OFF LIMITS BY CLARE CONNELLY - ARC REVIEW

“I want to taste you tonight.”

With chemistry this hot, it’s worth getting burned…

Billionaire Jack Grant is totally off-limits to Gemma Picton. He’s wild, deliciously dangerous…and her boss. When working late turns X-rated, it’s better than her wildest imaginings—and Gemma’s imagined a lot! But Jack has major emotional baggage, so when Gemma starts wanting to heal his heart as well as enjoy his body, she knows she’s in big trouble…

The Dare line is short, hot, and full of sex.  The stories are definitely driven by sex and that is the focus.

Jack and Gemma are boss and employee.  Office romances can be hot, especially when they are slightly forbidden, like this one is.  I enjoyed it overall.  There is not a lot, in my opinion, about this book that was original...but that said, I enjoyed it.  The sex was hot, the chemistry was believable and so was the reason that Jack felt he was not able to give more than a hot night, or 2, to each of his conquests.

The Dare line of titles seems to be focused on hotter, spicier titles and this one works well.

I recommend this title.

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BY THE BOOK BY JULIA SONNEBORN - ARC REVIEW

An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.

Anne Corey is about to get schooled.

An English professor in California, she’s determined to score a position on the coveted tenure track at her college. All she’s got to do is get a book deal, snag a promotion, and boom! She’s in. But then Adam Martinez—her first love and ex-fiancé—shows up as the college’s new president.

Anne should be able to keep herself distracted. After all, she’s got a book to write, an aging father to take care of, and a new romance developing with the college’s insanely hot writer-in-residence. But no matter where she turns, there’s Adam, as smart and sexy as ever. As the school year advances and her long-buried feelings begin to resurface, Anne begins to wonder whether she just might get a second chance at love.

Funny, smart, and full of heart, this modern ode to Jane Austen’s classic explores what happens when we run into the demons of our past...and when they turn out not to be so bad, after all.

I enjoyed this debut title by Julia Sonneborn.  I liked the world of literature, and writers in which it was set and I thought it was interesting to see that same world from the eyes of someone who was in it, but was also struggling to find her place in that same world.

Adam, another man she meets, and Anne are involved in a love triangle.  Of sorts.  Adam and Anne were together years ago, and there was a break up and now he is back, and the president of the small college where she teaches.

I was expecting a little more from this title.  All of the elements were there: a love triangle, a heroine torn between the present and the past, a man in the present who maybe is just a little too perfect and maybe not as good as he seems.  Unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me.  The big declaration happens with what feels like a rushed toss in at the end.  I wanted more, I wanted the passion, and to believe it. 

I liked each of the characters separately, but I wanted more connection.  The blurb gives the idea that this is a romance.  While it has heart, it is not really a romance.  More time is spent detailing the relationship with the man she meets who is not Adam.  And, this would have worked, except I didn't like him, and I was not sure why she did.  There were also a few points where Anne acknowledged that she was not totally fair to Adam in the past, but she was very willing to ignore the things he said and the warnings he gave her.

I think, based on the blurb, I wanted more of the connection with Anne and Adam than I got.

The secondary characters were also not quite balanced.  The things with the dad were odd and seemed to jump from point to point.  I wanted a little more with some of the interactions with her sister.  And, I am not going to even get into the gay best friend, who was more a caricature than a person.

Overall, I mostly enjoyed this title, and it was good as a first novel, but I would not really call it a romance.

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BEING BROOKE BY EMMA HART - SIGNED PAPERBACK GIVEAWAY

Emma is a favorite of ours.  Her smart feisty heroines, her sense of humor, and the hot swoon-worthy men keep us reading each title the minute we can get our hands on a copy.

(And, really, we all want the shoes on this cover.)

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SLIP OF THE TONGUE BY JESSICA HAWKINS - SIGNED PAPERBACK GIVEAWAY

Jessica Hawkins if a favorite of ours.  Her stories are always well-crafted and she doesn't shy away from the "taboo" topics.

As Jessica's book "Move the Stars" was Laura's top book of 2017, we are giving away a signed copy of the first book we read by Jessica Hawkins, Slip of the Tongue.

Check out What We Said:

#1 Books of 2017

Move the Stars

Slip of the Tongue

And then, enter the Giveaway!!!

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BIG ROCK AND MISTER O BY LAUREN BLAKELY-SIGNED PAPERBACK GIVEAWAYS

***BLOG BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY! SIGNED PAPERBACK OF BIG ROCK AND MISTER O BY LAUREN BLAKELY**

A standalone romantic comedy in the #1 NYT Bestselling Big Rock series of standalones!

It's not just the motion of the ocean, ladies. It's definitely the SIZE of the boat too. 

And I've got both firing on all cylinders. In fact, I have ALL the right assets. Looks, brains, my own money, and a big c&$k.

You might think I'm an as%*$le. I sound like one, don’t I? I'm hot as sin, rich as heaven, smart as hell and hung like a horse.

Guess what? You haven't heard my story before. Sure, I might be a playboy, like the NY gossip rags call me. But I’m the playboy who’s actually a great guy. Which makes me one of a kind. 

The only trouble is, my dad needs me to cool it for a bit. With conservative investors in town wanting to buy his flagship Fifth Avenue jewelry store, he needs me not only to zip it up, but to look the part of the committed guy. Fine. I can do this for Dad. After all, I’ve got him to thank for the family jewels. So I ask my best friend and business partner to be my fiancée for the next week. Charlotte’s up for it. She has her own reasons for saying yes to wearing this big rock.

And pretty soon all this playing pretend in public leads to no pretending whatsoever in the bedroom, because she just can’t fake the kind of toe-curling, window-shattering orgasmic cries she makes as I take her to new heights between the sheets.

But I can’t seem to fake that I might be feeling something real for her.

What the hell have I gotten myself into with this…big rock?

Just call me Mister O. Because YOUR pleasure is my super power.

Making a woman feel ‘oh-god-that’s-good’ is the name of the game, and if a man can’t get the job done, he should get out of the bedroom. I’m talking toe-curling, mind-blowing, sheet-grabbing ecstasy. Like I provide every time.

I suppose that makes me a superhero of pleasure, and my mission is to always deliver.

BUT then I'm thrown for a loop when a certain woman asks me to teach her everything about how to win a man. The only problem? She's my best friend's sister, but she's far too tempting to resist--especially when I learn that sweet, sexy Harper, has a dirty mind too and wants to put it to good use. What could possibly go wrong as I give the woman I've secretly wanted some no-strings-attached lessons in seduction?

No one will know, even if we send a few naughty texts. Okay, a few hundred. Or if the zipper on her dress gets stuck. Not on that! Or if she gives me those get-over-here-and-take-me-eyes on the train in front of her whole family.

The trouble is the more nights I spend with her in bed, the more days I want to spend with her out of bed. And for the first time ever, I'm not only thinking about how to make a woman cry out in pleasure -- I'm thinking about how to keep her in my arms for a long time to come.

Looks like the real Adventures of Mister O have only just begun....

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