Tag: alpha

Contemporary · Romance

Lady luck – Kristen Ashley

Book Chick1 Comment

18869204.jpg| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Is love in the cards?

Since birth, Lexie Berry has had nothing but bad luck. Orphaned at an early age, she had a rough childhood and a boyfriend who was murdered. Now the beautiful, stylish Lexie is determined to change her luck and her life. But first she’s got to make good on a promise: to pick up Ty Walker from prison. One look at the gorgeous ex-convict and Lexie knows she’s in trouble-and already thinking about taking a walk on the wild side . . .

For five years, Ty was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he wants revenge on the people who framed him. Yet when the high-stakes poker player sees the leggy Lexie, he suddenly has other desires on his mind. Realizing that Ty is innocent, Lexie tries to stop his plan for vengeance and help him become a better man. But as Ty battles his inner demons, dirty cops and criminals plot to take him out. Can he and Lexie find a way to escape the past?

Untitled

My thoughts: I love, love, LOVED it. It is so incredible that I do not know how I will be able to put it into words.

I can’t understand how Kirsten Ashley keeps spit out fantastic books with wonderful characters without it ever being boring. I’m serious! Not once in it was I feeling bored. I should have. It is 500+ pages with a lot of things happening, a lot of characters and a lot of details. But no, never and it was amazing.

I love Lexie and how goofy she is. She made me smile more times than I can count and was genuinely funny. KA did an astonishing work with her and she is (on top of mind) my favorite female character so far. And Ty is just that brilliant, hard, grumpy mountain man but it didn’t took long for Lexies goofiness to bring out that warm, sticky core you just know is there because, come on, it is a KA book after all.

The storyline and plot fits perfectly with the history of the characters and nicely in with the previous books. It is some suspense, a lot of romance and a real feel good book. It is such a winner and one of those “You just have to read it”. It is an emotional roller coaster but it is so worth it in the end.

Adult fiction/Erotica · Chick Lit · Humor/Funny · Mystery/Crime · Romance · Suspense

Sweet Dreams – Kristen Ashley

Book Chick2 Comments

18656253| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: She’s ready for the ride of her life . . . 

Lauren Grahame is looking to reinvent herself. After leaving her cheating husband, Lauren moves to Carnal, Colorado, and gets a job as a waitress in a biker bar called Bubba’s. It’s a nothing job in a nowhere joint . . . until Tatum Jackson walks in. Lauren has never seen a man with such good looks, muscles, and attitude. But when he insults her, Lauren doesn’t want anything to do with him. Too bad for Lauren he’s also the bar’s part owner and bartender.

When the rough-around-the-edges Tate meets the high-class Lauren, he thinks she won’t fit in at Bubba’s. Yet there’s more to Lauren than meets the eye, and Tate soon sets his mind on claiming her as his own. Before long, the desire burning between them is heating up the cold mountain air. But when violence strikes the town, Tate must reveal a dark secret to Lauren-one that may put an end to their sweet dreams.

Untitled

My thoughts: Overall I would like to describe the book as deep, complex characters, complicated, thrilling, butterflies in my stomach, knock me on my head, god damn perfect with that satisfying ending, horrible tearful chapters and beautiful closing. I can’t enough English words to try explain what I’m feeling. But for me, this book, was pure perfection and exactly what I needed, wanted and sought.

KA is starting to be an addiction. I literally have to prevent myself from binge reading all her books. That is how good she is. And this is as usual a book who takes hold of you from the first page. It hooked me and never let go. I’m happy I started reading this only a day before the weekend because work at Friday was awful. I could not stop thinking about the book. I dreamed about it in the nights and on the days I only wanted to look myself in my home, abandon society, all my responsibilities, sleep and food. All I wanted was Lauren and Tatum.

It is a sweet story really. I love the characters and how diverse they were. Ashley is such a great author who writes these perfect characters that are deep, complicated and so easy to love or hate. I get invested in all her books and it is like I know them. I connected so hard with this one that when I ended the book, I could not stand starting a new romantic book right now. That is how huge impression this book, these characters and their story made on me. I can only say, read it! Hopefully you will to, love it.

Contemporary · Romance

Rock chick revolution – Kristen Ashley

Book Chick1 Comment

15752757| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Ally Nightingale has secrets. Secrets she doesn’t even share with the Rock Chicks. But two men know what she’s up to. One has her back. The other has her heart, but he doesn’t know it.

As Ally rewinds the last year of her life, she knows two things. One, she’s never going to get what every Rock Chick should have—her own Hot Bunch guy. And two, she’s a Nightingale through and through. She just isn’t sure what to do about that.

But as her secrets are revealed, the men in her life react. Darius Tucker, a lifelong friend, as usual takes her back. Ren Zano, the man she loves, isn’t quite so sure. The Rock Chicks, Hot Bunch and the entire gang at Fortnum’s weigh in, and a Rock Chick Revolution starts brewing.

It’s up to Ally to control it and prove what she knows down to her bones.

She’s a Rock Chick, she deserves her hot guy and she’s going to keep the one she wants…

Because she’s a Nightingale.

Untitled

My thoughts:I have been waiting and looking forward to Allys story through out the whole series. This is the eight book and since she has been a big part of the Rock Chick buildup and that her character have had pretty big parts in the earlier books, I thought I knew her pretty well. I was however pleased to learn that there was more to her than I first thought. She is probably the deepest character in the whole series. You get to know her on a completely other lever since you get to follow her and her action/reaction to the other Rock Chicks Sh*t going down.

The book is build a little different than the others. Here, Ren is already in her life and Ally is not in that kind of trouble as the other Rock Chicks have been in there own books. The plus with this is that the whole relationship buildup and fights, is pretty short, done and over with. Then certainly gets old after seven books so I was pleased. When the story really starts (after highlights of the last 13 months) it is more steady, calm but not in any other way less hot than what you are used to in the other books. The story is also a little more personal than what I would expect and it was nice. Refreshing. But in no other way bad.

The biggest problem I have is that is is a little to slow. There is to many things going on, but no one is really deep or action filled. I missed the suspense. I missed the nail biting, sitting on the edge, shaking my knees feeling that I was expected. I can certainly understand why it took KA 5 years to resume the Rock Chick series, since this was like an ending. It was done and the action is over with. No more hot bunch and no more Denver kickass. Since KA has a lot of other books and the few I have read, I have loved I do not see that as bad thing. But now, after this one I do understand why she never tried to continue it, until earlier this year.

I fair warning, this book did produce a lot of tears from me. Good tears, but still tears and there was a lot of different feelings in a lot of different levels. Just so you know. 😉

Contemporary · Romance

The Gamble – Kristen Ashley

Book Chick4 Comments

18246040| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Love is the greatest gamble of all…

Nina Sheridan desperately needs a timeout vacation. With a fiancé who can’t even remember how she takes her coffee, Nina wants some distance to rethink her engagement. Flying halfway around the world from England to a mountain town in Colorado should do the trick. But when she finds a gorgeous man at her rental cabin, Nina’s cold, lonely adventure suddenly heats up.

The owner of the house, Holden “Max” Maxwell is surprised by the beautiful woman who turns up at his door. But when Nina becomes ill, Max spends days nursing her back to health. A private man with a broken heart, Max finds himself drawn to the strong-willed woman. Soon it becomes impossible for Nina and Max to deny their growing attraction to one another. Yet even as these two wounded lovebirds think about taking a chance on a relationship, a dangerous secret from Max’s past emerges-and threatens to end their love for good.

Untitled

My thoughts: O my heart, please calm down! This book was all kinds of sweet and adorable. Right into your heart, knock you on the ass, wonderful. What it is with Kristen Ashley and her books that leaves you with this warm, fuzzy feelings when you are done. She is certainly a great storyteller and even though I felt this one was somewhat predictable, I didn’t mind. Because I was lost and cozy deep in the story and loved my journey to the end even though I had pretty much figured it all out.

KA is a fantastic writer with the ability to write great Heroes and Heroines you can not do other than love. Specially the guys. I loved Max. I loved how real he was. With his history, life and courage. I’m not a big fan on the the dead spouse plot, but it did work in this book. It didn’t get a lot of focus which I believe is the reason for that it worked. I really liked Nina too, though she was a little to immature for a grown woman in the middle of her thirties and with the bad history and experience as she had, I feel she should have been able to handle some stuff a lot better than she did. But I could ignore it for the most part and just enjoy her and Max and the story unfolding. There is also some great second characters and side plot unfolding beside the main one. There is also another small love story at the side and it is just wonderful to take part of it.

This is a book that sucks you in. You do not have a choice. And when done, you also want your own A-frame in a Colorado mountain with your own Mountain main. I do not have a A-frame in the Colorado mountain and will probably never have since I then have to move to the other side of the world. Fortunately, I already have my Mountain man so i’m okay with that.

Contemporary · Romance · Suspense · War/Military

Blind Ambition – Gwen Hernandez

Book Chick1 Comment

25156320.jpg| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: IT’S ABOUT TO GET HOT IN THE JUNGLE

Rescuing a kidnapped aid worker from St. Isidore’s dangerous rebels is just another day at work for former pararescueman Dan Molina. But his mission falls apart when the woman—who once shattered his heart—refuses to leave the island.

Alexa Alyssandratos can’t return to her life as a nurse on the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean island, but she won’t leave until she’s certain the orphans she cared for—especially one sick little girl—are safe from the rebels. Denied their ransom, a would-be dictator and his soldiers are hunting Alexa, and Dan is the only person who can protect her. Old passions reignite as she and Dan race to save the children before they disappear forever.

Untitled

My thoughts: Okay, So I’m going to make this review short, because I have a feeling that if I think about this book to long, the more fault I will find with it. And I enjoyed the book and do not wish to make it worse in my mind than it already is.

In many ways this is a hot story. We meet Alexa, who have devoted her life to other people. She is a nurse in a corrupt and broken society on a little island outside of Haiti. When she is kidnapped by the rebels, her estranged father calls in the only man she regret she ever left, but she (in her mind) had her reasons and due to that, had to hurt him. Bad! Dan, who have spent the last three years getting his life back on track after the whole Alexa catastrophe, reluctantly takes on the mission to go in and save her. But she has a mind of her own, refuses to follow the plan and leave without the one person she has allowed into her heart. And Dan has no other choice than to help.

It was a great story and I really like those plots that’s are about a couple, running from bad guys, in the jungle and uses what they have with and around them to survive. I find it highly exciting and I love to sit in my couch, safe and sound, reading about that couple running for their life and do MacGyver tricks to survive. Unfortunately my biggest problem with this book is that constant rant about how she hurt him, how he hurt her, how she doesn’t deserve better, how he doesn’t deserve someone like her and it goes on and on and on. All the reasons are legit but I do however feel that Dan maybe have been overreacting and all that happened after is entirely his fault. And that Alexa’s reasons may be a little too far fetch but hey, what do I know? But done is done and I do understand that. However it was tiring and tedious to read it over and over. There was no end. Not even at the end of the book, but it is still somewhat of an Happy Ending.

So I give the book a three star rating. It is a good book but not a great book.

Chick Lit · Contemporary · Humor/Funny · Romance

Neanderthal seeks human – Penny Reid

Book Chick3 Comments

17673307| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: There are three things you need to know about Janie Morris: 1) She is incapable of engaging in a conversation without volunteering TMTI (Too Much Trivial Information), especially when she is unnerved, 2) No one unnerves her more than Quinn Sullivan, and 3) She doesn’t know how to knit.

After losing her boyfriend, apartment, and job in the same day, Janie Morris can’t help wondering what new torment fate has in store. To her utter mortification, Quinn Sullivan- aka Sir McHotpants- witnesses it all then keeps turning up like a pair of shoes you lust after but can’t afford. The last thing she expects is for Quinn- the focus of her slightly, albeit harmless, stalkerish tendencies- to make her an offer she can’t refuse.

Untitled

My thoughts: Sometime I wish that GoodReads had the function to choose half stars when it comes to rating. Because this is one of those books that are more a 4 star in rating than a 2 but did not quite reach all the way. So more like 3,5. It is a good book, I liked it, but the 300 + pages of self esteem rant totally destroyed it for me.

Janie is a great character. She is a little naive, stuck in her own head and do not have the best ways to handle feelings. She is witty, a lot insecure and a lot more “girl” than what you first would think. And by that I mean, that constant rant about how “big” she is, tall, big feet, big hands, big ass, big hair and so on. Everything is big with her. She is according to herself not beautiful, and definitely not in a league for a good looking man like Quinn. And when she is done ranting about her body, she goes on to her mind and personality. She is freaky, she talks to much, she can’t flirt, she know too much uninteresting trivia, she is uncontrollably gabby, and on and on and on. And when she is done with that, she starts to rant about events, what she did that particular event and what the persons there did, reacted and so on. I do understand low self esteem. Been there, done that and at some ways still are fighting with it. Everybody does! But there is a limit of how big part of a book it should take. I’m not a big fan of mental insecurity and angst. Some can be great. Too much I just feel I want to punch the character in question and say “there is more to life than this”. It should not take over. And here it takes it all.

If we scaled it back like 50% but kept the rest of the story, I would probable be a five star, freaking loved the book, book. So that’s too bad. Reid did however do a great job with not including Quinn in this rant. He did not confirm or deny her verbal rants. (The most of them was mental though). I loved that he didn’t try to change her toughs through words, but by action. And he kept asking her, pushing her out of her shell and genuinely was intrigued by her mind and personality. So the rants did ease up a bit towards the end. It is a great love story where there is more than a female with hot sexy body and a alpha caveman, with psychotic tendency. Besides, I did learn a lot of facts since Janie is a trivia nut and talk about a lot I didn’t know but now do.

Great story. Funny. Loved the way it started. The whole situation with family and friends was funny and awesome. Was some angst, but not much and it was quickly over. Loved that there was several bad situations but they had not much to do with each other. There is no cliff-hanger, nicely tided together in the end! Can be a great series to follow. Not every girl in this series is like Janie I hope. One is enough.

Contemporary · Mystery/Crime · Romance

Beating Ruby – Camilla Monk

Book Chick1 Comment

30212829| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Life hasn’t been quite the same for computer engineer Island Chaptal since March, an OCD-ridden professional killer, burst into her life to clean her bedroom and take her on a global chase for a legendary diamond. Sadly, the (hit) man doesn’t just break bones; he breaks hearts, too.

Since then, Island has found solace in Alex—the perfect boyfriend—and Ruby, a software project about to revolutionize online banking security…for the worse. When Island’s boss is found dead after allegedly using Ruby to steal a vast fortune, it’s up to her to clear his name and recover the money. Someone else wants answers, though, and this time, Island might be in over her head.

From New York to Zürich, it’s going to take the return of a cleaning expert, a mini-octopus, and Island’s wits to beat Ruby. All while deciding whether to trust a man who already jilted her, or one who may have his own deadly secrets…

Untitled

My thoughts: This is the second book in the Spotless series. It is not a standalone and you will have to read the first book before this one to really understand some of the references. I would recommend that you do not read this review either if you haven’t read the first one, since it will be a little “spoilerish”. There are things I can’t discuss without referring to the first book. You do not have to worry if you already have read the first book.

You have been warned!

In this book we gets to follow Island, 6 months after the Tokyo fiasco and finally in a good place again. Then her boss goes and kill himself, her big project gets stolen and there is something that doesn’t feel right to her. As a new, stronger, woman she sets out to try and find the truth about what really happened, but she finds more truth than she had barged for. Then in walk March and you could say that the whole situation gets a 100 times worse. Or better. Depends on your point of view.

I can’t say that this book is as good as the first one, but it is still good. Not as fast paced and explosive but still entertaining. It was nice to meet all the characters again. The whole March and Alex situation is certainly entertaining but still a little hard to wrap my mind around. It was not until the end that I really understood what have been going on the whole book. By then I felt some things could have been changed on, written in another way to give the story a little more depth about those three characters. There is no cliffhanger per say, but still an indication that there will be a third book. Now I know that it already exists a third, but at one point there wasn’t. You can see that in the book. I do however not like Islands passivity in this book. She stands in situations with blind eyes and takes no action until the end.

I think the third book will be really entertaining and I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to have some explosive action, quirky characters, secrets, funny humor and heartwarming love.

Romance · Suspense · War/Military

Blind Fury – Gwen Hernandez

Book Chick1 Comment

20878943| GOODREADS | AMAZON | My rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodread synopsis: When always-play-it-safe Jenna Ryan starts questioning how her brother died in Afghanistan, someone decides she must be stopped. Permanently. Her brother’s best friend—a sexy thrill-seeker she can’t stop thinking about—won’t reveal what he knows about the fatal shoot-out, putting Jenna at odds with the only man she trusts to keep her alive.

Former special forces operator Mick Fury would give his life to keep his best friend’s irresistible sister safe. He took an oath to stay silent about their last mission, but Mick’s will is tested by the white-hot attraction to Jenna he’s tried to ignore for years. Now he must risk everything—even falling in love—to protect her from the truth that could destroy them both.

My thoughts: First book in a new series for me and I was actually pretty exciting to start it. I love this kind of romance books with an “soft” alpha male, military and suspense stories. It´s an emotional book with a really good start but then it get kind ow slow and in the end when it started to get really thrilling, I was just done. Done with the slow paste between Jenna and Mick, done with the yes/no situations that are all the way through the book.

Mostly it is not a big deal for me, but Jenna was totally destroying it for me. I understand that the history between her and Mick was not that easy but come on. I just wanted to hope in the book and shout to Jenna “grow some freaking spine”. I was totally on Micks side. I understood his reasons and that it was not easy for him. She knew that. He told her, and still she had to act like a immature teenager.

But other than that I did like the story. I liked that the “mystery” was totally believable and the end made me considerably more open to read the next book in the series.