Entries Tagged 'Older Woman/Younger Man' ↓
March 14th, 2010 — 2.5 Stars, Blind, Book Review, Business, Category, Children, Contemporary, Divorced, G-I, Housekeeper/Maid, Marriage of Convenience, Older Woman/Younger Man, Secretary, Tycoon, United States of America, Virgin Heroine
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Philomena Peabody made a promise to her mother. She took care of her three younger sisters and when the last one got married, her youth had slipped away. Now at 27, Phil has a lot of thinking to do.
Penn Wilderman is in a custody battle with his ex-wife for Robbie, their adopted son, his nephew. In the midst of all this he’s recovering from snow blindness. (Hurray for an original blindness idea!) When he hears Phil for the first time he thinks she sounds like someone’s mother.
This makes him think she’s much older than him. She’s actually about 10 to 12 years younger (something that gets confused later when he asks his family servant what people would think of him marrying her.) Phil tries to correct him a few times, especially when he calls her “sweet little old lady.” Every time though, he always cuts in and ignores her protests.
Penn convinces Phil first to move into his mansion to help him watch over Robbie, then later to a marriage of convenience in order to help him win at the custody hearing. The plan however nearly backfires on him… because it wasn’t for Robbie’s sake Penn wanted Phil. It was for his own.
It was pretty insulting at the end when he sees her (for the second time, because he couldn’t place her the first time) and tells her he thought he was going crazy imagining himself in love with an old woman. Talk about double standards.
The writing is pretty confusing in parts and some things aren’t as well explained as they could be. Which is too bad because another category romance of hers I really really like and doesn’t have this problem.
The ending resolution could have been dragged out a little. Phil was clever when she ran – she went to work first and deleted her employment history so he couldn’t track her down. He was clever and got to her quickly. Phil begs his forgiveness when he shows up and it’s all HEA in two seconds.
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Buy: If Love Be Blind
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January 15th, 2010 — 5 Stars, A-C, ARC, Cowboy, Firefighter, Friends, Guest Reviews, Kidnapping, Older Woman/Younger Man, Ranching, Soldier, Teacher, United States of America, Western
By Susan S., Guest Reviewer
Brown’s novel will warm your heart, and bring you characters so real, you’ll swear they’re flesh and bone. Getting Lucky will move to the top of everyone’s list of new comfort reads.
Getting Lucky is book three from Brown’s Lucky Trilogy. It stands alone, here’s why: In this novel the hero (Griffin Luckadeau) tells the heroine (Julie Donavan) fate stories. These stories will retell Milli and Beau’s fate in Lucky in Love. Griffin also goes on to retell Jane and Slade’s fate in One Lucky Cowboy.
Do we have “small” cameo appearances in Getting Lucky? Not just no, hell no! We got the whole family together!
In book three, which tells the story of another hunky Luckadeau cowboy named Griffin, we’ll stumble upon a chockfull of clichés, idioms, silly sayings, and similes. Here’s a glimpse:
Cliché: Don’t get your panties in a wad.
Idiom: The pot calling the kettle black.
Silly saying: One legged chicken at a coyote convention.
Simile: Her heart thumped in her chest like a bass drum.
This book reminded me of my first romances, First Love from Silhouette. I’m recommending this novel to anyone who enjoys romances, HEA’s, and heart-warming stories which leave you smiling.
Julie moves from Jefferson, Texas to St. Jo. As a single mom raising a daughter named Annie, she hopes to leave the gossip-mongers behind. She’ll soon realize she’s jumped out of the frying pan, and straight into the fire. Julie’s first day as a kindergarten school teacher has left her stupefied. Her new student Lizzy, is the exact double of her daughter Annie.
Lizzy’s single father Griffin feels perplexed over the girls' similarities. While the story unravels, the reasons for these similarities will begin to surface.
Getting Lucky gives us plenty of new characters to fall in love with. My favorite of these? Alvie, the love-stuttering rancher.
What will you love? References to Wild Sex Anonymous, bumping headboards, bull riding, women making bets, and the six sheets to the wind stories.
What did I love? In the barn, Julie’s heel gets caught on a loose board. She trips, Griffin grabs her, but ultimately they both fall to the floor. Is there more to this? Maybe.
Fundamental themes: Friendships are to be cherished, and fate will not be ignored.
Julie thinks Griffin’s egotistical, domineering, and too young for her (she’s six years older.)
He thinks all women are shrewd, conniving, with ulterior motives.
They certainly feel the attraction, but will they overcome prejudices, and stop letting their past cloud their judgments? Maybe.
This is a 5 Star Comfort Read!
Buy: Getting Lucky
Contemporary Romance, ARC, Trilogy, Sourcebooks, Inc., Casablanca, January 2010, Mass Market Paperback, Print Pages 393. ISBN# 978-1-4022-2436-2.
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January 8th, 2010 — 1 Star, A-C, ARC, Gentry, Great Britain, Medieval, Musician, Older Woman/Younger Man, Prostitute, Rape/Abuse, Scarred Hero, Secret Agent, Survival, Widow or Widower, Working with Land
I had a hard time getting through this novel. Not only is Widow’s Peak very unbelievable, but the writing is not engaging. Both of these problems could have been ignored if the sexual interaction between the main characters was hot. It wasn't.
Here is what I had issues with:
Lady Amye de Barnard doesn’t act like a medieval lady. She acts like the lowest of chambermaids or servants, doing jobs and taking care of things that should have been delegated.
First, she washes Laine’s body, stitches him up, and tends to him herself during his recovery. As a lady this would never happen. When he’s awake and on the mend, she washes him like a baby and the blanket is the only nod towards modesty.
Amye is a very modern woman in a time when it’s just not possible. She rides astride. She pays the king a tax to stay unmarried. Her late husband was way too forward thinking for the time period. He got the king to sign a contract to allow Amye to be the land holder and owner of their fiefdom. She too is overly forward thinking when it comes to the vassals, serfs, and servants. I have a hard time believing the men surrounding her would not try to advise her or take control away.
She also is still completely in love with her late husband. Thomas is mentioned way too often. There's no way. Besides that every mention shows how wonderful Thomas was to her, to their people, to the land, in bed, as a husband, as a lover, as a teacher, as a friend, and on and on.
As for the sex, here are a very few examples:
- Let her lips roam to his pouch sucked one of his round balls.
- I found it hard to believe she was "tight as the virgins he was given" after 7 childbirths. Come on - really? Really? REALLY?
- The anal sex with soap (I’m assuming its lye base considering the time period). Can we say, burning? Lye is corrosive and will degrade organic tissue.
Laine as a hero also had problems. He was a terrible troubadour. He was a prostitute turned assassin. As an assassin, I have my doubts. He becomes injured by fighting in the trees (of all places how did the fight happen in the trees—how did they both get up there?) then as the two are fighting and falling from the branches he manages to get on top and survive.
Rating: 1 Star
Buy: Widow's Peak
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October 17th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, 1 Star, Book Review, Business, Divorced, Foster/Orphan, Historic America, M-O, Mistress or Courtesan, Older Woman/Younger Man, United States of America, Virgin Hero
When I was in the middle of Wild Oats by Pamela Morsi I had no strong feelings on it. It was neither good nor bad and looked to be shaping up to a solid two stars.
I did dislike all the words devoted to talk on disease. The hero was a mortician, but not inclined to it. He wanted to pass the business on to his partner. It was his partner that always talked about it – what happens to the ground with unsealed coffins, figuring out how people died based on his observations during the care of the body, etc. There was also a plague going through the territory and landed in the town. In the end it was entirely too much spent on sickness and death. Bah.
Then I began to notice after all the disease talk half of the pages were devoted to bringing together the hero’s horrible undeserving mother with his business partner. I began skipping those parts. She was completely irredeemable. The woman wanted nothing but to be crowned the biggest gossip in town. She started false rumors about the morality of the heroine until everyone in town thought her a common slut/whore. On top of that she was a smothering mother who whined and needled into getting more attention from her son and was not above guilt tripping the hero with the fact that she gave birth to him. Seriously, this lady was going to get a HEA? Double bah.
The hero and heroine when they got together were cute, but they can’t overcome the other aspects of the novel.
I finally gave up and put the book down when the preacher started to spread rumors about what he thought he saw at the heroine's house after a church service where he intended to and was on the verge of forcing heroine into a public confession of all her sinful immoral ways until more disease talk took over (both the novel and his sermon). Last and final bah + humbug!
Rating: 0.5-1 Star
Find and Buy More Pamela Morsi Books.
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September 14th, 2009 — 3.5 Stars, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Entrepreneur, Estranged, Friends, Mistaken Identity, Nerd, Older Woman/Younger Man, United States of America, V-Z
The cover of Feels Like the First Time is the reason readers hide the books that they read. I’m surprised Harlequin approved it frankly. It looks like the 70s on drugs. Disco pinks, blues, and purples swirl in a psychedelic mess surrounding two humping dancers that look like Sims characters. It’s just bizarre!
However the story between the covers is great; a very cute friends-to-lovers tale. The leads were best friends in high school but time and distance got between them. Not necessarily estranged, but close enough. At the ten year high school reunion they reconnect and have a magical weekend that leads to a HEA.
Zoe Gaston must find Gandolf, the video programmer who if persuaded could help her brother’s floundering company by writing an exclusive game for the new gaming system. Based on clues from Gandolf’s first ever video game Zoe knows he must have gone to her high school. Nothing less than love for her dear brother could get Zoe back to that small town and meet up with all of the people that made her high school years hell.
Dexter Drake is Zoe’s oldest friend and is in fact Gandolf, but since he left the company he was with he’s been under a confidentiality clause not to spill the beans. Of course, even if he could, he probably wouldn’t. Everybody from high school used him in some way or another except Zoe and he doesn’t want to give her a reason to start. Dexter wants Zoe to want him for himself… if only he had the courage to reveal that the man dressed as Aragon at the costume party was in fact him.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Buy: Feels Like the First Time
Buy on eHarlequin: Feels Like the First Time
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September 12th, 2009 — 3 Stars, Barons and Baronets, Book Review, Ghost, Great Britain, J-L, Lycanthrope, Older Woman/Younger Man, Paranormal, Spinster, Victorian, Virgin Heroine, Werewolf, Working with Land
This was an impulse buy. The cover was pretty (I only saw the front b/c this was an online purchase) and I was fairly certain the inside would give me a wounded/scarred/brooding hero because of the title. To my surprise it was a historical paranormal!
Nicodemus Wulfson is as you guessed it, a werewolf. His brother is being tormented by ghosts, something he emphatically does not believe. He decides the best way to help his brother is to go to London and obtain a person who claims to hold an affinity with ghosts and winds up with Philomena, a ghost-hunter/communicator with spirits.
The mystery behind the haunting was fairly predictable but contains several unique elements. I easily narrowed it down to the two major suspicious persons but was undecided as to which one it was until much later in the novel.
Philomena is a much older heroine than we are used to seeing in romance. She’s forty years old and a spinster, though she’s not unaware of what takes place behind closed doors due to the ghost of a prostitute named Fanny.
Nicodemus is twenty-seven and is determined to claim Philomena. Around her his wolf practically demands he get on with making her his in every way. At first he thinks it is just lust but quickly concludes that he wants more than an affair; he wants a wife and mate.
This book is quite possibly part of a series involving Merlin’s Relics but is well written enough to be a stand alone. Kennedy has marvelous world building skills. We are introduced to this alternate reality of the world where the aristocrat are descendants of Merlin and hold magical powers. The most powerful are royalty followed by the other noble ranks in order. It is the baronets that are lycanthropes or weres and they can be many animals from the more traditional werewolf to snakes, ducks, horses, etc.
Another element that I liked but wasn’t a major factor in the story was the idea of hedge witches (and wizards) who were the bastard children of the nobility. Even if they were claimed, most of them lack the power to be associated with rank.
Rating: 3 Stars
Buy: Enchanting the Beast
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August 19th, 2009 — 4 Stars, Book Review, Bride Stealing, Entrepreneur, Farming, Friends, Historic America, M-O, Older Woman/Younger Man, Spinster, United States of America, Virgin Heroine, Widow or Widower
First off, thank you to Katiebabs for recommending this book in her post, Those Wonderful Comfort Reads. It’s taken me a while to acquire my own copy, but boy oh boy was it worth the wait. This novel is definitely one of those where you wonder why you never heard of it sooner!
The biggest gossip in town is that spinster Hattie Colfax is going to be courted for the very first time by widower Ancil Drayton. He even has special permission from the preacher due to the fact that his wife hasn’t been dead very long, but the Lord will understand his need for a new woman. He has seven kids after all and a farm to maintain.
The minute the news reaches Reed Tyler’s ears he’s annoyed. That man is the worst farmer in the county and Hattie deserves better. Hattie on the other hand is very excited by what appears to be a man for the first time looking past her face and interested in her. This just annoys Reed even more.
Hattie goes to Reed, her 'Plowboy', for help. She doesn’t want to appear completely pathetic to Ancil by having him be her first kiss. She’s afraid it will put her on unequal ground; that Ancil will always look down on her and think she should be grateful he wanted to marry her. Reed agrees to teach her. There are three kinds of kissing that he teaches her that night, and that MhoFho and D.D. will teach you tomorrow, plus a fourth he teaches her later in the novel. Very hot and sexy scenes!
Really this was just a fantastic novel, though it would have benefited from less smoochy-smooches and Ancil. The man was made for a sexual harassment suit and he’s just plain unlikable and cruel. I felt bad for two of his seven children. I wanted Hattie to adopt them.
Rating: 4 Stars
Buy: Courting Miss Hattie
Find and Buy More Pamela Morsi Books.
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July 4th, 2009 — 1.5 Stars, Bodyguard, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Divorced, Entrepreneur, J-L, Older Woman/Younger Man, Pregnant, Secret Baby, United States of America
Part of the Famous Families line, A Weaver Wedding, is littered with names. Most likely they are characters of past and future novels all dealing with the Clay family. By the time you’re introduced to them all your head is spinning. It’s easier to keep the names down and the interaction between the leads up.
If you’re good with names and one time introductions this won’t be a problem, but I can’t follow that many characters. Well, that’s a lie, I could, but I don’t care to in a short novel. If I’m going to get lots of names dropped it better be in a long novel or series.
It was predictable, bubblegummy, and not overly compelling. It needed meat, sustenance, something to truly be endearing.
Besides the name dropping, I did not like how the hero and heroine got together in the beginning. Did she have to be drunk?
I understand it’s contemporary but I just don’t understand why drunkenness is needed to urge a modern woman into bed with a handsome man or why a suitably charming, upright, dependable hero would agree to sleeping with a drunk heroine when he’s so virtuous in character.
I figure if they were smart enough for condoms, she should be smart enough to avoid getting to the point of slurring drunkenness even if her brother stood her up on her birthday. He should have been more upright and not taken advantage. I don’t care that he’s wanted to act on his attraction to her for the past five or so years. I care that he looks out for her.
Which brings us to the ironic part of this review as the hero is the heroine’s bodyguard.
Review: 1.5 Stars
Buy: A Weaver Wedding
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June 24th, 2009 — 1 Star, Blind, Book Review, Contemporary, Cursed Lead, J-L, Older Woman/Younger Man, Paranormal, Supernatural, Teacher, United States of America, Writer
So far as a romance novel goes, Lucy Burns has the very broad requirements and none of the nuances. It ends happy. There is a guy. She ends up with him. The romance was nonexistent as no emotions or depth came across when I read it. The story primarily focuses on Lucy Burns finding salvation.
As a heroine, I wasn't particularly enchanted with her. I was unable to sympathize with Lucy past her little girl stage. She came across exactly as she thought of herself: shallow, empty, and not particularly kind or nice beyond the relationship with her neighbor, her neighbor's child, and Luke Marshall.
I suppose Lucy redeemed herself in the end, but I didn't really connect to those inner changes. She was obviously disenchanted with herself, her job working for the devil, and with people and life in general. There was no growth to her character.
Luke Marshall was vague as a hero. We learn he teaches creative writing at a university, is writing a manuscript based on his perception of Lucy Burns, and sings off key when drunk... oh and he's blind, which means he can't see the gorgeousness that is Lucy at all.
Things in the book that I didn't like at all:
- Lucy getting so wasted she urinated on herself in her hall closet during a Tupperware party. What romance novel could happen without that?
- Her pretty blasé attitude over an innocent man accidentally going to hell by walking down into her basement. If there was regret, it was a twinge and nothing more.
- Her blasé attitude over the coffee shop goth-girl (admittedly not the friendliest of people) finding herself going to hell by trying to escape the some unrobed KKK members by running down into the basement...
- Reading the lyrics/song titles of Teddy Nightingale and random excerpts from Luke's novel. One or the other happened in every chapter. It was overkill.
- The backdrop of two movies duking it out in theaters that also appeared every other chapter or so. The movies were Adoring JC (Jesus Christ) and Absolutely Adolf: What were you thinking?
Rating: 1 Stars
Buy: The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns
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