Kate

Reading Tarryn's books is always a difficult experience for me because I always end up relating to her characters on some level. If you've read any of her previous novels, you know that her characters are not the cookie cutter heroines you find in most romance novels. They are deeply flawed. They do awful things and make stupid decisions. It's hard to admit that some of the qualities you hate about her characters are qualities you possess yourself.

Yara is a tough character to root for. She's a narcissist, but at the same time she's very insecure. She doesn't believe she is worthy of being loved, nor that she's capable of loving the right way. When her life gets too comfortable, she picks up and moves to a different city or country and starts over, not thinking or caring about the relationships she's leaving behind.

Yara is hard to love but David loves her so effortlessly. You'd think that would make for a story filled with rainbows and butterflies but true to Tarryn Fisher fashion, their story is anything but pretty. It's angsty and takes disappointing turns. But as with previous TF novels, AWKAP evokes every emotion and you can't help but want Yara and David to somehow have a happily ever after.

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. It's different than what I usually read. Much darker and pretty disturbing at times. I was left with a lot of questions and I'm not sure what was real versus what wasn't but I have a feeling that Tarryn wrote it that way on purpose. I'd recommend if you like psychological, twisted books.

Loved this one! I really enjoyed the reality show aspect of this book, which reminded me of The Apprentice with characteristics of the board game Clue thrown in. I kept trying to figure out which contestants were lying to get ahead and which ones could be trusted, also who the elusive Fabulist could have possibly been. I wasn't positive until the very end when all was revealed so it made for a really fun and intriguing read.

Not my favorite of the Winston Brothers series but it was okay. For Beau supposedly being the fun, easy-going brother, I didn't get that from him in this book. More often than not, he was grumpy and angry. There were a few appearances from the other Winston family members but this book lacked the charming family feel of the other books.

This was a really great second chance romance. Jonathan is a famous actor starring in a superhero franchise based on his favorite childhood comic. Usually I find most novels that have a famous main character unrealistic but I didn't feel that here. Kennedy is his high school sweetheart and at first we know that didn't work out but we slowly learn bits and pieces as to why as the book alternates between past and present. Their story really gripped me and I couldn't put it down. It was refreshing to read something with two mature main characters and no drama just for the sake of adding drama.

This book hooked me from the very beginning but by the halfway point I started to get really frustrated with it and both of the main characters. There really wasn't a good reason for them to not be together in the 11ish years this book spans and I got tired of the back and forth, to the point where I started skimming because I just wanted to finish.

DNF at 55%. Can I just say that I absolutely hate Beryl aka Judgey McJudgerson?? It's creepy how she snoops through her clients' things and wears the clothes her client specifically tells her to get rid of, and then begs him to trust her. Then when he finally opens up to her, she throws his problems back in his face and gets offended when he stops talking to her. I'd fire this girl so fast.

Also, for a rock star romance, there's very little rock star in it.

DNF at 40ish%. This is possibly the worst thing I've read in a long time. I'm so disappointed because I loved the premise of this story. Two co-workers stuck in an RV, forced to drive across the country together for their ad agency has the potential to be a great story. I love the enemies to lovers trope but there has to be a good reason why the characters are enemies in the first place. I hate when one person decides they hate the other without even knowing them. Callie is so unlikable and she slut shames EVERYONE. Walker isn't much better either and I was put off when he decided to take pictures of a half-naked Callie while she was sleeping. The banter between them is not cute or funny, it comes off as very try-hard and unrealistic, as are the situations they get into on their road trip.

I'm torn with this one. On the one hand, I really liked it. The premise of a girl falling in love with a drag queen is unique and not something that I've ever read before. The writing is decent and kept me interested throughout the story. On the other hand, Freda got on my nerves with her constant slut-shaming. I'd like to read a book for once where the main character isn't so insecure that she has to put down her friends to make herself feel better. Nicholas/Viv also did things that I don't necessarily like to see in my romance novels. He came on a bit too strong at first but I warmed up to him as the story progressed.

3.5ish-4 stars. This book started off slow for me and it was a little confusing at times. We know something happened to Cait to cause her memory loss but we don't know exactly what. Little by little bits of her past are revealed and eventually everything starts to make sense. It reminded me a lot of the movie The Vow with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams. Once I got really into it after about 30% or so, I couldn't put it down.

Overly cheesy and repetitive at times. The issues each of the main characters faced were wrapped up too neatly and it was unrealistic. I wish the blurb would have mentioned that these characters were introduced in a previous book because I assume more of their backstory was revealed there. Even though this is supposedly a standalone, I felt like I was expected to know more about these characters than I was told.

DNF @ 36%. I'm so disappointed. I've had a really hard time getting into books this year so I was thrilled when I couldn't put this book down. I loved the premise of the story. A young girl named Aimee meets a boy named Kes who is in town with the carnival and befriends him. Their friendship spans a number of years where they only see each other for the two weeks each summer that the carnival is in town.

Over the years, their relationship becomes romantic. The summer when they're 16 years old, Aimee's nemesis Camilla sets her sights on Kes. Kes, wanting to stop Camilla from bullying Aimee, sets her up and makes Camilla believe she's going on a date with Kes. This is where the book was completely ruined for me. Somehow Kes gets his two older friends to hook up with a drunk/high 16-year-old Camilla. He films it on Camilla's cell phone and sends it to all of her contacts. This is an obviously appalling thing to do so it baffles me as to why a female author would make one of her main characters do something like this. I don't feel like it was even a necessary part of the story and I'm so mad that the author took it in that direction. Ugh.

Well this book was a ride. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't the female MC being held captive and raped by an ex-lover/mob boss for the majority of the book.

This was my first book by Willow Aster and I enjoyed her writing but I wish there was more to this story. Lili and Soti seemed to fall in love in a matter of days. While we know that Lili was a high-end prostitute, we don't know much about Soti. How does he have connections with the New Orleans police department? Why is there so much security at the community center where he lives and volunteers? How did he manage to keep track of Lili after their first encounter six years prior to when they meet again? There was definitely more to his story and I wish we would have been let in on it.

Nopenopenopenope. DNF at 6% after the main character commits a rape. I've been trying to clean out my Kindle and I think I either won this in a giveaway or it was free on Amazon at one point. No way would I have ever paid for this garbage. Me + MC books = not a good time.

***Edit: I did end up powering through this just to see if there were any redeeming qualities about these characters and it's still a big NOPE. How this book managed to get such high ratings is beyond me.

So this book was tricky. It starts in the past, when Lauren is 17 and develops a crush on Beau, the 24-year-old law student renting an apartment from her parents. I could relate to this because what teenager hasn't had an embarrassing crush on an older guy? (Todd, if you're out there somewhere, sorry for being such a creeper back in the day!)

In the “past” portion of the book, Lauren's infatuation was seemingly one-sided. Beau never gave her any reason to believe he was into her, even when she literally throws herself at him. This is a good thing obviously because I'm not here for an adult dating a junior in high school. Then they're separated by a major event and we jump 10 years ahead. This is where I felt a disconnect in the story. There's really no build up when they meet again. We're just supposed to believe that they have been pining after each other for 10 years and then after a few weeks they're in love. Nope. I needed something more there.

Gaaahhh I swear reading an Amy Harmon book is like curling up with a big fleecy blanket and a hot cup of tea. Her books are so comforting even though they're filled with so many different emotions. I was excited to see this book was going to be about Dr. Noah, who we first meet in The Law of Moses. It's not necessary to read that book before this one but I'd recommend it just to get the full Moses experience.

The Smallest Part is the story of Mercedes, Noah, and Cora, best friends since they were little kids. Mercedes is the girl who puts the wants and needs of others before her own. Cora is the free spirited one who never quite figures out where she belongs in the world. Noah is the boy caught between them. While this sounds like the perfect equation for a love triangle, this book really isn't about that. It's about friendship, loss, and healing. Amy's words are captivating from the very first page. She puts these intricate details into her books that often leave you wondering why the heck is this relevant and then she ties everything together so beautifully at the end. I know I say this in every review but I cannot get enough of her writing!!

I absolutely loved The Fabulist so I was hoping The Praetorian would give me that same feeling since it features another reality show but it unfortunately did not.

Rock star Roman Creed agrees to participate in a reality show to find himself a new body guard. The moment he sees Detective Reed Manning in her interview, he supposedly has an immediate reaction to her. I say supposedly because I felt zero connection between these two. Not one hint of a spark or anything. The show was to film over a two-week period and in that time the characters were already professing their love for each other even though they had spent only a few moments together. One of my pet peeves when I'm reading a book is when the author TELLS us that something happened instead of letting us experience that thing as it's happening. It's lazy writing in my opinion and this book had a lot of telling in it. I'm disappointed.

It took me a bit to get into this one and while it didn't give me the same warm fuzzies as Alex, Approximately, I still really enjoyed it once the story got going. Zorie took some time for me to warm up to but I think that's intentional on the author's part. I appreciated the growth she experiences between the beginning of the book and the end. And Lennon! He was the best part in my opinion. He was perfectly witty and had some great swoon-worthy moments. This was an all around pretty decent book and Jenn Bennett is definitely one of those authors that I will read anything she writes!

Jackal > Folsom.

I was really disappointed with the first book of this series. There was super insta-love, women turning into sex-crazed maniacs in the mere presence of an End Man, and not enough character development to really get me invested in the story. But I persisted because this series is partly Tarryn Fisher so how could I not? I'm glad I continued because I did end up enjoying Jackal a lot.

Jackal enjoys his job as an End Man and he has a good time with it until he meets Phoenix Moyo. He is instantly charmed by her but she resists him, which is not something he's used to. Their attraction is palpable and more believable than Gwen and Folsom's. I liked that that Phoenix is her own person and has her own strengths apart from Jackal. She already plays a small part in the rebellion before she meets him, which eventually turns into a bigger part when she teams up with Jackal on a dangerous mission.

Overall, I liked this book a lot more than I did the first one. I felt like I was on the edge of my seat for a good majority of it. There are still a few cringeworthy moments where Jackal is forced to go to his appointments after falling for Phoenix but given the world this story takes place in, I have to remind myself that he doesn't have a choice. We also do get a fair amount of Gwen/Folsom and are introduced to plenty of new characters that keep you wondering if we can trust them or not.

I don't know if this book was based off of One Direction/Larry fanfiction but I think it has too many similarities to not be somewhat based on them. Two members of a boyband begin a relationship with each other but their management team forces them to keep their sexualities and relationship a secret?? Yeah.

The romance was not the greatest. The main characters were very one-dimensional. I often couldn't tell who's chapter I was reading. Just kind of blah overall. The side characters were more interesting.

3.5-4 stars. I feel like SD Hendrickson is a bit of a hidden gem in the world of NA/romance. Her books are well written and have always been page turners for me. The Hawks is no different but I felt like the romance took a back seat to everything else going on in this book and I never fully could get on board with Sarina and Javier.