Marie August's Blog, page 13

Book Review: The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson

A humorous, chick-lit, coming-of-age novel

The Rites and Wrongs of Janice Wills by Joanna Pearson

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: July 1, 2011
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Pages: 224
Source: Amazon Vine
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This is a fun debut by a talented author. It is a fast, well-written book with a cute premise.

Janice Wills is a seventeen-year-old "nerd," an excellent student who goes to high school in the small town of Melva, North Carolina. Janice longs to become a cultural anthropologist, and this book is sprinkled with funny examples of her attempts at objective, scientific observations of the rites of passage that teenagers go through in her town. Janice would have gladly stayed entirely on the fringes of those rites for the rest of her high-school career, but much against her will--at least initially--she is pushed into participating directly in one of the biggest rites of passage in her town, the annual Miss Livermush pageant.

This book is a humorous version of the classic, coming-of-age, young-adult novel, but there are many useful insights sprinkled among the comedy. In a YA field that is overflowing with dark, depressing fiction, it was a pleasure to spend some delightfully entertaining moments with this engaging novel. I look forward to more comedic works by this author.

Readers who liked this book might also enjoy: Populazzi by Elise Allen, Also Known as Rowan Pohi by Ralph Fletcher, Smart Girls Get What They Want by Sarah Strohmeyer, and The Oracle of Dating and The Oracle Rebounds by Allison van Diepen.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Subcharacters: 5

Writing: 4

Chick-Lit Plot: 4

Overall: 4

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program.

Book Review: Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray

Absolutely wonderful romance novel of 60-year-olds in love

Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: February 8, 2012
Publisher: Broadway Books
Pages: 242 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

The Cacciamanis and the Rosemans, who live in a small town near Boston, have been feuding for three generations, and Julie Roseman has no idea why. Yes, their families each run a florist's shop, but there is plenty of business for both stores. In the process of this feud, 15 years before, Julie's daughter Sandy fell in love with Tony Cacciamani when they were both 16. They were caught trying to elope and their families broke up their relationship. In addition to that, there have been countless vindictive, retaliatory acts on the part of both families over the years, and each side of the feud regards the other as criminal scum.

When Julie married Mort Roth at age 20, her parents and Mort asked her to stop working in the flower shop since they could only afford one employee. Julie worked a few years as a secretary, then became a stay-at home wife and mother to her two daughters for thirty years--until the day when she and Mort were 55, and he dumped her to run off with a 38-year-old woman. At that point Julie's parents were dead, and since they had left the flower shop entirely to Julie, Mort could not demand a piece of it in the divorce.

Julie has taken back her maiden name and has been running the shop the past five years, greatly enjoying the flowers, but struggling with the financial side of the business, both keeping the books and generating capital. At the start of this story, the economy is in a downturn, and Julie's business is barely surviving. In hopes of improving her chances of saving it, she attends a conference for small business owners and meets Romeo Cacciamani in person for the first time. She is amazed to find that she feels no animosity toward this handsome man with kind eyes, and he clearly holds no resentment personally toward her. She had heard from a distance that his wife had died a few years ago, and when she expresses her sympathy, Romeo asks her to have coffee with him. Thus quietly begins a relationship that is a source of wonder and emotional rebirth to the two of them, but is anything but to their respective families. When the Cacciamani and Roseman clans inevitably find out about Julie and Romeo's romance, all hell breaks lose, and everyone from Romeo's 90-year-old mother to Julie's 32-year-old realtor daughter do everything in their power to break up the star-crossed lovers.

This exquisitely written Romeo-and-Juliet tale updated into a contemporary romance between two mature lovers is a joy to read. Though there is a lot of poignancy in the story, it is also filled with wry, ironic humor that is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The author also creates love scenes between her two mature protagonists that are both sensual and incredibly tender. Best of all, the ending of the story is uplifting, triumphant and very, very entertaining.

I loved this book when I read it for the first time many years ago, and it was just as terrific an experience for me the second time around.

In short, everything about this book is flawless as far as I'm concerned, and this book is a true keeper.

The Kindle edition I read is well edited and formatted.

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: The Wild Child (Bride Trilogy) by Mary Jo Putney

Mary Jo Putney at her best--which is stunning!

The Wild Child (Bride Trilogy) by Mary Jo Putney

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: May 30, 2006
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 384 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

I love this story! The empathic, sensitive, animal-healing hero is to die for, and I really love the heroine, especially her psychic abilities and the way the hero and heroine both love animals so much and connect emotionally and spiritually over this love.

MJP's major talent is very much in evidence in every part of this story. I am in awe of her elegant use of flashbacks, the careful, believable, moving character development with great motivation, the extraordinary romance, friendship and passion between the hero and heroine. Also, MJP's special gift, very much in evidence here, is interweaving the relationship between the hero and heroine with their relationships with their blood families as well as their "families of affiliation." Particularly in this case the latter provides a welcome chance to revisit old friends in Rebecca and Kenneth.

I find the whole setting of the heroine's incredible gardens enthralling, including her artistic ability with flower arrangements and "carving" bushes in the topiary and elsewhere. I love Meriel's amazing tree house and the lovely image of the beautiful horse Dom gets her with hair the color of hers. The scene with the fox Meriel and Dom save is very moving, as is the relationship she has with her East Indian rescuer and his romance with an important subcharacter. So many riches in one book, I have to say more.

I experienced the prologue as incredibly powerful--what a fantastic hook! I myself never suspected for a moment who the villain is until the climax, but his evil is not at all "out of the blue." Also well done is the interweaving of the theme of the castle ruin throughout the whole book. It serves multiple linked purposes, including the ultimate regaining of the heroine's blocked memory. I am tempted to hazard my own response to the symbology here--that the castle ruin can be seen to represent (among other evocative images and metaphors) the heroine's family roots, and a basic solidity in her core character that allows her to heal from the horrendous psychological trauma in her early childhood shown in the prologue. Conceptually, the castle ruin also provides opportunities for MJP's wonderful, subtle wit, which shines throughout the book.

The plotting altogether is superb. For example, I love what MJP does with the madhouse and the way that the hero's helping Ames' daughter Jena leads to Dom later getting assistance to help rescue Meriel from the same place. I like the interweaving of what is happening with Kyle, the hero's twin, with what is happening with Dom, the hero, throughout the book.

I found myself wondering about halfway through if Dom and Kyle are going to change places in the end as a powerful echo of their switching places throughout the book. So for me it is extremely well motivated and "organically cohesive" when MJP does that switch figuratively, in a believable psychological way, with Dom and Kyle realizing that Dom is very like their father, rooted in family and tradition and the land, and that Kyle is a natural wanderer. Kyle also realizes that only he has been keeping himself from following his dream and that he doesn't have to resent anyone or anything for that situtation anymore--he can remedy it himself.

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Setting: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Time Enough for Love by Suzanne Brockmann

Review of Kindle edition of this time travel romance, first published in 1997 by Bantam Loveswept

Time Enough for Love by Suzanne Brockmann

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: August 31, 2010
Publisher: Bantam; Reissue edition
Pages: 290 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Terrorists have stolen the time machine of 42-year-old, brilliant scientist, Chuck Della Croce. In the midst of attempting to assassinate him, they murder his best friend and bodyguard, as well as the woman Chuck has secretly loved for seven years, Maggie Winthrop, who takes a bullet for him and dies in his arms. Chuck evades the pursuit of his enemies, who have stolen the latest version of his time machine, and escapes into the past using the earliest prototype of his machine. He had aimed to land in the past shortly after he and Maggie first met in order to change events and reverse her murder, but two problems arise. First, the early prototype has sent him to the past stark naked, and second, it was slightly off on its dates and Chuck has landed in Maggie's yard shortly prior to their first being introduced. As a result, Maggie has no idea who the blood-caked, wild-haired, naked man is who is pounding on her door, and she assumes he's a madman who needs to be locked up for his own safety, and hers.

Bestselling romantic-suspense author Suzanne Brockmann wrote this time-travel romance for the Bantam Loveswept romance line in 1997, when she was still writing short contemporary romance novels. Her use of a time machine was then, and remains until this day, a daring choice for contemporary romance. I can myself only recall one other romance author who has done this, Susan Sizemore in her first novel, Wings of the Storm. The prevailing reasoning for this artistic choice is that romance readers are bored by the technical details of scientific hardware. Also, by using magic instead of a time machine, the author can make the time-travel one-way, thereby eliminating the mind-warping paradoxes which are a crucial and inevitable element of plotting when a science-fiction author employs a time-travel machine.

This book is certainly full of time-travel paradoxes, though not as (to me, anyway) utterly weird and unbelievable as the main one in the well-known time-travel saga, The Terminator. In that movie, an already-existing adult male, John Connor, sends his already-existing adult friend, Kyle Reese, back in time to save his mother, Sarah Connor, at a date prior to his conception, whereupon Kyle proceeds to impregnate Sarah and become John's father. My attitude to this paradox was, and still is, "Are you kidding me?" I never had moments of stunned, irritated disbelief like that when reading Brockmann's story.

The most compelling part of this book, something I hadn't forgotten 15 years after originally reading this book as I re-read it recently, is the image of a sexy, naked man landing in the heroine's front yard. The concept of naked time-travel only bothers me if it isn't well motivated--which is another problem I have with The Terminator. I don't see any logical reason for a robot to arrive naked after time-travel. If machine parts can come through, why not clothes? In this book, the nakedness is motivated sufficiently as being caused by an early prototype of the time machine which, presumably, could only transmit animal matter. In The Terminator, the nudity was no doubt included because it is both a shocking image to men in the audience, and a visual treat to the women and gay men in the audience to view Arnold Schwarzenegger's gorgeous, ripped physique of 1984. In the case of this story, Brockmann can also be excused for choosing to follow in the footsteps of the Terminator's nude-time-travel tradition because it creates an utterly memorable and enthralling "cute meet." The purpose of a romance novel is to immediately establish sexual sparks, and it is extremely sexy to have the handsome hero frantically pound on the heroine's door, gloriously naked with mussed hair and the body of a male model.

Finally, another daring thing for the contemporary-romance genre that this book includes is a romantic triangle. This is a huge "no-no" for the contemporary romance genre and always has been. Romance fans are not ultimately upset by it, however, because the triangle is a faux one in that the two men involved are the same guy, 35-year-old Charles and 42-year-old Chuck. The problem of Maggie falling in love with two versions of one man--and each version being jealous of his other self's physical relationship with Maggie--is quite cleverly resolved by Brockmann in order to arrive at the classic happy-ever-after ending that is an essential element of every romance novel.

I read this book in a Kindle ebook version, which is well formatted and edited.

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Time-Travel Plot: 4

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: For a Good Time, Call... by Trish Jensen

Wonderfully sexy and funny, contemporary romance

For A Good Time, Call... by Trish Jensen

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: October 31, 2012
Pages: 150 pages
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Source: Gift
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Sherry Spencer is a fresh-faced, 30-year-old, advertising whiz kid who's won so many awards, her boss grants her free rein to accept or decline any client she wants. Her business success has not hardened her into uncaring callousness, however, and when Sherry encounters a twenty-dollar bill that has scrawled on it, "For a good time call Kit," with a local phone number included, she doesn't hesitate to call and warn the hapless "Kit" that she has a potentially serious problem.

When "Kit" answers her call, Sherry is startled to discover that "Kit" is a man--a very intense and forceful man. Kit insists that Sherry shred the bill, but she refuses to waste that much money, leaving him no option but to meet her in person and exchange the defaced bill for one of his own.

Christian "Kit" Fleming is the CEO of Bella Luna Industries, Inc., a huge account that Sherry's boss very much wants for his firm, something that Kit figures out soon after he meets Sherry and learns her name. He is intensely attracted to her beauty, intelligence and her strength--though he also finds her stubbornness highly irritating, as irritating as she obviously finds his own strong-mindedness. Kit withholds the quite pertinent information of his full identity in order to spring it on her when they are formally introduced the next morning in the boardroom of her company.

Kit very much enjoys catching the formidable Sherry off guard, but he soon discovers that she has more than earned her superlative reputation, and he becomes as determined to have Sherry in charge of his account as he is to lure her into his bed. Unfortunately for both his zealous goals, the complete control that Kit requires above everything else, in all situations, is something Sherry will never grant him.

This romantic comedy has a terrific "cute meet," and the clash of steely wills between Kit and Sherry provides the reader with a joyous romp. I personally love reading a contemporary romance like this which offers head-butting between lovers who are true equals, along with plenty of amusing repartee that fans the sensual flames.

I read this book as a Kindle ebook. It is well edited and formatted, making it easy to read.

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Romantic Comedy Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5
 

Book Review: The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood

A mystical tale of star-crossed young lovers in 1800 England

The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: July 20, 2010
Pages: 304 pages
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Source: Amazon Vine
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Sixteen-year-old Jessamine Luxton lost her mother when she was only four and has lived her entire life with her distant, cold father in a "cottage" on the estate of the Duke of Northumberland. Her home is, in fact, an ancient stone chapel that sits next to the ruins of an abbey destroyed presumably during the era of Cromwell when Catholics were hunted down or driven out of England. Her father, Thomas Luxton, works for the Duke as an apothecary. He cares for the Duke's sick family and employees and in his spare time obsessively studies the properties of medicinal herbs, particularly plants that are known to be deadly poison. Thomas keeps an exotic collection of these plants in a walled, padlocked area Jessamine calls his poison garden.

Jessamine begs her father to let her help him with either his healing work or his poison garden, but he insists the former is too gruesome and the latter too dangerous. Instead, he relegates her to being his housekeeper, which involves maintaining three gardens of her own, for vegetables, herbs and dye plants, as well as sewing, cooking, cleaning, and caring for their small collection of farm animals. Her father is often gone for days at a time treating sick people, and when he is home he rarely talks to her, to the point that Jessamine worries that she has forgotten how to speak. Then one day Tobias Pratt, the owner of the local madhouse, shows up and insists Thomas take charge of an odd orphan named Weed who appears to be about Jessamine's age. Pratt claims Weed has cured so many of the mentally ill in his keeping with herbal teas that his asylum is almost empty. He says that while Weed is putting him out of business, he'd be a welcome help to a healer like Thomas. Greedy for Weed's botanical knowledge, Jessamine's father agrees to take him in, and Jessamine is delighted to at last have some companionship. But Weed is almost as withdrawn as her father. For days Weed hides in their cellar, and it is hard for Jessamine to get him to eat or talk to her. But she is determined to win his confidence, in much the same way she has earned the trust of feral cats in the woods near her home. She talks and talks to Weed, gradually growing very attached to him as he opens up to her little by little. And she can't help being drawn to the startling beauty of his unruly, dark hair, pale skin and "emerald green eyes...like twin jewels." Pratt believes Weed is a witch and Jessamine's father thinks he has an enviable genius with herbs. But as Jessamine gets to know Weed more and more deeply, she learns the actual truth is far more shocking than either of those guesses.

Previous to writing this YA historical, fantasy novel, Maryrose Wood's YA novels have been light and humorous with contemporary settings, so the dark tone and historical setting of this novel may surprise her fans. The first 40 pages of the book is almost entirely made up of the musings of the heroine about her lonely life, both as first-person narrative and entries in her journal. Jessamine longs to be of use to other people rather than hidden away from the world at the mercy of her disinterested father, and this is shown as well as told through the author's atmospheric and poetic prose.

The second part of the book explores Jessamine's relationship with Weed. The writing here is lovely, too, but the mood is more hopeful because Jessamine is no longer painfully alone. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing with Jessamine the conflict between her growing attachment to Weed and her concerns about who he is, what his life has been like up until now, and what exactly his mysterious talent is. I also appreciated the subtle way the author handles the sexual attraction between the two innocent teenagers. In part three of the book, the mood of the story shifts drastically, getting extremely dark as the villains of the story begin to blatantly make life extremely difficult for the young lovers.

This is clearly the first book of what is probably at least a trilogy, and that probably explains why the ending of the book is not at all satisfying. In fact, it is downright depressing. I assume this is because, in the larger picture of the trilogy, this is only Act 1.

According to the information on the Advanced Reading Copy I received from the publisher through Amazon Vine, they are going all out to promote this book and are very likely hoping that Weed and Jessamine might become as beloved to teenage girls as Edward and Bella. If so, it won't be because Weed is anything like Edward in personality or the particular magic that is his gift. The romantic conflict keeping the lovers apart is also very different than in Twilight. In order to avoid creating any spoilers, I will only say this: Weed makes some ethical choices that Jessamine has big problems with, and many readers might as well. In addition, the way that the author sets up the actions of the two villains makes Jessamine far too helpless and passive--to the point that in the latter part of the book Weed takes over as the first-person voice of the novel. And ultimately, Weed, too, is forced into a position of hopeless helplessness by the structure of the plot. But again, this may all be on purpose because the story of Weed and Jessamine is a three-part epic, and this is only part one. In addition, the story contains an intriguing love triangle, which is a very popular feature of YA fantasy romances, and has been even before Twilight.
 

Book Review: The Right Man by Anne Stuart

A brilliant, innovative, passionate love story!

The Right Man by Anne Stuart

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: July 15, 2011
Pages: 251 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Treasury-Harlequin American Romance 90s
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

There is a saying in the romance industry that few writers take chances. New writers can't, because they don't have enough "clout," and established writers won't because they don't want to "disappoint reader expectations." Luckily for fans of Anne Stuart, right from the first in her almost 30 years of writing romance, she has flown in the face of both these dictums, having made a career of doing the unexpected. And never more so than in The Right Man.

In fiction, whether popular or literary, one of the greatest gifts a writer can have is a distinctive voice, which becomes the author's trademark and is apparent from work to work. Even more wonderful than this, though, and as rare as rubies, is a writer so talented that she can vary her voice to suit the story. Anne Stuart proves herself to be such an exceptional artist in The Right Man.

I am not a particular fan of film and novelistic noir of the late 1940s and 1950s (and therefore no expert on the subject), but from the little I have watched of that art form, it is highly recognizable. I believe it was a touch of genius for Stuart to fall into this style or "voice" for writing the segments of this time travel set in 1949. The cryptic, highly structured noir style of dialogue, in particular, sets us firmly in the late 1940s, and lends itself to a concise and deliberate pacing that, while moving the book along rapidly (essential in a short book such as this), never seems too rushed. The noir voice as used here is also so highly visual, one can easily imagine the book being made into a film, with the original dialogue carried into a script intact. (Are you listening, Lifetime? )

The use of the wedding dress, which is the major plot device of the "Gowns of White" Harlequin series this book is part of, as a magical device for time travel, while not a wholly new technique in and of itself, is quite original in its execution. My three favorite aspects are these: the way the dress, like an enchanted cape from a fairy tale, never soils or wrinkles; the way the magic brought by the dress spills over into all the other major characters' perceptions, and the way we are never quite sure if the time travel really happens or is a case of mass hypnosis (though this possibility is pleasantly mystical in and of itself).

As wonderful as the magic and the noir voice are, they do not overwhelm that which is the ultimate reason fans read romance: the love relationship. In this book, we get not one, but two great pairs of lovers. The level of sexual tension and expressed passion between each duo is incendiary, and the resolution of the internal and external conflicts, both within the protagonists individually and within the two love relationships, is believable and satisfying.

All in all, this is not only one of the best romance novels I've read in the past few years, but, in my opinion, one of the best short contemporaries I've read in almost 20 years of enjoying this genre.

 

Book Review: Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

Hilarious and sexy ensemble comedy!

Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: September 14, 2010
Pages: 447 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Thirty-two-year-old Sophie Dempsey and her younger sister Amy have been running a wedding-video company in Cincinnati for seven years. Their staid existence is boring Amy to tears, but is just what Sophie wants. She has a strong need to make up for the fact that her family is less than respectable. Her father and brother are both con artists, and Amy has more than a touch of that habit inside her that Sophie has worked hard to wean her from.

Sophie and Amy get an offer from Clea, a former lover of their older brother Davy, to do a documentary of the beautiful, but marginally successful actress's return to her home town, Temptation, Ohio, after twenty years away. Sophie hesitates. She doesn't trust Clea. Neither does Amy, but she snaps at the chance anyway and drags Sophie along. Amy sees this as a great opportunity to make a film that can open doors for her in Los Angeles. Not Sophie. She feels "a chill, courtesy, she was sure, of the sixth sense that had kept generations of Dempseys out of jail most of the time."

Sophie's premonitory chill proves right on target. The documentary snowballs into "vanilla porn" and the small town of Temptation is up in arms. Phineas T. Tucker, the thirty-six-year old hereditary mayor who hails from a long line of Tucker mayors of Temptation, must deal with "those movie people out at Clea's." He soon finds out that Sophie Dempsey is the biggest problem he's ever known. One he may never be able to solve. Or want to.

Welcome to Temptation is fast-paced and witty. Wonderfully, it is not just a "light" book, as most comedies are. It is actually, frequently, laugh-out-loud funny. Crusie's cast of characters is colorful, and each one is both uniquely characterized with a fascinating personal voice and a significant contribution to the ensemble-based conflicts that roll the story along. Most fun and exciting of all, and central to the story, is a simmering affair between Phin and Sophie that explodes to life from the moment they meet.

Note: Some "gentle readers" may object to certain language that appears within the erotic fantasies Phin fulfills for Sophie, and she for him. This includes the notorious "F word." This reader, however, not being particularly "gentle," found all of the love scenes both hot and hilarious.

Very, very few writers of comedy are capable of writing erotic love scenes in the midst of a hilarious romp. Crusie can. And does it exquisitely well.

A real keeper!

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romantic Comedy Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5
 

Book Review: I Got You, Babe by Jane Graves

Action, adventure, passion and FUN!

I Got You, Babe by Jane Graves

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: October 6, 2012
Pages: 550 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Twenty-five-year-old Renee Esterhaus doesn't have a chance. The offspring of an uncaring, alcoholic mother, she has a juvenile record in her hometown of Tolosa, Texas, and is positive she'll serve time for an armed robbery she didn't commit. Someone has framed her, stashing a gun and stolen goods in her car, and the cops and her court-appointed attorney are convinced she's guilty as sin. Renee panics and jumps bail, but her aging Toyota breaks down far too few miles down the road, and a sleazy bounty hunter catches up with her.

After extraordinary effort, Renee escapes, but she knows she needs help to avoid recapture. Unfortunately, she picks the wrong man for assistance when she hitches a ride with vacationing Tolosa police detective, John DeMarco.

Burned-out John is supposed to be on vacation, far away from the riffraff he puts up with on the job. The last thing he needs is a gorgeous, blond grifter, willing to seduce him to evade paying for her crimes.

But in spite of his cynicism, Renee's claims of innocence soon begin to make sense to John. If she's a cold-blooded criminal, who's allegedly committed assault with a deadly weapon to rob a store, why is she so unwilling to have anything to do with guns? In particular, using John's gun to shoot =him= and flee when she gets the chance.

Maybe he's not just thinking with his hormones, stupidly taken in by hot curves, and deceptively honest eyes.

Renee is an extremely sympathetic heroine. She's had a very hard life, yet refuses to give up, even when everything seems to be stacked against her. John is a hero worthy of her, as he digs beneath his pessimism, and Renee's "obvious" guilt, to discover the real truth and help Renee, for once in her life, find justice and love.

A real keeper!

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Stuck with You (Time of Your Life) by Trish Jensen

You'll laugh out loud at the love-bug lovers!

Stuck with You (Time of Your Life) by Trish Jensen

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Pages: 216 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Thirty-two-year-old, happily single Paige Hart of Macon, Georgia, is the only lawyer in her huge extended family, including six brothers, two sisters, a retired Army-master-sergeant father, housewife mother, and "way too many aunts, uncles and cousins." In the eight years since she passed the bar exam, Paige's colorful relatives have foisted endless legal problems on her--almost none of which have anything to do with her actual training as a tax attorney. The latest example is the extremely messy divorce of her cousin Jasmine, whose wealthy, soon-to-be-ex husband is represented by Ross "the Snake" Bennett.

As far as Paige is concerned, all divorce attorneys are snakes. And it doesn't sway her opinion a bit that Ross is an extremely smart and handsome snake. But when the sexy, opposing counselor flashes a come-hither grin and matches Paige zinger for well-placed zinger, she succumbs to grudging admiration--and an unsettling rush of exhilaration.

Ross has tried hard to ignore the gorgeous looks of honey-blond, cat-eyed Paige since their first meeting, when she strode into his office like an avenging angel and blasted him with her lightning tongue. He can't afford to be distracted in this case. Paige is one sharp cookie, and some of the strongest legal competition he's ever faced.

Page and Ross gleefully haggle and brangle, until the morning mobster Boom Boom Carbone sets off an explosion at the courthouse. Though Paige is flung on top of Ross, knocking them both down, their injuries are so minor, they might have gone home with a Band-Aid and an aspirin, if not for the accident--the ambulance transporting them to the ER bangs into a car, and vials slated for the Center for Disease Control splatter their contents in the patient compartment.

Paige is horrified when she's forced into two-week quarantine in the same room with The Snake. Even worse than that is the reason for it: they've been exposed to the highly contagious Tibetan Concupiscence Virus (AKA Horny Monk's Disease). Its chief feature is heightened sexual arousal, and she's already feeling an upsurge of symptoms!

Ross has never in his life wanted a woman as much as he wants Paige, and he's positive it's not because he's sick. He's never felt better in his life! But if Paige wants to believe they're infected with a love bug, who is he to argue? He can't think of a better plan on earth than ministering to each other in their hour of need.

When he kisses her senseless and entices her with promises of slow, sweet lovemaking, Paige is sorely afraid that the fever burning in her can never be put out by anyone but Ross. It is only a matter of time before she finds him impossible to resist, and all hell breaks loose as they seek heaven in each other's arms.

This is one of the best comic romances of the year! Jensen's wild tale takes off running from the first page, and never lets up. The dialogue is snappy, the subcharacters wacky, and the sexual chemistry between the hero and heroine as combustible as the mob-boss bomb that hurls them together.

Don't miss the fun!

I rate this book as follows:

 
Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5