Tag Archives: Contemporary

Contemporary books are ones where the events take place at or near the time the book was written.

Review: The Rhythm Method

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Review: The Rhythm MethodThe Rhythm Method (Stage Dive, #4.8) by Kylie Scott
Series: Stage Dive #4.8
Published by 1001 Dark Nights Press on November 9, 2021
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 82
Goodreads
four-stars

FINAL DECISION: Very enjoyable story. It is really an epilogue to David and Evelyn’s story, and I really loved how the two of them approached their conflict and worked it out. The presence of the other band members made this a comforting story.

THE STORY:  David and Evelyn have been happily married for seven years. They have been a stabilizing force as the first couple in the Stage Dive band. When an unexpected pregnancy occurs, everything seems to be turned upside down. Now Evelyn and David need to redefine their relationship and build a family together.

OPINION: I don’t want to spoil the story, but in short, an unexpected pregnancy causes problems for Evelyn and David’s marriage. I thought that this was a great little story with such an adult resolution to the conflict. There is some romance and some sexy time, and I enjoyed seeing David and Ev’s relationship change and grow. The premise of the story is a little crazy, but I totally was willing to just go with it.

WORTH MENTIONING: This book ends with a suggestion about the next short novella in the series.

CONNECTED BOOKS: THE RHYTHM METHOD is book 4.8 of the Stage Dive series. This book should be read at least after LICK, as it is a type of epilogue to that couple’s book. I think this book is better for fans of the series because knowledge of all the personalities of the characters and their backstories is assumed.

STAR RATING: I give this book 4 stars.

four-stars

Review: Love Song

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Review: Love SongLove Song (Stage Dive, #4.7) by Kylie Scott
Series: Stage Dive 4.7
Published by Dark Nights on October 20, 2020
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 79
Goodreads
three-half-stars

FINAL DECISION: Enjoyable story, but it lacks the depth of other books in the series because we don’t get a real reason why these two broke up and now can be together.

THE STORY: Adam Dillon is the new hot rock star who has been singing rage songs about his ex. Then his ex, Jill, comes back into his life, intending to give him a piece of her mind and return the large check he sent her. The two discover that perhaps they never got over one another and more love was involved in their relationship than they thought.

OPINION: The story was nice, but if this weren’t a Stage Dive story with appearances from characters from the series, I probably would forget it as soon as I read it. Adam and Jill are sweet together, but for a couple that broke up, there wasn’t enough drama or working through their issues for me to believe that they had a great happy ending in store. That being said, I really liked Adam and Jill. It seemed like the two just didn’t communicate with one another or share their feelings until things fell apart. I liked the characters and thought that they seemed young and working things out. The book suffered from the length. I needed more from their story. With the addition of the Stage Dive crew, however, I really enjoyed the story.

WORTH MENTIONING: Loved seeing the Stage Dive band and their wives!

CONNECTED BOOKS: LOVE SONG is book 4.7 in the Stage Dive series. Characters from the series make appearances here, but the couple is new so a new reader won’t miss anything.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3.5 stars.

three-half-stars

Review: Tangled Lies

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Review: Tangled LiesTangled Lies by Anne Stuart
Published by Harlequin Books Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 255
Goodreads
three-stars

FINAL DECISION: I enjoyed this book as an early Anne Stuart hero. I understand that some people might be offended by the heroine having feelings for her “brother” but as it was obvious that he wasn’t, I wasn’t bothered. I like the ambiguity of whether the hero is good or bad. The negative is that the heroine is not as well developed as later Stuart books.

THE STORY: Rachel Chandler comes to Hawaii to find her brother she hasn’t seen for fifteen years. Her brother, however, is a haunted man to whom Rachel feels an unnatural attraction. (Of course, the man is not her brother, which one might expect from this being a mainstream romance). Dangerous events threaten Rachel, and she needs to figure out who to trust.

OPINION: This is Stuart experimenting with another hero who has ambiguous motivations. She perfected this in the Ice series, but here the story is not as well developed, and neither are the characters. At the time this book was published in 1984, it would have been so different from other category romances. Stuart is an author who broke boundaries, and this book is attempted to go into the darker parts of romance.

Many of the taboo books now are from the Anne Stuart tree of writers. But here, she is interested in messing with the expected narrative of category romances. For much of the book, neither the heroine nor the reader knows the hero’s motives and who he is in the story. In subverting the trustworthiness of the hero, the book allows the reader to question whether it is a good idea for the heroine to get involved with him.

I liked how Stuart upends the expected story, but I didn’t think the heroine was strong enough here. She was a bit meek for my interest. Later Stuart books had stronger heroines. This book can have benefitted from Rachel being more assertive earlier in the story. The book is a bit bonkers, but I liked the twists in the story.

WORTH MENTIONING: TANGLED LIES is one of Anne Stuart’s early books. She perfected the hero who has ambiguous motives and might be the villain as sh

CONNECTED BOOKS: TANGLED LIES is a standalone.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.

three-stars

Review: More Than Desire You

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Review: More Than Desire YouMore Than Desire You (Reed Family Reckoning, #8) by Shayla Black
Series: Reed Family Reckoning #8
on November 1, 2022
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 322
Goodreads
three-half-stars

FINAL DECISION: I enjoyed this book, but my interest in this series is beginning to wane a bit. I’m hoping that we will move on soon to a new group of people. I didn’t feel that the story between these two was as deep as others in the series.

THE STORY: Xavian Costa has decided to get revenge on his best friend who slept with the woman Xavian planned to marry and then made a movie that painted Xavian as the villain. The form of Xavian’s revenge is his ex-best friend’s sister, Corinne, who has come to Xavian for help manipulating her brother to get her inheritance. Xavian proposes that the two of them fake an engagement — but Xavian also plans on using Corinne for his own pleasure. When Xavian just begins realizing that something between the two of them might be real, his plans completely unravel.

OPINION: This book is really hot, but I wanted a bit more of the relationship development. Corinne wasn’t as interesting a character to match Xavian. I would have liked him to have a real contrast. There was something about the relationship that never seemed to be grounded in the couple. I would have liked to have more conflict between them. At the same time, the book fits well in the series. Xavian wasn’t as much of a jerk as I had expected because he falls pretty fast for Corinne…perhaps that is what feels a little off. Xavian is so quickly falling for Corinne that the stakes of the story never feel that high.

WORTH MENTIONING: The epilogue of this book introduces readers to one of the new main characters in the next book.

CONNECTED BOOKS: MORE THAN DESIRE YOU is the eighth book in the More Than Words/Reed Family Reckoning Series. The romance here is self-contained and can be read as a standalone, although there are relationships between the characters (apart from the main characters) that have developed over the series.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3.5 stars.

three-half-stars

Review: You Had Me at Hola

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Review: You Had Me at HolaYou Had Me at Hola (Primas of Power, #1) by Alexis Daria
Series: Primas of Power #1
Published by Avon on August 4, 2020
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 387
Goodreads
three-stars

FINAL DECISION: Sweet but average romance. Didn’t live up to the hype, but certainly an okay read. I enjoyed the telenovela setting, which felt fun and flirty, but the hero was a mess.

THE STORY: Jasmine Lin Rodriguez is starting the most important role of her career as the star of a bilingual romantic comedy. After a messy public breakup, Jasmine is determined to lay low until she meets her co-star, Ashton Suárez. After being dumped from his most recent telenovela, Ashton worries that he is past the prime of his career and hopes that this role will give him a chance to increase his visibility in Hollywood. Both Jasmine and Ashton have a lot of gain in this performance, so creating chemistry on screen is vital. But as the two work to improve their performance, they find out that everything between them is not acting.

OPINION: This story was enjoyable as a read, but quickly forgettable. It was a bit banal. I really didn’t get any emotional connection between these characters. Their relationship felt cold. They had sex and acted, and then there were performative lectures about how a relationship should be. But I really didn’t get much emotion or connection between these characters.

My real problem was with the hero. I really felt like he was a hot mess. And it seemed like the heroine needed to get him to act more responsibly. It seemed like he had things together by the epilogue, but I needed that before.

There were some fun and flirty moments. I enjoyed how parts of this book mirrored the telenovela/romantic comedy/soap opera format. The first part of the book is flirty and cute. Unfortunately, the story turned serious, and I didn’t like the obvious drama that pulled the couple apart. It was too contrived and didn’t work for me. Instead, the characters stayed disconnected.

There was a good book here, and it was almost good. Instead, it was just okay.

WORTH MENTIONING: I enjoyed how this book includes some episodes of the show which interacts in interesting ways with the “real” story.

CONNECTED BOOKS: YOU HAD ME AT HOLA is the first book in the Primas of Power series.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.

three-stars

Review: Blame it on the Billionaire

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Review: Blame it on the BillionaireBlame It on the Billionaire (Blackout Billionaires #3) by Naima Simone
Series: Blackout Billionaires #3
on January 9, 2020
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 224
Goodreads
four-stars

FINAL DECISION: This was my favorite of the series. I really liked these characters. The story was over the top, but it felt well within the expectations for series romances. I enjoyed this one and would reread it.

THE STORY: During a blackout, executive assistant Nadia Jordan takes the chance on a secret one-night stand with her crush, the owner of the company she works for, billionaire Grayson Chandler. Things explode, however, when Grayson is trying to avoid his matchmaking mother and sees Nadia and claims her as his fiancee. The two are soon involved in a fake relationship that seems awfully real.

OPINION: This book is short and sexy, and the trilogy’s best. The main characters are both nice people who quickly fall for one another. I thought the motivations for having the fake engagement worked in this one. I absolutely adored Nadia in this book. There is a beautiful scene where she tells Grayson that he is worthy of love which elevates my opinion of this book.

The book is filled with tropes: rich guy/girl from the wrong side of tracks, boss/secretary, fake engagement, Cinderella, and probably plenty more that I didn’t note. The story has energy because the layered tropes work in this book in a way that they didn’t for me in the prior two books in the series.

Admittedly, reading this book requires suspension of disbelief on many of the plot points, but that is not unreasonable for a category romance that takes place in fewer pages and thus is compressed. There is only one terrible character that makes an on-page appearance in this book, and luckily, she is quickly off the page. This book also managed to tone down the disapproving parents. These ones aren’t nearly as terrible as others in the series.

This book just felt right to me. What is a similar story feels more complex than the others in the series, with the rough edges filed off and characters that I really liked.

WORTH MENTIONING: All three books in this series are iterations of almost precisely the same story. This one is the best of the three. The family is less terrible, and the couple seems really decent.

CONNECTED BOOKS: BLAME IT ON THE BILLIONAIRE is the third book in the Blackout Billionaires series. The book can be read as a standalone because while the books all occur at the same place and time, there is no overlap of characters (except for a brief wrap-up in this book).

STAR RATING: I give this book 4 stars.

four-stars

Review: Black Tie Billionaire

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Review: Black Tie BillionaireBlack Tie Billionaire (Blackout Billionaires #2) by Naima Simone
Series: Blackout Billionaire #2
Published by Harlequin Desire on August 8, 2019
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 224
Goodreads
three-stars

FINAL DECISION: The story was just okay. It read okay as a quick read, but I would not go back to the book again.

THE STORY: During a blackout, Shay Neal ends up having a one-night stand with Gideon Knight. Shay is at the party under a pseudonym, but Gideon is furious when her identity is revealed to him. Shay is the sister of Gideon’s enemy. Determined to get his revenge, Gideon blackmails Shay into a fake relationship. Gideon’s intended revenge, however, is complicated by his very real attraction to Shay.

OPINION: This is a book without any subtleties. At times, it almost read as a parody of series romances. Everything was drawn really broad. The characters also didn’t have much depth at all. I wish the author had cut down on the drama and written from some depth of the characters. It can be done even in a shortened form.

The story was okay. I read through it really quickly, and I liked the relationship between Shay and Gideon. I wouldn’t pick this up again, and I might even forget that I read it in a month. There are really good series books and even novellas, but this isn’t one of them.

WORTH MENTIONING: Shay’s brother is just a terrible person.

CONNECTED BOOKS: BLACK TIE BILLIONAIRE is the second book in the Blackout Billionaires series. The books, however, are really standalone books with a common event (the blackout).

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.

three-stars

Review: The Billionaire’s Bargain

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Review: The Billionaire’s BargainThe Billionaire's Bargain (Blackout Billionaires #1) by Naima Simone
Series: Blackout Billionaires #1
Published by Harlequin Desire on May 16, 2019
Genres: Contemporary
Goodreads
three-stars

FINAL DECISION: The story is well written with clear characters and conflict, but I didn’t feel that either the characters or the story were remarkable. I’ve read much better category romances. This one was a good read but not memorable.

THE STORY: Darius King finds comfort from a woman during a blackout. When the lights come back on, however, he discovers that the woman is Isobel Hughes Wells — the woman who betrayed her husband, his best friend. Darius discovers that the child is actually his best friend’s son, contrary to the rumor that she had another man’s child. So Darius decides that Isobel must marry him so that he can raise the boy as his friend would have wanted. The only problem — Darius is attracted to Isobel, and she doesn’t appear the wicked woman he thought she was.

OPINION: The story was enjoyable to read. I’m not sorry that I read it. However, it was just okay as a memorable book. I read it a week ago, and I’m already having trouble remembering what I liked about it.

I did like the setup of the story and felt the conflict that the hero felt, being torn between his own developing feelings for Isobel and his loyalty to his “family” who hate Isobel. I understood his ambivalence considering his past, so I didn’t dislike him. But I really did not like the family, which is pretty terrible. Isobel shows great strength in this story as a character.

Some of the negatives. I really didn’t like how the paternity issue was resolved. It didn’t feel like the betrayal was adequately resolved. I wanted more of the relationship between Dante and Isobel. It felt too superficial for the issues involved.

Honestly, the most memorable part of this book is the blackout, which makes the rest of the book a bit of a letdown.

WORTH MENTIONING: This is a category romance in the Harlequin Desire series.

CONNECTED BOOKS: THE BILLIONAIRE’S BARGAIN is the first book in the Blackout Billionaires series.

STAR RATING: I give this book 3 stars.

three-stars

Review: Meet You in the Middle

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Review: Meet You in the MiddleMeet You in the Middle by Devon Daniels
Published by Berkley Books on February 2, 2021
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 368
Goodreads
two-stars

FINAL DECISION: I was not engaged by this book. The story was too banal and uninteresting, with the characters not well defined or interesting. The first quarter of the book was the best. Once the characters became interested in one another, I was not interested in them.

THE STORY: Senate staffer Kate Adams is trying to gain support for a piece of liberal legislation when she encounters Ben Mackenzie, who works for a conservative senator. The two strike sparks off of one another immediately. As the two continue to spar with one another, they first develop an unlikely friendship and then their relationship becomes deeper and more complicated.

OPINION: I kept reading this book, figuring that there must be something there, but I was just bored by it. The story between these two was superficial and did not really engage with their conflicts. There actually is little politics in this one. It’s more used as a device to keep the two apart, and it doesn’t grapple with the differences between these characters. Don’t have much else to write about it. Not sexy, not funny, and definitely doesn’t live up to the blurb or even the first couple of chapters.

WORTH MENTIONING: This book has only one sex scene late in the novel.

CONNECTED BOOKS: MEET YOU IN THE MIDDLE is a standalone.

STAR RATING: I give this book two stars.

NOTE: I received an eARC of this book via Edelweiss. I was not required to write a review or to write a positive review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

two-stars

Review: For Real

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Review: For RealFor Real (Spires, #3) by Alexis Hall
Series: Spires #3
Published by Alexis Hall on July 5, 2018
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 442
Goodreads

FINAL DECISION: Deeply emotional, this book feels like being trapped in the minds of these two characters. How they fall in love and navigate their relationship kept me enthralled throughout, even though I’m generally less interested in erotic romance, where the relationship is developed through sex. This book is definitely an exception.

THE STORY: Laurence Dalziel is emotionally worn out. The man he loved left him six years ago, and he hasn’t found a relationship that can replace his need for BDSM submission and be emotionally fulfilling. At age 37 doesn’t have any optimism about the future when he meets Toby Finch, who is 19 years old and looking to mature into his need to be a dominant in the BDSM scene. Laurie and Toby connect almost immediately, although Laurie feels the weight of his age and Toby’s youth, freshness, vulnerability, and optimism. Laurie might reluctantly accept the sexual pull between them but refuses to allow it to mean anything more.

OPINION: This book reads like a literary story. Although definitely within the romance genre, it just feels different. I thought about the story of these two characters long after finishing this book.

I tend not to be a big fan of erotic romances. I’m not as interested in the extended sexual exploits that are essential to that sub-genre as I prefer my characters to interact in other ways. Thus, I was prepared not to like this book. Admittedly, I drifted at times during the erotic scenes, but I found that this book is deeply emotional in ways I didn’t expect. I would say that despite those scenes, I really loved this book.

Laurence and Toby both travel so much in this story. The book begins with the older, worn-out man who has lost much on his life’s journey. He no longer even hopes for something more. The younger man yearns to define himself and discover his future. But the book does not maintain these stereotypes. The reader learns that each of these characters is complex and has emotional needs that the other can help assuage.

The book defies the expected. Again and again, the story turns in directions that I didn’t expect. Deeply romantic and a book that centers the connection between these two characters.

WORTH MENTIONING: The only thing that made me uncomfortable about this book is that Toby is 19. I would have found even a 20-year-old less jarring, but perhaps the uncomfortable feeling is precisely what the author intended.

CONNECTED BOOKS: FOR REAL is the third book in the Spires series. It is not necessary to read those books before this one, however. The books are connected thematically but are not otherwise related.

STAR RATING: I give this book 5 stars.