At Last by Jill Shalvis

Grade: B+

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Shalvis,


At Last is the fifth book you’ve written set in the small Washington State coastal town of Lucky Harbor. I’ve read all five and, as I began this one, I wondered if the charms of that happy hamlet might finally begin to pale for me. They did not. In fact, in At Last, Lucky Harbor is an extraordinary place to live—everyone there seems to have enough money to live safely, health care is available to all, and, even though there are only two places to go out to eat, the Love Shack bar and grill and the Eat Me diner, both are always full of droll, satisfied, convivial customers. There’s no racial tension (or, for that matter, real diversity), law enforcement is wonderfully tolerant of petty crimes, and everyone, whether they ask for it or not, becomes part of a caring, connected community.


 Although At Last is the fifth book set in Lucky Harbor, it’s the second in a trilogy about three women—Mallory, Amy, and Grace, the Chocoholics—who bonded in the first book, Lucky in Love. Both At Last and Lucky in Love feature ex-military hunks with the bodies of gods and aversions to commitment. The hero of this book, Matt, might be the biggest catch on the planet—so much so that I had a bit of hard time believing he was single… or real. He’s gorgeous, generous, great in bed and, in every way, one of the good guys. Matt—or Ranger Hot Buns as he is known on Lucky Harbor’s infamous Facebook page—been lusting after Amy for six months, ever since the day she rolled into town.


 Amy has rolled in and out of many towns since she ran away from home—escaping a lecherous step-father—when she was sixteen. She came to Lucky Harbor deliberately.

Nearly five decades ago now, her grandma had spent a summer in Lucky Harbor, the small Washington coastal town Amy could catch glimpses of from some of the switchbacks on the trail. Rose’s summer adventure had been Amy’s bedtime stories growing up, the only bright spot in an otherwise shitty childhood. 


Now Amy was grown up— relatively speaking— and looking for what her grandma had claimed to find all those years ago— hope, peace, heart. It seemed silly and elusive, but the truth was sitting in her gut— Amy wanted those things, needed them so desperately it hurt. 

 Amy’s created a nice life for herself in Lucky Harbor. She’s a waitress at the Eat Me diner, has two true friends, lives in a tiny but safe apartment, and has plenty of time to pursue her true passion: drawing. She doesn’t have a man in her life, but that’s fine by her—her past experiences with that sex have left her skittish and uninterested in romantic or sexual entanglements. Uninterested, that is, in all men but Matt Bowers. 

There was a sort of . . . crackling in the air between them, and it wasn’t a bird or insect or frigging elk call either.


It was sexual tension. It’d been a long time, a real long time, since she’d allowed herself to acknowledge such a thing, and it surprised the hell out of her. She knew men, all of them. She’d been there, done that, bought and returned the t-shirt. She knew that beneath a guy’s chosen veneer, whatever that may be— nice guy, funny guy, sexy guy, whatever— lay their true colors, just lying in wait. 


But she’d been watching Matt for months now, and he was always . . . Matt. Amused, tense, tired, it didn’t seem to matter, he remained his cool, calm, even-keeled self. Nothing got to him. She had to admit, that confused her. He confused her.

 Amy’s kept Matt at arm’s length and he, sure she’d shut him down and out if he made a move, has let her do so. But then, one day, Amy gets lost in Matt’s territory—she, using her grandmother’s fifty year old journal, is trying to retrace the journey her grandmother made all those years ago. As night closes in, Amy calls Mallory for help and Mallory calls Matt who is more than willing to go after Amy. The two end up spending the night together, eating beef jerky and marshmallows, talking about their pasts, and sharing one combustible kiss. That night changes things between them and slowly, slowly, Amy begins to let Matt into her life. 
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Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt

Grade:	B-
Sensuality:	Hot

Thief of Shadows is the fourth book in Ms. Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series. Three of the books, including this one, feature siblings who run the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children in the London slum of St. Giles. The hero of this book, Winter Makepeace, is by day a grave, severe man soberly devoted to running the Home. At night, however, Winter dons a harlequin’s costume and patrols the roads and roofs of the slums, saving innocents from all matter of evil. One night, after freeing the pirate Mickey (hero of Scandalous Desires), Winter is fighting an angry mob for his life when he is suddenly rescued by Lady Isabella Beckinhall. Thief of Shadows is the tale of their decidedly implausible love.


Isabella is well-acquainted with Winter Makepeace but has no idea, even after she takes off every inch of his clothes (except for a thin black scarf covering the top half of his head) that he's the Ghost of St. Giles. Winter is the dull, rather infuriating man who runs the Home of which she is a major Patroness. (She undresses him, after rescuing him and taking him back to her home, in order to tend to a bad wound he has on his leg.) Winter asks her not to unmask him and, after she’s ogled his hard, ridged muscled body and his “cock thick and long, even at rest, his bollocks heavy,” flirted with him, and had him reject her advances, she sews up his leg and lets him escape.


Three days later, as Winter attends to the children at the Home, Isabella appears with a proposition for Mr. Makepeace. Isabella and several other wealthy women of the ton have essentially taken on financial responsibility for the Home. Their coterie, the Lady’s Syndicate, has done great good for the home —their benevolence enabled the orphanage to move into a much larger, better built building — and the women plan to continue their improvements. In order to do so, however, they plan to raise money from others of their class. And there are those in the Syndicate — chiefly the very wealthy and very shallow Lady Penelope Chadwicke, the daughter of the Earl of Brightmore — who do not feel that Winter is up to the task of mingling with his betters. Lady Penelope and her supporters believe the Home would be better served by a far more refined manager. Not all in the Syndicate agree with Penelope however, and a compromise is worked out. Rather than fire Mr. Makepeace, one of the Syndicate will give Winter social etiquette lessons. Given that Isabella is both a widow and known far and wide for her “full understanding of polite society and its intricacies,” she is chosen to be Winter’s social tutor.


Winter declines her offer, rudely and emphatically, and walks out on Isabella. It is not until several days later, when she comes to tell him Penelope is actively interviewing others for his job, he agrees to put himself under her tutelage. The two begin to socialize together, but their outings keep being interrupted by Winter’s need to rush out and be the Ghost of St. Giles. Someone is snatching little girls off the streets and saving them is even more important to Winter than saving his place at the Home.


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Scandal Wears Satin by Loretta Chase

Grade: B

passion rating: hot

Can a beautiful, conniving, brilliant French dressmaker find true love with a gorgeous, straight-forward, not so bright English Earl? In Ms. Chase’s latest, Scandal Wears Satin, the second in her Dressmakers series, the answer is a resounding and yet unbelievable yes. The novel, written with Ms. Chase’s usual verve and humor, tells the story of Sophy Noirot and Harry, the Earl of Longmore. It's a steamy, exceedingly enjoyable read. It reads like a fairy tale written for grown-ups: Whimsical, unpredictable, and fantastical. In the proverbial real world, there’s no way these two lovers would find their happy ending, but in this giddy novel they do. Readers willing to suspend disbelief will enjoy this book tremendously; those who like their fiction grounded in gritty reality will not.

The two were introduced in the first novel in the series, Silk for Seduction. In that book, Harry’s best friend, the Duke of Clevedon, marries Sophy’s sister, Marcelline, rather than Harry’s younger sister Clara. Their wedding causes all sorts of trouble for the Noirot sisters and their dress shop, Maison Noirot. For starters, Clara’s mother now loathes the Noirots with a snooty passion. Furthermore, the ton, shocked by a modiste stealing one of their own, shuns Maison Noirot. The shop is on the verge of collapse and Sophy and her younger sister Leonie, unwilling to live off their brother-in-law’s largesse, are terrified. They have one — and only one — customer from the upper echelons of society: Lady Clara, Harry’s sister. Clara, quite content to not be married to Clevedon, has become friends with the Noirot sisters and, despite her mother’s ire, continues to frequent their shop.

When Clara is very publically compromised by the worthless — in more ways than one — Lord Adderly and is forced to become engaged to the cad, Harry is ready to kill the man. Sophy, however, persuades him to calm down. She assures him, despite having no idea how she will accomplish this, that she and her sisters will “un-ruin” Clara and save her from marriage to the mendacious Lord Adderly. But when Clara’s mother insists the wedding will take place in a matter of weeks, Clara runs away, and it is up to Harry, accompanied by Sophy, to fetch her back.


Sophy is a wonderful heroine. She’s smart and capable — she never stops thinking, analyzing each and every situation and character she encounters. She’s an actress of extraordinary talents — she continually dons new personas and outfits, and with each change, she becomes whoever she needs to be at that moment. It’s great fun to watch Sophy bamboozle pretty much everyone and even greater fun to watch her unable to do the same to Harry. Harry may not be as smart as Sophy but he views the world very clearly, and no matter what scheme Sophy is running, Harry always sees the Sophy behind the act. This ability of Harry’s makes him — along with his overt sensuality — irresistible to Sophie.


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By His Desire by Kate Grey

Grade: B

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Grey,

I don’t have a clue who you are. Your book By His Desire is currently the third best-selling erotica and the twenty-eighth best selling contemporary on Amazon’s eBook list; it appears to be the first book you’ve published. By His Desire, currently going for 99¢, is actually a novella, and is worth every penny. In fact, I’d say it’s a steal. It’s my favorite erotica I've read this year. Your book is a winning combination of sex, sweetness, and bite. By His Desire is a lovely, deceptively elegant book. So, whomever you are, well done. And, please, keep writing!

I loved the setup of this tale. Keith Logan has, his whole life, been good-looking, smart, and obscenely rich. He breezed through high school as the coolest, hottest guy in class. Every girl wanted to be his, every guy wanted to be him. The only person Keith couldn’t get was, of course, the only one he really wanted: Sarah Harper. She shied away from him every time he approached her.  Ten years after graduation, he still can’t stop thinking about her, so when her portrait, painted by her famous artist dad, comes up to auction, Keith drops a million bucks, and goes every day to stare at it as it hangs in MOMA for one last month-long showing.

The portrait had been painted by her father, the famous artist, and he had captured his subject perfectly. Sarah had looked exactly like this in high school. Beautiful and intelligent, with a face like eager flame behind a veneer of shyness.
He’d never been able to break through that shyness. All his life, his money and good looks had been enough to charm everyone he’d ever met…except for Sarah. She was the only girl who’d ever haunted his dreams, and he’d never made a dent in her reserve. During the four years they’d gone to high school together he could hardly get her to talk to him, much less go out with him.

One night, as the museum is closing, Keith turns to leave and sees, standing in the middle of the gallery, the literal girl of his dreams. For her part, Sarah is completely freaked out to see Keith.

Sarah’s body flushed hot, as though she’d stepped under a heat lamp. Keith Logan was standing just a few yards away. She recognized him immediately, even though it had been ten years since she last saw him.
Her first instinct was to run and hide, as if she were a little girl instead of a grown woman. Her eyes actually went to the exits, as if she were planning her getaway.
Then she took a deep breath. What was she thinking? She needed to pull herself together and go say hello.
And she would. Any second now.
Move, feet. Move.
If she’d been prepared to see him, she would have taken the time to put on emotional layers of protection—enough to cultivate a polite, relaxed demeanor and a friendly smile. But as it was, she felt awkward and exposed, as if she were back in high school again with a secret crush on the most unattainable guy on the planet.
Her palms were actually sweating.

There’s just something about the hottest guy secretly jonesing for the shy nerdy girl that works for me every time. Keith, whose sassy assistant has just told him to for God’s sake do something that would actually make him happy, decides Sarah is going out to dinner with him come hell or high water. He hustles her out of MOMA before she can muster a good reason to say no, and finally finally gets the date with her he’s always wanted... which she seems ready to escape from as soon as she can. That shyness Keith thought was a choice of Sarah’s in high school is actually a serious social anxiety disorder and while she’s made great strides with the help of a good therapist over the past few years, she’s still acutely uneasy around most people. She’s especially unnerved by Keith whom she’s always longed for and whom she’s always believed thinks she’s a dolt.

Keith is determined to somehow connect to Sarah and so he asks her why she sold her portrait. Sarah, more animated than he’s ever seen her, tells him her father who had Alzheimer’s, left his entire estate to her step-mother. Sarah says she’d never have sold the piece, it means the world to her, but her stepmother apparently values cash over compassion. When Sarah tells him this, Keith gets an idea. Rather like the Grinch, he gets an awful idea.

“Sarah.”
She glanced up at him, admiring the way the candlelight drew out a gleam in his blue eyes. In this light they looked almost navy.
“Yes?”
“What if I told you there was a way you could have that painting?”
For a moment she just stared at him. What could he possibly...
Oh, no.
“If you’re thinking about giving it to me, just forget it. There’s no way, and I mean none, that I would let you do that. I didn’t tell you all that stuff about my family to make you feel sorry for me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
She sounded almost fierce when she made that little speech, and Keith raised his eyebrows.
“I wasn’t thinking that. And I’m not planning on giving you the portrait. Far from it.”
She frowned. “I can’t afford to pay you a million, and selling it to me for what I could afford—maybe ten thousand, if I’m lucky—would be the same as giving it to me for free. I’m not your charity case, Keith.”
He leaned forward across the table towards her. “The museum has the portrait for one more week. When the week is up, I’ll have the painting delivered to you. I’ll transfer ownership to you legally. It will be yours.”
“I told you, Keith, I—”
“Don’t you want to hear my price before you reject it?”
She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Fine.”
“In exchange, for one week, you’ll live with me in my house. During the day, you can do whatever you want. There’s a gym, an indoor pool, a library, a home theater. There’s a study where you can write, and I have a chef who’ll cook you anything you want to eat. But at night...” he paused for a moment. “At night, you have to do whatever I want.”

After a moment of utter shock, Sarah says yes and Keith, after a moment of utter shock, says he’ll send a car for her the next afternoon.  If this were a story of a young woman being blackmailed into sex, I wouldn’t be hollering its praises. But it’s not. Sarah says yes because she’s always wanted Keith and been too terrified to ever even talk to him. For her, to be in his bed, where he’s in charge and she doesn't have to do a thing, is the perfect way for her to finally be with the guy of her dreams. And while Keith may be—and boy does this work for Sarah—in charge at night, Sarah, freed by the wildness Keith unleashes in her in bed, realizes she can, during the day, push their relationship into something more than just super hot, slightly kinky sex.

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An Heir of Deception by Beverley Kendall

Grade: B

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Kendall,

It was a foregone conclusion I’d read An Heir of Deception, your latest entry into The Elusive Lords series. I’ve read the first two and novella and while neither the second book nor the novella rocked my socks like your second novel A Taste of Desire, I’ve had fun reading them all. The heroes are gorgeous, dominant males with more self-confidence than Tony Stark, and are golden gods in bed. The women who love them are beautiful, smart mouthed, and able to orgasm on a single thrust. The course of their loves never runs smooth, the sex is always magnificent, and the happy endings plausible.  I liked An Heir of Deception—although the protagonists Charlotte and Alex aren’t quite as sizzling as Amelia and Thomas (the leads in A Taste of Desire—I needed a fan while I read that book!)—and found it a good addition to the series.

Charlotte Rutherford has loved Alex Hastings from the moment she first saw him, when she was sixteen and he was twenty-six. He resisted her charms for years until, finally, when she turned eighteen, he seduced her, and fell as deeply in love with her as she was with him.  The two were to be married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a lavish ceremony but, as Alex arrived at the church, Charlotte was nowhere to be found. Her brother James, Alex’s best friend, told him Charlotte fled, leaving James a note:

“She wrote to beg my forgiveness for any scandal or shame her actions may bring upon the family but…says she can’t marry you.”

Alex is wrecked, ruined, destroyed, and hung up to dry when Charlotte leaves. He spends the next three years of his life a step away from total self-destruction. He knows, from a letter she sent him and from what he hears from her family, she’s settled in America. It’s only a near death experience—he fell into the Thames while soused and caught a near-killing fever—that knocks some sanity into him. He quits drinking, devotes himself to his estates, and vows to never let anyone near his heart again.

Then, at the beginning of An Heir of Deception, five years after she left him brideless at St. Paul’s, Charlotte returns… and she’s not alone. With her is her son, Nicholas, whom Alex takes one look at and knows without a doubt the child is his. (Nicholas apparently is the spitting image of Alex’s deceased older brother Charles.) Alex is consumed with rage. He can barely contain his anger at Charlotte—not only did she destroy his life, she stole his son’s early years from him. He vows to punish her and to claim Nicholas as his own.

Charlotte returned only because she was told, erroneously, her twin sister, Catherine, was on the brink of death. Charlotte is shocked to learn not only is Catherine in the pink, but Alex now lives in the manor next door and, the very day Charlotte arrives, is in the house picking up some papers for James. Charlotte can barely breathe when she sees Alex again.

Charlotte stood frozen, ensnared as deftly and completely as a rabbit in the presence of a rattler preparing to strike. She watched as he proceeded down the seemingly endless corridor toward her.

Senses starved for the flesh-and-blood man greedily tried to take him in all at once, hoarding away every minute detail to take back with her to feed the lonely nights when dreams and memories were all she’d have…and yet still not enough.

Save the measured fall of his footsteps, silence reigned with a parasitic presence that made speech a novelty and breathing a luxury. Charlotte could do nothing but wait in statue-like stillness while her heart picked up its pace. To even blink would have created too much noise.

Charlotte still pines for Alex like Buttercup pined for Wesley, but, when he actually appears, she’s completely unprepared for him to instantly see though her “it’s some other guy’s kid” tale. Realizing she has to come to some sort of terms with Alex over Nicholas, she seeks Alex out–he’s ignoring her–and tries to tell him why she abandoned him at the altar. Alex tells her he couldn’t give a damn about her or her reasons—he wants his kid and nothing more from her.

He’d let his heart and body rule him when he’d courted her, made love to her, gotten on his knee and asked her to marry him. He wouldn’t ever be that naïve again. In all his future dealings with Charlotte Rutherford, they would play by his rules and currently the only thing he wanted from her was his son.

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A Night Like This by Julia Quinn

Grade: C

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Quinn—

It’s taken me way too long to write up my review of your latest Regency romance A Night Like This. I finished it weeks ago and found it wanting but couldn’t figure out what exactly it wanted. So, I went back and read several older books of yours I think are grand. I revisited a few of the Bridgertons and caught up with Miss Miranda Cheever and her wonderfully dry diaries. What those books have that this one doesn’t is underpinning. I don’t mean heft—your books are light and that is often what makes them such lovely reads. But the books of yours I love all tell stories bolstered by concrete details that make your characters and their choices seem convincing. In A Night Like This, the characters are vaguely constructed and their motivations hazy. A Night Like This is, like most of your books, well-written, full of wryly humorous vignettes, and fun to whip through. But, when I’d finished it, I knew I’d never feel the desire to read it again nor would I heartily recommend it to others.

The novel is the second in the Smythe-Smith series. The Smythe-Smiths are famous in the Quinn world for their awful annual musicales. The hero of this book, unlike his female relatives, does not perform in these sonic atrocities. In fact, Daniel Smythe-Smith hasn’t even attended one in three years. Rather, he’s been on the run, traveling all through Europe, trying to avoid assassins hunting him at the behest of Lord Ramsgate whose son, Daniel’s friend Hugh, Daniel inadvertently crippled in a duel. (I disliked this premise—the duel seemed unlikely given the men involved and it irritated me Daniel’s and Hugh’s lives are ruined because Daniel slips in the mud.)

Daniel has returned home however because Hugh has forced his father to call off the hunt. Daniel’s first day home just happens to be the day of his family’s annual performance. (Again, this seemed contrived to me.) Daniel, who doesn’t want to interrupt the musicale, sneaks into the rehearsal room to watch the show and realizes that the woman playing the piano is not a Smythe-Smith. As he stares at her, wondering why a non-Smythe-Smith is performing, she looks up and sees him staring at her. And Daniel is instantly, utterly ensnared.

Time stopped. It simply stopped. It was the most maudlin and clichéd way of describing it, but those few seconds when her face was lifted toward his . . . they stretched and pulled, melting into eternity.
She was beautiful. But that didn’t explain it. He’d seen beautiful women before. He’d slept with plenty of them, even. But this . . . Her . . . She . . .
Even his thoughts were tongue-tied.
Her hair was lustrously dark and thick, and it didn’t matter that it had been pulled back into a serviceable bun. She didn’t need curling tongs or velvet ribbons. She could have scraped her hair back like a ballerina, or shaved it all off, and she’d still be the most exquisite creature he’d ever beheld.
It was her face, it had to be. Heart-shaped and pale, with the most amazing dark, winged brows. In the dusky light, he couldn’t tell what color her eyes were, and that seemed a tragedy. But her lips . . .
He dearly hoped this woman was not married, because he was going to kiss her. The only question was when.

The woman, Anne Wynter, is equally instantly taken with Daniel. After the concert, Daniel finds Anne in a deserted hallway and within minutes of meeting one another--Anne is the governess to the daughters of Daniel’s aunt-are wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing as though there is no tomorrow. Daniel goes a bit batty.

Still, he was not ready to let her go. She smelled like England, of soft rain and sun-kissed meadows. And she felt like the best kind of heaven. He wanted to wrap himself around, bury himself within her, and stay there for all of his days. He hadn’t had a drop to drink in three years, but he was intoxicated now, bubbling with a lightness he’d never thought to feel again.
It was madness. It had to be.

From that moment on, Daniel is determined to make Anne his. He is single-minded about his pursuit; I found this hard to understand. Daniel, like so many Regency heroes, knows the rigid social structure his class swears by. Yet he seems almost oblivious to how difficult his courtship could make life for not only himself and Anne, but his family as well. He acts more like a randy teenager than a socially aware adult. He is charming, but not very credible.

Anne is equally unlikely. She’s not who she claims to be and she lives in terror of having her fake credentials unmasked. Her life story seemed over the top to me. Despite having suffered extreme adversity early on in her life, she’s still gorgeous, kind, funny, smart, and, until the end of the book, exceedingly level-headed. She’s the reverse of Daniel—she’s obsessed with the differences in their social statuses and mentions at least a hundred times she’s a lowly governess and he’s a lofty earl and thus THEY CAN”T BE TOGETHER.  Much of the book is spent with Daniel dreamily nattering on and on about how beautiful and wonderful and perfect Anne is while Anne is wringing her wrists over how threatened she feels by everything.

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Let Me In by Calllie Croix

Grade: C+

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Croix,

I enjoyed your book but am baffled it’s listed as a BDSM novel. Carina Press is touting it as such and it’s not. Yes, hottie Liam Brodie likes to call the shots between the sheets and he’s had a (straight) sexually adventurous past. But, even though he has some smoking sex with Talia Barnett, there’s nothing BDSM between the two. I don’t particularly care about the mislabeling, but having Let Me In so miscategorized may alienate readers looking for BDSM books and scare those off who aren’t.

I’ve read a series of contemporaries lately with military heroines–it’s great to see romance at the forefront of giving those who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan their due. In Let Me In, Talia is a Marine coming home to Denver for her Thanksgiving break. It looks to be a depressing trip for her–she’s there to check on the only family she has, her mentally ill mother Kiyomi. Talia plans to spend the week alone in a hotel and is startled, when she arrives at the airport, to find her best friend Angie Brodie there to pick her up. Accompanying Angie is her older brother Liam whom Talia’s had the hots for years. He’s an ex-Marine now working as a military contractor and the two have always clicked.

“Welcome home, sweetheart.”

The endearment triggered a smile and set off a bittersweet ache beneath her ribs. He’d always called her that, though he never meant it the way she wanted him to. A result of her own doing, but she’d made the right choice when she’d drawn the line between them at friends from the start, more than two years ago. Crossing that barrier would mean she risked losing him and his family forever if things didn’t work out between them. She’d never risk that. “Thanks. I can’t believe you guys did this for me.”

Liam finds Talia’s insistence that he stay out of her bed frustrating because he doesn’t understand it.

It drove him crazy that she always kept herself at arm’s length from him, but he loved knowing she was aware of him as a man. God knew he was more than willing to satisfy whatever needs she kept buried beneath that cool exterior, sexual and otherwise. For whatever reason, she wouldn’t acknowledge her interest.

He figures it has something to do with her family—he knows her mom has some problems and she and Talia don’t get along easily. His family, the Brodies, are the ideal family—almost too much so for me. For Talia, they are the best thing in her personal life—they really are the only positive thing in her personal life. She sees them as the holy grail of home life.

Ten minutes later Liam pulled into the driveway of his parents’ white Colonial-style house with dark green trim, and a pang of emotion hit her square in the chest. This place, this family, meant more to her than they’d ever know. The house suited them perfectly. It looked like a Leave It to Beaver kind of place, something out of a Disney movie. Full of love and laughter and…family. She treasured each moment she’d spent here, ever since Angie had first dragged her home for dinner over two years ago.

Talia’s own home life is a tragedy. She’s an only child and her mom, who has always struggled with sanity, has become a compulsive hoarder. Talia, after sharing a picture perfect dinner with the Brodies, lets Liam give her a ride to her hotel. On the way, she has him drive by her mom’s last known address where she doesn’t find her mom—Kiyomi is out at Bingo night—but does find an eviction notice and a worried neighbor who tells her the landlord is coming by tomorrow to clean out the house and throw her mom out. Talia isn’t surprised—she’s used to dealing with the chaos and disappointment of her mom’s illness, but she’s still upset and embarrassed. When Liam takes her to her hotel, she tries to dismiss him, but he insists on staying and finding out what’s going on. She says she’s not interested in talking and he says, OK, fine, grabs her, and starts kissing the hell out her. But even though it’s the most amazing kiss she’s ever had, she still pushes him away.

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