Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Minerva Dobbs knows that happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with a man who asked her to dinner to win a bet. Even if he is gorgeous and successful Calvin Morrisey. Cal knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min Dobbs. Even if she does wear great shoes, and keep him on his toes. When they say good-bye at the end of their evening, they cut their losses and agree never to see each other again.But Fate has other plans, and it's not long before Min and Cal meet again. Soon, they're dealing with a jealous ex-boyfriend, Krispy Kreme donuts, a determined psychologist, chaos theory, a freakishly intelligent cat, Chicken Marsala, and more risky propositions than either of them ever dreamed of. Including the biggest gamble of all-true love.
Audrey realizes she's in over her head when she gets embroiled with icy-cool banker, Sterling. His ideas of adult fun are more than she can handle, so she packs her bags and walks out of his luxury Florida apartment, heading back to Washington DC in search of a regular life with a regular guy. But for a girl like Audrey, this is not as easy as it sounds.
Maxfield Sinclair, the author of a popular science fiction series, is revered by fans everywhere as "The Creator." Drew Cooper, a snobbish literature professor, isn’t impressed with Max’s books, or with Max himself, for that matter. As Drew gets to know Max, however, she realizes there’s more to the shy, awkward writer than meets the eye. But can a woman who enjoys escargot and caviar fall in love with a guy who thinks fine cuisine means supreme instead of pepperoni?
The adopted daughter of the most powerful man in town, Schyler Crandall had left Heaven, Louisiana, a broken-hearted girl. Now a crisis brings her home to a family in conflict, a logging empire on the brink of disaster, and secrets that make Heaven hotter than hell.
Manhattan journalist Michelle Michaels just can't seem to get a break when she finds herself the subject of false rumors. Now she's being blindsided by her own boss. Wrongly suspecting her of trading sex for scoops, he's caved in to the shady newsroom gossip and sent Michelle quietly packing on a leave of absence to her hometown of Detroit where some family secrets still lurk. With a career on the DL and a love life at low-ebb, Michelle's hit rock bottom-until she meets dark, dimpled, and delicious Wesley Abbott...
After being beaten and left for dead in the New Mexico desert, Smithson Group agent Mick Savin tries to piece together his last few days. He remembers bits and pieces: gathering crucial intel. An ambush by Spectra thugs. And then…nothing, except waking up in some medical center in rural west Texas. His mission was top secret. So how did he end up here?
The most important thing in Amanda’s life is negotiating a successful merger between her company and Brant Computers, a family-held competitor. It should be a done deal: Company president Eric Brant is on board with the idea. But when Amanda arrives in Eric’s office, it is his cousin Simon Brant who greets her—and Simon is anything but agreeable. He’s not about to give up control of the family company or lay off loyal workers. Squaring off against the sexy, brilliant, sexy, obstinate, sexy, eccentric, not to mention sexy Simon is completely frustrating—and a total turn-on. And when he walks out on her presentation, sidetracked by another one of his brilliant ideas, Amanda is shocked...and intrigued…no, furious!…and…and…and so attracted she can barely enter data into her Palm Pilot...
When fellow airline pilots Jack Grayson and Kira Allen barrel down the runway into white-hot lust, Kira proposes a frisky flight plan. They'll fulfill each other's sexual fantasies during layovers and revert back to friendship at home.
As wild and mysterious as the Louisiana swamp he called home, Lucky Doucet was a dangerously attractive Cajun no woman could handle. His solitary life left no room for the likes of elegant Serena Sheridan, but Lucky couldn't deny her desperate need to find her missing grandfather. He would help her, but nothing more--yet once he felt the lure of the flaxen-haired beauty, an adventurer like Lucky couldn't help playing with fire.
Samantha Brady's to-do list is simple . . .
FORBIDDEN
HelenKay: Naked Truth is a non-stop, fast-paced romantic adventure. From the first page, Fetzer grabs the reader and drags her into the life of Alexa Galvin, an undercover CIA agent on the run and on her own. If you like your romance quirky or light or funny, this probably isn't the book for you. If, instead, you look for romance mixed with suspense and delivered at a speed that leaves you breathless, this is your answer.
Wendy: 
Before I get into reviewing Janelle Denison’s Too Wilde To Tame, I am declaring a new romance rule: no more characters named Wilde (Wyld, Wylde, and Wild are also unacceptable). The clever factor ceased to exist in 1980, give or take. Resist temptation. You will feel good about yourself later, I promise.
HelenKay: Many romantic suspense reads suffer from an inability to combine those two main aspects with ease and in such a way that they can't be separated without destroying one or the other. Not here. Extreme Exposure is a lesson in how to write a tight, sexy romance with a real-world, believable suspense story.
Wendy: 
HelenKay: According to the "Dear Reader" letter inside Saving Allegheny Green, Harlequin/Silhouette's new Spotlight Series goal is to: "single out outstanding stories, contemporary themes and oft-requested classics by some of your favorite series authors and present them to you in a variety of formats bound by truly striking covers." In this offering, Signature Select delivers on the cover and contemporary theme but the promise of an "outstanding story" falls short as the plot rises to the level of good but not great.
HelenKay: The basic category romance idea of the virgin and the millionaire is at the heart of When the Lights Go Down. A shy woman looking only for a night of fun finds the man of her dreams. Here, the promised happily ever after is delivered with charm, but not much in the way of conflict or punch.
Wendy: 
HelenKay: The real-life and well-known feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys started in the late 1800s over a stolen hog. That battle officially ended a few years back with reunion of the descendants. In The Chase Is On, the idea of family feud lives on in Atlanta between the Westmorelands and the Grahams. Here, stolen recipes stand in for stolen livestock. There's no bloodshed, but there is plenty of baking. The fight falls to the grandchildren - Chase Westmoreland and Jessica Claiborne - to continue. They just have to figure out they are enemies first.
Wendy: 
Wendy: 
Wendy:From Wal-Mart to the White House this Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Year’s season has been marked by the “Happy Holidays” v. “Merry Christmas” debate. Red Dress Ink’s seasonal offering, Scenes from a Holiday neatly sidesteps the issue by presenting an anthology that is not solely devoted to any one celebration. Rather, each novella focuses on a particular holiday, hopping from Hanukkah, to New Year’s Eve, to Christmas. The concept is fresh and exciting. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for much of the execution.
Wendy: 
Man, high school. Could anything be worse? Seriously, open heart surgery versus high school. Which would you rather go through twice? Then there are the reunions. Did you go to yours? If you're over 21, it's not a rite of passage. It's masochism.
It’s a particular curiosity that a genre of fiction as large and as encompassing as romance continues to grow, not with experimental or speculative creativity, but by continually recreating and repackaging and retreading the same product. Romance readers like their formulas and constructs and that’s fine. But, when the same story is told over and over again it should become more polished with each telling, more fine tuned every time it’s recited. What it can’t do is fail on the most elementary level. Fiction, for all its many elastic incarnations, must rigidly hold to certain fundamentals: stories must have beginnings, middles, and ends, setting and character must be established, conflict must build and action must rise, then fall. Fiction that doesn’t ascend to this most basic level—especially in a genre that takes so few risks—fails.
HelenKay: Just as there are old standards in romance songs - think Sinatra - there are some old standards in romance novels. These are the patterns and situations authors use over and over to push the romance where they want it to go. The unfaithful fiancee who drives the heroine into the arms of the hero. The marriage of convenience. The domineering family that rules the adult child's life through a series of threats and enticements. The hero who loves dogs. Actually, that last one might be okay in any book.
HelenKay: Reunion romances walk a fine line between engaging and annoying. Readers will abandon some measure of common sense in favor of the promise of love triumphing over time and distance. The ultimate romantic notion is in believing people can hold on to a forever-kind-of-love through adversity, family differences and difficulties tearing them apart, only to find each other again years later and still feel that tug and pull. The dangerous ground comes with whatever the awful "it" was that ripped the couple apart. Make it illusory or easy to resolve and - poof - the reader disappears. Lani Diane Rich's storytelling avoids the annoyance trap in The Comeback Kiss with believable motivations and histories for her heroine and hero. Frankly, even if Rich had faltered in this aspect, most would forgive her thanks to the other strengths of the story, including a lovable hero, humorous dialog and strong suspense thread.
HelenKay: For years romance readers have complained about the too-stupid-to-live (TSTL) heroine. This is the woman who acts in ways that defy common sense and reality. The nonsensical decisions they make come both in the face of true adversity and in reaction to mundane problems. Many times this TSTL woman is too insecure to make a life decision without the approval of her mother or father or grandparent or priest or neighbor or 4th grade teacher or someone in an equal position of power. Despite this, somehow and without explanation, she can take on a McGyver-like quality and diffuse a Tomahawk Missile with her barrette using only the knowledge she gained while growing up on a Kansas farm. 
Carlotta Wren's life is a mess. Her parents skipped town rather than stand up in a courtroom for their white collar crimes. So, at eighteen, Carlotta lost her fiancee and financial security, but gained full-time care of her baby brother Wesley. Now, years later, her baby brother continues to seek out trouble and every gambling opportunity possible. Being on the financial edge and in debt to everyone, Wesley's antics threaten both Carlotta and Wesley.
Trust is a far reaching issue in romance. There are heroes who doubt heroines, and heroines who lack faith in heroes, and authors who don’t trust their readers. Two of those trust issues manage to faithfully resolve themselves before the happily ever after. The third is a real problem. Too often romances are plagued by authors who write down to their readers, over simplify and over explain. Unsurprisingly, the resulting fiction is a joyless chore. Authors who write intelligently, in anticipation of an intelligent readership are a rare, but welcome, find. Romance that trusts the reader not only engages, but begs the question: why isn’t all romance like this? Why isn’t intelligent writing a minimum requirement for the genre? Why isn’t it a starting point from which to improve, instead of an exceptional find?
In order to succeed, fiction must have story sustaining conflict that keeps characters’ backs against the wall as they fight against the bad guys, against themselves, against god, against whatever can be thrown at them. Conflict needs to rise as the story progresses, but it also needs to rise in believable-in-keeping-with-the-story fashion. A man, for example, who wakes to find a price on his life, might then flee only to have every avenue of escape cut off: his car gone, his back accounts drained, his network of support suddenly vanished. It all follows and makes it harder for the character to fight his way out of a bad situation. What wouldn’t make a lot of sense, or remain in the story vein, would be for that man to then start worshipping the pack of purple rhinos that materialized on the corner of 8th and Main. Purple rhinos would make an interesting facet of another story but this man on the run, trying to save his own life, has his hands full. Conflict is only good if it’s believable and cohesive, and it’s the lack of believable cohesion that plagues Susan Grant’s Your Planet, or Mine.
HelenKay: Trouble in High Heels highlights the fine difference between an imaginary scenario and a truly unbelievable one. The former may qualify as solid fiction if accompanied by strong writing, fully developed characters and a unique voice. But combine that questionable plot with flat characters and the only thing the reader gets is a long, dull read.
You go to the bookstore in search of a contemporary romance read. A solid, straightforward romance read. Not erotica or erotic romance. No suspense or mystery. No vampires, werewolves or other evidence of paranormal. Sounds easy in theory. Reality is the problem. 
The time has come to throw back the curtain and provide a sneak peek into the inner workings of PBR. If you believe all of the book discussions resemble refined Oprah Book Club teas, prepare to be disappointed. The behind-the-scenes action here at PBR is not all that sophisticated at times. In fact, the words "rugby match" come to mind.