The Boss's Double Trouble Twins by Raye Morgan

Title: The Boss's Double Trouble Twins
Author: Raye Morgan
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Harlequin Books (November 6, 2007)
Source: Scribd
Rating: ☕☕1/2

Synopsis: Having the boss's twins!The last person Mitch Carver expects to walk into his office is Darcy--the woman who haunted his sleep for months. Despite the attraction, he knows they are just too different. She's happily ever after and he's here today, gone tomorrow.

Darcy Connors can't believe it! It's been hard enough trying to track Mitch down, but now she must tell her new boss that their weekend in Paris has turned into a lifetime commitment...and it's double trouble!

Mitch is about to trade in his playboy past for fatherhood and family!

My Thoughts: A typical category romance from Harlequin that I read for a team challenge I was doing. 

The Good Stuff and the Bad Stuff: While this was a short and sweet book I wish more of it could have involved the twins as the title would suggest. Although they are talked about frequently their actual presence in the book is pretty minimal which is a shame. The plot of the book appears to only be about reuniting two people and the setting could be anywhere. Darcy and Mitch spend a lot of time working but for most of the book I was clueless as to what they did for a living. The setting and the character's backgrounds (mostly Darcy's) could have been elaborated upon a lot more. I would have given this book another star if it weren't for Darcy's character. She puts a lot of expectations on Mitch and gets mad at him all the time because he doesn't express his love for the twins within a day of finding out about them. Completely unreasonable in my eyes which made it difficult for me to be happy for her when everything was wrapped up in a nice bow at the end. Mitch wasn't a whole lot better though. He went from being a wandering soul to professing his love, devotion, and his promise to never leave Texas in a matter of 2 weeks. 

In a Nutshell: My expectations weren't all that high when starting this book but the beginning was good and the ending came quickly. I might read another book by the author if I found a free copy somewhere.

Playing the Royal Game by Carol Marinelli

Synopsis: STOP THE PRESS:  THE SANTINA-JACKSON ROYAL FAIRY TALE -- FACT OR FICTION? — It seemed like every girl's dream:  fall in love with a prince and be whisked off for your very own glamorous happy-ever-after -- a royal fairy tale for Allegra Jackson and Prince Alessandro Santina. — Allegra's headline-grabbing family hardly prepared her for a life of public duty, and sinfully delicious Prince Alessandro has always seemed virtually allergic to the idea of settling down in Santa Maria.

Out of all the flamboyant, beautiful women his name's been linked with, the heir to the throne picked ordinary Allegra with the family from hell....


My Thoughts: I have mixed emotions about this book. I enjoyed it very much yet felt the I Love You's were out of place. 

Carol Marinelli did an excellent job of creating characters that I connected to. My heart broke for Allegra and I wanted to cheer for every character who bucked the Santina governing system. The characters were great. The plot was great. The romance could have been better.

Throughout the book the H/h were separated much of the time. When they were together they fought. Allegra was often saying how much Alex had changed from the man she met in London to the uptight cold fish he was in Santina. With that in mind I was not sure how she fell in love with him.

His inner thoughts of love, however,  were actually more believable. I liked that Marinelli didn't say 'and he realized he had loved her since they first met.' Nope. It was at the wedding that he realized he was falling in love with her. No instantaneous love at first sight which I very much appreciate!

I would recommend this book to fans of Harlequin and to not quite fans of category romances. Just keep in mind the I Love You's part is a little hard to swallow but overall you'll find this a great -- curl up in your favorite overstuffed chair by a warm fire on a cold afternoon -- read.

The Italian's Future Bride by Michelle Reid

Back Blurb: If there's a baby, then she'll be his bride

Eligible bachelor Rafaelle Villani is used to loving his women...and leaving them. Until his freedom is compromised by a candid newspaper photo, which suggests he has finally fallen...for Rachel Carmichael. Soon the world's press is reporting their engagement!

Rafaelle claims his fake fiancee; twenty-four hours later Rachel has been passionately seduced--and fears she has conceived his baby. So, Rafaelle demands that Rachel pretend to be his future bride!


My Thoughts: I think I always start out my reviews for Harlequin type books saying I rarely read them. Maybe I don't, but I should. When I tally my books read over the course of the year Harlequins take up less than 2% of them. I don't read them all the time because I think they just don't give me enough of a decent story and a good enough romance. Not all of them of course but in general. This book is not an exception to that rule. It is an average offering from the Category Market.

The back blurb does not really do the plot justice because the potential baby scare is in the book but it isn't front runner in the plot. Most of the conflict comes from Rachel and her family's plot to get her picture taken with Rafaelle by the paparazzi in a somewhat compromising pose to save her sister's marriage. What ensues is him pretty much kidnapping her to find out why, her telling the whole story, her family abandoning her while she was in his clutches to continue their much more important lives, him twisting the scene to include their pretend engagement and a whole lot of hot monkey sex.

I was pretty amazed by the amount of sex in this book. I admit to still be under the (apparently) misguided impression that Harlequin Presents is the 'virginal' more prudish member of the Harlequin line. With that said the other stereotypes that category a Presents is still alive and kicking. Tall handsome foreign extremely rich older man--check. Inexperienced young shy not breathtakingly but still beautiful woman--check.

Anyway, lots of sex. I do have to say that there was a lot of passion in this book. The characters fought (verbally) with passion and had a lot of sex (passionately). With all the arguing and sex I was hard pressed to see much of a relationship blossoming but never fear the last 3 pages did have the I Love You's we all come to expect. I knew it was coming but just didn't see how they got there. I saw a lot of mistrust, accusations, arguing, and sex but little else.

As far as the writing, Reid, kept my interest with the conflict between the characters and her dialogue flowed well. There were a couple glaringly obvious typos that pulled me out of the story but overall this book kept my interest. I never once thought about throwing it against the wall and was glad that the couple managed to put their fighting aside to fall in love (despite that I didn't see how they happened along that particular emotion.) On the other hand I would have liked more romance and less sex. I would have liked a bit more character building from Rafaelle because he is still somewhat of a mystery to me and it would have been nice if Rachel's family learned a lesson about their selfish behavior for feeding her to the wolves (um wolf).

So that pretty much balances out to an average book. I'd read more from this author if I need a short book to add between my longer ones.

Wild Fling or Wedding Ring? by Mira Lyn Kelly

Description:
On her first night in Chicago, Cali McGovern meets seriously sexy surgeon Jake Tyler. Since she's still sore after her last relationship, her head's yelling Run —but her body's screaming for his touch…. For the first time ever, her head gets overruled! Jake isn't looking for a wife—been there, done that. But his hot new neighbor is in town just long enough for a wild fling…perfect! Yet when the time's up, he can't say goodbye. Is that just because of their sizzling chemistry—or something a whole lot scarier?

My thoughts:
I haven't read a Harlequin Presents in, oh, about 20 years and have to say that I probably went into this with not quite the open mind that I should have. I remember the Presents from back in the day, where the women were poor working their fingers to the bone virgins and the men were players with lots of money. They all really started sounding familiar book after book after book.

Anyway, I struggled through the first 10 pages for 2 days. This book should have only taken me 2 hours tops to read and it sat on my headboard taunting me for 48 hours. Within the first 10 pages I had not only one instance where my anal retentive ways sounded it's alarm and wouldn't let me continue on but then there were two. Most people probably wouldn't pick a statement apart and make it literal. I do.

Here is my example.....In the jazz club where Cali and Jake just happened to meet and spend an interesting couple of hours chatting and laughing away, Jake receives a phone call that he takes down the hallway. For a busy heart surgeon this is probably pretty common. Cali, completely gun shy decides it is time to head to the restroom then make a break for it. As Jake comes back down the hall, Cali comes out of the restroom and runs smack into Jake. This is where it got wonky on me. Wonky because instead of a shoulder bump of an encounter or even a body check where Cali unfortunately bounces back into the restroom the author elaborates to say that their legs tangled. Does that ever happen? I had visions of Cali jumping out of the restroom in full on flying bicycle kick.

Second example.....when Cali and Jake kissed (right around the leg tangling) she shuddered. In Mira Lyn Kelly's mind a shudder is an example of passion. In my mind a shudder is another way of saying "Ewwww. This isn't going to work for me, dude. I swallowed a little bit of my own vomit when attempting to snog you."

Not everyone would ever think these things were wonky with the book. I know, I'm anal. But now I bet you will think about it if you do read this book.

Once I ignored the issues I had with the first part of the book it did get better. I really liked Jake. Cali was just so-so but not unlikable. I liked the conflict that both of them had with themselves. Jake just didn't want commitment and Cali didn't want to risk her job. Oh did I mention that Cali's boss knows Jake and actually refers to him as "her Jackson"? I liked that when Cali explained her past experience with Jake the author could have kept it simple and standard that the evil ex used and then threw Cali away leaving her destitute, jobless, and alone but she didn't. Yes Cali's ex was a jerk-off but Cali was woman enough to admit that even though the ex was an ass it was her that allowed it to happen. I liked that. To tell the truth I was expecting to read the first version and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen.

I do wish that Cali's boss would have been a little more involved with the whole Jake and Cali thing. At least to give some closure. Her blessing or even the opposite. Personally if my star employee started dating "my Jackson" I would have something to say about it.

Overall this really was an OK book. It is the author's first and it does show but with time and experience she could really polish up her writing and start putting out really good books.I am giving this book 2.5 Stars and would say that if you were going to read it find it used or borrow it. I got my copy from Tellharlequin.com free for my opinion on it.

On a side note if you noticed there are two covers of this book mine actually didn't come with a picture on the cover at all. Just a plain white book with black lettering. Still not sure why unless these are Harlequin's ARCs. The white one is the Harlequin Presents American cover and the blue one is the Mills & Boon copy from the UK. I really like the blue book better. I think it makes Jake look super hot. The White one is actually a little closer to Cali's description as she has lots of curly hair. Unfortunately, neither one got the color right. Cali actually was described as having ginger and dark cherry hair....which doesn't sound blonde to me.