#TNReads: Real Quick Reviews for Lazy Readers featuring Tessa Dare

Tessa Dare can always be counted on to bring the humor and the heat to Regency Romance. She’s back in top form with The Governess Game, book two in the Girl Meets Duke series.

Chase Reynaud is a reluctant heir to a dukedom, and an even more reluctant guardian to precocious orphaned sisters. His rule in life is to avoid emotional attachments like the plague, so he’s desperate for a governess to care for the girls so he can focus on building his ManCave of Carnality (no really. Mirror over the bed and everything). Alexandra Mountbatten is not a governess, but a timekeeper. That is, a timekeeper whose very expensive chronometer currently rests on the bottom of the Thames. Out of desperation she takes the job, and has her work cut out for her, both with her unruly young charges and her hot, rakish employer. Sparks fly like the 4th of July as these two spectacularly fail to resist each other.

This was a super cute story, and laugh-out-loud funny. Perfect read for flights, laying on the beach, or curled up on the couch ignoring housework and day drinking (this girl right here).

Calla Fletcher lost her job and broke up with her boyfriend all in one day, so when an opportunity arises to visit her estranged dad, whom she hasn’t spoken to in 12 years or seen in 24, the timing makes sense. All she knows about the man who fathered her is that her mom loved him completely but that life in Alaska was too isolating for her to handle. He chose to stay with his first love, piloting bush planes, when her mom took her back to Toronto as a toddler. Maybe this will be the chance she needs to start over and move on from that childhood rejection.

Unfortunately, nothing in her city-living life could prepare her for what it’s like to live in the Alaskan frontier where wifi is spotty and soy milk is sparse. (She has a milk allergy, give her a break). But, despite all that, none of the hardships of life on the frontier, or the emotional trauma of meeting her father again, can compare to the whirlwind maverick pilot, Jonah brings to her life.

He hates her on sight and the feeling is mutual. Or is it?

The Simple Wild is a story about the families we are born with and the ones we make by choice. Its funny, heartbreaking, heart pounding, and hot as hell. I can’t remember the last time I liked a book this much.

Jamie McGuire writes some sexy stuff. Her Beautiful series was something I picked up randomly at a book sale and then couldn’t put down until I finished the series. If you’re a fan and you’re looking for more books like Beautiful or The Maddox Brothers series…this might not be the book for you. It’s marketed as adult romance, but it is very much YA – not a sex scene to be found.

But Catherine and Elliot’s relationship is sweet, and if you like a good plot twist, this book is right up your alley. I spent the entire middle of the book trying to figure out the twist and boy was I wrong. Thank god for creative writers. This is one book where I don’t want to give any plot away so just read it!

Amani lives on the moon Cadiz, and her planetary system is under the repressive occupation of the Vathek people. On the evening of her coming of age celebration, she is kidnapped by the Vath and taken to the capitol planet Andala. She learns that she is an almost identical match to the Crown Princess Maram, and will be trained to be her body double in public. Maram is half Vathek, half Andalaan, and hated by both. Cruel and despotic like her Vathek father, Maram’s life is threatened by the rebels that still attempt to throw of Vathek rule. Amani must learn to impersonate Maram perfectly or her family will face the consequences of her failure.

As Amani is pulled deeper in Maram’s dangerous world, she grows to understand the princess better, and develops a doomed attraction to Maram’s fiance Idris. Pulled into a rebel plot, Amani must decide how best to serve her people; using her influence to soften Maram’s heart…or getting rid of her altogether.

This was a fast, engaging, and interesting read, and the underline commentary on colonization and native suppression was on point. I highly recommend it and have high hopes for the rest of the series.