It Had to be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Rating: 5 ♥

The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville -- the outrageous, curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Celebow, a sexist jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. Celebow is everything Phoebe abhors.

Review: I thought I didn't like SEP, having tried one of her oldies once up a time and hating it and never finishing it, so I read this book kicking and screaming. I stopped screaming soon into starting it. Wow!!!!! Lets just say that I wasn't half way through before I made a mad dash for my local UBS and bought out everything they had of hers. Talk about a turn around! I nearly got whiplash! Utterly fabulous. I found it funny, sexy (wowser), and it had a lot of heart. I have never read anything quite like it before. Phoebe was a wonderful heroine -- one of my favorite types. The type who has a public face that is so unlike who she really is, and the hero catches a glimpse of the real woman and stops at nothing to 'unmask' her and find out what makes her tick. I LOVED Dan. He's a wonderful hero and also one of my favs -- uncivilized. I do love me an uncivilized and rough around the edges hero. Yum.

The Prize by Brenda Joyce

Rating: 3

An infamous sea captain of the British Royal Navy, Devlin O'Neill is consumed with the need to destroy the man who brutally murdered his father. Having nearly ruined the Earl of Eastleigh financially, he is waiting to strike the final blow. And his opportunity comes in the form of a spirited young American woman, the earl's niece, who is about to set his cold, calculating world on fire.…

Born and raised on a tobacco plantation, orphan Virginia Hughes is determined to rebuild her beloved Sweet Briar. Daringly, she sails to England alone, hoping to convince her uncle to lend her the funds. Instead, she finds herself ruthlessly kidnapped by the notorious Devlin O'Neill, and will soon find her best-laid plans thwarted by a passion that could seal their fates forever.…

Review: I read the back cover and thought it might be like her book "The Game" which was just fabulous, but alas, it was sooooo not. I found it crushingly disappointing. It's one saving grace was the fact that the heroine liked sex. With a Joyce book you just never know if you're getting a heroine who thinks it's icky or not. *snicker* Seriously, I wound up skimming half of the book, never really caring about the characters or what happened to them. The hero was just too bitter and mean. Oh well. The cover is pretty.

Beast by Judith Ivory

Rating: 4

Synopsis: An exquisite American heiress, Louise Vandermeer is beautiful, brilliant. . . and bored-which is why she has agreed to a daring adventure: to travel across the ocean to marry an aristocrat abroad. Rumor has it her intended is a hideous cad-a grim prospect that propels her into a passionate, reckless affair with a compelling stranger she never sees in the light of day.

Though scarred by a childhood illness, Charles d'Harcourt has successfully wooed Europe's most sophisticated beauties. For a lark, he contrived to travel incognito on his own fiancee's ship-and seduce the young chit in utter darkness. But the rake's prank backfired. It was he who was smitten-while the hot-tempered Lulu, now his wife, loves only her shipboard lover, unaware it was d'Harcourt all the time! And Charles will never have her heart-unless he can open her eyes to the prince who hides within.

Review: This is one of those books that i have mixed feelings about. Love the writing, love the love scenes, love the hero, love the setting and beauty and the beast theme. It was very much like Woodiwiss's A Rose in Winter, which I just adored. The only thing that kept this book from being a 5 and favorite was that silly twit of a heroine. She's 18, and it shows. I felt her immaturity in every scene, and it just really detracted from the story for me. But I must say that I was really pleasantly surprised with this author. I have never read Judith Ivory before, and this will certainly not be my last, because she really is a fabulous writer! She is both easy to read and intelligent, which is harder to achieve than you might think. Over all I would definitely recommend this book -- the heroine wasn't bad enough for me to dislike it.

Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran

Rating: 5 ♥

Sick of tragedy, done with rebellion, Emmaline Martin vows to settle quietly into British Indian society. But when the pillars of privilege topple, her fiancé's betrayal leaves Emma no choice. She must turn for help to the one man whom she should not trust, but cannot resist: Julian Sinclair, the dangerous and dazzling heir to the Duke of Auburn.

In London, they toast Sinclair with champagne. In India, they call him a traitor. Cynical and impatient with both worlds, Julian has never imagined that the place he might belong is in the embrace of a woman with a reluctant laugh and haunted eyes. But in a time of terrible darkness, he and Emma will discover that love itself can be perilous — and that a single decision can alter one's life forever.

A lifetime of grief later, in a cold London spring, Emma and Julian must finally confront the truth: no matter how hard one tries to deny it, some pasts cannot be disowned...and some passions never die.

Review: Loooove. Like the book in the previous post, this book is by a newby author, and was also a huge hit in the romance community. Unlike the previous book, I adored it. This book was a little dark, but I found I enjoyed that about it. I find my tastes are changing lately, and these darker more dramatic, less conventional books are appealing to me more and more. I found it totally engrossing, and quite amazing. The emotional journey and healing after so much tragedy and grief by both hero and heroine was really wonderful. Ahhh the scene where they are re-united was amazing. This is one of those book that will never fade into the woodwork of my mind -- it will stay with me for a very long time.

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

Rating: 3 1/2

She's braved battlefields. She's stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She's played the worldly courtesan, the naïve virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can't outwit...

British spymaster Robert Grey must enter France and bring back the brilliant, beautiful-and dangerous-Fox Cub. His duty is to capture her and her secrets for England. When the two natural enemies are thrown into prison, they forge an uneasy alliance to break free. But their pact is temporary and betrayal seems inevitable as the fates of nations hang in the balance.

Review: I feel pretty guilty about my rating of this book. I know it's been a huge hit in the romance reader community, but I had trouble with this one. First, the good things: it was well written, and very unusual -- never read a book with quite this kind of theme before. There were several parts that I thought were fabulous (on the stagecoach before separating, and when he saves her in England in the ally-- both parts were amazing), but a couple of fabulous portions do not a great book make. The heroine's speech patterns were distracting to me, and I got a little tired of her trying to kill the hero. By later half of the book I was starting to skim (which I hate to do), and I found all the details thrown at me in the conclusion too much too late. I wish we had had all those details doled out over the course of the book. Over all, I found it enjoyable, and since I have the second book on my shelf already I'll go ahead and read it, but I won't be dashing for it anytime soon or likely buying more.