A sweet romance with a delightful banter between the main characters, let down somewhat by the inability to fully explore their emotional conflicts.
This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
Still reeling from her father’s death, Cora is determined to find The One by Christmas. Her downstairs neighbour, Matt, is disbelieving and then amused at her determination to nab herself the right man. From staging car trouble, to internet dating, to chatting up men at juice bars, basketball games, meat markets and trams, Cora is undeterred in her quest. Too bad Matt isn’t in the running, though, because the more time she spends with Matt, the more Cora wonders if any man will ever measure up to him.
Cora and Matt’s initial meeting starts off a little awkwardly. Elise K. Ackers tries just a little too hard to simulate instant chemistry between the two characters, and the humour is somewhat forced. But as the story settles into its own, Cora and Matt fall into a charming rhythm:
When Matt opened his front door and feigned surprise to see her, it made her laugh. And she enjoyed his expression when he noticed the notepad, Ugg boots, old tracksuit pants and beanie.
‘They’re the worst pyjamas ever,’ he declared.
‘These are my relationship pyjamas.’
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The plot is just complex enough to keep you guessing, and the characters reveal just enough to make the story interesting. The romance still requires suspension of belief, but I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
When Australian author Shannon Curtis Twitter crowd-sourced the plot for her free Christmas short story, we came up with some fairly over-the-top scenarios. Many of them were tongue-in-cheek, but Curtis rose to the challenge and not only included many of our suggestions but most importantly, she included a vomit scene.
Seriously, she is awesome.
Nick Marshall is SAS on medical leave after injuring his arm in Afghanistan. As his brother’s best man, he’s on an errand to pick up the wedding rings when ‘five Santas, with white beards and wigs, streamed into the [jewellery] store, brandishing guns’. Holly Maxwell is the lead negotiator when the call comes through that there’s a hostage situation.
But there’s something strange about the case. The negotiations aren’t following the normal pattern. It’s up to Nick and Holly to free the hostages and figure out what the Santas are really after.
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For fans of Julia Quinn, Eloisa James or Connie Brockway. If you’re a first-time reader of their work, however, consider one of their full-length novels instead.
One whiskey-fueled Christmas night, Taran Ferguson of Finovair decides to take matters into his own hands and kidnaps a bunch of women so that his heirs can have heirs and his line doesn’t die out. So Taran and his clansmen hustle over to the Earl of Maycott’s, grab a bunch of heiresses —and, accidentally, a Duke—and take them home, where they will be trapped for a few days since snow has since covered the pass. Taran is hoping that love will blossom between the girls and his two heirs (via his sisters): Byron Wotton, Earl of Oakley and Robin Parles, a French count with no real title. Everyone is both horrified and amused by his crazy antics, and of course, they all fall in love.
There are three interlocked stories in the novel, featuring Byron, Robin and Duke. I would love to give you a summary of each story but part of the fun is finding out whom they end up with, so I will not kill three fairies! Instead, I’ll describe the girls for you and maybe you can guess.
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A quick Christmas read that pushes all the right buttons and won’t leave you looking puffy and red-eyed on the train.
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
When Dean Hall agreed to help his best friend Talli Jarmen with a photography gig, no one said anything about wearing tights. And when Talli sees Dean in a ridiculously skimpy (read: several sizes too small) elf costume, she notices parts of him that she hadn’t really noticed before.
When certain lines are crossed between friends, there’s just no going back, and Dean knows he has to make a move and risk their friendship. Talli, too, feels a new sizzle between them and has to decide between keeping the status quo or going for broke.
Australian author Rhian Cahill does what she can with the limited word count—my ereader showed 66 ‘pages’, although the story only took 40 and the rest were excerpts from other Escape titles—and Christmas Wishes is a fun read even if it doesn’t quite get to the emotional highs and lows that I love in my romance.
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A Snowball’s Chance by Nikki Rivers/A Christmas Carol by Kathleen O’Reilly
This humorous, sexy friends-to-lovers romantic comedy is an excellent debut in category romance.
I love the friends-to-lovers theme in romance, especially in category novels. During my deepest Mills & Boon addiction, this was my absolute favourite type of couple. Probably it was because I was in high school at the time.
Unlike your typical friends-to-lovers pairing, the couple in Kathleen O’Reilly’s first category romance don’t suffer from a lust imbalance (where one person has always harboured a secret crush on the other). Carol Martin has been best friends with Mike Fitzgerald since they were kids. Strictly platonic. She’s looking for someone more sophisticated; he’s not willing to risk the wrath of her mother by so much as thinking inappropriate thoughts.
But all it takes are some suggestive comments from Carol’s Aunt Eleanor to get those thoughts going. And once lust gets in the way of their friendship, Carol and Mike have to sort out what they’re willing to live with … and whom they can live without.
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Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James
Like the games of chess that run through this series, the romances are filled with strategy, intrigue and surprise moves.
This series begins with Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, who returns to England from France in the late 1700s (during the Georgian period) to be with her husband, Elijah, from whom she has been estranged for several years. Elijah had what seems like a heart attack while at parliament, and he has asked Jemma to return so they can begin the process of begetting an heir, while he still can. Jemma was a well known social butterfly in Paris and had somewhat a scandalous reputation. Her return to England allows her to renew her friendships with her contemporaries—most of the other duchesses in this series—and due to her love of chess, begin a friendship with the Duke of Villiers, her husband’s ex-best friend.
The series is interspersed with several chess matches as, like chess itself, a game of intrigue, coquettishness and desire is played out between the characters of each novel. Everyone gets their happy ending, of course, but not without several machinations of their own or of others’—just like a chess game.
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Stroke of Enticement by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series) in The Magical Christmas Cat
Is it sad that I’m posting on Christmas Day? (Um, that was a rhetorical question). Since many of us are celebrating Christmas, I thought it only fitting to talk about a Christmas-themed book.
Stroke of Enticement is the first story in the anthology The Magical Christmas Cat, and it’s the second novella set in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. I loved the previous novella, Beat of Temptation, so I had very high expectations for this one. While enjoyable, Stroke of Enticement didn’t quite reach the sames heights for me.
In Stroke of Enticement, we meet two new characters, Annie and Zach. A near-fatal childhood accident has had a lifelong impact on Annie, the most significant of which is her mother’s insistence on treating Annie as fragile. A leopard changeling with soldier rank isn’t exactly on her mother’s list of acceptable boyfriends for Annie. At the same time, Annie has difficulty imagining that she can have the kind of love she dreams of–an enduring love that won’t fizzle out and turn into a trap as her parents’ marriage has become.
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