5 SMOOCHES!
SYNOPSIS:
From #1 New York Times Bestseller Vi Keeland, comes a new, sexy standalone novel.
My relationship with Hunter Delucia started backwards.
We met at a wedding—him sitting on the groom’s side, me sitting on the bride’s. Stealing glances at each other throughout the night, there was no denying an intense, mutual attraction.
I caught the bouquet; he caught the garter. Hunter held me tightly while we danced and suggested we explore the chemistry sparking between us. His blunt, dirty mouth should’ve turned me off. But for some crazy reason, it had the opposite effect on me.
We ended up back in my hotel room. The next morning, I headed home to New York leaving him behind in California with the wrong number.
I thought about him often, but after my last relationship, I’d sworn off of charming, cocky, gorgeous-as-sin men. A year later, Hunter and I met again at the birth of our friends’ baby. Our attraction hadn’t dulled one bit. After a whirlwind trip, he demanded a real phone number this time. So I left him with my mother’s—she could scare away any man with her talks of babies and marriage—and flew back home.
I’d thought it was funny, until the following week when he rang the bell at Mom’s house for Sunday night dinner. The crazy, gorgeous man had won over my mother and taken an eight-week assignment in my city. He proposed we spend that time screwing each other out of our systems.
Eight weeks of mind-blowing sex with no strings attached? What did I have to lose?
Nothing, I thought.
It’s just sex, not love.
But you know what they say about the best laid plans…
REVIEW:
For the second year in a row, with the second read of the year, Vi Keeland knocked it out of the park with a book I’m certain will land on my top favorites list for 2018. A bold statement, perhaps, but as I finished this book, the thought that crossed my mind was that I had just finished my first favorite book of the year. I wrote this review a few days after I had finished reading Sex, Not Love, and I’m still thinking about it and I’m still thinking the same thing.
I absolutely loved Hunter Delucia. He was a bit broken with the whole sexy, brooding vibe, but he also thoughtful and kind, and all of that blended together perfectly into this totally swoon-worthy hero. This was a man who needed healing—needed a reason to heal—and he found it in Natalia Rossi. She was his perfect counterpart, but she had some serious trust issues. What she didn’t have, though, was a problem making this man work for her time and attention, and I absolutely adored that about her. I loved that it didn’t scare him off either–not at all, if anything, Hunter worked harder for her.
Oh, the feels! This book had all of them! Anticipation, excitement, desire, lust, anger, disappointment and love. I felt them all at one point or another while reading this book, and it was a direct result of Vi Keeland’s fantastic writing here. I loved the instant spark of attraction between Hunter and Nat, and the way they bantered and bickered, and how even through all of that, the chemistry between them still crackled and popped. I was as excited to see what would happen between them as they were. Nat certainly gave Hunter a run for his money, but I, like her, was left swooning on my sofa in the wake of this man’s sheer determination. So while they may have started out with an understanding – sex, not love – they were always so much more than that.
Sex, Not Love was emotional and sexy and absolutely everything a love story this epic should have been. With my heart racing and full of hope, I positively devoured this book. I did not want to put it down, and I felt my reading pace slow as I neared the end simply because I just didn’t want this gorgeous, passionate love story to be over. Fabulously well written, memorable and an absolute stand-out from page one, Vi Keeland’s Sex, Not Love gets five smooches from me.
~ Danielle Palumbo
