A couple of mini-reviews today. I tried to beef each of these up when I was typing up reviews but I found that they were getting boring and if I’m getting bored typing about them then you’d get bored reading and that’s unfair when both were damn enjoyable reads. I’ll keep each short and sweet but they were both adorable romances that sucked me in and charmed me with the characters. And did I mention they're both hate to love? Total coincidence but I noticed it when I was typing the reviews, perfect link, right?
Make Me Fall (Books & Brews #2) – Sara Rider
Published: 24th September 2018
Source: Purchased
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
My Rating:
Enemies make the worst neighbors, but the best lovers.
After losing her job, her home, and her friends in her divorce, Nora Pitts is determined not to make the same mistakes when she starts over in the small town of Shadow Creek, Washington. No more slaving away in the lab at the expense of her social life, and definitely no more men. Ever. But making friends in her thirties is so much harder than she anticipated. And when it comes to her gorgeous yet obnoxious neighbor, it’s a whole lot easier to make enemies.
Eli Hardin doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for his uptight neighbor, until he overhears her so-called new friends making fun of her un-datable status. Suddenly he finds himself volunteering for a date with a woman who’s been leaving angry hate-notes in his mailbox, and in way over his head. Because all it takes is one disastrous date with Nora for Eli to fall hard.
But falling for Eli isn’t something Nora’s ready for—not when he’s her complete opposite, and especially not when he turns out to be the best friend she’s made in Shadow Creek. But as her attraction and her feelings for Eli grow hotter, resisting him might just lead to heartbreak anyway.
Make Me Fall was on my Kindle for a while before I started reading and although I’d gone to pick it up a couple of times before but put it down as I wasn’t in the mood for it. This time when I started reading I was in exactly the right mood for it to suit me and when I was in the right mood for it it was such a satisfying read. I read the teaser in Real Kind of Love and I was excited to read it but I think I forgot just how excited I was to read it.
It was a hate to love/opposites attract kind of romance and I loved it. Although, it wasn’t true hate between Eli and Nora but more annoyance and misunderstanding to love. Eli took it as his mission in life to aggravate his new neighbour Nora with his loud music and construction work to renovate his home. It was teasing and fun to him and although I’m sure he would have driven me up the wall just as much as he did Nora, at first, he was sweet and charming and it was easy not to see that when he’s being his usual cheeky self. He was a bit of a hot mess, though. He could be far too impulsive from time to time, but he was always trying to do his best, even if he sometimes gets it wrong.
And Nora? She was new to town and trying to make friends (in the wrong places) but she was Eli’s opposite. Where he was laidback and relaxed she was an uptight germaphobe who wasn’t comfortable if she hadn’t planned things out and knew what to expect. She was reeling from a bad relationship. She’d moved to somewhere completely new and she was hella homesick and missing having close friends. Anyone who has moved somewhere new can relate to that nightmare of making new friends. Unfortunately for her, she has joined a book club with some of the most vicious mean women. But she has a kind neighbour who heard them being big old meanies to her and says he’ll take her on a date and she can’t help but agree.
The pair of them together should be a disaster but even though personality wise they are very different, in the end, they work. And Eli helps her find a new place in town and along the way they have some smoking hot sex and Nora learns exactly what it is she wants to pursue in life.
It’s hard to explain big elements of the book without spoiling you guys (which is always no fun) but guys… just read it. It’s really good and even though Real Kind of Love (the first in this series) was a fake relationship (my favourite of tropes) I think this may have beaten that one for me because this was just so damn enjoyable to read. Check it out and report back to me because I feel like I’ve seen no one mention this one.
Desire and the Deep Blue Sea (Love Unscripted #1) – Olivia Dade
Published: 18th July 2019
Source: Purchased
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Novella
My Rating:
They're pretending. Until they aren't.
Thomas McKinney has never wanted a woman the way he wants Callie Adesso. Since she started working alongside him at the Colonial Marysburg Research Library, he's spent his desk shifts fumbling pencils, tripping over his own feet, and struggling to remember both the Dewey Decimal System and the existence of her inconvenient boyfriend. Now, however, Callie is suddenly single--and in need of a last-minute faux-boyfriend for an episode of HATV's Island Match. Thomas is more than happy to play the part...and in the process, convince Callie that a week together isn't nearly long enough.
Callie has never found a man as irritating as she finds Thomas. He may be brilliant, kind, and frustratingly handsome, but the absent-minded librarian also makes every workday an anxiety-inducing exercise in stress. Even seven days in paradise by his side won't change her opinion of him. Really. No matter how attentive he is. And gentle. And sexy.
One plane ride later, the two of them are spending long, hot days under the sun and on display, pretending to be in love for a television show. This may be a vacation, but it's also an act--as well as Thomas's last chance to persuade the woman of his dreams to include him in hers. And soon, the island heat isn't the only thing steaming up HATV's cameras...
This was such a cute read and really reiterated how good an author Olivia Dade is considering this was just a novella I was totally sucked in from the start. It was another book I picked up at the right time to be charmed by it.
Callie breaks up with her boyfriend right before she is due to go on a reality TV show where couples go on a romantic trip to three islands in the Caribbean before being treated to a luxury break when they choose their favourite. She really needs the holiday after the stress of starting a new job, the frustration of working with a co-worker who seems to more of a hindrance than a help, and she needed the break after the stress of being stuck in a relationship with someone she didn't love. She really needed that holiday, so what did she do to get it? She lied like any sensible woman would that she already had a new boyfriend and could he not go instead? Only problem? She doesn’t have a new boyfriend and idiotically she has already proposed the very coworker who she needs a break from being the boyfriend. Look, I never said Callie was always smart. But this is also a romance so you know it all works out in the end.
From all this, you know what happens right? This is a hate to love romance, although it’s not really hate on Callie’s part, more annoyance and frustration to romance. And Thomas? Well, that man is head over heels for Callie and just waiting for her to notice him, especially as she has broken up with her boyfriend so he jumped at the chance to go away with her, perfect opportunity to get together. And Callie definitely starts to notice Thomas on this trip, She learns that he has obviously cared for her for a while and it’s hard to resist him when he is such a gentleman. And those things that drive her barmy at work? Yeah, they are kind of brilliant in a boyfriend, but he definitely needs to work on a few things.
Honestly, I almost didn’t like Thomas for all the stress and anxiety he had caused Callie. The poor woman needed a break from all the stress he had caused! But he is never malicious in what he does (which could be worse) and although he is so utterly comfortable in his skin and who he is, for her he is willing to try and change. He learns to consider other people’s feelings and to offer them a little more consideration at work rather than going off and doing his own thing. He works to improve and I loved that Callie wasn’t stuck with him as he was but helps him do better.
I do kind of wish the book was a touch longer just so I could have seen more of Callie’s frustration at working with Thomas in the before… but then maybe I wouldn’t have liked him so much? But this is the ideal holiday read. You could easily devour this sunning yourself by the pool or at the beach so really you have no excuse not to buy this and just get lost in it for a little while,
And there we have a couple of enjoyable hate to love books, have you read either? And what is your favourite hate to love romance?
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