Sara Wood (1)

Well this had a bunch of potential that it didn't really live up to. It also had one of the weirder setups of any HP that I've read. Let's see he got married at 18 to a 30 year old and then they immediately had a son to go along with the daughter his wife already had. And then when he was 34 or so, a young girl (16 years old) comes to board with them while his wife is dying of cancer and everybody loves her cuz she's just so lovable. This includes the hero who makes a pass at her just after the wife dies 2 years later. This all happens 4 years before the book starts. Where can it possibly go from there? Lots of crazy places let me tell you. Let's just say the hero has some weird motivations but he does go all in for the heroine about 2/3rds of the way through the book and a lot of time is spent trying to work things out between them which was nice. In Harleys you don't often get to see a couple trying to work on an established relationship so I enjoyed that.… (more)

Another totally whackadoodle HP. And this one I just couldn't get behind at all. The set up is that the heroine is going to Hungary for the marriage of her brother to her bestie. Her other brother Istvan is there to throw a spanner into the works. Turns out he is not her brother although they were raised together. He had had the hots for her even as a teenager and so the parents had sort of tried to keep them apart and he had himself pushed her away. He found out they weren't related 4 or so years ago. I think he's around 30 now. She just finds out during this book. I just kept thinking that if you're raised as brother and sister you don't fall in love with each other if you find out when you're 24 that you're not related. I would think that you would still feel like that person was your sibling. That is unless you are writing smut instead of romance. So I was anxious to see how the author would deal with it cuz, you know, juicy. I just didn't feel like she pulled it off totally. Then throw in the crazy Hungarian royalty stuff and it didn't gel well for me.… (more)