Typical contemporary romance from Nora Roberts. ( )

* Taming Natasha
This is the first in the Stanislaski series about a family of Ukranian immigrants.

Natasha Stanislaski owns a toy store. She meets Spencer Kimball, composer and professor of music at the local college, when he brings his daughter Freddie into the store. Then they're thrown together again when Natasha takes a music appreciation course and discovers that Spence is the instructor.

Since this is a re-read, I tried to separate my remembered impressions of the book from my current reading. Initially, Natasha believes that Spence is married, and so she's angry and disgusted with him when he asks her out. I remembered being annoyed with her for jumping to the conclusion that a man with a child must perforce be married, but I must have read more quickly the last time, because it's quite clear that he and Freddie were with his sister, and seeing a man, woman, and child obviously together, it would be natural to think that the adults were the child's parents.

What was annoying was that Natasha continued being angry even after she learned the truth. It was realistic--residual first impression, embarrassment at being wrong--but it wasn't very appealing. And later on, when they develop a relationship, Natasha refuses to commit to it, for reasons I won't spoil. Again, it was realistic, but not admirable, and basing present day decisions on a tenuous resemblance to a past trauma is something that pushes my buttons. The heroine who distrusts all men because her junior high school sweetheart done her wrong is one of my least favorite romance heroines. It doesn't make it any better that I know people like this in real life. Granted, Natasha's past is a little more traumatic than this, but we don't learn that until near the end of the book.

Spence, on the other hand, I really liked. A single father, he had past traumas of his own with his ex-wife. But where Natasha's past made her want to avoid relationships to prevent future sadness, Spence's past made him want to do better at relationships in the future. That difference actually made them a good match, and the contrast between the way they dealt with their pasts made it an interesting story. I think it was easier for Spence to try again because he hadn't tried very hard the first time, so he still felt he could succeed, while Natasha had given her all before and failed.

Normally, I dislike children in romance novels. Freddie was okay. She was pretty age-appropriate, and her presence was a major part of the plot.

Best line in the book, that still makes me smile: Spence, referring to Natasha's accent: "Say 'get moose and squirrel.'"
_____

* Falling for Rachel
This is the 3rd book in the Stanislaski series. I'm not sure why Harlequin reissued the 1st and 3rd books together, then waited 3 years to reissue the 2nd and 4th books. Odd.

Rachel Stanislaski is a lawyer and a public defender. She meets Zack Muldoon when she's defending his 19-year-old step-brother Nick LeBeck who'd been arrested for theft. Zack and Nick aren't blood relations, but they bonded when Nick's mother married Zack's father, and now that both parents are dead, they're all each other has.

Well, Nick is all the family that Zack has. Nick has the Cobras, a street gang. Or thinks he does.

The judge allows Nick to go home with Zack, but since his home environment isn't all that squeaky-clean (he owns a bar and lives above it), Rachel is tasked with keeping an eye on them and providing reports to the court.

Aside from a couple of small things that didn't make sense to me--is there really a question of a 19-year-old being tried as a juvenile?--and Rachel's conflict of interest in getting romantically involved when she's a court-appointed watchdog--Falling for Rachel is a wonderfully full story.

Oddly, it's not the romance between Rachel and Zack that pulled me in so much as the story around them. In fact, it's almost more Nick's story than theirs, an impression made stronger by the fact that the story opens with Nick's arrest. He's the one with the character arc, and it's a good one. His gang involvement, his crush on Rachel, and his eventual integration into their family--it's a great story. Rachel and Zack just happen to fall in love during it.

I'm trying to figure out why that doesn't bother me. Sure, Rachel and Zack have their moments, but the best scenes are all about Nick. The piano brought tears to my eyes, and the climactic scene where he chooses between his brother and his gang had those tears rolling down my face. Nick meeting the Stanislaskis was much more compelling to me than Zack meeting them. I guess with such a lovely story, I didn't mind--or even notice, until I sat down to write this--that the romance couple wasn't the center of the book.

Which has me thinking. It seems that the basic definition of a romance novel includes a central love story that's the focus of the book. Does that make this not a romance? Because it still feels like a romance--it begins (well, after the prologue, anyway) with Rachel and Zack meeting, and ends with them together. But they're not the focus, are they? I'm over-thinking this, aren't I?

Maybe I should have gotten more sleep last night.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book and the continuing Stanislaski saga. ( )

TAMING NATASHA.
Not my favourite of the Stanislaski series. I found Natasha to independent for my liking and hard to identify. Spence, on the other hand, was charming and single minded in his pursuit of her. I warmed to him even more for his loving relationship with his cute daughter, Freddie.. Three Stars***
FALLING FOR RACHEL. Now this is more like it, The youngest of the Stanislaski's is sassy wisecracking Public Defender
Rachel who is forced to take a scared young punk under her and his stepbrother's care for six weeks in the hope he will reform, after he was caught red handed in a burglary. Smart dialogue, strong characters and the good old Stanislaski family is there again. Visually, a very descriptive story. You could almost smell the station house and the foul coffee.***** ( )

I’ve just finished the Stanislaski family series. Yuri and Nadia Stanislaski fled across a mountain range in a wagon to escape the Ukraine with their 3 oldest children, Natasha, Mikhail, and Alex. They settled in Brooklyn, New York where Yuri found work as a carpenter and had another child, Rachel.

Taming Natasha is the story of Natasha Stanislaski a former ballerina and toy store owner. She meets widower Spencer Kimball, a composer and music professor at the local college, when he comes into her store searching for a toy for his five-year-old daughter, Freddie.

In Falling for Rachel, tough, no-nonsense public defender Rachel Stanislaski meets Zack Muldoon when she’s assigned to his step-brother’s burglary case. The court demands that the lawyer and the bar owner work together to keep the 19-year-old Nick out of trouble.

Full review: http://passionforthepage.blogspot.com/2008/06/stanislaski-series-by-nora-roberts... ( )