Redwood Bend

Redwood Bend by Robyn Carr

4 stars

Reader's of Romance Summer 2012 Reading Challenge
prompt title word with a W. (Red "Wood" Bend)


Back Cover
Katie Malone and her twin boys' trip along the beautiful mountain roads to Virgin River is stopped short by a tire as flat as her failed romance. To make matters worse, the rain has set in, the boys are hungry and Katie is having trouble putting on a spare. As she stands at the side of the road pondering her next move, she hears a distinct r... more »umble. The sight of the sexy, leather-clad bikers who pull up beside her puts her imagination into overdrive.

Dylan Childress and his buddies are on the motorcycle trip of a lifetime. But the sight of a woman in distress stops them in their tracks. And while the guys are checking out her car, she and Dylan are checking out one another.

In one brief moment, the world tilts on its axis and any previous plans Katie and Dylan might have had for their futures are left at the side of the road.


My Thoughts:
I liked the book.  So I say that first because I have been such a great fan of the Virgin River series and Ms. Carr's books.  I find that she writes characters that you want to root for.  If her character is working through their demons or baggage then I find it easy to invest.  She gives me enough of the back story so that I sympathize and want to see them succeed.  Every once in a while she will write a character that I just don't connect with.  There have been a couple in the series of (17 or so.).  Unfortunately this was one of those books.  And curiously Katie was that character.  I get her back story and even sympathize, but I just didn't feel her inner struggle.  I feel like Ms. Carr spent better energy writing Dylan than Katie.  Don't get me wrong, I liked the character of Katie, but feel like she wasn't as "fleshed out" as Dylan.  I didn't feel her inner struggle.  On the other hand, I felt really connected with Dylan's story and his journey.  I don't have any idea what a life like that would be like, but the way she wrote him, made you really want to see him win.  I liked the twins ok, but find that she doesn't write kids all that involved in regard to this series.  I like to see the kids in a story as strong secondary characters. 

Other than that particular character development flaw, I found this book to be a good solid read.  I like Virgin River but find these last two to be weaker than others.  Hopefully she will get her VR mojo back in Sunrise Point.  Let's cross our fingers.

Hidden Summit

Hidden Summit by Robyn Carr

4 stars

Reader's of Romance Summer 2012 Book Challenge

Synopsis

Sick of running into her cheery ex-husband and his new wife, Leslie Petruso accepts a job at the Virgin River branch of Haggerty Construction and takes the high road right out of town. Now she's got Paul Haggerty's business running like a well-oiled machine. In fact, things are so busy Paul jumps at the chance to hire an extra set of hands.

Just like Leslie, Conner Danson has been burned by love. But if Leslie was disappointed by her relationship going bad, Conner was decimated. He's got no time for women…although he spends an awful lot of time pretending not to notice Leslie. And she's pretty busy "ignoring" the chemistry between them.

According to Conner and Leslie, they have only one thing in common -- they're done with love. But everyone in Virgin River can see that things are heating up at Haggerty Construction. And as far as Paul Haggerty can tell, the best thing he can do is hang on to his hard hat and watch the sparks fly!

My Thoughts:

I thought this was not the best of the series.  I liked the character progression of Connor and Leslie, but found certain small petty things kind of annoying.  For example, Ms. Carr has some crazy nicknames for her characters.  I mean, really does everyone have to have a nickname?  Ness? Vanni?  Les?!  C'mon give the readers a break,  Anyway, that's a pretty decent pet peeve, but ultimately not a huge deal, just an eye roll everytime.  Good news for Virgin River fans, we get to catch up with many of our old friends there.  More importantly we get to catch up with Dan and Cheryl, who I still think should have gotten their own book.....(sent Ms. Carr some emails, but she refuses to listen to reason.)  Anyway, that was so nice to be able to catch up with them.  Connor is in hiding until he can testify in a murder trial so he is not exactly in witness protection, but ...  So his real name is Danson Connor, so while he is in hiding he goes by Connor Danson.  (I am not kidding!)  If my DA was hiding me for my safety and I was no longer Carpoolqueen but Queen Carpool....well I'd be very afraid. 

Otherwise, I like the characters and liked them together.  We got to meet Nora and her kiddos and Katie and her kiddos.  I figure we will see them both in the near future.  Which is fine with me. 

If you like Virgin River, you'll like this book.  If you haven't read any other Virgin River books yet, start at the beginning.  Trust me on this, you'll thank me later.

Happy Reading!

Single White Vampire by Lynsay Sands

SWM -- Successful biographer of family; books recently categorized as "paranormal romances." Doesn't like sunbathing, garlicky dinners or religious symbols. Likes old-fashioned values; spicy Mexican dishes; warm, nice-smelling necks and plump red lips. Currently unaware he's seeking a woman to share eternity.

SWF -- Newest editor of Romance at Roundhouse Publishing. Has recently discovered a legacy author dying to be broken out. (The tall, dark, handsome writer just needs go to romance conventions and be introduced to his fans.) Dislikes "difficult, rude, obnoxious pig-headed writers." Currently unaware she's met the man of her wildest dreams.

For some reason Lucerne slipped my interest in the first 2 installments. I don't remember him at all in "A Quick Bite" and he played a somewhat brief, supporting role in "Love Bites". (sounds like an athletic supporter. hmm) Anyway, this is his story. He is the oldest son of Marguerite, and the older brother to Bastien, Etienne, and Lissiana. He is 600 + years old, and hasn't found a mate yet. Can you guess why?! Yep, he's surly, and reclusive, but with a heart of gold. His new career is as a writer. He's written accounts of his parents love, his sisters, and Etienne's. They've been marketed as paranormal romance and his new editor (enter beautiful Kate) wants him to promote. He gets tricked by Momma to go to a Romantic Times convention, where the sparks fly between him and Kate. Thus the hilarity ensues. Kate, finds out he's really a vampire, and masterminds the robbery of a nearby blood bank. She also lets him feed off her, but that can only happen when they are ...hmm mmm...being intimate. So, into the men's room they go! (right, like you've never done it in the men's room of a hotel, during a convention! Puhleeeze!) During the costume ball, he gets his codpiece stuck on the linens and she has to climb under the table to "unstick" him. They finally..uh, get together! To remember that noone has condoms. Zoinks! That's pretty funny too! So they finally fall in love and she has to decide in the end, whether her one true love, is worth the sacrifice of seeing her family again. (Cue suspensful music!....) I liked this book alot. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good laugh as they watch 2 people fall in love. I give it a 4 stars for sure.

It Had To Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville -- the outrageous, curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Celebow, a sexist jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. Celebow is everything Phoebe abhors. And the sexy new boss is everything Dan despises -- a meddling bimbo who doesn't know a pigskin from a pitcher's mound.

So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot like a heat-seeking missile? And why does the coach's good ol' boy charm leave cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied....and ready to fight? The sexy, heartwarming, and hilarious "prequel" to Susan Elizabeth Phillip's This Heart of Mine -- her sensational bestsellng blockbuster -- It Had To Be You is an enchanting story of two stubborn people who believe in playing for keeps.

I rather liked this book. I can't say I Loooooved it. I have incredibly high expectations for Ms. Phillips books and this one fell slightly flat for me. I liked the main characters. I liked alot the secondary characters. (Noone does a cast of warm and fun characters like her.) I expected to laugh out loud several times, but didn't. That's one of the things I love most about her books, but didn't this time. I chuckled here and there, and smiled alot, but no real belly laughs. That being said, I still really liked this story. I still think that I like "Lady Be Good" and "Breathing Room" better. I read this in one day, so obviously it wasn't a chore. It was a warm, fun, emotional read, filled with people I'd love to share a pizza with. (I also happen to love football)

I'm excited about Heaven, Tx. It shows great promise including two of my favorite things, football and small town Texas. I'm hoping for some cowgirl names. (Emma lu's or Bobbie Jo's)

I rate this book a 4. Seems like I never give 5's, but 4 seems right. I liked it alot and would definately recommend it.

Bride of the Beast

Twice wed and twice widowed, Lady Caterine Keith has no need for a champion. She can fend off unwanted suitors on her own and guard her Scottish stronghold without the help of any man. But her sister, knowing better, sends a make-believe husband---a knight with a battle-scarred face almost too frightening to behold. Sir Marmaduke Strongbow has a secret ambition. He wants not Caterine's land but her hand in marriage and her heart to own. With tantalizing caresses, he will show her how a real champion lays siege...and how love is impossible to fight.

I liked this book quite a lot. I could relate in ways to each of the "demons" who plagued both the hero and heroine. I appreciate how, they each had to fight those demons to be able to come together. I wish the heroines final demons had been exorcised a little better, or more obviously.

I enjoyed Leo, the antithesis of the dog in Devil in a Kilt. I'll keep trying Ms. Welfonder's work. Book 2 in the MacKensie Series.

For the Roses

No one ever knew what kind of strays, from animals to weary travelers, Mary Rose Clayborne would bring home next. Sometimes her four brothers? runaway slave Adam, ex-pickpocket Douglas, gunslinger Cole, and con man Travis -- wondered whether her boarding school education did a lick of good now that their beautiful, impulsive little sister was back in Blue Belle, Montana.

Of course, everyone in town knew better than to mess with the Claybornes. The brothers, four of the toughest hombres in the West, had once been a mismatched gang of street urchins. But they had found an abandoned baby girl in a New York City alley, named her Mary Rose, headed West, and raised her to be a lady. Through the years the Claybornes had become a family, held together by loyalty and love if not by blood -- when they suddenly faced the crisis that could tear them apart.

That crisis came to town with Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. In his fine clothes, he looked every inch a dude. Mary Rose figured that if she didn't interfere, this handsome Englishman would get himself killed, so she took him home to the Clayborne ranch to ask her brothers to turn him into a cowboy. She didn't suspect MacDonald was a chameleon, not the greenhorn he appeared to be. He'd prove fast with a gun, quick with his fists, and capable of commanding the Claybornes's respect -- if not their trust. He'd also soon be desperately in love with Mary Rose. She returned his affection blissfully and wholeheartedly...until MacDonald revealed a secret that challenged everything she believed about her love, herself, and her life.

Now Mary Rose's search for identity and meaning would begin, sending her to England, to the family she lost long ago. Her soul hungered for the freedom of the American West, but she was being drawn away from all she cared about by the need to know her past...and by her uncertain but still potent love for MacDonald. Torn between conflicting loyalties, Mary Rose wasn't sure who she really was, or where she belonged...questions that could only be answered if she listened to the truth within her heart.

This is my last book for ths Summer Reading Challenge. I waited until now to read it, as the next one in the series is part of my Fall Challenge List and I didn't want to wait too long between books.

I'll start by saying that I liked For the Roses fairly well. It is not my favorite Julie Garwood. I understand Ms. Garwood's need to set up the whole series in this story and therfore it was a bit slow in the beginning. Once, I got past all that, is was smooth sailing! I really liked all the letters written to Mama Rose. Those were really cute glimpses of their life growing up together. I can't wait to read Adam's and Cole's story the most. I loooove a strong man, who has an oooey-gooey center! *sigh*

I give this a 4 rating. I seldom give 5's, and this one gets a 4 based on my falling in love with Adam and Cole. I have a feeling the next books in the series will be more swift moving and will probably easily earn their 4's or 5's easier.

Tall, Dark, and Cajun

Spoiler Alert----Sorta----Mebbe----I'm typin' Cajun!!---Did, I hear St. Jude!!!

HOT, BOTHERED, AND IN OVER HER HEAD!

Men! After finally dumping her fiancÈ, whose idea of romance was making sure she toned her butt and abs, decorator Rachel Fortier hightails it out of D.C. straight for Cajun country. But her ex-taxidermist grandma's cabin on stilts in the Louisiana bayou isn't quite the grand estate she imagined. Throw in a pet alligator named Useless, a herd of Southerners born and bred, and Remy LeDeux, the smoldering-eyed pilot angling for her family's property, and Rachel's in for a passel of trouble-especially since their chemistry is hotter than the Atchafalaya Swamp in July. With his miniskirted great-aunt itching to marry him off and her rifle-toting grandma ready to shoot Remy the second he sets foot on her land, the sexiest bad boy this side of the Mason-Dixon line will need a special kind of voodoo to win this civil war.

Ok, let me start off with my Issues! When Remy reveals to Rachel that he is sterile, following a horrible accident and subsequent surgeries following Desert Storm, she dumps him, for not telling her sooner! Talk About!! They've been "seeing" each other for like 2 weeks. (seeing alot of each other, nudge nudge!!) In her defense, her fiance had a vasectomy like 1 month ago without telling her. (dumps the chump! ) What did she expect?! "Hi, my name is Remy. I think you're hot, btw I'm sterile!!" Yikes!! He's a guy, a man's man, and admitting something like that would be similar to a woman walking around town wearing a t-shirt with her weight in BIG print. (Any takers?! I thought not!) She overreacts, and his family sides with her when he finally tells him his embarrassing little secret. I get it, that the fact that he can't father a child, (biologically) is not the big deal he thinks it is, but for her to be sooo insensitive to how that makes him feel, is beyond me.

Soapbox, put away!! I still very much liked the characters and the story. Sandra Hill, discusses this sensitive topic with grace and humor. There is a cajun granny to rival Tanta Lulu! Believe it! Ms. Hill also revives the Mullet! Gone but not Forgotten!! I kept waiting for a Billy Ray Cyrus song to come on the radio or tickets to his concert or something. (hee hee!)

There is a famous Richard Gere moment, but I won't tell you which one. Ya'll have to read it for ya'll selves. This installment sets up for Charmaine's story. We even get glimpses several times.

Raoul...hubba hubba!!

A Bride for a Bit

"Misreading an order for bridles, a New England farmer sends his four sisters-in-law as mail-order brides to Lickwind, Wyoiming. When four women step off the train, astonishment turns to mayhem as the men of the town suddenly spruce up and make time for courting.

Since James Collingswood--still without tack for his horses--can't afford train tickets to send the women back, they'll have to stay. But what future is there in Lickwind for:

*Matty, the sociable sister who irritates James' very soul with her unending friendliness to the eager men of Lickwood.

*Corrine, the mom-to-be still so pained over her young husband's death that she barely knows Luke Collingswood is alive.

*Bess, who insists that the town must have a church, reform the brothel women, and straighten up the saloon keeper, Gideon Rikers.

*Bertie, who can out perform any man she ever meets...until the mysterious Thomas Hardin becomes her personal protection agency.

Under such absurd circumstances, the sisters will certainly find laughter in Lickwind...but will they also find love? One thing's for sure--the town will never be the same again!"

I really enjoyed this anthology. It is a "christian romance" so there is no sex and no kissing even. However, the love stories are good. I liked Matty's story best. It was written by Cathy Marie Hake, and something in the way she writes men has me smiling. There is a certain ruggedness in her men with their grumbling as well as gentlemanly ways. I thought everyone did a great job of continueing each others stories and keeping true to the characters.

The Brat

Who Would Marry...

All the knights had heard tales of Lady Murie, Kind Edward III's goddaughter and much feted favorite. It was said she was stunningly beautiful, with bright blue eyes, golden hair and a sweet smile. It was also said that the king had doted on the girl and spoiled her rotten. Despite his need, when Sir Balan saw her howling ans sobbing, Murie was the last person he wanted to wed.

...The Brat?

But all that glitters is not gold, and sometimes diamonds look very, very rough. There was more to Murie than meets the eye, and Balan soon learned that he'd be lucky indeed to deserve such a bride. Yet he was not the only one to discern the truth, and the other hopeful hubby was not quite as honorable. A plot was afoot. Soon would come a reckoning, a time to show who was chivalrous, who was a cad...and who had won the love of a heart unspoiled.

I liked this book quite a bit. It is not my favorite Lynsay Sands, but it was a good story. I liked alot how the author took care of misunderstandings without having to cause grief between the hero and heroine. That misunderstanding stuff turning into a bid deal, gets old after a while. I didn't fall for the secondary characters like I usually do. they were good, but not so well developed and funny, that I hoped they had their own story. I will read more by this author for sure. She brings humor and sensitivity to her characters that I like alot.

Devil in a Kilt

A FIERY ANGEL, A COLDHEARTED DEVIL AND A MARRIAGE HOTTER THAN HELL!

Linnet MacDonnell was the youngest of seven sisters and not the family beauty. With her flame-bright red hair, sharp tongue and strange gift of second sight no man wanted her. But the devil would take her. Bartered as a bride to her father's long-sworn enemy, the nobly born Highlander Duncan MacKenzie of Kintail, she had no choice but to enter a marriage with a man rumored to have murdered his first wife and said to possess neither heart nor soul.

Forbidding and proud, Duncan MacKenzie wanted only one thing from his new bride -- to use her special gift to determine if young Robbie was truly his son. He never expected the MacDonnell lass to stubbornly follow her heart, chase away the darkness in his castle with light and laughter and ignite a raging fire in his blood. How dare she defy him and tempt a devil like him to feel what he feared most of all -- love!

I enjoyed this book. It was paced well. I understood some of the sadness and insecurity the heroine faced, and appreciated that even though she had some issues, she was not whiny. Duncan was a strong character who obviously didn't want to fall in love. He does some self preservation to keep Linnet away, but was not cruel. Some authors really take it to the extreme. Ms. Welfonder did not. Duncan stayed a sympathetic character, and one I was rooting for. I liked the irony that there was a Great Dane and a Marmaduke. (But Marmaduke was not a Great Dane! hee hee) I rate this a 4 maybe a 4.5 since I immediately want to get the next in the series.

I'll read more from Ms. Welfonder and hope that the books written as Allie MacKay are just as good. I have to say I'm growing addicted to men in kilts and/or plaids.