Review: Swipe Right for a Cowboy

Swipe Right for a Cowboy by Karen Foley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Emma Claiborne needs a date, stat. Her half-sister is marrying Emma's ex-boyfriend Damon in three weeks and she cannot return to Texas alone, ,with everyone pitying her. She's set up a date through Tinder but instead of the smooth, sophisticated, wealthy man she was expecting she gets Cort Channing, a long tall glass of Bull-Rider.

Cort Channing took one look at Emma's dating profile and felt an instant attraction, so much that if his friend hadn't been forced to skip out on Emma's date for other reasons Cort might have taken matters into his own hands. When Emma suggests he acts as he fake boyfriend for a long weekend in Texas he's all in, heck when a man lives his professional life in periods of eight seconds a weekend is a lifetime.

But of course protective older brothers, jealous younger sisters, ex-boyfriends, and a whole congregation of nosey neighbours means Emma and Cort's secret is bound to be revealed. Can you fall in love at first sight, and can it last when family secrets emerge?

This was an enjoyable fake relationship romance. There wasn't much bull-riding and the action mainly centred on the wedding weekend. What stopped it being a four star read for me was some of the more florid writing. I certainly can see potential for romances involving Emma's older brothers in future books.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher Tule in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Bachelor

The Bachelor by Sabrina Jeffries
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 54%.

I really liked the premise of this series about an oft-married woman whose male children have each inherited a Dukedom, the first book contained a murder which was not solved and I was looking forward to the murder forming an arc over the series.

This second novel concerns the woman's daughter, Lady Gwyn Drake. She has had some kind of youthful indiscretion(view spoiler)[,I'm assuming she slept with him, (hide spoiler)] with Captain Lionel Malet and he is blackmailing her as a result. Malet is the sort of bounder who has previously attempted to kidnap a wealthy young woman and force her to marry him. Gwyn fabricated a story that Malet is following her when she and Malet were seen by the estate’s gamekeeper, Joshua Wolfe, to cover up the blackmail threat. Gwyn's brother Thorn then decides that Gwyn must be accompanied everywhere by either himself or Wolfe as protection. At this point I struggled to understand why Thorn wouldn't just warn Malet to stay away from his sister and therefore what merit there was in Gwyn keeping her "secret".

Anyway, Gwyn and Joshua have a secret attraction but she thinks he would reject her when he finds out her "secret" and he thinks that, as a wounded marine and an illegitimate son, he isn't good enough for her, yawn.

They go to London for Gwyn's debut, she is trying to see Malet to pay him off (because that always works, not!), Joshua is keeping an eye on Gwyn and also trying to get put back on active duty. There's a lot of kissing each other because they are angry, or to prove something, or to hide their faces from saboteurs.

I had some issues with the first book in this series and I'm afraid that they were also present here, unfortunately I didn't warm to either Gwyn or Joshua and therefore what led to a low rating for the first book just led me to give up on this book instead. What spoiled it for me was page, after page, after page of heavy petting and sexual encounters with little to no plot development. There seemed to be no furtherance of the murder from the previous book and I found it frankly inconceivable that a young society woman could have done something which could ruin her if anyone ever found out and then continues to behave inappropriately with another man eg fondling and kissing and assignations alone.

Anyway, I stopped and started this novel several times but it didn't engage me and I eventually decided to DNF at 54%.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Piece of Blue Sky

A Piece of Blue Sky by Mark Hayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read all of the King's Watch books currently published I decided to go back to the start, where we first meet Conrad Clarke, before he got involved in magic.

Squadron Leader Conrad Clarke is running some kind of illegal operations in Afghanistan, when one of the men wants out another member of the team injures him badly setting off a train of events that result in two men dead in a helicopter crash, a murder dressed up like a suicide, and Conrad airlifted to hospital in the UK with severe injuries to his leg.

When Conrad is well enough his former bosses in the illegal transactions want him to help ferret out someone who is double-crossing the Essex side of Operation Blue Sky.

Meanwhile, Detective Tom Morton, working for the Money Laundering Intelligence Unit in the City of London receives a tip-off from a young banking trainee that her immediate supervisor has signed off on documentation which she knows contains false information, leading him to suspicions of monely laundering. His cousin Kate Morton was in Afghanistan and dating one of the men who died as part of Clarke's cover-up, she wants to fnd out the truth about his death and is pursuing Clarke for answers.

Together Tom and Kate have two separate pieces of intelligence about Operation Blue Sky and their digging could lead to it all unravelling.

As many other reviewers have said, this is nothing like the King's Watch series. Conrad is definitely one of the bad guys here, but we do get to see him meet Mina for the first time with her husband Miles.

If you like a good detective story where sometimes the criminals are also the heroes (we mean you Conrad) then I think you'll like this, although it might be difficult to follow as it bounces around between Conrad, Tom and Kate's POV.

On to the next one.

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Review: Green for Danger

Green for Danger by Mark Hayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After Operation Blue Sky was shut down in the last book things have gone quiet. Conrad has returned to Afghanistan, teaching Afghan wannabe pilots to fly. Kate has left the army and is looking for work. Tom takes his inspector exams. Meanwhile, the counterfeiters have moved operations to the Black Country and Tom gets permission to spend one week in the Midlands trying to trace the new operations but when he gets there the local police seem to be more intent on covering things up than on helping him track down the forgers.

This second installment is very much focused on Tom, Conrad and Kate barely appear. When one policeman is killed and another badly wounded shortly after Tom's visit under suspicious circumstances he makes the decision to transfer to the Central Inspectorate of Professional Policing Standards (CIPPS) and go back to the Midlands to investigate whether one or both of the officers were taking bribes from the forgers.

We get old infidelities, a good old boys network, the IRA, cheap knock-off vodka and cigarettes from China, corruption and more twisty turny plot lines.

Warning, this ends on a massive cliff-hanger. Book three downloaded and ready to read.

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Review: Another Place to Die

Another Place to Die by Mark Hayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When local mobster Matt Cross is murdered in his own woods with his own shotgun, DCI Tom Morton and DC Elaine Fraser are brought in as a last resort to head up a team of officers drawn from anywhere except Southport because Matt had his finger in so many pies that finding a local officer without (ahem) a vested interest would be difficult.

Tom soon finds that he has been saddled with all the misfits that other divisions didn't want. The clock-watchers, the skivers, the dim-witted and the purely antagonistic. He also has a lot of potential motives for the murder: was it a rival racketeer? Was it something to do with his environmental activities? Was it a power grab by one of his deputies? Was it a family thing?

And then, just when his neck is on the line to wrap the murder investigation up quickly, purely by coincidence, Lucy White turns up in Southport to manage a local coffee shop owned by a football legend. Not only that, Lucy seems to have landed right in amongst Matt's deputies and shady businesses.

This is much more of a procedural detective story than the Operation Jigsaw trilogy, following on from the previous book. Yet there is still that interlinking with Tom's family, the chaste romance with Lucy, Elaine's rugby-playing husband and all the twisty, turny, cast of thousands narrative that keeps a reader glued to the book.

In just over one month I have read 14 books by Mark Hayden, starting, as so many others seem to have done, with the King's Watch series then going back to the Operation Jigsaw trilogy and finally with the two Tom Morton novels. Mark Hayden definitely has a crowded writing style, he writes from the POV of lots of characters, often with no indication that the narrator has changed. He references characters and events in other stories, which is fine for me because I've binge read them in a short space of time but could be difficult to follow if you read them across a longer timeframe. Yet I love them, I love Conrad in the King's Watch series and I love Tom in this latest series, I see in his author afterword that Mark Hayden suggests he might put Tom, Elaine and/or Lucy in Eight Kings so now I'm going to have to go back and search for them!

I am devastated that there are now no new (to me) Mark Hayden books for me to read.

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Review: A Serpent in Paradise

A Serpent in Paradise by Mark Hayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After Operation Jigsaw ends Tom Morton is sent to a gated community in Cheshire called 7Bridge, home to celebrity footballers, a real-life princess and other millionaires. A complaint has been lodged against local police for harassment and tensions are escalating, Tom has been brought in to resolve matters quickly, but before he can even start he and his new partner, DC Elaine Fraser, are called to the scene of the murder of one of the residents, playboy Gianni White.

The local police have a strong suspect, a young footballer whose fiance was having an affair with the victim, heck the two even had a vicious fight only moments before Gianni was deliberately drowned and even the fiance thinks he did it. But Elaine arrested the guy in the ambulance on the way to hospital and she's convinced he didn't do it. Oh, and there's a gossip blog spewing spite and dirty secrets about the residents of 7Bridge, could that be behind the murder?

I was worried that after the fantastic end to the Operation Jigsaw series any spin-off with Tom Morton would be a damp squib, especially when Conrad Clarke has already become a star in his own right, but this murder in a Footballer's Wives community which is 50% indulgence and 50% prison camp was bang on the money. There's politics, gossip, double-dealing, blended family feuds, bribery, and romance for Tom!!

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Review: The Night Raven

The Night Raven by Sarah Painter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was good in parts, as it is the first in a series there was some world setting which may be fleshed out more in later books.

Lydia Crow left London, fled more like, for Scotland but now after a disgruntled client threatened her physically she's been put on forced annual leave and has returned to London. Her uncle Charlie Crow has let her stay in a flat above a disused cafe in Camberwell but the first night a strange man tries to kill her and is only stopped by a ghost who somehow materialises and pushes the man over the balcony.

This is a London ruled by four families: the Crows, The Foxes, The Pearls and the Silvers. Lydia's uncle Charlie is the head of the Crows, years ago teh families really were supernatural but these days all they have is a vestige of their former powers. Uncle Charlie is clearly some kind of South London racketeer and wants to bring his wayward niece Lydia back into the fold, as repayment for the free accomodation he first tries to get her to re-open the cafe and then, when that fails, asks her to find her cousin Madeleine who has gone missing.

Lydia knows she shouldn't get close with the police, even if DCI Fleet's smile and voice do something to her insides, but soon Lydia will have to make a decision, back to Scotland or start a new life in London.

Issues I had with this. First, the Maddie investigation story is a bit weak, okay I guess Lydia is a trainee PI and can only cope with a small investigation but really? Second, I feel a special snowflake heroine (and possibly several others) coming - the families are allegedly getting weaker but Lydia seems to be developing some kind of superpower, Paul Fox seems to be powerful and two others seem to be very powerful too. Third, it was all too choppy, too many people, uncle Charlie, Paul Fox, DCI Fleet, Lydia's friend Emma, Maddie, the ghost, the woman running the cafe. Fourth, I can see a love triangle in the works.

I think I will give the next book a go to see whether all of this starts to bed in properly and the investigations become more meaty, but I might look out for a 99p deal.

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Review: Us Three

Us Three by Ruth Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Lana, Judith and Catrin have been best friends since infants school. With all their lives ahead of them they spend the summer of their A levels travelling the Greek Islands and yet some decisions they make on this fateful holiday will shape their lives for years to come.

Spanning decades we see how these three women negotiate life, love, divorce, betrayal and the changing face of friendship. As a fifty-something woman myself I could relate to Lana, Judith and Catrin, their hopes and dreams, their dream holiday and the minutiae of everyday life. None of them has a perfect life, none of them has the life they envisaged for themselves and their friendship is stretched mighty thin at times.

Filled with a multitude of believable characters this novel effortlessly spans the decades, filled with tragedy and humour, love and loss. I couldn't put it down and had to read the last bit with my Kindle plugged into my laptop because I'd drained the battery.

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Dear Enemy

Dear Enemy by Kristen Callihan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We've all got one haven't we, a childhood nemesis. It doesn't help if the nemesis in question is one of the beautiful people and happens to be dating your sister, who is also one of the beautiful, popular people in high school. That's Delilah's problem with Macon Saint.

Fast forward a decade and there is no karma, Macon Saint is still beautiful and he's a successful wealthy Hollywood actor to boot whereas Delilah is enjoying (very) modest success as a chef, although she has recently sold her catering business and is, as they say, between jobs. Delilah's sister has stolen something very valuable from Macon and forwarded her calls to Delilah's phone. In a very contrived and unrealistic way, Delilah offers to be Macon's assistant and executive chef for free while searching for her sister to avoid him calling the police. Disir nails it when she says, and I paraphrase, this is a slow burn enemies to friends to lovers novels. The evolution of the relationship between Macon and Delilah and how each of them reveals how the other's actions were perceived is very well done and totally believable. Of course we the reader can see that these two probably have a Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley type romance going on right from the get-go, as Macon at least acknowledges to himself pretty early on that he found dating Delilah's sister boring if Delilah wasn't there to add spice to the evening (with her biting wit).

I love Kristen Callihan, she's a very versatile writer and this is another great contemporary romance. Great characters, great slow burn, great writing. Loved it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: In the Red Corner

In the Red Corner by Mark Hayden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Obviously do not try to read this book without at the very least having read Green for Danger.

When the second book finished it was a cliffhanger. Tom had been blown-up in a car-bombing, Kate was being framed by her new boss in Hong Kong and Conrad had been despatched from Afghanistan to make Kate disappear.

This is just adrenalin fuelled, gripping and tense as Tom struggles to uncover the king pins behind Operation Jigsaw and Conrad must fight to survive, which way will he jump?

In amongst the high-octane chases there is still time for some touching scenes between Conrad and Mina (oh how I love their romance) but we also get the story of how Conrad got his old lighter (the one Mina threw away) and his ex makes an appearance.

So often the end to a series can be a crushing disappointment (Lost and Game of Thrones are good examples) but not in this case. I was also thrilled to see foreshadowing of events in the King's Watch with the tall shadowy figure in a cloak and hat that Conrad sees in Hong Kong and to meet some other characters that we see in that series.

Brilliant.

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Review: Bench Player

Bench Player by Julianna Keyes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The new General Manager of the Charleston Thrashers is a total ass. He's more concerned about focus groups and the bottom line than baseball. He tries to sack Allison Whyte, the head of PR, after a bad season (because obviously it's the PR that's to blame) and in a desperate attempt to save her job Allison volunteers to rehab the public image of former baseball legend Connor Whitman who has just been released from prison after serving two years for insider trading. She just won't tell Connor that the GM won't give him a place on the team no matter how good the PR.

Connor Whitman just wants to train and get back on the team. he doesn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. But when the scary Allison puts her mind to something no man on earth can dissuade her.

First off, I love sports romances and the cover was super sexy with a slight Charlie Hunnam vibe so I jumped at the chance to get an ARC and I wasn't disappointed. But this wasn't just a cookie-cutter enemies to lovers sports romance, I really enjoyed the interactions between Allison and her grandfather, Biff, himself a former baseball player. I also enjoyed the camaraderie between Connor and his team mates, and the sparky interactions between Connor and Allison. The plot felt more grown-up, which is suited to Connor's more mature age (34), sure there's still the obligatory 'big scene' but it felt more realistic than many others I have read.

After I finished this I checked and I had also read the first book in the series, not only that, I made similar comments. Apparently Julianna Keyes is a lifelong baseball fan and it shows.

I'm fascinated to know who could be the next player to find romance ...

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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