The AAR Seventeen in 17 Reading Challenge – April Update
Another month flown by and here’s hoping you’ve packed in some great reads! Here’s the chance to keep track of your reading for the Seventeen in 17 Reading Challenge and share your thoughts on the books you read throughout April.
It’s not too late to sign up – just head on over to the main Challenge page to have a look at the fabulously varied range of prompts that are sure to provide food for thought for everyone, and get stuck in to your TBR pile!
Now it’s over to you Challengers. How many books are you going to knock off the TBR pile this month?
The Breakfast Cereal Challenge
Nutri-Grain (1976) = This cereal was first introduced in Australia. Read a romance set in Australia or New Zealand.
Down Outback Roads by Alissa Callen– set in Australia: The main h/h were each trying to fix up the secondary h/h and the secondary couple were each trying to fix up the main couple which provided for some fun scenes. There were a few misunderstandings between the main h/h, but they were quickly cleared up because *gasp* they actually talked to each other like adults. They each knew why the other was reluctant to become involved because—again—they talked about it. The pace of the story was slow. The three big plot surprises were each obvious, but that didn’t detract much from the story and there were a few little surprises. The heroine’s brother’s actions were my main issue with the plot. Though I wish the secondary romance had had more page time, overall I enjoyed both of the romances and the setting.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 12 down, 5 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 7 down, 10 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!
The Breakfast Cereal Challenge
Rice Krispies (1929) = The mascots for this cereal are Snap, Crackle and Pop. Read a romance that is part of a trilogy. Or read a ménage romance.
Relaunch Mission by Robyn Bachar – book one in the Galactic Cold War trilogy: The book started with the heroine being forced to work with the hero who’d wronged her in the past. The circumstances of their reunion came off very rushed. I would have liked to have seen more page time devoted to the heroine dealing with the fallout, but I appreciated that she finally got to have her say (can’t say more without major spoilers). There was a lot going on, in some ways too much as there were several subplots I would’ve liked to have seen more fully explored. At times the emphasis was on the action and I wanted more of the romance. But that said this was a very fun read with a well-matched couple who had great chemistry together. The premise/world-building was very interesting. And the sequel-baiting worked as I am now eagerly awaiting book two.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 6 down, 11 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 12 down, 5 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 7 down, 10 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!
Continuing with the Cocktail Challenge…
For this part of the challenge, I decided to read Terri Osburn’s Meant to Be. Published in 2013, this was her debut novel. The story is set on Anchor Island, which is supposed to be off the coast of North Carolina … I think, and it’s the first in a series of four books.
In Meant to Be, our heroine, Beth Chandler, is a lawyer who is engaged to another lawyer at a firm in Richmond, Virginia. Lucas Dempsey, the fiancé, is very ambitious to make partner and often puts his job first before anything or anyone. Beth is far less ambitious about the law, is not even sure she likes it, and spends most of her time doing research in support of other lawyer’s cases. After they become engaged, the couple plan a trip to Anchor Island, where Lucas grew up, to meet his family. However, since new information for an important case materializes, Lucas encourages Beth to go ahead to Anchor on her own. This involves her crossing from the mainland to the island on an auto ferry which terrifies her. In fact, all boats terrify her, and she finds herself being consoled by a handsome stranger who just happens to know Lucas and doesn’t have very kind words to say about the type of fiancé Lucas might be bringing home. When she gets on the island, Beth makes her way to Lucas’ family home and is welcomed by his mother, stepfather, and later, his older stepbrother, Joe, who just happens to be the handsome stranger from the boat. While Beth deduced that Joe was Lucas’ brother from his earlier, unflattering comments, Joe is shocked to find that the sweet, attractive woman he met on the boat is actually his younger brother’s fiancé! Although Lucas makes it to Anchor Island for a very brief time, he is soon called back to Richmond and leaves Beth behind to be entertained by his parents and Joe (who runs a charter boat fishing business). Before long, Beth is making friends with the islanders and involving herself in a public dispute facing the community which is being driven by an important client from her law firm, putting her in a precarious position. However, that’s not the only difficult position she finds herself in. Beth and Joe are also finding that they might be falling in love.
While this is not a bad story, I have to say I found it mostly average. I think the fact that the heroine – despite involving herself in the community’s legal fight – is oddly passive about her own life makes for a frustrating read. The reader learns why Beth is initially such a doormat, but it makes for some slow going when everyone around her is much more vibrant. Towards the end of the book, the action does pick up and I came to like the heroine better. However, it took us too long to get there and, therefore, wasn’t a very compelling read. I’m guessing the next book in the series doesn’t suffer from that problem since the heroine for that one (Sid Navarro) was actually much more interesting than Beth – in Beth’s own story! So, I guess I would give this book a C+/B- just because it did have some potential and introduced us to some good supporting characters.
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The Cocktail Challenge – 5 down, 5 to go.
Alphabet Challenge – 4 down, 6 to go. (B, G, H, & J)
The Cocktail Challenge
Chicago Cocktail – Read a book set in Chicago or a book about firemen.
The Thing About Love by Julie James – set mostly in Chicago :The h/h were both FBI agents. They’d clashed when they’d first met six years prior and they weren’t happy to now be paired up for an undercover case. I enjoyed the he-said/she-said exploration of their past at the FBI Academy. I also liked their family interactions. There was a touch of angst and lots of humor. The case was rather bland, but the romance more than made the book.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 5 down, 12 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 12 down, 5 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 7 down, 10 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – novellas
Nightmare in Nowhere by Chassie West: The heroine woke up during a storm to a strange dog licking her face and found herself in the backseat of a car on the brink of falling into a creek with no memory of how she got there. Thankfully the dog was a search-and-rescue dog, though he didn’t understand the fact he was supposed to be retired. The hero lived in a mountain cabin so as to get away from everyone and wasn’t keen on his unexpected guest. The mystery of why she was there was intriguing with each questioning the other’s motives. The romance was only hinted at, but it was easy to believe they’d be happy together once all was settled. Plus the hero had a great dog!
Here There Be Dragons by Meljean Brook: I am very late to the Iron Seas series party (and don’t yet have all the remaining books in my TBR), but I really enjoyed this prequel novella despite the blurb which had convinced me I would not. The heroine was on the run from the hero, but came to understand all was not as she’d been led to believe. The hero needed the heroine’s talents as an inventor to sort out a major problem. They could have resolved much of their angst early on if they’d had an honest conversation, but the author did a good job of conveying why they didn’t. My only quibble was that I would have liked to have spent more time with the h/h together. Overall a very enjoyable story.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 5 down, 12 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 11 down, 6 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 7 down, 10 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!
The Breakfast Cereal Challenge
Honeycomb (1965) = A honeycomb is a structure of adjoining cavities or cells. Read a romance that is part of a series.
Cavanaugh on Call by Marie Ferrarella – book 34 in Cavanaugh Justice series: This long-running series can be fun in a check-your-logic-at-the-door kind of way. The idea that the town routinely makes the FBI’s top ten list of safest cities to live despite the fact they have enough murderers and serial killers to maintain such a huge homicide department as well as a very big robbery division where partners become involved/marry yet remain partners and that’s somehow not an HR issue has become the most ridiculous part of this series in the last few years (in the beginning the various h/h’s did not stay as partners). But usually there’s a sense of fun and the case is interesting enough that it’s easy to suspend disbelief. Not so with this book. The heroine suspected her half-brother was involved in a series of robberies so she requested a transfer from homicide to robbery. She then lied to her new partner and their boss and thought about how she would destroy evidence/do whatever it took to protect her brother. The hero was too busy trying to get her like him to pay attention to his job. Their banter felt forced. I would have DNF’d, but kept hoping for a surprise twist. Overall a very frustrating read.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 5 down, 12 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 11 down, 6 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 5 down, 12 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!
Continuing with the Cocktail Challenge…
For this part of the challenge I picked up a book that received a DIK review here on AAR. The book is Tiffany Reisz’s The Bourbon Thief, published in 2016. I don’t disagree (that much) with the “A” grade, but I do disagree that the book is a romance. Frankly, The Bourbon Thief reads more like women’s fiction with a southern gothic edge.
This story is told through two time periods, in which one of our characters is telling a story to another character after they have a sexual encounter and then is caught stealing an expensive, one-of-a-kind bottle of bourbon. Paris guarantees that, once Cooper McQueen hears her tale involving the bottle of liquor, he will let her go … with the bourbon. He is both attracted and intrigued. So, Paris begins her tale, which takes up the majority of the book, about a wealthy Kentucky family that owns a business which makes the bourbon, Red Thread, and the soap opera-ish relationships that entwine and curse them, starting with the pre-Civil War Maddoxes, a slave girl, and the birth of the business. From that point, Paris jumps to the late 1970’s, and to a 17 year old girl named Tamara who is due to inherit the Maddox fortune, but is really interested in both horses and the young man who works in the stables. When Tamara’s mother and grandfather learn of the young girl’s passions, they take action, secrets are revealed, and Tamara has to grow up quickly.
As I mentioned, I don’t think this story is a romance, although there are romantic relationships in it. There’s some tough subject matters covered, including rape, murder, illness, and incest. The story doesn’t end unhappily … per se, but it’s not a traditional HEA, by any stretch. I think I would give this book an “A-“ rather than an “A” only because I felt like things were kind of left up in the air with one of our heroines. As for the other, I guess it ended the way it should’ve for her, but that doesn’t mean I had to be happy about it.
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The Cocktail Challenge – 4 down, 6 to go.
Alphabet Challenge – 4 down, 6 to go. (B, G, H, & J)
The Cocktail Challenge
Horse’s Neck – Read a book where the h/h works with horses, is a cowboy/cowgirl or a book set in Kentucky horse country.
Rebel Cowboy by Nicole Helm – the h/h both own ranches: I had a very difficult time getting into the story and kept setting the book aside. The heroine’s dismissive attitude about the hero’s situation was annoying. There wasn’t much of any external conflict preventing a relationship between the h/h. The emotional baggage they each carried provided enough internal conflict, but resulted in repetitive internal monologues. I did have sympathy for the heroine’s situation and came to like her, but the hero was the one who made this story. They had a nice chemistry. The plot held no real surprises. I am interested to see how the remaining books in this trilogy play out.
The Alphabet Challenge Variation
C = Red Clover Inn by Carla Neggers: The Diplomatic Security Special Agent hero was fully recovered from a gunshot wound and taking a break before starting his new desk job in DC. The marine archeologist heroine was reevaluating her life faced with the prospect of never being able to dive again. Their romance was slow to develop, but the meandering pace worked well for the story. There was a touch of info-dumping as many of the characters from previous books appeared, but I actually found it helpful as it can be difficult to keep track of the large cast of supporting characters. All the descriptions of food made me hungry. The h/h were each facing the repercussions of life and career changes not of their own choosing. After the relaxed pace of so much of the book the ending felt extremely rushed. But overall an enjoyable romance filled with humor and a light-hearted mystery.
The Cocktail Challenge
Boilermaker – Read a book about a working class hero.
Necessary Action by Julie Miller – hero is undercover cop, heroine is a paramedic: The heroine was a trained paramedic, though she worked for her uncle on his farm which was an unincorporated township. The hero was undercover investigating the farm’s gun-running connections. She knew something wrong was going on, but was still living there to get answers about her father’s mysterious death years earlier. I really liked the heroine and she and the hero were well-matched. The romance too often took a backseat to the suspense plot, but I liked that they were a team. I wish the story had been longer to more fully explore their relationship. The mystery was bland with a few loose ends about supporting characters. This was the last of the siblings’ books, but the main mystery remains unsolved. Thankfully their widowed father will be getting a story so we’ll presumably get the answers with his book.
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The Breakfast Cereal Challenge: 4 down, 13 to go…
Seventeen Magazine(s)! Challenge: 7 down, 10 to go…
The Alphabet Challenge Variation: 9 down, 8 to go…
The Cocktail Challenge: 11 down, 6 to go…
Simply Seventeen Challenge (The Whittler) – Novellas: 5 down, 12 to go…
The 20th Century Challenge: completed!