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Book Review: 69 Million Things I Hate About You by Kira Archer

Terrific romantic comedy!

69 Million Things I Hate About You (Winning The Billionaire) by Kira Archer

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: October 9, 2017
Pages: 228 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Indulgence
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Twenty-something Kiersten Abbott has been the backup, second-level, executive assistant to Manhattan tycoon, Cole Harrington, for several months. Until she's suddenly promoted to his first assistant when his current first assistant tells him off and stalks out when Cole demands that the poor woman reschedule her own wedding to attend an out-of-town conference with him.

Cole is president and founder of Harrington Enterprises, the biggest think tank and development firm in Manhattan. He made his initial fortune developing an explosively popular dating app when he was still a teenager in college, and he has continually expanded his personal fortune as a self-made man ever since. Unfortunately, he is an obnoxious boss. He keeps crazy hours and insists that his first assistant be on call 24/7. Kiersten not only handles endless tasks at Cole's place of business, but he also expects her to take care of his personal needs at his home, such as laying out his work outfits and accessories for every day of the week, making sure he has adequate toiletries in his bathroom, scheduling dental appointments, and consulting with his housekeeper about his meals.

Cole is still relatively young (his exact age is never given in the book), handsome, ripped, and has gorgeous women at his beck and call, but he has zero desire to settle down. He insists that any woman who wishes to date him must sign a non-disclosure agreement, and any woman hoping to become more than a casual girlfriend is presented with a brutal prenup in which both parties agree to leave the union with what they had when they entered it and with what was individually made during it. The prenup alone has kept him footloose and fancy free, since not a single woman so far has been willing to sign it.

For six months Kiersten is Cole's ideal assistant. She is intelligent, highly organized, has a remarkable memory for details, and keeps Cole's office and home running like a well-oiled machine. However, he does wish she would loosen up a bit. She dresses in a style that Cole thinks of as sexy librarian, including pencil skirts, buttoned shirts, and her hair slicked back in a bun or ponytail, and she refuses to call him anything but, "Mr. Harrington," or, "Sir," though Cole has frequently requested that she use his first name. In a sly attempt to ruffle the feathers of his starchy assistant, Cole has never once in the period of time that she's been working directly with him called her by her correct first name, purposely messing it up with ridiculous variations such as Crustin, Kestin, Kursten, Krestin, Christine, and Krispin, determined to see how long he can get away with these antics before she finally loses her cool and calls him out.

For years, Kiersten and her two best friends and roommates, who are also fellow employees at Harrington Enterprises, have all three bought a lottery ticket every week, with the joint agreement that if any of them ever wins, they will split the cash three ways. It's a fun fantasy for the trio until the amazing day that Kiersten's lottery ticket has the winning number, and they hit the jackpot to the tune of sixty-nine million dollars. Kiersten has daydreamed almost from the beginning of working directly with Cole about quitting her ridiculously difficult job and escaping his intrusive commands. But now that she truly has the means to do so, she decides to postpone that lovely moment in order to exact a little well-earned revenge on Cole. Oh, nothing that would really hurt anyone but him, she assures herself. And she only wants to grossly inconvenience him, not actually physically hurt him.

Her two friends decide to stick around as well to watch the show, and before long, the whole company figures out what is going on and there is an office pool with everyone betting on how long it will take Cole to fire Kiersten. When Cole's best friend and business partner, Brooks, lets him know about the pool, Cole has no idea why Kiersten is trying to get him to fire her, but he decides to turn the tables on her and see how far he can push her before she herself quits.

What ensues is a hilarious game of comic mayhem with each of the two combatants and everyone around them watching with bated breath to see which of the two of them will crack first.

This is an adorable romantic comedy, which is plotted very much in the style of a zany, romantic comedy movie. The protagonists are both quite likeable, and the book is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, which is extremely rare for humorous romance novels in my experience. Most only inspire a few weak grins.

Another plus for me (though others might disagree) is that this is a "slow burn" romance, in that the hero and heroine don't leap into bed immediately, turning the book into 75% sex and 25% story like so many modern romance novels. Instead, they don't kiss until 68% through the book, and they don't engage in lovemaking until about 75% of the way in. Once there is sex, it is never crude or an endless reciting of body parts. Instead, it is highly romantic, with deep emotion as well as passion.

The author, Kira Archer, makes excellent use of her subcharacters for creating humorous moments. Brooks is extremely witty, and I chuckled through every scene in which he appears. I also especially enjoyed the scenes with Kiersten and Cole's uptight mother--who loosened up in hilarious ways by the end of an evening on the town with Kiersten. And the interaction with the continual audience of Cole's employees avidly following the shenanigans between Kiersten and Cole is extremely well done. In addition, I was relieved to note that Ms. Archer never resorts to childish slapstick or repellent crudity in order to create comedy.

This book is written in the dual point of view of the heroine and hero, which has been standard practice for mainstream, adult romance novels for the past 25-30 years, and is something I really miss when a romance novel does not have it.

I am very much hoping Ms. Archer will write a book with Brooks as the hero, and I suspect that Cole's two other good friends, who along with Cole and Broioks are also very wealthy men, will end up as protagonists in future books as well. I look forward to reading them.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romance Plot: 4

Comedy: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Text 2 Lovers by K. Webster

New adult, x-rated, romantic comedy

Text 2 Lovers (2 Lovers #1) by K. Webster

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: January 21, 2017
Length: 275 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Dani AKA ”Buttercup” and Ramsay AKA ”Ram” have a classic "meet cute" that is a vital component of all good romantic comedy. Dani drunkenly texts someone whom she assumes is her cheating ex, a man she has dated for eight months and who has just dumped her for another woman days after talking her into loaning him $10,000. Because her BFF moments before deleted the ex's phone number from Dani's contact list in her smart phone, not to mention that Dani is drunk on the tequila said BFF keeps pouring down her throat, it's no wonder that Dani accidentally types in a wrong number. As a result, her first and subsequent rather incoherent texts are delivered to a stranger, a fellow twenty-something who, luckily, is amused rather than offended by her texts. And thus begins their often amusing, and frequently X-rated, romantic journey.

This is an excellent update of the "you've got the wrong number" romance plot which, since the days of smart phones, has been difficult to convincingly create. As described above, this "meet cute" ploy is very well done.

In most ways, this is a typical New Adult romance, which is a good thing if you like that genre's conventions, and not so good if you don't. One rather unusual aspect for NA is that this book is a romantic comedy, which is quite rare in a genre noted for its angst-filled melodrama. The light tone means that this book's plot doesn't get bogged down in the usual NA "tortured hero" tropes, even though the hero, Ram, at least initially, is depressed. Depression is serious business, which means it's a difficult choice to carry off in a light-hearted comedy. The authors manage it by the simple expedient of Ram cheering up substantially after the perky heroine splash-lands into his life.

For those who like familiar byways in NA, Ram is, of course, quite handsome and heavily muscled. And happily, the authors demonstrate him earning those muscles by regularly lifting weights--which not all romance authors bother to include in their stories, in which, all too often, heroes magically are muscled and lean and heroines are slim and shapely, in spite of no visible exercise and terrible, high-calorie, junk-food-and-booze-laden diets. (Actually, Dani doesn't exercise, frequently drinks beer and eats fattening, unhealthy food, and is miraculously slender even so. Oh, well.)

As so many NA readers prefer, Ram is loaded with tattoos, and he is presented as being something of a "bad boy," but not, thank goodness, in the standard sense of that overused term equating with his being a "man whore." I'm not personally a fan of heroes who are promiscuous, so I was delighted to discover that Ram does not use women as sexual objects to prop up a fragile male ego. For the most part, he is simply a confused twenty-something who is having a career crisis and has a painfully tragic history of personal loss in his family. In fact, he is far more Beta male than Alpha in the sense that he is a sympathetic, supportive listener and unfailingly kind to the heroine.

The heroine, Dani, is a quirky Pollyanna type who, in the beginning of the book, is essentially a codependent doormat. That kind of heroine can really bog down the plot of a book because she tends to be a passive protagonist and, as such, is not very sympathetic. Fortunately, in this story, almost immediately, Dani attempts to develop some backbone, with the encouragement of both the hero and her loud-mouthed, slutty best friend (another standard-issue NA subcharacter that readers of this genre either enjoy or dislike). Dani's story goal is to become the "worm that turned," a confident woman who can finally give a resounding, "No!" to the various users abounding in her life, as well as to be more adventurous in her sex life, with the hero's help, of course.

Speaking of the latter, above all, as is typical of NA, this book is a series of sex scenes voiced in unromantic, gutter language, strung together with a simple and fairly limited plot. Again, fans of the typical tropes of this genre won't mind that at all. For myself, I get bored with sex scenes, and in this book, as in most romances, I skimmed the sex and stuck with what I found most interesting and rare, amusing banter between the hero and heroine and the many heart-warming examples of the hero treating the heroine with respect, compassion and kindness.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 4

Subcharacters: 3

Comedy Elements: 4

Romance Plot: 4

Writing: 4

Overall: 4

Book Review: Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LaZebnik

Terrific book by one of my favorite authors

Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LaZebnik

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: November 15, 2008
Publisher: 5 Spot
Length: 412 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

In this frequently humorous novel set in the glitzy world of LA, three best friends who are in their late 20's regularly connect to knit together and gossip about their lives. Two of the friends, Lucy and Sari, have known each other since childhood, and Kathleen is a latecomer to the team. She is a fraternal triplet with two identical twin sisters who have been actors since babyhood. As such, they are, I assume, purposely reminiscent of the Olsen twins.

Kathleen is gorgeous and is willing to have sex with an interesting, attractive man, but she doesn't commit, because she has a low threshold of boredom. At the beginning of the book, she walks out of her long-term, greatly under-appreciated job as live-in caretaker of her sisters and ends up landing immediately on her feet as a housesitter for a $2.5-million, downtown apartment owned by 47-year-old, divorced, real-estate mogul, Sam.

Sari has an autistic older brother, and her career is counseling and teaching autistic kids. Her romantic interest is the father of an autistic four-year-old. She believes (but is not absolutely sure her memory is accurate) that years ago, in high school, he either actively participated in, or stood by and did not stop, harassment of her autistic brother.

Lucy is a brilliant scientific researcher engaged in animal-testing on rats who has been dating an equally brilliant researcher for quite a while. He is handsome and she's very sexually attracted to him, but he is a judgmental, narcissistic jerk. Unfortunately, Lucy, who used to be quite overweight in high school and is now svelt and attractive, suffers from low self-esteem and figures that she would be nuts to walk away from such a socially high-status boyfriend. Meanwhile she regularly verbally skirmishes with, and also strongly respects, her lab partner David, who is half Chinese, half Jewish, and every bit as brilliant as her jerky boyfriend, but not remotely as good looking or high status.

The central core of the book, as is the case with all women's fiction (versus romance fiction), is the relationship between the three women. The author presents an idealized view that they will be there for each other when, eventually, their future husbands inevitably desert them (because men are cads), and their ungrateful, future, teen and adult offspring sneer at them or ignore them. In a great many chick-lit novels, especially those by this author, there is a theme that is also a staple of young-adult fiction, "coming of age," that is, over the course of the novel, the protagonist gains much greater emotional maturity and hard-won wisdom than she displays at the beginning of the novel. This particular chick-lit novel is rather a hybrid of chick-lit and romance fiction in that all three female protagonists gradually move beyond the premise that only female friends can be trusted, into more of a romance-novel world view, that it is possible to form healthy, mutually supportive, heterosexual, mated relationships. They accomplish this by growing beyond a long-standing habit of passively complaining to each other about their dysfunctional romantic relationships to, instead, displaying strong, personal, emotional boundaries and directly confronting the men in their lives, thereby allowing those men to either step up to the plate and prove that they can be mature, too, or walk out and remove their destructive, egocentric selves from the heroines' lives.

I admit freely that I am a fan of Claire LaZebnik. I have read every one of her books, most of them twice, and this one three times. Let me further say that is quite a compliment because, as you can see by many of my remarks above, that I am not at all a fan of chick lit and never have been. I much prefer the greater optimism (as I see it, anyway) of the romance genre. Chick lit has been around for several decades, ever since Bridget Jones's Diary, and involves a very narrow range of female experience, essentially clueless and immature twenty-something women who form close friendships with other women but have a lot of dating disasters with equally clueless and immature men. The ultimate conclusion of such books tends to be that it is amazing that heterosexual twenty-somethings ever manage to form healthy romantic alliances at all, and maybe it isn't even worth trying--why not just stick to your female friends, who will always be there for you emotionally, and call it a day? In short, even when they are humorous, the underlying world view of chick-lit novels tends to be rather depressing, especially when everyone involved is copiously drowning their social frustrations, or boosting their courage to resume the romantic fray, with buckets of booze, or either loading up on junk food (without, improbably, getting fat) or engaging in anorexic behavior to stay thin (though I will admit a certain amount of this same behavior occurs in many modern romance novels, especially the Harlequin Blaze type novels).

For the very reason that I'm personally not fond of chick lit, I've asked myself frequently why I like this book so much, and my ultimate conclusion is I can't get enough of Kathleen and Sam, both individually and as a couple. Kathleen is rather ditzy and she drinks too much, as I've mentioned that most chick-lit heroines tend to do, but I love her natural athleticism, her complete detachment from the utter superficiality of the Hollywood world she has been on the fringe of for years, and her careless disinterest in the power she could easily wield over men if she chose to do so due to her obvious physical beauty. Instead, the focus of her life is her friendships and her great zest for engaging in witty banter with all comers.

Speaking of that banter, anyone who is a fan of the famous, Regency-romance author, Georgette Heyer, who is a master of witty banter, will love Kathleen and Sam, and Kathleen's banter in general with her two women friends as well. There is also, to a lesser degree, some banter between Lucy and her romantic interest, David. In my humble opinion, the ability to engage in verbal wordplay (or as an author, the ability to write it in dialogue) is a sign of creativity and high intelligence, and I savor it wherever I can find it. (There is quite a bit of it, by the way, in the Harry Dresden series by the brilliant Jim Butcher, one of the major features I enjoy about Harry as a character, above and beyond what he is most famous for, his bravery and power as a fighting wizard.)

I also love slow-burn romance plots, especially romances that begin with a wary slide into friendship, and the relationship between Kathleen and Sam has all those features. For that reason, it is one of my favorite romantic relationships among all of Ms. LaZebnik's books.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine Kathleen: 5

Heroine Sari: 3

Heroine Lucy: 3

Hero Sam: 5

Hero Jason: 4

Hero David: 4

Friendship Plot: 5

Romance Plot Kathleen: 5

Romance Plot Sari: 3

Romance Plot Lucy: 4

Writing: 5

Overall: 4

Book Review: Call Me, Maybe by Ellie Cahill

Delightful, New Adult, romantic comedy

Call Me, Maybe by Ellie Cahill

Reading Level: New Adult
Release Date: February 9, 2016
Publisher: Loveswept
Length: 221 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Clementine Daly is a 23-year-old trust-fund baby who completed a BA in history and English literature and currently lives, rent free, in a family-owned apartment building in a nice area of Chicago. Her parents are globe-trotting, hippie-like anthropologists who abandoned their four children to Clementine's uber-wealthy paternal grandparents to raise when she was only five. All three of her siblings are happily ambitious, actively working toward achieving challenging careers, but Clem is stuck. She knows what she loves to do: voraciously read romance novels, and write reviews for a book blog she created several years ago under a pseudonym. But that could never be an actual career--could it?

Then a totally unexpected encounter shakes up her life and interrupts her twenty-something identity crisis. While at the Chicago airport awaiting a plane to California, where her younger brother and she are flying to visit an equally rich Daly relative to scope out potential future employment for the two siblings in his real estate empire, Clem accidentally trips over a gorgeous young guy, almost lands in his lap, and is instantly attracted to him. Unfortunately, nothing can come of it, because they are just the proverbial ships passing in the night. Or so she thinks, until her brother accidentally grabs a cell phone, that he mistakenly thinks is Clem's, from the table between Mr. Georgeous's chair and theirs when he is ushering Clem quickly to board their flight.

I've wondered a time or two, in the advent of the age of the cell phone, how any romance author could ever again manage to write a, "You've got the wrong phone number," type of romantic comedy. This author does a wonderful job pulling off an updated version of that "meet cute" setup in a very believable and charming manner. It also helps this setup that the two romantic protagonists meet face-to-face and are obviously mutually attracted before the phone mixup happens, and that they are both about the same age, Justin only two years older than Clem at age 25.

I really enjoyed these two protagonists. Both are writers, and both love to read, making this what I fondly call a "nerds in love story," with a particularly adorable, Beta Male hero. Beta Males, in general, are extremely unusual in a New Adult romance, and I am delighted whenever I run across one. Unlike the typical Alpha Male NA hero, Justin has no tattoos, is not muscled up like a Wide World of Wrestling star, and though he has evident trust issues--as does Clem--neither is "mysterious," "dark" or "broken," which seems to be the main descriptors for 90% of NA protagonists in the teaser blurbs for these books. Which, of course, is why there are so very few romantic comedies in the NA genre.

The author of this romantic comedy has also achieved something that is extremely difficult to do, and which virtually no romantic comedy movies ever manage: she provides a witty, light touch without sacrificing sensuality or strong emotion. Which brings me to the sex scenes: None of the sex scenes are gratuitous or coarse, they are always romantic, and they always contribute to the overall plot of the story.

All in all, this is a very refreshing and very enjoyable NA romance, and I particularly appreciated that the author has provided, free to readers of this book, a bonus epilogue for this couple that I was delighted to download from Amazon.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 4

Romance Plot: 4

Heroine's Family Subplot: 4

Writing: 4

Overall: 4

Book Review: Lingus by Mariana Zapata

An unusual New Adult romance with a hero who is a porn star

Lingus by Mariana Zapata

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: August 7, 2015
Length: 500 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Katherine Berger (Kat) is a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher who lives in Miami. Tristan King is a 29-year-old man who is serving as an intern at a family law firm until he passes the bar. The firm is right down the street from the school where Kat works, but they have not previously run into each other until the day they meet at a porn convention in Miami that she's been dragged to by her two best girlfriends.

When Kat meets an extremely handsome, but quite friendly and non-threatening, young man at the porn convention who says his name is Tristan, she is delighted that he seems to have in common with her an offbeat sense of humor. She has high hopes that he will ask her out until, later that same day, she is greatly shocked to discover that Tristan is, and has been for several years, a porn-film star with the provocative stage name, "Robby Lingus."

This romance novel is extremely unusual for the genre. In addition to the hero's being a porn star, one of Kat's two best friends is also a porn star, and her other female best friend, a loudly, proudly, sexually liberated woman, falls madly in love with yet another porn star, who happens to be Tristan's best friend since childhood.

Interestingly enough, like all of this author's romance novels that I have read so far, the hero and heroine don't actually kiss, let alone have sex, until almost the end of the book. So in spite of all the racy talk and off-color language that abounds throughout this novel, the central plot, the romance, involves a "slow burn" development of a close friendship between Kat and Tristan before the two friends finally become lovers. In spite of his unconventional career, the hero is a sweet, metrosexual male. In other words, though his porn career might lead one to believe he is going to be portrayed as the familiar romance-novel "bad boy" AKA "alpha" hero, who normally tends to be an abrasive, moody, control freak, that is definitely not the case. That's a unique twist that adds to the generally light tone of this novel.

This book is, for the most part, a romantic comedy. There is cute banter between Kat and Tristan, and quite a bit of nutty antics on the part of Kat's quirky friends.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 3

Hero: 4

Subcharacters: 3

Romance Plot: 4

Subcharacters: 3

Writing: 4

Overall: 3.5 rounded to 4

Book Review: Resisting the Rebel by Lisa Brown Roberts

Adorable, G-rated, YA romantic comedy

Resisting the Rebel by Lisa Brown Roberts

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: July 25, 2016
Length: 235 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

In spite of two interrelated learning disabilities, ADHD and dysgraphia, Mandy Pennington is a relatively well-adjusted, outgoing, socially connected teenager. She's barely dated and is quite innocent, even though she is around 17 years old (though it's her birthday at the beginning of the book, her age is never overtly stated). She's had a crush since elementary school on a guy she considers a sweet, geeky, non-threatening type, her friend Gus. When he casually invites her to a wild, kegger-type party, which is not something Mandy would normally attend, because she does not drink or hook up like everyone else at such parties, she happily accepts, hopefully assuming that maybe, at long last, Gus is ready to move her out of the friend zone and date her. Alas, it is not to be. Gus immediately deserts her to hook up with another girl. Mandy is hit on by drunk, sleazy guys, and wishes nothing more than to escape, but she is stranded with no way to get home. Until out of the blue, a "Rebel without a Cause" type of guy named Caleb, whom she'd never normally talk to, rescues her from yet another crew of predatory guys, this time an obnoxious band of stoners, and offers her a ride home. Thus begins a cute and captivating relationship which involves Caleb's suggesting that they engage in a mutually beneficial, fake, romantic relationship. She can help him discourage his stalker ex-girlfriend, and she can inspire clueless Gus with enough jealousy to see her, at long last, in a romantic light.

In a young adult genre overrun with adolescent angst, it is always a delight to me to encounter a romantic comedy, especially a mostly G-rated one which, even so, manages to have strong chemistry between the romantic protagonists.

I really enjoyed the attraction of extreme opposites of outgoing, bubbly, Pollyanna-type Mandy and disaffected, intellectual loner, Caleb. I love "nerd" heroes who are not promiscuous, and Caleb fits the bill on both. I also enjoy a fake relationship plot in romance novels (whether YA or adult), and in this case, there is a delightful, and often quite funny progression of the relationship between Mandy and Caleb. In addition, these two highly sympathetic characters embody the ideal of excellence in a romance plot, wherein the romantic protagonists gradually bring out the best in each other as, through their connection, they inspire each other to grow and change in very positive ways.

I really liked Mandy's two best friends, who are an additional source of comedy in this story. In particular, I found the subplot between Caleb and Mandy's gay best friend extremely well done. He and Caleb were best friends from kindergarten to second grade, a relationship in which the Power Rangers were a central part. They lost touch when Caleb was sent from public to private school for many years until recently. In the course of this story, the two boys rediscover their friendship due to their mutual connection to Mandy. The many references between them of the Power Rangers as an ongoing motif is both amusing and emotionally compelling. The superhero attributes of the Power Rangers becomes a recurring metaphor for achieving the positive character trait of protecting and defending people he cares about that is part of Caleb's growth arc in the story.

Overall, this is a very entertaining read, and I intend to search out more books by this author.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 4

Comedy: 4

Romance Plot: 4

Writing: 4

Overall: 4

Book Review: Ninja Girl by Cookie O'Gorman

Marvelous YA romance!

Ninja Girl by Cookie O'Gorman

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: March 30, 2017
Pages: 202 pages
Source: Prime Membership Program
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

I got this book through the Prime-membership program of one free Kindle book per month and, just as for Kindle Unlimited, Amazon does not list reviews for such books as "verified purchases."

There is absolutely no "sophomore slump" for this author. I loved her first book and this, her second book, is just as good or, in some ways, even better.

This young-adult "dramedy" (part comedy, part drama) is based on a terrific twist on the ever-green, romance-genre trope, the bodyguard romance: This time around, the bodyguard is the heroine! At 16, Korean-American Lee Snow-Soon (or as we say names in America, Snow-Soon Lee, with the surname last), is a masterfully talented martial artist whose greatest hero in life, other than her kick-ass mother who runs a martial arts academy and taught Snow everything she knows, is Bruce Lee (no relation).

The hero, Ash Stryker, is a highly-talented, 17-year-old soccer player whose father is running for the U.S. Senate, and his whole family is being threatened by a dangerous stalker. Unfortunately, the bodyguard hired to protect Ash is inadequate to the task of keeping Ash safe, which leads to Snow's protecting Ash by fending off dual attackers when Ash's professional bodyguard neglects his duty and is not there to do it.

In the wake of this dramatic event, Ash's mother pleads with Snow's mother to allow her to hire Snow to be Ash's bodyguard during weekdays at the private school he attends. Ash is more than happy to have Snow in this position, as he not only greatly admires her martial arts skills but, unknown to both their mothers, he and Snow have a startling history. They recently shared an explosive kiss as two total strangers--a kiss which Snow herself initiated in a dark movie theater as both a personal dare, because she had never been kissed before, and as a test of the man with Ash that night who was obviously his bodyguard but whom Snow suspected was not keeping close enough watch on Ash.

This story is told in dual point of view, of both the heroine and hero, each narrated in first person, but it is always clear as to whose head we are in.

The subcharacters are also very well written, and I particularly enjoyed the fact that the parents are kind, loving and decent human beings. The "orphaning" that is so essential in YA and children's novels so that the protagonists can actively work to solve their own problems is done quite creatively in this novel via the action-adventure portion of the plot.

This extremely well-written YA novel contains the classic, coming-of-age character growth so central to YA fiction, as well as the exciting action-adventure I mentioned and, best of all, a wonderful, G-rated romance that is both tender and passionate.

Speaking from the perspective of a huge fan of the romance genre, who is also quite jaded, for me personally, this is one of the best-written YA romances I've ever read.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Action-Adventure Plot: 5

Unusual Setting at Martial-Arts Academy: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Love Show by Audrey Bell

Fabulous NA romance!

Love Show by Audey Bell

Reading Level: New Adult
Release Date: January 14, 2014
Publisher: Audrey Bell
Pages: 355 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

In this wonderful, quirky and very appealing new adult (NA) romance, the heroine Hadley Arrington is an extremely independent and idealistic young woman who has the very clear and ambitious goal to become a war correspondent for a big, mainstream newspaper and, meanwhile, she is the Editor-in-Chief of her university’s prestigious newspaper. Hadley's love interest, Jack Diamond, is the dead opposite. He has no apparent ambition and, on the surface seems to be skating through life on his good looks and charm. When one night, on a dare, Hadley picks him out of a crowd and kisses him in the rain, the collision creates long-term changes in both of them and their lives.

I was stunned by this novel. It is definitely one of the very best romance novels I've read in years. I especially liked the hero, who stands out as unique among cardboard-cutout, "manwhore" NA heroes. I also vastly enjoyed the sophistication of the romantic conflict compared to every other NA romance novel I've read, and I've read a lot of them. (Not every one ever written, of course, but a lot.) The first meet and the second meet are priceless, the movement from friends to lovers extremely well done, and the construction of the romantic ending is particularly good.

I've been trying to find Kindle editions of all of this wonderful author's books, but only two are listed on Amazon, and of her other two books, only one is available, and only in paper, and the other isn't listed for sale on Amazon at all. Worse, this author's contact info for Twitter and a website on her author page here on Amazon and on Goodreads is wrong. The links are dead ends. So disappointing.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Writing: 5

Coming of Age Plot - Heroine: 5

Coming of Age Plot - Hero: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Anywhere by Jen Meyers

Appealing, New Adult Romance

Anywhere by Jen Meyers[image error]

Reading Level: New Adult Romance
Release Date: August 24, 2013
Publisher: Turning Leaves Press
Pages: 267 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Skye is a 22-year-old recent college graduate who has been involved for the past two years with a young man her own age, Blaine, who is from a wealthy, New York City family. A year ago, she became engaged to Blaine, whom her mother adores, not because she had any desire to marry so young, but because Blaine put her on the spot by dramatically and publicly proposing to her at a family barbecue in front of his entire extended family. Skye accepted because she didn't want to embarrass him or disappoint her mother, and from then on, Blaine and her mother, who is even more of a control freak than Blaine, have been planning out Skye's entire future, utterly taking over her whole life. Finally, mere days before her wedding, Skye's pain at the relentless, smothering pressure from her mother and her fiancé exceeds enough the discomfort she feels at standing up for herself against them to provide her with the courage to break off her unwanted engagement. Well aware of her extremely low resistance to the inevitable emotional battering Blaine and her mother will launch against her to shove her back in line, she flees to France with her best friend, Paige, to remove herself from their toxic influence.

Skye is determined to establish her own identity and independence by fulfilling a longtime dream--which Blaine has patronizingly insisted she couldn't possibly truly want--spending the summer backpacking around Europe. Unfortunately, soon after they arrive in Paris, Paige discovers she is pregnant and states she must return home to make plans with her boyfriend. Skye agonizes over the dilemma of choosing to return with Paige and support her in her hour of crisis or staying behind to avoid an avalanche of dual pressure from her mother and Blaine to go through with the wedding. Luckily Skye has done well in choosing an accepting friend like Paige, who insists that Skye stay in Europe and continue with her travel plans. Little does Skye realize that within 24 hours of deciding to attempt traveling alone, she will meet Asher in the Paris train station, a young American about her own age who is on a mission of self-discovery as well.

As a long-time romance-fiction fan, I'm on a roll with my reading experiences this week. This is my second New Adult (NA), contemporary romance novel in a row with a metrosexual, Beta, romantic hero with nary a tattoo or piercing in sight. There is no mention of "rock hard abs," and no glorification of alpha-male promiscuity as a sign of the NA hero's social superiority. Asher is unabashedly portrayed as sensitive, compassionate, intelligent, and basically the complete opposite of Blaine and Mommy Dearest. In most NA romances, the alpha, macho, male romantic lead is, as such, inevitably, the complete opposite in personality to the heroine, or very close to it. In a very refreshing change to that increasingly hackneyed trope (which, let's face it, is a frequent occurrence in many "by the numbers," adult romance novels as well), Asher and Skye are quite similar in temperament. They are both sensitive souls who are very caring and compassionate, but who have had the unfortunate tendency in their love lives to be glommed onto by narcissistic control freaks--a reality all too common in the real world. Nice people far too infrequently end up with other nice people. It is therefore a delightful case of wish fulfillment to see two such sympathetic, decent individuals find each other rather than one of the romantic protagonists (usually the heroine) becoming obsessed with a domineering "bad boy" NA protagonist who, until meeting the heroine, has basically been a callous, uncaring narcissist in his one-night-stand relationships with girls and women. In this regard, the author does a truly excellent job of showing how inconsiderate, selfish, emotional vampires like Skye's mother and fiancé--and Asher's ex-girlfriend--have zero hesitation about walking all over people with a heart, conscience and compassion, but at the least whiff of opposition to their entirely self-centered goals for said kind people, hurl onto their supposed loved one a barrage of vituperative guilt-tripping. It is a case of a conscienceless, dishonorable person manipulating and controlling by appealing to the conscience of the honorable, something we witness Skye's mother doing incessantly throughout the story.

I particularly like romance plots such as this one where the Chief Virtue of the romantic protagonists is also their Chief Flaw. In this case, it is a strongly intertwined sense of loyalty and compassion, which creates a powerful desire to avoid hurting people they deeply care about and are loyal to. This particular Virtue/Flaw is very hard to pull off successfully in popular fiction, which demands a strong, active protagonist, because a personality like this can too easily come off in a story as a passive doormat. However, since the inciting incident of this story is Skye taking strong, assertive action in traveling to Europe, and the chief Antagonist for Skye is her mother, this story very much avoids the passive-doormat issue. In particular, every girl and woman who might read this book can relate to how primordial the mother-daughter relationship is, and given that Skye is still quite young, it is understandable and relatable that she could just now be breaking free of her mother's oppressive domination.

In short, this is an excellent story of "coming of age" as well as a romance.

The setting of this novel is also new and exciting for a NA romance. Rather than the usual university setting, we get to experience with Skye various fascinating locations throughout Europe. Anyone who has traveled in Europe or has wished to do so will enjoy the lively interplay of setting and story in this enjoyable novel.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 4

Subcharacters: 4

Romance Plot: 4

Coming of Age Plot: 4

Setting: 5

Writing: 4

Overall: 4

Book Review: Breakaway by Catherine Gayle

A tender, well developed romance with a popular plot line, friends become lovers

Breakaway (Portland Storm #1) by Catherine Gayle

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: December 11, 2013
Publisher: Night Shift Publishing
Pages: 322 pages
Source: Purchase
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Dana Campbell was gang raped as a virgin by three men at age 19, and the past seven years she has been unable to be around men, especially big men, without having severe panic attacks. She has been treated by a rape counselor for the whole of the past seven years, but she has not made any progress in regaining normal sexuality. Mainly because the recommended treatment for panic attacks, desensitization to the trigger for the attacks, is not possible without using a professional sex surrogate, something she just can't face doing. Then suddenly it occurs to her that maybe she can in fact utilize a sex surrogate, if she can rely on the one person in the world she would trust for such an intimate task: a long-time family friend, Eric Zellinger.

Eric is several years older than Dana and has known her since childhood as her older brother's best friend. Unknown to Dana, Eric has been in love with her for over a decade, but tragically, just when he at last believed her to be grown up enough and was about to approach her romantically, she was raped, and all chance of a normal romantic relationship with her was at an end. Even though he has tried to forget her as a potential mate over the years, he has never been able to, and he is shocked to his core when out of the blue she presents him with her surrogate plan for personal salvation.

Eric is very afraid to go through with the plan, for fear he will, out of well-meaning ignorance, inadvertently make her situation worse. But he cares for her so deeply, he would do anything for her, and he ultimately says, yes, when she begs him to help her and tearfully assures him he is her only hope to regain a normal life.

Unfortunately, Eric is also going through a personal crisis in his professional life at the same time as Dana has come to him, which greatly complicates matters between him and Dana that are already very complex. He is captain of the National Hockey League team, Portland Storm, formerly an elite team which is currently desperate to regain its former glory. Eric is struggling, as team captain, to lead his team to the playoffs. If he fails, beyond the potential pain of defeat is the very real threat that he may be traded away from his beloved team as a failed captain.

As if all that weren't stressful enough, Dana's highly protective brother discovers that Dana has moved in with Eric and pushes her to a confession of her unorthodox plan. He is rabidly against it, and frequently and loudly protests directly to Eric when he is suddenly transferred to Eric's team as a replacement hockey player.

Can Eric simultaneously help Dana, help his team and avoid having his best friend's angry protectiveness sabotage everything he and Dana might accomplish to free her from her emotional prison? Read this terrific book and find out.

This is a very well written, tender romance. One of my favorite romance plots is "friends become lovers," and this is one of the better ones I've ever read.

Eric is a marvelous hero. Unlike the vast majority of romance heroes, he is not a womanizer! He is very loving and gentle with Dana, and due to the nature of Dana's emotional problems, the sex scenes are of necessity very sensitive and slow moving, which is an excellent change of pace among the current crop of raunchy hockey romances.

Dana is an excellent heroine, and I especially liked that prior to the rape, she was an outstanding hockey star herself. It gives her a great many meaningful common bases with Eric besides hot sex. Not that I'm discounting the palpable sexual chemistry between them, a crucial component of a romance novel, of course. But it is great to have something more than that which convinces me as a reader that this couple could truly achieve real and lasting love.

Finally, I liked this romance so much, I've purchased and read several other novels in this series by this author and they are all excellent.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Hockey Plot: 4

Subcharacters: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5