely on the cruel hero side. He's a take no prisoners hero. Very ruthless in his dealings with her business and with her. When the big reveal comes about how he loved her since he first saw her, it's a bit hard to believe, based on how he treats her (although he doesn't ever hit or harm her physically and doesn't rape her). When he makes her believe he filed for a quicky divorce, I thought that was fairly cruel. But, he maintains he did it so that she'd admit her feelings for him. Sabrina doesn't get off the hook. She says some pretty cruel things to Leo as well. I tried to remind myself that as far as she knew, they were truly enemies, and Leo married her for revenge alone.

So why the four stars? The drama, the intensity, the good writing. The climax was written to make both characters well aware of what they were at risk for losing, and Leo comes through wonderfully when Sabrina's life is in jeopardy. I probably read some of Madeleine Ker's books when I was a kid. I read pretty much every Harlequin and Harlequin Presents I could get my hand on growing up. Unfortunately, I forgot many of those books. But, Ms. Ker's writing is excellent. She paints vivid pictures, and they are quite iconic. The drama level is built through every interaction between the characters. It's never garish, but has a natural intensity. I could see Leo as the Eagle, and Sabrina as the Ice Maiden. Even though the love scenes weren't descriptive, you could see the passion there. So, I was very impressed with this story.

If you want a good old school Harlequin that will bring on the drama, but in a very elegant fashion, I'd recommend this one. Reading this book makes me long for more new books in these lines that have this same level of intensity, passion and risk. It's why I search long and hard for these oldies to enjoy. I hope to find more of Ms. Ker's books to read.

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