This didn't work for me at all. The number of times I nearly DNF'd was too many. I probably should have but I've heard great things about this book anThis didn't work for me at all. The number of times I nearly DNF'd was too many. I probably should have but I've heard great things about this book and my goodreads friends love this so I kept going and dammit I'm trying to break this awful reading funk I've been in for 3 months now. ...more
The perfect nanny/single dad book does not exist. Liz Tomforde: WANNA BET??!
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“I simply stopped running when the t
⚾️ *5 Golden Stars* ⚾️
The perfect nanny/single dad book does not exist. Liz Tomforde: WANNA BET??!
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“I simply stopped running when the two best boys I know caught me.”
Wowie did I love this. Happy New Year to meeee! This was a complete home run and yes I just used a baseball analogy for a baseball book I don't care. lol I need to sue Liz Tomforde for emotional distress. Her books keep stomping on my ovaries, flambéing, frapeying, just kaboom boom booming them to smithereens. ...more
I couldn’t help but feel that her lips would be just out of place against my own: a rose petal against a chainsaw.
Too stupid for words. Th
I couldn’t help but feel that her lips would be just out of place against my own: a rose petal against a chainsaw.
Too stupid for words. This supposedly takes place in Ireland and all the characters are supposedly Irish but they don't sound like it at all. The accents are barely present and come and go throughout the book. You wouldn't even realize the heroine Kayleigh is Irish with the way she talks, she talks like an American with the exception of the word "fecking" on and off (she sometimes says "fucking" and other times "fecking", which is it author?) and when she calls the hero an "eejit" near the end. It's like the author didn't even try to do her research and just plopped these characters into a setting she wanted. The forbidden love aspect of this (which is the main reason I picked this book up) ended up being so silly, so ridiculous and thinly drawn. The heroine Kayleigh is dating the hero's brother Eoin for a few days who is a complete stranger to her (she meets him on the street after saving his life in a near hit and run and he's instantly smitten and asks her to dinner) who she has no feelings for but not wanting to break it off with him because she feels bad and loves his family so much after spending 2 days with them and it's the holidays. ...more
Started off great. This had so much potential to be another favorite from Mila Finelli. But it just lost me half way in when all the hero and3.5 stars
Started off great. This had so much potential to be another favorite from Mila Finelli. But it just lost me half way in when all the hero and heroine did was hate fuck and get each other off with zero emotional connection in between. The cat and mouse game took up too much of the book and left me feeling hot and cold. Their feelings just happen out of the blue, it didn't feel gradual. They share maybe 2 meaningful conversations between all the sex and that's it. The heroine Gia suddenly is softening after the hero Enzo (her captor) tells her a story about putting a band-aid on his daughter's knee and she's weak at the knees. That's it. Seriously? That's all we get? We do get a rescue scene before that where she almost drowns trying to escape his yacht but that's pretty much it. They have chemistry but I wasn't entirely sold on them falling in love because we barely see it. She starts to feel things for him because he has a big dick and she loves rough dirty sex. I'm sorry but kinky sex doesn't = love to me. ...more
You know when you try an author that everyone raves about with that one very popular overhyped book and it's an underwhelming fail, so you decide to tYou know when you try an author that everyone raves about with that one very popular overhyped book and it's an underwhelming fail, so you decide to try her again to see maybe if it was just a fluke and a case of a bad book for you? Welp, this was my attempt at that. And I can now say with 1000% clarity, Ali Hazelwood is not for me.
I snort at his wide-eyed I-didn’t-know-the-essay-was-due-today-and-my-dog-ate-it-anyway expression.
I laugh at his old-man-yells-at-a-cloud eye roll.
I am but a cornucopia of regret. Because we’re all bad bitches—till a scowling Were stands outside the bathroom door while we’re washing our hair.
If you are a Hazelwood fan who has loved all her books, then you will probably love this. If you are an Adult Paranormal Romance fan, then you probably won't. I fall in the latter category. I'm putting emphasis on 'adult' because this didn't feel or read like an adult PR for me and that falls heavily on the writing. For obvious reasons the blurb intrigued me and what pushed me to give this author another try. A Vampire heroine and Were Alpha hero thrown together in an arranged marriage to help broker peace between the two feuding species? Sign me up. I will give Ali credit for stepping out of her comfort zone and trying something different from what she normally writes. But this really felt like her STEM characters cosplaying as paranormal characters. The same fumbling tension, the same irreverent snarky awkward humor, same single-POV driven story with an oblivious heroine not realizing the hero is smitten with her, same poor communication and stilted awkward conversations.
I don’t consider myself a sensitive person. As a rule, I’m not opposed to people implying that I am a disappointment to my family and my species. But I do ask for one thing: that they keep that shit away from me.
The heroine Misery Lark has been used as collateral by her father who runs the Vampyre council since she was 8 years old. She was sent to live in human territory for 12 years as a trade off/peace treaty and returned back reviled by her own people and labeled as a traitor. She's had humans, Vampyres and Weres who have attempted to kill her. Because of this she returned to the human territory to live with her human best friend Serena until her Father summons her back to be collateral once again by marrying a Were, Lowe Moreland. Misery works in tech coding(?) in the human world, can't cry at all and finds everything either weird or gross and has the vocabulary of a med student. Words like "zygomatic" "ontological" "exsanguinate" and "phenotypes" are a mouthful and doesn't really fit with this setting or character who literally doesn't even understand her own species much less humans. It felt like Hazelwood's own voice coming through or just one of her STEM heroines talking. Why is your Vampyre heroine talking like a PhD student?
This friendship, or lack of enmity, appears to be highly rewarding to my dopaminergic system.
People who shared a placenta for nine months should not talk about this stuff.” Am I flushing? I am. “We’re dizygotic twins, which means that we never shared a placenta or an umbilical cord. A womb at best, really.”
“I could have poured triazolopyrimidines in your blood bags a million times over in the past twenty years.”
“You realize that’s not a sentence, right? Just a temporal subordinate clause.”
“Is it another Alpha thing? And your motor proteins are suuuuper dominant?”
This is a single POV book, all from the heroine's perspective and that's a big disadvantage. I really don't want to be in your heroine's head for 400 pages. Unless the writing is really good and engaging. And it's just not here. I'm not asking for mind blowing or deep shit, I just want a readable story and the readability factor with this author is very low. It's headache inducing. The limited narrative perspective doesn't really do the story or the hero here any favors. Lowe Moreland is the Alpha of his wolf pack, he's visually intimidating but has the demeanor of a golden retriever beneath the stoic face which at times is sweet and at other times falls short and left me wanting. I was expecting Rawr rawr rawr! instead I got soft puppy. I love softie cinnamon roll heroes just as much as the next person but I need some semblance of emotional insight or an edge of some kind to go along with it. I mean why have your hero reject the heroine at the 80% mark out of nowhere with no explanation or motive and just have him bashfully shrug his shoulders when the heroine realizes he lied to her? If you are gonna have your hero dump/reject the heroine with no warning then you need to give us a reason or motivation for it. The heroine nearly dies from poison and is unconscious for 5 days and the most we get from the hero when she wakes up is "My felicitations"........ ...more
I was a chaotic disaster, one he didn’t deserve to put up with.
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The hero Leo Hernandez deserved so much better. I did not r1.5 stars
I was a chaotic disaster, one he didn’t deserve to put up with.
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The hero Leo Hernandez deserved so much better. I did not read the previous books but all I know is this boy deserved so much better than this. I probably am the wrong reader for this series/author because I am not a fan of New Adult. The drama, characters and actions are usually incredibly frustrating, melodramatic and stupid. Here was pretty much that.
“It’s a lot easier for me to remind myself of all the reasons I hate him than it is to think of how he might have changed.”
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My biggest issue is I could not stand the heroine Mary Silver. She just wasn't my cup of tea. She felt more like cough syrup. This girl rubbed me the wrong way and I tried really hard to give her grace given her past history in high school and her own insecurities and sense of hurt. But lawd mercy, honest to g-d the way this girl would compartmentalize and misjudge things and never *ever* want to admit she is in the wrong was so miserable. Her insecurities gave her serious tunnel vision and sense of entitlement. I just couldn't deal with how she would process things and react to things. And I know this is more of personal taste bleeding through here but I also didn't love her lifestyle, choices she made and attitude suited for a moody 16 year old. The whole fully tattooed head to toe, pierced everywhere, gothic babe, wears no bra so the hero can oogle her pierced nipples (busty girls need support, my back was hurting just reading this!) smokes pot 24/7 and rolls her eyes at everything just isn't my thing. She's supposedly and I quote directly "a boss ass bitch!" but was really a "pick me choose me I'm not like other girls" walking bumper sticker.
I so desperately wanted to get high, but I didn’t have any edibles on hand, and I knew I couldn’t sneak a joint — not in my mother’s house. It didn’t matter if I walked down the street to smoke it, she’d find out.
"I wasn’t an angel — that much I could easily admit. I liked having a guy’s face between my legs for a night or railing me in the morning before breakfast. And most times, we didn’t talk enough for me to know if they were in a relationship or not.
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I normally love curvy thick heroines but I just wasn't feeling Mary at all. I mean bare feet on the dashboard of a car?! WHO RAISED YOU? ...more
Easy sweet read. Low angst and with a sweet cinnamon roll hero. But this did not need to be a 436 page book. A good 100 pages could have been3.5 stars
Easy sweet read. Low angst and with a sweet cinnamon roll hero. But this did not need to be a 436 page book. A good 100 pages could have been cut down. There wasn’t enough tension or conflict to drag it out that much. The last 50 pages especially felt pointless, like a long running epilogue.
The heroine Caroline is a 22 year old kindergarten teacher who has lupus. She had a kidney transplant when she was 11 years old so she's spent most of her young life in and out of hospitals. She's now trying to make up for "lost time" and find her independence and normalcy after living such a sheltered smothered life. I liked the chronic illness representation here. Seeing her deal with her lupus flare-ups was also great to see because you don't normally get that. I learned stuff here I didn't even know about lupus and kidney donors, like a transplant recipient getting similar food cravings from their donor. So interesting! I also liked that the heroine was an artist who paints and sells her work. I just wish her personality was a little more interesting. She's very shy and skittish in the beginning but slowly comes out of her shell with the hero's help. Their first kiss and the hero "teaching" her was quite sexy I have to say. ...more
Really loved this. There's just something about Shupe's writing I really enjoy when the story is right. It's so intelligent, precise, sexy an4.5 stars
Really loved this. There's just something about Shupe's writing I really enjoy when the story is right. It's so intelligent, precise, sexy and well researched. It does take on a bit of a modern tone in some areas as far as female autonomy and independence but it's not distracting. This is the biggest age gap romance I've read and I'll be honest if this was a Contemporary I would not have touched it. There's a 23 age difference here. The hero is 41 and the heroine is 18 and yes it took me some getting used to considering he's known her since she was a baby and he has a teenage son who is 2 years younger than the heroine Violet. I would have liked it more if Violet was 21 at least. But she's very mature for her age (a little too mature at times if I'm being honest lol). It definitely helped that the hero Max tried to put some distance and barriers between him and Violet who is doggedly pursuing him and is freaked out that she wants him. She's hurt that he's put distance between them since her coming out and it turns out he did it for a reason as he found her beautiful but much too young for him and it freaks him out. This also helped because if he had just went along with it easily I would have dropped this in a hot second. He's terrified and tries to scare her off at first which was great character development.
The Duke of Ravensthorpe is Violet's father's best friend and a family friend and Violet's crushed on him from afar since girlhood. He's a widower who enjoys single life after his marriage was a disappointing disaster after his wife died during child birth. He's a rake through and through who loves naughty times in the bedroom and honestly I found him so sexy and delicious. He's so intimidating, commanding, intelligent, earthy, sensual and masculine but also kind and a gentleman. I can't blame Violet for wanting him. A silver fox Duke with a filthy mouth. I wanted to climb him like a jungle gym so I get it. lol He steals the scenes and then some. Violet for her part I thought could have been developed a little more in comparison. The fact that I don't know what she looks like beyond having blonde hair and a curvy body for example did bug me. Her face is a hazy blur in comparison to the Duke who we get every little detailed description on. I liked that Violet's passion was in photography (I didn't even know Kodak camera boxes were a thing in 1895?) and studying photography (were classes available for women back then?). The sex scene involving her taking pictures of him naked was insanely hot and erotic. I thought that was nicely done. (ETA: I just realized the model on the cover is holding a camera. Very clever.) This is a very hot spicy novella and I loved every minute of it. I honestly wish this was a full length book given how quickly these two acted on their attraction and I wish that was dragged out a bit more given the forbidden aspect of it and Max's hang ups over their age difference and his friendship with her father. The hero caves a little too soon for my liking but since this is a novella you kind of just go along with it. I thought the emotions, the connection and tension was nicely done. If this was a full length book I probably would have given this a 5 star TBH. I could not put this down. Maximilian Thomas William Bradley III could absolutely GET IT. ...more
Not really what I had in mind. I went into this hoping it would be like that Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves movie, no not Speed (my absolute fave), INot really what I had in mind. I went into this hoping it would be like that Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves movie, no not Speed (my absolute fave), I'm referring to The Lake House. Where two people end up living in the same house but in different years and communicating through letters back and forth and falling in love. Intriguing right? The blurb really reminded me of that and lured me in. Did that happen here? Eh. Not really. I wouldn't really label this book as a true "romance" since the romance felt very secondary to the heroine's grief over losing her Aunt Analea and the ins and outs of her career as a book publicist. Aunt Analea died 6 months ago but she very much felt like a whole character and third wheel in this book for me. This felt more like Contemporary Fiction because of that, 65% of it at least did because the author bogged the book down with so much mundane information that added nothing to the overall story and had nothing to do with the romance between our leads Clementine West and Iwan Ashton.
“Universal truths in butter. Secrets folded into the dough. Poetry in the spices. Romance in a chocolate. Love in a lemon pie.”
My biggest issue was the writing. It's very idealistic and dreamy but also incredibly repetitive. From the constant focus on the mundane office happenings at her work, to detailed descriptions of her building, to hanging out with her friends, to what is in everyone's office cubicle, this took verbal foot dragging to a whole new level. So much time is spent on Clementine reminiscing about her late Aunt and their adventures together and apart, her Aunt's love life and the many anecdotes of Clementine traveling across the world with her. I'm pretty sure I was told the same 3 travel stories at least 6 times through the book. Why was this even necessary? And the constant referencing of food, my g-d. I can't even call it food porn. The descriptions of food, the weird food analogies/metaphors, the restaurants and street vendors the heroine and her friends eat at, what the heroine would order every year for her Birthday, what the hero puts on his menu, etc. yada yada. It was just endless. This is my first read by Ashley Poston and her prose is definitely idealistic but with a heavy dose of cynicism and grief mixed in. The writing here just takes itself too seriously. The whole "disillusioned millennial" heroine is not my jam. Poston loves her some poetry, as in *literally* loves it. I needed her to find another word for "poetry". I mean even the sex scene which is very brief and PG, was heaped in purple overtones that made my whole body cringe:
He tore the condom wrapper open with his teeth—which was so much sexier than I thought it could be—and put it on before he slowly, savoring me, slipped himself inside of me, murmuring psalms of my body as he traveled it, and I knew I was falling.
Without a word or even a prior glance this time, Matthias took Pet’s hand. When his fingers closed around hers, yet another bit of he
3.5 stars
Without a word or even a prior glance this time, Matthias took Pet’s hand. When his fingers closed around hers, yet another bit of her heart chipped off and fell into his curled palm.
First let me just say I adore Pet and Matthius. They were dear, sweet and adorable as expected. But it felt like we barely got any time with them which bummed me out. This still had some sweet and swoony moments LP is known for but they felt brief and fleeting in an otherwise crowded book that felt aimless in plot. We get brief conversations between hero and heroine while working at the Palace together with a bunch of wacky mishaps that fill pages and just didn't feel organic or convincing. The most time Pet and Matthius spend together is when they ham it up for the press as a fake couple to clear Pet's name in the tabloids which was great but I wanted more of that and less 'look after Johnny' shenanigans. The hero Matthius is bodyguard to Johnny Marchmont, husband to Princess Rosie. The heroine Pet is Johnny's PA, who is the human equivalent of a walking hazard sign who seems to not be able to sit down without breaking something or causing bodily harm to himself or someone else which the British tabloids eat up. I just have to ask was this character really necessary? I didn't really care for Johnny in Book 1 and here was much the same if not worse with the redundant outlandish disasters of setting things on fire, throwing his PA--the poor heroine--bodily across a lawn full of people (how is this even humanly possible Lucy Parker?) getting accidentally high at a science fair, stealing a whole ass parrot, falling off a chair while seated and knocking over the 6 foot-something groom, etc. Like I said a lot of OTT mishaps happen here for laughs and quirkiness and it just didn't feel cute or funny or remotely believable the more it happened. It just was so obnoxious. This man is so accident prone and clumsy in every situation that it just was insufferable instead of endearing like the author painstankingly tries to portray him as. I'm sorry a fan of "sweet" Johnny I was not. I don't care if he is a nice guy with angelic blond curls and has the personality of a golden retriever, I just wanted this poor imitation of Mr. Bean to just go away. :/
He was patently furious, but when he released one of her hands to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, his touch was conversely light, almost cradling. “I’m sorry, Button.”
If this book was filled more with the content we got in the last 30 or so pages, this could have easily been a 4 or 5 star for me. The emotions, chemistry and sweetness is there but Parker barely utilizes it which really frustrated me. She's high on slow burn and sexual tension and low on steam, angst and spice and that's fine but you gotta give me something in between to work with.
I found Matthius made for a very compelling hero and a total cinnamon-roll. He's such a teddy bear. There were a few stones left unturned with this character but nevertheless I loved what we got of him. There's just something about traditionally not-handsome "regular Joe" heroes that I find so dear and refreshing and real. Matthius is a giant in size with his height and huge muscles and next to Pet's petite stature they make quite an image (yes he has to bend down to kiss her *swooning activated*). We do get some Beauty and the Beast references since the hero is deemed "ugly" by many much to the heroine's annoyance. Matthius is ex-military with a busted face and a shaved head and a beard. He knows he's not handsome but doesn't mope about it and just accepts it in a rather quiet heartbreaking way. I just adore when heroines get absolutely rabid over others despiraging their hero's looks. Pet is quite the protective bulldog when people make snide jokes about Matthius's face and huge lumbering size. It's fucking adorable. Can more romance authors do this more please? Make it a trope. I love it so much. Let's also make not-handsome imperfect heroes a thing please.
His flush had spread to the tips of his lovely, generous ears. She’d never not be enamored with how all his features were so substantial, like his physicality was a direct reflection of his inner self and integrity, vast from his feet to his heart.
This could have been a favorite 2023 read for me if the pacing wasn't so incredibly slow-moving and stagnant. The writing was just so wordy. To be honest the last 3 Lucy Parker books I've read I slogged through in parts and I couldn't exactly put my finger on why. Not sure if this was always the case and I'm starting to notice it now or what. But her recent offerings I've come to realize her prose is just way too wordy and long winded. It's a mouthful of fluffy metaphors and navel-gazing expositions and internal monologues that go on for pages. And here was probably the worst example of it because characters keep interrupting themselves with aimless mind-wandering. Like for example when your couple are finally about to kiss and you are reading through the scene thinking they are kissing only to realize they actually haven't kissed yet and the hero is still holding the heroine's chin and leaning in for....5 pages. ...more
I should have listened to reviews. I think C.M. Nascosta is a talented writer but she really needs an editor. Please hire an editor or a beta r[image]
I should have listened to reviews. I think C.M. Nascosta is a talented writer but she really needs an editor. Please hire an editor or a beta reader or someone who doesn't sleep on the job. Because this should have never made it to print as is. This originally was going to be a DNF for me, I literally was going to call it quits 100 pages in but decided to go a bit further and see how the h/hr meet and see how the breeding program plot played out. Well it got a little better after the hero and heroine finally meet and start having sex enough to hold my attention but the first half is a hot damn mess. Which really confuses me because where was this structure and coherency in the first half of the book? It almost felt like 2 people wrote this..? The first 150 or so pages doesn't even read like a 1st draft much less a 2nd draft, it's just a soup of words and endless stream of consciousness that you can't make heads or tails out of. There's no linear timeline, where you can't even tell the difference between past and present time with all the frantic jumping around the characters do in their own heads, the hero in particular. It's like reading about someone with a very short attention span. The hero at one point is randomly telling readers about one time how he was walking home and being followed by some sketchy guy only to just randomly deviate in the middle and talk about his nephew's birthday party and never finish the first thought. What happened to the stalker guy? Oy. I had a similar problem in Morning Glory Milking Farm but not to this extent. Nascosta is terrible at transitions. Everything just bleeds together with no thought, coherency, breaks or structure. If you can't even tell the difference between internal dialogue vs a phone text then it's a problem. There really wasn't much of a plot to this either. The breeding program falls to the wayside and all they do is have sex until the hero has to leave overseas again for an assignment and wants her to come with him. Lowell and Moriah were cute together but so much page time was spent and wasted on nothing and zero development.
I'm all for a good slow build up but the first 100 pages is just the hero and heroine doing nothing before even meeting. It's just endless exposition of nothing important. The hero Lowell I especially struggled with. He's a 32 year old werewolf but sounded like a petulant sulky 8 year old boy. He's very needy and calls himself a child and a brat and you certainly see that. I shudder to think what the audiobook of this would sound like cause the hero read extremely immature and whiny which made his hot factor go down to a -1 for me. All he does for the first 50 pages is mope and complain about being stuck at home because of the lockdown (this takes place during the pandemic) and feeling sorry for himself. He's a complete man child. He even whines about not being able to masturbate in his brother's guest room because he keeps getting interrupted by his 5 year old nephew. ...more
(This review has been sitting in my drafts for a month. Excuse the excessive word vomit.)
4.75 stars [image] This was a rollercoaster of emotions, highs (This review has been sitting in my drafts for a month. Excuse the excessive word vomit.)
4.75 stars [image] This was a rollercoaster of emotions, highs and lows and everything in between. I'm a little conflicted on the rating. This was almost perfect but the constant up and down and the last leg of it annoyed me a little too much and another example of why some books absolutely do not need to be nearly 600 pages. Lucy Score's writing is insanely good and so addictive and this is probably one of the best enemies to lovers office romance CR books I've read. "Maleficent" Ally and "Charming" Dominic butting heads was the absolute highlight for me (seriously points to Score for the clever snarky nicknames that morph into endearments ...more
Really thought I was going to love this given the characters' backgrounds but everything felt super rushed and thin so the romance fell comp2.75 stars
Really thought I was going to love this given the characters' backgrounds but everything felt super rushed and thin so the romance fell completely flat for me. Compared to Book 4 this fell short in both plot and intensity. Every book in this series has the same 200 page length but here I really felt the short page count. Just after 2 sexual encounters in 1 week suddenly our emotionally closed off, power hungry, jerk cynical hero Lorenzo is wanting to claim the heroine as his and all his emotional walls have crumbled like a cheap suitcase. Didn't buy it. In fact those two sex scenes are pretty much all the time they spend together and "get to know each other" on the page (sex happens off the page as well but that is pointless to me as a reader) so there wasn't much to go off of here. It made no sense and was too fast considering how hung up Lorenzo still was over his girlfriend who died and had severe trust issues. Someone that emotionally closed off doesn't just crumble cause of good sex and she looks great in a pencil skirt. ...more
Leave it to a novella to get me out of my 2 month reading slump. I had no idea this was even a novella until I opened it on my kindle. But this was 56 Leave it to a novella to get me out of my 2 month reading slump. I had no idea this was even a novella until I opened it on my kindle. But this was 56 pages of delight and everything I've been looking for lately. Mary Jo Putney did a wonderful job with her own spin on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I thought both hero and heroine were unique with so much heart and depth. A recluse hero who has an aviary and takes in stray animals who are disfigured or deemed "ugly". MY HEART YOU GUYS. (view spoiler)[ My very first hero who is bald! I thought that was an interesting bold twist on a disfigured "Beast" hero. (hide spoiler)]. The angst ugh! *chef's kiss* I adored James and Ariel so so much and I really wish this was longer. Like 20 pages longer, or 50 or 100. Whichever. I just wanted more time with them and that's a high compliment to the story. When you are sad it's over you know it's a good one. Read it!...more
I won’t mince words: it offends me that you are so committed to your first impression of me, while my impression of you has not stopped evolvi
I won’t mince words: it offends me that you are so committed to your first impression of me, while my impression of you has not stopped evolving.
Really cute modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice with a colorful mix of characters to make up Liz Bennett's found family. Vanessa King did a great job putting her own spin on the classic story while keeping the bones of the much beloved source material. Darcy's letter? *clutches heart* Yes. This is set in the Burlesque world and as much as I loved that I do wish the last 20% wasn't heavily focused on all the club drama and ins and outs of interior design and what not. P&P is obviously a slow burn much as it is here, but I felt at times the romance took a bit of a back seat to Bennet's BFF Jane's love woes and their burlesque club drama. It does get a bit long winded in some parts with the meticulous detailing in stage performances and the heroine juggling between her day job, burlesque shows on the weekends and her passion for interior design. You can really feel the author's own heart and passion in the writing with her background in the Burlesque world and it shows here. The writing is very strong with the feminist theme that is very loud (which does tip to the preachy side at times for me personally). King's hand at cheeky humor is charming and hilarious without trying hard. For her debut novel this is impressive.
“So this is your opinion of me?” he says, the words coated with bitterness. We are so, so close. His focus lands on my lips. My face is on fire. “Forgive me, then,” he says, eyes still low on my face. “For wasting so much of your time.”
This pretty much follows the original plot and even nice nods in the dialogue as well which had me grinning ear to ear. This is a nice easy read with no deviation or ugly surprises for those who are diehard P&P fans. This was a really fun romp and I recommend it!
His name stirs the anxious new breed of butterflies twitching in my midsection. Darcy hornimus, if I had to classify them.
I trace the five letters above his signature. I’ve been wrong about so much. And I couldn’t be happier about it.
I'm rating this with an extreme curve for the last 20% alone. As for the rest of the story...
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I feel like the blurb is misleading. Cause the "reI'm rating this with an extreme curve for the last 20% alone. As for the rest of the story...
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I feel like the blurb is misleading. Cause the "realization" part takes too long to get to. That and I guess I was just expecting full on secret mutual pining between two friends. But that's not really what I got. This is a 275 page book where 190 pages of it the hero and heroine are with other people. The opening scene of the book is the heroine getting railed from behind by her dance partner. I should have taken that as my first red flag. I usually don't mind love triangle equations but this was a bit much even for me. It just went on for way waaay too long. The heroine Lily is hellbent on dating her douchehole sleazy dance partner who keeps using her as a bootycall and she's too stupidly oblivious and in denial to see it. It's unbearable to say the least because all her friends clearly see it and trying to gently warn her but she just keeps insisting on seeing it through and live out her fantasy cause Blane Baker has been her "dream man" since 15. Oh brother. A guy who can't even make her orgasm. ...more
Very strong writing but Liz Carlyle did too much in here and it got in the way of the pacing and my overall enjoyment. I love a good slow bur3.5 stars
Very strong writing but Liz Carlyle did too much in here and it got in the way of the pacing and my overall enjoyment. I love a good slow burn and this is exactly that with two complete opposite people from different worlds and lifestyles falling for each other with a lot of trepidation, weariness, insecurity and curious hope between them. So I understood why the gradual build up. However, even so, the pacing is horribly slow especially in the second half with excess ruminations and navel-gazing that are disruptive in scenes. It felt like every hour was covered in this book. Characters keep going off on tangents internally right in the middle of a scene for a few pages which makes it hard to stay engaged. That and there are constant breakaways to secondary character POVs and the murder mystery side plot. There are just too many characters in here to keep straight. Too many POVs, too much internalized angst, too much exposition. Also the 2 ex-mistresses who I kept confusing up got annoying. Jeannette and Antonnette. So confusing that at one point I thought one of them came back from the dead and I was utterly confused that I had to go back and double check names. :/
This could have been a 5 star read if Carlyle didn't pad the story so much. She's very detailed and an intricate writer which is usually a big plus for me but I feel that worked against her here with a plot such as this. I found the dissolute rake hero Elliot really intriguing given how messy and awful he started out. He's not a very nice person but he's very aware of that and has his reasons for being so jaded and distrustful but he tries to do better. Carlyle did a nice job of setting up the opening prologue scene to explain why he is the man he has become now and what made him go down that path. Elliot is the very definition of a HR cynical rake whose life is a mess with carousing, petty revenge, mistresses, whoring and countless duals which sullied his reputation to the point of no return. He's not favored or liked in the ton for good reason and even his own staff fear and hate him. Which I honestly got a kick out of cause again it underscored his awful treatment of others and volcanic temper and to see that slow progression of him trying to be better I thought that was great to see. I love character explorations like this so so much when it involves grey anti characters. Messy characters coming into their own and evolving is hard to pull off and the author did a fairly good job of it here.
In contrast, Evie the heroine I thought was drawn a little too perfectly that at times she bored me with how many times and ways she's described as everything perfect and angelic and pious in comparison to Elliot who is a man slut with a black heart who doesn't deserve to touch her. Evie and her stitched-together family are Flemish foreigners living in the English country in their own little world in their quaint 3 story cottage. I loved that she was a painter (a successful one at that!) and made a point of making sure her younger siblings and cousins were educated and learning the arts and history. Elliot is immediately intrigued and charmed by this lively family when he accidentally shows up on their doorstep during a rainstorm. He's not used to such warmness and kindness and he just wants a little piece of that. I think what would have really made this story hold is if more time was spent with the hero and heroine getting to know each other outside of his false identity (yes it's that trope) and if the MOC (marriage of convenience) that played out in the last 100 pages happened a little sooner. There were moments I did enjoy in this. I honestly loved the MOC part of the book the most for obvious reasons cause you got to see these 2 finally bring their walls down and be vulnerable together and openly vocal/demonstrative about their feelings and being all domestic and cute. I loved that. And Elliot's Scottish brogue coming out when he's flustered or angry had me snorting a few times. So hilarious! LC's touch at humorous moments is well done. Seeing a huge, world-weary, rakish Scot being all soft and in love was sweet to see.
Seeing Evie interact with Elliot's adorable little girl Zoe was sweet but I thought that relationship should have happened sooner for instance. Especially considering how guilt ridden Elliot is over not spending enough time with his shy daughter who he adores and clearly yearns to make happy. It didn’t really speak volumes about his character when he kept leaving his little girl in his big “lonely house” as he put it to go spend time with Evie and her family for weekends. Like sir….you have a lonely child at home who wants to spend time with her Papa. GO HOME. It almost felt like Carlyle kept forgetting that beat in the story to make up for all the endless pages the hero and heroine aren’t spending time together (see comment on doing too much) and in the process made her hero look like a hapless knave in the process. :/
So points for effort and thoroughly fleshed out writing and an extremely compelling complex hero but the execution wasn't fully there for me in parts. I would still recommend this for those who love slow burn and strong crisp writing. You just need patience....more
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