*Grabby Hands* Release & Review - The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

Title: The Worst Best Man
Author: Mia Sosa
Publication Date: February 4th, 2020

Publisher: Avon
Category/Genre: Adult Romantic Comedy

Critically acclaimed author Mia Sosa delivers a sassy, steamy enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy about a woman whose new job requires her to work side-by-side with the best man who ruined her wedding: her ex-fiancé's infuriating, irritating, annoyingly handsome brother. Perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, and Sally Thorne!

A wedding planner left at the altar. Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina’s managed to make other people’s dreams come true as a top-tier wedding coordinator in DC. After impressing an influential guest, she’s offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch… she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials.

Tired of living in his older brother’s shadow, marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him.

If they can survive the next few weeks and nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina’s ready to dish out a little payback of her own.

But even the best laid plans can go awry, and soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn’t interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...

Goodreads

Buy Link: Amazon

4 “Brazilian Weddings” Stars

ARC provided by the author.

Thank you!!!

Mia Sosa is an author I can always count on to deliver great romances with a hint of Brazilian culture. This was another winner.

This was the story of Lina, a first generation Brazilian American wedding planner who was left at the altar years ago, and Max, the super sweet brother and best man of the jerk who abandoned Lina. Forced to work together, they slowly realize that Lina almost married the wrong brother.

The romance doesn't fit into the super slow burn category I gravitate toward, but it developed in a nice pace. There was plenty of chemistry between Lina and Max and enough angst due to their history to keep me interested every step of the way. I loved how their relationship went from almost hatred to friendship to love. The conflict near the end was also believable and the solution was satisfying.

Lina's family was a positive addition to the story. For me, as a Brazilian, her relationship with her cousins, aunts and mother felt genuine. Besides, every opportunity they mentioned BR food just made me extra happy. If you haven't tried brigadeiro or pão de queijo yet, you don't know what you're missing.

I highly recommend this if you're looking for a sweet and sexy read with great chemistry. 

*Grabby Hands* Blog Tour & Review - The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad by Cookie O'Gorman

Image and blurb from Goodreads

Title: The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad 

Author: Cookie O'Gorman

Publication date: April 25th, 2019

Category/Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Seventeen-year-old Sadie is tired of being a good girl.

Her Career Aptitude Test results say she's ideally suited for a career in the clergy (aka a nun), and on top of that, she receives yet another rejection. An aspiring dancer/choreographer, Sadie dreams of being featured on Dancer's Edge—but they say she's too sweet, needs more life experience. Her BFF, Kyle, and her oldest friend, 79-year-old Betty, agree: Sadie is in desperate need of a life makeover.

But she'll need a coach.

Sadie doesn't lie, cheat or steal--heck she doesn't even curse (part of the reason she hasn't checked off anything on her "Carpe Diem List"). Sadie doesn't know the first thing about being bad. But Kyle's twin brother, Colton, does. And he's willing to teach Sadie on one condition: she has to do everything he says for the next month.

A dazzling first kiss, two smokin' hot brothers and a bet that changes everything. In this enemies-to-more YA romance, Sadie learns:

Breaking the rules can be fun—especially when it leads to happily-ever-after.

Goodreads

Buy Links: Amazon 

4.5 “Carpe freaking Diem” Stars

ARC provided by the author

Thank you!!!

Cookie O’Gorman’s fourth YA romance was the absolute perfect choice for my long bus drive. It was everything I needed and more swoony than I expected. It was damn hot, too.

This author first made my go-to list when she released Adorkable back in 2016. If you haven’t read that book yet, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life, but you should definitely fix this problem and grab your copy.

Now, four books later (I still need to read her third), I got all the same feels reading The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad as I did  when I first read her debut. I’m one happy and highly satisfied reader, because this story made me laugh, swoon and fan myself countless times. This means Cookie O’Gorman’s magic is still very much alive!

While she gave me best friends falling in love in Adorkable, now we get enemies to haters with identical twins involved and those elements alone were enough to make me want to devour this book. That’s exactly what I did. The moment I was comfortable in my seat, I started reading and only stopped when I got my HEA.

The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad is full of famous YA romance tropes: bucket lists that are actually called Carpe Diem lists (or Naught List); nemesis falling in love; hot identical twins; good girls wanting to be a little bad and enlisting a bad boy’s help. But that’s not a problem at all, because in the hands of talented writers, a story full of tropes can still be unputdownable. This one was.

I’m so in love with both Sadie and Colton. Their chemistry was exactly what I look for in romance books; their banter made me laugh and smile so hard; and the way they slowly fell in love filled my slow-burned heart.

Sadie was a likable goody two-shoes, because despite being almost too nice (so much so that she gets a little annoyed with it and decides to add a little more edge and excitement to her life), she was funny, loyal and lovable. It was such a delight to read about a teenage girl who wasn’t embarrassed to have a healthy relationship with her mother, based on honesty, freedom and trust. There’s this scene where she calls her mother to tell her about something “bad” she did, and it made me laugh so hard, but also made me fall in love with her all the way.

I was also 100% into how her best friends where two ladies who were old enough to be her grandmother. Their encounters were always funny, full of love and wisdom that you only get when talking with people who have lived full lives.

For his turn, Colton was the bad boy with a heart of gold. The way he stood up for his twin brother was proof enough that he was one of the nice ways, despite the bad boy image he tried to keep. He had the makings of a great love interest from the start and he didn’t disappoint me.

I feel like I'm already talking too much and I don't want to spoil anything because there's nothing like reading a great book for the first time, right? But be warned that the slow burn and the intensity of Colton and Sadie's attraction might set things on fire (like your reading device), so proceed with caution.

Joking aside, I highly recommend The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad (and the author's other books) to everyone who loves YA romance. If you're already a fan of Cookie O'Gorman, then keep an eye out for your favorites because there's a scene in this book that will make you want to go back and reread her previous stories immediately.

Cookie O’Gorman writes stories filled with humor and heart for the nerd in all of us. Fiery
first kisses, snappy dialogue, smart girls, swoonworthy boys, and unbreakable friendships are featured in each of her books.

Cookie is a hopeless romantic, a Harry Potter aficionado, and a supporter of all things dork.
Chocolate, Chinese food, and Asian dramas are her kryptonite. Above all, she believes that real life has enough sorrow and despair—which is why she always tries to give her characters a happy ending. She is the author of Adorkable, Ninja Girl, The Unbelievable, Inconceivable,

Unforeseeable Truth About Ethan Wilder and The Good Girl's Guide to Being Bad.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cookieogorman/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cookieowrites

Author website: http://cookieogorman.com/

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*Grabby Hands* Release & Review - The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) by Holly Black

Image and blurb from Goodreads

Title: The Wicked King

(The Folk of the Air #2)

Author: Holly Black

Category/Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Publication Date: January 8th, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Adults

You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.

The first lesson is to make yourself strong.

After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.

When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.

Goodreads

Buy Link: Amazon

4.5 “Scheming and Twists in the faerie world” Stars

These first days of 2019 haven’t exactly been the best reading-wise. I’m not saying that because of Wicked King (hello, I’m rating it 4.5 stars), but because Holly Black’s sequel is the first book I’ve managed to finish since the year started.

On one hand, that sucks, because I’ve DNF’d a lot of books already. On the other hand, at least my first read of the year was a great one! For starters, Wicked King is better than Cruel Prince, which was already a good book.

Again, though, the romance (full of sexual tension and hate-me-love-me-can’t-have-me angst) was still a little too on the background for me. I still love Jude and how badass she is; Cardan and how you can never really tell what he’s hiding behind his don’t-give-a-crap attitude; and all the other characters that scheme and twist reality even though they can’t lie. But I wanted more Cardan and Jude. A lot more than the amazing scenes we had between them. That’s my only complaint, to be honest.

The plot was once again full of twists and turns, though Jude seemed to be more on the receiving end of those twists and turns than in Cruel Prince. Still, I love being surprised, and the last part of the book did that to me time and time again. I will say that Jude and Cardan’s choice near the end was a obvious one; one she should’ve come up with before he did and a lot sooner in the book (or so I kept trying to tell her), but I was still surprised by what Cardan did in the last chapter.

Taryn still annoyed me too much—I don’t know why Jude insists on protecting the sister who clearly doesn’t care for her at all. Locke was still useless. Madoc and Jude still reminded me of Olivia and Papa Pope’s troubled complex relationship. So none of those things changed much since the first book.

In a way, Wicked King kept the same elements I noticed in Cruel Prince (both the ones I liked and disliked), but it still read somewhat better than the first title in the series. Maybe it’s because I’m still thinking about that “Tell me you hate me” scene.

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.

*Grabby Hands* Release - The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker

Image and blurb from Goodreads

Title: The Simple Wild
Author: K.A. Tucker
Publication Date: August 7th, 2018

Category/Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Atria Books

Calla Fletcher wasn't even two when her mother took her and fled the Alaskan wild, unable to handle the isolation of the extreme, rural lifestyle, leaving behind Calla’s father, Wren Fletcher, in the process. Calla never looked back, and at twenty-six, a busy life in Toronto is all she knows. But when Calla learns that Wren’s days may be numbered, she knows that it’s time to make the long trip back to the remote frontier town where she was born.

She braves the roaming wildlife, the odd daylight hours, the exorbitant prices, and even the occasional—dear God—outhouse, all for the chance to connect with her father: a man who, despite his many faults, she can’t help but care for. While she struggles to adjust to this rugged environment, Jonah—the unkempt, obnoxious, and proud Alaskan pilot who helps keep her father’s charter plane company operational—can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. And he’s clearly waiting with one hand on the throttle to fly this city girl back to where she belongs, convinced that she’s too pampered to handle the wild.

Jonah is probably right, but Calla is determined to prove him wrong. Soon, she finds herself forming an unexpected bond with the burly pilot. As his undercurrent of disapproval dwindles, it’s replaced by friendship—or perhaps something deeper? But Calla is not in Alaska to stay and Jonah will never leave. It would be foolish of her to kindle a romance, to take the same path her parents tried—and failed at—years ago. It’s a simple truth that turns out to be not so simple after all.

Goodreads

Buy Link: Amazon

4.5  “Two love stories” Stars

Damn. How did I not know about this book before now?

The Simple Wild has quickly earned a place in my "best romance reads of the year" list, and I had the feeling that it'd get a spot after reading the first chapter. Funny enough, the first chapter isn't even about Calla's love story--nope, it's about her parents' tragic love, and that's why I say this is a book about two love stories.

First, let me say part of what kept me turning page after page so fast was that I wanted, NEEDED to know what would happen to Calla's parents. That love story tugged at my heart in a way that was actually painful (and it wasn't even the main love story). But it's not my fault the author decided to bring such angst with those two. I can't resist angst.

Everything was so tragic and messed up. I resented Wren, Calla's dad, for marrying a woman he knew wouldn't adapt to his lifestyle and still wanted to hug him because he loved Susan, Calla's mom, so damn much that he couldn't not marry her and take what little time they had together. Then I resented Susan for making Simon, Calla's stepdad, feel so much like "her second choice" when the man was amazing and so madly in love with her. But then, I wanted to hug her because I can't blame her for loving Wren so much two decades simply couldn't erase that love.

Damn... just thinking about them and how tragic and complicated and messed up the whole thing is makes me want to cry.

I did cry when that thing in the end happened. No spoilers, but it was beautiful and painful and I felt my heart breaking in tiny pieaces.

I was probably more obsessed with Calla's parents love story than anything else, but okay.

Now, Calla's relationship with her father sick father was another gut punch. Someone should've warned me this book would be that painful.

Wren was not an easy man to forgive, considering he was the one who decided to step back and not be in his daughter's life. Sure he later explained why, but it was still no reason to do what he did, so I got Calla's pain. Still, the man was dying and he was really, really good to Calla when she was there with him, so, yeah, again, I both resented and wanted to hug him.

Then comes Calla and Jonah and all the instant hatred and banter that was clearly just amazing chemistry and I'm dying because the romance is also slow burn and they're pranking each other and OMG, they finally kiss!

This book was almost too much. It was also almost a five-star read, if nothing for one little thing: I didn't like how Jonah was obsessed with poking fun at Calla's style and make-up obsession. Look, I'll be the first to say I don't understand how some people choose to wake up hours earlier so they can apply the perfect make up every single day before they step out of the house, but that's not my problem. Nor it's Jonah's, and the way he went about this was annoying and problematic. So, no, Jonah, you don't get to force Calla to wear less make-up just because you want her to by being an ass about it.

So, had that make-up BS not been part of the story, The Simple Wild would've been a five-star read for me, because it gave me two love stories to obsess over and it broke my heart and put it back together with that adorable ending.

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.

*Grabby Hands* Release & Review - Professor Feelgood (Master of Love #2) by Leisa Rayven

Image and blurb from Goodreads

Title: Professor Feelgood
(Master of Love #2)
Author: Leisa Rayven
Publication Date: September 16th, 2018

Category/Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance

What's a girl to do when a man who's countless shades of wrong feels oh-so-right?

Ambitious book editor Asha Tate is a hopeless romantic. Despite her mediocre track record with men, she believes in swooning, sighing, and the everlasting love of true soul mates. Sure, sex is okay, but she’s not someone who’s ever been driven by her animal urges.


Until now.


When Asha stumbles upon the scorching hot Instagram feed of someone calling himself Professor Feelgood, she falls in lust for the first time. Not only is she left panting over the professor’s insane body, but his angst-filled poetry about losing his one true love speaks straight to her soul. 


Desperately in need of a bestseller for her struggling publishing company, Asha knows the professor’s potential to sell to his millions of loyal followers could be the lifeline her bosses need. However, the ink is barely dry on a book deal before she realizes she’s made a terrible mistake. Sure, the professor is incredibly talented and sexier than any man has a right to be, but the man behind the persona isn’t at all who she pictured. In real life, he’s intense, arrogant and infuriating, and his uncanny ability to rub her the wrong way turns her dream project into a total nightmare.

Knowing that the professor is everything she doesn’t want in a man should help Asha ignore her occasional urges to mount him, but she quickly learns that explosive, unwanted chemistry can make even smart people do stupid things.

Don't miss this sexy new standalone from the international bestselling author of Bad Romeo and Broken Juliet.

Goodreads

Buy Link: Amazon

4.5  “All the Feels” Stars

I absolutely love how Leisa Rayven, one of go-to romance authors, always comes up with interesting themes for her books. After an escort who makes romantic fantasies come to life in Mister Romance, she brings us an Instagram celebrity who writes poems about his heartbreak and the woman he loves.

Like Eden, the protagonist of Mister Romance, her sister Asha is another strong, likable woman who makes reading this book easy and enjoyable from page one. Falling for her takes no effort and her voice is just as strong as I’m used to in books written by this author.

I also thought the story developed in a similar way to Mister Romance (which isn’t a complaint AT ALL), with the identity of the love interest being a mystery for a good part of the first third of the book. When the reveal came and the banter kicked in, I had everything I needed because I knew how this would eventually end and I was ALL IN!!

  

I can’t say much about the reveal and the romance, because I don’t want to spoil the story too much, but the romance arc gave me two of the tropes I love the most: hate to love + BFF to love.

Then, the story hits the halfway mark and things start to get angsty and hot, which makes it PEERFFECT for me.

I have to say I knew what the twist would be, but I caught myself doubting it would happen a few times, and the way Leisa wrote the story is the one to blame for that. It only made everything sweeter. Sweet is also the perfect way to describe the ending.

So, once again, Leisa Rayven gave me a romance book to love and I love her for that.

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.

*Grabby Hands* Review - Someone Else's Ocean by Kate Stewart

Image and blurb from Goodreads

Title: Someone Else's Ocean

Author: Kate Stewart

Publication Date: July 31st, 2018

Adult Contemporary Romance

The first time I met Ian Kemp in the sparkling blue waters of St. Thomas, I was six years old and we shared a summer beneath the stars.

The second time I met Ian Kemp, he was a shell of the boy I once knew. Turbulent and infuriating, he refused my friendship at every turn. Like me, he was a casualty of life’s cruelty, but we were planets apart. 

We’d both sought refuge on the island, hoping to find our anchor. Instead, we found each other and managed to reclaim our stars...until we both got swept away.

Goodreads

Amazon

4.5 "Put your coffee down" Stars

This book made me feel way too much and I can only express my thoughts using gifs.

Reading the blurb

After checking the rating on Goodreads

Koti's development

Ian and his daughter

Koti and Ian

Me after the epilogue

Me finding out this author has other books

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.