I originally chose Girl Underwater for review because Julia Whelan was listed as the narrator. The plot seemed kind of iffy, since I’m usually not a fan of stories that center around wilderness survival. However, it didn’t take me long to understand that Girl Underwater was a chance I’m very glad I took. Avery Delacorte…
I really, really liked Elle Kennedy’s The Deal. The characters are fantastic, and I stayed up into the wee hours to finish it. Unfortunately, as is the case for any story involving sports or other serious pursuits, Kennedy’s lack of accuracy in portraying the sport of ice hockey created a serious plot hole that kept…
Julie Cross’s Whatever Life Throws At You straddles the line between Young Adult (the heroine is only seventeen) and New Adult (the characters have sex), making it hard to categorize. A wonky ending and a bit of slow pacing kept it from being an A read for me, but I can still recommend it for…
As much as I enjoyed Cora Carmack’s first three books, I was totally avoiding the Rusk University series. First of all, New Adult is a very hit or miss genre for me. I like Carmack’s books but any others that I have read don’t do it for me. They tend to employ the same storylines…
I’ve reviewed two other books by Ms. Parry, and her books continue to interest me; this is no exception. At its bare bones, the story seems trite: a successful woman doctor meets a star baseball player in a hospital. I thought I knew where this was going: she’s all brains, he’s all brawn, but somehow…
I picked this book off our review list when I saw it was about a pro-baseball player. Baseball is one of the few sporting events I actually understand and really enjoy, so I was looking forward to spending my summer not just watching the sport but reading about it. I hadn’t read Stephanie Evanovich before…
Winning Ruby Heart was pretty hard for me to resist. First of all, I like unusual characters, and it’s hard to top a disgraced Olympic runner – and the paraplegic sportscaster who exposed her – in the unusual department. Secondly, the heroine is a runner. I run recreationally, work with runners and ultra-runners, and am…
My only experience with the sport of rugby before this book had been watching the excellent 2009 movie Invictus about the South African rugby team’s pursuit of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. It definitely left the impression that rugby players are exactly the kind of men that could star in a romance novel. This book…
If there’s such a thing as the perfect beach read, it’s Summer is for Lovers. Not too serious, but engaging, fun, and sexy, it’s a lighthearted (if slightly imperfect) way to spend a few hours. Caroline Tolbertson is a very good swimmer, which in the 1840s is not at all the thing. As a young…
I read Katie McGarry’s Dare You To right on the heels of the book that preceded it, Pushing the Limits, because I couldn’t figure out how in the world McGarry could turn such a bitchy character as Beth Fisk into someone that I could root for. While I did eventually warm to the girl, I…