Buttercup's Book Blog

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Review: Play Smart by Aly Stiles

Play Smart by Aly Stiles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC via the author and Smartypants Romance, all opinions are my own.

This book features characters mentioned in other books in the same universe, but it reads as a complete standalone. If you want to get to know Marcos and Eva you will want to read Street Smart, and if you want to know more about Kaitlyn and Abram you will want to read Elements of Chemistry series and Laws of Physics series respectively. Again this reads as a 100% standalone, but if you want to read about the other characters I like to mention where you can find them.

This follows Nash, a musician at heart who ends up as an intern at a media company. He has no interest in a corporate job, but he needs the money and his roommate hooked him up with the job. Paige was built for this internship, she wants nothing more than to make her mark in the corporate world. She immediately judges Nash because he doesn't look the part of an MBA and future CEO. When they get their first intern project, Nash's music skills are put to good use and Paige is left wondering what other skills he is hiding. He challenges her at every step and it makes her furious. Paige pushes Nash's buttons in a completely different way, once she realizes that he's not the person she expected, she tries to understand why he's hiding his talents. Nash's story is heartbreaking, but he's got a great support networks. Paige and Nash may be opposites, but sometimes that makes for the best story. I loved them together!

This was great! It has a great balance of serious and funny moments. This is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster so be prepared. It has some heavy moments, but it also has some laugh out loud ones as well. If you read Street Smart, you know who Chad is and he is back and he add a nice comic relief to the story. This has some great side characters to help move the story along. I loved that we get to see some characters that we've met before in supporting roles as well as new characters that we will hopefully see more of. I thought Paige and Nash had great chemistry and equally good character development. Neither character turned out to be what they seemed from the beginning. They both have to play parts to protect themselves. The ending to this was perfect! I also love when authors put song lyrics in books when there is a musician, it lets us see a different side of the author. The lyrics were awesome!

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Review: Craft by Adriana Locke

Craft by Adriana Locke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an audible code from the author, all opinions are my own.

This is the second book in the Gibson Boys series, but it reads as a complete standalone. This one is NSFW so listen with headphones or take caution if you don't want little ones or anyone else to hear the steamy bits. The narrators do a pretty good job acting those out.

Much like with Crank, I thought the narrators did a great job with the narration and the voices of the characters. If you read my review of book 1 there was a ton of chuckling in the audiobook, adn while this had alot of chuckling it wasn't as much as the first book. Also as with the first book the the narrators actually swapped in an out when a male or female character were talking. When Lance and Mariah are talking the narrators take turns having that conversation. That isn't common in audiobooks and I really enjoy the added element of performance that it gives. I enjoy both of these narrators, and they frequently narrate Locke's books.

This follows history teacher Lance and librarian Mariah. They are work colleagues with flirty banter and alot of chemistry. Lance is a player and Mariah wants a relationship, so neither of them have acted on their attraction. Both of them have some past relationship trauma that they carry with them. Mariah just wants to be loved for who she is, but she has some insecurities built by a lifetime of being put down and told to change by her mother and sister. She can't comprehend what Lance sees in her when he wants to start spending time with her, but the kind of just fit together. I really enjoyed the banter between the two characters and the character development they go through.

I'm slowly making my way through the series and can't wait to read about the rest of the Gibson boys!

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RELEASE BLITZ: A Cosmic Kind of Love by Samantha Young

A Cosmic Kind of Love by Samantha Young is now live!

Space is the last thing an event planner and an astronaut need in this charming new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young.

When event planner Hallie Goodman receives party-inspiration material from the bride of her latest wedding project, the last thing she expects to find in the files are digital videos from Darcy's ex-boyfriend. Hallie knows it's wrong to keep watching these personal videos, but this guy is cute, funny, and an astronaut on the International Space Station to boot. She's only human. And it's not long until she starts sending e-mails and video diaries to his discontinued NASA address. Since they're bouncing back, there's no way anyone will ever be able to see them...right?

Christopher Ortiz is readjusting to life on earth and being constantly in the shadow of his deceased older brother. When a friend from NASA's IT department forwards him the e-mails and video messages Hallie has sent, he can't help but notice how much her sense of humor and pink hair make his heart race.

Separated by screens, Hallie and Chris are falling in love with each other, one transmission at a time. But can they make their star-crossed romance work when they each learn the other's baggage?

Download today on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3plx8UG

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3GcEroC

Nook: https://bit.ly/3lviXem

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3xVsQan

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/30NDBz0

Meet Samantha

Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She's been nominated for several Goodreads Choice Awards. Samantha writes adult contemporary and paranormal romance, YA urban fantasy and YA contemporary fiction and is currently published in 31 countries.
She resides in Scotland.

Connect with Samantha

Website: http://authorsamanthayoung.com

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2FWgYdn

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2H47kEP

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSamanthaYoung/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1520019958258238/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorsamanthayoung/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorSamYoung

Bookbub: http://bit.ly/2D241eO

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/samyoungauthor/

Verve: https://ververomance.com/app/authorsamanthayoung

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Review: Anticipation by Rue Harlow

Anticipation by Rue Harlow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via Social Butterfly PR and the author, all opinions are my own.

This was a fun romcom and I hope that there are more books in the series surrounding the supporting characters. I hope we get a resultion on Annabelle and Marcus and the ABC's of Romance. I liked their back and forth in addition to Lili and Dom's story. This had good banter between the two main characters Dom and Lili, and I'm a sucker for anything involving baking. I'm home baker myself and I love coffee, so this story had my attention from the beginning.

Lili owns the local coffee shop in town, and she has dreams to open a bakery. She is saving up to open her dream kitchen, but the perfect moment hasn't presented itself yet. Lili is a planner and a dreamer. She has tons of goals, but she doesn't go after them because she has a perfect plan and is waiting for it to unfold before she makes the next move achieve them. Her two best friends keep encouraging her to take the leap and live in the moment instead of waiting for the perfect moment to arrive. Dom is or was a pro-football player. He's had massive success but a scandal has brought his football to an end and now he isn't sure what to do now that football is off the table. While he figures out his next steps, he's back in his hometown helping his grandmother open a bakery across the street from Lili's coffee shop. You can imagine how that goes down.

Lili has always had a crush on Dom. To prover her feelings for him she even became the high school mascot so she could be at his football games. Again she had a whole plan to reveal her feeling to him after a big game. Everyone knows that plans often never work out quite how you expect, and Lili's big plans involving Dom have never worked out. She has a picture of what he's like in her head, and much to her detriment, never actually tries to get to know the real him once he is back in her life. She lets her insecurities and preconceived notions take the lead in every situation instead of asking him questions and telling him what she wants. After a miserable experience on a local baking completion that they easily could have won, Lili finally decides that she is ready to take her life into her own hands instead of waiting for life to materialize for her.

This had some great comedic moments and I really enjoyed the banter between Lili and Dom. While they had some communication issues to work through, they eventually figured it out. The side characters played great supporting roles in the story and I hope there are more books set in Mountain View.

It took me a long time to warm up to Lili. She's super sweet when she's in her coffee shop and loves her customers, but when she's with Dom she's not very nice to him. Given that she spends quite a bit of time with him, she has several meltdowns. She's very insecure despite her friends and Dom telling her that she's amazing and she can accomplish whatever she wants. I did really like that no one forced her to take the scary next step to achieve her goals, she did have to get to that place on her own when she was ready.

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Friday, October 14, 2022

Review: Little Eve

Little Eve by Catriona Ward
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received both a print and audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. This book was re-released on October 11, 2022 however it was previously published in 2019. It has one several awards and I can see why. It its very atmospheric and pretty dark. I would recommend looking up trigger warnings before reading. I didn't think it was particularly scary, but it is disturbing. This definitely includes child abuse and what I would consider grooming, there is also animal harm and body harm. Eve and her "siblings" are taken in by a man who kind of runs a cult that worships an entity of the sea, so there is also cult worship behavior.

This book was tough to listen to on audio because of the disjointed timeline. I often found myself referring to the print ARC because I felt like I missed something. The storyline is confusing because of the way the timeline jumps around to keep the reader in the dark prior to the reveal. I thought the reveal was creative and it took me a good bit of the book to figure out what was happening. I did eventually figure out most of what was going on but the final reveal was actually pretty good. This has some pretty decent twists and turns. I thought the alternating POVs worked well with the alternating timeline and thought the author did a good job bringing everything back together in the end to wrap things up.

I thought the world building in this was great! Ward's descriptions of Altnaharra and Eve's visions really put you into the setting. This was also very atmospheric, if you enjoy gothic style horror/thriller novels this is a good one to pick up. My only real complaint was the confusing nature of the timeline. I found it really hard to keep track of what was happening alternating between Eve and Dinah's perspectives and the large jumps in time between the different chapters. I don't think that would have been quite a big an issue had I read the book in print, but it was harder to keep track on audio. I'm thankful I had both the audio and the print arcs to reference when reading so I could keep track of what was going on. In the end I enjoyed this dark and twisty book. I don't think this is going to be for everyone given the uncomfortable subject that unfolds as Eve grows up and more information regarding the murder of her family comes to light.

Overall, I this is a good read if you are looking for a dark and twisty tale as we enter the spooky season.

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Blog Tour: Anticipation by Rue Harlow

What do beavers and baked goods have to do with love?
Well, everything for Liliana Travis...

Anticipation, an all-new fun and flirty opposites-attract small town romantic comedy from Rue Harlow is available now!

Is love a formula or pure fate? The residents of the small college town of Mountain View will soon find out. Love is in the air or rather in the coffee in book one of the ABCs of Romance series.

What do beavers and baked goods have to do with love? Well, everything for Liliana Travis, the owner of the local coffee shop, Higher Grounds. Her day job is serving caffeine highs, but her love life is at an all-time low. A meticulous planner ever since high school, she has a checklist for her perfect man and even plans for how she wants this future romance to unfold. But her carefully laid plans are about to be upended by something, rather someone, completely unanticipated from her past.

Dominic Moore has always been the hometown celebrity of Mountain View. The former captain of the high school football team turned NFL pro is the definition of the “golden boy”. But when Dom is caught in a scandal, he returns home to Mountain View to help his recently widowed grandmother open her dream bakery… and do some soul searching.

For Lili, Dom’s return is both exciting and a total gut punch. Her high school crush is back in town, but also fresh competition for her small business. To make matters worse, the nationwide baking competition, the Upper Crust Challenge, has come to town and bets are firmly on the table. Is it rivalry or romance as buttons are pushed, banter exchanged, and sparks fly? Maybe not everything in life can be perfectly anticipated…

For fans of The Kiss Quotient and The Soulmate Equation, Anticipation is a sweet and spicy debut from Rue Harlow that is sure to be addictive.

Fall in love today!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UN6TVV
Nook: https://bit.ly/3MjsmSF
Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/anticipationRH
Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/3QMgyJn
B&N Paperback: https://bit.ly/3Llns72

Keep reading for a look inside Anticipation!

Liliana Travis was dressed like a giant beaver, missing only its head, ready for her life to dramatically change.

Even though the locker room reeked even more like sour socks than usual, Lili was only smelling roses. It had been a long football season — no longer than any other season, but Lili wasn’t into football at all — and now that it was finally ending, it was time for the final act in her epic plan.

“So …” Alicia prompted her. “What’s the plan?”

“You mean the ‘over-plan,’” Runa corrected Alicia.

Lili’s two best friends had been with her during every step of this little scheme, as they had stayed by her side for everything else throughout every noteworthy occasion in high school.

“I don’t over plan,” Lili defended herself, despite knowing how futile doing so would be, especially considering the crazy amount of thought she had poured into her nutty little endeavor so far.

“Okay.” Runa shrugged. “And I bet that Outlander show is gonna be great.”

“Shut up!” Lili laughed, sick of defending that one too. “Outlander is gonna be awesome.”

Lili had made her two besties get through as much of the historical time travel romance adventure as they were willing to read, but neither of them were as enamored by the genre buster as she was.

Not that she was obsessed at all. Lili didn’t get obsessed with anything, including Dominic Moore, no matter what Alicia and Runa said. The Mountain View Beavers’ star quarterback was as handsome as he was charming, and Lili had been dying for an actual conversation, instead of the fleeting exchanges in Statistics, he forgot about five minutes after they happened.

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3rCS231

About Rue Harlow
Rue Harlow is a semi- professional baked goods aficionado. When not eating carbs or writing smutty novels, you can find her kicking back with a vodka tonic, putzing in her garden, or taking her convertible, Molly the Miata, for a spin. A native Brooklynite, she now resides in the Hudson Valley with her husband and two cats, Artemis and Apollo.

Connect with Rue
Instagram: @rueharlow
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3BnkZ7L
TikTok: @rueharlow

Thursday, October 13, 2022

RELEASE BLITZ: PLAY SMART by Aly Stiles & Smartypants Romance

Play Smart, an all-new enemies to lovers rockstar romcom from Aly Stiles, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!

Nash Ellis knows music. Producing, performing, writing—if it involves the creative process he’s there for it. He knows nothing about copy machines. Or financial reports. Or anything related to the stuck-up business world his best friends have been chasing since they were kids. But Nash also needs money, so when his roommate gets him a paid internship at Reedweather Media, he reluctantly agrees. At least his know-it-all intern competitor is kind of cute in a nerdy-librarian sort of way—especially when she’s being tormented by an angsty rocker she can’t stand.

The only thing Paige Andrews hates more than failure? Nash Ellis. She has little patience for incompetence and zero tolerance for indifference. He clearly doesn’t belong in their corporate world, so why does he insist on ruining her dream job? And the worst part—he’s not what he seems. In fact, it’s all the things he’s hiding behind those electric blue eyes that make him straight-up captivating in an ironic-slacker sort of way.

But their smoldering friction bursts into open flames when the feuding interns are forced into a high-stakes mission that requires intimate knowledge of the music industry. Yep, what could go wrong when the least-qualified candidate to ever walk the halls of a major corporation becomes their only hope of success?

'Play Smart' is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #5 in the Work For It series, Educated Romance World, Penny Reid Book Universe.