Reviewed for Wit and Sin

Mismatched in Mayhem is a sweet romance with just enough quirk to keep fans of small town romances entertained without going over the top. Mayhem, Minnesota is a charming town with a semi-famous cat sweater store and a psychic who makes delicious pie, so for me it was impossible not to be drawn into the world L.E. Rico has created immediately – it was just too cute.

At the heart of Mismatched in Mayhem is the romance between bartender and pub manager Johnny Walker Black O’Halloran and grad student Mason Stevens. Mason grabbed my heart from the first and didn’t let go. He’s a total sweetheart and all-around good guy, so it was insanely easy to fall for him. The budding mineralogist has a huge heart, does his best to take care of the people he loves, and just wants someone who loves him for him. It’s not easy for him to find that because his mother is an incredibly famous actress. That’s why he’s immediately taken with Walker when she has no idea who he is. For me, Walker was the weak point in the book. She was once a wild child who now has gone to a totally different extreme since her father’s death. She has closed off a lot of her world, which I understood to an extent. It feels like I might be missing some information because I haven’t read the previous Whiskey Sisters books, so I didn’t totally understand why Walker tries so hard to push Mason away. I did like Walker’s relationship with her family and her friendship with Mason’s brother. It’s just her romance with Mason that didn’t always work for me. Mason is prom king level of perfect in looks and attitude, which is so not her type. But his charm and persistence make her want to give the guy a chance. There’s a lot of push-pull and I didn’t wholly understand why Mason was so determined to win over Walker, aside from the fact that she didn’t know his famous parents and the more important fact that the plot calls for it.

The romance between Walker and Mason has some fun and sweet moments, but the push-pull and manufactured drama you could see coming from a mile away wore on me at times. The dreaded “big misunderstanding” comes into play in this story and I freely admit that’s something I tend to loathe in stories unless it’s exceptionally well done, so those who aren’t so bothered by it may not be as turned off by this twist. I had an overall feeling best conveyed as “meh” toward the romance. It was fine, but there was just something missing that made me feel like Walker and Mason didn’t “click” as a couple. Opposites attracting is fun in theory, but the author really has to sell it for it to work and for me it didn’t in this case. Still, I enjoyed Walker’s personal journey and Mason was such a sweetheart that I still liked the book well enough. And Mayhem itself was so charming that I would definitely read another Whiskey Sisters book.


FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This is book #4, in the Whiskey Sisters series.  This book can be a standalone novel.  For understanding the series, and to avoid spoilers, I recommend reading this great series in order.

Walker is the one who takes care of her family.  She puts her family first, herself last.  Then she helps someone left behind at her family's bar.  It may be something out of the ordinary for her, but she is a good person.  Why is everyone so shocked?

Mason is excited to get along with someone who does not know who he is.  His secret is safe, and the chemistry is hot!  Until they get to know one another better, and time is running out to tell her the secret he has kept close to his chest.

This was so much more than I thought looking at the cover.  Cute cover though, and I do love me the kitties.  What I found was a story with so much to it I could not put it down!  I loved the heat, the banter, the characters and more.  I really will be reading this author again soon.  I give this read a 5/5 Kitty's Paws UP!


***This early copy was given in exchange for an honest review, by Netgalley and its publishers.

For most Americans today, Puerto Rico is an afterthought, a remnant of a strategic vision of which they are reminded only when disaster causes it to flare up momentarily onto their collective consciousness. Yet for the Puerto Ricans themselves, this is a disappointingly familiar reflection of their historical experience of the last five centuries. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Arturo Morales Carrión's masterful survey of the island's long and troubled history. Written in collaboration with four area specialists who contribute chapters on the Spanish colonial era and Puerto Rican culture, it conveys the long experience of domination by outside powers and the efforts by Puerto Ricans to exert some degree of control over their own destinies. Though nearly four decades old it still rewards reading thanks to the excellent overview it provides of Puerto Rico's development and relationship with the outside powers that controlled it, and is strongly recommended for anyone seeking to better understand this unjustly overlooked part of our nation.

Christmas Chaos. This story is about Hennessy and Brian, and the planning of their wedding. I was glad when they began to take control of their lives. I enjoyed getting to know the others in this town and how they helped each other.
Baby Bedlam. Now Jameson and Scott find what they are looking for in the forever department. This included children. How they dealt with fears and the very real problems with pregnancy.
Both stories had their teary moments as well as a few laughs. This was the first book I have read by this author, and I am intrigued enough to go backward to read the first ones.

I received an ARC of this story through Netgalley, and this is my unsolicited review.

A book about America’s territories: part travelogue, part history, part investigation of the territories’ political status, this is a lightweight, readable introduction to a complicated topic. Doug Mack takes readers along on his trip through the territories: beginning in the U.S. Virgin Islands, then traveling to American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific, and ending with a trip to Puerto Rico. He even makes a stop in the Marshall Islands and briefly discusses the U.S.’s “freely associated states” of the Marshall Islands, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia. (These are independent Pacific Island countries that have a special relationship with the U.S., even having U.S. post offices and citizens serving in the U.S. military; as a group, they were best known to me for being the only other U.N. member states to always vote against sanctions for Israel.) Along the way, he shares his research about the territories in an accessible way that provides a good primer for readers new to the topic.

I found this book interesting, educational and easy to read. The author shows readers each territory as a unique place and digs into their histories and the history of U.S. international policies more broadly. He also examines the legal oddities governing the rights of the territories and their residents: for instance, they are eligible for some public benefits on their islands, but never become eligible for others even when living in the mainland U.S. (some of which actual foreign immigrants can receive after several years). Meanwhile mainland Americans can’t vote for president if they relocate to the territories. Mack pushes for opinions on the territories’ political status, and except in Puerto Rico often finds them hard to come by; for the most part, territory residents seem to prefer a flawed status quo to possibly losing individuality by becoming a state, or losing economically by becoming independent.

Mack could have improved the book a bit by being a little more willing to go out of his comfort zone as a traveler. He does meet a variety of people living in the territories, including, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a man who spent several years in another part of the Pacific learning traditional navigation, and a woman who immigrated from China to work in the garment factories. But his only exposure to obeah in the U.S. Virgin Islands is asking a well-off couple (he’s a local but she is a scuba instructor from the mainland U.S.) about it, to which they essentially smile and roll their eyes. Toward the end, he comments with surprising honesty that “In all my travels in the territories, I’d seen countless shacks and set foot in many middle-class houses and gaped from afar at the occasional oceanfront villa.” It doesn’t seem to occur to him to try to get invitations to some shacks as well, and the book gives little sense of how most people live in the territories.

All that said, with the exception of Puerto Rico, the territories are tiny islands about which relatively little has been written, especially in such an easy-to-read, bite-sized format, and this book did an excellent job of filling them out on my mental map. I would recommend it to any American to learn a bit more about some of the furthest-flung parts of the country. It can even be funny: did you know about the U.S. government’s machinations in the 19th century to claim uninhabitated islands for their bird poop?