GAME MAKER
Series: Game #2
Genre: Contemporary, Romantic Comedy
Author: B.J. Harvey
Release Date: May 26, 2016
From the USA Today bestselling author of the Bliss series comes a new spin off series featuring your favorite Bliss series characters who are yet to meet their match. This time it is Zach and Danika’s turn.
I’m a gamer by nature and by profession. I’m all about strategy, performance, and coming out on top.
Five months ago I threw caution to the wind, and in the first miscalculated step of my twenty-one-year life, I made a move on my brother’s best friend.
The first mistake we made was keeping our relationship secret. The next was going off half-cocked when a train wreck of epic proportions hit us.
Now our secret is secret no more. As I struggle to deal with all of the swirling emotions, conflicted feelings, and the multitude of burned bridges that I need to mend, the one person who can help me through it all is the same man I need space from.
To fix it I’ll have to pull on my big-girl panties, focus on what I truly want in life, and put everything I have into winning the most important game I’ll ever play.
Life is a game, and it is what you make it.
Coming out unscathed is a whole other matter.
Distance has never worked. Denial hasn’t either. Nothing has ever dimmed the way I feel- and have always felt- whenever I’m around him.
If steamy, feel-good rom coms that are light on the angst and heavy on the swoons are your thing, then B.J. Harvey’s Game series is your holy grail. Game Player was my first book by this author and I was absolutely hooked. Her brand of humor just clicked with me and I knew she had an insta-fan in me.
I’m a sucker for a older brother’s best friend trope, and when I read the blurb for this book, there wasn’t a doubt that I’d be jumping at the chance to meet it.
Danika Roberts is the youngest sibling in her family. She’s an adorably endearing ‘nerd’ that you can’t help but love from the very first page. As the youngest in her family, her brother Zander, who practically raised her, is understandably uber protective of her. Unfortunately for Danika, the object of her fantasies has been and always will be Zander’s best friend and fire fighter, Zach Cooper.
Zach was a refreshing change of pace for me that I absolutely adored. It’s not often you read about a man that actually wants a relationship. Everything that came out of his mouth had me swooning like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Swear to god. The man was utter perfection.
As for the story, it was just one of those light and easy reads that simply hits the spot. There’s no internal drama. These two have been hiding feelings from each other for years, and when they do give into it, there’s no question. The light angst comes from an outside factor of Zander and not knowing how to tell him that they’re together. It’s steamy, quirky, and just one of those feel good sort of reads that is perfect to spend a weekend afternoon with.
While Zach and Danika acknowledge their feelings towards each other from the very beginning, I appreciated that the author didn’t throw them into bed together straight away. There’s a bit of a slow burn with that and personally I would have loved more of one. I think for my personal tastes, I would have liked a little of them from the years when Danika moved back to Chicago. I would have loved the added burn and tension between them before they acknowledge it. As it was, it read a little…too easy for me.
This book is so much more than just the romance between Dani and Zach. All the family members and friends make an appearance and I really loved that too. I’ll admit I was little bored with the lack of tension or angst at times, but that’s just my own personal reading taste. B.J. is certainly an author that can write one heck of a rom com and she’ll continue to be my go to for a light and humorous romance. Don’t let my three star fool you. I may be stingy with my stars, but this was definitely a book I’d recommend to any romance lovers…especially if you’re sick of angsty set ups with internal drama and manwhore heroes. Zach will certainly hit the spot just right for you. 😉
DON’T MISS BOOK ONE IN THE GAME SERIES
Alright, tell the truth, are you like me and you looked at that cover and blurb and thought to yourself, ‘ah yes, another deliciously irreverent manwhore falls for his best friend sister, fluffy and smutty read. Adding!’
Mister O was a hilarious and deliciously sexy romp from beginning to finish. The characters are perfectly imperfect. The story is addictingly good. It kept me smiling from cover to epilogue. It really doesn’t get much better than this with a rom com! I can’t recommend it enough to any reader that enjoys a good laugh with their steam, because the combination of it here? Perfection!
I have a confession to make, the second I saw Alex was the visual inspiration on the authors’ pinterest board for Quinn, I knew I had to get my pervy little hands on this book. What? Don’t look at me like that! Have you seen the man? Exactly. Add into that the fact that I love everything these two brilliant authors write, and I have the recipe for a guaranteed winner. And boy was it!
This was a slow burn sort of romance, which I loved, and when these two finally do get together? Holy mother of fireworks!
I’ve been on a rom kick lately so when the author offered me a chance to read Game Player, I jumped on it. This was my first book by BJ Harvey and all I can say after finishing is, where has she been all my life? Game Player is full of wickedly hilarious banter, sizzling hot romance, and a cast of characters that I completely fell in love with. I had a goofy smile on my face for most of the book (some parts I wanted to throttle the heroine), but that may have been because I wanted Matt for myself. Nothing wrong with a little heroinecide. I’m totally making that a word, by the way. But I digress…
You know that moment when you pick exactly the right book at exactly the right time? You know what I’m talking about here; when all the planets aline and you pick the book that’s guaranteed to be the perfect one for your mood and taste. Well this book was that for me! And what perfect timing too because I’ll be going into my weekend with a perma-grin on my face. Dirty was laugh out loud funny, with a cast of secondary characters that you’re guaranteed to fall for right away. It’s filled with amazing banter, swoony moments, and make-your-ovaries-happy-sort-of-sexy times.
As for Vaughan? Well, let’s just say the man lives up to his promise. I fell for him when I first met him in the Stage Dive series, and I loved him even more here. He’s just the right amount of alpha and yet he’s funny at all the right times and even sweet at others, without ever losing any of his edge.
#HappyFeels
Ryleigh Phillips has got to be one of the most adorably endearing heroines I have read in a good long while. Everything from her quirky rockabilly style, to her internal monologue, to her banter with her best friends, just worked for me. She’s funny, sassy, and just one of those heroines you want to be your very own best friend. She’s so lively, she practically jumps off the pages at you. Brooke did such a great job introducing a cast of secondary characters in the form of her best friends that grabbed all my attention from the go.
Licked is one of those feel good and light hearted reads that will have you reading with a goofy smile on your face the entire time. It’s light on angst and stupid drama (as in none of it), and heavy on the humor and the sexy. I devoured it like my favorite pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Everything about it worked for me; the romance, the characters, and most of all the writing. Brooke Blaine doesn’t just take on new genres with each book she writes, she grabs it by the throat and calls it her bitch. The woman is a true rockstar. What a fun little read this was.
Adorably quirky, laugh out loud funny, and deliciously sexy, Nuts was the perfect escape read I’ve had in quite a while. Alice Clayton just gets better and better with each new book, but she simply outdid herself with this one. If the Nuts is anything to go by, we have quite a bit to look forward to in Alice’s new Hudson Valley series.
Roxie Callahan is a celbrity chef in hollywood catering to the rich, famous and the entitled. She loves to cook…dealing with some of her clients? Not so much. So when an unfortunate butter incident costs her almost most of her clients, suddenly her kooky mother’s request for her to come back to the town she grew up in and run the restaurant while she’s away doesn’t sound so bad. Then a certain bearded farmer changes her outlook on the small town entirely…
In addition to the fantastic secondary characters, the wit and the humor, the setting of the book is what really hooked me. The author did such a fabulous job truly engrossing the reader in this wonderful town. I couldn’t help but be transported there myself as I was reading it.
Know what I love? When a book manages to catch me by complete surprise, pleasantly so, and end up being so much more than I had thought it would be. Suite 269 was that book for me. Witty, laugh out loud hilarious, and sexy as all hell, I read it in practically one sitting with a goofy smile on my face for the entire time (And some ice for my ovaries on standby) It’s not often that I’ll tell you that my favorite thing about a book was the heroine. And by that, I mean it almost never freaking happens. Unless the heroine manages to channel my inner sarcastic pervert. I mean the woman’s favorite cartoon was Pinky and The Brain for the love of god! We need to be besties here! And if you don’t know what that cartoon is, shame on you, and don’t speak to me again until you watch it, mkay?!
What if you met a man that promised to make all your deepest, darkest fantasies come true? No questions, no judgement. That’s precisely the chance that Lexa Novak gets. But this book is so much more than just that. So let’s set the scene, shall we?
Enter stage right, Jameson Holt. The son of the man that owns the magazine she works as a lowly fact checker for, and her boss. Did I happen to mention that he makes her ovaries scream in delight with his mere present alone?
Because the man is pure sex on a stick. But that’s all the detail you’ll be getting from because what’s the fun in that? The best part of the reading experience here is to find out how all these puzzle pieces click together.
I’ve read and loved this author’s PNR titles, (Mad World) but this was my first contemporary romance from her and it sure as hell will not be my last. Clearly I’ve been missing out and I need to go check out the woman’s entire backlist. If you’re looking for a fun, witty, and uber sexy read, you really can’t go wrong with this one.
This is wrong.
