It Had to be You by Jill Shalvis

Ali Winters is not having a good day. Her boyfriend left her, everyone in town thinks she's a thief, and now she's about to be kicked out of her home. Her only shot at keeping a roof over her head and clearing her name is to beg for help from a police detective who's as sexy as he is stern....

After a high-profile case goes wrong, Luke Hanover returns to his hometown for some peace and quiet. Instead he finds a bombshell brunette in a heap of trouble. As he helps Ali put her world back together, the pieces of Luke's own life finally seem to fall into place. Is this the start of a sizzling fling? Or are Luke and Ali on the brink of something big in a little town called Lucky Harbor?

I am not going to lie to you, you know my love of all-things-Jill-Shalvis but I had a really hard time getting into this book!  "It Had to be You" is the latest book available in the Lucky Harbor series and I had great expectations for it.  The problem?  There was just too much BAD stuff that was happening to the main character, Ali, in the very beginning of the book and it was so much that it became uncomfortable to even read.

But I persevered and I'm glad that I did!

"It Had to be You" turned into a fabulous story of two people who are both going through some serious life changing issues - and not of the good variety - but that are at heart, really good people.  While they fight their attraction to one another you know that they are going to end up together.

This story had a lot going on and once you got through those first few chapters, everything flowed at a much more reasonable pace.  A great read and something that I would definitely go back to and read again. 

Video Trailer for "Catering to the CEO"

This is the fourth book by Indie author Samantha Chase and it's a bit more racy than her previous books - "The Christmas Cottage" and "Ever After".  But hey, we contemporary romance readers LOVE the racy, right?

Get your copy of "Catering to the CEO" on Amazon.  Click HERE.  

Catering to the CEO by Samantha Chase

"Jaded CEO Adam Lawrence knew how to get what he wanted in the boardroom and the bedroom.  When independent, sexy and impossible to ignore Cassie Jacobs bests him on a business deal, Adam vows revenge.  But how far can he go when the two find out they are about to become family?"

LOVED this book.  "Catering to the CEO" by Samantha Chase was written in the style of Harlequin Desire there is an amazing tension between Adam and Cassie that is just jumping off of the page.  Going from business colleagues to enemies to lovers...their journey is turbulent and steamy.  What I enjoyed most about this book was that they each had some very powerful insecurities but were willing to take a bit of a risk with each other.

From the first page to the last, this was a roller coaster ride with a typical alpha male that had you hating him one minute and then sighing the next.  Cassie is a very relatable girl-next-door that you just want to see things work out for.

This book is currently available exclusively for Kindle for $1.99 and is totally worth the investment.  Indie author Samantha Chase is definitely an up and coming and someone to keep watching.  I think we're going to see some big stuff from her in 2013!