Make Me Want - Katee Robert Review

"Lucy Baudin’s ex did a number on her self-esteem, but it’s time for her to regain control. In her job as a lawyer she’s bold, confident. But in the bedroom she needs inspiration to reawaken her inner seductress. Asking her friend Gideon Novak for help seems wrong…yet so deliciously right! "

Thank you to Net Galley and Harlequin Dare for providing me with an ARC copy of this book. All opinions are truthful and my own. 

This book follows Lucy who needs a husband within the year to help her get the promotion she wants at work and in order to find her this husband, she asks one of her old friend Gideon for help as he runs a recruitment company. Gideon was also best friends with Lucy’s ex-fiancé and was the one who had to break it to Lucy that her fiancé was cheating on her.

Ok so my main issue here was the plot – the main point of this whole book was that Lucy needed a husband because otherwise she wouldn’t get the position as partner. She then goes on to mention that a previous co-worker went for partner but was overlooked and her male counter-part got given the position all because she was single. I just find that whole notion and concept so backwards and ridiculous and I honestly can’t believe that a book written in 2017 is using this as a plot point and as an excuse to find a blood fake husband to get around it!! Lucy is a lawyer and helps defend criminals, yet she stands for that sort of bullshit? What a lad of crap – I honestly can’t believe that her solution to this is to find herself a fake husband – it really annoyed me.

The other thing was that she not only asked Gideon to find her a husband, she also asked him to teach her ‘sex tips’ and basically give her sex lessons as her ex-fiancé told her one of the reason that he cheated on her was because she didn’t keep him satisfied in bed. I’m just going to interject here and say that I did enjoy that Lucy couldn’t shake the toxic things her ex said as I think it’s very realistic of coming out of a toxic relationship as all the bad things they said about you sticks with you the most and can leave you feeling like you’re not good enough for anything or anyone. So I definitely liked how this was shown in the book but I did think that the fact she was asking for bloody sex lessons from Gideon was a bit ridiculous. I mean there are god knows how many articles online to help or other ways she could help learn to improve her sex life without using Gideon.

So it’s obvious where this was going to go – Lucy develops feelings for Gideon and Gideon had feeling for Lucy way back when she decided to date Jeff over him so that wasn’t going to be made better by sleeping with Lucy. But what annoyed me again, was that despite Lucy having he balls to somehow date and marry and sleep with whichever random man that Gideon found to be her future, she couldn’t tell him how she felt?! She was willing to marry a complete stranger instead of simply telling Gideon how she felt and maybe marrying him instead. She had nothing to lose as he is meant to be finding her a bloody fake husband so why the hell did she not tell him and possibly have a fantastic life because of it! Gideon was just as bad – he also had nothing to lose and yet he still didn’t say anything to her despite having  had feelings for her for however long – he’d rather find her a fake husband than admit his bloody feelings and it’s all a pile of crap. 

The writing for this book is what saved it slightly and despite the bad plot points is was a well written book and the sex scenes were super steamy. But ultimately, as mentioned above I couldn’t get over all the bad plot points which is why I rated this 2 stars.

Done Deal - Lynda Aicher Review

“Power. Wealth. Respect.
The members of the Boardroom share these things—and more—in this new erotic romance series from Lynda Aicher, author of the bestselling Wicked Play books In the Boardroom, exhilarating pleasures happen after-hours.
At night, behind the closed doors of the Boardroom, it's members only. Stripped of their inhibitions, Bay Area moguls are free to indulge their most extreme fantasies, and business becomes pleasure.
Never in his dirtiest dreams did CEO Trevor James expect to see Danielle Stables on the guest list.
There'd always been something unspoken between them—a spark yet to ignite. An inscrutable and defiant player in the firm, Danielle exudes power and secrets. Tonight she is going to surrender. No strings. No judgments. No boundaries. By dawn, the games between them will have only just begun”

I received this as a complimentary ARC from Net Galley and Carina Press so thank you. All opinions and reviews are my honest and mine own.

This is the prequel novella to the first boardroom book, After Hours which is set to release in January 2018. You could tell that this was going to be the prequel to another novel as there wasn’t really much in the way of plot and really, it was just a book about the one scene which happens in the boardroom. 

In this, you get a quick introduction into the Boardroom which is an exclusive sex club set-up by Trevor Faulkner for people to act out their sexual fantasies without fear of judgement. This novella focuses around one specific meeting where a woman called Danielle is on the list for that night’s meeting in the boardroom and mainly the interactions between Trevor and a woman called Danielle who was added to the list last minute. It’s told from the perspective of both Trevor and Danielle and through their inner dialogues you understand that there was obviously something between them before hence the chemistry between them now. I hate novella’s as I feel that you can never get a full story and that was exactly this here and this was only a book about one main sex scene. I’m really hoping that there is going to be a second book in the series which focuses on answering all the questions about Danielle and Trevor which weren’t answered in this book.

The group sex scene was strange; it was obviously a group sex scene but it seemed like it maybe there to try and emphasize the chemistry between the main characters and somehow prove that they should be together? But it just seemed very strange and like the other characters shouldn’t have been there at all and their introduction was just unnecessary and unvalued. I really didn’t see the point in having a group scene which was made to feel like it was just two people in the room and everyone else was just intruding on them. 

I’m still going to read After Hours as the premise is intriguing and I’m interested to see where this goes however I don’t really see how this prequel novella can help add much story to the first book in the series although this may change if a book about Danielle and Trevor and their backstory is released.

Burned Promises - Willow Winters Review

This is currently free on Amazon UK for Kindle!

This was my first book by Willow Winters; it’s told in a dual POV with Emma and Derek and is a second chance romance. Emma first walked away from Derek 5 years ago as he was into bad things and she knew that he wouldn’t change. Flash forward to the present where Emma is staying at her sister’s house whilst on holiday from University and Derek & Emma’s paths cross again. 

It had a good premise and the story showed the struggle between choosing sexual attraction and possibly love against morality and good judgement. Derek hasn’t changed much and is still the bad boy he was before and has just increased in the ranks and is now managing the drug business he was involved in before. He refused to tell Emma anything about what he was doing which I personally found really annoying! She’s an adult now and I understand wanting to protect her by not letting her know too much about what he did but he literally told her nothing despite her continually asking and claiming to love her. He got incredibly angry at times and I just felt like it was unnecessary and I would have run a mile at that point; especially since she’d although broke things of before because of his business ventures. I did enjoy the sub-plot about Derek’s mum having cancer and although I saw the plot twist coming, I did enjoy the execution of it. 

I have no problems with domineering men BUT there a difference between being domineering in a good way and then just taking it too far and I hated how it was done in this book. I highlighted a part in the book that says “I want her, so I’m taking her. It’s that simple.” NO! You don’t get to just bloody take her! There were comments like that scattered through the book and it really annoyed me. Unless she’s said otherwise you can’t just take when you want and do what you want. However, there is a great scene in this book where Emma gets high and then starts doing sexual things with Derek; he stops and carries her to bed and doesn’t even undress her which was great and could have obviously gone a very different way.

Overall I gave it 2 stars; it was an OK read but nothing impressive and I had issue with some of the writing.