lisaluvsliterature's Reviews (4.19k)

I have wanted to read something by this author for a long time and I was excited when I was able to fit this one into my review schedule. And I am pleased to say this one did not disappoint at all! I was trying to fit it in after a rough week for my family, and it was one I couldn’t put down, which was perfect. The characters were second chance, but also a tiny bit of enemies to lovers at times, based on how their first date had ended.

Poor Trina was dealing with some crazy issues with her job, but she was also going to try some pretty extreme lengths in figuring out a way out of the upcoming possible disaster. And then there is Heath who has a past marriage/loss of his wife and child that is understandable in making him so reluctant and unwilling to ever let himself get that hurt again. However both definitely were still interested in the other, even if they didn’t want to admit it or admit that it was more than just a casual thing. And while it seems as if Trina is a bit mean to him at first, when he starts scaring these possible dates away, I kind of felt like he deserved it at times.

The story also had a bunch of great characters, from earlier books in the series which I have yet to read, but now need to! And the town of Elk Lake has a lot of great settings and characters too. I’m not always a fan of billionaire stories, but the way this was done with Heath was perfect and he didn’t seem like your usual billionaire other than the occasional mention of how his money affected his life and world. It was a sweet romance as well, pretty much just kissing, nothing more. But it worked for this story, and it wasn’t anything that seemed to be avoided, it just wasn’t needed for the plot.

Again, I really enjoyed this and will be doing my best to fit more by this author into my reading schedule in the future!

It wasn’t bad. Just the egalley format was too difficult to keep my attention. 

I guess I didn’t read the synopsis close enough because I didn’t realize this was going to be a kind of paranormal/werewolf Winston Brothers series retelling! And let me tell you that I am HERE for this! I loved this book so much! It’s been a while since I read through the whole Winston Brothers series, and so it was fun kind of rereading the whole Truth or Beard story but told with werewolves, and the Iron Wolves instead of the Iron Wraiths. It was fun realizing which characters would fill in for the characters for the other story. And funnily enough, they even mentioned Green Valley in this new Moonlight Valley, Tennessee world. 

So our heroine in this boo, Alice Aymes, (Jessica James anyone?) only reminds me a little of the character she is a retelling of. Alice is so much more awkward to me, but that’s not bad, I enjoyed it for sure! And the back stories and families of all the characters aren’t exactly the same, but each have their own similarities that it is recognizable if you’ve read the original series. However even with those same parts, there are changes to the story and so many things I look forward to seeing how they will change if we get more books in this series! 

Next we have Ford Boone, twin brother to Atticus Boone who Alice has always had a crush on. However Ford has always had a bit of a crush on Alice, and is the perfect example of that old adage (which I know that it is no longer considered PC) that boys pick on the girls they like. Turns out that when he comes to Alice’s rescue, she thinks it is Atticus and ends up kissing him. Then she finds out it isn’t him, at the same time she finds out he is a werewolf when his brother shifts from wolf to human basically right in front of her! 

Now she’s in on a secret that of course can’t be spread around. Because even though there is the Iron Wolves, it isn’t a commonly known to everyone fact that there are really werewolves. Atticus and Ford also have the same amount of brothers and sisters as the original series. My favorite Cletus reimagining is Ranger, and he also enjoys talking about his sausage and sharing it with others. IYKYK. 

As I mentioned the story basically follows the original series book but with its own paranormal aspects and differently imagined situations that would come along with those differences. I loved how the author used a quote from a paranormal/werewolf romance at the beginning of each chapter, including Twilight and even my favorite author Maggie Stiefvater! I am going to keep gushing and hoping that this book gets enough love that the author will write the next reimagined book in the series, just as I continue to hope for more of the historical romance reimagining by Lainey Hatcher of the Knitting in the City series by Penny Reid.

The new saying may no longer be “Get thee a Winston stat”, but “Get thee a Boone (Wolf brother), stat!”

I just don't get her animosity towards him, I mean I get the competitive part, but then her "friends" on her team?  Who aren't really friends?

Oh my gosh, the ending of this one! Whoa! I am so ready to start the next one, but I won’t let myself until the beginning of June, but just whoa! Now, if you haven’t read these yet, there will be a TON of SPOILERS in this review, so you should probably stop now if you don’t want to be spoiled for those! I’ll try not to spoil this one though if you’re all caught up to this point for the most part.

Now, I know that these probably didn’t come out one a month as I’m listening to them, but the beginning of this one was a tiny bit info-dumpish for me. We knew from the end of the last one that Angel was going to have some issues with the V-12 that they’d given her to help get extra strength when she’d been trying to help save people from Sabreton. But we begin the story with her basically in this state. Now she’s learned that it does have at least one good effect, it helps with her dyslexia so she can read for her college classes. Unfortunately it is also causing her to act like a bit of a junkie in some ways, her paranoia, feeling like she needs it and things aren’t right without it.

It turns out there are other issues, ones that she is causing problems for Phillip for how she is getting it. She is sneaking it out of the lab, taking it from his doses. Turns out it has some bad side effects too. She loses impulse control. She sees fireflies and possibly other hallucinations. Her paranoia causes her to think other people are judging her and not trusting when they say they want to help her. Even her father notices her change in behavior.

Along with this, there is a big zombie fest going on in the town, coinciding with the release of the zombie movie that was being filmed there in an earlier book. So now you have not only Sabreton people, but someone with a cadaver sniffing dog, and people out “hunting” zombies. There was a little bit of Andrew Sabreton’s new zombie life mixed into the story and I wonder if that will really fill out the last book. Not to mention a faux documentary film that threatens the zombies being discovered, with actual zombie footage. So much going on!

Pietro at first is talking about taking the zombies underground, disappearing till it blows over. But he soon will realize that might not work in this world wide web connection society. Along with that we find that a character we didn’t know actually knows what Angel is. I’d kind of wondered if that person had some knowledge. The FBI is sniffing around funeral homes. Dr. Cherish is back causing problems, there is so much going on!

I can’t even go into a lot of what happens because there is just a lot going on in this book. It was so good though, and I liked how Angel’s problem was handled. I could say there was also some crazy major stuff that happened to Angel at the end of the book, and I can’t WAIT to start the next book in June to find out just what comes from that.

I really liked this author’s first book in the Green Valley Heroes series, Letter Late Than Never, and so I was very excited for this one. And once again I was not disappointed! While the only problem I can possibly think of with this one is maybe it was a little long, the story was perfect otherwise! And strangely, this is my second virgin hero story in a month’s time!

Robin was a strong woman who actually even tied us back to the last story I read in this series, Young Buck by Kilby Blades, because she was catching her boyfriend in the act of cheating on her. For some reason she called in her boyfriend’s cousin, Arthur, to ask if he knew about it. He didn’t want to believe her, so she took him with her when she went to confront him. Let’s just say Robin knew about getting back at someone. Eggs, the garden hose, she made sure her ex, Daren, knew she was mad, and she tried to make sure he knew she was done with him.

Arthur was the strong, silent type. The big broody, grumpy bearded guy. But totally a cinnamon roll as he was also a softie on the inside and with his friends and people he cared about. He gave Robin a place to stay and was her shoulder to cry on. He believed he had a soulmate, based on his father’s love of his mother, who he’d lost at a young age. He was so sure he would find that soulmate with a first kiss and would just know.

Robin’s background was a mother who would constantly move when her relationships didn’t work out or ended, making Robin sure she would never move for a man, would only do what she wanted. And she had been a pilot in the military, lost part of her hearing because of it. Now her dream was to one day own a plane repair shop, like where she currently worked. Her current boss is ready to retire, and she’s just waiting for him to let her know if she can take over, only all of a sudden he brings his son in, and now she’s afraid he plans to hand the shop to him instead of letting her take it over.

Robin was funny. She decided she didn’t want to be herself for a while, wanted to be someone different, so she put on Arthur’s clothes and tried to act like him and be him. She soon found out he wasn’t a good kisser. Which led to finding out more things about his inexperience. After a few kissing lessons, or kiss attacks as Robin called them, he had a real kiss, and knew that Robin was his soulmate. He’d wanted her since the first time his cousin had brought her to meet the family, but of course had put that out of his head because she was with his cousin.

And the two of them do the whole fake dating routine. But with all the help Robin gives Arthur to help with his inexperience, of course the two of them get to know each other better and grow closer and fall in love with each other. As they go along, there is not only Arthur’s cousin, Robin’s ex Daren, but also all of his brothers, I believe 3 others besides Daren? At first they are all mad at Arthur for supposedly stealing Daren’s girl. But Arthur finally finds out, exactly as I’d suspected, that Daren’s family didn’t know the truth behind why they broke up. And that changes it all.

I loved all the characters in the story. Not only the Green Valley gang we’ve met in other books, like Arthur’s postal worker friends, but also his family, because his mother was from India I believe? So he face-timed with them at one point and his grandmother, mother’s mom, fell in love with Robin when she saw her there. And let’s talk about the Kraut brothers, Arthur’s cousins who were basically like his brothers. I’m hoping we get a spin-off series with all of them getting their own HEAs!

I really have enjoyed this series, and especially the first on in the series that was also by this author, Forrest for the Trees. And this one started out really good too!

There was a lot going on this story. You had Loretta who was a PI and also worked at the police station. She also led a support group for women who had been cheated on. And because she’d always wanted a child with her ex who had died, she has decided to go the artificial insemination route.

Then you had Buck who was a firefighter, but was young for how advanced he was. His father was also a former politician, with his brother now working to get elected. He had just moved to Green Valley, since he’d always wanted to work in a town like this. He moves in next door to Loretta, but she didn’t know he was subletting her neighbors’ house, and so she got him with the taser when he moved in late at night. Unfortunately the video of it got shared with his fire crew before he got there, and so he started off on a bit of a disadvantage.

The two of course are attracted to each other almost right away. But both have things going on in their lives that keep them from jumping right into that. Soon Buck needs her skills as a PI for his own family mystery, and so that makes her want to keep their distance for that reason too. As I said, there is a lot going on in this story!

I enjoyed all the Green Valley aspects and people in the story, even time with my favorite Winston brother, Cletus. A few parts got a little long for me, and it was the opposite of the last book by this author, I was a little irritated with some of Loretta’s being angry at him, even if it did make sense with her background in this book. And I had to disagree when one character said women in their 50s who like younger men are called saber-tooths, they are actually called jaguars, I think maybe women in their 60s are saber-tooths? lol

I was hooked right away as I totally understood Allegra’s love of the country of Scotland and I’ve only been there once! The last two series by Samantha Young are more romantic suspense than I usually read, but I really did enjoy the characters and story in this one. 

I loved that the author had to assure us this quick of a marriage of convenience wouldn’t actually be realistic legally in Scotland, but it made for a good story to do it this way. What I remembered of Jared from the other stories in both this series as well as the Adair Family series, I knew I was going to have to be won over for him. Allegra was another character I barely remembered other than what had happened to her, when Sloane had saved her, in the first book in this series, Beyond the Thistles. But her back story was intense and even more so once we got her POV. Knowing more about her and her sister Aria’s family made it even more emotional. So many people really didn’t know Allegra and that made her stand out for me.

I did soon fall in love with Jared, getting his POV especially. Both Jared and Allegra had people in their past as well as even some just show up for seemingly no reason to cause problems. And some of them were family members meaning to do them harm or get something from them. And while one of their families was just not going to be redeemed, the other did, and I felt it was realistic in how it was done. I also liked how the author made their exes, more friends with benefits, actually were not bad for the most part. They were mostly understanding. 

Because I don’t do romantic suspense as much, there were a lot of characters that the author brings in from all of the series and occasionally it took me a minute to remember their stories and how they related, but overall the author does a great job of weaving all the characters together. I especially adored seeing the romance developing between young Callie and Lewis as we got a glimpse of the beginning in Sloane’s book and I love these two kids!