Emilie Rose

Fantastic book, with characters that have realistic emotions, dreams and lives. Sam was a sniper in the Marines until a career ending injury forces him out. He's determined to overcome the injury and get back in, but in the meantime a friend has asked for his help. Roth (A Better Man) is now the police chief in a small North Carolina town. He recently discovered that one of his deputies was a dirty cop, and is worried that there may be others. He wants Sam to come work for him, undercover, show more and check out the other officers. Sam plans to get in, do the mission and get out as quickly as he can.

I ached for Sam. All he has wanted was to follow in his dad's footsteps as a career Marine. Now he's lost, has no idea what he can do outside of the Corps, and is feeling pretty useless. Working for Roth will give him time to see if his vision problems will heal. Sam is also a loner. He has a family that loves him, but he grew up avoiding making attachments. Frequent moves made making friends difficult, and seeing his mom worry about his dad made him reluctant to form any relationships with a woman. He hasn't told his family about his injury, not wanting them fussing over him. He hasn't even told them he's out of the Marines.

On his first day in town he meets June, his neighbor. Being a good Southern girl, she has a welcome basket for him, and tries to be nice. He mistakes it for something else entirely and is quite rude in rejecting her "advances", only to discover a couple days later that she is a fellow deputy. That discovery doesn't sit well with either of them, especially when Roth assigns her to be Sam's trainer. I have to say that that first day together was pretty fun to read. Sam is uptight, by the book, and very intense. June, having grown up in Quincey, knows everyone and has her own style of dealing with miscreants. Sam is a very private kind of guy and June's determination to introduce him to everyone, and their interest in getting to know all about him, drives him nuts. Add in their completely different approaches to two kids egging cars, and their time together was pretty explosive. I did enjoy his conversation with Roth about the effectiveness of her methods.

June had always wanted to be a cop. She moved away from Quincey to do her training in Raleigh, but came home after falling in love with a man who turned out to be married. Bitterly ashamed, and then reviled by her overly righteous preacher father, June has been doing her best to prove to him that she deserves his love. As the middle child in her family, she has also been the peacemaker and negotiator, a talent that has come in handy in her job. Dealing with Sam is something else entirely and when a shooting competition gets heated, so does their blood and attraction spirals almost out of control.

Assigned to work together on a car theft case, Sam and June find themselves fighting a losing battle against their attraction. As coworkers, they can't be involved. Sam makes it clear that he doesn't do any kind of commitment, and June is afraid of what would happen if her father found out. But they agree to a no strings, secret relationship, keeping emotion out of it. Of course, that doesn't ever work, and June soon finds herself head over heels for Sam. She'd like nothing more than to show him that he has so much to offer if he would just allow himself to care. Sam also finds himself feeling things for June he's never felt for anyone before, but he still sees himself as useless and no good for her.

I loved the way that June tried to show Sam that he was more than a washed up sniper. She introduced him to people that could help him if he would allow it, and if he could lose his tunnel vision about his abilities. I loved her straight talk, and the way she echoed what others had told him. Her growing feelings for him make her discovery of his true reason for being in Quincey that much harder for her to take, and she is hurt and angry and devastated by what she sees as his betrayal.

Sam's own feelings go through so many changes he is left reeling. June has become more important to him than he is comfortable with. He has to decide what to do about his future before he can even think about being more to her. He also has to take a hard look at what she told him about the importance of family and face up to that as well. As he runs from Quincey and his demons, he does do one thing that I absolutely loved - he goes to see June's father, and what he says was fantastic. I loved seeing Sam get himself together, and his "go big" moment at the end was sweet indeed.

One of the greatest things about this book was the real look at the problems the military members face when they leave the service, especially those who planned to make it their career. Civilian life is far different and the transition can be very difficult. This was portrayed extremely well.

My only complaint with the book was my never ending one with the editors/publishers at Harlequin. They refuse to accept that Marine, Marines, Marine Corps, and Corps are ALWAYS capitalized, and it is disrespectful not to do so. As Ms. Rose has a very close connection to the Marine Corps, I know the fault was not hers. show less

The Ties that Bind
4 Stars

Pierce Hollister never wanted to be a father. Nevertheless, when his ex-girlfriend disappears and he is left with their son, Pierce realizes that he needs help. Anna Aronson, a recently terminated kindergarten teacher, is overqualified for the job and has a child of her own. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and soon Anna and the toddlers are working their way past Pierce's defenses. Can he overcome his distrust to find family, love and show more happiness?

Hmm... this is one of those books that is enjoyable because of rather than despite its problems. The hero is an obnoxious jerk for 2/3s of the book, but it is impossible not to fall for him because the heroine sees his potential to be a loving father and giving lover, and the reader wants him to live up to her expectations.

The romance is excellent as Pierce and Anna have tangible chemistry and their snarky interactions are very entertaining. Anna is more than capable of standing up to Pierce's domineering and overbearing tendencies, and she gives as good as she gets.

The two toddlers, Cody and Graham, are simply adorable and their shenanigans could melt even the hardest of hearts - as they do with Pierce.

The ending is somewhat contrived and the epilogue saccharine sweet, but this is a Harlequin romance so it is to be expected. show less

The first, Bending to the Bachelor's Will is a light story of a woman who takes part in a Bachelor auction and buys a guy she has always regarded as a friend, as a favour and then ends up finding herself attracted to him. I liked the characters, Holly Prescott is such a cool woman in her own right and is certain that she knows how to deal with successful banker Eric Alden. He's certain that her personality will drive him off but he finds that actually, she attracts him. He fears the reaction show more of his friends. Light, predictable and totally not the reason this book gets four stars, on it's own this book would have got 3.5 stars as a reasonable read.

However, the Nalini Singh story of a couple working their way through a marriage that they want to save but have to learn their way to finding the love that will last rather than the lust that led them to marry is the more interesting the more visceral read, for me. It was like a sequel to many of the romance stories out there, what about finding out about each other, what about creating a relationship that will allow you both to evolve as people, how to create a good work/life balance that will enable the other person to feel wanted and loved and what happens when the trust starts to crumble.

This is actually one of the best Mills & Boons I have read, it felt real, the characters came across as real people with problems they needed to work out and while occasionally things happened or were solved very quickly I cared about them and the outcome. show less

This turned out better than I expected after reading the first 40 pages. These 2 have been separated for 11 years. The day of their wedding they were in a car accident. Each of them blames themselves for the wreck. The heroine, Nadia, had been told that her husband had died too. He on the other hand was told that she blamed him for the accident and didn't want to be married to him anymore. He takes money from her father to leave and never see her again. I had trouble forgiving him for that. show more The author did an okay job getting around it and making him somewhat forgivable for it. Plus he does eventually near the end of the book regret it and acknowledge that he had been a coward to take it. Anyhoo, the book starts after the manipulative father has died and has set up a very wonky will. The hero and heroine meet again. The part of the story that bothered me the most is that even knowing that he took money to leave her, Nadia basically lets him walk all over her. I have no gripe with them falling back in love but I felt like she should have been slamming a few more doors in his arrogant face. It picked up a bit later on and I felt like the relationship was more balanced. There was a fairly good grovel scene at the end and over all I enjoyed the book. show less