Begin Again – Book Review

 

Title: Begin Again (Again #1)
Author: Mona Kasten
Release Date: October 10th, 2017
Age Category/ Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Bastei Entertainment

He makes the rules. She breaks them all.

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Dear Bridget, I Want You – Book Review

 

Dear Bridget,

I’m writing this letter because it’s highly doubtful I’ll ever garner the courage to say this to your face.

So, here goes.

We’re totally wrong for each other. You’re the proper single mum with a good head on your shoulders. I’m just the carefree British doctor passing through town and temporarily living in your converted garage until I head back to England.

But here’s the thing… for some bloody reason, I can’t stop thinking about you in very inappropriate ways.

The Highlander’s Princess Bride – Book Review

 

The Highlander’s Princess Bride is both a charming Regency romp and a searing indictment of male attitudes towards women’s rights in the period, and I absolutely loved every word of it. It has everything you might want from a Highlander romance; a sexy, brooding Scotsman – in fact, a whole family of seven brothers – a clan laird, a castle, and more kilts than you could shake a skean dhu at.

Where things get interesting with this novel is with the princess in question, because Victoria isn’t really a princess. She is, in fact, an illegitimate daughter of the Prince Regent and a Brighton barmaid, and being of such dubious background, she knows very well that she will spend her whole life fighting an uphill battle to gain any kind of respectability.

Nevertheless, Victoria is absolutely no quitter. She’s a professional governess and she’s very, very good at what she does. When her employer’s rakish brother tries to force himself on her, she has no compunctions about defending herself.

She really didn’t intend for him to end up dead. Now, accused of murder, she turns for help to some of her powerful relations, who promptly find her another position safely out of the way while things quiet down. Beggars can’t be choosers, though, and instead of two or three nice young ladies to teach piano and French to, she’s shipped off to a drafty Scottish castle to try and educate a whole gang of barbarian Scots to fit into polite society.

Nicholas Kendrick, Earl of Arnprior, has too much tragedy and disaster in his background to want any more trouble on his doorstep. When Victoria manages against all the odds to not only tame his brothers, but win the respect of his Sassenach-hating grandfather, he finds himself hopelessly in love with her even though he knows she’s keeping secrets.

He’s the most wonderful hero I’ve ever read in a Regency romance; there’s an amazing line where he tells her that he knows she has her secrets (right after he just confessed all of his) but that it’s all fine. He doesn’t need to know all her secrets to love her, and maybe one day she’ll trust him enough to share.

Of course, finding out she’s accused of murder is a rather large secret, and he has a brief moment of shock, but to his credit he gets over himself within moments, knowing very well that she’s not capable of what she’s accused of. The loyalty he and his brothers show Victoria is utterly wonderful; I find myself hoping that Vanessa Kelly starts a whole new series of 7 Brides for the Kendrick Brothers, because believe me, they all deserved them.

There was a large cast of characters in this book, some of them who have obviously featured in previous novels. It wasn’t necessary to be familiar with them, though, as everyone got their own neat little introduction. Fans of Ms. Kelly’s prior works will enjoy revisiting with former favorites, and those new to her work will, as I was, be inspired to go and hunt down all her other books!

This is a fabulous book and I wish I could give it more than 5 stars, but 5 will have to do.

 

 

Guest review contributed by Caitlyn Lynch. Want an honest reviewer? You’ve got it. Caitlyn tells it like it is in her book reviews

Bargain Book of the Week – Caught Up in Raine

 

This series highlights cheap, free, or discounted books to give you, dear reader, the most options on what to read.

$0.99

Forty-two and widowed, romance writer Jillian Grant believes hospitals equal death. Plagued by loss and convinced more is imminent when her aunt ends up in critical condition after heart surgery; she has come to equate the absence of pain with happiness. When she spots a hot, young landscaper working on the hospital grounds with an eerie resemblance to the male lead in her next novel, she convinces him to pose as her cover model.

Bride of Falcon – Book Review

 
When is love not enough?

After five Seasons, Ivonne Wimpleton has accepted she’s an haute ton undesirable. Her only suitors are men desperate to get their hands on her marriage settlement. Guarded and aloof, and always a bit ungraceful, she’s resigned herself to spinsterhood. She doesn’t mind her fate since Chancy Faulkenhurst, the man who once held her heart, left for India without an explanation.

Book Quote Corner – Dirty Little Secret

A Dream for Love – Book Review

 

Description per Goodreads:

WILL THEY DARE TO DREAM A DREAM FOR LOVE?

A single mother with a secret past. A Hollywood star who’s life is anything but hidden. Will the past deprive them of a future? Or will they dare to dream a dream for love?

Most of All You – Book Review

 

 

Most of All You: A Love Story by Mia Sheridan

From the New York Times bestselling author of Archer’s Voice, Mia Sheridan delivers a heartwrenching new stand-alone contemporary romance.

Dirty Red – Book Review

 

About this Book:

Dear Opportunist,

You thought you could take him from me, but you lost. Now, that he’s mine I’ll do anything to keep him. Do you doubt me? I have everything that was supposed to be yours. In case you were wondering; he doesn’t ever think about you anymore. I won’t let him go….ever.
Dirty Red

Leah Smith finally has everything she has ever wanted. Except she doesn’t. Her marriage feels more like a loan than a lifelong commitment, and the image she has worked so hard to build is fraying before her eyes. With a new role and a past full of secrets, Leah must decide how far she is willing to go to keep what she has stolen.

 

My Review:

“A woman should never have to fight so hard to be with a man. He should just want her.”
See I disliked Leah from the first book itself but this book broke the bounds. How can a person hold so many negative qualities- jealousy, obsession, poison, backstabbing, manipulative bitch = Leah. But still, I kinda felt bad for her. She did everything she could for Caleb and played it dirty too but nope, you just can’t come between two people who are in love.
This book was maddening. I have always adored Olivia’s badassery but this time I was impressed with Leah’s scheming ass. Say what you will about her, she has got brains. She is fierce and there isn’t a depth she wouldn’t fall to just to keep Caleb with her.
“It’s like he’s seeing the only thing that matters. I am sickly familiar with the way he looks at Olivia because it is the way I look at him.”
You can hate her for being the villain but after reading the book, you’ll also understand her better. And I am so impressed with Tarryn’s writing.
The way they both met, “This was perfect. I was about a ten on the poison scale. If he needed venom, I could inject it directly into his neck.”
And the way it turned into an obsession.
“I knew he never loved me like he loved her, but I wanted him anyway. I knew his love for me was conditional, but I wanted him anyway. I knew I was the second choice, but I wanted him anyway. But, this was too much.”
Reading this was one hell of a ride. Now on to the last book.

 

 

Guest review contributed by Alextheshadowgirl’s Blog. Using gifs and memes to bring humor to her reviews, she expands her reading to many different genres. She strives to make her reviews simple and clear and doesn’t mind if you call her a nerd.

Throwback Thursday: The Silent Songbird – Book Review

 

The Silent Songbird by Melanie Dickerson

About the Book

Evangeline longs to be free, to live in the world outside the castle walls. But freedom comes at a cost.

Evangeline is the ward and cousin of King Richard II, and yet she dreams of a life outside of Berkhamsted Castle, where she might be free to marry for love and not politics. But the young king betroths her to his closest advisor, Lord Shiveley, a man twice as old as Evangeline. Desperate to escape a life married to a man she finds revolting, Evangeline runs away from the king and joins a small band of servants on their way back to their home village.