Always the Baker, Never the Bride (Emma Rae Creations #1) - Sandra D. Bricker

This one was another freebie.  I have to say, after the past two disappointments, I was a little wary of finding a good book to read.  Luckily Emma Rae and Jackson saved me!

Emma Rae is a successful baker that has just taken over as pastry chef at the Tanglewood Inn, which is under the management of Jackson.  He is fulfilling the dream of his deceased wife.  He's pretty much lost with the whole turning the hotel into a wedding destination thing but has the help of his sisters and now Emma Rae.  She becomes indispensable to him and his heart.

There are no real mysteries here.  The book keeps flowing because it is centered around Emma Rae and Jackson.  He's fighting God and the memory of his wife.  She's trying to be understanding and patient.  There are little additions with the restaurant's chef, Emma Rae's parents, her assistant/best friend, her aunt and her old employer.  There's not enough of them to be a distraction, just to keep the plot going.  There were also a couple times I smiled.  Didn't laugh out loud, but it was a cute part.

I really think that this was a great book to get my out of my slump.  It was a pleasant read and I was through it in no time.  This seems to be part of a series.  At the moment there is another one, Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride.  It came out in October so there might be more after that, but I can't say for sure.  I'll throw it on my watch list, though.  Finally, I can say Good Book!!

To Love Anew (Sydney Cove Series #1) - Bonnie Leon

This book was offered up for free and looked decent enough.  Turned out to be a real downer.

We start off the book with Hannah mourning her mother.  Hmm, well things can get better, right?  Shortly after that, her business goes under and she has nowhere to go and nowhere to live.  A friend tells her about a house position, which she gets.  Better, right?  Um, no.  She lives in a dungeon basically and the man of the house rapes her.   Ugh.  She leaves and gets to the point of starvation that she steals a piece of bread and ends up in prison.  Lucky her gets her former employer as a judge who promptly trumps up the charges by adding stealing from his family to her crimes.  She gets sent to Australia...

John has the life most people would be glad to have.  He has a profitable business and a wife.  He craves adventure, though.  A decision to go with his cousin to have a drink changes his life.  His cousin picks a fight, the guys draws a knife, John tries to break it up and ends up killing the man.  While awaiting his sentence, his cousin and wife run off together with his money.

Hannah and John's eyes meet while on board the ship of nightmares.  Semistarvation, lack of exercise, proper space or basically anything made this one depressing book.  Oh, and as if the circumstances weren't enough, Hannah is pregnant.  I stopped reading after she had the baby early and they put it in the slop bucket to get rid of it.

I was at 41% and was basically disgusted.  The only interaction that John and Hannah had up to that point was that he saved her from going overboard.  I'm sure it might have gotten better.  By the time I quit, I had hoped to see a ray of sunshine but all I saw was misery and pain.  Not my kind of book at all!

Ransome's Crossing (Ransome Trilogy #2) - Kaye Dacus

I read the first book in this trilogy, Ransome's Honor, and thought it was a pleasant read.  When this one popped up for $2.99, I snatched it up, hoping for more of the same.  I got about 40% into it and just had to admit defeat.  I couldn't figure out what my problem was, people on amazon loved it!

I like trilogies that follow a set of people and then let them go, maybe having them return for brief appearances.  I saw that this one was supposed to follow Charlotte, the hero from the first novel's sister, and was hoping that the mention of William and Julia (from the first book) would be kept to a minimum.  At 40%, there was more talk of the awkwardness William felt in the marriage than we talked about Charlotte.  William was getting on my nerves a LOT.  He was trying to be caring to his wife and yet gets frustrated by his feelings for her.  Weird.

What little I picked up about Charlotte was confusing.  She is planning on joining the Royal Navy to get to her "beloved" down in Jamaica, even though she thinks more about Ned, her brother's first lieutenant, than her fiance.  She gets a plot in her head and sneaks away.  Well, the problem I had was that when I stopped, Ned and Charlotte were on separate ships.  Earlier in the book, there was a possibility that they would be on the same ship, but instead Charlotte cuts her hair and poses as a boy?  I didn't have the interest level to keep going.

I just found it disturbing that at that point in the novel, I was feeling pity for Julia, annoyance at William, disinterest for Charlotte and learned so little about Ned that I was bummed that the novel wasn't more about Ned and Charlotte.  I'm sure they get together eventually but at that point, I just felt like I didn't care.  I got to it in time to get a refund for my money and took the third book out of my watch list.  Not sure what other people saw in the book, but it just wasn't there for me.

Kindle Fire Review

I was so excited that this year I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas!!  I had seen them and thought they were so neat, but decided that it was best I didn't want one and downplayed how cool it was.  It's very cool!

There are some pros and cons to it, things I had to get used to.  I'll start with the pros.  The Fire adjusts to which way you turn it.  I end up turning it upside down when I read since the power button is on the bottom and I'm afraid I'll accidentally turn it off while reading.  The screen is easy to navigate and once I figured out how to get them to pop up, I liked the way the menus disappear so you just have the book.  I'm also getting used to how much it takes to turn a page.  You can touch the screen or swipe your finger across to turn pages.  I end up doing both while reading.  I also like the fact that I can see the covers of the books that I have.  It's neat to be able to swipe through my library and see what I've got.  My husband downloaded Angry Birds and was playing with that.  Looked like something that could keep my kids busy if they run out of things to do BUT I might be stingy and not let them touch it!  Probably my favorite part is the backlight.  I like to read in bed and the light is not too great.  The backlight will be a useful addition for this and for traveling.  I was using a book light on vacations at hotels when the kids went to bed.  Now I don't have to!

There aren't too many cons, but my least favorite thing is that there are no more collections!  What I ended up doing was putting the books that I haven't read in my Favorites and I'll go from there.  It actually was a real pain in the rear because I was pretty click-happy when I first got my Kindle and I almost hadn't deleted any from my library.  Thus, I had almost 400 books that were popping up available on my Fire.  I went through and deleted oh so many for two days.  It taught me a valuable lesson - don't neglect the library!!  It was good since I sifted through my TBR piles again and ended up with about 20 total.  Not too bad I think.  The only other thing that kinda bothers me is user error.  Sometimes when I pick it up, my thumb hits the sides and turns my pages for me.  I'm sure that I'll get used to that, but right now it bothers me.

All in all, the Fire is great and I think I'm actually going to invest in a cover for it - a real one.  I'm thankful that I have such a thoughtful family.  They are a real blessing.  It was even great that my kids didn't blow the surprise - that's pretty good!  A+!!

Faith (Brides of the West #1) - Lori Copeland

I got this one for free.  I have read Lori Copeland a few times and figured I might be safe with this one.  I wasn't disappointed!

Faith and her sisters, Hope and June, answer ads in a newspaper to become mail order brides.  Faith is on her way to Texas, where Nicholas awaits her.  When she arrives on a donkey, it's an omen of how things are going to go.  She's a tomboy who hates housework and would rather be out working the ranch with her husband.  He doesn't like that idea and encourages her to be something else.

There's also some major issues with their wedding.  It gets delayed one too many times and may not happen at all!  Nicholas and his overbearing, nasty mother have problems with feelings and this ends up affecting Faith when she finally thinks that she has discovered a way to be useful to the town.

I enjoyed this book.  I'll probably end up watching some of the others.  In addition to Hope and June, there is also Glory, Ruth and Patience.  Not sure who they are, but maybe I'll find out if the price drops!  Good Book!

Kiss of the Christmas Wind - Janelle Taylor

This was a pretty short book, if it wasn't I probably wouldn't have finished it.

Carrie Sue is newly married.  Her past as part of a group of bandits has placed her and her husband, Thad, on a ranch where they can't get it started until he has fulfilled his promise to be the local marshall for an undetermined amount of time.  He has put his reputation on the line for her and her brother, so while they were bandits, they were mild ones.  Christmas is approaching and the couple faces the fact that Thad is going to have to leave and go after dangerous bank robbers.

The story is totally from Carrie Sue's point of view and thus was pretty boring.  She is hiding the fact that she is pregnant because she does not want to distract Thad while he is pursuing these men.  Thad hides the level of danger that he will be in because he doesn't want to worry her.

Seeing as we're basically stuck in the cabin most of the time with Carrie Sue while she knits or sews, sometimes she goes out to the barn and milks the cow, the only other real action is when she visits a neighbor and finds out who exactly her husband is chasing.  She decorates the house for Christmas by herself, so that wasn't really very exciting either...

All in all, I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a short sequel on some other characters that Janelle Taylor wrote in the past, and the best part was that there was a happy ending.  I wasn't real impressed with the book and wouldn't recommend it to others.

Letter Perfect (California Historical Series #1) - Cathy Marie Hake

This book looked to be right up my alley.  I purchased this one for $2.99 and was not disappointed.  This was my second time reading this author, Forevermore was the first, and I was happy with the story.  There were some areas of formatting errors and typos (not misspelled words, more like homophones and just the wrong word).

Ruth has been kicked out of almost every boarding school that exists.  We find her getting kicked out of her final attempt of learning gentility at the beginning of this book.  Ruth's mother is ill and has been keeping Ruth away from her to spare her the pain, but Ruth feels like she's letting her mother down.  Her mother is proud and just wants the best for her.  As she nears the end of her life, Ruth's mother makes it her final wish that Ruth travel to California and find her father.

Arriving disheveled and not at all the proper young lady, Ruth encounters Josh, who has been running the ranch since Ruth's father passed away.  They were partners and now Ruth's presence may jeopardize everything that Josh has been working for.

Accidents that can be attributed to Ruth's clumsiness start happening but after a while there are just too many to be just Ruth and Josh's father begins to act odd as well.  Josh finds out that his father may not be as honest and he thought and danger comes to the Broken P ranch.  Josh realizes that this woman that drives him so insane might be just the thing his life needs.

I really liked this one even with the distracting typos and format issues.  As far as I can tell, there was only one more book written in this series, Bittersweet, which follows the story of Laney and Galen.  Laney is Josh's sister and has been in love with Galen for quite some time.  The foundation for this book has been established pretty well in Letter Perfect, I wasn't surprised to find that the second book was about these two.  It's $9.99, too rich for my taste, but I'll watch it and see what happens. Good Book!

Hostage in Havana (Cuban Trilogy) - Noel Hynd

This one has been in my TBR pile for quite some time.  This will be a short review as I didn't get very far into it.

Alex is an agent with the U.S. Treasury who appears to be a target for an assassin.  There was a lot of political background in the first 15% and that kind of information is not something that interests me.  Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance, but when I thought about reading it during the day, I would often find something else to do.  It just didn't grab my attention.

I think that if you like to read the political type thrillers, this might be more interesting, but for me it was a no go.

Twas the Night - Sandra Hill, Kate Holmes & Trish Jensen

Another Christmas book and I really wanted to like this one.  It had the potential to be a great book.  In the early parts of the book, I could tell that there was more than one author involved.  Later on it was a little less obvious.  I quit about 45% in.  And that was due to my prudish sensibilities.  I'm sure that there are many people out there that wouldn't have had an issue at that point, but I just couldn't get past the sex talk.  The characters weren't having sex, but they sure were thinking about it a lot...

Sam, Kevin (JD) and Stan are in their way to a wedding.  Labeled as throw aways as kids, the man getting married is someone who was instrumental in them turning their lives around.  Sam is a Blue Angels pilot (cool!) and finds out that the girl he was so in love with as a young man is available again.  She's not quite as fast to forgive and forget, so he's all about trying to win her heart by any means possible.

JD (which stands for juvenile delinquent) is a bounty hunter (cool again!) and is on the trail of a witness who failed to appear for court.  He finds her posing as an Amish person and wants to get to the bottom of why she's so important to the case that a bounty hunter - one of the best - is sent to capture her and bring her back.

Stan is a football quarterback (another cool!) who was involved in an accident and now has some major healing to do.  His football career is over and it wasn't even a football injury.  He's stubborn and bitter.  He ends up picking up a forest ranger to ride together to the wedding.

A blizzard brings all these people together on the Santa Brigade bus, the only thing getting through the blizzard.  They bring toys to children, perform shows and feed hungry people.

As I said before, I really wanted to like this book.  I read enough about their thoughts of sex to guess where it was probably going.  I thought the story line was unique, but it was ruined for me with all the sex nonsense that wasn't necessarily important to the story.  I won't recommend this if you're at all prudish.

A Victorian Christmas - Catherine Palmer

I have read enough of Catherine Palmer to assume that she is a pretty safe author to go to when I want a satisfying read.  She didn't let me down with this recent Christmas freebie.

There are four stories in this book: Angel in the Attic, Lone Star, Under His Wings and Behold the Lamb.  One is set in the west and the other three are in England.  There is a transition in the second story where the lady is heading to England from America for an arranged marriage.

There are also four recipes, one at the end of each story.  I thought they sounded yummy, so when I finished the entire book, I wanted to go back and find them.  I ended up using the search word "flour" because I couldn't recall the names of the recipes.  You gotta work with what ya got!

I'm not going to summarize the stories themselves.  They are short enough, I don't need to make them any shorter!  I was wanting more at the end of them and that tells me that I really enjoyed the read.  This one was a no brainer for a Good Book! review.

Child of the Mist - Kathleen Morgan

This Highland adventure was a long, stressful ride.  I kept looking at my % not because I didn't like the story, I just kept wondering how much these people were going to have to endure for the happy ending...

Anne is a healer among her clan.  Some call her a witch.  Her clan is in an ongoing feud with a neighboring clan, the Campbells.  After Anne sneaks out to help with a birth, she runs into the tanist of the Campbells, but doesn't know it at the time.  One of his clansmen accuses Anne of being a witch and she is saved by the stranger.

Niall is making sure that things are running smoothly since his father has been ill for a long time.  Someone wants to get him out of the way, presumably to take over leadership of the clan for himself.  Niall is betrayed and becomes a prisoner of Anne's people.  They are not allowed to kill him, however, since Anne stands up for him and owes him her life.

Eventually these two are handfasted, a kind of trial marriage, although Anne insists that it is a chaste handfasting.  She meets a lot of hostility at Niall's home, basically from almost all of the family.  The one friend that she has in the family, Iain, is one of the men suspected of betrayal and he also doesn't hide the fact that he is smitten with Anne, so that causes a rift between Anne and Niall.

As I mentioned before, these people go through a lot.  There were witch burnings, attempted drownings, assaults, poisonings, kidnappings, traitors...I was bummed that they had to endure so much, but I can't fault the author for writing a good book.  I had a hard time putting it down at the end.  I'm not big into the clan books, the whole "och" and "lassie" thing grates on me after a time.  There are two more in this series, Wings of Morning and A Fire Within.  If they came up free, I would pick the up, but I don't plan on tracking them.  Regardless, this one will get my stamp of "Good Book!"

Remembering Christmas - Dan Walsh

I decided to pick this book to read since it's about Christmas and wanted to get into the spirit.  I only got into it about 22% before I gave up.

Rick is a self absorbed man who wants to go skiing the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately for him, Rick's stepdad has an aneurysm and his mother needs him.  He comes and she asks the unthinkable of him.  She wants him to run their store until things settle down.  He has the time, but is reluctant to help.  He blames his mother for his father's abandonment.  He is very adamant to correct people if they label the man as his father.

I gave up on this one.  I wanted some happy story, it is Christmas after all, and I'm sure that eventually Rick comes to his senses, but his journey was not one that I was willing to go through.  I didn't like him at all, and I found that I was just going to have to pass.

Christmas at Harrington's - Melody Carlson

Let me start off by saying that this is not a romance.  I had read a few reviews and thought there might be some elements of a romance in there, but in all the small mention of it is at the very end.

Lena has just gotten out of jail for something she didn't do.  Wanting to make a fresh start, she heads to a small town in Minnesota to take a job at a store.  Along the way she meets a few new friends.  She tries to hide her past, but her past won't hide from her.  After getting a red "Santa" coat, she gets a job as Mrs. Santa.  While enjoying her job, she runs into someone from her past who brings her past to light.  Lena finds out who her friends are and someone steps up to champion her cause.  She finds out more about her ex-husband than she ever wanted to know.

I probably would not have finished this book if it hadn't been so short.  The story gets developed and then the tale abruptly ends.  I mean the ending was not near as detailed as the rest of the book.  It was just 'POW' and then The End.  I got involved enough to find out what happened but I wouldn't read it again.  It's ultimately a Pass for me.

Don't Look Back (Women of Justice #2) - Lynette Eason

I had jury duty last week and figured this would be an appropriate book for the occasion.  I had plenty of time to read it and was almost done by the time my duty had ended.  I really didn't like jury duty...  This book is #2 in the Women of Justice series.  I have read the first one, Too Close to Home, and it was okay.  The characters in that one are in this one as well.  I like when I can check in on the same characters throughout a series.

The book was a little dark.  Jamie is an anthropologist that is being stalked by a man who abducted her years before, raped her and tortured her.  She was the only victim that escaped and that bothers him still.  She's also working on the case of his other victims.  He is The Hero, rescuing women from their pain.  A pain that he inflicts.

Dakota is an FBI agent who works with Jamie on the case and is in love with her.  Jamie doesn't feel ready for any kind of relationship because of her past and tries to warn Dakota off.  He is gentle with her and gives her the space she needs while trying to keep her safe.

The Hero is sick, a product of his childhood.  I'm not sure, in retrospect, whether this was the best choice for taking my mind off jury duty, it was a lot of crime to deal with in 3 days!  I wasn't as pleased at the end as I might have been if I had read it another time.  I believe that the story line was well thought out and had unexpected twists and turns, especially at the end.  I had the villain figured out long before they did, but that's not unusual.  There's another book in the series, A Killer Among Us.  From the little teaser at the end of this one, this guy appears to be The Judge.  I'm not going to watch it for a price drop, but if it pops up free, I'll pick it up.  Okay book, may have gotten a Good Book rating under other circumstances.  :)