3 Smooches

Synopsis

SEX. LIES. SECRETS. DECEPTION.

Holden Danvers is the bad boy. The guy everyone warns you not to fall in love with. At twenty-two, he is a trust fund baby, rich enough to live his entire life without having to work and he uses that to his advantage.

Jamie Crawford can’t even talk to men, let alone have one-night stands. At twenty, she’s still a virgin and no one knows that because who would even believe her?
What happens when a seemingly fortuitous rendezvous in a hotel room changes their lives forever? And when Jamie realizes she’s falling for a guy she shouldn’t be falling for in a million years?

What happens when secrets unfold, and when lies and deception become their world?

IN A WORLD OF LIES, SECRETS AND DECEPTION, ALL YOU CAN HOPE FOR IS BROKEN LOVE.

#hashtag is a New Adult Romance about a group of friends who become trapped in a world of Lies, Sex and Deception. But when their love lives get tangled in the mess, they must find a way to fight the danger that surrounds them without hurting the person they are really, truly in love with and sometimes that means making sacrifices.
When you don’t know who’s lying and who isn’t, and when the lines of good and bad start to blur, will the friends be able to bury their secrets before the secrets bury them all?
How will they survive the online tabloid magazine #HASHTAG that seems hell bent on divulging the very secrets the friends are trying to protect? No one knows the true identity of the person they call #HT but it seems as though they are a little too obsessed with scandalizing the friends and revealing these secrets at the most inopportune times.

Review

Kady Hunt began this story by wading right into the thick of it. The problem for me was that I felt like I started in the middle of a story, and I had a hard time making sense of what was going on for nearly the entire first half of the book. There was just so much going on, I felt as though I couldn’t even blink because if I did I’d miss something important and then I’d never figure out what exactly was happening.

While I eventually got the gist of the plot, I’m definitely not comfortable enough with my understanding of it to recap it. The story was sometimes a little convoluted and, in parts, a bit unbelievable—at least for this jaded reader. It jumped around so much that it felt very disjointed and choppy. While this book mainly focused on Holden and Jamie, the points of view frequently shifted between the two of them AND Holden’s three friends—Teague, Sebastian and Daniel. Although this book is billed as as a romance, I felt that the romance was definitely a secondary subplot.

For the majority of this book, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. I went back and reread parts often. The way the plot was unfolding wasn’t making sense to me, and as a result I didn’t really feel that I fully understood what was going on or why it was happening and as such, I had a hard time becoming invested in this story. I didn’t fully understand the relationships between the players, and because of that, I found it extremely difficult to connect with any of them. There are so many players, but without getting a back story on any of them, they felt underdeveloped to me.

The reason I’m comfortable giving Kady Hunt’s Perfect three smooches is because even though there are some crucial elements to this story that just didn’t work for me as a reader or for my personal reading preferences, I can still appreciate the quality of the author’s writing. It was strong, and I reacted strongly to it. There were so many twists and turns, and while I wasn’t a fan of all of them, the author still handled them well. Perfect is the first book in Hunt’s #Hashtag series, and I assume as each book releases more and more of this story will unfold, at least that’s what the set up in this book leads me to believe. My biggest problem was that there was just too much going on, and I was left with too many unanswered questions. This felt like a cliffhanger, and I personally don’t appreciate going into a cliffhanger without knowing that I am doing so. I was, however, intrigued by this story, enough so that I finished it, but in the end, I was left feeling a bit frustrated when I finished it.

It all boils down to my personal preferences, and the fact that this type of story isn’t quite my thing.  But, if you don’t mind a story that will unfold over the course of multiple books, if you enjoy enough twists and turns to rival a carnival ride, and if you don’t mind waiting for your questions to be answered, then I’d recommend you give this book a try because it has all of that. As I stated, the writing was good and the story concept was intriguing, and for those reasons, I’m giving it 3 smooches.

~ Danielle Palumbo

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5 Smooches!

Synopsis

Damon Atwood was Hollywood’s golden boy. Having won an Oscar at the tender age of thirteen, he had the life many could only dream about. But his success came at a price, and after a short but fruitful film career, he chose to live a life of obscurity on a remote Scottish island. Almost a decade later he’s finally ready to make his return, starting with a lead role in a musical on London’s West End.

As a choreographer’s assistant, Rose Taylor has always faded into the background. She watches shows come to life from the side lines, but has never craved the attention of stardom. When rumours begin circulating of Damon’s involvement in her latest gig, she doesn’t predict how she will be thrust into the limelight, nor how the mysterious and strangely introverted man will need her to teach him how to be a star again.

Rose knows that show crushes don’t last. Actors fall for each other during the intensity of a production, often losing themselves in their roles. These kinds of affairs burn bright and then they fade. The question is, should Rose let herself shine with Damon, or guard her heart from being broken after the final curtain call?

Review

God, I seriously love L.H. Conway’s writing.  It does all kinds of things to insides.  She provides heart soaring, gut wrenching angst and I simply cannot get enough of it.  Needless to say I was very much anticipating Showmance.  I will be honest and say that I do not usually enjoy romances that feature actors/actresses.  They just aren’t my thing but I was hoping that one of my favorite authors was going to pull through for me.  And she did!

‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.’

I am going to start with my absolute favorite thing or shall I say person in this book.  Damon.  Oh, sweet baby jesus, Damon.  Reserved, quiet, shy, sexy as sin and social awkward Damon.  I just loved this man to pieces.  He was kind of perfect, one moment being so incredibly introverted and the next taking my breath away with his complete bluntness.  He won me over over from the very beginning.

“You captivate me.”

Don’t even get me started on his sometimes shocking filthy dirty talk.  It is so unexpected and ridiculously sexy coming from this man.  SWOON!  But really the best part of this man is simple sweetness.  It really does exude from this man.  You cannot fault Rose for falling for him so very soon.  God knows I did.

“I’ll always pick you first, petal,”

I did adore Rose too, though.  She was a “real” character as is usual with this authors heroines.  They are flawed and do not always make the best decisions or right choices but always somehow come through in the end.  Honestly, this isn’t the deepest or angstiest  (not really a word, I know LOL) from L.H. Cosway, I admit.  Some of her other books that I have read definitely tugged at my heartstrings a bit more but this one was full of all of the drama that comes with an onstage production.  Back stabbing, liars, jealousy, and angry ex boyfriends.  There was plenty going on to keep this girl turning the pages.  I am pretty sure this lady could write a book about someone writing the phone book and I would read it.  She always brings major sexual tension and hits me right in the feels.  I sure hope that we get a story about Julian.  Lord knows that man needs one.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you feel good,”

~Amie

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4 Smooches!

Synopsis

Guarded hearts.
Wounded pride.
Devastating betrayal.
Broken souls.

Complete opposites intent not to yield, determined not to feel, but incapable of stopping it. Until the past resurfaces with the intent to ruin everything.
Is learning to love again worth the risk? After all, a life without love isn’t a life worth living.

Review

There are so many wonderful books within this genre that are positively gut-wrenching, soul-shredding, tear-jerking reads, ones that leave the reader curled up in the fetal position, sobbing and nursing one heck of a book hangover once they’ve finished reading.  Intent by AD Justice is not that kind of book.  Easy, peasy, nice and breezy is how I’d describe this book.  And you know what? That’s OK. Sometimes readers just need a break from all the angst, the heaviness and the drama, and you’ll get that here.

“That single dash mark on the test strip has single-handedly dashed my hopes and dreams too often.”

Layne Elliot has been with her boyfriend, Bobby, for seven years; he was her first everything. She’s an attorney on the upswing of her career, but what she really wants is the American dream: husband, 2.5 kids and a white, picket-fence ringed house in the ‘burbs. Bobby, however, doesn’t quite share this dream, but he ultimately gives in a little, and they strike a deal that at least gives Layne one slice of her American dream pie. As it turns out, though, it wasn’t that blasted dash mark on the test strip that wound up dashing Layne’s hopes and dreams after all.

“Should I allow the pain from my split…to rob me of my happiness? To taint the rest of my life?”

A devastating betrayal has Layne’s world crashing down around her, and she slips into a robotic depression. Her boss and mentor, who is more like a mother figure to Layne, is worried and forces her to take a much needed sabbatical. Layne heads to the woman’s summer home in a small, mountain town to escape the reminders of her failed relationship and to start the healing of her tattered heart. Little did she know that leaving behind everything she thought she had would lead her to finding all that she ever really wanted.

“Where have you been all my life?”

Ace Sharp, an equine therapist and single father, has learned the hard way that relationships and love aren’t easy. The only good thing that came out of the nightmare that was his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Margot, was his four-year-old daughter, River. He hasn’t opened his heart to anyone but River since that relationship ended, and he doesn’t think he can or will.

“I know you’ve been hurt…”

While their initial encounter wasn’t even close to love at first sight, when Ace learns what Layne did for River, his opinion of her dramatically changes. River has captured Layne’s heart, and through her, Ace and Layne shake off their less than pleasant first meeting and forge a tentative friendship. The more time they spend together – and River is seeing to it that they spend a lot of time together – the more they actually like each other and enjoy each other’s company. With a friendship between the two of them solidified, it becomes harder for them to deny their deepening feelings for one another, their attraction to each other or their chemistry together.

“…tell me something, Layne. Are you willing to take a chance on me?”

Giving into the feelings and desire that they share, Ace and Layne shake off the chains of their past experiences and tumble head-first into a relationship neither saw coming but both are unable to fight. Both both have substantial baggage of the former partner variety, and neither of those two people are quite so willing to let go, though. Will hearing Bobby out give Layne the closure that she needs to move on or will he once again send her reeling? Will Margot’s alarming activities drive them apart or push them closer together?

“All the wrongs and hurts fade to black when I’m with him…”

This couple, both having been dealt terrible hands in the relationship game, could have easily held tight to their pasts letting it overshadow the love building between them. In a refreshing change of place, they instead held tight to each other, and they were rewarded with a soul-deep, once-in-a-lifetime, true love rooted in friendship, in trust, in mutual respect and simmering with white hot chemistry. I wanted so much for them to have an easy road with each other while they worked together to hold the outside forces at bay, and they did.

“Will you catch me?”

“I’ll never let you fall alone, Layne.”

It’s not often that I get to read a story where the relationship is the easy part and the external factors are the problem. What was happening around these two could have easily made this relationship much harder, but this couple recognized what they had with each other and they simply did not let outside factors in. They stood strong together, they held on to each other, they allowed trust to form, and they instead focused their energy on growing their relationship while handling these outside influences as a united front.

“We both know there’s no going back, no backing out, and no changing our minds. We’re in this together, through thick and thin, for better or for worse.”

This was such a sweet and sexy story. It was well written and developed, and it was a smile-plastered-on-my-face, pleasure to read. There is definitely something to be said about a story where the budding relationship and the main character couple is the easy part. If you’re in need of something upbeat and a bit easy, especially after reading a story that left you gutted and devastated, A.D. Justice’s Intent is exactly what you need to soothe your ravaged soul. 4 smooches from me!

~ Danielle Palumbo

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