#randomhousepublishing

Description

Who doesn’t love Naked Men? In Christi Barth’s irresistible series, a group of close-knit friends talk out their problems with naked honesty on a popular blog. Bonded by a high-school tragedy, they’re moving on from the past—and fighting for the future with strong and sassy women.

Griffin Montgomery helps people. As a teenager, he kept his best friends alive after their soccer team’s bus crashed in the Alps. Now, as a Coast Guard search and rescue pilot, he saves lives with reckless abandon—until he goes too far and earns a lengthy suspension. Working on the Naked Men projects keeps his mind busy, but Griff’s itching to get back in the action. That’s when he finds his latest rescue mission: a pretty wallflower who’s stuck in her comfort zone.

Chloe Widmore doesn’t take risks. As a professional letter writer, she gets enough excitement out of expressing other people’s emotions. So when the hottest man she’s ever seen invades her coffee shop, Chloe surprises herself with how much she wants to be with him. Routines make her feel safe. Griff makes her deliciously unsafe, in so many ways. But falling for him is one risk she might just have to take . . . whether she’s ready or not.

Book Summary

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Published By: Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept

Release Date: March 3rd, 2016

Pages: 305

Series: Naked Men #1

ASIN: B00ZNE45BS

My Rating 2 Stars

Add to Goodreads

Purchase Links

Amazon  *  B&N  *  Kobo  *  Google Play  *  iBooks

My Review

When the WTF?! (and not in a good way) moments out do the sweet, funny ones and the only characters who hold your interest at the end of the book are the female lead's bestie and a character that was mentioned, but never made an appearance in the book, you know it wasn’t meant to be.

This book had the components to make it a good read: Hot alpha male with a saviour complex collides with a woman who has a sassy streak and yet won’t step outside of the very restrictive box she’s constructed for herself. Both have tragic, life altering experiences in their pasts that have made them who they are today, but find that if they want a future together they’ll have to face those demons and let the past go. Add in the fact that there is a group of guys who run a blog and it promised to be at least a fun read, but unfortunately this book just didn’t work for me in the end.

Griffin and I started off on a good foot. I understood why he had a saviour complex and found him to be pretty charming and easy going and then the incident at about 30% happened and I blinked. I understood why it was a thing and I can say that if it were me on the receiving end of it I’d definitely have a “Whoa. Hold up” moment,  but his reaction to it was just way too over the top for me. I mean holy mantrum, Batman. Unfortunately, from that point on I saw him in a different light and though it wasn’t a bad one, it kept him from getting out of the realm of “I just liked him”.

As for Chloe, she and I didn’t start off on a good foot, I found her a bit too quick to judge and critical of people that it rubbed me the wrong way, and that unfortunately colored my view of her throughout the book. This isn’t to say that she didn’t have me wanting to high five her at various moments in the book, the way she dealt incident at 30% was awesome, or admiring her for how she stepped up during the incident in her past, but whole first impression thing never left me.

So with my pretty tepid feelings toward Griff and Chloe it’s not that hard for anyone to surmise that their relationship didn’t get me going all that much. There were some sweet moments and I liked that they did their best to communicate with each other, but it just was okay for me.

Now about the secondary cast of characters especially The Naked Men. See I’m not sure if I really like them or not.  I’m all for the bros before hos way of thinking and backing your boys to the bitter end, I really am, because I’m all for the flip side where I have my girls backs, and that saying fits them to a T. There were some fun moments with them, but there were also moments when I wanted to find a 2x4 and smack them upside the heads because even though I could understand their reasoning, I just couldn’t help but go WTF? I don’t expect male characters to be all emo’d out and warm and fuzzy, but even I was thrown for a loop at some of their comments (90%) The only one saved from any thoughts of bodily harm was Logan and that’s only because he never made an appearance in the book, he was just talked about, which actually ended up making him a hell of a lot more interesting than the rest because he is an unknown.  And last but not least there is Summer, Chloe’s best friend. I liked her spunk and sass and finding out about her past has me wanting to know more about her.

The Bottom Line: Risking It All and I didn’t get on well, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the series to see if Logan or Summer get their own books.

~ ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ~

Author Links

Description

Cora. . . . I got my driver’s license on my sixteenth birthday so I could visit my brother in prison. Five and a half years later, he’s still locked up for a murder he didn’t commit and I’m still trying to find a way to set him free. Then I hear about Nash Security and Investigation, a private detective agency that helped exonerate a wrongfully convicted man after thirty-nine years in prison. The problem? They’ve already taken on the one pro-bono case they’ll accept this year.

Leo. . . . I’m this close to finishing law school—and never working another day at my dad’s P.I. office—when Cora Hollis walks through the door. She’s got a box of files, a handful of leads, and an independent streak a mile wide. She fascinates me and I can’t say no. Suddenly I’m volunteering to help her find a missing witness who could be the key to her brother’s case. But nothing is what it seems and giving in to the attraction between us could be more dangerous than finding the real murderer.

Book Summary

Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance

Published By: Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept

Release Date: November 17th, 2015

Pages: 242

Series: Recovered Innocence #1

ISBN 1101883103  

ISBN13: 9781101883105

My Rating 4 Stars

Purchase Links

Amazon  *  B&N  *  Kobo  *  Google Play  *  iBooks 

My Review 

This is my first book by Beth Yarnall and I have to say that I’m pretty damn impressed because from the overview of the story to the epilogue she put together a well crafted New Adult Romantic Suspense story that had me hooked throughout and looking to see who the next book in the series would be about and making note of just how long I’d have to wait to get my hands on it.

Cora is one of those characters that due to certain circumstances, her brother being committed of murder and the fallout that occurred in it’s aftermath, has had to mature faster than most in that she supports herself and has learned more about the ins and outs of the legal system than most her age. And yet there is still a naivete that surrounds here when it comes to personal relationships and it makes for quite a complex character that garnered my interest immediately. Her unconditional love and unwavering belief that her brother is innocent and the lengths she has gone to collect the information that could help to set him free was quite impressive especially since almost everyone in her life told her it was a lost cause.

Leo and I had a bit of a rocky start, he had something of a ‘this sucks I don’t want to be here’ attitude going on, which I could understand considering he wasn’t too keen about being his dad’s lap dog for the summer, but thankfully that didn’t last long. In a lot of ways his is the golden boy that’s had things come easily to him his entire life: girls, grades, sports and friends and he has way too much natural charm than one person should have, but you find that he truly does want to do something positive with his life and when focused is quite lethal.

Leo and Cora’s relationship/courtship was actually fun to follow. They both have immediate reactions to each other and their conclusions based on those reactions aren’t too far off base but as most stories go, there is a lot more than meets the eye and as the story progresses not only do they get a deeper look below the surface at each other, but at themselves. As far as their road to their HEA goes, I’d say that while it had it’s steamy moments, it falls more on the sweet side of things, which I do have to say I really liked because it felt right for what we come to learn about both Leo and Cora.

As far as the writing is concerned, I enjoyed it and found that I was equally invested in Leo and Cora’s burgeoning relationship as I was in finding out who really did kill Cassandra. I liked how all the twists and turns to both storylines were revealed and then played out and quite honestly the conclusion to both were very satisfying and felt right.

The Bottom Line: I enjoyed the book and took a little peek to see who the second book would star and can’t wait to see how that all plays out!

~ ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Loveswept via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ~

Author Links

I want to Thank Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the Advanced copy in exchange for this review.

From the first chapter I could not peel myself away from my Kindle. Someone is Watching is one of those books that plays like a movie in your head. To me this is a testament to the writing.

To be honest the beginning scenes were very hard to read as Bailey suffers a vicious and violent attack. After she is released from the hospital, Bailey struggles greatly to heal. Her phsycal wounds are healing but inside she is shattered. Especially since her attacker is out there and the police have zero suspects.

Bailey's half sister and neice (her neice Jade is my favorite character! She is hilarious and horrible and wonderful) come to try help Bailey come to terms and take care of herself. Bailey is unable to leave to her apartment but doesnt need to see what is around her. Alls he needs is her binoculars........

So many twists and turns and mystery, it is nearly impossible to put this book down. it would be like watching a great Law and Order and pausing it right when it gets good. Joy Fielding's writing is smooth, seamless, and contains whip smart dialogue.

See if you can guess who the attacker is. See if you can figure out who she can REALLY trust. I usually can tell who did within the first 2 chapters. (if the culprit has been introduced) but it took me 3/4 of the book before I had an inkling.