Olivia Hayle

I recently read book 2 in this series The Perfect Mistake and Hayle's most recent book (not part of this series) How to Honeymoon Alone and loved both. I liked them so much that I wanted to go back and read the first book in the Connovan Chronicles. I generally liked this, but it was not IMO nearly as good as book 2 and not nearly as good as the newest book. This one suffered from bad deployment of legal terms and law school stories, which is an issue for me, but also the characters were not nearly as well developed as they were in The Perfect Mistake and there was way too much real estate porn (which it be fair was true of the new book too.) The spice level was good, but there was no hanky panky at all until about 2/3 in and I think there were some missed opps for good smut. I am still thinking Hayle is a good romance author for me (most are not) and I am glad she seems to have worked on her skills. I will surely be reading more of her tales.… (mer)

Surprisingly lovely. After injuries sideline her career as a ballerina Isabel is lucky to find a well-paid live-in nanny gig with her BFFs brother, a billionaire CEO who is widowed with two grade school children. Things go where one expects, but not in the way one expects (or at least not in the way I expected.) Alec (the aforementioned billionaire) is trying to run a company and be a good father and good employer (his father was only concerned with the company) and he is struggling. He is convinced that his grumpy old self, with a company to run and two kids to parent, will stall Isabel's trajectory. He is in love and will take all he can get of her but does not want to weigh her down. She puts up with his inability to commit for far too long and settles for the scraps (which include great sex, an adoring protector, and a private driver and co0k -- so they are admittedly good scraps.) Not perfect, but really good and filled with glowy moments. My second Olivia Hayle book, and I just loaded a third onto my Kindle.… (mer)

Absolutely adorable. Gazing out at the cherry blossoms and listening to this book makes for a pretty great lunch hour. I recommend it.

Eden and Philip are each enjoying Island honeymoons, but alas both are doing so alone after their relationships fell apart after they made nonrefundable deposits. This is a wonderful grumpy-sunshine story. Thank you Ms. Hayle for not making your grump an irredeemable asshat. So often I cannot root for romance because the grump doesn't deserve love and the sunny one deserves better. Thank you too for not making the sunny one ickily cute. That happens a lot. Grown women running around in pigtails, making people pay into swear jars, and fangirling Disney princesses are not hot. I always assume eventually that is going to result in violence, and though I never justify violence I know I would understand how that happened. Here Eden, a kindergarten teacher from a small town in Wahington State for whom this trip is a dream and an extravagance, kindles the magic of travel and discovery in Philip, a workaholic M&A lawyer who has lived in NYC and Chicago for whom it is a drop in the bucket financially and a fairly minor destination in a well-traveled life. It is fun to run along with them. their conversations are fun and their adventures are delightful. The sexual tension and drugging kisses don't hurt either. (For those interested in steam level, there is a lot of kissing and not a ton of sex here, but when it happens the door is wide open.)

This author is new to me and I will be hitting the back-catalog. The writing quality is very high for romance. And the narration by Meg Price is just great. I expect this will end up on my list of favorite audio narration for 2024.… (mer)