Meet Me in the Margins

Finished December 7

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson

This novel, set in the publishing world follows assistant editor Savannah Cade as she works to survive the changes at the firm she works for and (hopefully) launch a new career as an author. A chance meeting with one of the biggest editors in the romance world, Claire Donovan has gained Savannah an in to get someone to look at her manuscript. But Claire is soon to retire and Savannah hasn't quite finished her book, so with a deadline and a writing demands, Savannah finds herself stretched thin. Add to this, the son of her present CEO coming on board as a problem solver to save her niche firm from going under, and one can sense the stress right away. William Pennington has moved back to Nashville from New York City to take this on, and Savannah finds that she isn't as intimidated by him as she expects, partly because he actually seems interested in her opinions.

Some time ago Savannah found a secret room leading off the book room of her firm, one accessed through a filing cabinet. She goes there when she can to relax and think. When she leaves her manuscript there, she returns to find the first few pages marked up with critical advice. When Claire's response to it echoes some of what those mark-ups said, she finds herself returning to her anonymous editor for help.

As Savannah finds herself conversing on paper with this person, she also finds herself increasingly drawn to William, and is confused by her feelings. 

As always, any book about writing or reading is one that intrigues me, and I found myself hoping Savannah would find both love and a publisher for her book, but I was a bit surprised by how things happened. I found the characters interesting, even the secondary ones like Savannah's cover designer, country song singing friend. Touches of humour only added to the experience. 

A Very Merry Bromance

Finished August 3

A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

I really enjoy this series of couples romance novels. This fifth novel in the series picks up from an encounter at the wedding of the couple in book two. Country music star Colton Wheeler had instant chemistry with immigration lawyer Gretchen Winthrop, but she ghosted him after that. They've both been avoiding each other until Gretchen gets approached by her family to ask Wheeler to be their brand ambassador. Gretchen grew up very wealthy, in the family of a company that has made whiskey going back several generations. But it wasn't a happy upbringing and she is really only close to one member of the family, her Uncle Jack, who doesn't have any kids of his own. 

Gretchen has also been applying for a seat on the board of the charitable foundation that the family runs, and they are now offering that role to her. She has put most of the money she had accessible to her into her legal clinic, where she handles immigration cases. She is very busy and many of her clients don't have much financial resources to pay her, so she does a lot of pro bono work. 

Colton has never gotten over Gretchen and he takes the opportunity of her coming to him to negotiate for a few dates with her while he considers the offer. 

Watching the two spending time together doing seasonal activities is fun, and had me thinking about my own Christmas traditions. There are several references to Dickens' A Christmas Carol in the book that connect some of the themes of need and happiness, a nice touch.

There is also a lot of information on the music business and how it functions that was really interesting to learn. Some I was aware of, but there were complexities beyond what I had known.

This novel, as with many of the others in the series, has the main characters dealing with a past that they've managed to ignore for a long time, but that needs to be faced for them to fully move on with their lives. 

I could hardly put it down. 

Dead as a Door Knocker

Finished May 2

Dead as a Door Knocker by Diane Kelly

This is the first book in a cosy mystery series, A House-Flipper Mystery, set in Nashville with the main character Whitney Whitaker. Whitney is a young woman who works in property management and is working towards getting her real estate license. Because this is a part-time job, she also works as a carpenter for her uncle's company, Whitaker Woodworking. A couple of her cousins also work for her uncle, including Buck, who has a larger role to play in this book. 

Whitney lives in what used to be a pool house in her parents' backyard with her cat Sawdust. 

As the story opens she is evicting a trio of young men from a rental house that the small company, Home & Hearth Realty, she works for manages. They've left the house in poor shape, with lots of garbage, as well as damage to walls and floors. One of the young men, Jackson becomes threatening during the eviction, but the other boys calm him down. 

Once they're gone, Whitney begins dealing with the mess, gathering up the garbage, and figuring out what work needs to be done. When the owner of the house Rick Dunaway stops by, he is dismayed by the damage and asks if Whitney would be interested in buying the house as an investment and taking it off her hands. 

So Whitney, along with her cousin Buck buy the small home and begin fixing it up. However, when things begin going wrong, from a suspicious fire to a dead body in the flower bed, Whitney finds herself dealing with the police. Detective Collin Flynn is brand new to the job and intent on proving himself, but he seems open to Whitney's ideas of who might be behind the actions directed against her. 

Whitney is impulsive and often goes headlong into situations, such as accusing those she suspects by confronting them, and this never seems to go well for her. This was the one part of the story that didn't feel right to me, given the proliferation of guns and related violence in the U.S..

Whitney has a chef friend Collette who we see a lot of in this book as well. 

Interspersed with the story are several short sections written from Sawdust's point of view, At first these were just cute, but gradually they showed their relevance to the overall plot. 

A good start to the series, with several characters I'd expect to see more of as the series progresses. 

Isn't It Bromantic?

Finished September 23

Isn't It Bromantic? by Lyssa Kay Adams

This is the fourth book in this series and we're finally seeing more about a man who appeared in the first novel, Russian hockey player Vlad Konnikov. Then we knew him as a man with a bad gastrointestinal issue and a penchant for cheese. No one wanted to use a bathroom after him, but he was emotive and joined into book club activities with enthusiasm.  

In the third book we caught a glimpse of his beautiful wife Elena Konnikova, a journalism student at an American university and his childhood friend. 

Elena practically grew up with Vlad, after losing her mother at the age of nine and with her journalist father travelling all the time. As they came into adulthood they developed feelings for each other, but had difficulty expressing them.

When Vlad made it into the NHL, he proposed to Elena, partly to get her out of Russia, where she had recently lost her father when he disappeared working on a story about organized crime. She quickly agreed, but when she arrived in the U.S., she decided to take a degree in journalism, following in her family's footsteps, so they didn't spend much time together.

As this story begins, Elena is nearly done her degree and Vlad had just had a bad injury during a game. When his team representative contacts her to come, she goes immediately. She knows how much she owes Vlad, and wants to ensure that he has what he needs, even though the last time she saw him, six months ago, she told him she wanted to end the marriage.

As the two meet again, they are awkward with each other, working at cross purposes, neither of them communicating what is in their hearts.

Vlad, however, has the Bromance Book Club, and they pitch in to remind him of what he has learned in the club, and to help him in a surprise endeavour of his own.

Elena discovers a group of women in Vlad's neighbourhood who he has been using as a sounding board, as well as the group of wives and girlfriends of the Bromance book club, and is reminded of her own lack of close friends outside of her husband. Elena also has a secret project, one that has driven her for years and that she isn't about to let go. 

As both of their projects pull them toward and away from each other, they find themselves opening up to each other in new ways. 

This is another great read in the series, with depth as well as humour. We see familiar characters as well as some new additions and can see other relationships on the horizon. A fun read.

Crazy Stupid Bromance

Finished May 22

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

I've really been enjoying this Nashville-based series. Here, Noah Logan who was introduced in the second book in the series, a tech security expert, is one of the main characters. We learn his back story, and how the loss of his father took him in a direction that was negative at first, but ended up propelling him into his successful career. 

The other main character, Alexis Carlisle, owner of the cat cafe ToeBeans, was mentioned in the first book and had a bigger role in the second book. Here, we also learn her backstory and how growing up the only child of a single mother gave her confidence and an independent spirit, but also made her long for family. Here, she is reconnected with her father's side of the family in an unusual, but meaningful way, and is pushed to take a risk in her romantic life. It was also interesting to see some of the ways her life had changed as a result of the revelations of the previous book. 

As usual, Noah is give a romance book by the members of the Bromance Book Club that they think will give him insight into his current situation and show him how to respect both his friendship with Alexis and his growing feelings for her. 

Again, I liked seeing more of these characters that we had peeks of before, giving us a fuller view of their characters and what brought them to this stage in their lives. I also enjoyed Alexis' cat Beefcake. 

I'll definitely be looking for the next book in the series, due out this summer.

Undercover Bromance

Finished December 19
Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

I enjoyed the first book, The Bromance Book Club, in this series so much when I read it this fall, I put a hold on the second one at my local library, and read it within a couple days of taking it out. 

We could already see the start of this romance at the end of that first one, and it involves one of the single guys that is part of the book club, Braden Mack. Restaurant and bar owner Braden is actually the guy that started the club and we get to look back into his past to see how he developed this interest in romance novels and the purposes of them for this group of male readers. He's been using the books, but not as deeply as he needs to if he wants to have a truly meaningful relationship. And so his date gets across to him after a night at a high end restaurant leads to the end of that relationship, a reconnection with Liv Papandreas, pastry chef and sister of his friend, and a mission to uncover fraud, abuse, and misogyny in their own city of Nashville. 

Liv isn't interested in Braden, and she still holds the time he ate her take-out against him, but he's persistent, and he seems to be able to charm even her feminist landlord. 

I like how these books have humour, depth of plot including some bigger societal issues, and a lot of good, sometimes hot, romance. 

Looking forward to the next one!

The Bromance Book Club

Finished October 10
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

This romance novel has a lot of humour and some pretty graphic scenes. It is the first in a series (as I'm writing this there are four books) that deal with romance and relationships in Nashville. It's different because there is a strong focus on the men's side of things in these relationships.
In this first book in the series professional baseball player Gavin Scott is having a crisis. He fell in love and married quickly when his girlfriend Thea became pregnant, just before he hit the majors. Now it is five years later, and his wife and him have been growing further apart for a variety of reasons. When an intimate encounter enlightens him to the fact that Thea has been faking orgasms for years, he can't deal with it, and reacts badly. Thea is now asking for a divorce and he is panicking. Enter the men's book club (it only gains the name on the cover towards the end of the novel). Some of his team members are in the book club, but so are other professional sports players and men with other high-level profiles in town. They are set on helping him save his marriage, and assign him a Regency romance book as homework. It takes him a while to understand that they are serious and to take the assignment seriously, but he begins to understand that his problems aren't really about the sex, but go much deeper. As he learns to communicate better with his wife and show his caring in ways that she can see, things improve.
The other men aren't shown in depth here, but future novels in the series focus on different men, so each gets his focused look. We also see some parts of the story from Thea's viewpoint and see how her background shaped her and the beliefs she has about relationships.
The intimacy not only of the relationship between these two characters, but of their family life as well brings depth to their story. I could already see one future romance on the horizon for the series too.
A fun read, with a different angle and more depth than at first glance. Looking forward to the next one, and have already put it on hold at my local library.

Crewel Yule

Finished May 15
Crewel Yule by Monica Ferris
This is a nice light mystery, part of a series featuring needlework store owner Betsy Devonshire. Here, the events take place at the Nashville Needlework Market, an event for needlework shop-owners. Here the event is moved from its usual February time slot to mid-December.
One of the shop-owners falls from the ninth floor to the lobby level below, or did she. Present here besides Betsy are here employee Godwin, and a Milwaukee policewoman, Jill. Jill is in town for a police conference, but is stuck at Betsy's hotel due to bad weather.
When the death occurs, Jill takes charge until the local police arrive, and asks for Betsy's help. There is no shortage of people who would want the victim, Belle Hammermill, dead, but Betsy's attention to detail helps them make the connection.
Humour, good mystery plot and interesting location (at least for a stitcher like me!) made for a good read.
This was a Christmas present that I finally got around to reading.