Thirty-Day Fiancé

Olivia Polnecek is a twenty-six year old college freshman who seems to like stripping naked in front of her open window to apply oil after her showers. When her apartment catches on fire one evening, she is rescued by her sexy neighbour, Nick Nolan. Nick is a member of the Bad Boys Club which we met in The You-Can't-Make-Me-Bride. He also happens to be Olivia's childhood saviour who sustained a broken nose protecting her and her barbie dolls from her bullying brother, Butch. Nick suggests Olivia move in with him until she can find a new place to stay. One day a society reporter decides to announce in a newspaper that Nick and Olivia are engaged.

The way Nick and Olivia handle the erroneous engagement announcement is simply ludicrous. For some reason, Nick decides that they must now pretend to be madly in love with each other and engaged to each other for a month before they can pretend to break up. I tried not to think too deeply about this and just accept it in the spirit of enjoying a trashy romance, but I really couldn't understand why Olivia feels pressured to act like she loves him in public. If they're going to break up in a month's time, it would actually make more sense for them to be a little cool with each other. Anyway, they obviously end up falling in love and into bed, even though Olivia was determined not to get involved with anyone for her first semester of college and Nick is a confirmed bachelor. Nick suggests they continue with their current living arrangement and fake engagement for longer than the thirty days, to which Olivia realises that she is in love with him and must therefore behave in the typical non-sensical romance heroine way by packing her bags and running away whilst Nick is at work. This sort of thing just annoys me. She doesn't try to talk to Nick. She doesn't give him any chance at all to respond to her feelings. Olivia just packs her bags with no warning and leaves a pathetic terse note on the kitchen table. This wasn't a bad book, but I don't like characters who make absolutely no effort to fight for their love. Nick's a nice enough guy but I just couldn't make myself like Olivia.

The You-Can't-Make-Me Bride

Jenna Anderson has sacrificed her personal life for her career and is now the assistant commonwealth attorney. After breaking her ankle in a basketball match, she is treated at the hospital by the hot Dr. Stanley Michaels who just happens to be the bully who tormented her in school. Actually, they were friends until he had a growth spurt and decided teasing the girls was more fun than playing with them.

This is the final book in the How to Catch a Princess series. It's not bad, but neither this or the previous one, The Troublemaker Bride, lived up to the standard set in the first novel, The Five-Minute Bride.

Stan has always gone for casual relationships with bimbos. The death of a close friend made him re-evalutate his life, and he has returned to his hometown looking for more to life than he's had. Jenna has been too focused on her career to have much time for men, and tells herself that if she gets one it will be someone she can control, which of course Stan isn't. The truth is, she has always been fairly self-conscious and insecure about her body which is only compounded when she attends a function with Stan only to hear that no one expects the relationship to last since she is so different from his usual "fluffy women". Nevertheless they persevere with their relationship and all looks good until Stan's birthday. Jenna organises a surprise party for him at his apartment. Just before he arrives, a sexy blonde emerges from his bedroom wearing nothing but a silky robe, having obviously just woken up. Turns out she is one of Stan's exes who has breezed into town to look him up uninvited. Jenna believes Stan when he tells her this, but it unfortunately brings up all of her old insecurities.

I found the explanations for the blonde a bit lacking. If Stan didn't invite her, how did she know where he lives and more importantly, how did she get into the apartment? I doubt she snuck in unnoticed with the rest of the guests and went to his bedroom, undressed and went to bed. I guess details like this don't bother some readers, but I find they really disrupt the story flow. This isn't a bad novel, but like it's predecessor it's really nothing special.

The Troublemaker Bride

After years of being in a relationship with her never there musician boyfriend/fiancé, Maddie Palmer finds herself single and pregnant. Stuck in a traffic jam while in labour, Maddie leaves her car to try and find some other way to the hospital. She spots a truck with a motorbike in the back, and her water breaks while she is asking the driver to take her to the hospital. The truck/motorbike owner happens to be studly single dad, Joshua Blackwell, who coincidentally owns a horse stud farm. Anyway, he gets her to hospital on time and is with her through the birth of her son David.

This is the second novel of the How to Catch a Princess series and is quite different from the previous one, The Five-Minute Bride. Joshua is a calm, stoic farmer, and his and Maddie's relationship progresses sweetly along with no major dramas until the fateful day when he comments to her how great it is that she doesn't want to get married. Huh? Where did that come from? I guess he assumes it since she was content to be in a long-term relationship with her previous guy without getting married and doesn't seem too bitter about being a single mother. Nevertheless, it's bizarre and totally out of the blue for Joshua to say something like that, and it gives the impression that it was solely done to provide conflict to the story line. Joshua hasn't been in a relationship since his wife, Gail, died 12 years ago; he's been concentrating on being a good single dad. There's never any indication that he never wants to marry again now that he's involved with Maddie. Maddie of course freaks out at Joshua saying he doesn't want to marry, because she doesn't want to settle for any thing less again. Naturally all is sorted out eventually and they get married to live happily ever after. This was a nice book (even with the stiff formulaic "conflict") but nothing special.

The Five Minute Bride

Emily St. Clair has live her life doing what others have expected of her. When she finds out just prior to her wedding that her fiancé has another girlfriend/mistress, she leaves him at the altar and drives away. She ends up in Ruxton, North Carolina: a small town where nobody knows her. For the first time, Emily finds herself free from expectations and takes this opportunity to find herself. She also finds Beau Ramsey, the studly bachelor sheriff of said town.

This is the first book of the How to Catch a Princess series and is just plain fun. Both Emily and Beau are wary of trusting Emily's feelings as she was just about to marry someone else. Is this just a rebound thing? Will she eventually want to move back to the excitement of the big(ger) city? (She's from Roanoke which is not exactly big city.) Beau has three elder sisters who are constantly trying to "improve" him. I guess all this loving interference has put him off long-term relationships with women. So far he has preferred casual sex and currently has "an arrangement" with local business woman Donna who has been around the block a few times. He's stunned when Emily makes it clear that she doesn't feel the need to change him or his home.

There were a couple of things I did find somewhat odd. Emily shows up in town in her wedding dress after having just run out on her own wedding. When Beau's sister sees it her, she immediately recognises the dress as a Dior. Okay, I guess these small town ladies could be more sophisticated than I'd expect and happen to really know their fashion. No way would I recognise a Dior wedding dress just by sight (yes, I'd probably realise it was a high quality designer/couture dress, but I wouldn't know which designer). Anyway, these fashion conscious women are then not sophisticated enough to understand that Emily doesn't want to wear the dress again at her next wedding; they're totally shocked by it. Now I get that it's beautiful and extremely expensive, but really, what woman would want to get married in the same dress she wore to her previous failed wedding where she was jilted? Granted, Emily wasn't actually the one left standing at the altar, but still... And then there's the whole Donna thing. Beau doesn't have "relations" with Donna after meeting Emily, but not for lack of trying. Donna wants him, he doesn't want her though, which he finds frustrating because he wants to want her. It's not an unusual scenario, but I didn't like it. While Beau is making moves on Joanna, he also wants to (want to) sleep with Donna. As for Donna, she is fairly aggressive about wanting Beau and tells Joanna that she wants to keep their "arrangement".

Putting aside my small complaints, this book was just a joyful romp. The dialogue is fun and I found myself smiling through most of it. For example, when Emily was getting married to Mr. Sleaze, when the time came for her to say, "I do," she instead says, "I don't believe I will. Thank you very much." Loved it. I'm looking forward to the rest of this series if this is any indication of what they'll be like.

Expecting the Boss's Baby

Kate Adams has worked as Michael Hawkins' assistant for 3 years. 2 1/2 months ago they gave had a night of loving, followed by a morning of regret and back-pedalling on Michael's part. Kate discovers she is pregnant and tries to find out Michael's feelings for her by telling him that she has fallen for him (without informing him of the pregnancy). He tells her he doesn't believe in love, so she quits her job and leaves. Michael eventually guesses that Kate may be pregnant, so he confronts her and she admits it. He never had a father, and his mother died when he was 6 years old, leaving him to be raised in foster care and an orphanage. Naturally, he feels strongly about illegitimate children and single mothers, and is determined to marry Kate and give her and their child financial security and his name.

I didn't really like Kate very much. I understand that she doesn't want Michael to marry her just because she is pregnant, but she really is stuck in her romantic idylls. Once she learns of his childhood, she acknowledges that he doesn't really understand how a family should behave, but she doesn't do much about helping him. I can't help but think she would have been miserable even if she had a "normal" courtship and marriage. She expects Michael to know what she wants without telling him, even though she knows he has never experienced the type of family life she expects. Even if she had married someone with a strong family background, they wouldn't have "just known" what she wants - everyone's family is different. Oh, and the trite marital advice her parents give them on their wedding day. "You have to give 110%." Yes, yes, we all know that. It was just so cheesy and pointless.

Talking about cheese... 3 weeks before her due date date, Kate decides to climb up a ladder to hang Christmas decorations. It's not an emergency. It's not even that she's alone and has no one else to climb the ladder. Now, most women I know at that stage of pregnancy have enough trouble getting off a sofa, let alone climbing ladders. Of course, this is all done so that she will fall and end up rushed to hospital, and Michael will be shocked into realising how empty his life would be without her, and admitting that he loves her and their baby. Cheese alert! He has demonstrated over and over how much he cares. He has already admitted to himself (even before he found out about the pregnancy) that Kate is his best friend, and that he doesn't want to lose her. There must have been a more elegant way to resolve their feelings for each other.

Oh and the whole pregnancy thing. Kate really seems to spend her first trimester, if not the whole pregnancy, in denial about it. She doesn't want to tell Michael. She doesn't want her parents to know. She doesn't want his friends to know. Um, I think everyone kinda figured it out, honey.

Ok, ok, I know I'm giving the impression that I didn't like this book very much, but it was actually all right. This is the problem with most category romances - they just don't bear much scrutiny. It was a nice light read and an easy way to pass the time, but certainly not a book I'd be returning to time and again.