Decent Exposure, by Phillippa Ashley

TITLE: Decent Exposure (aka Dating Mr. December, in the US)
AUTHOR: Phillippa Ashley

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 277
PUBLISHER: Little Black Dress

SETTING: Contemporary England (Lake District)
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None

When a nice girl asks twelve men to get naked, is it decent exposure or indecent exploitation?

Emma Tremayne has left her high-powered PR job and moved to the Lake District. She was expecting to find some much-needed peace and quiet, not to end up cavorting on a hillside with a naked guy. Emma thinks she's being community-minded when she agrees to help the local mountain rescue team put together a 'tasteful' nude calendar in order to fundraise for their new headquarters. Unfortunately, quite a lot of the community seems to mind what she's up to. Including the extremely handsome Mr July, Will, who appears to have got completely the wrong impression about Emma's intentions. So how does she convince him that he's more than just Flavour of the Month...?

Emma Tremayne used to have a high-flying career in PR. She had it all, the entertainment budget, the cool London lifestyle, the powerful boyfriend. But then it all blew up. Hurting from the disaster, Emma moves to a small town in the Lake District to take up a much lower-profile job at the local tourist board. As we meet her at the beginning of the book, she's started to settle down and is building a new life.

One of the things she's doing in her free time, to become part of the community, is helping the local mountain rescue team do some fundraising for a new base. Her idea? A naked calendar. It's a tough sell, but she wins everyone over. Except, that is, for Will Tennant, one of the volunteers. Will, who's a successful businessman in civilian life, is not amused. He's offered to pay for the entire base himself, and not only wasn't his offer accepted, he now needs to show his naked bits to the world to help get the money. And so the scene is set...

As I started reading, I quite liked this. It was cute and sweet, but in a good way, in a sort of warm, nice way. I really liked Emma, who was quite clearly still a bit vulnerable from having everything she'd been working towards for years collapse completely, but was showing some very real guts trying to adapt to a new place and new people. I also liked Will, who was endearingly smitten with Emma. I had loads of fun reading his point of view, as he's not this all-confident alpha male. He's determined to get a date with Emma, but has doubts when he approaches her.

But then the back and forth started, and it all turned into a horrid mess. Emma and Will's relationship (which is basically all that's going on in the entire book, as the calendar thingie is soon done and out of the way) is one of the most frustrating I've read in ages. Emma is just determined to assume the worst about Will, for no real good reason. Someone tells her some unflattering rumours about Will and how he treated his former fiancee, and she just believes them without question. And then Will behaves just as frustratingly, refusing to tell her the real story, again, for no good reason. And then it all happens again, exactly the same, but over this old house that Will wants to buy. Emma jumps to the conclusion that he wants to turn it into luxury flats (and she goes all "why do you need to make more money!!", which came out of nowhere, since at the same time she's pining for her high-powered London career). Will refuses to explain. And on, and on, and on. xArghhh!!!

Anyway, I ended up fighting the urge to skim.

MY GRADE: A C-.

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Her Best Worst Mistake, by Sarah Mayberry

TITLE: Her Best Worst Mistake
AUTHOR: Sarah Mayberry

COPYRIGHT: 2012
PAGES: 55 thousand words (some 220 pages, according to my calculations)
PUBLISHER: Self-published

SETTING: Contemporary London
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: Related to one of Mayberry's Blazes, Hot Island Nights

She thinks he's stuffy. He thinks she's spoilt.?Then the gloves come off... and so do their clothes!

For six years Violet Sutcliffe has known that Martin St Clair is the wrong man for her best friend. He's stuffy, old before his time, conservative. He drives Violet nuts - and the feeling is entirely mutual. Then, out of nowhere, her friend walks out just weeks before her wedding to Martin, flying to Australia on a mission of self-discovery. Back in London, Violet finds herself feeling sorry for suddenly-single Martin. At least, she tells herself it's pity she feels. Then he comes calling one dark, stormy night and they discover that beneath their mutual dislike there lies a fiery sexual chemistry.

It's crazy and all-consuming - and utterly wrong. Because not only are they chalk and cheese, oil and water, but Martin once belonged to her best friend. A friend Violet is terrified of losing. What future can there be for a relationship with so many strikes against it?

Her Best Worst Mistake is a self-published companion book to one of Mayberry's Blazes, Hot Island Nights. I haven't read that one, but from reading HBWM, it's about Elizabeth, who dumps her boring but safe fiance and goes off to Australia, where she meets and falls in love with a hot Aussie dude. HBWM covers the same timeframe, but we stay behind in England with Martin St. Clair, the said boring fiance, and with Violet, Elizabeth's best friend.

Martin and Violet have always disliked each other. He thinks she's irresponsible and spoiled, she thinks he's dull and unimaginative, and that he's stifling Elizabeth. Still, once Elizabeth dumps Martin, Violet can't help but feel sorry for him. She decides she should check up on him, and does so with the excuse of bringing him a bottle of booze as a sort of commiseration present.

Martin is not particularly happy with this (to him, it's a pity gift, and there's nothing worse than being pitied), but he ends up drinking a little bit too much of the booze, and he and Violet end up in bed, having the most amazing sex of their respective lives. They both regret their "mistake" in the morning and tell themselves it won't happen again. Except it does. And then it does again. And before they know it, they are in something that is suspiciously close to a relationship.

I loved this. Both Martin and Violet are fully fleshed-out characters, people who show the world a only one side, but who have hidden depths. Before they fall into bed they knew only that one aspect of each other, but what starts as only sex turns out to reveal who they really are. So very gradually, they begin to care more and more, and through the very steamy and increasingly tender love scenes, Mayberry really made me believe they were falling in love.

I also loved that it's the kind of opposites attract romance I can really get behind, one where it turns out that though they've got different temperaments, they share a worldview and completely understand each other. This was shown perfectly in the heartbreaking scene when they have their first fight, and Violet's reactions are so rooted in her past with her family. I almost cried when I saw Martin's reaction to this, because it was so perfect.

The main conflict here is Violet's fear that what she has with Martin might damage her friendship with Elizabeth. In real life, I adhere to the rule that you just don't date your friends' exes, but I had absolutely no issues with this element of the story. We readers (even those of us who haven't read the first book), know perfectly well that Elizabeth is fond of Martin, but never cared for him deeply. Violet and Martin's relationship never feels like a betrayal. Mayberry showed how the feelings between them weren't completely new, and there had always been an increased awareness there, but at the same time, neither had been disloyal (even in their own minds) when Martin was with Elizabeth. It was things like both of them noticing little details about the other, things that even Elizabeth wasn't noticing. So not a conscious thing, not even something suspicious, but very telling.

I did think I might have an issue with Violet's extreme reluctance to tell Elizabeth, since a few people whose reviews I read before I decided to pick this up had thought it had become a bit unreasonable after a while. I don't agree with that at all. To me, given how important Elizabeth was in Violet's life, due to Violet's history, it made complete sense that she'd be a bit paranoid about the whole thing. I think Violet totally got that if Elizabeth got upset with her she'd be being unreasonable, but what if she did anyway, unreasonable or not? She'd still be losing Elizabeth as a friend, and I understood why that prospect would generate so much fear in Violet.

Anyway, this is my favourite Mayberry so far, and that's really saying something!

MY GRADE: An A-.

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Firelight, by Kristen Callihan

TITLE: Firelight
AUTHOR: Kristen Callihan

COPYRIGHT: 2012
PAGES: 400
PUBLISHER: Warner Forever

SETTING: Victorian London
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: Starts a series called Darkest London

London, 1881

Once the flames are ignited...

Miranda Ellis is a woman tormented. Plagued since birth by a strange and powerful gift, she has spent her entire life struggling to control her exceptional abilities. Yet one innocent but irreversible mistake has left her family's fortune decimated and forced her to wed London's most nefarious nobleman.

They will burn for eternity...

Lord Benjamin Archer is no ordinary man. Doomed to hide his disfigured face behind masks, Archer knows it's selfish to take Miranda as his bride. Yet he can't help being drawn to the flame-haired beauty whose touch sparks a passion he hasn't felt in a lifetime. When Archer is accused of a series of gruesome murders, he gives in to the beastly nature he has fought so hard to hide from the world. But the curse that haunts him cannot be denied. Now, to save his soul, Miranda will enter a world of dark magic and darker intrigue. For only she can see the man hiding behind the mask.

I had great hopes for this one. The plot sounded good: our heroine, Miranda Ellis marries a mysterious masked man she doesn't know anything about, under pressure from her father. Soon after the wedding, her husband, Lord Archer becomes an unofficial suspect in a gruesome murder. We readers, however, know that Archer is a good guy, and that he forced the wedding because he's been fascinated by Miranda since a memorable encounter on the London streets some years earlier. There's a hint of the paranormal as well, since both Miranda and Archer have got powers, and neither one wants the other to know. Sounds exciting, and the beginning was nicely atmospheric (if a little bit self-conscious about it).

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't get a handle on the characters and why they did what they did. In the sections I read, Callihan kind of took the worst of both worlds with the mystery of the gothic. She was clearly holding stuff back, especially about Archer's history and his powers, and this worked to distance me from him and make me lose interest. And at the same time, since we get his point of view, we know perfectly well he's a good guy, and that he has no evil designs on Miranda.

There were also a couple of WTF moments, like Miranda just going "oh, ok, I'll marry this weird guy I know nothting about", without any angst that I could detect. She really did have other options, and I just didn't get why she completely dismissed the possibility of getting her sisters' help. All very transparently there to drive the plot forward in the direction the author wanted it to go.

Anyway, the whole thing dragged too much for me to care to find out what was going on. It took me three weeks to read a quarter of it. I kept reading a few pages, and then putting it down and reading other books. In the end, I refused to put in any more time.

MY GRADE: A DNF.

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Blaze of Memory, by Nalini Singh

TITLE: Blaze of Memory
AUTHOR: Nalini Singh

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 400
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Alternate reality version of future US
TYPE: Alternate reality romance
SERIES: #7 in the Psy/Changeling series

Nalini Singh returns to the Psy/Changeling world and its “breathtaking blend of passion, adventure, and the paranormal” as a woman without a past becomes the pawn of a man who controls her future…

Dev Santos discovers her unconscious and battered, with no memory of who she is. All she knows is that she’s dangerous. Charged with protecting his people’s most vulnerable secrets, Dev is duty-bound to eliminate all threats. It’s a task he’s never hesitated to complete…until he finds himself drawn to a woman who might yet prove the enemy’s most insidious weapon.

Stripped of her memories by a shadowy oppressor, and programmed to carry out cold-blooded murder, Katya Haas is fighting desperately for her sanity itself. Her only hope is Dev. But how can she expect to gain the trust of a man who could very well be her next target? For in this game, one must die…

Blaze of Memory presents what to me is the ultimate terror, the fear of oneself. What if you suspected there was something in your brain, set to go off any minute, and that would turn you into a danger to all those you love?

The woman having to deal with that fear is Katya Haas, a Psy who, traumatised and amnesiac, has been left where Dev Santos could find her. Dev is the head of the Shine Foundation, which is an organisation that emerged way back when Silence was first introduced, and protects the Forgotten, the descendants of those Psy who decided not to accept Silence and leave the fold.

The Shine Foundation is not the Psy Council's favourite organisation, and on finding Katya, Dev is immediately suspicious. She's just the sort of trick the Council would use to destroy him and his work, and the little that Katya can remember seems to support this. But even more dangerous than having her near is letting her go, so Dev refuses to let her out of his sight. And as she slowly recovers from her ordeal, pesky feelings start to develop.

As you can see, it's quite a tricky situation to start a romance in. Dev really can't be sure Katya isn't about to be come a weapon against him at any minute, and even worse, Katya herself can't be sure, either. It's a desperate situation, and it was hard to see how Singh was going to deliver a HEA. But deliver it she did, and in a way that made sense. And I'd best not say anything else about that!

Singh also delivered a good romance. It wasn't my favourite in the series so far, but Dev and Katya fit well together, and she managed to make me believe they would be so drawn to each other as to take the chances they do to get together.

One of the great things about this series is the world-building, and the fact that things in this world are actually moving forward, towards a sort of climax. There wasn't a huge deal of forward momentum here, but I liked that it kind of filled in some blanks. I've always been interested in this series in knowing more about how things were when Silence was first introduced, and through details about the Shine Foundation and its inception, Singh satisfied a lot of my curiosity.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan

TITLE: Half-Blood Blues
AUTHOR: Esi Edugyan

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Picador

SETTING: 1930s/40s Germany and France, 1990s US, Germany and Poland
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: None

Berlin, 1939. The Hot Time Swingers, a popular jazz band, has been forbidden to play by the Nazis. Their young trumpet-player Hieronymus Falk, declared a musical genius by none other than Louis Armstrong, is arrested in a Paris café. He is never heard from again. He was twenty years old, a German citizen. And he was black.

Berlin, 1992. Falk is a jazz legend. Hot Time Swingers band members Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones, both African Americans from Baltimore, have appeared in a documentary about Falk. When they are invited to attend the film’s premier, Sid’s role in Falk’s fate will be questioned and the two old musicians set off on a surprising and strange journey.

From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world as he describes the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that led to Falk’s incarceration in Sachsenhausen. Half-Blood Blues is a story about music and race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.

No summary from me, the one above is just right, so straight to what I thought of it. Basically, I had very mixed feelings. There were things I really liked about it, and I think it's objectively a very good book, but some things didn't quite work for me.

I think what I liked best about it was how completely fresh it felt. This is really something I've never read before. The jazz scene in Germany before World War II, Hiero's history, as a mixed race boy growing up there, the feel of Paris waiting, waiting as the Germans approach... all completely new to me, and they all really came alive here.

I also loved the language when Sid talks about music, especially when he describes Hiero's trumpet playing. I really don't know anything about jazz, but his descriptions made me want to hear how that would sound.

The actual story, however, was just not my thing. Well, the pre-War sections, mostly, since I quite liked the ones set in the 90s, with Sid and Chip as old men trying to find out and come to terms with what happened all those years ago. In the sections set in the past, there was a bit of a smug, "we're so cool" vibe, which I found pretty off-putting. I can't stand the glorification of the whole sex and drugs and rock and roll thing, and the fact that here it was more sex and alcohol and jazz didn't make it any better.

I wasn't particularly interested in Sid and Chip, either, and didn't want to spend time with them in those sections. Chip was quite unpleasant in a boring sort of way. And as for Sid, well, I recognised what Edugyan was trying to do, giving him all these vulnerabilities and insecurities, and making him act in ways that he knew was wrong, as a result. But it never quite gelled for me. I only got through these sections (and they're the longest ones) by making a rule for myself that I had to read this book on the train on my commute.

Hiero and Delilah were the only characters that really interested me, but I didn't feel Edugyan did them justice. With Delilah, it was mostly a case of me disliking Sid and not getting what she saw in him. She didn't feel real. With Hiero, it was just the one-dimensional portrayal. Sid is increasingly jealous and ill-disposed towards him, and yet even through his eyes, Hiero comes across as a complete angel. Sweet, innocent, good... a bit unreal, too, frankly. That was a shame, I would have liked to get to know him better.

I also thought the ending was a disappointment. My main reaction was "is that it?". We never really get much of a resolution, so there's no payoff here at all. The book just drifts off and finishes.

MY GRADE: A B-, just because the setting is so fascinating, that it's probably worth a read just for that.

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The Proposal, by Mary Balogh

TITLE: The Proposal
AUTHOR: Mary Balogh

COPYRIGHT: 2012
PAGES: 320
PUBLISHER: Delacorte

SETTING: Early 19th century England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: 1st in the Survivors' Club series

Lady Gwendoline Muir has experienced her fair share of tragedies in her short life: she lost her husband to a freak accident, and developed a limp after falling from horseback. Still young, Gwen is sure that she's done with love, and that she will never be married again.

Gwen tries to be content with her life as it is, and to live through the happy marriages of her brother and her best friend, Viscountess Ravensberg. She's happy for them, and for years that is enough for her... until she meets Lord Trentham - a man who returned from the Peninsula Wars a hero, but is unable to escape the bite of his survivor's guilt. For he might just be the man who can convince her to believe in second chances.

The Proposal both starts a new series, and tells the long-expected story of a character from One Night For Love and A Summer To Remember, who apparently didn't get her book due a change of publishers. The new series is called The Survivors' Club, and it's about a group of people (six men and a woman) who survived the Napoleonic wars with a variety of injuries, mental and/or physical, and were taken in by the Duke of Stanford to recover in his Cornwall estate.

The book starts a couple of years after the war, when all are well on their way to recovering. Every year they meet back at the estate to catch up and take a breather from normal life. Hugo, Lord Trentham, missed last year's gathering due to his father death. He's been mourning and hasn't been quite ready to take on the responsibility of running his father's business empire, but after a year, he feels he should just take the bull by the horns. He'll also need to marry, which his friends tell him shouldn't be difficult. He's a war hero, so celebrated he's been given a title for it, and he's rich. All he needs to do is propose to the first personable woman he sees the next morning.

The first woman he sees the next morning turns out to be Gwendoline, Lady Muir. Gwen is in Cornwall visiting a one-time friend who's just been widowed, and she's unfortunately discovered the woman has become a total nightmare over the years. Out walking on the beach, Gwen twists her already bad ankle when she attempts a difficult path up the cliff. Hugo happens to be there, minding his own business, and feels obliged to rescue her.

Their first meeting doesn't go well. Hugo thinks Gwen is a silly, spoiled aristocrat, Gwen thinks he's rude and rough. But when Gwen is installed at the Duke's estate while her ankle heals, they discovered that as much as they tell themselves they don't like each other, they just can't stay away.

This is a story with no villains. In fact, there are not even any antagonists (there's a character who I thought was going to take on that role, but he's given short thrift), but there's still plenty of stuff going on that made me turn the pages. Balogh caught and kept my attention through having fantastic characters, each of whom had very real issues they needed to work through.

I loved Gwen. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't one of those people who have been clamouring for her story. Actually, I'd completely forgotten her existence. But she is truly a fantastic character, self-aware and honest about herself, with fears and vulnerabilities, but brave enough to change her life.

Hugo is interesting as well, a war hero who just wasn't suited to be the killing machine he became and is now feted for. For Hugo, the war has left very real effects on his psyche, and this shows in some very poignant ways. Both he and Gwen are victims of survivor's guilt, for very different reasons, and I liked how being together allows them to move forward.

These two are genuinely grown-up characters who actually talk to each other. This doesn't mean there's no conflict at all, because even though they talk, they each have their fears and insecurities. For instance, Hugo has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about class, but he doesn't just silently make his assumptions and let Gwen guess what the problem is. Nope, he makes his assumptions and tells Gwen what he's thinking and why, and she therefore can tell him (and show him) just how wrong he is. The conflict is there, it's just dealt with in a very satisfying way.

In addition to the romance, I thought the secondary characters were great. I especially liked what Balogh did with Hugo's stepmother. There's an element there that will remind readers of A Precious Jewel, and I liked how Balogh dealt with it. The characters from previous and future books were very well-integrated. Those from past books I wasn't too interested in, so I was perfectly fine with them being relatively unobtrusive. Those from future books, on the other hand, I'm really interested in knowing more about, as they all sound quite intriguing. Balogh left me wanting more on that end, which was probably her intention all along!

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Dead Run, by PJ Tracy

TITLE: Dead Run
AUTHOR: PJ Tracy

COPYRIGHT: 2005
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Signet

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Mystery / Thriller
SERIES: 3rd in the Monkeewrench series

Monkeewrench founders Grace MacBride and Annie Belinsky - along with Wisconsin deputy Sharon Mueller - are en route to Green Bay when their car breaks down deep in the northern woods. A short walk through the forest leads them to the eerily quiet town of Four Corners, where they find severed phone lines and a complete absence of any life. But the quiet is deceptive. Before they know it, they witness a horrifying double murder - and discover that this is only the beginning of a race to save their own lives…and countless others.

In this third installment of the Monkeewrench series, Grace and Annie have been asked by FBI agent Sharon Mueller (who readers who've been following the series will remember from the first book as the deputy who was the love interest of the country sheriff, Mitch Halloran) for help. There's a serial killer operating in Green Bay, and Sharon thinks the Monkeewrench super-duper software will be useful to catch him.

The three women set off in what should have been a simple roadtrip, with a few pleasurable detours to see interesting stuff, since there are no men in the car to complain. Unfortunately, a car breakdown results in them walking into the tiny town of Four Corners, and what they find there is just creepy. There's no one there, no one at all. Not humans, not animals. And then the women witness something that puts her on the run for their lives.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Halloran's men fish the bodies of three men, killed execution-style, out of a pond, and before they know it, the FBI have taken over and the entire area is in lockdown.

Clearly something big is going on, but as soon as Magozzi, Halloran and the remaining Monkeewrench guys realise Grace, Annie and Sharon are missing, they're off after them, certain that something is very wrong.

This one was a bit different from the previous two, more fast-paced thriller than puzzle-solving. In general, I prefer the latter, and I did like those two books a bit better than Dead Run, but that only means I really, really liked this one, rather than absolutely love it.

The authors (PJ Tracy is a mother-daughter team) have created a really fascinating set-up, and although they dot clues throughout the novel, it takes a while for us and the characters to figure out what's going on. They also sustain the suspense wonderfully well. I couldn't stop turning the pages, dying to see what would happen. And I especially appreciated that while we have the men racing off to rescue "their women", these three women are perfectly capable to take care of themselves, thank you very much.

I also liked how we got some very intriguing hints about both Annie and Sharon and their pasts. Annie, especially, has previously been a fun character, but a bit of a cartoon. She becomes a lot more real here, and I can't wait to know more.

My only criticism is that I wanted to know more than what I got about the villains. They're not necessarily the kinds of men you'd expect, we're told. But what are they, then? How did they link up? It's all left a bit up in the air.

I said in my review of the previous book that I was looking forward to seeing the Monkeewrench people actually using their magical computer programme. I thought I might get that in this book. I didn't, but since I got something that was also fantastic instead, that was all right with me. Still, I do hope I finally get my geeky Monkeewrench payoff in the next one, and from Snow Blind's blurb, it appears I will!

MY GRADE: A B+.

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A Week To Be Wicked, by Tessa Dare

TITLE: A Week To Be Wicked
AUTHOR: Tessa Dare

COPYRIGHT: 2012
PAGES: 354
PUBLISHER: Avon

SETTING: Early 19th century England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: 2nd full-length novel in the Spindle Cove series

When a devilish lord and a bluestocking set off on the road to ruin... time is not on their side.

Minerva Highwood, one of Spindle Cove's confirmed spinsters, needs to be in Scotland. Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, a rake of the first order, needs to be . . . anywhere but Spindle Cove. These unlikely partners have one week: to fake an elopement, to convince family and friends they're "in love", to outrun armed robbers, to survive their worst nightmares, to travel four hundred miles without killing each other... All while sharing a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night.

What they don't have time for is their growing attraction. Much less wild passion. And heaven forbid they spend precious hours baring their hearts and souls. Suddenly one week seems like exactly enough time to find a world of trouble. And maybe... just maybe... everlasting love.

I sometimes wonder at myself. I read Tessa Dare's first few and liked them, but then just kind of stopped for no reason. I haven't read the last 3 or 4 books of hers, and given how much I absolutely loved this one, that probably wasn't a great idea.

The book opens with bluestocking Minerva Highwood very improperly knocking on Colin Sandhurst's door one night. Minerva is concerned that Colin might be seriously considering proposing to her sister, and she knows that though her sister would never be happy with a useless rake such as him, she'll be pressured by their mother into accepting.

Minerva offers Colin an alternative, since she assumes that the only reason he's planning on proposing is to access his inheritance (one of those will things so common in romance): if he escorts her to Edinburgh, where she will present an exciting new finding to the Royal Geological Society, she'll give him the prize money when (not if!) she wins it. That will set him up until his next birthday, when he'll come into his inheritance anyway.

Colin is not inclined to play, especially since he's not that desperate for the money, anyway, and he wasn't planning to propose to Miranda's sister, either. However, this new facet of Miranda intrigues him, and before he knows it, they're off on their roadtrip. And believe me, it's one exciting roadtrip!

I loved, loved, loved it. The plot itself is a bit improbable and the characters' behaviour struck me as just as improbable and modern in a few instances, but for me, it was a case of a good author being able to make me suspend disbelief without any trouble.

Because the romance, it's just fantastic. As they live through their often-laugh-out-loud adventures, Colin and Minerva begin to see below each other's surfaces, and start to appreciate each other for who they really are. Minerva discovers that Colin is not a useless rake at all, but a genuinely good, caring man, who just happens to enjoy teasing her by being outrageous. Colin's been dismissed by everyone all his life, and he's kind of taken it all in, but with Minerva, there's finally something he can feel strongly about, and she helps him realise his worth. Just as he helps her realise her own, because she's been just as dismissed all her life by her own mother. With Colin, she discovers that relaxing and being herself doesn't mean she has to be alone for the rest of his life, because he's crazy about her just as she is. I closed this with a happy sigh.

By the way, I'm trying to break myself out of the habit of having to read series in order, when I'm particularly interested in a later book. I started this series with book 2, and it was fine. It appears there was some stuff going on between Colin and Minerva in book 1 already, just as we see a few things between the protagonists of the next book in this one, but it didn't really make a difference, I loved this anyway.

MY GRADE: An A-.

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I Knew You'd Be Lovely, by Alethea Black

TITLE: I Knew You'd Be Lovely
AUTHOR: Alethea Black

COPYRIGHT: 2011
PAGES: 238
PUBLISHER: Broadway

SETTING: Contemporary
TYPE: Short stories
SERIES: No

Alethea Black's deeply moving and wholly original debut features a coterie of memorable characters who have reached emotional crossroads in their lives. Brimming with humor, irony, and insights about the unpredictable nature of life, the unbearable beauty of fate, and the power that one moment, or one decision, can have to transform us, I Knew You'd Be Lovely delivers that rare thing—stories with both an edge and a heart.

I mentioned in my April wrap-up post that I read 3 different collections of short stories during April, when I don't usually go for them at all. One was great, one was good and one was terrible. This is the great one.

I knew it would be great from the first few pages of the very first story. A man goes to a New Year's Eve party in which he meets a woman who's got a clipboard hanging from her neck. She's too hoarse to speak, and so has to communicate by writing notes. Nothing earth-shattering happens, there are no shocking twists, but I was charmed.

In this and all the other stories (which I'm not going to say anything about, as I loved starting them with no idea of what I was going to get), Black writes with warmth and genuine fondness for her characters. She also writes with perceptiveness. There were several moments when I thought she'd gone straight to the heart of something, in a way I'd never thought of but realised now was exactly right.

It might be a bit of an obvious thing to say, given the title, but the best word for this book really is "lovely". Lovely, charming, beautifully written, low-key but powerful. It was all those things. I loved it so much that I refused to read it all in one go, and allowed myself only a story a day, to make them last.

Oh, and I also loved the little extra at the end, where Ms. Black gives us a bit more, a glimpse behind the scenes, at where each story came from. I wouldn't have thought this would be a good idea, fearing it might risk the stories losing their magic, but nope, they very definitely didn't!

MY GRADE: An A-.

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Juggling Briefcase & Baby, by Jessica Hart

TITLE: Juggling Briefcase & Baby
AUTHOR: Jessica Hart

COPYRIGHT: 192
PAGES: 2010
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Romance

SETTING: Contemporary London and Scotland
TYPE: Category romance
SERIES: Follows Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

Lex Gibson is…nervous. The prospect of spending a weekend working with Romy, the only woman to ever touch his legendary guarded heart, has the lion of the corporate world…unsettled.

The tension between free-spirited Romy and buttoned-up Lex simmers dangerously. To complicate things further, Romy has a tiny daughter, who has Lex confused and distracted. They say never to mix business with pleasure, but Romy's adorable baby might just seal their very personal business deal—and change their family situation forever!

This was really not my normal kind of book. I was showing the books on my kindle to a close friend and the fact that I had something called Juggling Briefcase & Baby there left her with her mouth hanging open! Still, I've heard Wendy the Superlibrarian say so many good things about Hart and this book in particular that I thougth I'd give it a shot.

Lex Gibson and Romy Morrison had a torrid weekend together when she was 18 and he 26. Their mums were best friends, and it was one of those situations... he's away at uni, doesn't see her for ages, and when he finally does, she's gone from awkward teen to raving beauty. Anyway, at the end of their weekend (in Paris, no less), he's madly in love and wants to get married. She, although madly in love as well, is more sensible and knows she's too young. Too many things she wants to do before settling down, like travelling the world, so she goes off and does them instead of getting married. Lex, meanwhile, goes to work for the family business.

Years later, Romy is back, and with a baby (much too young to be Lex's -don't worry, this is not a secret baby book). She's now working for Lex's company, which he's running since his father had a heart attack. This all happened in an earlier book, so as this one starts, Romy has been working there for a while, although she and Lex haven't spoken yet.

But that all changes when Romy's direct boss, who was supposed to accompany Lex to Scotland to clinch a massive business deal, can't go and sends her instead, baby and all. So all sort of "category romance"-type situations ensue. The guy they're dealing with, Willie, is reluctant to deal with as cold a businessman as Lex is reputed to be (as if!). So, when he assumes Lex and Romy are together (and especially, that Lex is such a stand-up guy that the prospect of being a step-dad to baby Freya doesn't faze him), they feel they have to keep up the charade (this is a crucial deal, remember). So of course, they have to sleep in the same room, and it's cold, so she can't let him sleep on the floor. And then, when they get back to London, they have to keep it up for a while longer, until Willie travels South to sign on the dotted line. And so on and so forth.

Sometimes this sort of thing works, if you're so absorbed in the story and (especially in categories) the lovely angst of the romance that you can just gloss over it. I wasn't, so I kept nit-picking. I couldn't just let go and buy it and move on. I was just completely unconvinced that their only choices were either to pretend to be a couple or to reveal the truth and have him think Lex is actually cold and only interested in business. How about a version of the truth? How about Romy saying "Willie, actually, Lex and I are not together. We were, years ago, and I left him, but he's such a nice guy and so keen to help single mothers that he was happy to employ me in his company when I needed a job, and to accomodate my childcare needs when I had to come on this trip instead of Tim". But nope, we needed them sharing a room, didn't we?

And it wasn't a particularly interesting romance, either. I liked the basic bones of it (stuffed-shirt heroes who need to be thawed out by a more lively heroine are amongst my favourites), but the execution was just not great. The writing was good, and the book was a quick read and I didn't hate it, but that was it.

Also, the title? Deceptive. I was kind of hoping for at least a little bit of what it can mean for a single mum with a baby to have the competing priorities of a child and a career, but there was nothing of that here. Romy works for a company so child-friendly that not only do they have a creche, no one really sees anything wrong in her taking her baby along on a business trip (it was a special case, but still). And then she marries the CEO, so she'll be fine...

MY GRADE: A C+.

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