Review: A Match Made on Main Street by Olivia Miles

This kitchen isn’t big enough for both of them…

If there’s anything Anna Madison knows, it’s how to turn life’s lemons into a lemonade cocktail served in a vintage glass. So when her beloved Briar Creek café burns down, she sees it as an opportunity to start fresh. But the only kitchen available to her is in the diner down the street—owned by her sinfully sexy ex.

If Anna thinks she can take over his greasy-spoon kitchen with her high-end cuisine, Mark Hastings is about to set her straight fast. Their breakup is his biggest regret—not that he’ll ever admit it to her. Nope, he’d rather show her exactly what she’s been missing. With desire set on a high simmer, their menu is about to get a whole lot spicier… 

This is my first book by Ms. Miles, and the second book in her Briar Creek series.  I didn't feel too out of place in Briar Creek, I'm happy to say, so I'm sure I'll pick up the other two books. 

My first question is just how small is Briar Creek?  Geographically speaking, Anna and Mark share "territory" on Main Street; both are restaurant owners in what purports itself to be a small town.  How has Anna been able to avoid Mark for six years?  Or has Anna been ducking and dodging into alleys and storefronts when she spies Mark around town?  The length of time that Anna and Mark have been back in Briar Creek and in the same business with little to no contact bothered me, but once I suspended belief in that respect, A Match Made on Main Street is a good second-chance romance. 

My second and third favorite parts, respectively, are Rosemary (and her matchmaking attempts) -- she is a hoot! -- and the bond Grace, Anna, and Jane share.  I look forward to reading more in the rest of the series. 

(A very special thank you to Forever Romance, Hachette Book Group, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of A Match Made on Main Street.)

Eagerly Anticipating -- July 2015

 

Review: Wolf Bride by Elizabeth Moss

Bound to him against her will...

Lord Wolf, hardened soldier and expert lover, has come to King Henry VIII's court to claim his new bride: a girl who has intrigued him since he first saw her riding across the Yorkshire moors.

Eloise Tyrell, now lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn, has other ideas. She has no desire to submit to a man she barely knows and who-though she is loath to admit it-frightens her more than a little.

Their first kiss awakens in both a fierce desire that bares them to the soul. But as the court erupts into scandal around the ill-fated Queen, Eloise sees firsthand what happens when powerful men tire of their wives...

I'm a fan of most Tudor fiction, and a few years ago, I read pretty much everything ever written about Henry VIII and his respective wives.  The blurb and cover for Wolf Bride drew me in, though I was disappointed in what lay after the table of contents. 

Eloise Tyrell, like most ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII's respective queens, are at court to achieve something, typically a good marriage.  Eloise's father, a widower, wants this for both his daughters, so he contrives to match Eloise to Lord Wolf rather than the young courtier she is attracted to.  

When Wolf Bride began to depict Lord Wolf as a dominant, hard man, that's when I tuned out.  I'm sad to say this happened in the first half of the novel.  I did not read Fifty Shades of Grey -- nor do I ever plan to -- so to see Eloise submit to a man she's a little afraid of and not attracted to didn't attract me as a reader.  And when Eloise discovers she ultimately loves Wolf despite him ignoring her outside of their bedroom, keeping secrets from her, well, I skimmed from there until the end. 

(A very special thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Wolf Bride.)

Eagerly Anticipating -- June 2015

 

Eagerly Anticipating -- May 2015

 

   

Review: The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

"I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they'll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next."

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

I'm a moderate fan of Ms. Cocks and Ms. Morgan's site, Go Fug Yourself.  I read their Scandal and Downton Abbey recaps, and I used to participate frequently in Fug Madness, their version of March Madness.  I had not read either of their young adult books, but I knew they wrote novels, and I knew they were Royal Watchers.  When I heard about their first adult novel, The Royal We, was a fictionalized tale of future king marrying an American, well, I had to give it a shot.

The first seven chapters, which were available for free, hooked me.  I liked Bex -- her American-ism, her foot-in-mouth disease, her lack of "proper" fashion sense -- and Nick was a ghost-like presence, flitting in and out of her life in Oxford.  The fact that they bonded over a crack-tastic television show made Nick seem human rather than Prince Nicholas of Wales.  Add in the secondary cast of friends -- Gaz, Cilla, Bea, Clive -- and this is the beginning of a humorous contemporary love story.  

I'm not sure where I started to feel disappointed.  

Maybe it was all the drama between Nick and Bex; maybe it was all the drinking Bex and crew does during her year in Oxford, and after she moves to England full-time; maybe it was the fact that Nick and Bex kept their romantic relationship a secret for FOUR YEARS before Bex decided she wanted to know what their future might be.  

I'm not sure.  

One of the things I love about William and Kate's story is that they seem to be genuinely happy together.  He's the future king; she's a commoner who happened to live on his dormitory floor.  And they fell in love.  Yes, they broke up once, maybe twice, but they seem committed now! 

Bex's life does change drastically once she and Nick become "official" in the eyes of Clarence House.  I cannot imagine the type of scrutiny and pressure this would put on a person not born to royal life.  But the last third of the book really didn't sit well for me.  Add the unnecessary melodrama with Bex's twin, Lacey, the surprising true nature of one of their friends, and the ending that didn't resolve anything, and I'm left with disappointment rather than gushing moments of squee. I do hope we get to see Freddie again, though; he was quite enjoyable. 

If you want to escape the humdrum of your normal life for a few of hours, The Royal We will certainly take you away. 

(A very special thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of The Royal We.)

Eagerly Anticipating -- April 2015