GRR Reviews Trust Me On This by Jennifer Crusie

Alec is undercover, trying to catch a serial scammer and his accomplice, using his aunt, professor Veronica, and her rich friends, as bait, at a conference about Shakespeare. // Dennie is an investigative reporter going after the biggest story in her career... except her subject wanted to avoid the subject. She attended the conference but was dodged. She needed to talk to professor Veronica, which means talking to Alec... who mistook her for the scammer's accomplice working the con... It's clear Alec and Dennie have chemistry together, but she thinks he's running interference for his aunt, and he thinks she's running a con... which only makes their feelings even more confusing...

Oh, nice setup, and even nicer escalation. The scene where Dennie had to put the moves on the scammer while wearing a wire, with Alec listening, was ROFL funny.  5/5

GRR Reviews Only A Night With A Billionaire by Ellie Hall

Penny got an apprenticeship position with the head royal baker in London. But getting lost in the palace and having a Cinderella moment admiring all the beautiful ball gowns lead to a case of mistaken identity: she's NOT princess Penelope... but when the queen greeted you as a niece, how do you say no? And when it turns out she's to meet no less than Prince Oliver and participate in a royal version of "The Bachelor" with 3 other princesses, Penny fainted on the spot. She had a crush on Oliver for years. Being picked as the future queen of Concordia alongside Oliver is a dream... or a nightmare, as she's sure her deception will be revealed any moment...

Okay, I like the tension, but the rescue scenario does NOT work at all. How can a train, having outrun an avalanche, FAILED TO NOTICE that it is SEVERAL CARS short, one of which contains the king and queen to be? And who uses ladders for rescues nowadays? It's rescue baskets and winches! And finally, what a deus ex machina. I knew there is going to be a twist, but it felt... forced.

Category: Contemporary / Royalty

Overall Rating: 3/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews The Billionaire's Email-Order Date by Vivi Holt

Chris, a rich businessman, is closed off after death of his wife. Needing to take a date back home for Christmas, he ordered one online through a very discrete service, and promptly took the woman who showed up, in an elf costume of all things, to his home in Montana... // Kate is a struggling artist abandoned by her fiancee and lost her adopted parents. She wanted to find her birth mom in Montana, but in the meanwhile, she's doing Christmas singing grams. When her latest gram brought her to Chris, and he got the wrong idea... and told her they're going to Billings, Montana, it's a chance she cannot pass up, esp. when she'll be paid in cash. // When Chris learned that Kate was keeping a few secrets, he really had no one to blame but himself: he didn't give her a chance to say no. But she also intrigued him... Is there a chance for this odd couple to be together? Will Kate get to see her birth mom?

Good twists and turns, and this is one of those "mistaken identity" stories that actually sorta make sense, instead of relying on a series of unfortunate circumstances.

Category: Contemporary

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews Setting Up the Billionaire by Jennifer Griffith

Nanny Eliza put up with her employer Monique Noelle (aka "Mono") because Mono's young daughter needs some stability, and Eliza seems to be the only one that cares. Then her bestie came up with an elaborate hoax.  They will hire a homeless guy who can clean up nice, seduce Mono, and jilt her to make her see her family is important. They found Henry Lyon at an LA bus station... he seems to be a bum... yet educated. Crazy, yet knowledgeable. He has an accent and has the "cowboy walk" down pat. With a tux, he'd even make a convincing cattle baron. What the two ladies don't know is... Henry really is a cattle baron from down under... who lost all his possessions on a trip to the Grand Canyon...

Good rom-com, a bit of Trading Places, My Fair Lady, and Pygmalion. I personally don't know why he chose to go along with the ruse, but I suppose spending a week in the Grand Canyon alone can do something to a guy's mind. It's a rom-com, and it relies on this sort of... decision making.  AND it's clean (no sex, only a few kisses) yet delivers good emotional impact.

NOTE: Book was also released under the title "My Fair Aussie".

Category: Contemporary / Rom-com

Overall Rating: 5/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews Once Upon A Coffee (Meet Cute) by Kait Nolan

Once Upon a Coffee is a short story based on a meet-cute, basically a funny or cute way to meet. It's a short and fun story.

Avery Cahill had more than a few bad dates, that she finally found one guy online who's respectful. However, the guy did not put up a profile pix. They set up a meeting at a coffee house with a flower and a book. // Dillon Lange had to finish an MBA group project alone when his partner came down with appendicitis. He's under a serious time crunch, but his roommate is an X-box addict. he had to find a quiet place to work, and coffee house is perfect. He did not count on being interrupted by a beautiful stranger who sat down across from him, but she's too cute to turn away, even though it's obvious she's expecting someone else, not him. What happens when her real date showed up?

The story is fun to read, and short (only 40+ pages). Good.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Guys studies in a coffee house, and a girl sat down across from him, having mistaken him for her blind date...

Overall Rating: 4/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Bad Company by Carol Carson

Bad Company managed to make a historical western romance both funny and somehow, also deadly serious.

Trixianna Lawless was startled by the big man that crashed open her door that she took a blind shot at him, and he collapsed... Only then did she notice the tin star... She just shot the sheriff. After treating his wound, he informed her she's under arrest for bank robbery. She told him it's obviously a case of mistaken identity, as she's definitely not "Mad Maggie West", the notorious bank robber, though even she admits there's a certain resemblance between her and the person on the wanted poster. // Sheriff Chance Magrane can't believe he got shot by a woman, but his attempt to put her in jail backfired when the townfolks decided the jail was inadequate and decided to put Trixie in Chance's home instead (!) But even that seems to backfire when Chance ended up being poisoned, stabbed and had his house almost burned down (all by accident!) but even then there is no denying there's a certain something between them... But it will take a whole town, including a visit from a couple surprise guests, to get these two together... And the real bank robber caught.

Quite funny and yet serious, this is hilarious at times. It will take some serious mind-bending to understand why the town insist that Trixie should go to Chance's home, but it's still heck funny.

Category: Historical Western / Romantic Comedy

Primary Plot: Sheriff was forced to guard the woman who shot him... (by mistake!) and ended up poisoned (allergies!) and worse...

Overall Rating: 5/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Blaze (BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) by Terra Wolf

Blaze is a short (under 100 pages) shifter romance that relied on an initial schtick: mistaken identity. The story doesn't really have much of a plot after the schtick though.

Reagan's sister Sadie just got married in Alaska after falling in love in Alaska with the bear-shifter Diesel. Reagan fancied after one of the two remaining Grizzly Brothers (triplets), Blaze and Hunter. Reagan prefers Hunter, but in her drunk state (right after the wedding celebration) she propositioned the wrong brother, Blaze by mistake. However, with bear-shifters, once you mate, you do so for life. And Blaze will have to convince her that he was her future...

Basically, Reagan didn't realize her mistake for a while, even though she's not "marked" by her mate (apparently bear-shifters bite shoulders of their mate to "mark" them permanently) while Blaze was slowly going insane, wanting Reagan but not sure how to explain the circumstances. Eventually they figured it out, of course. But the "wrong guy" schtick wore off quickly.

Category: Paranormal

Primary Plot: Sister to the newly married found herself attracted to one of the remaining two brothers... but propositioned the wrong one!

Tropes: shifter, mistaken identity, traingle, sibling triangle, disguise, fling to a thing

Overall Rating:  3/5

GRR Reviews Rancher's Remorse (Culpepper Cowboys by Merry Farmer

Rancher's Remorse is an uproarious ROFL inducing caper between the 2nd Culpeppper brother, Cooper, and Faith Quinlan, one of the Quinlan Quads (quadruplets). A series of misunderstandings and secrets hiding plus some coincidences and active imaginations lead to some outrageous deductions that are truly side-splitting.

Faith Quinlan, one of the Quinlan Quadruplets, agreed to marry Cooper Culpepper after her big sister Hope agreed to marry Karlan. Faith is the famed dollmaker of the family, creating baby dolls that are so life-like they go for hundreds of dollars, but she held a terrible secret... She was told by her mom and her doctor, that due to continued exposure to the kiln she is unable to conceive. And as a result, she was not open to tell anyone about EITHER of her secrets... the not being able to make babies... and her venture of making baby dolls. When Faith's baby doll business started to take off online, and a reporter came to town trying to interview her, Cooper started to have all the wrong ideas about the secrets she's keeping... Can Faith tell Cooper the truth before Cooper commits her to a facility for the criminally insane and believe the family had joined her in the conspiracy?

As I said, the wrong ideas snowballed from secrets to bigger secrets to conspiracies involving more and more people and dastardly deeds. While I didn't ROFL, I definitely LOLed many many times. If you want something you can laugh over, and smile at the sweetness, read this book.

Category: Rom-com / romantic suspense

Primary Plot: Woman with secret was very misunderstood by her intended man...

Tropes: scars, mistaken identity, disguise,

Overall Rating:  5/5

GRR Reviews Mail Order Bride: A Bride for the Deputy ( by Emily Woods

A Bride for the Deputy is a good twist on the mail order bride, by remixing it with a couple different romance tropes: mistaken identity, and stalker.

Claire fled west from the ruffians that killed her fiancee to collect on a debt, then tried to squeeze money out of her. Upon arriving in Bozeman, Montana, she was mistaken for the mail-order bride by a handsome man. She made the snap decision to embrace the mistake... only to find that her "intended" Wesley, is a deputy in town, having had his own heart broken back in Texas and is not kind toward liars. Can Claire confess before Wesley finds out that she's a liar? Can Wesley accept a liar, but only forced by circumstance?

There was a twist later which I will not spoil, but the novelette was a good change of pace without too much angst. There was a bit of suspense at the beginning and the end, and some tension about the potential discovery of the lie. Good pace and read overall.

Category: historical western, mail order bride

Primary Plot:  Girl on the run was mistaken as a deputy's mail-order bride; Can she confess before he finds out?

Tropes: woman in peril, mail order bride, stalker, mistaken identity, law enforcement

Overall Rating:  4/5