Well Played

Well Played (Well Met #2)- Jen DeLuca

Berkley Publishing

Release Date: September 22, 2020

Rating:

📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One.

When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it.
 
Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.

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For those of us who have been impatiently waiting since we read the fantastic Well Met last year, the wait is over. In Well Played we get to know Stacey, Emily's friend/wench mentor from Well Met.  When her friends Simon and Emily get engaged, Stacey's jolted to the realization that she wants a change in her life.  She's lonely, hoping for a new connection, and in a drunken moment, messages Dex MacLean, a Faire hookup who performs in the Dueling Kilts.  The two start emailing, then texting, and becoming closer as time passes.  But when Faire season comes again Stacey learns 'Dex' isn't who she's been falling in love with.  It's his cousin, band manager Daniel MacLean.  How many lies are between them and are they willing to fight for a chance at love and happiness?

Stacey was a great person to get to know, and a perfect example of the masks that people wear in their everyday lives.  She loves Faire and those few weeks of summer when she gets to put on a corset and become Beatrice.  But outside of that, her life is in a rut and she feels hemmed in by both insecurities and what she thinks other people expect from her. She feels like all her friends on social media are moving on and having great, grown-up lives, and she's not only not doing that, she's not sure what she wants anymore out of life. It's the insecurities that most of us face at least a few times in life and was well done. Stacey's also a kind and caring person, maybe a little too forgiving.  When she figures out that 'Dex' is really Daniel, she's willing to forgive him pretty quickly because of how close they've become through their emails.  He knows her better than anyone and she's more than half in love with him already.  Jen DeLuca does a great job showing how close two people can become through only the written word.  Sometimes you find yourself telling the other person things that might take years to say face to face (and as might happen face to face, the communication doesn't go as well as through the written word here)- so Stacey forgiving Daniel is no surprise, and worked for me.  Daniel himself is a little tougher to get, and he never quite does it for me.  He has romantic moments, and we get hints of his insecurities and always feeling second best to Dex.  But he doesn't jump off the page on his own.  He messes up and is willing to walk away instead of trying to fight for his relationship with Stacey.  Stacey finds herself ready to apologize for things that really, Daniel should be apologizing for.  That disappointed me. I wanted Daniel to fight to fix what he needed to fix, instead of assuming one problem means the end of everything and giving up easily. 

Once again, Jen DeLuca's writing is full of sparkling humor, emotional tugs of the heartstrings, and this time we get a pretty cute cat too.  The Faire moments are some of the best, DeLuca's love of all things Renaissance Faire come through perfectly and you wish you could step through the pages and walk down the lanes with the characters.  Her descriptions make you feel the heat, taste the dust, and hear the fiddles.  Some people might not like how much Emily and Simon show up in this book, but personally, I loved it.  I liked Well Met better than Well Played, so having Emily and Simon and the subplot of their wedding throughout this book really helped me. 

While Well Played could be read on its own, it will definitely be better if you read Well Met first- here we get Emily and Simon's wedding, see more of April and Mitch, and overall get to revisit old friends as well as make new ones this Faire season.   

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Must Love Dogs and Hockey

Must Love Dogs . . . and Hockey- Kelly Jamieson
Loveswept/Random House
Release Date: September 8, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Lilly: My life is like the love child of a train wreck and a dumpster fire right now. I’ve been canned, my professional reputation is shredded, and now I’m walking dogs to make ends meet.
But I still believe everything will work out. Somehow.
Then a dog at the park attacks my friend’s dog. At first, I’m ready to give the owner hell—but it turns out he’s in desperate need of doggie daycare. I figure, why not? I love dogs and I need the cash.
Too bad his cocky bad boy attitude annoys me. He’s too damn cute for his own good. And I’m not talking about the dog.

Easton: My coach is riding my ass and I’m not handling it well. When I’m saddled with an abandoned pooch, my teammate thinks a dog will keep my temper in check. I think I have enough problems already.
But when my new dog gets into a tussle that leads me to meet a smoking hot chick who knows how to handle the rascal, I start to think pet ownership isn’t all bad. At least it gives me an excuse to see Lilly again. . . .
Neither of us are interested in a relationship. First they steal your bed, then they steal your heart. And I’m not talking about the dog.

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There are times when you just want to get lost in a good book, knowing that whatever troubles the characters get into, by the end it will have all worked out the way it should.  They'll be happy, you'll be happy for them, and maybe you'll feel just a little bit better about the people and the world around you.  If you're feeling the need for a happy ending and absorbing read to transport you for a day, Kelly Jamieson's new hockey romance Must Love Dogs . . . and Hockey is for you!

Lilly's life is currently like "the love child of a train wreck and a dumpster fire."  She's been fired from a crappy job, no one in her field will hire her, and she's trying to make ends meet by dog-walking.  Easton is a hockey player with a coach who is verbally and emotionally abusive, he's dealing (by which I mean, NOT dealing) with lots of emotional baggage, and he seems to have accidentally acquired a dog he doesn't know how to take care of.  Neither of them want to open their hearts or trust others for fear of being let down.  But there's undeniable chemistry between them and as things heat up, Lilly and Easton will have to decide if they are brave enough to get past their insecurities or if the past will put them in the penalty box for good.

Anyone who's read Jamieson's Aces Hockey series (Playing Hurt, Slap Shot) knows that she's a writer who takes hockey as seriously as romance.  Which makes her the perfect author for people like me, who enjoy both.  In Must Love Dogs . . .and Hockey, Jamieson gives us a new team, the New York Bears, and new players to love- starting with Easton Millar.  He comes off as a bit of a cocky jerk jock, but start getting to know him and you find a man who feels like he's lost everything but hockey, and is willing to put up with pretty much anything to hang on to what he sees as the only thing left in his life.  He's afraid to get close to teammates, afraid to get attached to the dog he rescues, and afraid to look too closely at his feelings for Lilly- until it all comes to a head and he has to force himself to look at his life and who he really wants to be.  The more I got to know Easton, the more I hurt for him, and the more I hoped he could make himself be brave enough to try for love.  

What can I say about Lilly?   When she sees people doing something wrong, she acts- even knowing what the consequences to her life could be. She tries to see the good in life, and how she can help make that happen for someone, while at the same time not having an annoying Pollyanna complex.  She's the person I hope I would be in her situation.  

 In Must Love Dogs . . . and Hockey Jamieson gives readers an emotionally satisfying story of love, friendship, bravery, and dogs. Well-written and full of three-dimensional characters you come to love, this was a great book that left me thinking about it long after I'd finished.  I hope we see more of Jamieson's Bears hockey team and its players in the future.  

A must-read for any sports romance fan, dog lover, and everyone in-between. 

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

Mad and Bad

Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency- Bea Koch
Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: September 1, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:  Regency England is a world immortalized by Jane Austen and Lord Byron in their beloved novels and poems. The popular image of the Regency continues to be mythologized by the hundreds of romance novels set in the period, which focus almost exclusively on wealthy, white, Christian members of the upper classes.

But there are hundreds of fascinating women who don't fit history books limited perception of what was historically accurate for early 19th century England. Women like Dido Elizabeth Belle, whose mother was a slave but was raised by her white father's family in England, Caroline Herschel, who acted as her brother's assistant as he hunted the heavens for comets, and ended up discovering eight on her own, Anne Lister, who lived on her own terms with her common-law wife at Shibden Hall, and Judith Montefiore, a Jewish woman who wrote the first English language Kosher cookbook.

As one of the owners of the successful romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, Bea Koch has had a front row seat to controversies surrounding what is accepted as "historically accurate" for the wildly popular Regency period. Following in the popular footsteps of books like Ann Shen's Bad Girls Throughout History, Koch takes the Regency, one of the most loved and idealized historical time periods and a huge inspiration for American pop culture, and reveals the independent-minded, standard-breaking real historical women who lived life on their terms. She also examines broader questions of culture in chapters that focus on the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, the lives of women of color in the Regency, and women who broke barriers in fields like astronomy and paleontology. In Mad and Bad, we look beyond popular perception of the Regency into the even more vibrant, diverse, and fascinating historical truth.

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When we think of the phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" we think (of course) of Lord Byron and the men like him: dangerous rakes who could seduce a woman with a glance.  But in Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency, author Bea Koch turns this idea on its head by examining Regency England through the women who did't meet the stereotype of a demure Regency miss.  Koch refutes critics who bash Regency romances, claiming the historic time period is window dressing for stories with far too 'modern' heroines, by introducing us to real Regency heroines, from Lady Jersey and Caroline Lamb to DIdo Elizabeth Belle and Caroline Herschel.

Among the contradictory aspects of the Regency, sex and decorum are at the top of the list. So it is only natural that Koch starts Mad and Bad with some of the real "bad girls" of the era- women who pushed against Society's rules to be influential mistresses of royalty or highly placed politicians.  Any reader of Regency romance knows Almack's Assemblies and the strict and starchy Patronesses who ruled Polite Society.  But Koch gives us the behind-the-scenes stories of their affairs and intrigues that would shock any debutante.  How many Patronesses slept with the Prince Regent?  Or with each other's husbands? Who really ruled the ambassadorial home (and work) of Count and Princess Lieven?

Once she has hooked you with sex, Koch introduces us to women who might not be shocking by today's standards, but certainly didn't fit the stereotypical Regency mold.  Artists, authors, and actresses the reader may know by name are fleshed out into real people following their muse.  Female scientists, astronomers, and geologists struggle to be recognized in a man's world.  Today we think of movies or books that add LGBTQ and non-white characters as being "politically correct"- Koch introduces us to famous, infamous, and relatively unknown, but true life, LGBTQ and non-white people living in Regency England. Koch looks past the scandalous reputations women like Caroline Lamb have to try and find the real woman behind the myth, to put them in context of the times, and to show us the networks of women (and sometimes men) who supported them.    

The writing style of Mad and Bad is relaxed and informal, the people are introduced in relatively short pieces, as the book itself is not designed to be in-depth biographies.  Instead, it is an introduction to a world many readers might not have known even existed, and an introduction to the people who may become the forefront of history as we ask new questions about the "real" Regency England.  Koch provides the reader with plenty of 'recommended reading' and bibliographies to access more in-depth histories of any of the individuals who particularly grasp your attention, and I know my own "to read" list about doubled because of this!  My only complaint was the tendency towards repetition, a little more editing would have pushed this review from 4 to 5 stars easily.

An excellent introduction to a few of the strong women of Regency England who helped pave the way for women to this day.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

You Lucky Dog

You Lucky Dog- Julia London
Berkley/Penguin Group
Release Date: August 25, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Carly Kennedy's life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to foster Baxter--a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash.

When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.

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Carly Kennedy dreams of the perfect life, as presented in every rom-com and social media account out there telling her to work hard and life will reward her: she'll move to New York City, have the perfect job, lots of friends, live somewhere trendy and beautiful, eat and drink at trendy, beautiful places.  Life will be perfect.  So far, she's perfected the "work hard" part, but the rest isn't following.  Her life is a non-stop whirl of crazy, artistic publicity clients (who knew two people could feel like so much more?); crazy, divorced parents; and a crazy, stressed-out sister who dumps a depressed basset hound on Carly to deal with.  When the dog walker leaves the happy Hazel in place of her depressed Baxter, that's it!  By the time she tracks Baxter down days later, she's ready to explode.  She's not ready for Max Sheffington, who is feeding her dog mac and cheese on the couch and is far too cute to be a neuroscience professor.  Hazel and Baxter hit it off so well that Max and Carly keep puppy play dates going, which quickly turn into something magical between the dog parents as well as the dogs.  But into every rom-com some wrenches must be thrown, and Carly and Max have to try and untangle more than just leashes if they're going to get their happily ever after!

Carly is a stressed publicist trying to build a brand with a twenty-year old "artistic" fashion designer and a retiree who believes wooden circles are art.  The most sane person in her life is probably Baxter, the depressed basset hound her mother adopted to give away as a surprise gift (spoiler alert- pets as surprise gifts are never a good idea, even under the best and most thoughtful of circumstances.  Which this wasn't).  Having the dog walker mix up Baxter and another basset seems like the kind of thing that would absolutely happen to Carly.  But at heart, Carly is an optimist who accepts the craziness life enjoys throwing at her and attempts to positively reframe it in ways that would make her podcast motivational speaker mentor proud.  Max is a "brain scientist", a professor of neuroscience who researches dogs, humans, and autism- inspired by his autistic brother Jaimie.  He's a bit of the classic science type, not great with social setting or cues, not sure if someone's flirting with him, and never confident around women.  He's also kind, caring, super cute, and loves dogs.  The outgoing Carly and the quiet Max seem like opposites, but thanks to two stubborn dogs, they get the chance to discover that opposites really do attract.  The longer they spend together, the more they discover they enjoy each other's company, and the relationship that develops is sigh-worthy in its wonderfulness.

Right from the start, You Lucky Dog lets you know it is going to be a fun, comedic experience. The writing is bright and bubbly, rather like Carly herself, with plenty of humor, but never so overblown that it crosses into crazy, unrealistic drama.  Instead, the drama is completely believable and largely thanks to Carly's mother, who turns every scene she's in into a whirlwind that leaves you breathless and unsure whether you're coming or going.  Jaimie and the struggles and stresses he, Max, and their dad go through are well-written, with touching empathy.  The characters are wonderful all the way around.  The dogs are magical in their basset cuteness. 

You Lucky Dog is a celebration of dogs, love, and what happens when you stop overthinking and let things happen.  It was a book I smiled at every time I picked it up (with a cover like that, how can you not?) and was sorry when I had to put it down for any reason.  A definite must read for romantic comedy fans, dog lovers, and anyone else looking for a happy way to spend the afternoon!

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review