Beneath the secrets Book

Bringing Up Baby - Lori Foster - 3/5 - After his father died, Gil had a one night stand with a woman living in Atlanta. 2 ½ years later, he finds out that he's a father and the mother has died. For 2 ½ years, Anabel has been raising his daughter Nicole because the real mother didn't want to be a Mom, but forbade Anabel to tell Gil. So now that she's free to, Anabel takes his daughter to him. But she loves Nicole like a real mother and cannot stand the thought that she might lose her, so she makes an offer of marriage to Gil. Gil is skeptical about Anabel, but soon realizes how valuable she is to his new life. I'm not completely sold on Anabel loving Gil for all this time, because I have to wonder how well she knows him. I felt that several things were left out - for example, what are Gil's actual sexual appetites that were alluded to? and what is Anabel's background that led her to where she was? (because it was implied that they were important as well, but never explained). Otherwise a pretty good story.

The Wilde One - Janelle Denison - 3 /5 - Chayse wants Adrian Wilde to pose for her "outdoorsy men" calendar. Being the operator of Wilde Adventures and a major outdoorsman, he'd be perfect for her charity project. But Adrian wants nothing to do with the calendar...unfortunately for him, he wants everything to do with Chayse. And her persistence keeps putting temptation in his way - especially when she shows up at his weekend cabin and says she's not going til she gets what she wants. They both end up getting exactly what they want, but by the end of the wekeend, both Chayse and Adrian have developed "let's have more of this" feelings. Adrian is cool to go with those, but Chayse is afraid and runs before they can confront their feelings. Once this hit the 40% mark, this story was okay. Up to that point, I felt like Chayse needed to be smacked upside the head and reminded that 'no means no.' It most certainly doesn't mean hound the person until they reveal all their secrets and insecurities about why they said no just because you're curious. And it's not like she was after him in any other way before that. She was pretty much shocked when Adrian turned things sexual, so her only reason was to nag this guy into doing what she wanted despite his clear answer "NO." But once Adrian dropped his insecurities and the feelings started building between them, this got better and I was able to forget that Chayse had annoyed me. They had some great sexual chemistry together and there was still that little bit of angst with the whole fear of feelings thing. So overall pretty good.

Going After Adam - Nancy Warren - 3 /5 - Gretchen is a P.I. hired to take photos of Adam Stone, a philandering husband in town to meet with his piece on the side. But she soon finds out that Adam is not what she was told and that she's stepped into a major cover up that could get her and Adam killed. As they try to get to Vegas to meet up with his FBI friend, the two discover a connection that can't be denied and that feels a lot like love. But when this is over, will they have a future? This isn't a half bad suspense novella. Gretchen and Adam spend most of this time on the run from 3 goons who are trying to kill them and this manages to be a pretty fast paced story as a result. Also, both Gretchen and Adam are really likeable characters, even if we don't get a whole lot of background info on them. They don't have a lot of depth, but that's the novella effect. The only real downside here was from the romance, which felt like it was pretty sudden and came out of the blue. One minute he had her tied to a bed so she couldn't rat him out and the next their kissing and she's ready to follow him anywhere and have sex with him. Other than that bit of odd transition, this was enjoyable.