(ARC) Meet Cute - Helena Hunting

Kailyn Flowers was always calm, rational, and controlled-until she ended up sprawled all over Daxton Hughes, the former actor she totally crushed on as a teenager. Then she did the unthinkable: She became a mortifying fangirl in five seconds flat, which may or may not have included professing her undying love. And oddly, he didn’t run away. In fact, their meet cute led to a friendship she never saw coming. Of course, she never saw his betrayal coming, either…

Now Dax needs her help. As guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister, he’s in way over his head. And though Kailyn hasn’t forgiven Dax, she isn’t heartless enough to make him fend for himself, either. Soon their friendly meetings turn into flirty dinner dates, and Kailyn can feel their chemistry is as explosive as ever. But how can she possibly let down her guard again to a guy who has heartbreak written all over him?

While this book has already been published, I was fortunate enough to receive an extended free preview, and I can definitely say I'll be purchasing the full version. Having never read anything by Ms. Hunting, I was drawn in by a great blurb and front cover, and was instantly hooked.

While the story should always be the main feature of any novel, there are also factors that affect your enjoyment of the book, with one of the biggest being formatting. Formatting can make or break a novel, affecting the flow and reader's enjoyment. The formatting of this ebook was smooth and a fantastic flow, causing me to read all of it in one sitting. As soon as I was finished the book, I searched for it on scribd to continue, and while unfortunately not available, I will be searching for it nearby.

To the story itself, I instantly was drawn to both the hero and heroine, both written in an engaging and human way. Without giving too much away, I was slightly discouraged by the continued meet-cute with death bringing our leads together, which seems to be quite common across the romance theme, and something not entirely necessary to bring our leads together. However, for the sake of this plot line, it was needed. 

In the short 40 page preview I was given, there was comedy, romance, and drama and I simply can't wait to read more. 

Rating: 4/5

Click here to purchase from Amazon.

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(ARC) The Friend Zone - Abby Jimenez

Kristen Petersen doesn’t do drama, will fight to the death for her friends, and has no room in her life for guys who just don’t get her. She’s also keeping a big secret: facing a medically necessary procedure that will make it impossible for her to have children. Planning her best friend’s wedding is bittersweet for Kristen — especially when she meets the best man, Josh Copeland. He’s funny, sexy, never offended by her mile-wide streak of sarcasm, and always one chicken enchilada ahead of her hangry. Even her dog, Stuntman Mike, adores him. 

The only catch: Josh wants a big family someday. Kristen knows he’d be better off with someone else, but as their attraction grows, it’s harder and harder to keep him at arm’s length. 

The Friend Zone will have you laughing one moment and grabbing for tissues the next as it tackles the realities of infertility and loss with wit, heart, and a lot of sass. 

I was lucky enough to receive an extended preview for The Friend Zone. Compared to the last few years, today's romance novels are receiving more simplistic, but appealing designs, and this is no exception. While this was an extended preview and not the final draft, the formatting was slightly annoying to read, line spacing just far enough out that it pulled slightly from the flow, along with a few errors in italicization, but I'm sure these will be cleaned up for the publication. 

 Written back and forth between our hero and heroine in first person, as many romance novels do nowadays, the novel does draw you in and does provide an interesting read. Our heroine does seem a little rough around the ages, with some interesting comments. Sometimes our heroine's don't need to be rough to be tough, but every woman is unique and different, and kudos to all for different portrayals. Chemistry between our leads is already underway, with our hero already proving his moral strength. 

The extended preview does set the book up nicely, with a few big items already underway - a rival for affections, fertility issues, a car accident - and I'm intrigued to see how these progress.  

Rating: 3.5/5 

Click here to purchase from Amazon. 

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(ARC) Up Close & Personal - Kathryn Freeman

British actor Zac Edwards is the latest heartthrob to hit the red carpets. Hot, talented and rich, he sends women wild…all except one.

Close protection officer Kat Parker hasn’t got time to play celebrity games.  She has one job: to protect Zac from the stalker that seems to be dogging his every move.

Zac might get her hot under her very starched collar, but Kat’s a professional – and sleeping with Zac is no way part of her remit…

I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of this novel, with thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK. Scheduled for release on 12 June 2020, watch for it coming to a bookstore near you soon!

If you read my last review, I laid out two tests that a book has to pass - does the cover appeal, and does the inside live up to the cover? I've added one more with this novel - is it formatted correctly? Test one - I like the cover, it's appealing, cute, and sets me in mind for a light-hearted novel with a generally used trope being gender-swapped, which is always interesting to read.

Test two - does the inside live up to the cover? I'm going to say not quite on this one - but not in a bad way, just, not what I was expecting. The categories for this novel are General Fiction (Adult), and Romance. Reading the blurb and seeing the cover, I would have expected this to be mainly romance, with a bit of mystery thrown in. However, I'll confess I couldn't read this late at night because I was getting so wound up with the suspense and mystery, and I honestly found it a bit spooky. That could be because I'm a gigantic fraidy-cat, I'll own up to that, but this book was suspenseful. Yes, there was romance added in, but rather than it being a usual 80% romance, 20% suspense (or something close to that) split, I found it was more 50-50, and as mentioned, I had a hard time reading this late at night as it was making me slightly unnerved.

Test three - unfortunately this book had a few formatting errors in a few chapters that were quite noticeable and quite detracting. I'm sure this will be corrected for the final release, but unfortunately it did affect the flow in those chapters and made it difficult to keep track of what was going on, and keep absorbed in the novel.

Our characters are both quite likeable people, and both have emotional baggage that they bring to this relationship, bringing interesting, and sad, twists and turns. It was a great plot, cleverly done, and the characters were flawed, adding a great sense of realism to the novel. As mentioned above, I would note this as a 50-50 suspense/mystery/romance (although again, please note that I am a self-confessed fraidy-cat), but still a great and interesting read.

Rating: 3.5/5

Click here to purchase from Amazon (available 12th June 2020).

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(ARC) The Plus One Pact by Portia MacIntosh

What if your plus one could be the one...?

Cara has officially run out of men. Her most recent dates have gone from bad to worse, and when her dating app informs her there is no one left in her area to choose from, she is at a dead end.

But with a summer of events ahead of her, she needs to find a solution, fast; someone to keep her company at the never-ending weddings, family gatherings and gender reveal parties that she can’t face going to alone. So when she meets handsome, confident, Millsy on a night out she may be in luck. They could not be more different in personality, but he too has a summer of events ahead and is desperate to get his family off his back about finding a ‘nice girl’. What if they made a pact to help each other out and be a plus one for the summer? Just as friends of course...? 

I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of this novel, with thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books. After receiving it yesterday morning, it was promptly finished this morning at 1:21am (to be precise), because it had such a good flow and kept me guessing, that I didn't want to put it down.

Before requesting any ARC, my first test is the cover, does it appeal to me? I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but honestly, in the book world (but not in real life, definitely don't judge a book by its cover then), the cover tells you a lot about how good the book is. This novel had a very appealing cover, and thankfully the story inside lived up to the expectations.

The second test is the rest of it, and that's simply the novel itself. The notion of being a plus one to important events as friends has been around for some time, in both novels and films, but this one stood out by itself simply due to the fact that it wasn't a cookie-cutter plot-lift. Reading from one chapter to the next, I honestly couldn't figure out for some time who our leading lady was going to end up with. While typically in a romance novel the two characters mentioned on the blurb are going to end up together, there were so many side-twists and new information revealed that honestly, until about the last five or six chapters, who Cara was going to end up with wasn't clear, and I thoroughly enjoyed that.

While this is a light-hearted novel, it does cover some deeper subject matter, including the leading lady's concern about her appearance and her reasons for changing it, combined with her desire to find a partner, but not settle. Cara is a likeable character, but I found that the book was a little lighter on character development, but stronger in plot points. I would have liked to seen more character development of both our leading lady and man, rather than the realizations that occurred, which we're not always privy to prior to the change, but this is not done in a way that is overly distracting, just more of a niggle.

(Spoilers briefly ahead)

I was also a little perturbed with our leading lady's family decision to not only invite her ex-boyfriend to stay with them, but to stay in her old bedroom. The old relationship wasn't a good one, and I would hope that my family would have respected me enough not to do that. Neither of our families seemed to be perfectly on the ball, and that is real life, it's not always going to be perfect, which did add a good sense of realism here.

Overall, this was a light-hearted, fluffy romance that is perfect for a summer escape. Nothing too serious, and not simply a re-used plotline with different characters, this novel did keep me on my toes, guessing until the last quarter or less, who Cara was going to end up with. I do have to note as well that I did love the light nod to Bridget Jones, along with a few favorite tropes being utilized in a clever way. A poignant novel in parts, leading to some excellent quotes ready to go on my board, this was a great, light-hearted summer read.

Rating: 3.5/5

Click here to purchase from Amazon.

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(ARC) Crazy About Her Impossible Boss by Ally Blake

A man in a million…There’s only one problem: he’s her boss!

Single mom Lucinda Starling has lost faith in love or happy-ever-afters. She must protect the important things: her young son and her job working for entrepreneur Angus Wolfe! Her commitment phobe boss must never know she’s crazy about him! Until one evening at a conference he looks at her like she’s the only woman in the world… Dare she risk all and be tempted by Angus?

When reading Harlequin romance novels, I find that I either read 20 back to back, or leave them for a few months without reading one, there's little in between.

I picked up Ms. Blake's book, tempted by the cover (as always, despite the old adage), and by an intriguing description. As this was given to me as advanced reading copy, I was prepared for some formatting and grammatical issues, as this is not the final copy. While this is an advanced copy, I was perturbed by the formatting, leaving many words hyphenated at the end of the line, pulling the reader out of the story with the interrupted flow. Some mistakes were also present with spelling and flow again, leaving some awkward phrasing. Hopefully both of these issues will be corrected in the final proof.

To the story itself, Ms. Blake has an interesting premise and one that is typically enjoyable to this reader, but this time it did fall slightly flat. While description is always appreciated and necessary to the reader, at times there was just too much description that did not add to the story, and detracted the reader's attention from the plot point to describe something less important. Some descriptions were also slightly off in their tone, leading the reader to lose the thread of the story and focus on lengthy description. Sometimes there was also simply too much description and not enough action to move the story along.

The characters themselves kept my attention and the heroine was likeable, along with the supporting cast, but I found myself slightly annoyed with the hero and some of his actions, and would think some of his actions may not come off as well off the novel pages.

Overall, an interesting, quick read, with some edges to smooth and soften from the author, and some issues to address with the formatting of the file.

Rating: 3.5/5

Click here to buy from Amazon.

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