Good not great. Fairly typical contemporary romance. ( )

For the Love of Lilah:
This is the third book in the Calhoun sisters series.

Lilah is the lazy, dreamy sister. She works at a nature preserve, giving tours, but in her off time, napping is her favorite pastime.

Then one day, she's out on the cliffs, and she sees a man in the water, and she rescues him. Turns out he's Max Quartermain, a history professor who'd taken a job with the villain of the series (not knowing he's a criminal, of course) to research the papers stolen in the previous book. Then he overheard his employer in an incriminating conversation, and is shot as he jumps overboard.

He recovers at The Towers, and puts his expertise to work for the Calhouns instead, and falls in love with Lilah.

I liked Max very much. Somehow, an ordinary guy who manages to stand up to the bad guys and triumph is much more impressive than the tough macho guy who does the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I like the tough guys, too, but it's a nice change of pace to have a guy who can't flatten every bad guy he comes across with one hand tied behind his back. It makes it a little more realistic, and makes it easier for me to relate to. And it shows that even if a guy isn't a football player/Navy SEAL/expert at all known forms of hand-to-hand combat, he's not necessarily a wimp. Er... can you tell I'm a little tired of the perfectly macho heroes?? ;) And I find brains very attractive. I liked his slightly bewildered expression whenever anyone praised him, and sympathized with the little boy who wasn't what his father wanted him to be. He was unsure of himself, but with one of the most endearingly male traits, did what he had to do regardless of how he felt.

Nora knows men very well.

It's a good thing I liked Max so much, though, because I didn't like Lilah very much, and not at all the first couple of times I read this. I'm not sure if it's because of the length of the book, or because Nora just didn't get into this character's head as well (not surprising, because Nora is NOT a lazy person), but I just could not relate to her. I get the feeling Nora was trying to portray Lilah as a sensual, dreamy, relaxed person, who nevertheless did her job and did it well, but it just didn't come across well. Even when we saw Lilah at her job, I just couldn't shake my opinion of her as lazy and bored. Which just shows you how much I didn't get what I was supposed to out of her character, because at one point it says Lilah hated being bored.

As with the other books in this series, I could have done without the flashbacks to Bianca's story, and the scenes from the villain's POV. Neither added to the story for me, and either interrupted the story or took away some of the suspense.

Still, this is one of my favorite books in the series--I think because Max's adventure added to the excitement. It was more physical than the previous two books.
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Suzanna's Surrender:
This is the fourth book in the Calhoun series. The previous books are Courting Catherine, A Man for Amanda, and For the Love of Lilah. These four actually make one long story with four romances.

Suzanna is the wounded heroine (gotta have one, if you've got a series or trilogy, right?). Divorced from a rich asshole, she runs a plant store and takes care of her 2 children, with help from her sisters and Aunt Coco.

In their search for the emerald necklace and delving through family history, they determine that the artist ancestor Bianca (the necklace's original owner) was involved with was Christian Bradford, grandfather of Holt Bradford, who's recently moved into his grandfather's cottage.

Suzanna is tasked with asking the surly ex-cop for help, checking to see if there's anything in his grandfather's belongings that would give them a clue. And gee whiz--Holt's had a crush on Suzanna since they were teenagers.

I'm being sarcastic, but it's actually a pretty decent story. There's still the flashbacks, this time from Christian's diary rather than Bianca's, but at least it's from a different POV this time, so it's not quite so repetitive. And this is the only book in which there are parallels between Bianca's story and the present-day story, so it works much better.

There are some nice moments, and I absolutely loved scary Aunt Colleen giving Suzanna's ex Baxter hell.

Like all wounded-heroine romances, though, it makes me wonder why the heck she married Bax in the first place. At least she wasn't quite as much a doormat as some others have been, and she did stand up for her kids, which I could respect. ( )