lisaluvsliterature's Reviews (4.19k)

This was a cute and short little novella with some steamy times for Santa and the mommy he was kissing! lol. I really enjoyed the banter and interaction between Emily and Santa/Nicholas. Yes, his name was really Nicholas, and no, he wasn’t really Santa. He was just playing Santa one night at his bar for some publicity. I loved Emily’s friends and how they helped her get into the fun spirit with their ugly Christmas sweater bar crawl and having her straddle Santa’s lap at the bar for her picture. Nicholas was a pretty nice guy too, definitely a keeper.

I enjoyed this one a lot, thankful the author reached out to me about it, and I’m sure I will enjoy the others in the series as well as they come out!

I have loved all of this author’s books in the SmartyPants series as well as another series she had out on her own recently. And this book was once again a winner for me! I adored both characters. The enemies to lovers aspect was so well done in the beginning. The whole prank war was so much fun, even as I wondered what they would do to each other next. It actually was let go on longer than I expected at their volunteer fire fighter classes. But once they were told to stop, and then assigned to be partners, things got good.

Both characters had issues with their family, although Hunter’s were probably worse, seeing as his father and brother were in the Iron Wraiths. And while Madeline’s story hit a little close to home for me, except I’m probably more like her mom, lol, it was still a great storyline. The connection between Hunter and Madeline was really perfect as well. While normally I am irritated when characters think they aren’t good enough for someone, it was so easy to see why Hunter felt that way with his family, as well as his reading disability. I don’t think I’m giving a spoiler on that, because anyone who knows much about what he talks about with his problems with learning probably would have guessed it before Madeline even brought it up.

I love that both characters were able to take a stand, and instead of letting it come between them, they were able to figure things out maturely and realistically, even with heat of the moment misunderstandings or arguments. I liked that even Hunter’s ex-hook-up was a decent enough person in her own way. We got steamy times and we definitely got some swoony scenes!

Another great addition to the SmartyPants Romance Universe from Allie Winters!

So many Christmas books too early in the year! But I can’t say I didn’t love this one! First of all, the whole narration just like from How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the beginning of each chapter (and occasionally mid-chapter) was hilarious. The rhyming something probably only a comedic genius like Meghan Quinn could come up with so much of. The banter between the Cole and Storee, the over the top competitions to become the winner of the Kringle contest, and of course the wonderful town and other characters are all something that I expect, and am never disappointed to find in a book by Quinn. 

So many laugh out loud moments. Where I have to literally set the book aside and get the laugh out until I can stop laughing enough to pick up the book and keep reading. A few new terms, one this time was co*k-shocked. Heard it with blocked before, but not shocked, so that was giggle worthy. There was the lederhosen bit at the beginning, the using Aunt Cindy’s “frailness” to get votes, and oh my gosh, Taran’s light display, hilarious.

I actually would love to participate in some of those challenges, or at least try some of the stuff out. Like making candy canes or tasting different flavors of eggnog. Speaking of which I’m also now craving eggnog and will have to buy some at the store next time I go, lol. 

While there was a third act break-up, it totally made sense, wasn’t overly dramatic, when you consider both characters’ history. And the grand gesture to fix it was perfect, perfect for the romance, and perfect for this holiday story that has so many ties to the Grinch story/movie. There was a reveal with Aunt Cindy at the end that I kind of wondered a little about. Although the whole crevice washing that Taran had to do was hilarious. 

The epilogue had talk about the next Kringle challenge, as well as a bit of a surprise for Storee and Cole. And while I don’t think there is a sequel, I would adore reading how Max, also known as Atlas, does in the competition on his own. 

Meghan Quinn has another winner, proving she can totally do holiday romance, and that there probably isn’t any kind of romance she can’t write.

This is my first book by this author, although I’ve wanted to read a few of her past ones. I’m pretty sure after this one though, that I’ll be eagerly anticipating any new releases to come. I really liked this book, I devoured it! It’s a good thing, because I got behind in my reading/reviewing schedule the week I had this one because of all the stuff going on with work and it being my birthday month. But having to sit down and just read for hours straight was perfect for this wonderful story!

Kenzie and Ryan had a really messed up back story. Ryan is an actor and had been in a fake relationship with her sister, you know how actors/celebrities do that for PR reasons. She’d confessed her feelings for him and then he told her he was going to marry her sister. He left, she assumed after telling her that he didn’t feel the same. But he thought that he’d told her he felt the same and he went to break it off with her sister. Unfortunately her sister died that night, and things never were the same.

Now Kenzie is a person in Hollywood who fixes the careers for actors who are slipping because of drugs, or other types of bad PR. She’s really good at it, but works for a boss that seems to have it out for her. She doesn’t want to take on Ryan’s case, he keeps getting caught with different women, being out partying, and even sleeping with a director’s daughter. But another friend of theirs, J.T., reaches out to her boss and gets them to take on his case. Not only that, but Ryan doesn’t WANT to be “fixed”. He’s still dealing with the way he feels after the death of his fiancee and losing Kenzie in the process.

So we get an enemy to lovers story. Also a second chance story. While I don’t always enjoy movie star romances, this one was really good. The writing was good, the story kept moving and had so much going on that it kept me turning pages and hating that I couldn’t just sit and read all day from the moment I started it. It had some steamy times, it had romantic times, and it had great banter as well. I’m so thankful I got to read this one!

The whole dog fostering aspect of this story was just so good! I adored Cal for that so much! I wanted to play with all the dogs he fostered, as well as the ones he went every day to help walk at the shelter as well. I liked Ginger, although her aversion to the dogs at first was a little hard for me, a dog lover, to connect to. She wasn’t against dogs, just got easily irritated by them licking her or drooling on her. And yeah, I get the drool. I’ve been annoyed by dogs that do that as well.

But I did like Ginger too, loved how she was with her cat, and even how she was with all her customers and how she ran her Coffee Loft shop. It was very understandable why she was so afraid of getting into a relationship, or trusting a flirty outgoing kind of guy that Cal seemed whenever he was hanging out at her shop. And for as much as she wasn’t a dog person to start, the fact that she was so welcoming and set out a bowl for whenever he brought his dogs showed she really did have a good heart.

The little bit of a break up over a misunderstanding towards the end was kind of a bit much, but with her past and all, it was easily understood. Even if it was a funny misunderstanding when all was said and done. This is my first book by this author, and I look forward to reading more by her in the future. The little town where all this took place was cute too, and I don’t know if she sets her stories in the same town, but I’d enjoy visiting it again!

So this book started out with one of the most hilarious scenes I’ve read in a while. When Ally decided to surprise Clay by running up to him on the track, and she was going to do a hurdle and splits in the air, and yeah, that didn’t go anything at all like she planned! I was laughing so hard. It wasn’t a meet cute, since they already knew each other so well, but it fits that type of scene perfectly.

I really adored so much about these characters, as well as the school they work in. They had some great banter and some really major sexual tension going between them. Both had pasts and family history/issues that made them not sure about being in a relationship at all. There was a lot of humor in all the different situations that Ally ended up in. I loved her worry about bears, and how Clay got her to overcome her apprehension when she was assigned to help him chaperone a camping trip with the students. I also loved the way Clay worked with his students. And when Ally was talking with a student going through some things, it was just perfect in how that went, in my experience as an educator. 

What kept me from giving this a full 5 stars is the frustration of the two of them going back and forth about why the other one obviously didn’t like them, or didn’t mean something in the way it seemed to come across. Or why they weren’t the right person for the other one. It was one of those things where I began to skim parts because it was kind of the same thing. However I felt this was a great addition to this series, and overall it was a really fun read!

This was a short and sweet read! I adored the characters, and their adorable pets! First was Ollie and his dorky accountant jokes, like his cat’s name, Roi. Not only that, but I totally connected with him and the doubts he had about applying for a new job. Knowing he was good at his job, but not having the social confidence to get it. I feel like that is what keeps me from getting jobs in the past. 

Daisy was a ray of sunshine, not that Ollie was grumpy at all, he was just quiet. But I loved Daisy and her dog named Prince Charming. Even though Daisy and Ollie knew each other from the coffee shop every morning, her serving him his favorite, until the day she makes something different for him, that same day they have a kind of meet-cute when they are both walking their pets and run into each other. The whole situation was cute and so much fun. It even kind of got a reprisal in the epilogue with I loved. 

The spy bit was fun, if a bit of a reach in how it all happened. But it made for a fun connection between the two. I liked that we didn’t have any silly misunderstandings or overreactions. It made for such a real story to me. Both characters figured some things out about themselves through the story, so both had growth that made their connection even stronger. And there was some fun banter, which is a favorite of mine!

This is my first book by this author, but I could see enjoying others in her spy series some time!

I was very excited when I first heard about this book. And when I picked it up, it was really good, different actually than what I’d expected, but in a good way! I really liked the way the author created this holiday world, where all the holidays had their own little cities and royal families, etc. The fact that Santa’s two sons were named Nicholas and Kris, you know, St. Nick and Kris Kringle? That was perfect. I loved the prince of Halloween too, Hex. Hex and Nicholas, who went by Coal, were so cute together. Coal was so much fun too. Of course we got to meet him right after he’d created a huge debacle by trying to fulfill all of one city’s unfilled Christmas letter wishes. Only by doing that, it created a huge hit on the economy of that city because of all the fallout. It was then that he met Hex, although he didn’t know who Hex was. 

Santa, or Coal and Kris’s dad, was not the jovial benevolent man we think of. It came of course from the fact that their mother had left and so all three of them were suffering and dealing with their grief in their own way. Santa’s way was to get joy from other holidays in order to get it so that it was worldwide. However the way they got the joy wasn’t a great way once Coal found out how it really was done. Their dad decreed that Coal would marry the Easter princess Iris, who was Coal and Kris’s best friend, and also Kris might have liked her a little more, even if he’d never told her. When Halloween tried to do something to stop their combining like this, they set it up so that now Hex was going to compete to marry her and she would choose.

When they found out it was a fake setup, that Christmas intended to just keep Hex there in order to show his power and still get Coal to marry her. Things got a bit crazy and tense. Coal and Hex were actually the ones really into each other. They tried to come up with a way to stop this and make things better. Similar to how Halloween worked with the other fall holidays. And as you’d expect, things did not go smoothly. Including at one point Coal’s father finding out and forbidding it and trying to cause it to be stopped.

I won’t go on, as I think you should read it and see yourself. This is an adult romance, as we get sex scenes between Coal and Rex that are not closed door. I really loved this world and think that the next book, supposed to be about Kris, should be good too.

I first read this author through the SmartyPants Romance books. And so I was thrilled to have another one from her to read this time around. It was fun to be in the music world again. While Zara somewhat reminded me of Taylor Swift, it was of her in her younger days for sure. And then of course there was Asa, who was an older former rock star, or very short-lived career rock star. Both of them had dealt with people in their past that they should have been able to depend on that had been bad for them, back-stabbing and causing all kinds of issues. While it had made Asa back away from the whole business and become quiet and kind of broody, Zara was kind of the opposite as she was more of a sunshine and always looking at the good for the most part. Willing to forgive and also give another chance, looking for the good in everyone.

But boy did some of the people in her life, her ex-boyfriend for example, he was horrible. And the way his PR twisted things to make it look like she was the cheater and the one breaking them up. Not to mention Asa’s sister and mother. However they also had some really good people and friends in their lives. Her family was so great, his father. The friends they had in common or some of their other industry contacts. Of course she also had such great security, from the Cipher security connections that we even got to spend some brief time at the end with some of our favorite Knitting in the City series characters, Alex, Dan, and Quinn.

Their relationship took its time, and the author wrote it perfectly. Honestly there wasn’t a third act breakup, even with a bit of a misunderstanding. Zara’s way to deal with it and how she worked around it was realistic in my opinion and only made the story end perfectly. Another great story from this author in a series that I love!