I’m an Australian USA Today bestselling romance author who writes contemporary romance and uses the pen name Alyssa James to write medieval romance. I think the makeover trope resonates with me because although I’m no beauty queen now, I was definitely an ugly duckling in my teens. For reasons best known to him, my father insisted on close-cropped hair, and financial circumstances dictated out-of-style hand-me-down clothing. After university, I found my own style, but it wasn’t until I was accepted as an international flight attendant that I believed that I couldn’t be all that ugly if Qantas employed me!
This book explores Jessica Harris’ painful past. Understating her looks began as her mother’s way of keeping her firmly in the shadows, but for Jessica, it led to a true lack of self-belief and confidence.
The best relationships challenge us to be realistic and to grow, and that’s exactly what Ricardo Garcia does for Jessica. He needs a glamorous pretend lover, and for specific reasons, it has to be Jessica who plays that role. A magical makeover has the ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan and opens her world up to possibilities and to a love she never dreamed was possible.
Eloisa James has long been one of my favourite authors, and I love her witty stories in the Regency romance genre, as well as her friends-to-lovers and second-chance tropes in this story.
The hero, James, had always cared about the heroine, Theodora, who is known in London society as The Ugly Duchess. She wasn’t ugly–just “mannish” and dressed by her mother in a way that didn’t capitalize on her looks.
I liked the fact that she grew in herself and that her transition wasn’t instant. I also loved that James didn’t fall in love with her simply because of her looks but because of her capabilities and her growth in personal confidence.
'Nothing gets me to a bookstore faster than Eloisa James' - Julia Quinn
How can she dare to imagine he loves her... when all London calls her The Ugly Duchess?
Theodora Saxby is the last woman anyone expects the gorgeous James Ryburn, heir to the Duchy of Ashbrook, to marry. But after a romantic proposal before the prince himself, even practical Theo finds herself convinced of her soon-to-be duke's passion. Still, the tabloids give the marriage six months.
Theo would have given it a lifetime . . . until she discovers that James desires not her heart, and certainly not…
This story was a funny, sexy romance and I loved the slow-burn as Ian falls for a woman, Blake, who is off-limits for a number of reasons. I also really loved the banter between the characters. Maybe it’s because I’m a speech pathologist, but I absolutely love dialogue in the books I read. I think it quickens the pace of the book and can reveal so much about the characters.
Although the plot was fairly simple, this book was so much fun, and it ticked all the boxes for me!
After a career-ending accident, former NFL recruit Ian Hunter is back on campus-and he's ready to get his new game on. As one of the masterminds behind Wingmen, Inc., a successful and secretive word-of-mouth dating service, he's putting his extensive skills with women to work for the lovelorn. But when Blake Olson requests the services of Wingmen, Inc., Ian may have landed his most hopeless client yet.
From her frumpy athletic gear to her unfortunate choice of footwear, Blake is going to need a miracle if she wants to land her…
How many of us have dreaded attending the ten-year high school reunion? Although I’d never been called ‘Metal Mouth’ or “Queen Geek”—and as school captain, I wasn’t unpopular—I was still the girl who stood out with the longest school uniform skirt, the shortest hair, and military-grade polished school shoes courtesy of my father. No high school romances for me!
So, when former high school sports star Wiley falls head over heels with former geek and now doctor Payton, I rooted for her. However, I also empathised with Wylie, who’s trying to escape his sports-jock reputation and earn respect as a lawyer. Add great dialogue and some other great issues where healing needed to take place, and I found it an absorbing read.
Metal Mouth. Queen Geek. Dr. Payton Pruitt heard it all growing up. But she's over it, and attending her ten-year high school reunion is the perfect way to prove it to herself. Even if there's only one person she's interested in seeing in Bitterthorn, Texas: Wiley Sharpe.
Now a respected lawyer, Wiley didn't live down to the label Most Likely to Be Slapped with a Paternity Suit. But recent acts of vandalism suggest someone still sees him as a heartbreaker, and the reunion seems a likely place to find the culprit. Instead, Wiley comes face-to-face with his old pal Paytonand…
The heroine in this story, Lace, has been through bullying hell as a kid–both for her overweight appearance and when a letter she wrote to Cupid about her crush on football star Pierce was made public.
Sadly, there’s so much bullying in the world today, and Lace felt very real to me. She’s sassy and smart, which is a quality that’s very important to me. She’s loyal to her friends and very devoted to her family. Her defensiveness after all she’d been through hid deep pain, and being a romance author, I want everyone to have a HEA ending!
I enjoyed reading her journey to that HEA and I loved that Pierce didn’t give up on her no matter how hard she pushed him away.
From bestselling romance author Lori Wilde comes All Out of Love, the sizzling second book in her Cupid, Texas, series, set in a town where every wish for love comes true. Millie Greenway and her friends have tried for years to keep the Cupid legend alive in their hometown, but she's not getting much help from her granddaughters. Lace Bettingfield knows the legend is bogus. As a teen, she left a letter at the Cupid statue and got nothing in return but humiliation. But now the guy she dreamed of is back in town, Lace begins to wonder if the…
Cinderella was probably the first romance I ever encountered where a makeover took place, but the second most memorable from my youth was definitely this story.
Mia’s journey to the throne in Genovia is such a roller coaster. Resistant to the initial plan, I love Mia’s growth, and I adore her personality. A bit of a misfit with geeky looks (prior to the makeover, of course!), I love how engaging her character is, and I love the uplifting laugh-out-loud moments that leave me with a light, feel-good vibe.
I also love that she ends up falling for someone who’s been a constant support in her life and who knows and loves Mia for herself rather than her royal title.
'You're not Mia Thermopolis any more, honey,' Dad said. 'You're Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo. Princess of Genovia.'
A PRINCESS?? ME??? Yeah. Right.
One minute Mia's a totally normal Manhattan fourteen-year-old. Next minute she's heir to the throne of Genovia, being trailed by a bodyguard, taking princess lessons with her uncontrollable old grandmere, and having a makeover with someone called Paolo. Well, her dad can lecture her till he's royal blue in the face, but no way is Mia going to turn herself into a style-queen. And they think she's moving to Genovia? Er, hello?
This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity.
Single mother and limnologist Lynna witnesses disturbing events as she works for the powerful international utility CanadaCorp. Fearing for the welfare of her rebellious teenage daughter, Lynna sets in motion a series of events that tumble out of her control with calamitous consequence. The novel explores identity, relationship, and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.
Centuries from now, in a post-climate change dying boreal forest of what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, discovers a diary that may provide her with the answers to her yearning for Earth’s past—to the Age of Water, when the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity in hatred—events that have plagued her nightly in dreams. Looking for answers to this holocaust—and disturbed by her macabre longing for connection to the Water Twins—Kyo is led to the diary of a limnologist from the time just prior to the destruction. This gritty memoir describes a…
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