February 14th, 2010 — 5 Stars, Artist, Book Review, D-F, Great Britain, Historical Romance, Poor Eyesight, Spectacles
You know how they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, well I do. I picked up Jacquie D’Alessandro’s Sleepless at Midnight last fall because of the cover. It was sensual while not being risqué. I bought it when I read that the heroine snuck into his room to spy on him bathing. I was not disappointed. What followed was some of the best dialog I had ever read in a romance novel with a touching story besides. In addition to the witty repartee the bedroom scenes should be noted. They are exceptional: steamy, sticky, and sexy.
Miss Sarah Moorehouse is plain, bespectacled, and unfashionably tall with a naughty side a mile long. She forms secret clubs, reads a novel that would raise eyebrows, sneaks into men’s private rooms, and draws pictures of naked men in her sketchbook. Matthew Langston finds her fascinating.
However, Matthew can’t afford to find her so. He has to fulfill two death bed promises to his father. The first is restoring the estate and the second is getting married within a year of the old man’s passing. His father’s last few words were about a windfall hidden on the estate. If he could find it before time was up he could marry the woman of his dreams and not the one of the pretty heiresses staying at his house party.
Rating: 5 Stars
Happy Readings!
Originally posted 2008-11-17 15:25:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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December 24th, 2009 — 4 Stars, 5 Stars, Architect, Book Review, Business, Contemporary, Entrepreneur, Friends, P-R, The Arts, United States of America
Bed of Roses is number two in the Bride Quartet (which might as well be called Vows after their business).
I have not yet read or listened to Vision in White
. I’m on the list at the library for the book and the audio book but neither has come in. This is just another reason why I love Stellar Sellers which denote materials that can be checked out for one lending period only and can’t be put on hold. Hurrah!
Nora Roberts skillfully sets up the friendships and characters with just a few words. Emmaline (Emma) Grant is an optimistic woman with romance in her soul. She believes in love and HEA because she has seen it work in her parents. She loves flowers and is the florist in the business. Her job is very rewarding because she is almost always complicated over her work arranging and designing flower bouquets. It does leave her hands a little worse for wear – stripping roses of their thorns is hard work!
Emma has been in love with Jack Cooke for a long while, but has successfully denied her feelings even to herself over the course of the years. He is the best friend of Parker’s (her best friend) brother. In her mind that made him a no-go territory because to pursue him and have the relationship fail would certainly cause strain on the group mechanics.
Jack is an architect who owns his own firm. He can be romantic, but has a crippling fear of intimacy. His reasons for avoiding Emma are similar to her own but with the added knowledge that pursuing Emma would more likely mean a wedding, marriage, kids, a beer gut in ten years, and teaching Little League. The idea practically unmans him, but the experience of kissing Emma behind the scenes at a wedding is too amazing to pass up… and he wants to do it again soon.
Angela Dawe, the reader, does a phenomenal job bringing the book to life. I sincerely hope she narrates the rest of the Quartet because she is just that good and I couldn’t imagine the characters sounding different. She’s an actress and improviser so it’s no wonder how easily she pulls off different moods, inflections, accents, and tones. I highly recommend listening to this book!
Book Rating: 4 Stars
Narrator Rating: 5 Stars
Buy: Bed of Roses (Audio Book)
, Bed of Roses (Paperback)
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