Jimenez, Abby. Part of Your World. Forever, 2022. ISBN 978-1538704370 400 pp. $15.99 **** In this opposites-attract romance, Dr. Alexis Montgomery, fresh off an abusive relationship and still coping with the mean ex who won’t leave their shared home, meets and falls for grilled cheese making, baby goat fostering, tattooed carpenter who runs a B&B in Wakan in a tourist village two hours away. The scandal? Daniel is only 28 to her 38, and she is a shoe-in for chief of medicine Royaume Northwestern Hospital, where a Montgomery has not only been on staff, but involved, for 125 years. Her world ..read more

Jean Meltzer. Mr. Perfect On Paper. MIRA, 2022. ISBN 978-0778386162 $15.50 ****1/2 Predictable but OH so delightful, Mr. Perfect on Paper is about a third-generation matchmaker living with generalized anxiety disorder. Dara Rabinowitz has become a Jewish dating app tycoon and is looking to take J-Mate to the next level. During a media push with her matchmaker grandmother, Dara is horrified when Bubbe takes over the interview and plays the shidduch, challenging Dara to look for her perfect match; the dreamy single-dad goyish host Chris Steadfast offers to capture the whole thing as a recurring ..read more

Phillips. Susan Elizabeth. When Stars Collide (Chicago Stars #9). William Morrow/Custom House, 2021. 384pp. ISBN 9780062973085 *** Opera superstar Olivia Shore and Heisman trophy winner Thad Owens are catapulted together on a marketing tour as brand ambassadors for luxury watch Marchand Timepieces: a month-long itinerary of radio interviews, dinners with account executives, photo shoots and press conferences culminating in a gala event. He perceives her as a stuck-up diva, which she thinks he’s an animalistic jock. Both are style icons and trendsetters, and have the skill to speak in sound bit ..read more

Tessa Bailey. It Happened One Summer (Bellinger Sisters, #1). Avon/Harper Voyager, 2021. 416pp. ISBN 9780063045651 $15.99. **** I have to confess, I was fresh off binge-watching Schitt’s Creek when I read this description for this book, which sounded a little like Alexis’s situation: an influencer socialite has everything, loses it, and has to rediscover herself and her values. Freshly dumped and accused of being vapid, Piper breaks into a hotel’s rooftop pool for an after-hours party with 200 of her closest acquaintances and followers. Her sister breaks her out of jail, but at home she has to ..read more

Poston, Ashley. The Dead Romantics. Berkley, 2022. 368 pp. ISBN 9780593336489 $17.00 ***** Ghost writer Florence is beyond deadline for the last of four contracted books, and has a new editor to content with; she has to explain to Benji Andor that she cannot write a romance novel when she no longer believes in romance. Her ex, also a writer, horribly betrayed her by taking stories she told him and loosely fictionalizing them into his next bestseller-and she’s getting zero credit. The stories are about the ghosts she sees. Like her father, a mortician, they appear and often want her help, thoug ..read more

Murphy, Julie and Sierra Simone. A Merry Little Meet Cute. Avon, 2022. 432 pp. ISBN 978-0063222571. $21.99 ***** When plus-sized adult film star Bianca von Honey and former bad-boy Nolan Shaw, a boy band member turned actor, get cast opposite one another in a Hallmark movie-esque time travel rom com, she’s under orders to not reveal her porn industry connection, and he’s under orders to maintain a squeaky-clean image for rebranding. Bee keeps her composure when she meets the fantasy-inspiring man whose photos are still taped all over the walls and ceiling of her childhood bedroom, and Nolan pr ..read more

Wibberley, Emily and Austin Siegemund-Broka. Do I Know You? Berkley, 2023. 352 pp. ISBN 9780593201954 $17.00 *** Is it a second chance romance when the couple is question is already married and still together? After five years, Graham is withdrawing and vibrant Eliza, an audiobook narrator, isn’t sure why. When his parents gift them a second honeymoon getaway at a romantic resort that is also hosting a dating seminar the same weekend, Eliza books her own room to get a little space. Assumed single and introduced to one another at the bar by another well-meaning stranger, the two decide to take ..read more

Cochrun, Alison. Kiss Her Once for Me. 368 pp. Atria Books, 2022. ISBN 978-1982191139 $17.99 ***** I feel the same about LGBTQIA+ romance as I do about science fiction novels: as long as the plot is engaging, the setting is strong, the characters compelling (and their names pronounceable), I’m in, even though I don’t self-identify as a science fiction fanatic or queer. I selected this from NetGalley’s offerings months ago, tugged in by the twisty premise of demisexual girl gets fake engaged for money to her ex’s brother. I felt like I just wasn’t in the mood for a queer romance, or a holiday s ..read more

Parker, Suzanne. The Do Over. Avon, 2023. 384 pp. ISBN ‎ 978-0063216051 $16.99 *** On the verge of landing an executive position, Lily Lee, start-up consultant and empowering author, discovers she has failed her background check due to being a few credits shy of her diploma. She will need to return to Carlthorpe College, not just to make up a class, but to meet graduation requirements that have changed in the last ten years. This oversight also threatens her personal integrity and second book deal. Insult to injury is bumping into her college boyfriend Jacob Cho (the one that broke her he ..read more

Dade, Olivia. Ship Wrecked. Avon, 2022. 416pp. ISBN 978-0063215870 $17.00 ***** I might have squeed when this one showed up in my NetGalley queue. Dade, author of a series of Guardians of the Gates themes stories based on a fictional epic (and possibly epically bad) fantasy television series, their stars, and their love interests, has done it again. I might or might not but definitely did read it three times even through my TBR pile is through the roof. Ship Wrecked focuses on the story of Maria, a Swedish actress brimming with insults, jarred herring and body positivity, and her Viking-esque ..read more