2021, Week the Eighth: Say Hello to My Frayed Nerve Endings

Hey There, Hi There, Ho There, Bookworms!

I hope you’re all warm and safe and healthy. I don’t know that I have a ton of readers at the moment, but if any of you are reading this from Texas, I sure hope things have improved for you. What a nightmare! I’m just here in the good old Midwest, trying to make it to spring without mentally imploding. As one does. I mentioned last week that I’d like to wait to send Sam back to daycare until both Jim and I were able to be vaccinated. Alas, I really don’t think it’s going to happen. The rollout is going soooo slowly and I’m at the very bottom of the list. I’m concerned that we’ve actually damaged our kid’s development by keeping him isolated as long as we have. Once we hit spring, I think we’re going to have to take the plunge. Then again, the variants might cause a whole new surge and I may change my mind. I simply don’t have all the answers. This winter has broken me. The whole pandemic has been hard, and winter is always kind of hard for me. The combination of the two? I’m currently just a pile of frayed nerve endings. Frayed nerve endings that can read, though, because books.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley- Patience Jordan was born in the Caribbean (the West Indies if we’re using historical lingo) and is heiress to a vast plantation fortune. She married into the English aristocracy for love, only to discover her husband wasn’t exactly who she thought he was. After his mysterious suicide, Patience and her son are left to the mercy of the remarkably unmerciful Markham. He soon has Patience committed to Bedlam and takes on the role of guardian to her newborn son, Lionel. As you can tell, Markham is the ACTUAL WORST. Luckily, Patience falls in with a group known as The Widow’s Grace, whose mission is to right the wrongs done to widows once their influential husbands die. When Lionel’s true guardian is unearthed, the war hero Duke of Repington casts out the wicked Markham and unwittingly hires Patience as a nanny and wet nurse for Lionel. Obviously, Patience has a lot of secrets, but so, as it turns out, does the Duke. And, well, it’s awfully hard not to fall for the dashing, handsome, unmarried Duke who clearly adores your child.

This book was very cute and full of intrigue. It’s also GREAT for those of you who don’t care for explicit love scenes in your reading because there aren’t any. At all. There’s a minimal amount of smooching, but even that is pretty chaste. Admittedly a mild disappointment for me personally, but I’ve gotten accustomed to the steamier side of romance. This is the first in what will undoubtedly be a charming series- I look forward to reading future installments!

Make a Scene by Mimi Grace– Oh my goodness, this book! I loved it so much! Our heroine Retta runs a bakery in a strip mall. She’s thrown for a loop when her ex-boyfriend proposes to her cousin. And it’s not like a “oh we dated in high school” kind of ex. It’s only been a year since they broke up and it was a long-term relationship. Because Retta wants to prove not only that she’s over her ex, but also that she’s moved on and isn’t in the least bit salty about the whole thing, she decides that she HAS to attend the wedding. With a date. Even if it’s a fake date. (Squee!) Enter Duncan- he has just opened a boxing gym in the same strip mall as Retta’s bakery… And they promptly get into a battle over parking spaces. Retta offers Duncan a deal- if he accompanies her to the wedding and they pull off fooling her family (a tall order) she will give up her parking space (GASP.) Of course, the lines between real and fake dating are soon blurred, especially since they cannot keep their hands off each other. (The steam in this book made up for the lack thereof in the previous book.) This book was adorable, funny, and heartfelt. A tasty morsel of a romance you should definitely check out!

I’m moving a bit more slowly through my current reads- one is moving slowly because it’s audio and I rarely have time to listen these days (but it’s soooo good! It’s Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and I’m loving it!) The other is moving slowly just because. Sometimes that happens, which is good, because staying up until the wee hours devouring romance after romance has a nasty habit of catching up with you. Sleep is important, friendos. Been reading anything awesome lately, Bookworms?

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