(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

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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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