The Games We Play. Alexandra Warren. 2018. 247 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Chance is only back in his hometown for a brief stint to help his mom remodel what everyone calls her trap house.  The best laid plans often go awry, though, and things get complicated almost immediately.  Londyn is the younger sister of Eric, Chance’s best friend. What they both thought would be a one-time, discreet hook-up, turns into something they both struggle to ignore.   Chance and Londyn have chemistry. They definitely have physical compatibility that sparks flames. But their personalities hit it off, sometimes to a fault. The Games We Play found a good balance of telling the story from both perspectives.  Too often, romance tells a story from just the woman’s perspective, leaving gaps in the plot as well as preventing the reader from connecting fully with the characters. Here, however, you’re able to better understand both Chance and Londyn, including their motivations and hesitations in dealing with each other.  To be fair, there’s enough at play to keep them from dealing with each other seriously.

Unforgettable. Delaney Diamond. 2014. Garden Avenue Press. 174 pages. [Source: Public library]. “This isn’t a forever thing. It’s just a for now thing. I have plans.” These are the words that Lucas Baylor shared with socialite Ivy Johnson in the midst of a short-lived, but hot-as-fire affair nearly a decade earlier.  In that time, he has skyrocketed to fame as a self-professed permanent bachelor who makes a living giving relationship advice to misguided women through his books.  While he enjoys the company of women, he knows better than to settle down with one. Ivy Johnson is the one woman who gets under Lucas’ skin. They had a summer fling nine years earlier that stuck with him for all the wrong reasons.  When a chance re-meeting brings them into each other’s worlds for a short period, he’s ready to pick up where they physically left off, but his early words to her come back to haunt him. Ivy is guarded and unwilling to allow Lucas to get too close to her or her nine-year-old daughter.

  Anonymous Acts. Christina C. Jones. 2017. 364 pages. [Source:Kindle Unlimited.] ​As always, I devoured a great new book from CCJ. I had been reading samples leading up to its release, but was still pleasantly surprised with the plot twists and turns of Anonymous Acts. The book focuses in Monica Stuart’s legal woes, both for her once-thriving cosmetics company and for herself, as she faces murder charges in the death of her estranged husband. As much control as she exerts over the quality of her nail polishes, she can’t figure out why she’s getting nothing but bad reviews for her upcoming “Wicked Widow” line. This is followed, coincidentally, by the vicious murder of her philandering husband, leaving people to guess whether she took her new product line a little too literally. To make matters worse, her virtual friend with benefits, whom she’s never met, is arrested on suspicion of the murder.

Haunted. Christina C. Jones. 2015. Warm Hues Creative. 175 pages.  [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Don’t tell CCJ this, but I danced around Haunted for over a year because I could not wrap my head around how she could possibly write a paranormal romance that I would enjoy.  I devoured everything else she wrote with no question, but just couldn’t motivate myself to touch this one.  It wasn’t until she had a holiday special that I decided to give it a go … Now, I’m mad at myself. I could have enjoyed Haunted so long ago!  This is both a credit to the author for being versatile and to the story itself.  I literally could not put this down – I’m talking standing in the checkout line at the grocery store to figure out what happened next! Khalida is content with her career managing a nightclub inside a trendy hotel.  She’s successful in her role and has the enduring love of her younger sister.  But something’s been off around her, and what started as the odd reflection of a man’s eyes in her windows at night are instead the start of her journey in unveiling of the truth about her identity.  The mysterious man whose presence she…

Prudence. Michele Kimbrough. 2014. 356 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Prudence, I’m pleased to say, was a more substantial book than I was expecting. From its description, I figured I’d read a largely predictable, yet entertaining story about a woman who falls in love with her long-time friend while trying to comfort him through their mutual grief. That is, at best, an oversimplification of the story; it’s honestly a mischaracterization.  It’s more akin to a reawakening, wherein the main character has to reconcile her vision of her life with the reality of her truth.  Admittedly, I had to reread the book synopsis to check my own assumptions. Maybe I misread it.  That’s not the case, but I actually enjoyed this “catfish” moment.  The result was a book that constantly kept me interested and needing to figure out what secret was going to pop out next. The book is centered on Prudence Payne. She’s a disgraced up-and-(was)coming attorney who is in a long-term relationship with a married man whose wife is well aware. She’s still reeling from the death of her best friend to cancer. She’s not even on speaking terms with her mother, and her father’s never been in her life.  She’s…