4.5 Smooches

Synopsis

Brecken Kane had been damn good at his job in the military. The experience served him well when he moved into the private sector. Brecken’s new security business is booming, and he’s settling into civilian life. Little does he know his newest client’s request to save his daughter will change everything.

Hadley Gresham knows she isn’t likely to make it out of the jungle alive. She’d distanced herself from her parents after she learned her dad made his money selling illegal arms. Kidnapped by his competitors, she knows there’s little chance he’ll be able to save her.

Luckily for Hadley, her father hires Brecken. He’d never leave an innocent woman behind, let alone the one he quickly comes to consider his. Brecken might be Hadley’s rescuer, but she’s the one who saves his soul.

Review

4 Smooches!

Synopsis

Once upon a time there were two cousins:
one golden like the sun,
one dark like midnight,
one a protector,
one a predator,
one a Woodsman
and
one a Wolf…
both owning equal,
but different,
parts of a little girl’s heart.

In this modern retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” the woodsman and the wolf are cousins, and Little Red is the girl with whom they both fall in love.

Beautiful Ginger McHuid, daughter of Kentucky’s premiere horse breeder, grows up on her family farm, best friends with Cain Wolfram, the son of her father’s Stallion Manager, and Cain’s cousin, Josiah Woodman, son of a local banker. Throughout their happy childhood, the three are inseparable friends, but as they mature into adults, complicated feelings threaten to destroy their long history of friendship and love.

Ginger’s Heart 

*****

This is a standalone novel inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. New Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to profanity and very strong sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.

(The next standalone a modern fairytale novel, Don’t Speak, inspired by The Little Mermaid, will be released in 2017.)

*****

Ginger’s Heart is part of the a modern fairytale collection, which will include five standalone, unrelated novels:

The Vixen and the Vet (Beauty & the Beast) – available now
Never Let You Go (Hansel & Gretel) – available now
Ginger’s Heart (Little Red Riding Hood) – available March 22, 2016
Don’t Speak (The Little Mermaid) – available 2017
Swan Song (The Ugly Duckling) – available 2018

REVIEW

OK.  I have a few things to say about this book but I want to be very clear right now before I get started.  I really liked this book.  I gave it four stars.  Which means I found it very enjoyable.  I loved the angst and drama.  And man there is a wicked love triangle and those are always my weakness.  And gosh, it was ridiculously sexy and there was so much sexual tension that I was on the edge of my seat.  All of these are amazing things that I loved about this book.  The writing is also third person from three different people’s point of view and this author is one of the few authors that I don’t mind reading even though third person is my least favorite to read.  Her writing is sing songy, brilliant, and just gorgeous and this book was no exception.  The characters.  Well, I loved them all.  Which is hard because this is a love triangle after all.  A BIG ONE, at that.

“Couldn’t choose between the two of you if my life depended on it!  That’d be like choosin’ between my hands and my feet!”

But I loved both Cain and Woodman for Ginger.  I mean, there is an obvious winner through out most of the story because you can really tell who Ginger’s heart belongs to but still it is hard won.  Their story spans decades really and it was so incredibly hard.  So many miscommunications and so many heart breaks.  Ugh.  It hurt but it was one of those that hurt so good.

“I’ve always known!  It’s always been you.”

This story really is fantastic and I loved it.  I wanted to make sure I conveyed how awesome this story is before I say this.  I had one huge problem for me that really made this book a bit difficult for me to keep reading and that is that it was very repetitive.  Basically I got almost every interaction and every conversation from all three characters point of view and this kind of made the book lag for me.  It is a very long book and I honestly feel like maybe 30% of it could have been omitted.  Which is why I bumped it down one star because otherwise this would have been a 5 star book for me.  Bummer but these things happen.  Still a great story that is definitely worth the read.

“And for you, darlin’, Id wait until I read out of days.  And when I ran out of days, I’d wait for you in heaven.  And when you got there, through every eternity, I’d wait for you and your lion’s heart to give me another chance, to choose me again.”

~Amie

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4.5 Smooches!

Synopsis

There are bad boys and then there are the men of Devil’s Rock . . .

Some men come with a built-in warning label. Knox Callaghan is one of them. Danger radiates from every lean, muscled inch of him, and his deep blue eyes seem to see right through to Briar Davis’s most secret fantasies. But there’s one major problem: Briar is a nurse volunteering at the local prison, and Knox is an inmate who should be off-limits in every way.

Knox feels it too—a shocking animal magnetism that drives him to risk his own life to protect Briar’s. Paroled at last, he tries to resist her. She’s too innocent, too sweet, and she has no idea what Knox is capable of. But a single touch can lead to a kiss—and a taste . . . until the only crime is denying what feels so right . . .

“When the prison doors are open, the real dragon will fly out.”—Ho Chi Minh

Review

OK, so I went into this book kind of blind.  I have only read one other Sophie Jordan book and it happened to be NA.  But I really REALLY loved it so I wanted to give All Chained Up a go.  I am so glad that I did because, wow…this one was super action-packed, angsty, and just crazy sexy!

I honestly didn’t know at first if I was going to like Knox.  I didn’t think I could find myself actually attracted to a man who had committed a very horrible crime.  The beginning of this book was a bit slow for me and I think part of that was because I didn’t fully connect to Knox until a good 40% in.  But then I did and I actually couldn’t put this book down.  I was immediately sucked into the story and totally devoted and rooting for this couple.  And Knox.  Gah.  He won me over with his heroics and then I just felt so incredibly bad for his circumstances.

“Don’t confuse me with some hero.  I’m as tarnished as they come.”

Swoon, ya’ll!  Because I really do love a bad boy and Knox is definitely that.  Briar won me over too!  She is feisty, sweet, kind and for someone who was weary of men like Knox, she sure gave him a fighting chance.  And her inner dialogue was pretty funny at times, too.

‘A guy like him wasn’t going to give her the things she needed.  Well, aside from orgasms.  She needed those.  She loved those.’

So, even though this one started off a bit slow for me, when the story picked up I was completely sold.  I think I found it a bit slow because the author had to give background on quite a few of the rest of the inmates and such.  Often first novels in series, I find a bit hard to get into  at first for this very reason.  But I am so glad that she did give me that background info because some crazy stuff went down in this book and now I find myself really wanting the next book in this series.  I am dying for it actually because I just know it is going to be SO good!  The writing was really fabulous and I enjoyed it immensely even though it wasn’t first person, which is my preference.  But I found that I still connected well to the characters and enjoyed the witty moments, the sad ones, and definitely the sexy ones.  This book is smoking hot, folks.  Grab it!

~Amie

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4.5 Smooches!

Synopsis

After an overseas mission goes wrong, Army Special Forces officer Jacob Kincaid knows where he must go to make things right: back home to the tiny town of Cedar Ridge, Colorado. All he needs to scrub away his painful past is fresh mountain air, a lakeside cabin, and quiet solitude. But what he discovers is a gorgeous woman living on a boat at his dock.

Sophie Marren has nowhere else to go. She’s broke, intermittently seasick, and fighting a serious attraction to the brooding, dishy, I’m-too-sexy-for-myself guy who’s now claiming her dock. Something about Jacob’s dark intensity makes her want to tease—and tempt—him beyond measure. Neither one wants to give any ground . . . until they realize the only true home they have is with each other.

REVIEW

“I’m great. My glass is totally half full.”

Sophie Marren is trying hard to make better choices. Newly divorced, she’s not just out of a bad marriage – no, she’s out of a job, out of a car, out of a place to live… well unless you count her ex-husband’s beloved boat which was the only thing she got in said divorce. Trouble is, Sophie could get seasick in a bathtub, so living on a boat isn’t exactly ideal. Moving around the lake each night to find a “place to park” the boat is becoming old, too. One night she stumbles upon the dock at what she thinks is an empty house, and it’s there at that dock that Sophie finds not only a place to stay, but more than she ever bargained for.

“When he’d walked away all those years ago, he’d been a self-righteous prick. He didn’t want to be that guy anymore.”

Jacob Kincaid walked away from his twin brother, Hudson, and the rest of his family ten years ago following a terrible fight with his brother.  Without saying a word to his family, he left Cedar Ridge as as an angry 18-year-old and joined the military. In the wake of a devastating loss, Jacob returns home hoping to mend some fences and get his family back. He’s older, wiser and he knows firsthand just how short life can be. He misses his twin, he misses his siblings, and he misses Cedar Ridge. Finding Sophie moored illegally at his dock turns turns out to be just what he needed and more than he ever imagined as she helps him to not only breach the divide with his family but guides him to finding peace and healing as well.

“You’re being cautious.”

“I’m trying,” she said. “Join me, won’t you?”

But it’s not all smooth sailing. Sophie is certain that love just isn’t for her. After all, she never could get her father’s love and affection, which set her up to fall for the first man who turned his attention her way in college. Despite that man’s player reputation, she married him, and she quickly realized she’d never be enough for him. A loveless marriage, fraught with infidelity and verbal abuse, costs Sophie more than just her confidence and self respect. That relationship cements her decision that from now on, she’s keeping all relationships fun and light and everyone at arms length. It’s easier that way, and there’s less risk of her being hurt again.

“Stop looking in the rearview mirror and start looking out in front of you.”

Jacob is in Cedar Ridge to heal, emotionally, from his last tour. Losing the man who’d been like a brother to him these last ten years taught Jacob that life is too short and served as the reminder he needed that he does have a family, and it’s one he wants to be a part of again. So he’s also back in Cedar Ridge to try to repair the relationships with his siblings so he can come home for good after he finishes his final tour. He doesn’t have time for a relationship with a beautiful, feisty redhead, he needs to focus on his twin and his siblings.

“He loved her enough to let her catch up. He loved her enough to wait.”

Chemistry like Sophie and Jacob’s, though, is too palpable to ignore. They’re going to be smart about this, there will be boundaries – no one is falling for anyone they promise each other. If only their hearts were on board with that plan, though…  Will Sophie let her walls down and take a chance on Jacob? Can Jacob convince Sophie that he’s worth the risk and worthy of her trust – even in the face of a situation that makes it look like he isn’t?

“I love you, Sophie, just as you are. Not quiet, not calm, and most definitely not easy.”

I loved Nobody But You! This was such a great story about two people who were convinced that they were broken beyond repair, who thought that love just wasn’t for them, but when each was least expecting it, or even wanting it, they find something so special in each other, and it turns out to be exactly what they both needed.

Sexy and sweet, two hallmarks of every Jill Shalvis story, Nobody But You had just as many laughs as heart-string pulling moments. Always well written, Ms. Shalvis’ work, for me, is what every classic contemporary romance story aspires to be. 4.5 smooches from me!

~ Danielle Palumbo

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