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.

Autumn Book Haul 2017 - Part One!

Hi everyone and welcome to part one of my Autumn Book Haul 2017!

I've got a lot of books from September to October - this is mainly due to the fact that I had a few Amazon UK vouchers which I've got given through my work which expired at the end of 2017 and needed to be spent! I've been trying not to buy a lot of books in the past few months as I knew that I would be needing to spend these vouchers and would be buying loadssssss of books! I've also been unhauling books just before I started this blog and I've managed to fill 2 boxes of books which I've donated to charity so far :)

I managed to get just over 30 books in total for this book haul and I've split it into 2 posts to make things easier. This is part one (obviously!) and the books featured here are mainly romance books. I'm going to list the books I've got and once I've read them and the reviews are up I'll link the reviews to the book :)

As mentioned above I did get all these off of Amazon but I got most of them through the Marketplace option where anyone can sell their copies of the item on Amazon. I use this option a lot on Amazon as you can get used books which are in "Like New" and "Very Good" condition for a lot cheaper than brand new from Amazon and is therefore a much more affordable option of buying books! Some of these are also sold through Amazon which means that you can get these items delivered on prime also.

The Cocktail Series - by Alice Clayton
Wallbanger
Rusty Nailed
Scredrivered
Mai Tai'd Up

Hacker Series - Meredith Wild
Hardwired
Hardpressed
Hardline

Losing It - Cora Carmack
Faking It - Cora Carmack
Finding It - Cora Carmack
Nuts - Alice Clayton  
Beautiful Bastard - Christina Lauren
Beautiful Stranger - Christina Lauren
Ugly Love - Colleen Hoover
It Ends With Us - Colleen Hoover
A Love Letter to Whiskey - Kandi Steiner
Unteachable - Leah Raeder
Simon and the Homosapiens Agenda
Three Dark Crowns - Kendare Blake
One Dark Throne - Kendare Blake

Once the reviews have been posted I'll attach a link to the book!

Do you have any books off this list which I need to get to ASAP? Or have you got any of these on your TBR that you can't wait to read? I'd love to hear!

Professed - Nicola Rendell Review

 "At a secret masked ball at Yale, Naomi Costa is literally swept off her stiletto-blistered feet by a man with a killer jawline, a perfect body, and an even-better kiss. They bust out of an emergency exit and have axis-shaking sex. He pours whiskey in her belly button and after they run out of condoms, they have to get creative. That kind of sex.
The next day, she learns that he is none other than Dr. Benjamin Beck, a brand new member of the Yale faculty and the hottest thing to happen to academia since… well, ever. She has to take his damned junior seminar to graduate, but it gets worse. He’s also her College Master: her boss, her advisor, her everything. And he’s just moved in, right downstairs.
They can’t stay away from each other. They're either fusion or fission or both. They’re making out in libraries, hiding notes between stones, and sneaking off to nautically themed AirBnbs. Hear that sound? It’s the academic code of ethics going up in flames.
If they're found out, he’ll lose his job and his reputation. She'll lose her scholarship and be forced to return to the life of lobster fishing that she thought she’d escaped.
And they will be found out, yes they will.
So what the hell are they going to do?"

 

This book is currently free for Kindle download on AmazonUK and Amazon US!

I downloaded this to read mainly because it sounded good and was free to download so if I didn’t like it then there was no loss. I’m so glad that I did because I absolutely loved it! This was a forbidden romance book with a student / professor relationship and is the first one I’ve read.

It starts off with a secret masked party which both Professor Beck and Naomi have been invited to and it’s here where they meet, have a night of mind blowing sex and then part ways the next day. I thought that this was a great way for them to meet except this masked party is never explained much past the first chapters of the book and although we find out that Naomi was invited because of her friend Lucy, we don’t ever find out why Professor Beck is invited – especially since it was his first night in town. The only thing I would have changed in his book was their meeting and would have probably been more realistic if they’d met in a club or something similar.

The chemistry between Ben and Naomi was obvious from the start with their night of crazy sex and although they tried to deny it, for obvious reasons, they always ended up finding themselves being drawn back together. They have a lot more lust filled sex in a lot of places; in a park and in the back of Bens car to name a few and this chemistry wasn’t going unnoticed by anyone. Dean Osgood never wanted Ben to come to Yale and a be the Master as Ben is a Bachelor and the previous Master had to be removed due to a scandal. Osgood therefore said that he’d be keeping an eye on Ben and if he sensed any scandal brewing or if Ben is breaking the rules then he’ll be gone. Naomi is also on scholarship to Yale and knows that if her and Ben get caught, that she will be out and lose her scholarship too. Obviously this creates a lot of issues with the chemistry between and the possibility of a relationship but I did feel like Dean Osgood was slightly overdone here and seemed to be on constant patrol to try and catch Ben up to something which did seem unrealistic.

I did struggle to get into it at first due to the Author’s writing style being a bit different to what I’m use to but once I got into it, I just couldn’t put it down. It seemed like every time I had to stop reading it was leaving it some sort of cliff hanger and I just had to find out what was happening next. Despite this, I didn’t feel like they’re were too many unrealistic plot twists. It was just one of those books where you needed to find out what was going to happen next with Naomi or with Ben because you were so invested.

I really wish that there was a follow up book for this because I feel like you get so engrossed in Naomi and Ben’s relationship and their lives that you want to know what happens next. I want to see how Naomi does at university, what happens with her dad and when he meets Ben, what Ben does and how their relationship progresses – especially since Ben is so much older than Naomi, as they will obviously have different 5-year plans and current aims due to their age difference and it would have been great to see how they progressed with that. 

I’d definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of teacher / student romances or even if you just like romances which involve the couple having to have a secretive relationship or must overcome something to be in their relationship. As mentioned above, this is also currently free to download for kindle on Amazon UK and Amazon US so you can always go and download it for nothing an give it go – if you don’t like it then you won’t have wasted any money! 😊

A Love Letter to Whiskey - Kandi Steiner Review

 

“It’s crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you’ve been sober for so long.
Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation — it was just us.
It was just him — the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle.
It was just me — the alcoholic, pretending like I didn’t want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn’t make me crave him any less.
But we can’t start here. No, to tell this story right, we need to go back. Back to the beginning.
Back to the very first drop. This is my love letter to Whiskey. I only hope he reads it”

I’m so happy that I’ve finally got round to reading this; I’ve seen loads of booktubers and goodreads users rave about this book so I’ve been dying to get my hands on it and read it.

This follows the story of Brecks or ”B” and Jamie and begins with them in high school and follows them through their lives until they’re 30 years old. Even though you’re following them both through such a long period, the pacing was great; it didn’t feel like anything was missed or skipped over too quickly and it really felt like you had the whole story by the end of the book which is pretty impressive considering the time span.

It’s my first book from Kandi Steiner and it has only made me want to read more. Her writing was magical and flowed so well. I wasn’t bored at any point and it was just a great, fast, emotional read. I wanted to throw the book against a wall and tear it apart and then pick it up and carry on reading it – it’s a book that will drive you crazy and you’ll want to scream at the characters because of the decisions they make and that’s what makes this so damn good.

The characters also aren’t perfect; they have their problems and had emotions like real people. It wasn’t just Jamie either who was made out ot be the dick in all this like the men normally are, B had so many issues and at quite a few points, I thought she was a major dickhead and I wanted to just shout “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” at her though the pages! There was obvious chemistry between the two of them and also a lot of built up angst and sexual chemistry so if you don’t like angsty romances then you probably won’t like this. 

I do think I ‘ruined’ it for myself – Carol from ‘the readingwallflower’ posed her review on her goodreads and she ended up DNFing for a specific reason and I couldn’t get rid of this reasoning whilst I was reading it. And this is one of the main reasons I gave this 4 stars and not 5, because I had this in the back of my mind. I’m not going to post Carol’s review but you can find it here if you want to read it after you’ve read the book, you can find it here. 

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because I think the less you know going into this the better it will be. It definitely doesn’t detract from the plot as I knew nothing going into this and realy enjoyed this! If you’re a fan of angsty, emotional, romantic reads then you should definitely pick this up!

(Amazon UK I Amazon US I Book Depository)