Easter is this Sunday? What?

Somehow Easter has snuck up on me again. I realized late last week that Easter Sunday was also April Fool's Day, which I can't remember happening before. Even though I knew Spring Break was coming, even though I knew we had community Easter egg hunts, the darn day snuck up on me. I'm blaming the weather, which seems to have found winter just in time for spring. Miracle March is a giant PITA.

Adding to my lack of preparedness was my uncertainty of what to do for the kids. They're too old for the Easter bunny, but do they still get baskets? Do I still hide eggs? No one warned me we'd have to redo all of our holiday traditions as the kids got older.

One thing we won't be changing is Easter dinner. Which is actually usually "Linner" in this house. We eat in the early afternoon to make sure we have enough room for dessert.  We nearly always bake a ham, which is glazed with a combination of Major Grey's chutney and apricot preserves. Sometimes we do pineapples, cloves and cherries, sometimes we don't.

One thing we absolutely do is make Posh Potato Casserole. It's full of high cholesterol badness, but we've been making it for years and years. It's a recipe from my 9th grade English teacher, who I recently ran into at a Rotary Music Competition. It was a little surreal introducing MY 9th grader to her.

What's on your Easter dinner table? And what are your traditions for your older tweens and teens?

Review: Hot and Badgered by Shelly Laurenston

Format: trade, ebook
Pub Date: March 27, 2018
Publisher: Kensington
Length: 432 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Digital galley via the publisher

Honey badgers are one of my favorite characters in Shelly Laurenston's shifter series. This new series is about hybrid honey badgers, which means they're even more over the top than the regular honey badgers.

I admittedly struggled through the first 25% of the book. It was disjointed, with a lot of chaos and confusion. If I hadn't read Laurenston before, I might have given up. The story really doesn't start coming together until about 30% through, which is probably typical for new series, but seemed weird given that this wasn't a new world, but a new spinoff in an old one.

The thing that makes Laurenston books different from the vast majority of paranormal romances out there is how the women are portrayed. There are no passive women waiting for their "fated" mates. Every single one is a warrior, and most are actually considered more dangerous than the men. That is the case with this book.

What I also love about Laurenston heroines is that just because they are badass, it doesn't mean they eschew things that are considered "girly" or feminine. Charlie bakes when upset or stressed (something I loved, because I am totally a stress baker). New here, but greatly appreciated, is the matter of the fact way that medication for mental health is dealt with. It's just a fact. Like taking a vitamin. It was simply discussed like any other health condition, which I liked and which made me realize how little we see of that in fiction.

I think this book needed an outside eye, someone who maybe hasn't read all of her books twenty times, because there is a ton of back story and world building that is just assumed here. There are also some incredibly brief cameos that won't make any sense unless you've read her other books. Don't start with this book if you're new to Laurenston!

More disappointing was the lack of heat between Charlie and Berg. It may have been me, but there was zero sexual tension here. It may also have been that most of the book is about the sisters and their antics, so the romance takes second (or even third) place in the narrative. At any rate, it felt like the author was far more interested in the caper aspects and sisterhood aspects than the romance. I really liked Berg, liked Charlie, and liked their slow slide into a relationship, but I wanted more desire.

My Grade: B-

The Blurb:

It’s not every day that a beautiful naked woman falls out of the sky and lands face-first on grizzly shifter Berg Dunn’s hotel balcony. Definitely they don’t usually hop up and demand his best gun. Berg gives the lady a grizzly-sized t-shirt and his cell phone, too, just on style points. And then she’s gone, taking his XXXL heart with her. By the time he figures out she’s a honey badger shifter, it’s too late.

Honey badgers are survivors. Brutal, vicious, ill-tempered survivors. Or maybe Charlie Taylor-MacKilligan is just pissed that her useless father is trying to get them all killed again, and won’t even tell her how. Protecting her little sisters has always been her job, and she’s not about to let some pesky giant grizzly protection specialist with a network of every shifter in Manhattan get in her way. Wait. He’s trying to help? Why would he want to do that? He’s cute enough that she just might let him tag along—that is, if he can keep up . . .

Review: The Echo Killing by Christi Daugherty

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: March 13, 2018
Publisher: Minotaur (St. Martin's)
Length: 353 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

After two recent mysteries fell a little flat for me, it was a bit refreshing to see some solid characterization and emotion again. I'm primarily a romance reader, although I've always read mysteries and urban fantasy, too.  I tend to gravitate towards the books that show rather than tell. Those that grip you by your emotions. This book is one of the good ones.

This is Daugherty's first adult book, having previously written YA under a different name. You couldn't tell if you hadn't read the author's bio. She does an excellent job with the grit and gore of two messy crime scenes without playing up the shock factor. I appreciated that. Enough detail to get the point, without wallowing in the carnage.

Harper McClain is a a local crime reporter in Savannah. She listens to the scanner and spends her nights chasing down crime scenes and hoping for a page one story. What most of her friends and colleagues don't know is that her mother was murdered over a decade ago, and she was the one to find the body. The emotional scars and inevitable fallout of the murder both fuel her passion for covering crime, and make her leery of forming close attachments. Until a similar murder happens on her beat.

Review: Undone by You by Kate Meader (Chicago Rebels Book 3)

Format: Ebook
Pub Date: March 5, 2018
Publisher: Pocket
Length: 147 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Purchased myself

February was flu-city here in the mountains. My youngest was out of school for 2 weeks along with about 30% of the students and staff.  And while I managed to care for my entire flu-stricken family, I had largely avoided getting sick. Until just after Valentine's Day.

The only good thing about being sick is that sitting on the couch covered in a blanket is not only allowed, but encouraged. I glommed my way through so many books, but my favorites were the two hockey romances by Kate Meader that I practically inhaled.

I was also unreasonably cranky to discover that I had "caught up" with her publication schedule after book 2, and had to wait a couple of weeks for this book. It was absolutely everything I wanted, and MORE.

Review: Fade to Black by David Rosenfelt

Format: Hardcover
Pub Date: March 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books (St. Martin's)
Length: 309 pages
POV: Alternating 3rd/Past and 1st/Present
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher

Another new-to-me author this week. I've never read David Rosenfelt before. Never even heard of him, but the concept of an amnesia stricken protagonist was too good to pass up. Even more shocking for those who know me, it's mostly written in 1st person, present tense, and I didn't toss it out a window.

That's not to say the tense combo didn't irritate me. It REALLY did. It felt like the author was trying for an old school noir feel by having the narrative unfold this way, but it never quite succeeded.

I'm a character reader, so I have a difficult time with stories where the characters aren't fully fleshed out. That was the case with this book. The first/present choice meant that we really don't get any insight into the other characters because we spend so much time inside our protagonist, Doug Brock's, head. We get to see his thought processes, but not what makes the other characters tick. And we definitely don't get to see how they feel.

The amnesia angle was more boring than I expected. Likely because Brock is just...irritated by the gaps in his memory. We rarely get an emotional reaction other than frustration from him. No deep emotion at all over something I would imagine is incredibly traumatic.  I found it incredibly weird that the main character was so one-note.

Unlike some of the mysteries I've read recently, I absolutely DID get stumped by this one. The question here is not whodunnit, but what they are doing, and I was kept guessing until the very end. That hasn't happened in a VERY long time, so kudos for that.

My issues with this are largely the tense/POV combo and the fact that I'm a character-centric reader. If you're not as sensitive to present tense, and you aren't as focused on characterization, this one might work for you better than it did for me.

My Grade: C+

The Blurb:

After getting shot in the line of duty, New Jersey state police officer Doug Brock has been busy rebuilding his life. He’s reunited with his fiancé and started to get some of his memories back. He hopes he can continue to recover with the help of an amnesia support group and that the damage from his past isn’t permanent. 
 
It isn’t until fellow group member Sean Conner approaches him after a meeting that Doug realizes the trouble is just beginning. Sean has discovered in his attic what can only be called a scrapbook of a murder victim, but he has no recollection of the girl’s identity or why he might have gathered this information. Doug agrees to help and convinces his captain to open what had been a cold case. When he discovers that he had a personal connection to this case, suddenly he’s questioning everything he thought he knew about the case, about Sean, and about his own past.

Reading Snapshot March 1

February was the month the flu ate. First, my kids caught it, then my husband. Then, of course, I caught it. 3 and a half weeks of flu in the house was enough to drive me completely batty. Last week, as I was finally feeling slightly better and the kids were back at school, I went on a Kate Meader hockey book glom. I'm primarily a print reader, but boy was I happy to have instant delivery of those books, since I was stuck on the couch.

Currently Reading:

Another March release. Another new-to-me author. I really like the cover on this one. It's somehow both noir and colorful. 










Up Next:


This comes out on Tuesday. As I said, I've been glomming Kate Meader hockey books...I was a little put out to run out of books and hit the pre-order on this one last week from my sick bed. 








Audio:

While coughing myself awake the last few weeks, I decided to re-listen to the Hidden Legacy series by Ilona Andrews in my midnight audiobook forays. I just finished White Hot and am on Wildfire. I still think the covers are so horrible (awkward poses, missing shirts, and not at all reflective of the actual content of the books. No offense to the cover artists. This is a marketing fail. Anyhoo...Andrews managed to snag Renee Raudman to narrate this series (the same narrator as their Kate Daniels series) and it. is. fabulous. White Hot has a ninja ferret heist, so if you haven't read the series because of the horrible covers, give them a shot!



What I'm excited about:
Suzanne Enoch announced on her Facebook page that she's finished a new Sam Jellicoe book. For those of us who have followed Enoch for awhile, this is BIG news. They're contemporary caper novels with romantic elements. I love them and am super happy there are more stories on the way.

Review: The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin

Format: hardcover
Pub Date: March 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Length: 319 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: ARC provided by the publisher free of charge

I've been avoiding ARC reviews for about a year now,  after the reading slump of doom. The cure for me turned out to be going back to reading mostly print, and switching it up with more mysteries and urban fantasy. So...I decided to accept a few advance readers copies of mysteries. Although I'm a mystery reader,  I've never read Phillip Margolin before, and I'm not usually a legal thriller reader. My cuppa runs more to historical mystery and the funnier caper style stories.

The Third Victim reads more like a drama than a mystery. We get little vignettes from a handful of characters, but the main mystery surrounds the defense of an accused serial killer and his lead defense attorney. The drama is that the attorney is experiencing early onset dementia and in denial about it. Her recent hire, Robin, isn't familiar enough with her to be 100% sure her boss is having issues, but grows increasingly worried as the case moves on. The huge ethical issues about whether the defense is compromised are complicated by the worry that their client is really guilty.

I'm a character reader, so I was a bit disappointed we didn't get more time with Robin and some of the supporting characters. And what we got of Regina as she struggles with denial about the early onset dementia symptoms is oddly detached. I wanted more emotion. More guilt. More...something.

As for the mystery itself, I had it figured out halfway through. Since I haven't read Margolin before, I'm not sure if we were supposed to be stumped. The foreshadowing is extremely heavy handed, so maybe whodunnit isn't supposed to be a plot twist. I hope that's the case, because it definitely isn't surprising in the least.

Even with all of that, I kept reading because it was a unique take on a legal thriller about issues that are profoundly important. It was also a little alarming, because I had never considered how vulnerable people are to counsel who are experiencing some kind of cognitive issue, or how dependent we are on them self-reporting any conflicts.

My Grade: B-

The Blurb:

A woman stumbles onto a dark road in rural Oregon—tortured, battered, and bound. She tells a horrific story about being kidnapped, then tortured, until she finally managed to escape. She was the lucky one—two other women, with similar burns and bruises, were found dead.

The surviving victim identifies the house where she was held captive and the owner, Alex Mason—a prominent local attorney—is arrested. Although he loudly insists upon his innocence, his wife’s statements about his sexual sadism and the physical evidence found at the scene, his summer home, is damning.

Regina Barrister is a legendary criminal defense attorney, known as “The Sorceress” for her courtroom victories. But she’s got a secret, one that threatens her skill, her reputation, and, most of all, her clients. And she’s agreed to take on the seemingly impossible task of defending Alex Mason.

Robin Lockwood, a young lawyer and former MMA fighter, has just left a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court to work for Regina Barrister. The Alex Mason trial is her first big one, a likely death penalty case, and she’s second chair to Regina. Increasingly, she’s worried her boss’s behavior and the details in the case against their client don’t quite add up.

Dust and Desire: Archaeology and Adventure Romances

Dust and Desire: Archaeology and Adventure Romances

Sun, sand, mysteries from times long past... There’s just something so inherently romantic about archaeology. Sure, it’s a lot of tedious digging, but it’s also a field where each discovery changes the way we think about ourselves and our history. And there’s nothing sexier than a hunky guy who is also smart and passionate about his work. I first became obsessed with archaeology romances when I read Elizabeth Peters’s Crocodile on the Sandbank. While the Amelia Peabody series is definitely a mystery series, the first book is also a romance. A newly wealthy spinster travels to Egypt and meets a surly (but quite handsome) Egyptologist. Together, they uncover a mystery set among the tombs of Amarna. Elizabeth Peters earned a Ph.d. in  Egyptology, which gives her authorial cred, but she’s also Barbara Michaels, who wrote romantic suspense novels filled with gothic elements. For me, the interplay between Emerson and Amelia are what kept me reading the series.

Many of the archaeological romances are historicals set during the 19th century or beginning of the twentieth. Perhaps my favorite one is Guilty Pleasures by Laura Lee Guhrke. We usually think of travel and exotic lands when we consider archaeology, but this book is set in England, about an excavation on English land of old Roman ruins. What is so fun about this book is that it combines the archaeology plot, a workplace romance, and an ugly duckling story.

Reading Snapshot

Currently Reading: Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez
I suspect I'll be reading this one in fits and starts because it's a grim book and not what I normally read. Since I've criticized the whiteness (and blandness) of the current district reading list, I'm making an effort to broaden my kidlit horizons as well.


Also Reading: About That Kiss by Jill Shalvis

The second book I purchased this year, despite vowing not to. But it's Jill Shalvis, so I'm giving myself a pass. She's an almost local author, and her books are always that perfect combination of sexy and funny. They make me smile, and sometimes, that's exactly what I need.

Up Next:  Covet by JR Ward
 I've long ago abandoned the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and I remember the disappointment about this book when it came out. BUT... It's still sitting in Mt. TBR, and I thought I'd give it a shot before donating it.

Audio: All About Love by Stephanie Laurens

I started listening to my absolute favorite Stephanie Laurens book last week: A Secret Love. I'm a sucker for a enemies-to-lovers/boy next door romance, and this is the best historical version there is IMO.

But...once started, I had to finish the Bar Cynster, so here I am listening to Lucifer's story. No one writes not-quite-purple sensuality like Laurens. No one.

Review: It Started with a Kiss by Ella Quinn

Format: Mass market
Pub Date: April 2017
Publisher: Zebra/Kensington
Length: 362 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Received a signed copy at RT 17 for free

This is the weirdest book. Admittedly, it's been a LONG time since I read a non-paranormal romance or romantic suspense book where the majority of the conflict was external. But what makes this book weird is that every time the book starts to build the slightest bit of tension, the author undercuts the issue by solving the problem almost immediately.

All of that works to make this story a bit of a mess, with 5 different mini conflicts and no overarching tension to keep the story moving. It was a slog.

Review: The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires by Molly Harper

Format: Mass market paperback
Pub Date: August 2012
Publisher: Pocket
Length: 356 pages
POV: 1st person, past
FTC: Received for free at RT Booklovers Convention (provided by the publisher/author)

Having finished a meh book by Molly Harper, it makes perfect sense to immediately pick up another one, right? It does if you're me.

The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires is only peripherally related to the Half Moon Hollow series of the previous book I reviewed. It's also 80 pages longer, which I really think might be my issue with the last book. It was too shallow. The extra page count for this one allows for explanation. I did NOT get the same sense of backstory-itis I did with the last one. Everything felt fully explained.

 I really enjoyed this one. I enjoyed the byplay between Iris and Cal, but I also enjoyed the larger cast of characters, particularly Iris's younger sister Gigi. I think these types of humor-filled books work best when characters can play off each other. What was such a relief was the our main character is independent, smart, a businesswoman, and entirely capable of taking care of herself. Even in dangerous situations. In fact, she saves herself AND Cal on multiple occasions. So refreshing to have competence really highlighted and valued. We get a lot of that for heroes, but not for heroines.

Reading Snapshot

I've decided I need a place to keep track of what I'm reading and what's coming up next. I do a lot of rereads, and short of making a *shudder* spreadsheet, I don't have a way to keep track since I'm not on Goodreads. 

Currently Reading:

It Started with a Kiss by Ella Quinn

 I've been reading this all week, and I'm about halfway through. The conflict is nearly entirely external, and the main characters have acknowledged their feelings less than 1/3 of the way through. I have a horrible feeling we're leading up to a BIG MISUNDERSTANDING which I think is a shame. There's very little tension. I'm not sure I'd have made the same choices the author did, although it is a relief to read about a good, decent man who doesn't have to be reformed.

 

 

 

 

Up Next:

Wrong to Need you by Alisha Rai

I broke my book buying hiatus for this book. I resisted for a month. And yet... I loved Book 1. Rai is one of the very few authors who can get me to read a sex scene without skimming. It's an underrated skill, because she is a master at moving the plot forward with her scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Audio:

Soulless by Gail Carriger

 I've listened to this book several times before, and it never fails to make me giggle. It has echoes of Amelia Peabody here (the parasol in particular), but Carriger has a pretty strong writing voice, and the attitude more than the story keeps me listening. The narrator, Emily Gray, is excellent.

Caveat: Looks like Hachette has acquired the rights from Recorded Books and this particular imprint isn't available. I listened to the excerpt on Amazon, however, and it's the same recording with the same narrator. Just not with the Recorded Books cover art.

Review: Where the Wild Things Bite by Molly Harper

Format: mass market
Pub Date: August 2016
Publisher: Pocket
Length: 278 pages
POV: 1st person, past tense
FTC: Received for free at RT Booklovers Convention

I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging, carving out time to fire up the ole computer and sit down to write. I missed it this last year when I somehow ended up so busy I wasn't even reading. Which, predictably, made me more than a little cranky. A reading Amber is a happy Amber.

I've been better about reading lately, but not so much about reviewing. My one goal that I managed to keep this last year was reading more from my TBR and less from new releases. I get distracted by the shiny, when I have rooms full of unread print books and I don't even know how many ebooks.

One book I picked up at the last RT was a Molly Harper book. Now I'd read some of her earlier books and liked them. They were light and silly and easily consumed. I had not read any of her newer books, and this one is clearly part of an ongoing series.

Welcoming 2018

If you're like me, much of 2017 was lost in a fog of rage at what is happening in DC. I lost so much productivity to it. At times, it was debilitating, and I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to read.

Complicating matters were the massive volunteering and soccer mom obligations from last year. I feel like I didn't read nearly enough, and I know I didn't visit this blog enough to post more than a handful of times.

I've decided to keep the blog, if only to reclaim some time for me and my hobbies. I started painting last year, which is something. I'm going to try to write some non-fiction this year and maybe work myself up to fiction. We'll see. I'm also going to try to finally figure out my camera.

I want to get back to reading...what books are YOU looking forward to this year? I've missed so many in the last year so ...what books did YOU read that you'd recommend?

TBR Challenge Review: Triplets for the Texan by Janice Maynard

Format: Mass Market
Pub Date: May 2017
Length: 215 pages
Publisher: Harlequin
POV: 3rd
FTC: Received at RT Booklovers Convention

I fully admit, I'm ignoring the theme for this month. It's Recommended Read, and I can't say this book was recommended by anyone, except perhaps the author who signed it for me at RT. But...I am making an effort to whittle away at the still giant pile of books I brought home from RT the last year or two, and this one was at the top of the pile.

I'm not a category romance reader. I WILL read them, but I don't tend to seek them out, and I'm not one of those people who knows all of the parameters of each individual line. I also, nearly always, feel like authors in category books try to tell too big of a story, so I nearly always feel like stuff was rushed at the end.

Ok...disclaimers out of the way.

I fully admit that the entire premise of this book is kind of...unromantic to me. I'm a mom, and the thought of THREE babies, all at once? NOPE. Then there is the fact that our heroine has Hyperemesis gravidarum aka chronic, debilitating nausea, vomiting, and dehydration. Ewww.
Just...not romantic. Add in the reasons for and methods of getting pregnant, and this is probably one of the least romantic set ups I've ever seen. It's a bold choice, but the author fails to pull the HEA off to my satisfaction, and the sexytimes never felt even in the realm of plausible.

Tardy TBR Challenge Review: Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep

Format: mass market
Pub Date: June 2010
Length: 432 pages
POV: 1st, past
FTC: purchased used

Tardy as usual with my review, but since autumn is basically me running from soccer field to soccer field, I'm going to be happy I managed to read at all.

This month's theme is paranormal, and while I haven't been reading a ton of romance, I have been reading some Urban Fantasy with romantic elements: namely, the Elemental Assassins series by Jennifer Estep. This is Book 2.

The basic premise is a retired assassin becomes somewhat of a vigilante/Robin Hood for people in trouble. A one woman A-Team, if the A-Team killed people. And in Ashland, people have magic that usually revolves around Fire, Ice, Stone or Air. Gin, our protagonist, is not only deadly efficient with knives, she has both Stone and Ice Magic.

I think this is a book best read in series order, but it can stand alone. You just won't get some of the emotional heft unless you've read the first book in the series.

Reading, Not Blogging

I've been reading again (yay), but not blogging. Partly due to the crazy soccer season, and partly due to issues with my laptop. I'm typing this on my phone.

I've also been reading (gasp!) some YA. I know, I know. But it's not 1st/present, so it's ok.

I've been on the hunt for new books to suggest for our school district approved literature list. So far, I've read American Born Chinese (a graphic novel), and All American Boys. Right now, it's Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez and an Urban Fantasy novel by Jaye Wells called Volatile Bonds.

The latter is because I can only take so much YA.

Next up is the new Jill Shalvis book.

What are you reading?

Review: The Painted Queen by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess

Format: hardcover
Pub Date: July 2017
Publisher: William Morrow
Length: 323 pages
POV: 1st past, with occasional 3rd in the form of Manuscript H

I started reading the Amelia Peabody series in college. There is just something about them that is so compelling. The series runs from the late 19th century through World War I and ends with the discovery of King Tut's tomb. This series is my comfort read series. The first is a solid Novel with Romantic Elements book.  Back in 2013, I even led a read along on Twitter, but stopped midway following the death of Elizabeth Peters that year.

When Peters passed away, it was well known that she was working on a new manuscript, although her fans were never quite sure how far she had progressed on it. I assumed we'd never see that book, but I was happy to hear that her estate was working to get it finished and into the world.

If you have not read the series, this is absolutely NOT the book to start with. Although each story is a standalone mystery, this series was NEVER about the mysteries. Those have always been secondary to the relationships, and there are multiple arcs that should be read in order. If you're just starting the series there are two ways to read it: as it was published or chronological. After Peters finished the Tomb of the Golden Bird, she went back and started publishing "in between" books that covered archaeological seasons she had skipped. The Painted Queen is one of those "in between" books, taking place between Falcon at the Portal and He Shall Thunder in the Sky.

Review: Hate to Want You by Alisha Rai

Format: mass market
Pub Date: July 25, 2017
Publisher: Avon
Length: 371 pages
POV: 3rd, past
FTC: Received an ARC from the pub/author at RT17

Ok, it wasn't that long ago that I had a post up about wanting less sexual content in romance.  That I had become a sex scene skimmer, because there's way too much *boring* sex in romance these days. So much so that the plot gets lost. Of course, I maintained that there were a few exceptions to that rule, and Alisha Rai's books have always been that for me.

Hate to Want You is Rai's first Avon book, though, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. Well...the sexual content isn't light. If you thought her signing with Avon meant less sex, dispense with that notion right now. The good news is that, like the other Rai books I've read, the sex scenes move the plot forward. There is absolutely NO Tab A into Slot B laziness in her writing.

At first, this book is solely about sex. Our hero and heroine meet once a year for no-strings-attached sex, despite a huge, ongoing family feud that broke them up as teens. When Livvy shows up in town, Nicholas decides that their once a year arrangement just isn't enough. It's through their sexual relationship, already well established, that their love rekindles. So few authors can make me buy into that anymore, but this book did it well.

There's also plenty of plot outside the bedroom, as a good ole family feud is brewing about a grocery store dynasty. You get lots of side drama from both families. Lots of emotion. There's a lingering sweetness here, too, as this is a second chance at love story.

I'm always terrified when Avon buys someone who has a strong voice I love, but this book was fabulous. It's definitely a keeper, and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

My Grade: A

Blurb:

One night. No one will know.
That was the deal. Every year, Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler would share one perfect night of illicit pleasure. The forbidden hours let them forget the tragedy that haunted their pasts—and the last names that made them enemies.
Until the night she didn’t show up.
Now Nicholas has an empire to run. He doesn’t have time for distractions and Livvy’s sudden reappearance in town is a major distraction. She’s the one woman he shouldn’t want . . . so why can’t he forget how right she feels in his bed?
Livvy didn’t come home for Nicholas, but fate seems determined to remind her of his presence—and their past. Although the passion between them might have once run hot and deep, not even love can overcome the scandal that divided their families.
Being together might be against all the rules . . . but being apart is impossible.

TBR Challenge Review: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Format: mass market, but newer editions appear to be trade
Pub Date: orig. 1994, mmpb 1996
Publisher: Bantam
Length: 405 pages
POV: 1st/past
FTC: purchased myself

Not only am I a day late with my TBR review, I'm stretching the theme just a bit. This month's theme is "a series you're behind in." Well...this is book 1, and I haven't read any of the others...So I'm claiming it qualifies as a series I am (way, way) behind in.

I found this book in a sad, neglected box in the depths of the garage a few weeks ago. A box that has sat, unpacked, since our move in 2004. I used to read quite a bit more mystery back in those days, and I'm quite sure I picked this one up from a library used book sale somewhere. It's...weathered.

It is also, in case the pipe on this weird cover doesn't give it away, a Sherlock Holmes book.