Carol Moncado

Nickels by Karen Baney

Niki Turner has finally arrived. Her career as a Software Engineer is soaring—she has just been offered the company’s most sought after account, Helitronics. Life would be perfect, if she could stop her roommate from playing matchmaker. Then

Kyle Jacobs mysteriously re-enters her life. As painful memories resurface, his presence turns her life upside down and threatens to waylay her career. She must find a way to work with him—after all, he’s the helicopter flight consultant for the new flight control system she’s coding.

Can she forget the past and see him as the new man he has become? Or will her resentment keep her from finding what she has always been searching for?

This contemporary novel is an upbeat and compelling story set in the Phoenix Metro Area. Karen Baney shows a new side to her writing with great wit and banter between the main characters. Inspired by her love of romance and of computers, this story takes readers on a journey filled with laughter and tears.

I hadn’t planned on crying today :p. I blame Karen.

I mean, come on! It’s a romance. No matter what anyone says there is a bit of a “formula” to it. And that formula includes an HEA.

Happily.

Ever.

After.

So before the book even starts, and I can’t imagine this actually being a spoiler, I KNOW Niki and Kyle are going to end up together! They HAVE to! It’s the RULES!

So why the tears?

Because Karen created a world where I cared SO MUCH about the characters that even though I KNEW that, I hurt for them. I KNEW there was going to be a HEA, but I also knew it wouldn’t come without a few trials and tribulations. And I knew pretty early on what one of them would be.

But when it came time for that particular trial to show up, tears filled my eyes, I wondered what was going to happen, even though I KNEW. Part of me wondered, deep down, if this would be one of those “the couple doesn’t get together until the end of the SERIES” things. And I’m okay with that if I know it going in but it’s one of my pet peeves with TV shows [Castle and Beckett? Tony and Ziva? It’s TIME ALREADY! At least Booth and Brennan are getting a shot FINALLY! Do you know how many others I could add to that list? A million to the first one and about none to the second…]. They take too stinkin’ long to get the couples together and screw it up when they do [Hello, Ross and Rachel! At least they got Monica and Chandler right!].

Er, right. Nickels.

So Niki has had lots of pain in her life. She doesn’t let people, especially men, in easily. Along comes her high school nemesis in the form of her best friend’s older brother. Even as she remembers the angst he put her through, he makes her heart go pitter-pat in a way no other guy ever has.

I loved Niki and Kyle. I loved Marcy and Chad. Alana was adorable. The church friends were great!

There was one thing, or group of things, I would have liked to see more resolution with. Niki works for a company who then does jobs for other companies – on site. So she was working at Kyle’s company for several months. I would have liked to see more resolution to the WHYs behind Todd [the boss there]. She handled it as best she could – as did Kyle – but I’d like to know more about why he was the he was.

There was also a recurring thing with the helicopters/simulators/instrument readings being off from what was really happening. It seemed like there was something to it [the conspiracy theorist in me has a few ideas…] but there was no resolution to that [and it’s possible there wasn’t really an issue – that it was all perception of the pilots, not errors of some kind in the programs or that it was just mechanical failure of some sort, but it seemed to be brought up a few too many times for that to be the case].

Karen has another three book series out. I don’t know if this is also supposed to be the first in a series of related books. I hope it is. And if so, there’s ample opportunity for both of those issues to be addressed as Kyle still works with Todd and one of the church gang got a job at Niki’s parent company. Several people pop to mind as potential hero/heroines for future books. Even if this is the only book in this series, those two things aren’t enough to hinder my enjoyment of it.

Plus. I grew up in the Phoenix area and still have MANY friends there. I recognized a number of the places she talked about and know people living in some of the suburbs she mentioned [though she didn’t mention mine ;)]. I love that :D.

I’ll definitely be looking forward to more books by Karen.

Overall rating: 9 out of 10 stars