stephanie_inman's Reviews (228)

I’ll start by saying I love Anyta Sunday. Her books usually are top reads for me. I’ve given most of them at least four stars. Leo Loves Aries and Taboo for You are in my top ten favorite reads, any genre. So to say I didn’t like this one, yeah, it hurts a little.

If I understand correctly, this is an older work of hers (co-written by Andy Gallo) and was re-released. It just doesn’t stand up to the quality of her current writing.

The writing style felt off. Very little flow. Much of the book just didn’t make sense. The football scene was weird. It didn’t feel like it belonged. Our main character, Jack had a brother/best friend, Marcus. For much of the first chapter I couldn’t tell who the mc was, was it Jack or Marcus? There was a lack of pronouns being used, so it read weird. There were also some inconsistencies that took me out of the moment, and had me going back through other chapters to see if I had missed something.

Jack lost his parents, and Marcus’ parents were his guardians. Jack and Marcus belonged to the same frat that their dads had been members of. This was another issue with telling who was whom. Sometimes “my dad” was used to refer to Jack’s dad. Other times they used his name, Sean. This wouldn’t have mattered except they started using Sean without really saying who he was at first. And it also seemed odd that Jack would look at a picture of his and Marcus’ dad and refer to the men as “Sean and Trevor”. I can’t help but to think most would say “Dad and Trevor”.

Losing his parents caused Jack to have some issues with his mental health. As someone who has diagnosed PTSD, I didn’t like the way this was handled at all. Jack would have a meltdown (I believe that’s what he called it) when he experienced something that reminded him of his family. While that happens, he seemed to just cry a lot and then move on. It was also mentioned that he was on antidepressants. There was no other talk of his mental health care. It seemed like the whole mental health aspect was thrown in just to have a reason for Jack to think he couldn’t have a good relationship, as his previous boyfriend broke up with him because of it.

Ed was in the closet. Fine. I can definitely buy that. But the way it was handled? There didn’t seem to be much of a reason for it, other than he thought he might lose his job. And that was all a huge misunderstanding. He jumped to a conclusion with no proof. Everyone deserves to come out on their own terms. Had this story shown more of Ed and why he felt he couldn’t come out, other than “I have to keep my job”, it would have maybe been more convincing. I would have liked to get Ed’s POV. This is one book where I think dual POV’s would have added a lot to the story.

The main conflict between Jack and Ed was that Jack had made a childish bet with an asshole frat brother. There didn’t seem to be any real reason for the bet to be as serious as it was. Like, so you back out of the bet? The dude can’t force you out. Just change your mind. Talk to Ed. There were so many options to just not have this conflict.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the characters. They were okay. I would have liked to know them a bit better, actually. I found that I wasn’t rooting for Jack and Ed because I didn’t care all that much about them. Oddly, my favorite couples ended up being the side couples. I wanted to read about Brittney and Seth and about Marcus and Nessa more than I wanted to read about Jack and Ed.

While this wasn’t my favorite read, I’ll still be reading everything Anyta Sunday releases. And I look forward to discovering more works by Andy Gallo.

TW: Grief

Okay, so there is a lot to love about this book. I love that the trope of "manwhore falls for sweet, commitment-type heroine" is flipped. Here our heroine, Dani Brown, is the one with commitment issues and has no problem with casual sex. While Zafir is someone who doesn't engage in purely sexual relationships.

Can I just take a moment to say how much I fucking LOVE that we have a hero who isn't led the ever present romance book "manwhore"? Because I love it so very, very much.

Please, authors, more of these men.

I also appreciate that Dani was open with her sexuality and made no apologies for being someone who was interested only in friends-with-benefits relationships. I loved that she wasn't your every-single-romance white, cis-het, virginal heroine. Dani is black, a proud bi-sexual (yay! bi-rep) and sexually confident. Oh, and she's an academic and she practices witchcraft! As an individual character, Dani is awesome.

As for Zafir, I loved him so much. He's loving, understanding to a fault, a good friend, a great family member. He spends his free time helping kids with anxiety. Once again, I appreciated the representation used here. Zafir is Muslim. And Zafir suffers with anxiety. I have anxiety disorder myself, so I was happy to see it represented. All to often writers use anxiety as a throw away plot point, mentioned, but it never impacts the story or the character at all. This isn't the case here. We see Zafir suffering with it.

So, take two completely amazing characters, and this book should be five stars. On paper, it honestly should be. But I found that, while I loved Dani in so many ways, when it came to her as a romantic heroine, I didn't always like her. The relationship between her and Zaf seemed way too one-sided. I felt like he had genuine feelings for Dani, while she was using him because she was bored and/or needed to get laid. I get that she's not into relationships. And, yeah, she's upfront with Zafir about that. I feel like on some level she had to know that she was going to hurt Zafir, but she didn't really care. While Dani was this completely driven character, and had so many good qualities, she also came across as very selfish. Obviously, it's not that I think women are required to be in a relationship just because a man is their friend and treats them well. But there was some sort of line with Dani and Zafir where it just felt like she was taking advantage of his feelings.

That leads me to Zafir. While I loved nearly everything about him, I didn't love that he was so open to just being Dani's "fuck buddy" when he so clearly wanted more. Zafir's inner monologue about Dani not owing him anything, and that he was happy just to be her friend was on point, as far as what we should expect from men. No man deserves a relationship just because he wants one. But Zafir is also written as having anxiety to the point of it adversely affected his entire life in a profound way. Most people who have gone through enough therapy to be counseling others on anti-anxiety tips and techniques are usually a little bigger on self preservation. There was zero self preservation with Zafir. And he's also a smart dude. The one thing that didn't fit, imo, is that he would be okay with a relationship that he knows will not go anywhere. I wanted Zafir to want more for himself.

As for whether or not this book is worth the read and to whom I would recommend it?

Yes. Read it.

Everyone.

I originally gave it three stars, but bumped it to four. The things I liked about this book are so important to me, that I couldn't stick with just three stars. The diversity. The sex positivity. The writing, just the voice that Talia Hibbert has. All of these things make Take a Hint, Dani Brown well deserving of four stars.

This is the story of “good girl”, Jennifer and the town “bad boy”, Marcus. The problem is that Marcus wasn’t in any way a bad boy. I’m all for male characters who are just good guys. Marcus was a good guy, and I liked his character a lot. But the entire “conflict” here is that Jennifer thinks that Marcus is this bad boy. She’s been warned away from him for years. The only reason we are ever given for his hell raiser reputation is that he has been with more than a few women. But now he’s got a good, stable job. He doesn’t date much. He basically is just a normal dude. So I didn’t really get Jennifer’s internal musings.

Jennifer, the good girl, on the other hand just had zero personality. There was nothing about her that made me want to root for her. I couldn’t even hate her, as she was just so bland that I didn’t care at all.

I also didn’t feel any chemistry between these two. The scenes between them moved so slowly. And, even with this being a novella, I found myself losing interest.

Still, the writing was good and I liked the secondary character of Jennifer’s BFF, Beck enough that I immediately followed this book up by reading her story.

I can suspend my sense of belief a lot when it comes to reading. I mean, I’ll read about wizards, vampires, and Demi-gods. But this book was just way too out of the realm of possibility for me.

First we have one of the most unlikable heroines I’ve ever read. Bailey has the maturity of a pre-teen, spoiled brat. She’s not “feisty”. She’s ridiculous. She’s kidnapped and beaten. When she’s rescued by the FBI, and taken to the hospital she just decides she doesn’t want to tell them anything? So, she’s not only ungrateful to have her life saved, no she also wants to pout and whine, but not offer anything in the way of assistance to the people trying to not only get the people who kidnapped her, but these people who also have kidnapped kids. The FBI is trying to save children and Bailey’s just gonna nope right outta helping kids? And we are supposed to like her? I mean, I knew the story couldn’t possibly justify this heroine, but I pressed on.

Now we get to the hero: big, badass FBI agent, Brock. Except Brock wasn’t so badass. And no way would he stay an FBI agent when he’s completely inappropriate with their witness, Bailey. They don’t have sex immediately, but they’re attracted to one another. They are staying in a “safe house” together with two other agents (Brock’s buddies) also sometimes there. There are a few times Bailey mentions that Brock could lose his job, and he laughs and just says “I’m might get reprimanded, but I won’t get fired”. Dude. You sleep with a witness on the case you’re working and you’re gonna get fired. Even my ability to suspend belief doesn’t go that far.

He legit has his sister book them a hotel so he can propose to her (because he wants to be committed before they have sex). Of course, they also have sex. As much as I hated the hotel and the “gotta have sex with my virgin woman” shit, I really hated Bailey being all “Your sister knows we’re going to have sex. She’s gonna think I’m a slut”. This is not the only instance of the “I don’t want people to think I’m a slut or a whore” shit.

So, yep. Gotta healthy dose of slut shaming in this one.

We also have the “crazy woman with pms/on her period” sexist bullshit.

He’s also just not a good agent. Like they all let Bailey tell them what she wants to, but if she doesn’t want to, they just step back and don’t even try with her. And at one point she remembers that she had taken pictures on her phone, but the kidnappers deleted them. But it’s okay, because she saved them to the cloud. (HUGE EYE ROLL HERE). Yes, apparently the FBI didn’t even take Bailey’s phone. And she’s allowed to have her personal phone while in a safe house?

Oh, but they will have their team “scrub” the phone. However that will take a while, so they’ll have Bailey give a description to an artist because that will be faster. (Again, they would have had her phone. And, if something is saved to the cloud, no “scrub” needed. Just, you know, bring up the cloud storage)

These are the stupidest FBI agents in the fictional world.

The story also just didn’t come together well. It was a bit everywhere.

I did like Macy and Dallas and wanted to read their story. I’m about halfway through it. I’ll post a review later.

I actually have quite a few of this authors other books on my Kindle. I’ve read a few of them, but it’s been a while. (I re-read two of them more recently). I remember not hating them before, but maybe my tastes have changed. Or maybe they are just legit better than this one. I am going to try and get through a few of them before making a decision about whether or not this author is for me.

My biggest issue isn’t even that the story isn’t great. It’s the way that the female character here is portrayed, the slut shaming and the sexism.

And the stupidity of the FBI in this story. I just couldn’t with it.

Honestly, I do hope that the next book is better. I’m actively rooting for it to be a win for me. I want to leave a much better review for it.

Quick, easy read. Safe. No OW/OM drama, No Cheating.

C.L. Cruz is a great author for when you want to read something in a short amount of time. I find that her stories are fairly fleshed out for not being full length.

This one was okay. I might have rated it higher, but I really didn't like the heroine, Berkley. She was fine one minute and then BAM something happens and she took a turn. There's a fine line between strong heroine and just downright mean. I do like that she apologized, though. I thought our H, Gannon was way too easy on her. She was horrible to him and he was working on himself to win her back? Just no. He should have been done with her.

I also didn't like that Berkley absolutely screwed up at work, yet the narrative becomes that she needed to set better boundaries. I don't think her boss was asking too much of her to return a phone call. Like, literally, that was the issue. She really should have been reprimanded or fired. Not promoted.

I just felt like we were supposed to sympathize with Berkley and I just didn't.

The writing is good. The characters have personalities (good or bad). I'm going with three stars because as much as Berkley annoyed me, everything else was okay.

Emmy, our h pretty much ruined this book for me. She's a spoiled white girl who talks down to Nico. She thinks her time is much more important than that of anyone else. I get that we are supposed to see her growth, but really I didn't see it. Even after she is with Nico, she overhears his friend say something stupid and of course she overreacts. As she's driving out of town she literally thinks "Maybe I should stay and ask Nico about this", but the girl keeps on driving.

Nico, of course, runs after her and facilitates their making up.

I did like Nico. And I read this because it introduces us to Juniper Creek and the characters in that series. I liked how we met some of the Juniper Creek characters. Love how the series intertwine.

By far my favorite out of the three books in this series. Much like the first two books, our heroine pushes the hero away at first. But this is the only book in the series, and Lucy the only h, where it actually made sense.

Lucy had been hurt by Rhett when they were teenagers. He kissed her and then left to pursue his baseball career. I love that Lucy didn't seem to be angry about this, she just figured it would likely happen again so might as well protect herself. And the fact that she didn't pine away for Rhett for ten years? THANK YOU, C.L. CRUZ!

Rhett and Lucy had great chemistry, but they were also great characters on their own.

I would pick this one up again.

This series just wasn't for me.

I wanted to like the h, Macey. In the beginning of the book, she seemed pretty awesome. But as time went on, she just made stupid mistake after stupid mistake. She got angry way too easily. She just became too much.

As for Dallas, honestly I had some trouble getting past him telling Macey (and I'll paraphrase here) "I'm not going to tell you not to cut your hair" (because I guess the author didn't want to make him totally a dick) "But women with short hair are women who have given up".

Evidently, if you like that cute pixie cut, have a career where short hair is easier or just really like how short hair looks on you, you've given up. What in the actual misogyny is this?

So, yeah. I think the author intended to make Dallas a "manly man" but he was often just a dick. I do kind of see what the author was going for with Dallas, though and I ended up at three stars because even with Dallas’ misogynistic tendencies, I do think he was intended to be sweet. And when he and Macey weren’t together for a time, he didn’t just go out and have sex with lots of women while Macey was going through some very traumatic stuff. So, big bonus points to the author for that.

I thought the story had a lot of potential. Had it been set up just slightly longer I think it would have worked very well. As it was we are given things so quickly that there's no buildup to who was after Macey and why. It was easy to see that her ex was sort of involved, and I think had we just had that part of the mystery, things would have seemed a bit more cohesive.

I still have a ton of books by this author on my Kindle. I have read several of the Dogs of Fire books in the past, and I don't remember having nearly as much trouble with them as I have with this series. I don't know if it's just a difference in the characters or the author changed her writing style a bit. I do plan on trying to get through those soon. I have a feeling that series will be more to my liking. Again, this one just wasn't for me.

This is a hard review for me to write. I actually read this months ago, but went back and reread the series today so that I could finally put up a rating on this one.

I enjoyed the first two novellas. I even gave the second one, Hudson, 4 stars. But this one just didn’t work for me. I felt that both Austin and Liz were just very bland. And I didn’t feel the chemistry between them.

I know a lot of readers aren’t into novellas or short stories because it can be hard for authors to really flesh out a character in under a hundred pages. I’m actually a fan of shorter reads. While I enjoy longer books as well, sometimes I just want a quick HEA that I can read in little time. And I have read many authors who are able to bring their characters to life, even with the limited number of pages. I think that Kali Hart did an excellent job of that in the first two books in this series. I just didn’t feel it with this one. Still, the series as a whole is at least a three star read, and I do recommend it for anyone looking for a quick, insta love, no angst HEA.