Category Archives: Romance

book reviews, Romance

Review ~ Closer – Aria Hawthorne

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Famous Dutch architect, Sven van der Meer, has just completed the greatest achievement of his professional life–the design and construction of The Spire, Chicago’s tallest, most controversial skyscraper. But a shameful secret threatens to destroy his prestigious career–he’s losing his eyesight. Now, he’s run out of time and the only woman qualified to help maintain his charade of invincibility is also the one woman who despises him and The Spire. And he’s fairly certain she’s hiding something as well. Will the fiery, but enchanting Miss Sanchez be the right woman to play the role of his pretend girlfriend? Or will the temptation of getting too close, too fast jeopardize their business arrangement and the future of his entire career?

When twenty-eight-year-old, woefully unemployed, Inez Sanchez, arrives to her interview with hotter-than-hell billionaire architect,Sven van der Meer–mastermind behind The Spire–she quickly realizes his job proposition isn’t what she was anticipating. He’s hiding a life-changing secret, one that could ruin his career as the most influential architect in the world, and he’s willing to pay her five thousand dollars a day–just to help him keep it. Will she accept his offer to become his “pretend girlfriend” for the next four days in order to ensure the success of the most important week of his life? Or will her sassy flair for independence and smartass sarcasm keep her from submitting to his stern authoritative commands, no matter how sexy his European accent might be? And what will happen when he discovers she’s hiding a secret, too–one that could threaten the stability of their arrangement and prevent her from getting too close to the one man in the world who might be capable of gaining her trust…


Closer isn’t the first Aria Hawthorne I’ve read but it was different from your typical billionaire alpha romance and I loved it for that very reason! Sven and Inez, despite all their differences share a common struggle an misery that sets them up perfectly for an unexpected romance.

I am a huge fan of the fake girlfriend/fiancé trope but the twist on this one helped endear Sven to me while I got to root for the strong and kind of badass Inez. Given what was happening to Sven, I applaud the author for not trying to make this a sugary sweet romance. Neither our hero or heroine have an easy road ahead, even though they both have their own struggles, so this was real grown up novel with grown up emotions and decisions.

The side drama in the story with his ex and his brother was perfect. It annoyed me and made me want to strangle them all but I never felt it was thrown in just for the sake of drama. Definitely worth a read, possibly even a re-read!

book reviews, Romance

Review ~ Montana Maverick – Debra Salonen

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Be careful what you wish for-
Meg Zabrinski wants a child. She’s a successful scientist, a well-known environmental advocate, and a tenured professor. She doesn’t need a man in her life to make this happen. But having a baby alone is a weighty decision, so she retreats to her isolated mountain cabin to write and think. When Henry Firestone–an old foe from her distant past–drops out of the sky on Christmas Eve with three young children and a baby, Meg tells herself she’d be crazy not to consider all her options–especially when she’s always nursed a secret crush on the handsome rancher. Although the sparks between them ignite a mutual passion, Henry makes it clear he’s done having children. Falling in love with Henry Firestone and his beautiful family would require Meg to give up her dream. Can the Lone Wolf assimilate into a new pack, or was this Big Sky Maverick meant to be alone?

They say timing is everything-
Henry Firestone doesn’t recognize the “angel in snowshoes” who comes to his rescue in the middle of a blizzard, immediately, but Meg Z. knows him. Twenty years earlier, the media paired them as rivals to the death. Meg championed the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, while Henry argued just as passionately that wolves would put ranchers on the Endangered Species List. She’s still beautiful, independent and headstrong, and Henry’s now free to admit that he always had a thing for her. Unfortunately, he’s fighting for sole custody of his late daughter’s four children. They are his biggest priority. He’d do anything to keep his family together–even sleep with the enemy in hopes that she might join his cause.

I have been looking forward to reading Meg’s story since I started reading the Big Sky Maverick’s series. She was the strong one, the older one. The one who was a little bit gruffer than her siblings so I knew when she fell it would be spectacular.

Meg and Henry Firestone have a long history of disagreeing on a matter that impacted both of their respective careers. She spent her career fighting to re-introduce wolves into the wild which of course meant that animals on surrounding ranches and farms were in greater danger of being eaten by those wolves. So when his helicopter full of children crashes near her cabin I was ready for sparks to fly. Continue reading Review ~ Montana Maverick – Debra Salonen →

book reviews, New Releases, Romance

Review ~The Baby Bombshell – Victoria James

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Lily Cookson has a few rules for the New Year, the most important being don’t fall for Jack Bailey. The gorgeous, rugged man returned with a new look and a determination to win her back, catching her off guard. After a forbidden night in his arms, she vows never to let it happen again. But when morning sickness kicks in a few weeks later, Lily realizes staying away from Jack just got a whole lot harder.

Jack Bailey left Shadow Creek behind five years ago when his world imploded around him, knowing it would be best for everyone if he was gone…including Lily. It took him a long time to get his life back on track and grow into the kind of man she needs him to be. Now he’s determined to prove to Lily that he’s back for good and ready to commit, but the secrets she’s holding onto are nothing compared to the bombshell he drops…

I only recently discovered Victoria James but I like her writing style and the small town stories she weaves so I decided to give The Baby Bombshell a try. Plus this story contains two of my favorite tropes! Continue reading Review ~The Baby Bombshell – Victoria James →

book reviews, New Releases, Romance

Review ~ Mann Cakes – Mysti Parker

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Love makes men do desperate things, if desperate things means opening a rival cupcake shop to drive your ex-girlfriend crazy.


Twin brothers and Air Force vets, Tanner and Garrett Mann, return from deployment to find their thriving business burned to the ground. Time for Plan B: Move back to their hometown of Beach Pointe to start over.

But that means running into Paige and Morgan Baxter –gorgeous, curvy, and owners of Two Sisters Cupcakes.

There’s an old diner for sale across town, Garrett’s a great cook, and Tanner has an idea. They’ll make savory cupcakes that men would like. We’re talking bacon and Cheez Whiz. Even better? They’ll call it Mann Cakes. Problem is, they end up attracting an unexpected crowd.

Paige is furious. Every man in her life has left her behind, including Tanner. She’s sacrificed everything for her shop. She won’t lose it over some egotistical ex-boyfriend, even if he does have an Air Force-chiseled body. Her younger sister, Morgan, isn’t helping matters. She’s been gaga over Garrett since high school.

To hell with that. If it’s a fight Tanner wants, it’s a fight he’ll get. But how much is Paige willing to risk to win a cupcake war?

Mann Cakes tells the story of two brothers, Tanner and Garrett and two sisters, Paige and Morgan. Tanner and Garrett had a PC business in the big city but during their final deployment it burned to the ground with a good friend inside. So they return to their hometown of Beach Pointe and right back on the radars of the two women they can’t seem to forget. But when the boys open up Mann Cakes to compete with, what else, Two Sisters bakery the heat is on! Mysti Parker has created a wonderfully interesting romance between two sets of siblings with two very different pasts.

Morgan and Garrett were just friends back in high school, both nursing unrequited crushes on the other that they never acted on. But now they’re older and Morgan isn’t quite as shy as she used to be so one coffee date kicks off their sort of second chance romance. I loved watching these two because Garrett who may or may not be a genius, still has that quiet geeky thing going on that makes him stumble over his words or get lost staring at her lips. He was so adorably shy but sweet and kind of bossy at times that he quickly won me over.

Now Paige and Tanner were a different matter altogether. It took me awhile to warm up to them both because he’s kind of a cocky playboy with no problem taking off his shirt to sell a few cupcakes (not that I mind a little six-pack action, I in fact encourage it!) and Paige sometimes acted like a wounded bird or an angry teenager. While I understood where Paige was coming from to an extent, they both took their little rivalry too far in my opinion.

Once they cleared the air, which admittedly did take awhile, I was eager to see if this was a romance that could be rekindled.

I liked that Mann Cakes was kind of a two-in-one romance and Mysti Parker did a great job of giving us all four perspectives without being confusing or pulling the readers out of the story. It also was a great way to keep the story moving forward without adding a lot of unnecessary content. This is a straight up romance with a dash of mystery, not a crash course in owning or operating a bakery which this reader totally appreciated!

This book is definitely a 4.5 cocktail read. So good you’ll get tipsy on it!

*Just $0.99 at time of this review!

Events, Romance

Adult Authors Gone Wild – TODAY!!!

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Join me and tons of other authors–of all genres–who’ve added a little (or a lot) steam to their stories! Adult Authors Gone Wild starts at 1 p.m. and ends 10 p.m. EST we’ll talk all things hot, steamy and fictional so stop by!

There will be giveaways, contests, cocktails and you’ll have a chance to get up close and personal with authors you love and some you’ll come to love!

Want to attend? Just click here: https://www.facebook.com/events/221720241602667

book reviews, Romance

Review ~ Her Fated Cowboy – Donna Michaels

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~ Harland County Series…Unruly cowboys and the women who tame them.

L.A. cop, Jordan Masters Ryan has a problem. Her normal method of meeting a crisis head-on and taking it down won’t work. Not this time. Not when fate is her adversary. Having kept her from the man she thought she’d always marry, the same fickle fate took away the man she eventually did. Thrown back into the path of her first love, she finds hers is not the only heart fate has damaged.

Widower and software CEO, Cole McCall fills his days with computer codes and his free time working the family’s cattle ranch. Blaming himself for his wife’s death, he’s become hard and bitter. When his visiting former neighbor sets out to delete the firewall around his heart, he discovers there’s no protection against the Jordan virus. Though she understands his pain and reawakens his soul, will it be enough for Cole to overcome his past and embrace their fated hearts?

Don’t you just love it when you bought a book ages ago and never read it and then you find it, like a favorite dress or book you didn’t realize you still had?

Her Fated Cowboy has a nice ebb and flow to the story. It starts off fun and fast-paced as Jordan and her sister Kerri head back home to Harland County, Texas. When they Continue reading Review ~ Her Fated Cowboy – Donna Michaels →

book reviews, New Releases, Romance

Review ~ Apoca(hot)lips – Paula Houseman

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Up yours! It’s a ballsy attitude for a child, and one that served Ruth (Roth) Gold well back then. It’s one she desperately needs to revive now. 
After her divorce, Ruth finds the love of her life: Herself. And she’s in a happy place … until a geeky, sexy, god-like man fronts up and fulfils her forgotten little-girl fantasies. He tells her she’s ‘The One’.
Talk about screwing everything up!
A romance with him seems so wrong, yet—mmm, mmm— feels so deliciously right. 
With those around her inflaming her doubts, though, Ruth remains trapped in a do-I-don’t-I mindset. But she rallies! She kind of breaks up with her carping mother, and succumbs to Mr Hotlips’ charms.
This Romeo ’n’ Juliet-esque couple engages in epic battles with the knockers, and triumphantly rattles their cages (from where, it appears, they’ve all escaped).
Still, Ruth’s man can’t vanquish the conflicts in her mind. Or the ones in his own. And when an earth-shattering revelation causes him to give her grief, the question on her hot lips is no longer ‘Can our love survive?’ It’s … ‘Do I want it to?’

When I first dug into Apoca(hot)lips by Paula Houseman my eyes bugged out and laughter bubbled up out of me. The main character, a divorcee called Ruth has a somewhat tenuous relationship with her ‘cousin’ Ralph and yes I mean a romantic relationship. Once you get past that, which is easy to do once you realize Ralph is on a journey of his own to find out what he can about his birth mother because. So you see, they’re only sort of cousins. But it isn’t just Ralph making Ruth’s life more difficult than she’d like it. Her mother is a piece of work, her neighbors are making life difficult and in general, Ruth has the entire world conspiring to turn her life upside down. Sounds like a lot of drama, right? Well it is but in the best possible way.

It took awhile for me to warm up to Apoca(hot)lips and it had nothing to do with whether or not Ralph had a legit spot on the family tree. Paula Houseman has a unique writing style that took time to get used to, but the story telling and character development were solid. I truly appreciated Ruth’s tough as nails, “I ain’t no damsel’ way of looking at the world. The way she takes on the people screwing with her own acceptance of her distorted fairytale was priceless and so true to her character you couldn’t help but cheer her on.

Ruth was unapologetic in her new approach to life and I found it admirable as well as highly entertaining.

Houseman added a few plot twists that tested Ruth’s strength and commitment to being a more positive force in her own life. I love the way the author explored the idea that sometimes it’s us who are our own worst enemies. The constant nagging in her own mind was her, though the voice might have belonged to another. This was for me, the most endearing part of the story because as women age and their romantic relationships shift, that kind of negativity can really have an impact on future or current happiness.

If one were to judge this book by its cover you’d come away missing out on a lot because this is an engaging story that was a surprisingly good find.

I was given a complimentary copy of this book by Reader’s Favorite in exchange for an honest review.

Book 1, Odyssey in a Teacup is available for #free at the time of this posting.

book reviews, Romance

Review ~ A Tempting Friendship – Kylie Gilmore

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Even Angels have their limits…

Widow Julia Turner is finally ready to date again after five years of mourning her husband. She confides to her longtime friend Angel Marino that she’s signed up for an online dating site and is shocked when it’s Angel that shows up at her door on the night of her first date. And the look in his eye is anything but friendly.

Angel has secretly been in love with Julia since college, and after fulfilling his promise to his deceased best friend to watch over her these past years, he can’t stand idly by and watch her date another man. It’s time to unleash the sexy for a seduction that’s been a long time coming.

 

 

I have kind of a hit or miss relationship with Kylie Gilmore’s books. I usually love them but the ones that I don’t love…I really don’t love. A Tempting Friendship falls somewhere in the middle.

I loved the idea of these two friends who secretly pined for one another until her desire to move on kicks them both into action. But there was so much more to this story and not all of it good. But I will say that both Angel and Julia were at fault for the years they could have had together. Angel could have stepped up and asked her out anyway instead of letting his friend have her. And Julia, girl! When it became clear she had feelings for both guys, it was time to step up and figure out what you want!

This is why I guess I judged Julia a little more harshly. Not because of her so-called sins but because she got married for a really crappy reason and then continued to punish herself for the way she felt. I thought she went a little overboard in her need for absolution. Forgiveness and all that jazz. A dead guy isn’t going to give you anything and if you need it that bad, you should ask yourself why.

Of course this is a romance novel so things go a little differently but I wish there would have been more Julia and Angel and not as much Damon and Mia. It took me out of their real story and honestly I just didn’t care for it that much, though it was steamy as hell!

Bottom line is that I liked this story but I didn’t love it. I wish there had been less hand-wringing. And I wish that Brad hadn’t died in such an honorable way because he deserved a great big smack upside the head! I mean a really good, Southern grandma style head smack. Though I do appreciate that A Tempting Friendship didn’t take the easy way out and make Brad a cheater or a bad guy. He did one REALLY bad thing but otherwise he was a good husband.

The story could have been a tad shorter but I’m not complaining. It was a good read that kept my interest.

Events, Romance

Sadie’s Interview with Ropin Romance!

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Check out my character interview with Sadie from Feels Like Love!

Feels Like Love (Mustang Prairie Book 3)
US: http://amzn.to/1KIICF5
UK: http://amzn.to/2etV2YN
AU: http://amzn.to/2dJmi7h
CA: http://amzn.to/2ei4CTs

book reviews, New Releases, Romance

Review ~ Slow Burn Cowboy – Maisey Yates

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In Copper Ridge, Oregon, a cowboy’s best friend might turn out to be the woman of his dreams… 

If Finn Donnelly makes a plan, he sticks to it. After his brothers left Copper Ridge, Finn stayed behind, determined to keep their ranch going by himself. And when he realized his feelings for Lane Jensen were more than platonic, he shoved that inconvenient desire away. It was easy…until it wasn’t. Suddenly his brothers are coming home to claim their share of the property. And Lane is no longer just in his fantasies. She’s in his arms, and their friendship is on the line…

He’s been her buddy, her handyman, her rock. But until that one breathtaking kiss, Lane somehow overlooked the most important thing about Finn Donnelly—he’s all man. They’re right together, no matter how much his volatile past has bruised him. Finn wants to hold Lane’s body, but he doesn’t want to hold her heart. But Lane is falling fast and now she’s got a plan of her own…to show Finn there’s nothing hotter than friendship turned to slow-burning love.

I am an unabashed Maisey Yates fan and a Copper Ridge super fan so it’s safe to say that I loved Slow Burn Cowboy. Finn and Lane have been friends almost from the moment she landed in town to live with her brother. One of the things I liked most about this book was that they had real baggage, which is usually something I try to stay away from because I don’t need a lot of angst with my romance. And of course there wasn’t a lot of angst for the sake of it, because Lane and Finn both had some MAJOR baggage.

The third star of this novel was their friendship. They were basically a married couple who didn’t live together or have sex. She kept him fed and bought clothes when he needed them and Finn, well he killed spiders, changed light bulbs and all the other things that were ‘male jobs’.

Things were going just fine until Finn’s life is shaken, first by the death of his grandfather and then when he learned he wasn’t the sole heir for the ranch he’d worked since he was sixteen. Yep, old grandpa screwed it and split it among the estranged brothers.

Okay so here my mini rant about one particular part of Slow Burn Cowboy. Everyone, including Lane, acted like Finn should just be okay with their grandfather splitting the ranch between all the brothers when the other three hadn’t been completely absent for years. Not just absent but they hardly ever even visited. He had a right to be pissed and hurt, and for them to just brush it off, well it didn’t endear any of the brothers to me. At all. (But I’m sure that will change when we get their stories!)

Okay, rant done!

All the stress in Finn’s life makes it impossible to keep resisting his attraction to his best friend. He’s a guy who likes control and right now nothing in his life is within his control. So he risks it and holy smokes is it so worth it! To me at least. J It wasn’t just the sex and chemistry that was hot, it was watching them both shed their baggage so they could go after what they both wanted.

There’s always a family element to Copper Ridge stories and this one has the big hunky brothers. Although right now they’re kind of in my doghouse, I can’t wait to watch them all fall.

In fact I’m calling it now…Cain & Allison!