Hello, and welcome back! We had a little more snow (and ice) yesterday, and it looks like we might get more over the next week. I'm a little excited that I might actually get some winter here this year. And in a couple weeks, once the craziness at work calms down, I might even get to enjoy winter. The soup pot is already getting a workout (creamy potato soup today, I think), and the bread machine will be working hard as well.

Despite the wild shopping season, I'm still managing my reading time pretty well this year. I have just a couple more December romances to read, and a couple more ready to share with you here. This time out, I have Sasha White's Primal Male (Aphrodisia). Drake Wheeler needs a break from his usual work and pace, so he heads for the wilderness and a tiny town to try to find a shapeshifter. Melissa Montrose keeps an enormous secret that only her best friend knows, but when Drake comes to town, and, more specifically, into her bookstore, she may have some difficulty keeping that secret from him. Drake is sexy and knows exactly what he wants: Melissa. He also has a suspicion she's the shifter he's looking for. The trouble is, someone else is also hunting for her, which is why her best friend winds up dead, and Melissa and Drake need to figure out who's after her. This one is heavy on the sex, very light on the mystery, but let's be honest: readers who're picking up books in the Aphrodisia line aren't picking them up for suspense, but down and dirty sex. There's plenty of that here, along with the light romance, but neither of these characters really grabbed me enough to make me believe in their story, or to make it a keeper. And the resolution is quick to gloss over the bad guy, and to throw a new roadblock in the way of their romance. It's earned only three of Cupid's five arrows.

There are a lot of good-looking January romances that have already landed on my desk, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you here in the next couple weeks. But until then, happy reading!