Dare to Love Again by Julie Lessman

I don't think that I have miss a single book by Julie Lessman and there's a reason for that.  She writes with such humor and attitude that you can't help but laugh throughout the book, even during serious scenes.  I never get enough of the Irish attitude!

Allison McClure had spunk!  Whenever her and Nick Barone (with a long e) were in the same room together, sparks and tempers flew.  I loved the scene with the hair pins and how imagination imagined that scene.  At first, I suspected Nick to be up to something and wasn't convinced his intentions were all that pure.  But that didn't make me like Allison's uncle any better.  I liked him by the last page and could understand his desire to protect his family, but for the most part he annoyed me.

The ending of the book broke my heart one minute and then made me laugh the next.  The cable car scenes were also pretty fun to imagine.  You can tell that Julie Lessman had a lot of fun writing this book.  I'm curious how much of her personality is in this book!  The characters are funny and real.  Meg was one that I liked because of her difference.  I hated that her friends couldn't see her beauty and love her for who she really was.

I'm looking forward to the next book in the Heart of San Francisco Series.

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I received this book free from Revell Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.

Love at Any Cost by Julie Lessman

I am a big Julie Lessman fan.  Her series with the O'Connors endeared me to her.  I liked not only her writing, but the fact that my maiden name is "O'Connor" and I share that Irish heritage.  I loved the spunk of the girl they wanted to adopt and the spirit of the whole family.  I was certain that I just couldn't like this book and series as much as I did with the other series. 

I like the personalities of the characters that she writes about.  She creates them to funny, warm, loving, yet still with struggles that we can relate to.  This book is no different and I think that's why I found myself enjoying this book just as much as her previous books, if not more.

Focused in the 1900s, this book has some romance, but it's not the predictable kind of romances.  It's not the sappy kind of romance where you feel like this could never happen.  It's a natural romance that you can easily imagine.  I also like that she is poorer and will actually be marrying "up" a step.  Many books I've read lately have the woman in the higher role and the man marries up, so it was a nice change for me.

I wonder how much longer I'll have to wait to read the next one in this series.  Perhaps not too long....

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I received this book free from Revell Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.

A Love Surrendered by Julie Lessman

Annie and her sister are now orphans and have found their life uprooted to a new home....a home that seems less than welcoming.  Annie despises her great-aunt and decides that she doesn't need God and wants to prove herself as a girl with no cares.  She wants to give all of herself away to anyone just so she can say she's not "innocent" anymore.  Having chosen friends and a group of girls to hang out with that her sister Maggie did, losing her innocence is quite easy to do.  Well, it would be if Sergeant Steven O'Connor didn't stand in the way EVERY time she thought she was making progress.  Sure he saved her life and kept her from making bad decisions, but what does that matter?!

Steven is certain that his past can never be forgiven.  He lost his first love, Maggie, and doesn't know Annie is her sister.  He determines that he's only meant to be with those girls who are not so innocent because of his past.  For some reason, though, he thinks he needs to protect that girl that keeps finding herself in situations where boys would easily take advantage of her.  When he hears that Annie has changed her life around, he's happy and thinks that's the end of her.  But somehow, she ends up back in not only his life but in the life of his family.  Will he give up his heart?  Will she prove to him that she's not "wet behind the ears" and is in fact, a young woman worthy of one's love?  What changes her?

I have read the first two books in this series, the Winds of Change series.  I really enjoyed the first two books and was excited to read this one, too.  Not unsurprisingly, I loved it, too.  It was so hard to put down.  In fact, I think I surpassed my normal bedtime by about 2 hours each night just because I wanted to find out what happened next.  Lessman writes in such a way that draws you in from the very first page.  The longer chapters make the book harder to put down because you don't feel like you have a great stopping place.  Perhaps that's a ploy to keep her readers reading longer!  This series is very good and I laughed out quite a bit.  I love the personalities of each one in the family and I can easily imagine a family with these dynamics.  It was funny to see how the girls got into different predicaments and for the first time, the boys were apologizing!  The men in the family seemed to have become less harsh in this book than they were in the previous one.  I liked that because I really liked how they were portrayed in this one. 

Don't worry if you haven't started with book 1 in the series.  You won't be lost if you start with this one.  However, if you are looking for a new series to start, jump in with this one.

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I received this book free from Revell Publishers in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.