4.5 Smooches

Synopsis

The Carolina Cold Fury hockey team proves that love is a power play. As Sawyer Bennett’s New York Times bestselling series continues, the league’s most notorious party animal gets blindsided by the one that got away.

Off the ice, elite defenseman Hawke Therrien enjoys his fair share of booze and good times. And why shouldn’t he? He’s worked his way up from the minor leagues and made himself a star. The only thing Hawke misses from that life is the pierced, tattooed free spirit who broke his heart without so much as an explanation. She’s almost unrecognizable when she walks back into his life seven years later—except for the look in her eyes that feels like a punch to the gut.

Vale Campbell isn’t the same girl she was at twenty. As crazy as she was about Hawke, her reckless behavior and out-of-control drinking were starting to scare her. She had to clean up her act, and that would never happen with Hawke around. Cutting him loose was the hardest thing Vale ever had to do—until now. Because she’s still crazy about Hawke. And if he could ever learn to forgive her, they just might have a future together.

Review

‘It was a realization, maybe a recognition , of something that Hawke does to me that I believe no other man will ever do. I can’t name it. I can’t place it other than it resides deep within me.’

I have been reading and reviewing this series since the very beginning and some I have loved more than others but all have been good. I was slightly hesitant when going into Hawke because some early reviews were stating that while they liked it, they didn’t love it. You would think by now I would realize that each reader gets something different out of each book because while many loved Ryker and fell for his story Hawke is where it is at for me. This story might just be my absolute favorite in the series.

‘Vale may have changed into someone virtually unrecognizable to my old self, but this mouth . . . these lips . . . her taste. It’s all 100 percent the same, and a jolt of lust seizes me hard.’

Hawke and Vale’s story is one that spans many years and comes with a good does of heartache. I think that is why I loved it so much! The angst and hurt that grew from when they were teenagers deeply in love to adults thrown together working for the same organization. Vale killed hopes dreams of living a good life with the girl he loved when she dumped him right before he left to go play hockey. Years have past and both have made great aspirations in their careers and even moved on in their love lives but no one has ever made either feel like they did when they were teenagers in love. But now that they see each other daily they can’t keep trying to deny the hurt and the love that has been simmering since they parted. Secrets are revealed and the two try to become friends again but can they ever really just be friends?

‘For a blessed moment, I don’t question all the hurt between us. I simply hold her.’

The tension between these two really helped build the story and up the drama and I LOVED IT! While still being true to Sawyer’s sexy and fun style Hawke delivered a good does of heart and made me fall in love with these two characters. They were young, reckless and flawed and while the timing wasn’t right and events occurred that drove them away it was clear from the beginning that they belonged together and something about that kind of strong epic love just completely draws me in.

‘I kiss her to shut her up. I kiss her to keep her preoccupied. I kiss her because I’m dying to kiss her again, and it just seemed the right thing to do at the time.’

Hawke can be read as a continuation of the series or as a standalone and I for one highly recommend reading it whether you want to read all the Cold Fury Men or if you just want a good second chance love story. Don’t miss this one!

~miranda

3.5 Smooches!

Synopsis

The Teach Me series starts off with the story of Raine and Mac, the most unlikely of best friends…

Taken from his parents and bounced from one foster home to the next, former Navy SEAL turned math teacher, Callum “Mac” Mackenzie had a rough childhood. The only time he’s let himself get attached to anyone has been with his military “brothers”. He’s convinced he doesn’t know how to love and certainly doesn’t “do” relationships. He’s spent fourteen years in the Navy and now he gets to live out his other dream: teaching.

Her thirtieth birthday fast approaching, science teacher, Raine Thompson feels as if her time to find “the one” is running out. She knows life is short, especially after dealing with breast cancer two years ago, and wants to experience her own happily ever after. But is it in the cards for her?

Finally acting on the simmering attraction they have long ignored, Raine and Mac decide to have a fling and they discover what it’s like to have someone who knows you inside out also be the one who makes your body come alive.

But it was only temporary…

REVIEW

This is the RC Boldt’s debut novel, and I have to be honest here, folks, I’m struggling and I’m torn. There were a lot of things that I liked about this book – which is making it extremely difficult for me to write a less than stellar review – but there were also some problems that made reading this book a very arduous task for me.  Now, let me preface all of this by saying that these are my own personal preferences and some people may not have the same reactions to these issues as I did.  So, I’m going to focus more on that in this review than my usual summarization of the story.

The vast majority of this book was told in the third person omniscient point of view. Now I realize, some of you are probably thinking, “what the hell are you yammering on about, Danielle?” Well, really quick for those who don’t know, third person omniscient point of view (TPOPOV) is a method of storytelling in which the narrator (a third person who is not part of the story) is privy to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Essentially, it’s a retelling of the events of the story, in real time, by a someone who is not only observing them unfold but also has the benefit of knowing what the characters are thinking and feeling without the characters having to express their thoughts or feelings outwardly. The use of pronouns such as “he” or “she” are the telling hallmarks of the TPOPOV.  Lots of books are told in third person POV, like Pride and Prejudice for example, and the vast majority of the time I don’t mind it. But in this instance, where there were randomly interspersed, and often awkwardly placed, shifts from the third person to first person point of view, the experience was jarring and disjointed. It was like ‘literary’ stumbling for me because these point of view shifts were often quite abrupt.

For example, during the first intimate scene, instead of reading this scene as a first person portrayal, it was basically told to me in third person voice, and it just didn’t work. It was almost as if the narrator and I were standing out in the hall while the two main characters went at it in the bedroom. The narrator was in the doorway watching events unfold in the bedroom and TELLING me what was going on. I didn’t observe, feel or experience anything – everything that was happening was relayed back to me, kind of like a sportscaster’s play-by-play, and it was done in an almost matter-of-fact manner as well. (Which was another problem in and of itself – lots of matter-of-fact type descriptions and recounting of events going on.) When I spoke to my blogger bosses about this book and how I was feeling, I asked them if they had ever taken their kids to the library for story time. Of course, being book bloggers, they said yes. I said that reading this story for me was like that: I was sitting crisscross-applesauce style on the floor at the librarian’s feet while she read this to me.

The pace of this book was very, very slow, I actually fought against the urge to skim and skip ahead at times, and I think that can also be attributed to the drawn-out nature of a TPOPOV narration. If it had been told in first person, or “real time,” I think it would have moved faster or, at least, it would have felt like it did.  Generally speaking, my preferred romantic hero is a much more alpha male than this book’s hero was. Yep, folks, you heard it right: I like ‘em bossy and dominant, determined and dirty. And Mac, while he was a really nice guy, he just did not embody any of the traits of my ideal male romance story lead. He was just so nice. Which leads me to another one of my issues – everything was just so nice. Nothing hot, everything was a nice, safe lukewarm. Even the most angsty portion of the book, the ‘misunderstanding’ that tears them apart, didn’t cause me to have any strong emotions – no wrenching gut, no aching heart, no sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. There just was no feeling like what they were facing was a potential deal-breaker or like it could possibly be something that they might not be able to work through. This was a comfy-slippers, fluffy-robe type of story, not a garters, fishnets and stilettos one. Know what I mean? Nothing wrong with comfy, nothing at all, but for me, my personal taste is a story that has a much edgier tone to it.

There were elements of this story that I really did like, though, and it is by no means all doom and gloom here. I really liked all of the characters a lot. This was a fun and quirky group of friends, there wasn’t a single one of them that I didn’t like. The author planted seeds for future books that I can easily admit do interest me. Will they be enough for me to one-click in the future? I don’t know right now, I’m on the fence. But, if your tastes tend toward a story that is a bit on the sweet side, one with just a little bit of heat, a light and easy, low angst, comfy-cozy, tame story, then this book would absolutely fit the bill, and I’m confident that you’ll love RC Boldt’s Wildest Dream.

~ Danielle Palumbo

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