I had a somewhat disappointing reading week, but looking back, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I listened to the hot and steamy The Lawyer on audio, and it was a great introduction to Marni Mann’s work – I’ll definitely be reading more. I also enjoyed the sexy and tense The Worst Guy, a solid enemies with benefits romance. I sat back and watched The Hating Game movie, which made me all kinds of nostalgic for the book – because it was good in some ways and lame in others. The overly revealing blurb for Doctor Mistake dampened my enjoyment of the otherwise sexy medical romance, while the misleading blurb for Ripple Effect lead to unfulfilled expectations. Finally, the playful Love at First Spite missed the mark.
The good news is that I got ahead on a few of my other January ARCs, and things went much better with those! January is a very busy release month, so there will surely be more books that satisfy. If you read my Teaser Thursday post (found here), you know that there are some exciting books on the way soon! I’ll have reviews going up throughout the week.
If you missed any of this week’s reviews, I’ve got the blurb and rating for each below. There’s also a link to my new release list.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hot hot hot
A sexy, billionaire, Hollywood, stand-alone romance from USA Today best-selling author Marni Mann …
I’m not the type of girl who picks up a man on a rooftop bar.
Not the kind of girl who lets a man’s hands roam my body, discovering I have no panties on.
Never the girl who has hours’ worth of o’s from a smoking-hot one-night stand.
But Dominick makes it so easy to say yes.
His body, his moves, and his oh-so-wicked tongue have me saying it over and over again.
Yes, please.
Yes, more.
Yes, right there.
He worships every inch of my body, and I’m still sore the next morning when I meet him again.
This time, he’s Mr. Dalton, my sister’s cutthroat entertainment lawyer.
And he has a proposition for me.
He wants to make me famous.
Of course, that means sharing a screen with my wildly jealous sister.
It means giving up my career.
It means the whole world will suddenly know everything about me.
Which presents one catastrophic problem—Dominick doesn’t date famous people.
So, do I take a chance at becoming a Hollywood star, or do I pass up the opportunity to be with the man who gave me a taste of forever?
Read the audiobook review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3EgMorr
The Hating Game Movie Review
Resolving to achieve professional success without compromising her ethics, Lucy embarks on a ruthless game of one-upmanship against cold and efficient nemesis Joshua, a rivalry that is complicated by her growing attraction to him.
As assistants to the co-CEOs of a publishing company, Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman sit across from each other every day – and they hate each other. Not dislike. Not begrudgingly tolerate. H-A-T-E. Lucy can’t understand Josh’s joyless, uptight approach to his job and refusal to smile, which is in stark contrast to her bright clothes, quirkiness, and effusive people-pleasing. Trapped in a shared office 5 days a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. Lucy can’t let Josh beat her at anything – especially when a huge new promotion to be Managing Director is up for grabs. They strike a deal that whoever does not get the promotion must quit. It’s game-on – But as tensions reach boiling point and an innocent elevator ride turns into a steamy kiss, Lucy begins to realize just how fine a line there is between love and hate.
Based on the best-selling book by Sally Thorne, THE HATING GAME tells the story of ambitious good girl Lucy Hutton (Lucy Hale) pitted against her cold, efficient work nemesis, Joshua Templeton (Austin Stowell), for a huge promotion at publishing company Bexley&Gamin. Trapped in a shared office, Lucy embarks on a ruthless game of one-upmanship against Josh, a rivalry that turns increasingly complicated by her mounting attraction to him after an innocent elevator ride turns NSFW. Is it love or just another game in their never-ending pursuit for the top job?
Read the review here
You can rent the movie at: https://amzn.to/32NMABQ or preorder the Bluray/DVD at: https://amzn.to/3t26qnB. The rental is available now, the physical copy releases on February 8th.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mixed feelings
She’s living next door to a superstar… and doesn’t even know it.
Enemies to lovers tale with an earth-shaking twist!
International pop star RJ Contreras finds himself at a crossroads when his mega famous boy band, AnyDayNow, breaks up. After his solo career fails to take off, RJ (a.k.a. Chad Woodcock) retreats to a no-frills apartment where he can hide out from the world and lick his festering wounds.
But when the girl next door starts slipping ‘good neighbor’ contracts under his door and complaining about his behavior through strategically placed Post-it-Notes, RJ snaps out of his self-absorbed melancholy to wage war.
Nothing short of an act of nature could repair the relationship between these two strong-willed enemies. But guess what Fate has in store?
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/32U1JRA
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Steamy and tense
Eight weeks of forced proximity is a long time to hate someone you’re trying not to love.
Sebastian Stremmel doesn’t need another headache. He has enough of his own without Sara Shapiro, the noisy new reconstructive surgeon, stomping all around his surgical wing with her chippy, chirpy cheerfulness.
But Sebastian doesn’t usually get what he wants.
No one gets under his skin like Sara – so much so a heated “debate” and an exam room left in shambles later, they land themselves in eight weeks of hospital-mandated conflict resolution counseling. Now they’re forced to fight fair…which quickly leads them to playing dirty when no one’s looking.
They know it’s a mistake.
They promise themselves it will never happen again.
They swear they got it out of their systems.
They didn’t.
Author’s Note: Grumpy/recovering people-pleaser sunshine. Introverts attract. Enemies-to-lovers in the workplace. Banter, bicker, and button-pushing foreplay. Don’t tell the friend group, get jealous when the friend group tries to fix her up.
Heat: rip her clothes off before you get the front door open.
CW/TW: chronic illness, absent/negligent parents, history of disordered eating.
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3z1vhZw
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mixed feelings
He’s my best friend’s older brother. My boss. And now my new roommate…
In the hospital, death always comes in threes. Apparently, so do mistakes.
Mistake number one? My fiancé, who I just learned is cheating on me. So much for being the strong, in control doctor who’s always on top of her game…
Mistake number two? Knocking on the wrong door.
The door I thought still belonged to my best friend now belongs to his older brother, my obnoxious, overly cocky, gorgeous-as-sin attending physician, Carter Fritz.
The billionaire playboy gives me a place to stay, and a shoulder to cry on. But when he makes me feel seen for the first time in I don’t even know how long, I tell myself I don’t regret what was easily the hottest, most earth-shattering night of my life.
That is until mistake number three comes along… and I’m staring down at a stick with two pink lines.
Having a baby at this stage of my residency could cost me everything I’ve worked so hard to build.
But Carter? He’s undeterred. He doesn’t just want more; he wants it ALL.
Including me.
But what happens if following my heart turns out to be my biggest mistake of all?
DOCTOR MISTAKE is a 105k word super STEAMY, deliciously angsty forbidden romance that will hit you straight in the feels! It is a standalone in the bestselling Boston’s Billionaire Bachelors series featuring Boston’s hottest billionaire doctors and the women they fall head over heels for!
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3pwg6mQ
⭐️⭐️ Didn’t love it
Falling in love is the ultimate payback in this delightful, breezy romcom about an interior designer who teams up with an enigmatic architect at her firm to get revenge on her ex the only way she knows how: by building a spite house next door
“Filled with sizzling chemistry and delicious revenge, Love at First Spite had me smiling from start to finish. This is one debut you don’t want to miss!” —Kate Bromley, author of Talk Bookish to Me
They say living well is the best revenge. But sometimes, spreading the misery seems a whole lot more satisfying. That’s interior designer Dani Porter’s justification for buying the vacant lot next to her ex-fiancé’s house…the house they were supposed to live in together, before he cheated on her with their Realtor. Dani plans to build a vacation rental that will a) mess with his view and his peace of mind and b) prove that Dani is not someone to be stepped on. Welcome to project Spite House.
That plan quickly becomes complicated when Dani is forced to team up with Wyatt Montego, the handsome, haughty architect at her firm, and the only person available to draw up blueprints. Wyatt is terse and stern, the kind of man who eats his sandwich with a knife and fork. But as they spend time together on- and off-site, Dani glimpses something deeper beneath that hard veneer, something surprising, vulnerable, and real. And the closer she gets to her goal, the more she wonders if winning revenge could mean losing something infinitely sweeter…
Read the review here
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qI1LUX
Check out this week’s new releases here.
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