Determined to face her fear of water, Maddy Gordon signed up for beginner swimming, and found herself surrounded by seven-year-olds! And why did her instructor have to be golden-muscled Olympic swimmer Zach London, whose grin still gave her goose bumps? Stunned by the emotions Zach aroused in her, Maddy sought refuge behind her puppets. Perfect for her work with children, they also helped keep other people at arm's length - a barely safe distance where Zack was concerned! Zach knew Maddy had to face what scared her before she could return his love, but would she trust him enough to conquer her ghosts?


Original Publisher: Bantam
Original Year of Publication: 1986
Page Count: 183

The March 2025 #TBRChallenge is “Rizz,” which is apparently slang for “charisma.” I had no idea this word required slang, but here we are. I have been in something of a meh reading rut, so I chose to go to my Loveswept collection for this month's prompt.

This book certainly looked intriguing enough, with its former-Olympic-gold-medalist swimmer hunk of a hero, and a heroine who used puppets in her work. As it happens, she is a social worker with the county, and uses her puppets in her work with traumatized and abused children. She has empathy for them on many levels, as she herself has some unresolved issues about her body, her place in the world, and of course her fear of water. I thought Maddy had a lot of potential as a heroine, lots of interesting facets to explore, but unfortunately the truncated category length stifled much of this.

Maddy, like every other girl her age (25 at the start of the book) worshipped the golden boy Zach London, who was competing at the Olympics when she was a mere tween. He won some medals and lots of fame/celebrity because of that, up to and including the proverbial Wheaties box. We're never really told how old Zach is, but apparently enough time has passed that he isn't instantly recognizable anymore and can teach swim classes at the local public pool without groupies crowding around to swoon.

Maddy gathers her courage and signs up for beginner's swim class, but a mistake means that she's put in a children's class. She feels even more awkward than usual because she's so tall, especially next to a bunch of "babies." She finds instant comradery with the kid closest to her, a little girl named Theresa who clings to her with shyness. Zach tries to send Maddy away, thinking she's a child's mother, which only embarrasses her further. She manages to get into the pool with the kids, but faints fairly quickly, necessitating her removal from the pool and the class. Zach takes her into the office, she realizes who he is, they trade some fairly cute banter. Realizing there isn't an adult beginning class at the pool, Zach offers to give Maddy private swimming lessons - and who is she to turn down private lessons with an Olympian?!

The two further bond over Theresa, who has some telltale signs that maybe all is not right in her world; indeed, at the next lesson, Zach summons Maddy to the pool because Theresa is sporting a black eye and an angry parent hurrying her along to the car. Both Maddy and Zach inexplicably fall in love with this child and decide to rescue her; they report the abuse to the county DHS and each want to adopt her, even though they are both single and have no other children of their own. Maddy resents Zach's desire to adopt Theresa, believing he will have a better chance at winning custody because of Who He Is (how we can tell it's 1986: a single man wanting to adopt a strange little girl would not fly in 2025), but does she tell him? No.

The two have some ~sensuous~ time in the water in the guise of lessons, and both vie for Theresa's attention (she is a remarkably well-adjusted child, considering her parents are dead and her aunt/uncle don't want her and readily relinquish her to be a ward of the court). They are also Fighting Pants Feelings because this *is* a Loveswept book, after all.

Maddy has to face her fear of water, and Zach has his own somber memories to move past (his wife and child are dead before the book opens). It's a very sweet story, but ultimately feels rushed. Maddy's reasons for avoiding water are finally uncovered, and she basically overcomes it in two? lessons. Zack seems to understand that he can't push Maddy too much, but damned if he doesn't spend a good part of the second half of the book yelling at her: for canceling her lessons, for avoiding him, for Doing Stupid Things and Causing Him to Worry. This is supposed to show that he cares for her and wants to protect her, but it really goes over like a lead balloon for me, unfortunately. He also proposes to Maddy because he believes being married will give him a better chance of adopting Theresa (how romantic). He also loves Maddy, but does he bother to tell her? No, of course not, he just lets her believe the worst.

Other problematic elements include the whole subplot to adopt Theresa and how easily it resolves - I mean, I am not someone who generally comments on ~privilege~ in fiction, but it just reeks here. Two strangers, who meet Theresa at a public swimming lesson, end up being able to adopt her via a private transfer of custody in less than 30 days, basically because they are young, white, and affluent. Yay for happy endings, I suppose, but it is pretty cringe-inducing nonetheless.

Still, problematic elements aside, I enjoyed this book. It's pretty quiet and sweet, which is a pleasant surprise for this particular line. I'd definitely read this author again. I also wouldn't be surprised if I discovered that she eventually pivoted to inspirational and/or women's fiction.

⭐⭐⭐

The Man in Her Mirror...

He was a financial wizard, a driven rogue with a Midas touch, but Gideon Hughes had no interest in keeping the run-down Wonderland carnival he'd inherited - until an enchantress with spun-silver hair presented him with a puzzle he just had to solve! Maggie Durant intrigued him, unnerved him - and made him yearn to storm the fortress of her mystery. But he found it almost impossible to conduct a courtship in the midst of clowns, gypsies, and magicians, even when the angelic siren who knew his secrets announced she was in love with him! Maggie hoped it was only chemistry between them, but the brave man who'd entered her sanctuary was destiny's knight. Gideon had always played by his rules, but in Maggie's world he had to feel his way. Would she show him the real woman who'd love him forever, instead of the shimmering reflection she made in his eyes?


Original Publisher: Bantam
Original Year of Publication: 1990
Page Count: 180

This is a rather delightful little story, and the perfect way to end my reading year. I see that this is actually part of a series called "Once Upon a Time," which makes everything make 1000% more sense. I love fairy tale retellings, and this one is a doozy: Alice in Wonderland!

Maggie Durant is the family chameleon, and the family troubleshooter. When she learns that her cousin Merlin has died mysteriously - and that her Aunt Julia believes that he was murdered - she realizes that it's up to her to go investigate his death. Merlin was a magician in a traveling carnival called Wonderland, so Maggie shows up at its ramshackle temporary home in Kansas, takes an animal trainer's job, and starts her investigation into her cousin's death (he apparently fell into a well when the carnival was in Iowa).

Meanwhile, Gideon Hughes has been summoned to Wonderland upon the news that a very distant relative has suddenly died and left him in charge of the carnival. Gideon is an investment banker, and is frankly flummoxed by the idea of owning a traveling carnival. He demands to see the manager, and is immediately surprised - and intrigued - to find that 28-year-old Maggie is in charge of this lot. She looks like a fairy: small, blonde, impossibly fey features, and he's immediately intrigued. He can't make anything she says make logical sense, however, so they find themselves rather at a rather bemused crossroads. Eventually Gideon learns how to unbend enough to feel, rather than think, and the two put their heads together to discover who is a murderer hiding amongst the carny crew. They also fall in love over the course of about 2 days, thanks to a little meddling matchmaking from the improbably old Uncle Cyrus Fortune, who incidentally looks exactly like Col Sanders of KFC fame.

This is a very bizarre story, one you just have to roll with. If the author has her rights back, she could easily market this as fantasy romance these days. The only internal sense is the whimsical nonsense of the Lewis Carroll classic stories. There's even a Cheshire cat!

Bizarre, but unlike my last read, utterly delightful. I love the idea that there are more books in this series, all of which appear to be other fairy tale retellings. If this author can pull off freaking Alice in Wonderland, I can only imagine how she'd handle the more conventional tales!

⭐⭐⭐

Chism Talbert had loved her first, and best - but he had broken her heart. He was the caretaker's handsome son. She was Minta Westerly, the privileged girl who'd surrendered to him one starry summer night - then been abandoned when he abruptly left town. Now she was back in the big house where she'd spent family vacations - and suddenly, impossibly, Chism walked through the door, pinning her with mesmerizing eyes that burned with fury and desire. Both were haunted by the dreams they'd woven together, the promises they'd whispered under a willow tree - and both were devastated by a misunderstanding that still felt like a betrayal. But the years apart and the pain they had denied only fed the fires of passion that sizzled within. Minta longed to taste the magic of Chism's lips once more, even if he insisted that time had made them strangers. Could she make him see that she belonged in his world, and that he would have a home in her heart forever?


Original Publisher: Bantam
Original Year of Publication: 1991
Page Count: 177

The August 2022 #TBRChallenge is “Blue Collar.” Class differences aren’t something that I actively look out for in my romance reading (I don’t really feel strongly one way or the other about them), so this one was a bit of a stumper. It was also the perfect excuse to dive into the collection of Loveswept titles I’d picked up at the thrift store but hadn’t yet cracked into. This book seemed to be the closest to meeting the theme of a blue collar main character, so I went with it.

Minta Westerly is the daughter of a wealthy family who spends their summers at a mansion called Willow Hill in Haven Port, Maine. Chism Talbert is the son of the caretaker, a native son who knows that the “summer people” are a different class, and knows how to stay in his own lane. That works until the summer he’s 19, when he falls in love with 18-year-old Minta. The two spend the entire summer wrapped up in each other and even hatch a plan to run away and elope before she has to leave in the fall. Only something happens – the two never meet at the appointed time – and both feel heartbroken and betrayed, never to speak again.

Twelve years later, Minta has returned to Willow Hill on orders from her doctor to take a break from her hectic life in the New York advertising world. She steps onto the porch of the family summer home, all tingly with anticipation, and who should she run into but her former lover, looking gruff and handsome and surly on the doorstep? She’d heard that Chism’s father had died but is still surprised to see him opening up her house, and he refuses to tell her why he’s there. He does kiss her, however, which just makes her tingles increase.

He's pretty tingly, too, but he’s also angry with her because he believes that she just left him high and dry all those years ago because she thought she was better than him. These conflicting feelings don’t stop him from hanging around Willow Hill, falling back into his old role as the caretaker’s son, and reminding Minta of what she could’ve had all those years ago.

It doesn’t take long for them to fall into bed together again, even though they both swear up, down, and sideways that they aren’t in love – or, at least, they aren’t in love with the current versions of themselves, rather the memories from that sweet teenaged summer so long ago. They both say several times that they want to take things slow and try to figure out if they are still compatible, given how much their lives have changed since they were teens. They keep saying all this stuff, but in a 177 page novel, they don’t really have a chance to follow through with it – one crisis has Minta calling his number from memory for assistance because he always used to rescue her.

They realize that they were torn asunder twelve years ago by his father, who didn’t want Chism to throw his life away without direction. Daddy dearest tells Chism that the meeting place has changed, and when Minta shows up to the original spot, he tells her that Chism left straightaway for the army. Both leave in floods of tears, but since Daddy dearest is now dead, they decide that can’t hold a grudge because look how great they turned out in the meanwhile!

Meanwhile, Minta is also trying to decide if she wants to leave her fast-paced city career and settle down in Haven Port, where she has such happy memories of her childhood summers. She’s an advertising whiz and can work freelance from anywhere. Conveniently enough, Chism has made his fortune in computer games and can also work from anywhere, so why not move cross country and settle into his hometown again?

There’s also a parallel thread of diary entries from the first Minta in 1892, who falls in love with her family’s gardener against society’s wishes but has her parents’ blessing to marry him anyway and start the family tradition of naming the firstborn daughter after herself. These diary entries are OTT and ridiculous, and really could’ve been left out to give our present-day characters a chance to actually do what they say they’re going to do: re-learn each other as adults.

This book is so fluffy and light that it could very easily float away. It has comically bad purple prose sex scenes (including the obligatory silken chest hair for manly Chism), and was supremely tacky in places, but it only took about two hours to read. I now have a better idea of what to expect from Loveswept (my previous experiences having been Sandra Brown novels), and even went out and bought five more this weekend, but I don’t think this one is going to stay on my shelves.


⭐⭐

SHE CREATED A STIR

Some found her ingenious, others diabolical. But no one could argue with the success of Lady Antonia Paxton's technique. For the beautiful young widow had made a career out of helping destitute women marry well -- by trapping London's richest young bachelors in compromising positions with her willing ladies, then forcing them to marry.

HE CREATED A SCANDAL

The darkly handsome Remington Carr, ninth Earl of Landon, was as controversial for his radical views on women's rights as he was for his decadent way of life. If the rakish earl had his way, all women would work for a living and marriage would be abolished. He was the ultimate London bachelor and the answer to the prayers of a select group of gentlemen -- Antonia's matrimonial victims -- all too eager to put a stop to the widow's schemes....

THE LAST BACHELOR

When the pair meet in the halls of Parliament, the sparks fly -- and a wager is made: If Remington will subject himself to two weeks of "women's work," Antonia will put in two weeks of "men's work." And then they will see who has the harder lot in life. The battle is on. And the stakes are nothing less than their hearts....


Original Publisher: Bantam
Original Year of Publication: 1994
Page Count: 528

I made it 460 pages in and I just had to give up. It was beyond verging on the point of ridiculousness - it had tipped over into a full-blown soap opera, and not in a good way.

The first half of the book was delightful. Antonia and Remington are on opposite sides of the marriage question: Antonia sees it as the last bastion of protection for women, whereas Remington sees it as a trap. They make their "woman's wager," where Remington promised to do a fortnight of women's work and if he changed his mind about women, then Antonia would do a fortnight of men's work.

Remington getting his comeuppance as he learns the real trials and tribulations of an average late Victorian woman was something to relish. HIs goal during this was to seduce Antonia, and he manages to do that, too, though he is no longer out for revenge on the Dragon of Decency. He calls off his side wager, but manages to horribly betray Antonia anyway, and the book just goes downhill from there.

The newspapers have covered the wager in salacious terms, and it gets all the way up to the Queen, who takes a personal interest in their case for some reason. She takes it as a personal affront that Remington doesn't do the honorable thing after compromising a lady - offering marriage - and basically forces him to do it. Antonia won't hear of it, and they end up on the opposite side of where they started: Antonia doing anything to get out of marriage, while Remington declares its the only solution.

He decides that he's going to bend Antonia to her will and forces her to go through with her half of the wager so he can spend time alone with her and seduce her again. I was not buying it this time. She had no trust in him, and he never earned it back - it basically became a battle of wills and she was the one who had to surrender. I didn't care for that at all. There was not enough grovelling for me, and their declarations of love rang false.

The whole media spectacle blows up, threatens to ruin Remington's business interests (what was a peer of the realm doing with business interests, anyway?), and he's arrested on a morals charge, and that's where I gave up because I can only take so much before my eyes permanently roll out of my head. Less than 100 pages to the end, and I just couldn't take it anymore.

Maybe if battle-of-the-sexes or enemies-to-lovers were my kinda tropes, I would've enjoyed this more. The writer is superb (if a bit preachy) and has done thorough research into the question of the institution of marriage. If the book at ended at its first natural ending place, it wouldn't been A++ for me, but instead this whole media sideline got way too much attention and eventually dragged the plot straight off the rails.


His strong callused but gentle hands kneaded the muscles in her legs that had allowed her to dance like a vision before her injury. Blair Simpson had enclosed herself in the magnificent fortress of her dancing, and no man had ever breached the walls of her heart, but Sean Garrett was determined to love her anyway. His touch ignited fireworks that lit up the heavens and shamed the star-streaked Long Island skies. Blair's body, which had never betrayed her before, begged for Sean's tender but impassioned caresses. In his arms she came to understand the emotions behind her dancing. But could she afford the high price if love?


Original Publisher: Bantam
Original Year of Publication: 1983
Page Count: 181

It would've been better if the hero hadn't been a controlling, pawing, lecherous asshole who was willing to take "no" for an answer. Of course the heroine (1) was a 30-year-old virgin, because her only other boyfriend was a secretly gay man and eventually killed himself, and (2) gave up her career for the hero even after he'd told her not to bother hobbling back to him after she permanently ruined her knees. She had a bit of strength of character, but fell into the same trap that all 80s-era heroines fall into: they are only considered worthy of the hero's love if they become totally submissive to him.

⭐⭐