Biblio Reviews

Love is that which alters when it alteration finds best sums up Sophie Love's five-book (and counting) series, The Romance Chronicles, which chronicles 28-year old Keira Swanson's whirlwind romances while on assignment as a travel writer for Viatorum, a cosmopolitan lifestyle magazine based in New York City. When readers meet Keira for the first time in  Love Like This (2017), she is at a crossroads in both her personal and professional life: she's living with her boyfriend of two years and wants more; she works at her dream job but is simply a role player desperate to be a superstar. Keira gets her lucky break when her boss gets injured and she is given the coveted assignment--just when she and her deceitful boyfriend have a fall out. Thus begins Keira's professional and romantic world tour. Destination one is Ireland, a thirty day escapade documenting the legendary Lisdoonvarna Festival of Love--to prove that true love does not exist. The story that follows is.....

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (2013) by Chris Grabenstein is one of the very few children's books I've read this year. For me, it is a mix of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)   and Raskin's The Westing Game (1978). Mr. Lemoncello is a modern day Willy Wonka who loves puzzles and books, and the story Grabenstein spins is a captivating one. The book is a page turner, an overall good update to Willy Wonka, with a very likable narrator in Kyle Keeley. The English teacher in me appreciates the author's goal to encourage kids to read by understanding and experiencing libraries as magical places. (Rating: 3.5/5). Waiting for Clark  (2015) by Annabeth Albert was another read based on a CBR review. It's also another of those m/m romances that I absolutely loved. At ninety-five pages, the story was wholly satisfying and just about the right length. Five years ago, as college roomies, Bryce Weyland and Clark Kenmore shared a kiss, one that...

Sarina Bowen's   The Understatement of the Year  (2014) was the first m/m romance I ever read. It wasn't a genre of romance that I ever really thought about, especially because I'm more into historical romances. Nonetheless, I read it after reading a CBR review of it. Reading this story of Michael Graham and John Rikker made me think of some of my former male students who came out after high school. I remember thinking how wonderful it would have been for them to have had stories like this to read because the featured characters were close to their own age and had relatable fears and experiences. Well-written with likable characters and a reasonable plot, I loved  The Understatement of the Year  and highly recommend it as a romance and not just as porn on the page, which I've found to be the case with many m/m "romances."  (Rating: 4/5) Looking at my orders history on Amazon, I followed up my purchase of  The Understatement of the Year  with...

Heather Tullis' A Perfect Fit  (2014) is book one of her seven-book DiCarlo Brides series. Based on a good idea, the story ultimately falls flat due to immature writing. The Good The concept: At the reading of their billionaire father's will, two sisters born out of their father's marriage find out that four half-sisters exist. In addition, in order for them all to earn their inheritance, all six have to live together while they launch their late father's new resort. Through that journey, they also eventually meet each of the men their father had identified as their ideal match. To add another layer of complication, sinister figures attempt to destroy the empire the sisters are working to maintain. A Perfect Fit is Cami's story. She is the eldest daughter, the product of her parents' marriage who supposedly struggles the most coping with her father's duplicity. The Bad The execution, which is to say, the writing, the writing, the writing! Tullis...

I think I should approach cheap romances available on Amazon written by new-to-me authors with "Lowered Expectations" (cue music from said segment from In Living Color) . Had I taken that approach, I wouldn't have felt as cheated as I did after reading J. Sterling's 10 Years Later  (2015) which I expected to be a sentimental second-chance romance about first love lost and found after having read the sample chapters downloaded on my Kindle. 10 Years Later  started off promisingly enough with the alternating first person perspectives of Cammie (a radio producer) and Dalton (an undercover cop), high school sweethearts who lost contact after a fallout at the end of their senior year but who had been pining for each other ever since. Ten years later, their high school reunion provides them with the opportunity to reconnect. The story was interesting up to the point when they reconnected at their reunion. Everything after that point is irrelevant because there is NO PLO...

To the son, Evan is a superhero and to the mother, Evan is a guardian angel.  Evan Manning just knows that he wants to reclaim his career. All that's standing in his way is a lack of a fiancée or wife. No worries, though, because as luck would have it, the mother-son duo who he had rescued from a burning vehicle the year before--which cost him his career as a surgeon--have sought him out to offer their gratitude. What better way than for the mother to pose as Evan's fake fiancée to make him more appealing for a job that will again establish his stature in his profession? In return, the mother (Grace Matheson) gets a Cinderella-like life makeover in picturesque and communal Red River--which Evan desperately wants to escape! Third in the Red River series, The Doctor's Fake Fiancée (2014) is quite charming, particularly because of Grace's four-year-old son, Christopher. Evan, however, is the star of the show (to me). ...

Flirting with Felicity  (2015) by Gerri Russell plays out like a Hallmark Channel movie in my mind, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sweet and light with a good-hearted female protagonist, I found the book to be a surprisingly enjoyable read. It is the story of Felicity who inherits Seattle's landmark Bancroft Hotel where she works as the hotel chef. Thing is, her inherence was a surprise: She hadn't known that the elderly hotel resident she had befriended was really the famed billionaire owner of the hotel and founder of Bancroft Industries. Conflict and romance arise when Blake, the elderly man's nephew, swaggers into town to take over the Bancroft. What follows is Blake's attempt at compromising: Spend a day in the other's world and then decide who is more worthy of the hotel. The story develops into what felt like a sweet, romantic stroll in the development of Felicity and Blake's courtship. We learn of the challenges that have shaped them and...

It seems as if every wanna be romance writer makes Amazon their dumping ground. Desperate to find some new authors to diversify my limited favorite authors' selections, I stumbled upon Terri Osburn's  Home to Stay  (2014) ,  a bland, forgettable romance that emphasizes why I hate small town romance series. Home to Stay  is the story of Willow Parsons and Randy Navarro, residents of Anchor Island. Willow, living on the island for only a year, works as a bartender and harbors a secret that keeps her emotionally distant and secretive about her past. Randy, muscle-bound owner of the local fitness club and brother to Willow's "best friend," is determined to break through Willow's protective shell despite her visible, negative physical reaction to him / his size. In the course of planning their friends' wedding, Willow and Randy fall in love, but will she let her past get in the way of true love? Of course not! At 291 print pages,  Home to Stay  is an abs...

Leave me in a bookstore and I will get lost in the romance novel section. Romance novels--to be more precise, historical romances a la old school Amanda Quick--are my default book reads, especially when I want to escape into an adult fairy tale. I say all this to make clear my bias in tackling Nancy Naigle's  Mint Juleps and Justice  (2014), a contemporary romance and my January Kindle First selection. Mint Juleps and Justice  is part of Naigle's Adams Grove series set in Virginia. I have not read any of the previous books in the series, nor do I intend to. That has nothing to do with Naigle's skills as a writer but rather my lack of interest in the particular brand of romance that she offers: small town characters who engage in realistic ways and who have realistic problems with a little bit of realistic suspense thrown in. The story is of Brooke Justice and Mike Hartman who find themselves relocating to Adams Grove for a fresh start. They meet, fall in love, and liv...