Review: Straight Up Irish

Straight Up Irish by Magan Vernon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Connor Murphy is the middle of three sons and the CFO of the Murphy' Pub group based in the USA. He has returned to Dublin for the reading of his father's will. Expecting the will to be a formality, leaving the business equally between the three boys, they are horrified that their father has made inheriting the business dependant upon all three of them being married within the year.

Connor is the playboy of the trio, a different girl every night. In fact the only woman he has any kind of relationship with is his older brother Jack's assistant. Fallon Smith seems to spend half her professional life phoning Connor to wake him up or to remind him about important calls/ meetings. The two of them have never met but they each know each other's direct dial number by heart.

Half-jokingly Connor asks Fallon to enter into a fake marriage with him, stay married for six months and she can have a massive divorce settlement. Fallon shouldn't agree but her poor old nana is in an expensive nursing home and needs costly dialysis which her medicare won't cover. Fallon's parents are drunks and wasters who won't help so Fallon uses nearly all of her extensive salary to support her nana and lives on PB&J sandwiches. Connor's offer would get her out from the mountain of debt she is sinking under and secure nana's future.

Having just read a book which also featured an Irishman I was pleasantly surprised that the brogue was kept to a minimum in this book. Enough to establish that Connor is Irish but not too much and no fake Irishness. Although having said that I thought his aunts were crudely drawn caricatures, surely they wouldn't say things like that in front of impressionable children?

Right from their first meeting Connor is struck by how sweet and kind and caring Fallon is. She is a bit sickly sweet TBH, the sort that farts perfume. When he sees that she has no furniture other than a bed in her rented flat he buys her a whole load of furniture as a surprise. In fact aside from the opening chapter Connor's reputation as a playboy is not in evidence. He's kind and caring and generous. He buys Fallon a new phone and sends a tablet to her nana in America just so they can Facetime each other.

Overall, this is a sweet romance between two endearing characters, even if they are both too good to be true. Both soon realise they are falling for each other but worry that they shouldn't get too attached because their impending marriage has an expiry date.

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

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Review: Final Siege

Final Siege by Scarlett Cole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

So I quite liked the first book in this new series, the heroine had a brain and was unusual, I didn't really warm to the hero and heroine but the first book in a new series can often be a bit 'off' as the author finds their feet so I was looking forward to the second book.

Delaney Shapiro was madly in love with her older brother Brock's best friend Malachi 'Mac' MacCarrick until the day her brother died, being goaded to jump off a cliff by Mac. Her father died shortly afterwards and her mother became an alcoholic.

Fourteen years later and she has not seen or spoken to Mac since her brother's funeral. Mac is now a former Navy SEAL who has set up Eagle Securities with Brock's other friends. As usual, these are all military and do super secret security stuff. One day Mac gets a call from a military hospital in Germany, Delaney is a journalist and had been kidnapped, drugged and tortured in Tajikistan following a story about US companies being complicit in arming the Taliban. In her delirium Delaney asks for Mac and he comes to her aid.

Reunited after fourteen years Mac is still just as much in love with Delaney as he ever was, but she can never forgive him for causing the deaths of her beloved brother and father.

Delaney comes back to San Diego but soon believes that she is being followed and a man tries to break into her apartment whilst she is in there. Obviously she is on to something with her investigation but irritatingly she doesn't know what.

I didn't really enjoy this book, although I read it through to the end. Delaney (as many others have said) acts like a petulant teenager, refusing to listen to Mac's explanation of what really happened that day and insisting on hating him, whilst also relying upon Mac to keep her safe from the men following her. I didn't really understand why Mac loved her still, and if he called her Buttons once he called her it 49 times (okay all 49 instances in the book might not all be the annoying nickname) - it's a stupid nickname.

This book sat uneasily in that grey area between true romantic suspense and light-weight romance with a bit of a mystery. The plot was all over the place (and had to stop for frequent bouts of bonking as Delaney and Mac had sex on every available surface), I still don't have a grasp on WHY the men were chasing Delaney, because frankly until a source gives the team A REALLY BIG CLUE they are totally in the dark. So there was too much sex and feelings for a romantic suspense but too much plot for a mystery romance.

I don't think it helped that I have also confused the arc in the first book with another book (which I now have to try and find) where there are mysterious goings on in the town where the good guys have created their compound - I was looking for that arc!

I still love Scarlett Cole as an author, her recent book Nikan Rebuilt was a rollercoaster of emotions, but I'm afraid this book didn't do it for me.

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

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Review: Deserving It

Deserving It by Angela Quarles
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Conor is the captain of a men's hurling team and Claire is a member of the women's team, she has fancied him from afar for ages but got no traction, until a cancelled flight in a storm brings the two of them together. Sharing a hotel room lets them get to know each other better and a competitive game of strip poker when the electricity goes out takes things to a new level.

This is the third book in a series, I haven't read the other two books and this can be read as a stand-alone, although I wonder how much back story to Claire and Conor's romance would be explained in them. Both Conor and Claire have issues with their mothers - issues that aren't really explored more, they come off as an after-thought.

The first chapter of the book assumes you have read the preceding books and just launches into a dialogue between players, the morning after winning the playoffs but all becomes clear.

Conor is Irish and Angela Quarles doesn't want us to forget it, every single sentence he utters seems to have some Irish brogue or 'saying'. I'm English and I've worked with Irish people, even ones with heavy accents and I've not heard half the things that Conor says on a regular basis. After a while it became a bit boring TBH, we get that he's Irish just ease up on the brogue!

Most of the action takes place in a very short period of time while Conor and Claire are in the hotel room and the resulting effect is one of claustrophobia with a lot of sex.

I have had Angela Quarles' Must Love Chainmail on my Amazon wishlist forever so when I saw this book available for request on NetGalley I jumped at the chance. Overall, while this was okay it didn't really grab me and I'm not sure I would want to read the previous books in the series.

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

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Review: Playing House

Playing House by Amy Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this!

Eleanor Davis's brother Ryder plays for the Sydney Smoke rugby team, she is hiding behind a plant at his engagement party when one of his super-hot team-mates, Bodie Webb catches her eye and tries to seduce her.

Eleanor (Nell to her family) is a 26 year old virgin, someone who loves Victoriana more than modern day clothes and manners, but she has decided that virginity is a pesky thing and she wants rid - if only she can pluck up the courage. Of course she knows that Brodie would run a mile in the opposite direction if he knew she was Ryder's little sister (and a virgin) so she keeps her identity a secret.

All my favourite tropes combined. Best friend's little sister? Check. V-card? Check. Accidental pregnancy? Check. Hot sporting hero? Check. Kooky heroine? Check.

Knowing that this was an Entangled Brazen imprint in advance prepared me for all the smexy times (and boy do they have a lot of hot raunchy sex, when Eleanor finally gives up that V-card she does it with a bang, phnarr phnarr) but honestly it felt right in the context of the story, two people who have a raunchy one-night stand and can't stop thinking about one another, even though they know it's a bad idea.

I loved Eleanor and her quirky, kinky dress sense, I love that Brodie is turned on by Victorian clothing and thinks Eleanor is beautiful when she and her sisters think she is not. I loved everything about this hot, sexy read.

So, I thought there was a pattern of liking/disliking these books, like I only like the even-numbered or odd-numbered but nope, I've now loved three out of five, roll on number six!

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

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Review: The Beach Café

The Beach Café by Lucy Diamond
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have no idea why I decided to buy this book, but buy it I did.

Evie Flynn is a bit of a drifter. She has artistic tendencies and wanted to be an actress but has settled for temporary office work. She lives with her boyfriend in Oxford and has two older, prettier, more successful sisters who love to condescend to "poor Evie".

When Evie's aunt dies in a car accident she leaves her beach cafe in Cornwall to Evie, her favourite niece. Evie soon discovers that she can't leave the cafe to muddle along by itself, the existing employees aren't capable or reliable. Soon she has to make a hard decision, sell the cafe or move to Cornwall. But can she escape from her daydreams of a bucolic existence wafting around the cafe being glamorous and successful, long enough to actually learn how to use the coffee machine and make a bacon sandwich?

This is a lovely feel good story, a triumph of hope over adversity as Evie learns what it takes to run a business and becomes embedded in the local community.

I look forward to reading more in the series.

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Review: Moon Over Soho

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

How to describe / review this book without either sounding demented or giving away the plot.

Our intrepid hero Peter Grant is a young English police detective constable of mixed-race heritage and the first apprentice wizard in 50 years. He works for a small, covert department (him and Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale) which investigates crimes with a supernatural origin.

In this, the second book of the series, young Peter is called upon to investigate after an otherwise healthy jazz musician drops dead from heart failure - the supernatural element being that his corpse had a strong vestigia of the dead man playing a saxophone solo. Vestigia are magical imprints, a bit like the spooky feeling you get sometimes walking into a strange house - the stronger the magic the object has been associated with, the stronger the imprint. Humans are bad at holding on to vestigia and therefore some pretty serious magic must have occurred for the corpse to be emitting such a strong imprint. A little digging reveals that relatively healthy jazz musicians have been dropping dead from suspected heart failure (which is a code for "we don't know, but his heart stopped") at a steady rate of two to three a year, shortly after playing a gig in the Greater London Area.

Peter's other case is a grisly one, involving a creature who bit off a part of the man's anatomy and allowed him to bleed to death (eww), as he traipses from jazz club to jazz club in Soho, he learns more about the reason there are so few wizards left in Britain and finds romance.

Peter's father is a famous trumpet player who never got his big break, consequently Peter knows a lot about jazz and jazz musicians. As he trawls the streets and areas of London, making his cynical and humorous asides about modern policing.

In a month of disappointing reads Ben Aaronovitch's first two novels have been shining beacons. Clever, funny, engaging, densely plotted and set in my beloved London. It's a treat to run through Soho with Peter, drive through the West End at rush hour and visit less famous areas such as Kentish Town to meet his parents. Someone described this as magic realism - not a term I had heard before - which perfectly sums up this series.

Highly recommended.

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Review: The Duke of Ice

The Duke of Ice by Darcy Burke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

And the reading meh continues.

Nicholas Bateman, Duke of Kilve, is known as the Duke of Ice because he is cold and distant. His only friend, Simon Duke of Romsey, known as the Duke of Ruin, persuades Nick to accompany him to a house party thrown by the Linfords. Simon has been ostracised from society because of his wife's mysterious death and hopes that this party might help him to find a new bride, but the invite clearly expects him to bring the Duke of Kilve. With bad grace Nick agrees to accompany Simon only to find that the hostess' best friend is none other that Violet Caulfield, Lady Pendleton, the woman with whom he had a brief but passionate fling when they were much younger, the woman he fully intended to marry until she threw him over for a man with a title.

I thought this book could have been over a lot earlier than it was. Nick spent most of the book metaphorically wringing his hands and bemoaning the fact that he was cursed because everyone he had ever loved, except Violet, was dead. To love is to feel and then when they die it is devastating so wall off your emotions and don't have any friends! Good plan. I was bored of him and his rinse and repeat 'get close to Violet then push her away' behaviour. In contrast, Violet started off as a great character and then at one point became a complete doormat.

Overall, meh. I am so tired of not enjoying books and I'm hoping that February will herald a new joy of reading.

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Review: When the Stars Come Out

When the Stars Come Out by Laura Trentham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jackson Abbott is Wyatt's twin. The silent kind, he has worked alongside Willa Brown ever since she came to Cottonbush, without really thinking about her as a woman. All the Abbott brothers know that Willa is keeping secrets, most of them have guessed that isn't her real name, but they value her work as a mechanic in their family business and they aren't ones to gossip.

Willa has been on the run since she was eighteen years old, running from what was an idyllic childhood she soon found that life away from her adored father was very different from the sheltered way she spent her first eighteen years. The Abbott family are different. Their father reminded her of her own father and she has been in love with Jackson forever. But when Willa's past looks to be catching up with her will she run like she always does? It takes the fear of Willa leaving for Jackson to wake up to the woman he has been working with for the past few years. Under the baggy thrift shop clothes, bad hair cut and cap permanent wedged on her head is a curvy, beautiful woman.

The romance between Jackson and Willa is set against several mysteries: what has happened to the oldest Abbott brother, Ford? What happened in Willa's past that necessitated her running? Who is trying to buy the Abbott Garage, and why? What happened to the Abbott brothers' mother?

Unfortunately, I have to say that I've come to the conclusion (based on reading two novels and a novella) that Laura Trentham's mysteries tend to evaporate into meh. This book and the last end on a cliffhanger/ teaser for the next book which kind of dissolves into nothing. Ford's story is dismissed at the start of this novel, frankly I don't understand Willa's issue at all, in fact I'd go further and say she acted like a spoilt brat and doesn't seem to have matured, the buyer mystery doesn't go anywhere and Mrs Abbott is also a bit meh.

I didn't like that Sutton decided to give Willa a make-over, kudos to Jackson for not caring.

Overall, I don't really understand how to categorise this. It didn't feel like romance, there wasn't much suspense/ mystery, although it is set in a small town it doesn't have that cozy small town feel. Possibly more damningly, I just didn't like Willa.

However, I'm on a bit of a book downer, I convinced myself that I didn't like the previous book and yet when I read my review I gave it "a solid four and a half stars", maybe read this review bearing in mind that I am clearly dissatisfied with everything I'm reading at the moment!

Do I want to read the next book? I know exactly who it will feature (okay, I'm guessing but I'd bet serious money), probably.

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

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Review: Dr Naughty: A Doctor's Baby Romance

Dr Naughty: A Doctor's Baby Romance by Tara Wylde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

First off I think the blurb AND the title are both misleading. Sort of.

Dr James Ashby is a super wealthy cancer doctor who founded a company called Dovecote Biotech. He is in clinical trials for a new cancer treatment which, if validated, could significantly improve cancer survival rates and make the company millions. Unfortunately, he is being harassed by an efficiency consultant called Sean Nasmith who was brought in by some of the investors. Nasmith is trying to invoke the morality clause in James' contract and expel him from the company he founded. James likes to work hard and play hard and has a bit of a reputation as a ladies' man, and maybe he has recklessly driven whilst under the influence ...

When he wakes up one Monday morning lying beside a stained toilet in a low-rent motel with absolutely no recollection of anything that happened on Sunday he realises he is on the brink of losing his company. His best friend and lawyer Tom tries to cover for him but suggests he needs some kind of image make-over, maybe a 'nice' respectable girlfriend to give the press and shareholders the impression that he's cleaned up his act.

Diana is the Uber driver who picks James up after his lost weekend. As she drives him home and then to work they chat and, half-asleep, James jokes that he should marry her when she offers her advice on a hangover cure.

Diana and James agree to a corporate marriage, possibly with benefits if they both agree, for up to 18 months. Diana will receive $1 million in compensation, which will get her out of her monetary difficulties, and James will get instant respectability. What could go wrong?

On the face of it, this looks like a billionaire playboy needs fake wife to keep the business - read loads of those before, one of my favourite romance storylines - but it isn't quite. First, James doesn't have the requisite long list of bitchy model ex-girlfriends/ mistress. In fact, other than the odd incident like his lost weekend, he really doesn't do more than work and look after his dog. Second, James and Diana's relationship become real pretty quickly, they got on well with each other right from the start and although there are the usual misunderstandings, secrets and arguments by and large the two of them act like adults and resolve them without all the usual angst.

Third, and this is a doozy, the plot thickens! I don't want to spoil this for anyone else so I won't say more but this is not just a standard marriage of convenience plot. Oh, and there's lots of random smexy times just thrown in every so often. Whilst this is in no way disjointed or rough, I definitely feel it is clear that it was written by two people because there seems to be two different stories here, perfectly blended together, it's a sweet marriage of convenience romance, a steamy billionaire romance, it has a subplot, there's a baby, I could go on!

Overall, this was engaging, sexy, funny and surprising. Recommended.



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Review: Let It Be Me

Let It Be Me by Jody Holford
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 58%.

On paper I should love this book. I like the author, I'm a sucker for single Dad and nanny romances, and the premise of the employer asking the nanny to set him with dates in order to find some woman who would be happy to have a polite, marriage-of-convenience in order to provide a mother for his little boy? Fraught with comedy opportunity.

Megan Carter is nanny to Charlie. His mother is an actress who valued her career more than her marriage or her child. His father Adam is a good Dad and does everything he can be home to put Charlie to bed and read him a bedtime story each night, but he is also fully committed to partnership at his job (can't recall if he's a lawyer/ accountant whatever) driven in part by his own childhood in which his feckless father couldn't be relied upon to put food on the table or clothes on his son's back. In fact, Adam is a tad obsessive on this point but feels that partnership will help him ensure that Charlie never wants for anything.

Sadly, this didn't work for me. Adam's ridiculous scheme needed to be grounded in something other than him being supremely disinterested in lifting a finger to find a mother for his son. Delegating to the nanny, no matter how competent and beloved by the family, is not cool. His poor-me shtick was tedious in the extreme and his priorities were skewed. My dislike reached a peak when he took his son and the nanny to a arcade (to make up for not attending his son's presentation) and then left to pitch to a new client at a moment's notice. Yet when he decides to bang the nanny he can suddenly turn off his work phone for the first time ever - nice priorities dude!

And the negative reading vibe continues...

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


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Review: Dirty

Dirty by Kylie Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had high hopes for this but around the midway mark it fell into rinse and repeat sex and angst.

On her wedding day someone send Lydia an anonymous video of her fiancé and another guy. Distraught she runs away and hides in the cottage next door where she is eventually found by the homeowner.

Vaughan was in a band which has spectacularly combusted and he has come hose to North Idaho to lick his wounds and hopefully sell his parents' house to his sister Nell. He is not best pleased after a long journeyhome to find a half naked woman with crazy Panda eyes hiding in his bath, even if she does have a spectacular rack.

This started off zany and funny but after a while it seemed as though Vaughan and Lydia were woefully ignoring their own feelings and a host of other characters are introduced for later books.

I kept reading but it was nothing amazing.

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