Susan Andersen

RomanceWomen's FictionContemporary Romance

Leaving it all behind

Review by Susan Andersen

New York Times best-selling romance author Kristan Higgins branches out into women’s fiction with her latest novel, If You Only Knew. This is an engaging story of sisters Jenny and Rachel, who are forced to make difficult choices in an effort to turn their lives around.

Jenny’s marriage is over, and she knows it’s ridiculous to be constantly included in every aspect of her ex-husband’s new life with his perfect wife and the child he never had time to have with her. Yet over and over again, she finds herself unable to refuse their invitations. So she trades Manhattan for her hometown on the Hudson River. There, she’ll run her business and have the support of her older sister, Rachel, her husband and their triplet daughters.

Rachel thought she had the best of all lives. She’s a stay-at-home mom and married to the greatest guy in the world. Or so she believed until the evening she discovers another woman has been sexting her husband. He declares that the message was obviously sent to him by mistake and accuses her of jumping to conclusions, and she chooses to take his word. Deep inside, however, she knows it was no wrong number—and she is deeply infuriated. Even when she catches him with his coworker, she still can’t quite pull the plug on her marriage.

Jenny and Rachel’s relationships are littered with explosives, and they depend on each other even as they begin to learn more about their own strengths. Higgins deftly steers the reader through the landmines to the sisters’ emotionally satisfying resolutions with trademark wit and style. This is a must read for her legions of fans.

Susan Andersen is a New York Times best-selling author of more than 20 romance and romantic-suspense novels.

New York Times best-selling romance author Kristan Higgins branches into women’s fiction with her latest novel, If Only You Knew. This is an engaging story of sisters Jenny and Rachel, who are forced to make difficult choices in an effort to turn their lives around.
RomanceRomantic Suspense

Dealings in the art of love

Review by Susan Andersen

Best-selling author Elizabeth Lowell opens The Perfect Touch with San Francisco art dealer and design studio owner Sara Medina heading to Jackson, Wyoming, in the shadow of the craggy Grand Tetons. Having grown up dirt-poor on a dairy farm, she’d be the first to tell you that cowboy country is the last place she’d choose to be. But she’s travelling to Wyoming to provide expert testimony for Captain Jay Vermilion in a legal battle for disputed ownership of a potentially priceless art collection—and she hopes to handle the collection’s sale should he win. It’s merely business that has her sitting outside the courtroom waiting to hear the final verdict and meet the man with whom she’s shared so many long telephone conversations. It has nothing to do with that deep voice on the other end of the line.

Since coming home, Afghanistan veteran Jay Vermilion has struggled to keep the family ranch afloat. However, given the financial hemorrhaging caused by his former stepmother’s legal wrangling, it hasn’t been easy. Not until the court rules in his favor does he at last have hope of restoring the ranch to its former profitability.

But nothing prepares Jay and Sara for the impact they have on each other. Or the less palatable fact that hot mutual attraction, genuine respect and increasingly deep feelings can’t guarantee a happily ever after. For even though they instantly connect,  Jay and Sara’s differing plans for the future place them worlds apart.

But will the double murder on the ranch that sends them alternately racing to unmask a cold-blooded killer and running for their lives shine a light on what’s truly important in this relationship?

The Perfect Touch serves up a classic romantic suspense with the trademark thrills, chills and passion Elizabeth Lowell’s many readers adore and have come to expect.

 

 

Set in the shadow of the craggy Grand Tetons, New York Times bestseller Elizabeth Lowell opens The Perfect Touch with San Francisco art dealer and design studio owner Sara Medina deciding to go to Jackson, Wyoming. Having grown up dirt-poor on a dairy farm, she’d be the first to tell you cowboy country is the last place she’d choose to be.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Matchmaker, matchmaker

Review by Susan Andersen

Authors Laurelin Paige and Kayti McGee, writing together as Laurelin McGee, offer up their charming first collaboration, Miss Match. A standalone novel featuring a cheeky matchmaker and her businessman client, this romance is a flirty love story complete with plenty of laughs.

Andrea Grayson, called Andy, finds herself employee non grata in the corporate world following a bitter parting with her former boss. The last career she wants to pursue is the position of matchmaker for a businessman who is too lazy to find his own dates. And not just dates—he wants the matchmaker to find him a wife. However distasteful Andy finds the idea, she’s also fond of eating and is tired of allowing her sister, Lacy, to carry the financial load for both of them. So when Lacy presents the interview opportunity as a fait accompli, the least Andy can do is look into it.

Blake Donovan is far too busy to find a suitable wife. His Craigslist ad for a matchmaker seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution—until he discovers that most of the matchmaker applicants are hoping to snag the wife position. Then Andy Grayson strolls into his office with her crazy auburn hair, scrumptious scent and smart mouth. She’s the antithesis of everything he’s looking for in a woman. But she’s skilled and exciting, and suddenly he can’t imagine hiring anyone else.

Andy can’t believe a man as rich, successful and attractive as Blake needs help getting dates, never mind a wife. Then he opens his mouth—and she can’t imagine a woman alive willing to put up with him. But she needs the money (there's that whole liking-to-eat thing), so she takes the job. And that’s when the fun begins.

This isn’t your mother’s matchmaker story: the author duo Laurelin McGee has penned a hip, sizzling tale, and Andy and Blake’s mismatched personalities and red-hot mutual attraction take the reader on a wild ride. I found it difficult to put this book down; it made me smile, laugh out loud and root for this couple’s happy ending.

 

Authors Laurelin Paige and Kayti McGee, writing together as Laurelin McGee, offer up their charming first collaboration, Miss Match. A standalone novel featuring a cheeky matchmaker and her businessman client, this romance is a flirty love story complete with plenty of laughs.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Denim daydreams

Review by Susan Andersen

Jenna Sutton’s All the Right Places is the first in her new contemporary series about siblings determined to keep Riley O’Brien & Co—their iconic, 170 year-old denim company—viable in a changing industry. This kickoff book features Quinn O’Brien, who has become an all-work-no-play kind of guy upon taking over the business from his ailing father. His stoicism hits a serious hiccup, however, the day he follows a curvy redhead up the escalator and discovers she’s the new accessories designer his sister hired to breathe life into the nearly nonexistent women’s division.

Amelia Winger was born and raised in a small Texas town by a ne’er-do-well mother, and her hardscrabble background makes being named the company’s accessories designer a particularly delicious dream come true. The last thing she needs is an immediate, overpowering sexual attraction to the strapping CEO. No one’s going to say she slept her way to the top—she will be taken seriously as a professional.

Quinn struggles with a similar problem. It’s bad enough that the first thing he said to Amelia was “Nice ass.” Make a move on her, and she’ll likely hit him with a deserved sexual harassment suit. As hard as the two try to stay away from each other, however, their chemistry proves impossible to ignore. In addition, Quinn soon learns how talented, hardworking and sweet Amelia is, while she is blown away by, well, just about everything about him. She’s never met a man as aggressively sexual yet so kind and decent. Plus, they’re two consenting adults, right? So maybe it won’t matter that they’re burning up the sheets every chance they get. But then there’s the fact that Amelia is keeping a huge secret from him. And Quinn is sure to have a large problem with it.

Peopled with complex, believable characters and set in an interesting business, Sutton’s debut novel is a sexy, sassy and hot hit.

Jenna Sutton’s All The Right Places is the first in her new contemporary series about siblings determined to keep Riley O’Brien & Co—their iconic, 170 year-old denim company—viable in a changing industry.
Women's FictionContemporary Romance

Baking up a new life

Review by Susan Andersen

Little Beach Street Bakery, the latest book by international best-selling author Jenny Colgan, begins during protagonist Polly Waterford’s darkest hour. She and her live-in boyfriend have just declared bankruptcy, and they’ve lost everything they built over the past seven years. And to top it off, the stress of it all has soured their relationship. Now Polly’s out of work and unable to afford a decent flat in her hometown of Plymouth, England. Over the protests of her best friend, she decides to rent the upper floor of a decrepit building in Cornwall’s tiny village of Mount Polbearne. The Mount, as the locals call it, is cut off from the rest of the world twice daily when high tides flood the causeway connecting it to the mainland, turning it into a temporary island.  

Polly’s new home is barely inhabitable, and although far from magically transformed after she puts some elbow grease into cleaning it up, her hard work does reveal a magical view. Hearing the rhythms of the sea and looking out upon its often-tumultuous waters make her feel calmer than she’s felt in months. Another bonus is the old-fashioned oven that provides her the opportunity to bake bread, a passion she’s ignored for far too long.

As Polly begins baking and making friends, she rediscovers the confident woman she’d forgotten she could be—and the two men who show interest in her help boost that confidence as well. The romantic element in this story feels a bit like an afterthought, and the relationship conflict could be resolved with one good conversation. But Colgan will make you laugh, and she peoples her mythical town—a fascinating, deftly built character in its own right—with an entertaining cast of quirky personalities that will have you rooting for a happy ending. Writing with warmth and empathy, Colgan’s crafted a story that will make readers whip through the pages in their sprint toward the makes-you-sigh-with-satisfaction conclusion.

Susan Andersen is a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-plus romance and romantic suspense novels.

International best-selling author Jenny Colgan’s latest book, Little Beach Street Bakery, begins during protagonist Polly Waterford’s darkest hour. She and her live-in boyfriend have just declared bankruptcy, and they’ve lost everything they built over the past seven years. And to top it off, the stress of it all has soured their relationship as well. Now Polly’s out of work and unable to afford a decent flat in her hometown of Plymouth, England. Over the protests of her best friend, she decides to rent the upper floor of a decrepit building in Cornwall’s tiny village of Mount Polbearne. The Mount, as the locals call it, is cut off from the rest of the world twice daily when high tides flood the causeway connecting it to the mainland, turning it into a temporary island.
RomanceHistorical Romance

The doctor or the duke?

Review by Susan Andersen

With Diary of an Accidental Wallflower, New York Times bestseller Jennifer McQuiston begins her new Victorian-era series, The Seduction Diaries, with a bang. I adore discovering new-to-me authors, and oh my, did I hit the mother lode with this one!

Pretty, popular Clare Westmore suspects she’s close to receiving a proposal from the future Duke of Harrington. Between steering him away from her eccentric family, putting copious amounts of effort into bringing the Duke up to snuff and staying vigilant to disguise her improper love of learning, she’s worked devilishly hard for this match. But matters turn topsy-turvy when she injures her ankle and finds herself in a ballroom’s Wallflower section, watching her so-called friend waltz off with her beau. To add insult to injury, she has to contend with Dr. Daniel Merial. Yes, he’s—wildly!—attractive, but he's also a commoner.

Daniel has been feverishly pursuing a way to safely administer an anesthesia to bring to the underserved, poverty-stricken patients surrounding St. Bartholomew’s Teaching Hospital. When he first meets Clare, he thinks she is a typical shallow, self-absorbed member of the ton. Yet, to his dismay, he’s highly aware of her. Only after finding himself appointed her doctor does he begin to discover the real woman behind the facade.

Clare and Daniel struggle to deny their mutual attraction, because it just isn’t proper for a Viscount’s daughter to socialize with a Romany doctor. But again and again, they find themselves gravitating toward each other, and rather than being put off by their radically different positions in the social order, with every encounter they discover more common ground.

McQuiston has penned a novel filled with complex family relationships and allows an engaging, unique peek into London’s ton. She peoples her story with a marvelously likable hero, an inquisitive, open-minded heroine and a host of fully realized supporting characters. This book is fast, fun and contains more twists and turns than the rookeries of St. Giles.

With Diary of an Accidental Wallflower, New York Times bestseller Jennifer McQuiston begins her new Victorian-era series, The Seduction Diaries, with a bang. I adore discovering new-to-me authors, and oh my, did I hit the mother lode with this one!
RomanceContemporary Romance

A return home to love

Review by Susan Andersen

New York Times best-selling author Kristen Proby returns to the vast, rugged majesty of Montana with her third book in the Love Under the Big Sky series, Falling for Jillian. Jillian Sullivan spent the majority of her adulthood in Los Angeles, but she’s back in Whitetail Mountain, Montana, to rebuild her life and lick a few wounds in the wake of her imploded marriage. She’s there for the comfort she’ll get from her brother and her best friend, Cara, but what she’s not looking forward to is running into Zach King. She shared the hottest one-night-stand of her life with him—and the worst morning after in the history of hookups. She knows too well that Zach will be impossible to avoid, however, since Cara is married to his twin and her own brother is his friend. 

Zach is thrilled that Jillian is back in town. He has long regretted the way he handled the aftermath of his one night with her, and when Cara sends him out on a cold winter’s night to check the wonky furnace in the house Jillian is renting, he grabs the opportunity to reconnect. 

The physical urgency they experienced during their previous encounter is even stronger than before, and they quickly give in to their need for each other. Zach finds himself falling hard and sees no reason to dodge his emotions. Jillian is a tougher sell, yet there’s just something about the way she fits so seamlessly into Zach’s life on his ranch that she can’t ignore. She certainly is unable to deny not only her feelings for Zach, but for his sweet son Seth as well. But Jillian and Zach could stock an airport with their baggage, and she simply cannot visualize how this thing between them could possibly work in the long run. She can’t help but hope, however, that it somehow will. 

Falling for Jillian is a sizzling, contemporary story full of scorching sex, family dynamics and fabulous friends. Although many of the characters’ family lives are less than functional, these friends have built a tight tribe with the people who matter most to them: each other. Hang onto your hats, because it’s a fast ride on the journey to happily ever after.

 

New York Times best-selling author Kristen Proby returns to the vast, rugged majesty of Montana with her third book in the Love Under the Big Sky series, Falling for Jillian. Jillian Sullivan spent the majority of her adulthood in Los Angeles, but she’s back in Whitetail Mountain, Montana, to rebuild her life and lick a few wounds in the wake of her imploded marriage. She’s there for the comfort she’ll get from her brother and her best friend, Cara, but what she’s not looking forward to is running into Zach King. She shared the hottest one-night-stand of her life with him—and the worst morning after in the history of hookups. She knows too well that Zach will be impossible to avoid, however, since Cara is married to his twin and her own brother is his friend. 

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