Think Princess Diaries 2, but with more smut and angst and a super hot bodyguard.

Easily my favorite Twisted Series couple. Everything about these two was just perfection and I can't stop thinking about them and their story, even though I finished the book days ago. I've been listening to Spotify playlists catered to them for days!

Where do I start? I love the tropes in this. I'm a sucker for a good bodyguard romance, and Ana Huang did NOT disappoint with Mr. Rhys Larsen. It's a bodyguard/princess romance, he's a possessive, dirty talking alpha male (swoon), and it was a slow burn with mutal pining and forced proximity. It checked all of my boxes.

Their chemistry was just so palpable. What made it even better was the "forbidden" part of it. Bridget isn't supposed to be with anyone that isn't of noble blood, and Rhys certianly isn't (in the eyes of the monarchy). But, these two fall in love anyways, as two people are wont to do. Rhys starts off as someone with an ice block for a heart but Bridget softens him, especially because she doesn't judge Rhys for his past. He had a hard life and yet he didn't let it consume him. He wasn't open to love before Bridget but he would do anything for her. It was a beautiful type of love and it truly nearly broke me when Bridget said she was going to marry someone else, due to the law. Rhys was just so heartbroken and my heart hurt for them.

Also, the line where he asked her to ask him again if he'd ever been in love... AMAZING. I almost passed away.

CALLING HER PRINCESS EVERY CHANCE HE GETS. Yes, absolutely yes. Even when she does become queen. I love them so much.

Bridget is one of my FAVE female heroines. She's royalty, but I love her spirit and her attitude and how she has no filter. She's smart and kind and compassionate and wants the best for her people. I love that isn't just some snobby, stuck up, selfish royal. To get to read about her journey as a princess to eventual wueen was refreshing and I loved her growth.

THIS SERVED. Period.

Lauren Asher can do no wrong. This is the fifth book of hers that I have read and I can honestly say, there hasn't been a book that I've truly been disappointed in. This is no exception! It's the first in the series and I love me some billionaires, so this series is perfect for me.

Hee's the tropes we find in this book: boss/employee, grumpy sunshine, workplace romance, Disneyland vibes, theme park environment, age gap, etc.

Mr. Rowan Kane is such a grumpy man, but Zahra is a ball of light and joy and sunshine. And, well... they fall in love. Rowan is the director of Dreamland (a theme park much like Disneyland) and Zahra works there. Rowan hires Zahra to be a Creator, in order to push out projects that will ultimately lead to his promotion to CFO, at the behest of his dead grandfather. Each brother in the series (Rowan is the first) receives a letter from their late grandfather, with stipulations as to what they need to do in order to receive not only their inheritances but the positions they all ultimately want within the company. Rowan has to spend six months as director of the park and come up with a project that revitalizes the theme park, thus earning him his inheritance and the position he wants.

Enter Zahra, who is supposed to help him with these plans. Well, Rowan gets much more than he bargained for; not just love, but different dreams than he ever expected!

I truly enjoyed this and I'm just going to say it: Rowan and Zahra > Declan and Iris.

Everything was perfection, from the romance to the plot to the smut. It's clear that while she falls first, he falls harder and the groveling he has to do to eventually win her back is some of the best I have ever read. Rowan's had a hard life, which leads him to be the grumpy man he is today, but Zahra shows him how to truly LIVE and what's most important in life. Rowan's character development was so well done. He realized the mistakes he made as a businessman, valuing profit over people and I loved the difference he made at the end.

Rowan's relationship with Zahra's siser, Ani (who has Down syndrome; yay for representation) is just so heartwarming and beautiful. I absolutely LOVED this part of the book.

Rowan taking Zahra to meet her favorite author? YES. Rowan watching all seventeen versions of Pride and Prejudice for Zahra? YES. Rowan helping her with her drawings? YES. Rowan's relationship with Ani? YES. The Disney codas? YES. The groveling Rowan did? YES. The sex they have in this book? HELL YES.

Can we talk about the condom scene? I was actually so touched by this because the depths of trust he has for Zahra were just so evident and I loved that part so much. He had been hurt and betrayed so many times by women taking advantage of him in the past in this manner, that to trust Zahra with this, knowing the implications for him, was just beautiful in so many ways.

My other favorite part: *spoiler* The pin at the end where Zahra reveals to Rowan that she is pregnant. I just about died at the part. It was SO PERFECT.

Lauren Asher knows how to write a grumpy/sunshine trope, that's for sure.

In order to receive his inheritance, Declan Kane must marry and produce an heir. Iris, his assistant, finds a woman who will marry him, but Declan scares her off and so Iris steps in to help and SHE marries Declan instead.

Declan is cold and a huge grump (sometimes he goes BEYOND grump, sometimes he's just downright mean) and Iris is all butterflies and rainbows. Opposites attract, right? Not at first. This is a marriage of convenience story, after all. Neither of them TRULY wants to be in this situation at the start, but of course... they fall in love and live happily ever after.

Now for what happens in between: I truly love that Iris goes out of her way to help Declan and she's the only one who can get through to him. She stepped up to help him when no one else would. Her friendship with Cal is just perfection. I actually love that she has Cal in her corner throughout the entire book. Iris is definitely not afraid to speak her mind and it was refreshing to see her put Declan in his place more than once. Declan's determination to not be like his father was admirable, and his growth and development throughout the book was stellar. Their banter was amazing! Yes, it was sort of a slow burn and it took them FOREVER to actually hook up, but it was WORTH IT!

Tropes we got to see: workplace romance, boss/employee, grumpy/sunshine, age gap, interracial romance, marriage of convenience, fake dating, forced close proximity, etc.

Declan telling Iris he loves her in three different languages while they have sex? YES. Declan giving up work for Iris during their fake honeymoon? YES. Declan making changes to his company to make things easier for Iris and her dyslexia? YES. Declan running out of the shower to show Iris the leopard? YES. Declan groevling which included buying her a home that contains a greenhouse for her plants, driving a minivan and getting her the exact dog she told him about? YES.

I'm just here to say that I found Marie incredibly annoying and definitely not a heroine I could root for or wanted to root for. She just whined for the entire book, about the fact that she couldn't have Jonah and she just couldn't get over him. It was like she was trying to convince herself she was moved on from him for the entire book when it was clear that she absolutely was not. Not only that, but she compared Tyler to Jonah like a million times in the book, like he was never going to measure up to Jonah. She desperately wanted a man and then got one, and he was just a Jonah substitute apparently? And all she did was bring up her ticking biological clock which really irked me.

It did get better in the back half of the book but not by that much if I'm being honest. The wishy washy nature of Tyler was hard to take. Marie finally gets a man and the author HAD to pair her with a widow who can't ever get over his dead wife, making Marie second choice once again? Yikes.

The book left a lot to be desired.

I wanted to like this so much more, as I know people raved about it and I do feel like it had potential. But... it just didn't live up to the hype for me.

First of all, it felt like a rip off of Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren. Like, literally the same story. That alone made me not like this book because it wasn't very unique and seemed like just blatant plagiarism. If you've read both books, you'll understand what I saying.

It also reads like a YA novel? I know this is her debut, but it was cringey and felt like it was meant for a younger audience, while also simultaneously having too much sex stuff thrown into it?

It was touted for its coming of age component and character growth, but WHERE was the character growth? There was none. The two of them remained exactly the same 12+ years later. And honestly, if they had had even just a LITTLE more communication in their younger years, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Also, SPOILER...

BUT SHE SLEPT WITH HIS BROTHER AND THEN EVERYTHING WAS ALL FINE? Absolutely not. Nope. No way.

This really didn't do it for me.

Obviously I waited with bated breath for Christian and Stella's book. We were given breadcrumbs of them in the other books, but it wasn't nearly enough. I KNEW their romance would be epic, that the book would be amazing and I wasn't wrong. Ana Huang can literally do NO wrong. I mean, our man Christian was down BAD from the very start. He took one look at Stella and basically gave her a penthouse for free. He talked to her plants about her. This man acted so uninterested and for someone who said they didn't want to be in love with anyone, he sure did the absolute opposite the entire book. THE ENTIRE BOOK. The smut in this was god tier. Their chemistry was so palpable and just so hot and I felt it on every single page. I love how obsessed with her he is, how protective he is of her and how she had the ability to soften him, while also never changing who he is at his core. I loved reading - and finally learning - about Magda because I just wanted to so desperately know! It was a great conclusion. And this final installment gave me everything I could have ever asked for in the epilogue because we got to see happy endings for not only Christian and Stella, but for the other Twisted Series couples as well. It was just perfection.

I cannot get over how much I loved this book. I've read over one hundred books this year and this is easily in my top five. It's THAT good.

This is a dual POV book, grumpy/sunshine, single parent, found family, enemies to lovers book. It's got everything you're looking for, trust me.

Naomi and Knox are such a special couple, but also as individual people. I loved their backstories, and the way in which they literally fell together. I know Knox was put off Naomi at first (because he thought she was her criminal twin sister) but I adored seeing him slowly warm up to her and eventually fall in love with her. She is one of my favorite female characters because of her heart and her tenacity, her fierceness and her love. She didn't hesitate to take on the role of mother for her niece and moved mountains to give her a better life. That alone made me love her deeply.

KNOW MORGAN. Goodness. What a man. Yes, he's the definition of grumpy, but boy, do we see his soft side very quickly. Although he hides it, he cares and just wants to help. I think it doesn't hurt that it's Naomi he gets to help, and Waylay too, but it's evident from the start that despite his tough exterior, he would give the shirt off of his back for those he loves.

I love the world building that Lucy Score just does so well. She makes you fall in love with not only the main characters, but every other person in town as well. It was all so vivid and I could picture everything so well.

Waylay is my girl! I LOVED her relationship with Naomi and Knox too. She's just so smart and an amazing kid, despite all that she has been through.

Lucy Score knows how to write a sex scene! I mean... it was HOT. Made better by the fact that Naomi and Knox had such amazing chemistry.

“You make broken things whole again. Me. You made me whole. And every time you smile at me, I feel like I hit the lottery again.”

“I want daisies in your hair.”

Seriously, it's been days and I can't stop thinking about this book. READ IT!

Lucy Score never fails to write a damn good book. I LOVED this book so much. This had everything you could want in a book. Action, adventure, romance, family, top tier sex scenes, banter, family drama, a billionaire main character, a kidnapping and blackmail, third act breakup, a wedding for the ages, enemies to lovers, dual POV and so much more. I literally could not put this down! I NEEDED to know what happened next.

Frankie and Aiden had such amazing chemistry from the very start. Aiden definitely fell for Frankie first and he was obsessed (rightly so). This entire book was one huge adventure and I laughed out loud so many times. The world building and stage setting and the characterization? No one does it better than Lucy Score. Frankie is the it girl, a firecracker from Brooklyn and she's such a wonderful lead female character. And Aiden? Billionaire perfection in a suit. It's truly one of the funniest books I've read. There were so many laugh out loud moments because there was one shenanigan after another that Frankie and Aiden had to wade their way through. I LOVED the way Frankie and Aiden had to try to learn to coexist in each other's very different worlds, and to find out if love really was worth it. Seeing the two of them grow and evolve and intertwine two very different lives into one was perfection. A MUST READ.

So many things to say about this one...

First of all, it's definitely not as good as the first book. Like, by a long shot. JP and Kelsey didn't have the chemistry that Lottie and Huxley had. Not only that, but Kelsey spent the entire book shitting all over JP and not giving him the time of day, and treating him like garbage. She was annoying at best, downright unreadable at worst. JP was bending over backwards to be the man she wanted and she was rude to him at every single turn. JP could really do so much better. I feel like Meghan Quinn just had a single male character and a single female character from the first book and decided to write a book about them, just putting them together for the sake of writing a sequel to her very popular (and good) first book. It was literally just a five hundred page mess. It definitely felt like a rush job with no forethought. Also, the author would put stuff like *mentally cries* and *rolls eyes* in the chapters. This isn't a Tumblr post. You're writing a novel. Why would you do that? It's just plain weird. I gave this two stars because I did love seeing Lottie and Huxley in this book. I missed them. But, you can miss this book. It wasn't great.