This was a sweet little friends to lovers novella. To be honest I haven't read any of this author's work before but when I read the blurb it sounded right up my alley. And it kind of was but I think there was a little too much going on for me.

I know that sounds odd but the actual couple had a lot going on and then there was a bit going on in the background with Knightly's brothers that are probably part of another book and the tease did make me a little curious. But since I wasn't really a fan of the brothers and I doubt they will be hit by a bus I might leave it for now.

But anyway back to Knightly and Heath. They were so good together but both of them were so busy trying to hide their feelings for each other that they didn't see how the other felt. And even though Heath's daughter was a total cutie I didn't get the single dad angle I wanted.

I sound like such a cry baby right now but like I said this was a sweet novel and I did enjoy it. I just went into it wanting it a certain way and it went a different direction and I didn't get on board enough to love it.


Everyone knows the girl is off limits. But it's so good to be bad.

There's this girl...
Heidi and I have been trading hungry looks all year, and everything she does makes me smile. But I don't do girlfriends, and I certainly can't get involved with the league commissioner's daughter. I need shots on goal, not a hookup and a widely misunderstood paparazzi photo.
Can I resist her, though? The way she teases me should be a game penalty for interference with my libido.


There's this guy...
Jason wants me, but he won't admit it. That man looks at me the way a hockey player eyes the lunch buffet after practice--and I love it.
But when victory is finally within my grasp, I blow it and humiliate myself. Even then I can't even avoid him--as the team intern, I'm in constant view of his hard body and cocky smile.
I need another chance. Jason Castro is about to learn the true meaning of an overnight sensation.

 

EXCERPT!

 
I’m used to being a good girl. I never refuse Daddy’s calls, and I never drink shots of tequila with the team in the bar.
Tonight, though? It’s time for a change. Take that, Daddy. And who knew I could slug back tequila like a party girl?
The problem is that I don’t know what to do next. I’ve never had a one-night stand. And every time Jason looks me up and down with those sinful eyes, I feel a little thrill of excitement.
And—fine—nerves. Although the tequila will help with that.
Besides, when you need a job done right, you’re supposed to hire an expert. And that’s what I want from Jason Castro. He’s the most notorious hookup artist on the team. He’s hot as blazes, and a real smooth-talker. I like everything about him, from his rich, bronze-toned skin to his hypnotic brown eyes.
He can talk me through it. I’m a quick study.
And I’m not a virgin. There have been boyfriends—four of them. But not one of them ever managed to… There’s no polite way to say it. Nice Southern girls aren’t supposed to speak in detail about sex. But let’s just say I’ve never been very satisfied by my sexual experiences so far.
So this is not an opportunity to be squandered. In fact, it’s time to up the ante. Just because I don’t have a whole lot of experience seducing men doesn’t mean I’m clueless about life in general.
Slowly, I ease my body a little closer to his. Two inches, maybe. Then I smile at him.
And—holy heck—the results are instantaneous. His eyes sweep down my body. And it’s almost as if he touched me with his hands, too. I feel that gaze burning me up everywhere it lands. Then he looks up again and gives me a hot smile. We’re having an entire conversation without words.
This is a revelation. I feel bold and a little wild.
“So what happens next, Hot Pepper?” he asks.
Oh my. That thumping sound is my heart taking off like a jackrabbit running a fifty-yard dash. I thought I had some more time to get used to the idea before we actually made our move.
“Are you gonna stay in Brooklyn and finish your internship, even if it causes family strife?”
“Oh,” I say slowly, because, whoops! I’m the one who’s gotten ahead. “I’ll stick with the internship. Heck, yes. I have no marketable skills.” My internship doesn’t pay very much. But I can live in Daddy’s Manhattan apartment and ride the subway to work.
“Good for you,” Jason says.
“It’s an easy decision,” I agree. “I need to start living differently, or I’m in danger of spending the rest of my life trying to please other people.”
“That’s no good,” he agrees. We’re still standing way too close together, and we’re still flirting. But I can tell he’s actually listening.
“I was deeply unhappy at school last year. And my parents didn’t care. You know what’s funny?” I can hear myself talking too much, but his attentiveness encourages me. “When I was a teenager I actually took classes on how to please people. It’s called charm school.”
His deep laugh vibrates through my belly. “To learn to be charming? I can already tell you got an A-plus.”
“That’s natural ability,” I tease. “But they taught us etiquette—which fork to use first and how to set a table for six courses. How to daintily remove an olive pit from your mouth. How to introduce two people when there’s an imbalance of power.”
“How do you do that?” he asks, leaning in just a few millimeters closer.
“You’re supposed to address the person of higher rank first. ‘Mr. Important Person, I would like to introduce Mr. Lesser-person.’ And then you offer any further details that are appropriate to the situation.” I can smell his aftershave. It’s clean and spicy. I have the strangest urge to lean in and kiss his angular jaw.
“Who knew?” He moves imperceptibly closer. “And now I’m wondering how many times I’ve been put in my place like that without realizing it.”
“Oh, please,” I tease him. “Try being the office intern for a day. I might as well wear a nametag that says, Hello My Name Is Lesser Person.”
“What else did they teach you at charm school?”
“How to foxtrot. The proper way to phrase a wedding invitation. Penmanship. How to dance with a boy you don’t like in order to save his feelings. In other words, how to be a good girl even when you don’t want to be.” The more I think about it, the more it sounds like brainwashing.
“Hmm,” Jason whispers. We’re so close together now that the word vibrates against my cheek. And then he leans in and lets his lips coast past my temple. It’s so faint that it can’t even be called a kiss. But it makes me shiver just the same.
No wonder this man gets any woman he wants. I’m practically quivering for him, and he hasn’t even kissed me.
Then his voice drops low, and he asks, “Would you rather be a bad girl, Heidi?”
Holy heck in a handbag! It’s the cheesiest line ever, but my girl parts shimmy all the same.
And then he puts his mouth right beside my ear. “Are you—” He drops his voice to barely a whisper. “—thinking of wearing white after Labor Day?”

 


          

BLURB
My love wand is on a strike. As bad as that blows, pun unintended, it’s ten times worse for me. I’m a male escort, but not just any escort, I’m the escort. The one with a mile-long waiting list and a pristine reputation that’s very well-deserved.

Only now, I’m on hiatus. Because after years of pleasing women all over the city, my man missile decides to get finicky. And the only woman he wants? Someone I can never have—my best friend’s younger sister, the nerdy and awkwardly adorable Sienna.

She’s working at the agency this summer, keeping me organized, handling paperwork, and most importantly, keeping me on track to finish writing my book about sex and intimacy, which is due to my publisher in thirty days.

She thinks I hate her, that I don’t want her here. The truth is much more twisted. I get hard every time she walks into my office. Her wide blue eyes and pouty mouth drive me wild with desire, and if she stays, I’m not sure how much longer I can stay away from her.

Little Miss Overachiever says she’s here to help? Fine. I’m going to put her nerdy, curvy tush to work. 


     

PRE-ORDER NOW



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 
A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen titles, Kendall Ryan has sold over 1.5 million books and her books have been translated into several languages in countries around the world. She's a traditionally published author with Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins UK, as well as an independently published author. Since she first began self-publishing in 2012, she's appeared at #1 on Barnes & Noble and iBooks charts around the world. Her books have also appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists more than three dozen times. Ryan has been featured in such publications as USA Today, Newsweek, and InTouch Magazine. Visit her at: www.kendallryanbooks.com for the latest book news, and fun extras Subscribe to Newletter  


 
 

  Blurb  
“Sometimes love happens when you least expect it.” That was what my husband’s mistress told me the day I found out about their affair.

I didn’t believe it until five minutes later when mouth-watering celebrity chef Tanner Reese walked up, tossed his arm around my shoulders, and told my cheating husband to take a hike.

Tanner and I couldn’t have been more different. He spent his weekends at clubs, rubbing elbows with fellow A-listers. I spent mine in yoga pants with cheese boards and a glass of wine—or six.

Our relationship shouldn’t have worked, but it did. That is until Tanner proved to me that even though love happens when you least expect it...

So does heartbreak.



AVAILABLE NOW
  AMAZON US | AMAZON UK | AMAZON AU | AMAZON CA



My Review
http://www.readersretreats.com/2018/12/across-horizon-by-aly-martinez.html



         

Excerpt
 I shifted the phone to my other ear and asked her, “Did you just get in bed?”

“If, by bed, you mean carrying a glass of wine out back to swing in the hammock, maybe.”

I bit my bottom lip, my head falling back against the headrest. For most men, this would have been an innocuous statement. But for a hammock connoisseur like myself, this was the normal guy equivalent of her saying that she liked to give blowjobs during halftime.

“You have a hammock out back?”

There was a delay in her response, which was followed by a subtle kiss of her lips on what I assumed was a wine glass. “Don’t knock it until you try it. It’s one of the most underrated luxuries in outdoor furniture.”

“Oh, I’m not knocking anything. Rope or quilted?”

“Mayan, actually.”

“Oh, sweet heavenly baby Jesus, she’s beautiful and knows her hammocks. I’ve never been so turned on in my life.”

She giggled, pausing for another sip. “You know, if you leaked this hammock fetish to the press, you could probably increase demand by five million percent and singlehandedly lower the country’s unemployment rate.”

Okay, so at some point during the day, she’d figured out who I was.

But! Even with this knowledge, she was trying to avoid a date with me and was not elbow-deep in planning our televised wedding. This was a definite plus in my book.

“Yeah, but then, when I talked to beautiful women like yourself, I’d have no idea if the hammock was your idea or a ploy to impress me.”

“Jeez, that’s sad, Tanner,” she said, her sweet Southern accent like a wave rolling over my name.

I’d meant it as a joke, but it was the absolute truth when it came to dating. Early on in my career, I’d done a rapid-fire interview about my personal life. One of the questions had been: What would your ideal woman order on the first date? Truth be told, the only thing I hoped my ideal woman would order was something she wanted. I didn’t factor into that. But I’d been on my last question in my last interview of the last day of a month-long press tour. My face had hurt from fake smiling, I’d been in desperate need of a shower, a smoke, and sleep, and my mind had been mush, so I’d prattled off the first thing that had come to mind: shrimp and grits.

That one little answer somehow made it onto my Wiki page, and after that, every woman I’d taken out ordered shrimp and grits. One of them even had a shellfish allergy and nearly ended up in the hospital. And this insanity was not limited to women outside of the spotlight.

I’d once gone on a date with America’s princess of pop, Levee Williams. We’d hit it off at a charity event. For one of the most famous women in the world, she was a surprisingly nice girl, gorgeous, and funny as all get out. But the first time I took her out? One guess what she ordered.

I was at the end of my rope with dating and lost my freaking mind before storming out like an asshole. That night, as I was reporting shrimp and fucking grits as an error to Wiki, I noticed that her page listed it as her favorite food. I’d never had the balls to contact her again, and I once hid behind a palm tree on Rodeo Drive when I heard the clamoring of paparazzi calling her name. But that’s neither here nor there.

In short, while finding a woman was all too easy, dating was hard.

But that wasn’t about to stop me from trying with Rita.


  
  


About The Author
 
Originally from Savannah, Georgia, USA Today bestselling author Aly Martinez now lives in South Carolina with her four young children. Never one to take herself too seriously, she enjoys cheap wine, mystery leggings, and baked feta. It should be known, however, that she hates pizza and ice cream, almost as much as writing her bio in the third person. She passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a super-sized tumbler of wine by her side. Sign up for Aly's Newsletter

 
 


Wow. As soon as I saw this one my grabby hands went crazy. I mean that blurb from Aly Martinez I thought for sure I was going to cry ugly tears.

Then I got sucked into the story and soon realised I already knew a bit about these characters and I was even more excited.

Tanner was such a solid hero, I just couldn't get enough of him. He put his heart and soul out there and didn't think twice about showing Rita how he felt.

Rita had so much to deal with and although I had moments where I wanted her to dive in to the deep end and not worry about the terrorist alligators I understood why she didn't.  But man did she make up for it in the end.

The electricity between the two of them was awesome and I really couldn't put the book down from the first page. I am very happy to say there were no ugly tears but I did have a lot of laugh out loud moments.

I really couldn't have been happier with the story but then I knew I would love it, Aly Martinez wrote it.

      

JOCK RULE
JOCK HARD #2
By Sara Ney
Release Day: DEC 6th
   

 


Blurb

Kip Carmichael is no pretty boy.

He's a rough. Dirty. Giant. Hair so unruly, and a beard so thick, his friends on the team call him Sasquatch.

The first time Sasquatch lays eyes on Theodora "Teddy" Johnson across the keg at a party one night on Jock Row, she'd been relegated to the sidelines by her jock hungry "friends."

Week-after-week, he watches beautiful but bashful Teddy getting overshadowed, and overlooked. Sasquatch finally broad shoulders his way through the crowd, offering to to be her hairy godmother. But the minute their eyes meet? He's a goner.

Teaching her the RULES for winning a jock will be the easy part. Not falling in love with her is going to be a losing game.

 


My Review

http://www.readersretreats.com/2018/12/jock-rule-jock-hard-2-by-sara-ney.html
 


  About the Author
    
Sara Ney is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the How to Date a Douchebag series, and is best known for her sexy, laugh-out-loud New Adult romances. Among her favorite vices, she includes: iced latte's, historical architecture and well-placed sarcasm. She lives colorfully, collects vintage books, art, loves flea markets, and fancies herself British.

She lives with her husband, children, and her ridiculously large dog.


    




Obviously Sara Ney has this shit nailed. She writes the best sweet guy, arseholes and she couples them to perfection with the sweetest, most genuine, quirky leading ladies. And everyone of them has worked to perfection for me.

Teddy is a quiet doormat being led around by her narcissistic friend when she crosses paths with Kip. Kip immediately decides he has to teach her how to unleash her well hidden backbone.

They were so opposite in so many things yet they were so good together. Each of them had their own quirky hang ups but they both dealt with them well without any unnecessary drama or conflict.

I got so lost in the book that I couldn't put it down. And now I have to practice my patience waiting for the next awesome college, sports romance from the beautiful Sara Ney. Who am I kidding, I have no patience, I need it now.


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