Review: Beautiful Savage by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

February 3, 2026 by · Leave a Comment

BEAUTIFUL SAVAGE
Series: Dark Empire #2
Genre: Dark Mafia Romance
Author: Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Release Date: July 20, 2020

A dark, mafia standalone from Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling authors Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

I’ll destroy them all to make her mine…

I want to forget the man I used to be. But violence just keeps calling my name. To avenge her, I’ll become that savage again.

Dark.

Corrupted.

Brutal.

Hers.

She was broken by the men who took her, so now I’m going to make them bleed.

I might be her saviour, but I’m no valiant knight.

There’s only one thing I want in return for helping the girl I found in the wilderness. And that’s her.

Winter may not remember who she is, but she’ll soon realise that the only thing she needs to be is mine.

I’m the shadow of two men and the total of none, though she might be what I need to rebuild myself.

So once I lay their heads at her feet, I’ll cast my tattered soul down with them.

And I’ll paint her a happily ever after in their blood.

Nicoli and Winter’s story is a Stand-Alone Dark Mafia Romance with revenge themes and a HEA and no cliffhanger. It contains heat, passion and explosive steamy scenes for readers who enjoy mature content. For the best reader experience, start with book 1 Beautiful Carnage.

AMAZON

I’ll be your warrior, Winter. Because you need vengeance and I need redemption.

You know that feeling when you absolutely LOVE and devour the first book in the series and you are so giddy to read the next one, only to end up rage reading it to spite yourself? Yeah? I didn’t either, but I sure do now. Because what a disappointment this book was. It was like night and day from book one and I’m still bitter that I forced myself to finish it. I kept thinking that surely it will get better. Right? WRONG. I have bitten off my nose to spite my face and I have all the regrets. Le sigh.

After the curve ball of a twist we get at the end of Beautiful Carnage, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Nicoli’s book. And I remained excited right up around 20%, and then the excited began to rapidly wane. And annoyance and cringe entered the chat. First of all, the nicknames in this book gave me a nervous tick. The amount of times he called her “savage girl” and “Baby doll” was like nails on a chalkboard after a while. One overused nickname is enough, but two just about did me in. He calls her “baby doll” 83 times and “savage girl” 64 times. And yes, I counted.

But that aside, there was just something about this story that just didn’t land. Winter’s character had so much potential but she was flat. There was nothing more to her outside what was described. I couldn’t connect with her for the life of me. Her connection with Nicoli also felt flat. The chemistry was just not there. I felt like every nuance of this book was a tell instead of show and it just didn’t land. The spice began to take over the plot and by the 60% mark, I was skimming over every sex scene because it just got repetitive and boring. It also got eye roll inducing cliche of we’re in danger so therefore we must bang.

Considering how much I loved the first book, this one fell so flat. I regret forcing myself to finish but I did enjoy the additional POV of the rest of the brothers. I do hope we get books for them eventually, because I’m super intrigued. But this book was sadly not it for me.

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Review: Love Me Stalk Me by Laura Bishop

December 9, 2025 by · Leave a Comment

LOVE ME STALK ME
Series: Obsessively Yours #1
Author: Laura Bishop
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: December 2, 2025

For fans of Lights Out and You comes a dark rom-com debut about a woman who confides her fantasies to an AI boyfriend app—unaware she’s really talking to her hot, tattooed coworker who hacked her phone.

When overworked department store manager Izzy Russo downloads an AI boyfriend app to fill the emotional void left by her inattentive real one, she thinks she’s just venting to a harmless chatbot named “Caleb.” In reality, she’s been pouring her deepest, dirtiest fantasies into the ears of Callahan Knight—her store’s brooding new head of security.

Because Cal? He’s been listening. The moment he saw Izzy, he knew she was his. Did he hack her phone? Absolutely. But who could blame him? A woman like Izzy deserves to be cherished by someone who truly knows her worth—and he’ll do anything to be that man.

So when Izzy finally sees her boyfriend for who he really is, and the danger she’s unknowingly been caught up in, Cal is ready to protect her, no matter the cost. Even if it means revealing the truth.

She might not have meant to build the perfect man. But he’s here now. And he’s never letting her go.

AMAZON

Goddamn, pretty girl, you look like something I should get on my knees and pray for.”

You know what I hate? When book blurbs create unrealistic expectations by drawing comparison to cult favorite books in the blurbs. Lights Out and You was a leap and a bound from what my experience with this book was, and I really wish I went in without those expectations. Would I have rated it higher? No. But I would have been less disappointed. Because man oh man, did I want to love this one. And I was really looking forward to a stalker, dark romcom. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it to be dark, stalkery, or a romcom. Le sigh.

Now as much as I loved Callahan and his big wide shoulders, full of possession and fierce protectiveness, he just wasn’t enough. Though he did carry the book on his broad shoulders and ultimately the character that had me curious enough to finish. Unfortunately for Cal, I absolutely HATED Izzy. I mean, I legit loathed her and her doormat ways. The way that she let her douchebag of a boyfriend of three freaking years absolutely annihilate her self esteem and self worth drove me batshit. And I get it, I really do. Heck, I was her once, back in my early twenties. But that doesn’t mean I want to read about it for almost 70% of the book. Because that’s how long it takes for her to finally kick him to the curb. And even when he does the unspeakable in reaction to the breakup, she still tries to shoulder some of the blame. It was rage inducing to read about. I could handle it for 30, maybe even 40%. But over half of the book? It felt like her victimhood became her entire personality and there was nothing else to her. She felt entirely one dimensional. I couldn’t connect with her for the life of me, so in turn, she began to drive me nuts, the more I read.

The stalking itself wasn’t even stalking. More like invasion of privacy at best. Cal is the head of security who gets hired for the high end retail store Izzy manages. After seeing her the night before, our man is immediate obsessed and as such, hacks her phone. Obviously. And when he overhears Izzy’s best friend convince her to download an AI boyfriend to make up for the bare minimum that her boyfriend cannot manage, he decides to hack that to and pretend to be the AI boyfriend.

I kept reading, hoping for the chapter where I can finally connect with Izzy and the romance, but sadly it just never came. The story and the development barely grazed the surface, and so the characters felt one dimensional, Izzy a lot more so. Callahan had some depth to him that I wish we got to see more of, but sadly, he got overshadowed by Izzy’s constant meh-ness. And yes, I’m making that a word. The romance didn’t sizzle. The chemistry was there and so was the potential. But it just never happened. And when we got Izzy’s drunk sexing with her AI boyfriend AKA Cal, I was cringing more than I was sweating.

Sadly, this just didn’t work for me on any front. I wanted to love it because I LOVED Lights Out, and any story in that vein is an instant attention grabber. But this was not even close to what I expected. And even when I got past that, the story just felt too meh to truly enjoy it beyond Cal’s awesomeness. Sadly, even his sexy self couldn’t save this book.

But hey, as always, don’t just take my word for it. Read it and judge for yourself. You just may love it.

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Review: Western Waves by Brittainy Cherry

December 23, 2021 by · Leave a Comment

WESTERN WAVES
Series: Compass #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Brittainy Cherry
Release Date: December 9, 2021

 

I always believed in fairy tales, but he preferred horrors.

Damian Blackstone didn’t care about my existence. He came into my world for one reason only. He came to find answers about his past.

He moved like the villain in my favorite fairy tales. He wasn’t the one who received the happily ever afters; he was the one who destroyed them.

Which was why I couldn’t understand why the man who raised me set it up in his will for Damian and me to be married. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to live with a man like Damian. We were as opposite as any two people could be. I loved to bathe in the sunlight while he prospered in the shadows.

I didn’t think I’d develop feelings for the one who looked at me as if I were nothing more than a means to an end. Yet in his darkness, sometimes I’d see sparks of light. I’d see gentleness. I’d see his soul.

We became entangled with one another as we fell into mistakes and called them fate. I was his Cinderella, and he was my Beast.

I wasn’t certain that twisted fairy tales ended with happily ever afters.
Still, I was determined to find out.

 

AMAZON


The second I saw the blurb to this book, I knew this would be my first Brittainy Cherry book. Unfortunately, as excited as I was to read it, the further I got into the story, the less I liked it. In all fairness, it was looking to be a solid 3 star read for me…until a certain plot device towards the end. As Christian Grey once said, I have very singular tastes. And that particular plot device? HATE it. I absolutely loath it actually. It truly ruined the entire story for me. But more about that in a minute.

I love a modern twist on a fairy tale. This one was definitely the perfect set up with an enemies to lovers twist. Unfortunately, the enemies to lovers thing barely lasted a few chapters into the story. But that’s fine. Stella and Damian have a unique meet cute when Damian is the grumpy stranger that takes the last scone at a bakery and they have it out. Stella never expects to see the man again, but has quite the surprise when not only is he at the reading of the will to the man who was like a father to her. But his final wish is for them to get married in order to collect on a hefty inheritance left for both of them. The twist? Stella has a boyfriend of ten years who fully encourages her to do this. I mean, why not? It’s in name only.

While I liked the story for the most part, what I disliked is that the characters became more about their particular issues than anything else. Stella and her insecurities through years of belittling by the wicked step mothers. Damian and his abandonment issues. The romance was entirely lackluster due to the fact Stella and her horrid boyfriend are together for the majority of the story. And when they finally do get together? The particular twist completely ruined any warm and fuzzies I would have had from it. When I tell you I hated it, I seriously couldn’t be more disappointed by the direction that this story took. It felt so unfair to the characters and their plight, and just ruined any and all romance in it for me. Sadly, that thing plummet my rating to a two. While I can’t say I loved the book, if it hadn’t been for that, it would have been a solid three star. I’d love to try this author again, but sadly, this book did absolutely nothing for me. This is a personal taste thing obviously, and as you can see, plenty of readers loved this one. So read it and judge for yourself.

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Review: The Stopover by TL Swan

October 3, 2019 by ·

THE STOPOVER
Series: The Miles High Club #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: TL Swan
Release Date: September 26, 2019

A memorable night of passion refuses to stay just a memory in this sizzling and scandalous romance from bestselling author T L Swan.

I was upgraded to first class on a flight from London to New York.

The food, champagne, and service were impeccable.

The blue-eyed man sitting next to me, even better.

He was suave and intelligent.

We talked and laughed, and something clicked.

Fate took over and the plane was grounded, and we had an unexpected stopover for the night.

With no plans, we made our own.

We danced and laughed our way around Boston and had a night of crazy passion that no woman would ever forget.

That was twelve months ago, and I haven’t heard from him—until today.

I started a new job and met the CEO. You can imagine my surprise to see those naughty blue eyes dance with delight when he saw me across the mahogany desk.

But I’m not that carefree girl anymore. My life has changed, I have responsibilities.

I just got an email.

He wants to see me in his office for a private meeting at 8:00 a.m.

Naughty blue eyes have no place in the workplace.

What kind of private meeting does he have in mind?


If I could describe a book to you in one gif, well…you’re welcome. You may now skip my entire review.

But dang it, I keep telling myself that I’ll stop setting high hopes for books with hot covers only to be let down. And yet I keep doing it. Again. And again. And again.

Admittedly it wasn’t just the sexy cover that hooked me here, but the blurb as well. It reminded me a little of a crossover between Whitney Gracia’s Turbulence and Reasonable Doubt. Sadly, the story just didn’t deliver on the promise of the eye catching cover. Frankly, it was pretty much a hot mess.

First of all, this was not a story meant for a full novel. It was a novella that had an eye rolling amount of filler in the form of the constant back and forth between the hero and heroine. These two were like a merry-go-round of relationships. They’re up, they’re down, they’re up, they’re down. Over and over in a seemingly never ending circle. It was funny and cute in the first 20% but then it just got tiresome and unnecessary. For characters in their 30s and mid 20s, they argued like jealous teenagers. Now I’m a reader that typically loves good enemies to lovers vibe and some deliciously heated barbs traded in the way. But this was not that. This was just…I don’t even know. Frustrating? Rage inducing?

I started out loving the characters, only to get so annoyed with them after the 25% mark that I barely forced myself to finish. It was a stretched out story without much holding it together, patched together with bouts of sex, and slapped with a HEA at the end. This would have been a hot 100 page novella, but for a full length book it only served as an exercise in frustration.

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Review: Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

August 2, 2019 by · Leave a Comment

PESTILENCE
Series: The Four Horsemen #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Author: Laura Thalassa
Release Date: September 14, 2018

They came to earth—Pestilence, War, Famine, Death—four horsemen riding their screaming steeds, racing to the corners of the world. Four horsemen with the power to destroy all of humanity. They came to earth, and they came to end us all.

When Pestilence comes for Sara Burn’s town, one thing is certain: everyone she knows and loves is marked for death. Unless, of course, the angelic-looking horseman is stopped, which is exactly what Sara has in mind when she shoots the unholy beast off his steed.

Too bad no one told her Pestilence can’t be killed.

Now the horseman, very much alive and very pissed off, has taken her prisoner, and he’s eager to make her suffer. Only, the longer she’s with him, the more uncertain she is about his true feelings towards her … and hers towards him.

And now, well, Sara might still be able to save the world, but in order to do so, she’ll have to sacrifice her heart in the process.

AMAZON

I cannot decide if you are a toxin or a tonic,” he says, lifting a hand to my cheek. “Only that you plague my thoughts and fill my veins.”

That moment when you read a book that everyone, their mother, their dog, and their uncle Jerry recommended to you…and you don’t like it.
I’m feeling a little like the black sheep of the book community right now because I know just how much so many of my book friends loved this book. And I wanted, so badly, to love it too. I tried, guys. I really REALLY did. But alas, this was just simply not my cuppa.

I’d like to preface this by saying that PNR is my jam. It was the genre the first got me into romance and so to say that I’m incredibly picky when it comes to it, would be a mild understatement. Perhaps that was one of the main reasons why I found this book falling short for me? I dunno. But I will say this, the author clearly has some major writing chops. I can definitely see why so many people enjoyed this one. But for me, there was just too many things that I couldn’t look past that began to chip away at my enjoyment of the story after the 20% mark.

1. The world building. It was there. Kinda? Not really. You get bits and pieces of the horseman and their “purpose” but just not enough for my tastes.

2. The purple prose. Sweet baby jebus the purple prose. I can’t with it, guys, I just can’t. And this book was riddled with it.

When you ignore me, I burn with restlessness; it feels as though the sun has turned its back on the world. And when you smile at me—when you gaze at me like you can see my soul—I feel … I feel like I am lit on fire, like you have been called by God to raze my world.”

On the one hand, it’s beautifully poetic. On the other hand, when it continues on and on, it gets to be too much for this reader.

3. The very many graphic deaths. Now look, I’ve read my share of gory details. I’ve read dark romance and romantic suspense, and I’m definitely no stranger to graphic depictions of death and sickness. But when those deaths are of children and sweet elderly couples? I don’t care what they add tot eh story or how they drive the plot forward, I can’t. I just can’t.

4. The romance. It was just meh for me, guys. I hate to admit it because you can definitely see that it was there, but I just didn’t click with it. It was torture porn disguised as romance, if I’m being perfectly frank. All of the deaths and gore simply overshadowed everything else. And that’s not even bringing up all of the shit that Pestilence puts Sara through.

5. Pestilence. GAH. I would have thought I’d love him, but man did I struggle. And no, it wasn’t because he kills so many innocents in the course of the story. It’s because he was a total beta hero in my eyes. Sure, he’s a big baddie with the diseases spreading and the kidnapping of our heroine after she tries to kill him in order to make her suffer. Sure he’s all tough and weapony and all that jazz. But he’s almost childlike in his idealistic views and understanding of human nature and interactions. I felt no alpha vibes from him in the least, and that’s a must for me. This is clearly a personal preference, so take that with a grain of salt.

Ultimately I found myself growing both bored and irritated with the story and all of the meaningless gory deaths and the back and forth between Pestilence and Sara. It felt almost preachy to me in parts because of the God references, but again, that’s another personal preference. I prefer my PNR to be strictly PNR. I’ve read another series by Larissa Ione on the Four Horseman Eternal Rider and sadly this book just pales in comparison. Perhaps it was because I kept comparing them that worked against it? I dunno. But sadly, this story just fell completely flat for me. I wanted to love it, but I barely got through it.

Would I read the rest of this series? Probably not. But I’ll definitely be giving this author’s other books a try. I loved her story telling, I just didn’t love this book and the concept.

Clearly I’m the lone black sheep here, because countless others absolutely loved this story. So don’t take my word as gospel. This is just one opinion here guys, with plenty of personal biases in play. So give it a shot and see for yourself.

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Review: A Cruel Love by SM Soto

May 22, 2019 by · Leave a Comment

A CRUEL LOVE
Genre: Dark Romance, Mafia
Author: SM Soto
Release Date: May 9, 2019

As a hitman for hire, Percivale is no stranger to violence.
From the moment he saw Blossom Jaymes through the window of her bakery, he knew he was in too deep. Not only was she as sweet as her perfectly crafted treats, but she was a soft-spoken, golden-haired angel that shone like a bright beacon in his dark world. And Percivale didn’t deal in angels. He dealt in death and crime. The even bigger issue? Percivale’s next hit is on said sweet little baker who doesn’t seem to realize how much danger lurks around her with each passing day.
If he doesn’t get the job done, who will?

When Percivale has to decide what’s more important to him—the life of a woman who may very well be innocent or getting his revenge on the men who murdered his family—the lines become blurred. Morals are twisted and a deathly chase ensues that can only result in one thing—Blossom buried six feet under.

Or can it?

Can Percivale let his lust for revenge go in order to save Blossom from the bounty on her head, or will the power she unknowingly holds over him be what gets her killed?

AMAZON

I’m going to enjoy breaking you, Blossom. Piece by fucking piece”

I hate myself a little right now as I write this review. Because here’s the thing; I really REALLY wanted to lovethis book. The blurb and the cover hooked my attention right away, and I was SO ready for a gritty and dark mafia romance. Sadly, that’s not what I got. And you know what? It seriously sucks being the black sheep that didn’t enjoy a book that so many others clearly did. Le sigh.

Now look, if you haven’t read very many mafia or even dark romance books before, I have a feeling you’ll really enjoy this. As for me? I’ve read enough to be extremely picky. And A Cruel Love was rough for me from start to finish. My first clue should have been that I had no problem putting it down. As a matter of fact, I stopped reading it at 5% originally. Then I picked it back up and stopped at 30%. Then I decided to try and power through it, while that annoying inner voice of mine kept screaming “I told you so” the entire freaking time.

The story and the characters were one giant cliche after another. None of it made sense to me. The characterization was so inconsistent that it made my head spin. Here you have a mousy, introverted, scared out of her whits heroine that gets kidnapped by a stranger after shooting a man that tried to rape her point blank in the head in front of her. Said man is also a mafia hit man that was sent by his boss to kill her because she’s been asking too many questions about her missing (actually now dead) neighbor. So this heroine then goes from crying hysterically, trying to make a run for it, being threatened to die by our hero at every turn, crying hysterically, having odd sassy outbursts that revert just as suddenly back to her crying outbursts, to lecturing the man threatening to kill her about his motel room choices and second hand smoke.
Oh and through all this, and Percivale’s constant hot and cold behavior, cruel treatment of her, shackling her to the bed and leaving her for hours on end, and constant reminders that he’ll kill her if she so much as steps out of line, she still can’t help but be sexually drawn to him. I just didn’t buy it. Here’s a woman that’s basically been shying away from anything sexual since a terrible assault in high school, yet a man that’s killed several people in cold blood in front her get her engine revving.

Through all this, Percivale’s characterization is incredibly inconsistent as well. I couldn’t help but feel he was just one giant dark romance cliche. The constant cigarette smoking, the smirks, the reminders of his cruelty and darkness. And then he also discloses to Blossom what happened to his family years ago to make him into who he is today. At a point of the story where it made absolutely ZERO sense for him to disclose such a hugely personal and private detail. He also uses the term “seed”. *shudders* I didn’t buy the reasons for the hit on Blossom. It was weak and hard to believe. I also struggled to connect to them as a couple since I feel like that wasn’t as developed as it could be. It struck me as being very sudden.

There’s too much necessarily obvious descriptions when it comes to the darkness of this book. Like this:

We’re the Cavalieri Della Morte. We surround ourselves with danger, and we’re all the same, violent and deadly.”

And way too many things that are so far out of the realm of believability that I struggled to keep reading. Like a point of the story where Percivale gets stabbed in the stomach and then proceeds to fight in 5 back to back fights to the death. I mean….yeah.

I get that it’s fiction and I should suspend my disbelief somewhat. But there still has to be a hint of SOME believability for me to buy it and connect to it. And sadly this book skated on the skirts of it until finally skating right out of the rink entirely.

The characters were such extremes that it felt cliche. The sweet, somewhat innocent, good heroine that lectures a hit man about second hand smoke and hasn’t seen the right end of a razor in her female area for years. The extremely dark, super violent and cruel hitman with a penchant for chain smoking. It was all just too much for this reader.

I wanted to love this book, guys. I really, really did. But sadly, I’m just way too picky when it comes to my mafia and dark romances, that I spent the majority of the book picking apart almost everything. It’s a problem. I know. But I just couldn’t help myself.

Do I think the majority of readers would enjoy this book? Absolutely. I’m just a picky asshole here. Clearly. So take what I said with a grain of salt and read it and judge for yourself.

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Geri’s Review: All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover

August 3, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

ALL YOUR PERFECTS
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Colleen Hoover
Release Date: July 17, 2018

Colleen Hoover delivers a tour de force novel about a troubled marriage and the one old forgotten promise that might be able to save it.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart.

The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past.

This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?

 

AMAZON

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

It’s been a while since I’ve truly sat down and read a Colleen Hoover book until I came across the blurb for this book.

One. It has a marriage-in-peril trope that I love in my books. Two, the blurb along with the first chapter the author shared on social media truly captured my interest. Three. The meet-cute was quite unique. The whole book itself, however, was disappointing.

Quinn and Graham are two married couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. There were many things that contributed to this collapse, which readers will slowly learn but the main contributor to their marriage’s demise was Quinn’s infertility.

This was handled well by Hoover. As the book is told by Quinn, we get to experience her pain and bitterness first hand. And a lot of the scenarios that she mentioned rang very true. We immediately understand that this is a woman who is depressed and is barely holding on. Quinn’s POV benefited a lot from Hoover’s sparse but emotional prose. She captured Quinn’s pain so well.

Unfortunately, the past and present storytelling ruined the momentum for me. I hated it. Just when the story starts to get really interesting, you get pulled into the past again. It was Ugly Love all over again! Maybe it was an attempt to make the story more suspenseful than it is or emotional, but whatever the reason was, it didn’t work for me. I found myself getting angry and frustrated having to go back and forth to get the whole story.

Another thing that didn’t work for me were the secondary characters. Quinn’s mother was also a piece of work. She wasn’t a very developed character. She’s just there to be terrible and make Quinn feel bad. And now that I think about it, this book didn’t have a lot of characters. We get to meet Quinn’s sister and her husband, Quinn and Graham’s exes, and Graham’s sister, but they’re not very well-developed characters. They’re there to either prop up (Quinn’s sister) or tear down (Quinn’s mother) the two main protagonists. But I digress.

I didn’t really like Graham either. He is, in my opinion, one of Hoover’s weakest heroes. And I don’t know if it’s because we didn’t get his POV or whatever but he was just boring. The whole cheating thing—yes, it was cheating and there was really no justification for it—made me dislike him even more. I’m not even going to touch on his asinine reason for doing so but yeah, I wasn’t a fan of Graham at all. Not even his letters could make me like him.

And that ending? Ehhh. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t spectacular or fleshed out either. It felt very rushed. They opened the box, they cried, and everything just smoothed itself out. However, it was worth mentioning that they apologized to each other and renewed their commitment. But overall, it felt, I don’t know, underwhelming and rushed after all that build up.

Ultimately, this was too heavy-handed for me. Like it’s not enough that Quinn is infertile, she has to suffer more tragedy, she has get cheated on. But that wasn’t enough apparently because she has to miscarry and get a hysterectomy. I mean, goodness, the option to adopt was even taken away from her. There has to be more! More suffering, more hopelessness until it becomes a never-ending cycle of suck.

I was reading this book and I couldn’t help but think “Wow, CoHo really loves to torture her heroines.” Some of her last few releases had been a torture-fest for her female characters. I should be happy, I guess, that at least they’d get HEA but my gosh, she has to torture them first. Which brings me to my last point. One thing I realized about myself as a reader is that the more an author makes the heroine suffer by letting her go through tragedy after tragedy, after the less I care. Other readers have said this was an emotional book and I can see that, but it was just lost on me. It felt manipulative. From the way the whole story was structured to the ungodly amount of tragedy that befell the heroine, it felt manipulative. That was the whole feeling I had while reading this book.

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Review: ★Unseen Messages★ by Pepper Winters

April 8, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

Review-Unseen MessagesUNSEEN MESSAGES
Genre: Survival Romance
Author: Pepper Winters
Release Date: March 30, 2016add-to-goodreads-button-2

Unseen-Messages-by-Pepper-Winters-e1459309686786

“There is a message for everything. From handwritten to verbal, seen and unseen. Messages exist all around us.” 

But what if you don’t see?
What if you don’t understand?
What if, by ignoring the message, your life is never the same again?

Estelle Evermore morphed from nobody to somebody overnight.
Galloway Oak put his past behind him and endeavoured to make his fortune using his trade.

Two strangers.
One plane.
Multiple unseen messages.
From sky to island, they find neither fame nor skills can save them. Stripped from society and left alone to survive the elements, the very task of staying alive outweighs all other needs.
Until survival turns to desire.
And desire turns to danger.From New York Times Bestseller Pepper Winters comes a timeless love story answering the question of what happens when everything is stripped away.

Standalone.

SPOILER FREE UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT

Don’t you hate it when everyone loves a book but you? Le sigh. This review is actually painful for me to write. Why? Because I adore Pepper Winters. I’ve read the woman’s entire backlist, so when I saw she was coming out with a secret project and revealed the cover to this book, I was beyond thrilled. Heck, I couldn’t wait to get my grabby little hands on it.

When it landed on my kindle, I dropped everything and began reading…
And reading…
And reading…
And reading some more…
Then when 2 days later I looked down at my kindle and realized I was only at 15% I began to get a little twitchy.

Now look, I don’t mind a long book. I devour Kristen Ashley books in 2 days and those books are typically AT LEAST 450 pages on average. But the length of this book? Well, it didn’t work for me so much. As a matter of fact, it dragged…. painfully so. I will go so far as to say this may have been the most long winded book I have ever read in my entire reading history. But there’s a difference between development and filler, and unfortunately I found over 40% of this book to be pure filler. The descriptions, the events, a lot of it never really went anywhere.

The first 15% is one giant false red herring because after everything that happens in it, the characters’ actions afterward were almost mind-bogglingly ridiculous. I just couldn’t buy it for the life of me. The writing is another thing that never worked for me. While some may find it lyrical, I found it to be full or purple prose and mundane and redundant inner monologue.

There.
Was.
A.
Lot.
Of.
This.

And also there was a lot of t…h…i…s.

I think that for this reader, it was just too much. A book has to be well balanced with dialogue and development, and I didn’t find that to be the case here.

I skimmed almost the entire second half and found that I missed almost nothing. In my opinion, this book could have been 40% shorter and worked much better. While I liked some parts, other parts I was bored out of my skull. The characters spend so much time in their head, it made my eye tick.

Every feeling and thought is described…
And described….
And described some more.

But even while there’s a lot of description, I found it did nothing to endear or connect me to their actions. There was just too many pages to fill in the spaces and the actual story began to fade out somewhere between the prose and redundant details. Some of the actions and situations the characters found themselves in were too far beyond the scope of believability for me. I can suspend my disbelief for fiction, but there were parts where I found myself seriously scratching my head in confusion. The ending was cute if not a touch too cheesy for my tastes.

This was different, yes. But for me, while I loved the concept of the story, it fell flat on the delivery. I’m sure I’ll be in the minority in my opinion and clearly many a reader really loved this book. I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those books you either get or don’t. Unfortunately for me, I fell into the later part. But I’m just one tiny opinion here, so read it and judge for yourself 😉

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Review: ★The Rules★ by Elizabeth Brown

February 17, 2016 by · 6 Comments

Review-The RulesThe Rules
Series: Off-Limits #2
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy
Author: Elizabeth Brown
Release Date: February 2, 2015add-to-goodreads-button-2

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An older-brother’s-best-friend romance

When you’re a guy, the rules are simple. Live by the Bro Code:
Rule #1: Always have his back.
Rule #2: Don’t ever leave him stranded.
Rule #3: Never, ever, touch his sister.

Aw, hell. Two out of three ain’t bad.
———-
Warning: This story contains mature humor, a lot of cursing, and of course, sexual situations. It’s intended for adult readers who enjoy that kind of thing.

———-

Lambo and Ainsley’s story.
Dual POV with no cliffhanger.
Book 2 in The Off-Limits series. Standalone- but you’ll enjoy it more if you read Book 1.

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Review: ★Bad Romeo★ by Leisa Reyvan

February 9, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

Review-Bad RomeoBad Romeo
Series: Starcrossed #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Leisa Rayven
Release Date: December 23, 2014add-to-goodreads-button-2

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While performing the greatest love story of all time, they discovered one of their own…
Cassie Taylor was just another acting student with big dreams at her prestigious performing arts college, then she met Ethan Holt. She was the good girl actress. He was the bad boy on campus. But one fated casting choice for Romeo and Juliet changed it all. Like the characters they were playing on stage, Cassie and Ethan’s epic romance seemed destined. Until it ended in tragedy when he shattered her heart.

Now they’ve made it to Broadway where they’re reunited as romantic leads once again, and their passionate scenes force them to confront the heartbreaking lows and pulse-pounding highs of their intense college affair. For Ethan, losing Cassie was his biggest regret, and he’s determined to redeem himself. But for Cassie, even though Ethan was her first and only great love, he hurt her too much to ever be trusted again. The trouble is, working with him reminds her that people who rub each other the wrong way often make the best sparks. And when it comes to love, sometimes it’s the things that aren’t good for us that are the most irresistible.

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