Blog Tour: Can't Escape Love by Alyssa Cole (Excerpt, Teaser)

Alyssa Cole delivers another fun, sexy romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series!

Regina Hobbs is nerdy by nature, businesswoman by nurture. She's finally taking her pop culture-centered media enterprise, Girls with Glasses, to the next level, but the stress is forcing her to face a familiar supervillain: insomnia. The only thing that helps her sleep when things get this bad is the deep, soothing voice of puzzle-obsessed live streamer Gustave Nguyen. The problem? His archive has been deleted.

Gus has been tasked with creating an escape room themed around a romance anime…except he knows nothing about romance or anime. Then mega-nerd and anime expert Reggie comes calling, and they make a trade: his voice for her knowledge. But when their online friendship has IRL chemistry, will they be able to escape love?

About the Book

Can't Escape Loveby Alyssa Cole
SeriesReluctant Royals
GenreAdult
Contemporary Romance
PublisherAvon Impulse
Publication DateMarch 19, 2019
Purchase Your Copy Today!
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Blog Tour: Just Swipe Right by Allie York

Release Tour for JUST SWIPE RIGHT by Allie York

Brought to you by Forever Write PR

Magazine columnist Eliza Donovan let her sister sign her up for a dating app which is so not her thing. Chef Murphy Cormac needed a dramatic change, so a big city move leaves him looking for love. An unexpected match has Eliza and Murphy questioning whether or not it is meant to be. Fans of love triangles will love this quick and will they, won’t they read. The third book in the highly anticipated 425 Madison series is now live! Read JUST SWIPE RIGHT by Allie York today.

Only on Amazon + Read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon ➝ https://rebrand.ly/JSR_425Madison

Goodreads ➝ http://bit.ly/425Mad3JSR

About Just Swipe Right

Eliza
My life is perfect. I have a luxurious apartment and my dream job. I also have a sister willing to sign me up for a dating app against my better judgment. I promise her one week before the app is deleted forever.

All it takes is one week before I’m matched with two amazing men and my perfect life becomes a perfect disaster.

Murphy
I needed a drastic change and I got it. My move from the middle of nowhere to the city lands me in a classy part of town with an upscale job. All I need is a personal life to match. So, I join the masses and download an app.

A match with the woman of my dreams has me considering a future. The only problem is that I’m not the only one wanting to make her mine.

After all, 425 Madison Avenue is the perfect place to fall in love.

*Each story is completely standalone.

Book Review: Can't Escape Love by Alyssa Cole

Can't Escape Love

Author: Alyssa Cole
Series: Reluctant Royals, book 3.5
Publisher: Avon Impulse (March 19, 2019)
eBook, 128 pages
Goodreads     |     Amazon

Summary
Regina Hobbs is nerdy by nature, businesswoman by nurture. She's finally taking her pop culture-centered media enterprise, Girls with Glasses, to the next level, but the stress is forcing her to face a familiar supervillain: insomnia. The only thing that helps her sleep when things get this bad is the deep, soothing voice of puzzle-obsessed live streamer Gustave Nguyen. The problem? His archive has been deleted.

Gus has been tasked with creating an escape room themed around a romance anime…except he knows nothing about romance or anime. Then mega-nerd and anime expert Reggie comes calling, and they make a trade: his voice for her knowledge. But when their online friendship has IRL chemistry, will they be able to escape love?

Book Review: My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

My Favorite Half-Night Stand

Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books (December 4, 2018)
Paperback, 384 pages
Goodreads     |     Amazon

Summary
Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.

So when a routine university function turns into a black tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic.

But online dating isn’t for the faint of heart. While the guys are inundated with quality matches and potential dates, Millie’s first profile attempt garners nothing but dick pics and creepers. Enter “Catherine”—Millie’s fictional profile persona, in whose make-believe shoes she can be more vulnerable than she’s ever been in person. Soon “Catherine” and Reid strike up a digital pen-pal-ship...but Millie can’t resist temptation in real life, either. Soon, Millie will have to face her worst fear—intimacy—or risk losing her best friend, forever.

Blog Tour: A Prom to Remember by Sandy Hall (Review)

A Prom to Remember

Author: Sandy Hall
Publisher: Fiewel & Friends
Published: April 24, 2018
Kindle, 320 pages
Rating: 5 Stars
★★★★★
Goodreads  Amazon

Summary

Seven seniors, seven problems, one senior prom.

Cora: Head of the Prom Committee (and basically every other club in school). Has been dating Perfect Boyfriend Jamie™ for approximately forever, and has NO IDEA how to break up with him....

Paisley: Sarcastic feminist who wants nothing to do with prom. Has somehow managed to nominate her anxiety-ridden best friend for prom king...

Henry: Quiet ballplayer who hates social situations. Invited to prom by the most popular girl in school. SEND HELP!

Otis: Charming, popular, and one half of one of the cutest couples in his class. Doesn't know how to tell his boyfriend that he's not quite ready for a post-prom hotel room experience...

Lizzie: A little bit shy, and a lot excited to finally get out of her comfort zone and go to prom. With a boy. Whose name she doesn't know.

Cameron: Loner with two jobs and zero friends. Is so done with high school and this whole town: the only thing he still wants to do is meet the mysterious girl who's been leaving him notes...

Jacinta: Unnamed Nerd Girl #3. Determined to become the star of her own life, starting with prom. Now if only she could find a date....

A Prom to Remember, the newest book from Sandy Hall (author of A Little Something Different) is a funny and cinematic look at the biggest dance of every high schooler's life.

Review

This book is so cute. There are about a million main characters, and they're all so different and so great in a wide variety of ways. I am torn if I love Paisley and Henry or Lizzie and Cameron most. Jacinta is also great. Oh, and so is Cora. And also Otis and Luke. And Madison, LOL. …Dangit.

This is told from the point of view of a bunch of different seniors in high school starting when they get back from spring break at the end of April all the way up to their prom night on June 1. (Thankfully NOT in the first person POV, or I'd have gone bonkers trying to follow it…) Normally I'd be a little put off by how MANY "main" characters there are, but they're all such individuals and so interesting. Jacinta feels like a side character in her own life, Paisley and Henry clearly have some social/mental issues (Man, is Paisley fantastic), Cora has been with her boyfriend basically since 7th grade and is just realizing she needs space to discover who she is, Cameron is adjusting to life after closing himself off after his mom remarried, Otis is feeling his way through what it means to be gay in high school with his boyfriend Luke (and what Luke getting a hotel on prom night means for their relationship), Lizzie is a plus-sized worker at a food court restaurant that only sells baked potatoes and has a "double-blind" relationship with someone that she communicates with using only a shared classroom laptop. Who am I forgetting? :D

This book is so light-hearted and fun, like fizzy champagne bubbles and that gooey cheese on bowling alley pizza. That is how this book is. (Yes, I'm aware the description makes little to no sense. Just go with it.) The ending left me smiling a big, dorky grin and wishing I could relive my own prom experience (which involved driving a bunch of friends in my parents' big ugly blue conversion van, and making up dances we called things like "The Giraffe Dance" and "The Llama Dance"). Read this book for a light-hearted, fun, low-angst, quasi-drama-filled read that will leave you feeling all gooey and bubbly. <3

About the Author: Sarah Hall

I’m a teen librarian from New Jersey where I was born and raised. I have a BA in Communication and a Master of Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. When I’m not writing, or teen librarian-ing, I enjoy reading, slot machines, marathoning TV shows, and long scrolls through Tumblr. A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT is my first novel.

Website Goodreads Facebook Twitter

Book Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments

Author: Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: Plume
Published: March 27, 2017 (Reprint edition)
Paperback, 336 pages
Rating: 5 stars
★★★★★
Goodreads  Amazon
Summary: "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "
From the award-winning author of Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, and Landline comes a hilarious and heartfelt novel about love in the workplace.

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say...?

Review: Gosh, this book is so cute. I love the format of having a one chapter be the email chain between Beth and Jennifer, and then the next chapter be Lincoln's reaction and his life after checking said email in the email filtering software. So the book really follows Lincoln as the main character, though it also seems like Beth and Jennifer are also main characters because there is such a focus on their emails back and forth. It definitely kept me intrigued and I had to keep reading to see what happened next.

I had a very specific image of Lincoln in my head, and when suddenly the book started throwing descriptions of him at me halfway through the book and they didn't match the Lincoln in my head AT ALL, I was thrown for a bit of a loop and had to readjust my mental image. That being said, GOSH. Swoon and a half. Who doesn’t love a nerdy guy who shares his dinner with an old lady, and end up being BFFs with her? Such cute, much aww. Beth and Jennifer were also interesting (though Jennifer would drive me CRAZY if she was my friend). I'd totally be friends with Beth in a heartbeat. And as someone who has a standing Tuesday night D&D game, Lincoln and I would clearly be buds as well.

I really enjoyed this book, and it was super hard for me to put down. It's a cliché, but it really DID keep me up way past my bedtime. Reading this book felt to me what going to work and checking the email filter for correspondence between Beth and Jennifer must feel like for Lincoln, which of course just made me feel like I connected to the characters on yet another level, making me still more invested in the book and the characters. Tricky, Rainbow Rowell. Verrrrry tricky.

Book Review: Hotline (Murmur Inc #1) by Quinn Anderson

Rating: 3 Stars

 

Published October 29th 2016 by Riptide Publishing
Summary: Zack never intended to become a phone sex operator, but with half a college degree and a smart mouth, his options were limited. It helps that he has a knack for thinking on his feet and a willingness to roll with whatever his clients throw at him. Sure, he gets his fair share of creeps and unconventional requests, but it pays the bills, and he’s in no danger of breaking his one rule: never fall for a client.

Until a man named “John” starts calling, and Zack finds himself interested in more than a paycheck. It’s not just that John has money, or that his rumbling baritone drives Zack wild. He’s everything Zack isn’t: educated, poised, and in total control of his life.

A twist of fate brings them face-to-face, and now that they’ve seen each other—and spent an unforgettable night together—they can’t go back to the way things were. A sex worker and a trust fund brat . . . It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but with less stabbing and slightly fewer dick jokes. Hopefully they can pull off a more successful ending.
(from Goodreads)

Review: This book is HOT. I just had to start off by saying that. Like, on a scale from the steam your humidifier in your bedroom puts out when you've got a cold and your classes fogging up when you step out of the Minnesota winter and into a sauna, this is definitely fog-your-glasses-over territory. I'm pretty sure I was blushing furiously through about half of this book, to the point where my husband peered at me suspiciously and asked what I was reading. And I read a LOT of romance, much of which is pretty steamy! But I suppose when one of the main characters is a phone sex operator and the other is his client, it's bound to get pretty, er, steamy. (OK me, stop saying "steamy" now.)

I actually stumbled across this book because I saw the third book in the series, Cam Boy, on NetGalley (and was declined for a review copy, boo!) I was so intrigued by the description of the third book that I went and bought this one, the first in the series. Can I just say, I love this cover? It's not super special, but I just LIKE it. I also appreciate how they carry out the heart for an O in the titles for the covers of the next two books as well, Action and Cam Boy.

I really liked this book, even though I wanted to smack Zack upside the head a few times. I felt like John didn't have a whole lot of personality, but perhaps that's because the focus of the book follows Zack. I enjoy romances the most when they get inside the heads and hearts of BOTH leads, rather than just giving you insight into one of them, and I feel that more from John's point of view would have given this the extra oomph it needed to be a five star read. As it was, it was still really enjoyable, and I appreciated the zany cast of characters, especially Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez and Zack's doggy Ziggy.

While this is a series, each book is a stand alone that is loosely intertwined/related, much like many romance "series." You can absolutely read just this one and not be forced to wait on tenterhooks for the rest of the series. I'm also tagging this in my "online romance" shelf, because it has elements of that trope due to the nature of their telephone relationship...