Well, that sucked.

It has...a long separation...cheating... all it needs is a secret baby.

5 years previous, the H met the h while undercover for the FBI. Now, I would go into the likelihood of there being enough agents passably good to pull off an undercover BAND, but that's just ridiculous. In any case, it's never really explained why exactly the h is in Denver for her 30th birthday when she lives in Philly. Personally, if I were going somewhere for a birthday trip, I'd go somewhere with sun and beaches, but what do I know. So they begin seeing each other - on weekends. She flies in. It's on one of these weekends that the sting goes down. He is en-route to the airport to fetch her when he gets the call.

5 years later, he's no longer with the FBI and is now doing the private thing (like every other ex-agent/military H in Romancelandia). Her fiancé hires him to be her bodyguard on a business trip. She decides that since she never got him out of her system, she can't completely move on, so takes the opportunity to spend the trip using him for sex. At the end of the book, he's found out her fiancé was behind the threats and the kidnapping (she gets grabbed while on the trip), she's decided that because he took the time to investigate before presenting her with this, that he's holding her at arms' length with secrets.

Eventually, she decides that she expects too much of him (ya think?) and should accept him, warts and all (ah; but what about YOUR warts, sweetheart?). He, in the meantime, has picked up her autobiographical "it's all about me!" novel and decided that he'd hurt her baaaaaad. Epilogue is a year and a half later, she's preggers, and he's finishing the nursery.

Issues, and they're big.

The past was not just a prologue, it was interspersed throughout the first half of the book, and annoying as hell. You'd be reading in the present, then an italics date would be the only warning you'd get that you were getting a flashback. I was confused the first time or two, then irritated. Eventually, I just skimmed.

The h refused all contact after he stood her up. No phone call, no text, no IM. I was unclear about whether she sicced her mother on him or he just called the cow trying to reach her. Either way, real mature behavior for a 30 year old woman. In any case, she'd only known him a month, and if my calculations are correct, that's what - 4 dates? She knew he had family there. Yeah; he could have broken protocol and texted her that something came up. She could also have acted like an adult and talked to him.

What exactly was she doing? Supposedly she had degrees in several things but considering that after this, she'd a) indulged in risky sexual behavior, b) moved back in with her mom, and c) gotten a job at a biotech company, I got the impression that she was jobless while running halfway across the country for a hookup every weekend.

If he'd been any more whipped where she was concerned, he might as well donned a daddle, and let her flog him. For a supposedly alpha male, his groveling and apologizing for her being an idiot was more than a little off-putting.

I really wanted to like this book. I loved that the heroine was involved with the suffrage movement. Callie, of course, was monied and didn't really think about the poor. Less naivete would have been awesome. I liked the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. Hadrian was disappointing to me; I liked that he was working class, but I didn't like how he treated Callie.

Today, we celebrate. Whatever the outcome, we voted or had the right to vote. I got an I Voted sticker in Vietnamese. My son, who is 7, came with me to the polls and argued every issue with me in the car on the way there. 

Here is a list of wonderful Romance Novels featuring issues of suffrage. 

1. The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan

2. Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz

3. Suffragette in the City by Katie MacAlister

4. Cross the Ocean by Holly Bush

5. The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs

6. The Marrying Kind by Sharon Ihle

7. Vanquished by Hope Tarr

8. Courting Miss Amsel by Kim Vogel Sawyer 

9. Sweet Talking Man by Betina Krahn 

10.A Most Peculiar Circumstance by Jen Turano

Do you have any favorite Suffragettes? Let me know! To vote for the best Romance Featuring Women's Voting Rights and get more recs, go to my Goodreads list: Suffrage in Romance Novels. 

Thank you to all the women and men around the world who died, starved, and marched, for my right to vote. Women and men who were beaten, arrested, imprisoned. Women and men who argued with family, spent time away from their childern. and fought for decades so that I could rush home from work to have my say. 

Here are some Suffrage Fighters to remember. If you would like to see more check out my Pinterest Board: Women's Right in Romance. 

Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was a militant activist who fought for women's suffrage in Britain. She was jailed on nine occasions and force-fed 49 times.^[1] She is best known for stepping in front of King George V's horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby on 4 June 1913, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later.

Charlotte Hawkins Brown (June 11, 1883 – January 11, 1961) was an American educator, founder of thePalmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina. Brown was a world-traveler and suffragist.

Alice Paul was the leader of the most militant wing of the woman-suffrage movement. Born in 1885 to a wealthy Quaker family in New Jersey, Paul was well-educated–she earned an undergraduate degree in biology from Swarthmore College and a PhD in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania–and determined to win the vote by any means necessary. She was placed in solitary confinement and engaged in a hunger strike. 

The suffragette Lilian Hickling just released from Holloway prison having endured hunger strike. 1913

Laurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator. He was a committed socialist and pacifist and founded the Men's League for Women's suffrage with Henry Nevinson and Henry Brailsford in 1907.  In 1909, Laurence, with his sister Clemence founded the Suffrage Atelier, an arts and crafts society who worked closely with the Women's Social and Political Unionand Women's Freedom League. 

Meri Te Tai Mangakahia (22 May 1868 – 10 October 1920) was a campaigner for women's suffrage in New Zealand. angakahia was the wife of Hamiora Mangakahia, who, in 1892, was elected Premier of the Kotahitanga Parliament in Hawke's Bay. The following year, Meri Mangakahia addressed the assembly (the first woman to do so), submitting a motion in favour of women being allowed to vote for, and stand as, members of the Parliament. She noted that Māori women were landowners, and should not be barred from political representation.

Mary Jane Clarke (1862–1910), was a British suffragette.She was an organizer in the Women's Social and Political Union. In 1909, she led a group to Downing Street, and was arrested. In 1909, she spoke in Yorkshire. In 1909, she was organizing in Brighton. She ran the WPSU campaign, in the United Kingdom general election, January 1910.^[1] After Black Friday (1910), 18 November 1910, she was arrested for window smashing, 23 November 1910, and held in HM Prison Holloway and force-fed. She was released on 23 December 1910. ^[2] She died 26 December, 1910, inWinchmore Hill, London.^[1]

Carrie Chapman Catt (January 9, 1859 – March 9, 1947) was anAmerican women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920.

When I read the Suddenly Cinderella Series Bundle a little while ago I realized there was a very short novella (only about 50 pages) that wasn't included. So begged and pleaded with Entangled Publishing and they were awesome enough to send me a review copy. Now I know it isn't Christmas season for a long time yet, but I don't think there's ever a bad time for some Christmas cheer (I know - sappy right). 

This is the story of Starr and Matt - both employees at the magazine from book one (Starr was Macie's boss). It's a fun and quirky twist on the classic Christmas Carol. Starr's special spirit visitor chooses the form of Matt - her hunky work crush - and shows a life with and without. Starr just needs to figure out how to open up enough to make all the good things come true in her life. 

This was a fun quick jaunt through a Christmas classic. It's hard to do it wrong, but it's also hard to make it something new and exciting. Hope Tarr did a good job trying to add some interesting modern twists to the tale. 

*This book was received in exchange for an honest review*