Sunday 5 May 2019

♥ Lauren Blakely ♥ THE DATING PROPOSAL ♥ EXCERPT ♥

© Bianca Janeane
   



• 6 May 2019
• standalone romantic comedy
• Dual POV


★★★★
4.25 Stars
One woman on a dating quest. One man in need of a relationship guru. One wild proposal neither can resist.

Watch out world -- I’m ready to date again.
The seven years I invested in my ex left me with nothing but scorch marks from the way he peeled out and left me at the altar. I’m not looking to put my heart into a relationship any time soon.
What I am looking for? To have some freaking fun. My best friends can’t wait to set me up with suitable single guys, and soon I’ve got three promising prospects. Then I bump into Chris.
Clever and funny, with a sexy surfer’s bod and a brilliant nerd brain, he has just the right screwdriver to fix my hard drive. (Yes, the one for my computer.)
I wouldn’t mind dating him. The trouble is he just proposed to meto be the new dating guru on his TV showand I said yes.

***

Don't get your honey where you get your money.
I’d make a sign or put that mantra on a tattoo, except I’m not likely to forget it, given that the last time I mixed business with pleasure, it almost tanked my career. Now? I play by the book.
That hasn’t been a problem until McKenna. She’s engaging and fun, quick with a snapback or a sensitive, sensible replyperfect for my TV show. Too bad she’s also perfectly kissable.
But I lock my feelings down. We’ve both worked too hard on our careers to let our connection go further than some sexy banterand, okay, one impulsive, fantastic kissno matter how much our boss, our fans, and our friends propose we make our on-screen chemistry an off-screen romance.
What happens when you meet the right person at the wrong time?

Note: Back in the day, I wrote a book called TROPHY HUSBAND, and though it’s no longer available for sale, the characters of Chris and McKenna seemed to demand another chance in the spotlight. THE DATING PROPOSAL is a complete reimagining of their romance, with 85 percent brand-new material, a fresh plot, and vastly expanded characterizations so you can come to know and love Chris and McKenna like I do. Enjoy!



McKenna has been left by her fiancé a day before the wedding! That was exactly one year ago - and she just realized she's over him. It doesn't hurt anymore. Time to get back into the dating world.
Enter Chris. He's fascinated by McKenna when he meets her in video game store. He needs her for his Webflix show! She would draw in more female viewers. But he's also really attracted ... and he will never make the mistake again of mixing business with pleasure ... right?

What will happen with Mckenna & Chris?
Will there be a HEA?
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT!
 







That was adorable!
So funny and sweet and crazy and sexy and romantic and San Francisco-y. Full of dog and cat and video games and fashion. I loved it!
It's so adorable to see poor McKenna trying to go on dates - when we all know that Chris is her forever-ever-after person! It just takes those two a while to realize that!
There were so many LOL moments in this book - I really loved that, but I also sometimes had the feeling that it was just too much. It tried too hard. There's almost not a sentence (in conversation) in this book without a joke, a wordgame. a sexual innuendo. A little bit less LOL wouldn't have hurt the book. It felt like Lauren had a list of 1525 jokes and she had to get them all into this one book instead of making four romantic comedies with it.
It was still a really great rom-com, I loved reading it and I loved Chris and McKenna - but a little less com wouldn't have hurt this rom! ☺

THE DATING PROPOSAL was a super funny and adorable love story!! Run to your nearest amazon asap for your own Chris - this one is MINE !!!




ARC received for an honest review

Awww this was such a cute, sweet and just lovely story. 
McKenna and Chris have been dealt a sh!tty hand in the love department, however both are ready to move on - but only into fun dating.
Ha! Right!  I loved that as an outsider to this story, you can see them falling waaaaay before they do, and it is a wondeful thing to watch.
Chris has this geek hotness thing going on - and I am a bit of a sucker for that!
McKenna is kicking life's butt in her mission to get back into the dating world *shudders at that thought* and I just adore her all the more.
Cute read (previously released as Trophy Husband, but completely rewritten and mostly new content).
I look forward to what Ms Blakely brings us next



♥ EXCERPT ♥

~Chris~

I’m not checking out her body.
I’m not staring at her face. I’m focused on the task at hand. Thank God I have one, because otherwise, I’d be staring at those eyes. They’re blue with gold flecks, making them look almost hazel at times. She has all sorts of colors working in her irises, and the net effect is totally captivating.
So is her lush mouth.
She’s running it while I carefully screw the case back together. It’s painstaking work since it’s tiny and the screwdrivers are the size of nails.
“I tried to fix my shower once,” McKenna says, wrapping her slender hands around a cup of coffee. Yes, even her hands are hot. Lord help me.
“Yeah?” I glance at her hands then back at the hard drive. “How’d it go?”
“Well, if you consider scars a good thing, it went well.”
I look up. “Scars can be cool. I trust it ween exceedingly well?”
She lifts her chin and shows me a thin white scar on the right side of her jaw. “Then I did a fabulous job of ‘fixing’ the shower.” She sketches air quotes.
“Looks like it to me. But how exactly did the shower hit you in the face?”
“When the door fell.” She says it so matter-of-factly.
I blink, trying to process the enormity of everything that could have gone wrong. “I don’t know if I should be impressed you tried to fix a shower door without any fix-it skills, or impressed with your good luck in surviving the incident. Because those things are heavy.”
“Hey! How do you know I don’t have any fix-it skills?”
I grin. “Lucky guess?”
“Fine. You’re right. But what else was I to do?” She shrugs, her tone light and breezy. “It wouldn’t close all the way. And that was getting me down because I like to take really hot showers. We’re talking sauna temperature. You know the type? Imagine you walk into the bathroom, and steam is everywhere, and you can barely even see the other person in the shower. Just the silhouette? Can you picture that?”
Can I picture it? Hell, I can feel that. In my pants. “Yep,” I answer, and it comes out a little dry, a little gravelly. Because painting crazy-hot images is playing below the belt, and I bet she doesn’t even realize it. Hot women shouldn’t use the word “shower” in casual conversation. It’s wholly unnecessary, along with “yoga pants” and “strawberries.”
“So you tried to fix it?” I ask, forcing myself to focus on the project in front of me, rather than on images of steam rising, which lead to other things rising.
“Yup. And then that shower door showed me who was boss.” She holds up her forearm vertically then lets it fall as she makes a kaboom sound.
I can’t help but laugh. “And whacked you on its way down?”
“Completely whacked. It’s kind of a miracle I’m alive, come to think of it.”
“I’m glad you survived the shower whacking. What happened with the door thought?”
“I called my friend Andy. He fixed it for me. It works like a steamy, dreamy charm now.” She takes a sip of her coffee, smiling happily.
I stop and take a drink of espresso.
“Andy? So he’s Handy Andy?” I kind of hate him already. Wait. That’s dumb. I don’t feel a thing for Handy Andy who was in McKenna’s shower, that lucky bastard.
“That’s a good one. Can you rhyme my name?”
“Henna McKenna?” I toss out.
“And you’ll be Chris who brings me bliss by fixing the hard drive,” she says, and I just smile at her.
“You’re a bundle of energy,” I say as I return to my project, moving to the right side of the case.
“And you’re a bundle of skills. What do you do when you’re not rescuing hard drives from evil cats?”
“Admittedly, that does occupy a large portion of my day. But in the few hours I can eke out, I host a show.”
“Like radio show or a podcast?”
I twist the screwdriver a notch. “It’s a TV show. On WebFlix. It’s called Geeking Out.”
She narrows her eyes and points at me, circling her finger. “You’re a geek?”
“You say that like it doesn’t compute, and yet here I am, fixing your tech in a coffee shop. I’d say that makes me a geek.”
“You definitely don’t look like a geek.”
I meet her eyes. They’re sparking with a glint of playfulness. “And what does a geek look like?”
“Not like a surfer. You look like you’re going to go hang ten.”
“I do that too. For fun.”
She pumps a fist. “Nailed it. You totally have that vibe about you. Not that I’m pigeonholing you based on your looks. But with the Nor Cal T-shirt, it wasn’t the hardest round of Jeopardy! to play.” She imitates Alex Trebek. “What is the most likely profession of a guy with floppy hair, a not-from-the-salon tan, and casual charm?”
I quirk up the corner of my lips. “You think I’m charming?”
She blushes, but it disappears quickly. “You charmed my hard drive out of my hands.”
I screw the final piece of the case back together, set down the tiny tool, drag a hand through my hair, and gesture to the repaired device. “Good as new.”
“Wow,” she says appreciatively, picking up the drive and gazing at it in admiration. “Thank you so much. You are Mr. Fix It.”
I puff out my chest playfully. “Why, thank you very much. I’m having T-shirts made with that saying. Want one?”
“I do. I want one to sleep in at night.”

And there she goes again.

 LINKS TO THE BOOKs & AUTHOR 
  





Book #1

   



Book #2

  
  



Book #3

  
  



Birthday Suit

   



The Real Deal

  
  



Unzipped

  
  


Football Series Book #1

  
  




If you haven't read Lauren's Male POV romances BIG ROCK & MISTER O & WELL HUNG  & FULL PACKAGE & Joy Ride etc. yet - DO IT NOW!!














  
  


 HARD WOOD!
  
  








Lauren Blakely writes sexy contemporary romance novels with heat, heart, and humor, and she has had eight books on the New York Times Bestseller list and sixteen on the USA Today Bestseller list. Like the heroine in her novel, FAR TOO TEMPTING, she thinks life should be filled with family, laughter, and the kind of love that love songs promise. Lauren lives in California with her husband, children, and dogs. She loves hearing from readers! Her bestselling series include Sinful Nights, Seductive Nights, No Regrets, Caught Up in Love, and Fighting Fire. She recently released SWEET SINFUL NIGHTS, the first novel in her new sexy romance series Sinful Nights that became an instant New York Times Bestseller. In January, she'll release BIG ROCK, a sexy, standalone romantic comedy. She also writes for young adults under the name Daisy Whitney.