Bargain Read: The Rule Book (The Rule Breakers #1) - Jennifer Blackwood

Starr Media Second-Assistant Survival Guide

1. Don't call your hot boss the antichrist to his face. 

2. Don't stare at hot boss's, um, package or his full sleeve of tattoos. (No. Really. Stop!) 

3. Don't get on the malicious first assistant's bad side.

4. Don't forget to memorize the 300-page employee manual.

5. If you value your cashmere, steer clear of boss’s dog.

6. Boss’s dimples are lust-inducing. Do. Not. Give. In. 

7. “The elevator ate your clothes” is not a valid excuse for showing up to important meetings half dressed. 

8. Don't break seven of the rules within the first week of employment if you, ya know, are in dire need of money to support your sick mom.

9. Whatever you do, don’t fall for the boss. See rule eight about sick mom.

10. Never forget the rules.

It's been a wee while since I picked up a good ol' fashioned romance and when I saw The Rule Book for a mere £2.84 on Amazon I thought, why not?

Review: The Hook Up (Game On, #1) - Kristen Callihan

The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all… No falling in love.

Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. If only she could ignore his heated stares and stop thinking about doing hot and dirty things with him. Easy right?

Too bad he’s committed to making her break every rule… 

Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she's shut him down. Completely. 

That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up. Now it’s up to Drew to tempt her with more: more sex, more satisfaction, more time with him. Until she’s truly hooked. It's a good thing Drew knows all about winning. 

All’s fair in love and football…Game on.

New Adult books are a genre that I'm still having to encourage devoted romance fans to read. The collegiate setting of most of the genre is perfect for those of us that still indulge in a good high school romance movie with the added bonus of the heat of a romance novel.

Review: First & Then - Emma Mills

Devon Tennyson wouldn't change a thing. She's happy watching Friday night games from the bleachers, silently crushing on best friend Cas, and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon's cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent for football, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive star running back, Ezra, right where she doesn't want them first into her P.E. class and then into every other aspect of her life.

Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

Emma Mills is not a new name to me, I've long been a fan of her YouTube channel Elmify and I was very intrigued when she announced the publication of her first novel over 18 months ago. Emma's online presence is, unjustly in my opinion, over shadowed by bigger YouTube stars and I was initially worried that her book would be too. However, I needn't have worried;  First & Then is a fantastic novel that easily outstrips many others I've read this year.

Mini-view: The Lemon Grove - Helen Walsh

Each summer, Jenn and her husband Greg return to Deia, on Mallorca's dramatic west coast. This year the arrival of Emma, Jenn's stepdaughter, and her new boyfriend Nathan threatens to upset their equilibrium. Beautiful and reckless, Nathan stirs something unexpected in Jenn. As she is increasingly seduced by Nathan's youth and the promise of passion, the line between desire and obsession begins to blur. What follows is a highly-charged liaison that puts lives and relationships in jeopardy. For Jenn, after this summer, nothing can ever be the same.

The Lemon Grove is one of those books that was being recommended everywhere and by everyone, so I finally decided to pick it up on my last jaunt to my local library; supposedly the perfect summer read, now seemed like a good a time as any.

Bargain Read: The Beach Cafe - Lucy Diamond

Evie Flynn has always been the black sheep of her family - a dreamer and a drifter, unlike her over-achieving elder sisters. She's tried making a name for herself as an actress, a photographer and a singer, but nothing has ever worked out. Now she's stuck in temp hell, with a sensible, pension-planning boyfriend. Somehow life seems to be passing her by. Then her beloved aunt Jo dies suddenly in a car crash, leaving Evie an unusual legacy - her precious beach cafe in Cornwall. Determined to make a success of something for the first time in her life, Evie heads off to Cornwall to get the cafe and her life back on track - and gets more than she bargained for, both in work and in love...

At this very moment I have a cold and Scotland has well and truly entered autumn, in a desperate attempt to ignore anything festive beginning with the letter 'C' I decided I'd delve into my first Lucy Diamond and reach for a little bit of sun.

Mini-view: Insatiable (Insatiable #1) - Meg Cabot

Sick of hearing about vampires? So is Meena Harper. 

But her bosses are making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn’t believe in them.  

Not that Meena isn’t familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you’re going to die. (Not that you’re going to believe her; no one ever does.)

But not even Meena’s precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets—then makes the mistake of falling in love with—Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a bit of a dark side. It's a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire-hunters, would prefer to see him dead for. 

The problem is, Lucien's already dead. Maybe that’s why he’s the first guy Meena’s ever met that she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena’s always been able to see everyone else’s future, she’s never been able look into her own.  

And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare.  

Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own future . . . 

If she even has one.

I've gone from being a complete paranormal romance newbie to someone who just can't get enough. You may remember me not so much reviewing but gushing about Meg Cabot in one of my previous posts so I thought, what better book to add to my growing obsession than the first in her Insatiable series?

Review: Looking for Trouble (Girls' Night Out #1) - Victoria Dahl

A good reason to be bad... 

Librarian Sophie Heyer has walked the straight and narrow her entire life to avoid paying for her mother's mistakes. But in tiny Jackson Hole, Wyoming, juicy gossip just doesn't go away, so the last thing she needs is for history to repeat itself. Falling hard for the sexiest biker who's ever rode into town would undo everything she's worked for. And to add insult to injury, the sexy stranger is none other than Alex Bishop--the son of the man her mother abandoned Sophie's family for. He may be temptation on wheels, but Sophie's not looking for trouble!

Maybe Sophie's buttoned-up facade fools some, but Alex knows a naughty smile when he sees one. Despite their parents' checkered pasts, he's willing to take some risks to find out the truth about the town librarian. He figures a little fling might be just the ticket to get his mind off of family drama. But what he finds underneath Sophie's prim demeanour might change his world in ways he never expected.

Let's not beat around the bush, Victoria Dahl is one of my favourite authors and for good reason. Dahl's books are funny, sassy and sexy and the first in her new series is wonderfully more of the same.

Mini-view: The Ocean at the end of the Lane- Neil Gaiman

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

Neil Gaiman is one of those authors who truly baffles me, how in the world he comes up with his tales I'll never know. Genre defying and utterly brilliant, Ocean at the End of the Lane is yet another wonderful book from a unique author. 

Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Jennifer E Smith*

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it. 

This book has been on my TBR for a while and with a long-haul flight coming up I decided to save it to read on the plane. I know, I'm too cool for school, right?

Mini-view: Natural Causes (Inspector McLean #1) - James Oswald

A young girl's mutilated body is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains are carefully arranged, in what seems to have been a cruel and macabre ritual, which appears to have taken place over 60 years ago. 

For newly appointed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Tony McLean this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority - but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death. 

Meanwhile, the city is horrified by a series of bloody killings. Deaths for which there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason, and which leave Edinburgh's police at a loss. 

McLean is convinced that these deaths are somehow connected to the terrible ceremonial killing of the girl, all those years ago. It is an irrational, almost supernatural theory. 

And one which will lead McLean closer to the heart of a terrifying and ancient evil . . .

What you might not know is that as well as loving romance novels I also love a good crime novel. Being a Scot I also have a really big soft spot for the wonderfully dubbed 'Tartan Noir'. James Oswald is a name that I'd heard a lot in relation to this sub-genre so when I saw the first of his Inspector McLean novels in the library I couldn't help but grab it.

Review: Love Me or Leave Me - Claudia Carroll*

‘Welcome to the Hope Street Hotel – where you check in married, and check out single.’ 

Two years ago Chloe Townsend was dumped at the altar and had to leave behind everything that mattered to her. Even now she’s finding it hard to move forward. That is until she lands an incredible job, running a brand new boutique hotel. Suddenly she’s starting to put her life back together, and, apart from the fact that her hard-to-please new boss is breathing down her neck, things are looking good. 

But what goes on in the Hope Street Hotel is a far cry from anything she’s ever dealt with before. This is a pioneering ‘divorce hotel’ designed to make every aspect of breaking up efficient and pain-free. In one single weekend, Chloe’s team promises to take care of everything – legal, technical, emotional – and guests check out carefree and single. 

No one is better qualified than Chloe to understand what couples need when their relationship is at breaking point, but she soon finds herself having to tackle the heartbreak she’s tried to bury. In particular three couples need her help – Jo and Dave, Lucy and Andrew, and Kirk and Dawn – and the opening weekend is full of revelation, trouble, memories happy and sad, facts that need facing, and some very big surprises. 

It’s time to move on. And it soon becomes clear that some endings are, in fact, very exciting new beginnings …

How do these brilliant authors keep escaping me? I don't know either, but you can be assured that I'm very excited about reading the rest of Carroll's books.

Review: Trapped at the Altar - Jane Feather*

Headstrong Ariadne Daunt is convinced she loves handsome Gabriel Fawcett, but her grandfather has other plans for her. He decrees that she marry Ivor Chalfont, thus forging a powerful alliance between the two warring families who share ownership of their valley. Given no time to plot an escape, Ari finds herself standing reluctantly at the altar, swearing to honor and obey a man who is not her choice. 

Ivor has treasured Ari as a friend ever since he was brought to the valley as a child, but now he feels a man's desires. He longs to take the beautiful young woman to his bed and make their marriage more than an empty vow. Ari may believe she loves another man, but Ivor believes otherwise—and he will not rest until he gains her heart, her trust . . . and her passion.

On reading the synopsis for Trapped at the Altar I couldn't wait to get stuck into the book. I love the friends to lovers trope and the fact that Feather's novel is set in the not often featured 1600s really piqued by interest.

Mini-view: Fanning the Flames - Victoria Dahl

Burning for you 

Some men are off-limits. Close friends of your ex-husband, for instance. Or firefighters who work in the same building as you. Yet despite her best judgment, librarian Lauren Foster can't help noticing fire captain Jake Davis whenever he jogs by…shirtless. They've always been friends, but all it takes is one not-so-chance meeting at a local bar and one not-quite-innocent walk home to ignite a fierce, uncontrollable desire between them. 

Widower Jake Davis has tried to ignore the spark he feels whenever Lauren's around, but once he sees her curves in a little black dress, there's no turning back. No matter how often she says she's all wrong for him, the sexy, outspoken divorcée is driving him wild in the best possible way. Maybe she's just blowing off steam. Or maybe he can convince her to fan these flames into something deeper, hotter and truer than they ever expected….

Fanning the Flames is the novella prequel, or taster if you will, to Dahl's new Girl's Night Out series set in Jackson. As an avid Dahl fan I couldn't resist this little snippet to whet my appetite before the release of the first in the series, Looking for Trouble.

Spotlight: All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness*

A Discovery of Witches* - 

In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and the descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.  

Shadow of Night* -

Shortly after Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont timewalk to London, 1590, they discover that the past may not provide a safe haven after all. Reclaiming his former identity as poet and spy Matthew Roydon, the vampire falls back in step with a group of radicals known as the School of Night who share dangerous ideas about God, science, and man. Many of his friends are unruly daemonsn - the creative minds of the age who walk the fine line between genius and madness - including playwright Christopher Marlowe and mathematician Thomas Harriot. Matthew, himself, is expected to continue to spy for Queen Elizabeth, which puts him in close contact with London's cutthroat underworld. 
Together, Matthew and Diana scour the bookstalls and alchemical laboratories of London where they follow the elusive trail of Ashmole 782 - and search for the witch who will teach Diana to control her powers. 

The Book of Life -

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In the trilogy’s final volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowledge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.

The last in Harkness' best selling All Souls trilogy, The Book of Life, was released last week and having devoured them all I thought I should share my love for the series with you.

Mini-view: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”  Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly! In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

Having recently binged on The Mindy Project I couldn't resist picking up Mindy Kaling's book when I saw it on the shelves recently.

Review: Rogue with a Brogue - Suzanne Enoch*

A Rogue For Every Lady
London, 1817: Stuck in a Mayfair ballroom, thanks to his lovestruck brother, Highlander Arran MacLawry wants nothing but a bit of distraction from an arranged betrothal—and a clever auburn-haired lass in a vixen's mask promises just that . . . until he discovers that she's the granddaughter of the Campbell, chief of clan MacLawry's longtime rival. Despite their families' grudging truce, falling for fiery Mary Campbell is a notion too outlandish even for this Highlander…
The Thrill Of The Forbidden
Raised on tales of savage MacLawrys, Mary is stunned to realize the impressively strapping man in the fox's mask is one of them. Surely the enemy shouldn't have such a broad chest, and such a seductive brogue? Not that her curiosity matters—any dalliance between them is strictly forbidden, and she's promised to another. But with the crackling spark between them ready to catch flame, love is worth every risk…

It wasn't until starting Rogue with a Brogue that I realised how long it's been since I've read a historical romance, and boy am I glad that I started again.

Bargain Read: Do You Remember the First Time - Jenny Colgan

As her best friend Tashy cuts into her wedding cake, 32-year-old Flora realises she is disillusioned with life. Suddenly, her well-paid job, cosy flat and stable relationship with sensible Olly don't amount to a whole lot. Flora wants to be 16 again. She closes her eyes and wishes. Her wish has come true. 

Waking up the next morning is a shock. But now Flora has the chance to right some wrongs. Trading crows feet for pimples, love handles for a torso Britney Spears would kill for and dull dinner parties for house parties where White Lightning and snogging are the order of the day, Flora revels in a life where things are far less complicated and just much more… FUN. 

It's not all laughs though. Will what she does change the future? How can she get back to the present and her ordinary life? And does she even want to?

What are you still doing here? Jenny Colgan is only 99p! Go now! Sprint to Amazon and then come back and read the review (obviously).

Review: The Country Escape - Fiona Walker*

Hidden amid lush Herefordshire parkland, Eardisford is the ultimate English country retreat and it's just been sold for the first time in its history. Romantic daredevil Kat Mason has been bequeathed the estate's lakeside sanctuary, Lake Farm, until she dies or marries. But the new owners want her out now . . .  

In rides charming playboy Dougie Everett, the man hired to sweep Kat off her feet and off the property. Although pursuing the Hollywood dream has not been all he'd hoped, Dougie loves nothing more than the thrill of the chase, but does he risk losing his heart along the way?

Anyone who's been reading my blog for a while will know that Fiona Walker was one of the first romance authors I read and her books hold a special place in my heart (if you missed this you can read those posts here and here). You can imagine my excitement when I received an advanced copy of Walker's latest.

Review: Thirteen Weddings - Paige Toon*

Last year, Bronte left Sydney for a wedding in England, where she met newly single Alex. After a night of passion they parted ways, and Bronte returned to Australia.

Now working on a picture desk for a magazine in London, Bronte is about to meet her new colleague, who turns out to be all too familiar. Although awkward at first, as Alex is now engaged to the girl he was on a break from when they met, they soon become friends.

But as the two get closer, and the wedding day looms, it is clear that Alex and Bronte have unfinished business

I read Thirteen Weddings when it came out back in May, May! and yet I've never seemed to get round to talking about it and how much I love it. I feel very Austen-esque, maybe if I loved it less I could talk about it more.

Mini-View: Date Expectations - Paul Reizin

Date Expectations tells the hilarious true story of some of the most disastrous dates in the history of courtship, as Paul sets out on an increasingly fraught quest to leave singledom behind ... These include the date with the psycho hippy nutter; the date who didn't turn up; the world's shortest date; and the date with a face like a bag of spanners.

Learn to interpret the secret language of the lonely hearts columns (e.g. 'bubbly' = fat). Learn how to read between the lines of a recorded message - fine tune your radar for those tell-tale references to cats and anger-management classes. And much, much more ...

Remember - blind dating is like life. By the time you've learned how to do it properly, you no longer need to . . .

Having just moved I've come across a box full of second hand books that clearly caught my attention at one point but that I never managed to quite get round to reading, wanting something a bit easy to settle down with I plucked Date Expectations off of the top of the pile.