#CBR11 Books 102-105: Short reads to finish off my reading year

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen
Page count: 133 pages
Rating: 4 stars

In this novella which concludes Kelly Bowen's The Devils of Dover series, we finally find out more about the mysterious King, who has been popping up in Bowen's books for a long time. A shadowy London crime lord with connections to smuggling, art forgery, theft and all sorts of other untoward business, he is not a man to cross. He discovers that a man he believed to be dead, a man who ruined his childhood and set him pretty directly on the path to where he is now, has resurfaced in London, and is hell bent on revenge.

Lucky for him, there is a woman of unique talents when it comes to delivering justice, whom he caught trying to steal from him. King makes a deal with the deadly Adeline Archambault and promises her more than she ever believed was possible, if she stays in London and helps him finally get justice from the man who betrayed him.

I've always liked King and suspected that he was more moral than some of his previous appearances made him seem. No one becomes a feared and undisputed crime boss in London without everyone believing you are utterly ruthless and without weakness. I'm not sure what background I imagined for him, but I've been hoping he would get his own story for a long time now. Adeline is, as Bowen's heroines tend to be, resilient, brave, resourceful and very good at her chosen profession. She has a lot of pain in her past too, which is probably why she's so attractive to King. I liked them a lot as a couple, and am sorry this was just a novella. I think the story was a bit too hurried, and would have liked a lot more page time with both characters.

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is fine, but nothing special. There's almost too much red there. I also wish that the lady cover model had been wearing trousers, which Adeline seemed to prefer to do for much of the story.

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick
Page count: 145 pages
Rating: 2 stars

An author goes to a remote mountain cabin to write a book and ruminates on the craft of writing while doing so. There are a lot of thoughts about how writers create and why, and also a lot of ponderings about Mary Shelley and her creation of Frankenstein back in 1816. The longer the author stays by his lonesome, the weirder and creepier things get. Where do monsters come from, really? Why is the human mind so in need of monsters to represent something to us?

I don't think I would ever have picked this book up if it wasn't the January pick for my fantasy/sci-fi book club. In the plus column, it was short and a very quick read. I was able to get through it, even when my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and my sinuses were aching, fighting the cold I caught just before Christmas. As I have mentioned before, horror isn't my preferred genre. There are definitely mostly horror elements to this. There isn't all that much that I think qualifies it as fantasy, unless you count the unnamed author's actual conversations with Mary Shelley (but they could just as easily just be a sign of the madness descending on the author). I read and reviewed this just after submitting my choices for best and worst novels of the year. It would absolutely be a contender for worst book, but the author was at least trying to do something interesting with this little novella, I just don't think it worked for me. I'm therefore going to rank it as my second worst read of the year, and will be very interested in what the rest of the members of my book club think of it.

Judging a book by its cover: It's a creepy book, it's got a creepy cover. I read an e-book version, where the cover is black on a white background. I think I prefer the paperback cover, which has the exact same image and design, but the background is black, with a white silhouette.

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau
Page count: 100 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Nick Wong is an advertising executive ("like in Mad Men?"), who very much enjoys his lifestyle as a wealthy, handsome (he apparently looks a lot like Henry Golding - nice!) and carefree bachelor in Toronto. He has a gorgeous penthouse on the 53rd floor with gorgeous views of the city, he can go to the best restaurants, clubs and bars and meet beautiful women. He can find and eat amazing food from all over the world. A completely different existence from the place where he grew up, boring Mosquito Bay by Lake Huron. Nevertheless, he always dutifully goes home for Thanksgiving.

Lily Tseng was told by her long-term boyfriend that she was boring just before he dumped her. She really felt the sting of that, and has decided to do something very unlike herself, and have a one night stand. As she is sitting at a bar, talking out loud to herself, she is overheard by the gorgeous Nick, who is more than happy to buy her drinks, flatter her and help her with her new impulsive side. She ditches her friends and enjoys a long night of passionate fun with Nick, expecting never to see him again.

But fate wants it differently. Nick's parents and grandparents (well, his mother and grandmother, mostly) are sick of all four Wong siblings getting older and neither one of them settling down and providing grandchildren. So they've set each of the Wong children up with a blind date for Thanksgiving, using popular romance tropes as a guide. Lily, whose mother is a friend of  Nick's mother, shows up as his eldest brother Greg's date (she works for an engineering firm, he's an engineer). Nick's date on the other hand is a pig farmer ("we were going for opposites attract"). Obviously, the night doesn't entirely turn out the way the Wong parents had expected, as Nick, normally not one to want more than something casual with a woman, becomes determined to have more than just the one night with Lily (who he doesn't find the slightest bit boring).

My fellow Cannonballer and romance fan, Emmalita/Rochelle, is the one who really got me to notice Jackie Lau as a writer this year. She's read and recommended a lot of her books, and these little novellas, each set at a significant holiday over the course of a few months sounded like exactly the sort of thing my frazzled brain needs as entertainment during a stressful end of the year period. The idea of four siblings all being hounded to settle down by their parents, and using popular romance tropes to match them up is a very fun one, and I love how disastrous each of the parents' matchmaking attempts prove initially. It's also fun how Lau shows her knowledge of all the popular tropes by playing with them and subverting the readers' expectations somewhat.

Having now read a few of Lau's books, I can see why everyone warns you not to read them while hungry. There are so many descriptions of delicious food in here! Sure, the sex scenes are also hot and the banter between the characters is excellent, but the food, people. I think I was literally drooling at one point (although that could also have been because of my cold).

Judging a book by its cover: This is a very cute and cartoony cover, featuring some of the elements that are relevant for the story. You've obviously got the Thanksgiving spread on the table (and the beautiful autumnal colour scheme), but there's also the containers of boba tea (which Nick and Lily go to get on their first memorable night together).

A Second-Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

Page count: 94 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Greg Wong is about to drive from Toronto, where he lives and works as an engineer, back to Mosquito Bay to celebrate Christmas with his family. His mother asks him to give Tasha Edwards, his high school ex-girlfriend a ride, as she's also going home for Christmas and doesn't have access to a car. After the matchmaking shenanigans at Thanksgiving, Greg is instantly wary - is this another attempt at setting him up. It's been over fifteen years since he and Tasha broke up, as they were going to different universities, and they haven't seen each other since.

Tasha's mother has also been teasing her a bit, but Tasha has no intention of even considering getting back together with Greg. She has countless examples of why reconnecting with an ex is a bad idea, and besides, they have literally nothing in common. He's introverted, gruff and taciturn, only wanting to listen to public radio, while she's extroverted, talkative and would prefer to listen to Christmas songs and sing along loudly. Their mini road trip starts off badly when Tasha arrives late, and Greg keeps grumbling about how much the delay has caused them to have problems. Of course, in the hours in the car, she also starts remembering all the nice times they had together in the three years they dated, and how kind Greg always were to her.

Then there's the snow storm. Unable to actually drive all the way to Mosquito Bay, Greg and Tasha are forced to stop for the night. Except due to the horrible weather, there's only one motel room free, where the heating is broken, and there's only one bed. Back in the day, when they were teenagers, having a night alone in a room with a queen size bed would have been an incredible luxury. Now it's just awkward. Of course, the lack of heating means they have to snuggle close to keep warm, and before you know it, all those thoughts of what they used to have, make it tempting for Greg and Tasha to see if they can rekindle something.

Normally, two people jumping each other after only a few hours together would make me roll my eyes and complain loudly about insta-lust and how it's important to establish a relationship. But the brilliant thing with second chance romances is that the couple already know each other, they've already done the complicated and time consuming getting to know one another bit. Greg and Tasha dated for three years and were very happy together. They didn't break up over irreconcilable differences or cheating or some sort of acrimonious reason, but because they were going to be in different cities and figured that it was for the best, as they would probably grow apart anyway. Now both have had fifteen years to establish careers and proper grown up lives for themselves. They've both been in other relationships, but seem to never have quite had the same connection with anyone as they did with their first love.

I like how Jackie Lau takes all these popular romance tropes and plays with them. Here she manages to do an old lovers reunited story, and throw in road trip, forced proximity, the "there's only one bed" (more forced proximity) AND the couple are an opposites attract. She manages to show that while they are very different, Tasha and Greg compliment one another, and instead of finding the other's differences annoying and bothersome, they actually find it charming (at least after a little while).

Because they're stuck at a motel in a snow storm, there was a lot less of the tempting food descriptions in this one, as Greg and Tasha mostly eat granola bars and the like. So it turns out that Lau can write books that don't instantly make me hungry, as well.

Judging a book by its cover: Another cutesy cartoony cover, this one a bit more stylised for Christmas and not directly related to the contents of the book (if so, there should probably have been granola bars instead of candy canes) and a whole lot more snow everywhere.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 98-101: "Hidden Legacy" by Ilona Andrews (re-read)

Total page count: 1382 pages
Burn for Me - 4.5 stars
White Hot - 5 stars
Wildfire - 5 stars
Diamond Fire - 4.5 stars

Sapphire Flames, book 4 in the series (novellas only count as half instalments) and the continuation of the series came out in August (on my birthday - thank you, House Andrews, for your benevolence!). In the months leading up to that release, I wanted to re-read the previous books, so everything was fresh in my mind. The plan was that my husband would read them too (how am I married to a man who just simply refuses to read the same things I like and adore?) and then we would review all four under the "Two voices are better than one" square on this year's Cannonball Bingo. Unfortunately, due to his brain worms and a number of other factors, he never ended up even finishing his re-read of Burn for Me, let alone get round to reading any of the others. So instead, we had to go with plan B, a co-written review of Pumpkinheads (which was considerably faster for the husband to read than the nearly 1300 pages of these combined books).

This brings us to December, and me desperately scrambling to actually complete my double Cannonball. My work load this year is frankly depressing (if I'm not correcting and grading something, I'm probably planning the next task that needs to be corrected and graded). It also turns out that while maternity leave and taking care of a small baby leaves you with a fair amount of time to read (if your hormonal brain lets you concentrate on anything), being the mother of a very active and demanding toddler demands enough of what is left of my energy and intellectual capabilities once the work stress has done its damage, that I barely have the capacity for much of anything anymore. In the last month, I've barely even watched TV, we end up watching movie trailers and YouTube videos, because even a half hour episode of a show either takes up too much time, or demands too much of my mental faculties.

I pretty much have no choice but to write a rather rambling review of my re-read of these books, if I'm to have any chance to complete my double Cannonball (never give up, never surrender!) I can't have four books there on my "Read in 2019" shelf just standing there being un-reviewed, even if they are all re-reads. I've already linked to my original reviews at the top of this one, so anyone wanting plot summaries and such like, can just go check out what I wrote last time.

Why you should read the Hidden Legacy books by Ilona Andrews:

• Excellent plot. There's an over-arcing story going through all three of the first books, with a series of shadowy figures trying to destabilise the powers that be in Houston and our resourceful protagonists having to join forces to unmask and stop them, but there's also a self-contained story in each of the three books. While you will get more attached to the characters and invested in the bigger plot lines, Ilona Andrews also recaps the most important points in each book (without it seeming like too annoying regurgitation), so you could start with any book in the series and manage to follow along (but where's the fun in that?)
• Amazing world building. I have no idea where Ilona Andrews get their ideas from. The husband and wife writing team consistently, in each of the many books and series they have produced, manage to build and populate fascinating worlds, with interesting magical systems, supernatural abilities and creepy crawlies. The Hidden Legacy series is set in a world not all that different from our own - it's just that when magical powers were discovered, the magical elite developed and took power, with society having to change to adapt to that. The various types and variations of magic that they use in this book - so clever and inventive
• The supporting cast. One of my favourite things in all the different series that Ilona Andrews have created over the years is their ability to create wonderful and interesting supporting characters. If the protagonist is a loner, they make sure said person gets enough friends and eventually found family to support and back them. If the protagonist is part of a family, said family will probably be full of interesting, vibrant, demanding and usually supportive. If the protagonist in question comes from a dysfunctional family background, the authors will make sure that by the end of the story, that character has found a new set of people to lean on and belong to. In so many stories, children and adolescents are just annoying plot moppets. This is never the case in an Ilona Andrews story. In Hidden Legacy, Nevada is the breadwinner for her family, but she has her mother, grandmother, her two cousins and her younger sisters firmly on her side at all times. While her sisters and cousins bait and tease her and deeply exasperate her sometimes, they will also drop everything on a second's notice to come to her aid. 
• The protagonists. While Connor Rogan took a while to make me really like him, and make me believe he was worthy of Nevada, our heroine, Nevada Baylor had me won over by the end of the first chapter of the first book. She's had to work hard for a long time and has absolutely no time or patience for arrogant men who think they can order her around or swoop in and one up her. Once Connor realises just how isolated he's made himself, and what a remarkable woman he's found in Nevada, he more than does the legwork to prove himself an acceptable partner to her. 
• The action. There are always a lot of amazing action scenes in all of Ilona Andrews' books. This series is no exception. There are car chases, shoot outs, intense magical battles and more quiet power struggles - all fun.
• The humour. Ilona Andrews writes amazing banter between their romantic leads, but also has laugh out loud funny dialogue and situations involving supporting characters in each of their books. I frequently find myself laughing out loud more than once, in between biting my nails because of the tension and suspense.
• The original trilogy is already completed. While Diamond Fire is a novella introducing Nevada's younger sister Catalina as the protagonist and this story bridges the gap between the original trilogy and the new one (which begins with Sapphire Flames), the three books about Nevada and Connor and their attempts to stop the whole of Houston society being destabilised (all while falling in love and figuring out how they can have a future together) are finished and all out - so three great books to read, no waiting. 

I've re-read each of these books at least twice now, and can very much vouch for the quality and entertainment value of the stories. I really think Ilona Andrews just keep getting more talented with each new book they publish and feel lucky that I've been reading their books for so long. I have extremely few auto-buy authors anymore, but Ilona Andrews qualify not just for auto-buy, but pre-order. Then, once the books are out in paperback, I will pay again for physical copies. That's a very rare privilege.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Book 97: "My Fake Rake" by Eva Leigh

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Official book description:
Lady Grace Wyatt is content as a wallflower, focusing on scientific pursuits rather than the complications of society matches. But when a handsome, celebrated naturalist returns from abroad, Grace wishes, for once, to be noticed. Her solution: to "build" the perfect man, who will court her publicly and help her catch his eye. Grace's colleague, anthropologist Sebastian Holloway, is just the blank slate she requires.

In exchange for funding his passage on an expedition leaving London in a few months, Sebastian allows Grace to transform him from a bespectacled, bookish academic into a dashing—albeit fake—rake. Between secret lessons on how to be a rogue and exaggerated public flirtations, Grace's feelings for Sebastian grow from friendship into undeniable, inconvenient, real attraction. If only she hadn't hired him to help her marry someone else...

Sebastian is in love with brilliant, beautiful Grace, but their bargain is complete, and she desires another. Yet when he's faced with losing her forever, Sebastian will do whatever it takes to tell her the truth, even if it means risking his own future—and his heart.

My Fake Rake is a romance of the “I’ll pretend to date someone else to make the object of my affection truly notice me, but wait, I find I fancy the someone else more than the original object of my affection” variety, but with a role-reversal make-over twist.

A historical romance set in Regency England and written by Eva Leigh, My Fake Rake is my seventh book by this author. I generally find her work good fun, but I’m starting to worry that her quality is slipping. While I very much enjoyed her first trilogy, the Wicked Quills of London, I thought the books in her London Underground series were merely OK. This beginning of her new series (where the prologue finds what is clearly going to be the heroes of the future novels collected in one room for some sort of collective punishment a la The Breakfast Club) is her weakest one yet. I found My Fake Rake rather dull, especially as both the hero and heroine keep agonising about their attraction for the other without EVER having an honest conversation about it. I will give Eva Leigh’s future novels a chance because I liked the supporting character of the Duke of Rotherby, who has to help our hero and heroine actually pull off the makeover and fake dating ploy, as our protagonists are too socially awkward and inexperienced to figure out how to do this on their own. He’s the hero of the next book. This one, however, was nothing special and if you are curious about the author’s works, I would not recommend this particular effort. Go for something in her earliest trilogy instead.

The main plot of My Fake Rake focuses, as I mentioned earlier, on a makeover story with a twist. It is not the socially awkward heroine who needs a new wardrobe, but rather the hero. Sebastian Holloway, eldest son of a wealthy industry magnate is an avid anthropologist, but because his father has cut him off, he can’t actually afford to do people watching outside the isle of Britain, on the occasional wander. He is tall, blond and crippled by social anxiety. In case you’d like social media to help you provide some mental casting, Eva Leigh has Pinterest boards for each of her novels, and she has the delectable Alexander Skarsgård as her suggested Sebastian. The heroine, Lady Grace Wyatt, is a wallflower, but mostly by choice. She is well-read, clever and passionate about lizards and amphibians. Her scientific interests make her unappealing on the marriage mart. For those wondering, Eva Leigh imagines her looking like Allison Brie. ¨

Lady Grace’s father is ailing and wants her to marry and find a husband to take care of her before he dies. Lady Grace has nurtured a crush on a titled, dashing fellow scientist explorer for years, but he seems to view her more as a sister. Sebastian and Grace are close friends and frequent study buddies and Grace is clearly ignoring any possible attraction to him (he’s been in love with her for years, but would never dare suggest that he, a penniless, untitled nobody would be good enough for her, even if she didn’t keep talking to him about her crush on another guy for years). Once Sebastian’s old school chum, the Duke of Rotherby joins in to help Grace give Sebastian a proper makeover, it becomes apparent that Sebastian is, in fact, a certifiable hottie, and Grace is forced to reconsider which man she actually wants. Many complications ensue before our nerdy couple move forward together secure in their love and commitment.

While there is far too much back and forth nonsense where Grace and Sebastian clearly fancy the pants off each other (she literally gets short of breath when he removes his spectacles at one point), they spend far too much time assuring themselves of why they couldn’t possibly voice their attraction towards the other. Even after they’ve kissed several times, they’re able to explain it away as something other than genuine passion and infatuation. This got tiresome. The Duke of Rotherby, the main supporting character made the story more bearable, but I still kept putting the book down and finding excuses not to read more quite a few times. It’s fun that the author is trying to basically take 80s high school rom com plots and turn them into Regency romances, but this one didn’t entirely work out.

Huge thank you and shout-out to my fellow kissing book aficionado, Mrs. Julien, whose romance novel review template (tm) I resurrected to review this novel. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I'm normally a big fan of both the colours red and purple, I'm not sure they go together very well on this cover. It all looks a bit lurid, and I'm not a big fan of either the bright yellow or that rather spindly font they've chosen for the book's title either. At least neither of the cover models appear to be wearing wildly anachronistic clothing, for a change.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 96: "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern

Page count: 502 pages
Audio book length: 13 hrs 40 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

I first read this book back in 2011, during Cannonball III. I revisited it a few years later, to see if it was as magical and unusual a reading experience as I remembered, and I still pretty much loved it. This autumn, trying to challenge myself and move outside my comfort zone, I joined a book club and despite my busy work schedule and my extreme tendency for introversion, I've actually managed to go to every meeting since September. This was the December book, and so I had the perfect excuse to re-read the novel once more, this time in audio. I found Jim Dale's narration to be very good, although I'm not sure he did all of the female characters' voices justice.

Re-reading and then discussing a book I love with near-strangers with different opinions was an interesting experience for me. From month to month, it varies how many show up to the meetings, and also how many who actively take part in the discussion. For December, turn-out was unusually high, and a lot of the members had feelings they wanted to share. To my dismay, many of them seemed not to like the book all that much, or to have serious problems with it. Since I still pretty much loved the book, that wasn't the easiest thing to hear.

So what were problems that fellow members of my book club had with this book? Quite a few people thought the romance between Marco and Celia to be either far too underdeveloped or wholly unnecessary. She didn't really make the reader see why exactly they were so drawn to one another, it all had a bit of a fated mate feel to it, which is an unpopular trope. A few thought Isobel, Marco's jilted girlfriend, would have been more interesting if she'd turned out to be villainous. Several were of the opinion that Morgenstern's writing was too unfocused and all over the place, and that she didn't really go into depth about any of the things that were truly interesting - like the inhabitants of the circus and how the strange magical stasis affected them.

There was agreement that the best bits of the book were the sections seen through Bailey and Herr Thiessen, through whose eyes we really understand more of what makes the circus just so fascinating and appealing. I also think that everyone felt that our doomed lovers had some pretty dreadful father figures in their lives, and that the physical and emotional abuse they both went through was awful.

As is always the case at our book club meetings, a good third of the attendees had either not read the book at all, and just showed up for the social aspect, or at least not finished the book before the meeting. No one seemed to have loved the book as much as I do, which I found very sad, as while I can see a lot of some people's complaints, I still very much love the book. I'm desperately sorry that the Cirque de Rêve is entirely fictional and not a place that can actually be visited.

Judging a book by its cover: My copy of this book has the UK cover and I bought this very edition because I love the cover so much. The white silhouettes on a stark black background. The little touches of red to help draw the eye. The gorgeous Victorian costumes the couple on the cover are wearing. The silver of the cover quotes. All the colours are the primary ones used in the Night Circus itself, so it feels entirely appropriate that only they are used in the cover design.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 95: "GMorning, GNight!: Little pep talks for me & you" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun

Page count: 207 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
"Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!"

Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day. He wrote these original sayings, aphorisms, and poetry for himself as much as for others. But as Miranda's audience grew, these messages took on a life on their own. Now, at the request of countless fans, Miranda has gathered the best of his daily greetings into a beautiful collection illustrated by acclaimed artist (and fellow Twitter favorite) Jonny Sun. Full of comfort and motivation, Gmorning, Gnight! is a touchstone for anyone looking for a lift.

I see on Goodreads that some people absolutely loved and adored this book, while others felt it was a cheap and underwhelming effort from Miranda, trying to cash in further on his fame. I think I'm much more in the former category, and as someone who has followed Miranda on Twitter for a long time, and have enjoyed his inspirational little tweets in "real time", I was very excited when I learned that many of them were to be collected in a book.

It may also be that I was reading through these during a stressful and emotionally exhausting period in my life, but a lot of these little poems truly spoke to me and made me feel so much better. I'm not lying when I say that I cried more than once when reading, just as I smiled. Some of these sayings may be trite and simple, but I believe the intention behind them is to help, to support, to inspire and to cheer up and for me, they more often than not made me feel better and motivated and inspired, rather than annoyed, as some people seem to have gotten. Miranda seems to me as a person who works really hard to try to stay positive, even when the world around us is doing its damnedest to wear us down. These little Twitter verses is one of the ways in which he fights the gloom, and I'm thankful for that.

Some of the illustrations in the book are better than others. With the simple black and white line drawings, it would probably work as a colouring book, as well, if one wanted to use it as such.

Judging a book by its cover: This book has a relatively simple cover, it's one of the illustrations made by Jonny Sun for one of the tweets collected in the book. I like his drawing style. It's very clear and no-nonsense.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 94: "Suddenly Last Summer" by Sarah Morgan

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Official book description:
Fiery French chef Élise Philippe is having a seriously bad day. Not only have the opening day plans for her beloved café fallen apart, but Sean O'Neil is back in town, and looking more delectable than ever. Last summer, they shared an electrifying night together…and the memories have Élise really struggling to stick to her one-night-only rule! Her head knows that eventually Sean will be leaving, so all she can do is try to ignore her heart before she spontaneously combusts with lust.

Being back in Vermont—even temporarily—is surgeon Sean O'Neil's worst nightmare. For Sean, returning home to the Snow Crystal Resort means being forced to confront the reasons and the guilt he feels about rejecting his family's rural lifestyle years ago. But discovering that Élise has settled in Vermont and still sets his blood racing is a very welcome distraction! Thinking he can persuade her into a replay of last summer is tempting, but remembering how good they are together is going to make walking away more difficult than he could imagine…

Seeing the way his grandfather treats him and talks to him when he comes back to the family resort, I'm not all that surprised that doctor Sean prefers to stay in Boston, being a sought after playboy surgeon. When his grandfather has a heart attack, however, he obviously does the right thing and comes rushing home to help out. He discovers that his brother has done a pretty good job of turning business at the Snow Crystal Resort around and that while customers aren't flocking to the place, they're not about to have to file for bankruptcy either. Now his brother's beautiful French chef is in a tizzy because the wooden deck around her lakeside cafe won't be finished in time for the grand opening, and the resort and the O'Neil family could suffer financially as a result.

Élise feels like she owes everything she has to the O'Neil family and is eternally grateful that Jackson O'Neil hired her when she was at her lowest point, and that his family have welcomed her with open arms and treats her as one of their own. She's willing to do absolutely everything for them, and the new cafe was going to be the money spinner that would attact even more guests to the Snow Crystal Resort. That the grand opening might have to be cancelled or even postponed is unthinkable to her, even if she has to accept the help of handsome doctor Sean in order to get the deck ready on time. She and Sean shared a passionate night together a year ago, but Élise has a bad track record with romance, and does not intend to ever be in a relationship again. Thankfully, Sean doesn't seem like the long term commitment kind.

Except, once he's forced to stay around in Vermont while his grandfather recuperates and keeps seeking out Élise, as the sparks flying between them are just as hot as the previous summer, Sean begins to think that maybe he has been a bit hasty in his choice to stay in Boston all the time. That Élise just wants something casual makes him all the more determined to win her over and convince her that she may want to give love and romance a second chance.

For those who would like a heads up about such things, I should warn that there is a history of physical and emotional abuse in Élise's past, which is why she's so incredibly determined never to make herself vulnerable to a man ever again. I think it's dealt with pretty well, and Sean recovers pretty well after being a bit of a clueless idiot about his lady love, not to mention the bullheadedness of his grandfather initially.

This was neither a bad, nor a particularly memorable book. I enjoyed it while I read it, but am not sure I have a desperate need to seek out any of the two other books in the series to find out how the romantic prospects of the other two O'Neil brothers work out. To be fair, this is the middle book, so I already know who Jackson ends up with (but I'm not sure I care the exact hows or whys of why they got together). Of the Sarah Morgan books I've read in the past, I enjoyed her New York-set From Manhattan with Love series more.

Judging a book by its cover: This is a pretty generic contemporary romance cover, in my opinion. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, and the cover models more or less fit the description of the protagonists, but there's nothing super appealing about it either.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 93: "Headliners" by Lucy Parker

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, but this has in no way influenced my review. 

While this works fine as a standalone contemporary romance, both characters and some of the events that complicate their relationship early on are introduced in The Austen Playbook, which I can also heartily recommend.

Official book description:
He might be the sexiest man in London, according to his fan site (which he definitely writes himself), but he’s also the most arrogant man she’s ever met.

She might have the longest legs he’s ever seen, but she also has the sharpest tongue.

For years, rival TV presenters Sabrina Carlton and Nick Davenport have traded barbs on their respective shows. The public can’t get enough of their feud, but after Nick airs Sabrina’s family scandals to all of Britain, the gloves are off. They can barely be in the same room together—but these longtime enemies are about to become the unlikeliest of cohosts.

With their reputations on the rocks, Sabrina and Nick have one last chance to save their careers. If they can resurrect a sinking morning show, they’ll still have a future in television. But with ratings at an all-time low and a Christmas Eve deadline to win back the nation’s favor, the clock is ticking—and someone on their staff doesn’t want them to succeed.

Small mishaps on set start adding up, and Sabrina and Nick find themselves—quelle horreur—working together to hunt down the saboteur…and discovering they might have more in common than they thought. When a fiery encounter is caught on camera, the public is convinced that the reluctant cohosts are secretly lusting after one another.

The public might not be wrong.

Their chemistry has always been explosive, but with hate turning to love, the stakes are rising and everything is on the line. Neither is sure if they can trust these new feelings…or if they’ll still have a job in the New Year.

To say that I was eager to get my hands on this ARC is an understatement. I renewed the site once or twice a day, checking whether I'd been granted a copy. Of course, about the point when I was starting to give up hope and stopped checking, I received an e-mail confirming I was one of the lucky ones to get this book early. Lucy Parker is one of the few authors writing, in any genre, who has the honour of being not only on my auto-buy list, but one of the few who deserves the very coveted pre-order treatment. So even before I was granted a copy of this, I had paid money for it, because all of Parker's previous four novels have proven excellent reads, and I was pretty sure this would be too.

While Sabrina and Nick may initially detest each other, they are also professionals, who do the jobs they are hired to and don't let their animosity for their closest co-worker get in the way of doing their very best. Of course, neither of them are stupid, either, and it doesn't take them long at all to figure out that there is someone trying to sabotage the show. They're unsure of whether the guilty party has it in for one or both of them, but once they join forces to try to flush the culprit out, they also end up spending a lot more time together, and all that passionate dislike starts turning into something a bit more affectionate.

For those readers who have read The Austen Playbook, there are cameos from Freddy, Griff, Charlie and some of the Carlton sisters' friends who we were introduced to in that book. The two sisters are still really close, and Nick's thoughtless behaviour taking advantage of the Carlton family's scandals affected both of them, and pretty much ruined his long friendship with Griff. So obviously Sabrina takes her sister's opinions into consideration when her feelings towards Nick start to change.

Sadly, there is also a re-appearance of Sabrina's douchy movie star ex-boyfriend, and I was deeply grateful that there didn't appear to be any jealousy drama to complicate the plot, and that his appearance was relatively brief. I'm a little bit worried that movie-ex is going to feature as a hero in one of Parker's future books, but at the same time, she's written enough of my keeper shelf novels by now that if that's a choice she ends up making, I will probably end up loving him as much as I do Richard, Luc, Leo, Griff and now Nick.

It was going to take a lot for me not to like this book. I've never rated a Lucy Parker novel lower than four stars, this features enemies to lovers (one of my favourite tropes), while also displaying a lot of competency porn. Both Sabrina and Nick are amazing at their jobs and work really hard for the things they've achieved. The book gives fun insight into the behind the scenes bustle of a popular talk show and there's an amusing minor subplot where both Sabrina and Nick have to scramble to secure a horrible electronic toy, the most sought after present of the Christmas season, for a child they care for.

All I can say is that if you've enjoyed any of Parker's former novels, you will absolutely like this one too and should consider pre-ordering it. I still think The Austen Playbook is my absolute favourite, followed by Pretty Face in second place, but this may edge out Act Like It for third (because it doesn't have that slightly shaky last act with the overly dramatic building collapse). The book will be on general release on Janurary 20th, 2020.

Judging a book by its cover: While I think Act Like It still has my absolute favourite of Lucy Parker's book covers, this comes in at a close second. There is such utter joy on both of the cover model's faces and the background and lights is magical and romantic. They seem utterly besotted with one another, which is exactly what you want from a romance cover.