Books I'm Looking Forward To

Ellen's relationship to Andy doesn't just seem perfect on the surface, it really is perfect. She loves his family, and everything about him, including that he brings out the best in her. That is, until Ellen unexpectedly runs into Leo. The one who got away. The one who brought out the worst in her. The one she can't forget. This is the story about why we chose to love the ones we love, and why we just can't forget the ones who aren't right for us.

I really liked Something Borrowed, Emily Giffin's first book but I've been disappointed with the two books that followed, especially Something Blue, the sequel to Something Borrowed. However, I read the first chapter on-line at Emily Giffin's web-site and I'm excited to read this one.

Tantalizing words written on an ivory card. It is the first clue that will lead an intrigued and intriguing London lady on an odyssey of sensual experience designed to awaken her romantic nature.

Out-of-work actor Hughie Venables-Smythe has found a profitable new outlet for his talents. He is hired, often by distraught husbands, to flirt with wives who are feeling neglected in their relationships. His current seductive campaign is focused on Olivia, the spouse of a narcissistic billionaire, and the lady is responding quite nicely to the cream-colored missives he secretly leaves for her. So nicely, in fact, that Hughie decides to employ a similar technique—and shockingly similar messages—in his pursuit of his own heart’s desire: the aloof and charming lingerie designer, Leticia. But the canny, professional flirt’s brazen anonymous intrusions into the lives of two women are about to set in motion a series of remarkable events that no one could have anticipated—setting the stage for shocking revelations about love, friendship, and domestic bliss.

Doesn't that sound delicious? And the cover is divine. In fact all the cover art for Kathleen Tessaro's books have been simply fabu. I have a confession to make, I'm six degrees of seperation from Kathleen Tessaro. I attended the British American Drama Academy in London with an actress named Katherine Kjellgren who later roomed with Kathleen. And I knew her first husband who was also at BADA with me. So I feel I must read her books, plus they are really good.

When a woman is ripe for the picking . . .
Beth Cordova's life is no fairy tale. Having barely escaped the evil grasp of her wicked stepmother, this “missing princess” seeks refuge in a strict commune where carnal pleasures are forbidden.
Sometimes just one bite of the apple . . .
Her world is lonely and void of intimacy, until the charming Stephen Trent arrives at the commune. Suddenly Beth yearns for a man's touch, the feel of his lips on hers . . . and Stephen is eager to show this pure-as-snow princess that she can still be the sensual woman she was once upon a time. Is all it takes to unleash her desires... But all is not what it seems, and the stunning beauty finds herself again in danger, her stepmother hot on her trail. The commune's founders will not tolerate the pair, yet fleeing its walls could prove fatal. Trapped in a world where passion is outlawed, can Beth live happily ever after?

I really like Cathy Yardley's Harlequin Blaze books and the two books she wrote for Red Dress Ink. I'm interested to see how that translates into romantica or erotic romance as it were.

And last but not least from Meg Cabot, the sequel to the Queen of Babble in the Big City, and the Queen of Babble.

It's the wedding of the century!
Things are looking up at last for Lizzie Nichols. She has a career she loves in the field of her choice (wedding gown restoration), and the love of her life, Jean-Luc, has finally proposed. Life's become a dizzying whirl of wedding gown fittings—not necessarily her own—as Lizzie prepares for her dream wedding at her fiancé's château in the south of France.

But the dream soon becomes a nightmare as the best man—whom Lizzie might once have accidentally slept with . . . no, really, just slept—announces his total lack of support for the couple, a sentiment the maid of honor happens to second; Lizzie's Midwestern family can't understand why she doesn't want to have her wedding in the family backyard; her future, oh-so-proper French in-laws seem to be slowly trying to lure the groom away from medical school and back into investment banking; and Lizzie finds herself wondering if her Prince Charming really is as charming as she once believed.

Is Lizzie really ready to embrace her new role as wife and mistress of Château Mirac? Or is she destined to fall into another man's arms . . . and into the trap of becoming a Bad Girl instead?

What summer books are you looking forward to?