Review - - Twins on the Doorstep

Twins on the Doorstep

By Marie Ferrarella

Publisher: Harlequin / Western Romance

Release Date: October 3, 2017
Reviewed by Janga

 

Cole McCullough is working part time at The Healing Ranch, the horse ranch run by his friends Jackson and Garrett White Eagle as a last chance before incarceration for troubled boys, and part time with his brother Connor on the family ranch. But neither of these jobs is Cole’s calling. With his three siblings having found their purpose, Cole is wondering what he wants to do with his life. His focus shifts abruptly one morning when twins, about three or four weeks old, are left on his doorstep. The White Eagles question if Cole is the father, a possibility he denies. Another possibility is that since brother Cody delivered the baby of Devon Bennett, now his wife (The Cowboy and the Baby) and sister Cassidy rescued a baby from the river (The Rancher and the Baby), the McCulloughs have just gained the reputation of being good with babies. But with Stacy Rowe, who left town without saying goodbye eight months ago, back in Forever, Cole begins to wonder if he might be the father after all.

Stacy left town when she became convinced that Cole did not return her feelings. Her Aunt Kate, convinced that a change of scenery was the best cure for Stacy’s broken heart, took her niece on an extended European vacation. But Aunt Kate died on the trip, and Stacy had to return to settle her affairs. Finding that her house had been destroyed by fire during her absence, she takes a room at the hotel. She is volunteered to help care for the twins from their first visit to the medical clinic, and when Connor McCullough offers her a room in exchange for caring for them in the McCullough home, she agrees. Soon she and Cole are caring for the babies together and falling in love again. Can they move past the misunderstandings of the past to become a family of four? And who is the twins’ mother?

Twins on the Doorstep is the seventeenth book in Marie Ferrarella’s Forever, Texas series. Typical of this popular and prolific author’s short category romances, it is a slight story with a sweet romance and an emphasis on family dynamics. The McCulloughs are an appealing family. Stacy may be less sympathetic initially, but her sad history and her devotion to the twins should win readers over quickly. Forever is filled with stout hearts and amiable eccentrics who will please those who have an affection for the small-town subgenre.

If you have enjoyed Ferrarella’s books in the past or if you like shorter stories, Western settings, and simple conflict in your romance, you should find this one an enjoyable read. Although it is connected to the other books in the McCullough subset, it can be read easily as a standalone. For those hooked on the larger series or on the McCullough family, Connor McCullough’s story will be released December 1. The title? A Baby for Christmas.

Review - - The Duke

The Duke

By Katharine Ashe

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: September 26, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

  

Lady Amarantha Vale, daughter of the Earl of Vale and younger sister of Emily Vale (The Earl), was only eight when she declared she would marry a man with golden curls and the nature of an angel with whom she would travel the world. Nine years later, to the consternation of her parents, she decided that the Reverend Paul Garland met her criteria and followed her golden-haired fiancé to his mission in Jamaica. The superficially saintly Garland delays their marriage until he has rebuilt his church. Meanwhile, Amarantha meets Lieutenant Gabriel Hume of the Royal Navy second son of the Duke of Loch Irvine, during a hurricane, an apt metaphor for the storm of emotions the meeting arouses in the lady and the most unsaintly Gabriel.

Gabe is promoted to captain and given a ship. When he receives his orders, he asks Amarantha to wait for him. But lies and her own uncertainties convince her that Gabe is unworthy of her love, and she marries Garland. Her marriage is not a happy one, and Amarantha finds solace in friendship and good deeds. More than five years after she sailed to Jamaica, Amarantha, now widowed, returns to Europe in search of her friend and her husband’s half-sister, Penelope Baker. Her search leads her to Scotland and ultimately to Gabriel, now the Duke of Loch Irvine. She rejects the rumors that Gabe, who has become known as the Devil’s Duke, is the homicidal monster responsible for the deaths of several young women. However, despite Gabe’s stubborn love for her and his efforts to convince her that he understands who she is and values her independent spirit, she cannot trust him with her heart. A web of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and secrets must be cleared away if this couple is to find their HEA.

The Duke is the third novel in Ashe’s Devil’s Duke series. The Earl, the book immediately preceding this one was a five-star read for me and barely missed my top ten romance novels for last year. From the moment I turned the final page of The Earl, I began eagerly anticipating The Duke. I expected it to be another five-star book; I wanted it to be another five-star book. And for the first part of the story, it was. Ashe brings the young Amarantha to life, capturing her idealism, her impetuosity, and her innocence. I liked this Amarantha. I ached for the disillusionment that was a necessary precedent to her acquiring wisdom, and I fell in love with Gabe, a rogue with a conscience and a vulnerable heart, right along with her.

Ashe always does a superb job with setting, and this book is no exception. She renders both the Caribbean and Scotland in vivid detail, making her readers see these very different places and cultures. She shows the inhumanity of the slave trade and its insidious effects on slaves and on those who enslave them directly and indirectly. But while the Old World setting is as deftly drawn as the New, other elements do not fare as well with the switch. The more mature Gabe is just as sigh-worthy as his younger self, and he becomes more complex and interesting as his secret is revealed. But I soon grew impatient with Amarantha and found her one-note distrust of Gabriel, who becomes a convenient target for all her woes, irritating.

Despite my frustration with the heroine and her choices, I loved the way Ashe interwove threads from The Earl and the overarching story of the Devil’s Duke with the events of this book. I also loved the sweep of the novel, a characteristic rarely seen in the historical romances of the present century.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I just can’t embrace it as enthusiastically as I did The Earl. The Duke can be read as a standalone, although I think it is a richer reading experience when read as part of the series. I do recommend this book, particularly for readers who long for a more expansive romance than is typical currently. Ashe is on my auto-buy list, and generally this book reinforced all that I love about her writing. The Prince, book 4 in the Devil’s Duke series, will be released May 29. I am already intrigued by the protagonists, who are secondary characters in The Duke, and perhaps the fourth book will show enough of Amarantha and Gabe’s HEA in progress to persuade me that she does deserve him.

Review - - The Winter Wedding Plan & One Week to the Wedding

The Winter Wedding Plan   
By Olivia Miles
Publisher: Grand Central / Forever
Release Date: September 26, 2017
Reviewed by Janga 

  

In The Winter Wedding Plan, Olivia Miles takes her readers back to Misty Point, Rhode Island, for the story of Charlotte Daniels, the younger sister of the heroine of One Week to the Wedding. Although Charlotte returned to Misty Point to get her life together and to heal the breach with her family, things are not going well. Kate’s former fiancé, the father of Audrey, Charlotte’s seven-month-old daughter, has refused any contact with the infant and except for a one-time check for $10,000, pays no child support. Charlotte, determined to prove to her family that she is not a hopeless screw-up, has allowed them to think that he is supporting his child.

Charlotte is struggling to care for her daughter and to use her job in Kate’s fledgling event-planning business to earn her sister’s respect. But sleep-deprivation and financial woes severe enough to have her facing eviction from her tiny apartment make her doubt her ability to meet Audrey’s needs and her limited responsibility at Kate’s business makes achieving her secondary goal unlikely. She hopes moving to her parents’ home will relieve some of the financial pressure, but when her parents announce that they are moving out-of-state to care for an aging parent and her back-up plan of sharing her cousin Bree’s house falls through, Charlotte is staring homelessness in the face. This is her situation when Kate asks her to meet with a new client to plan a Christmas party.

Gregory Frost, heir presumptive to the Frost Greeting Card Company, needs more than a party planner; he needs a fake fiancée. He recently split with his fiancée over a difference of opinion about having children, and his mother has decided that an engagement announcement at the company’s annual Christmas party to be held at their Misty Point home is just what is needed to win the account of a huge department store committed to a family-friendly image. If Greg doesn’t cooperate, his mother is threatening to give the company that is Greg’s legacy to his cousin. Greg decides the pretty party planner can plan the Frost Christmas event and serve as his temporary fiancée.

At first, Charlotte is insulted by Greg’s proposal and rejects it roundly, but his account offers her a desperately needed bonus and a way to prove to Kate what she can do. When the eviction she has feared becomes reality and Greg offers her a place to stay while she plans the Frost party, she can’t say no. But she is not prepared for all the deception that will involve or for the stress of keeping the truth from Kate. Greg is not prepared for Audrey or for all the complications his mother’s early arrival will bring. Deceptions abound in this novel, but the greatest deception may be the one Charlotte and Greg are playing with their hearts.

I became an Olivia Miles reader with her Briar Creek books, a series I enjoyed so much that I recently marked it, with its bookend Christmas books, for a December reread. I had high hopes for the Misty Point series. I knew I liked Miles’s voice, and I am a fan of the hybrid form of women’s fiction that romance authors tend to produce when they turn to that genre. But so far, I have been disappointed.

I liked Kate in the first book, and I rooted for her and Alec to resolve their differences. However, I am not a fan of love triangles involving siblings, regardless of the twist an author gives the triangle. That is a personal response, and I know many readers seek out these books. But for me, Charlotte started with one strike against her. She does earn sympathy points for her remorse and for her difficulties as a single mother, but these are undercut by the fact that she seems so immature. If I had not known that she was twenty-eight, I would have guessed she was at least seven years younger. I also had little sympathy for her choice to keep the truth of her situation from her family. By the end of this story, she has matured, but I would like to have seen more of the process. I found Greg rather more likable, but he somehow lacked the full dimensionality I expect in primary characters. I did love Audrey; she had all the adorability and fractiousness of seven-month-olds I have known.

The greatest flaw in this book was the Bree factor. At intervals, the story switches to this character, and these sections consist mostly of her thoughts. Since I found her to be a whiny woman seriously lacking in discernment, I hated these sections. I have little patience in life or in fiction for women who confuse their image of a man with who he really is, regardless of the evidence. This character’s only redeeming quality was that she genuinely seemed to care about Charlotte and Audrey. I longed for a version of the book pruned of the Bree distractions.

In summary, The Winter Wedding Plan is not a bad book. I might have liked it more had I expected less. It also hit a few of my hot-button issues with force. Other readers will react differently. Misty Point is an appealing setting. Readers who liked Kate and Alec in the first book will enjoy seeing more of them. And the sisters are fully reconciled. There is also the holiday factor. The novel opens with Thanksgiving dinner and ends at a Christmas party with lots of holiday festivities in between. Although labeled women’s fiction, the romance is central enough to satisfy most romance readers. If you like holiday books high on the sweetness scale, this may be just your cup of wassail (without the hard cider).

Kate’s friend and town baker Colleen is delightful, and there is a suggestion that she has met her hero after years of unrequited love—and the new man is auburn-haired. I like the sound of that. I look forward to her story, which means I’m still in if Miles writes more books in this series—just not for Bree’s book.

One Week to the Wedding

By Olivia Miles

Publisher: Forever

Release Date: June 13, 2017
Reviewed by Janga

 

Kate Daniels is playing dual roles in her best friend’s wedding. She is the wedding planner and the maid of honor. The pressure is heightened by a boss who is looking for Kate to make a mistake so that she can fire her. But Kate’s greatest difficulty comes with her memories. Every fitting, every visit to the caterer, and every petal on the selected flowers awaken memories of Kate’s own wedding that never was, the one that was canceled when her fiancé, Jake Lambert, betrayed her. The betrayal was particularly devastating since the other woman was Kate’s younger sister, Charlotte. Kate has sworn off dating, and Alec Montgomery, however attractive he may be, is far too much like her ex to make her reconsider. Or is he?

Charlotte Daniels has made half a dozen phone calls to her sister. Kate might never forgive her, but Charlotte is determined that Kate will learn the truth of what happened with Jake Lambert, a truth that includes the existence of Charlotte’s infant daughter. Just as soon as she gets her life together, Charlotte plans to return to her hometown and reconcile with her family, but with money getting scarcer and life as a single mother getting more difficult, she may not have the luxury of delaying her return.

Alec Montgomery is ostensibly in town for a week for his brother’s wedding in which he is to serve as best man. No one knows that Alec has two purposes for taking a rare week away from his high-pressure Boston job, and neither of them is to celebrate the wedding. He is there to meet with a prospective client who can help save the Montgomery family business and to convince his younger brother William that he made a mistake when he left the family firm to marry and start a new life—and a new business—in his bride’s hometown. Alec never expected to end up envying his brother or to find himself thinking much too often about the wedding planner.

It is one week to the wedding of Elizabeth Jones and William Montgomery, and things are humming in Misty Point as the day draws near. Can Kate see that her best friend has the perfect wedding? Will the best man show up? Will an unexpected wedding guest prove too much for Kate?

One Week to the Wedding introduces a new series from Olivia Miles. Set in the resort town of Misty Point, Rhode Island, the series is billed as women’s fiction rather than romance and advertised as perfect for fans of Robyn Carr, Kristan Higgins, and Susan Mallery, three authors whose women’s fiction titles have proved as popular as their contemporary romance novels. I enjoyed Olivia Miles’s Briar Creek books, but I found her first women’s fiction book less than fully satisfying.

I am not a fan of love triangles, and I find those involving siblings particularly annoying. A few authors have been able to overcome this prejudice and make me fall in love with their books. (I’m looking at you, Terri Osburn!) But those authors are exceptions. Even though the Daniels sisters and Jerky Jake are not a true triangle, I could not get past the betrayal. Charlotte evoked little sympathy. Regardless of her explanation, she came across as a spoiled brat who was forced into growing up when she had to deal with the consequences of her choices. Jake, of course, is slime, but his lack of character doesn’t excuse Charlotte’s behavior. I liked Kate, but I did wonder about her judgment. She was in a two-year relationship with Jake and only retrospectively wonders if all was not as wonderful as she thought.

Alec was a more sympathetic character. He carried some heavy baggage, and his reluctance to accept William’s breaking away was understandable. However, his transformation seemed incredibly swift to me, as did his and Kate’s tumbling into love. It all occurs within a week! William was my favorite character, and I regretted that his and Elizabeth’s story was not part of the series.

To be fair, I think some of the book’s problems can be attributed to the needs of setting up the series in the first book. In addition to Kate and Alec’s love story and Charlotte and Kate’s relationship arc, Kate’s cousin Bree and friend Colleen, potential heroines for future books, are introduced along with hints about what is going on—or not going on—with their love lives. That is a lot to pack into one book, especially in one that covers only a single week.

Miles is a good writer, and Misty Point is an appealing setting. Readers who are free of my bias against triangles may find the sisters’ relationship less troubling than I did. The Winter Wedding Plan, a September 27 release, continues the sisters’ story with the focus on Charlotte, and it may temper my response to these characters. Although I am not convinced that One Week to the Wedding merits favorable comparison to Carr, Higgins, and Mallery, I am sufficiently engaged to continue with the series and hope for books I love as much as I did Miles’s Mistletoe on Main Street and Hope Springs on Main Street, my favorites in her Briar Creek series.

Review - - The Scandal of it All

The Scandal Of It All
by Sophie Jordan
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: July 25, 2017

Reviewed by Santa

  

The Scandal Of It All, a four out of five star book, is the second in Ms. Jordan’s The Rogue Files. It is not your usual romance about a rogue and a young lady. That was part of its appeal for me. There is no young lady. Our heroine, is the beautiful, widowed Lady Graciela or Ela, Duchess of Autenberry. She is step-mother to the present duke, Marcus and his sister Enid. Her own daughter from that marriage is about to make her debut in polite society following the end of her mourning period. In truth, she is only a few years older than her step children.

Her’s was a loveless marriage as she utterly failed to provide her husband with a spare. He as much as told her she was a disappointment. She had no friends save for other outcasts like herself of the Ton. Her beauty, youth and Spanish heritage make others around her more than a little petty and jealous.

Following the death of a friend, she decides it is time to seek out her own pleasures. All her life she’s given herself over to the care of others. Her friend’s sudden death convinces her that it is time to take care of herself. She decides to go incognito to a notorious den of inequity.

Our hero, Lord Colin Strickland, has been commanded by his grandmother to settle down and continue the family line. She never gave him a second thought before. By this time he was used to not meaning anything to anyone. Save for his best friend Marcus, the present Duke of Autenberry, and the duke’s family, he has been alone.

Lord Colin and Ela’s chance meeting at the pleasure club catapults them into an intimate relationship from the very start. Inhibitions and hidden desires are thrown wide open. The ramifications touch everyone in Ela’s family. Here is the lad who came to dinner and now they are lovers. Lovers forced to marry after she is compromised. Believe when I say there are many not happy at all and go to great lengths to display their ire.

Throughout it all, Colin and Ela come to realize they do have real feelings for one another. And their coming together brings them more than they ever thought they would have or felt they deserved.  This is what kept me reading because I was drawn into seeing just how their story unfolded and what would make up their happily ever after. I am also looking forward to about two or three other books or novellas to round up the rest of the rogues in this series.

Review - - Rising Star

Rising Star

By Terri Osburn

Publisher: Montlake

Release Date: September 12, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

Charley Layton knew from an early age that she would become a country music DJ. After seven years of apprenticeship in Liberty, Kentucky, she is living her dream as the newest radio personality at Eagle 101.5, the most popular station in Nashville. Charley is focused on her career. She has no interest in a relationship. When she joins two friends from her station for drinks at the Wildhorse Saloon on her twenty-fifth birthday, all she’s looking for is a low-key celebration and some good music.

Dylan Monroe knows about dreams. He has been paying his dues for years, trying to establish himself in country music. He had a recording contract, but his first album, all his own songs, was never released. Both his label and his manager dumped him. Three and a half years later, Dylan is the first--and temporarily, the only—artist on Shooting Stars, a new label. With the first single from his upcoming album just released, Dylan knows this is his shot. His career requires all his energy and attention.

Charley tries to ignore the hunk in the black Stetson despite his setting all her senses humming, but when she ends up unexpectedly in the spotlight and needs to escape, he comes to her aid. Charley decides she deserves a birthday treat, and she has more in mind than the song her hero promised her. When she leaves the next morning without a goodbye, she thinks Dylan will be no more than a fond memory, but he shows up two days later as an unexpected guest on her show. Angry that the man she thought was a struggling songwriter is a debut artist with a single to promote, Charley tries to freeze him out personally even as she is at her most professional on air, but Dylan’s charm melts the ice. With reservations on her part and determination on his, the two begin a relationship. Can two people with different dreams find their way to an HEA? Add a troublemaker scheming to keep them apart into the mix, and things get really complicated.

Rising Star is the first book in Terri Osburn’s Shooting Stars series. The author does a stellar job of balancing the two essentials of a good introduction to a romance series. First, Osburn gives her readers fully dimensional protagonists with an engaging story that is worthy of the reader’s investment. I loved Charley and Dylan. Charley is sweet and spirited with a strong sense of who she is and a determined independence that seems real. Her profession was an interesting touch. Dylan is sensitive and sexy and centered. He is no angry rebel or brooding Byronic hero with symbolic tattoos. My mother would have called him “a boy who makes his mama proud.” He follows another Osburn hero, Randy Navarro (Home to Stay, Anchor Island #3), on my favorite book boyfriends list. The Nashville setting is also interesting, a departure from the prevailing small-town but distinctly different from big-city settings on the East and West coasts.

Second, without distracting the reader from the lead couple and their relationship, Osburn introduces a group of intriguing supporting characters who clearly merit their own stories.  Of particular interest are Clay Benedict, owner of Shooting Stars Records, who promises to be a fascinating and different hero; Chance Colburn, a former country music star fresh out of rehab with scandals behind him, looking for a comeback; Naomi Mallard, Shooting Stars publicist, who has a history with Chance; and Matilda “Matty” Jacobs, Charley’s chip-on-her-shoulder roommate, who may or may not have met her match in Elvis Marigold, a former marine and Charley’s oldest friend. I am eager to learn more about these other Shooting Stars characters. (And, I must add, the English major in me loved playing with all the possible levels of meaning in that series title.)

If you like contemporary romance that is brushed with realism, aims true for the heart, and provides sufficient sizzle without losing the power of a good story, I highly recommend Rising Star. 

Review - - Second Chance Girl

Second Chance Girl

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin / HQN

Release Date: September 26, 2017
Reviewed by Janga

Carol Lund is in charge of the Happily Inc Animal Preserve. From childhood summers spent with her father on the South African game preserve where he worked, Carol knew what she wanted to do. After earning a degree in zoo management and animal care, she began working for her father and uncle who had created an African savanna on acres adjacent to their trash and recycling center. Now she manages the preserve. Carol loves the gazelles, zebras, water buffalo, and other animals under her care, but she has a special affection for Millie, the preserve’s lone giraffe. Female giraffes are herd animals, and Carol fears that Millie is lonely. Her current project is raising half a million dollars to buy more giraffes to keep Millie company. Carol does not have time to be distracted by her crush on her sexy artist neighbor and good friend, Mathias Mitchell. She believes there is no way that Mathias, who has his pick of visiting beauties, would ever be interested in an ordinary woman like her—especially one who is more the forever type than fling material.

Mathias grew up in a household dominated by his self-absorbed, egomaniacal father. Five years ago, Ceallach Mitchell informed his sons that Mathias and his twin brother Ronan were not twins, that they were not even full brothers. Ronan was the son of one of Ceallach’s mistresses, but Elaine Mitchell had reared him with her sons and loved him as one of them. That revelation drove Ronan and Mathias from Fool’s Gold. They set up their studio and built homes in Happily Inc, but the bond the two brothers had shared for all their lives seems to be irrevocably broken. The experience has left Mathias mistrustful of love and determined to avoid commitment. Happily Inc with its constant supply of pretty bridesmaids in town only for a wedding is perfect for his one-night-stand policy. Carol and her animals have fascinated Mathias from the time he met them. He enjoys Carol’s friendship, but he refuses to acknowledge that his feelings for her are deeper.

Yet the lives of these two friends grow more and more entangled. Carol inspires Mathias to return to the art he had forsaken, and he turns to her for help whether it is with his dog-sitting duties with his mother’s mischievous beagle, Sophie, or with wedding plans for brother Del and his bride. He even comes up with a fundraising plan that may help Carol raise the additional $375,000 she needs to end Millie’s loneliness. But just as Carol gets past Mathias’s barriers, a family brouhaha with Ceallach reawakens Mathias’s concern that loving means being betrayed, and he retreats. Carol’s confidence in herself as a woman who deserves Mathias’s love is too weak to combat his withdrawal. Can love conquer the entrenched fears and insecurities of these lovers?

The second entry in Susan Mallery’s Happily Inc series is even better than the first. Carol is a winning heroine—sweet but spirited enough to match wits with Mathias, focused on her beloved animals but balanced enough to have room for meaningful friendships and for romance, confident about who she is in essence but convinced she is a “plain peahen” in looks. Mathias has deep scars from years of struggling with his father, and Ronan’s distance denies him the one connection he felt was unassailable. His charm and looks and talent may seduce readers as quickly as these features seduce Carol, but it is his vulnerability along with his generous heart that makes him a memorable hero. As individuals and as a couple, these characters are likable, believable, and sympathetic.

A secondary romance between Violet Lund, Carol’s sister, and Ulrich Sherwood, Duke of Somerbrooke, is a delightful addition to the central story. Just the idea of a button collector and a duke makes me smile. This duke is a failed Prince Charming who infuriates his heroine even as he shatters her idealized image of him based on a youthful encounter, which adds to the fun. Animal lovers will fall in love with Millie and Sophie, and Fool’s Gold fans will be pleased to attend the wedding of Maya Farlow and Delaney Mitchell (Thrill Me).

Susan Mallery is one of the queens of the quirky small-town romance. She gives her readers story after story populated by characters, human and animal, who become dear and familiar. Honestly, I am already addicted to this series. I highly recommend Second Chance Girl for Mallery fans, for readers who love a good friends-to-lovers story, or for any contemporary romance reader looking for a read that is sweet and sexy with a touch of humor and some heart-twanging touches. Mallery is amazing, and I can’t wait to see what her next Happily Inc romance will be. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be Ronan’s story.

TLC Blog Tour Review & Giveaway - - The Sweet Life

The Sweet Life

By Sharon Struth

Publisher: Kensington / Lyrical Press

Release Date: September 19, 2017
Reviewed by Janga
  

Five years after her husband and three-year-old daughter were killed in an automobile accident that she herself survived, Mamie Weber has slowly accepted that she owes it to their memory to start living again. When Felix Carrol, a travel writer who writes as The Covert Critic, offers her the chance to substitute for him on a tour of Tuscany, it seems like the perfect opportunity to reclaim her former self and embrace life again. With the blessing of her boss at Atlas Publishing, she prepares to join the two-week tour, intending not only to write the review of the tour in Felix’s stead but also to challenge herself with some adventures on her hastily constructed bucket list.

Julian Gregory is employed by Wanderlust Excursions as a tour guide. He is committed to doing things by the rules, so he is irritated when Felix Carrol’s late arrival keeps the Woodstock Wanderers from departing at the appointed time. When a woman shows up claiming that she is replacing Felix but without the proper authorization, Julian has no intention of allowing her to join the group. But somehow the sadness in her eyes and the urging of the mellow Wanderers persuade the rule follower to become a rule breaker.

Over the next two weeks, Mamie will delight in the glories of Tuscany and experience adventures that include riding a scooter through the Italian countryside and riding in a hot air balloon, but her greatest adventure is opening her heart to Julian and the feelings he awakens in her. Julian has his own secrets and suffers from losses that have shaped his life. After a life of risk-taking, he wants to avoid risks. Can he open his heart and share himself as generously as Mamie dares do? And even if they overcome the obstacles imposed by their differences and their secrets, can two people who live on different continents find a way to stay connected after the tour?

This is a book that succeeds on two levels. First, reading The Sweet Life is a sensory experience as Struth evokes the sights and smells and tastes of Tuscany and the warmth and vitality of Julian’s Italian family and friends. Second, Mamie and Julian are interesting, complex characters whom the reader will find sympathetic and engaging. The wounds inflicted by their losses are deep and serve as a reminder that grief does not operate according to a common timetable. Even as Mamie begins to live again, triggers can overwhelm her with heartbreak. Much of Julian’s life has been shadowed by the deaths of his parents. As these two gradually begin to trust each other, the reader will root for them to triumph over their fears. However, romance readers should be warned that the conclusion is not a traditional HEA.

Beppe, the bus driver, and the Woodstock Wanderers are delightful and add a pleasing touch of levity to the group. Readers who belong to the Woodstock Generation or who are fans of classic rock will enjoy all the musical references. I also appreciated the cross-generational friendship that developed between Mamie, who is thirty-nine, and her tour mates.

Struth excels at creating dimensional characters, vivid settings, and thematic explorations of secrets and trust. She does so again in this introduction to a new series. I give this one a definite thumbs up.

Purchase Links

Amazon | iBooks | Google | Kobo

Link to Rafflecopter tour giveaway.

Link to tour schedule.

Winners - - PJ's Five-Star Favorites

The randomly chosen winners are:

Alina P

Book of choice from bookdepository.com

 $10 maximum value

and

Patricia Bennett Barber

Print copy of The Duchess Deal and 

Montana Heat:Escape to You

Congratulations!

Please send your full name and mailing address to:

theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com

Winner - - Nancy Northcott

The randomly chosen winner of a signed copy of

The Deathbrew Affair by Nancy Northcott is:

Debbie Meredith

Congratulations!

Please send your full name and mailing address to:

theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com

Coming Attractions

Wow, September sure went fast, didn't it? I hope you all enjoyed my birthday month as much as I did. October has arrived and, in my part of the country, has brought cooler temperatures and signs that autumn is finally here. Leaves are starting to turn, pumpkins grace doorsteps, and here in the Carolinas, we're enjoying crystal clear days and the stunning, deep blue sky for which we're known. It's my favorite time of year! This month also brings many new books, the end of a popular historical series, and the beginning of others. We hope you'll join us for all the fun October is sure to bring.

First up this month, on Monday, October 2, is the TLC Review Tour for The Sweet Life by Sharon Struth. Stop by to read what Janga has to say about this new women's fiction novel. Reading that it's set in Italy's Tuscany region was all I needed to know to add this one to my buy list!




Sunday, October 15 brings this month's On Second Thought review from Janga. Don't forget to stop by to see which reissued book has caught Janga's attention this month. 

This month, Elizabeth Hoyt brings her popular Maiden Lane series to a conclusion. Join us Tuesday, October 17 when we host the tour for the twelfth and final book, Duke of Desire. 










It may be October but romance is already getting that holiday feeling. Janga and I take a look at six Christmas themed romances from St. Martin's Press on Wednesday, October 18. Join us as we share our 
thoughts on With this Christmas Ring by Manda Collins, A Season of You by Emma Douglas, Deck the Halls by Donna Alward, Christmas at Two Love Lane by Kieran Kramer, Hope at Christmas by Nancy Naigle, and The Christmas Cowboy Hero by Donna Grant. 

Wendy LaCapra is back with a new historical romance and we'll be hosting the blog tour on Thursday, October 19. Join us as we turn the Dish spotlight on Her Duke at Daybreak. 

On Sunday, October 22, I'll be in Richardson, Texas with 30 fabulous romance authors and many enthusiastic romance readers at Lorraine Heath's Buns & Roses Romance Tea for Literacy. Are any of you attending? I'll love to meet you if you are! Click here for more information on the tea. There are still a few tickets left. Ticket sales end October 15. 

The TLC tour for Debbie Mason's Sugarplum Way stops here on Friday, October 27. Don't miss this new story in Mason's heartwarming Harmony Harbor series. 

 



We're celebrating two holidays with Deb Marlowe novellas on Monday, October 30. First, we get a little spooky with Lady Tamsyn and the Pixie's Curse (originally published in Bedeviled:The Haunting of Castle Keyvnor) then it's an early Christmas with "Lord Locryn and the Pixie's Kiss" (part of the new Charmed at Christmas anthology (Christmas at Castle Keyvnor Book 1)




That's what's happening here at The Romance Dish in October. What are you looking forward to this month?