Reviews - - A Harlequin Trio

In A Heartbeat

By Janice Kay Johnson

Publisher: Harlequin Superromance

Release Date: April 1, 2018
Reviewed by Janga

Nate Kendrick, a venture capitalist in Seattle, refuses to feel guilty when business requires him to bail out on a promise to chaperone a field trip for his seven-year-old daughter, Molly. But when a man dies saving Milly from drowning in a nearby river, Nate is troubled by the guilt he feels and by his concern for the man’s widow and two young children who are struggling financially. His offer to help is met with the widow’s scornful rejection of “blood money.” There seems to be little that Nate can do.

Anna Grainger has been a stay-at-home mom to seven-year-old Josh and four-year-old Jenna, and except for an occasional worrisome thought, has left family finances in her husband’s hands. But when Kyle drowns while rescuing one of Josh’s classmates, Anna discovers the depth of his fiscal irresponsibility. Kyle cashed in his life insurance and his retirement fund, leaving his family almost destitute. Forced to sell her home for barely enough to pay off the mortgage and pay the real estate agent’s reduced commission, Anna is looking at the possibility of being homeless.

When Nate’s ex-wife, Sonja, passes out in a drunken stupor, leaving Molly terrified and vulnerable, Nate insists Sonja enter rehab. Faced with the necessity of finding someone to care for his daughter for whom he now has full custody, Nate sees a way to solve two problems. He offers Anna a job that includes the vacant apartment intended for a housekeeper. Desperate, Anna reluctantly accepts. As the two families integrate, Anna comes to love Molly and, more gradually, to appreciate that Nate is not the man she had imagined him to be. The more she sees him as a devoted father whose nurturing extends to her children as well as his own child and as a man whom she finds uncomfortably appealing physically, the more difficult she finds it to cling to her prejudices. Nate has been attracted to Anna from the beginning, but he knows their history complicates things. Can Anna move past her grief and the guilt her feelings for Nate evoke and allow Nate into her life and into her heart?

In a Heartbeat is Janice Kay Johnson’s final Superromance. The imprint is being phased out by Harlequin. I’m sad to see this. HSR has long been my favorite category line, and Johnson has been a favorite author since the mid-1990s. She has written more than seventy HSRs, and I have read most of them. I love her richly developed, believable characters and the emotional punch her stories pack. Johnson will be writing for Harlequin’s Intrigue imprint now. Given her skill with romantic suspense, that should be a good fit, but I will miss the contemporary romances that focused on family relationships with their myriad complexities. I’m glad this last HSR is one of those books. It looks at loss and forgiveness and second chances in a story that makes me care about the characters and sigh with contentment when they reach a happy resolution to their conflicts. If you too enjoy this kind of story, I recommend In a Heartbeat.

The Baby Switch

By Melissa Senate

Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition

Release Date: April 1, 2018
Reviewed by Janga 

Single father and corporate president Liam Mercer has astonished his family and friends with his transformation to devoted dad since the birth of Alexander West Mercer six months ago. Young Alexander’s mother, a former girlfriend of Liam’s, died when Alexander was born, but Liam has surrounded his son with love and attention along with all the privileges of being born a Mercer. Then one day Liam receives a phone call from the Wedlock Creek Clinic where his son was born. The clinic administrator requests that he come in and bring his lawyer.

Shelby Ingalls, owner of Treasures, a second-hand shop, is also a single parent. Her former husband, a rodeo cowboy, left town with another woman as soon as he learned Shelby was pregnant. Six-month-old Shane is the light of Shelby’s life and is adored by her colorful extended family. When the Wedlock Creek Clinic calls asking her to come in with her lawyer, she fears there was more to Shane’s recent virus than she was first told. The blood work that stemmed from that virus did reveal something startling, but it is not anything that Shelby would ever have imagined.

The clinic administrator informs Shelby that Shane cannot be her biological son. There is a very real possibility that the two male infants born minutes apart during a November snowstorm six months earlier were identified incorrectly and sent home with the wrong parent. Neither Shelby nor Liam can bear the thought of losing the child they love, but neither can they bear not claiming the child that may be their own. Liam proposes a marriage of convenience that will allow both of them access to both babies, but that convenient marriage may prove most inconvenient for their wary hearts.

Senate introduces her Wyoming Multiples with this sweet story that may be far-fetched but is just close enough to possible to keep the reader believing. Liam and Shelby are appealing in their vulnerability and maturity. There is also a mystery thread that involves a family secret. It seemed rather contrived to me, and it didn’t make me more sympathetic to Liam’s father. The man’s behavior toward Alexander made me want to kick him. Nevertheless, likable protagonists keep this one entertaining, especially for readers who like romance with babies added to the mix.

Love Songs and Lullabies

By Amy Vastine

Publisher: Harlequin Heartwarming

Release Date: April 1, 2018
Reviewed by Janga

 

Piper Starling, platinum selling country music star, is poised to be the next crossover sensation, but she gets a big surprise when she visits a Nashville emergency room to have a twisted ankle checked out and receives a bonus diagnosis—she is pregnant. The father-to-be is Sawyer Stratton, a new artist whose first album has just been released. Piper and Sawyer worked together writing songs, and things briefly took a turn toward the passionate. But two months ago, they decided the relationship was bad for their careers and broke things off before anyone else realized they were together.

When their families are informed about the pregnancy, everyone has an opinion about what Piper and Sawyer should do—marry or not marry, tour together or tour separately. Piper’s father/manager is convinced a pregnancy before a wedding will destroy her good-girl image in the eyes of her conservative country base and thus seriously damage her career. Piper trusts her father, and she is overwhelmingly conscious that her career supports a lot of people, including her brother and his enormous medical bills. Sawyer is only certain he is not in love with Piper. He wants to be a father to his child, but he is adamantly opposed to marrying without love, having lived with the consequences of his parents’ example. His sister supports his decision. Eventually, all parties more or less agree that a fake engagement is the best solution. However, the plan sounds simpler than it proves to be; it just leads to more complications. Will Piper and Sawyer ever cut through the walls and pretenses and be honest with themselves and with each other about their feelings.

This is the third book in Vastine’s Grace Notes Records series, after The Girl He Used to Love and Catch a Fallen Star. It is obvious that Piper and Sawyer have a history, and I think their history must be a thread in the first book. Missing that connection, I found myself impatient with all the drama and the family interference in the lives of the lead couple. They are twenty-five, but much of the reaction would have seemed more appropriate had they been a decade younger. I also felt that much of the tension could have been resolved with one honest conversation between the two people most directly involved.

Faith, Sawyer’s sister, was the only character I truly liked, and I actively disliked Piper’s father. Had this not been a book I had committed to review, it might have been a DNF for me. Readers more dedicated to the Heartwarming imprint than I or who have read the earlier books in the series will likely find it more appealing than I did. That belief persuaded me to award the novel three stars and conclude that I was just not part of the audience that Love Songs and Lullabies targets. (I do like the title.)

Review - - In Hope's Shadow

In Hope’s Shadow

By Janice Kay Johnson

Publisher: Harlequin (Superromance)

Release Date: October 1, 2015

Eve Lawson is doing her best to control her feeling that the miraculous restoration of her adoptive parents’ “real” daughter means that Eve no longer has a place in the family. Her relationship with her mother is particularly strained. The new pressures in her personal life make her job as a social worker even more important to Eve. Much of her time is spent checking on foster children, a part of her caseload that is especially important to Eve because of her own painful memories of foster care. Eve has no interest in beginning a romantic relationship at this point. She was never in love with her sister’s fiancé, Detective Seth Chandler, but it stings that he could so easily turn away from her once he met Hope. Still, she can’t deny that Seth’s partner Ben Kemper is too attractive for her comfort.

Ben Kemper is a single father devoted to his young daughter and dealing with complicated feelings about his former wife. While he has no objections to enjoying the benefits of a no-commitment relationship, he knows that he is not ready for anything more. He has a gut feeling that Eve Lawson is all about more. He doesn’t even understand the wild attraction he feels for her. She is a far cry from his usual type, blue-eyed blondes like his ex and like Hope Lawson.

When Eve and Ben start dating, they both have reservations, and things get complicated quickly. Hope’s life is in turmoil, and she is wary of being hurt. Ben is reluctant to let go of the life he once knew and reluctant to allow Eve fully into his life. Great sex is not enough to resolve these issues, and tension between them ratchets higher when one of Eve’s clients is charged with murder—and it’s Ben’s case. Eve is determined to prove the teen’s innocence, and Ben is convinced of his guilt. Can these two resolve the issues that divide them and accept the love for which they long?

In Hope’s Shadow is the second book in Janice Kay Johnson’s Two Daughters duet, following Yesterday’s Gone, which offers the story of Hope Lawson/Bailey Smith, a daughter kidnapped as a child and reunited with her family as an adult. This book is the story of the daughter who was adopted after Hope’s disappearance. Johnson has the ability to take a plot ripped from the headlines and humanize it. She does this once again with the Two Daughters books.

Eve Lawson, like Johnson’s other characters, has the feel of a real person. She is complex and contradictory, and her life is messy, internally and externally. She is not perfect. She makes bad choices sometimes, and she can feel sorry for herself. But she is a good person, one with an enormous capacity for love. Although the romance with Ben is central to the story, Eve’s relationships with her father, her mother, and her sister are all important as well. Honesty in those relationships is a necessary prelude to being ready to love Ben and his daughter without fears and reservations.

Ben’s life is not the stuff that propels media frenzy, but it is no less complicated for that. He is legally divorced, but emotionally he is still tied to his ex. He can’t completely let go of the way his life was supposed to go. He is a good dad who loves his child wholeheartedly, but he doesn’t have all the answers. He wants Eve in his life, but he fears the changes she will bring. Sometimes even a macho cop is afraid and confused.

I’ve been reading Janice Kay Johnson’s Superromances since the mid-1990s. She is remarkably consistent in giving her readers stories that are authentic and entertaining, and she is one of the authors I recommend highly when I urge readers to give category romance a try. In Hope’s Shadow is another JKJ winner. I’m glad I read it after reading Yesterday’s Gone, but Johnson provides enough backstory in the second book for it to be read as a standalone. My recommendation: try it; you’ll like it.

~Janga

Guest Review - - Everywhere She Goes

Everywhere She Goes

By Janice Kay Johnson

Publisher: Harlequin (Superromance)

Release Date: January 7, 2014

Cait McAllister, a graduate student in urban design and planning, broke up with an abusive boyfriend who refused to accept that she had left him. Frightened by his anger and the physical threat he posed, she applied for a job as community developer in Angel Butte, Oregon, the town where her older brother Colin and his wife, the former Maddie Dubeau, live (Bringing Maddie Home, 2013). Cait was a child when she left Angel Butte with her mother, leaving Colin and their father behind. Despite Colin’s efforts, he and Cait have a distant relationship, but Cait is feeling vulnerable now. A protective big brother who is also a cop seems like a good ally in the circumstances.

Noah Chandler, restaurateur and mayor of Angel Butte, is finding his elective office a bigger headache than he expected. He’s dealing with the fallout of recently revealed corruption in the police department and trying to move his town into the twenty-first century. He is concerned about finding the best people for city positions. Noah knows Cait is trouble from his first glimpse of her. She’s overqualified for the job, and the immediate attraction he feels could be a problem in an employer-employee relationship. He hires her anyway because she promises to be good for the town and because he can’t stop thinking about her. When he discovers she is being stalked and threatened by an ex-boyfriend, Noah becomes even more protective than Colin.

Cait and Noah both have some heavy baggage. Cait, with an abusive father in her past, is ashamed that neither experience nor intelligence kept her from becoming entangled in another abusive relationship. She has sworn off men for the time being. Noah, whose problems with his parents make him believe he is unworthy of being loved, avoids commitment. Yet none of these barriers are enough to prevent the two from becoming lovers. However, their inability to fully trust one another and the antagonism between Noah and Colin, who blames Noah for giving the police chief job Colin expected to be his to an outsider, complicate their relationship. But when Cait’s childhood memories lead to murders, recent and past, keeping her safe takes precedent, especially when it turns out that the threatening ex may not be the one determined to kill her.

Everywhere She Goes is the second book in Johnson’s romantic suspense series set in a town that may be small but, with its drug trafficking, political corruption, and murder, is anything but warm and cozy. Cait and Noah are complex, flawed, richly human characters, and Johnson manages to keep their relationship central to the story while maintaining the tension in the mystery plot. I really liked that Noah is a super sexy hero who is not conventionally good looking. I also found the look at small-town politics interesting.

Although Colin and Nell/Maddie are significant secondary characters in this book, it is not necessary to have read the first book to follow Cait and Noah’s story. I don’t read a great deal of romantic suspense, but I’m a fan of Johnson’s storytelling and characterization. Everywhere She Goes showcases these skills, and it kept me turning pages long after I should have been asleep. If you are a romantic suspense fan, or if you just like compelling stories, I recommend this book.

There are two secondary characters that I found intriguing, Angel Butte’s new police chief, Alex Raynor, and a female cop, Jane Vahalik. Alex’s story, All a Man Is, will be released  March 1, 2014, and Jane’s story will follow in July. I look forward to them. I never miss a JKJ book.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com

Guest Review - Saturday Shorts

One Brave Cowboy 
By Kathleen Eagle 
Publisher: Harlequin (Harlequin Special Edition) 
Release Date: September 20, 2011

His name is Cougar. Just Cougar. He’s the latest of Kathleen Eagle’s strong, stoic Indian cowboys who need love’s healing touch. Cougar is a former soldier recently released from a VA hospital where horse therapy helped him recover from physical and psychological wounds of war. At the suggestion of his friend Sergeant Mary Tutan, he’s visiting the Double D Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota to check out the wild horse training competition run by Sally Drexler White Horse.

Cougar meets schoolteacher Celia Banyon when he almost runs down her young son Mark. He is drawn to both mother and son, two more wounded warriors even though their battleground has been a domestic one. Cougar and Celia move from friendship to love, and Cougar helps Mark bond with a horse. The breakthrough when Cougar and Celia trust one another enough to admit their love is quieter but no less powerful than the breakthrough when Mark, who has been deaf and mute since a horrific accident, names his horse Flyboy.

These are not showy characters, but their vulnerabilities and their strengths make them deeply human. They survive pain, betrayal, and broken dreams to discover a love strong enough to heal their wounds. My only disappointment in this book was that it ended too soon, making the HEA feel a bit rushed. Some of the best contemporary romances being written are category romance, and Kathleen Eagle’s books are in that company. I recommend not only One Brave Cowboy but also the other books in the series: In Care of Sam Beaudry; One Cowboy, One Christmas; Cool Hand Hank; Once a Father; and Cowboy, Take Me Away.


All That Remains
By Janice Kay Johnson
Publisher: Harlequin (Harlequin Superromance)
Release Date: October 4, 2011

Wren Fraser is on the run, hoping to find a safe place with her best friend from college, when she’s caught in a flash flood. Her car runs off the road, and she takes sanctuary in an abandoned house. She’s alone in an empty house somewhere in Arkansas, with flood waters rising and labor pains getting stronger and closer together. Retreating to the attic, she hangs a white sheet out the window and hopes help will come.

Police Detective Alec Harper has spent three days rescuing stranded people in a borrowed aluminum fishing boat. He almost skips the old Maynard house because he knows the owner is in a nursing home but decides to check it out on the chance that someone has taken shelter there. He sees the white sheet. He knows there is no way the heavily pregnant woman can make it to the boat, and so when he learns she’s in labor, he joins her in the attic and delivers her baby.

The intimacy created by this act is intensified as their isolation continues. Wren tells Alec about the father of her child, the abusive boyfriend from whom she is running, and Alec tells her that he and his ex-wife have two daughters. By the time they are rescued after several days in survivalist mode, a bond has formed between the two. When Wren finds out that her friend no longer lives in Saddler’s Mill, Alec invites her to be his guest until her identification and credit cards can be replaced. With the connection that has already been created between Wren and Alec, it’s no surprise that the two fall in love. But Wren is determined to prove she can be independent of any man, and Alec is afraid of letting anyone inside the walls he’s built to protect himself from more losses. They can build a life together only of Wren overcomes her pride and Alec overcomes his fears.

Janice Kay Johnson has been an autobuy author for me since I read her Patton’s Daughters series in 1999. I have learned that I can count on her books to give me well-developed characters with depth who confront credible challenges and are changed by their experiences. All That Remains is vintage Johnson, and I highly recommend it.

~Janga