Avalon Harwood and Maximillian “Mac” Coltrane spent pretty much every summer together growing up, when the wealthy Coltrane family visited their giant mansion. First they were the best of friends, which developed into something more, until at seventeen, Mac broke Avalon’s heart when she heard him talking dismissively about her to his father. They never saw each other again, until now. In the intervening years, Avalon has developed a highly successful app and runs her own tech company out of San Francisco. Mac’s father was […]
A Slow Burn That Ends in a Fizzle
Mariana Zapata is very good writer who specializes in slow burn contemporary romance. She doesn’t necessarily drag out the timeline, but she takes her time building characters, especially the heroine, into well-rounded people. Her heroes then match up to these strong women really well. While the men in each of her novels may not be dreamy to the reader, they are clearly excellent partners for the women. The first book of hers I read, Kulti, is a classic and I also recommend Wait For It. […]
Penny Reid Is Now on Half Secret Probation
Buying all of Penny Reid’s Winston Brothers and Knitting in the City books means that I have ridden the roller coaster of her uneven stories. The writing is always fine, and often much better than that, but she hits more rough patches than smooth and doesn’t always manage her plot complications well. Those issues are dealt with, mostly, in Beard in Mind and along the way, the reader gets to see couples from previous books, including Quinn and (my favourite) Janie. One of Reid’s best […]
This was nice, but nothing I’m likely to remember in a month or two
3.5 stars Bailey Moore was given the all clear from the cancer which dominated every aspect of her life since she was sixteen, and now has a sort of reverse bucket list. While she was sick, she didn’t really imagine much of a future for herself, but now there are just so many things she’d like to do. One of her first items is skiing in the Rocky Mountains, so she goes to the Cedar Ridge skiing resort, but mis-reads the map and ends up […]