The Best Man For The Job-Lucy King

The Best Man For The Job
Lucy King
Harlequin Kiss, Jun 1 2014, $5.99
ISBN: 9780373179008

Celia Forrester feels good about her brother Dan’s wedding to Zoe but dreads walking down the aisle afterward arm in arm with the best man Marcus Black. Fifteen years ago, teenage Cecilia loved Marcus, but he rejected her advances.

However, this time Marcus has no compunctions and openly flirts with Celia. Although she still remains mortified over what almost happened, she also realizes she still wants her brother’s best friend. Celia concludes a brief fling will rid her of her craving for Marcus. They make love, but she becomes pregnant. Both wonder what to do about their relationship with a baby soon to be in the picture.

The Best Man For The Job is an entertaining contemporary in which a pregnancy radically alters the dynamics between the protagonists. Although the relationship feels emotionally underdeveloped and the storyline goes the expected path, Lucy King writes an overall enjoyable second (and third) chance romance.

Harriet Klausner

Empire Girls-Suzanne Hayes & Loretta Nyhan

Empire Girls
Suzanne Hayes & Loretta Nyhan
Mira, May 27 2014, $14.95
ISBN 9780778316299

In 1918 in Forest Grove, New York their mom died, leaving the older sister Rose in charge of the home while Ivy remained childishly unchanged. Over the next seven years, Rose’s resentment towards her sister grows immensely while Ivy detests her sibling’s prim behavior. When their dad dies, the twenty-something sisters are stunned to learn they are penniless. However the biggest shock is that even their home Adams House went to an older half-brother Asher that neither of the sisters knew existed before the solicitor mentioned him; apparently their dad searched unsuccessfully for his first born.

With a photo of Asher in front of a New York City boarding house, the sisters head to Manhattan hoping to find their brother. They easily locate the building in Greenwich Village and obtain a room in the attic so they can ask the occupants questions about Asher. Everyone they talk to insists they never met Asher though the siblings believe they are being lied to. As the sisters in different ways struggle to acclimate to the city, they begin to unravel the truth.

Empire Girls is an engaging Roaring Twenties family drama based on the premise of “How ya gonna keep ’em away from Broadway Jazzin around and paintin’ the town” (from “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm” (Joe Young, Sam M. Lewis and Walter Donaldson). The storyline captures the essence of the era through the rotating changing eyes of the country bumpkin sisters. The cast purposely is stereotyped to enhance the post WWI celebratory euphoria; leaving fans to enjoy visiting speakeasies to drink illegal booze and dance alongside flappers, while learning the truth about Asher.

Harriet Klausner

The Cursed-Heather Graham

The Cursed
Heather Graham
Mira, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN 9780778316268

In Key West Hannah O’Brien runs Siren of the Sea bed and breakfast, which has been owned by her family for several generations. Though her B&B struggles to survive, Hannah supplements her income with ghost tours beginning at Siren of the Sea.

Following a tour, a college student couple staying at the B&B, Stuart Bell and Shelly Nicholson, see an apparent ghost holding a knife dripping with blood by the pool; terrified they leave immediately. Hannah lectures Melody and Hagen the ghosts for frightening their paying guests, but both spirits emphatically deny involvement. The next morning Hannah finds a corpse who looks like the ghost as described by the upset guests. While her cousin Krewe of Hunters Kelsey O’Brien tells her she is coming, the local cops inform FBI Agent Dallas Sampson as this homicide seems to have ties to his smuggling ring Los Lobos case and the victim was a Fed. Meanwhile the new ghost Jose Rodriguez pleads with Hannah to help him while she believes Sampson suspects her as the killer.

The latest Krewe of Hunters urban fantasy police procedural (see Phantom Evil) is a terrific thriller due to a solid cast (including ghosts) and a strong haunting locale. Fast-paced, readers will enjoy touring with Hannah and Dallas as our guides Key West for ghosts and learning of sunken treasure although the audience will guess who the villain is before the cops do.

Harriet Klausner

A Man’s Promise-Brenda Jackson

A Man’s Promise
Brenda Jackson
Mira, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN: 9780778316251

Several years ago, Caden Granger and Shiloh Timmons planned to elope in Vegas. However, her martinet father Samuel sent Caden photos of his daughter with another man and though Caden waited, Shiloh failed to show up.

Now Samuel’s widow Sandra visits Caden to apologize for not being there for him and his siblings fifteen years when his dad killed his mom and to set the truth straight re Shiloh. She says the incriminating pictures were Photoshop, and Shiloh failed to meet him because she was in Boston fighting for her life after being a victim of a hit and run which killed their unborn baby. Caden is shocked and ashamed as he never gave his beloved Shiloh an opportunity to explain.

The second Granger romantic suspense is an exciting second chance drama although the protagonists’ conflict ends too quickly especially with how he reacted. The overarching theme moves forward with implications that what led to the Granger patriarch’s conviction fifteen years ago is not the truth. Although clearly a middle-book plot connecting the first entry (see A Brother’s Honor) to the next thriller, series fans will enjoy learning more about the two families intertwined tighter than the DNA helix.

Harriet Klausner

Something to Talk About-Dakota Cassidy

Something to Talk About
Dakota Cassidy
Mira, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN 9780778316275

In Plum Orchard, Georgia Emmaline Amos’s husband Clifton, Sr. dumps her for Gina who encourages his cross-dressing lifestyle in Atlanta; as he insists his wife is a lackluster mother of their two sons (Clifton, Jr. and Gareth). The town gossips have a field day with the breakup of the Amos marriage.

Her best friend Dixie Davis (see Talk Dirty to Me) hires Em to manage her thriving phone-sex company Call Girls. After a discussion with Jax Hawthorne’s young daughter Maizy who called the “girlfriend store” to get her dad a date, Em decides to be more than a boring rural mom. She chooses fuming Jax who confronts the phone sex operator for talking with his daughter; only he is taken aback when Em suggests a tryst. As the single parents fall in love, Em deals with a town without pity, her spouse’s custody threats, and her sons’ issues re their father leaving.

The second Plum Orchard romance is an amusing regional contemporary in which the beleaguered heroine owns the storyline as she struggles with family, friends, gossipers and her heart while in love with a single dad and his daughter. Fans will enjoy Dakota Cassidy’s tale of a woman finding her groove by simply finding herself

Harriet Klausner

Avenge Me-Maisey Yates

Avenge Me
Maisey Yates
Harlequin Presents, May 27 2014, $9.99
ISBN: 9780373430376

Once best friends, Alex, Hunter and Austin meet every year as they have for the past decade on the anniversary of the event that turned them into shallow deniers. This time Austin shows them the letter proving his renowned (for advocating women’s rights) father Jason caused Sarah to commit suicide when he ignored her rejection of his advances. Austin feels guilty for also ignoring Sarah’s mental state just before she killed herself. The three men agree to prove Jason’s guilt in this and other female victims including two others who were very close to them.

Sarah’s sister Katy received a letter from her sister explaining all to her just before she jumped off the building. Since that fatal day, she has sought evidence to destroy the man responsible for tormenting her sibling to death. At a gala Katy and Austin attend seeking to avenge Sarah’s death, they meet and are attracted to each other. Once she learns who he is, she wants nothing to do with him; while he vows to insure his father keeps his creepy hands off of her.

The first Fifth Avenue romance (prequel Take Me by Maisey Yates; future pubs: Scandalize Me by Caitlin Crews and Expose Me by Kate Hewitt) is an entertaining opening act as two people fall in love while sharing a common obsession for avenging justice. Although Jason’s behavior in this age of instant media seems unlikely to not have been exposed by now especially with deaths and pay-offs; he is diabolical using his support of female causes as sheep clothing for his proclivity. Readers will enjoy strike one in the effort to destroy the vile man who devastated so many lives behind the façade of mentor.

Harriet Klausner

The Virgin of Clan Sinclair-Karen Ranney

The Virgin of Clan Sinclair
Karen Ranney
Avon, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN: 9780062242495

In 1875 Drumvagen, Scotland, prim and proper Ellice Traylor knows she will never compare to her late sister Eudora, the perfect paragon in the mind of her shrewish demanding mother Enid. Whereas Ellice is grateful to Macrath and Virginia Sinclair (see The Devil of Clan Sinclair) for allowing her and her mom to live at Drumvagen Estate in Scotland, Enid takes it for granted due to her being a countess.

Ellice secretly writes a book “The Lustful Adventures of Lady Pamela” that she hopes her friend Mairi (see The Witch of Clan Sinclair) will publish, but must find a way to go to Edinburgh. When the Earl of Gladsden visits Drumvagen, Ellice is shocked as this Ross Forster could have been the role model for the hero in her tale. As the Earl leaves for Edinburgh, Ellice hides in his carriage. When he finds her book in his carriage, he draws the same conclusion she made that he could have been the hero. Fearing others would reach the same thoughts, which would destroy his political ambitions, Ross tries to prevent the book from being published. When they are compromised, he proposes but she has doubts as real men pale next to fictional heroes; or is it the reverse.

The third Victorian Era Scottish Clan Sinclair romance is an enjoyable amusing nineteenth century tale with metafiction extracts and comparisons to Ellice’s erotica adding fun. Readers will appreciate Karen Ranney’s wonderful historical; as Ellice turns to Pamela for guidance while Ross struggles to prove he, not some fictional character, is the writer’s real hero.

Harriet Klausner

Backwoods-Jill Sorenson

Backwoods
Jill Sorenson
Harlequin HQN, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN: 9780373778720

Though backwoods hiking is not at the top of her list, San Diego Seaside Retirement Center Director Abby Hammond accompanies her teenage daughter Brooke on a trek in the High Sierras. Abby decided to come because she distrusts her ex-husband, plastic surgeon Ray Dwyer, showing up for his daughter though he is a good father when he does his commitments. Accompanying Ray are his second wife Lydia and her college-age son Leo from her first marriage.

Leo is at the cabin when mother and daughter arrive. As Leo and Brooke go for a ride on his motorcycle, recovering alcoholic former Major League player Nathan Strom comes to the cabin hoping to reconcile with his son; though his baseball career and visitation rights died after Leo uploaded on YouTube his drunken state. Abby muses that she and Nathan shares one thing in common; their respective spouses cheated on them with each other. Leo explains Lydia sprained her ankle so Ray opted out to be with her; ergo they sent him instead. As the tense quartet hike, the two teens angrily pronounce revelations re their parents. However, when Brooke vanishes, the rage turns to fear as two adults and a teen desperately search for her.

The angst is higher than the range that the foursome hike as each has issues going back to the affair (though in Nathan’s case he believes alcoholism drove his then wife to another man) that changed the two families. The tension is already stratospheric when Abby’s disappearance raises it beyond the troposphere; yet it also enables the adults in their frantic search to get close. Although the ending feels wrong for this otherwise strong family drama turned thriller, fans will appreciate the hike.

Harriet Klausner

Before We Kiss-Susan Mallery

Before We Kiss
Susan Mallery
Harlequin HQN, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN: 978-0373778812

Retired NFL player Sam Ridge is in Fool’s Gold, California because his PR firm Score relocated from Los Angeles. He and event planner Dellina Hopkins meet in a hotel bar and enjoy a wonderful sexual encounter until he panics in fear when he sees a room filled with wedding gowns.

Score hires Dellina to host a weekend event for their clients over Sam’s doubts. Though she wanted more with Sam, Dellina relishes the opportunity to prove her competency to the newcomers, which she hopes means future bookings. Putting aside her hurt; Dellina quickly demonstrates she knows what she is doing as she plans the event. However, Sam almost has a stroke when she employs a certain sex guru; as this guest lecturer happens to be his outspoken mom. As the ex-jock and the planner work closely together they fall in love, but he obsessively distrusts that emotion since he always ends up hurt and at times even ridiculed like with his ex-wife’s tell-all autobiography.

The second Score Fool’s Gold romance (see When We Met) is a fun amusing contemporary starring a hunk sacked by love and a responsible caring woman who hopes he will trust her one day with his heart. Rotating perspective between them, readers will relish this entry as his family and associates add humorous depth while her sisters enable us to understand her better.

Harriet Klausner

Take My Breath Away-Christie Ridgway

Take My Breath Away
Christie Ridgway
Harlequin HQN, May 27 2014, $7.99
ISBN: 9780373778324

When the Inn Klein management announces a renovation project, employee Poppy Walker decides her family property could do likewise and turn it into a thriving Southern California mountain retreat. Her siblings insist the idea is inane as each believes the place is cursed with no good ever coming from this land their ancestors obtained over a century and a half ago.

The single mom leaves her beloved five years old son with cousins and accompanied only by Grimm the dog begins her project. Needing money, she rents a dilapidated cabin at five times the normal rate to Ryan Hamilton who insists he needs time away to think; Poppy is unaware that her guest was a teen movie star and remains a Hollywood big shot. When a storm makes her abode unlivable and the nearby road unpassable, she moves into his cabin. As they enjoy their tryst, the paparazzi find them. Picking up her child, they hide in his mansion, but agree no sex even as their attraction grows.

Leaving the Crescent Cove Beach House behind, the first Cabin Fever romance is an entertaining contemporary due to the protagonists; as both were hurt by love so each refuses to risk their heart again. The cabin time is hot while the mansion’s phone-sex fun and the leads’ chats enlightening. A late suspense disrupts the pacing and seems unnecessarily even though it forces Ryan to look at what he may lose if he fails to take a chance on love. Still fans will enjoy this entertaining tale as the lead couple makes each other lose control and take their breaths away.

Harriet Klausner