Archive for the ‘What I'm Reading’ Category

Lori Wilde’s The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club is a feel-good book. Set in a small town, it perfectly exemplifies small town life and thinking. Lori makes her characters come alive, and you’ll get sucked in to the story before you know it.

Flynn MacGregor turns down proposal after proposal by local cop, Beau Trainer. And has for ten years now. Exactly the same amount of time her ex-boyfriend Jesse Calloway has been in prison.

But now, Jesse’s out.

Flynn sees Jesse wherever she turns, and finds she hasn’t lost the feelings she had for him in the first place. Jesse makes no secret that he wants Flynn, but he also has a bit of revenge on his mind as well.

You’ll love their stories, and the little bits of small town life fit in perfectly. Knitting clubs, a place called Froggy’s, broken water mains, etc. The scene is set, the characters are perfect. Buy this one and enjoy!

carrie

Ain’t Too Proud to Beg by Susan Donovan was just a joy to read. =) Humorous, fast paced, great love scenes. It took me three days to read it, but that was two days longer than I wanted to. Drat work for getting in the way!

Josie Sheehan has a string of failed relationships, and is 35 years old. Making a pact with her 3 friends, they decide no more men! Except for her Labradoodle, Genghis.

That is until Rick Rousseau appears, as CEO of a pet company and all around gorgeous guy. He loves her, he loves her dog, it should be happily ever after right? Wrong!

Turns out Rick has quite a past behind him, and a killer hot on his trail. Turns out Josie’s friends think Rick is a bad-boy and should leave Josie alone. When they all clash together, sparks fly higher than on the Fourth of July, and it’s one fun entertaining read. Buy the Book! =)

Oh, and Susan – I want to know what happens to Bennett!

carrie

4 out of 5 tails!

Under the Mistletoe by Linda Howard and Stephanie Bond is a fun read. Especially at this time year. I was a wee bit concerned that Linda’s portion is half the size of Stephanie’s, but each story was an excellent read.
Bluebird Winter by Linda Howard, features Kathleen, about to give birth in the middle of a raging Christmas blizzard. Trying to save her baby, she tries driving to the nearest clinic and bam, finds herself in a snow drift. The hero, in the form of Doctor Derek saves both her and the baby, marries them and have a lovely HEA. Sounds short and sweet, but really, there’s a lot of story going on there for just the 120+ pages it’s written on!
Naughty or Nice by Stephanie Bond was a giggling good time read as well. Hotel manager Cindy has one disaster after another, just as the hotel inspector shows up. Unfortunately she thinks he’s an adult toy salesman. =) It’s lots of good fun, in a Christmas setting.
You’ll enjoy this one, it’s lots of fun reading, I read it all in one evening with a bowl of popcorn and Christmas tunes wailing in the background.

carrie

4 out of 5 tails

This Perfect Kiss by Christie Ridgeway is just a fun read. Set in Hollywood it pits sexy and rich Rory Kincaid – stick in the mud and running for senator – against curvaceous and free-spirited Jilly Skye, owner of a vintage clothes store. And the sparks they fly!

Rory’s family is old-time Hollywood, actors and bad reputations abound. Rory’s trying to bring respectability to the family name, but…things keep happening. Funny things. Things that make you snort milk out your nose. =)

Jilly’s a hoot, running around in her vintage clothes, trying to avoid Rory’s seductive gaze, somehow they manage to get engaged. OOps. And then there’s the web cam pictures. And then…

There’s tons of fun here, lots of great characters and Rory’s four year old Aunt Iris tops it all off. Fun read, had a good time with the story, and as always love Christie Ridgway!

carrie

4 tails out of 5!

Kathleen O’Reilly is one of my new favoritest authors. I just finished Hot Under Pressure, and I laughed my (smart)ass off all the way through. Just buy this book. Or borrow it. Get out to the library and see if they have it.

Just do it.

Ashley Taylor owns a chain of boutiques and hates flying. And virtually every flight she’s on there seems to be one little cookie-filled monster after another. Then on one trip, David McLean gets the seat next to her and there’s a flight delay. After a little sex talk, they end up in the airport hotel. Va va va voom!

The sex and the jokes hardly ever end. When they’re fighting, Kathleen still finds a way to make you smile. It’s a feel-good book, that I highly recommend to anyone. Loved it, shared it with all my friends, and now I’ll read it again. Now THAT to me is the symbol of a good book.

carrie

5 tails out of 5

How to Knit a Wild Bikini by Christie Ridgeway.

Ok, so technically I didn’t buy this book. I won it. Autographed. With it’s own bookmark. And got an email back from the author when I told her I loved loved loved her book. Jealous yet? You should be, especially if you haven’t read it.

I admit, if I’d seen this book in the only bookstore we have in small town Iowa here, I probably wouldn’t have bought it. Why? Because it says KNIT on the cover. This takes me back to a traumatic childhood experience involving Grandma Starkenburg, two needles and potholders. I’ll say no more.

However, since I won this (autographed) book, I will tell you, you must rush out and buy it. Now. This very second. Stop reading, put your shoes on, cover your jammies with a trenchcoat and just go buy it. Or, you know, purchase it on Amazon, give me a 4% feedback and have a damn good time when it arrives. Either way.

Nikki (heroine) is a chef in a restaurant but her bad knee makes it impossible for her work the shifts anymore. She applies for (and gets) a cooking job with Jay Buchanan, playboy extraordinaire.. He’s recently sworn off of women and hires (what he thinks is) a lesbian chef to keep him on the straight and narrow. Set in Malibu, this book is literally a laugh a minute, if not more than that. Hubby came into the bedroom and asked if I needed CPR I was laughing so hard.

Just buy it. You’ll love it. Five tails out of five.

carrie

Hard to resist by Samantha Hunter is a Harlequin Blaze. Hot and steamy oh yes. So can you have hot steamy sex AND a good story? Absolutely.

Heroine Lacey Graham is photographer for Bliss magazine. Her assignment? A photo shoot with twelve heroic hunks. Gosh, does that sound like a boring assignment or what? Makes me want to drop my day job and learn how to run a lens.

Hero Jarod Wyatt is a Texas Ranger who’s chosen to participate as one of the hunky heros. Gotta love a man in Wranglers and a cowboy hat eh?

There’s thrills and chills and plot twists galore. The sexual tension between Jarod and Lacey is hot hot hot. The sub plots are spine tingling and the secondary characters add a whole new dimension to the story.

Very enjoyable read. 4 out of 5 donkey tails

I love Stephanie Bond. I’ve read most of her books and enjoy her sense of humor. Until I got to this one. It stopped me cold.

The premise is a group of ladies who start a book club with a little added spice. The librarian, Gabrielle Pope, is nearing 40 and challenges the other women of the group to take their favorite erotic book and make it real. Find themselves a man to practice it on, so they don’t end up like her. She’s not even 40 for pete’s sakes! Sorry, for me the premise just doesn’t make sense. As a matter of fact, I moaned and groaned throughout the book, not in suppressed lust, but in agony. Several times I even tossed it off to one side, then started reading again, owing it to myself to wring my full $4.99 out of the book.

Granted, it’s four short stories all crammed into 209 pages. That makes it tough for anyone, even Stephanie Bond to write a good story. And the one, I didn’t mind so much. Cassie, an architect, tries to win back her ex-boyfriend, using Lady Chatterly’s Lover as an example. After that, it goes downhill.

Shy retiring Page seduces her boss, with a dominatrix overtone. Yes, including a black leather bustier. Party girl Wendy seduces her best friend via Fanny Hill and icy Jacqueline goes for The Slave.

Maybe I’m a prude, and that’s why I didn’t like the book, or maybe not. There’s some terrifying writing reminding me of the 70’s romances I used to read (yes, I am that old) but the plots themselves are just truly unbelievable.

Buy it if you’re a fan of any of the above mentioned books, otherwise save your $4.99 for something more exciting like a bag of Hershey chocolates.

carrie

Loooove this book. Love. This. Book. The Trouble with Harry by Katie MacAllister had me in stitches. The humor is sometimes so subtle, it sneaks up on you, and other times it’s an outright hoot.

Plum, the heroine is broke. No money, shunned by one and all. What’s a girl to do? She answers an ad in the newspaper to become a wife. Little does she know, the man she’s going to marry is a Marquis, and has five children. And not ordinary children, oh no. Hellions. Diablitos. And her new husband wants NO more children. Oops.

Harry, the hero, is your average ex-spy, worked for the government, understated kind of Regency guy. His kids drive him to distraction, he’s widowed and even his servants have given up on trying to raise the children. In desperation, he advertises for a wife, and gets Plum. Whom he’s more than satisfied with, especially when he finds out her secret life of writing.

Seem a little dull the way I wrote it? Not a chance. There’s bad guys galore, the kids get into one disaster after another, there’s intrigue and sex. And humor. This line from Harry when interviewing applicants to be his wife, and finding a few quite ugly to look upon.

“Toothsome, no, but I’d like to be able to look at her without thinking of bulldogs.”

It’s this subtle humor throughout the book that really makes it. The humor is charming, the plot is diverse and full, the characters are one-of-a-kind. I’m looking forward to buying more of Katie MacAllister’s work!

carrie

Storm Watch by Jill Shalvis promised to be a good read. Harlequin Blaze, gorgeous guy on the fro9cover, and I’ve always enjoyed her books. But, sorry, I struggled with this one. I know Blaze’s have lots of steamy hot sex, but when they almost crashed their jeep into a tree (hey, lets have sex) and when they were in water up to their waists surrounded by floating debris (hey, lets have sex) By the time they actually got dried out and got to have sex, I was tired of reading all the almost-got-to-have-sex’s!

Lizzy and Jason are great characters, she fills them out nicely, but I struggled and struggled hard with this book. The premise is Lizzy’s little sister is having a baby, and Lizzy just “knows” today is the day and drags Jason (military man who assists with natural disasters) with her. They fight all the way through floods to her sisters apartment, barely managing to restrain themselves from having sex every 10 minutes, and once they get there, her sister is gone. ALL THAT STRUGGLE FOR NOTHING! but at least they get to have sex. whew. got that out of their system.

And truth to tell, the part about little sis – who  is out in the back of some guys Hummer actually having the baby – I enjoyed THAT part of the story so much more. There was humor, one liners, snappy conversation. All while having a baby in a deluge.

So, yes, I’ll still buy Jill Shalvis’ books, but I wasn’t enamored of this one!

carrie