Nicole
Wow. This was a wild read. I did not expect the ending. Theo went through great lengths to ensure that Alicia didn't recognize him and tell the story of when Gabriel died. This was a long drawn out story, but the ending was definitely worth the wait. This took me on a wild ride, I really thought It was never going to get to the plot twist. I thought the story was about Alicia but it's more about Theo and his self preservation.
Love at first sight whirlwind small town romance!
Kasey and Shauntelle first laid eyes on each other at Shane and Cassie's wedding (book 1), for Shaun she was done for, even though she was with Tommy she fell in love with Kasey, masking it as hate. I loved reading how Kasey peeled back Shaun's Emotional layers like an onion, she fought him every step of the way eventually giving in to her feelings. I'm glad that Shaun didn't end up with the limp noodle. I kind of wish there was more about his racing but only because I like racing it doesn't take away from the book. With this being the 3rd book of the series and more to come I'm in love with this series I can't wait to read more. Sometimes with series I've noticed that either the timeline is off or details that travel from one book to another are off, but not this one Dani really pays attention to the details. I can't wait to read When Hearts Collide.
Tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, Alphahole, nascar driver, small town
Another cute relatable story!
Oh I love Chase and Zoey! I loved reading about little Verity, having a 4m old myself I could relate to those moments. I had a feeling Zoey would find out about Tommy's plan to marry her off to chase because they kept talking about it out loud and she was destined to walk in on a conversation. Chase and Zoey were thrust together when he returned to town and needed a place to crash. Chase supported and helping Zoey after her incident drawing them together and making them fall in love with each other. Another fantastic book by Danielle Baker, down to earth and relatable. I'm definitely going to recommend this series to my book groups!
Tropes: Brothers Best Fried, small town, hot cop, single mom, forced proximity & secrets
Jesse and Bane is the best story of the bunch!
Wow. This book is probably my favorite of the series by a landslide. Bane and Jesse are brought together by her “step-dad” who hired Bane to get Jesse out of her shell after she was gang raped. The clause was Bane was not allowed to have sex with her. They fell in love ultimately having sex, then all the dominoes fell. Family secrets are divulged and everything Jesse thought she knew was blown up. The plot twists in this book are divine and well placed. I hate that this is the last book in this series and the others weren't nearly as good as this one.
Definitely check your trigger warnings especially in regard to rape and abuse as well as suicide.
So sweet! A novel that could actually be real life
This is the first book I've read by Danielle Baker, I was not disappointed. I read all 305 pages in its entirety in one day, not a large feat by any means. I just couldn't put this down, it was a very easy flowing book that made me not want to stop reading it. Jodi and Frees story was so sweet and written in a way that made me feel like it could be real life, no crazy billionaires thats far fetched and unattainable.I am really looking forward to reading the other books in the series.
Tropes: age gap, best friends/boss' daughter, rugged cowboy
Trent and Edie against the world...
Trent and Edie, an age gap romance. Edie's father is Trent's enemy, they loathe each other, that doesn't stop Trent and Edie from falling in love. When presented the opportunity to stab Trent in the back and give her father the ammunition to ruin Trent, Edie grows a back bone and goes against her father for the first time in her life. There's an interesting twist of events that I won't go into that really made my jaw drop.
I got the feeling these two would end up together from the end of Ruckus. At the BBQ when Trent couldn't keep his eyes off her. There is a pretty big age gap 18 vs. 33 but 18 is technically an adult so it was okay. This is standard enemies to lovers happily ever after type of story.
Vicious and Emilia's story ended up being so cute!
Vicious hated Emilia for their senior year because he thought she knew his secrets, she didn't. His hate warped into love, you get to see the lengths a broken abused man will go through to make her his. He trusted her with all his secrets and all his feelings. This is an enemies to lovers bully romance. I like it, there was a very brief mention of Jamie and the teacher, maybe I'll get to why ‘Defy' was a prequel. There aren't any crazy plot twists or oh my god moments. Just a very easy read.
Dean & Rosie really had me on edge
Dean and Rosie were meant to be together since high school. Although dating Rosie's sister Emilia senior year, Rosie was in love with her and he with her. 10 years later they get their happily ever after, with some bumps in the road. Dean discovers family secrets and poor Rosie almost dies. There is so much character and plot development in this book, I ate it up! Such a good book, so far better than Defy & Vicious!
Such a cute little romance
This was okay, I don't know why I expect more from a 116p book. There was a lot crammed into a little bit of real estate. I wanted more from it, it felt rushed, there was no plot or character developed. I hope that reading the rest of the series will shed some light on this story. For what it was I did enjoy Melody and Jamie's story.
I need this to be turned into a movie. Half way through I realized that I read this in book form a few years ago and loved it then as much as I loved it now. In the first half of the book before I realized I had read it before I swore Floyd was in on it, once the plot thickened I is when I realized I had read it before. I absolutely loved the ending of this as well. Laurel was slowly putting the pieces together of what happened to Ellie when Floyd realized it he came clean and told Laurel everything and leaving Poppy to her.
I can't wait for the 6th book to come!
We finally get to Luna/Lyla! Yes, I'm so glad she wasn't dead. I'm still not over Hector from the last books and this one. He's a slimly snake. I hate that The Shadowman kept Luna from Tristan, I get his master plan but he has been looking for her for 20 years. This book gives me a lot of closure for questions and thoughts from the other books. When Tristan finds out He could have had his sister back six years prior he is going to be enraged. I wish the 6th book would come sooner, it's due out sometime this year and I can't wait. I need full closure, I need to know the rest of the story. This book was good, books 3 and 4 are still my favorites, I feel like this one was a lot of fill in the gaps and hole the other books left.
This book answered so many questions...
WOWWWW... just wow, I can't process the last 15% of this book. There is so much revealed in one chapter I had to put the book down to breathe. While we just got to know Alpha in the last book, we got to meet his soulmate in this one. I wanted Alpha to get his memories back, however, that did not happen. I swear to all that is holy, each book in this series is better than the last, putting little pieces of the puzzle in place. I need more, I have to have more.
OKAY THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FIRST TWO! WOW. I'm glad we moved on from Morana and Tristan's POV. I LOVED all the backstory to Dante and Amara. This book added to many different twists and turns I felt like my head might explode. I'm so glad I kept reading after the first book even though I had many qualms with it.
Amara is so relatable, while she went through so much trauma in her life she was resilient and worked through her trauma. Her and Dante are the very definition of soulmates. The build up of their love story is swoon worthy.
Wow...talk about plot twists
Chapter 1 is excessively long it calculated to 9% of the book. In the first half of the book there was so much internal Morana monologue and not a lot of dialogue with other characters. You get more from Tristan (not words he's practically a mute) in this book, his relationship with Morana develops into more than just protecting her. Again, I was not able to put this down despite the typos, glaring grammatical errors, and excessive over use of certain terms. While this was marginally better than the first book when it comes to the excessive over use of phrases, I still wish the author would find some other ways to describe things. This book offered more backstory and plot twists than the first one. There is still room for improvement and it's going in the right direction. I'm looking forward to cracking open the 3rd one, I just realized there are 5!
Good but had potential to be great.
I could not get enough of this book, I literally could not put it down. I had so much on my to do list for today, none of it got done because all I wanted to do was finish this book. It is a typical mob/mafia romance where the FMC is in one family and MMC is in another with some different twists about it. There was a situation with some codes in the first half of the book that was a big part of the story, but the codes barely get mentioned in the 2nd half, I was interested to see who stole them. I didn't like the repetitive references to Tristan's blue eyes, staring, and whiskey and sin voice...they were excessively over used. Additionally, the FMC uses his full name “Tristan Caine” why can't you just call him Tristan there isn't another one in the book. There are some glaring grammatical errors too for a book that's ~4.5 years old. I am invested in the story so I'll be reading the rest of the books.
Perfect summer romance.
This book was so incredibly sweet like the first one in the series. A cute summer romance story about Sydney and Nate who rekindle their college romance. In the 10+ years of being apart they never stopped loving one another. I thought it was cute that Nate wrote into the column to seek Sydney's thoughts.
I was starting to get really irritated that Sydney wouldn't give Nate the time of day to talk to her. Would it have been that terrible to give him 10-15 minutes of your time and that whole debacle would have been avoided. Nate rubbed me the wrong way the way he kind of used Robby to get to Sydney, well that's what it seems like it is not implied in the book.
Can we get these books made into Hallmark/Lifetime movies? I love Hallmark and Lifetime movies and this reminds me of those. While this is the second book for the Firefly Beach series I can say they can be read separately as stand alones and you wouldn't miss anything if you read this one without reading the first one.
This had the opportunity to be so much better.
I found a recommendation for this book based on it being similar to the show Criminal Minds. The fact it's about the FBI and a serial killer is where the similarities end. There's a lot of discrepancies in regard to geographic locations and FBI protocols that are pretty common knowledge. Yes, this book is fiction so I'm aware it doesn't need to be 100% accurate but a little research into things wouldn't hurt. I do not think I will read the rest of the books in this series based on my feelings towards this one.
Be still my heart...
This book is absolutely heartbreaking. In other books when Ava is mentioned there's no indication of her psychosis. I truly feel bad for her not remembering two years of her life and living in a constant state of worrying about her next episode. The way Ava and Eli were written about in previous books this relationship was definitely a no brainer. The ending was so good!
For the love of all that is holy this book is SO GOOD! I started writing my review about 75% of the way through it and I'm sitting here with my jaw on the floor at ~85%. I'm sad this is the last book for now. I was hoping that Remi and Ari would get their own. FFS everytime I read a new Rina Kent book it becomes my favorite. All of them are my favorite. I may just go back and reread them all.
Again check your triggers, especially self harm before you read this book.
Nikolai and Brandon's story is SO GOOD!
I don't even know where to start. I feel like with every Rina Kent book I read I fall more in love with her as an author. Brandon and Nikolai's story quickly became one of my favorites. In God of Ruin, it hinted at the possibility of a romance between the two it was very subtle. I really loved this story and how it ended. Nikolai is definitely more unhinged in this book vs previous ones. Mafia/organized crime, cat and mouse, enemies to lovers are the main tropes for this book. Definitely check your triggers before reading this.
So good like all of Reina's books!
Rina never ceases to amaze me. I have loved every single one of her books. I love the way they're intertwined and while some are stand alone and others are series or duets you can pull character information from those other books. Mafia/organized crime, cat and mouse, enemies to lovers are the main tropes for this book. While it could be considered a bully romance, it barely scratches that trope. Whenever I'm in a reading slump, I know that picking up a Rina Kent book will jostle me out of it!
High hopes... big disappointment
I wanted to love this book, a lot of people do and hyped it up which is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, it is not my cup of tea. This is a FMC and 2 MMC who are brothers that share her. They refer to her as “our girl” and for lack of a better term it gives me the ick. Also, in motorcycle racing Christian's stunt with Cruz would have had him banned in real life motorcycle racing. Main trigger warning: domestic violence. It took me 3 days to read 264 pages, when I can knock 264 pages out in a few hours.
This book was an addicting page turner!
This was such a great read! I pegged the true killer early on but then went back and forth with some other options that presented themselves. In the end I knew I was right. This was such an amazing psychological thriller, I definitely would recommend reading this book. Don't be like me, I like to figure out the “who done it” early on then find out if I'm right. I can't handle surprises, yet this book was full of them.
WOW! Just wow. I think the only thing that made this a 4 star instead of a 5 star is I listened to this as an audiobook. I'm certain if I read this in book form it would be an easy 5 stars. This has to be one of the best psychological thrillers I've ever read. The back and forth between aliases throws you for a loop but it is so well written, you don't get lost. The very end made me laugh. SO SO GOOD!