5 Smooches!

Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of FULL PACKAGE and BIG ROCK, comes a hot & hilarious new standalone romantic comedy…

Let’s be honest, ladies. A good man is a lot like the perfect car. You want a hot body, an engine that purrs, and superior performance under the hood…for the best joy ride of your life.

I’m at your service. Ready to go all night long.

But then a wildly sexy brunette appears in my life and throws a wrench in all my plans. She’s fiery, she’s talented, she’s gorgeous, and I’d really like to know what makes her engine hum.

Henley also happens to be my biggest rival, and now we’re forced to work together every day on the most important custom car build of my career. The trouble is I can’t quite figure out if she wants to kick me in the lug nuts or beg me to give her a good, hard fuel injection. Until one night that question is answered on the hood of a sports car when she calls out my name three times. And we can’t seem to put on the brakes.

If sleeping with the enemy is a bad idea, how much more dangerous would it be to fall in love with her?

* * * * * * * * * *

Review

Lauren Blakely is one of my top favorite authors, and I’ve loved every book of hers that I’ve read. But it’s her male point-of-view romantic comedies that are my absolute favorites. It’s the way that Blakely gets into the heads of her heroes and communicates the story through their thoughts, reactions and emotions to her readers. It feels authentic, it’s well executed, and it’s wholly addictive. I’d even go so far as to say that they’re one of my guilty pleasures. So, when one of her books lands on my Kindle, especially one of these, it is a drop-everything and read-it-now moment, and that’s exactly what I did when Joy Ride made its appearance.

“This woman is going to be a thorn in my side.”

I love an enemies-to-lovers story, and Max and Henley’s is a doozy. There’s a fine line between love and hate, but that line becomes even more obscure when it’s blurry to begin with. Hooked deep right from the start, I was drawn into this story and held captive by the magnetic chemistry pulsating between Max and Henley. I cruised through this book faster than any hot rod either one of them could build, and I enjoyed every second of the ride.

“Max?”

“Yes, Henley?”

“I don’t want to kiss you.”

“Good. I don’t want to kiss you either.”

King of the custom car world, Max Summers is focused, driven, ambitious and living his dream. He’s worked hard to get to here, though, and his reputation is stellar with customers lining up for one of his carefully crafted cars. He’s gorgeous, sexy and charming, and while his professional reputation is squeaky clean, he’s been known to get downright dirty while indulging in his favorite guilty pleasure: the one night stand. He’s a great guy, he treats his mechanics well, sharing the wealth of his knowledge and experience with them, and he gives back to the community by offering a helping hand to kids with car building dreams.

“…she’s all my guilty pleasures now, but I never feel an ounce of remorse…”

Henley Marlowe knew from a young age that building cars was her life’s passion, and she was a woman with a plan when she set out to pursue a career in this male-dominated industry. She went after it by earning an engineering degree and then landing a coveted apprenticeship with the one and only, Max Summers. Fierce, fiery and feisty, she was, then and now, the car-building, brunette bombshell of his dreams—even if he refuses to admit it. Max and Henley have a history marred by a mistake that they both handled poorly, so when Henley saunters back into his world five years later, there is enough current zapping between the two of them to fire a spark plug.

“I’m in love with you, tiger. I’m madly in love with you.”

Joy Ride hit on everything I love about an enemies-turned-lovers story:  sharp and witty back-and-forth banter between the hero and heroine, lust disguised as loathing slowly morphing into love, bouts of anger punctuated with toe-curling passion. Max and Henley’s happily ever after was feverish and furious and chapter upon chapter of fantastically fulfilling fun. Lauren Blakely’s Joy Ride was positively unputdownable! Five smooches from me.

~ Danielle Palumbo

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5 Smooches!

Synopsis

A MAN WITH NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE

I sold my soul a long time ago to pay my father’s debts. Now my life is a prison: no friends. No family. Nothing it would hurt to lose.

I never should’ve touched Abby. I tried not to, but she is beautiful, magnetic, sexy. Everything I want but can’t let myself have.

UNTIL HE MET HER

She seduced me not knowing who I was or what I really do in the shadows. I should have resisted her, but I wanted to be the man Abby thought I was for as long as I could.

But all debts must be paid, sooner or later. And mine are paid with blood.

Now Abby knows who I am, what I am, and she’s run from me.

I would have let her go for her own good. But when I find out she’s carrying my baby — there’s nowhere she can hide…

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Baby, Come Back is a full-length contemporary romance and the sequel to Bad Neighbor.

REVIEW

You guys, I am obsessed!  Just obsessed with this authors writing style.  It’s gritty and raw and the way M. O’Keefe describes people and things just amazes me.  I seriously cannot get enough of her writing style.  It puts me so IN the story.  Okay, so I admit, I wasn’t crazy about the cover of this one.  It wasn’t the fact that there is a hot man holding a baby.  No, I loved that, because–ovaries, boom!  But the baby just looks a bit odd and alien like.  Like he wants to steal my soul and all.  That didn’t stop me from reading.  I picked this baby up and devoured it.  I’d been waiting on this one since Bad Neighbor.

I was not disappointed.  This book was so dang cool.  The story of bad guy gets girl preggers has been done before but the way that this author did it made me feel like the storyline was new.  The book had a very throw back feel, to the days of cigarette girls and gangsters.  And the hero!  Gah, he was nothing like I expected from Bad Neighbor.  Everything about the story was so surprising and refreshing, despite the authors darkish way of writing.  I loved it!  M. O’Keefe served me up romance just the way I like it.  The writing was off the charts, the story was new in an old way, and the sex was steamy.

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 5 Smooches

Synopsis

Max Riley is the man of your dreams. Or at least he will be, for a price.

As his alter-ego Mister Romance, Max is a drop-dead gorgeous escort who makes romantic fantasies come to life. No sex, just swoon-worthy dates to die for, and the cream of New York’s socialites can’t get enough.  Whether they want a dominating billionaire, bad boy with a heart of gold, hot geek, sexy biker, or best friend who loves them from afar, Max can make it all happen, but he’s careful to keep his real identity a secret.

Enter investigative journalist Eden Tate. Having caught wind of the urban legend of Mister Romance from a lovestruck client, Eden is determined to publish a scathing expose on Max and his ability to swindle lonely society women out of their fortunes.

Desperate to protect his anonymity and his clients, Max challenges Eden to give him three dates. If she doesn’t fall in love with him, she can run her story with his blessing. If she succumbs to his charms, the story dies.

Cynical Eden has no doubt she can resist his fake romance personas, but when the real Max admits he’s falling for her, she has to decide if the professional liar is telling the truth, or if the passionate man with the mysterious past is just one more character designed to con her out of her career-making story.

Review

A new book in a new series from Leisa Rayven?? SIGN ME UP! From the moment I first discovered Leisa Rayven when she put out Bad Romeo I fell in love. Fell in love with her stories, her characters and most of all I fell for her style of writing. I love her unique voice and her fresh take on stories we feel like we have all read over and over again.

‘I know I’m going to have to develop a tolerance for how he makes me feel, or I’ll end up just one more giddy client on his roster.’

When Eden Tate sets out to save her job by getting an exclusive interview with the guy simply known in high society circles as
“Mr. Romance” she never expects to go thru his full immersion dates and in the process fall for the man who has a million personas. But how can she trust the one she is falling for, Max, be the real thing and not just another disguise he puts on to help women fulfill their non sexual romantic fantasies?

While the idea of a guy helping women fulfill their desires (sexual or just romantic) is not necessarily a unique one, the way Elisa went about it felt completely fresh and new to me. Eden was a journalist who didn’t believe in the one and romance and Max was the perpetual romantic.  I loved the dates they went on and the characters he was able to transform in. Leisa had me in the moment and I felt like I was there for each one and as the story progressed I too was falling him.

“You complicate my life in the most intoxicating ways,”

More than loving his characters, and the plot I loved the descriptive style Leisa uses. I always feel completely wrapped up in her worlds and just love it! I will say that I had an early copy that said it was uncorrected so it had quite a few errors but based on the quality of her previous works I am confident these were fixed for release. I can 100 percent recommend this book to romance lovers. I devoured it and now I can’t wait for the next in the series.

~miranda