Daisy Flattery has been working as an artist, after leaving her job as a teacher, and not having a great deal of luck keeping her head above water financially when her upstairs neighbor needs a fiance for the weekend.


Linc Blaise is interviewing for a position in the History Department at Prescott College and in a moment of panic invented a fiance. And now he needs to find a suitable woman to help him convince the powers that be that he's the right man for the job.

But Linc think Daisy is flighty and says the first thing that comes out of her mouth. His taste runs to trim blonds who fit in with his chrome and black furniture and track lighting. Daisy's life is mismatched and comfortable and her art is uncomfortable for a lot of people but she works hard to make sure she doesn't embarrass Linc during his interview.

In fact, everyone loves Daisy and when Linc shows up in the fall without her it's a problem. His intention was to create a new story about how they broke up but the department chair sends him to go get her so he does. Linc convinces Daisy to spend the academic year married to him - he wins by keeping his job and she wins by being able to paint and not worry about the bills. Each has some concern about what this says about their priorities and the growing attraction building between them.


One thing Linc didn't count on was everyone liking Daisy so much or Daisy becoming such an integral part of life in the community. The students he tutors start coming to his house even when he's not there, faculty he works with do the same, and everyone loves Daisy - including the dog she adopts as soon as she gets to town.


True to other Crusie stories there are some wonderfully funny moments but this story also has some unexpectedly touching experiences between the two main characters. This may not be a new Crusie - it's a re-release from Bantam - but it's new to me and may be new to many of you. One thing I know about it though is that you won't be disappointed.

Liz Monahan was having a nice weekend getaway with her current boyfriend until she began to pick up the tell-tale signs that he was married. This always happened to her and it really pissed her off. Flustered, she watched him get off the elevator for his room and then goes to her own. As she walks in she sees a dead guy in the bathroom and a hitman throws her on the bed. Luckily the hitman has a soft spot for six foot tall redheads and lets her overpower him so she can get away.

Agent Harper isn't having a very good day. His partner killed their informant. Then a civilian walks in on his clean up. After he lets her go he knows he has to get going fast before security comes check. His partner leaves him hanging and when he gets back to The Agency they are not happy. Especially, when evidence comes along that points to his partners death. He begins to connect the dots and knows that they're going to pin the screw up on him so he bails out the window of his office, uses his 'ready' bag and becomes "Bob Anderson" so he can go back to the last place his partner was on assignment and find out what went wrong.

The first thing that happens is that he runs into Liz, who is the reference librarian for a pharmaceutical company that "Bob" now works for as an accountant. She freaks out runs right into her, now ex-, boyfriend. Yep, she kicked him out when he didn't believe that she'd seen a dead guy and the hitman and by the time she gets home "Bob" has broken into her house and searched for clues to connect her to the theft and sale of extremely dangerous, pharmacological superbugs.

While "Bob" and Liz are on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys so they can stop a biological pandemic from happening there are some laugh out loud moments. First, there's the running discussion of Liz's tattoo and what it means. Then there are the random calls from her mom. Also, there's the budding chemistry that builds and builds as the two get to know each other better as they run for their lives and solve the crisis before the end of the world as we know it.

Gabriel McQueen arrives home to Maine to visit his young son and parents just in time for a major ice storm to blow into town. His dad, who's the town sheriff, asks him to go up the Helton place to check on Lolly Helton who is in town to ready the family's house for sale.

Gabriel and Lolly had a love hate relationship when they were in high school based on the fact that each had the hots for each other but didn't know how to express it. You know, typical high school stuff.


When Lolly is threatened by meth addicts that invade her home Gabriel helps her escape and gives her more than just an extra hand against the hoped up addicts. He gives her a piece of his heart. Check out this holiday romantic suspense novel for a good happily ever after.

Kelly Rochard goes on vacation to Paris to learn more about the father she never knew but the first day she's there she's mugged and looses everything - including the letters her father wrote her mother before she was born. Will Maguire witnesses the mugging and recognizes the flustered high school French and unwittingly gets himself wrapped up in the questioning, but when he takes a good look at Kelly the chemistry between them is unmistakable.

Will has father issues, too, and he started hiding out in Paris several years ago to stay out of the family business and now he's practically running a small cheese company so stepping in to help a young women in distress is nothing new. He takes care of getting her immediate needs met by letting her use his phone and by the end of the day these two have become much closer. Much.

Kelly and Will both work on their father issues and a few other things along the way. Be sure to catch "Blame it on Paris" so that you can find out how Kelly and Will finally get together. It's worth it. Also the rich language and descriptions of Paris are wonderful. You'll swear you were actually there

In the past year of Dash Bateman's life her mother died suddenly and her daughter left for college. Now she and her husband are on their own to recraft new lives for themselves and while Dash might take this to an extreme there's nothing out of the ordinary that she goes through in this story. With some women's fiction the ending comes likes a thud, and as Susan Elizabeth Phillips mentioned on the back cover blurb of my copy, and 'you race to take an antidepressant'. There are no worries about that with this book. While there might have been moments when the characters had hard choices to make, in the end those choices pay off for Dash, her husband, and the readers

Come read by full review.

Grace Emerson is tired of being pitied since her ex-fiance dumped her 20 days before the wedding because he'd fallen in love with her younger sister, so she made up the boyfriend so that her sister wouldn't feel guilty and Grace wouldn't feel pitied about being at her cousin's wedding without a date. Then Callahan O'Shea moves in next door and Grace can't stop spying on him even though her dog attacks him at every opportunity. Turns out he's just gotten out of jail for something he didn't do but took the rap for and Grace is falling in love. Her family is much more leery and even the ex-fiance is warning her off even this causes problems. In the end Callahan and Grace give each other everything they are looking for and on the way this is a pretty fun read

Zoey Adler hijacks a federal agent to help save her infant niece from kidnappers. The fact that she has nicknamed this guy 'Lips of Sin' should also tell you something about her previous run-ins with Dante Torelli. Agent Torelli is not only tasked with the protection of young Pete and her family who are in hiding from the Mob but also with an investigation of an agent gone bad. A snow storm hits Chicago, bullets fly, Pete gets swiped by Aunties from India and once again opposites attract

Simon Bonner is desperately trying to retire from his previous profession as a tomb raider but his ex-wife's new husband shows up at his house in the mddle of the night trailing blood, news of his ex's abduction, and the key to the find that will get her back. All he needs to do is find a woman. Jillian Talbot isn't just any woman though. She can see the past in objects and the rock crystal lens that Simon is given was made for her because she is The Seer who must find The Archives of Man buried in some ancient ruins in Mexico. The trip through Mexico not only brings them closer to the Archives but closer to each other and to what is true and real in life which is something that they have both struggled with in previous relationships. [This book was a RITA finalist this year!]

June is the time for me to revisit this favorite on my keeper shelf. Bet Me is a modern day fairy tale about love and gambling and food and body image and the things families do to each other even when they don't mean to. Cal makes a bet that he can get Min to leave the bar with him even though she just got dumped by her boyfriend. Min overhears the bet and decides to take Cal for the perverbial ride so that she can have a gorgeous date to her sister's wedding. Min's rage over being dumped scares Cal away and Cal's Charm Boy persona is everything Min knows will break her heart. The two can't seem to stay away from each other though and as they learn more about who the other really is deep down inside they each try to figure out how to get to the Happily Ever After.

Roberts' first book in the Bride Quartet begins a new series about four childhood friends who grow up to start a wedding business together. Mackenzie Elliot throws herself into her photography to distance her heart from her mother issues and the abandonment of her trust-fund father. She is pursued by Carter Maguire - a stable PhD in English who had a high school crush on Mac. Carter tries to help Mac see that life can be just as wonderful untouched in the darkroom and even if it is unfocused and messy - it's always better with someone who truly loves you.

Quick [Jayne Ann Krentz's pseudonym for historical romance] picks up the story of the founding of Jones and Jones - the Arcane Society's investigative arm and the relationship between Lucinda Bromley, whose talent is with plants and poisons, and Caleb Jones, a direct descendant of the founder, Sylvester Jones. Caleb has been told his whole adult life that he will go slowly mad like all the males of his family. Lucinda is notorious in her own right after several suspicious sucides in her immediate family and the death of her fiance by poison. When a rare plant from her conservatory goes missing and the poison made from it begins killing people, Lucinda helps Caleb track down the culprit. Caleb finds comfort in the daily routine of Lucinda's household and their personal relationship develops as the investigation leads them in some very dangerous directions.

Hollywood child star, Georgie York, and her co-star, Bram Shepard, wake up married to each other in Vegas. Neither remembers how they got there but Georgie knows that she can't handle another scandal, not after her husband left her for a Hollywood Bombshell.  Georgie convinces Bram to stay married to her and while they play doting newlyweds Georgie deals with her father issues, Bram's 20-something, punker housekeeper who hates her, and tries to find real meaning in her life.

Shar, Abby, and Daisy [written respectively by Crusie, Stuart and Rich in a collaborative novel] find out that they are the descendants of the Mesopotamian Goddess Kammani. They work together, along with other goddess descendants, and the new men in their lives, to figure out their new-found powers, come to terms with their own family histories, and thwart Kammani's plans to take over present day Ohio and then the world. Oh, and did I mention the dogs talk. 

For more information on how the collaboration worked and to see it in action visit their website. I highly recommend the blog. I guarantee you will laugh.

Fleur spends her young life longing for the love and attention of her father only to abhor it when she actually get its it for the wrong reasons. A pawn between her parents, she has been a model and an actress and it's not until she ventures out on her own after learning of her mother's duplicity does she really begin to learn who she really is. An Epic story beginning in the days of Old Hollywood with Fleur's talentless mother trying to break into the business and being dazzled and by the stars instead. Phillips weaves a poignant tale of discovery and the tragedy that families can bring to themselves until Fleur finds out who she truly is and learns to love herself and her dream.

Nash is dead until they can make it safe for him to be alive. Sophia and Dave have fallen in love and Dave has been abducted to try flush Nash out of hiding. Is Decker over his guilt/ love/ relationship with Sophia? Who at the Agency is trying to kill Nash and will they succeed before Dave is found?

Book Three in the Irish Trilogy.  Carrick the Fairy Prince hopes that Darcy and Trevor will be the third to fall in love and break the spell so that he will finally be joined with his true love Lady Gwen, who haunts Faerie Hill Cottage.