Review: One Good Reason

One Good Reason (Harlequin Superromance)

About the Book:

It's time to move on.  Any day now Jon Adamson will pack his bags and hit the road. After all, his intention was never to hang around Melbourne once he'd settled his late father's affairs. Yet he hasn't moved on. And it might have something to do with Gabby Wade. The not–so–big office manager with the really big attitude is making Jon's days…interesting…engaging…fun. It's impossible for him to resist her.

But he knows himself—long–term commitments and cozy family dinners aren't his style. If that's what the future holds, why is he still here? And why is he spending all his days—and nights—with Gabby? Because maybe she's the one reason strong enough to make him stay.

My Comments:

He and his brother were abused as children and he knows he will never have a committed relationship.  She dated his brother for several years and they "practically lived together", yet the brother would never get emotionally close to her so she broke it off, and they became "just friends", and she worked for the brother as his office manager.  When he married, she was prepared to hate his wife; yet they became close friends too.

 Jon comes to town temporarily, but decides to stay a while and work in the business so he and Gabby meet, and rub each other the wrong way right away, but....

She has to deal with not being completely over the brother.  He has to deal with the guilt he feels for not protecting his brother from his father.  He is afraid of commitment; she is afraid of being hurt again.  They are physically attracted to each other.  

This wasn't anything extraordinary, but it wasn't a bad read either.  Grade:  B-

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.

Review: A Summer Reunion

A Summer Reunion: All Our Yesterdays\All Our Todays\All Our Tomorrows (Harlequin Anthology)

About the Book:

ONE BEACH HOUSE.
TWO SISTERS REUNITED.
THREE STORIES OF FAMILY, OLD FLAMES
AND SUMMER LOVE!

It’s a family celebration you’ll never forget…

FOR TODAY...

Now that she’s reunited with her sister, Tori Fuller doesn’t regret a moment of her life. But she’s never forgotten the guy who got away. Heart surgeon Sam McCormack is as sexy and irresistible as he was back in college…and ready to prove to the woman he’s always loved that it’s never too late to start over.…

TOMORROW...

Lauren Sutcliffe never expected her mother’s sixtieth birthday bash to lead to romance. But gorgeous Aussie

builder Adam Hunter wants to stake his claim on the bossy, burned-by-love caterer. He wants to share all her tomorrows, if Lauren will just say yes!

AND ALWAYS!

David Longwood isn’t looking for love…until a family reunion throws him in the path of free spirit Kinsey McKeever. Suddenly the buttoned-down lawyer is rediscovering his passionate inner self and dreaming about forever after… with Kinsey.

My Comments:  

Once upon a time, many years ago there were three young children who lost their parents in a car wreck.  As there were no family members to take them in, they were all adopted into different families, and only the oldest had anything but a vague notion that the others existed.  One day, the daughter of one of them, who happens to work for the CIA, decides to find her mom's family, and is successful.  With that background, a huge reunion party is planned.  It serves as the backdrop to these three short romances in which the characters are related to those three children.  

As I've said about this type of story before, these stories are what they are--short, sweet and predictable.  This batch is reasonably clean--unmarried folks hop in bed soon after meeting, and while we are there, if you didn't know what they were doing or what they were trying to accomplish, you'd never figure it out from the language used.  Grade B- (best I give this type of story).

I'd like the thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley.