definitely, possibly, maybe

i'd previously reviewed to have and to hold , which was the first book in the wedding belles series and while i was more intrigued by the story simmering between alexis and logan, it made sense that for better or worse would be heather's story. i'm a sucker for many a romance trope, and the neighbors who hate each other but have crazy chemistry is one of my favorites. and heather and josh might actually end up being one of my favorite couples who fall into this category. everything about them is awesome. the chemistry. the issues keeping them from fully committing. the way the relationship becomes a relationship without either of them realizing. the declaration of love. the big romantic gesture. it just all worked for me. and it's weird because both heather and josh are somewhat frustrating. but you also get it. the author gives you enough background to let you understand why they have the hang-ups they do. and even when the characters, and josh in particular, behav...

in my fair princess  we meet gillian dryden, the hoydenish bastard daughter of a royal duke, and charles penley, the duke of leverton, the man in charge of making her acceptable to london's high society. as far as regency romances go, this novel isn't too far off the beaten path. though perhaps gillian is a bit too modern in her sensibilities, and the other main characters a bit too accepting of them? the relationship between charles and gillian is actually really well done. the sparks that begin at their introduction lead to a full blown fiery passion. there is no doubt that these two characters are really well-matched, they challenge each other and bring out the best in one another. but at times i couldn't help feel like gillian was a bit too headstrong, a bit too strong asserting her independence in ways that just felt counterproductive. this happens to me a lot, and it's weird, because i believe women should be strong and independent and have every right to figh...

person of interest  kicks off a new mystery series by emery harper. while the novel struggles with tone at first, partly reading like overcooked bukowski or chandler, until it settles down and finds the main character's voice. celeste eagan is a drama teacher at a texas prep school. her life changes when she discovers the principal of her school hanging above his desk in apparent suicide. somehow celeste finds herself listed as a person of interest. needless to say she finds this upsetting and in order to help clear her name she begins a campaign of amateur sleuthing. it's hard to say whether her efforts help or hinder the investigation. but they do certainly put her in danger, and right into the path of the detective running the investigation, shaw muldoon. while celeste doesn't aspire to be watched by the police she can't help but enjoy the moments she gets to spend with muldoon. the chemistry between these two crackles. unfortunately it's just not done to becom...

link to parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , and 7 . read on for part 8.

tonight's speech by obama was amazeballs awesome. actually all the speakers, from bloomberg to biden to kaine (who really hit his stride in the latter half of his speech and whose eyebrows i enjoy) knocked it out of the park. there are so many reasons why this election is important. but (and this is kind of frightening) one of the best expressions of why it is so important belongs to our forefathers: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  i honestly believe these rights are at risk if donald trump is elected president. i know that hillary clinton isn't the perfect candidate, but i also believe this is true: you know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the oval office.  until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis, or send young people to war. ...

i usually avoid politics on principle. i have a deep-seated distrust of politicians and i think the us political system is all kinds of fucked up. but tonight, watching the roll call that led to the first female presidential candidate from one of our major political parties, i totally teared up. women won the universal right to vote in this country in 1920. it's been 96 years, and this is the first time there's a woman who can win this thing on the ballot. that's pretty amazing. i'm proud to be a woman today. there's real proof, we can do anything. we really can.  here's another awesome lady saying awesome things. (doesn't everyone wish they were as awesome as michelle obama?) and for extra proof of awesomeness here's her carpool karaoke:

i think the series name is kind of stupid, especially since the titles are all about "the score", but i suppose the heroes are all texan, and honestly i have no idea if they are also tall and dark. those kind of character details are not what i consider necessary to plot so i rarely remember them. anyway, the series kicks of with even the score , which i was the least excited about when i read the description, but actually i think it's the best of the series. hunter and tess have chemistry in spades. he blames her for his failed wedding, she has a fear of commitment, he needs a fake fiancée, she happens to be an actress. i enjoyed this because even though the characters have this history, they only know each other as by their preconceptions. and the novel shows how they realize how wrong they were about each other, and how perfect they are for one another. this was just truly enjoyable. the next book in the series deals with brody and emma, hunter's business partn...

i've read two of the other books in this harlequin blaze mini-series and liked them, so when i saw that triple score  was being released i added it to my pre-order list. the mini-series covers the romantic entanglements of the nelson siblings. and this novel is about the youngest nelson, noelle, a prima ballerina at a new york city ballet company who is out in phoenix undergoing rehab for a torn acl. she's also recovering from a humiliating, messy break-up and terrified that the career she has dedicated her adult life to will be permanently derailed if things go poorly. enter jace monroe [stage left], a bad boy baseball player who's ucl injury may mean his playing days are over. he pushes himself hard, but he never forgets to make time for fun. and he's the perfect person to counterbalance all of noelle's seriousness. from the moment these two characters meet there are sparks flying, and luckily they don't deny the attraction that bubbles between them when t...

so i found out the other day that louise rennison of the georgia nicholson and tallulah casey books passed away earlier this year. and that makes me so sad. i'd been hoping for another tallulah book, especially since the last one, the taming of the tights , ended on a cliffhanger, sort of.  i mean, things were sort of tied up, but it was also clear that there was more story to be told. and now it never will be. although i'm sure people have written some decent fan fiction, but it's pretty hard to replicate rennison's style. so i don't know that i'd want to seek that out. i loved rennison's books because they always, always made me laugh out loud. and not just like a giggle. full-on belly laughing so hard i'm crying laughter. one of my favorite moments in all her books, that still makes me laugh, is in angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging   when georgia accidentally shaves off her eyebrows. i think it's because i recall using a razor to "pl...

i've never met a sports romance that i didn't like, and certainly knocked out by love  by abby niles proves that i am a sucker for the genre. usually boxing/mma isn't my go-to sport, like scarlett (our heroine) i'm a football girl through and through. but lord knows these sexy, strong, bad boy athletes with the soft gooey cores are my jam. brody totally fits the stereotype. and oh, it makes him so easy to love. knocked out by love  is clearly the latest in the love to the extreme series, though it is the first one i've read. being a newcomer didn't affect my ability to enjoy the story or these characters. and, in fact, there are hints of future stories i am interested in seeing and i totally want to catch up on the previous four books in the series. anyway, even though this is a sports romance, it deals with some heavy relationship issues. infidelity, wanting kids versus not wanting them, infertility, and i love the different perspectives the novel present...

so things get a little racy in this part. you can find parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , and 6 at the links. part 7 is after the jump.

summer girl , is a sweet (and sexy) new adult romance by a.s. green. told in the alternating(ish) viewpoints of our two leads, katherine d'arcy and bennet whose last name is kind of a spoiler so i won't say it here. katherine is a list-maker, a planner, someone who needs to control her emotions and her surroundings to feel safe. she has deep-seated abandonment issues and is trapped in a platonic relationship with her best friend, andrew mason, who she happens to think she is madly in love with. when their summer plans are derailed by her mother, katherine finds herself as a caretaker to a decomissioned lighthouse on little bear island in the middle of lake superior. there she meets bennet, the replacement ferry driver and other than katherine the most recent newcomer to the island. bennet is an aspiring songwriter, but since moving to the island he's been in a rut. his agent in l.a. wants him to try moving to nashville, especially if no new songs are forthcoming. benn...

so unless you live under a rock somewhere (or are my husband who assiduously avoids celebrity gossip) you've heard about the #kimye versus #swiftie feud. it is the best. one of the things i find so amazing is when people are so offended that someone has LIED. doesn't everyone lie? and yet i'm sure that both #kimye and #swiftie are telling their truths here. #kimye's snapchat videos of the phone call don't actually contradict what #swiftie has said. which were 1) she never heard the song and 2) she didn't approve the line "i made that bitch famous" however, #swiftie also totally exaggerated her unawareness of the song. kanye clearly quotes the first half of the lyric, they discuss it. so her avowals of it never being cleared with her ring false. but the snapchat videos have been obviously edited too. and i just don't trust #kimye's ability not to play with the truth to ensure that they come off in the best possible light. #mrswest in particu...

one must wonder what amount of money would make a bachelor-type courtship worthwhile. especially if you aren't actually allowed to meet the bachelor in question until you are walking down the aisle. because that's the situation you read about in one last fling . i mean, these weren't questions i have ever thought all that much about. i met my non-millionaire husband in grad school and we were both poor and in publishing, so no real plans existed to make it rich. (unless you include his insane musical , movie and book careers, which you know, we're still waiting for him to make it big.) i think the marry for money aspect of the novel is what i had a hard time getting past. when ryder and daisy were together and interacting normally it was fine, i enjoyed it. but then you'd see daisy's friend hannah or daisy's mother talk about wanting to join the ranks of the financially abundant and things would get weird again. luckily most of the novel focuses on dai...

julie mcelwain kicks of a new mystery series with a murder in time .  the blurb summarizes the plot nicely: Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates. While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact. Mistaken for a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is found on the extensive g...

the playboy's proposal  is the third installment of ashlee mallory's sorensen family series. i haven't read the other two novels, but i didn't feel like i missed anything by not reading the books in sequence. they can really stand alone. the playboy's proposal follows youngest sister, bernadette "benny" sorensen and her relationship with her playboy neighbor, henry ellison. the characters first meet when benny storms over to henry's apartment to yell at him for the loud music  and noise emanating from his condo and keeping her up past her bedtime. she thinks he's a frat boy, dude bro type. and he thinks she's a dumpy spinster--though he's also drawn to her fine eyes. from the start it's clear that henry gets under benny's skin, but she is suspicious of the beautiful people and henry is clearly out of her league. besides she has a major crush on her co-worker, dr. luke seeley. as the war between neighbors escalates into a hearing...

you know the trope, one night stand becomes something more, something real.   you before anyone else    basically starts when eddie and finley hook up one night and then can't stay away from each other. but they are keeping some pretty big secrets from each other, from themselves. and it's the problems that they face, and the way that they face them that makes this book a worthwhile read. however before you get to the interesting stuff, the first couple of chapters are a bit of a confusing slog. sometimes, with these alternating pov stories things start in the middle of the action, and as a reader you have to play catch up for a while before everything makes sense. i also think sometimes you are so busy looking at the world through the character's eyes that you don't get the chance to fully invest in the character. so it's not until the two leads start spending serious time together that you begin to know them and like them. there's no easy solution to th...

i had to do a little re-writing here too. not as much as part 5, but still enough to at least improve things. sometimes i read this stuff and i cringe. it's funny to realize how i've changed as a writer. nothing is perfect, though i suppose it never is. but hopefully the story works a little better now. you can catch up with previous parts at the links: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and 5 . part 6 is after the jump.

rachel lacey kicks off her risking it all series with rock with you , a short story that introduces us to the small town of haven, north carolina. i read the excerpt to the official first novel in the series, run to you , and i'm not sure how else these books are connected, but who cares, because let me tell you that rock with you is worth reading on its own merits. i mean, i totally enjoyed this novella. it may be true that i have a soft spot for rock and roll heroes. and the fact that the baker heroine reminded me of the heroine from one of my favorite romance short stories,  chocolate kisses , which was part of harlequin's valentine 1993 collection . [it's so weird what stays with you.] anyway, carly taylor and sam weiss meet-cute at her bakery. when sam orders a ridiculous amount of pastries, carly delivers them to his rental place only to end up stranded when an incoming ice storm immobilizes her vehicle and cuts the power. but at least they have plenty to eat. the...

the second novel in the over the top series, a fine mess  actually explores some deeper mental health issues than one expects to in a romance novel. we first met the two leads in my perfect mistake , the delightful first novel of this series which i bought impulsively while rocking my daughter to sleep and then ended up making the poor choice to stay up till 5 reading. it was that good. anyway, so a fine mess has been on my too-read list since then. i enjoyed sawyer and lily a lot in the first novel, since their mutual attraction was obvious and there were also complications worth exploring. one of the things that is nice about the series is that so far each book has it's own personality. sometimes series like these can end up with the books feeling a bit cookie cutter, but that is not the case here. sawyer and lily's story is not the same as kolton and shay's. a fine mess  picks up a couple months after the events of my perfect mistake . it's not a requirement to...

his forbidden princess  is the fourth book in the royal holiday series of novellas. this is the shortest book in the series, at 110 pages, and yet there is a lot of story here. maybe too much story for the short length? this is a second chance at love story, so the two characters have a lot of history, but again because of the short length you aren't given a lot of time to see how their original relationship developed. basically you see their break-up, which happens the morning after they first sleep together and the fact that sofie is a princess to a small european country is revealed. our hero, ian, realizes that there is likely no future where their relationship can survive and she can keep her relationship with her family and country, so he takes it upon himself to break them up. this whole scene was a little weird because it didn't feel like he was really being that big of a jerk for a guy who had just discovered that his girlfriend had been keeping a pretty big secret...

i've been on a real reading kick lately. my ridiculous goal of reading 200 books this year is running something like 82 books ahead of schedule. i'm probably going to extend it to 250 books because i'm a crazy person. but reading all this has kept me away from my shows. so in the last few days i've actually been watching instead of reading. which actually isn't a good thing. because i have two library books i need to finish by saturday. otherwise i'm not sure what i'm going to do. well, i might just have to return them and then take them out when i'm back from vacation but i don't really need to sort that out on the internets. so like i was saying i finally caught up with seasons 2 of both the last man on earth  and unbreakable kimmy schmidt . both shows use unique catch-phrases instead of swear words and i kind of love it. so last man  ends with an "oh farts" moment. and kimmy ended with a "what the fudge" moment. yay for c...

the second book in melissa west's allowed series, no falling allowed , follows the story of grace and noah beginning with a spark-filled meet cute at an event that grace has planned and noah worked. from there, try as they might, these two can't keep away from each other.  we were briefly introduced to grace in no kissing allowed , the first book of the series. but it was nice to have an expanded glimpse into what makes grace tick. she's the daughter of a famous billionaire, and pretty much the one thing everyone knows about her is that she is very, very rich. and she's always enjoyed the perks of her lifestyle. she's never had to struggle financially and she is grateful for that. but all the money in the world won't fix the dysfunctional relationship she has with her parents and the insecurities that have been ingrained since childhood.  part of the attraction to noah is that he is a guy from the wrong side of the tracks so to speak, but also he does...

so i actually stumbled on this series after i requested the galleys of the second book, no falling allowed , on netgalley. but even though the titles are meant to be standalone i just felt like it would be better to read the first book in the series in this instance. i've said before that it's not always necessary to read things in publication order. and that's true here, it's not necessary, but having read both books now, i can say that it was the right choice to read them in order. but i'm getting ahead of myself. right now i'm talking about no kissing allowed . here we are introduced to cameron, grace and lauren, three young women who have just graduated college and are embarking on their new careers. but before joining the land of responsibility that is adulthood, the women decide to live it up one last time. and of course for cameron, our main character in this novel, that means fulfilling a moment right out of grey's anatomy. because she totally pu...

i ended up re-writing a lot of this part, re-reading this section it just didn't feel like things were happening naturally. hopefully it's better it now. though obviously still ridiculous. parts 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 can be caught up with at the links.

veronica speedwell, the main character of a curious beginning , is who i imagine flavia de luce will grow up to be though poisons not butterflies are flavia's passion. i have read all the flavia de luce novels, and enjoyed them. and i enjoyed this start to a new series too. our intrepid heroine lives in victorian era england at the time of queen victoria's jubilee celebration. when the last of her guardians passes away, veronica is left alone in the world, and in danger, though for most of the novel she refuses to accept that she is in danger. a kind older gentleman, a german baron, comes to her rescue early on, and brings her to london under his protection with the promise of more information about her past after he secures the necessary permissions to reveal some long-held secrets about her birth. for safe-keeping he leaves her with a friend known as stoker and promises to return with more to share. except the baron is murdered and stoker and veronica find themselves tak...

the first formally published novella of the maiden lane series, once upon a moonlit night  tells the story of hippolyta royle, the poor woman kidnapped and blackmailed by the hero of the previous entry in the series,  duke of sin . sometimes i wish val's motives were clearer, because one tends to love him so much in spite of his badness , that for some bizarre reason you start victim-blaming. except, really, it's all very badly done of valentine. and other than feeling societal pressure to hide the truth of her birth, miss royle has done nothing wrong. the novella opens just where we last had the misfortune of seeing miss royle in duke of sin , in an impossible, terrified flight away from the duke of montgomery's ancestral home. she's on the run, bedraggled from being kidnapped and held captive. when she stops the carriage of matthew mortimer, only recently the earl of paxton, he grants her safe passage to the next town but he doesn't believe her when she clai...

other than attending the mandatory barbecues and staying up late to watch fireworks, the other best thing to do on fourth of july is binge-watch something ridiculous, like, wet hot american summer  and wet hot american summer: the first day of camp . even though the television series is technically a prequel to the movie, i don't recommend watching them in chronological order. the movie is what contextualizes the show. so watch that first and then the mini-series. it's amazing that either of these two things were made, and it's also amazing how everyone involved not only committed to doing it once, they've worked on it twice. and rumor has it that there is a second mini-series/television show coming at some point in the future. one can only imagine the jokes it can yet still mine from the source material. basically i can't say enough good things about this. it's amazing and hilarious and stupidly funny. and it's american so it's patriotic. you...

emily giffin has been on my must buy list ever since i first read something borrowed . it's one of my all time favorite novels , one that i re-read every year. but sometimes i think my love for something borrowed  overshadows the fact that i don't actually love all her books. both baby proof and love the one you're with  spoke to me--they felt like somehow the author had seen into my soul and knew exactly the issues i was struggling with regards to wanting and having kids and even whether or not i should keep thinking about the guy with whom the timing was never quite right. i also really enjoyed the one & onl y , football and complicated romance is right up my alley, though i understand why many people were put off by the ick factor in the romance. if you think about it too hard, it's definitely creepy and not romantic at all. anyway, given these things, and given that i didn't love the alternating viewpoints in heart of the matter  or where we belong , i was ...

baroness antonia thornton was the most stunning and shocking young lady of the ton. judith winslow was the perfect complement to antonia's bold beauty, her quiet good sense an ideal antidote to antonia's radical rebelliousness.  but when dashing adam yorke appeared on the scene, accompanied by his good friend, the startingly handsome lord simon launceston, antonia and judith found themselves divided. whom did adam love? whom would he wed? and who could possibly prefer him to the divine lord launceston? never had romance reveled in so many dizzying turnabouts as cupid emptied his quiver at hearts that would not stay still..... carousel of hearts  is an oldie, but a goodie. it's one of the books i inherited from my grandmother, and one that i read and re-read when i was only allowed to borrow from her collection. it is the perfect confection of utter ridiculousness and emotional storytelling. there's mixed up couples, amnesia, promises made and broken, arrangement...

i have a complicated relationship with sawbones . in part because i have a complicated relationship with the main character, catherine bennett a.k.a laura elliston. described as outlander meets lonesome dove ,  i thought this new series by melissa lenhardt would be right up my alley. it would be easier if i outright loved it (or even if i outright hated it!). but really my struggles all boil down to the fact that i'm not sure i liked catherine bennett even when i felt like i should. i understand why authors chose to write in the first person. but sometimes i think some stories would have been better off told in the third person. i think catherine would have been more sympathetic if we weren't exposed to her every thought. because even though we were exposed to her every thought, it was still hard to get a feel for her. she had at once too many and too little secrets being kept from the reader. and the thing is, given everything that happens to catherine, you feel bad not lik...