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A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death, in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes.

Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best (read: wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficentone. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no?

Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with Everett: the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that’s had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s.

Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen’s strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she’s beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her life: being fully, genuinely herself.

Dear Ms. Adler, 

Last year I adored “Mrs. Nash’s Ashes.” I was hoping for a repeat experience with “Happy Medium.” Let me just rip the review Band-Aid off and say, I didn’t get one. 

Gretchen Acorn is a con artist. She was raised to be a good one by her con artist father who cut her loose when she wouldn’t finish a long con with him. After building a reputation as a spirit medium among the ultra wealthy women of DC, she’s doing alright. Her best client asks a favor which lands her on a goat farm in Maryland with a man who believes she’s a fraud. Then she sees an actual ghost. A ghost with a life or death message for the farm owner. Can she get Charlie to believe her?

Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. For the most part, Everett the ghost is a pervy asshole. He does have some good moments when he pops up to give Gretchen some words of wisdom but they’re few and far between. Although if I were stuck in the same place for 100 years, unable to talk to anyone, maybe I’d begin to get my entertainment by watching people regardless of whether those people were in the bathroom or bedroom. I think he’s supposed to add most of the “quirk” to the book but I just wanted to punch him. Even Gretchen gets to the point where she tunes out his non-stop chatter. Then at the end, he tells Gretchen something – and proceeds to blow off her valid criticism – that made me want to kick him in his balls if he still had corporeal ones. 

Gretchen, who in order to justify her actions has changed her con-artistry to only work with clients who she feels she can leave better off than when they first came to her, is so hesitant while at the farm. Yeah, she doesn’t want to be there, has never farmed, is unsure of herself but SO many times Charlie would ask her to do something that needed to be done RIGHT NOW and Gretchen would dither for half a page or more trying to work herself up to it. I would mentally yell “Just do it! The baby goat needs you!” at her. She does, I will admit, have great ideas for ways for Charlie to increase the income the farm makes and does something really nice for Charlie’s grandfather. That was sweet. 

Grumpy hero Charlie is barely in the book for the first third. And when he is, he’s simmeringly angry at Gretchen. Like that’s pretty much his only emotion. He does eventually show his good side and after that, I agree with Everett (and it pains me to agree with that asshole about anything) that Charlie is a good egg with a runny yolk. Hmmm, that description sounds better in the book. 

Miscommunication is a big part of this story. We’re told that everyone around Gretchen and Charlie can see that they’re falling for each other (even if I didn’t see much chemistry for a long time) but these two won’t give in because Gretchen won’t allow anyone close to her in her life and Charlie thinks she’s a fraud. Then this progresses to martyrish tendencies from them both. Ugh. 

The worst thing though is the endless telling instead of showing. We never do get any POV from Charlie but do get endless rounds of everything going on in Gretchen’s head. Plus descriptions. Cut those down and the book could have easily lost 75 pages of nothing. There also wasn’t much tension. Honestly, I was more underwhelmed with it than anything else. I did expect one plot point to be expanded on but that never happened, which is a good thing because I was dreading it, so yay for that. Also the baby goats are cute. 

Looking at other reviews, I am definitely an outlier. This book seems to be pleasing a lot of people but most of it just rubbed me the wrong way. Sadly I’ll have to hope that the next book wins me back because this one didn’t do much for me. C-/D

~Jayne      

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Dawn mage. Twilight mage. Cursed, useless, damaged, dangerous…

His birth magic leaves Prince Nikola with nothing but bad choices: live as another man’s possession, subject to his whims and his desires, or remain dependent on a potion that stunts his powers and prevents him from knowing love.

Andreas vows to protect the prince with his life—whether Nikola wants him to or not. After all, the queen pays his soldier’s wage. Nikola’s nothing but a job to do.

But when they find themselves stranded, with Nikola’s potion running out, Andreas has to…improvise. Because what Prince Nikola needs to survive is the opposite of a lowly guard’s respectful protection.

It should’ve been only one night. Just until the potion’s refilled. But now that Nikola’s had Andreas’s touch, he craves Andreas again and again. He shouldn’t. But he—and his magic—can’t live without it…

The Royal Curse is a high-heat MM fantasy romance with a stubborn prince, an even more stubborn soldier, and cursed magic that can’t be denied. There is an on-page attempted sexual assault that is not between the main characters. HEA guaranteed.

SPOILERS

Review:

Dear Elliot Grayson,

You contacted DA, where I review, with a review inquiry for this book. I however decided to wait till the book came out on KU simply because I got superstitious recently. I take very few reviewing copies, and I still got burned with them quite a few times.Basically this book was not for me. There was some occasional humor that I liked and some sex scenes were really hot when it was not described in a very over the top way. However the blurb for the book says *high heat fantasy* right? Obviously, obviously I expected the two men to have sex on page in the book. But I also expected fantasy and the fantasy settings were so incredibly thin and even worse for me, the explanation given as to why things were happening or not happening were so thin.

Let’s look at the main premise of the story. Prince Nikola’s magic is killing him and he has to take a potion to suppress it or he has to sex it out with the person of his choosing (small mercies for that) who has to dominate Nikola a/k/a Niko in bed, then Niko does not need the potion and his magic will work fine.

I understand that all kinds of what ifs can work in fantasy, but I still would like a satisfactory explanation as to the more outlandish ones. And to me, his magic only working if he is being dominated in bed is silly. I mean I have read stories with sex magic in it for example (not that many and it had been awhile but I certainly have read them), when it amplified the magic of the character. Why does only domination work here?

We do get one explanation about one God cursing twilight mages, but I have read this one page or half a page and I am still scratching my head as to why this is happening.

I did try to merrily move along and hoped to see how Prince Nikola’s magic will work when he was being dominated by Andreas. Eh, I will speculate that all of this was done for that one moment when he got to save Andreas’ life, but I still do not know what else his magic can do besides tearing off trousers and throwing them out of the window (yes, that was the humor I liked )

Besides that magic that works when Andreas getting all the topping that he deserves, I am still not sure why this story was called a fantasy. I know, I know even a nominal amount of magic is enough to call the setting a fantasy, but I wanted more of that.

I wanted adventure, danger and fun. There was a short moment during their trip when the author actually wrote some suspense and adventure, but for me it was just resolved and done too fast.

Starting at the moment of them getting together when it was needed to help Niko at about 36% of the story, for the most part they were having sex and at some point being in love with the interruption that was supposed to be conflicts between the main couple? “Oh no, he is embarrassed at being with me, no you are embarrassed, how could he? How could you? Let us go back to having sex again.”

Oh, I liked Niko’s family, mostly his sisters. I thought his mother the queen was an idiot. Do not get me wrong, I never held it against a fictional mother if she is being over bearing *if there are reasons for that*. She is a mother after all.

Why was his mom being overbearing exactly to the point that she did not want to let her son go on a trip which could presumably make his life much easier? Potion was working for him (before the trip) – so why could he not go?

Grade: C-

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Once Upon a Time meets The Office in Hannah Maehrer’s laugh-out-loud viral TikTok series turned novel, about the sunshine assistant to an Evil Villain…and their unexpected romance.

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage’s employment status isn’t just important, it’s vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.

I GOT THIS BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY.

Review:

Dear Hannah Nicole Maehrer,

I first learned about this book when Amazon decided to recommend it to me and it sounded wonderful. I felt like I was due for some m/f romance, the book was classified as fantasy as well, and the blurb had all the promise of funny banter between the leads so I was all in. I *really* wanted to love it.  Readers, I realize that I am very much an outlier here. There are tons of wonderful reviews and I think the book even made NY Times bestseller list, so please please check out those reviews before deciding whether the book is for you.

First and foremost, in one way the book definitely fulfilled my expectations – there was *plenty* of amusing, well written banter between the leads. In fact, I thought there was way so much of it at some point in the story, that the banter *became* the story for me and I became really really bored.

The story is 430 pages long on my kindle and overall it frustrated me so very much. Was it a pacing? A structure? All of the above? Basically after Evie starts working for The Villain, what we mostly observe are the days in the office and their back and forth as to various work functions.

As an aside, the world presumably is some kind of fairy tale/medieval one (some very few hints point me in that direction), but the Office indeed reminds us of a very modern Office (and yes, I know the blurb says Once Upon a Time meets The Office and that’s probably correct). The world could have been a really fun one, but I did want to see more of the actual world building.

So we get lots and lots of snappy dialogue for the most of the story, but as the narrative moves along we get to see that someone indeed tries to kill The Villain, but the characters do not seem to change their behavior in response to those events. I felt as if the story was there to support the mutual teasing between Evie and The Villain, instead of them actually truly doing something to investigate the problem.

“She’s in big trouble,” Evie said grumpily. “Go easy on her—she’s young,” The Villain said diplomatically. Evie turned toward him, planting her hands on her hips, a look of mock outrage on her face. “Aren’t you supposed to be evil?” “Encouraging children to neglect their education fits under that bracket, does it not?” He tilted his head as if considering it. Plucking a stray weed from the walkway and then another, Evie said, “Where did the name Trystan come from, anyway?” “My mother, I imagine.” Evie straightened like a rod, slowly dropping the weeds and coming to stand, staring at him with wide, unflinching eyes. “Are you saying… the name you just gave my younger sister… is your real name?” Disbelief overrode her senses even further when he squinted in confusion. “There’s no need to overreact, little tornado. It’s just a name.” “Like the deadlands it is!” she sputtered. Trystan. His name was Trystan Maverine.”

Also, in between of all that banter during the work day, we learn that both Evie and The Villain had some dramatic events in their past. To be more specific, we learned about Evie’s trauma much earlier than The Villain’s and once again the story merrily moves along.  Please don’t get me wrong, I am not sure what I would have wanted to happen differently, I just felt that the main characters reactions often felt not real maybe? I am not talking about realism in the fantasy story, I am talking about characters reacting believably to some things.

Actually, there was one thing I would have liked to happen differently, I would have liked all this mutual banter to have a bigger payoff than what the writer gave the readers.

And when the traitor is discovered (I would argue by complete accident), I think nine or ten chapters before the end of the book then the story finally takes a darker turn and the events speed up somewhat and the 430 page book ends in a massive, massive cliffhanger. You know how sometimes you read a cliffhanger and think it is not that bad? This one is bad, as in one character’s life and sanity appears to be in a pretty immediate danger. I am sorry, I was so annoyed as in wanting to throw the book across the room if I would have reading a paper book.  I am sure the second book has to come out eventually after such ending, but I won’t be reading it.

Grade: C-

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His dashing days are behind him – until an old flame dances back into his life.

A hero of Trafalgar and many battle since, Captain Julius Vale, has retired from the Royal Navy and moved himself and all his siblings back to the family home near Blackhaven. Here, wounded and disillusioned, he seeks peace for himself, and happiness for his troubled brothers and sisters. He does not expect to encounter the woman who broke his heart ten years ago, and he certainly does not mean to make the mistake of falling for her again.

Antonia, now an impoverished widow and mother, is the paid companion of eccentric spinster, Miss Talbot, who is taking a course of the Blackhaven waters. Meeting Julius again is a shock. So is the fact that he clearly blames her for their parting when it was he who sailed away without a word of goodbye. And yet after only one dance, she begins to feel alive…

Amidst the tangle of anger, hurt and reigniting passion, they gradually realize the truth. But it seems that the same forces that parted them ten years ago are determined to do so again.

Unless they are strong enough this time to trust in each other.

Dear Ms. Lancaster,

It’s been years since I read “An Endless Exile,” but that book plus Jennie’s review of another book a few years ago made me think it was time I read another of yours. This one sounded like a nice, gentle second chance romance. Well, it did have that trope but it wasn’t quite what the blurb led me to expect.

There were actually several things that didn’t work for me about the story. It’s the first in a new series and tacks onto another long one set in this same area. Still it wasn’t the characters from the previous series who were the issue. The hero is one of nine children so all of them had to be introduced with little bits of information that I assume will play out in their own books. I can manage large casts of characters but I hate having them all dumped on me in one chapter especially if many of them have similar sounding names.

My preference for historicals is that they be as historically accurate as possible. “The Captain’s Old Love” turned out to seemingly be a weird mish-mash of accurate and historical-lite. One minute I was sinking into details and the next minute my fur was being rubbed the wrong way. The Vale family is also a mix of legitimate children plus two if not three illegitimate ones who boldly announce to almost total strangers that they are bastards. And despite having plenty of servants, the family always seemed to be meeting visitors’ carriages at the door, saddling their own horses, etc. I was astonished that the heroine’s father allowed her first marriage settlement to be bungled as badly as he did. But then her parents are a bunch of losers so being such idiots shouldn’t have surprised me. Although they began as strong characters, the heroine’s son and her employer faded into a plot moppet and a placeholder before too long.

Another issue for me was the number of plot threads going on. Second chance romance, smuggling, family issues, and abduction were the most prevalent with added hints of what might occur for other family members in future books. The romance actually started as enemies to lovers with convenient interruptions just as the hero and heroine might have cleared up their misunderstandings. Then things progressed from “let’s court and get to know each other as they are now” to (in the course of one day) “marry me” which was quickly (within minutes) finished up with “my bedroom is right down the hall.” It was all way too fast for me to buy into.

I might look into some other series or books and see if they work better for me but I don’t think I’ll be continuing with this one. C-

~Jayne

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The captain of a ragtag mercenary ship is given an offer she can’t refuse by the ruthless head of an intergalactic noble family. The only catch? She’ll have to team up with his son–an upsettingly competent hardbody with his own agenda–to get her reward.

She’s got a ramshackle spaceship, a misfit crew, and a big problem with its sexy newest member…

Temperance Reed, banished from the wealthy and dangerous Fifteen Families, just wants to keep her crew together after their feckless captain ran off with the intern. But she’s drowning in debt and revolutionary new engine technology is about to make her beloved ship obsolete.

Enter Arcadio Escajeda. Second child of the terrifying Escajeda Family, he’s the thorn in Temper’s side as they’re sent off on a scouting mission on the backwater desert planet of Herschel 2. They throw sparks every time they meet but Temper’s suspicions of his ulterior motives only serve to fuel the flames between them.

Despite volcanic eruptions, secret cultists, and deadly galactic fighters, the greatest threat on this mission may be to Temper’s heart.

Dear Ms. Fay,

Every once in a while, I try something different. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. For me, this book mostly didn’t work. But I can see it being a fun, thrill ride of entertainment for many others.

Temper Reed seemed like she might be an interesting heroine yet she almost single handedly ruined the book for me as it’s told in first-person POV. But the problem is that Temper has tunnel vision. Temper also not only has a temper but given the choice she will pick the worst option just because of her pride. She knows she is picking the worst thing to do but dammit she’s going to choose it Just Because of her stubborn pride. She’s also a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead – but with no plan!” captain. At one point, one of her crew asked her what her plan was, and all I could think was “You know her and you think she has a plan??” If she had displayed a smidgeon of competence too I would have been much more happy. I will admit though that by the end of the story, she might have gained a little bit of maturity but waiting for her to do that was agony at times.

Temper also comes off very YA. The first romantic betrayal ought to have been spotted long before the boom was dropped on her. Because of this and the whole Fifteen Families social hierarchy, Temper (who has been banished from her family) of course doesn’t believe Arcadio (son of one of the most prominent families) will choose her. So when he ultimately does (no, this really isn’t a spoiler) she keeps mentally repeating “He picked me! He picked me!” This clashes with the earlier smoldering tension between Temper and Arcadio before the steamy bits ramp up. There are lots of sparks and tight clinches with Temper speculating on how hot Arcadio is and ogling his muscles and his lips. She’s still tossing insults every time she opens her mouth but she definitely wants him.

Both Temper and Arcadio expect the other to be a calamity – hence the title. Temper has been thrown out of her family by her shitty asshat brother. He controlled what information about the situation hit the feeds and he made sure to paint Temper with all the blame. Arcadio expected someone awful and initially reacted as if Temper was living down to his expectations. Temper is on the defensive about working for Arcadio’s family, feels pushed into a no-win situation, and believes his family will screw her over. She thinks he’s a pretty boy there to spy for daddy and not having great confidence in her ability to captain her newly acquired ship, she takes everything as an insult.

Her crew is a basic package of misfits who each has their talent or skill. They banter, they fight together, they keep backing Temper despite her lack of plans but that’s pretty much all there is of them.

The Fifteen Families (who seem to own this universe) sound fairly toxic. I couldn’t help but feel that they are supposed to stand for the 1% here – power hungry, damn the little people, all for us and none for anyone else. “Fuck you!” to the greater universe and all that. I would happily lead a revolt against them. “A la barricade!” Then there’s the cult. What fun people. They’re only slightly better than the Families but with extra craziness baked in for free.

The ending is where I think people might still pull a “like” for the book depending on how off the charts one likes one’s ending. This one rides the rails of WTF until the wheels come off and it goes airborne. It’s like a late 70s Bond movie ending with a volcanic villain’s lair, exposition, giant weapons being powered up, everything blowing up, people laughing maniacally, plus blood and body parts everywhere. Hmmm, that doesn’t sound so good but it was exciting.

I think the story leans into action more than science. The pace is fairly fast. Some things aren’t explained all that well but … maybe the story didn’t really need that much. It hit its beats and landed where I thought it would. I did need more from the romance though as it was more like a lit dynamite fuse – fast, sparky and then ka-boom! There are obviously future books planned as characters are left needing closure and plot threads are loose but to be honest, I doubt I’ll check them out. C-

~Jayne

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Dear Andrew Grey,

I generally like a fake relationship story. For me it’s the modern equivalent of a marriage of convenience in many ways and forced proximity usually means a lot of the love interests together which also suits me. But I probably didn’t think through where the premise of Dragged to the Wedding would inevitably take me.  James Petika is a Chicago policeman who is going home to Missoula, Montana, to his sister’s wedding. He is gay but isn’t out to his very conservative family. His mother, in particular, is a force of nature and he wants to keep her off his back about “marrying a nice girl and settling down” while he’s home. His friend introduces him to “Daniella” – who turns out to be Daniel Bonafonte, an entertainer who performs as drag queen Lala Traviata. Daniel can tone down the drag makeup and pass as female and James ends up agreeing to pay Daniel $1,000 to be his fake date to the wedding, the festivities for which involve six days of family gatherings.

Daniel is not trans. When James introduces Daniella to his family he is not only lying to them about his relationship status, both he and Daniel are actively involved in a deception which can only end in tears once Daniel’s gender is revealed (and of course it will be). It’s one thing to pretend to be in a relationship but this deception takes things to another level. Had Daniel been trans and therefore actually been Daniella I would not have had this discomfort with the story – as Daniella would not have been lying about who she was. But Daniel is pretending to be a woman and it’s easy to see how James’s family would feel humiliated and hurt at being deceived that way.  As I read through the book, my realisation crystallised of just how badly the people I was supposed to be rooting for were behaving.

I found the writing style generally choppy and there were a number of times when an idea was introduced that was never resolved. For instance:

James could not explain to his father exactly what was going on, and that was part of the problem. He didn’t know what was real and what was an act any longer. This was all his fault, and now he had to find his way through this minefield of dresses, makeup, and deception all on his own.

“Ah, I see,” his father whispered knowingly as he sat forward. “I thought that I recognized something was amiss. You’re not telling us everything about Daniella, are you? You know, if you look closely enough, it’s pretty obvious.” His gaze bored into James, and for an instant he felt completely exposed and vulnerable. A cold chill ran up his back, and James held his hands together just to keep them from shaking.

“I…” He opened his mouth to try to explain, but his father continued. This was his worst nightmare. James’s mind raced in a million directions at once.

His father looked toward the kitchen and motioned for James to come closer. “What were you thinking?” The tone was barely above a whisper and knife sharp, and James lowered his gaze. “I’m not stupid, and don’t think for a second that I condone this type of thing. Lying to your mother…”

“Dad, I… There are things that you don’t know.” The ground beneath his feet turned to quicksand in a second, his heart raced, and James could almost feel the end of his life with his family approaching like a freight train.

His father’s face transformed with a smile. “You really care for this girl,” he said. “I can see it.”

“What?” James tried to make his head shift gears in a second as relief warred with the idea that he should just come clean and tell his father everything.

I still do not know what James’s dad was actually on about and nothing in the text that followed told me. I had quite a few instances of mental whiplash where I asked myself “what just happened?” I felt like key information was missing. If it had been a paperback I would have been tempted to shake it to see if any extra pages fell out.

James’s mother, Grace, is something of a caricature but she’s also a bit inconsistently drawn. Every now and then she will come out with something positively risque or be permissive of something unexpected, but most of the time she’s the stereotypical “no sex before marriage” super conservative Christian often depicted in media (and often found in real life too if social media is anything to go by). She’s also a mother-of-the-bride-zilla. She changes the order of service to suit herself, she changes the wedding dress order (when the dress was one the bride did not super-love in the first place) so it does not fit. (Aside: what kind of wedding dress seller would allow that??) She did not truly deal with actual consequences for this outrageous behaviour either.  Fortunately, Daniel is a whiz on a sewing machine and (somewhat very  unbelievably) he alters the oversized wedding gown in the space of 24 hours so it fits like a dream and James’s sister walks down the aisle as the princess she always wanted to be.

Between problems with the wedding and an obnoxious best man who keeps hitting on Daniella, a shady pastor and avoiding the truth coming out to James’s family, Daniel and James fight their burgeoning attraction. Well, they fight it for a while. Then they don’t. (Which, honestly, is fine.) It’s just that there’s an awful lot going on in a book which came in at 184 pages on my ereader. There were too many concepts and storylines for any of them to really get the attention they deserved and that included the romance.

And, when the big reveal inevitably occurred, neither James nor Daniel truly appreciated their own fault. James in particular leapt to blame his mother for being so demanding he felt forced to bring Daniel-dressed-as-Daniella to the wedding so really it’s all her own fault and then the conflict swiftly  moves to being about Grace’s homophobia. Truly, I felt James and Daniel owed James’s family a very sincere, grovelling apology but it did not happen. And, then, everyone got over it way too quickly for it to be remotely realistic.

I won’t give away the ending but I found it only added to the unreality of it all.

There were things I did like. For instance, I liked how James, apart from their very first meeting, always saw through whatever Daniel was wearing to the man underneath. He was unashamedly attracted to Daniel whether he was wearing a dress and heels and full makeup, was in full drag regalia as Lala or, presenting as Daniel in a t-shirt and jeans. There was something about that I found charming because it was presented as him really seeing the person he cared for. James just saw Daniel. I liked that James was not only unfazed by dating a drag queen, he actively reveled in it. I liked how he only had admiration for Daniel’s talent and skill.

Unfortunately a lot of other things didn’t work for me and Dragged to the Wedding was a disappointment.

Grade: C-

Regards,
Kaetrin

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She puts everything on the line for her patients, but is this paramedic willing to risk her heart for a gorgeous doctor and his adorable son? Dive into the first story in the Paramedics and Pups duet from Harlequin Medical Romance author Marion Lennox.

Colleagues, housemates…

Soulmates?

After a disastrous relationship, paramedic Jenny needs this fresh start in remote Willhua. When her living arrangements fall through, gorgeous local doc Rob offers Jenny and the injured pup she’s just rescued a room. Their immediate chemistry is overwhelmingly intense, but it’s clear this single dad’s life is currently in limbo—placing him firmly off-limits! Jenny’s scared to open herself up again. Is this instant family worth taking a chance on?

Dear Ms. Lennox,

I find myself at a bit of a loss about grading this book. On the one hand, parts of it are lovely. Jacob, hero Rob’s four year old son, is a delight. I’m not usually a fan of children in romances but for Jacob I’d make an exception. Rob and Jen are caring and wonderful people. Rob made the decision to stay in small, rural Willhua because of the desperate need the small community has for a family medicine doctor. Jen chose to go there from Sydney after a disastrous break-up from a toerag (asshole). They click immediately both medically and personally. But wow, there is a big reason why Rob is “Off-Limits” and I’m torn about this.

For a small town, Willhua is packed with medical needs. It seems as if disaster after disaster after incident occurs. There are deaths, there are cancer patients, there is an unwed eighteen year old who has been hiding her pregnancy from her parents and the world because of how it occurred (and I needed to see

I didn’t get this), there are people frantic to make sure that their livestock are looked after, plus two dogs who lose their person who need (and yay, get) new homes. And that’s before the dam overflows after torrential rains and the whole valley needs rescuing. The hits just kept coming. 

But there are charming scenes of Jen getting to know irrepressible Jacob (and we can see how good a dad Rob is to have achieved this despite being run off his conscientious feet). Stubby the corgi is a sweet delight. I approve of the fact that Jen tells Rob the whole sordid truth of what she ran from, I approve that Rob tells Jen about his marriage and the horrible outcome of his wife’s pregnancy. There’s one thing that Jen doesn’t find out about until after she boldly proposes a night of mutual enjoyment (which they both enjoy a lot). That one detail sent me – and Jen – into a spin. 

It’s a small town and people sure do talk so I can understand why Rob might have just assumed that Jen had been told and that she knew. After what happened to her in Sydney, finding out what she didn’t know was devastating to her. She was told about how Rob’s grief stricken in-laws have acted over the past four years and Jen herself gets a taste of this. It’s …. a lot. It’s a tragic situation – there’s anger and grief enough to go around. And I’m still conflicted about Jen and Rob’s relationship. I mean really conflicted. On the one hand, these are two people who, along with Jacob, deserve to be happy. On the other hand … wow. This

might be a step too far for a lot of people. This is a bold authorial choice and I happily grade part of it a B+ but the rest, no matter how conscientiously and tenderly portrayed, is not what I’m looking for in a romance. B+/C-

I look forward to what people’s thoughts are.

~Jayne      

 

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The heart of Alastair Harding’s life is his duty. Becoming the first gay chief of the Metropolitan police has required certain sacrifices, but Alastair made them willingly. If his life now lacks human connections, he can’t exactly complain—and it’s a little too late for regrets.

Jay Fieldhouse knows all about sacrifice, too. Brought to London for his own safety by witness protection, Jay’s grassroots charity works day and night to save vulnerable kids from a life of crime. But getting close to other people is tough when no one really knows who you are.

When he meets Alastair one night at a charity event, Jay is intrigued by his glimpse of a gentle soul beneath the commissioner’s uniform. The two men decide to run their lonely paths side by side for a while—after all, life is short and good sex is hard to come by.

Then the shadows of the past begin to stir, and the words which go unsaid might be Jay and Alastair’s undoing.

The Sheltering Tree is J.R. Lawrie’s first full length novel, following her debut anthology, Let Your Heart Be Light.

SOME MINOR SPOILERS WILL PROBABLY BE DISCUSSED IN THE REVIEW.

Review:

I got this book on Kindle Unlimited

Dear J.R. Lawrie,

This book was recommended to me by one of the commenters at DA. I got it on Kindle Unlimited. Mystery suspense, police procedural plus m/m romance is normally very much my cup of tea, but a lot of this book unfortunately did not work for me.

For the first three or four chapters I really liked the writing, then we learned that one of the characters is actually in a witness protection program and some of his behavior just did not seem plausible to me. This is when the narrative jerked me out of it for the first time, but I eventually just readjusted my expectations and continued to read. After all both Alastair and Jay seemed sweet, likable characters. If one of them behaved not as smart as I hoped, it was not the end of the world.

Unfortunately, the suspense part of the story notwithstanding the development of the relationship also did not quite work for me. Basically the men start having sex very soon after they meet and that’s great, please don’t get me wrong. I don’t always go for erotic romance, but I can and I have like stories when the attraction grows from the strictly sexual one into something more. The problem for me was more that I did not *see* the growth. It seemed more that the characters felt in love almost right away but tried to convince themselves initially that all they wanted from each other was sex, but it just did not feel that way. The overwhelming sweetness was overwhelming for this reader almost from the very beginning and the worshipping of each other and worry that the other one will leave, etc, etc.

I hope I am making sense, but I felt as if the author tried to mask insta love and sell it to me as the relationship growth.

Also, I liked both characters, I did, but when a fifty year old man is asking his assistant what are the signs that a sexual relationship is changing to a more permanent one and she even suggests at least a few times how to answer the text messages, I am sorry, I get that we were supposed to see it as super adorable, but to me it made Alistair sound a bit infantile. I understand that he was very unexperienced where relationships were concerned, but at fifty surely he heard *other people* at least discussing their relationships? I don’t know, I surely don’t suggest he took relationship advice from romance books ;-), but surely he may have read something relationships related? He is fifty, not twenty, not even thirty.

The blurb remains quite vague about suspense storyline and maybe it is for the best.

Grade: C/C-

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New Paranormal Romance from Bestselling MM Authors Charlie Cochet and Macy Blake. Modern-day Bridgerton with shifter royalty, a snarky fox, and the tiger who refuses to fall for his charms.

Caspian Drake knows what it takes to get ahead in modern-day shifter society. He is an Earl, after all, and known for his wit, style, and ability to charm the pants off of anyone he chooses. Getting his best friend Brandr, the Prince of the Dragons, in and out of trouble is only one of his many talents. When a horrible attack shakes Cas’s world, he’s forced to pair up with Saphir Vepkhia, the esteemed tiger shifter and former Captain of the Royal Guard.

Upon retirement, Saphir is granted the title of Baron Archer and, much to his dismay, becomes part of royal society. Years later, when he’s summoned to the palace, the last thing Saphir expects is for the king to request a favor that ties him to the scoundrel, Caspian Drake. Despite his misgivings, Saphir accepts the assignment, knowing it will give him the access he needs to infiltrate the wealthy and powerful while trying not to get outfoxed by the exasperating Earl.

Forced into a fake relationship by an outdated matchmaking ritual, Cas and Saphir each face the upcoming season with their own agenda. The secrets pile up as the two mates navigate the complexities of a modern world that plays by historic rules. But the closer they get to the truth, the greater the danger–and their attraction to each other–grows.

With their lives on the line and the very foundations of their society at risk, Cas and Saphir must unravel the mystery, even if it means creating a scandal more notorious than their newfound love.

Review: