Review - - The Undateable

The Undateable

By Sarah Title

Publisher: Kensington/Zebra

Release Date: February 28, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

 

Melissa Bernard, affectionately known as “Bernie,” loves her job as a librarian at Richmond College, a small institution in the San Francisco Bay Area. She enjoys her work supervising the undergraduates who work in the library and helping desperate students with their research projects. But she is less than thrilled when Carly, her favorite student assistant, and Carly’s boyfriend dance on the reference desk as the center of a flash mob. In fact, Bernie isn’t sure whether she disapproves more of the flash mob in the library or of Carly accepting the boyfriend’s proposal. She considers them far too young for marriage. Unfortunately for Bernie, her disapproval is written clearly on her face, and her face is prominently displayed in a video that goes viral. Bernie is overwhelmed when she becomes a meme. The Disapproving Librarian Disapproves is everywhere, including on posters and bookmarks ordered by the Director of Libraries, who is delighted with the development, despite its reinforcement of a negative stereotype of librarians. Bernie’s immediate supervisor convinces her to take her accumulated leave and allow the frenzy surrounding the meme to fade.

Colin Rodriguez is sharing his parents’ Bay Area home with his sister, and only parental stipulation that he must have a paying job to continue living there rent free pushes him into finding a job. He becomes a staff writer for Glaze.com, an online fashion magazine. As the sole straight male on the staff, he is charged with offering the male perspective. With a younger, female colleague eager to claim his position as senior staff writer, he needs to convince the Disapproving Librarian to agree to a makeover by the experts at Glaze and thirty Glaze-arranged dates in thirty dates. Colin will cover the dates for the magazine, and in the process, prove that Bernie, contrary to the reputation she has gained, is not undateable.

Bernie, whose makeup routine and sense of fashion are nonexistent, initially refuses. In the first place, she is uninterested in what Glaze is offering, and, secondly, she thinks agreeing will mean selling out her feminist convictions. But arguing with Colin is more fun than she expected, and her friends push her to go for it. Still wary, she finally agrees. The first dates are disasters, but as Bernie adapts to the makeover and to dating, they improve to a degree. If the best part of the experience for her and for Colin is their verbal duels before and after the dates, neither of them is ready to admit it—not even to themselves.

Sarah Title uses her first-hand knowledge of librarians, the power of the online world, and a pair of engaging leads to create a romance that is truly contemporary, laugh-out-loud funny, and frankly feminist. Bernie’s dates—from the self-infatuated pontificator to the poet fixated on his ex and his mother to the nice guy who strikes no sparks—will be familiar to many readers. Watching Bernie and Colin fall in love is a delight, and Maria, Colin’s snarky, blogging alter ego whose advice sounds more and more like Bernie, adds to the fun.    

After reading Practice Makes Perfect, I considered Sarah Title one of my top new-to-me authors of 2016. I had high expectations for The Undateable, and it was even better than I expected. From Maria’s opening letter through the epilogue, I was invested in the characters and their story. Bernie is one of my favorite contemporary heroines ever. I loved her honesty and her wit and her insecurities. I cheered when she said things I wish I had been brave enough to say when I was young. I also liked that although she changes in some ways during her thirty-day experience, the core of who she is remains unchanged, and it that unchanging Bernie with whom Colin falls in love. It is Bernie and his love for her that motivates Colin to grow up. That too merited cheers.

If you like romances with wit and humor and characters as entertaining and endearing as those in your favorite sit-com, I think you will like this book. I highly recommend it. Now I’ll return to my celebration that The Undateable is the first in a series. The second Librarians in Love book, Falling for Trouble, releases June 27, and the third, Laws of Attraction, will be available October 31. I’ve added both to my must-read list.

Review - - The Most Wonderful Time

The Most Wonderful Time

By Fern Michaels, Stacy Finz, Sarah Title, Shirlee McCoy

Publisher: Kensington Zebra

Release Date: October 25, 2016

The forecast for October is a flurry of Christmas romances, many of them anthologies. This book is one of the latter group with a quartet of stories from popular Kensington authors. Overall, my reaction was mixed: one story was a big fail for me, one was disappointing, one was an enjoyable read that left me looking forward to other visits to a new California town, and one was a satisfying addition to a series I like a great deal.

“Christmas Passed” by Fern Michaels is the story of Brandy Heyers who is still mired in grief three years after the death of her husband. Her grief is so paralyzing that she is oblivious to the needs of her two teenage children, and she sees no reason to celebrate the holidays without her husband. The reality of diminishing resources and a live-wire best friend who refuses to give up on her force Brandy back into the land of the living. She gradually becomes aware of what she is doing to her children and even, with the help of a widower with a big heart and a charming young daughter, begins to believe that she has a second chance at love. I really disliked this heroine, and even a sympathetic hero and likeable secondary characters were not enough to make up for that irritant. I also thought the quick wrap-up to the idyllic, everybody’s-happy conclusion was beyond belief.

“A Glory Junction Christmas” by Stacy Finz is an interesting twist on a friends-to-lovers story. Hannah Baldwin has had a rough year. Her husband of nine years asked for a divorce when she picked him up after his ninety-day stint in rehab, and now she is the only person in Glory Junction not attending his wedding to his new love. She also lost her beloved aunt to ovarian cancer. Still, Hannah is working hard to make her first Christmas in charge of Glorious Gifts, the shop she inherited, a spectacular one. Josh Garner, her ex’s best friend, is back in town, but Hannah, who is convinced Josh never liked her, questions whether she should be part of his homecoming celebration.

Josh is uncomfortable with the hero’s welcome his hometown insists on giving him after his return from Afghanistan. He just wants to focus on his physical rehabilitation. A war wound left him with a leg held together with plates and rods, and Josh is not sure what that means for his future with Garner Adventure, the extreme sports and adventure business his family owns and operates. In any other circumstances, Josh would be elated that Hannah is free. She has had a claim on his heart for years, but his best friend Chip charmed her and married her. Josh tried to forget her, with little success. If only his future didn’t look so uncertain, maybe he’d have a chance with Hannah.

If these two can let go of misperceptions and fears, they just may find an HEA in the new year.

This novella introduces Finz’s Glory Junction series, a spinoff of her Nugget series. Hannah and Josh are engaging, substantive characters who deserve an HEA. And, despite the limitations of the novella’s length, Finz gives her readers a clear sense of the town and provides glimpses of some very interesting secondary characters, especially Josh’s brothers. I will definitely be on the lookout for more of Glory Junction and its citizens.

“Moonshine and Mistletoe” by Sarah Title is another of this author’s librarian tales. Only her dissertation separates Emma Fallader from a PhD in library science, and she hopes she will find some time for work during her stay in Coral Bottom, West Virginia, where she is spending a few days before Christmas to attend the country wedding of her friend and fellow librarian Kevin to his long-time partner, architect Daniel. Emma doesn’t expect the wedding to be a life-changing event for her, but a certain fiddler and a tiny, charming library have Emma rethinking what she wants to do with her life.

Abe Tate, a musician with genuine talent and a love of the traditional music of his region, is happy to be back in Coral Bottom. He would never miss the wedding of his cousin Daniel who is as close as a brother, but he has also missed home. The reality of Nashville has fallen short of even his modest dream of earning a living with his music. This time at home has him reconsidering old choices and thinking about new ones involving the pretty librarian who has captured his heart.

I like Sarah Title’s voice, and I find her humor and her quirky characters enormously appealing. However, this story felt incomplete. Both Emma and Abe are experiencing career conflicts, but the novella length prohibits any real exploration of these issues. Emma and Abe meet and fall in love quickly, and there is no conflict to their love story other than the distance that will separate them once they leave Coral Bottom. The perfect ending came too soon, and it felt unearned. I finished the novella wishing for the more that a novel would have offered.

 “An Apple Valley Christmas” by Shirlee McCoy features Emma Baily, a secondary character in McCoy’s Apple Valley trilogy, and Jack McAllister, a man from Emma’s past. Emma has just buried her father after four years of caring for him while Alzheimer’s slowly destroyed him. Emma is the only one of the ten Baily siblings who is present for their father’s funeral. None of them shed a tear for the mean-spirited, selfish man who had blighted their lives. Emma returned to care for him only because of a promise made long ago to her mother. Now Emma, who is the only heir to her father’s considerable estate, wants to sell the house that has been in her family for generations and leave behind Apple Valley and her unhappy memories.

Jack McAllister walked away from Emma six years ago because she could not trust in their forever, but he is in Apple Valley now. He is there because his friend and Emma’s brother Adam asked him to be there for Emma, but he is also there because he has never forgotten Emma. This time he has vowed to be more patient. This Time he won’t give up; he will take the time to show Emma that Christmas is for celebrating and love and life are for sharing.

This was a lovely Christmas story. I read and enjoyed McCoy’s Apple Valley books, and I thought, particularly after reading The Cottage on the Corner, that Emma deserved her own HEA. Emma’s caution was credible given all that she had been through, and Jack is a wonderful beta hero. He woos Emma with understanding and tenderness and wins the reader’s heart as surely as he wins Emma’s. The touch of Christmas magic and the warmth of the Apple Valley community even in the depths of winter made the story even more special. I thought this one was an unqualified winner.

~Janga

Review - - Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect

By Sarah Title

Publisher: Kensington / Lyrical Shine

Release Date: August 30, 2016

 

 

Pembroke College librarian Helen Lee is an aspiring erotic romance novelist who has been building her rejection file for some time. The latest entry in her “Nope” file doesn’t faze her until she reads the editor’s comments noting that her manuscript shows promise except for the boring sex scenes. The editorial advice? Spice it up. Helen reassures herself that she is no virgin lacking personal experience, even if her time recently has been spent mostly with her aging basset hounds, George and Tammy, and her fantasy life is richly erotic. Perhaps she should apply her skills as a trained researcher to her writing problem.

Helen’s colleague and close friend Henry Beckham, a bow-tie wearing history professor whose current research focuses on a historic local brothel, knows Helen has a problem; he just can’t seem to find out what it is. Then, he finds Helen in the middle of a huge, teary pity party with a disco sound track and discovers her secret.  Henry is the kind of friend who has to help solve a problem once he knows about it. First, he buys Helen a Scientist Barbie and a G. I. Joe to use in simulated sex scenes. When that idea fails spectacularly, Henry offers himself in the cause of sex research: he will be her “sensual guinea pig.”  To Helen’s surprise, Henry proves to be a doctoral level kisser and an inspiring muse who gives Helen exactly what she needs to add spice to her novel. But their hearts don’t recognize all the steam generated is only research. Are they risking their friendship? Is the risk worth taking?

This novella is the third of Sarah Title’s stories set in Willow Springs, Kentucky, following Home Sweet Home and Two Family Home, but it was my introduction to this author. I had no problem reading it as a standalone, and I was charmed by Title’s voice and her humor, which ranged from witty asides (Helen’s thought that she could join Jonathan Franzen on a writers tour for authors who write bad sex scenes) to hysterical broad humor (the Barbie-G. I. Joe scene). I had a highly personal appreciation for Helen’s situation as an academic who loves reading and writing romance, and I adored nerdy Henry who turns out to be an exciting lover.  I can also almost guarantee that George and Tammy will win the hearts of canine-loving readers.

If you like romance that keeps you laughing and reminds you that sometimes reading is just fun, I recommend this novella. I have added the two earlier Willow Springs books to my TBR list. (The heroine of the first one is an English professor!) And I’ll be keeping an out for future releases from this author. I have already added her upcoming The Undateable (February 28), which features another librarian heroine, to my 2017 book calendar. I encourage you to give her a try.

 ~Janga