Tropes: insta-attraction; rock star hero (MMC); sunshine heroine (FMC); opposites attract; found family
“All people were just walking wounds trying to find home and happiness.”
Heidi Hutchinson’s Lost Track is another revelation in the SmartyPants Romance world. It’s one of those reads whose brilliance creeps up on you as the story progresses. You should know something about me to understand why I love this book. I discovered a few years ago that my husband is on the spectrum. For decades, I’ve lived with someone who processes the world in ways different than me. It has been both a revelation, but also heart-breaking as I am working on accepting some aspects about him that don’t make my life easy. When people such as Penny Reid, Stacy Travis (authors whom I’ve read who have written characters like this), and now Heidi Hutchinson craft characters so indelibly different that you can’t help but fall in love with them, it elevates your reading experience. Hutchinson gifts us with Sunshine Capone aka Dave, which challenges us to reformulate our expectations about MMCs. It asks us to consider that people are different, that the typical idea of a romantic hero is reductive, and accepting and falling in love with a character such as Dave, one who can be messy, but lovely, who can have fraught boundaries that complicate his relationship with his FMC, who isn’t easy to pin a label on (in doing so, you can’t fully capture the power of his representation in the book), broadens our world. Reading a character such as Dave challenged me. Each time I encounter someone who is neuro-divergent, honestly, it gives me hope that I can one day reach acceptance about my husband’s own neurodivergence.
Even more, Hutchinson’s heroine, Sabine, is special. From her and Sunshine’s meet-cute to the found family of her life, she espouses the qualities that all of us strive to have around people who are different from ourselves. She is wholly accepting of Dave in all of his differences. She recognizes them as superpowers, not foibles. She redefines neurotypical in how she falls for him.
Add to all of this the beauty of Hutchinson’s prose. There are beautifully crafted sentences that belie the simplicity of her story. Even more, I love the moments when Hutchinson uses the lyrics of songs to evoke the strongest emotions of a character like Dave.
I became lost in Heidi Hutchinson’s Lost Track. Honestly, I didn’t want it to end. It’s an apt reminder to “see” people and love them just as they are. In doing so, “someone who chooses love is the best kind of person. Every time.” There is something incredibly special about Sabine and Dave, Hutchinson’s Sunshine Capone.
You know what I don’t have time for? The brooding, dark-eyed former love of my life showing up when my life is finally settling down.
I don’t have time for Hunter Buchanan and that intense look in his eyes. The way he loved me so perfectly all those years ago.
I’m the one who asked him to leave back then, my attempt at saving him from the chaos of my screwed up family.
I didn’t expect him back in Green Valley, looking better than before and with an empty ring finger. And I definitely didn’t expect him to still be in love with me.
I don’t have time for the things I feel around him, or how amazing it is when he touches me.
Most of all, for the broken heart I’ll have if I have to say goodbye again. I survived him leaving once before, but I don’t think I can do it again.
So there’s only one thing I can make time for… staying away from Hunter Buchanan.
‘Worth the Wait’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #4 in the Love At First Sight series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
“I’m not your teacher,” I said. “Right now, I’m just the guy who’s supposed to make sure you don’t have to go back to fourth grade. And that means honesty from both of us. And trust.” I stood from the bench and held out my hand again. “You can trust me, Theo. But only make a deal with me right now if I can trust you the same way.”
It never occurred to me, as a teacher and then later as an administrator, to talk to kids like they didn’t have the same struggles as adults. They understood stress and fear and anxiety, albeit on a different scale, with different language behind it.
That scale changed as you grew up. Your responsibilities took on a different face, and you knew how to label those struggles. But to them—at their age—the responsibilities still felt like the whole world was pressing down on their shoulders. It didn’t help if the adults in their life pretended otherwise.
So I knew I’d won something big when Theo Rossman stuck his skinny arm out toward me.
He gave me a firm handshake, his cheeks turning pink when I returned it.
“You sound like Iris,” he said quietly.
My heart skipped unsteadily in my chest at his use of that name.
“Who’s Iris?” I asked calmly. So very, very calmly. I’d only met one person in Green Valley with that name. And as far as I knew, she’d never come back. Not that anyone had told me, at least.
“My sister. I live with her.” He tucked his hand back in his pocket, his face softening as he answered. His love for her, even if it wasn’t my Iris, was immediately clear.
Behind my ribs, I felt a hot squeeze of pressure while my mind absolutely fucking raced.
“I knew an Iris once.” I watched his face as I said it. “She’d probably be about thirty-two now.”
His eyes narrowed, mental calculations evident in his face. “I think that’s how old my sister is.”
My breathing was choppy, my lungs struggling to pull in enough oxygen. “The Iris I knew … her last name wasn’t Rossman.”
He kicked at a stick, so blissfully unaware that all my insides were jolting with unchecked pulses of electricity at the mere thought of it being her.
“Yeah, she’s my half-sister. She had a different dad, so she has a different last name.”
“What’s your sister’s last name?” I asked, fighting the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake the truth from his mouth.
At the sound of a car, Theo’s attention was pulled to the parking lot. In an instant, he transformed. Wide smile and happy, bright eyes as he waved at the driver of a beat-up-looking SUV. “That’s her. Iris Black.”
I swiped a hand over my face and tried to check my breathing.
Check my pulse.
My ability to stay fucking conscious.
This was it. All the sleepless nights I’d wondered if I’d ever see her again. Wondered how I’d ever walked away from her, why I believed her when she said she didn’t have room for us in her life. If respecting her choice would damn me to a life that would always feel a little empty. Where every day held a slight edge of grief, something that might have worn down over the years but could still damage me if I caught it in the right way.
The last time I saw Iris Black, she wept as she told me to leave. That she couldn’t—wouldn’t—make room in her life for some great big destined romance. That she couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that it was true.
The last time I saw her, I told her I’d love her for the rest of my life, whether she was in it or not. And I walked away all the same.
And there it was.
A gentle snap, a whisper-soft snick of something sliding back into place underneath my ribs. The shift of something that had been out of place since the last time I saw her. The realization came as quick as a thunderbolt and just as powerful. As I slowly turned toward the parking lot and she stepped out of the car, I knew this was the reason I’d come back to Green Valley.
It was her.
The one I’d loved since the moment I saw her.
Who I hadn’t seen in twelve years.
The one staring at me like she’d just seen a ghost.
About Karla Sorensen
Karla Sorensen has been an avid reader her entire life, preferring stories with a happily-ever-after over just about any other kind. And considering she has an entire line item in her budget for books, she realized it might just be cheaper to write her own stories. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy…a book, a really big glass of wine, and at least thirty minutes of complete silence every day. She still keeps her toes in the world of health care marketing, where she made her living pre-babies. Now she stays home, writing and mommy-ing full time (this translates to almost every day being a ‘pajama day’ at the Sorensen household…don’t judge). She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two exceptionally adorable sons and big, shaggy rescue dog.
Not Since Ewe, an all-new heartwarming second-chance romance from Susannah Nix, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!
Tess McGregor doesn’t need anyone.
So what if she doesn’t have any close friends or family anymore? Her successful consulting business keeps her so busy she barely has time to be lonely. She’s got her life organized exactly the way she wants it.
Until the daughter she gave up for adoption 30 years ago tracks her down.
Tess doesn’t know anything about being a mother, but now that she’s met Erin, she’ll do anything to stay in her life.
Even if it means facing the life-ruining jerk who got Tess pregnant in high school and broke her heart.
Donal Larkin would do anything for a second chance.
He’s divorced, his kids hardly talk to him, and he works so much he barely has time to eat. But when he’s united with the daughter he never had a chance to know, he vows to make up for past mistakes.
Step one is proving to Tess he’s not the same unreliable kid she knew 30 years ago.
And maybe if he’s lucky he can win back the heart of the girl he never got over…
Not Since Ewe is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #4 in the Common Threads series, Seduction in the City World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Susannah Nix is an award-winning author of contemporary romances featuring smart women and swoony men, including the Chemistry Lessons series of romcoms about women who work in STEM fields and the Starstruck series of movie star romances.
Susannah resides in Texas with her husband, two ornery cats, and a flatulent pit bull. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, cooking, knitting, watching stupid amounts of television, and getting distracted by Tumblr. She is also a powerlifter who can deadlift as much as Captain America weighs.
Tropes: second chance romance; workplace romance; fractured family; adversaries-to-lovers
“It’s healthy to wreck an unfinished thing so you can start over and build something stronger. It’s not okay to break something just because it hurts to look at it. That’s what I did to us. I’ll always be sorry.”
Reed and Ava, the first couple of the newest Madigan Mountain series, exemplify complicated. Sarina Bowen hits her readers hard with their second chance at romance, adversarial journey. Interestingly, this isn’t the only complicated relationship in the first book of this series, A Little Too Late. There are broken connections strewn throughout this book. Thankfully, this is a romance, so there is a guaranteed happy ending, but what is most compelling about this story is its focus on the reality of relationships: they may be fractured, but they needn’t remain that way. Most can be mended with care, tenacity, and a huge “I’m sorry.” Bowen deftly weaves this truth through her newest book.
Here are the aspects of the book that made it a good read:
After Ava and Reed’s break-up, Ava finds a family on Madigan Mountain. She compiles a group of strong, independent women to support her. This group of women provides a counterbalance to the re-emergence of Reed in her life. When the story grows heavy with the trials of their reconciliation, the reader can rest in the humor and wisdom provided by this group.
Reed’s journey is fairly typical of the overworking, ambitious MMC. He’s all work and little play (what little “play” he engages in is transactional at best). This means his journey will be the most profound, and this is true for Reed. I will say that, for me, Reed is my least favorite character in this story. There are a variety of reasons which I won’t post here to avoid spoilers, but I didn’t care much for him throughout most of the book. He redeems himself, but I wouldn’t say he’s a favorite Sarina Bowen MMC of mine.
While Reed, for me, isn’t a favorite character, Ava is. With that, though, is her book-long struggle to grow vulnerable again with Reed. If you’re looking for a quick fix for this couple, it takes most of the book for it. However, Ava is the impetus for any real change between these two. Even though she vacillates between hating and wanting Reed, her eventual openness with Reed becomes the impetus for his final change. Her forgiveness and willingness to move forward become their resolution, making her characterization much more interesting.
Sarina Bowen’s A Little Too Late is a good emotional start to the Madigan Mountain series. Is it my favorite story from Sarina Bowen? No. Did it meet its purpose? I believe so. It provided the background necessary for the books coming from Rebecca Yarros and Devney Perry while also gifting us a complicated couple who reminds us that brokenness isn’t bad unless we don’t try to repair it.
Worth the Wait, an all-new second chance small town romance from Karla Sorensen, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!
You know what I don’t have time for? The brooding, dark-eyed former love of my life showing up when my life is finally settling down.
I don’t have time for Hunter Buchanan and that intense look in his eyes. The way he loved me so perfectly all those years ago.
I’m the one who asked him to leave back then, my attempt at saving him from the chaos of my screwed up family.
I didn’t expect him back in Green Valley, looking better than before and with an empty ring finger. And I definitely didn’t expect him to still be in love with me.
I don’t have time for the things I feel around him, or how amazing it is when he touches me.
Most of all, for the broken heart I’ll have if I have to say goodbye again. I survived him leaving once before, but I don’t think I can do it again.
So there’s only one thing I can make time for… staying away from Hunter Buchanan.
‘Worth the Wait’ is a full-length contemporary romance, can be read as a standalone, and is book #4 in the Love At First Sight series, Green Valley World, Penny Reid Book Universe.
Karla Sorensen has been an avid reader her entire life, preferring stories with a happily-ever-after over just about any other kind. And considering she has an entire line item in her budget for books, she realized it might just be cheaper to write her own stories. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy…a book, a really big glass of wine, and at least thirty minutes of complete silence every day. She still keeps her toes in the world of health care marketing, where she made her living pre-babies. Now she stays home, writing and mommy-ing full time (this translates to almost every day being a ‘pajama day’ at the Sorensen household…don’t judge). She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two exceptionally adorable sons and big, shaggy rescue dog.
Tropes: second chance romance; friends to lovers; military romance; feisty FMC; law enforcement MMC; romantic suspense
Corinne Michaels’s Give Me Love takes her readers back to Rose Canyon, the setting for her book, Help Me Remember. It follows one of the four friends of this series, Emmett, the town sheriff. The story begins where Help Me Remember left off with Emmett’s surprise marriage to his friend, Blakely. From there, Blakely and Emmett struggle to find their bearing as Emmett wants Blakely to finally agree to a divorce while Blakely works through feelings she wants to deny. Give Me Love is a cat-and-mouse chase between two people destined to love each other when one of them fears it. Will Emmett win Blakely over? Give Me Love ends in a HEA, so I’ll let you decide.
For me, Michaels’s newest Rose Canyon story’s highlight is the rollercoaster journey of Blakely and Emmett. It’s Emmett’s patience in the face of Blakely’s fear. It’s Emmett’s attraction to Blakely and his willingness to act upon it that finally helps her overcome her worry. It’s his dedication to Blakely that makes this aspect of Give Me Love the best part of the book. For me, Emmett wins over Michaels’s readers in contrast to Blakely’s stubbornness in admitting her feelings for him. This is what won me over to this story.
My frustration with Give Me Love is its storyline. There is a pacing issue here, one that detracts from the book. Additionally, uneven characterizations confuse and create a consistency issue for both Emmett and Blakely. In moments, when I should have felt emotionally connected to Michaels’s characters, I wasn’t, and that’s a problem for this reader.
As far as continuing the overarching story of the Rose Canyon series, Give Me Love continues it, and I’m intrigued by and ready for Holden’s story, teased at the end of this book.
Tropes: fated lovers/soulmates; coming of age; dark romance; romantic suspense; childhood sweethearts; forbidden romance; mafia romance; hitman romance; anti-hero
“You are my past, you are my present, and according to a thousand-year-old lake spirit you are my eternity.”
Entering B.B. Easton’s Devil of Dublin is like entering a fun house at a carnival: cautious. Having posted the cover reveal with the blurb and other teasers, the numerous hashtags attached to this book made me think my heart wouldn’t survive. However, with every turn of the page, those feelings abated, and they clung to the compelling, emotional story of Kellen and Darby. Let me tell you why you should read this story:
There is a unique voice from Easton in Devil of Dublin. There are still all the things you love about her: her irreverent wit and need to put guns in the hands of her main characters a la her Rain Trilogy. However, there is a soulfulness to DoD that seizes you. Theoretically, it shouldn’t, given the type of tropes found in this book, but Kellen and Darby are special, and they aren’t like any of Easton’s other characters.
Kellen and Darby’s love is intoxicating. Here’s the thing about them: they are safe amid unsafe circumstances. This is the genius of Easton’s book. You can rest in Kellen and Darby’s love for each other because it is endless and constant when their life situations are traumatic and disruptive. This is the safety of this book, and it draws you deeper into their love affair. Their fated love ameliorates their trauma for the reader.
And this next point is probably one of my favorite parts of Easton’s storytelling: she recognizes the gap between Kellen and Darby and carefully closes it. Unfortunately, she uses traumatic experiences to do so, but it levels their relationship, creating equality that makes it easy for Darby to fully love Kellen, who needs to be fully loved by someone. This is the true beauty of their book.
The prose of DoD is gorgeous. Unlike her 44 Chapters…or even Rain Trilogy, the words paint the soul of this book. “I was no longer human or demon or even fucking breathing. I was simply hers— mind, body, and cursed black soul.”
Kellen and Darby’s personal journeys will steal a bit of your heart as they overcome life’s difficulties. They will do this hand-in-hand, making sacrifices for each other. And it’s the type of love affair you fall in love with in romance.
Easton’s Author’s Note and Acknowledgements are powerful. They will add knowledge that is important in our current world.
To be honest, I didn’t expect to love B.B. Easton’s Devil of Dublin as much as I did. It’s a beautifully wrought, emotional story about overcoming the odds through the enduring love of your mate. It will fill your soul and remind you of why you love to read romance: for the HEA that acts as a salve for your soul after it’s been pummeled by the story’s truths.
K.K. Allen is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author who writes heartfelt and inspirational contemporary romance stories. K.K. graduated from the University of Washington with an Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences degree and currently resides in central Florida with her ridiculously handsome little dude who owns her heart.
K.K. published her first contemporary romance, Up in the Treehouse, in 2016 which went on to win the Romantic Times 2016 Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best New Adult Book of the Year.
With K.K.’s love for inspirational and coming of age stories involving heartfelt narratives and honest emotions, you can be assured to always be surprised by what K.K. releases next.
Tropes: grump/sunshine, opposites attract, instant attraction, orphan, some found family, return to hometown, surprise royalty
“Life changes constantly, and if you live in the past, you’re going to miss it.”
There is decadence in the physicality of Meghan Quinn’s newest romance, Royally Not Ready. Quinn flexes her chemistry-building muscle by drawing out and adding fuel to the fire of her two main characters, Lilly and Keller. This is Quinn at her best as she takes two opposites, crafting a precarious situation and an inferno of attraction between her main characters. She moves Lilly and Keller from disdain to ardor in the space of her story, investing her readers in their journey from almost the first page. The back and forth between these two is a delight, the mechanism that breathes light into a tense situation. She mixes in some suspense and intrigue along with a sweet reconciliation of a family broken apart. Royally Not Ready is quite the romance stew.
Keller and Lilly are two sides of the same coin. They must endeavor to undertake change. For Lilly, she must learn to become royal when she was raised as an American with no knowledge of her mother’s country. And Keller must learn to leave behind the rules of his youth to become the man that Lilly needs at her side. Their exchanges at the beginning, when they are seated in opposition to each other, provide the comedic relief of the book. As they draw closer to connecting emotionally, they reach the zenith of their individual journeys almost simultaneously, drawing them closer together. Lilly reaches her character maturation before Keller, adding some emotional tension to the story. For me, their journeys were my favorite parts of the book.
My other favorite part is Lilly’s connection with her grandparents and, by extension, her mother’s country. The compassion and connection between them add another layer of emotion to Royally Not Ready. That isn’t promised early in the story, so Quinn’s ability to create trepidation in their meeting draws you into the moment’s emotion. In fact, each carefully curated moment of this book is magnetic, causing the book to be a fast read.
For me, Meghan Quinn’s Royally Not Ready is the read of the week. It has everything: humor, spice, and everything in between. It simply makes you want to read more Megan Quinn stories.
Tropes: Friends to Lovers, Afraid to commit, Fake relationship/wing-woman, Never marry
Sara Ney’s The Make Out Artist continues her Accidentally in Love series, focusing on main characters who tend to fall into love while trying to stay away from it. This is definitely the case for Elias and Molly in this Ney’s newest offering. Eli and Molly meet at a small get-together at Molly’s house. Not keen on a weekday party, Molly hides away to complete some work. She is interrupted by Elias/Eli who was brought to the party by his sister. When a woman at the party tries to hit on him, he decides to hide upstairs when he encounters Molly. He likes that she is forthright and doesn’t suffer fools. When she tries to get him to leave her alone, he decides he wants her to act as his wing woman, a protection against women who are trying to get him to ask them on dates. At first, Molly has no interest, but when her old friend, Tripp Wallace, invites them both to a function as each other’s dates, she relents. As Molly and Eli spend more time together, they realize they are more alike than different, and their situationship moves into a relationship. When Eli’s ex threatens their newfound happiness, you wonder if a happy ending is in the “cards” for this couple.
I appreciate a series that focuses on accidental love pairings, and they’ve been fairly interesting reads, but Ney’s stories, quite frankly, feel just a bit messy. Did I like Elias and Molly? Yes, for the most part. Quite honestly, I didn’t believe their chemistry until it became physical. Even then, I don’t entirely believe that they fell hard for each other in love. And I want to believe them, but for much of the story, Eli seems more attracted to Molly than Molly is attracted to Eli. Then, all of a sudden, she likes and then suddenly loves him. For me, there is a consistency issue in her character development.
Secondly, the eventual issue with Elias’s ex- feels like an add-on, a way to add drama to the story. It doesn’t seem organically integrated or developed. It creates a “hiccup” for Elias and Molly’s future, which seems unnecessary to the story. There would have been other ways to create the tension such as the demands of Eli’s job within the context of a relationship. I would have loved to see more of this built into the story.
Lastly, I love Molly. She saved Tripp in his romance, and I’m not sure that Ney did her justice here. Some moments are cute between these two, but Molly, with the fire of her former book, was missing that fire in her own story.
I have to be real here. I struggled with The Make Out Artist. I’m a fast reader, and this was a bit of a slug in reading because I didn’t feel Elias and Molly’s spark until the end. It may be me and my reading interests, so if you love yourself some Sara Ney, then you may want to grab this one.
Professor Romance 