Series: Bride Quartet

Retro-Review: Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts.

Posted November 28, 2017 by Rowena in Reviews | 7 Comments

Retro-Review: Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts.Reviewer: Rowena
Savor the Moment (Bride Quartet, #3) by Nora Roberts
Series: Bride Quartet #3
Also in this series: Vision in White (Bride Quartet, #1), Happy Ever After (Bride Quartet, #4)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: April 27th 2010
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 325
Add It: Goodreads
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts cordially invites you to meet childhood friends Parker, Emma, Laurel, and Mac — the founders of Vows, one of Connecticut’s premier wedding planning companies.

Laurel McBane has always relied on her friends for support, especially when her dream of attending culinary school was almost ruined by her parents’ financial problems. Now Laurel is repaying the kindness of her friends by creating extravagantly luscious tiers of cakes and other confectionary delights that add the perfect touch to their clients’ weddings. As for romance, Laurel believes in it — in theory. But she’s too low-key to appreciate all the luxuries that other women seem to long for. What she does appreciate is a strong, intelligent man, a man just like Parker’s older brother, Delaney Brown, on whom Laurel has had a mega crush since childhood.

But some infatuations last longer than others, and Laurel is convinced that the Ivy League lawyer is still out of her reach. Plus, Del is too protective of Laurel to ever cross the line with her, or so she thinks. When Laurel’s quick- silver moods get the better of her — leading to an angry, hot, altogether mind-blowing kiss with Del — she’ll have to quiet the doubts in her mind to turn a moment of passion into forever…

*****As part of our 10 year anniversary celebration, we’ll be re-posting old reviews and posts that make us cringe, laugh or sigh all over again.*****

This review was originally posted on April 27, 2010.

This is another series that I am absolutely in love with. I love that it’s a straight up contemporary series with just two human beings falling in love without be bitten by vampires or taken hostage by terrorists or anything else like that. They’re just two everyday, average, normal people falling in love over the course of time.

This book was good. It was but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Jack and Emma’s story. There were things about this book that I loved, like learning about Laurel’s side of the business, I’ve always been fascinated with baking and Laurel does it well so it was good to see that. I also enjoyed getting to know Del. I’ve always been interested in learning more about Del in the first two books and it was good to finally see Del getting some serious page time.

Laurel and Del’s attraction to each other started in the last book when they’re all at Emma’s family’s house for a bbq and you could tell that this was where that day was going to lead Del and Laurel. Their attraction seemed to simmer on low heat for a few weeks before it boiled right out of the pot. Del is trying to keep seeing Laurel as the little sister he’s always known her to be and Laurel is trying to get over her silly crush on the boy that will always look at her like a little sister. So in a last ditch effort to get Del out of her system, she shows him that she’s NOT his sister and that sets the tone for the rest of the book.

They’re playing this keep away game of Laurel’s shoes and Del is using the shoes to get to know Laurel better. He’s going for this and he’s going to see where it leads them. Watching these two grow closer and closer was cute. Seeing them bicker their way to love made me smile.

Del was a great hero, one who caring, thoughtful and adorable. I really liked him but I didn’t love Del the way that I loved Jack. Del was a good, solid hero but he didn’t make my heart sing the way that his best friend did.

Laurel was one of those feisty heroines who at times made me roll my eyes around the room. Her reasons for being mad at Del about the whole money didn’t make sense to me. She’s known Del most of her life, she’s friends with him. She should have known him enough to understand where he was coming from with the whole paying thing. I mean, she blew something so small into something so big and I just didn’t get it. So Del’s rich, so what? I just didn’t understand where all of her anger from him trying to give her money was coming from. It’s not like he thought she was this two bit loser who he felt sorry for and was trying to give her a break. I could see him doing the exact same thing to Emma and to Mac but Laurel blew that shit up like he was trying to strangle her or something.

Overall, this book was good but it’s not my favorite of the bunch. My favorite part of this book was getting to know Laurel while she was at work. I loved reading about all of her baking bits. Seeing her in action in the kitchen had me wanting to throw my apron on and see what kind of concoctions I could throw together in the kitchen. I love baking in any romance novel and it never fails to amaze me how Nora Roberts can take any occupation out there and make me curious about it. She’s a phenomenal writer and I’m such a fan!

It was good to see the gang all together again and I can’t wait for Parker and Mal’s story. I can’t wait to see how Mal wins her over. It’s going to be interesting because Mal is a fox and Parker is one tough cookie. I can already imagine the sparks that are going to fly. Woot!

Grade: 3.5 out of 5

The Bride Quartet

This book is available from Berkley Trade. You can buy it here.

four-stars


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Review: Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts.

Posted November 8, 2010 by Rowena in Reviews | 5 Comments

Review: Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts.Reviewer: Rowena
Happy Ever After (Bride Quartet, #4) by Nora Roberts
Series: Bride Quartet #4
Also in this series: Vision in White (Bride Quartet, #1), Savor the Moment (Bride Quartet, #3)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: November 2nd 2010
Pages: 333
Add It: Goodreads
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four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Dreams are realized in the eagerly-awaited fourth novel in Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet.

As the public face of Vows wedding planning company, Parker Brown has an uncanny knack for fulfilling every bride's vision. She just can't see where her own life is headed.

Mechanic Malcolm Kavanaugh loves figuring out how things work, and Parker is no exception. Both know that moving from minor flirtation to major hook-up is a serious step. Parker's business risks have always paid off, but now she'll have to take the chance of a lifetime with her heart...

This is where the party ends for the folks over at Vows. We’ve been through the ups and the downs with each of the four women in this quartet and the ride was great fun while it lasted. I’ve been very itchy about reading this book and when Holly finally sent that email out that she got this book for review, I was ready to duke it out with anyone who got in my way to this book (including Ames, =P).

We’ve seen Mac, Emma and Laurel all get their man and now it was Parker’s turn. The last man standing, the brain behind the whole operation and the glue that kept their tight knit group of friends together. It would have been so easy for Nora to write Parker as a total stiff but Parker didn’t come off that way at all to me. She’s from the Brown family and in their neck of the woods, that meant something but while Parker may have been very detail oriented and a total control freak, she wasn’t a beast.

This book played out exactly the way that I thought it would and while in some cases, that wouldn’t have worked for me but in this case, it totally did. I liked that it was predictable and that Mal was going to totally steamroll his way into Parker’s life whether she wanted him to or not and I enjoyed the ride.

I loved that these books were straight up contemporaries. I really enjoyed digging into a story about two characters that I have come to love as my own friends over the course of the series. Mal was a solid hero, one that I would totally bang again and again because he’s just hot stuff and I loved that he listens to The Killers. I have a very soft spot for Brandon Flowers. Ha!

Parker was Parker. Great at everything and did everything in 4 inch heels. She’s freaking Super Woman and I wanted to be her friend. I really liked the way we got to know both Parker and Mal. In Savor the Moment, I didn’t feel like Del got much page time and I would have liked to see more from him but in this book, Parker and Mal both got the kind of page time where I felt like I got to know the both of them equally and I really liked them both.

The thing about these books is they’re such fast reads. You read and read and read and then when the end comes, you’re surprised that you’re already there. It’s like being at a party that you don’t want to end and that’s how I felt with this one. I enjoyed this book and it’s probably my second favorite in the series, behind Jack and Emma’s book. Their book had it all for me and Jack still holds the trophy for my favorite hero in this entire series but Mal and Parker’s story was easy to fall into and when it all came to a close, I wasn’t ready to leave them behind so I’d say Roberts did a pretty decent job of writing this one.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

The Bride Quartet

This book is available from Berkley Trade. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

four-half-stars


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Review: Vision in White by Nora Roberts.

Posted June 10, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 11 Comments

Review: Vision in White by Nora Roberts.Reviewer: Rowena
Vision in White (Bride Quartet, #1) by Nora Roberts
Series: Bride Quartet #1
Also in this series: Happy Ever After (Bride Quartet, #4), Savor the Moment (Bride Quartet, #3)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: April 28th 2009
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 325
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most at home behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments before an important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeing stars.

A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitely not Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs to take her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turn into something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have to turn to her three best friends-and business partners-to see her way to her own happy ending.

I have been looking forward to reading this book for quite some time now. I thought the cover was too cute for words and I’m girly enough to get a little excited about weddings. So anyway, I finally picked this one up and was super excited to read it and while I enjoyed it, I can’t say that it was one of NR’s best. I don’t think it’s because of the way this book was written or because Nora did something wrong, I just think it was more of a preference kind of thing.

Nora Roberts excels at writing character driven stories that pull the reader deep into the lives of the characters in her books. She does a phenomenal job of creating worlds that the reader can be comfortable in and that’s why I enjoy reading Nora Roberts so much. This book showcased that.

My fascination with this series wasn’t mainly focused on the leading couple of the story, but with the foursome of friends who started a wedding business together. There’s Parker, the detail oriented one, she was the one that took care of all the details of each wedding, she took care of everything that everyone forgot about then there was Laurel, the baker. Emma was the florist and then finally, Mackenzie was the photographer. They each brought something different to the wedding table and they each helped each other get things done to keep their clients happy.

I really enjoyed the friendship between all four of these women. They each were different in looks, in personality and yet they meshed so well with each other and the wealth of love they each had for each other was fun to read about. The easy way they were with each other, even when one of them was seriously PMSing made me smile and laugh all along with them. I felt like I was apart of their group and I really enjoyed the parts where we got to see them all together.

This story is the wedding photographer’s story, MacKenzie Elliott. She’s got some serious Mommy and Daddy issues and there were times in this story that I wanted to slap her for the way she handled the good things in her life. I couldn’t blame her for the way that she handled things with Carter but the things where she kept rolling over for her Mom made me want to karate chop her in the knee caps! The excuses she made and the way she got after her Mom left made me want to punch Mac in her face. Alls well that ends well but there were too many instances in the story where I wished that Mac would grow a spine and tell her Mom where to stuff it.

Then there was Carter. Carter isn’t your usual alpha hero, he’s more of the beta hero who is bookish and an English teacher who loves to mold the minds of the next generation. He’s a great teacher and he was cute and everything that’s good but I wanted more from him. What? I have no idea but there was something that kept me from swooning in delight over the yumminess that is Carter. There wasn’t really anything bad about him but there wasn’t anything that wowed me about him either. He was just a good guy. I guess, just not my cuppa even though I really love me a nerdy hero from time to time.

Overall, the story was good but it was the secondary characters and the other things in the story that held me in the story. It was Del and Jack that I wondered over, that I wanted more from and the wedding shenanigans that had me turning the pages those are the parts of the story that I really enjoyed and for me, the main romance took a backseat to it…for me, the main love story was the secondary story. I really enjoyed the other characters and it’s their stories that I cannot wait to read. So though this story was a great story, it was the other things going on in this story that made me really enjoy it. Mac got on my nerves and Carter was just okay and even though they weren’t all that to me, I loved the rest of the book.

So, if you like cute little stories with funny little scenes in them then I think you’ll enjoy this story. I want to know who Emma’s hero is and I really want to know if any of the girls end up with Del or Jack, I hope so because I LOVE THOSE GUYS! Does anyone know?

4 out of 5

The Bride Quartet

This book is available from Penguin. You can buy it here in print, here in e-format or here for your Kindle.

four-stars


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