Today’s Steals and Deals at AAR…..
This is TWO previously published anthologies, The Lady Most Likely and The Lady Most Willing. We liked both!
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
Readers and AAR love this Sound of Music inspired romance. In our DIK review, we wrote:
Miss Samantha Pendregast has just been let go from her umpteenth position as governess. This former pickpocket was taken off the streets of London and given the Eliza Doolittle treatment by Adorna, Lady Bucknell (a character I’d adored in Rules of Surrender), who runs the Distinguished Academy of Governesses. Given her difficult past, however, she has a tough time handling the injustices she encounters in her positions and is always let go without a good reference. In her last position, for instance, she could not countenance the mistreatment of her charge by his influential father and so informed the gentleman’s wife about the existence of a mistress, and convinced the mistress to leave the gentleman. It wasn’t bad enough she was fired and given a black eye, the gentleman is spreading false rumors about her that Adorna will counter by spreading some false rumors of her own. But in the meantime, Samantha must leave London and is assigned as governess for Colonel William Gregory’s six hellion daughters. The law-and-order widower seeks to run a tight ship, and though he loves his daughters, hasn’t a clue how to handle them, particularly since most of their governesses last but a few days.
Samantha’s first meeting with Colonel Gregory does not go particularly well and the two are predisposed to dislike one another. Samantha’s got a smart mouth, and street-smarts as well. While all of this comes in handy when dealing with the Colonel’s devilish daughters, it doesn’t make a good impression on the Colonel. And his black-or-white morality doesn’t sit well with Samantha, who realized the hard way that the world is filled with shades of gray.
Though it’s an uphill battle, it becomes apparent early on that Samantha and William are made for each other. She’s strong enough to tell him off when he needs telling off, and beneath it all, he’s got the wit to keep her on her toes. The book features a beautiful sort of symmetry in the episodes involving these two. One scene early on – involving Samantha, William, and his daughters, a bridge, and a ton of mud – tells the tale. The girls are out to “get” Samantha, who manages to teach them a lesson instead. And William, bothered that Samantha hasn’t kept the girls on his planned schedule, gets a bit of the devil in him, then gets his own comeuppance from Samantha. All is right with the world.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
I very much enjoyed Sophie Jordan’s gritty contemporary romance series, Devil’s Rock. We liked this one–you can read our review here. We said:
The Devil’s Rock series deals with inmates of the federal prison system or their family members on the outside, and is now on its fifth instalment. Each can be read as a standalone romance though there are connections between the characters across the different books. In the previous novel, Beautiful Lawman, Piper Walsh and Sheriff Hale Walters got their happy ending, but we also found out that Piper’s brother Cruz was innocent of the crime for which he’d gone to jail. In Beautiful Sinner, Cruz is out of jail and trying to find his way in a community of people still wary of his innocence, when he meets up with Gabriella Rossi, home for what she hopes will be a brief stay. It’s a second chance for a couple who secretly crushed on each other in high school and now have the opportunity to make their feelings into something real….
Beautiful Sinner is a small town redemption romance with likable characters who deserve their happy ever after.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
We didn’t review this recent release by Mary Jo Putney, but readers praise it highly. Here’s the blurb:
A countess turned servant . . .
Forced to escape the French Revolution, resilient young Comtesse Marie-Christine D’Estelle flees to London. But when she finds herself unexpectedly penniless, Christa hides her aristocratic background to become a lady’s maid. . . . Until rebuffing advances from both her tyrannical mistress’s husband and her lover gets Christa cast into the street—directly into a hero’s arms . . .
A Royal Navy commander . . .
After a long absence, Captain Lord Alexander Kingsley has returned to England on medical leave. Now head of his family, he must take charge of his younger siblings. He feels a special duty to his sister Annabelle, a shy debutante in need of a maid. So Alex is delighted to discover that the intriguing, outspoken, and lovely young woman who serendipitously landed in his arms is in need of just such a position . . .
The heart of a household . . .
With her warmth, charm, and surprisingly refined intellect, Christa soon wins the hearts of all the Kingsleys—especially Alex. And while their mutual attraction deepens to something more, the gap in their social stations seems an impossible obstacle. Only when Alex and Annabelle become the targets of fortune hunters, will the truth about Christa have a chance to be revealed. But will it mean a chance for true love to triumph?
It’s on sale for 2.99 here.