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A Small-Town Wedding Romance, Happily Inc. Book 1

Happily, Inc. is a small town in the desert of California, not too far from Los Angeles. It is a wedding destination town, and most of the town’s businesses cater to brides and their wedding dreams.

Pallas Saunders has recently inherited the premier wedding venue in Happily, Inc. She worked there as a wedding planner, and the owner had no family who would want the business. Nonetheless, she is shocked to have inherited it and really wants to make a success of it. The finances are shaky, however, so it will take some ingenuity to keep it going.

That ingenuity comes in handy when a video game designer wants their wedding to be held there, and in a very short time frame. Every other wedding planner has passed, but Pallas needs the money and her heart goes out to the bride; the time crunch is because her father is dying.

Nick Mitchell is a sculptor and woodworker who has moved to the town along with his artist brothers to escape their abusive father. Nick likes Pallas, and wants to help her succeed. She doesn’t realize how famous he is, so when he offers to help restore some wood panels she has, she takes him up on his offer. Spending time together leads to a hot romance, and their happily ever after.

This was a fun read with lots of emotional drama as well as laughter, and so is the next book in the series, Second Chance Girl.

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

YOU SAY IT FIRST by Susan Mallery. HQN Books (August 22, 2017).  ISBN 978-0373804160.  304p.

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Heller Brothers Hockey, Book 1

I recently read and reviewed Dancing in the Rain by this author, so when BookBub had an offer for this book for free on my Kindle, I grabbed it. And I was very glad I did.

I recently learned that sports romances are a subgenre of the whole romance thing, which I like a lot. I feel like I am always learning about romance books since I haven’t been reading them that long. Susan Elizabeth Phillips has a series based around football players, and Jamieson has hockey. I’ve also learned that Jase is a very popular in contemporary romance.

This Jase is a hockey player with a fictional Chicago professional hockey team. He has several brothers who also play and they are from Canada.

Remi is a teacher who lost her parents as a young woman, and basically raised her younger siblings. The youngest has just moved out and her friends think she should go out clubbing, find a guy and live a little. She’s not sure about all that, but she agrees to go. While at the club, she escapes a few creeps and meets Jase when she asks him to do her a favor. She’s not really his type but all she wants is to talk for a few minutes so everyone else will leave her alone.

The next thing you know, they are back at her place and she is having major fun, and so is he. He promises he’ll call but a few days later, Remi is in her classroom waiting for the hockey stars who agreed to help with the after school remedial reading program. Of course Jase is one of them. Remi knows nothing about hockey but her students do, and she really cares about them. On the other hand, Jase had a lot of trouble in school and really hates teachers, so he is over Remi in a heartbeat.

Of course working together for several weeks keeps throwing them together and they start seeing each other, just for fun. But fun eventually turns to love, but not before they have to overcome some obstacles along the way.

This was a fun, sexy read and I will be looking for more from this author. These appear to be self published, but I’d bet there was a professional editor involved with Jamieson’s books – they are too good.

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

BREAKAWAY by Kelly Jamieson. Kelly Jamieson; 2 edition (April 24, 2015). ISBN 978-0991853274.  234p.

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Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my favorite contemporary romance writers, and I thought I had read all of her books. I was wrong, somehow I missed this one.

This is a standalone, set mostly in Tuscany so I was all over that. Isabel Favor is a world famous psychologist with a huge following. She has bestselling books, TV deals, and a perfect life, including her fiancé. Perfect, that is, until he dumps her for another woman and her accountant embezzles all her money and flees the country, leaving her with a whopping multi-million dollar IRS debt, and those boys don’t play. She sells everything she owns to pay her back taxes, and then she flees the country, going to Italy to lick her wounds and reinvent herself.

While in Rome, she is at a cafe and sees a very good looking man who seems to be watching her. He makes his way over to her and she decides to try something she’s never done before; have a one night stand with a stranger. Isabel is more of a fall-in-love-then-have-sex kind of woman, so this is way outside her comfort zone. The sex isn’t great, and in the process, she convinces herself that this man must be a gigolo. She throws some money on the bed and takes off.

Isabel got a two month rental of a Tuscan farm house through a friend, but when she gets there they try and tell her she can’t stay, she needs to move into town. But this is the calming paradise she has been seeking and she refuses to move. She marches herself up to the villa at the top of the hill where the owner resides. Much to her surprise, the owner is a famous actor – and the man she had the one night stand with while he was in disguise.

She stays, he thinks she is a stalker, and something weird is going on with the farm help. Eventually, they form a friendship and then decide to become lovers, but to keep it to a physical relationship only. As any romance reader knows, that idea never works out and they fall in love, but both are too hell bent on keeping it casual that they almost lose each other – almost being the key word here.

This was another wonderful read from Phillips. It’s only $5 if you buy the Kindle version so if you are looking for a sure bet, this one is highly recommended..

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

BREATHING ROOM by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Avon; Reprint edition (April 29, 2003).  ISBN 978-0061032097.  400p.

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Silver Springs, Book 1

This is the first book in the new Silver Springs series. As usual, I didn’t start here but rather with the second book, which I liked so much I hunted down this one.

This is a small paperback and a very fast read, but not a whole lot of intrigue. Cora knows she was adopted and has always been curious about her birth mother, but her parents don’t know anything since it was a closed adoption. And they are not comfortable with the idea of her looking for her birth mother, either, it makes them uncomfortable. But Cora is determined, and six years of research has finally turned up her mother.

Aiyana runs a school for troubled boys in the small California town of Silver Springs, two hours from Cora’s home in Los Angeles. As fate would have it, the school is looking for an art teacher and after several years of substitute teaching, Cora applies for the permanent position and gets it. Aiyana’s adopted eldest son, Elijah, is the one who interviews and hires her and Cora is strongly attracted to him but afraid of getting too close to her birth mother’s offspring, even if there is no blood relation between them.

But Eli is just as attracted to Cora and proposes a physical relationship. Eli has had a horrific childhood, and even though Aiyana is a wonderful mother to him, he has emotional scars that still haven’t healed, leaving him closed off emotionally. His previous relationships all ended because of it. Cora is so attracted to him she agrees, thinking this is the perfect solution – no emotional entanglement, just a physical one. Of course she falls in love with him and tries backing off, trying to protect her heart, but surprising himself, Eli can’t let her go.

Meanwhile, Cora loves teaching at the school and especially loves getting to know her mother. But the longer she is there and involved with Eli and his family, the harder it gets to tell them her real reason for being there.

This was good and I’m glad I read it, but I liked the second book better. It is longer, the characters more developed and lots more plot twists. Nonetheless, this was a very enjoyable read and a great introduction to the series.

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

FINDING OUR FOREVER by Brenda Novak. Harlequin Special Edition (March 21, 2017).  ISBN 978-0373623389. 224p.

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Peyton White’s sister Sara is dying. Her niece is hitting her teen years and the three of them are as close as could be, especially since both sisters have never married and Sara has been a single mom since her daughter was born. She got pregnant during a one night stand in college and didn’t even know the father’s last name, only that he was visiting to play in a hockey game.

Now her daughter is twelve years old and Sara sees a headline, recognizing her one night stand and finally learning his full name. He is Drew Sellers, and he’s in the headlines because his hockey career just ended with an injury. Sara meets with him to tell him he has a daughter, but he has seen that happen to a lot of professional athletes. Turns out Sara is telling the truth, about him being the father and the fact she is dying.

Peyton flies to Chicago from NYC, taking a leave of absence from work to care for her dying sister and supervise Drew’s visits. Drew falls in love with his daughter and with Peyton, but there are lots of complications.

This was a real tear jerker and I cried my way through this book to the (thank goodness) happily ever after ending. This was a riveting, emotional read and I loved it.

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

DANCING IN THE RAIN by Kelly Jamieson. Loveswept (April 11, 2017).  ASIN B01M5I070G. eBook only.