definitely, possibly, maybe

i forget how alternate universe this story is...

a bit like hunger games meets harry potter,   ruthless magic  has a group of outcast magicians competing to become champions in order to retain their right to use magic. among them finn lockwood, who gives up his secure future because he realizes that the only reason he has that chance is because of his family name and not because he's earned it. then there is rocío lópez, who is a more talented and powerful magician than most, but because of her family's ancestry is considered a risk. there's also desmond, a magician with poor sight; prisha, finn's best friend, whose family competitiveness leaves her with no other option but to succeed; and more. we get to know all the individual competitors both from finn and rocío's point of view. and they go through some serious trials as the examination tests the limits of their magic and their willingness to do anything to keep it. i'm not sure if this is a series, because the way this ends is kind of open-ended, bu...

tanner ford never intended to reconnect with the girl who broke his heart when she chose a career over him. but now that career of hers might be what saves his. in all night with the cowboy , tanner and lauren are forced to come together. this time on a professional level. but there is too much water under the bridge to allow them to ignore all the hurt and anger from their past. it's not smooth sailing, and at times you just want them to get over themselves and admit that they needed to grow up and be apart. and this second chance at love will work if they can only move past all the baggage. set in the same world as the texas kings series, and continuing the story of the ford kids of river ranch, this series is an enjoyable set of standalones. i can't wait to see which ford child is next. **all night with the cowboy will publish on may 29, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/st. martin's press in exchange for my honest review. 

the sexy banter and summer-away-from-the-city locale make i flipping love you  the perfect beach read. starting from the meet-cute where pierce believes that rian is the hot chick who ran into his car and ran off without swapping insurance information, he's stunned to realize that she's a twin. and that he's super attracted to her. when they keep crossing paths and battling it out over properties they each intend to flip, things only get better, funnier, sexier. they both bring enough baggage to the table that there is some depth and real emotional heft to the story, but overall it's a fun, quick read meant to be enjoyed by the pool or out of the deck. **i flipping love you will publish on may 29, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/st. martin's press in exchange for my honest review. 

the bashful bride  is not your standard regency fare. picking up the stories of london's 'blackamoor' population in the early nineteenth century, riley gives voice to people whose stories haven't been written. based on historical fact, you can see the meticulous research that builds the regency world her characters inhabit. the story here is simple, ester croome is about to be married off by her father to a man she considers to be abhorrent. she doesn't like the way he treats women and knows that he is a philanderer even before they are to be married. when she accidentally runs into arthur bex, an actor who's golden voice she is in love with, he's leading an abolitionist meeting and planning to meet his possible future wife. he'd been exchanging letters via an advertisement, not knowing this was ester's friend. but ester is in more dire need of a husband that frederica, so arthur and ester decide to elope. the drive to gretna greene and the pre...

so, sadly, a mistress for penndrake  was not my favorite. there was a lot of circular plot here, and i just did not love the heroine or the hero. and the whole conflict, where the hero is being blackmailed by the heroine's cousin to marry her, but she gets a letter from her cousin telling her to avoid the hero makes no sense at all. by the time it gets explained, it's still nonsensical and also creates more drama that felt so unnecessary to me. in the meantime, the hero decides he's going to be a total jerk and ruin the innocent heroine as revenge for her cousin winning his ancestral home fair and square in a game of cards from his father. and so the heroine and hero basically find themselves at odds and cross-purposes and behave horribly to one another most of the novel and then are kissing the other part of it. and pretty much every other character in this book was horrible. i don't know, this mess did not work for me.  i'm having a harder time with histo...

in lock 'n' load , cia analyst trista gold has never thought of herself as a damsel in distress. mostly her job with the cia keeps her out of danger, since she's generally poking around corners of the dark web and figuring out codes and ciphers. but from the moment matt connors comes to her rescue when a kid tries to jump through the building's security line, it seems that danger suddenly has her on speed dial. at first things seem to be random, but matt is not so sure that the attacks on trista aren't related to her cia work. when the danger escalates and trista's home is burned down and she is nearly killed, matt takes her into protective custody. with everyone at the cia and fbi acting downright shady, trista and matt work together to figure out where the danger lies. of course, the crazy attraction between them grows the more time they spend with one another. but matt has baggage he needs to deal with before he can commit to a relationship with trista....

when finley cartwright meets caleb sherwood at a bar, she's soliciting donations badly and he's having a bad day. they flirt and bicker and when finley's ex walks into the bar she lays a kiss on caleb that he's not forgetting. caleb is a con artist, the latest leader of a family of con artists and he is on the lookout for a new one night wife . finley is the perfect person to beguile into the position because she's naive and doesn't ask too many pesky questions. especially once caleb helps her get her charitable foundation out of the red and actually helping people.  the pace and narrative voice are somewhat breakneck, it almost feels like it belongs to a howard hawks film. finley and caleb are well-matched, even if he spends a lot of time lying to her. when he does finally admit the truth, she plays him perfectly in revenge. and yet, comes to realize that he's somewhat necessary to her happiness. and that maybe she wants to be part of the con. the...

review copies of marrying the rebel prince  were sent out to tie into harry and meghan's royal wedding , but prince nicolas and lauren do not have much in common with the real life royals. i mean, i guess nicolas and harry both served in their countries militaries, and both had to give up serving because they were a security risk for their teams. but nicolas reacts with immaturity compared to harry's track record of charity work. and lauren is essentially an anti-royalist, judgmental snob who pretends to be charitable when in truth she's self-absorbed and unforgiving. so pretty much nothing like meghan. and yeah, i'm not a lauren fan. she was such a prig it was hard to like her. she jumped to conclusions constantly and never stuck around to get the full story on anything. she's a coward when it comes to standing up for love. in the end she's the one who has to make the grand gesture, because she's spent most of the book being a total jerk. it was ha...

liz meets her old friends and still doesn't remember...