Two of a Kind
3.5 Stars

Frightfully intelligent yet socially awkward, Felicity Swift is a newcomer to Fool's Gold. So imagine her surprise upon learning that the man with whom she spent one explosive night in Thailand is the new owner of the local radio station. Suffering from PTSD after spending two years in captivity, former special forces operative, Gideon Boylan, is looking for some much-deserved peace and quiet. The last thing he wants or needs is a woman in his life, but he just can't seem to keep his hands off Felicity. Can these two lonely hearts find happiness together?

While Gideon and Felicity have scorching hot chemistry, their romance is missing that special something mainly due to the fact that Gideon is emotionally stunted and psychologically unwilling to commit to a relationship. Although this is blamed on his PTSD, it is actually quite clear that his attitude existed prior to his captivity.

Felicity is an incredible heroine. She has an amazing capacity for love and the portrayal of her cold and clinical childhood is all the more heartbreaking given her caring nature. It is evident from the start that she is more invested in her relationship with Gideon than he, and while everything ultimately turns out for the best (this is a romance after all), one cannot help but feel that she deserves better.

The secondary storyline focusing on Denise Hendrix's desire to find wives for her two unmarried sons is very amusing, and Mallery has provided an intriguing basis for the next installment that will obviously focus on Ford and Kent's HEAs. The two love interests are polar opposites yet both appealing in their own ways. I look forward to reading about the ensuing shenanigans. ( )

Sweet read. The stories set in Fool's Gold are quite saccharine. Of course since this is not my first trip to this town I wasn't surprised. The people there are really unbelievably nice and supportive etc. Still I did enjoy the heroine who was written as firmly on the Asperger's spectrum. She was brilliant but extremely socially awkward. Since usually if that comes up in a novel it is typically the man with these issues it was interesting to read this switch. Ultimately pleasant but I couldn't take a steady diet of unrealistic sweetness. Plus just got to say that the characters were a bit idiotic not to realize right off the bat that the kid hadn't really run away. I mean he practically spelled it out in his note. So there was no real tension at all in that scene and that was typical of the whole book. ( )

Mallery is back with another excellent entry into her Fool's Gold series. I laughed and I cried and loved this "feel-good" romance.

Felicia has always been a misfit. She is a genius who was given up by her parents when she was four and raised in a university laboratory setting. She became an emancipated minor when in her early teens and faked her age to join the Army when she was sixteen. She is a genius at logistics and worked with Special Ops teams whose members became her substitute family. Now she has moved to Fool's Gold with some of her Special Ops friends who are setting up a business to train bodyguards. Felicia wants more than anything else to be normal, to fall in love, and to have a family.

Gideon has also come to Fool's Gold after serving in Covert Ops, being captured by the Taliban, and surviving more than two years of captivity. He watched his fellow captives and brothers-in-arms suffer and die and feels that the only reason he survived is that he had no emotional connections with anyone. He is convinced that he is irretrievably broken and is just a shell.

Felicia and Gideon had met four years earlier in Thailand where she approached him. They had a brief sexual encounter, her first, and haven't seen each other since. Now back together in Fool's Gold, Felicia wants to resume the relationship and have Gideon teach her how to be normal so that she can find someone to love and fulfill her dreams.

Things get even more complicated when a twelve-year-old son Gideon didn't know he had shows up. Carter's mother had told him about his father when she was dying of cancer. Carter had been living with friends of his mother but, now that they were getting a divorce, Carter feared that going into the foster care system was in his future if he couldn't find a way to make Felicia and Gideon his new family.

Part of the joy of this series is the strong relationships among many of the characters. Felicia has developed a close group of women friends. Gideon has a good group of men friends too. The community is also close and caring.

Tanya Eby does a great job narrating. Romance lovers won't want to miss this one. ( )

I'm such a sucker for a sappy, happy ending. And this book has it. ( )

4.5 I adore Felicia stars! ( )