Lisa Worrall

4.5 stars

I was surprised by how good this book was - I really enjoyed it! The friction between the MC was great (a personal favourite of mine); the sex scenes were well written and not at all repetitive; the mystery was well executed; and a very solid wrap-up for all the characters...

...until the very last few paragraphs of the book... Really??! Is this a series? And yet it doesn't show as such here :( WTF. (This isn't a cliffhanger book, in case anyone misinterprets my comment.)

3.5 Lisa Worrall is very good at creating MC's that are dark and not classically good guys - some are down right evil; but somehow she makes you root for them and want to see them succeed. Such is the case here, Carter Grey is a vampire, an unrepentant killer, not your typical hero; Max is a detective, someone sworn to uphold the law, someone who should not be involved with Carter. Yet, somehow it works and you want these two to find their happy ending. I definitely enjoyed this book even if show more I felt bad for wanting Carter and Max to work. I like damaged heroes, I just usually prefer them to find redemption before they live happily ever after. show less

I’ve discovered that I’m a sucker for the nanny/manny trope in romance, and since I hadn’t read one in a while, I picked up A Nanny for Nate. It’s been on my TBR pile for a while, and I was in the mood for something cute and sweet and this seemed like it might fit the bill. It’s the story of Parker, a single father who lost his husband a year earlier in a tragic accident. He’s been struggling ever since to find a balance between his busy work schedule and caring for his young show more son. Now he’s about to lose their beloved babysitter. She suggests that he hire a live-in nanny and presents him with a few promising candidates. After interviewing them, he narrows it down to two, a young man and a young woman. His son has a clear preference for the male candidate, but the instant attraction Parker feels for Jake leaves him running scared. He offers the job to the woman – or so he thought – until Jake shows up on his doorstep. Parker can’t possibly send him away now, especially with his son being so excited about the new nanny, but when their attraction takes root and starts to blossom into something more, Parker can’t seem to get past the feeling that he’s somehow cheating on the husband he adored.

Parker is a busy attorney, who met his husband, Darren, on a business trip to England. They instantly hit it off and eventually Darren came to the U.S. and they married. Darren was the single father of Nate, an infant son who was the product of a drunken one-night stand, but whom he adored. Parker adopted Nate, but Darren was the stay-at-home dad and was only just thinking of going back to work when he was tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident while biking. Ever since then, Parker has struggled with figuring out how to balance his career with being a good father and feels like he’s failing. When his sitter announces that she’s moving away, he’s about to freak out until she tells him she’s already vetted a few replacement candidates for him who are interested in a live-in nanny situation. When Jake shows up for the interview, Parker is instantly attracted to him, but the emotions and lust Jake arouses leave Parker uncomfortably feeling like he’s being unfaithful to Darren’s memory. He decides to hire a female candidate even though Jake had been Nate’s favorite. However, after an apparent mix-up with the envelopes notifying the candidates of his decision, Jake is the one who shows up for work. Living together for the next several weeks only makes the attraction grow stronger, but when they finally give in to their passion, Parker can’t help feeling a load of guilt that he has trouble processing, leading to him nearly losing Jake. Parker is a good dad who came to rely on Darren a lot, so like many parents who are suddenly faced with raising a child alone, he struggles to figure things out. He vacillates between being angry with Darren for not fixing his bike and for leaving him, and loving him so much, he can’t seem to let him go. I kind of found myself wishing that he didn’t feel quite so much guilt over falling for Jake, but he does eventually come around.

Jake is a pretty easy-going kind of guy. After college, he started working at a small day-care center. He enjoyed his job, but with the center about to close its doors, he needs to find a new position and wants to try being a live-in nanny. He didn’t expect to get the first job he interviewed for, so being hired is a pleasant surprise. He was as attracted to Parker when they first met as Parker was to him, but he tries to keep things professional. However, a fun family outing finally loosens Parker up enough to talk more honestly with Jake, leading to some intense passion. But Jake wakes up the next morning to an empty bed and Parker giving him the cold shoulder. Even though Jake loves Nate and has fallen in love with Parker, he realizes that he can’t stay if Parker can’t put the ghost of his dead husband to rest. Jake is great with Nate, proving that he’ll make an awesome dad and he’s kind and caring toward Parker. The only thing that might have made him a better character is if he’d fought a little harder for a relationship with Parker instead of all but giving up after one obstacle is thrown into his path.

Overall, A Nanny for Nate is a cute, heartwarming story that was a pleasure to read. It’s on the short side, probably only long novella length, so the story is a little light on character and plot development. It looks like the book was republished with additional material added, and it appears that I have this newer version. I’m not sure how it differs from the original, but even with new scenes supposedly added, I still couldn’t help thinking it could have been beefed up even more. There were also a lot of typos that a good editor/proofreader should have caught and that could be rather distracting. But in spite of these things, I still enjoyed the story for what it is. Parker, Jake, and Nate make a wonderful little family unit and the sweet epilogue stamped paid to their HEA for me. So, it was a good read that I would recommend to readers who enjoy a good M/M romance about a single dad and his manny. show less

This is a book I've put off reading for some time because I thought it contained a cliff hanger ending. However this isn't the case... there's more of a "there's more to come" feel, rather than an open ending or cliff hanger.

I loved the relationship between these guys in all the different stages. The annoyance, humour, care, angst was all very well handled and written. Just the way I love it.

The one thing that made this a stand-out read though, and what elevated it in my opinion at least, show more was the fact that the "who-dun-it" part of the story was extremely well done. I honestly didn't know who it was, until it was revealed in the book. And let me tell you, that's not an easy thing to do! So, very well done, Lisa.

Having said that there's not an open ending, I'm still glad that I have the next book waiting to go immediately. I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to Will or Scott just yet. show less