Category: Books

[New Post] ARC Review: End Game Monica Murphy

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Title: End Game

Author: Monica Murphy

Page count: 285

Published: September 17th, 2024

Publisher: Valentine PR

Genre: Sports Romance

Received: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating: 5/5

In this fun, sexy college romance, a transfer student finds herself living in a house full of football players—and falling for the one she knows she shouldn’t want.

Everleigh

Transferring to UC Santa Mira is supposed to be my ultimate college experience—until housing falls through at the last minute. So when I overhear a group of guys complaining they need another roommate, I jump at the opportunity.

They’re just football players. Even if one of them makes me weak in the knees, it doesn’t mean anything unless I let it. And I won’t.

We want different things. Wanting each other doesn’t change that.

Nico

It’s my senior year and final season with the Santa Mira Dolphins. The last thing I need is a distraction, but that’s exactly what this girl is. Ever is too leggy, too gorgeous, too thoughtful—and a whole lot of too much that gets under my skin.

I guess I get under hers too. I can’t help myself.

We live together. That alone makes it a bad idea…but I never could resist a little trouble.

Everleigh aka Ever is wanting to have a true collage experience as a transfer student. To start things off on the wrong foot, her housing got cancelled with her car broken into. Ever meets a group of football players that happen to have a room available, and she agreed to cook for them in exchange for living there. One of the player’s named Nico has a crush with sparks when they first meet but he doesn’t do relationships or feelings. Having Ever living with him just might be able to change his mind. Nico and Ever a slow burn romance with engaging chemistry that keep you clued to your kindle. I adored Dollar I hope there next in the series.

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[New Post] ARC Review: False Start by Kandi Steiner

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Title: False Start

Author: Kandi Steiner

Page count: 439

Published: June 7th, 2024

Publisher: Valentine PR

Genre: Sports Romance

Received: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating: 5/5

Kyle Robbins: Seattle’s rookie tight end and the first boy to break my heart.
Oh, did I mention he’s also my new client… and fake boyfriend?

I thought I left Kyle and our complicated past behind me, but when he saunters up as my new client at a house showing, I’m quickly reminded how much he still haunts me.

I try to walk away, but the stubborn jerk isn’t having it. In fact, he doubles down on working with me, as if our tragic history doesn’t exist at all.

The commission from working with him is the key to a new life for me and my son. It’s worth putting up with the cocky athlete long enough to find him a house. But when Kyle sees the bruises left by my darling ex-husband, he thinks he can save me — and suddenly, he’s interested in much more than just being a client.

Before I know it, I’m wrangled into a scheme so crazy it just might work. Kyle pretends to be my fake boyfriend so he can keep my ex in line until I get the commission from this house sale and get the hell out of Seattle for good.

But with a past as thick with chemistry and tension as ours is, it’s not long before those fake touches feel all too real. Every brush of his hand against my back has me spinning back to that night. Every kiss has me dizzy with the love I felt at eighteen. And every day that passes without me finding him a house has me wondering how much longer I can survive this game we’re playing.

Fake-dating each other was supposed to be for my safety.

But I can’t help thinking my heart is more at risk now than ever before.

This was another fantastic book by Kandi. We meet Madelyn and Kyle in this addition. Kyle is a football player that’s about himself and social media to be current wanting to make it to the NFL. Madelyn is a signal mom that has been dealing with an abusive ex/baby’s father makes it hard to co parent. Madelyn and Kyle dated when they were in high school, and things had ended based on a lie, so they had both had gone their separated ways hating one another. Years later when one another and finding out what had happened they were stuck together. They have insane chemistry and to add fake dating is just a recipe for a book that will keep you on the edge wanting more.

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[New Post] ARC Review: The Way We Score by Tia Louise

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Title: The Way We Score

Author: Tia Louise

Page count: 350

Published: January 16th, 2025

Publisher: Grey’s Promo

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Received: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating: 5/5

We promised our love was forever. A decade later, two little blue lines might settle the score.

You’ve heard of those kids who peak in high school?
Meet my love life.
Garrett Bradford was mine from the moment we saw each other in ninth grade.
Even then, he was a six-foot-four mountain of muscles with bright blue eyes, a wide grin, and a way with his hands.
He was the high school football star, and I was the dance team captain.
We were the storybook cliché… until we weren’t.

Now he’s the most famous offensive lineman in the league, and I’m a buttoned-up, ultra-professional lawyer.
My dancing days are over, and my carefully controlled life is a mess.
Infertility killed my marriage, or that’s what I told myself. Infertility and a cheating ex.
And my inability to get over Garrett Bradford.

One reckless night at his little sister’s wedding is only supposed to be a reunion, a trip down memory lane to a time when life was happier.
Six weeks later, I’m staring at a positive pregnancy test wondering, How did this happen?

I figure I’m on my own until Garrett overhauls his life, moves back to our small town, and shows up every day to massage my feet and hold my hair when I barf and go with me to all my doctor’s appointments.
Our situation has an end date, just like it did so many years ago.
Unless this little score changes the game and gives us the second chance I thought we’d lost.

Garrett is a professional football player in NY. When he finds out that Liv’s pregnant, he’s all in. Garrett and Liv are meant to be. They are one another’s soulmate, even after years apart you can still see they had feelings for one another and the chemistry that never faltered from high school. The personal growth that Garrett goes though is something that needed to happen. Liv is now understanding that she can be loved. Liv and Garrett have a back story that adds something to the story that I enjoy but added them to be fated soulmates was just the cherry on top for me.

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[New Post] ARC Review: Forever Enough by Kelly Elliot

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Title: Forever Enough

Author: Kelly Elliot

Page count: 339

Published: May 28th, 2024

Publisher: Grey’s Promo

Genre: Western Romance

Received: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating: 4/5

Not long out of college, Mackenzie Reeves has found herself halfway across the country, relocated from Atlanta, Georgia, to small-town Hamilton, Montana. But it’s not just a fresh start—it’s an escape. For years, she’s been trying to steer clear of the abusive stepfather who’s made her life hell and turned her mother into someone she doesn’t recognize. Now, on Dirk and Merit Littlewood’s gorgeous farm, she’s found a bit of peace. Until a certain dimpled, dark-eyed handsome devil walks into her barn and changes her life with a single look.

Not quite twenty-four, and champion bull rider Bradly Littlewood already feels twice his age. He loves the sport, but between the politics, the lonely nights, missing his family…his heart and head are no longer in the game. And when he’s home for the holidays, surrounded by cousins who’ve married and started their own families, he can add jealousy to the mix. He’s missed so much, and he wants what they have. Turns out, one unplanned stop at the family barn and he may have found it…in the form of a pajama-clad angel, singing and dancing for a captive audience of farm animals.

Mackenzie and Bradly’s instant smolder in the barn becomes a blazing wildfire within days, surprising everyone. Both their futures are uncertain for very different reasons. But their love? That’s rock solid. Beyond a doubt.

A love so strong, so unbreakable, even forever isn’t enough.

Getting the chance to get to go back to Montana is always fantastic, makes me want to go and see all the things that Elliot has talked about in her books. Bradly meets Kenzie when he is at a stand still in his life, not knowing if he wants to continue being a rider. Kenzie is wanting to keep her past in the past. She has endured more then she should have had too, when she turned eighteen, she went into hiding. On Christmas when Bradly meets the new employee to the farm Kenzie. They have an instant connection that had sparks flying off my kindle. These two felt like I was reading about my friends rooting them on to have their HEA.

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[New Post] ARC Review: Skies Over Caledonia by Samantha Young

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Title: Skies Over Caledonia

Author: Samantha Young

Page count: 340

Published: May 8th, 2024

Publisher: Valentine PR

Genre: Romance Suspense

Received: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating: 5/5

He’s a down-to-earth highland farmer. She’s the rebellious daughter of Hollywood royalty. They might seem like they’re from different worlds, but that won’t stop them from engaging in a marriage of convenience…

It’s been five years since Jared McCulloch’s grandfather Collum passed away and he inherited his farm in the Scottish Highlands. After his grandad saved him from his past life, Jared is determined to honor Collum’s legacy. But not only has a series of bad luck put him in danger of losing the farm, his estranged father is disputing the will. In a desperate situation, Jared realizes he’ll do just about anything to save the land.
Even marrying Allegra Howard, a woman he’s avoided at all costs.
A woman who tempts him beyond reason.

There’s only one place that makes Allegra Howard feel safe; one place that feeds her artist’s soul. Allegra wants to settle down in Scotland and expand her business. But there’s a hitch: immigration intends to return her to US soil.
Panicked, Allegra finds the one person just as desperate as she is. The same person she’s lusted after for years. In exchange for marrying her, she’ll invest financially in Jared McCulloch’s farm.

However, living together only forces them to acknowledge their searing mutual attraction. And with it comes an undeniable emotional connection Jared’s not sure he’s ready for.
Yet, blurring the lines of their arrangement is the least of his concerns when someone begins terrorizing the farm.
Allegra and Jared came together to save what matters most and now that might just be each other. And unless they can figure out which of their pasts has returned to torment them, they could lose their chance at a real future together…

Allegra goes to Scotland to meet her sister, she meets Jared, he is struggling to keep his grandfather’s legacy alive. Allegra comes up with a plan to help them both. Allegra wants to be able to stay in Scotland and Jared would be able to keep his farm. What they didn’t expect was to fall in love with one another. This book was outstanding with the connection they both had for one another even though they tried to fight it. The family bond and Scotland atmosphere just makes me to visit. I have been eager to get to know Allegra’s story and it was even better then I had expected.

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