REVIEW: My So Called Sex Life by Lauren Blakely

5 SMOOCHES!

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SYNOPSIS:

I’ve got a list of people I absolutely don’t ever want to be stuck with on a boat, or a plane, or a train, and it starts and ends with the broody, grumpy, too-sexy-for-my-own good Axel Huxley.

Also known as this romance novelist’s number one nemesis.

The man is legendary for his mighty pen and his even mightier scowl. I tried to work together with the cocky thriller writer once upon a time, but the two of us are like vodka and good decisions. We don’t play well together.

Only now, our publishers are sending us on a joint trip across Europe to mingle with our most devoted readers on an old-fashioned luxury train. And thanks to a booking snafu, we have to share a sleeper car.

You guessed it–there’s only one bed.

I’m not sure I can survive the next seven days and nights with my dangerously sexy enemy and all our fiery tension.

Which explodes one night in a desperately needed hate bang.

But the bigger plot twist is this – the more time we spend together, visiting the most romantic cities in Europe by day and discovering each other at night, the more I’m forced to face our past.

To let go of the hurt.

To see the man he’s become.

And when I do, I wonder if it’s too late to write a new happy ending for us?

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REVIEW:

Lauren Blakely delivered a seriously fun and fiery enemies-to-lovers story with a forced proximity spin in My So Called Sex Life. I listened to the audio version, featuring two of my favorites, Sebastian York and Vanessa Edwin. It’s been a while since we’ve heard SebYo narrate a Blakely romance, and boy, was it worth the wait. He epitomized the role of Axel Huxley, expertly bringing the sometimes surly, sometimes swoony hero to life. Vanessa Edwin’s portrayal of Hazel Valentine was on point and a wonderful counterpart to York’s Huxley.

Axel Huxley was the cocky, grumpy and broody romantic thriller author with an unrequited long-time crush on the heroine, his former writing partner, that he’s been suppressing behind a wall of snark. Romance author, Hazel Valentine, is witty, charming and independent. She believes whole-heartedly in the love stories she writes even though her own romantic life does not remotely resemble the best-selling fiction she pens. Their publisher has paired them up for a week-long luxury train tour of Europe for some VIP readers. A scheduling faux pas forces Axel and Hazel to share a sleeper car, and as the train makes its way through Europe these enemies move on from the disagreements of their past to the promising possibilities of their future.

A full-circle kind of romance, My So Called Sex Life was light-hearted, romantic and rich with heart-tugging emotion that didn’t tip the scales into angsty. Sizzling attraction, snappy banter, delightful side characters and a couple determined to work through their differences and the mistakes of their past made this an unputdownable story that kept the AirPods in my ears. Lauren Blakely’s My So Called Sex Life gets five smooches from me!

~Danielle Palumbo

 


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