lisaluvsliterature's Reviews (4.19k)

The first thing I loved about this was how it overlapped time wise with the first book in the series, Passing Notes. While I had a little bit of a bumpy/slow start with this one, once I really got to see the characters and some of their real thoughts and feelings, I was hooked and wanted to see how these two could make the opposites attract trope work out for their HEA.

It started with me needing to know more about Leo. I mean why did he leave his band? Why did he come back to this town that he couldn’t wait to leave? Why was he so nervous or scared to pick up the drumsticks and play again? His reluctance to be around other people made sense and as the story went on it filled in a lot of the spaces for me in what had happened to him.

And then there was Mari. She was such a great person, with such a big heart for her students and her friends, but I totally got how she felt that everyone left her. While for the most part I don’t have those same family issues, I definitely get the feelings about friends who move on after a while. I have also felt the same way wondering why I was so easy to leave. There were sometimes in this story that I kind of felt like my life was being used for her story, lol.

I’m still angry every time they share about the jerk of a principal or the lousy librarian they have at the school. Ugh. I think I need to write a story for this series about a new librarian that is what these students deserve, and give her the HEA I’ll probably never get, but I deserve too!

In the end though, the third act break up was fitting for how these two characters felt about themselves, and the big drama that came between them also was exactly fitting for the whole story. While I didn’t see it coming, when it was there, I knew it was the perfect plot point and really I love how the author did that! Not to mention the final bit where the grand gesture happened, and yeah, just adored this one!

I can’t wait to hopefully read more in this series from these authors in future SmartyPants releases, and yay for this wonderful new world in my favorite fictional town of Green Valley!

I enjoyed the first book in the SmartyPants world by this author, Tough Cookie, so I was excited to read another in the Donner Bakery world. It took me a minute to remember those characters, but once we met Mags, Magdalena, and she talked to her sister on the phone, Carla, I remembered her and Noah.

Mags was much different than Carla. Whereas Carla wasn’t much of a social person, Mags was from NYC and was a very loud and big personality. A big city personality. In fact that is why her first meet up with Cy was probably more cute for the readers than for her or Cy. I mean she called him Deliverance! Which most people know is the movie where some hillbillies kind of were scary people. That sucked for Cy as he had dealt with the bad reputation his father gave the family for his whole life.

Her treatment of him made me a little mad at first, and that’s even before we got his side of the story. But as we learned more about her interactions with the contact she had saved in her phone as “scary drug dealer”, her wariness made more sense. And oh my gosh, her ex-boyfriend, a rock star, wow, he was a total and complete loser! But as she kept putting her foot in her mouth over little things with the small town characters of Green Valley, I liked how she ended up handling those things and learning from her mistakes. Not to mention how the small town grew on her, like I think it would any of us who got the absolute wonderful chance to live in this fictional world.

Cy was cautious with letting his niece be known as part of his family. He wants her to have a fair chance in this town without that bad past. His niece is a little bratty, but again, as a teen, it is understandable, especially with what she has gone through and with where her mom is at the moment. Cy was a wonderful guy, and definitely loved his side of the story.

Oh, and I loved the dog that just showed up and made Mags his owner. Another great story from this author in the SPR world and I hope we get more of this family and these characters in future releases!

Other than this being 3rd person, I loved everything about this book! Sure it was a little long, but all of the story was needed in my opinion. I’d wanted to read this author’s first book, but didn’t get to, and so when this one popped up and the publisher offered me the chance to read it early, I jumped on that chance!

I normally don’t care for reading about con artists or criminal type of characters. So you’d think that I wouldn’t like Gretchen. However when I got to know her, her family background that led her to where she was, as well as how she might be conning older women, but she is doing it so that she is leaving them better off afterward, I was won over. And her surprise when she actually did see a real ghost, and how that went for her, it was hilarious! Oh my gosh, Everett was so much fun, he made the book!

Charlie, our love interest, also a great guy. It was easy to see why he wasn’t a fan of con artists, especially worrying about what was happening to a friend of his. His taking care of his grandpa brought to mind some of my current issues with my stepdad’s dementia slowly getting more of a hold on him. Every little detail we learned about Charlie as he let Gretchen in bit by bit made me fall in love with him right along with her. And when she told him she found a way she could stay and he could go, wow, I hate the way she did that! How could she not even throw out the suggestion he could stay too?

So much humor and emotion in this story. I will definitely need to go back and get my hands on the author’s last book and will recommend this one highly as well!

I was worried now that the author was in such a happy relationship she was not having writing time, but I am pleased to say that is not the situation and Ney is back with another hilarious sports rom-com.

All of the squirrel parts to the story had me giggling! And the bit at the end from the squirrel’s POV reminded me of Clive the cat’s POV at the end of Wallbanger. My hope is that we might get more squirrels in maybe some related stories to this one? I could see both Brodie or Lizzie’s roommates giving us some good stories. Especially Lizzie’s wingman, Sully – one of Brodie’s roomies. If anyone does a virgin hero story right, it is Sara Ney. One of the first books of hers that I read included that exact trope and so yeah, I think I really enjoy when she does it.

The author makes me connect so perfectly with characters, for instance, the fact that the way Lizzie flirted was ignoring, yeah, that’s me! And let me tell you, it has NOT worked for me, lol. And then there was texting humor when people kept saying “ha ha” in texts and Brodie told them to say lol like a normal person. I love how Lizzie would make up words like saying she wasn’t “sportsy”. And Brodie, oh Brodie, what a sweet, but bit of a grumpy guy.

This was a quick and easy read, fun, sweet, and sexy too!

I really enjoyed the last book in this series, Baby, One More Time, and this one even had some of those characters for us, which I loved! Reese was a fun STEM character, in charge of a robotic department of the company that Thomas’s father was the CEO of. Her department sounded like a bunch of fun nerdy people, I’d love to hang out with them! And her AI robot, K-2P, was hilarious! Such a fun part of the story.

Thomas was definitely the sunshine to Reese’s grumpy, although it wasn’t really that she was grumpy. She was just a woman trying to make sure she’d proven herself in a mostly male dominated field. Thomas was more than just sunshine though. He was really a genuinely nice guy, all around charming and easy to be around as well as work with.

They fought their attraction, both having such good reasons for it, and I love that Thomas seemed to fall first in this story. While Reese definitely felt the attraction pretty quickly, she kept him at arm’s length for good reasons based on her past as well as her career. We got a bit of a hint at what would kind of become their big dramatic third act issue with the very first paragraph of the story. But when it happens, it still surprised me because I’d kind of forgotten about it as the story went on and no further mention was made. And I love the way all of the relationship was wrapped up for our HEA at the end. I like that we may have been unsure about Thomas’s family, but the way it worked out was realistic and I loved it.

Another great story from this author, but now I need to go back because I missed the first one in this series, and I need to know Thomas’s brother Gabriel’s story with his girlfriend Blake.

I have loved every Nora Everly book in the SmartyPants Romance world, and this new series set in a school was the perfect place to go with my own background and current job in education. There was so much to love about this book. The characters were great, including ones we knew from the last series in the SPR world by Everly. I loved the setting of the school, although I was so mad that they had an old grumpy librarian who scared people away from coming to the library. Made me really want to write the book idea I had to get my own story into the world with a new school librarian. 

Now, I did get a little tired of the refusal to even talk about what had happened. I know that it would have taken away a major issue between the two, and so maybe it makes sense that the author waited so long. And then because this was a quick read, I might have skipped over some parts as I sped through to find out what would happen, but I swear they’d planned a date, and then all of a sudden there was no talk about it? I probably need to go back and reread that part again and I’ll find I missed a comment or discussion that cancelled that date. 

I’m very excited for the new characters we’ve met with this book, along with those we know from the other books in the SPR world as well as from the original Green Valley series. 

I loved the idea behind this and I remember when Penny Reid was asking for ideas for the title for this book. Even at over 300 pages this was a quick read! Probably because it had me turning pages to find out what was going on with Helen’s brother. Not to mention what a different character from most romance, a former nun! Of course the fact that she was a librarian and writing a smutty romance made me connect with her a bit too, lol. (Not that I’m a nun or ever have been, even if my sex life feels like it lately).

At first I was wondering why we didn’t get Thad’s POV for a few chapters, but then it all falls into place when we learn that Thad is a bounty hunter and only hanging around Helen to try to get to her brother Dean. Of course he connects with her more than he knows he should or thinks he will. So Helen of course thinks he will be perfect to help her check off some of those boxes for things that “normal” people do in the real world now that she’s no longer in a convent. Thad knows that he shouldn’t do those things with her, also he just is so sure she’s a woman and so like every other woman in his life up to this point, he knows he probably can’t trust her.

Both have things to learn, and of course both do over the course of the story through all the adventures and situations they deal with. I like the way the author handles the ending though. As you know I’m normally not a fan of those third act breakups, but the author does it so that it made sense for the story. And she made it so that the make up, getting back together was real, and while not perfectly smooth, also not unrealistically easy. 

I’m looking forward to the next two I assume will be in the series with Helen’s fellow former nun friends. Although one of those friends is going to have to do some stuff to change my mind about her, because I don’t know how much I like her right now.

Just couldn't really get into it, possibly the third person aspect?  But it's the second book by this author I've tried, so guessing maybe her books just aren't for me.