definitely, possibly, maybe

while i'm not entirely sure i'm ready to be thinking of christmas, you can't deny that the winter holidays are a wonderful season to set a romance in. fresh fallen snow, twinkle lights, cuddling up to the one you love--it's the perfect atmosphere for love. in when snowflakes fall  we are introduced to the grayson brothers, identical twins who've both had some rough divorces and are a little cautious when it comes to the idea of love. luke grayson has been too busy raising his young son alone and running his contractor business to focus on himself. but when his son is brought to the e.r. after falling on some ice, he is disconcerted to realize that he is interested in the pediatrician examining ethan. dr. christie harmon has just moved to cheyenne to escape a bad breakup and a scandal that left her reputation in tatters. she's not looking to meet anyone. but she felt the sting of attraction when she met luke and keeps running into him in the days that follow....

i was texting with my sister and brother today about politics. which is obviously never a good idea. but i was surprised to learn how my brother has bought into the narrative that hillary clinton is a criminal who should be locked up. there are so many articles and investigations that provide evidence that this narrative is a vicious lie. but it's one that is so ingrained in people's minds that the mere fact that you are innocent before proven guilty, never mind that in all the investigations into hillary she's been proven innocent or at least not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, seems to escape people's minds entirely. i've been struggling with what this election has brought out in this country. i am not saying that hillary clinton is the perfect candidate. i don't always agree with her voting record. i think she is human. as a masterful politician i think she is opportunistic and bends the truth to her advantage (and let's be clear, she does this l...

parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 and 6 can be found at the links, part 7 is after the jump.

book 3 of the relentless trilogy wraps things up nicely for sara grey and nikolas danshov. rogue  picks up right where refuge  left off, with sara escaping westhorne along with jordan, roland, and peter and following madeline's trail. they only have a few hours head start before the mohiri, before nikolas, is on the hunt too. and while they get close, madeline proves more elusive than they expected, and as they travel to albuquerque and the los angeles, they leave a trail of dead demons and vampires that can't be ignored. i wasn't too happy that once again sara and nikolas are separated after making so much progress in their relationship in the second novel. but the wait proves to be worth it because when they are reunited it is amazing. because there is never any doubt that sara and nikolas are meant for each other. the lack of romantic triangle really endears these books to me. i like to see a relationship grow and the characters grow alongside it. and that is what we...

the final book in the wedding belles series, to love and to cherish , brings us the story of logan and alexis. these two have been slow-burning the whole series. that flame has been so obvious since we were first introduced to them in the first book. but it's a banked flame. logan has held his true feelings back from alexis for eight long years. it's not like he's kept his feelings a secret, everyone else around them knows he loves her. but for some reason this woman doesn't let herself see it. she doesn't let herself feel it. she has her reasons. alexis was betrayed by not just one person she loved, but two, her ex-boyfriend and sister fell in love with each other in front of her eyes. and that hurt. actually that devastated her. it taught her not to trust in feelings. it taught her to fear the hurt that could come from opening yourself up to someone else. but lately she realizes something is missing. and logan realizes that it is now or never. if he doesn...

there is nothing wrong with the right kind of guy . as far as breezy, contemporary romance this fits the bill. it's supposed to be a romantic comedy, which i'm not sure i agree with. unlike hooked on love , also billed as a romantic comedy, i never laughed out loud. but i can see where the author was striving for a light-hearted tone. the problem is that i found that tone super cringeworthy. the author's voice in the novel sounds like her voice on her blog , which is totally fine, i mean she wrote the book and she writes on her blog. but i just find it kind of...grating? and it felt weird to me that the female lead and the hero's sister would have the exact same voice. because instead of it being something unique and quirky specific to one of the characters, it was something that infused the entire novel. aaron was actually the best part of the novel. the women in the novel were all so annoying. it was just really weird to read. especially in a book written by a woman...

i have to confess that there were several moments in this novel where i was just laughing out loud. everything that was happening was pure physical comedy and once you get the image in your head you can't stop yourself. picture a city girl trying on a pair of waders in a small town general store. imagine that she's in her underwear. and then a snake drops into the waders. the chaos that ensues had me in stitches. it was all too ridiculous. in hooked on love , our city girl, avery oliver, is a fish out of water. but her good humor, her easy spirit and can-do-anything attitude really make the story. sullivan reed, our hero, is surly, damaged and so insecure. he looks the part of the fierce mountain man, but inside he is a ball of goo. and somehow the combination of these two characters just works. they play off each other beautifully. there's humor but just enough poignancy that adds a little heft to the story. it's not just a frothy tale. it's a story about fresh...

sweetly, deeply, absolutely  sounds like just the sort of book a blog called definitely, possibly, maybe should be reviewing. it's a sweet confection of a romance. jared crew is a player. he's unapologetic about it. he's always noticed jenny boyd, but she's off-limits since her brother happens to be his best friend's husband. but the thing about jenny is that she is as much a player as jared is. i liked that there was no judgment made on the kind of exploits that jenny got herself mixed up in. both she and jared have a long list and that's totally cool. jared never makes a big deal about it, and while jenny frets about jared's inability to commit, it's not in a way that feels hypocritical or over-the-top. the attraction between these two crazy kids sizzles and eventually they give into it. but when the condom breaks they face a 10-day period of uncertainty. will there be consequences to their impulsive hook-up? and if there are consequences would the...

deadly silence  is a romantic thriller by rebecca zanetti that further explores the world she created in her sin brothers series . i haven't actually read that series, but it isn't essential to because the characters are new and while the situation the characters are in the middle of is informed by things that were happening in the original series, you catch up as you go along and don't really feel like you are at a loss. or at least you are no more at a loss than the characters in the novel, so it's all good. ryker jones had a terrible childhood. but in the midst of the hell that was his childhood he forged an unbreakable bond with two other boys, his blood brothers, heath and denver. together they've escaped their past, but that doesn't mean that their past isn't trying to catch up to them. they've spent their adult lives searching for the lost, searching for something they're not even sure they can find, answers they may never be prepared to han...

so i've never, ever been an angelina fan. but i have spent the last two days admiring her balls. this woman surprised her superstar husband with divorce papers on a tuesday morning . the man was blindsided. because the fact of the matter is that no celebrity ever releases shit like this on a tuesday morning. per the court documents the date of separation was september 15th. so this is recent, but that was a thursday, and there was plenty of time to bury the story on friday. especially since this weekend was the emmys and the story would have been lost amid the talk about who won or didn't win and who wore or didn't wear what. no, angelina fucking jolie releases her news on a tuesday morning because she wants everyone to know. and she tells us that this is for the kids. she entrenches herself in the position of hardworking mother and intimates that her co-parent isn't up to the job. she cuts him out of the picture so completely i just can't help but appreciate how ...

um, so this part gets a bit steamy. here are some handy links to parts 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 and 5 . you know the drill for part 6.

i know we all say that you should never judge a book by its cover. but who are we kidding? we all love a pretty cover. as a special treat, i get to help reveal the cover to this super sweet young adult sports romance i will be reviewing soon.  more details about the book, including the pretty cover can be found after the jump:

daisy o'rourke isn't looking for a man, she had one and lost him in a senseless accident. on the two-year anniversary of his death she finds herself alone in a bar feeling unbearably sad. when mark matthews sees her, he's not just thinking about an easy lay. he sees that sadness in her and he recognizes it. he lost his wife and he knows what loss is. and when they touch each other and are shocked by the sparks, it doesn't matter what they say they don't want. it doesn't matter that it's crazy to feel something so deeply for someone whose name you've refused to learn. his best mistake  is hers too. in opening themselves up to feeling something for someone else again, both daisy and mark come alive. and the heat between them is so intense. the feelings and emotions just burn up the pages. and it's so hot and sexy and deep. because there is nothing tepid or light or easy about mark and daisy. it's complicated. but because it's so hard it ...

who doesn't love a good cinderella story? i'm that girl who loves the old school disney version and the more modern live action version and the one with drew barrymore and the one in the childcraft encyclopedia set  i grew up reading at my grandmother's house. i mean, ever since the grimm brothers first published the story people have been remaking it in some form or another. and i wanted to like the bachelor auction . i really did. cinderella story, yes please. pretty cover, awesome. but then you start reading and jane and brock are two of the biggest pushovers you've ever seen. so much so that instead of rooting for them you just want to shake some sense into them. their families were each going out of their way to be so epically terrible and jane and brock just took it. and it just didn't feel believable. who would let people treat them that way? i mean, it makes it clear that these two are perfect for each other. but one of the things i like about most rom...

my best friend has been bugging me to watch veronica mars  since the show premiered way back when. but for no good reason i've resisted. reading chasing truth  makes me wonder if i should rethink my decision because eleanor ames certainly owes a lot to veronica. but that doesn't mean she's some carbon copy, i think they share their sarcastic repartee and innate curiosity, but they also come from very different upbringings and the scandals and intrigue of neptune, california are very different from the ones that proliferate in our nation's captial. ellie is a recovering con artist, brought up in a family of master swindlers, she knows everything about how to lie and cheat your way into money. after cooperating with the fbi to take down her father, she finds herself living with her sister, harper, and harper's boyfriend, aidan and trying to learn how to live life as a regular citizen. this is complicated by the fact that she has no birth certificate or social securi...

i only recently discovered the royal wedding series by rachel hauck. i listened to the audio book version of once upon a prince  which was incredibly narrated by eleni pappageorge. one of the key things to know about these books is that they are christian romance. so the romance is sweet and very much g-rated. i saw a royal christmas wedding  up for request on netgalley and saw that it was about avery and colin, who played minor roles in the first novel in the series and i decided to give it a try. it's always a different experience to read a book when you've listened to the audio book before. while i hadn't listened to this book before, i had heard all these characters before, so eleni pappageorge's voice was very much in my head when i read this. this isn't a bad thing. it just makes for a different reading experience. knowing these characters, catching up with them five years later was good. avery and colin were well on the road to love in once upon a prince...

i can't stop myself from staring at the cover of this novel, because i just keep thinking that the two models must be so uncomfortable. luckily nothing as awkward as that seems to happen in the novel, though finn and jessie both are plenty uncomfortable in their own skin when they realize they have feelings for each other. the latest novel in the fishing for trouble series, lured in , deals with best friends finn o'donnell and jessie todd. they've known each other since they were seventeen. but the trauma of their childhood has meant that they weren't able to face the truth of their feelings for each other until now. there had always been a connection between them, a shared hurt that no one else could ever understand. but because the o'donnells don't talk about shit, everything was buried until jessie decides that it is time to face her fear of the water. and there is only one person she trusts to help her deal with that fear. finn is beyond honored to be ...

laura drewry kicks off her fishing for trouble series with middle brother liam o'donnell. the o'donnell brothers are desperately trying to save their father's small fishing lodge--the only home that any of them have ever known. but they are all stubborn and non-communicative and not big on sharing secrets from their past. so when kate hadley shows up representing the company that is ready to swoop in and take over the entire operation liam isn't sure what to do. how do you confess that you married a woman spur-of-the-moment 10 years ago, that it only lasted 5 days before you ran, and that while you've never stopped thinking of her, you've also never told anyone about it? well there is no good way to share all that.  off the hook  is a great second-chance-at-love story though. the tension between liam and kate sizzles from the start, but they are all focussed on getting the lodge back in working order. the only problem is the looming tax bill due in a month. ...

catch up with parts 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 . part 5 follows the jump.

in the gender game  we have one seriously dystopian society. the world is divided in two according to gender, and neither society is all that wonderful. violet grew up in matrus, and while she has been raised to believe that matrian society is the ideal, she has also been ill-treated by it. her brother was taken at the age of 8 when it was decided that his personality traits were not ideal. a series of incidents that led to her accidentally killing fellow prisoners mean that she is marked for euthanasia. when she is offered the devil's bargain, going to patrus as a spy and marrying a matrian spy already instilled in the patrian society she has no choice but to agree. there is nothing left for her in matrus. her contact, lee betrand seems nice enough, accommodating enough for someone who is a member of patrian society. as a woman who was matrian-born, she doesn't always act with the appropriate amount of meekness. her independent streak and cunning got her in trouble in matrus...

all i want  is a sweet category romance that does a good job of handling the one-night stand resulting in surprise pregnancy trope. this is not my favorite trope of the genre, but the characters work really well together and the whole story comes together in a way that is ultimately satisfying. i'd read the previous two installments of the farmer's market series, and honestly i think this was my favorite of the bunch. charlie wainwright is such a misunderstood character, in that the world around him seems to misunderstand his hidden depths. his family in particular does this, and i had some problems with the way they treated him and how he was then the one expected to make amends, because he really wasn't the one in the wrong. meg carmichael has been misunderstood by her loved ones her whole life, something that led her down a path of substance abuse and rehab. she's cleaned herself up and runs her small business based off her goat farm. and is surprised to realize th...

so i totally binge-read refuge  after i finished up relentless .  i don't love a ton of supernatural romance stuff, but this hits the city of bones/ vampire diaries/the originals sweet spot for me. just the right amount of supernatural stuff mixed in with the angsty teen drama. i enjoyed the second half of refuge  way more than the first half, mostly because there wasn't enough nikolas in the first half. it still boggles the mind how easily sara can misinterpret how he feels about her and what he thinks of her, but it does set up the killer cliffhanger at the end of the book. rogue  better not delay introducing nikolas, because his and sara's relationship elevates the books in my opinion. it's not creepy twilight -esque bella and edward stuff. sara is an actual badass. in refuge  she makes some new friends and we actually get to know more about her special abilities. the things she discovers she can do are pretty cool. but we also learn more about the bond ...

shakespeare's the tempest  is one of my favorite of his plays, even though it is a problematic text, the reasons it is problematic make it interesting to study. in hag-seed , margaret atwood takes the basic outline and characters and thoroughly modernizes the play and allows it to stand on its own as a modern novel. but the way she does it allows her to also explore the different textual interpretations of the play. in hag-seed  you're not just reading a modern version of the tempest . you are close reading the original text. for a lit major who loved, loved, loved shakespeare and loved, loved, loved studying shakespeare it was so fun to read. this re-telling works because it is so layered. a straightforward re-telling of the tempest would have been impossible. but the way it is framed, around the theater and around a prison, allows the author some liberties in making correlations. felix phillips aka felix duke is our prospero, but almost everyone else in the novel func...

good earls don't lie  kicks off the earls next door series from michelle willingham. in this particular novel we meet the thornton family and an irish earl named iain. he comes to their estate on the invitation of their family matriarch in the hopes of securing her assistance in finding a suitable bride to help save his family estates in ireland that have been suffering from the terrible potato blight and famine that consumed that country in the mid-nineteenth century. unfortunately for iain, his carriage ran into trouble and his servants escaped to try their luck elsewhere while he was set upon by thieves when he went to get help on horseback. they leave him without his shoes, the shirt on his back, the signet ring that identifies him as the earl of ashton and a letter of introduction to the family. even as he swears to them that he is the earl of ashton, no one believes him. and being irish meant that culturally he had a reputation of a liar and a thief though no fault of his o...

i was looking for a quick, easy, happy read and landing the air marshal  fit the bill perfectly. abby is a control freak set designer who is terrified of flying. gage is an off-duty air marshal. when they are seated together on a cross-country trip the sparks literally fly between them. they can't keep their minds off each other, or their hands. when they realize that they're coincidentally staying at the same hotel they decide to share a room. and when a blizzard hits new york a one night stand turns into a weekend together. being trapped in one place for an extended period of time allows the leads to spend time getting to really know each other. and both of them want to see what might happen if they were to extend their relationship beyond a weekend. but gage is afraid that the long-distance, the flying, her career needs, his career needs, the fact that their families are nowhere near each other make anything serious a non-starter. they don't figure out everything a...

parts 1 , 2 , and 3 can be caught up with at the links. part 4 can be read after the jump.

i know relentless published in 2013, but i've only just discovered the series and i need to tell you all about how good it is. if you like the shadowhunters series by cassandra clare then you'll definitely like this. there might not be angels, but there are all sorts of supernatural beings and sara grey is pretty badass even as she learns the supernatural world is even more complicated and dangerous than she thought. sara has known about the "real" world since she was a child and realized that she had the gift to heal animals. even though her healing abilities weren't able to save her father after he was killed by what she believes are vampires, she never stops sharing her gift of healing with those in need. while trying to find the truth about her father's death, sara has the misfortune of capturing the attention of a vampire. she also captures the attention of nikolas danshov, who turns out to be a mohiri warrior, part of a race of vampire hunters. nik...

well, that's it. the summer of swoki or hiddleswift or whatever other ridiculous portmanteau you can come up with to describe taylor swift and tom hiddleston's relationship has come to its natural end. summer lovin' fades once the cool wind of fall nips at your feet. but oh, the gossip they provided without really saying anything about it. they were all about showing not telling. they were papped on a whirlwind tour of the world--who does that? i will not speculate as to the reality of the relationship, my guess is that it was real for at least one of them. and my guess is that the disparate feelings proved to be too much to overcome distance. what makes taylor swift as one-half celebrity couple so fascinating to me, is that somehow she elevates the drama. tom hiddleston is in his thirties. he is a man. he is a fucking adult and yet somehow he became part of some ridiculous high school drama. how she manages to get guys to go down to her level almost every time is fascin...

one step behind  is a delightful regency romance with a little hint of mystery mixed in to spice things up. gemma lancaster and lucas stone keep tripping over each other, she is searching for her cousin's murderer and he is searching for his sister's blackmailer. when they realize their suspects overlap they join forces, using a fake engagement as a cover to comply with regency society's standards of respectability. soon they find themselves battling more than just a murderer-blackmailer, they must fight against their own issues of insecurity and fear of commitment, because the attraction between them burns too hot and they are going to get singed--either by reputation or by a broken heart--if they don't figure things out. what's great about gemma and lucas is that they are on equal ground from the first moment they meet. and while lucas does that gentlemanly thing of trying to protect gemma, he doesn't go overboard with it either, and he surrenders to the f...

i think this cover is so gorgeous. and the description: jane austen’s family is eager to marry her off. coming from a family of little means, it is the only way she can be assured of a comfortable future. jane is much more interested in writing her novels, and finds every suitor lacking in one way or another. that is, until the mysterious mr. lefroy arrives on the scene. but when her cousin is suspected in aiding the french, england’s enemy, jane is suddenly sidetracked trying to prove her cousin’s innocence, solving a murder, and ultimately facing a decision that might just cost her true love. well, that all sounds like it's right up my alley. i so wanted to love this book, and i'm not exactly sure where things went wrong for me. so let's try talking this out. i read an uncorrected proof of secrets in the snow and there were a lot of errors to be caught. i sincerely hope that whoever proofreads the final galleys does a good job, because there were so many typos, missi...

growing up i was never a star trek fan. i thought the television series was boring and the one movie i recall seeing was super boring. it took place on earth and maybe kirk and spock were searching for something--but who cares? all i can tell you was that as a 10-year-old i found it beyond boring. i was always a star wars  person. never a trekkie. even when i heard j.j. abrams was relaunching the franchise  i wasn't all that excited about it. and i love everything j.j. abrams does. i think he's the bees knees, but was he going to get me to watch star trek ? i don't think so but when i was visiting my friend ian in l.a. a couple years ago, he suggested we go see the second installment in the new franchise, which was out in theaters. going to see movies in a theater is a treat to a parent of young children. and the night before we did that we caught up on the first installment. and i was  pleasantly surprised, while i wouldn't describe the movies as high cinem...

while i'm anxiously awaiting my copy of a torch against the night , i figured i'd talk a bit about the novel that started it all. i actually picked up an ember in the ashes  after i started seeing it on all these young adult must-read lists. at the time it wasn't yet set to have a sequel, and when i first finished it i kept googling until i found the answer i wanted. since then it's evolved into a four-part series, which on the one hand slays me, because oh my god that means there is so much story before i find out how it all ends. but on the other hand thrills me because i loved this scary, terrifying world that tahir created and i want to spend more time with all the characters, especially elias and laia. i loved them so, so much. the story is set in an ancient land, somewhat of a cross of the holy roman empire and the ancient middle east. the martials reign supreme, particularly with their army of masks. the lowly scholars serving as their slaves, deprived of eve...

you can catch up with parts 1 and 2 and then read on for part 3.