Tag: Penelope Friday

Review: Too Good to Be True by Penelope Friday.

Posted July 13, 2010 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments


Rowena’s review of Too Good to Be True by Penelope Friday.

Mandy thinks her love life, not to mention her sex life, is over for good when her husband leaves her—for an older woman. A chance encounter with a gorgeous man begins to change her mind. Scarcely daring to believe her luck when Jon asks her to meet him again, she agrees. One dizzyingly fantastic night of lust later, Mandy is in heaven. But Jon has a secret. Has Mandy moved from a cheating husband to a man with an even more sinister past? Will she get the chance to explore the range of sexual possibilities Jon is introducing her to, or is her new life too good to be true? Anglophiles ahoy! Too Good to Be True has enough British witticism to fill a Guinness factory. But this is no stiff-upper-lip affair!

This is one of those really short stories that crams a whole lot of story into about 50 pages and I’m not so sure that it can work because this story didn’t work for me on the whole. This book is about a frumpy, divorcee who lands this extremely hot guy named Jon who has a secret. They don’t make sense because he’s so flipping hot and she’s supposedly not and when she finds out what his secret is, she kind of thinks…ahhh, now it makes sense.

Does she stick by him or not?

He turns out to be up on criminal charges and Mandy’s friends are worried that Mandy will be dragged into the whole mess but Mandy means what she says and she’s sticking by the guy that has made her feel more alive in a long while.

I think had this story been fleshed out more, been a bit longer, it would have shaped out to be an enjoyable ride but for me, it was too short, too fast and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to. I guess I’m not made out for these EC reads. I read them, thinking that I’m going to enjoy them and end up …not. There’s a lot of other stories that I enjoy and these kinds of stories are not my cup of tea so I’m going to leave these stories in the capable hands of those lovely gals who enjoy these kinds of stories.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy here in e-format.


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Guest Review: Too Good To Be True by Penelope Friday

Posted May 16, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

Tracy’s review of Too Good To be True by Penelope Friday

Mandy thinks her love life, not to mention her sex life, is over for good when her husband leaves her—for an older woman. A chance encounter with a gorgeous man begins to change her mind. Scarcely daring to believe her luck when Jon asks her to meet him again, she agrees. One dizzyingly fantastic night of lust later, Mandy is in heaven.

But Jon has a secret. Has Mandy moved from a cheating husband to a man with an even more sinister past? Will she get the chance to explore the range of sexual possibilities Jon is introducing her to, or is her new life too good to be true?

Mandy’s out one night to meet her 3 friends when Jon sits next to her at the bar. Mandy thinks that her friends, who she calls the witches, have gone too far and have hired her a male escort. No, Jon’s not a male escort and after a few drinks and some fun and laughter Jon asks Mandy to meet him again. They do and end up in bed and the sofa, and the kitchen. Anyway, things are great until on of Mandy’s friends remember seeing Jon’s name in the paper. Turns out he’s being brought up on criminal charges! Just when Mandy thought things were going well. But Mandy isn’t one to just completely throw in the towel. Mandy and Jon end up meeting as friends and truly get to know each other. The meet and talk and laugh and drink and just have a great friendship going.

Several months pass with Jon and Mandy being friends when the trial begins. Now Jon has told Mandy he’s innocent and she really hopes that things go his way in the trial. She goes every day and after 4 days a decision is made. But what will this mean for their relationship when everything is said and done?

When I started the book I have to say that I was bit turned off, almost immediately, by the first sentence of the story:

I was fat, frumpy and forty and I was never going to have sex again.

Did I really want to read a story about a woman who had such low self-esteem? But as the story went on I could see that she was just reacting to the fact that her husband had left her for an older woman – quite a kick in the teeth for her. But when she met Jon, he gave her the attention that had been lacking in her marriage – and they were really just friends. Yes, she had to restrain herself from jumping him on a regular basis but she I enjoyed her loyalty in sticking with him when everyone else just knew that he was guilty.

Overall this was a very cute, quick (45 pages), sexy read that I enjoyed reading.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.


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What I Read Last Week

Posted May 3, 2010 by Tracy in Features | 24 Comments

Hi-dee-ho Neighbors!
How are all my cyber friends today?  Behaving yourselves?  I certainly hope not! lol
Ok – update on what exciting things happened in my life this past week….***crickets chirping***…all right, moving on.
LOL  Actually nothing much happened at all this past week and that’s A-ok with me!   The hub’s good, the kids are good.  I can’t complain!
You can still get in the running for the Diana Palmer book giveaway that will run until this Saturday at 11:59pm.  Just leave a comment to enter.
Also – I posted the list of books that I read in April on my other blog.  You can go here to see it.
So – what did I read this past week?
I started off with a Quickie read for The Book Binge called Too Good To Be True by Penelope Friday.  This was a cute book with some British humor in it.  The heroine’s self-esteem was really low when I first started the book and I was slightly turned off but then I liked her so much that I enjoyed the story. About a woman whose husband left her and she meets a great looking guy in a bar – but he’s going to trial soon because he might be a criminal.  What’s a girl to do?  I’ll let you know when my review posts.

Next up was To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt.  I’m considering this both a Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week as well as an FTSP read.  I actually tried to read the first book in this series several times but couldn’t get into it for some reason.  I did read book 2 and really liked it so I’m just continuing with the series.  This is the story of Helen who has been the mistress of a Duke for many years.  She’s finally left him after being only looked at as a possession for much of that time.  She enlists the help of her friend (from the previous book) and goes with her 2 children to Alistair Munroe’s castle in Scotland to be his housekeeper.  Alistair is none too happy to see her.  He doesn’t want a damned housekeeper!  Alistair is scarred from an Indian attack and lives a quiet sequestered life.  When Helen arrives his life is turned upside down – but in a good way.  I really liked the book a lot and it was a sweet beauty and the beast story – which I love. 4.25 out of 5
Next was Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts.  This is book 3 in the Bride Quartet series.  It started off slow for me but got better.  I read this one for The Book Binge as well and will let you know when my review posts.  This was Laurel and Del’s story.

I read a lot of The Book Binge this week because I’m trying to catch myself up and…well, I have a hard time saying no! lol  Anyway, another short read for them was Sacrifice in Stone by Patricia Mason.  This was about a statue and the woman who was trying to bring it to life.  Cute.

Lover Mine by JR Ward was my next read.  This was a darned good book.  It’s so nice to have some romance back in the BDB books.  This was John Matthew and Xhex’s (pronounced Hex from what I understand) story but we also got views into Blay and Qhuinn’s relationship, more from Tohr, some info on Payne (thank heavens!) and of course the evil Lash.  There were 2 corresponding stories that were in the book as well.  One was from Darius which I really enjoyed cuz I’ve liked him from book 1 (will it ever be revealed that JM is Darius? hhmmmmm IDK) and also another story about a tv show called the Paranormal Investigators.  The PI story was a bit odd and it wasn’t revealed until the end how it connected but it did, finally, connect.  I’m not sure I cared about the connection too much or if it’s going to be used in further books but I could have done without it and been quite happy. 🙂  Anyway a good book worth reading.  4.25 out of 5
I decided that it was time to catch up on some of the m/m shorter stories and novellas that I have had on my ereader for some time.  The first was Out of My Mind by ML Rhodes.  What a great story.  Rafferty Jones and Nick Tucker have been partners in the PD for 4 years now.  They’ve been best friends practically from day 1 and have spent great amounts of time together.  Rafferty is now divorced and he’s damn happy about it, but now he’s having erotic thoughts about his partner and he’s freaking out.  He’s never had “those” kind of thoughts about a man before and he doesn’t quite know how to handle it.  After a storm where Nick almost drowns Rafferty and Nick have a great night together (oh, Nick’s gay but didn’t reveal it to Rafferty for his own reasons) things go a bit haywire and Rafferty’s confused.  I really liked this book a lot.  Rafferty in his self examination unwittingly hurts Nick and it just killed me. I seriously was feeling the guys pain and my heart hurt for him.  The only thing I think I would have liked was to see more from Rafferty during his self-examination.  We got his POV at the beginning of the book but later only Nick’s.  It was still great but that would have given it a different depth as well.  4.5 out of 5
After that I read 3 free short stories that I got from the GLBT Bookshelf (thank you Tam & Chris for the link)  The first was Halloween Pickup by PA Brown about a guy who quickly picks up a guy who’s in costume as a cop.  They take off and enter a dungeon – but are things really as they seem?  Cute. (8 pages)
Then Lee Rowan’s Gift Exchange (7 pages) about 2 men on a submarine who exchange some great gifts with each other at Christmas. Very sweet.
Next was Josh Lanyon‘s The French Have a Word For It (30 pages) about a artist who is living in Paris trying to make it on his own when his old body guard finds him and they share a wonderful night together.  But things are not always what they seem.  This was very good and worth the read.

After that it was Tabula Rasa by Tory Temple.  This a contemporary western that was recommended to me by Hilcia.  The story of Rafferty (I know 2 Rafferty characters in one week!) who is trying to save his father’s horse ranch that was left to him after his dad died.  He can make enough money on the rodeo circuit as a roper but his partner has a broken ankle.  He gets Cash to be his heeler and they do fine in the circuit – but as lovers, not so good.  Oh, the sex is good but they have issues in their non-relationship.  Then Cash has a freak accident and has a temporary memory loss and can’t remember if they were together.  Well, when Raff doesn’t come through with the whole truth things don’t turn out the way he plans.  A great story that I really enjoyed reading.  Cash is an ass at first but when he loses his memory his has somewhat of a personality change. Another book where I could feel the guys pain.  Was I overly sensitive this week because my heart hurt a lot this past week for many of the characters.  Good stuff. 4 out of 5
Last but not least was yet another read for The Book Binge (I told you I was behind!) called Drilled by Regina Carlysle.  I hate the title of this book – seriously.  However since the girl is dating a guy who owns a petroleum company and is drilling crude oil on her land, I guess it’s fitting.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it! lol  Anyway, this is part of the Tempt the Cougar series and tells the story of 41 year old Lori Donovan who has moved back to the small town that she grew up in.  She meets 31 year old Jackson and things steam up.  I’ll let you know when my review posts.

Some of my Book Binge reviews that posted this past week:
Icing on the Cake by Shayla Kersten (One of my m/m challenge reviews)
Happy Reading!


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