Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day One--Christmas on 4th Street

Today is the first day of Twelve Days of Christmas in September, celebrating some great holiday-themed books that will be released over the next several weeks. I started reading 2013 Christmas books in July, so I’ve been ready to start wrapping gifts and listening to favorite carols for three months now. I hope you’ll join me for the next twelve days to get a head start on the season and on the new winter holiday romance fiction that you’ll want to include among your September through December reading this year. At the end of the twelve days, the Randomizer will select one commenter to receive a gift certificate. 

Christmas on 4th Street

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: September 24, 2013

Noelle Perkins may be a newcomer to Fool’s Gold, but she’s already in love with her life in the California town. She has loyal friends, a successful business, and a deep appreciation of all the little things that give her reason to rejoice every day. Her past has taught her never to take life’s bounty for granted, and it is a lesson she never allows herself to forget. In fact, the only things that are keeping her life from being pretty close to perfect are her lack of skill in dealing with frozen precipitation (for which her childhood in Florida and her years working in L. A. failed to prepare her), her college student employees who take off for the ski slopes without warning, and the absence of a man in her life who will give her the look of a woman well loved that is unmistakable in the expressions of her three best friends, Patience McGraw (Just One Kiss), Felicia Swift (Two of a Kind) and Isabel Carlisle (Three Little Words).

A hand injury that left Gabriel Boylan unable to continue his usual practice of volunteering to work through the holidays has sent the trauma surgeon to Fool’s Gold to spend Christmas with his fraternal twin, Gideon, Gideon’s fiancé and recently discovered son, and the Boylan parents. It’s the first Christmas Gabe has spent with all of his family in more than fifteen years, and he’s not looking forward to it. His bond with his brother is deep if rarely expressed, but lifelong tensions with his drill sergeant father who never understood Gabe’s preference for books over ballgames or his refusal to follow the family tradition of becoming a soldier have not been resolved by time and distance.

Noelle and Gabe meet when she shows up at Gideon and Felicia’s home to take care of their puppy Webster. “Heavily armed” with an umbrella, she is ready to defend her friends’ home from an invader when she realizes the hunk wearing nothing but jeans looks vaguely familiar. Then she sees the nasty-looking wound to his left hand, and the only thing she’s battling is her inclination to faint at the sight of blood. As for Gideon, he thinks his brother has connected with a kook. He’s not about to admit he’s pleased to find out that the tall blonde with the perpetual-motion mouth is not Felicia after all.

The initial attraction between Noelle and Gabe intensifies as they spend more and more time together. Gabe, who is not the sort to enjoy inactivity, even ends up working in Noelle’s shop, The Christmas Attic, the last place one would expect to find this hero who is more a bah-humbug sort than he is a holiday joy spreader. But regardless of their deepening feelings, Gabe has no intention of staying in Fool’s Gold and no plans to make a lifetime commitment, and Noelle knows she deserves someone who is brave enough to risk celebrating what they have rather than fearing what they could lose.

Ever Mallery book I read just strengthens my conviction that this writer is one of the most gifted creators of characters in contemporary romance fiction. Noelle is a joy. I adored her only a few degrees less than I adores Felicia. Her courage, her optimism, and her contagious joy make her the perfect heroine for a Christmas romance. The sensitive, intellectual Gabe is something of an anomaly among the recent batch of Fool’s Gold heroes. I loved the difference, and I loved that Mallery showed the cost war exacts on those whose battle role is different from that of the typical warrior. Given Gabe’s relationship with his father over long years and all the rest that he has endured, I could even be patient with his slowness to recognize what he and Noelle had.

One of my favorite moments in the novel came when Noelle, thinking Gabriel is gone, recognizes that his leaving does not negate all that he has given her, and that she will prevail even if she has to continue without him. For me, that moment made the HEA all the sweeter.

I loved seeing the other Fool’s Gold characters. I especially loved that Felicia, Gideon, and Carter were such integral parts of the story. One of the things that make me a series addict is seeing the HEA of characters from earlier books in progress, and it’s especially rewarding when the characters are a favorite couple, as was the case with Felicia and Gideon.

Finally, I loved that this really is a Christmas book, not just a book set in December that could as easily have been set in March or August. The seasonal rituals of the town, the genuine sentiment that the holidays evoke among families and friends, and the joy and love that are the very definition of the season are all part of what makes this book special. Some readers may find it kitschy, but I even liked the Christmas associations of the protagonists’ names. In fact, except for the ’nother-verse, same-as-the-first feel of Gabe’s flight, I liked everything about this book. “Heartwarming” is a word I find overused and too readily applied to every book with sentimental appeal, but I think Christmas on 4th Street truly deserves to be termed “heartwarming” because it is indeed emotionally uplifting, sustaining, heartening, and encouraging. It’s also sexy, and it offers the gift of a wonderfully satisfying, sigh-evoking ending. If you like Christmas romances, you definitely should include this one on your list of must-reads for 2013.

This is Book 13 in Mallery’s Fool’s Gold series. I’ve read every one of them. How many have you read? Do you have a favorite?

Bonus Review: Three Little Words

Three Little Words

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: June 30, 2013

Isabel Beebe has returned temporarily to her hometown of Fool’s Gold, California. She has two goals for her stay: (1) to manage Paper Moon Wedding Gowns, the family business begun by her grandmother, while her parents are on a world tour and update it for them to sell upon her return; (2) to avoid contact with Ford Hendrix. She’s making progress toward the first goal, but the second one became impossible since she’s just learned that her parents rented their garage apartment to Ford. Since Isabel is living in her parents’ house, there is no way she can continue to avoid him.

Isabel’s older sister, Maeve, was engaged to Ford, but, after cheating on him with one of his best friends, she dumped him for that friend days before she and Ford were to be married. A broken-hearted Ford joined the Navy, and Fool’s Gold has seen little of him in the fourteen years since then. Isabel, who was fourteen at the time, was in love with Ford in the way only a young teen can be in love. She wrote to him for ten years, sharing bits of her life, refusing to be discouraged at the lack of replies.  She only stopped writing when the man she later married was about to propose. When she’s being honest with herself, she admits that she will always have a special feeling for Ford.

Ford Hendrix knew the time had come for him to find something to do with his life other than continue with the Navy SEALs, so when his friend Justice Garrett proposes they join with a couple of other friends to set up a security training facility in Fool’s Gold, Ford decides he’s ready to return permanently. He’s enjoying spending time with his family, but his mother’s hovering is driving him nuts, as is her determination to see him and his brother Kent as happily married as the rest of their siblings. Ford hopes that renting an apartment will give him some space from his mother and sisters. When even that doesn’t discourage his mom, he persuades Isabel to be his faux girlfriend in order to stop his mother’s matchmaking efforts. With Isabel set to return to New York and open a shop there, Ford thinks she’s perfect for the role. He’s about to find out how perfect she truly is for him. But Ford doesn’t do forever, and it’s clear to him that whether she’s in New York or Fool’s Gold, Isabel is a forever girl.

I love these characters! Isabel is sweet and funny and confused and vulnerable, particularly after her divorce. Yet she has an essential optimism that I found endearing. Ford is a charmer with a terrific sense of humor and an understanding heart, an irresistible combination.  I cheer Mallory for giving readers a warrior hero with his own demons to fight who is neither a loner nor an alpha butting heads to show he’s in charge. The chemistry between them is great, but equally important Isabel and Ford like one another. And their history provides a strong link. Ford will always be the man in whom the younger Isabel confided, and Isabel will always be the young girl whose letters kept him sane in a dark and dangerous time. This is the foundation other feelings build on. I really like the two of them together and believe they can build a life together. The secondary romance between Consuelo and Kent is also wonderful, although their relationship is very different from Isabel and Ford’s. Consuelo and Kent are such an unexpected match, and yet they are great together. As always, part of the pleasure of a Fool’s Gold book is the town itself and visits with old friends.

My one complaint is that the hero who thinks he can’t love and must run away has been overdone.  I’m ready to see some variety in the conflict that postpones the HEA. Indications are that the next set within the series will feature the football players who are moving their business to Fool’s Gold. I’m eager to meet them and their heroines, but I hope to see the pattern of relationships mixed up a bit.

Do you think books in a long-running series can become too similar? What’s the difference between the comfortably familiar and the disturbingly repetitious for you?

Tuesday Review: Two of a Kind

Two of a Kind

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: June 25, 2013

Felicia Swift has a genius I. Q., the social skills of a six-year-old, and a hunger to be “normal.”  Her extraordinary intelligence made her parents so uncomfortable that they abandoned her to be brought up by scientists and scholars. She has come to Fool’s Gold to help her friends from her days as a logistician with the Special Forces set up CDS, their bodyguard school. But even though she knows she can continue to work with them, Felicia wants a job that is closer to normal. She’s ready to become part of the Fool’s Gold community and find someone with whom she can settle down and create a home and family. The first step toward her goal may be the job she’s just been offered a job. Pia Moreno, pregnant with her fourth child, has decided it’s time to become a stay-at-home mom, and the mayor thinks Felicia will be the ideal replacement. Torn between elation at the opportunity and fear that she’ll mess up, she turns to Gideon Boylan for advice, a man she remembers too well from their single encounter four years ago.

Gideon Boylan has found his place on the fringes of the Fool’s Gold community, literally and metaphorically. He bought a house outside town, isolated on the side of a mountain, and bought a radio station where he fills the air waves with classic rock during the night hours, his low, sexy voice winning fans among the ladies while he maintains his distance. Gideon may look like other people, but marked by his years as a warrior--especially the two he spent in captivity being tortured and watching his comrades die until he was the only one who survived long enough to be rescued, he is convinced that an essential part of his humanness has been lost. He believes he lacks the capacity to love. His capacity for desire however is unabated as just the sight of a certain redhead with whom he enjoyed one unforgettable night reminds him. Four years has not been long enough to dim the memory of his time with her nor its abrupt ending when Justice Garrett and Ford Hendrix stormed in the next morning to end the idyll. What were the chances that their connection with Ford would lead them all to Fool’s Gold?

Felicia’s circle of friends is enlarging, and she loves her new job. There’s still no potential husband in sight, but when the wary Gideon accepts her proposal that he be her partner in “practice dating” to develop her social skills, life seems good. If she can only make her heart accept the fact that Gideon is adamant that he’s no candidate for a happily-ever-after relationship. When the son Gideon never knew he had shows up, Gideon may not know what to do with him, but Felicia opens her heart and accepts him as family, even though she knows she’s asking for heartbreak if Gideon can’t lose his fear of love.

Susan Mallery adds more heart-stealing characters to the Fool’s Gold community with the twelfth book in her long-running series. Gideon has suffered immeasurably, and he wins the reader’s sympathy even when she’d like to shake him for his stubborn refusal to accept the gifts that are his for the taking. Felicia is wonderful, one of my favorite characters in the series. Her impressive intelligence is minuscule compared to the size of her heart and her eagerness to embrace life. Some of the most touching scenes in the book are those she shares with her girlfriends and with Gideon’s thirteen-year-old son, Carter, who is a delight. Two of a Kind brought a tear to me eye and a smile to my face, my favorite kind of story.

As always with the Fool’s Gold books, part of the pleasure of reading is the secondary characters. The characters new in the bodyguard trilogy are an appealing group, and series fans will enjoy brief appearances by favorite characters from earlier books. Mallery shows readers a new view of Justice, who has been Felicia’s only “family” for years, and Mrs. Hendrix, so intent on seeing her two single sons married and settled in Fool’s Gold that she sets up a booth at the festival for prospective wives to complete application, is one determined mama. I especially enjoyed seeing Pia and the uncannily perspicacious Mayor Marsha.

I look forward to every trip to Fool’s Gold. I already have my ticket to return on July 30 for Three Little Words, Ford and Isabel’s story, and I hope Angel’s story is in the future.

Are you a regular visitor to Fool's Gold? Who is your favorite character?

A Baker's Dozen of Reviews: Day Two--Just One Kiss

Just One Kiss

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: May 28, 2013

Justice Garrett was Patience McGraw’s first love, but he disappeared from Fool’s Gold with no warning before the young teens ever shared a kiss. Patience grew up and married at eighteen a man who couldn’t accept the responsibilities of fatherhood and left her less than a year later. She and her ten-year-old daughter Lillie live with Patience’s mother Ava, who suffers from MS. Patience is an optimist who enjoys her life in Fool’s Gold, dreaming of the day she can open Brew-haha, a coffee shop and occasionally regretting the man shortage in her hometown. One day Justice walks back into her life as unexpectedly as he walked out.

Memories of Fool’s Gold and Patience have been bright spots in the bleak early life of Justice Garrett. He has never forgotten Patience, and the adult version is even better than his memories. The grown-up Patience has the same vitality and straightforwardness that characterized her fourteen-year-old self and a new beauty that makes Justice dangerously aware of her. He’s hoping that his move back to Fool’s Gold will give him something he’s never had—a normal life, but he is convinced that his past makes him unfit for Patience. Life with his career criminal father, the witness protection program to prevent the father he had testified against from killing him, and a career as a military sniper have immersed his very soul in darkness that he doesn’t want touching the sweetness of Patience and her family. Can he build the security training facility that he and his friends Ford Hendrix and Angel Whittaker are planning for Fool’s Gold and keep his relationship with Patience one of friendship when he wants so much more?

Justice’s effect on Patience is just as potent as it was in the past, but Patience is more wary now. Abandoned by both her father and her husband, she knows men are always leaving. Even Justice left her, and however good his reason, he has made no effort to get in touch with her during the intervening years, not even when he reconnected with Ford, their mutual friend. Patience has to protect not only her own heart but also that of her vulnerable daughter who clearly is not immune to Justice’s charm. But Patience thinks Justice owes her the kiss she never got all those years ago, and as both she and Justice are about to discover just one kiss will never be enough.

Just One Kiss is Susan Mallery’s sixteenth trip to Fool’s Gold, California (eleven novels and five novellas), so perhaps it is not surprising that the basic plot in this one—hero driven by demons from his past too noble to commit to the heroine, whose roots run deep in the small town and who has her own reasons for wariness—is a familiar one. But Mallery’s characters are so appealing that plot similarities are a minor quibble. Patience is a delight—warm, funny, loyal, and resolute, and Justice, whose blond, blue-eyed good looks are the antithesis of his inner darkness, is not only a hunk but also a man of courage and decency, capable of more tenderness and love than he realizes.

The secondary characters, especially Lillie and Ava, add depth and interest to the story. As always, part of the fun of reading a Fool’s Gold book is the appearance of various members of the community, those whose HEAs are in process and those whose stories are yet to come. If you are a regular visitor to Fool’s Gold, you will want to be certain to buy your ticket for this year’s trips. (You can purchase them in advance.) If you’ve never been to Fool’s Gold, I highly recommend it to readers who enjoy small towns with a distinctive history and dozens of fascinating people. I never miss an opportunity to visit.

One of the things I especially enjoy about Fool’s Gold and other favorite fictional small towns is the presence of all ages from infants to nonagenerians, but it does make for a large cast of characters. Do you like books with dozens of characters, or do you belong to the camp that believes the focus in romance fiction belongs solidly on the H/H?

All Summer Long: A Review

All Summer Long

Fool’s Gold #9

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: July 31, 2012

Clay Stryker, the youngest of May Stryker’s sons, like his brothers, returns to Fool’s Gold to create a home where his mother and brothers have settled. He has known a great love, but with her death, he thinks that part of his life is over. He’s made a fortune as an underwear model and a butt double in movies, but at thirty, he wants to do something different with his life. He wants to become a contributing member of the Fool’s Gold community. 

His plan is to buy two hundred acres bordering the Castle Ranch on which he would grow hay and alfalfa for all the Stryker animals and organic fruits and vegetables to sell. Much of the labor would be done by Haycationers, families who pay to stay in comfortable quarters while they spend time together and rediscover a simpler way of life, living like it was the 19^th century only with indoor plumbing and internet access. With a degree in business, an apprenticeship in farm management, and a business plan that even impresses Rafe the mogul, he has the credentials to make his plan a success.  He also plans to become a volunteer firefighter.

Charlie Dixon is a firefighter. She enjoys her job and knows that she’s good at it. She has friends who love her, and she’s found a place to belong in Fool’s Gold. Charlie doesn’t bother with makeup or hairstyles or dresses. She has little confidence in herself as a woman. She grew up feeling gangly and graceless, the antithesis of her beautiful, delicate mother, a world famous ballerina who has never hesitated to let Charlie know that she fails in every way to be the daughter her mother wanted. Charlie’s sense of inadequacy as a female was strengthened by an incident with a date when she was in college, an incident that changed her in significant ways. She has never thought she wanted children, but she’s changing her mind. But first she has a problem to solve, and Clay Stryker may be just the problem solver she needs

.

I loved this book! It’s my favorite in the series. Both Clay and Charlie are wonderful characters, richly drawn with layers of complexity and genuine likeability. Tomboy Charlie has been an appealing character since she was introduced in the 2011 FG trilogy. She became more appealing as she played a larger secondary role in Summer Days and Summer Nights, and she is a terrific heroine of her own story. She’s smart, delightfully sarcastic, and fiercely loyal to her friends, and in All Summer Long, the reader discovers all these vulnerabilities that make her even more special.

Clay, of course, is fantastic looking, but he’s much more than just a hot hunk. He’s strong, intelligent, and gentle with a great sense of humor, unexpected sensitivity, and genuine niceness. The latter is a quality that is sometimes underrated. His feelings about his dead wife and his past conflict with Rafe give him depth, but it is his understanding of what it means to be judged by appearance that makes him an unusual hero. Romance fiction is filled with beautiful heroines who are objectified and written off as lacking value beyond their beauty; it is much rarer to find a hero in this role.

Even Charlie at first judges him by his looks. When Clay tells her that he wants to volunteer as a firefighter, she dismisses him: “The pose was powerful, his body well defined. He looked like a model in a shoot. Probably not a stretch for him. He’d spent the past decade looking good. No doubt his idea of a hard day was having to get a spray-on tan and a haircut. Pretty, but useless, she thought.” 

Once Charlie moves past this unfair assessment and begins to know Clay, the two are great together. Their love scenes may be the best that Susan Mallery has ever written. They are not just steamy scenes; they are also scenes that reveal truths about these lovers and the relationship that is developing between them—the best kind of love scene.

Charlie’s relationship with her mother adds another interesting layer to the story. It is easy to dismiss Dominique as a cold, cruel, self-absorbed bitch who doesn’t deserve the name of mother. Some of her actions approach the unforgivable, and the resolution may be a bit simplistic. But Mallery makes us understand something of why she has been the person she has been, and when Charlie needs her at the end, she comes through beautifully.

And speaking of endings, this one is guaranteed to bring a joyful sigh to romantic readers. If you’ve never read Susan Mallery, start with this book. It is Mallery at her finest. I highly recommend it.  As for me, I loved my visits to Fool’s Gold, even if not all of them were perfect. I’m already eager to return again for the story of Evangeline, the sister of Rafe, Shane, and Clay Stryker.

Mallery takes readers to Fool's Gold four times this summer. These four stories offer readers a doctor, a business mogul, a cowboy, and a model as heroes. One study revealed that doctors were the most popular heroes of contemporary romance with cowboys in second place. I can think of many mogul heroes, but Clay is the first underwear model I remember. Do you think the professions of heroes matter? Do you have favorites?

Tuesday Review: More HEAs in Fool’s Gold

Susan Mallery calls her fictional world of Fool’s Gold, California, “The Land of Happy Endings.”  The growing cast of appealing, distinctive characters and the uniqueness of Fool’s Gold with its man shortage and the history behind that shortage make this series a standout among the ever-growing subgenre of small-town series. I’m a long-time Susan Mallery fan, but I knew she had hit upon something special with this HQN series when I read the first book, Chasing Perfect, in April 2010. I’m hooked for the duration.

Mallery recently added three more happy endings for citizens of the small town with three books about the Hendrix triplets, younger sisters of Ethan Hendrix, hero of Almost Perfect, (Fool’s Gold Book 2).


Only Mine (July 26, 2011) is the story of Dakota, a psychologist who joins the production staff of a reality show filming in Fool’s Gold to protect the interests and image of the town and Finn Andersson, a pilot from South Salmon, Alaska, who plans to be in Fool’s Gold only long enough to make sure that his twin brothers give up their absurd idea of being contestants on the show and return to complete their final semester of college. I gave Dakota’s story four stars in my review at The Romance Dish in early August. Books 5 and 6 arrived on bookshelves on the heels of Only Mine.

Only Yours

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: HQN

Release Date: August 30, 2011

4.5 Stars

Only Yours is Montana’s story. While her sisters found their vocations, Montana has wandered, but since she has begun working with therapy dogs, she has found the sense of purpose that’s been missing. A hospital visit with a rambunctious canine called Fluffy leads to a stormy confrontation with Dr. Simon Bradley.

Simon, a plastic surgeon temporarily on staff at the Fool’s Gold hospital, is fiercely devoted to his patients, so despite his contretemps with Montana and Fluffy, when a young burn patient begs to see the puppy, Simon requests a visit from Montana and a therapy dog smaller and less exuberant than Fluffy. Prepared for a professional relationship, Simon is blindsided by the powerful attraction he feels for the sunny-natured Montana.

Physically and emotionally scarred by an abusive childhood and an isolated adolescence, Simon is a loner who defines himself by his medical practice, flying all over the world to treat burn victims. He has no family, few friends, and no place he calls home. He is the opposite of Montana with her large, closely connected family, her circle of friends, and her roots in Fool’s Gold. Their differences add to the attraction, but they also magnify the obstacles that stand in the way of an HEA.

As much as I have enjoyed the Fool’s Gold books, I have been troubled more than once by what seemed to me the real jerkiness of several of the heroes. Unlike those heroes, Simon’s past is so horrific and his coping strategies so entrenched that his behavior is understandable and forgivable. Montana is a delight and her openness, compassion, and joy are exactly what Simon needs. I loved these two together, and the developing secondary romance between the triplets’ mother and Montana’s boss was a wonderful bonus.

Only His

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: HQN

Release Date: September 27, 2011

5 Stars

Only His is Nevada’s story. Eager to prove herself without the support of the family business, she applies for the job of construction manager with Janack Construction, the company that’s building a casino/resort complex on tribal land in Fool’s Gold. She’s caught by surprise when the man interviewing her is not the head of the company but his son Tucker—her one-time friend, the man who broke her heart, and the source of her greatest humiliation.

Tucker is one job away from taking over the company from his father. He plans to spend a year in Fool’s Gold seeing the project through the first stage of construction before resuming his nomadic lifestyle. He knows how important relationships with the locals can be to his project, and Nevada Hendrix’s expertise and connections make her the best person for the construction manager’s job—if only they can move beyond their past and he can ignore his attraction to her.

As if the situation weren’t complicated enough, Caterina Stoicasescu, the self-absorbed artist and former child prodigy with whom Tucker had been obsessed for years shows up as the guest artist for one of Fool’s Gold’s many festivals. Neither he nor Nevada is prepared for the drama that follows in Cat’s wake. Nevada is also struggling with the changes the double wedding of her sisters will bring to the triplets’ relationship and with the shock of walking in on her mother at a revealing moment.

Through all the complications, Nevada and Tucker grow closer, becoming friends and lovers as well as working together. But the road to a happy ending is filled with twists and potholes. Nevada wants permanence and Tucker still sees himself as a vagabond with no ties.

This is my favorite if the 2011 Fool’s Gold books. I fell hard for Tucker. He’s a charmer with a sense of humor and a low jerk quotient, and even when he runs from commitment, it doesn’t take him long to see his wrongheadedness.  Nevada is a strong heroine, a risk-taker who excels in a male-dominated profession and addresses her relationship with Tucker with a refreshing directness. Cat adds an unexpected element, and as usual with Mallery’s books, the secondary romances are terrific additions to the main story. I loved all the humor in this one too, and I was happy to see more of Pia and Raoul.  Now I’m wondering if Charlie the firefighter, Annabelle the new librarian, and Heidi the goat girl will be the heroines of future Fool’s Gold books.

Fool’s Gold has become one of my favorite fictional places, and I look forward to many more visits.

What are your favorite fictional towns? Have you visited Fool’s Gold yet?