Sweet Distraction (Stag Brothers, #1) by Lainey Davis Review

 Sweet Distraction by Lainey Davis Review

Sweet Distraction can be read as a stand-alone novel, but is the first installment following the Stag brothers and the women they learn to love.

This review contains spoilers for Sweet Distraction, in addition to discussions of some R-rated material. Read with caution.

We start out with Tim Stag, our lawyer bad boy who apparently can't keep a woman to save his life. He's hot. He's rich. He's successful. He's just my type. Alice Peterson is a freshly graduated chef who manages to snag the corporate chef position at Tim's office within a two-minute interview and immediately impresses him with her buns... and her muffins. With a dual POV, we see an immediate attraction from both parties, and an openness to discussing so with Alice's family members practically as soon as she gets home from landing the job.

"Manual labor helps me work through my frustrations..." I simply cannot relate to this.

I need to know why exactly Alice had to have sushi at an ice hockey game. I know the arena is super fancy, especially with the tournament going on, but seriously Alice, sushi? She was just saying that she was going to need whiskey to warm up in the arena and of all the food choices she picks...

Alice and Tim waste absolutely no time jumping each other's bones and Alice seems to be obsessed with licking his nipples. I literally have never read in any romance (contemporary, dark, etc) where a woman was so absolutely perplexed by a man's nipples. But to each their own. This definitely targets fans of the Fifty Shades trilogy (and accompanying books) in the realm of high-profile, handsome man happens to come across a woman who is either working for him or his company, and just has to have her. It reads similar to Fifty Shades of Grey, but with the benefit of dual-POV in this case, we are able to get a grasp of the relationship from both sides instead of having to wait for the male POV book separately.

All of the Stag men have names that start with "T" -- this is going to be fun to try to remember who is who. Even their nicknames start with "T," so I am making the executive decision to simply give them new nicknames in my mind so I can keep track of all of them.

Of course Tim sees every single man come onto Alice in the office, but I am always a fan of a jealous not-yet-boyfriend, so these interactions are fantastic. Especially because we get to see them happen in Alice's perspective as well as Tim's perspective.

Like a reverse Fifty Shades of Grey scene, it's Alice who is taking care of Tim when he comes into her office completely drunk and out of it, crying about how people get hurt when he is distracted. But when he wakes up in his own apartment the next morning with Alice staying in the guest room? *Chef's kiss,* pun intended.

This "I missed the pill and now I'm pregnant with my boyfriend's -- who is also technically my boss -- baby" is very much not the vibe on my part. I'm not particularly a fan of the pregnancy trope, especially when it's with whirlwind romances, so this was definitely something that is not my usual forte. I do appreciate the fact that Tim actually wants to talk about this situation like adults rather than doing nothing about it, while miss Alice is literally locking her car doors so she doesn't have to talk to Tim.

I really wish this was more "steamy" - it's branded as such and with the last 20% of the book dedicated to Alice being pregnant and her and Tim figuring out what they are going to do, I feel like we missed out on seeing their relationship actually form. There were definitely a few great scenes, but after the first few, it felt more "fade to black" and generalizations rather than in-depth descriptions. I did enjoy their story, and wish it was just a tad longer, with more development of their relationship before they had a baby.

Sweet Distraction is available for FREE download on Amazon for your Kindle devices and Kindle app.

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Dangerous Little Secrets (Saint View High, #2) by Elle Thorpe Review

 

Dangerous Little Secrets (Saint View High, #2) Review

This review contains major plot spoilers from Books 1 and 2 from the Saint View High series. Sections containing spoilers will be marked with a page break indication. Please be advised that this book contains: attempted sexual assault, violence, assault, and sexual encounters. Check trigger warnings before reading.

The Saint View High series is back with another installment about our main character on the hunt for who carried her out of the burning school, and who is responsible foe her uncle's death - her only clue: a school football shirt belonging to one of the wildest high schools I have ever read about.

WARNING: Spoilers and discussion of sexual assault and violence ahead

Dangerous Little Secrets picks up immediately where we left off in Devious Little Liars (Saint View High, #1), with our female lead Lacey basically left for fending for herself on the beach with one of the many boys who have yet to grasp the basic understanding of consent. Owen basically beat Lacey to the point of unconsciousness on the beach and because there are about six main guys in this book, three of which are currently on Lacey's bad side, I found myself having to write down a list of who was currently moderately redeemable in our eyes. Despite it being only about a month since I read the first installment in this series, I have managed to forget every name of the boys Lacey has come in contact with, as well as if they are redeemable or not. I can chalk that up to reading a few books in between the first and second book, but I had to go back and remind myself which boys were somewhat respectable and which boys are straight up sex offenders.

Banjo -- I still can't believe that is his name -- is experiencing some type of teenage-life crisis because of course Lacey told him that she loves him, yet he filmed a sex tape of her with Rafe and Banjo without her consent. Shocking that he is confused on why she does not want to talk to him! But of course we learn that Banjo had no knowledge of a camera hidden in his room, yet Rafe was able to find it approximately two minutes into tearing through Banjo's room. But boy was I shocked when we find out that it was Banjo's brother who put the camera in his room.

Owen is running around town because his father is the police chief and he thinks that somehow will protect him when he is literally assaulting anything with a pulse because he is bored and has zero hobbies.

A big shoutout to Lacey for actually standing her ground towards Rafe when he told her that he wasn't behind the sex tape - even though she believes he wasn't the one who planted the camera, she still needs time to process what happened. Lacey is definitely an admirable character in the sense that she holds true to her beliefs and will always be honest and hold her ground.

We suddenly are at what appears to be an underground fight ring with Colt and Lacey which lasts approximately half of a chapter and Lacey manages to be into him for this chapter - let's see how long that will last. Especially when she's spent the last four chapters complaining about Colt and how much she does not want to interact with him outside of learning how to fight. And to no surprise to anyone, Colt is just absolutely drawn to Lacey now that she's showing interest in him, despite not defending her when Gillian was was screaming at her after Lacey was beaten half to death. All of a sudden Colt is talking about how Lacey's uncle isn't who he said he was (of course this is in his mind during his chapters) and Colt is simply being the most annoying boy on the planet. But I digress.

Banjo is in Love with Lacey. Rafe is in love with Banjo and Lacey. Colt is horny for Lacey. Lacey says she was in love with Banjo but she won't even talk to him. This is surprisingly easy to keep track of despite the fact that all of these boys collectively have three brain cells.

The most un-surprising part of this book was the fact that Lacey's uncle Lawson potentially has or had a mistress. The man was murdered and someone left notes that said "Liar. Cheat. Rapist." on Lacey's locker - I think we all knew where this was going.

For some reason Colt's only personality trait is trying to have public sex with Lacey and then not letting her finish. It's all he talks about (and thinks about in his chapters) for a majority of the time, and always starts out with him and Lacey screaming at each other or confronting one another at yet another party.

I certainly did not expect Augie to basically be trying to pimp out Banjo to a random woman, but hey, this book has everything else, so I should not be surprised. As the book goes on, I definitely think the reader is supposed to feel more for Banjo, and see a softer side to him compared to what we saw in Book 1. However, his aloofness towards the fact that Augie was the one to record the sex tape of him, Rafe, and Lacey is not lost on me -- yes, he told Lacey it wasn't him (Banjo), but he hasn't made a case on why exactly everyone should be blaming Augie. It definitely would be helping win Lacey back if he, I don't know, told her what happened himself. Instead, she had to find out through such a long and convoluted process that I myself cannot trace back what exactly happened.

For someone so concerned about finding out who murdered her uncle, Lacey seems to spend a lot of time... not doing that.

I am desperately trying to understand why everyone and their mother thinks that Colt killed Lawson... do I think he did it? Maybe. Have I yet to see any proof? Not a drop. His dad though... surely he has his fingers in pots where they do not belong.

One chapter later and we had proof. Whoops, spoke too soon. I still think that he was only at the fire, not the one doing the murdering. Also I'm sorry, but Rafe walking up to his dad during the school dance and decking him across the face as he accuses him of murder is so on brand, I had to laugh.

My jaw was literally on the floor. Her mother??? Miss Thorpe has done it again with a fantastic cliff-hanger in this series. I truly was not expecting that to be how Book 2 came to an end. I am very much looking forward to finishing this series, and hopefully we will finally know who killed Lawson.

The complete Saint View High trilogy is available now to read and add on Goodreads. You can add Dangerous Little Secrets and the rest of the Saint View High series on Goodreads, and follow the author for more updates.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!

Trial by Fire (Worldwalker, #1) by Josephine Angelini Review

 

Trial by Fire (Worldwalker, #1) Review

This review does not contain any major spoilers for this series, but does contain minor plot details.

I have had this series on my bookshelf for some time, and finally decided to work my way through by TBR. The Worldwalker trilogy begins with our main character Lily in a now-present Earth and society, and soon sends her into a universe where she is one of many versions of herself. I do have to say that it may be a tad difficult to keep track of some of the characters, as a number of them have the same names, for obvious reasons.

It was easy to like Lily as a main character once she settled into the new universe she was thrust into, but in the beginning of the book, it became obvious to me that if she did not gain some critical thinking skills, it could soon be the end of my likeness towards her. She's a naive character who desperately wants to see the best in everyone while at the same time does not acknowledge that she is the only one giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Her relationship with Tristen is cringe-worthy in the sense that it is painfully obvious that she has no idea that he does not have true romantic feelings towards her, which was clearly indicated by his "bad boy" conquests that are constantly mentioned.

Entering the new universe leaves Lily confused but arguably more like-able, in the sense that she is much more confident in herself when it comes to figuring things out and sticking up for herself. Since this is the first of three books, I expected that world-building would be taking place, but I have to say that Lily's self-discovery in confidence and world-building was slow until the last 50 pages or so, making reading her story a bit like a chore. However, I do have to say that we gets lots of backstories and character-building for all supporting characters that Lily encounters, which does make the world-building seem less daunting.

Lily has a self-sacrificing mentality when it comes to saving the governed people of this universe, so much so that she quickly forgets about her mother and sister in her own universe/world in attempt to save thousands of citizens, all while learning her own power and discovering that the Lilian that brought her to this world is not who she seems. I will definitely be continuing with the series, in hopes that Lily becomes more aware of what matters most to her and learns who is actually there to support her. It definitely takes some time for Lily to grow on you as a main character, but once her personality develops she does become more pleasant, and you understand the decisions that she makes.

The complete Worldwalker trilogy is now available for reading. You can add Trial by Fire and the rest of the trilogy to your Goodreads shelves and follow the author for more updates.

You can catch up with me and my current reads by friending me on Goodreads and following this blog in order to stay up-to-date with any reviews, blog tours, and more!