Book Review: Mistletoe Games by Jaci Burton (ARC)

Author: Jaci Burton
Series: Play by Play #6.5, 8.5. 10.5
Audience: +18
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: October 18th 2016
My Rating: 4 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

No one brings the sexy out in sports like Jaci Burton, the author of the New York Times bestselling Play-by-Play novels. Now, she puts together a holiday hat trick with three novellas featuring the hottest sports around: baseball, hockey, and surfing—because hard bodies are always in season...

Holiday Games
For the high-achieving Elizabeth and her husband, baseball player Gavin Riley, failure is not an option. So when it comes to making a baby, they’re not about to let any holiday distractions get in the way of their necessary pleasures...

Holiday on Ice
It’s the season for giving and superstar hockey player Patrick “Trick” Niemeyer is ready to give dancer Stella Slovinski his heart wrapped up in bow. But he’ll have to melt the ice surrounding her heart to keep her from walking away...

Hot Holiday Nights
Christmas in Hawaii brings sports agent Tori Baldwin two presents: a young surfer at the top of his game and his business manager. But this hot threesome has to decide if the romantic wave they’ve caught is nothing more than a vacation fling, or the kind of love that could change their lives forever...

*Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Berkley in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or my opinion of this book in any way.

Jaci Burton's Play by Play series is the first series that made me fall in love with sports romance, so when I saw this book on Netgalley I might have danced and made a few raptor noises, due to my excitement.

Holiday Games was absolutely adorable, mainly because of Elizabeth. I love Gavin, don't get me wrong, but Elizabeth is my girl. She's such a badass character, and she's actually someone I'd love to meet in real life. I love that she's a woman who made it in a career that's dominated by men, and she's good at her job. And Gavin is such a sweetheart, like always. I loved reading about them, about how their story continues. I also love reading about Liz being more open to other people. I remember that when we first meet her, she's this cold woman, that will do anything to do her job as she sees fit, which sometimes wasn't a good decision. But Gavin changed her in a way, and I really enjoy reading more about this Liz.

Holiday On Ice is one story I've been dying to read for a long time. I've always been curious to know more about Stella. It's probably one of my favorite things about this series, the fact that there isn't just one sport that it's explored. In this case, with Stella, we see a glimpse into the world of professional dancing. Stella and Patrick are really great characters! Their chemistry is amazing, it's just the type of relationship that I'm used to reading in one of Burton's books. My favorite scene is when Patrick sees Stella dance for the first time. There's just something so incredibly sweet in that scene, I just love it.

Hot Holiday Nights is the last novella on this collection. Victoria, the heroine of this book, is another female sports agent and, if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, she actually appears in the second book of this series, alongside Elizabeth. I have to say though, I wasn't as in love with this novella as I was with the other two. I can't explain it, but to me it felt more like a holiday fling than a beginning of a love story. I do have to say I really enjoyed reading about surfing. The two heroes, Alex and Ben, are surfers. Ben was actually a professional surfer before he had an accident that prevented him from even playing the sport at a competitive level, while Alex is currently a professional surfer. I loved reading more about this sport, and I hope there will be more books in this series that include surfers. Like I said though, I didn't feel as if this was the start of a romantic relationship, but a really hot holiday affair.

As always, Jaci Burton knows just how to write a hot relationship, and how to get me interested in finding out more about certain sports. I am curious to see which character will get their stories told next, as well as which sport will be featured in future books.

Book Review: Fish Out Of Water by Hailey Edwards

Author: Hailey Edwards
Series: A Gemini Novella
Audience: +18
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: CrushStar Multimedia LLC
Release Date: September 18th 2016
My Rating: 5 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

Harlow Bevans was a changeling mermaid working as a diving consultant for the Earthen Conclave. Then he came along. Charybdis. A serial killer who possessed her body and wrecked her mind. Now she's an inmate—patient—at Edelweiss Mental Institution.

When a haunting song lures her to the scene of a brutal murder, the calm of the past few months is shattered. A fellow patient is dead, and Harlow is caught standing over his body by a mysterious guard who hides his own secrets behind a pair of aviator sunglasses her fingers itch to remove.

Unwilling to be a pawn in another psychopath's game, Harlow sets out to discover the real killer. What she uncovers makes her a prime target, and the next song she hears could be her last. Curiosity may not have killed the cat, but it just might fillet the mermaid.

*Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this copy from Netgalley and CrushStar Multimedia LLC in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or my opinion of this book

The world of the Black Dog and the other connected series keeps getting bigger and bigger, and that makes me insanely happy. The latest book in the series brings you the story of Harlow, after she is rescued from Charybdis, and it shows her road to recovery.

What I love most about this book is that the story takes place in the facility where Harlow is recovering at. She's still struggling with what Charybdis did to her, she's not healed yet. Actually, this book shows Harlow go from the mute girl who would only make sounds as she's having gruesome nightmares about what happened to her, to the adventurous girl who will try to save everyone around her. So it's actually a book about healing, which I enjoyed a lot.

I feel like Harlow still has a lot to deal with, and there's a lot she still needs to face, to be fully healed, but she's getting there. Maybe she'll never again be that pink-haired mermaid that she was before being used as a pawn in a serial killer's sick game, but at least she won't be a living ghost anymore. She'll have a life, as normal as possible. I'm actually really proud of how much she's managed to accomplish in this book.

A character that intrigued me a lot was Lam. He's a mystery, and it isn't until very close to the end of the story that we get to find out more about him. I'd really love to know more about him, and more about his past.

We also get to learn what happened to the pregnant werewolf from the Gemini series, Bianca. Her story is still heartbreaking, it's still painful, and it seems that, at least for now, it will continue to be that way. However, I have hope. I love the little twist at the end, and what that kind of means for her future, so I have hope for her. I do wish we get to read more about her in the next books, especially in the Lorimar Pack series.

Speaking of series and future books, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more Harlow books. I love her so much, and I'd love to see how she recovers from being kidnapped and possessed, as well as learn more about Lam, and the patients at the Edelweiss Mental Institution.

The book was pretty well paced, and I read it pretty quickly. I'm very happy Harlow is on her way towards a happy ending, and I can only hope we'll get to see more of her in future series. If you still haven't started reading this series, trust me, you're missing out on a lot of fun.

Blog Tour Book Review: Confessions of an Undercover Girlfriend by Kay Marie

Author: Kay Marie
Series: Confessions #2
Audience: +18
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: October 11th 2016
My Rating: 4.5 cups
Source: Author
Blurb (from Goodreads):

So, I'm no longer a virgin sex columnist—thank you, Ollie—but if I thought that was going to make my life easier, boy was I wrong! John is back in town determined to win my forgiveness. Blythe is more ready than ever to take me down. Bridget is totally onto the new twinkle in my eye. And, well, Ollie is just as distractingly delicious as usual.

So, naturally, I have a few more confessions to make.

Confession #1: I came up with what I thought would be the perfect plan to keep my relationship with Ollie a secret—pretend to get back together with John!

Confession #2: It backfired. A lot.

*Disclaimer: I received an eARC from Kay Marie in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or opinion of the book in any way.

I've been super excited for this book to come out, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint.

Confessions of an Undercover Girlfriend picks up right where the previous book, Confessions of a Virgin Sex Columnist, ended, and it kind of felt like I was watching part two of a movie, which was awesome. We don't jump forward in time, weeks or days later, we're right there, when John knocks on the door in the morning after Skye and Ollie's romantic night.

Skylar is still the same girl from before. I love that sex didn't magically change her, it didn't make her have the self-confidence that her co-worker, Blythe has, nor the lack of fear that her best friend, Bridge, is known for. She's still the rambling, clumsy, awkward girl, that can't quite control her fear, and I liked that. We get to see her come to some conclusions about herself, her relationship with Ollie, her friendship with Bridge, and I'm actually proud of her. She kind of managed to make me want to shake her a few times, because her freak-outs in this book were even more epic than in the previous one, but that's her charm, in the end. There's a brilliant scene at the end of the book, where Bridge asks Skye how she manages to live with the anxiety and hyperventilating all the time, and Skye says it takes talent, and it's true. I can understand Skye though. I feel like everyone, myself included, has moments of self doubt, that, when seen from someone else's perspective, can seem strange, or exaggerated, or even annoying at times, but it really does take a special kind of talent to have that inside you and still manage to do all of the stuff you want to do.

I liked Oliver more in this book that before. He kind of grew on me, and I liked that he was willing to let Skye have her little meltdowns and moments of self doubt, and hold her until those moments passed. Sure, there was a moment when I questioned his resolve, but I didn't blame him.

I liked the dynamic between Skye and Bridge. At first I had mixed feelings about Skye wanting to hide her relationship from her best friend, but I eventually got it. She even says is at one point, what if this relationship isn't what she thought it would be, what if she realizes that Ollie is so not the guy for her, why risk a friendship over something that might not be true. But at the same time, I wanted to shake her, because if her best friend really loved her, it wouldn't matter. It shouldn't, and, in the end, it turns out okay. But what I love is that it showed how, even from the one person that we trust with everything and anything, we still get scared of rejection, of judgement. I liked that the book went there.

There were laugh-out-loud moments in this book, one of them involving a drink and someone's face, that made me laugh like a loon. The ending was super cute, and I absolutely adored it. Speaking of things I'd adore, you know what, I'd love to see how Blythe's story ends. I'd love her to get a happy ending, I'd love to see more of her. I couldn't stand her at first, but this book made me like her. I'd definitely read a book about her.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book, which was a really great ending to Skye and Oliver's story.