definitely, possibly, maybe

i always like to look at my goodreads  stats for the year. this year i read an incredible number of books, and i enjoyed so many of them. standouts include: warrior by karen lynch haven by karen lynch haven by mary lindsay black bird of the gallows  by meg kessel by your side by kasie west ruthless king by meghan march defiant queen by meghan march sinful empire  by meghan march offsetting penalties by ally matthews the girl with the make-believe husband by julia quinn the hot shot by kristin callihan lord of desire by elizabeth hoyt i could really keep going...anyway here's a snapshot view of my crazy reading stats.

earl interrupted is the second part of the daring marriages series. robert ashton, earl of darington is more comfortable on a ship's deck than in a society drawing room. having recovered his family's fortunes on the high seas, it's time for him to return to london and make an acceptable marriage. except for all his strength and determination managing an unruly crew, speaking with delicate young ladies terrifies him and twists his tongue into knots. miss emma st. james finds herself in difficult circumstances. about to reach her majority and in line to inherit her father's estate, her stepmother and stepbrother are trying to find a way to have her declared insane if she doesn't marry her stepbrother. so she runs away having promised to marry a stranger in america and immediately finds trouble. rescued by robert, who has been shot, emma refuses to leave him behind when they both must seek refuge from the men who have assaulted them. this puts them in a most imp...

one thing that always amazes me about fantasy writers is how they build these intricate worlds, with their own geographies and whole mythologies that make them something new and different. the eighth king pulls from chinese mythology, but the world is still new and intricate and complicated. you have to be in the right frame of mind to pick up this novel, the prose is rich, filled with wordplay. sometimes it repeats, but sometimes you need that because there is a lot of description to keep track of. keeping it all straight can be a problem, though i also suffer from mom brain and am not the most visual of readers so all that description can cause me to glaze over. but the story flows and you find yourself caught up in the battle over the orchid throne. this isn't my usual fare, but that doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it. tenshing and datang's story is epic and adventurous and fantastical in all the right places. and if you enjoy being in this world, you're in ...

and this is it. this is the end of say goodbye . i was so intent on preserving this somewhere for myself, though i did just recently find my original files. i had started posting this at the beginning of the year, and with 52 parts it scheduled out perfectly. i still have more fan fiction to post, but none as long as this one. thanks for sticking it out! if you need a refresher, you can click on the links to catch up with the story:  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 ,  38 ,  39 ,  40 ,  41 ,  42 ,  43 ,  44 ,  45 ,  46 ,  47 ,  48 ,  49 ,  50 , and 51 . th...

after hours   is exactly the kind of workplace drama i adore. two strangers meet and have a steamy encounter. neither thinks that they’ll cross paths again. except they can’t stop thinking about each other. and then they realize that not only will their paths cross again, and on a daily basis, but also that their entire relationship is technically inappropriate given their respective roles at their company.  and still there’s this chemistry that won’t stop. but being together means that one of them has to give something up. and for most of us, even fictional characters, what we do is enmeshed with who we are. giving up your job for someone is almost always a guarantee for future unhappiness.  marc and aysia need to navigate these bumpy corporate waters, all while dodging her creepy ex-boyfriend and trying to keep their crazy sexy chemistry under wraps. i enjoyed every second of it.  **after hours will publish on january 2, 2018. i received an advance reader copy co...

in keeping with my need to read royal romance, i also picked up royally screwed  by emma chase. this one tells the story of a different prince nicholas who falls in love with an american. he also has a prince harry stand in named henry. but this one is less of a retread of will and kate's relationship. which, honestly is a good thing. because sometimes trying to fictionalize real-life stories makes things stilted when they don't need to be. when nicholas meets olivia hammond in her pie shop he is drunk. he is so drunk he offers her money for sex. because he is so cynical that he believes everyone has a price. olivia is cynical too, but she has her self-respect. and it doesn't matter that this prince is the hottest man she's ever seen, he still gets a face full of pie for his impudence. he comes back the next day to grovel and beg her for a chance. because even sober he realizes he needs to spend more time with this woman. and it's not that she figures out ...

heather cocks and jessica morgan are better known as the writing team behind www.gofugyourself.com , the fug girls, but they've also co-written some young adult novels and the royal we . a book best described as prince william and kate middleton fan fiction, with a few key differences that make prince nicholas (nick) and his american girl, rebecca (bex) fictional. but now that harry is marrying meghan markle and the whole british prince marrying an american commoner who happens to be biracial thing is happening, i thought it was a grand time to revisit nick and bex. as with my first reading, the first third of the book is sweet and romantic. nick and bex are friends first. and they fall in love gradually. and then his royalty and what that means takes over. and his life isn't his own. that's the reality. he doesn't have freedom. and if bex wants to be with him, she needs to accept that he comes with the weight of the future...

show me , the companion book to tell me , follows hunter bryce's story. days away from going into a biosphere for eight months, hunter meets airin delaney in a bar and is drawn to her. she's mysterious and innocent in a way he doesn't expect. and she is reluctant to tell him everything because she's afraid of how he'll react, that he'll treat her differently if he knows that she's the daughter of a billionaire space scientist who has struggled with a heart condition her whole life. when they are in a freak car accident the night before hunter is scheduled to leave, everything changes. he refuses to leave her side, even if it costs him his position in the biosphere. and when he learns who she really is, when he must face her mother, everything really does change. her mother is reluctant to let her go. she's been protecting airin from the world for so long. so she blackmails hunter into spying on airin for her. in exchange, she promises to give him ...

book two in the seven brides for seven scotsman series, when you love a scotsman , takes place in the closing months of the civil war. matthew mcenroy is at the end of his time in the union army, and he's sick of war. he wants to go back to his family and their compound. but his commitment is for another two months. when a skirmish erupts on abigail jensen's family's property she's not sure how she feels about the help she receives from matthew and his fellow soldiers. but when her mother and father are killed and the cabin is burned down by the marauders she has no choice but to leave with them. they know of a home for women and children who have lost everything in the war. abigail settles in nicely, offering up her medical knowledge and helping care for the children in the home. matthew can't help himself from waalking out with her. he finds her attractive, even if he's not entirely sure how far he wants their relationship to go. for some reason abigai...

keeping with the cowboy theme, soraya lane's cowboy stole my heart  stays in the same world as her king series, but expands the world to a new family of ranchers who will likely find love by the time the series comes to a close. youngest daughter, mia ford is up first. when her father calls in sam mendes (not the film director even though that's who i thought of every time i saw his full name) to help with a stallion he feels is unmanageable she's livid. the horses are hers, and her father should have nothing to do with the decision-making on them. but there's a backstory there. she needs the horse to heal. it's personal for her. and even though she doesn't agree with her father's tactics, sam is good at when he does. he's become a celebrity horse trainer for a reason. and he does work miracles with mia's horse. mia and sam have a rougher start, given the attitude they throw around at each other. but the attitude hides the sparks. but it's no...

the coming home series closes with clayton's story in cowboy up . unlike his siblings his isn't a second chance at love. he meets caroline at a bar outside of town. on a night where it's clear that she's looking to be bad. and he decides that he's the one who's going to be there for it. they don't exchange names, and yet, what should feel like a tawdry hookup in a motel room is something else entirely. it's the best sex of their lives. but it's one night. and neither of them tries to find the other. until caroline shows up at his sister's baby shower. the moment she walks in the room he recognizes her. not just as the woman in the bar, but as the woman who belongs to him. from that moment caroline is his. he proves this by saving her time and time again. once he has her in his arms this second time, he's not going to let her go. he's head over heels crazy in love with her. and she's in love with him. this book is dripping with...

quinn davis might be short and sassy and takes no prisoners as the majority owner of davis auto works and lead mechanic, but she's hiding some serious heartbreak in her past. nine years ago tate montgomery left for college, just at the end of a summer where they admitted their feelings for each other and slept together, and he disappeared. his phone was disconnected. he never came back. it was as if he'd dropped off the face of the earth. with no word, no notice, and no closure. and suddenly he's coming home. and in kiss my boots , quinn's first reaction to that news is to let him know he can kiss her boots. but when she learns the truth behind the choices he made. she realizes there was another side to the story. and as much as their separation hurt her. he really was trying to do the right thing. and now they have a real chance at love. in the years they've been apart they've grown up, they've changed. but one still holds true. they are still as much...

to start from the beginning click on the links  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 ,  38 ,  39 ,  40 ,  41 ,  42 ,  43 ,  44 ,  45 ,  46 ,  47 ,  48 ,  49 , and 50 . part 51 follows the jump...

so betty and archie kiss and reconnect with their past. hunting for the black hood and mr. svenson together. and by the way you guys, i was sooooo right. poor dumb archie was wrong last week. mr. svenson was the black hood. i'm not sure why the eyes were different. and it's kind of a copout that the killer is this character we've only known about for three episodes. but whatever. i'm kind of okay with this story wrapping up. the black hood stuff was the least interesting part of the episode, even as it tried to build up suspense and some real clear-and-present danger. i have to admit that i loved the stuff with veronica and her parents. and i just feel a little cheated that we still don't know what they're plotting. we can't even be sure that they've actually told veronica the whole truth. but i'm pretty sure that whatever the lodges are up to will figure more prominently in the back half of the season. i also love that it only took her an e...

when this book arrived on my kindle i literally dropped everything i was doing and started reading. i devoured this book in one sitting. i couldn't wait to start it and never wanted it to end. that's how much i enjoyed reading keira and lachlan's story. sinful empire concludes the series with answers and thrills and passion and angst and moments of pure darkness and moments of a love so bright it rivals the stars. what keira and lachlan feel for each other—it's so mindblowing. following them on this journey from ruthless king and seeing them both come into their own in sinful empire is just absolute perfection. everything about this series has been perfection. i have absolutely no complaints. i can probably mindlessly gush about this for days, weeks, years, and still, i don't know if i'll be able to fully explain why this resonated so much with me. i love these characters. i love how imperfect they are. i love how together they are something more. i lov...

i think reid mackenzie just became my favorite hero of this series. i've mentioned this before but it's fascinating reading about these characters who are on the losing side of history. based on real people, the fictionalized love stories have all been fantastic. and in the highland guardian , reid and audrey's love story really has a chance to shine. when he promises nicholas kennet that he'll watch over his daughter, reid mackenzie imagines a young girl in pigtails who he'll ship off to boarding school. what he discovers is that miss audrey kennet is a lovely young woman, all of nineteen, too old for a guardian, but given society's rules, also in need of someone to watch over her. at first suspicious of the man who brings her tidings of her father's death, she begins to change her tune when he doesn't immediately treat her as incapable of rational thought. he respects her intelligence and gives her more freedom than she expects. but it's when...

book 3 in the risking it all series,    can't forget you , is a second-chance-at-love style romance. jessica flynn loved mark dalton, but when he left her high-and-dry and enlisted in the army without a spare thought or glance back at her, she was left broken-hearted. he didn't talk to her or share anything that would have let her understand why he made the choices he did. all she knew was that he hurt her and clearly didn't feel the same way she did. except that's not exactly true. mark has always loved jess too. she's his north star. thoughts of her got him past years of trauma and violence he experienced as a member of the special forces. coming home to haven, he loves jess still, even as he knows that the hurts he caused her are not easily healed. when a real estate deal forces them to spend more time together, the chemistry that has always sizzled between them becomes to unruly to deny. but mark has never thought that family life would be something he...

we first met haley and fletcher in off the ice , the first book in the juniper falls series. breaking the ice  is just as satisfying and carries the same surprising depth for a young adult sports romance. clearly, that's not all it is. fletcher and haley are both doing summer coursework for very different reasons. used to being the guy no one notices, fletcher does his best to avoid attention, having previously garnered too much of it. fletcher is one of those unfortunate people who struggle with such severe anaphylaxis that even the most innocent of interactions can result in a life and death situation. but having had his allergies used against him in the past, he doesn't share this information willingly, which makes socializing in high school a challenge.  except haley's pencil tapping is making fletcher crazy and when he steals it from her, she finds herself thinking of him nonstop. she thinks he's cute. and she knows he's smart. and ...

so audible recently created a romance subscription package that i am totally in love with. i have an hour-long commute to work on one-lane country backroads and suffer from motion-induced narcolepsy (ok, i made that up, but i fall asleep in cars even if i'm driving) and listening to books helps me say alert. since signing up for the subscription i've listened to the following three books: the theory of second best by j. bengsston,   playboy pilot by vi keeland and penelope ward, and defenseless by corinne michaels. each one is a different kind of romance, and one of my favorite things about the new subscription service is that it lets you search for books according to your mood. it categorizes by trope, by heat level, by subgenre. it's a great way to search for things, because it allows you to try new authors with minimal risk. and because you can access an unlimited number of books per month using the service, i find myself saving my audible credits for books n...

to start from the beginning click on the links  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 ,  38 ,  39 ,  40 ,  41 ,  42 ,  43 ,  44 ,  45 ,  46 ,  47 ,  48 , and 49 . part 50 follows the jump...

the brooklyn brotherhood closes out with only you , and fender and harlow get a chance for their own very happy ending after first meeting in just once  and having sparks fly. from the moment they meet again in only you  it's clear that everyone in park heights is rooting for them. but both fender and harlow have a lot of childhood baggage and mistrust to overcome on top of the differences in their backgrounds. and when fender's abusive father comes back into the picture, the trauma of abuse and neglect add some unexpected challenges to their burgeoning connection. that's above and beyond the fact that the woman fender calls mama lou, is the same woman who helped harlow's mom become a bitter and vengeful shell of herself. while louise shouldn't take the full blame, she's also not entirely innocent. and her actions did negatively impact harlow and the way she sees relationships. for novels that take place in the city, the brooklyn brotherhood series ma...

book 3 in the love unplugged series, the way back to us , finds singer gavin maccormack coming face to face with the one who got away. dani didn't just get away, she disappeared completely, and when gavin sees her catering an event he's stunned. when he runs into her again at the blackbird, the bar he co-owns and regularly hangs out in, he begins to think that maybe it's not such a coincidence. dani knows better. she knows she shouldn't let gavin get too close. she's been on the run her whole life, and there's no end to the running. she doesn't even know for sure what danger she is facing. she's just always followed her father's lead. even knowing that she won't stay, gavin falls headlong back in love with the woman he's never forgotten. because heartbreak will be worth it for a few more seconds of happiness with her. and as she allows herself to become entwined with his life, she starts to wish for the impossible too. we get updates ...

i don't care what people say, i still think it's the janitor. even if archie claims that it's not him. archie isn't the brightest bulb. and sure the green eyes aren't the same, but maybe the dude had contacts. or maybe he's not the black hood. so, let's talk about the relationship drama abounding in this episode. we have f.p. and jughead, for once having a good, easy father-son relationship that is destined to go to shit when f.p. realizes how far gone into serpent business jughead is. we have jughead cutting ties with betty in order to protect her. this after she's put it all out there on the stage for jughead in her very own serpent dance. something that she does in front of her mother, who happens to be in full serpent gear at the time. an aside, alice cooper is one of the most perplexing characters on this show. you never know what version of her will show up. and i kind of love her when she's her most serpent self. i think that's th...

sea of strangers picks up where island of exiles left off. at sea, khya and her friends must come upon an idea that will allow them to survive the dangers ahead. the action rarely stops, but we do get more answers to what the misireh are up to and a deeper understanding of the mythology and magic that imbues this world. because this is book two of a planned trilogy there’s still not a whole lot of resolution but i have high hopes for book three. the relationship between khya and tessen continues to deepen, and i enjoyed the quiet moments between them, even as everything around them falls apart over and over again. what they are aiming to do feels like the impossible and yet, their perserverance, their determination makes it seem like it's within reach even as they are faced with setback after setback. **sea of strangers published on december 5, 2017. I received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley:entangled publishing (entangled teen) in exchange for my honest r...

island of exiles brings to life a world of magic and lies, one where gender fluidity is the norm and asexuality and bisexuality are nothing remarkable. the glossary and the explanations of magic and rank are all nested at the end of the book, which if i had read the physical copy of i would have happened upon it much sooner than i did in the ebook, when i only found it because i had reached the end of the story. there is a lot of world-building here. it's complex and detailed and maybe a little overwhelming. i'm still kind of confused by everything with tsua and osshi but i'm guessing book 2 will continue to provide answers. at its heart, this is khya's story. realizing that what she loves most in the world is in terrible danger she pulls together a quest that will betray everything she believes about her society. working with her brother's lover, sanii, and her longtime nemesis, tessen, they come up with a daring plan to rescue her brother, yorri. but when...

i really enjoyed take the lead , but i think dance with me  totally topped it. i loved, loved, loved this book. natasha and dmitri are perfection together. they've been indulging in an on and off things for three years, so when dmitri suddenly starts to really be there for natasha she's suspicious. though to be fair, she would have always been suspicious. her whole life she's been made to feel unworthy by her mother. born to a teenager who felt her life was ruined and incapable of expressing her affection in a constructive manner, tasha feels like she's second best in all things. and being surrounded by people who give off the appearance of being more successful without working nearly as hard has only added to her complex. inadvertently dmitri has also fed into tasha's insecurities, mainly because in trying to protect himself from heartache and rejection he's made tasha believe that she isn't as important to him as she is. because the truth is, to dmit...

when natalie lindgren returns to the ranch her family used to spend summer vacations on in hold me harder , she's not just revisiting old childhood haunts. she's reencountering the one man who she has fully submitted to,javier, the man she turned her back on because she believes that her need to submit makes her weak. to make things more complicated the man she fell in love with after javier is also part of the wedding party that brings her back to the ranch. ryan is another man she's run from for the same reason, his desire that she submit has her running scared. but coming to the ranch is like coming home. and natalie learns that in order to be her true self, in order to be truly happy she can't keep denying the part of her that needs to submit. with javier and ryan guiding her and working together there's a chance that she can have it all. as long as she realizes that there is strength in submission. that all these two men want most in the world is to give ...

rafe seaborne, aka the earl of beckport, is determined to redeem himself after his allergies to a horse ruined a military operation in the midst of war. humiliated he abandoned society and has taken up residence on the coast determined to catch a group of smugglers and a traitor to the crown. when he crosses paths with miss charlotte allston he assumes that he is saving her from a suicide by drowning. in truth she'd been moping by the seashore for her lost love, justin, but her eye had been caught by a scrap of something floating in the water. she was just being curious not suicidal. but once their paths cross, it's like they can't stay out of each other's way. either he's spying on her and she catches him, or she finds reasons to track him down. and at every turn they are beset by danger, accidents, and a surprising passion. a perilous passion  establishes early on that these two are wild for each other but rafe believes he isn't free to pursue charlotte ...

when wren hart blows back into the tiny town of crowley, kansas she's not sure what kind of homecoming she'll receive. she's been gone three years and her only contact with her sister, bennie has been a series of postcards. she shouldn't be surprised to discover that her apartment has been rented out and her old job filled. but her replacement, preston charles, couldn't be more fascinating if he tried. in chaos and control , it's pretty clear early on that wren is the chaos and preston is the control. he suffers from some pretty severe ocd. and we see how the disorder both controls him and how he uses routine and repetition to keep his anxiety under control. wren steamrolls her way into his orbit, and once she is there he finds that he likes having her there. and that somehow, in spite of her propensity for chaos, she quiets his overactive mind. and when he's with her he finds a measure of peace that he's never really known. wren has secrets and so...

sayward díaz is not your average romantic heroine, after all it's not every day your lead character is on the low end of the autism spectrum. sayward has problems reading social cues, and she's never understood the need for physical intimacy, but something about bennett blacke calls to her. and when he says she's beautiful, she's stunned to realize that he makes her feel that way. he's a man who has been through unspeakable stress, violence, danger. and while there is a darkness that resides deep in his soul, the way he cherishes everything about sayward in mine to save is totally worth swooning over. he's a man who whose ptsd is sparked by betrayal. loving someone, giving over that much trust to another person feel unthinkable, but he doesn't hesitate with sayward. even when he knows that being with her could set off all his triggers he knows that being without her is not an option. they just work together so beautifully. sayward's life is at r...

ethan everest is enchanted by singer davis from the moment he catches her eye across a crowded room. he wants to approach her. he wants so much more than that. and when they finally share a moment he lets himself get distracted and lets her slip out of his reach. but she's not far from his mind, and months later when they cross paths again, he knows he needs to do everything in his power to keep her close. even though his life has been needlessly complicated and everyone is telling him to avoid entanglements. but singer is more than an entanglement. she is his in a way no other woman will ever be. she even manages to put up with his hot and cold behavior. mainly because when she tries to leave ethan behind, he does or says something that makes it impossible for her to do that. when tragedy strikes close to home, it almost breaks them. he worries that bringing singer into his orbit puts her at risk, and if there is anything he is unwilling to risk, it is her safety. and sing...

as loose ends get tied up, catch up from the beginning at the links:   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 ,  38 ,  39 ,  40 ,  41 ,  42 ,  43 ,  44 ,  45 ,  46 ,  47 , and 48 . part 49 continues after the jump...