4 stars

“Heaven help me but I wanted my professor to be my boyfriend.”

This was a light, cute read and was a wonderful way  to spend my Saturday afternoon. If you are looking for a shorter, sweet, slightly fluffy read, this is a great choice!

Bliss Edwards had a problem. Virginity. It wasn’t that she set out to stay a virgin, she had just never met the right guy and for one reason another, she ended up in her last year of college and  ‘it’ had just never happened. So, with encouragement from her best friend she sets out to find herself a yummy one night stand. No strings. Just hot, fun sex.

At least, that’s plan.

She does find herself a gorgeous guy, Garrick. That much of the plan goes well. In fact, it goes better than well – not only is he gorgeous but he’s British and charming and ohhhh the accent!! *melt*

“An accent. HE HAS A BRITISH ACCENT. Dear God, I’m dying.”

Things get hot and heavy but at the last minute, she chickens out and pretty much just leaves the poor dude naked in her bed. Convincing herself to just get over the embarassement of that botched evening, she contents herself knowing she’ll probably never have to see him again and pack her stuff and heads out to the first day of class. And there he is. Standing at the front of the room. Her new teacher.

Let me tell you, the banter, the UST, the hotness was just intense enough to keep the book serious but just light enough to keep my heart fluttering all over the place and have the sudden need to turn the AC on… in October. I was giggling and grinning and pretty much just all out enjoying myself.

Garrick was quite the charmer. Hot. Confident. Bold, but gentlemanly. He was very easy to fall for. Oh, and the accent. Let’s not forget the accent. “What’s your name, love?” *swooooon*

I loved that the author didn’t gloss over their first encounter. We got to see it in full swoony detail. I kept turning the page at the of each chapter so worried it would just fade to black but it just kept going. So awesome!

And in that same respect, I loved that the first half of this book’s timeline didn’t skip around at all. It was pretty much just one continuous story which was a pleasantly refreshing change.

Another thing you should know is that there isn’t a huge age difference between them or anything (she’sin her last year and he graduated 6 months before and was really just filling in as a last minute replacement teacher).

There is the tiniest whiff of a love triangle for a few minutes  – her best friend, Cade, has feelings for her which he brings up, but she’s pretty strongly in swoon with Garrick so it never really goes anywhere… this is not a love triangle book.

I did find the heroine a little frustrating at times… she just always found ways to stop things from going forward by avoiding, not talking through things etc.

But any and all frustrations I had were forgiven after the  most romantic bout of mono I’ve ever read about (lol, don’t laugh, I’m serious  —–> “I’m here, love. Hold on.” awwwwwwwwwww <3) and everything worked out very sweetly in the end and was wrapped up with a cute little epilogue 🙂

“Sex.
I was going to have sex.
With a boy.
With a hot boy.
With a hot BRITISH boy.”

Teehee.

Rating: 4 stars!

** SERIES READING ORDER **

Click covers to purchase.
Interconnected standalone romances.

• Buy I LOVE YOU TO DEATH for Kindle
• Buy I LOVE YOU TO DEATH in Paperback 

4 – 4.5  stars

“He can’t take his eyes off you, Ash. You’re all he sees… He’s just waiting for you to see him”

Ash has been surrounded by death her whole life. By the age of 25, twelve people who were dear or important to her have died, including all of her immediate family and her beloved boyfriend, and she feels indirectly responsible for their deaths because, in a way, she actually is. Not in any sort of ‘on purpose’ way, but indirectly, through continuous and completely horrific twists of fate, she does things that eventually lead to their deaths. And at the time the book starts, the death that she is reeling from and that is hitting her the hardest is that of her boyfriend, Sam.

The constant fear of causing any more pain or devastation to anyone else’s life causes her to distance herself from any and all relationships. But she’s lonely, and its a  miserable, bleak existence.

Going back to work after Sam’s death is like hell. She doesn’t want to go on with life but its what he would have wanted so she does her best to keep going. At work, they have hired a new guy. Luke. He steps into her life. And doesn’t walk out.

From the beginning, this book had me on the verge of tears and by 3% in, I was crying. Any author that can make you care instantly and deeply for a the death of a character that you have never officially “met” is a gifted one! Usually my main problem with post-accident books is that I find it hard to connect enough with the pain of loosing the deceased characters, but in this book, I was pulled right into Asha’s emotions and pain and loss.

Maybe it was the music posted at the start of each chapter that helped? Maybe it was the writing style? Or the heart-wrenching story line?  Who knows… but I was completely immersed into this story.

The story line moved forward from a point a few weeks after Sam’s death but at the same time, we get flashbacks and memories that serve to connect you more deeply to each of the other friends and family members she has lost – especially Sam. Seeing them as a couple, with what his presence meant to her and felt like in her life, mean that in no time, I was missing him too. He was one of those good guys – you know, the swoony heroes us readers melt over? So trust me when I say that you really feel his loss.

So when it came to Luke, I love that the whole relationship with him was very slow to develop. As the reader, you instantly felt a connection with him as the ‘hero’ of this story, but I loved that he really took his time in regards to Ash. It never felt like he was trying to replace Sam. There was no insta-love. Nothing was rushed. The progression felt natural and beautiful.

You can tell that Luke could sense that something was wrong in her life and he respected her and cared for her enough to give her the time to heal while never pushing her but always being there for her. He was a really gorgeous hero character. He was a bit of a local rock star and the perfect blend of sweet and swoony. The kind that, when you read about something he did, makes you smile to yourself.

“I can’t explain it, Ash. I look at you and I just can’t look away. I look at you and even though I see all of the sadness and pain that you carry, what I really see is a beautiful soul buried beneath it. A beautiful soul who desperately wants to be happy. Who I want to make happy, more than anything else in the world….I, I can’t explain it, I just want to fix that for you.“

He brought life to a girl surrounded by death. That concept was really beautiful. He slowly, with care and tenderness, brought her out of the shell that the fear of death had build around her giving her security, trust, friendship, care and finally love.

“He walked into my life and slowly, gently he showed me how to smile again, how to start living again. He gave me a reason to breathe again. Showed me that living was worth it and it was worth fighting for. That it was worth taking a risk and making the choices you wanted to make. That he was choosing me, fighting for me and he wanted me to fight for him, for us.”

Also, the lyrics to some of the songs Luke writes and sings in this book are beautiful. Like I mentioned, Luke is a singer in a band and 2 of the songs that he wrote for Ash brought tears to my eyes <3

I felt so bad for Asha. Here was this sweet girl with a big heart who loved so many people in her life just to have them wrenched away from her. I felt for her. I understood her frustration and pain and wanted to make it go away. When Luke showed up, I felt so relieved. I immediately trusted him and never doubted that if anyone could be her savior, it would be him.

The only things that I didn’t like was that the love scenes were all fade to black. I felt that in a book with characters in their mid-twenties that are going through a seriously emotionally connected relationship, that I was missing out a little on feeling fully connected to them by not having those scenes…. like they had something that I wasn’t quite able to feel because I didn’t ever read about that connection fully developing – rather it was implied. So despite feeling for them a lot, it disconnected me just a bit… .and I also did find myself wanting just a little touch more at the end (an epilogue perhaps? to guarantee a few things) despite there being a happy ending. *****EDIT: I didn’t realize there would be more books in this series at the time I wrote my review… Now that I know that, I’m happier with the lack of epilogue and am looking forward to the next books.

But still, it was a wonderful read and I’d definitely recommend adding it to your TBRs 🙂

• Buy I LOVE YOU TO DEATH for Kindle
• Buy I LOVE YOU TO DEATH in Paperback 

CASTING:

• Luke and Asha —> Click here

• Buy IF I WERE YOU  (Kindle)  – full reading order below

*** Note: This book is now part of a completed series. At the time I read it, this book (the first of the series) was the only available book and so my frustration that you’ll see in the review is due to the fact that it was a great book, with a ton of mystery but it left me hanging with a lot of unanswered questions and the other books weren’t available. 

If you were to read it now though, you’ll be able to just read straight though to the rest of the series 🙂

_________________________

NONE OF MY QUESTIONS WERE ANSWERED!!!! 

and I literally mean none  of them *lip quiver*

I feel a little cheated… I mean, it was a really good book – it totally hooked me into the story, made me care about the characters, got me all hot and bothered, and filled my mind with approximately 4 hundred bajillion questions and theories and then…  left me hanging!!! 

O_O

I don’t really know what to say. I feel like I know about as much now as I did at the beginning of the book 😐

“People arent always what they seem… The art does not always mimic the artist. You never know the real person until you slide beneath their surface.”

The story follows Sara, a high school teacher whose passion in life is art and ends up getting possession of a storage locker that belongs to a mystery woman named Rebecca, whose journals Sara finds and reads. The journals are erotic and mysterious telling the story of Rebecca’s spiral into a relationship with a dangerously sexy and controlling Dom.

The story is addictive – draws you RIGHT in. Its a deliciously thrilling and dangerously erotic mystery with a dual storyline going on between the current day life of Sara and the life of Rebecca as read in her journals.

These are the beginning lines of the book:

“Dangerous.
For months I’ve had dreams and nightmares about how perfectly he personifies the word. Sleep-laden, alternate realities where I can vividly smell hi musky male scent, feel his hard body against mine. Taste the sweet and sensuous flavor of him — like milk chocolate with its silky demands that I indulge in one more bite. And another. So good I’d forgotten there’s a price for overindulgence. And there is a price…. It started out as any other erotic adventure with him. Unpredictable. Exciting. I barely remember how it all went wrong. How it took such a dark turn. 

See what I mean? You kinda just need to know more!

The more Sara discovers about Rebecca, the deeper and darker the mystery gets. New journal entries lead to more questions which in turn lead to a plethora of possibilities.

Since the last journal entry was rather ominous, Sara decides to try and find Rebecca, but, having no idea where to start, she goes to the art gallery where Rebecca worked as a starting point. There she meets the gallery manager, Mark Compton, who is sophisticated, powerful, controlling, arrogant, and alluringly sexy who offers her Rebecca’s job while she is ‘away’. On the same day, Sara also meets one of the famous artists whose work is displayed at the gallery, Chris Merit – he’s a rebel, tattooed, doesn’t play by the rules, gorgeous, raw, mysterious and with a dark side that he keeps trying to warn her away from. Drawn to him and intrigued by the gallery manager, Sara slips deeper and deeper into Rebecca’s world. And the more she is drawn into the mystery of unraveling Rebecca’s life, the more her own life starts to entwine with hers.

This book was HOT – those journal entries were scorching!! I can see how some people have compared it to Fifty Shades. I wouldn’t compare it personally, but it definitely had Fifty-ish vibes in certain places but the story stands completely alone. The relationship that Rebecca talks about in the journals is a BDSM one with some mystery guy. We can suspect who he is, but honestly the evidence could point in any number of directions so we don’t really know.

And the heroine made some choices and decisions along the way that I didn’t fully see as being understandable, so that did disconnect me here and there from the story a little, but I just tried to be understanding and so it wasn’t a huge deal but I still did go ‘hmmmm’ a few times…

I totally loved the hero (or, rather, one of them? again, I’m not really sure). He had that delicious flawed aspect with just the right amount of mystery to him to make me love him and yet wonder about him.

“Be warned, Sara. I’m no saint. If I take you upstairs, I’m going to strip you naked and fuck you the way I’ve wanted to since the moment we first met.”

The ending is a HUGE cliffhanger. Literally the story just stops at an “omg” moment… I will say that I’ve never been fond of cliffhangers and I think I would have been more fine with this one had I had a few more questions answered (or any for that matter). Either way *sigh* yes, I will totally be going on to book 2…. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!!!!

I have a feeling that when I finish reading all the books in the series, these may end up on my favorites list, but for now, I’m just a frustrated mess…

*runs off to find herself a guaranteed HEA book*

Rating: 4 stars. First book of a series.

CASTING:

• There are just so many characters to cast in this that I’ll just leave you with this shot… I think it compliments the book quite perfectly –> Click here

___________________________________________

** COMPLETE SERIES READING ORDER **

All the books are out now! Click the cover to purchase 🙂

• Buy SOMETHING ABOUT YOU (Kindle)

So this was not one of my planned to-read books, but it caught my attention the other day when I read this quote: >>>> “More like a chocolate molten lava cake. A dessert so sinful, so luscious, so filled with inner heat it made a girl want to lick each and every crumb right off the plate. That was Jack Pallas.”   and I realized that I really needed to meet that man! Soooo, this became my random rainy Saturday read and I was not dissappointed! It was a delightful, fun, lighthearted read – a bit of a blend between murder mystery and romance.. so I guess that would make it romantic suspense although there isn’t anything that will put your heart in your throat. That being said, I still didn’t want to put it down.

Right from the beginning, it had me laughing… here are the opening lines of the book:

“Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago, and Cameron Lynde managed to find one next door to a couple having a sex marathon.
“Yes! Oh yes! YES!”
Cameron pulled the pillow over her head, thinking – as she had been thinking for the past hour and a half – that is had to end sometime.”

Trying to take a little break from her life, Cameron decides that a pampered weekend in a 5-star hotel would be just what she needs. Of course, its just her luck that she happens to be placed next door to the couple engaged in a loud, lengthy sex marathon. Unpleased, she phones the front desk to complain, but when security arrives, the guy is gone and the girl is dead. The FBI are called in and her luck keeps on coming when swoon-worthy Special Agent Jack Dallas walks through her door. With their rocky history from three years ago, neither of them are thrilled to be involved in the same case. But as things escalate with the investigation leading to scandals, hostage situations, witness protection, shootings and more, the sparks between begin to fly…

“Jack clenched his jaw. “Christ, Cameon…. What the hell am I supposed to do when you look at me like that?”
“Ignore it. Stay focused on the fact that you hate me.
“I’m trying. I’m really trying here.”

The story started out strong with the writing style being fun, smooth and catchy. It is told from multiple POVs – including the killer’s. The storyline is pretty typical mystery format – engaging but not overly surprising, but its the BANTER that flew back and forth that was gold! Fast, witty, funny – it made the pages fly by.

“Glowering”—she liked that description. It was certainly more insightful than the generic “asshole” she’d been going with for the past three years.

Cameron was a strong, independent heroine. Jack was a hot, swoony hero.  The book wasn’t overly focused on the sexual aspect of their relationship, but they also thankfully didn’t have any relationship crisis. There was a bit of steam, a lot of laughs, and some mystery… if you are a fan of romance but want to try out a quick, fun mystery, this would be a great read for you 🙂

CASTING: Jack Pallas –> Click here

Rating: 4 stars

• Buy SOMETHING ABOUT YOU (Kindle)

*** ABOUT THE SERIES ***

 In the Chicago criminal justice system, the people are represented by two groups of confident, frequently sarcastic, and shockingly attractive people, all of whom seem to spend an inordinate amount of time at Starbucks: FBI Special Agents, who investigate crimes, and the U.S. Attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are the stories of what happens when they’re not out busting bad guys. Happily ever after guaranteed.

Author note: these books are a “series” in the sense that they are set in a shared world and some characters make appearances in later books. They can, however, easily be standalones. Feel free to jump in wherever you like.

Click covers to purchase. Listed in correct reading order.