Jen

My review also posted at https://novelsalive.com/2020/11/19/star-review-the-sinister-superyacht-by-ana-t-drew/

I stumbled upon this book and really wished I'd read the first book before reading this second book in this series. I always prefer to read series in order, but know that it's not always possible. All throughout the story, I felt like I was missing something. I felt that the author just jumped in, assuming that I'd read the first book, and so there wasn't the normal re-introduction of the characters and the locale. For example, I was confused for the first couple of chapters. I couldn't place where the book was set and kept wondering why there were French words being thrown in here and there. Then something was mentioned about Paris, and the lightbulb clicked. But I could mostly get past all that.

The mystery was cute. It wasn't terribly deep, and Julie and her posse really stumbled around more than actually do any hardcore sleuthing. In fact, the story just rather ended, and I wasn't satisfied with how it wrapped up. I felt that more time in the story was spent on Julie's relationships than with her business or the murder mystery. It just didn't feel very balanced to me.

In the end, I had a hard time connecting with the characters and their situation. It wasn't a bad story, but it didn't have me turning the pages because I had to know how it ended. I'm not sure that I'll read more in this series. I do suggest that if you want to try this series, you start with the first book, or you may have that feeling of missing something as well.

I just couldn't get into the story. I didn't enjoy the constant flashbacks to high school or Hunter's pining after the oblivious Taylor Jane. The fact that I didn't care for either main character was the final nail and I just decided to stop wasting my time and call it DNF at around 60%. I can't say it's particularly bad or anything, it just wasn't for me.

  I've been watching this trend of hockey romances being the new “it” thing in the genre, and since I'm a hockey fan, I'm all in. I saw a request to review Any Other Day by Jenna McCall and decided to give this new-to-me author a chance. And now I'm hooked.

Any Other Day is the first book in the Richland Renegades series. It sounds like a spin-off of another series, but I hadn't read it and didn't really feel like I was missing out on anything. The book follows Boh, a hockey player who is in recovery after a car crash, leaving him with a concussion and cast. And then there's Novy, a dietician and roller derby player who, through some crazy turn of events, ends up being Boh's babysitter.

Boh and Novy are both interesting characters. The author bills this as a grumpy-sunshine romance, and she's not wrong. Boh is all kinds of grumpy as he's dealing with concussion protocols and is worried his career might be at an end. He also doesn't want to deal with a relationship, but there are sparks with Novy, and she's not a one-night-stand kind of girl. Also, being in the hockey team's circle and besties with the owner's granddaughter makes her off-limits. He was fun to watch with all the conflicts going on inside his head.

Novy is sunshine personified. She's very much anti-conflict and will do everything she can to smooth things over—except on the roller derby ring. Watching her deal with Boh's swinging emotions was interesting and made me root for them to find their happily ever after. I also really enjoyed the derby subplot, especially when it was so much about who Novy was, and I wish it had been explored more.

Any Other Day was a wonderful read. I appreciated the concussion aspect of the book as it's so important in contact sports these days, and exploring the ramifications, especially after a player's playing days are over, is critical. I was sucked into the story and couldn't put it down since I had to see Novy and Boh find their happily ever after. This was my first Jenna McCall book, and it won't be my last. 

Too Much to Candle was a good follow up in the Glenmyre Whim Mysteries. Hazel and Poppy are a fun detective duo and the rest of their friends and family in Crucible make revisiting the town so interesting.

The mystery was pretty well done, but I didn't see the solution at all. I felt it rather came out of left field. And while Hazel was close to solving it, it wasn't until she was face to face with a gun pointed at her that the lightbulb came on. I would have liked her actually solving the mystery with a few more real clues planted and not so many red herrings to throw her off track.

I'm always on the look out for a great Regency romance. While The Viscount's Vow had promise, it fell just a little short for me.

Let's start with the good. I appreciated the fact that Evangeline was part Romani and it was a key part of the story. She has some interesting skills learned from her Romani family and her visit to the Romani camp was a nice turn in the story.

And the not so good. I had trouble caring about both Ian and Evangeline. I found Evangeline to be on the weak side, not standing up for herself and so forth, but I suppose that comes from having a hard life. I didn't particularly like how she kept jumping to wrong conclusions, which I guess what mostly to add some length and conflict to the story. And I really didn't like the villain... and not in a good way. I felt the villain was so over the top evil with no redeeming qualities and I found it hard that no one seemed to see it. I can't put my finger on it, but it just didn't sit well with me.

The narration was by Stevie Zimmerman. Her English accent almost sounded a little too proper for the story and she doesn't really change her voice much for the different characters. But her pacing is good and she enunciates well and I don't really have any complaints of her performance.

Was this my favorite story? No. But it wasn't the worst I've ever read either. For me it was a middle of the road read and I'll likely try more from Ms Cameron in the future.

I was given a copy of this audio book for review, but all opinions are my own.

I'll be perfectly honest.  I grabbed this book for free on Amazon at some point and I only really read this book to finish a prompt in a reading challenge.  I don't see myself continuing the series, even though I know the books are by different authors.  I just wasn't really captured by the whole idea of a “magical” love cruise.

But as for I Saw Him Standing There... I really had a hard time liking Siggy, the main female character.  What was supposed to be a romantic comedy didn't really make me laugh or smile.  It wasn't very deep and was a super quick read.   It was just OK, just a middle of the road read for me.

I read this anthology over the course of a week or so and as I look back to write this review, I'm finding that a lot of the stories blended together. That's not to say that they're conencted or really similar in any way... it's more that reading 12 stories back to back, so very few of them stood out enough to single them out for review as excellent. That said, there was only one of the stories that I've probably rate as a 2-3 star read and I ended up skimming most of it.

I found this to be a very solid set of regency romances. There was enough variety of characters (from commoners to aristocrats) and locals (from London to the Highlands) to keep me interested. Even the tropes varied from reunion stories to chance meetings to friends to lovers.

I was reminded why I enjoy a few of these authors and have discovered a couple new authors to add to my ever growing to-be-read list. If you're looking for a good selection of short stories set around the Christmas season, this might be the box set for you.