Sarah's Bookshelf

Well folks, it’s finally here.  This is my 200th blog post.  That means that I’ve read 200 books since I started this blog.  So in honor of this milestone, I’ve decided to make this book by Julie James be that special book.  More to come…

Today’s book was written by Jayne Ann Krenz and is the third book in this particular series (series includes The Pirate, The Adventurer, and The Cowboy).  This book was OK, but not nearly as funny or entertaining as The Pirate was.  This book had more of the drama that I’m not really a big fan of; big gestures, doors slamming, that sort of thing.  I’ll still read the middle book in this series, and I’ll still read other books by this author.  This just wasn’t a book I’d tell anyone to run out and get.

Today’s book was written by Kristan Higgins.  OMG!  This book was fantastic!  As with the other books by Higgins that I’ve read, this one really took you through all the good, the bad and the ugly, but cleaned you off and gave you a happy ending in the end.  Higgins lives in Connecticut and I’m going to try to see if she’ll do a book club with this book at some point–just need to find the right library to do it at.

Lucy Lang is a widow.  She’s pretty much put her life on hold since her husband’s tragic death that occurred before their first anniversary.  Unable to move on, Lucy takes the path of least resistance and works at her mother and aunts’ bakery.  All the things that she passionate about have ceased to have any meaning to her since her husband’s death.  But just as she’s about to hit bottom, she decides she’s ready to get back in the saddle.  Although now the dating choices are slim at best.  Unable to see the best option, which is right in front of her, Lucy drives herself crazy trying to find someone to basically be a sperm-donor and give her children.

I loved the characters in this book.  Ethan Mirabelli, the brother of the deceased, is the perfect example of the son that never quite does it for his family.  He’s not his brother, he doesn’t have a job that his family approves of, hasn’t married the person who gave him a son, and doesn’t live by the same rules that his family has laid before him.  But one thing is abundantly clear about Ethan; he loves Lucy with all his being.  Higgins does such a great job of showcasing her characters’ personalities and flaws.  Sometimes it was hard to read what Lucy or Ethan, or even the secondary characters, would do next because they often didn’t see the ramifications of their actions.  But these are choices that real people would make, which is one of the reasons that I found this book to be so good.

If you are looking for a book that takes you through the paces, but dusts you off at the end, I’d suggest putting this book high on your cue.  Steam factor was about PG-13, so this is a book that I think would be suitable for a book club.  It’s funny, heavy at times (yes, I cried), but as I said, the ending was great.  This is a book that I highly recommend.

Just finished reading this book by Susan Mallery.  This is the second book in the Fool’s Gold series and definitely one of the more serious stories by Mallery that I’ve read.

In this chapter of the Fool’s Gold series we meet Liz Sutton, a successful mystery author, who has literally pulled herself up by her own bootstraps.  A single parent of an 11 year-old boy, Liz returns to her hometown of Fool’s Gold following a call from her recently abandoned nieces.  Coming home, she makes the point of confronting her son’s father, Ethan Hendrix, and allowing father and son to have some bonding time.  Ethan’s betrayals all through high school have only intensified her sensitivity to him following their reunion.  So it doesn’t help that he’s telling everyone in town that she hid the information of her son from him and everyone else.  Families get involved and much drama ensues.

There are so few books by Mallery that I don’t enjoy, and I have to say despite the ugly undertones in this book, I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit.  It had more meat to it than some of her previous books.  I like her stories that revolve around second chances and reunions with unknown relatives.  I can definitely see Mallery taking some of the minor characters and giving them stories when they grow up.  Tyler, Liz’s son, for example would be a great story, as would her nieces, Melissa and Abby.  The emotions that the characters felt in this book, I felt, were much more potent than some of the other books I’ve read by Mallery.  Although I went through my normal love/hate with the hero, ultimately, I think he’s a good guy at heart.  But he’s a guy, so he needs to be an idiot for a little while before he figures it out.

If you like Mallery, but want a little more drama or meat to your story, I’d suggest checking this book out.  I found it tough to read at times, but tough because I could definitely see real people making these same choices.  This story also introduced more single characters into the mix, so I’m curious to see what comes next.  The next installment of this series, Finding Perfect, will be out in September.  If you’ve read Mallery’s Bakery Sisters series, you’ll recognize Raoul from that story.  Now that I’ve made the connection, I’m super-excited to read that book!

[Timeout contacting Open Library] Today’s book was written by Robin Kaye and was her first book of the Ronaldi family.  I’ve read this series completely out of order, but I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything by doing so.

Ah!  This book was so good I couldn’t put it down.  Thank god I had a full Saturday to do nothing but read, read, read!  I think the jacket description of this book doesn’t really do it justice.  When I read the synopsis of the book, I thought this book, and the others in the series, were basically the same book, but with different characters.  While that might be sort of true, once I read the book I didn’t feel that way at all.  Kaye has this great way of creating characters that are so multidimentional that you really get caught up in their stories quickly.

In this story we meet Rosalie Ronaldi, the eldest sister of the Ronaldi clan.  She’s a feisty businesswoman who doesn’t have time, or the inclination, to ever get married.  So she dates for convenience–the convenience of not having her parents try to fix her up with some schmo from the neighborhood.  But her mother has a marriage stop watch, or something similar, because once she hits the two-year-mark, her mother starts going a little wedding-crazy.  So it’s in that vein that she meets up with Nick Romeo.  Nick is the male version of Rosalie, but he doesn’t really see that until he starts falling in love with her.  Then of course the issue becomes who spills the beans first.

Of the stories I’ve read by Kaye, I think this one was my favorite.  She’s witty, her characters have so many angles that they really come to life, but the plot I found to be refreshing.  My husband cooks, so it’s nice to read about men doing well in the kitchen.  I also think it’s reasonable to assume that if you care about someone, you’ll take care of them when they are sick, which was what happened in the book.

This story was light-hearted and fun.  If you are looking for a romance novel, but you want to stay away from the damsel-in-distress, I-need-a-man-to-complete-me mentality, I’d suggest checking Kaye out.  Like I mentioned earlier, her heroines are independent, smart and funny and would be just fine without the heros.  As in real life, I think the best relationships are those that don’t require you to be with someone because without them you cannot function, but you want to be with them because they make your life better.

I just finished reading this book by J.R. Ward.  This is the eighth book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.  Wow!  This book had the best ending of the books I’ve read in the series.  Hopefully I’m not spoiling anything by saying this, but this book (I felt) was a lot more violent and graphic than some of the other books, but the ending really made it all worthwhile.

If you’ve read the other books in the series you’ve watched John Matthew grow up and become an unofficial member of the Brotherhood.  You’ve also seen the way he acts around Xhex, Rhevenge’s former head-of-security.  In the previous book, Xhex was abducted by Lash, the former brother-in-training-now-leader-of-the-lessors.  In this book we follow the search for her and John Matthew’s feelings, which have really bloomed into something much more intense than his initial crush.  Like the others in this series, this book has a lot of action, violence, language, laughs, and supernatural twists that keep this series interesting.  If this is your first time reading Ward, I’d suggest you start with the first book and read the series in order (start with Dark Lover).  I would recommend staying away from these books if you have an aversion to reading about any kind of violence, but especially violence to women.

Since I needed closure with John Matthew, who’s been a side character for the entire series, I was planning on reading the book no matter what.   I’m glad I did read it because I think this book was my new favorite of the series.  I was talking to my friend Heather about these books (she was the one who initially told me about them).  We were commiserating on the fact that all the books start out slow, but by about the half-way point they get so good they are difficult to put down.  I think that’s true for pretty much the whole series.  So if you are finding getting into this series difficult, just keep that in mind.  These books truly are some of the best and most interesting fantasy I’ve read in a while.  I should probably admit that I’m not usually a huge fantasy fan, but Ward does such a fantastic job of creating this alternate universe that I just find it difficult to put these books down.

I have no idea what’s in store for this series next, as the single brothers are all mated at this point.  I’ll keep my eyes open for any new chapters, though.

Today’s book was written by Victoria Dahl.  I picked up this book when I was at RomCon in Denver recently and was psyched to find out that Dahl had written another book.  I’m not sure if this is a stand alone book or if it’s part of a series.  After reading the book, it really could go either way.  In any event, I was so happy to find this and now, after finishing the book, I’m even happier now that I’ve read the book.

I’m not sure what it is about Dahl’s style that makes her one of my absolute favs.  She just seems to have a way of making characters that you love to read about.  In this book, we meet Chloe Turner, following a very public break-up with her fiance–her former fiance went so far as to actually faked his own death in order to get out of marrying her.  With all the negative publicity following this incident (the Paparazzi jokingly titling her “bridezilla”), Chloe flees with her friend, Jenn, to a remote island off the coast of Virginia in hopes to losing some of the more venomous reporters.  While on the island, Chloe and Jenn meet the Sullivan brothers, Max and Elliot.  It turns out everyone could use a little TLC on the island.

If you get a chance to read this book, I highly recommend it.  It’ll make you laugh (Dahl usually does), it’ll make you cry, the relationships are great, and the quirks each of the characters have really speak to Dahl’s ability to give you a book that is easy to relate to.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this is a series, but I’ll be happy with another book by this author any time.

Just finished reading this book by Lisa Plumley.  Plumley’s style is very similar to Rachel Gibson or Victoria Dahl.  This particular book I thought was very similar in storyline to Cathis Linz’s Bad Girls Don’t.  Two polar opposites find themselves working together and realize that their differences are what was missing in all their previous relationships.

Perpetually lucky, Max Nolan has just moved to Phoenix with his entrepreneurial partner, Oliver Pickett.  Intent on the next big successful venture, Max underestimates his girlfriend’s anger one morning when he finds all his suits in the donation bin for Successfully Dressed.   Lucy Logan, the truck driver and manager of Successfully Dressed, meets Max, in his underwear, trying desperately to get his lucky suit back.  Lucy, not falling for any smooth-talking shenanigans, offers Max an opportunity to volunteer his time and earn back his suits.

I really enjoy reading stories where couples meet in work settings.  Max is hilarious in his quest to get out of volunteering or doing what Lucy wants him to do with the store.  Ever the entrepreneur, Max wants to see the store become more successful, so he helps set up workshops and events to bring much needed exposure to the store.  The side stories in this are great, too, but I almost wish Plumley spent more time on them.  I liked Lucy’s unique style and the way it humanized Max once they started seeing each other.  This really was a fun book.  If you get the chance to read it, or another book by Plumley, I highly recommend it.  I’ll definitely be checking her out myself in the future.

I sat down to read this book by Judith Arnold today after putting all my books away from my recent trip to RomCon.  Combined between the free books, the books I won and the books I received from a friend I met while in Denver, I basically received a large box full of books that I haven’t read yet. This book was one that was free and I was intrigued because it was titled “reality-based romance.”  I went into reading this book not really knowing what to expect, but the first page drew me in so well that I thought I’d give it a chance.

I think this book might have spoke to me more because it had an element of reality in it–I could really feel the emotions that Ted and Erika went through.  The story was a very believable, and I’m sure a common, one.   The book takes you through the relationship of Erika Fredell and Ted Skala, high school sweethearts who parted ways when Erika went off to college.  The book begins with the two of them meeting for drinks 16 years later and the remaining and renewed emotions the meeting sparks.  I had to finish this book once I started it because I needed to find out what happened next or have some closure.

What I read was an advanced copy, but once this is out, I highly recommend checking it out if you see it.  I was a little turned off by the publisher.  It’s published under “Health Communications, Inc.”  I’m not sure why that bothered me, just that I thought they might have been trying to sell me something I didn’t want to buy.  No ideas or beliefs were sold in the book, so don’t let the publisher concern you.  If I can, I’ll try to check out the other books that are part of this genre.

Today’s book was written by Susan Wiggs.  This is my first time reading Wiggs and it’s easy to see why she’s a NYT bestselling author.  Her style is easy, her characters are multifaceted and interesting, and the story was captivating.  Although a little more PG than my usual choices, I thought this book was a nice change of pace.  There was a little action/suspense, some drama and some laughs.  I’m not sure if she’s similar to Jodi Picoult in her ability to explain a disease to her readers, but I liked this book a whole lot more than I liked Picoult’s!  Definitely a easy/beach-read type of book and definitely an author I’ll check out again in the future when I need something easy.