Marilyn Pappano

4.5 stars.

After reading A Man to Hold on To I am officially hooked on Marilyn Pappano's delightfully heartwarming Tallgrass series. In this latest installment centered around a close-knit group of war widows, Therese Matheson and Keegan Logan are facing difficult decisions about the children unexpectedly left in their care.

Three years after her husband Paul's death in Afghanistan, Therese is struggling to build a healthy relationship with her two grieving stepchildren when she meets Keegan. show more Therese loves Abby and Jacob, but she is on the verge of relinquishing custody of the unhappy and resentful kids after they return from a visit with their self-centered mother. The last thing she needs is another complication in her life and when Keegan arrives looking for Paul, she is surprised by her attraction to the handsome soldier.

Keegan has never met Paul, but their lives intersected when Keegan's girlfriend Sabrina had an affair with Paul right before Paul's last deployment. The affair ended Keegan and Sabrina's relationship but when his ex abandons her daughter, Mariah, Keegan becomes the little girl's guardian. The only problem? Keegan is not Mariah's father; Paul is. Keegan travels to Tallgrass with the intention of leaving Mariah in Paul's custody but after he learns of Paul's death, he keeps quiet about Paul's connection to Mariah. A surprising friendship blooms between Keegan and Therese and when their feelings deepen into love, Keegan continues to keep his secret but how long will it take for Therese to uncover the truth about Mariah?

Following an incident with Abby, Therese's relationship with her stepkids has deteriorated to the point where she is considering giving up custody of them all together. Not having arrived at a final decision when they return from their mom's, she is encouraged by the changes in Jacob's attitude but she is disheartened by Abby's renewed hostility. Keegan is a welcome distraction from the current turmoil in her life and she enjoys the serenity she finds in his company. Of course, underlying all of their interactions is a spark of attraction that neither can ignore and they decide to explore their burgeoning emotions.

At first, I was not sure if I was going to like Keegan since I did not understand why he was so determined to give up Mariah. Once I figured out what motivated his decision, my reservations about him began to disappear. But he completely won me over when he decided to protect Paul's memory for Therese but then I kept holding my breath waiting for her figure out the truth about Mariah! All in all, I thought this part of the storyline was very well done and the final resolution was not as dramatic as I thought it would be.

My heart really went out to Jacob and Abby. Jacob is such a typical boy in so many ways, but he has a really good heart. I think he finally saw his mother's true nature during their visit so he came home with a new appreciation for Therese.

And then there's poor Abby. Yes, she was awful, but with all that she has been through, Therese was an easy target for all of her anger and unhappiness. As easy as it was to feel sorry for Therese, she also bears some of the blame for their problems and I was glad when she finally realized that.

Marilyn Pappano weaves all of the various story arcs in A Man to Hold on To into an emotional and heartfelt novel of love, loss and new beginnings. The overall plot is poignant but it is perfectly balanced with plenty of humor. The characters are fully fleshed, three dimensional and easy to relate to. Tantalizing glimpses of Jessy Lawrence and Dalton Smith neatly set up the next book in Tallgrass series, and I must confess, I am very eager to read their story. show less

Good book with a very realistic feel to it. Therese is a member of the Tuesday Night Margarita Club, also known as the Fort Murphy Widows Club. Like her friends, her husband was killed in Afghanistan, and she is left to pick up the pieces. In her case, she also has custody of his two children, a sullen eleven year old boy and a bratty thirteen year old girl. In the first book, A Hero to Come Home To, there were glimpses of what she has been going through with them. At the beginning of this show more book, Therese wonders if it would be better to give up custody and give the kids back to their mother or into foster care. She feels like she has failed them and her husband, and they might be better off with someone else. When the kids return from a week with their mother, her stress goes even higher.

Keegan is caught in a dilemma. His ex-girlfriend has disappeared, leaving her three year old little girl behind. Keegan is listed as little Mariah's father on her birth certificate, but he isn't. Sabrina had had an affair with a visiting army officer, and the child is his. Keegan isn't ready to be a father, especially to someone else's child, so he goes hunting for her real father. He arrives in Tallgrass, only to discover that the man is dead and his widow has no clue about Mariah's existence. He isn't sure whether he should tell her and leave Mariah with her or find something else to do with the child. But there's something about Therese that draws him in and he decides to stick around for awhile.

Though there is attraction between them from the very beginning, the relationship between Keegan and Therese begins as friendship. Keegan is at a complete loss as to how to deal with Mariah, and Therese steps in to help him. I loved the scene when Keegan shows up at her house with a screaming Mariah and a desperate plea for help. He has kept an emotional distance from the child and that has had the expected result on their relationship. It was sweet to see Keegan grow into the role of father to Mariah. There were several really adorable scenes between the two of them. Though Keegan had briefly considered making up to Therese as a prelude to dumping Mariah on her, that idea doesn't last long. He's far too interested in Therese herself, even though he has no interest in a relationship. Therese is surprised to find herself attracted to Keegan. It raises a bit of conflict in her since she feels slightly disloyal to her husband because of it, but she also likes feeling alive again. She's not interested in a relationship with another military man, but a fling might be enjoyable. She doesn't expect to start feeling something more for him. I liked seeing them move from friendship and mutual support to exploring what is growing between them. Their dates were pretty sweet, and the increasing heat was terrific. As they grew closer, Keegan felt guilty about keeping the truth about Mariah from Therese, but didn't know how to tell her without risking their new relationship. When she does find out, she is hurt and angry. I loved seeing how she worked through her feelings and her attitude when she did. I felt that it was realistic, without making her husband out to be scum, but not letting him completely off the hook either. I felt that the relationship between she and Keegan became stronger because of it.

Therese's two stepchildren were really interesting. In the previous book both came across as total brats and I wanted her to toughen up on them. When they arrived back from their visit to their mother, there were some positive changes in Jacob. He seemed to be coming out of his funk a little bit, treating Therese with a little more respect. I liked seeing the little things he started to do and their effect on his relationship with Therese. Abby, on the other hand, came back with even more attitude than when she left. I really understood Therese's horror at her appearance, and loved how she dealt with it. It was great to see Therese stand up to the little tyrant. I was completely amazed at the difference in her attitude when little Mariah was around, and began to hope that maybe things would get better. As the book went on, I liked seeing the improvement in the relationships between the kids and Therese, and the hope it gave Therese that things would work out with them. The surprise arrival of the kids' mother, and what she wanted threw everything into upheaval. I ached for Jacob and was happy to see that Keegan was able to help him. Abby had mixed reactions, and I wondered how things were going to go. I also ached for Therese, who was kind of getting what she had wanted but who realized that maybe she didn't want it after all. The kids' mother was a real piece of work, and I completely enjoyed seeing Therese stand up to her. That final confrontation was very emotional. In the end, Therese realized that she was partly to blame for the tension between her and the kids, as she understood what had been driving them. I hurt for the kids as they had to deal with the truth about their mother, but was happy to see that they began to appreciate what they had in Therese.

I also enjoyed seeing more of the ladies from the club. All of them are dealing with their losses in their own ways. I liked seeing more of Carly and Dane from the first book, and how their relationship is progressing. There are also sections that dealt with several of the other women, including Jessy. She is headed down a slippery path and I am looking forward to seeing how she gets through her challenges.

*copy of the book received in exchange for honest review. show less

It's been a very long time since I've read a Marilyn Pappano book, and I have to say that I'm very glad I finally had time to pick one up again. Father to Be reminded me of all the reasons why I love this author and the Bethlehem series. This is small town romance at its finest with all the residents of Bethlehem really bringing the town to life. Anyone who's a fan of Touched by an Angel like I am will also appreciate Bethlehem's very own guardian angel, who always shows up at just the right show more times to give people hope, encouragement, and guidance. Father to Be is an emotional and heartwarming tale about overcoming tragedy, redemption, reconciliation, and new beginnings. Most of all, it's a story about the importance of family and how those we come to love as family aren't always related to us by blood. Anyone who likes a healthy dose of family drama with their contemporary romance should really enjoy Father to Be. I know I did, and now, I'm once again eager to keep going with the series.

J. D. is known and loved by nearly everyone in Bethlehem, but virtually no one knows of his life in Chicago before moving to this little town. He wasn't content to simply be a psychiatrist; he wanted to be the best. Through hard work and determination, he achieved his dream of becoming renowned in his field for his work with troubled children who came from backgrounds of abuse and neglect. However, his illustrious career came at great personal cost, and it was this pain that drove him to move to Bethlehem where he lives a fairly quiet existence, maintaining a private psychiatric practice as well as working in the schools and the local nursing home. I love what J. D. had done to transform the nursing home into a place where the elderly residents could truly feel at home. He seemed to really understand their emotional needs in a way that few do. Deep down, J.D. is a truly good man, but he's far from perfect. When asked to play foster parent to four abandoned kids ranging in age from five to twelve, J.D. reluctantly accepts the responsibility with the intention of only providing them a home for a short time. He slowly begins to make inroads with the three younger children, but he had no idea just how much of a challenge the oldest child would be. The boy is a painful reminder of J.D.'s biggest failure in life, which causes his demons to rear their ugly heads. While he provides a safe, secure home for the kids, J.D. isn't thrilled about them being there at first and has trouble opening his heart to them, especially Caleb with whom he is in near-constant conflict. He's anything but a perfect parent, but he does change and grow throughout the story to become a better person and the kind of father his own dad modeled for him. When Kelsey comes into the picture, J.D. is the consummate charmer with a touch of arrogance on the side. Overall, he's a very likable person who also comes off as quite trustworthy, so it's easy to see why Kelsey fell for him and why she and the whole town came to his defense when the unthinkable happened.

Kelsey has her own secrets, events from the past that drove her to become a social worker, and she prides herself in always trying to make the right decisions so that no child falls through the cracks in the system. When she first comes to town, she's a by-the-book rule-follower who initially rubs J.D. the wrong way, but I never doubted that her heart was in the right place. It doesn't take long before she's falling for the handsome psychiatrist and the four kids in his care. She sees the potential there and does everything in her power to help them create a successful foster family. Soon, Kelsey finds herself interacting with them on a more personal basis than her job dictates. Unlike, Nora Robert's Sea Swept, another book I recently read which has a similar theme of a social worker becoming personally involved with the guardian of children under her care, I liked that Ms. Pappano didn't gloss over the conflict of interest inherent in such a relationship. Kelsey feels guilty from the outset for having feelings for J.D., and while she does still allow things to go further than they probably should have, she recognized the possible implications. There were also some consequences to her actions. The thing I liked most about Kelsey was her unwavering support of J.D. Although she had to distance herself from him when things hit the fan, she never stopped believing in him and trusted him implicitly. Most of all she facilitated a much-needed reconciliation for him that totally changed his life.

The secondary characters were beautifully rendered and each one brought something special to the story. Marilyn Pappano is extremely talented with writing child characters. Each of the kids has their own distinct little personalities and each one of them act their age. While the three younger ones were cute as a button, especially Gracie, the oldest, Caleb, is the true standout. He's like a miniature tortured hero himself. Unable to deal with taking care of so many kids and never having nice things, their mother abandoned them and their father a long time ago. Caleb constantly asserts that their dad was a good man, but he too left them, ostensibly to find work, and never returned. Caleb had to grow up fast and become the man of the house, playing a little father to his three younger siblings at the tender age of twelve. He did his best to take care of them, but when he got caught stealing food, they were placed in foster care with J.D. which Caleb finds untenable. He's a very angry young man who butts heads with J.D. constantly over who's really in charge and who refuses to let go of the past to embrace a possible future with someone other than their biological dad. Because of his anger and belligerence, Caleb could have easily become annoying, but I always felt like I understood him. All of the main townspeople play supporting roles too, including the charming widowed sisters, Agatha and Corinna, both former school teachers who adore kids. Nathan and Emily Bishop (Season for Miracles) and their kids, particularly Alanna, who Caleb has a crush on and vice-versa, as well as Ross and Maggie McKinney (Some Enchanted Season) appear occasionally. Holly McBride, the owner of the local inn and J.D.'s best friend and former lover, tries to make friends with Kelsey too. She becomes the heroine of the next full-length book of the series, First Kiss, paired with workaholic attorney Tom Flynn who appears briefly.

Marilyn Pappano is very talented at crafting emotional stories that really tug at the heartstrings. She also has an uncanny ability for creating an air of mystery. For most of the novel, we don't really know what happened in J.D.'s past that has made him the man he is today, and even Kelsey's motivations for doing what she does are rather cryptic. All I can say is that their backstories are very touching. The author does leave a trail of breadcrumbs and if one is good at deducing such things, it might be predictable. I, however, suspected a few things, but the whole story wasn't entirely clear until it was all finally revealed. There was even one thing I didn't really see coming at all. Overall, Father to Be was a wonderful read that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what's in store for Holly and Tom next. show less

Arts Magica by Kay Hooper – It’s been ages since I’ve read anything by Kay Hooper, but I recalled liking the one novella I read by her years ago. That being the case, I went into reading “Arts Magica” with high hopes, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s the story of an apprentice wizard who accidentally uses a time travel device combined with her own not-yet-fully-controlled powers to catapult herself back in time a century where she meets the inventor of the device.

I really liked show more Felicity. She’s pretty upbeat and tries to remain optimistic throughout her journey even though she hasn’t yet found the necessary internal “switch” that will allow her full control over her powers. As such, she’s in danger of the wizard's council taking away some of her powers if she can’t find it soon, but it’s a physiological issue that needs the right impetus to work itself out. I thought it was cute that Felicity has had a major crush on John via the biographies of him she’s read, so meeting him for real is very exciting for her and he definitely turns out to be everything she thought he was. I liked that she was so open with him about her wizard powers and future innovations, and I also liked that she was conscious of doing everything she could to not interrupt the space-time continuum.

John is a rather dreamy hero, who’s both attractive and brainy. I have a real soft spot for geek heroes and he’s definitely that. On top of his genius IQ, he’s also involved in various progressive social issues, including being a proponent of women’s rights. Feminist heroes are very sexy to me as well, and he certainly treated Felicity as his equal. I loved how fascinated he was with her, both as a wizard and as a person. There was a definite attraction for him right from the start. I also loved how curious he was about things that occur in the future and about how her wizard powers work. In addition to all that, he was sweet, gentle, and passionate. It was really cute to have the hero being the one to fall hard and fast.

Overall, “Arts Magica” was a really fun read. The time travel element was a little mind-bending with the heroine being aware of certain events from the past because of her knowledge from history books, but at the same time, some of those events were actually fueled by her time traveling. It twisted my mind into knots a little, but it was still geeky fun. I knocked off the half star for a couple of reasons. First is that because of the brevity of the story, I really wanted that romantic connection to happen very quickly, but it took until about the halfway point for things to really take off between John and Felicity. Once they did, I couldn’t deny feeling a strong connection between them, like they were soul mates who’d finally found their other half. The other reason is that, like with most novellas and short stories, I can’t help wishing they were a little longer. Especially when I enjoy them as much as I did this one, I really want to spend more time with the characters in their world, but I truly enjoyed it anyway. Despite my best efforts at trying to discover whether this novella was in any way connected to any of Kay Hooper’s other books, I didn’t realize it was until after I’d read it. “Arts Magica” is actually a follow-up novella to her full-length novel, The Wizard of Seattle. Richard and Serena, the hero and heroine of that novel, appear in “Arts Magica” as Felicity's mentors. I really liked what I saw of them, so I look forward to trying their book soon. Star Rating: ****1/2

Gabriel’s Angel by Marilyn Pappano - I loved the first three books of Marilyn Pappano’s Bethlehem series, but for some reason, it’s been taking me a while to get around to reading all of them. It’s probably because I have way too many books on my TBR pile, so something is perpetually falling by the wayside. “Gabriel’s Angel” is a short novella that falls between Father to Be and First Kiss in the series ordering. It features Noelle, the guardian angel who has been looking out for the residents of the sleepy little town of Bethlehem, as the heroine. Her hero is Gabriel, a divorcé who is on his way to Cleveland to start a new job in the new year, when he randomly stops by a bar on the way and gets shot. When he awakens, the only person who can see him is Noelle, whom he quickly discovers isn’t human at all. Noelle surmises that something unexpected happened during Gabriel’s transition from life to death, leaving him in a kind of spiritual limbo. As they wait for divine intervention to work out their problem, she must help him come to terms with his death, and as they spend time together, exploring the town, they develop feelings for one another.

“Gabriel’s Angel” is a cute, sweet romance with no explicit elements. I enjoyed it, but it’s a little simplistic in it’s scope. Of course, as an angel, Noelle is nothing but goodness, kindness, and gentleness personified. Gabriel is a nice guy, too, who’s had a run of bad luck with his wife cheating on him, leading to their divorce, and he’s also had a troubled relationship with his daughter. It’s very hard for him to face the idea of being dead, because he always thought he had much more living to do. I liked both characters, but this is about as far as their characterizations go. Their falling in love happens in a matter of only twenty-four hours, which is a little too quick to be entirely believable. It’s mostly presented as them having a “magical” connection. Gabriel finds Noelle extremely attractive but he also feels something for her he hasn’t felt for any woman since his divorce, maybe never. Noelle didn’t think it was possible for angels to want a human and feel the things she does for Gabriel. Still, despite the paranormal element, it was a little hard to come to terms with Gabriel falling in love so quickly and Noelle being certain she was ready to leave the life of an angel in just a day. However, it’s such a sweet story, I couldn’t help liking it anyway. It’s implied that Gabriel’s guardian angel, Norma, is now looking out for the residents of Bethlehem, so I’ll be interested to see if that’s truly the case in the next book. Star Rating: ****

Stuck with You by Michelle Martin - It’s strange how I can go for a long period of time without reading a particular romance theme or sub-genre, or perhaps never read it at all, and then unintentionally end up reading multiple stories with similar themes close together. Until recently, I can’t recall ever reading a romance with the stranded in an elevator theme, but “Stuck with You” became the second one I’ve read in the past month. This one wasn’t quite as good as the first one, but it was still a cute read and pretty enjoyable. Granted the hero and heroine aren’t really stuck in the elevator itself for a particularly long time before they decide to climb out through the top hatch, a decision that probably wouldn’t be very advisable in real life. But after they discover the entire city in a blackout due to the Y2K bug, I was more on board with it. Otherwise they might have been stuck in there for days.:-) They’re still stranded together on an upper floor of a high-rise hotel, but in the relative safety and comfort of a hotel suite after the hero uses skills learned from criminals in his old neighborhood to break into a room.

Griffin and Lauren are about as opposite as they come. He’s from a poor background and grew up in a rough neighborhood, while she’s the pampered daughter of two Hollywood stars. He’s a prosecuting attorney, while she’s a defense attorney. They’ve squared off in the courtroom on more than one occasion and there’s no love lost between them. She thinks he’s too stiff and stodgy, always seeing things in black and white, while he hates that she gets criminals off. When they’re suddenly thrown together on New Year’s Eve in a stalled elevator, they can’t help arguing over everything under the sun with the only exception being the need to try to escape their predicament. As they work together and start to get to know one another on a more personal level, they see hidden depths in each other that they didn’t know existed. Then sparks of a different sort begin to fly.

Overall, I liked Griffin and Lauren. They’re the classic case of two people making snap judgments about one another and never really taking the time to look for something more. It takes some extraordinary circumstances for them to see the truth, but I like that they were open to reevaluating their opinions after learning new information. They also share some common interests which helped to create a connection between them. However, despite them already knowing one another, I felt that romantically things moved too quickly between them to be entirely believable. They go from basically hating each other to falling into bed and saying “I love you” within twenty-four hours. They playfully chalk it up to the chemistry already being present in their long-standing conflict (the classic love/hate scenario), which may be true to some extent, but I just wasn’t feeling a connection in quite the way I wanted to. If the author had drawn more emotion out of their situation or out of Lauren’s childhood kidnapping ordeal, I might have felt differently. In fact, I could probably see it getting keeper status from me if that were the case. Without that, though, it was still an enjoyable, entertaining read that held my attention well, but not one that I felt particularly excited about by the end. “Stuck with You” was my first read by Michelle Martin, and it was good enough that I’d be open to trying something else by her in the future. Star Rating: ****

Close Quarters by Donna Kauffman - I’d previously read a couple of other novellas by Donna Kauffman, neither of which did much for me, so the only reason I read “Close Quarters” was for the sake of completing this anthology. As a consequence, I went into reading it with very low expectations. That’s probably a good thing, because once again, the story failed to capture my imagination. The plot is a fairly simple one in which the daughter of a former US president is spending the holidays with her father at their private estate. On New Year’s Eve, she spots an RV parked on the outskirts of their property. Thinking it’s a paparazzi, she goes out near midnight to ruin his photo op by breaking into said RV and ruining his computers, only to discover that he’s actually the former Secret Service agent who used to be on her protection detail and whom she had a major crush on throughout her teen years. When the Y2K bug hits, they end up trapped in the RV in the dark. With nothing better to do, they get to know each other on a more personal level, which leads to sex and a cute little twist at the end.

Both Veronica and Dylan were likable enough characters. Although she was something of a hellion as a teenager, always trying to slip her security detail, she seems to have matured somewhat. I say somewhat because the first thing she does when she thinks Dylan is a paparazzi is to vandalize his computer connectors with bubble gum. However, I’ll allow that in her day-to-day life, she seems to care about the less fortunate and not only spends most of her time raising money for various charitable causes but also does actual work with real people in need. Dylan left the Secret Service to help out on the family ranch after his father died, only to lose his mother not long after as well and have the bank foreclose on the ranch, so when Nicki’s father offers him a private security job, he takes it. While the characters might have been OK, I didn’t really sense any chemistry between them. They supposedly have had the hots for one another for years, and yet I just didn’t feel it. Once they’re locked in together for a few hours, they reconnect and fall into bed quickly, but it was all rather bland. Even the one love scene has very few details.

However, the real reason I didn’t care much for the story is that most of the plot points were implausible at best and outright ludicrous at worst. First of all, Veronica is an ex-president’s daughter who spends her days throwing top-notch social events and hob-nobbing with wealthy donors, so the idea of her being able to pick locks and especially her knowing how to hack a computer within mere minutes with nothing more than a hobbyist’s interest in programming is pretty out there. Then there’s the whole idea that Dylan already had the Y2K bug fix installed, but whatever Nicki did to his computers in those few minutes also made it vulnerable to the bug again, along with the fact that it caused a black-out in the van and the armor plating to descend, trapping them inside. At this point, I was rolling my eyes, because I’m married to a computer programmer and I know better. I even checked with him to be sure, and he said, “Um… no! Doesn't make sense.” Lastly there’s the fact that Dylan was supposedly hired by Nicki’s father as private security for a meeting he was having with an ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain because of a missile test site program they were working on. Besides one other guy, Dylan was supposedly it. I immediately began wondering where the Secret Service was. Even back in 1999 when this story was written, ex-presidents received Secret Service protection for ten years after leaving office (now it’s lifetime), and Nicki’s father supposedly only left office six years before. Also, two ex-world leaders building some kind of private missile test site? Really? And these two men were supposedly the only ones who had the plans, yet they have just two guys guarding them? Ugh! I just couldn’t even buy into any of this. Not to mention, I was zoning out through most of the story, because it simply wasn’t holding my attention. I’m afraid that after three less-than-stellar reads in a row, I definitely won’t be deliberately seeking out any more of Donna Kauffman’s work. Star Rating: **1/2

Trouble at Midnight by Jill Shalvis - “Trouble at Midnight” is a stand-alone novella from Jill Shalvis about two people who’ve been dating for over a year, but despite talking about marriage, they’ve never quite made it out of the friendship phase. Additionally the heroine’s knowledge that the hero wants to marry her is making her feel claustrophobic. She wants to have adventures, but feels that he’s too much of a boring Clark Kent to ever go along with doing more exciting things. However, when the inaugural trip of the train they’re riding on is interrupted in the middle of nowhere by the Y2K bug on New Year’s Eve, she decides to throw caution to the wind and starts walking for help. When her hero joins her, he’s able to prove that he can be a little more like Superman than she thinks.

This is a cute little story that I generally enjoyed, but I felt like it was too short to sufficiently develop the characters and their relationship in a fully believable way. Although I didn’t get a great sense of the particulars, Dora was apparently told what to do for most of her life growing up, so now she’s an independent woman who wants to call the shots, and what she wants is adventure. However, I kind of felt like her insistence upon leaving the stopped train to venture out into the wilderness just because she thought she knew the area from past hiking trips lacked maturity and was not well thought out. She also stubbornly keeps making bad decisions until Adam steps in and insists upon taking the reins. At this point, Dora balks a little, but he quickly impresses her with survival skills that she didn’t know a boring banker like him could possess. Adam has apparently been in love with Dora for the entire year they’ve been dating, but has been biding his time, not pushing her to move faster, because he understands her need for independence. That’s why he temporarily allows her to take the lead on their little adventure. Adam is definitely more of a beta hero, but I liked that he always knew where they were even though she didn’t and he wasn’t averse to taking over when things were rapidly going south. His grand gesture of granting her freedom was sweet and heartfelt.

Where I took some issue with the story, however, is that I felt like Dora’s problems were a little too deep-seated to fully overcome with just one gesture like that. Not to mention, she clearly didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. Also, they’d basically been in the friend zone for a long time and Dora seemed to have hang-ups about sex, so with all this in mind, the rapid progression of their relationship lacked that little extra spark that would have propelled it to a more deeply romantic place. Also when Dora makes her turn-around, Adam is concerned, and rightly so IMHO, that it may just be the adversity they’d shared talking, but his qualms fade with only a token protest, wrapping their romance up into a neat little bow. If you’re a reader who can avoid taking things too seriously, this is a decent little story, but I couldn’t help feeling it lacked a certain credibility to both the plot and characters. This was my first read by the rather prolific Jill Shalvis, and while she didn’t quite hit it out of the ballpark with this one, it was good enough that I’m sure I’ll give her another chance to wow me in the future. Star Rating: ***1/2 show less