Driving Her Crazy
by Amy
Andrews
Rating:
4 of 5 stars
My
Review:
Wounded
hero, chatty insecure heroine, road trip across Australia. In this
case, a recipe for awesome. I stayed up late for this book (and was
cranky the next morning, obviously). It was enthralling and engaging.
You can picture this being a nice, sweet romantic movie – just the
right amount of adventure and sensuality with two wonderful
characters.
Kent is
the strong, silent type. He was injured as a photographer in a war
zone and this was the first assignment he's taken since recovering. I
liked that he was a good guy, generally ok with whatever, just
doesn't like to talk. He and Sadie had some good, tension filled
moments throughout their drive.
Sadie
was really tough and seemed like a real go-getter, but had a lot of
trouble trying to people-please. She has an eating problem, but it
only manifests when she thinks someone will judge her for her size
(in this case, an ex-boyfriend). Kent was able to convince her that
she was beautiful just the way she was and it was quite an “awww”
moment as she finally saw herself through his eyes. It was great to
see her gain some confidence and go after what she wanted.
I love
the Australian setting. All of the differing landscape, phrases, and
foods were really fun for me to read about and twitter was great for
the rogue phrase that I couldn't figure out. Where else will you
learn about a jolly jumbuck?!
I was a
little so-so on the ending. I wasn't really sure that Kent groveled
enough for my liking and he did some stuff that was a little douchy,
but Sadie was willing to forgive him so I forgave him too. This was a
story filled with sexual tension, but very mild on the heat scale.
It's a great comfort read and one that I'll probably read again when
I have a free afternoon.
'Tis The Season To Be Kissed
by Amy
Andrews
Rating:
4 of 5 stars
My
Review:
This one
is a super short novella that takes place over the course of one day.
New Year's Eve deserves some love and kisses. It was fun and flirty.
Not too much detail about life obviously because of the length. But I
had lots of happy tingles from reading about these two. I love Amy
Andrew's voice in pretty much any story and this was no exception. (I
have a definite weakness for Australian and New Zealand authors.) The
book is set in the north east US, but there's definitely a little bit
of Australia in it. Not as much as some of her other books though.
Luke is
fun and creative and doesn't let a little negativity stop him. He's
younger than Tamara, but is feeling grown up and ready to settle
down...and also all ready to show Tamara that he can bend her rules
without officially breaking them, but still get what he wants. He was
hot and open, but didn't overwhelm Tamara from having an active role
in the action.
Tamara
is a kindergarten teacher. She's got the strict teacher looks down
pat, but she's just so cute about it. I honestly couldn't get into
the whole drinking to oblivion thing, but besides that Tamara is
funny and outrageously honest. She's also horny. I loved that she
wasn't ashamed of her sexuality. She may be trying to make good
decisions, but she knows what she likes and also what she wants. She
lets Luke take the lead in their journey because he wants to, but she
doesn't give up her own role and doesn't sit second guessing herself
once she's decided what she wants.
The
story is so self contained; everything happens in this little cabin,
in the middle of a snow storm, over the course of one day. If
anything, I wanted more of these two. They didn't know each other
before, so the one-day-we're-ready-to-get-married thing takes some
extra escapism to believe. But I truly enjoyed the story. When you
only have an hour or so and want something light and sexy, this is a
great story to pick.
Girl Least Likely To Marry
by Amy
Andrews
Rating:
4 of 5 stars
My
Review:
I can't
tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It was one of those books
that you sort-of think is going to be focused on changing the
heroine: she's frumpy and bookish, so you think make-over and then
she'll get the guy. Which is always a sort-of sad way to go, but
pretty often that you find things that way. But this didn't live up
to any of those expectations. It took everything in a completely
different way that turned out to be so affirming.
Cassie
is smart, like genius level smart. And she's been groomed since she
was a child to fulfill her mother's unrealized dreams in astronomy.
But amazingly, Cassie is totally happy with those dreams. She wants
them. They are her own ambitions now and she knows she's smart
enough to accomplish them. She doesn't care about how she looks or
what she wears or even what anyone else thinks about her. She's
often misunderstood, but she really stays true to herself. I found
it amazing how well Cassie was written. She really doesn't have any
tie to her emotions, but she feels completely ok with it. I wouldn't
say she reacted predictably, but she was written so well in her
emotion-less ways. You really got that she didn't care about any of
these things. They didn't even enter her radar at all and she never
chose to change that part of herself because it just didn't matter to
her.
And
that's part of what made her transformation so heart wrenching. She
really didn't have any idea about love or emotional availability.
And yet, her body manifested so many things that she simply couldn't
ignore it any longer. Even though her brain couldn't process any of
the emotions, her heart was able to get through to her by controlling
the rest of her body.
The
opening scenes of the book, where Cassie tries to write everything
off using logic, show just a small slice of the ways her body makes
her stand up and pay attention. It's so silly and adorable to see
her trying to figure out why she just likes the way Tuck smells.
And that
brings us over to Tuck. He's hot, has a great sense of humor, is
loved by everyone and to top it off he's secretly pretty smart. He's
got a huge list of insecurities and he plays up to people's image of
himself whether it's football hero, stupid Texan, or spoiled rich
guy. When Cassie makes assumptions about him, he just plays along
and sort-of writes her off. But as Cassie opens up with her
attraction to Tuck, he lets her see more of who he is. And he is
totally ok with whoever Cassie chooses to be. He doesn't try to
change her or take her away from what she loves. He doesn't whatever
he can to just be with her. And when Cassie just wants to sniff him,
he's ok with that too. Definitely some smile-worthy scenes.
Cassie
has some great friends who don't exactly try to change her, they
really just try to open her eyes to the parts of life she's missing
out on. They're there for her whenever she needs them and they
really, really care about her even when they don't understand her.
They were also able to take her at face value and when she said
things didn't matter to her, they were able to accept that. I wish
everyone had friends like this.
All in
all, a great book by a great author. It's got a lot of the
harlequin-esque essentials like the wealthy hero with his own plane,
but it's smart and sexy and doesn't just follow the status quo. Not
only will I have to read more by this author, I'll also have to look
for the rest of this series.
by Amy Andrews
Rating: 4 of 5
stars
My Review:
This book felt
very charming. It's not that long, but it packs a powerful punch.
Nathaniel and Addie are at odds from the very beginning. He's going
to tear down a public rose garden that means a lot to her, and she's
a part of the protest group. As she handcuffs herself to him and
eventually when they're finding the key, Nathaniel ends up getting
knocked down and hurt. When he gets a call about visiting his family
for the weekend, he needs a date and asks Addie to repay him by
playing his girlfriend for the weekend.
Addie has her own
reasons for agreeing. She's hoping she can show Nathaniel that
there's more to life than money, e.g. save the rose garden. She
convinces herself that she's acting altruistically by showing him
that he's missing out on life.
Nathaniel's mom
and grandmother are great. They run an alpaca farm. Nathaniel is
very protective of them, but wants to fulfill his
businessman-father's dreams more than he wants to acknowledge the
non-businessman side of himself.
I loved some of
the language in this book. How many places will you read the phrase
“the broiling pit of lust marinating her insides” or “She
needed to stay on her side of this bloody debauched bed!”. It was
lots of fun, even if I didn't know what some of the things were... I
had to look up what a mulberry shirt was.
I really
appreciated how Addie was portrayed. She was smart and capable. She
didn't diminish herself, but owned her choice of a simpler life and
was happy that way. I'm not sure that I felt Addie grew in any
noticeable way, so maybe I'd classify this one as a little more
retro; girl sees potential in guy and by loving him let's him grow
into a better man. Maybe I'd place it as one of the best mid-90s
Love Swept books. If that's the style you're looking to enjoy, this
is a good book for you.
Driving Her Crazy