contemporary

Her Valentine Fantasy by Nancy Warren

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne
Her Valentine Fantasy
Grade-C+
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Genre-Contemporary
Reviewed by Kay
91 pages
 
Jessica is on a first date at one of the city’s ritziest restaraunts with a total douche, who leaves her holding the bill at the end. Flustered and shocked, she accidentally leaves her hotel room keycard in the bill folder instead of her credit card, and then leaves. Sam, the owner of the restaraunt, was filling in for a waiter that evening and had flirted a bit with Jessica. Now, don’t go thinking that Sam is a jerk for flirting with her while she was on a date, because he didn’t start flirting until after he noticed the nose-dive the date was taking, and even then, the douche had left the table. When he finds the keycard, he decides to take it back to her at the hotel (a convenient few blocks away). What else would a non-douche-y guy do?
I struggled a bit with the ending. The main conflict in the story came from the fact that both Sam and Jessica were hiding something. Sam was hiding the fact that he was the owner of the restaraunt, and not just a waiter. Jessica lied and told Sam that she was from out of town. When the ending came around, the lies hadn’t been dealt with…at all. I would have liked to see the ending handled a bit differently, but that might have been expecting too much in such a short book.
All in all, this was a fun, flirty read. Just right for Valentine’s Day. I would recommend it for anyone who has a soft spot for Valentine’s Day or who likes their romances to be low-conflict. I’ll definitely be looking into more books by Nancy Warren.
Each year I try to read at least one Christmas romance, but this is the first Valentine’s romance I’ve read. Are you a fan of holiday romances? What recommendations do you have?

After The Storm by Maya Banks

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

After the Storm (KGI, #8)

Other editions
Enlar

Grade-C
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-KGI, #8
Genre-Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Reviewed by Kay
392 pages

Donovan Kelly is one of the Kelly’s of KGI. He’s the computer geek that looks like anything but a geek. He’s as devilishly handsome as his other brothers. He can lead in the war room or in the field. Donovan sees his brothers one by one falling in love and having babies and knows he wants this too but hasn’t found the right woman yet. He’s on the look out for her but not devoting himself to the search, much to his mother’s dismay.

Eve is in her mid twenties and in big trouble. She basically kidnapped her two younger half siblings from the father, her step-father. She knows he killed her mother and made advances on her. Because of her rebuffing him, he has had her declared unstable and alerted the law to her taking of the children. The three so them are on the run from him. They wind up in the Kelly’s hometown and on their radar. When Eve realizes this, she knows they have to run because she can’t afford to trust anyone.

I read a lot of reviews of this book and most of them very unfavorable. I thought the book was okay. It wasn’t the best in the series but it wasn’t the worst either. That honor still belongs to Nathan and Shay’s book. My complaint was that his internal conversations were so damn repetitive that I thought I would scream. I’ve waited for Donovan’s book for awhile, so it not being wonderful was a disappointment but not a total loss either. I’ll still read this series because it’s solid and I did get a catch up on all the other Kellys.

Love a Little Sideways by Shannon Stacey

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Love a Little Sideways (Kowalski Family, #7)
Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary
Series: Kowalski Family #7
Published: 11/26/13
Reviewed by Anne
195 pages

Liz, the youngest of the lodge-running Kowalskis is moving back home.  The only drawback to this situation is that she had a one night stand with Drew Miller, best friend to one of her brothers and chief of police.  That shouldn’t be too awkward, right? All she has to do is avoid him.  Except that as soon as she gets into town, she spins off the road and it’s Drew that comes to her rescue.  And he just keeps coming to her rescue.

This was a good story that I enjoyed, but it was always be “the one where they went camping again!” when I think of it.  Hilarious!  It was full of other enjoyable moments, too, though.  The pacing of Liz and Drew’s relationship was actually pretty slow and enjoyable. 

The main sources of conflict in the book were 1.)keeping their relationship a secret from Liz’s brothers and 2.) Liz not being sure what she wanted out of life and Drew knowing that he wants a wife and family.  The first one was resolved to my satisfaction.  The second one, after the leisurely pace of the rest of their relationship, felt a little rushed.

The Kowalski camping trip was great fun.  There were a LOT of secondary characters from other books that were getting jumbled in my head.  I finally decided I just didn’t need to try to keep track of them, and things went more smoothly from there.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve read the other books and I like cameos from previous couples, but I think this book would stand alone just fine, since that’s essentially what it did in my memory!

It was interesting and enjoyable to read a story where the man was the one who was anxious to settle down and start a family.  That was a very nice twist.  But it’s really the relationships between Liz and Drew and their family and friends that make the book and keep me coming back to this series for more!