definitely, possibly, maybe

mina harper had enough heartbreak to last a lifetime. so she wasn't searching out more. but when will fraser saves her after an unfortunate road accident, she finds herself noticing him in ways she never did before. a season of you finds mina and will indulging in the attraction between them. and mina, in particular, ignoring the very real fact that it's something more. she already loved and lost, so to say she wasn't looking for love is an understatement. but will has been half in love with mina since he first saw her 6 years ago. he never approached her because she was married, and then because she was widowed and needed time to grieve. and then she developed an unreasonable hatred of alcohol and bars, and will happens to own a bar and a distillery. but when she finally takes notice of will, she can't stop. it's not just his physical appearance, although that has her artist hands itching to draw him. it's his kindness. his patience with her. his steady ...

the last shaughnessy gets her happily ever after in holiday spice . darcy may be the youngest shaughnessy but she might have the biggest heart of them all. the only daughter with five older brothers, she's used to fighting for her independence. at the same time, she's fiercely loyal and close to her family. so when she falls in love with reclusive artist ben tanner things are complicated. for one thing he lives in a remote area of washington state. her family lives outside of charlottesville, north carolina. he's an introvert who generally avoids spending time with people. she's an extrovert who thrives in a crowd. and yet, together they make sense. when they can shut the world out of their relationship bubble, everything is wonderful. so they need to figure out how to quiet the noise. remote cabins outside the cascade mountains help. and eventually they both find a solution that works. both of them have some family issues and old baggage to work through too. an...

deck the halls  takes place in the quaint town of darling, vermont, and our hero george reilly has finally gotten his life back together after suffering from undiagnosed ptsd, guilt and grief, poverty, and homelessness. the last person he expects is to run into amy merck. her twin brother was george's brother in arms, and a good portion of that guilt and grief that sent him on a downward spiral relates to tim's death. amy just wants closure. for fifteen years her family has been left to wonder what really happened to her brother, and finally, she's tracked down the guy who has all the answers. quickly, she realizes that her need for answers may not actually trump george's well-being. but she feels compelled to follow through with this contact, because he's that last link to her brother. and because when she sees him she feels a zing of attraction that she didn...

play dates  starts off with an adorable meet cute in the park. monica rayburn is watching her niece, emma, when she first catches a glimpse of the saturdaddies. when emma finds a discarded princess toy on the playground, they go around asking the other girls at the park if it's theirs. they should have asked the boys, as it turns out to belong to colm cleary's little boy, aiden. as the kids play, colm and monica get to talking. and for the first time in a long time, colm decides to take a risk. when monica realizes that colm thinks that emma is her daughter, she tries to tell him but he is distracted by his son and doesn't realize what she is trying to say. at first monica thinks it will likely be a one-time thing so there's no reason to admit that emma isn't her daughter. but one time isn't enough and soon the truth that emma isn't hers starts to become this big deal that it shouldn't be. there are plenty of clues that monica isn't a mom, but ...

carmen dane was always a dominant. until she met thomas and learned that there could be something to submitting. when he hurts her and she runs away to have his twin boys without his knowledge, it looks like their relationship is irreparable. but thomas knew the minute she left him that he needed to get her back. that there was no one else he wanted to submit before him. but he broke her trust. and the first rule of a bdsm relationship is that you must be able to trust your partner. so for carmen and thomas it's a lot of two step forwards, one step back. because it doesn't matter how much carmen denies this, but she needs to submit to thomas. the only way she'll ever be truly fulfilled is to give him everything. she just needs to trust that he won't ever hurt her. this is the conclusion to a series, but you don't miss anything in rule changer   by not having read the first two books, it's easy enough to figure out what happened those....

i have so enjoyed the time i've spent in north pole, minnesota. approximately yours  brings the series to a close with danny and holly's cyrano de bergerac-like story. when elda and holly come back to north pole for one last hurrah at their grandmother's home before their parents put it on the market, they are pleasantly surprised to encounter their old gingerbread nemesis danny garland. an even better surprise is how cute he's gotten. well, it's a surprise for elda, but holly kind of knew because she's harbored a crush on him for years and googled him before coming into town. danny has had a run of back luck, a broken leg has him off the basketball court and a cheating ex-girlfriend has him doubting his skills with the ladies. the thing with holly is that she has a lot of insecurity and fear that she's holding onto. partly she's worried about her looks and her weight. but she carries herself with such coolness and confidence that people miss the...

it's not a leap to realize what the plot of just one of the boys  is going to be. i mean there is a very famous movie that outlines it perfectly and nearly shares a title with this book. but alice "al" bell is a delightful character. her whole focus in life has been hockey. it's a spectacularly single-minded obsession that she has with the sport. and she's good. so good. and when she isn't added to the team strictly because of her gender she is heartbroken. but when her twin brother breaks his leg she sees an opportunity to play. disguising herself as her brother she takes his place on the hockey team. and she gets to shine. especially as she develops a rapport with hayden tremblay on the ice. he's a star player with a huge chip on his shoulder and is initially steamed at the rookie who keeps showing him up. but as they start to work together, it becomes clear that together they are magic on the ice. and the more time they spend together, hayden le...

read up on how michael and liz got here in parts  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ,  12 ,  13 ,  14 ,  15 ,  16 ,  17 ,  18 ,  19 ,  20 ,  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24 ,  25 ,  26 ,  27 ,  28 ,  29 ,  30 ,   31 ,  32 ,  33 ,  34 ,  35 ,  36 , 37 , and 38 . part 39 continues after the jump.

i've got to be honest, while i liked the characters and the overall plot in soft limits i was really creeped out by frederic and evie's particular brand of kink. i don't mind bdsm stories, and i know that there are all kinds of kink in the world. i guess it's good to know your limits. infantilizing creeps the bejesus out of me. that what this comes down to. the story of a singer facing the end of his career due to a throat condition and falling for his very young biographer, that part of the story i liked. i even liked the parts of the story where she realizes that his dominance over her is what she craves. that it's what gets her off and makes her feel whole and safe and precious. i just would have preferred all of that happen without pacifiers being involved. oh well. **soft limits will publish on october 1, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgally/carina press in exchange for my honest opinion.

jane has spent her whole life in her sister, samantha's shadow. and she's always assumed that caleb, samantha's friend and business partner, doesn't see her in that same way that men are blinded by sam the moment they meet her. she's lived with this her whole life, so she gets it. but she doesn't have to love it. and even though she doesn't blame sam, she can also resent it. except when tragedy strikes and jane and caleb have to face the world that is no longer the same. a world where hiding the attraction that underlies their every interaction doesn't make sense anymore. even though admitting things. telling each other how they truly feel is not something either of them are ready for. it's not until they are ready to say goodbye and embark on a road trip to see things through that the possibility of more starts to crystallize. tell me is not just a love story, it's about grief and loss and acceptance. it's about friendship. it's a...

while calli and kell start off on the wrong foot in perfect scents , they are inevitably drawn to each other. the thing is, they both have some goals in mind that don't include romance. after all, calli just got taken in by her ex and is certainly not looking for anything serious. and kell is in the middle of trying to expand his business and flipping the house he's remodeling plays a key part of that plan. the best-laid plans are often thwarted, and finding love in this moment, with each other, is not what either of them have in mind. of course, nothing runs smoothly, especially not true love. and calli and kell struggle with their ability to communicate with one another. but when their issues are sorted out, you are left with a really sweet love story. **perfect scents will publish on september 26, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/kensington books (lyrical shine) in exchange for my honest review.

the corner of forever and always  pairs artsy and free-spirited tuesday knight with way-too-serious town mayor beau marino, as they work together to try to save the beloved park that makes everland so special. but ever after land is special to both tuesday and beau, and it means enough to them that they try to put their differences aside. and when they find themselves not constantly fighting each other, they start fighting the attraction that keeps drawing them together. beau, in particular, has already dealt with the heartbreak of a bad marriage and wants something stable and predictable in his life. tuesday is never predictable. but his reaction to her is. all that tension between them comes from somewhere and at some point it has to break. the key is to make sure they both survive the inevitable explosion. because once they let go of their preconceptions and accept that what they feel is something special, well there's no telling where this will go. ok, it...

when city girl sophia is forced to move to the small town of revival, illinois, she's not thrilled. when she meets her bad-boy, temptation-on-a-stick neighbor/landlord ryder she's even less so. not that she can really explain her visceral reaction to ryder. the thing is, in head over heels , that visceral reaction is lust and sexual tension and chemistry and just pure heat. the tension between sophia and ryder crackles on every page, every scene they are together. nearly every interaction they have, no matter how antagonistic ends with them kissing each other so wildly that they nearly have sex while fully clothed in a room full of people. the world fades away and they are the only two who inhabit it. i loved their relationship. i love how it grew from this insane, lust-filled haze to something deep and meaningful. sophia has always struggled with being a wild-child. her impulses and her open heart leading her to hurt, but ryder knows this and understands this about...

the funny thing about asher and emma's story in maybe this christmas  is that when the book starts they're in the middle of a relationship. maybe they aren't calling it that. but when you are exclusively seeing the most important person in your life other than your family, that's what it is. emma spends a lot of time doubting asher's love for her. and maybe at first he doesn't label it. and maybe he pushes their relationship into a more "real" place due to jealousy. but i always felt like asher was being honest about his feelings, and it was hard to understand why emma had such serious doubts. just like i had a hard time understanding why she refused to hear him out after their confrontation on the mountain. i hate when characters shut each other out like that. you can't have a relationship without communication. emma is hurt and upset, but ignoring asher doesn't actually make it better. it's not until he forces her to listen that she c...

book 4 in the romancing the clarksons series was always leading to belmont and sage. from the moment sage is introduced in too hot to handle you knew that there was something between them. something that burns so hot, so deep, so painfully, so exquisitely. in too beautiful to break , sage knows they've reached their breaking point. there is too much between them. love. aching need. trauma. emotional scars. she tries so hard to leave belmont behind. to protect him. to free both of them from the ties that bind them together. she's not sure that it's really love. she doesn't want to be his crutch. she doesn't want him to be hers. but belmont can't let her go. even though he knows he must in order to let her breathe. he can't breathe without her. without her he isn't whole. loving her is the only way he knows to go forward. he would face down anything, everything for her. in so many ways he proves that what he feels for sage is something real and stron...

his perfect partner was the perfect book for me right now in this moment in time, in history. as a puerto rican watching the devastation wreaked by hurricane maria, there was something to be said for spending time with yazmine fernández and her puerto rican family. romance authors have been making an effort to diversify their characters for years, but so often the authors don't have a hispanic background so i am always catching small things like bad spanish or inaccurate cultural references. but priscilla oliveras is mexican-puerto rican, and clearly grew up in a bilingual household. the only thing that was inconsistent were the accents, but hey, i am all over the place with them too when i write in spanish, so that's a stone i can't cast. this book was rich with puerto rican culture and i loved it for that. the sense of family also really strong as there is a very big subplot involving yaz's father and her sisters, and this is one series that i think will really ...

everybody loves bella erickson in her small town of ghost falls. everyone knows her. and everyone knows that she's been in love with town sheriff nate evans since they were little kids. they also know that it's a hopeless kind of love, because nate is not one to get himself tied up with anyone. in becoming bella , she decides it's past time to take control of her life. she wants to be with someone who wants her back. she wants to stop being the town good girl and not be bad, but not be so predictable. she's got a list of 10 things to do if you're single during the holidays and she's going to follow it and see if her life changes. because she's tired of it being the same day in and day out. she's unhappy and needs something to change. she just didn't count on a stalker. she thought the guy was intense and maybe just came on a little strong, but when things escalate to vandalism and threats of violence nate finds himself unable to step back. this...

what happens when you fall in love with a harbinger of death? what do you do when the boy you like is also a black bird who feeds off the energy released by death? and what can you do when you realize that his presence in your life means that sometime soon very bad things will be happening? black bird of the gallows is part romance, part horror story. there's a sense of foreboding and menace throughout this story that is woven into the teenage angsty romance between angie and reece. and you guys, i loved this story. it was unique and interesting and the imagery was so vivid. i'm not the most visual person but here i could see the crow to human transitions. i could see the blurry faces of the beekeepers. the writing is so cinematic and lyrical. i feel like the author spent some time watching the birds and candyman , which are two of the scariest movies of all time in my opinion. there is something about angie that draws the birds and bees her way, and figuring out what t...

the rogue's conquest   continues the story of the townsend family, picking up some time after enchanting the earl  left off, the siblings stories continue with science-minded eleanor getting a chance on center stage. eleanor has recently published a paper on the mating habits of a beetle that has been honored by a natural science society in edinburgh. because the society will not publish work by women, she used a pseudonym. and when she is invited to speak before members of the society about her work, she really wants to go. and so, cecil townsend is born. but what eleanor doesn't count on is prizefighter james macgregor to suss out that she is a woman in disguise. he's been looking for a way to court another debutante and decides to blackmail eleanor for an introduction. when the ploy works he blackmails eleanor for dance lessons and then for a ball. eleanor wishes she could hate james for the blackmail and for his plan, but she kind of admires him. he's charming...

surprise! the scotsman who save me  isn't a highland romance. it doesn't even take place in england. instead it's set on the american frontier. where a group of scottish brothers have set up a virtual fortress that allows them to protect the young woman and child they just saved from a brutally violent attack on their home. when emily stanton first meets iain macenroy she's so relieved to see a friendly face that she is finally able to pass out from blood loss. holding her in his arms, iain isn't sure how he feels about this english woman who represents everything that forced them to leave scotland behind. he knows she's their social better. he hates that she's one of the gentry but can't keep away either. all emily feels is guilt that she's wrapped the macenroy family in her troubles. once she realizes that she can trust them with her entire truth she lets them help her. even though she frets the entire time about the ad...

iris bennington is a proper lady who belongs to the society of ladies of virtue. she has the training and know-how to defeat london's criminal element, all without calling attention to herself. when she discovers that her brother has been taking advice from a sarcastic how to be a gentleman column published by one merritt steele, she takes it upon herself to teach him a lesson. the scoundrel and the lady  takes these two opposites and brings them together in a way that allows them to fit all the pieces in perfect sync. it's amazing how well iris and merritt work together. iris is so set on teaching merritt lessons, but it turns out that he teaches her so much more about society and the darkness that can lie beneath the façade of gentlemanliness. as they get over their preconceptions and realize that they make sense together, it's nice to see how much being in love is also about teamwork. and merritt and iris realize pretty quickly that they are actually both on the sa...

sara portman's debut historical,  the reunion , is an enjoyable second-chance-at-love romance. years ago john brantwood left england in a hurry with no consideration to the betrothal his father had arranged for him. his abandonment left emmaline shaw's reputation in tatters. his alleged death and then the actual death of her parents had her retiring from society. so it is a shock when he reappears four years later, and an even greater shock to realize that their betrothal is still valid and that he wants to hold her to it. the more emmaline puts up a fight, the more determined john is to marry her. he needs a woman with a steel core to withstand the scandal of his long-lost sister's return to society. he also needs someone to help her learn to navigate society's pitfalls, and who better than someone who has experienced the scorn and derision first-hand. emmaline doesn't want to give in, but soon it seems that everyone in her life is counseling her to marry...

playing with forever pairs up dog trainer juliet morgan with rugby star ryder davis. she has no idea what a big deal he isn't. juliet is attracted to ryder and wants to be with him. except she has a plan. she's traveling to italy in a month and can't put her plans on hold any longer. she's already done that once before. so before they even have a chance to fall into bed with each other, juliet is clear that this is no-strings. ryder tries to honor her wishes. but promises about not getting involved are impossible to keep. the heart wants what the heart wants. and his wants juliet. at the same time, he understands that she can't put her life on hold for him. the relationship between ryder and juliet is pretty special, we get to spend a lot of time with them as a couple. it doesn't matter that juliet refuses to label it, because it's clear that's what they are. but it becomes one of those impossible situations, where for a long time possible sol...

greer has been in love with luke since she was a kid. and when she leaves behind a promising law career to work alongside luke as an emt in shocking the medic   her mother thinks she's crazy. and she is crazy, about luke. luke has also been in love with greer since forever. but he's always felt inferior to her, given her family's wealth and the much lower social status of his. when she joins the paramedic unit, he finds himself on equal ground with her for the first time ever. and given his aspirations and the opportunity for advancement he might just feel worthy enough to pursue her. and he totally would, except there's a strict no-fraternization policy that he can't breach because it would endanger the very opportunity that makes him feel like he has a chance of pursuing greer. there's a lot of silly circular logic keeping these two apart. i should say that it's not that they stay apart, but more that they don't actually admit the breadth of thei...

secret games  continues the tropical temptation series and pits event planner, zoe burkhart against contractor, tate carrington. when they first meet at the resort bar they have no idea who the other person is. but being strangers doesn't matter. the crazy sexual chemistry is all that matters. even after they realize that they will need to work together to make sure the construction on the chapel of zoe's latest wedding event goes off without a hitch—even though the special ordered wood will not arrive on time to allow that to happen—it doesn't take much for zoe and tate to find themselves tangled up in each other's arms. there's no staying away from each other, even knowing the risk their relationship is given that they technically work together. before they can head off into the sunset for their own happily every after, tate has some serious family baggage to deal with. and clearing things up with his father will be what makes his able to take steps...

solace is a second-chance-at-love, small-town romance. in high school, jason koster was the football quarterback with nfl dreams and deliliah noelle was the head cheerleader who were so in love. but something happened to break them apart, thing is, jason had no idea what it was. losing the girl of his dreams was bad enough, but he lost football too, when he ended up with a career-ending injury early in his college career. adrift and with nothing left to lose, jason found himself working as a hired hit man. which is a bit of a career leap for this otherwise all-american, small-town boy. meanwhile, delilah finds herself in a relationship with jason's (ex)-best friend. being without jason is already a nightmare. getting herself stuck with an abusive husband is even worse. when jason finally comes back home, her marriage is over and she's recovering. she's just not sure that she's ready to open her heart back to jason. what she comes to realize that the biggest imped...

catch up with parts  1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 ,  10 ,  11 ,  12 ,  13 ,  14 ,  15 ,  16 ,  17 ,  18 ,  19 ,  20 ,  21 ,  22 ,  23 ,  24 ,  25 ,  26 ,  27 ,  28 ,  29 ,  30 ,   31 ,  32 ,  33 ,  34 ,  35 ,  36 , and 37  at the links. part 38 continues the story after the jump...

one of the reasons i love to read is that it provides escape. i don't enjoy sitting around and thinking about all the terrible things that can happen out there. and normally i'm not an alarmist or ball of stress, but i feel like i have no choice but to be those things. it's not just hurricane maria, which is the disaster that has affected me and mine most closely. it's the earthquake in mexico city and the devastation there. it's the heartless healthcare bill that the gop in congress are threatening us with. it's the fact that our president is in a pissing match with north korea that could very well lead to nuclear war. and also the fact that our president has pulled out of the paris climate accords, while pooh-poohing the idea of climate change and all the while the temperatures of our oceans have clearly risen and the insane amounts of hurricane activity over the last month is proof of that. you guys, maria became a category 5 storm in 15 hours. that's...

Title: DUKE OF DESIRE Series: Maiden Lane #12 Author: Elizabeth Hoyt Publication Date: October 17, 2017 Imprint: Grand Central Publishing Mass Market Add to Goodreads A LADY OF LIGHT Refined, kind, and intelligent, Lady Iris Jordan finds herself the unlikely target of a diabolical kidnapping.  Her captors are the notoriously evil Lords of Chaos.  When one of the masked-and-nude!-Lords spirits her away to his carriage, she shoots him…only to find she may have been a trifle hasty. A DUKE IN DEEPEST DARKNESS Cynical, scarred, and brooding, Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore, has made it his personal mission to infiltrate the Lords of Chaos and destroy them.  Rescuing Lady Jordan was never in his plans.  But now with the Lords out to kill them both, he has but one choice: marry the lady in order to keep her safe. CAUGHT IN A WEB OF DANGER…AND DESIRE Much to Raphael’s irritation, Iris insists on being the sort of duchess who involes herself in his ...

the last thing aiden marlowe wants is to go back to london and step in for his father at the family business. but as better together opens he can't say no. not if someone is stealing from the company. and not now that his father is suffering from some serious health concerns. when he gets to marlowe industries he knows immediately that there is something wrong. it's not just the possible embezzlement that is the problem. the air about the place is all wrong. even tallulah becks senses this. it used to be when she temped at marlowe there was a buzz of excitement and people seemed excited about what they were doing. but now people clock out early and spend more time socializing than working. when aiden's original assistant resigns, and her replacement is a disaster, he ends up with tallulah as his temp. he and tallulah had literally run into each other a couple of times before, and each time he'd been struck by her fairy-like presence. she was like a breath of fres...

i really enjoy books set at the turn of the twentieth century. it was such an interesting time period, not just due to historical events, but culturally the world was changing. and the increased interest in the spirit world, is reflective of a world that was drastically shifting and yet trying to still hold onto the past. this is the second book in the change of fortune series, and i kind of wish i had read whispers beyond the veil  first. not because whispers of warning can't stand alone, because it does, but because i would have liked to pick up ruby's story from the beginning. the plot in whispers of warning  revolves around the suffrage movement and when ruby's new mentor is killed, ruby can't stop herself from investigating the murder. i really enjoy these stories for the heroines with modern sensibilities navigating the world that seeks to silence their briliance. i love that they can overcome the constraints society places on them. i love the relationships t...

book 2 in the brewing love series,  saison for love , connects aimless brewer/bartender liam dempsey with single mom and cheesemaker ruth colvert. even though they both lived in the small colorado town of antero, and liam's sister worked with ruth, their paths never really crossed until ruth decided to go out one night to let off some steam. when liam notices her in his bar he's captivated. and soon they're enjoying one night of fun in the back room of his sister's brewery. ruth's life is complicated, what with raising her precocious daughter and running her small café/delicatessen. liam doesn't seem like the type to stick around when things get tough. he'd already bailed on his sister when their brewery hit hard times and as the bar he works for gets run into the ground he's already got a backup plan in his back pocket. ruth doesn't think that she'll have any problem avoiding liam after their one night stand, after all she hardly knew of h...

temptation and treachery finds ice agent río getting tangled up with the daughter of the cartel boss he's been tracking for years. their meeting is entirely coincidental, and neither of them has any idea how intertwined their lives are. the chemistry between the two leads makes the story. from the moment they meet, ending up in bed is a foregone conclusion. it doesn't matter how crazy or improbable the circumstances that bring them together are. the need they feel for each other strips away reason and their inhibitions. and for 24 hours they are lost in each other. they go their separate ways, only to meet up in the worst possible circumstances. río finally has a bead on his target and celeste happens to be collateral damage. finding her again in a drug lord's safe house wrecks him. and when he learns her identity he doesn't know what to think or how to feel. things get even crazier for them as they figure out that there is an unknown subject behind some of the...

Title: Solace Author: S.L. Scott Genre: Contemporary Romance Release Date: September 22, 2017 Add to Goodreads

lust in translation   pits sightseeing-minded xavier moreau against destination-focused jaime cruz. she's tagging along with him on a cross-country drive to her sister's wedding in medford. they have two weeks to get there, but she's done the drive in three days. xavier who is visiting from france has no intention of driving through america without stopping to see it. it's xavier's car so jaime really has no leg to stand on when he insists on stopping at a haunted house. when a ghostly presence has her end up in his bed, xavier presses his luck and soon things get pretty steamy between them. jaime continues to protest that she needs to get home, but she allows xavier to pull her from place to place. but the end of their road trip means only one thing. he has a life he needs to return to in france. and her family and her future job is in america. it takes a special kind of charm to close that divide, but xavier is certainly up to the challenge. ja...

breeze cohen has one goal, to become the youngest store manager in the history of her company, supplanting her grandmother in the record books. when she meets logan chandler in  for kicks , she has no idea that he's going to knock her off her path. logan understands ambition. but he's also learned how to course correct when life throws obstacles in your way. his professional soccer career was cut short with a near-fatal accident and since then he's learned to jump into things. when he meets breeze his attraction to her is off-the-charts. it doesn't matter to him that their relationship might be construed as inappropriate given that they are working together on the same product launch. logan is nothing if not persistent, and he can see that breeze feels the attraction simmering between them. he understands her reasons for keeping it quiet and does everything he can to honor her wishes. but it's hard for him to deny what he feels for her. he just needs her willi...