Reading and reading and.... reading

Hi all !

I know it has been a while since I last post something, but I was busy reading. I discovered the Harlequin Next (www.thenextnovel.com) and I fell in love with them.

I started by reading "The Second Time Around" from Marie Ferrarella and I loved the story, the characters, the plot, the side characters.... well, with everything.

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By the way, did you know you're pregnant?

Eight tiny words, but strung together in one sentence…they are destined to destroy life as Laurel Mitchell knows it. For after twenty-five years of wedlock and three grown children, starting over with the diaper-and-formula scene is…inconceivable.

Apparently not. Now her sweetly snoozing marriage is frantically adjusting to a most unexpected wake-up call.

And to the new man in her life—her husband, Jason. Recently devoted to working long hours and planning the perfect road trip, he's suddenly become impossibly sexy, affectionate and overprotective.

And between the tears (hers) and the terror (his) they're waiting for a bundle of joy in pink (yes, pink!) that's already proving life's most unexpected gifts are the best.

What had attracted me to this book is the cover. I love pink and to see it on a cover with the picture of a pregnant lady obviously very happy is the reason why I bought it.

When Laura goes to her doctor for her annual exam, she never would have guess that her doctor would announce a pregnancy. At 45, she was certain that the time had passed. She already had 3 grown boys, one of them on his way to get married, and Jason (her husband) and her were planning their life kids. But the baby is there and under no condition would she consider an abortion.

For Jason, it is a frightening moment. What Laura thought was refusal of her pregnancy is really fear. He is scared of losing her, that something bad might happen that might take his wife away from him.

But as the months pass by and has Laura get rounder, pieces of the puzzle take their place. Just the way I like my stories to be. And guess what ? The new addition to the Mitchell family is a little girl :)

What I love, absolutely love about that story, is that Laura and Jason are a solid couple. Okay, after twenty-five years of marriage, life has become a little.... routine. Nothing exciting. But there is no adultery, no mistress, no hidden secrets. And I loved that.
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I also read, from the Harlequin Next, Slightly Psychic from Sandra Steffen.

Slightly Psychic
Jan 2007
9-780373-88125-3

Lila Delaney never claimed to be entirely psychic…just slightly psychic. But any ability she might have had disappeared the minute Lila's visions led her and the police to a missing heiress…healthy, happy and tied to the bed of Lila's fiancé. Broadcast live on national television, the incident was enough to make Lila hightail it out of town.

Lila's journey brought her and her best friend Pepper to a small Virginia town. All too soon the woman who just wanted to be left alone was indulging in mint juleps and moonlit celebrations, becoming attracted to a too-secretive man and getting involved in an unsolved murder. If only her psychic abilities would return, Lila might just figure out what she was getting into next….

Okay. Again, I bought it for the cover. And because I love stories with psychics and witches :)

I found Lila to be a quiet woman. She is real, true and does not want to appear to be someone she is not (that is my analist :) ). When she finds a missing heiress with the help of one of her vision, she loose all credibility she had when it comes to her intuition. Because the man with the missing heiress was no one else than... her fiancé. And the cries she was having in her intuition ? Well, they are pleasure screams.

At about the same time, she inherit an old farm in a small Virginia town. When her best friend Pepper appears the day of her moving, they both take a leap of faith and plundge in the unknown.

Joe McCaffrey, a successfull ex-baseball player who lost his reputation, his daughter and his carreer when his wife disappeared two years ago, lives at The Meadows and works there.

The two of them will find a way, find the way back to their life, helping the people surrounding them find their way too.

I found that story nice, cute and funny. Lila is a bit... neutral for my taste, I have much more prefered Pepper's personality. But at the same time, I see no other heroine for the handsome Joe McCaffrey. The story is beautifully written, with emotions, feelings and left me with a sense of satisfation.