Bonus Review: Delectable

Delectable

By Adrianne Lee

Publisher: Forever 

(Grand Central Publishing)

Release Date: 

September 3, 2013

Quint McCoy’s thirst for success as a realtor turned him into a workaholic who left both his wife and his parents feeling as if time with them rated considerably below job demands in Quint’s list of priorities. When his father dies unexpectedly and Quint realizes that he has lost forever his chance at the fishing trip with his dad that Quint has been postponing for a year, guilt and grief consume him. His real estate business suffers, and so does his marriage. Only in fishing does he find temporary relief from the emotional fallout of his dad’s death. When he takes a two-week fishing trip with his buddies, missing his second wedding anniversary in the process, it is another blow to his already shaky marriage. Unable to cope with his guilt and anger, he refuses to discuss their problems with his wife. Running away from her attempts to reach him, he shouts at her to divorce him.

Thirsty days fishing in the wilds of Alaska allows him to accept his father’s death and his own inability to change the things he regrets, but by the time he returns to his Montana home, his business has tanked and his wife has begun divorce proceedings. He discovers just how much he has lost when he finds that his mother, who owns the prime location where Quint had established his real estate office, has not only taken over the building for her pie shop, but she has also hired his indispensable office manager. His house is empty, and his wife has signed the final papers on their divorce and loaded her belongings in a U-haul, set to start a new life in Seattle.

Callee McCoy’s free-spirited mother died when Callee was only seven, leaving her to be brought up by a critical, emotionally unavailable grandmother. When Callee met Quint McCoy, she not only found the man she believed to be the love of her life but in his parents, Molly and Jimmy McCoy, she found the loving, accepting, supportive family that she had lacked after her mother’s death. Callee was devastated by Jimmy’s death, but she thought that she and Quint could comfort one another. Instead Quint’s isolation and anger left her reeling from an even greater loss. Callee may be among the walking wounded, but she’s determined with the help of her best friend, Roxy Nash, owner of a Seattle waterfront bistro, to fulfill some dreams she gave up on when she married. But before she leaves Kalispell, Montana, she needs to return the family heirloom ring Quint had given her and to say a final goodbye to Molly.

Neither Callee nor Quint is prepared to see the other at the Big Sky Pie Shop, but they are even less prepared for the shock of Molly’s heart attack. Thankful when she survives the attack and knowing that relieving Molly of all anxiety to keep her in the best shape to survive the heart surgery she is facing, they find themselves committing to do whatever it takes to see that the Big Sky Pie shop opens according to schedule. Spending time together leaves them unable to deny that the physical attraction between them is as strong as ever, but Callee has lost her faith in Quint and is questioning whether she ever truly loved him. Quint has a lot to make up for, but Molly must confront her own failures as well. In the meantime, in their desire to help Molly, they are discovering resources they never expected to use.

Book one in Lee’s Big Sky Pie series is a sizzling romance with a likeable cast of characters, both primary and secondary. Quint behaved like a jerk, but grief can affect people in dramatic ways. I found his guilt and anger credible, and I’ve seen firsthand how grief can threaten even apparently solid relationships. Callee’s emotional baggage complicates the situation. I found both these characters engaging, and I love the reunion trope. From the get go, I was rooting for a reconciliation.

The secondary characters add richness to the story. Molly is a darling, and even though Jimmy dies before the story begins, memories of his big heart and homespun wisdom make him a definite presence. Single-mother Andrea Lovette, Quint’s office manager and Callee’s friend, Quint and Callee’s best buds, and the young pastry chef all add dimensions to the book as well as tease readers with the possibilities for sequels.

All that keeps me from giving Delectable a high recommendation is that I felt Quint and Callee’s problems were resolved too easily. I would have enjoyed the book even more had there been less emphasis given to the hunka-burning-love scenes and more attention devoted to the actual repairing of the couple’s damaged relationship. The book is only around 50,000 words. Maybe it just needed a couple more chapters. I’m not convinced that Quint and Callee’s HEA won’t hit some major bumps in a few months or a few years. However, that dissatisfaction is not great enough to keep me from suggesting to you that this novel is worth a try nor from looking forward to other books in the series. Delicious, the story of Jane Wilson, the young pastry chef, releases December 3, and book 3, Delightful, on February 4, 2014. I haven’t been able to discover the protagonist of that one, but I have a list of four more characters whose stories I’m hoping to read. My top candidate is Quint’s widowed friend.

Lee includes a recipe for cherry pie that I am eager to try. Books with recipes are trendy now. Do you like them? Have you ever tried a recipe you discovered in a romance novel?

Tuesday Review: The Wishing Thread

The Wishing Thread

By Lisa Van Allen

Publisher: Ballantine

Release Day: 

September 3, 2013

Aubrey Van Ripper has known since girlhood that she bore the responsibility to carry on the generations-old tradition of knitting magic into the scarves, sweaters, and other items sold in the Stitchery, the family shop in Tarrytown, New York, next door to Sleepy Hollow. Aubrey and her sisters were taught the family craft by their Aunt Mariah. Bitsy, the oldest sister, rejected the very idea of magic and turned her back on the superstition and poverty of life in the Stitchery. Her goal is to see that her children have a safe and normal life. Meggie, the youngest sister, also flees at the first opportunity and became a wanderer in search of her mother.  When Mariah has a fatal heart attack in the middle of a fight to save the Stitchery and its environs from those who want to destroy the neighborhood to make way for a mall, the sisters discover that their aunt has left the Stitchery with its long history and its tower of sacrificed treasures to all of them. Bitsy and Meggie want to sell it, a move that Aubrey vehemently opposes.

Each of the sisters is engaged in her own journey that includes coming to terms with her past, accepting the self she is in the process of becoming, and reconciling the bonds and tensions that are unique to sisters, but it is Aubrey’s story that lies at the heart of the book. Her aloneness even in the face of the abiding love she shares with her sisters and her best friend is tempered by her developing relationship with Vic Olivera, a Tappan Square neighbor who becomes her ally in the fight to save their neighborhood and a man who sees past her reputation and defenses to love who Aubrey truly is. But will the heritage that Aubrey is committed to preserving require the sacrifice of the relationship that offers her the greatest happiness she has known?

The Wishing Thread is a mix of women’s fiction and romance with touches of magical realism. The characters capture the reader’s interest and affections, and the story teases the reader with the question of what is real and what is magic.

From the Great Book in the Hall: There is, of course, always a question—a question of the difference between what is real and what is true. A thing can be true without being real. You may not grasp this entirely, but don’t worry. This is the nature of faith, of magic, of art, of a good life’s work: If you ever understand perfectly what you are doing, you should stop right away.

Van Allen’s use of knitting as real craft, as magic, and as metaphor has particular resonance given the role needlecraft has played in women’s history. Her prose has a lovely lyricism that I found greatly appealing. If you are a fan of writers such as Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen, I predict you will enjoy this book as much as I did.

I find fascinating the fusion of the real and the fantastic that is central to magical realism, but I know some readers dislike it, as reactions to some of Lisa Kleypas’s Friday Harbor books attest. What do you think?  

Tuesday Review: Love in Plain Sight

Love in Plain Sight

By Jeanie London

Publisher: Harlequin (Superromance)

Release Date: September 3, 2013

Courtney Gerard, sister of Mac Gerard (With This Fling, Harlequin Blaze, 2004), may have grown up a child of privilege, but that doesn’t mean that she has not committed her heart as well as her considerable intelligence and energy to doing her best in her position as a caseworker for the New Orleans Department of Children and Family Services. She is shocked and troubled when a classroom fight uncovers a major error in a file she inherited from a deceased co-worker. The teenager on the department’s records as Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz is someone else. Somehow in the chaos after Katrina, a mistake was made, and it is only been discovered eight years later. No one knows what happened to the real Araceli. While the case is being investigated, Courtney is placed on administrative leave.

Marc DiLeo, younger brother of Dominic DiLeo (Then There Were Three, Harlequin Superromance, 2011), was a bounty hunter bringing in big bucks tracking down wealthy “skips” until an accident left him with a shattered leg and a no choice but to take a break from his job with its physical demands. At the insistence of his loving family, he left Colorado Springs and is back home in New Orleans, caught in a cycle of physical therapy, pain pills, and corroding self-pity. His wise mother thinks he needs something to focus on instead of his own recovery. When Courtney, impatient with the pace of the government investigation and concerned about the missing girl and about the fact that her professional reputation along with those of her supervisor and her dead co-worker are at risk, asks Mama DiLeo if Marc can advise her on how to investigate the case, Mama decides Marc himself should take the job.

Marc refuses, but when all the DiLeo weigh in to persuade him, he decides anything is better than dealing with his family. Since he can’t drive, Courtney is drafted as his chauffeur and assistant. Soon the two of them are chasing leads in an all out effort to find Araceli. The more time they spend together, the more the attraction between them grows. But they are both wary of involvement, and they are both heart deep in their search for the missing girl, who becomes more real to them with every detail they uncover. Will they find Araceli, and will they allow themselves to accept the love that can give them the HEA they never expected to find?

The second of Jeanie London’s DiLeo Family books blends romance and mystery in a story with rich contexts and strong emotional appeal. The details of Araceli’s life and of the chaos confronting the New Orleans Department when their paper records were destroyed by Katrina and the nightmare of tracking the 2000 children who were evacuated from the city grounds Love in Plain Sight in compelling reality. Because London weaves first-person chapters in Araceli’s voice into the novel, the reader cares about her happiness as an individual rather than as a statistic from the early chapters of the book. Since both the Gerard and DiLeo families are introduced in earlier books, London’s fans have expanded contexts for both hero and heroine.

Courtney is a sympathetic character from the beginning, given her genuine concern for her clients and her colleagues, but Marc is a harder sell. A bounty hunter’s job does not immediately evoke sympathy, and frankly Marc comes across as a jerk who fails to appreciate his having survived a near-fatal accident and the love and support of his lively family. He is also deliberately rude to Courtney. But Harley Prince Gerard, Courtney’s sister-in-law and Marc’s practically-a-sister, assures Courtney that Marc is a jerk with a marshmallow center, and as the reader, along with Courtney, begins to see the softness he struggles to hide, Marc becomes more sympathetic. Long before the end, I was rooting for their HEA.

If you like your romances with a touch of realism, a helping of mystery, and a romance with plenty of sizzle and credible complications, I think you will like Love in Plain Sight. I love the DiLeo family, and since there are still unmarried brothers, I hope we see more of them in future books.



I’ve been a fan of family series since I read my first Nora Roberts book, one of her MacGregor family tales, back in 1985. I never tire of them and have a hard time choosing a favorite from among my many keepers. What’s your favorite family series?

Saturday Review: The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing

By Kristan Higgins

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: August 27, 2013

(reissue of February 2010 release)

Lucy Lang is the youngest widow in a family in which being widowed young has become a family tradition. Her grandmother was widowed young, and her mother and two aunts, Rose and Iris, are known in Mackerly, Rhode Island, as the Black Widows, a nickname that plays on their maiden name (Hungarian Fekete translated into English as Black) and references the fact that they were all widowed before they turned fifty. Lucy’s husband, Jimmy Mirabelli, died in an automobile accident before they celebrated their first anniversary. More than five years later, Lucy still has not really moved on with her life. She has the training and the talent to make her one-time dream of becoming an award-winning pastry chef a reality, but she has given up that dream to become the bread expert in Bunny’s, the family bakery where her mother and aunts work. She creates desserts for classes she teaches and for friends and family, but she can’t eat them herself because they taste like ashes.

Ethan Mirabelli is the younger brother of Jimmy. He and Lucy are long-time friends. In fact, it was he who introduced Lucy to Jimmy. In the months following Jimmy’s death, Ethan was her rock, the only one who seemed to understand the intensity of Lucy’s grief. A couple of years earlier, the friendship that had sustained Lucy through her most difficult days added another dimension. Lucy and Ethan became lovers. She trusts Ethan to understand that their friendship with benefits doesn’t change her feelings for Jimmy. In fact, it doesn’t even slow down the frequency of her re-viewing her wedding video or enable her to visit Jimmy’s grave. Ethan, who has been in love with Lucy forever, is endlessly patient and nurturing, trusting that in time Lucy will let go of her grief and realize what the two of them share.

When Lucy’s younger sister Corinne gives birth to a daughter, Lucy is made aware of how much she longs for children of her own. So great is this longing that Lucy decides she will reject the family pattern of remaining a widow and look for a second husband. Her primary criterion is that he be a nice guy for whom she will feel a tepid affection but who will not inspire the kind of all-encompassing love that she felt for Jimmy. Such a relationship will provide a father for her children but will not affect Jimmy’s status as her One True Love or put her heart at risk for another shattering. Her new plan requited that she end the benefits stage of her friendship with Ethan, but she is unprepared for how great the loss will be when Ethan accepts her decision by distancing himself from her or for how troubling she finds the idea of Ethan with another woman.

Like all of Kristan Higgins’s books, The Next Best Thing is eminently readable with characters who are believable and generally likeable, family dynamics that are charged with loyalties, friction, twists, and quirks, and humor balanced with some darker emotions. The ethnic references to Lucy’s Hungarian ancestry and to the Mirabelli’s Italian heritage add color and seasoning to the mix. Her trademark animal companion plays a less prominent role than is sometimes the case, but Fat Mickey, the curmudgeonly cat who was a gift to Lucy from Ethan, will surely have his admirers. Lucy’s desserts are so scrumptious that I’m persuaded the descriptions alone sent my scale edging up several pounds.

Despite all these reasons for liking The Next Best Thing, it is still not one of my favorites among Kristan Higgins books. I reread it with the hope that returning to it after seeing Lucy and Ethan’s HEA in process in the second Mackerly book, Somebody to Love (2012), would give me a greater appreciation for it. It didn’t. Lucy still impresses me as neurotic, her epiphany about Ethan’s role in her life still seems too late, and I still worry that Ethan deserves more. I remain an ardent Kristan Higgins fan, but I will reserve my unreserved raves for other Higgins books. Stay tuned for bells and balloons when I review her October release, The Perfect Match, in a few weeks.

Are you ever disappointed in a book from a favorite author? I make a distinction between a disappointing book, one in which I see clear strengths but that still fails to reach the standard I expect from the author, and a book that is either a failure or a Did Not Finish. Do you make such a distinction?

Tuesday Review: A Most Devilish Rogue

A Most Devilish Rogue

By Ashlyn Macnamara

Publisher: Random House/Ballantine

Release Date: August 27, 2013

 George Upperton gives every evidence of being a typical, bored, self-indulgent young aristocrat. He wastes his time and substance drinking and gambling and paying the bills of his extravagant mistress. When his luck turns, it does so with a vengeance. Gambling debts are accumulating beyond his means to meet them, and his mistress announces that she is pregnant. Her brother appears to enforce her exorbitant demands with his fists. When his mother presses him to attend a house party where she plans to introduce him to eligible young women, George agrees, hoping to win enough money in high stakes card games to meet his debts, pay off his mistress and provide for the child, and pay the debts and provide for the family of a friend who committed suicide. It is the last purpose that suggests there may be more to George than appearances indicate.

Isabelle Mears and her young son Jack live in the village near the country estate of George’s friend Benedict Revelstoke (A Most Scandalous Proposal). The daughter of a duke, Isabelle was seduced and abandoned by a rake and cast out by her family when they discovered she was pregnant. Only the hospitality and friendship of a servant Biggles, a healer and herbalist, save her from prostitution. Isabelle is tolerated by the villagers as she helps Biggles prepare and dispense her cures and rears Jack.

George and Isabelle meet when George escapes the house party for a stroll on the beach just as young Jack, a mischievous six-year-old, is caught by a wave and in danger of drowning. George rescues young Jack, but he is surprised when Isabelle responds to the rescue with a mix of gratitude and hostility. She is understandably wary of charming strangers, regardless of how helpful or attractive they are, and George knows that however beautiful the boy’s mother may be, she is a complication he does not need.

The relationship might have ended there had Jack not been kidnapped and a desperate Isabelle approached Revelstoke’s manor house for help. Despite a humiliating scene when one of the guests exposes Isabelle’s shame, George and others commit to searching for Jack. The next day Biggles also disappears. George is Isabelle’s only support during the difficult days that follow with no trace of Jack. The spark of attraction that was between them from their first meeting grows and deepens as they spend time together. But George can’t ignore his other responsibilities, and Isabelle’s pride is an obstacle as great.

Both George and Isabelle are promising characters. I found it refreshing that George is an untitled gentleman, and his suppressed love for music added another interesting dimension to his character. Isabelle’s status as a single mother whose past is common knowledge makes her an unusual heroine, and her years surviving in a world far different than the one into which she was born demonstrate her strength and tenacity. The kidnapping plot was a credible way of placing them in one another’s company and creating an opportunity for intimacy. But I was bothered when character development and the fate of young Jack and Biggles, the only friend Isabelle has had since she was disowned by her family, became mere background for sizzling scenes between George and Isabelle. The Most Devilish Rogue is not a bad book, but for me it is a disappointing one.

Kidnapping plots are common in romance fiction. Sometimes they work wonderfully well, and sometimes they are too clearly contrived. Do you like kidnapping plot? What romance authors have used it most effectively?

Romance Matters to Me

August is Read-a-Romance Month. Now I know as dedicated romance readers, we typically read more than one romance a month. In fact, many of us read more than one romance a week. But Read-a-Romance Month is not about numbers. It’s about celebrating a genre that is read by nearly 75 million people—and that statistic is from 2008. The audience for romance fiction may have grown in the past five years. Romance fiction topped $1.4 billion in sales last year, far more than the other most popular categories of genre fiction: mystery ($728.2) and science fiction/fantasy ($590.2). And although the literary elitists don’t want to admit it, sales of romance fiction help to fund the publication of literary fiction. I haven’t seen any statistics on this, but based on my reading habits and those of other romance readers I know, my guess is that a nice chunk of the sales in literary fiction and other genre fiction comes from the wallets of romance readers who, being generally more broadminded than their critics, also read mystery, science fiction/fantasy, and even literary fiction.

Bobbi Dumas, a freelance writer, Kirkus reviewer, and avid fan of romance fiction, founded ReadARomanceMonth.com where this month 93 writers are sharing their thoughts on why romance matters. I’ve checked out their comments every day so far. Some of them have made me laugh, some of them have made me cry, some of them have made me cheer wildly, some of them have left me amazed at their insight, and all of them have made me proud to be part of a community that includes so many gifted, intelligent, gracious women. There are writers on the list whose books I’ve been reading for nearly three decades, writers that I’ve discovered only recently, and writers whose books I’ve yet to read, but I’m grateful to them all and to Bobbi for giving me the opportunity to read what they have to say.

If you haven’t visited, eight days remain for you to stop by, leave a comment, and enter the great contests.  Cathy Maxwell, Jill Barnett, and Molly O’Keefe, three writers who have given me many hours of reading pleasure, are on the schedule for today, and you can click on the names of those who commented on any one of the 23 previous days and read their comments. I can guarantee you will find some of your favorite writers there.

I’ve been a romance reader for more than half a century, and I can look back and see that it has mattered during all the seasons of my life. It mattered when I was a ten-year-old, bored and complaining, and my mother put Pride and Prejudice in one hand and an Emilie Loring novel in the other and said “Read these.”  It mattered when I was fifteen, insecure, suffering from unrequited love, and convinced that only beautiful girls found True Love, and Jane Eyre reminded me that plain girls did too. It mattered when I was twenty-two and my life was shattered and “happy ending” seemed a cruel mockery, and Mary Stewart took me to Corfu and helped me believe again. It mattered when I was in grad school and Old English had me ready to pull my hair out and counting performances of a Colley Cibber play left me loathing the 18^th century until Patricia Veryan’s Golden Chronicles showed me an 18^th century filled with danger, intrigue, and passion. It mattered both times I spent endless hours in a hospice facility watching a beloved parent die by degrees and novels by writers such as Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Christina Dodd, Nora Roberts, Kathleen Gilles Seidel helped me escape to worlds where HEAs were assured and return to my own stronger. It matters today when the novels I read by several dozen autobuy authors make me laugh and cry and fall in love every day.

When I was still in academia and a covert reader of romance, a colleague caught me reading a romance novel on my lunch break and sneered, “You know those books will rot your brain.” He was wrong, of course. A couple of thousand romance novels later, my brain is doing fine, in no small part due to the things I learn and the hope that is replenished from reading “those books.”

Being part of Read-A-Romance Month is one way we as readers can say, “Yes, romance matters to me.”  Why does romance matter to you?

Note: All statistics cited are from the Romance Writers of America site.

Bonus Review: It Takes Two to Tangle

It Takes Two to Tangle

By Theresa Romain

Publisher: 
Sourcebooks Casablanca

Release Date: 
September 3, 2013

Henry Middlebrook has returned from the Napoleonic War a changed man, externally and internally. The most obvious change is that he has lost the use of his right hand, a devastating loss to an artist. His attempts at painting with his left hand have been less than stellar, and his frustration at daily adding to the list of things he can no longer do gracefully such as present flowers to a lady or write a response to a letter is mounting daily. Worst of all, Henry no longer feels at ease in the society that he left behind when, over the objections of his older brother, the Earl of Tallant, he became a soldier three years ago.

His brother and sister-in-law are persuaded that a wife is just what Henry needs to ease his adjustment back into tonnish activities, and on this issue at least, Henry is in total agreement. When he meets Caroline, Countess of Stratton, a beauty who has taken England by storm since her own return to London after the death of her elderly husband, he decides she will be the perfect wife. Given the number of gentleman in Caroline’s court, he enlists the help of her companion, Frances Whittier, a woman whose honesty presents a marked contrast to the mannered moves of most other guests.

Upon the urging of his sister in-law, Henry makes the acquaintance of Caroline, Lady Stratton, a widow and one of the most sought-after catches of the season. One look at Caroline and Henry knows that he needs Caroline: he needs her confidence, connections and, most especially, her popularity. Seeing the competition for Caroline's attention, Henry employs the assistance of Caroline's companion, Frances Whittier, a woman of wit and acumen in whose company he feels surprisingly at ease.

Frances Whittier, daughter of a baronet and six years a widow herself, has accustomed herself to blending into the background as companion to her cousin, the beautiful Caroline. The handsome Mr. Middlebrook wins her interest and her sympathy when they meet, and she agrees to aid him in his courtship of the popular Caroline. When Henry’s first visit to Caroline ends awkwardly, she sends him an encouraging letter that he concludes was penned by Caroline. He asks for Frances’s help in writing a response, and Frances, conscious that correcting his error would embarrass both of them, chooses not to correct his error. As the exchange of letters continues, complications ensue, Henry, whose focus on Caroline is fixed, is slow to realize that it is Frances who is his perfect match.

It Takes Two to Tangle is the first book in Romain's Matchmaker Trilogy. It is a promising start to the series. Henry’s heroism, both in the late war and in his attempt to rebuild his life, evokes ready sympathy. I also found his relationship with his brother and sister-in-law interesting. Their affection and concern for him rang true, as did their inability to fully understand the changes that had taken place within him and their inability to ease his way back into the world. But it is Frances, the more complex character, who wins this reader’s greater allegiance. Her intelligence, her ability to understand those around her, and the past that has shaped her make her an appealing, layered character.

She was always out of step. She had grown up in wealth but married a workingman. Now she served as a companion, yet she raised her eyes to the son of an earl. She did not know for which world she was better suited. At times, both lives chafed, as though she lived in a garment cut wrongly and fitted for another's body.

Romance readers who know Romain through her Christmas romances, Season for Temptation and Season for Surrender (with Season for Scandal scheduled to be released October 1) will find the same charm and blend of humor and darker elements in this book. If you haven’t discovered Romain yet, this first book in a new series is an excellent way to remedy that omission. The second book in the Matchmakers series, To Charm a Naughty Countess, will be released in May 2014. Romain describes it as a marriage-in-trouble romance, one of my favorite tropes. I’m hooked already.

Correction: Ms. Romain tells me that Season for Scandal is the marriage in trouble story. To Charm a Naughty Countess is a take on Pygmalion with a virgin hero. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that sounds like a story I don't want to miss.

Matchmakers seem to be popular in historical and contemporary romance fiction. What’s your favorite matchmaker romance?