In My Mailbox (3)

What's in my mailbox? Romance!

This weekend I finished Dark Lover by J.R. Ward. (Review coming tomorrow). Two minutes after I finished absorping the last morsel, I was out the door and on my way to McKay's to get the next book in the series. (If you don't know by now, it is my very favorite bookstore). I purchased Lover Eternal which is the second book in the The Black Dagger Brotherhood and Lover Awakened which is the third book of the series. Then I went outside to the free bin which had recently been stocked full of romance novels. Now I haven't been a big romance reader, in fact I didn't know that the BDB series was considered paranormal romance until yesterday but I always thought of a romance read as a lite fun read so I couldn't pass up the six romance novels in the free bin.

I got:

Blue Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas. A Wellesley grad and daughter of a Houston energy baron, Haven Travis is an unlikely romantic heroine until her brief but ardent encounter with a man who turns out to be Hardy Cates, the East Texas roughneck from Sugar Daddy who worked his way up from poverty and then outmaneuvered the Travis clan in a business deal. Haven's engaged to Nick Tanner—a man her dad thinks is unfit for her—and though she and Hardy have a charged interaction, she elopes with Nick, and her father cuts her off. Nick turns out to be a bad guy, and a beaten and bruised Haven returns to Houston, where Hardy's still at odds with her family. Their passion proves as fervent as ever, but demons from Haven's recent past—as well as strife with her family and troubles at work and in bed—stand in the way. Kleypas isn't a literary stylist, but she delivers a page-turning, formula-breaking romance that takes on social issues and escalates passion to new heights.

Nothing But Trouble by Rachel Gibson. The Seattle Chinooks have won the Stanley Cup, but it’s a bitter win for superstar player Mark Bressler. Injured in a car crash months earlier, he woke up immobilized in the hospital and unable to play hockey ever again. Cranky and gloomy, he is not a very good patient, pushing away every assistant the team sends him within hours of arrival. When they send him Chelsea Ross, he is not as successful. Chelsea, a former B-movie actress, is working as a personal assistant between roles in horror films and commercials. Though she is irritated with Mark, she is determined to stick it out, if only for the massive bonus the team will give her if she makes it through three months. Neither the scream queen nor the hockey player expects to get along, let alone be attracted to each other. The newest in Gibson’s series about the Seattle Chinooks is a classic opposites-attract romance with action hot enough to melt ice.

Trouble with Valentine's Day by Rachel Gibson. "There [is] nothing like one whole day devoted to lovers to make a single girl feel like a loser," muses Kate Hamilton, the heroine of Gibson's frothy new romance set in Gospel, Idaho. When Kate's advances are rebuffed by the sexy man sitting next to her in a bar on Valentine's Day, she feels the sting of rejection—which is soon compounded by humiliation when she learns that the stranger is Rob Sutter, owner of the sporting goods store located next to her grandfather's grocery. Both Rob and Kate have skidded to a halt in Gospel—Kate after her work as a PI unwittingly armed a man with information to track down and kill his family, and Rob after his pro hockey career was derailed by a gun-toting psychopath.

The Watson Brothers by Lori Foster. In "My House, My Rules", sweetly sexy and extremely determined Ariel drives tough, rugged cop Sam Watson over the edge. When Ariel's headstrong ways nearly wreck one of Sam's sting operations - ruining her dress in the process - he offers her a ride to his place to clean up. But Ariel seems to have her own agenda, and Sam decides it's time to show the lady that if she wants to play games of seduction, he'll be calling the shots..."Bringing Up Baby": Gil Watson's wild night on a business trip two years ago resulted in a daughter he never knew he had. Now that the girl's mother is gone, he wants to do right by his little girl, even if it means a marriage of convenience with the woman who's been raising her. Anabel Truman is totally wrong for him. But the sensations she rouses in Gil feel totally right. "Good With His Hands": As best friends, Pete Watson and Cassidy McClannahan have a 'no sex' relationship. 'No sex' equals continuing friendship. 'Ohmygodyes' sex equals big problems. It may be a rigid rule, but it works - until Pete decides he wants to push the line and transform himself into the perfect guy he thinks Cassidy wants.

The Playboy by Carly Phillips. Rick, a loving but broken-hearted divorcee determined to resist both mom's marriage plots and those of his admirers-roughly every single woman in town. To do so, Rick employs a counterplot involving equally commitment-shy Kendall Sutton, whom the playboy policeman rescues from a car mishap as she's fleeing her own wedding. But will the independent twosome, feigning coupledom to remove themselves from the matchmaking game, foil themselves by genuinely falling for each other? Of course.

The Heartbreaker by Carly Phillips. Of all the bars in Washington, D.C., Sloane Carlisle happens to walk into the hole-in-the-wall where Chase Chandler is nursing a Miller draft. Avowed singleton Chase needs a cold one after overdosing on the marital bliss of his younger brother, Roman, and Roman's pregnant wife, Charlotte. (Roman and the third Chandler brother, Rick, starred in Phillips's paperback bestsellers The Bachelor and The Playboy.) Sloane has come in search of scotch straight up to recover from shocking news: she's not the biological daughter of Sen. Michael Carlisle, whose dead first wife, Sloane's mother, grew up in Yorkshire Falls, N.Y., where Chase is publisher of the local paper. Furthermore, Sloane has learned, two Carlisle staffers may be plotting to kill her real father. Chase knows none of this-only that here is "a vision in a dress so pink, so short, so bare, it ought to be illegal." And Sloane has no idea that Chase has come to Washington hoping for a scoop on Senator Carlisle. Nevertheless, one smoldering glance is enough to seal the couple's fate.

They seem like some fun summer reads. Nothing too heavy.

What's in your mailbox?