She wants one night. He wants her forever.

Hayden Summers just landed the job of a lifetime taking pictures forTime magazine, but she’s determined to leave with no regrets. The first thing on her list? Erase the memory of her cheating ex with a wild night of anonymous sex. The second? Figure out why her best friend, sexy bar owner Jace Jennings, stopped speaking to her the night she told him about the job.

Jace has a problem. Hayden isn’t just leaving the country, she’s risking her life—just when he’s realized he’s in love with her. When fate traps them in the storage room of his bar together, barely contained desire simmers to surface. In one last attempt to keep her, Jace offers Hayden the one thing she wants: a night of hot sex, no strings attached. But when the night is over, will Jace be able to let her go? And will Hayden leave with her heart intact?

 

No Strings Attached was difficult for me in a number of ways. First, it’s a novella, so it’s only 62 pages. I’m not the hugest fan of novellas. I recently read one from Brigid Kemmerer that I absolutely adored, but other than that…I haven’t much cared for them. The thing about this novella is that I’m not really sure why it’s a novella. I don’t see anything on Nicolette Day’s website that confirms that this will be or was previously a series…so I find it to be pretty confusing. If you’re looking for a really quick romantic and sexy read, then this is totally the novella for you! Unfortunately, I just had to many complaints to fall in love with it.

I tried really hard, but I couldn’t connect with either of the characters. Not only that, but I didn’t really even like either of the characters. And because this is a novella, I didn’t have a time to get to know or form an opinion of the supporting characters. Like I said, this is a 62 page novella. So, you’re forced to latch on to everyone pretty quickly. Hayden was annoying and whiney. Every single time she spoke it was like nails on a chalkboard. I couldn’t stand her. Jace was a little better than her, but he was a very emotional and sappy kind of guy. I don’t like that. I need my men, both in real life and on paper, to be strong, hunky, firm, dedicated, with a bad quality to them. A little sappiness is good here and there, but let me tell you girls, I’ve dated an emotional basket case before. There is NOTHING attractive about it.

Rating this book was actually pretty difficult for me. Originally, I wanted to rate it a 2. Then, I changed my mind and rated it a 3, because the writing itself is really good. But then….I changed it back to a 2 because the ending sucked. I had to force myself to accept that if I didn’t like any of the characters and I found the ending to be just plain stupid, then there was no way I could rate it a 3. I think that heavy romance lovers will really enjoy this book. I can see 4 and 5 stars all over in the ratings section on Goodreads. That’s great! I highly recommend romance lovers go read this book. It just wasn’t for me.

 

If you like this book make sure to try out:

Obsession by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

 

Pages: 62

Source: ebook

Publication Date: June 10th, 2013

Publisher: Entangled: Flirt

Rating: :

From the author of the “real page-turner” (Seventeen) Such a Rush comes an unforgettable new drama that follows friends-turned-lovers as they navigate the passions, heartbreaks, and intrigue of country music fame.

Bailey wasn’t always a wild child and the black sheep of her family. She used to play fiddle and tour the music circuit with her sister, Julie, who sang and played guitar. That ended when country music execs swooped in and signed Julie to a solo deal. Never mind that Julie and Bailey were a duet, or that Bailey was their songwriter. The music scouts wanted only Julie, and their parents were content to sit by and let her fulfill her dreams while Bailey’s were hushed away.

Bailey has tried to numb the pain and disappointment over what could have been. And as Julie’s debut album is set to hit the charts, her parents get fed up with Bailey’s antics and ship her off to granddad’s house in Nashville. Playing fiddle in washed-up tribute groups at the mall, Bailey meets Sam, a handsome and oh-so-persuasive guitarist with his own band. He knows Bailey’s fiddle playing is just the thing his band needs to break into the industry. But this life has broken Bailey’s heart once before. She isn’t sure she’s ready to let Sam take her there again…

 

As someone who used to claim that she hated contemporary books, I have read SO many of them this year. And it just so happens that it was Jennifer Echols that made me fall in love with contemporary. I remember reading Such a Rush last year, and all the feels that it made me have. It is probably one of my top ten favorite books. So, obviously, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her upcoming book, Dirty Little Secret.

Dirty Little Secret is about a fiddle player named Bailey. Since she was just a little girl, her parents have dragged her and her sister, Julie, around to gigs in the hopes that they would get noticed and get a record deal. And one day that does happen….but only for Julie. Bailey has been excluded from the record deal, and her parents have demanded that she quit music altogether so that she does not mess up Julie’s career.

Since Julie got her record deal, Bailey has spent the last year screwing up and doing everything in her power to disappoint her parents. But after a car crash that involved drugs, Bailey has been cast out of the family to live with her grandfather. And if she messes up just one more time, her parents won’t pay for her college tuition.

Bailey’s grandfather gets her a gig at a mall, where she ends up meeting Sam. Convinced of her talent, Sam persuades Bailey to join his band on some gigs. Afraid of her parents threat, Bailey is terrified to perform with the band, but her love for music and her new found feelings for Sam convince her to live just a little. But with everything that’s going on in her life lately, Bailey isn’t quite ready to allow Sam in her life once and for all.

 

Jennifer Echols’s writing style is so freaking beautiful. This is the second book of hers that I’ve read, and every single time she makes me feel so many damn feels. Whether it be crying over Such a Rush or screaming at the stupid parents in Dirty Little Secret, I always have so many emotions going through me. I don’t think that I could ever DISlike a book by Jennifer Echols. I don’t even think that it is physically possible. However, I will say that this book pissed me off probably more than it should have.

My first issue with Dirty Little Secret was the stupid ass parents in the book. I hated them so much that it made it really difficult to enjoy the book at times. Seriously….what kind of parents ditch one kid to fawn over another? WHO DOES THAT?! They treated Bailey like absolute shit. They told her to give up her music…something that she loved more than anything!…and then they threatened not to pay for her college tuition if she didn’t listen to them. Now….not that my parents can afford to pay for my college tuition. I mean…most parents can’t, and I have a pretty decent chunk of student loans, but they would NEVER do that to me. I mean…maybe I had so many issues with the parents, because I’m freakishly close with my mother, but I HATED THEM. I would scream at my book, I would slam it shut and refuse to read any more of it for awhile, I would vent. I would just get so damn mad at this book because of the stupid parents. I have to stress that this is NOT bad writing! I mean….I think that it’s pretty amazing writing to get me so damn upset over a character. But they just made me so mad!

Another thing is that I hated…hated hated HATED Sam. I found him to have very abusive behavior. Abuse isn’t always physical, and I just found him to be a crybaby who was emotionally screwing up Bailey to get his own way. Bailey went along with it, too, which upset me even more. So the romance in the book was a major miss for me. It’s really hard when I find myself not enjoying several characters. Loved the writing……wanted to bash in several faces.

There were some negatives in the book for me, but there were also several positives. First, I LOVED that this book was set in Nashville. I don’t know if any of you have watched the television show, Nashville, that premiered this year. I love it. It’s probably my favorite television show this year…if not one of my top favorite shows ever. I’ve never been a huge fan of country until Nashville, and now I can’t get enough of it. Dirty Little Secret had the perfect setting. The perfect atmosphere. The perfect music. The perfect everything. I was in love with what this book was about. And Bailey’s a freakin FIDDLE player! How cool is that?

Although I didn’t enjoy some of Bailey’s decisions, I actually really liked Bailey herself. She was very laid back, and she was very easy to follow and get along with. It was a bit difficult at times, because I really hated Sam, but I enjoyed her throughout the whole book.

Dirty Little Secret is the first New Adult book that I’ve read all the way through. I’ve been seeing some crazy talk out there about new adult books, and I don’t really understand the issue. I mean…yes…there were some more advanced romance scenes…but it’s a new adult book. It wasn’t porn or erotica. Maybe not something you would want your little kid reading, but nothing too major or that any teenager hasn’t heard of already. I actually enjoyed the more advanced scenes, probably because I’m almost 23 and it’s nothing I haven’t heard of before. Personally, I wasn’t offended, and I think that a lot of people are going to enjoy the new adult genre.

Overall, I would recommend this book to everyone. I am a huge Jennifer Echols fan, and I’m going to read every single book that she writes. Even though I had some problems with this book, I still liked it. Yes, I hated the parents, Sam, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending of the book, but I love her writing. Definitely read this one once it comes out!

 

Pages: 288

Publication Date: July 16th, 2013

Publisher: MTV Books

Rating: :

 

Teaser Quote: ” I sidled forward and put my hand in the pocket of his jeans. Feeling warm as his eyes widened, I shoved my fingers as far down as they could reach into his tight jeans and fished out his guitar slide. I placed in on his middle finger and lifted his hand to my eye level so I could see my tiny, rounded reflection, then brought my lipstick out of my own pocket and reapplied it.

He laughed. “You have style, Bailey.”

“I ain’t nothing but class,” I agreed.

 

When high-school senior Noah Gallagher and his adopted teenage sister, Lo, go to live with their grandmother in her island cottage for the summer, they don’t expect much in the way of adventure. Noah has landed a marine biology internship, and Lo wants to draw and paint, perhaps even to vanquish her struggles with bulimia. But then things take a dramatic turn for them both when Noah mistakenly tries to save a mysterious girl from drowning. This dreamlike, suspenseful story—deftly told from multiple points of view—dives deeply into selkie folklore while examining the fluid nature of love and family.

 

I’ve always had such a problem with books about mermaids and selkies. I have found a few that were enjoyable, but I still have not found one that blew me out of the park. I really wanted to give Tides by Betsy Cornwell a shot because not only was the cover gorgeous, but the synopsis captivated me as well. Unfortunately, my hopes came crashing down with this one, as I was not as fascinated as I had hoped to be.

The first 40 or so pages of this book were absolutely brilliant. I loved the contemporary and fantasy genres mixed together. It gave the book a light and airy feel to it that was really attractive. However, I didn’t like the selky aspect of the story, which is obviously a major part of it. I found that part of the storyline to be very slow and a little weird for my personal tastes.

I enjoy books with a single narrator, but I can occasionally handle books with two narrators. I counted at least 5 narrators in this book, and I found that to be a bit sloppy and excessive. I ended up skimming a big chunk of this book, so for all I know there could be even more than 5 narrators presented in the book. I would have preferred one narrator so that everything went more smoothly and stayed on track.

Because so many narrators were presented in this book, there wasn’t a lot of time dedicated to a relationship between Noah and Mara. As I said before, I skimmed the last half of this book, so that may have progressed. But there was really no foundation laid down for Noah and Mara, and I wish that more groundwork would have been set between the two from the very getgo.

I also found it very confusing that the main characters were Noah and Mara. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer series by Michelle Hodkin is a very popular series right now, and the two main characters are Noah and Mara. I found it to be a bit difficult to separate the two characters from the individual books. This may be something that many readers will have no complaint with, but it really bothered me.

For a big chunk of this book, I honestly thought that it was set in Ireland. I know that I preprogrammed myself to think this because Betsy Cornwell actually lives in Ireland, but it took me a long time to realize that her characters were not stationed there. It made it a bit confusing for the overline storyline.

I find it difficult to tell people whether or not to go out and buy this book, because it really comes down to this book just not being a book for me. I can see Tides being really popular with fans of water/mermaid/selky stories and contemporary fans. Tides is a really mellow, soft and soothing read that will captivate readers and make them feel as if they are truly in the story. However, the book was just not for me, and I ended up wanting to see a lot more progression in the story itself.

Pages: 336

Publication Date: June 4th, 2013

Publisher:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Rating: :

 

Teaser Quote: “Noah saw a shadow move behind a jutting boulder. He pulled off his headphones. He heard a sharp splah, out of rhythm with the waves, and a crack like breaking bones. A deep cough followed, and a gurgling gasp.

He yanked off his shirt and scrambled down the rocks, scanning the water for the drowning person. He saw a whitish shape under a wave and lunged toward it. There - his arms closed on a soft, struggling form.

A girl slipped in Noah’s grasp. She had cropped black hair and silvery pale skin, and - he realized with horror - she was completely naked. He pulled back instinctively and help up his hands to show his innocence.

She stood there glaring at him, fire in her eyes and seawater streaming over her body.