Well if this book isn’t a gosh darn delight. Act Your Age, Eve Brown had me smiling & even LOLing on a family road trip; it’s winsome, quirky, & sexy & on a *totally* unrelated note I just bought some unnecessary glasses for my husband (jkjkjkjk).

At the beginning of the novel Eve Brown is staring down another career that didn’t work out. Her stunned parents issue some tough love: Eve won’t receive any more trust money until she satisfies some employment conditions & she must find a new place to live.

She takes off for the countryside where she meets rude, supremely starchy Jacob Wayne, owner of a Bed & Breakfast, at a job interview he’s hosting for a chef position.

When Jacob follows her to offer her a chance to show off her skills—after initially blowing her off—she accidentally runs over him & yada yada yada, winds up with the chef job.

If you’ve been reading the Brown Sister series you want to read this latest electric installment. & if you haven’t then you’ll want to read it too . It’s grumpy & the sunshine, starchy & the charmer, forced proximity, opposites attract fantastic-ness & I laughed internally & got other major feels all the way through.

I love how Eve and Jacob find friends (& lovers) in each other, how neither one of them has to change to entice the other into tolerating or wanting them.

A big hurrah! for Eve, who learns so much about herself (her awareness that she is on the autism spectrum like Jacob—and how we see his thoughts about it too—feels particularly lovely) & for Jacob, both of whom take brave steps toward each other.

I felt like I could have used a little more time with Jacob’s breakthrough but really he is working toward it through the whole book & can you blame him for realizing how foolish he’s been almost right away?  (<—talking to myself.)

This book is a joy-filled (maybe it would be more accurate to say joy-inducing) ending to a great series.​

Q: what’s your fave song to dance to at a wedding?

Special Ops Seduction wowed me in a big way with some of my kryptonite: an ice cold hero who can barely engage with the heroine because of his *very* reluctant feelings for her; a nuanced, standout heroine who’s a physical powerhouse & the only female on her special ops team; fake dating (!) for the job; & a pivotal sex scene that’s an exquisite mix of steam & emotion.

I ate this one up with a spoon.

Bethan Wilcox is immensely capable. She’s worked very hard for her military & special ops accomplishments & while she loves what she does, she’s also drawn a thick line between how she comes across in public & her outrageously soft, cushy home.

If Bethan is secretly decadent, Jonas Crow is—to no one’s surprise—ascetic inside & out. He’s stoic to the extreme & afraid of having good feelings, especially when they’re sparked by Bethan.

Pretending to be a fake couple for an op really shakes them up in the best possible way.

Megan Crane really has her pulse on every emotion I wanted wrung from me with this one; when I say that this ending made me happy. Well. Jonas has denied himself for so long that when he finally reaches out I wanted to cheer. Or cry. Or both.

Sexy, thoughtful, & with leads I adored, this book is practically wrapped with a bow for all lovers of romantic suspense.


CWs:


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Chemical warfare plot line. Also, the hero almost dies before the story begins & he didn’t want to be saved. There are flashbacks.

If you love dark, tortured, emotionally starved heroes who eventually recognize that they’ve fallen HARD for the heroine then may I rec Kerrigan Byrne.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from her latest release, All Scot & Bothered, but I really enjoyed it, barring a couple of reservations. More on that later.

Cecelia Teague is a mathematician, spinster, & Red Rogue. She unexpectedly inherits a school from her aunt & learns that it’s funded by gambling.

Chief Justice Cassius Ramsay, an unforgiving Judgy McJudgerson, believes that the school is actually a front for kidnapping & human trafficking. In his raid of the school Cecelia adopts the disguise of The Scarlet Lady.

Our hero has very reluctant pants feelings for both women, Cecelia & The Scarlet Lady, not realizing that they are one & the same. He’s also been celibate for 7+ years & has no plans of changing that, especially because women are the worst yada yada yada & The Scarlet Lady is the worst of them all.

This book has a few things you might love-


She’s soft; he’s hard (lots of jokes we could make there).

 A misogynist hero who comes to some big realizations, though I wanted them to go even further since they’re so tied up to how amazing Cecelia specifically is. What about other women, pal?

 A spectacles-wearing, plump heroine who doesn’t like confrontation but stands up for herself w/ him.

 The # of times said heroine stares at how his muscles move under his clothes.



But I do think there’s a convo romance could have about how the Italian Count is described, & race & ethnicity in general in this book, my overall reading of which was indirectly informed by a series of Tweets by a romance reader who had issues with a lot of the book, including how it handles the topics of misogyny & race. If you’re thinking about picking this one up I definitely rec that you read reviews written by POC.

With that being said overall for me this is mostly another transporting book written by a master at pulling heartstrings. But is anyone else hoping for a KB book w/ a heroine who goes scorched Earth on the hero for a sec?