Hello, and welcome back! We had a dusting of snow late yesterday, but it's mostly gone already, and the sun hasn't even come out today. I'm still holding out hope we'll get some real snow before the season is over, though, and making a big pot of soup for supper on my day off here. The February releases are starting to hit the bookstores, though the bulk of them won't be in for another week or so. Luckily, I have some here on my desk waiting for attention, and I have two new books to share with you this time out.

Play With Me (Signet Eclipse) by Janice Maynard is up first, with three women who've been best friends since elementary school. They'll all be thirty in a year, and none of them is in a serious relationship. The pact is for them to indulge in their secret fantasies before their next birthday. Catherine is the shy one, but Phillip doesn't take no for an answer. Not for long, anyway, and when she asks him to a gala. And once he's got her, he doesn't intend to let her go again. Kallie is the moody one, the artist. Her 'buddy' Beau is out of her league, but she decides to make at least one effort to see if they can't be more, and it doesn't work out quite the way she'd planned. Gina is the wild one, or so everyone believes. She has no man waiting in the wings, but one from the past, Trey, wants to try to right the wrong he did years ago. And along the way, each of them gets a taste of passion along with their romance. I enjoyed Ms. Maynard's last book, Suite Fantasy, and I enjoyed this one more. None of the stories are too complicated, and there's just the right amount of romance to balance the erotic aspects. This one's earned three and a half of Cupid's five arrows.

Scandalous Lovers (Brava) by Robin Schone heralds the return of one of the masters of erotic romance after a too-long absence. Frances Hart wanders into the wrong room by accident at the museum she enjoys, and stumbles onto a new area of exploration. James Whitcox isn't satisfied with his life, and Frances's unexpected entry into the meeting of the Men and Women's Club gives him new ideas. As always with a Schone novel, you get complicated characters, fabulous historical detail, and spectacular sensuality. This one has actually been sitting on my desk for nearly two months, and I've been very patient, very good, waiting until after I'd finished all the previous months' books to pick this one up and dive in. It kept me up way past my bedtime on a work night, and it was worth every long, tired minute the next day. I'm giving this one four and a half arrows and hoping that the next book is not nearly as long in arriving!

Over in the forum, we're deciding what to read for next month's book club discussion, so if you're up for a good chat on romances, come join us!

Until next time, happy reading!