stephanie_inman's Reviews (228)

This is a follow up novella, sort of an extended epilogue for The Buchanan Brothers series.

I had mixed feelings on this series. I loved some of the characters (Justice, is by far my favorite character in the series), while I found some lacking (I found both Shane and Denise to be rather dull).
Still, I wanted to read this and see what was going on with the Buchanans. (okay, mostly just Gabe and Justice)

This story opens with one of the next generation of Buchanans turning twenty-one. We find out that there are a lot of new Buchanans. I didn't really understand why we needed this opening, since, as far as I know we aren't getting a next generation series. Basically, we just learn how many kids each couple had and our narrator, Mason and Shane's oldest, tells us how much in love all of his aunts and uncles, along with his parents are.

The story then goes back and we get a chapter from each of the previous four books main characters, starting with Mason and Shane. Shane is pregnant with their first child. From there we get a glimpse into each couple's life.

This novella is basically a love letter to the character of Shane, so, if like me she's not your favorite, it's a bit annoying. The Buchanan men still drop everything for her (seriously, Aiden is in the middle of nearly having sex with his wife, ignores Mason's phone call, but when Shane's ringtone hits his phone, he immediately has to answer it. He basically says "I'd do anything for Shane." and Denise is just like "of course").

Nope.

This is repeated with Gabe and Michael. They pretty much say how Shane is "special" (seriously, I got so sick of hearing that throughout this series) and she is the most important person in their family.

Denise, Justice, and Sophia, at this point really should have walked away.

I was hoping for a Happily Ever After for everyone, rather than Denise, Justice and Sophia playing second fiddle to the all mighty, "special" Shane.

It kind of undercuts the romance between the other couples when the men are acting like their sister in law is way more important than their wives.

It is, essentially, why I didn't give any of the previous books a higher rating, and why I don't think this novella is worth more than one star.

This was one of those Kindle books that was free for a time, so I gave it a go.

This set contains three short stories, all revolving around a different couple. The stories are okay, I didn’t much like the third one, but the first two weren’t bad. The biggest problem with them is that they are forgettable. Nothing stand out in any of them. I only remember disliking the third because I don’t like books where the male character is talked about as being someone who constantly hooks up with other girls, especially when he’s best friends with our female character.

This is one that I won’t re-read and I actually deleted from my Kindle. There are just way better books out there.

DNF @ 80% - I didn’t like either character. Rosemary reads like she’s 15, not a woman in her 20’s. The whole “Daddy” thing with her dad was weird. The “I’m such a rebel. Look at me” shit was absolutely annoying. I couldn’t find anything at all to like about her.

Nope.


Havoc was better. He just fell flat for me.

The storyline continues from the previous book. At first I thought that was okay, but these books are super short. I don’t feel that this one had enough in it to keep me engaged. I didn’t pay for the book, but I did see that the Kindle price is listed at $2.99. The book isn’t as long as many novellas. Definitely not worth that price for a fraction of a story.

A great addition to the Juniper Creek series. These are short stories, and while I am a big fan of something you can easily read in a night (sometimes I just want that instant gratification) occasionally characters come along that you wish you got more time with. Cash and Reagan fall into that category.

I just thought these two were perfect. The chemistry was there. Everything just worked.

Definitely one of my favorites in this series.

Age gap romances can be hit or miss for me. Unfortunately, this one was a huge miss.

It was everything I hate about age gap, all in one novella. First we have a bit of a power dynamic issue. Charlotte is 18. Tank is 28. Charlotte needs a place to stay, and Tank offers to let her stay with him. (I don’t even remember why exactly Charlotte was visiting Juniper Creek. I just remember that Charlotte’s dad and Tank’s dad are friends. Charlotte is supposed to stay with Tank’s dad, but he’s an unreliable alcoholic and leaves her at the bowling alley Tank owns). Basically, Charlotte is a barely adult and Tank is responsible for her for the time being. So, yeah, power dynamic.

Then we have the “good girl virgin who never had a life” thing. Charlotte wants to get out and let loose. She acted like a teenager, which she was, so that’s not the problem. The problem is that a 28 year old business owner would be pursuing this kid. I could see if Charlotte was mature or in any way seemed like an adult. She didn’t.

She was also unbelievably annoying. I just couldn’t like this character.

Then there’s Tank’s lack of judgment and all around skeeziness. She goes out one night to have some fun. Again, fine. But this puts us in a timing situation that didn’t work for me at all. She drinks. After weeks of Tank fighting himself to stay away from her, he decides the night she’s been drinking and he’s angry (he was jealous, and went and picked her up from the place she was hanging with a guy her own age) is the night he will “take her virginity”. Definitely didn’t seem like the right time.

But what really did it for me was Tank’s inner dialogue. He would think about how young and (this is where I nope-d the hell out) “tender” she was. As in “she’s so young and tender”. Not sexy, dude. Creepy as hell. I ended up skipping the sexy times between these two because I honestly couldn’t have been less interested. Had this been a full length novel, I would have dnf’ed it.

While I didn’t like this one, the first two books in this series are good. And I’m writing this review after reading the rest of the series, so I know there’s more good than bad to this series.

This one just really didn’t work for me.

I loved this! Old Maid has tied with Blabbermouth for my "best of Juniper Creek" books. I adored both Mae and Graham. The chemistry was there. The book managed to pull off being both very sweet and pretty damn sexy.

Mae is a great heroine. Great career, good friends. She's all but given up on dating due to her bad luck, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a full life.

Graham is the grandson of Juniper Creek's doctor. The older Dr. Cooper has died, and our young Dr. Cooper goes to Juniper Creek to clean out his grandfather's house and office. He wants to sell everything and get back to his city and his job as an ER doctor.

Does this read like a Hallmark movie? Okay, it totally does. But that doesn't mean it's not worth the read. I'm not even a fan of Hallmark movies, and yet I still loved this one. I'd definitely recommend this one if you're looking for a short, sugary read.

This is another one in the Juniper Creek series. While I've given most of them decent to high ratings, a couple of the stories just didn't work for me. Unfortunately this was one of them.

I did like that our hero, Seth is Noah's brother. It was great having a hero who we are already somewhat connected to. Birdie has appeared briefly in other books (most notably in Old Maid, as she is the one who set up our couple in it). So, as far as knowing the characters, that is the big plus I got in this one. The problem was that I didn't much care for either of characters. Seth was okay. I didn't like Birdie at all. And, although all of these books are super short, C.L. Cruz does a good job of showing the connection between the characters. In this particular book, however, I didn't feel that connection between them.

This one just wasn't for me. I hesitated between two and three stars, because I don't think there's anything wrong with this one. I settled on two only because the others that I actually liked, some of them were three star reads for me. I think if this book sounds intriguing for you, definitely give it a go.

Overall I highly recommend this series. The only one that I absolutely hated was Goody Two Shoes (see the review of that one as to why it definitely wasn't for me) other than that I think the rest are well worth a read.