The Royal We by Heather Cocks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Royal We was one of my favorite royal stories. I received a copy through Netgalley and was a little worried when I saw how long it was, but, it held my attention throughout the entire book. One of the best things about this story is the humor. Rebecca is the wilder of twin sisters from America who takes advantage of a foreign exchange program while attending Cornell that allows her to spend time at Oxford University. She meets Nick as soon as she steps on campus and little does she know she has met the future King of England. Rebecca meets some great friends and has a great time partying and working on her art, which she doesn't get a chance to spend a lot of time doing when at home working on her normal school work. She has a chance to see some wonderfully beautiful architecture while in England.

When Rebecca left Cornell she left behind her twin sister Lacy, the true royal watcher of the family. Since they were children she dreamed of being a princess and living in England but makes the decision to stay behind at Cornell because she wants to attend medical school and does not see the value in an exchange program that does not focus on her medical school aspirations. However, she does visit and becomes quite envious of Rebecca, or Bex's life at Oxford, especially her friendship with Prince Nick. We meet Bex the night before her wedding to Nick where things go back in time to tell the story of how they got to where they are when Bex is looking back at her decision to change her life and move to England to be with Nick. We see all of the prejudice she experiences because she is an American dating a royal. She has to handle the paparazzi, negative articles and the effects on her relationship with her twin sister.

I loved this story. I was so invested in it that there was one moment in the story that I was caught off guard and literally had tears in my eyes and that is not something that happens often with a book for me, especially a book that mostly is comedic in fashion with some romance. One of the most enjoyable facets of The Royal We is the relationships. Character development was pretty well done, but, for me the relationships described were the biggest win for this book. Bex had this larger than life personality and we lived this relationship with her, its ups and downs and all of the fallout from the things she experienced as well as the laughs as she had a great time. One of my favorite scenes involves a wheelbarrow and it was laugh out loud funny. I can only say I hope these two right more in this area because they have great chemistry and did an amazing job on this book.

The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Marnie Riches
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Girl Who Wouldn't Die is a gritty, dark novel I received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It follows the life of George who is an exchange student from Oxford studying in Amsterdam. During her time in Amsterdam a bomb goes off on campus outside of one of the university's buildings while it is full of students and employees. George and her friend Ad who are complete shocked insert themselves in the investigation because George has a great desire to be a criminologist. As time goes on we see George is not the only one inserting herself in the investigation, so is the killer.

The Girl Who Wouldn't Die is the first adult crime book written by Marnie Riches and she has, to use a baseball metaphor, hit the ball out of the park. Though the book can be quite cringe worthy with darkness at times when the hooks at the end grab you it literally makes up for it. As a recent visitor of Amsterdam I kept trying to envision the locations and realized now I have to go back to see if I figure out the locations of the events. Really, that is the only reason I would go back, to try and see the locations where George frequented. Now, I did not visit the Red Light District but I would love to see everything mentioned. The Girl Who Wouldn't Die seems like it might be a great armchair travel book too. I literally got a great feel for George's love of the buildings in London when she went back to her home school to visit her mentor and advisor at Oxford. You could feel her love for her adopted city as she walked and rode her bikes through the streets of Amsterdam, even though she was in a lower income area. The only drawback I found was George's expression of her feelings towards men seemed a bit stunted and I could not tell if it was the writer's attacking of this topic or George's inability to express the feelings in words. There was one twist in the story that I LOVED and I don't want to spoil it for anyone because it needs to be experience by all who jump in to experience The Girl Who Wouldn't Die.

Schism by Bill Granger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Schism is the second book in the November Man series. I am totally enamored of this series and have a great appreciation for this sub-genre of thriller, an espionage story. I received a copy of Schism from Netgalley, which rocks by the way. I love this series enough that if it exists on audiobook I will be reliving it again and buying them. When I learned that this series started originally in 1979 I wondered how it was that I had missed them all these years. No worries I have found them and plan to devour them one after another.

Schism has the frosty November Man, Agent Devereaux, in Miami, investigating the return of a Catholic priest who went missing over 20 years prior in Asia, Agent Devereaux's former playground, where he spent many years stationed. Every agency wants to know where the priest has been during all of the years he has been missing and given the possibility that he may have been involved with the CIA while he was in Asia there is great concern about what secrets he may have. Every letter of the alphabet soup of the government has touched down in Miami to determine the priest's next moves, including the Russians. There is murder, mayhem, and many secrets that come to light. We get to see the November Man at his best and a bit of his vulnerability. Really looking forward to The Shattered Eye.

The Cinderella Princess by Melissa McClone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Cinderella Princess was another great read that I received through Netgalley. It is the story of a prince, Luc, who is the youngest of his family but is tasked with protecting the honor of his family and suffers a great deal emotionally when it seems that the only person in his family that cares for him is his mother, despite having many brothers and sisters and a father, the king. Emily is an ad exec tasked with swooping in and saving the reality show that is tasked with finding Prince Luc a wife. So far the show has been boring and none of the titled or royal ladies he has had a first date are interested.

Emily arrives in Italy and there is instant chemistry between them despite her task of finding Luc a wife. Along the way she does her job and they get to be pretty good friends. They get to know each other personally and Emily is an excellent task master and has her hands full with saving the show and finding Prince Luc a wife. In the meantime she learns more about herself and Luc. The Cinderella Princess is a great story about sacrifice and finding your true self even when faced with hard decisions. The Cinderella Princess is the first in a new series, Royal Holiday, and I am looking forward to the entire series!

His Billion Dollar Dilemma by Alexia Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

His Billion Dollar Dilemma,received from NetGalley, was a good read with interesting characters. It centered on Helen, an extremely smart engineer who was roommates with her brother, also a genius, who is trying to save her company. Her boss is selling his company along with the patents she developed. He does not much care what happens to the 30 or so employees at the firm but Helen cares. She does what she has to so that she can save their jobs and in the course of trying to convince the corporate raider who is buying the firm to slice and dice it to sell off the parts for millions of dollars stumbles upon a very good-looking British millionaire that she refers to as a pirate. She gets to know him and sees more in him than how he even knows he is capable of feeling. Simon has had a steady diet of people that either were indifferent to him or betrayed him so Helen has her work cut out for her to convince him to care about the jobs of 30 people.

His Billion Dollar Dilemma tells a great story with some very quirky characters that have the reader laughing out loud at times. Helen's brother, David, is extremely colorful and does some things that make you want to cheer and also make you want to kick him in the leg a few times. But, his love for his sister and his protection of her allows you to not kick him too hard. Helen has a great set of friends and I got the feeling like I missed a few books in a series with the story of Liam and Mar

Tempted by Her Italian Surgeon by Louisa George
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tempted by Her Italian Surgeon is a nice, clean read. There is a tiny bit of raciness but this story is more about the relationship developing between Matteo and Ivy. Ivy and Matteo meet when a racy picture of him hits the Internet and the name of the hospital he works as a top surgeon is visible in the shot. They start out as combatants and work their way towards more. Matteo spends most of his time completing renal surgeries on children and he is good at it. Ivy spends her time being a newly minted top attorney for the hospital. As these things go they are at cross-purposes which anyone else in information security like myself will tell you we try to secure things in a way that is the least disruptive to the end-users but sometimes it just does not work out that way. But, enforcement of these things usually takes up everyone's time and energy and no one knows this more than Matteo and he goes into this kicking and screaming and comes out of it with a new friend and possibly more.

There was one things that surprised me with this story. I have been reading these Harlequins quite a bit lately and started to see a formula for some of them. I thought this one would fall into the story line where both want to stay as far away from a relationship and love as possible and as the story progressed we would learn why. The end would have them both face their fears and eventually they would fall in love and move to Italy and I would get to do a bit of armchair travel in my favorite country outside of the U.S. We would see Matteo work through things with his family and we would meet everyone and see why he is the way he is and there would be a happily ever after. This story is not that kind of story and it is worth the read to see how the author takes things differently. If you are looking for a clean, modern romance this is the book.

The Shiro Project by David S. Khara
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh Shiro Project how much I loved you. For me, The Shiro Project was the continuation of a story that just gets better and better. I received an early release copy from Netgalley but was remiss in my duties to post my review at release because I was a bit burned out on serious material and had to read things outside of my normal favorite genres of Urban Fantasy and Thrillers. Unfortunately, this took more than a few weeks and it would have been unfair to read and review books when I was not in the mood for that type of book. I finished The Shiro Project last night and it held my attention just as The Bleiberg Project did. It was the continuation of Agent Morg's story but what was great was we were given more of Elena's history as well. There was a huge twist there and I keep hoping that there is a change with that because she is seriously kick-butt and now that we see more of her humanity it is great getting to know her. I was surprised at Elena's depth of hatred for her father and think that it was an over reaction but, she was a young girl and they do tend to have extreme feelings.

The Shiro Project, of course, did not disappoint when it came to action. David Khara writes great action sequences. He is also very adept at helping the reader get a great vision of how Morg is built and how he moves. It is amazing to read and picture his movements in hand-to-hand combat. David Khara does a wonderful job with imagery in describing these scenes. The portion of the story that gives the book its title was interesting. I wish there was more time spent there. There could have been a lot more time spent on that portion. The project was well described but meeting the person currently responsible for the terrorist activities in the story and the culmination of that part of the book could have been fleshed out more. It seemed to end a bit abruptly. It was interesting but felt a bit short.

But, the best part of this story for me, the part that had me go back and re-read it and bookmark the page was the description of how Eli and Etyan met and their relationship to each other. I was totally surprised, especially given my previous interpretation of the ages of both of them. Just great. This was the clincher for me and that scene made the book for me. Etyan is literally larger than life and he draws you in and makes the reader want to know what happens to him next. On to The Morgenstern Project!