#BookReview: 'The Difference a Day Makes' by Barbara Longley (contemporary romance)

The Difference a Day Makes by Barbara Longley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paranormal romances will probably always be my favorite, but when I need a break from vampires and witches, I like a nice contemporary romance. I really enjoyed Far from Perfect, the first book in the "Love From the Heartland" series because it was simply a sweet romance (with some heat) between two very, very stubborn people. I enjoyed the hero of that novel, Noah, the wounded veteran.

This second novel follows Noah's sister, Paige, who's bummed out after losing her first job. She shows up in Perfect, Indiana, at the same time as one of Noah's "rehabilitation projects," the emotionally fragile veteran Ryan Malloy. It's hard to say which is the more stubborn couple: Noah and Ceejay from the first book or Paige and Ryan.

Paige has a dream she wants to follow - taking over the family business - and it takes her a long, long time to figure out how Ryan could fit into her life plan. (But this is a romance novel, so you know they'll find a way. It's no fun if we don't get our happily-ever-after.)

I hate to say it (because my to-read list is already so long), but I think Barbara Longley has added herself to my "auto-buy this author's latest" list. She writes sexy, believable heroes and relatable heroines, and I enjoy the Midwest U.S.A. setting.

Barbara Longley knows she has my number, too. She sent me a friend request on GoodReads, along with a note saying that when she wraps up the Love From the Midwest trilogy with A Change of Heart, set to be published in October 2013, her next series will be paranormal. She calls it a time travel/historical trilogy with faeries! She, too, likes to switch back and forth between paranormal and contemporary romance. All the more reason to appreciate her.

View all my reviews at GoodReads


Currently reading:

Master by Colette Gale

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

Disclosure: I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program and was obligated to review it for Amazon in return. It represents my own honest opinion.

#Reading Updates: 'Lover At Last' and 'The Difference A Day Makes'

I'm currently reading two books. Last night I started Lover At Last by J.R. Ward.

My mom just finished it Saturday night, and I got it from her at breakfast on Sunday morning. I was at her house Saturday afternoon playing with my nieces. (We took them to the the comic book store for Free Comic Book Day.) While the girls and I were at the park, my mom said something about the book to my husband. Here's his summary of that conversation:

"Your mom's upset because the queers don't get together in this book."

I'm only 60 pages in, but I swear to the Scribe Virgin, Blay and Qhuinn had BETTER get together by the end of this book. But, if possible, I'd not like anything bad to happen to Saxton. I want Qhuay, but not if Blay is free because Saxton is dead or something. My heart will break.

I can never read only one book at a time, though. I'm also reading The Difference a Day Makes by Barbara Longley. I fear Barbara Longley may have added herself to my auto-buy author list. (Isn't it long enough already? But Charlaine Harris will be crossed off once I read the last Sookie Stackhouse novel - out tomorrow. I've never gotten into her other series.)

I already have a beef with this cover art, though. The hero, Ryan Malloy, is described as blond, with long and rather shaggy hair. I'm picturing Josh Holloway.

Photo by Kristin Dos Santos, Creative Commons license

Blond. Not dark-haired, but blond. Also, the heroine, Paige Langford (sister of Noah Langford, the yummy one-legged hero from the previous book, Far From Perfect) is described as curvy. Ryan's physical attraction to Paige is based in large part on her soft, generous curves. The svelte woman on the cover is attractive, but could hardly be described as curvy.

Cover beef aside, so far, it's a perfectly good contemporary romance set in my home state of Indiana. I'm about 60 pages into this one also, but it's about 230 pages shorter than Lover at Last.

I Need Another Book Like I Need A Hole in the Head, But...

I wasn't going to buy any more books for a while. In May, the Amazon Vine program is changing; currently, you have to write reviews of 80% of the items you've ordered to get another two items, but in May it'll be 100%. That means by the third Thursday in May, I'll have to have read three books:

Hemingway's Girl by Erika Robuck - I'm currently on page 25, and I've got to say the heroine, Mariella, is pretty hard not to love.

The Difference a Day Makes (Perfect, Indiana: Book Two) by Barbara Longley, the sequel to Far From Perfect

The Watcher in the Shadows by Chris Moriarty, the sequel to The Inquisitor's Apprentice

...so I'll be busy reading these, and also Covet by J.R. Ward. This is the second time I've tried to read her non-Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and I just couldn't get into it. It's actually pretty good - the main character, Jim Heron, seems to be a building contractor but actually has secret assassin skills gained from covert military ops. He's like Mr. Reese on Person of Interest, but instead of a reclusive billionaire boss he's now working for mysterious supernatural beings. His first "number" is Vin diPietro, a real estate mogul who, against his wishes, is also a medium who gets flashes of when people are going to die. In seven books, Jim will battle the seven deadly sins, starting with attempting to save Vin from greed.

Covet will also hold me over until I get my hands on the book I really want, Ward's Lover at Last. I'm gonna need Qhuinn and Blaylock to get their HEA - finally. (Sidenote: Thanks to this vampire/goddess article on SecretSun.blogspot.com, I remembered that the bisexual vampire played by Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger was named Miriam Blaylock. Did J.R. Ward name her gay vampire character after Miriam?)

So my reading dance card was quite booked already when I read "The Smuttiest Fanfiction Stories Starring Highbrow Literary Characters" by Emily Temple. #8 on the list is Mitzi Szereto's Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts. #6 was the one that really got my attention, though:

"An Erotic Novel of the Count of Monte Cristo." Apparently it takes place after the end of the Dumas novel, and is about the Count and Mercedes - not the Count and Haydee. What happens to Haydee? I hope she doesn't make good on her statement that she'll die if the Count leaves her. I don't think it would be possible to exaggerate how badly I need to know what happens in this book - so I ordered it from Better World Books.

I read The Count of Monte Cristo in January. I desperately wanted the book to be longer. I read an abridged version, but even so, the ending left too many questions unanswered. Burning with questions, I read the modern sequel The Sultan of Monte Cristo by "Holy Ghost Writer." It was poorly written and unsatisfying for a huge number of reasons.

So please, Colette Gale, do not disappoint me.

Colette Gale sounds like a false name to me. Not just because Colette is a beautiful pen name in reference to the wonderful hell-raising 20th century French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette who was known professionally only by her last name. (I learned the cooking term aspic from one of her short stories - but I digress.) Also because "Henry Gale" is the false name that Ben Linus initially gives the survivors on Lost - the name of Dorothy Gale's Kansas-bound uncle to go along with his Ozian tale of arriving on the island via hot air balloon. If the name "Colette Gale" is in tribute to both a beloved, prolific French author and the beloved, prolific U.S. author L. Frank Baum, then I expect a high quality of very imaginative and sensual work.

Oh, and as a nod to the title of this post, I now present for your amusement (I hope) "Call Me a Hole," a musical mash-up of the vocals from Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole" and the melody of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."