#CBR11 Book 62: "Ride with Me" by Ruthie Knox

Page count: 328 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR11 Bingo: Travel

Tom is a brooding loner with a past, who gave up the corporate life and now works as a bike mechanic. He's estranged from most of his family, with the exception of his sister. Determined to cycle the Trans-America trail, from Oregon to Virginia, he's annoyed when he discovers said sister has been e-mailing someone (as him) to arrange for a riding partner. When he finds out that the "Alex" his sister has been e-mailing is, in fact, a Lexie, he is even more frustrated. He doesn't want company, but he also feels bad about leaving Lexie without any sort of protection on the journey. They agree to cycle together until Tom can find someone else for Lexie to ride safely with.

Lexie's parents met on the Trans-Am trail during the seventies, and she and her brother had always planned on doing the ride together. Then her brother went and married a woman with no interest in cycling, and Lexie has to decide whether she wants to do the ride by herself. Since no one answers her initial ad for a companion when it's obvious that she's a woman, she places a new one that seems more ambiguous. She figures that once all the details are ironed out, whomever agreed to ride with her could be persuaded to go along with the plan. She's not really expecting to meet a really hot, but taciturn and angry guy, with what seems to be very sexist views of female cyclists. Because he seems to take it as read that she'll be attracted to him, Lexie makes up a fictional husband to make sure the arrogant man is put in his place.

While both are incredibly annoyed by the other, they eventually grow to like one another and become friends over the course of their journey. Tom manages to get Lexie to relax more and rely a lot less on fixed plans, maps and her bike computer. Lexie gets Tom to open up more and gradually begin to interact with the people around him. Of course, the more time they spend together, the more the attraction between them grows, as well, and that fictional husband of Lexie's becomes quite the obstacle. Tom was cheated on by his now ex-wife and is determined never to be a part of any form of adultery. Having cycled thousands of miles together perpetuating the lie, Lexie is worried about how Tom will actually react if she tells him the truth.

As far as I can recall, this is the first romance novel I've ever read focused on cycling. It's a road trip romance, but the mode of transportation is bicycles, rather than a car, and these people are pretty serious about their hobby. On the other hand, as cycling cross country is a time consuming process, there is really not a smidge of the insta-love here. Tom and Lexie's journey takes many months and they have a lot of time to initially annoy each other, before the sparks fly, the truth comes out and they begin to get on (and get it on) passionately. During the first half of the book, the conflict is Tom and Lexie's differing views of how the journey should be conducted and them being seeming opposites. Once they start steaming up the tent every night (not to mention apparently having as much amorous time al fresco as possible), they are both in agreement that neither is looking for long term commitment, and their affair will end as soon as they reach Virginia. They seem to have very different plans for the future, and initially it seems impossible that they could continue a relationship after completing their long journey.

I've read a fair few Ruthie Knox novels in previous years, but she's not as prolific as a lot of other contemporary writers out there, and so I have a tendency to forget about her, only to rediscover her again every so often. Each time I pick up one of her books, I'm surprised by how witty and enjoyable it is to read, with great chemistry between the leads, clever dialogue and some really steamy smexy times. I still have a few of her older books on my TBR list, and should probably do myself the favour of reading them before I completely forget how much I tend to like her books.

Judging a book by its cover: See, it's not just hockey romances that have prominent man-titty on the cover. A book about cycling can too, even though the hero is described as wearing t-shirts for most of the scenes that aren't *insert funky bass line here*. Also, since the hero is described as having several prominent tattoos, it would have been nice to have that reflected in the cover image.

Crossposted by Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 50: "Flirting with Disaster" by Ruthie Knox

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Katie Clark went with her boyfriend when he wanted to move to Alaska and worked to save up for her own college education while putting him through college. Knowing that her family weren't huge fans, she didn't tell them that she actually got married while they were there. By the time it was Katie's turn to go to college, it was too late. Her husband had emptied their joint savings account, leaving her a note saying he was off to find himself, hiking in Nepal. Katie slunk back home to Camelot, refusing to tell anyone in her family what really happened. Her brother Caleb let her move in with him and gave her a job as office manager in his new security firm, hoping to help her back on her feet.

Now newly divorced, Katie has finally come clean to her family and is determined to put her painful past behind her. She wants to reinvent herself as a confident, sophisticated woman and a full agent in her brother's security firm. She's convinced him to give her a chance to prove herself, trying to figure out who is stalking and threatening a famous singer-songwriter. As there was plenty of sparks the first time Katie met their new client, she's hoping that maybe she can blow off some steam while forgetting her weasel of an ex-husband once and for all. As long as her partner on the assignment, the silent, brooding and constantly disapproving Sean Owens, doesn't sabotage everything for her.

Sean Owens isn't entirely sure that Katie even remembers him from high school, when he was the geeky kid sitting behind her in math class, while she was off with the cool kids. Suffering from a crippling stuttering problem, Sean has mostly managed to control it, except for when he's in the presence of or thinking of Katie. Then he stutters so badly he can't even pronounce her name. Actually the part-owner of a successful internet security company in California, Sean only returned to Camelot to bury his mother and pack up her house and put it on the market, but when he met Caleb Clark in a bar and was offered a job in his security firm, he found that he liked the idea of a new challenge. He hadn't envisioned having to work so close to Katie every day, and when he's sent off on an assignment with her, it's clear he won't be able to give her the silent treatment for much longer. One thing is clear, he's not about to stand around and watch the woman he's had a crush on for over a decade, throw herself at the rock star they're hired to protect.

Unlike with the previous stories in this series, Flirting with Disaster has a mystery subplot, as Sean and Katie try to figure out who has been sending threatening messages to Judah Pratt, the aging music star they're sent to help. Their job is made more difficult by the fact that Judah is clearly hiding a whole host of secrets and seems very reluctant to be entirely forthcoming, even though his life might be in real danger. To readers who may be worried about a love triangle - he doesn't really present much of a threat to Sean, more of a motivating factor for the man to finally reveal his true feelings for Katie.

While the other Clark siblings, Amber and Caleb, seem to have fallen very quickly for their partners (although we only really see the beginnings of Amber's relationship), Katie and Sean have actually known each other since high school, although they've spent most of their lives since then apart. By the time this book starts, Sean has been back in Camelot for a few months already, though, working with Caleb and trying his damndest to never have to engage Katie in direct conversation - to the point where Katie is convinced he pretty much hates her. Instead, the opposite is true. Having had a crush on her in high school, Sean was not exactly thrilled to discover that his feelings returned with a vengeance upon his return to Camelot.

As soon as Sean and Katie are actually forced to spend time together for more than brief moments, Katie realises that she's seriously misjudged her new working partner. This is nice, as it avoids a load of complications and unnecessary drama. The possible complicating factor of Judah is also very quickly dealt with - he's not a rival of any sort to Sean and in fact becomes an important friend and support for Katie.

Having made a number of poor decisions in her personal life, allowing herself to be used by her ex-husband until she was left stranded in Alaska without barely a penny to her name, despite the years she put in supporting him. She's always given everything of herself to help others, but is coming to realise that a person can be too giving and helpful and that it shouldn't come at the expense at your own health and happiness. She's so eager to reinvent herself and prove her worth to her brother and family. As the story progresses, she comes to accept that a lot of the qualities she thought were pure weaknesses and that she needed to change, can in fact be assets and that the image she had of what she needed to become might not be what will actually bring her happiness. She may not have what it takes to be a good security agent, but she has excellent interpersonal skills and a real gift for getting people to open up to her.

Sean is a really great hero. Self-conscious and awkward around Katie because of his stutter, he is also a very successful businessman who along with his best friend turned their teenage hacking hobby into a lucrative internet security business. Unfortunately, coinciding with his mother's death, the company is facing challenges and he's feeling the pressure to come up with something new and innovative to put his company back in the forefront, ahead of their competitors. He's worked hard to overcome his confidence problems and speech impediment. When he finally cracks and has no choice but to talk to Katie, he's surprised to discover that she seems completely unfazed by his stutter and once he starts relaxing around her, his stutter becomes much less of a problem, as well.

Once again, this book felt realistic and the characters were nice people to hang out with on the page. While it turns out Sean is really wealthy, this wasn't a "billionare and the secretary" type of story. Both Katie and Sean have a number of personal challenges that they need to work through in order to get their relationship to function properly, no matter how scorching their chemistry is when they finally let go and jump each other. The slow build of their relationship, coupled with the satisfying solution to the mystery of who is stalking and threatening Judah made this another fun and quick read. Based on the books I've now read by her, Knox is about one book away from becoming an auto-buy author for me.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 49: "How to Misbehave" by Ruthie Knox

Page count: 96 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Having really enjoyed Along Came Trouble, I wanted to check out more of Ruthie Knox' Camelot series, and as they are extremely reasonably priced, I went out and bought the entire thing. This novella is a sort of prequel, showing how Amber, Caleb (the hero in Along Came Trouble)'s older sister met her husband Tony.

Amber Clark is your quintessential good girl, working as a program director at the Camelot Community Centre, spending quiet nights in the apartment in the complex her parents' manage. She never steps a foot out of line, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have fantasies. Quite a few of them involve the handsome building foreman who's been doing work around the Community Centre. When there's a tornado warning, Amber is forced to take shelter down in the basement with the hunky contractor, discovering that his name is Tony Mazzara, who's absolutely noticed Amber noticing him, so to speak.

Stuck in the dark basement with him for hours, Amber discover that Tony is terrified of the dark and they talk about everything under the sun to distract him from his panic. The unusual situation in the dark allows Amber to let go of some of her inhibitions and she's able to tease and flirt with Tony in a different way than she's managed with guys in the past. By the time the literal hurricane is over, the tension between Amber and Tony has reached quite a stormy pitch of its own. Is Amber as ready to flirt with Tony back in the light of day?

This constitutes a teeny tiny spoiler for Along Came Trouble, where Amber and Tony have three kids and a puppy, and have been married for the best end of a decade. So it wasn't exactly a surprise (like it ever is in a romance) that they find a way to relate to each other even when they're out of the storm shelter basement.

Even though this is a fairly short novella, Amber and Tony are nicely developed as characters, not just cardboard cutouts who meet and decide to have sex. They both have baggage in their back story which could create problems in a relationship, but because they're forced to spend hours talking on their first "date" together, they're able to get past a lot of awkwardness and move towards a more open and honest relationship later in the story. This was a nice little addition, showing me more of the Clark family dynamics and I be moving on to little sister Katie's story next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 48: "Along Came Trouble" by Ruthie Knox

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I was given a free copy of this through NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review.

Single mother and entertainment lawyer Ellen Callahan just wants to live a quiet life, which is not as easy after her twin brother, an international pop superstar, fell in love with and was photographed spending time with her pregnant next-door neighbour. Now she keeps having to throw paparazzi off her lawn, which is vexing, to be sure, but it's not like she needs a bodyguard.

Her brother disagrees, and Ellen finds security expert Caleb Clark on her doorstep, determined to do his job, whether Ellen likes it or not. The locks on her doors are flimsy, she hasn't got adequate lighting on her porch, her yard is completely open for anyone to wander in - it's a nightmare from a private security point of view. Ellen grew up in her famous' twin's shadow, always pushed to the side by their ambitious and fame-hungry mother. She then went on to nearly abnegate herself completely during her marriage to a narcissistic, cheating alcoholic, but finally had enough when she discovered she was pregnant and demanded a divorce. Having spent the last few years, raising her boy alone, learning to be self-sufficient and independent, she is not about to have anyone tell her how to run her life or fence her yard, not even someone as handsome and charming as Caleb.

Having spent years on deployment in Iraq, Caleb feels a heavy responsibility to take care of his family after such a long time away. His mother is over-protective and still clearly convinced he'll up and leave them at any second. His father, always vibrant and physical in the past, is recovering from a stroke and can no longer take as active a role in managing the apartment complex he owns. Caleb's younger sister Katie shares a house with him, having returned after nearly a decade in Alaska without her boyfriend and no apparent wish to talk about the subject. The security business he started on his return to Camelot is still in the early stages of development and a high profile client like Jamie Callahan is Caleb's chance to really make it a success. So he really needs to convince both Ellen and her neighbour, Carly, neither of whom seem interested in listening to him at all, that they need to adapt to change their behaviour and shield themselves from the sudden press attention, or he's going to be replaced real fast. The raging attraction he feels towards his client's sister is a complication he wasn't expecting at all, and it's causing quite a lot of complications when he really needs to keep his focus crystal clear.

I'm making a concerted effort to read a whole bunch of the books I've been granted through NetGalley in the past year or so, and it seems that every time I go digging and pick up one of the books, I am so very pleasantly surprised and regret not reading the book ages ago. This book is no exception - it's just such a delightful contemporary romance, between two head-strong individuals who nonetheless seem very realistic. Even though Caleb is determined to keep their relationship purely professional, as he's working for Ellen's brother, his resolve lasts for less than forty-eight hours after actually meeting Ellen, helped along by both his old friend Carly and his sister Katie. Ellen doesn't exactly have a lot of casual experience with men. but decides she wants a no strings attached fling with Caleb, the first guy she's really been interested in since her marriage ended. Caleb, who as well as being very attracted to Ellen, starts bonding with her little boy Henry the minute they meet, rather quickly realises that he wants something a lot more permanent with the stubborn and opinionated lawyer.

In addition to the main romance between Ellen and Caleb, there's the secondary plot involving her brother Jamie and Carly, who are already in the complication part of their romance when the book kicks off. Really interestingly, it seems Knox initially set out to write about a Justin Timberlake-alike pop star falling in love, but the secondary characters kept stealing the scenes, so she retooled the book to be about them instead. When the book starts, Jamie is off in LA, having fled Camelot after he and Carly was caught on camera by a paparazzi after a somewhat careless post made by Carly on her blog. A big argument later, and the two are separated. Carly has spent years trying to get pregnant, only to find that by the time she achieved her goal, her husband no longer really wanted her or the baby. Then, already pregnant and determined to be a single mum (inspired in part by Ellen next door), she met Jamie and they fell in love. It's clear that Jamie, while a nice guy, has never really met many challenges, having been spoiled and pampered by his fame-hungry mother, then living the life of a celebrity. He's never had to fight for anything at all in his life, and having to really work to win Carly back, is oh so good for him.

Both Ellen and Caleb are professionals who are very good at their jobs. They start out with very different expectations for their relationship. Ellen needs it to be very casual, because having been submissive to people for so much of her life, only to finally establish herself as a competent, independent and self-sufficient woman and mother after her divorce, she's afraid to rely on anyone else ever again, believing it will lead to her becoming subjugated and weak again. Caleb, having spent so long as a soldier in dangerous areas of the world, has none of Ellen's confidence issues. Returning to his home town and seeing how much his family members need his help now, he's got no problem with the idea of settling down himself, and getting a ready-made family in Ellen and Henry (who he insists calling Hank every chance he gets, because he loves how it annoys Ellen) would just be a bonus.

One of the things I really liked about the book is that both the primary and secondary heroine are single mothers, one who's already proven that she can manage to raise her child more or less on her own, with her friend determined to do the same, while both the heroes, Caleb and Jamie, seem to have absolutely no problems stepping into a fatherhood role for kids who are not their own biological offspring, without this in any way diminishing their masculinity in any way. Frankly, I found both of  them more attractive exactly because they were so willing to step up and take an active paternal role to children not originally their own.

This is only the second ever Ruthie Knox book I've ever read, but based on the way she writes really relatable and believable protagonists, as well as a fully formed cast of really nice supporting characters, I really should make it a priority to check out more of her books as soon as possible. I plan to glom my way through the entire Camelot series on my way to finishing my Cannonball.

Crossposted on my Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 99. "About Last Night" by Ruthie Knox

Page count: 230 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Cath Talarico is a Chicago girl trying to make a new life for herself in London She has made several big mistakes in her life, but for the past two years, she's been working her ass of, being New Cath, who stays out of trouble, never does anything wild and crazy, and works diligently on an exhibition at the V&A, hoping to earn herself an assistant curatorship, despite the fact that she has no formal qualifications. Her life is so predictable that she can tell tell exactly which of the many commuters she shares a train with every morning, will show up at what time.

After a disastrous blind date (that Cath only agreed to in the hopes of securing a particular item for the upcoming exhibition), wakes up in a strange flat, and vaguely remembers being taken home by the man she only thinks of as City - one of her fellow commuters, always impeccably dressed in a three piece suit, who clearly works in the financial district, probably as a banker. She remembers enough that she knows she wasn't taken advantage of in any way, and is touched when she discovers he's left a new toothbrush and a clean towel out for her. When she's freshened up, she discovers that City, who is indeed a banker, in reality called Nev Chamberlain (yes, after the Prime Minister), also paints, and may not be the elitist rich guy she imagined him.

Nev works in the family's bank, but is absolutely miserable doing so. His older brother presents him with an ultimatum from their autocratic mother. Nev will get a lucrative promotion in the bank, but only if he agrees to get married to some suitable young lady. His family are frankly appalled that he's moved away from their sphere of influence, and is trying to express himself through paintings. He's just as attracted to Cath as she is to him, and soon they're conducting a passionate love affair, even though Cath refuses to tell him where she lives, or what she does for a living, and staunchly refuses to let him take her on any real dates. She has four tattoos on her back, as permanent reminders of the past mistakes she has made, but guards her secrets and will only occasionally let something significant about herself slip.

It's quite clear that Nev and Cath are complete opposites, and with Cath's previous experiences, she is very wary of new commitment. She's an artist with a dark and troubled past, and more trust issues than you can count. Nev is from a rich and privileged background, and pretty much hates his life, but is too unsure of his own abilities as an artist to break out of the life his family's expectations has made for him. Can the two of them ever actually make it work?

About Last Night was one of this year's RITA finalists for contemporary romance. I'd seen it favourably reviewed in a few places, but when a friend mentioned that knitting played a central part in the plot that I became really curious about reading it. It's a quick and very enjoyable read. The sexy parts are very steamy indeed, but that wouldn't have mattered if I didn't believe the chemistry between the characters, and their developing relationship. It's obvious from how different the characters are that their backgrounds and emotional baggage are going to lead to some form of conflict, but I was especially impressed with how that conflict both played out, and was resolved. Cath is an understandably damaged and cautious heroine. Nev is a great hero. He makes mistakes, but works hard to make up for them as well. There is absolutely a fair bit of angst in this book, but unsurprisingly, what with this being a romance, it all works out well in the end, in a satisfying and fairly realistic way, considering the genre. Well recommended.