Sarah Title’s Practice Makes Perfect is a sexy comfort read. We gave it a B+.

Helen Lee is a college librarian by day and a frustrated erotic romance writer by night. She has just received her latest rejection letter. Admittedly, this one’s more encouraging, noting that much of her book is good and that she has a strong voice. However, the editor also notes that when the hero and heroine take off their clothes the book gets boring; not good for an erotic romance. The editor suggests Helen either spice up the book or tone it down and resubmit it as a sweet romance. Sweet romance? The horror! Helen’s determined to write erotic romances.

Helen briefly toys with writing dog mysteries, while cuddling with her two beloved shelter dogs, but quickly gets focused again on erotic romances. Surely a smart woman who spends her days helping faculty research a variety of topics can research erotic scenes.

Henry Beckham – a history professor at the college and one of Helen’s best friends – knows something’s bothering Helen. Normally she is the loudest person in a room and lately she’s been quiet, and Henry plans to find out why. But Helen hasn’t told any of her colleagues about her romance novel; she has enough trouble being taken seriously since she’s not a “professor.” She’d never get tenure if her romance writing was revealed, which is why she’s horrified when Henry catches evidence of some of her erotic research.

When Helen tells Henry about her writing and describes the “boring sex scenes” comment, she’s shocked at Henry’s response. Rather than being horrified, Henry offers to help her do real world research. Yes, you’ve got it, the man thought of as geeky and “prematurely old” by his colleagues and students (primarily because he wears bow ties) wants to act out erotic scenes with Helen to help spice up her writing. Sound silly? Definitely. Improbable? Perhaps. But mostly, this is just a lot of fun!

You can get it here for 1.99.

Caz gave Roommate by Sarina Bowen a B+. Her review is here.

Kieran Shipley works two jobs – three, if you could the work he does around his family’s farm – one of which is at his cousin Audrey’s café.  He’s run ragged; his brother Kyle doesn’t really pull his weight around the farm, even though it’s his full-time employment and he actually gets paid to work there, and Kieran is dissatisfied in his other job at a local design firm, sticking with it because it’s the only way he can utilise the artistic skills his father derides, and because he’s saving up until he’s got enough money to be able to afford to rent a place of his own.  He loves his family, but they put a lot on his shoulders and take him for granted, and he wants and needs the space to be able to branch out on his own… and maybe he can finally start to explore his sexuality and start living life on his own terms.

Roderick is probably the only person who knows the secret Kieran has been keeping for years. When he enters the coffee shop, Kieran is immediately on edge, worried that Roderick is going to let something slip – but he doesn’t.  He’s just chatty and charming and funny… and a fantastic baker.  Dammit.  Roderick is soon a permanent fixture in the kitchen, preparing a mouth-watering selection of baked goods for the café, and Kieran tries his best to have as little to do with him as possible.

But that changes when, on one really cold, miserable night, Kieran finds Roderick sleeping in his car.  He makes a snap decision and offers the other man a room in the place he’s just rented.  He needs a roommate anyway to help with the costs, so it might as well be someone he already knows. Roddy is surprised, as he’d thought Kieran didn’t like him, but he’s not going to turn the offer down, and over the ensuing weeks, the guys become friends, buying stuff for the house and hanging out together, and Roderick gives Kieran cooking lessons, the undercurrent of attraction running between them making for a delicious slow burn.

Kieran eventually confesses to Roderick that he’s attracted to men but has never been able to act on that attraction, and lets Roddy know that he’d like to be more than friends. And even though Roderick knows it’s a bad idea (he just spent three years in a relationship with a closeted guy and had vowed never to do it again), he can’t deny the temptation Kieran presents and decides to risk it.  Soon they’re cooking up a storm (sorry – couldn’t resist it!) between the sheets – but it’s not long before the real world intrudes on the bubble of coupledom they’ve created behind closed doors… and they have to make some serious decisions about what they truly want.

Roderick and Kieran are complete opposites – shy, introspective Kieran a nice contrast to the outgoing, unfiltered (and “gay AF”) Roderick – but they’re likeable and well-drawn, and they have terrific chemistry.  I especially liked that Kieran’s reluctance to come out wasn’t so much that he was afraid of people’s reactions as that he just didn’t think it was anyone’s business but his own.  (There’s a deeper reason too, but – no spoilers!)

It’s 0.99 at Amazon here.

Love the movie The Mummy? Connie Brockway’s The Other Guy’s Bride is for you. (Our review is here.)

As I read Ms. Brockway’s much anticipated The Other Guy’s Bride, I was reminded of one of my favorite featherweight films, the 1999 romantic comedy caper “The Mummy.” The novel, like that delirious movie, stars a strong willed, smart tongued English lass and a sexy, cynical swashbuckler traveling together across early 20th century Egypt, escaping bad guys, outracing sand storms and, of course, falling in love. If you like your romances over the top, filled with danger, passion, and adventure, you will adore The Other Guy’s Bride.

Genisse Braxton hails from a world renowned archaeology-oriented family. Her father, Harry Braxton, is the most successful locator of tombs in Egypt; her mother Desdemona (Dizzy) Braxton is a famous and excessively brilliant linguist. Genisse’s six younger brothers too are making names for themselves in the antiquities world: The eldest of the six is an expert in embalming techniques and 18 year old Francis is a whiz at spotting — and making — forged artifacts. Genisse longs to join, even surpass, her family’s ranks. After studying ancient history at Cambridge (Ms. Brockway acknowledges she took several liberties with history; one is that Cambridge, in the early 20th century, admitted women and had a program in ancient history), Genisse becomes a glorified clerk to handsome Professor Lord Tynesborough, the youngest distinguished professor in the history of the college. One day she stumbles across an ancient bill of lading that convinces her the fabled lost city of Zerzura exists deep in the western Sahara. After doing months of surreptitious research under the watchful eye of Tynesborough, she decides to take hold of her fate. She boards a boat bound for Cairo — the city where her family lives and she grew up — determined to find Zerzura.

Genisse has two problems. One, she hasn’t any money for such a trek. Two, she can’t travel to Zerzura on her own and no one in Egypt would dare take Harry Braxton’s daughter on such a perilous journey. She is presented with the perfect solution to her quandaries, however, in mild-mannered Mildred Whimpelhall, the wildly seasick woman traveling in the cabin next to Genisse’s. Mildred is ultimately headed to Fort Gordon, an English garrison not thirty miles from where Genisse believes Zerzura lies, to join her fiancé Colonel Lord Pomfrey. Pomfrey has arranged for Mildred, once she arrives in Cairo, to be escorted across the desert by a man he describes as a “yellow-haired American cowboy… a ruffian of the highest order” named James Owens. Genisse convinces Mildred to travel the rest of the way to Cairo by non-nausea inducing train, uses henna to dye her brown hair a revolting red, and assumes meek Mildred’s identity.

The only thing James Owens loathes more than Colonel Lord Pomfrey is the debt he owes the man for saving James’s life seven years ago. James, known across Egypt and Northern Africa as a deadly soldier of fortune, has agreed to escort Mildred Whimpelhall across the Sahara in order to discharge his debt. As he waits at the crowded Misr train station in Cairo, ruing the fact he has to spend the next weeks with a proper English spinster, he runs into one of the few people he calls a friend, Haji Elkamal. The urbane and educated Haji, whose aunt is the wonderful Magi from As You Desire, has been sent to pick up Ginesse, with whom he has a long and combative history. (The two grew up together and battled constantly. Haji in a sense won when he managed to get Ginny blamed for burning a cache of ancient papyrus and subsequently sent away to British boarding school.) Ginny/Mildred alights from the train and encounters both men. Jim thinks, despite her astonishingly hideous coiffure, she’s gorgeous; Haji, thrown off by the red hair and dark glasses she’s donned, doesn’t recognize her. The encounter is perfectly done and damn funny. Ginny pretends to mistake Haji for a common servant and treats him like a dog. Haji, believing Ginny is the English born and bred Mildred, curses the rude Miss Whimpelhall to Jim in Arabic which Ginny speaks but doesn’t acknowledge knowing. Jim acts the part of the rough, uncouth buckaroo — no one will be surprised to learn that Jim Owens is more than what he seems to be — while cracking up at Ginny/Mildred’s xenophobic insults to Haji. Ms. Brockway is a very amusing writer; scene after scene in this book reduced me to helpless giggles.

It’s 1.99 at Amazon here.

A lot of AAR readers adore M/M romance–Off Balance by Jay Hogan is an excellent one. (Our rave review is here.)

In Off Balance, the first book in her new series of contemporary romances, author Jay Hogan takes a big geographical leap from one end of New Zealand to the other, from the lakes and mountains of the Southland (the setting for her recent Southern Lights books) to the coastal region of subtropical Northland at the northern tip of the North Island, and the small town of Painted Bay. It’s an emotional, powerful story about two very different men who end up back in their home town following tragedy and heartbreak, and how they learn to come to terms with the past and move forward with their lives while also working out how – and if – they can manage to do that together.

Judah Madden got out of Painted Bay as soon as he possibly could, having spent sixteen years never fitting in because he was too flamboyant, too gay and too unwilling to be anything other than who and what he was.  His ticket out was his talent as a dancer; his parents supported him both morally and financially, and helped him to follow his dreams of making it as a ballet dancer, and when we meet him, he’s twenty-five and has already made himself a name as a world-class performer.  But his world comes tumbling down when – during a performance – he has a severe dizzy spell which causes him to fall and then pass out.  Shortly after this, he is diagnosed with Menière’s Disease – a chronic illness which affects the inner ear, causing (among other things) vertigo, tinnitus and potentially, hearing loss.  It’s a condition for which there is no cure.

With no alternative left open to him, Judah returns to Painted Bay to lick his wounds and try to work out what to do next.  The Menière’s means his future employment prospects are severely limited – he can’t drive, he can’t operate machinery – and in any case, the only thing he’s ever trained for, the only thing he’s ever been good at is ballet… which is no longer an option.

Around five years before this, another man whose life had been devastated by tragedy arrived in Painted Bay, needing to get away from the suffocating concern of his family while he worked through his grief.  Fisheries officer Morgan Wipene lost his wife Sally to a particularly aggressive form of cancer, and it hit him hard, but over the years, he’s learned to process his grief and accept her loss, and while he still feels her absence at times, it’s a gentle comfort rather than a searing pain.   After five years, he’s ready to move on; he’s always known he’s bisexual, but has mostly been with women, and had certainly reckoned without being knocked sideways by a gorgeous, smart-mouthed, but obviously deeply wounded (and much younger) man who is not coping well with whatever has brought him back to Painted Bay.

The sparks fly between Judah and Morgan from their very first meeting, and the pull between them only grows stronger as they find out more about each other.  Both men are at difficult places in their lives and know that trying to fit in a new relationship is almost certainly a recipe for disaster, yet the attraction between them is so strong, the chemistry so intense that they also both recognise that they’re not going to be able to keep their hands off each other for very long.  Their mutual attraction builds quickly, which happens often in this author’s novels, but she always takes the time to develop a strong emotional connection as well, so that what starts out looking a bit like insta-lust (and sometimes the mental lusting is just a tad overdone) grows organically into something deeper.

It’s free here.

Looking for a strong historical romance with angst? Claire Delacroix’s The Beauty is for you. We gave it a B+.

In Claire Delacroix’s latest offering, The Beauty, we find both a wounded hero and a wounded heroine whose experiences have shaped them into bitter, frightened people. Jacqueline De Crevy has been frightened of men ever since she was almost raped by her former fiancé. She is a beautiful woman who is tired of men not seeing past her looks to the person inside. Because of this, she has decided, against the wishes of her mother and stepfather, to become a nun. She insists that this is the one way for her to use her gifts in a positive way and that this is a higher calling. On her way to the convent, Angus MacGillivary and his cohort, Rodney, attack her and her guards. Angus means to kidnap Jacqueline and hold her for ransom for the wrong he feels has been done to him.

Angus went off to fight in the Crusades and has come home to find all of his family dead and Ardfinnan, his holding, supposedly held by his family’s enemy Cormac MacQuarrie. When he kidnaps Jacqueline, he believes that she is Cormac’s daughter Mhairi. What he doesn’t realize is that both Cormac and Mhairi are dead and that he has kidnapped the current laird’s stepdaughter. Angus had some very traumatic experiences while fighting the Crusades. He was imprisoned, tortured, and lost an eye. All that got him through was thinking about coming home, but when he did, he found he had nothing to come home to. He is certainly bitter, but not evil. Jacqueline is frightened of him and tries to run away from him, hurting herself in the process. Although Angus is angry, he never treats her cruelly.

As Jacqueline learns more about Angus, not from the man himself but from a wise woman named Edanna, she comes to realize he is a man on a noble mission. Angus doesn’t want money; he wants Ardfinnan back as it is his home and his due. While Jacqueline doesn’t believe her stepfather knows anything about Angus’ home, she wants to help him. Soon, she comes to see that not all men are like her former fiancé, Reynaud. Despite himself, Angus is also drawn to her. From the beginning, it’s made clear that although he finds her beautiful, Angus is not just interested in her pretty face; he is drawn to her soul and to her personality. There are a number of touching scenes in the book, but one that stands out occurs when Angus is having a nightmare – he takes hold of Jacqueline’s hair and is immediately calmed. To him she is all sunlight and what is good in the world. These two share a bond far beyond basic attraction.

It, too is free. You can get it here.

You can see all our current deals at our Amazon storefront here.

As an Amazon Affiliate, we earn a very small percentage of whatever you buy using our links. And remember, we get a percentage of EVERYTHING in your cart when you’ve begun your shopping with our links. That tiny sliver of money is what enables us to stay on line, so please, visit our links and click through to Amazon. Thanks!