Kaleidoscope Hearts
Series: Hearts #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Claire Contreras
Release Date: January 20, 2015
He was my older brother’s best friend.
He was never supposed to be mine.
I thought we would get it out of our system and move on.One of us did.
One of us left.Now he’s back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me.
He broke my heart last time.
This time he’ll obliterate it.
Love is beautiful, shattering, moving, haunting. Love is everything.
This beautifully written and emotional book is everything that I love about second chance romance. Everything. I’m not sure where I’ve been that I’m only discovering this fantastic author and this series now, but boy am I glad that it’s finally on my radar. Everything about this book worked for me; the writing, the secondary characters, the story, the romance, and most especially the H/h. Simply put, I adored it.
Does he make you feel like you can’t breathe sometimes?”
Oliver has always been Estelle’s older brother’s best friend…until a kiss changed everything. They had a few stolen moments together and then everything changed when Oliver walked away. Estelle may have moved on and got engaged to someone else, but she never got over Oliver.
A lot has happened with Estelle since that fateful night with Oliver, she met someone else and fell in love…only to lose him to a tragic accident later. After a year of mourning, Estelle is back in the town she grew up in and living with her brother, and Oliver is now determined to right the mistake of their past.
I loved the alternating flashbacks from past to present in both their POVs. It truly allows the reader to be fully engrossed in their story and fall for both them just as hard. The writing is beautiful and flawless and it gripped me from the first chapter alone. I simply couldn’t put this book down.
I appreciated how the author managed to show the difference between Estelle’s love for Oliver and her deceased fiance without downplaying what she had with him. That’s no easy feat in my opinion. It’s clear that Estelle loved her fiance but Oliver was always her one. Nothing was ever undermined or belittled. It just flowed.
If you’re looking for a touching and beautiful second chance romance, this series is an absolute must read. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dive straight into Paper Hearts because after meeting both Jensen and Mia in this one, I’m practically salivating for their story.
Since the very first book, this is what it’s all been leading up to; the dramatic conclusion to the Capital Confessions series and boy was is a doozy. I had some ideas about where it may all lead and some I was correct on while some caught me completely unawares. Falling For Danger was action packed, sexy, and filled with enough twists and turns to keep your reading well into the night…which is exactly what I did.
Kate Reynolds lost her soul mate four years ago when her fiancé and childhood sweetheart, Matt, died on a Special Forces mission in Afghanistan. Her life changed irrevocably since that day and all she’s been living and breathing the past four years is her determination to get down to the truth of what truly happened to cause his death. Everything she’s been doing has been with hat goal in mind; her Capital Confessions stint, her CIA job, and her determination to bring her corrupt senator of a father down along with his secrets. As much as I hated what Kate did in 
The highly anticipated conclusion to an addicting series is here and boy did it end with a bang. Pun most definitely intended. You know what I love? When a series is perfectly wrapped up with a great conclusion without being cheesy and that’s exactly what I loved about the third and final volume of A Desperate Man. We first met Evan in 
Evan and Reagan have been through quite a lot through the series, all of it leading up to the huge bomb of a reveal that these devious authors dropped on us at the end of volume two. And Volume three picks up right where that left off; in the aftermath of Reagan’s…lie…and leaving both of them to deal with the ever growing passion that continues to brew between them, even if it may be slightly clouded by snark and barbs every now and then.
But it never loses the spark either 😉
Now before you start reaching for rotten tomatoes and pitchforks, allow me to clarify my rating here. See, here’s the thing, I liked this book. It was wonderfully written and being my first book by this author I already know I’ll be reading all her others. I’m also completely hooked on this series and absolutely loved the set up as well as all the secondary characters. I also truly enjoyed both MCs here. At this point you’re probably sitting there and thinking, then why the hell are you marking this only 3.5 stars?
Well…bluntly put…it was just too sweet for my tastes. *ducks flying tomatoes*
Now I loved that this wasn’t a source of shame or secret for him. He owned it. It wasn’t a secret and he didn’t make it one, nor does he make it a given to spread it around campus either. The problem? I just don’t buy it. Ugh. I’m sorry! It’s that damn cynic in me, but a college junior, surrounded by football groupies, all his teammates are male sluts, but he’s a virgin because…reasons.
But this was also wonderfully…refreshing. This is my second time reading about a male virgin and I believe Jen Frederick pulled it off very well. Knox is just one of those characters that you can’t help but love. He goes after what he wants with a single-minded intent and feels no need for immature mind games that you’d find with most heroes in the NA genre.
What ultimately brought my rating down was 2 specific things.
In the book’s defense I am not, nor will I ever be a fan of insta-love, no matter how well it’s pulled off. And it IS pulled off wonderfully here. It’s just not my cuppa. I can’t help it. I gave it the old college try (pun intended) but could never really see past it. Perhaps because he was also a virgin on top of everything else? Whatever the case may be, I suppose I just wanted a little more interaction between them before this came into the mix. Like say, at least 12%?
She was a temptation that he should be struggling to resist, yet every beat of his pulse told him that she’d be worth the sin.
Joya’s Chasing Love has been easily one of my favorite Brazen series this year. The last time I enjoyed a series this much was when I read Elle Kennedy’s After Hours series. It’s deliciously sexy with fantastic characters, smoking hot sex, and a fun story to wrap everything around. I eagerly anticipate each release and to say that I’ve been dying to finally get my hands on Ryder’s books would be a mild understatement. It’s always those quiet, good ole’ boys that have that yummy dirty side to them so I knew that Ryder would not disappoint. And boy he sure as hell didn’t!
For Ryder the only thing more precious to him besides his reputation is his control. He’s only lost control once and it it almost cost him everything. When his friends set him up on a blind date and a case of mistaken identity lead him to have the hottest sex of his life with a dark haired beauty that shatters his control, the last thing he expects is to see her the next morning working in his sister’s diner.
I loved seeing all of my favorite couples from the previous books but Whitney and Ryder definitely stole the show. Their chemistry was positively combustible. I loved both these characters and I definitely loved them together. Whitney was so much fun and she wasn’t afraid to push Ryder’s buttons even when he was too stubborn to do anything about it. But ultimately his control would always snap and the result was something that never failed to get my ovaries going…
If you haven’t read this series yet, I’m not sure what you’re thinking. You NEED to. Trust me. Your ovaries will thank me. Chasing Mr. Wrong was another fantastic addition to what’s quickly becoming my ultimate guilty pleasure series. I love it! And I simply cannot wait for more.
When I first read 
Have you ever read a romance novel and it was like a movie reel in your head? Like you could actually imagine the actors playing out every line? Picture the town and it’s residents exactly as they’re being described? Actually notice absolutely every single minute detail inside your mind? That’s what Hollywood Dirt was for me. At times I felt like I was reading a movie script more so than a book. At first I thought that maybe that’s not really a good thing since it was a slower pace than what I’m used to. But after taking some time to think about it, I can say that it was refreshingly different. If you’ve read any of the other books by this author, Hollywood Dirt is nothing like them. There’s no crazy twists, it’s certainly not as erotic as her other books have been, and it’s not evocative. It’s a light, feel good, pure contemporary romance about a country girl and a hollywood star. An unlikely one, but still a romance that will capture your heart.
Cole is coming off of a bitter divorce and putting everything he has into the movie that he’s now bankrolling. When he comes to the small southern town and meets Summer, he knows there’s no one better suited to play the main role of Ida than her. Summer is hoping to take the money she earns from the movie and finally put the town she grew up in and the memory of her mistakes made in it 3 years ago behind her. But when she begins to see the man beneath the hollywood layers, she sees there’s much more to Cole than first meets the eye and she begins to fall for him.
Fans of Alessandra’s Innocence series will get a VERY big surprise in this book in the form of Brad DeLuca. He plays a fairly big secondary role and man oh man but I loved his unexpected cameo. He’s still as intense and overpowering as ever and it only added to the enjoyment of it. But for me, it was always all about Cole. There was just something so endearing and…real…about him.
Honestly, I struggled a little going into it simply because it wasn’t quite what I had expected. It’s slow paced, but the pace was perfect for the book and the story. Upon thinking about it, it really was perfectly suited for this story. It was different but lovely. If you’re looking for a light and feel good contemporary romance, this is a book you should definitely try. Alessandra Torre is an incredibly talented writer, and this book shows how multi-faceted she is. She can pull off different genres and it truly translates. Each of her books has been different in their own right, and this one is no different. While different from the rest, I think that’s what I enjoyed the most about it. There was nothing crazy, no silly drama or overdrawn angst. Just two imperfect characters finding a perfect love together.
