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Annie Rush is the producer of one of the most successful food shows on network TV. Her husband, Martin, is the star and life is good – too good, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it did. When Annie finds out she’s pregnant, she can’t wait to tell her husband and goes rushing down to the set. Catastrophe ensues, and Annie ends up in a coma for over a year.

While she was asleep, her husband divorced her and moved her home to her family in Switchback, Vermont. And then she wakes up. A year in a coma is no joke, and Wiggs handles the recovery process with grace and skill. Eventually she is able to come home to the maple syrup farm where she grew up and learned her love of food from her grandmother. Gram is gone, but her mother and brother and his family are there, and her father, who had walked out on the family when she was just a kid. And her high school sweetheart and first love.

The book is written moving back and forth in time, “then” and “now.” Wiggs creates her usual excellent, fully realized characters and I couldn’t help but be drawn into the story. Another wonderful read from this supremely talented author.

9/16  Stacy Alesi AKA the BookBitch™

FAMILY TREE by Susan Wiggs. William Morrow (August 9, 2016). ISBN 978-0062425430. 368p.

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I may have reserved this book at my library a while ago, because when it showed up yesterday I didn’t remember asking for it. Maybe I read a great review a while back or maybe someone else reserved it for me. I have great co-workers and every now and then a book shows up and I’m not sure where it came from. No matter, I took a look at it and once I saw the blurb from Susan Elizabeth Phillips, “I highly recommend,” I knew I had to read it.

I took it home last night and started reading during the Miami Dolphins-Tennessee Titans game. It didn’t look good for Miami, so I went book instead. Dolphins lost their last pre-season game – and first home game in their newly renovated and renamed stadium. But I won – this was a terrific read.

Lucy Hutton is a petite woman who shares an office with Joshua Templeman. Lucy has always wanted to work in publishing, and when the company she worked for was on the brink of going under, they merged with another publishing house, creating co-CEOs and co-assistants to those CEOs, and those assistants were Lucy and Joshua. Lucy lost her only friend in that merger when 150 people were laid off, but she kept her job. And their were days she almost regretted it.

Their first day together Lucy gave Joshua her biggest, winningest smile. Lucy is a people pleaser, a genuinely nice person who just wants to get along with everyone. Joshua saw her smile, looked her up and down then turned away. Thus started the war.

They sparred nonstop, bringing competition and passive aggressive behavior to the sort of heights that often had Human Resources involved. And then came the announcement; the CEOs were hiring a Chief Operating Officer and an outside firm would be doing the interviewing. Josh and Lucy were the top contenders, but that just caused the competition to heat up. When Lucy proposed a day of team building to help bring the staffs of the two companies closer together, Josh took over and made it a day of paintball. And that’s when the fun really begins.

Any girl who ever had her hair pulled by a boy on the playground knows where this hate fueled relationship ends up, but it was a really fun ride to get there. If you are looking for a light, fast romance with some laugh out loud moments, look no further.

8/16  Stacy Alesi AKA the BookBitch™

THE HATING GAME by Sally Thorne. William Morrow Paperbacks (August 9, 2016). ISBN 978-0062439598. 384p.

A Chicago Stars Novel

First I ramble…

Many years ago I learned a speed reading technique of sorts. It’s not for reading books, but rather looking at books. As a librarian, we get in tons of new books every day and there is no way to read them all. But this technique, that started out as How to Read a Book in Five Minutes then progressed to Ten Minutes, is very helpful at getting a good feel for a book.

I decided to test it out and asked a co-worker, Barbara, to pick out five romances that she was very familiar with, since I hadn’t read a romance in probably twenty years. I locked myself in a room and spent about an hour using this technique and looking at these books. Then I sat down with Barbara and told her about each of the books. We were both astounded at how much I got out of these ten minute reads.

Spring forward a few years and I’m in library school, where my professor assigns us to read a book out of our comfort zone. I chose a romance, again because back then I wasn’t reading any. The book I selected was NATURAL BORN CHARMER, the winner of the American Library Association Genre Fiction Award as the Outstanding Romance of 2007. As I was reading it, I kept thinking it seemed so familiar yet I knew I had never read it. The further I went, the more it kept gnawing at me until I finally realized that one of those ten minute reads was by this same author.

I loved that book and by now I think I’ve read all her books, so I’m always excited when she has a new one. The Chicago Stars series is like most romance series, it is completely unnecessary to read them in any kind of order, they all stand alone beautifully. The series centers around the fictional Chicago Stars football team and each book is about one of the team. Phillips writes smart, sexy books that have a lot of humor, and I would say she is my favorite contemporary romance writer.

First Star I See Tonight is another excellent addition to the series and it has one of the prettiest covers Phillips has ever had.

Cooper Graham was the star quarterback for the Stars, and for some reason, a woman is following him. Piper Dove is that woman and she is determined to live up to her father’s legacy and become a top notch private detective. Except Graham spots her, so she improvises, telling him she’s actually his stalker, albeit a harmless one. And that my friends, is the “meet cute.”

Graham is newly retired from football, and has opened up an exclusive, swanky night club. He eventually hires Piper, ostensibly to help out with security – but she quickly becomes his bodyguard, not that he thinks he needs one. They are a great couple, but face a lot of bumps along the way. But this is a romance and a happy ending is required, and Phillips does not disappoint. Another winner in the Chicago Stars series, and a terrific read. I loved it.

8/16  Stacy Alesi AKA the BookBitch™

FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. William Morrow (August 23, 2016). ISBN 978-0062405616. 384p.

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The Billionaire Builders, Book 1

Probst takes her inspiration from the oh-so-hot Property Brothers in this first book of a new series.

Caleb Pierce is the eldest of three brothers and the only one still working for the family building business. His mother’s family had started it several generations earlier, but after she ran off and died his father is left with a mighty big chip on his shoulder. He fights with his other sons and they take off on their own. Until he dies.

The will has a surprise – the only way the sons will inherit the business is if they all live together and run the business together for one year, and show a profit. They grudgingly agree to give it a try.

Morgan is a beautiful but tough designer to the stars. Her latest clients give her 6 months to build their dream home in the upscale town where the Pierce Brothers are the best builders around. She basically blackmails Caleb into building the house and they fight their attraction for each other through most of the book – until they finally give in to the blazing hot romance.

I loved the quirky book references and I’m a Property Brothers fan, so this book worked for me. Looking forward to the next book in the series, Any Time, Any Place.

5/16 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

EVERYWHERE AND EVERY WAY by Jennifer Probst. St. Martin’s Press (August 11, 2015).  ISBN 978-0312605377. 304p.

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