The Stasticial Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

 236 pgs/2012

What if you missed your flight by only a few minutes? And then you met a cute English boy and ended up sitting next to him on the plane? And what if you had a connection and couldn't say goodbye? Do you believe in fate? Over the next 24 hours, fate will play into Hadley's life in ways she never could have expected. Do you believe in love at first sight?

13 Little Blue Envelopes

by Maureen Johnson, 319 pages

The death of Ginny's aunt sends her on the ultimate journey to discover herself when she receives thirteen little blue envelopes. Inside are instructions and funding for an amazing jaunt around Europe as Ginny struggles to figure out why her aunt would go to such trouble to plan this elaborate scheme during her final weeks of life. Ginny meets interesting characters, has a number of firsts, and learns that she is capable of much more than she ever believed. The mystery is only slightly solved by story's end, paving away for the sequel.

Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

2011/387 pages

Another one of Phillips' quirky southern charmers. This is part of the Wynette Texas series, but I jumped in midstream with this one. Phillips is one author who can always make me laugh.

After ruining her best friend Lucy's wedding to the town's favorite son, Meg finds herself stranded in Wynette without funds or transportation. She is forced to take menial, dirty jobs or face jail time for her unpaid motel bill. Phillips goes a bit far in arranging this scenario, which seems a little flimsy at times. However, her characters never fail to charm and amuse her readers. She has an ear for sharp dialogue so her books are especially fun to "read" on audio.

I had a bit of a hard time buying into the romance between Meg and her tormentor, Ted, but I was curious enough about Meg's predicament to hang on until the end. Remind me to never run out of gas and money in a tiny Texas town!

Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles

2011/308pgs

About the Book: Luis Fuentes has always been the brother who is expected to be good and not get into trouble. He has ambitions to become an astronaut and his life has been about sheltering him from the gang violence his brothers grew up so he can achieve his dreams. But Luis has a side that makes him want to take risks, and there's no greater risk than Nikki Cruz.

Nikki Cruz has been hurt by guys in the past and she's not about to trust a guy like Luis-a guy she knows will only end up breaking her heart. Nikki has secrets that make her keep her guard up, but will Luis be able to break them down?

When Luis discovers secrets about his family, he has a choice to make. Will Nikki be enough to save him from a dangerous life?

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: Oh, those Fuentes brothers-they are so hot, how can you not love them all??:) Chain Reaction is another exciting entry into the Perfect Chemistry series, this time telling the story of the youngest brother, Luis. Chain Reaction is a great conclusion to the Perfect Chemistry series and has everything readers will be looking for. Steamy romance-check. Cute crushworthy boy-check. Some drama and surprises to keep readers guessing-check. Couple you want to see make it-check.

Where Alex and Carlos has bad boy streaks, Luis is more cocky and confident, but more of a good guy. He's trying hard not to get involved with the Latino Blood and is trying to stay out of trouble. Nikki isn't so much a bad girl, but instead a girl with secrets that provide her a reason to guard herself from guys. She doesn't want to fall again and get hurt. She's more independent than bad girl, but both Luis and Nikki have their "bad" streaks which makes their romance pretty steamy!

I wish we would have gotten to see their relationship develop more. I felt like in the previous two books, we really got to see the characters fall for each other and spend time getting to know each other. Luis and Nikki have that too, but we don't get to witness it as much-instead we're told about all the time they're spending together and witness they're very hot and heavy make out sessions. I felt like they spent a lot of time making out and that there connection was more physical than in the other books. The times that we do get to see them getting to know each other are sweet and I can see how they would fall for each other. I just would have liked to spend more time with them as that happened.

A treat for fans of the first two books is that we get to see Alex and Brittnay, Carlos and Kiara. I loved revisiting these characters and catching up with them and I'm sure any reader who enjoyed the first two will love these scenes.

There are some surprises in this book which added to the drama. I understood Luis and Nikki's motives, but most of the time I wanted them to stop being so dumb and tell them to just talk to each other already! They really liked making each other miserable and pushing each other away and then pulling back in. They have a lot of give and take which can be a bit frustrating. Serious, why wouldn't they just talk to each already??

While this is the conclusion to the series, the epilogues in each book I think leave it open for us to revisit the Fuentes family again in the future. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll hear the kids stories next? I also felt that while Chain Reaction is part of a series, it could be read alone and the author does a nice job filling in details readers may need to know from previous books. Another great read full of drama and romance-hand this one to your romance readers who like their books with a bit of spice.

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

2011/338 pgs

Never did I think I'd fall in love with a boy named Cricket, but sigh..Cricket is pretty awesome! This is a companion to Anna and the French Kiss, so we get some glimpses of Anna and St Clair, but if readers haven't read the first book, this one stands on it's own.

I was a bit annoyed that Lola had a boyfriend-why do all of Stephanie Perkins characters have to be in a relationship? But without it, we wouldn't have much conflict I guess. It made it worse because in the beginning I kind of liked Max. I did like how it gave Lola something to work through and be conflicted over and her emotions felt real. I also really liked that she didn't immediately go for Cricket-she's a smart one that Lola!:) This is a nice coming of age story and romance that left me sighing in delight. More from Stephanie Perkins please!!

Juliet

by Anne Fortier, 447 pages

This is another bi-level story, one contemporary and the other historical, set in Renaissance Italy. A young American woman inherits a mystery but nothing else when her aunt dies. Yet the mystery supposedly leads to a hidden treasure somewhere in Italy. With nothing left to lose, Julie soon finds herself tracking down clues in the beautiful city of Siena. Her mother had been obsessed with the story of Romeo and Juliet, so Julie (named after Shakespeare's heroine, get it?) discovers that the Bard had it all wrong. The real Romeo and Juliet tragedy played out among the ancient families of Siena, not in Verona.

The historical part of the tale tells the "true" story of Juliet and her Romeo. Soon there are intimations that Julie's bloodline also goes back to old Siena. Hints of brooding enemies, modern and ancient, shadow Julie while she searches through Siena and her familial history. Is there really a treasure...will Julie live long enough to claim it....and what about Julie's evil twin?!

This reminded me of the romantic suspense written by authors like Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt. I enjoyed reading about old Siena and the lesser known aspects of the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. What was kind of interesting for me was that so much of the play is embedded in my psyche that I didn't have to look up quotes or background. It's all back in the dustier parts of the old memory banks. With the exception of some obvious plot twists, I did enjoy the book, especially the historical parts. Over all, worth giving it a go.

Black Bird: Volume 8

by Kanoko Sakurakoji, 190 pages

Crow-demon Kyo decides the only way to protect himself, and his future with human lover Misao, from dogged exorcist Raiko is to wipe the young man's childhood memories of the demon attack that scarred both his body and his psyche. Misao, hating the idea of manipulating someone else the way she once was by Kyo's scheming brother, nevertheless goes along with the plan, although she asks Kyo to try every diplomatic avenue possible first. She just has to convince Raiko to trust them to negotiate in good faith. But can she trust him?

I've the same problems with this volume as I've had all along. Misao is a personality-less non-entity who generally goes along with whatever her man says, believing wholeheartedly in the melodrama. Kyo is a possessive cold fish who doesn't seem to care all that much about anything, his own life included, despite his manly 'tude. At least in this volume he admits to himself that his instinct is to live, whatever the consequences. The romantic tension finally gets dealt with, but by this time the reader's interest has waned a bit and she just wants to know how it all plays out with the prophecies everyone's been fretting about since book one. I like the whole tengu angle, but I don't think it gets used to its full potential--although this volume does a little better with it than have others. And as nice as the art is, I think it doesn't quite work for this kind of fantasy melodrama and would be better suited for a more mundane, realistic story.

It only just occurred to me that Misao and Kyo are rather Bella- and Edward-like in their personalities and in their relationship to one another: she's a human, he's a dangerous creature with sharp pointy bits (talons in this case); she's weepy-spineless, he's moody-broody; she wants to take it to the next level, he won't out of concern for her. He's even got a close-knit "family" who begrudgingly takes her in even as it's under perpetual assault from rival clans wanting to move in on its territory. Maybe those similarities are one reason I get so annoyed with these books? And yet, as with Twilight, I read them anyway. *sigh*

What I Did for Love

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, 401 pages

Georgie York hasn't been able to catch a break in forever. Eight years ago, her popular family-oriented sit-com Skip and Scooter was cancelled due to her co-star's reckless train wreck of a personal life, and Georgie's starred in nothing but a string of romantic comedy flops since. A year ago, her popular action-star husband left her for another actress, lied to the press that it was because she didn't want children when in reality she desperately does, and is now expecting a baby with his beautiful, globe-trotting, humanitarian cause-obsessed new wife. The paparazzi will not leave Georgie alone and the effort of always putting on her chipper, can-do Scooter face for the public is wearing her down and taking its toll. When she finally tries to give herself a vacation by sneaking off to Vegas with some friends, things only go from bad to worse, as who should she get stuck with but the hated (and hateful) Bram Shephard, the Skip to her Scooter, the reprobate who ruined both their careers, broke her heart, and just woke up beside her...as her new husband...?!

Phillips again writes a romance with some meat on it. These characters have a complicated, detailed back history and an equally complicated present, and watching them get over the former in order to deal with and move beyond the latter is interesting and entertaining. The dialogue is fun, the drama believable, and the characters likeable (once the reader gets over some of that complicated back history, too). The resolution is hokey and too perfect, but I find that to be a common issue with the genre and it works fine here. The echoes of real-life celebrity gossip (Branjelina, Jennifer Aniston, Charlie Sheen) just make the book that much funnier and more "realistic", however over-the-top the personalities and the plot, perhaps because we can all relate to the gossip pages (if not the lives of the ones fueling them). I still have my grumbles and eye-rolls, but the story nevertheless kept my non-romance reader interest from first page to last.

Black Bird: Volume 7

by Kanoko Sakurakoji, 190 pages

Misao and Kyo are together but they aren't "together"--yet. Not that they wouldn't like to be. But there's the small matter of Kyo being a tengu, a type of winged demon, with some major clan responsibilities hanging over his head, and the fact that Misao is the prophesized "Senka Maiden" whom every other demon in the area would like to consume in order to gain immortality and the upper hand over their rivals. The couple have survived conspiracies from other demon clans and from Kyo's own brother, but now there's a new threat to their lives as well as their love: a very human yet powerful exorcist who believes all demons are evil things to be eliminated and whom Kyo cannot harm (due to his being a not-evil, though admittedly cranky and sadistic, demon).

This series is fun-ish, but it's rather light on the qualities that encourage real reader investment. Misao is a besotted weakling and almost completely dependent on the protection of her lover, Kyo, who is himself a bit too much the mean-and-detached-but-actually-nice-with-emphasis-on-the-detached romantic lead to be all together likeable. The will-they-or-won't-they tug of war is wearing a little thin by this volume, as well, but I don't think there's much left to the series, so they can't drag things out much further. There are moments when elements work really well--as when in an earlier volume Kyo unhappily executes another charismatic demon he knows will otherwise only attack his beloved again--but there aren't enough of them to make the whole consistently satisfying. I like the story concept just fine, but the end result is a little lackluster. Still, I'll be waiting to see how they overcome this latest, and very nearly last, obstacle to happily-ever-after (I'm assuming it's going in that direction, but I've been wrong before...).

Ain't She Sweet?

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, 383 pages

Four years after swearing she'd left it behind forever, former spoiled little rich girl Sugar Beth Carey returns to her hometown, where she is given anything but a warm welcome. The animosity, the reader learns, is deserved, but the woman on the receiving end isn't the person she once was. Will she be able to make amends and find acceptance, or will her past crimes remain unforgiven and spoil her future, as well?

Romance is not my genre of choice (although I do read a lot of books with romance as a theme), so my experience with it is pretty limited. I like a little more realism and messiness to my fictional relationships than is standard for the romance formula, and in that regard Phillips delivers. While the characters are still paragons of one sort or another, it's more a case of the two in the principal relationship seeing each other that way than of their actually being "perfect". They say and do awful, thoughtless, yet understandable things, realize and regret them, and then set about fixing what's broken, resulting in some believable emotional drama. Also, Phillips is funny and arms her characters with smart-aleck remarks and amusingly human foibles. They may be prone to "more" (money, gumption, good looks, luck) than your average real human being, but they carry it well enough (and with enough stumbling on the way) to make you not worry about the disconnect too much. And while the happy conclusion may wrap up a little too nicely, isn't that kinda what you read a romance-romance for?