The Earl Not Taken by A.S. Fenichel

Left standing on the side while their contemporaries marry into society, four young ladies forge a bond to guard each other from a similar fate . . .

Finishing school failed to make a proper lady of Penelope Arrington. But as a Wallflower of West Lane, Poppy has a far more vital role—she and her three best friends have made a pact to protect each other from the clutches of dangerous, disreputable men. So when one of them is about to be married off to a duke sight unseen, Poppy makes it her mission to divine the prospective husband’s true character. If only she didn’t require the aid of London’s most unsuitable rake.

Rhys Draper, Earl of Marsden, has known the headstrong Poppy since she was a young girl naïve to the ways of men. To her eternal chagrin—and to his vague amusement—they have been at odds over the memory of embarrassing first encounter all these years. Now, with his services in need, Rhys sees a chance to finally clear the air between them. Instead, he is surprised by the heat of their feelings. If the two do not tread carefully, they may end up in a most agreeably compromising position . . .

Review

I have mixed feelings about this book. There was just a lot going on. It was hard to get into and I found myself frustrated with both Poppy and Rhys. While Rhys proved himself a decent fellow and Poppy became more sympathetic as the story went on, it just kept going past the point I thought everything should be wrapped up.

First off, there's enemies to lovers vibes stemming from their inauspicious first meeting. Then, there's Poppy's issues with marriage based on the unhappy marriages she's seen around her. On top of that, there's an investigation into the character of her friend's betrothed. While this is going on, Poppy decides to get rid of her virginity (pesky thing that it is) and Rhys agrees (never a good idea). Of course, this leads to mutual pining, matchmaking shenanigans, and parental meddling.

Like I said. It's a lot.

The best bit of this book was the friendship between the Wallflowers. The four girls are very much individuals but support each other as a group, sometimes to ridiculous extremes. I honestly hope they all get their happy endings and may keep an eye out to see if they can get there without all the to-ing and fro-ing.

This may well suit those who like their regencies packed with plot, but it wasn't for me.

Three stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley; all opinions are my own.

Beautifully Broken by Bailey B

Piper

Most people don’t think about the day they’ll die. They coast through life, blissfully unaware of how their time is ticking away. I wasn’t like most people. I welcomed death, wanted her to take me away from the prison I called life, but she refused. I tried twice only to survive. And then, when I thought I had nothing left it came.

A reason to live.

Rex was a small, unexpected ray of light my world of darkness that blossomed into a beam of sunshine. I thought, maybe this was why Death didn’t take me. Maybe she knew that if I held on a little longer things would turn around. But the third time Death came to my door wasn’t by choice. Someone else brought her, and I fear this time she might take me.

Rex

Being the son of a country star sucks. My parents are never around, I move every year or so, and I have no real friends. Everyone around me has an agenda. Everyone except Piper Lovelace. I can’t get that girl to notice me. Trust me I’ve tried.
Thankfully, fate stepped in and gave me the break I needed. I’ve got her attention, now I need her to give me a chance.

Review:

Welp, this book is a ride.

After a traumatising summer and being labelled the school slut, Piper is trying to survive her senior year before getting the hell out of Dodge. Enter Rex, star hockey player and son of a country music star. Both hurt in their own ways, this is the story of finding each other and beginning to heal.

First off, let me open with ALL of the trigger warnings. Despite the high school setting, this is definitely not for kids. There's a flashback to sexual assault and it is threatened at least one other time. There are references to drug use and prostitution, and most of the parents are either neglectful or downright abusive.

Despite this, it's more hopeful than I would've expected. With Rex's support, Piper begins to heal - and it's less "love is a cure-all" and more that thanks to his care, she wants to heal and realises it's possible. Through their relationship with each other, they begin to rebuild relationships with the people around them. Too bad there's a mob boss gunning for Piper's head.

The story itself unfortunately came out messy, especially in the supporting cast. Plot threads are dropped, twisted, or magicked into existence at the last minute. I felt like there needed to be a critical editor or two to point out inconsistencies and ask the hard questions.

Three stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book via NetGalley; all opinions are my own.

Love Under Quarantine by Kylie Scott and Audrey Carlan

Writing together for the first time, New York Times bestselling authors Kylie Scott and Audrey Carlan team up to tell a story that not only is a beautiful escape during a trying time, but a true lesson on the power of humanity’s ability to survive. Through a sexy, hopeful, strangers-to-lovers romance, the authors prove with love, trust, and faith, we can conquer anything.

While the world is ravaged by a global pandemic, hotshot NFL running back Evan Sparks is locked in his own personal hell. With a career-ending scandal on his back, Evan hides out in his best friend’s empty San Francisco home, the full city shutdown locking him in a lonely twenty-story apartment in the sky.

Romance writer Sadie Walsh is having the worst case of writer’s block ever…until the incredible, muscular stranger staying next door gets her muse going strong. The pair of loners, never expecting to find a friend in all the madness, meet each day out on their balconies like a modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

Each new day brings unique challenges for the pair as they navigate the unknown and find solace together. They quickly figure out that as long as they have one another, they can handle anything.

Even falling in love under quarantine.

~~~

Writing together for the first time, New York Times bestselling authors Kylie Scott and Audrey Carlan team up to tell a story that not only is a beautiful escape during a trying time, but a true lesson on the power of humanity’s ability to survive. Through a sexy, hopeful, strangers-to-lovers romance, the authors prove with love, trust, and faith, we can conquer anything. 

Download your copy today or read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited! 
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2xb7wmo

Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/loveunderquarantine 

Review:

If you're meta and you know it, clap your hands!

This has to be the most meta romance I have ever read. It's the story of a romance writer who falls in love with the guy next door during quarantine, writing a romance novel about a girl who falls in love with the guy next door during quarantine. 

Yeah.

Let's address the elephant in the room. This book is hugely relevant right now. The charming banter and sexytimes are interspersed with coronavirus-inspired moments that mostly everyone can relate to in these times. From pleading with parents to stay home to eerily empty streets, this is contemporary romance that takes 'write what you know' to another level. It's 'write what everyone knows' and it adds a layer of reality to what could well have been an overly-topical cash grab. Instead, it's an optimistic comfort read assuring us that though life is difficult right now, we can get through it together (even if lockdown love isn't on the cards for most of us!).

I have to say, as I was reading, it felt almost too meta and overly self-referential. As Sadie is a romance author, she knows and names all the tropes - in particular, insta-love - and notes how unrealistic it is. Due to the explicitly short timeframe, their relationship went from zero to sixty real quick. While I can understand that stressful situations lead to intense emotions, I didn't end up sold on a happily ever after once the lockdown lifts. I did however appreciate the clear communication and sincere apologies for screw-ups on both sides, so there's hope.

Nevertheless, if anyone wants to read about our current situation but with waaay more phone sex (and sensible physical distancing precautions), I can certainly recommend this book.

Four stars

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from the author via Social Butterfly PR; all opinions are my own

Meet the Authors

About Kylie Scott
Kylie is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author. She was voted Australian Romance Writer of the year, 2013, 2014 & 2018, by the Australian Romance Writer’s Association and her books have been translated into eleven different languages. She is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.

Connect with Kylie 
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Website: https://kyliescott.com/

About Audrey Carlan
Audrey Carlan is a #1 New York Times and International bestselling author. Her titles have appeared on USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Audrey writes wicked hot love stories that have been translated in over thirty different languages across the globe. She is best known for the world-wide bestselling series Calendar Girl and Trinity.
She lives in the California Valley where she enjoys her two children and the love of her life. When she's not writing, you can find her teaching yoga, sipping wine with her "soul sisters," or with her nose stuck in a steamy romance novel.

Connect with Audrey
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2V0qWSS
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2V0zr0j
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Website: https://audreycarlan.com/

Gone With the Rogue by Amelia Grey

A powerful handsome rogue finally meets his match in Gone With the Rogue, the second book in the First Comes Love series from bestseller Amelia Grey.

She had an acceptable marriage of convenience. Now widowed, can this determined and beautiful mother find true and forever love?

The sinking of the Salty Dove took her husband’s life—but it didn’t drown Julia Fairbright’s courage to endure. She creates a proper life for herself and her young son. But now, the ton’s most notorious rogue is back, and how he makes Julia feel is anything but proper. She can’t deny the desires he awakens in her, even though she knows that the handsome devil will surely break her heart.

Garrett Stockton owns a successful shipping company and is rumored to have a woman on every continent and half-a-dozen in England. The truth, however, is that Garrett has but one mistress: the wide open sea. That is, until he meets Julia, whose spirit of independence matches his own. What begins as a flirtatious battle of wits turns far more passionate than either of them could have imagined. Suddenly, Garrett’s only desire is to sail into the sunset with Julia as his wife and young Chatwyn his son. But she won’t take his hand—how can he convince her that his love is real and his heart is hers?

Review

Julia entered a marriage of convenience to find freedom - but with her husband's death, she finds herself under the thumb of her self-righteous father-in-law. In order to win her freedom and that of her son, she enlists the help of an attractive sojourner and quickly finds her heart entangled.

I feel that calling Garrett a rogue does him a disservice. Sure, he owns (and runs!) a shipping company, and sometimes his salvage operations have been less than perfectly above board, but he seems rather decent. He is honest, hard-working, doesn't gamble nor smoke, and is still invited to a selection of parties with the ton. His supposed love of the sea barely makes an appearance. I also quite liked Julia's kindness and convictions, but did find myself impatient with her choices. I can understand impulsivity, but she swings between denying herself completely due to the perceived consequences and jumping headfirst into poor decisions without considering possible outcomes. Like pregnancy. Yeah.

I enjoyed this book - the ending is charming - but couldn't quite reconcile myself to how it played out.

Three stars

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, all opinions are my own

Blog Tour: Sunshine Over Bluebell Cliff by Della Galton

A place to make your dreams come true...
Clara King is left in sole charge of a fabulous new cliff top hotel for the summer. The owner has barely left the country when Clara realises that someone is hell bent on putting the Bluebell Cliff Hotel out of business.

It becomes a race against time to hunt down the sneaky saboteur before they succeed in bringing the hotel to its knees.

With her dream job under threat and her personal life in chaos, Clara discovers that, when what you love the most is in danger, it can bring out the very best in you.

Purchase Links: Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Amazon (Canada) 
 
Review

Clara's dream job takes a turn for the unexpected when her boss has to make an urgent trip overseas, placing Clara in charge of the Bluebell Cliff, a boutique hotel that hopes to "make dreams come true". Unfortunately, it seems someone would rather it all ends in a nightmare, and Clara must juggle family drama and idiosyncratic staff with the hunt for a saboteur.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. In some ways, it delivered as a light and fluffy romance with a hint of mystery, the perfect escape for those stuck at home. Dorset sounds so beautiful, they could use this book as a travel brochure, and the wide cast of interesting characters added depth and colour to the story.

There were a few niggles, however, that disappointed me. Firstly, there was a lot of telling, not showing. With Clara as the POV character, every scene and interaction is filtered through her experiences in a way that slows down the plot and bulks out the book. Paragraphs are stuffed full of 'she decided', 'she felt', 'she remembered' which puts too much of the action at one level removed.

Secondly, I felt let down by the ending of the mystery sub-plot. A good mystery needs clues and hints for the reader to find or look back on, but here, the solution is half-obvious and half comes out of nowhere so my vigilance in searching for possible motives went unrewarded. The big reveal happens through a phone call when someone else solves the mystery.

I didn't dislike the book, but sometimes the prose felt stuffy and the mystery could well have been handled better, so I'm giving this three stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book via Rachel's Random Resources, all opinions are my own

Blog Tour: Barefoot on the Beach by Katlyn Duncan

Renee Clarke is perfectly happy just the way she is…

Renee may be thrilled to be planning her sister’s wedding, but after witnessing her mother’s two failed marriages, she has always vowed that she is better off on her own.

But when Renee discovers that Luc Hardy has moved next door, her world is knocked off kilter. Luc was her whirlwind summer romance as a teen and, more importantly, her first love. Now he’s back in West Cove, looking more handsome than ever.

There is no escaping the romance in the air this summer. With the wedding planning in full swing, Renee begins to believe that she might be able to put her childhood reservations about marriage aside.

Yet when her mother arrives, she stirs a torrent of emotions in Renee’s heart. She’s up to her old tricks again – boasting about her latest conquests – reaffirming Renee’s lack of faith in love.

As Renee’s happily-ever-after hangs in the balance, will Luc be able to convince her that true love can last forever?

A totally heart-warming summer romance you won’t want to put down! Perfect for fans of Jenny Hale, Susan Mallery and Lucy Coleman.

Buy it on Amazon: US | UK | Canada 

Review:

Renee's ordered life is first knocked off balance when her sister requires help planning her fast-approaching wedding, and then upturned completely when her first summer fling moves back in next door. Over the course of the summer, she has to confront her choices and wonders if she's really as happy as she thinks.

Despite the age of these characters (I think Renee's in her mid-thirties), this almost feels like a coming of age book as Renee learns to set boundaries and let go of her painful past. I loved how her relationship with Luc grew naturally from the awkward re-meeting to adults having honest conversations about feelings and a future together. By the end of the book I had fully bought into them as a couple.

In fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how uplifting this book is. It's a sunny, optimistic cloud of a book full of sisterhood, family, and friendship. There's no clear antagonist, scheming exes, or even particularly catty women. The biggest barrier to Renee's happiness is herself which is both rare and realistic.

However I have to say I was not a huge fan of Renee's sister Cait. She came off as a bit selfish and rather manipulative especially in her dealings with Renee. While most of her actions came from a place of youthful naivety, I found myself getting more and more annoyed with her - and by extension, with Renee for putting up with her. Some of those boundaries Renee needed definitely related to her sister and I can't help but wish they'd had a proper conversation about that and cleared the air, rather than Renee squashing her feelings. After all, good boundaries also include realising when something is someone else's fault and not yours.

Despite my annoyance with Cait, this was a charming, uplifting read, perfect for the beach (or when you wish you were on one!)

Four stars.

Blog Tour: A Thoughtful Woman by KT Findlay

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but where's the fun in that?Artist Sally Mellors has planned the perfect revenge, but with two secret agents on her tail, and her best friends running the police investigation, getting away with murder is going to be tricky...
Everybody loves Sally. She's a funny, generous, warm hearted friend, without a nasty bone in her body.
Isn't she?
Unknown to her friends, Sally's discovered another side to herself, cool headed and relentless, as she hunts down the three men who killed her husband. But Sally's not the only one with an interest in the trio. Unknown to her, two agents have arrived in town, urgently hunting a missing man and his diary, which could blow their organisation apart. Their best leads are the very men that Sally's hunting, and she's getting in the way...
The inspiration behind A Thoughtful Woman.
The justice system is an intriguing beast. We expect it to be fair, which is why we allow it to resolve our disputes instead of simply taking revenge ourselves, but watch an individual case play out in court and it can seem more like a high stakes game between lawyers than the pursuit of absolute truth. And if you think it's a game, do you still accept the result if you lose? Is that still justice? At what point will a perfectly normal, perfectly decent person snap, and what happens when they do? Is it possible to plunge into the darkness of revenge and remain the normal, decent happy person you were before you started? Sally Mellors is about to find out.

Review
When the courts fail and two women take justice into their own hands, the line between right and wrong starts to blur.
Sally Mellors befriends Emma Nixon when the drunk driver who killed Emma's husband walks away scot-free. A few years before, his father did the same thing after killing Sally's husband, and was acquitted with the help of the same lawyer and crooked cop. For the deaths of their husbands, Sally and Emma are going to make them pay.
While this story started quite slowly, once the revenge killing begins, the plot speeds up and simply won't stop. As we follow the police investigation, we're blindingly aware that killing is wrong and we're struck by the callousness of Emma and Sally, and yet a small part of us wants them to get away with it. The dual perspective maintains this tension as Sally's friend Peregrin heads the investigation in classic murder mystery style even as she plots her next move.
The tension is ratcheted somewhat higher by two mysterious agents searching for a missing man, but in the end it seemed like they were only there for exposition. No major characters ever become aware of their motivations nor do they have any impact on the plot whatsoever. They come, they spy, they sneak, they talk, and then are recalled to headquarters and thus could well have been cut.
There is also plot-relevant BDSM that may not be to everyone's tastes and felt a little gratuitous. A good portion of this could have been skimmed over or shortened without affecting the tension.
In the end, I was surprised by how much I could root for a killer, even while disliking them. While Emma is hesitant and plays more of a supporting role, Sally is cold as ice and chillingly calculating. Their motivations are solid even if their alibis are not, and I was surprised by how much they got away with - though perhaps I'm biased when coming from a place of knowledge, unlike poor Peregrin. I'd be interested to read more about Sally Mellors.
Four stars.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book via Rachel's Random Resources; all opinions are my own.