Suspense with Some Romance, Great With A Bowl Of Ice Cream!

Last week, I read a book called A Dangerous Harbor by RP Dalke.  This book is in the same series as Hurricane Hole by the same author that I read not too long ago.  This one I read over a few nights before bed last week.  When reading a suspenseful book, or something scary, I prefer to read these before bed opposed to after work.  If I cannot put the book down, I will not get my To Do list done, and that is a big no-no for me.  I love a good page turner, just not before 9pm, when I have everything else done.
This book was a great read and had just the right amount of romance mixed with suspense.  From the very beginning of the book, the story was intriguing, and it just kept going from there.  The setting is a Mexican boat marina, where a San Diego cop finds a dead body in the water and the investigation focuses on a number of people.  When Katy runs into Gabe, a long ago ex husband, and meets Raul, a new man in her life, things get competitive and steamy as she gets torn between the two before finally falling in love with Raul.  When the investigation points to a rich man that is docked at the marina that Katy has her boat in, people start turning up dead.

Great weekend read to relax!

While enjoying my three day weekend this past week, I had the pleasure of reading a very heartwarming story about two children who are left to fend for themselves after their father dies and mother runs off with her newest boyfriend.  This was a great way for me to relax and read something that did not have my heart pumping every second, but allowed me to enjoy myself.  I highly recommend this one to anyone who loves a great story with a happy ending.

Vardin Village by Maggie Spence is a heartwarming story about the Vardin family, which the town is named after, and their roots and secrets that they have kept for a number of years. When the youngest heir to the Vardin fortune is denied his rights as the heir of the family fortune, some of the former employees of his grandfather uncover secrets that were hidden and not found until several years after his death. George and Elenor's father was dead and their mother was more concerned with her drug habit than taking care of her kids and soon ran off, leaving the children to fend for themselves. This story focuses on the children's struggle to survive until the staff of his family's old mansion take them in and help them to uncover the last will and testament of their grandfather.

If you have a few days to just kick back and relax, this one is a great read that is not boring and tugs at the heartstrings.

Secretly Smiiten by Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Diann Hunt and Denise Hunter

Secretly Smitten is a collection of short stories that revolves around the Thomas family, a group of women who are all looking for love and they each find it in these stories, all set in the small town of Smitten.  The story begins when the girls find dog tags belonging to a man that is not their grandfather and they start unraveling the story behind the man that owns the dog tags, leading Tess to love.  She begins to get closer to David, a widower with a young daughter, in order to gain access to his attic where she can uncover some of the story for her grandmother.  Before she knows it, she has fallen in love with him.

Zoe is Tess’s sister and she wants to start a matchmaking service in Smitten to help people find love.  While she is busy getting her business off the ground, she meets the new city manager, William.  While he is a thorn in her side at first, doing everything he can to make sure she follows all of the city codes and keeps safety as her number one priority, even if it mean shutting down her first social event for her matchmaking service.  Once she starts to understand where he is coming from, they begin to see how compatible they are for each other.

Zoe and Tess’s mother, Anna, owns a knitting shop in Smitten and loves to socialize with all of the women that come to her store to shop and to knit.  She enjoys their company and even does not mind helping out the son of one of her customers, Michael, after he hurts his ankle and has trouble getting around.  As she checks in on him and runs errands for him, she becomes more and more fond of him.  Before she knows it, she is visiting him well after his ankle has healed and he even helps her with her new business venture, raising sheep in order to harvest the wool to spin yarn.  He even lets her use an empty barn that he owns to raise the sheep in, and helps her care for them as well.  As time goes on, they soon realize that they are in love.

Clare, Zoe and Tess’s sister, works at the local nursery and hopes to one day own her own nursery and do what she truly loves, landscaping and yard remodels.  When her boss goes out of town and she hires a drifter from out of town, she is not very optimistic that he will work out, let alone take over things when she faints at work and is forced to stay in bed until she gets better.  Not only does Ethan do a good job, but goes above and beyond when she gets sick and saves the day.  As they work closely together each day, she realizes that he is lonely and begins to invite him to dinner with her family, and eventually they fall in love.

When the story began, the dog tags were a mystery and the man that owned them was believed to be dead, until a secret is revealed that Aunt Violet had seen him and tried to confess her love for him, he was not dead after all, he just left town when his true love had married another man.  This is a heartwarming story and I recommend it to anyone who  likes a good love story.