Posted in Spicy Romance

Merry Little Misery

By Melody Rush

Rating 4 out of 5 Stars

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Merry Little Misery is a cute grumpy/sunshine romcom that is literally between a billionaire misery consultant and a broke happiness coach. The setting is around Christmas time.

Annabelle believes joy can get anyone through anything. She often has blinders on for what is really happening underneath and Grayson doesn’t think that is how to get through life. During the story, they are forced to work together with a mutual client. As time goes on, Annabelle grows on Grayson, and he hates it. He is set on trying to sabotage Annabelle’s plans to bring back the Joy Festival.

The two eventually start gravitating towards each other, they start making out and a few spicy scenes of fooling around. There is one actual spicy scene, the rest are more behind closed doors/talk about it/mention it later kind of scenes.

This story would make a cute movie and it offers what a sweet, holiday, romcom should feel like. I do think that the billionaire was a weird add on. It never really had a purpose until towards the end of the book. I will say both characters had a lot of growth by the end. Annabelle’s family dynamic was sad, especially how they treated her. I felt that Annabelle could be snarky with other people, but when her family would say anything or make comments, she would kind of just shut down. This is how it is for a lot of people, but would have been good to happen more often and not just one major outburst.

Other than that, overall the story was a cute one. I read it very quickly. Definitely makes for a fun holiday read. I definitely recommend.

Posted in Spicy Romance

Guarded by the Spider (Monster Security Agency)

By Cassie Alexander

Rating 5 out of 5 Stars

Audiobook Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

I received a copy of this ARC to read and listen, I am leaving this review voluntarily.

First, let me preface with saying, I do not like spiders. At all. They make me pukey and give me the heebie jeebies. HOWEVER. I LOVED this book. “Nine” and Sloane are honestly perfect for each other and I could not get enough.

“Nine” is what most of the characters in the book call Nia’n’an throughout the book, he is the spider type humanoid-ish monster. He is dying because he has not found his mate. So he is sent on a mission to rescue a billionaire’s daughter who has been kidnapped. He is sent by himself, since he is dying, so as to not put any of the other team at risk for an impossible mission. They are unsure if they are bringing out Sloane alive, or as a corpse.

Sloane is probably one of my favorite FMC’s to date. She is such a strong character. She was kidnapped at her concert after it was shot up and people died. She was underground for over a month, caged like an animal, by her captors. She is taken by Nine who she can’t communicate effectively with because his translator broke. She falls in love with him quickly and does not understand its because they are fated mates. She is terrified of him, and then turned on by him. She is incredibly funny with her comments she makes, often thinking he does not understand her.

The majority of the story goes back and forth between the two of them and their self monologue. Nine definitely has those touch her and d!e vibes. I also like that he has his own organic, all natural, self made shibari rope because he just trusses Sloane right on up wherever he can make her stick. He also uses it to hold her in place during the few spicy scenes they have. There are only a couple of spicy scenes, but boy are they spicy. They each have their own self spicy scenes, Sloane can’t stop with the self pleasure because she does not know or understand it is her body’s reaction to being by her mate.

I do wish the book went on a little bit longer. Towards the end they are trying to conceive a baby and it would just be nice to know if the vial provided by Sloane’s father actually helped them produce a child, and what that child might be like. Nine is really great with other people’s kids, and I love the way he responded to her when she was upset thinking she was infertile. That entire scene had me cracking up, he was very nonchalant with his “sacs” of his baby making juice and hiding them LOL.

The narrators were *chef’s kiss*. They were very EXPRESSIVE in their scenes. The spicy scenes made you feel like you were a fly on the wall or apart of it. The duet worked really well together. I will be looking for more of their works in the future. It is Avery Caris and Jonathan Lake.

Posted in Spicy Romance

Punished by the Prince

By Elle Lacerta

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This review is kind of a tough one for me. I really want to rate this book higher, but there is so much about the book that makes me go back and forth between 3 and 4 stars.

I really like the premise of this book. It is a good idea, and if you just take the story for what it is, it is exciting and makes you want to keep reading the series to find out what happens. The end of book one left you on a cliffhanger making you want to read the next one, and that happens again with book two. I do like Iris and Rowan, and I like seeing the relationship develop. I am itching to see what Alex and Naomi are up to, because we know they are up to no good. I am excited to see what happens in the next installment.

There are different BDSM elements in the book, this book focused mostly on the punishment aspect. I felt for Iris’ first punishment, it was a bit intense.

Ultimately, my biggest issue with the book is the overall editing. It doesn’t have grammatical/spelling errors and such, but it is the actual content itself. It is hard to tell how much time actually passes because the narrative jumps around. For instance, she is in class at the Academy for magic learning, and it talks about a class she is in. It goes on for a bit with her learning, and then it says “The day went on, and Iris managed to make it through her classes,” and then it immediately goes back to the class she was in and the class finishes. After an incident when the class finished, it then jumps back to talking about the rest of her day. It does this a lot, there are several scenes where I felt confused, this is just one example. The library scene was another example of being all over the place. I know the author is working on editing some of the books, but this is really my only and biggest critique of the stories so far. It just really needs cleaned up and fine tuned.

Posted in Spicy Romance

Petals & Promises

by Elizabeth Knight

Rated 4 out of 5 Stars

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book is the second part following up from Clouds and Daydreams. The first book ends on a cliffhanger, and this book picks up right where it was left off.

I want to start with my negative feelings first. I thought the whole Randall situation was handled too quickly. So much of the book focused on fixing two of the alphas and their relationship with their families or bringing closure etc, that the entire end and finale to the Randall situation happened way too fast. I feel this way because so much of the story and Bailey-Rose’s trauma and fears stem from the abuse and situation from book 1. I can’t believe I am about to say this, but I wish there were more non-spicy intimate scenes. There are so many spicy scenes, some of them almost feel kind of forced and I just quickly read through them. There were some great non-physical intimacy scenes, and I just wish there was more of that as well in there. Because they all deserve that for sure.

I really love Bailey Rose. I love her child like energy and her view of the world. I love that she has overcome so much, and she just keeps trucking along. It was fun watching her experience new firsts that she has never been able to do because of her heart condition. I also like how each of the alphas meet a specific need and compliment each other, making it cohesive. This book truly was meant to heal and grow for everyone.

Finally, I am looking forward to reading Eli’s book!! I want him and Crew to have their own HEA now that Bailey Rose doesn’t have to be so sheltered.