Greetings!
Hope you’re having a happy Monday. Last week was pretty crazy with seeing my parents off to TN. They finally made it there….Saturday, I think. I haven’t heard from them since Friday so hopefully everything’s going well.

Not much to tell this week so I’ll get on to what I read: 

First up was The Better To See You by Kate SeRine. This is the second book in a series about characters from Make Believe who got shoved over to our world after a spell went terribly wrong. Now these fantasy/nursery rhyme characters are trying to live in our world and not let humans knows. This story is about Cinderella’s fairy godmother – the one whose spell went wrong – and she’s in some trouble her friend Red sends her off to be protected by, you guessed it, the big bad wolf. Seth and Lavender really hit it off but there’s so much going on in the Make Believe place called the Refuge and Lavender and Seth get caught in the middle. I have to say that this book was completely unexpected and a real pleasant surprise. I liked SeRine’s writing, her sense of humor and the way she integrated all the characters into the story. Yeah, it’s out there but I liked it. I’ll definitely be reading the next book in the series. 4 out of 5 (read for Book Binge) 

Next up was Steven by Kirsten Osbourne. This is the story of a woman who is down and out and is taking care of her niece after her sister died. She heads to the baby daddy’s house to get assistance and he ends up taking them in and making her the nanny. The story has a twist but it wasn’t completely unexpected. It was cute but pedestrian for my liking. 2 out of 5 (free Kindle book) 

My next read was The Importance of Being Wicked by Victoria Alexander. This is the continuing story of Lord Stillwell (we met him in Lord Stillwell’s Excellent Engagements) and Miranda Garret who is a widow who is running her husband’s architectural firm. Of course she was the architect even when her hubby was alive but it was easier to hide her involvement then. Now she’s thinking her house of cards might be falling and Lord Stillwell might be the one to bring them down. I’m posting my review of this tomorrow so you can read more of my thoughts then. 

OMG I can’t believe I forgot this one (sorry!) All He Ever Dreamed by Shannon Stacey was another great story in the Kowalski series.  This is Josh’s story and is about his desire to get the heck out of town and his loyalty to his family.  Josh and his best friend Katie turn friends to lovers and then more.  I’ll post my review this week. 🙂

Dojo Boys: The Italian Connection by Alex A. Akira is a yaoi type novel about a dancer/thief and the Italian man he has the hots for. I’ll post my review of this later this week. 

Next up was Hope for a Buffalo by Charlie Richards. This story has chameleon shifter Caleb seeing a picture of a buffalo that’s on exhibit at the zoo and thinking he might be a shifter. When they head to the zoo they find he is a shifter, but also Caleb’s mate. They have to try to save him but things don’t go as smoothly as they’d hoped. This was a cute story and also very sad. The buffalo shifter, Emmett, was shunned by his clan for being gay and then forced to live in his animal form for 8 YEARS. Dear Lord that hurt my heart. Anyway, it was a short but good story. 3 out of 5 

After that I continued the Kontra’s Menagie series with Dominating the Wolf by Charlie Richards. This story takes up right where the last book ended and has Kontra’s doctor, Eli, heading to Denver to try to save a shifter. He gets motion sickness and doesn’t realize that the man who’s helping him is his mate because he can’t smell while he’s got his head in the head. Sam thinks that Eli doesn’t want him and takes off. Eli does though, he just didn’t like the thought of Sam, a submissive, seeing Eli, a dom, being anything less than strong. That part bugged me and while I thought the guys were good together I didn’t really feel the connection between them – I only really felt Eli’s domination and it kind of took over the book for me. 2 out of 5 

The Autumn Bride by Anne Gracie was my last read and though I usually love Gracie’s work this one just didn’t do it for me. It was good but mostly because of the female characters, not the romance. The story is about 2 sisters. Abby is a governess and when she finds out that her sister has been kidnapped and taken to a brothel she runs to help. When it comes down to it there are 3 girls including Abby that end up together trying to make ends meet. Abby meets Lady Beatrice Davenham in a very interesting way, the two become friends and the four girls end up living in Lady Bea’s house and taking care of her. Lady Bea’s nephew is the hero of the book and I just didn’t feel there was enough connection between Abby and Max throughout the book. I really loved the 4 girls and Lady Bea though and that made the book for me. 3 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
When She Was Wicked by Anne Barton

Happy Reading!