Dual Review: IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING by Julie James

Sydney is thrilled for her sister when Isabelle announces a sudden engagement, but also kinda bummed. You see, less than a year ago Sydney herself was about to get married, before she found out her fiance was a cheating bastard. Now she has a 32-point list of everything a man has to have before she'll date him: a steady job, friends with steady jobs and/or families, etc. Too bad her future brother-in-law doesn't pass the test, because he's super cute and has a sexy job (FBI agent). Maybe they can just be fuck buddies instead. Yeah. That'll work out.

As regular readers of this blog know, I have some issues with Julie James novels. I loved Just the Sexiest Man Alive, but many of her other novels have irritated me with their unbelievably perfect heroines, gender issues, and complete and utter lack of anything resembling a plot. Since I knew Anachronist from Portable Pieces of Thoughts has had similar issues with James' books—only with an added soupçon of hatred—I thought it would be fun if we discussed James' latest, It Happened One Wedding.

So what did Anachronist and I think? You might be surprised. Read on to find out:

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Anachronist: When it comes to novels of Ms. James one saying comes to my mind: the more it changes the more it is the same thing (a famous epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr). Would you agree with me?

Tasha: Yes, but maybe that’s a good thing. It Happened One Wedding is a romcom twist on Pride & Prejudice, but fortunately James does that kind of story really well.

Ana: Define ‘well’. The one thing that makes me rather angry and disappointed about her books is the fact that they feature plastic-perfect heroines and heroes, people who deal with artificial problems while they are unvaryingly beautiful, successful, rich, relatively young and desirable. Real life calling  Ms. James: it never happens.

Tasha: Totally agree. I suppose that was the point of all those work scenes we had to sit through, just so we knew Sydney and Vaughn were both successful.

Ana: To tell you the truth I would love to have a chat with Sydney’s ex, that guy who left her almost by the altar and had had sex with his fitness instructor before that. I kept wondering why he cheated on his girlfriend if she was so perfect, pretty, rich and so good...

Tasha: In bed? Presumably because he’s a playa playa. Tigers can’t change their stripes (unless they’re romance heroes of course). Speaking of which, what did you think of Vaughn’s sudden realization that he wanted to get married and have a parcel of kids?

Ana: Option A - his hormones switched on during that wedding preparation period and he hit the early male menopause. Option B - Sydney was feeding him a fidelity drug all the time. Option C - he was UNREAL from the first page to the last and the poor author never had any idea how to make him change from a sexual predator into a family man so she went all deus-ex-machina and ta-dah! Here you go, all of a sudden Vaughn becomes a serious guy who loves kids and wants nothing better than a wife and a family of his own. Tigers can’t change their spots, hein?

Tasha: Why’d he even have to turn into a family man is what I wonder. Uhg that ending was so dumb. If only they’d had a double wedding, then AT LEAST someone would have saved some money. That’s a conclusion I can get behind.

Ana: By the way tell me whether wedding preparations in the USA are really so ridiculously arduous and long as described in this novel (and many other novels as well)?  I admit I half-laughed half-snorted reading about those rehearsals, practices, choosing the dress, trying on the dress, tasting the dishes in a restaurant, stag parties, hen parties and so on. Honestly people, so much fuss and then you divorce after a year or two…

Tasha: lol Actually, yes, that’s pretty standard. Is it not in Europe?

Ana: Not really. Some people do like copying the rehearsals from our lovely American cousins but it is hardly common or widespread. It takes too much time and too much effort I suppose.

Tasha: I don’t know why people have rehearsals—all you have to do is walk down an aisle slowly! Is it really that difficult? But I guess it’s an excuse to go out to dinner afterward.

Ana: Oh, now I see. Dinner at somebody else’s expense. It sounds reasonable at least ;p. Let return to the book, though. What do you think of Sydney’s sister pretending that she wasn’t pregnant before her marriage? Preposterous? Normal? Both?

Tasha: Another deus-ex-machina to get the wedding to happen quickly instead of over the course of a year like normal. It seemed a little old-fashioned, honestly. Like anyone would care, even a Catholic mom? Probably not, but if Isabelle wants to make life miserable for herself…

Ana: I live in a very Catholic country but a bride with a bun in her oven going proudly to church in a white dress is quite normal here. Nobody cares as long as there is a wedding because sometimes there is not. That’s why such a plot device was shocking to me - it sounded so quaint and not in a positive way. I thought the author was hard-pressed for fresh ideas or rather joking...anyway it didn’t make me liking this one more.

Tasha: Yeah, I think she was using it for comic relief to a certain extent. Not to mention that the kid and the wedding is basically the plot. I thought for sure Sydney and Vaughn would connect over a case—I mean, he works undercover in white collar crimes, she’s an investment banker—but James totally missed the boat on that one. Kind of a let-down, even if it would have been a predictable way to bring them together.

Ana: You’re right - so far in the series there has been a crime, a case and there have been two protagonists forced to cooperate in order to solve it. No more of it in this one.

Tasha: Maybe she’s realizing suspense isn’t her strong suit. Kind of like writing about food isn’t her strong suit. Did you catch the tomato cutting scene? Pretty sure that wouldn’t have worked out the way she described it.

Ana: I am not a chef or a good cook but I did wonder how you can cut a tomato into even squares without using some super-extra-outer-space-technology kitchen tool instead of your ordinary knife...perhaps it can be done in James’s America where tomatoes are grown as cubes ;p. Overall did you enjoy It Happened One Wedding? So far we’ve been criticizing it pretty consistently...

Tasha: I did like it. It had a plot (yay!), Vaughn and Sydney had a lot of chemistry, and it was a fun read.

Ana: I suppose the book was better than the previous novels because I managed to finish it at all (yay seconded!) but still I can’t get over the plastic Barbieland all James characters come from. It gives me creeps, really, thinking about all these imperfect readers who all of a sudden are faced with the fact that in some novels only handsome/beautiful/successful people have any chances to find a partner, marry and be happy. Not fair.

Tasha: That’s basically 98.2% of romance novels, though.

Ana: Small wonder I hate them on a daily basis.

Tasha: At least Vaughn wasn’t inexplicably wealthy.

Ana: But he was an FBI agent, they don’t have to be wealthy.

Tasha: They don’t? Oh right, because they can provide security with their shooting and fighting super powers.

Ana: Exactly. And they are handsome, all of them. It is a prerequisite I suppose.

Tasha: And Sydney manages to be the only investment banker who isn’t a sleaze. haha

Ana: If you were to recommend this novel what would you say?

Tasha: That it’s James’ best novel since Just the Sexiest Man Alive and it’s a fun and romcom-y. I think that’s what James’ audience is mainly looking for, anyway.

Ana: Now I am asking myself a rhetorical question: should I read Just the Sexiest Man Alive? Maybe.

Tasha: Since the question’s rhetorical I won’t answer. *wink*

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Book Rant: LOVE, IRRESISTIBLY by Julie James

Two beautiful people with awesome jobs meet and fall in love. But will they be able to juggle both their awesome jobs, gorgeous apartments, and awesome selves when they have Intimacy Issues???

I hesitate to call this a review. It's more of a rant. I will say, first of all, that Love, Irresistibly is better than Julie James' previous book, About That Night, because it does have a plot. -Ish. It doesn't take full advantage of said plot, but it does have one. So that's an improvement!

However, I still had some major issues with it. For example...

• Love, Irresistibly would not pass the Bechdel Test. To catch y'all up on the Bechdel Test if you haven't heard of it, it's when a book or movie has 1. a female character, who 2. talks with another female character about 3. something other than a man. It's meant measure how fully developed female characters are in media. Now, I will tell you the part that annoyed me about Love, Irresistibly: there is one female character, the heroine. She has friends but THEY ARE ALL MEN. Um, seriously? She is the only female who makes an appearance during the entire course of this book other than waitresses, secretaries, and the heroines from other books in the series who show up to underscore the fact that they're making babies like proper uterus-bearing human beings. I've read public domain books that did a better job of passing the Bechdel Test than this! Dear 21st century authors, if your novel novel is less feminist than something published before women were granted the right to vote, UR DOIN IT WRONG.
• The characters open champagne bottles with a corkscrew. UGH WHY. And this happens multiple times, so it is NOT just a silly error. I can only conclude that the author, her editor, and every other person who looked at this manuscript between writing and publication has never opened a bottle of champagne, seen a bottle of champagne opened either in person or on TV, or even LOOKED at a bottle of champagne. Keep in mind this is from a woman who wrote a book about someone who sold wine!!! WHAT. THE. FUCK. If the axiom write what you know is true, it is glaringly obvious James knows shit about champagne. Perhaps she should have picked some other celebratory drink. Which is loosely related to my third point...
• The writing is so lazy, you guys! Like there's no thought put into how best to tell the story. For example, when the hero and heroine first meet, we're infodumped with a lot of back story about the legal case the hero's working on, right before he meets with the heroine to tell her why he needs her help. So instead of telling us, through dialog, about what he's working on, we're instead treated to pages of boring exposition about it. Fun times, fun times.
• Masculinity--I gave James some slack for how she treated masculinity in A Lot Like Love, but Love, Irresistibly is kind of worse. As in, the guys are always mentioning they have penises. As in, "I'm a guy, I don't do that." ORLLY? I wouldn't have noticed if it happened once but it's a constant throughout the book. At least A Lot Like Love questioned what masculinity was; Love, Irresistibly treats masculinity as an iconoclast notion of sports and father issues with no leeway to femininity or the influence of mothers, sister, girlfriends, or friends on the male characters' lives.
• In addition to infodumping and exposition, the writing is repetitive repetitive (to quote Don't Make Fun of Renowned Author Dan Brown) and everything is explained multiple times, even the things anyone capable of reading should be able to figure out on their own. I got so annoyed at one point I said, "NO SHIT." Aloud. To a book. With no one else in the room.

If possible, this summary of Love, Irresistibly made me dislike it even more. Not to mention the title is like something that came from a publisher's grab bag of nouns and adverbs and has no bearing on the actual book. But you know, aside from all those things that really annoyed me, it wasn't an awful novel. I did finish it.





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Backstory Boycott

In the past week, I read two romances that really frustrated me: About That Night by Julie James and The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne. Both of the these books have received very good reviews from others, and if you want to read positive things about them, I suggest you go to those sites. I, on the other hand, had some major issues with the storytelling in both of these novels, which failed because of issues with the characters' backstory.



Kyle Rhodes shut down twitter after his girlfriend broke up with him via a photo tweet of her making out with another guy (harsh), and as a result spent several months in prison. Once he gets out, he runs into US prosecuting attorney Rylann, whom he asked out on a date in college. They're attracted to one another, blah blah blahhhhhhggg.

Julie James always has problems with the beginnings of her novels, even in Just the Sexiest Man Alive (review here), which I adored. But About That Night is probably the worst of all her beginnings so far. There is a TON and TON and TON of backstory that is delivered in the most unimaginative way possible (i.e., exposition and infodump). Even if I wasn't already familiar with most of it from reading A Lot Like Love (review here), I would still want to skim the 80+ pages where we get to see the episodic and brief moment when Rylann and Kyle meet in college; Rylann breaking up with her boyfriend and moving to Chicago, reflecting on life, etc.; Kyle under house arrest, reflecting on how he got into prison, getting out of prison, thinking about life, etc.; AND THEN FINALLY the story starts with Kyle reluctantly testifying about something he witnessed in prison. Except that lasts for about fifty pages and there's still more than half of the book left to goooooooo.

Basically About That Night has no plot whatsoever. The book was so caught up in telling me a backstory that it forgot to deliver an ACTUAL STORY. By the time Rylann and Kyle had gotten together, I'd lost total interest in this not-a-story. Not mention Kyle is the most unbelievable hero I have run across in a loooooong time.



Joanna Bourne is another writer whom I'm generally a big fan of. She has a great, unique style of writing, backs up her novels with solid historical research, sets many of her books in France, and wrote one of my very rare 5-star reads, My Lord and Spymaster (review here).

The Black Hawk started off with a bang. In my head I was thinking, "At last, a story I can finally sink my teeth into!" In the opening scenes a French spy named Justine is stabbed on the streets of London and seeks help from Adrian Hawkhurst, an English spy we met in The Forbidden Rose (review here). Hawker was the best part of The Forbidden Rose for me, so I was thrilled to see he was getting his own book. It turns out he and Justine have been in love for years, but are always spying on opposite sides of a conflict. Now Hawker has to find out who tried to kill Justine and convince her that they can finally be together.

Hey look, it's a plot! Yay for plots! And it's a different plot from the one Bourne used her last two novels, so double yay! I was settling in for an awesome read... and then the flashbacks started. Not my personal flashbacks, mind (that would be bad enough), but flashbacks of everything Adrian and Justine had ever done in their entire lives.

Perhaps it wasn't everything they'd ever done, but it certainly felt like it. In a 304 page book, 184 pages consist of flashbacks. And in case you're under the delusion I needed to know any of the stuff in these gratuitous flashbacks, let me assure you that I did not. The first flashback, which is sixty effing pages long, basically recounts info I'm already familiar with from The Forbidden Rose. Getting people up to speed is fine; boring people to death with endless backstory that has no purpose and zip to do with the plot is NOT.

And because there was so much time spent on the backstory, just as in About That Night there was no development of the characters and their relationship in THE ACTUAL STORY. Who stabbed Justine becomes obvious as soon as the person shows up on the page, and after that the story becomes très boring. I'm very happy these characters have a long history, but JK Rowling had a lot of backstory she needed to fill her readers in on, too, and she didn't do it by taking her readers out of the story with flashbacks every twenty pages. For which we thank her.

It's common knowledge that I have major issues with prologues, and now I have major issues with flashback scenes, too, thanks to these two books. Aren't flashbacks really just a prologue put into the middle of the book instead of the beginning, anyway?



After reading The Black Hawk and About That Night, I came to a depressing conclusion: as much as Fifty Shades of Grey (review here) made me roll eyes and want to throw myself out a window, it was actually better than either of these two novels (from the perspective of storytelling; neither Black Hawk nor About That Night left a terrible taste in my mouth like I'd just licked garbage, so that's a point in their favor). At least in Fifty Shades there was a plot--one blatantly stolen from Stephenie Meyer, but still, a plot--the characters, for what they were, were believable, and there was some chemistry between them; and EL James didn't bore me to death with backstory delivered in lame-o infodumps and flashbacks. She just told the freaking story and let the characters' history emerge as she made it up it went on. So yes, if I was going to compare these three books (and clearly I am) I would say if this is an example of what James is going up against, I am no longer surprised she's selling so many books. There's a lot to be said for not having one's patience tried.

A LOT LIKE LOVE by Julie James

Proposed alternate title: The Emasculation of Nick McCall



Jordan Rhodes has a rich daddy, her own successful business were she gets to drink wine, and is so beautiful she doesn't even notice when men are attracted to her. Because, you know, it's just another day at the office! But she's also really down-to-earth and not snobby at all because... well, there isn't a good explanation for that. The only fly in Jordan's La Prairie Platinum is her brother, Kyle, whom we're repeatedly told looks like Sawyer from Lost. Kyle shut down twitter so that his model girlfriend couldn't post video of herself giving another guy a blowjob (ew?), and they sent him to prison for it. Twitter jail: it's not just a joke anymore, people! Yada yada yada, the FBI shows up offering to release Kyle from prison if Jordan will take an undercover officer to a wine tasting party at Bordeaux, the hip wine place for Chicago elites run by restaurateur/doing-something-illegal-with-a-gangster-I-was-never-clear-on, Xander Eckhart. Enter undercover operative and he-man extraordinaire, Nick McCall!

In case you can't tell already, I had some problems with Jordan. I don't want to say I hated her, but I kinda did. She's beautiful, she gets to wear gorgeous purple ball gowns and go to parties and Napa, and drive a sports car... grrrr, I hate her! Also, this book is only three-hundred pages, but it's still way too long. There's a lot of backstory that's just boring, and (as usual with a Julie James book) it's a long walk to get to the action. Here's what should have happened: set-up, meet-cute, BOOM, wine party! Instead we got: set-up, meet-meh, fifty pages of Jordan talking to her friends and brother to prove that she does indeed have friends (and is therefore worthy of affection); Nick's backstory and proving that he has friends (kinda), set up to the wine party, and fiiiiinally wine party. Yes, please! Wake me up!

Anywhosie, around the time Jordan and Nick head out to Napa, this book starts to get curious. Nick is supposed to be this manly man type, and he agrees to go on a weekend trip with (read: funded by) Jordan. Who wouldn't?? But as soon as they go on the trip, all of sudden Nick is not such a manly man anymore. It starts off ominously right away when Jordan won't let him drive. *coughcontrolfreakcough* Then pretty soon he wants to discuss his feelings and where their relationship is going, and he says stuff like, "You know I don't need any of these things, right? I'm here because of you," as they stand atop a verdant Napa hill. Meanwhile, Jordan wants to take the relationship one day at a time and just see what happens, and we're informed that she doesn't do "feelings."

So, to sum up, Jordan stole Nick's balls. Right out from under him.

Now, I have no problem with a reversal of gender roles, as long as it makes sense. But here I felt a little confused by it--I don't think it's done for comedic effect, and if it was intentional on James' part it wasn't set up very clearly. At first I thought it had to do with Jordan being a billionairess--this is America, after all; money trumps everything, even penises--so she becomes the sugar mama of the relationship, which admittedly is kind of awkward. But wouldn't Nick have tried harder to assert his masculine authority in that case instead of just giving in and letting Jordan make him her bitch? That seemed way out of character.

Then I remembered that all Jordan's friends, who are not billionairesses (re: down to earth and not snobby), have husbands who watch Dancing with the Stars and cook and work in musical theater and find the question, "Who do you think will be in the playoffs?" confusing. I didn't think anything of this at the time--other than the fun contrast they made to Nick's character--because hey, why wouldn't men cook and watch DwtS? But it's clear that Nick isn't one of those guys. He's painted as the stereotypical macho guy from the beginning of the book. Yet in the last scene of the novel, Nick agrees to watch DwtS (DON'T DO IT, Nick!!!) with Jordan even though there's a big game on. It's like he's turned into a completely different man! The sort of guy that Jordan indicated she usually dated at the beginning of the book: designer glove-wearing, wine-drinking, etcetera etcetera. Were Jordan's friends' husbands like Nick before they got married? I don't know now; maybe! I have a hard time believing the Nick of the first half of the book wouldn't think the Nick of the second half of the book needed to man up, though; and setting up this scene in what could be called a pattern of male emasculation within the context of relationships seemed odd and little squidgy.

Aside from that, this book was okay. It was too long, I never connected with the main character, and Nick and Jordan's relationship lost all sexual tension after they slept together; but on the plus side, it was entertaining.

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Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

Total hours of sleep while reading this book over a two-day period: 9.

Just the Sexiest Man Alive is a weird title.  I also don't read many contemporary novels.  But the reviews for this book on some of the blogs I read were so good that I decided to get it anyway.  And I'm really, really glad I did.  I honestly did not expect that much from this book, but I was pleasantly surprised--mainly because it's the most imaginative recreation of Pride & Prejudice I've ever read.

Taylor Donnovan is a sexual harassment attorney from Chicago who is temporarily relocated to LA to head the legal team for a huge lawsuit.  HUGE.  Taylor is a workaholic who has only two priorities:  making partner, and forgetting all about her recently ex-fiance, whom she caught having sex with a 22-year-old grad student in his office.  Ouch.  Fortunately, both of these plans are coming along rather well.  At least until the firm "asks" her to babysit celebaby Jason Andrews as he does research for an upcoming role as a litigation attorney.

Andrews is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.  He's won an Oscar and been voted the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine 3 times.  Oh, and he's a notorious playboy.  So, the man's filthy rich, handsome, and charming--basically what every woman in the world wants.  Just like Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice.  And just like Elizabeth Bennett, Taylor is determined before she even meets him not to like him, for two reasons:  one, her former fiance was rich, handsome, and charming, and she doesn't want to go down that road again; and two, her initial impression of him leads her to believe he's a spoiled, arrogant, self-centered celebrity.  And in fact he is (at one point he says to her, "What do you mean you can't go to Napa with me for the weekend?  Do you know who I am?).  But, you know, there are redeeming qualities.

Aside from the Pride & Prejudice references (there are at least two lines in the book obviously borrowed from the production with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth), there are funny moments that feel like they're being channeled from a Preston Sturges film, with classic romantic high-jinks and super-smart, witty dialog.  In fact, it's pretty obvious Julie James is something of a cinemaniac and that Just the Sexiest Man Alive is meant to be a romantic comedy in book form.

Overall the book is successful and enjoyable.  It's not perfect.  The protagonists don't meet for the first fifty pages, which contain a lot of tedious back story and setting up of unnecessary subplots.  Also, the ending feels rushed and didn't wrap up the story very well, emotion- or plot-wise.  The writer lets us know that Jason is addicted to gambling, but doesn't give Taylor a chance to figure it out before the book is finished.  So what was the point of that?  Also, the "Mr. Wickham" character, another actor who's Jason's younger, handsomer professional rival, apparently wants revenge against Jason for... something... but he just appears and disappears whenever it's convenient and that storyline is never fully developed, either.  I would have preferred it if Taylor and Jason got together in the middle of the book--but admittedly, that wouldn't have worked with the story arc the author set up.

Despite these problems, I really really liked this book.  Bordering on love.  It was fun, unputadownable, had great film references, and I did feel as if I was being transported into the world of a Hollywood celebrity.  There were moments when I was thinking, "Is LA really like this???"  Whether it is or not, it's certainly entertaining.



*Reposted from my old non-book blog, 2/8/09

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~Perfect~ Reads

Sometimes when the word perfect is in a book title, it's not being oversold.  For example:



Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Alex is teetering on the edge of being in a gang; Brittany is teetering on the edge of becoming a full-fledged Valley Girl (which would be quite an accomplishment, since they both live in a Chicago suburb).  Will these two crazy kids learn to get along?  I just don't know!

Actually, that little blurb doesn't do justice to this great book, which takes ye olde uptown-girl-meets-downtown-guy plot and revamps it with wonderful characters, completely believable setting, and great writing.  One of my favorite books of the year!



Just Perfect by Julie Ortolon

This contemporary romance is aptly named, as the romance is literally just perfect.  Christine, a doctor, goes to Aspen for ski lessons so she can overcome her fear of heights (the ski lift... I can sympathize).  Since she's willing to pay top dollar, she gets Alec, who is actually the head of Ski Patrol (re:  he's a VIP on the slopes).  They rescue a snow boarder, a pretty soon coco isn't the only thing that's hot in the ski lodge! (harrrr harrrrr)

Once again, this is a book with great characters--I absolutely LOVE Christine and how she seems very elegant and contained on the outside, but inside she's tough.  I also loved the emotional development of Alec and Christine through the novel, especially when Christine has to return to Texas at the end of her vacation and both she and Alec try to decide if their relationship is worth making major changes in their lives for.  A great read!



Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

All right, I haven't read this book yet.  But I read James' first book, Just the Sexiest Man Alive, and really enjoyed it.  So hopefully this one will be just as good, if not better.  Here's the summary from Booklist:

*Starred Review* After eight years of grueling yet friendly competition, both Payton and J. D. anticipate partnership at their prestigious Chicago law firm. But after putting aside their personal animosities and working together to sign an important account, they realize each is vulnerable to, and attracted by, the other. Unfortunately, their boss then announces that only one partner will be named this year from the litigation department, and suddenly the competition is very real—and not at all friendly. In her second novel, following Just the Sexiest Man Alive (2008), James presents a sophisticated contemporary romance set in legal circles, and proves that she is a master at conveying both courtroom and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. As her charmingly arrogant and ambitious characters spar endlessly and entertainingly, they inadvertently reveal their insecurities and personal foibles, while competing for high stakes in both business and love. --Lynne Welch

One Perfect Knight by Judith O'Brien

Like most of O'Brien's books, this one starts to unravel in the latter half; but the first half is so romantic it's difficult to care.  Advertizing exec Julie is a closet romantic.  One day she's helping with a kid's birthday party at a medieval-themed restaurant--the next thing she knows, she's in medieval times and being mistaken for a squire by a handsome knight.

But this isn't just any knight--oh, no, friendlies, this Sir Lancelot.  And y'all know how I love sexy Lancelot.  He takes her back to Camelot and we get to meet Arthur and Gueniviere, as well.  This book completely sucked me into this world and was blissfully romantic.  And seriously--it's Lancelot.  What's not to love?


Have you read any great books with "perfect" in the title?

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What Are Your Favorite Contemporary Romances?

I saw this at Adventures in Katidom and thought it would make an good post:  What are some of your favorite single-title contemporary romances?  I don't read a lot of contemporary romances, but there are definitely a few that I love.  Here they are:



Drive Me Wild by Julie Ortolon

Julie Ortolon is one of my favorite contemporary romance writers.  Drive Me Wild was her first release, and it's still my favorite.  Laura Beth is a shy, small town girl who has always yearned to escape from Beason's Ferry, Texas--just like her best friend from high school, Brett Michaels, who was the town bad boy but is now a big-time TV news anchor.  This book has some of my all-time favorite romance tropes:  uptown girl meets downtown boy; childhood sweethearts (even though they were technically just friends), and a brooding hero.  Also, fast cars--fast cars are always a plus.



Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James

I wasn't sure I was going to like this book, and at first I didn't.  But then I realized it was actually a take on Pride & Prejudice, and one of the cleverest ones I've ever read.  Hard working, no-nonsense Taylor is assigned to babysit movie star Jason, whom ALL the women want because he's handsome and rich.  And he knows it.  I loved the character of Jason and how this book feels like a Preston Sturges romantic comedy.  A totally fun and enjoyable read.



Crazy Hot by Tara Janzen

Have I mentioned I love fast cars?  Well, Janzen's Hot books are full of fast cars.  Quinn Younger is a former car thief who is now working for black ops out of... Denver?  Hrm.  Okay, whatever.  Anyway, former bad boy, yay!  And he's been obsessed with this woman named Regan ever since they were teenagers and he helped her professor father out at a dinosaur dig (part of juvenile offender reform program).  This is another really fun book that's total escapist reading.  And the love scene on the hood of Quinn's car?  Definitely hot.








It Must Be Love by Rachel Gibson

One of the most enjoyable contemporary romances I've read. The hero is a cop (I heart stories with cops), and the heroine is a New Age-y yoga instructor. Will the no-nonsense cop be able to get along with the miss flighty spirituality froo-froo? I just don't know!




The Widow by Anne Stuart

One of the things I love about this book is that the character of Aristide, the dead half of "the widow," is based on Picasso.  Art history shout-out!  Also, the heroine, Charlie, is kick-ass; and the hero, Connor, is really hawt.  Add in a Gothic atmosphere set among the beautiful scenery of Tuscany and this book is a total win.



Charmed, I'm Sure by Liz Ireland

One of my friends told me I should read this book, and I'm glad I did.  A woman named Callie accidentally turns her boss into a golden retriever, and then she falls in love with his nephew.  The set-up sounds lame, but aside from being really funny, this book is actually surprisingly impactful.  The characters are so well-drawn that you can't help but sympathize with them, and despite the fact that one of them has magical powers, they deal with real-world problems.  I was really touched at the end of this book, and it was entertaining.  What more can you ask for?



Baby, Don't Go by Susan Andersen

This is by far my favorite Susan Andersen book.  Nick is a high-society photographer.  He hires Daisy, a security guard, to help protect him from the mafia--or something.  But the twist is, when they were teenagers, Daisy was in love with Nick and he disappeared immediately after the first and only time they had sex.  So she's pretty pissed at him.  I love the twist of having the heroine be the tough cop character, and Nick and Daisy have awesome chemistry together.

What are your favorite contemporary romances?

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