SEP's books are usually a hit or a miss for me. What I Did for Love is the first one of hers that landed somewhere in between. The story surrounding the main characters in was interesting, as were some of the side characters, but what almost killed the story for me were the hero and heroine.

Georgie would have been an okay heroine if she wasn't paired up with such an ass. It was interesting to watch her slowly take control of her life and transform from a doormat into a person who stands up for herself. But it was painful to watch this transformation because the hero, Bram, was such an awful person.

Bram was horrible to Georgie when they worked with each other on a popular sitcom called "Skip and Scooter". Then when he pops back into her life, with plans to use her to clean up his image, he is once again just an awful person. The only difference is that this time Georgie isn't a 15 year old girl with rose tinted glasses. She knows he's an ass when she agrees to maintain a fake marriage with him, but we see her slowly start to fall for him anyway.

As Georgie slowly starts to change her life, we see Bram maneuvering his way to a huge break for his career that will put him back on the map. While there are a couple of moments that hint at Bram developing feelings for Georgie, he is just such an incorrigible ass that when he does figure it out, you wish Georgie would find someone else. Bram doesn't even go through all that much to make-up for the way he's acted.

Like I said, the story was interesting in a kind of train-wreck way. And I liked the premise of it. But Bram really just killed this book for me.

Side Note: What I Did for Love must have been written during all the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston drama because hints of that are written all over the characters in this one.

I had high hopes for Don't Mess with Texas. It seemed really cute and I had heard a lot of good things about it, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get into it.

Nicki Hunt needs cash because she's flat broke. If she doesn't get any money soon, then she's going to lose her art gallery. After getting a phone call from her wealthy ex-husband, Nicki goes to dinner with him thinking that maybe she'll be able to overlook his cheating ways for a reunion. However he vanishes in the middle of the meal on a phone call and doesn't return. Fuming, Nicki returns to her car only to find her ex, dead and stuffed in the trunk. Nicki is immediately the prime suspect with only P.I., Dallas O'Connor believing she didn't do it.

Craig has a light writing style that I typically enjoy in contemporary romances. However, a lot of the jokes here seemed like cheap shots; such as a gassy dog and birds pooping on nurses. Dallas also didn't work for me. I think he was supposed to be an angsty character who slowly starts finding some happiness, but this just didn't work with the slap-stick comedy tone of the story. The tone made Dallas seem pouty and a bit of a tool. I did like Nicki though. She was an entertaining character and I loved her relationship with her grandmother. Despite that, I probably won't be picking up another book by Craig in the future.

It's always a bad idea to date your boss. No one knows this better than Callie Grey who has just been blind-sided by Mark, her boss and ex-lover, announcing his engagement. Callie has been in love with Mark for years and has always held onto the hope that he would eventually return her feelings. Having that dream crushed in the middle of work and on her 30th birthday is all Callie can take. Fleeing the building, she proceeds to have a very public meltdown in the middle of the DMV. Weeks after her meltdown, things have not gotten better for her. Mark's fiancée has made it her personal goal to torture Callie at work. Ian, the new veterinarian, thinks Callie is stalking him and all the dates she's gone on in an effort to get over Mark have ended in disaster.

All I Ever Wanted was a fun contemporary romance. Callie was annoying though. She seemed too perfect to be believable. (Who goes out of their way to offer homemade scones to their ex-boyfriend's new love bunny?) She was portrayed as mind-boggling sweet and without any character flaws, which didn't make her a very engaging character. After awhile, it just got old seeing Callie able to make everyone into her new BFF. Also, because of how sweet her character was, it made the fights she had with Ian, the hero, seem forced.

Ian was what really made this book enjoyable. What's not to love about a guy who's so shy he hides in his office from a group of little girls? I also loved how the relationship between him and his ex-wife was portrayed. It wasn't full of animosity and the ex-wife wasn't shown as a raging bitch. It was a nice change of pace to see a hero be on good terms with his ex.

Higgins also does a pretty great job of writing pets into the story. The two dogs involved in the plot felt just as much like side characters as Mark and the fiancée did.

I would recommend this to fans of Julie James or Jennifer Cruise.

Maggie has a knack for getting into embarrassing situations. One such situation? Having the entire town know that she's in love with the local priest, Father Tim. Second situation? Going to a big church dinner completely smashed and declaring her undying love to said priest. Now Father Tim is determined to hook Maggie up with someone suitable. The dates end up being one huge disaster after another, but at least they're entertaining the locals who patronize Maggie's diner. While being stood up by one of those dates, Maggie finds herself cornered by her ex-boyfriend and his pregnant wife. Surprisingly it's Malone, the local recluse, who comes to her rescue.

I loved Malone. He remains an extremely quiet man throughout the book, but Higgins manages to show how much he likes Maggie through his actions. Maggie on the other hand was annoying. She's constantly making bad decisions that put her in embarrassing situations and reading those scenes was pretty painful. Maggie also sort of stalks Malone a few times and has the tendency to run her mouth off. I seriously wanted to shake some self-awareness into that girl and tell her to get a grip on herself. Despite my annoyances with Maggie, I enjoyed the storyline and side characters. I'll definitely be picking up another Higgins novel soon.

This was a pretty dull read for being a MaryJanice Davidson book.

Princess Alex has severe insomnia, so her family's psychiatrist decides that a break from her normal surroundings might help and suggests that Alex takes a trip to help with the opening of an aquarium. However, when Alex gets there, she meets Dr. Sheldon Rivers who isn't happy at the prospect of having her bothering him while he works. For whatever reason, Alex thinks Sheldon's rudeness and grumpy behavior is hot. From there, the story devolves into a back and forth between the two either having sex or bickering.

My biggest problem with The Royal Pain is that there is no conflict. The story is entirely motivated by Alex and Sheldon bickering. I'm a fan of character driven stories, but not when their personalities never even clash. Everyone gets along, there's no real build up about Sheldon hating royals or even Alex's insomnia. In fact, those two problems hardly got mentioned after being brought up. Sheldon's attitude about rich people was mentioned once in the very beginning and then never brought up until the last couple of pages. As for Alex's insomnia.... Yes we see that she's not sleeping through most of the book but everyone is pretty "meh" about it, so when she does finally manage to get some sleep its not a big deal. Even though towards the end I started missing her insomnia because it was the one thing that made her character interesting.

I probably won't be continuing this series.