Thursday 30 January 2020

✩ Hard Work (Cook Brothers #4) ✩ BJ Harvey ✩Blog Tour and Giveaway ✩






Having watched his brothers meet their match, Cohen Cook is feeling something he never anticipated—envy.

With a demanding job, and helping his brothers with their biggest flip project yet, he doesn’t have time to sleep with, let alone date, anyone.


Skye Rossi is a free spirit. She’s a take-her-as-you-see-her woman who works hard and plays hard, but the person she wants to play with friend-zoned her the minute they met.


When sparks fly between Cohen and Skye, the only way forward is to propose a mutually beneficial arrangement that no one knows about.


Besides, what’s the harm in a few orgasms between best friends?

Hard Work is a full-length, co-worker, unrequited love, house flipping romantic comedy that can be read as a complete standalone and is book 4 in the Cook County series.


 


ARC received from author for an honest review

Hard Work is just a wonderful installment in the Cook Brothers series.

We learned a bit about Cohen and Skye in the previous book, and now it is time for them to shine.

This book is sweet, funny - at times downright hilarious - and full of so much UST it leaps out of the book.

You know right from the start that the little arrangement Cohen and Skye make is never going to work.  I love that they naively thought that the could just be FWB, but the reader is just waiting, waiting,waiting for the inevitable.

I love the banter between Cohen and the rest of the extended Cook family. My goodness they had me laughing so hard at times, however I love that they aren't all fun and games.  You can't just have the Cohen and Skye story - you get the whole kit and kaboodle that is the Cook family.

Wonderfully written, you can't help but want to be part of this family.  I know I want the Cooks adopt me.

Now I can't wait to get my mitts on Ezra's story - oh man, this is gonna be a good one!









BJ Harvey is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the Bliss Series. She regards herself as a smut peddler, suspense conjurer, and a funny romance thinker upper. An avid music fan, you will always find her singing some hit song badly and loving every minute of it. She’s a wife, a mom to two beautiful tweenagers, is a proud born and bred Kiwi and currently lives in Perth, Western Australia. 

Tuesday 28 January 2020

🍎🍏🍎 Sarina Bowen 🐐 HEARTLAND 🐐 #TrueNorth7 🐐 standalone 🍎🍏🍎

© Bianca Janeane





🍏🐐🍎🍏🍎🐐🍏🍎🐐🍎🍏🐐🍎🍏🍎🐐🍏


• True North series #7
• 28 January 2020
• standalone - but PLEASE read the amazing first 6 books too! ☺

• check out our
 Review  for book #1
• check out our  Review  for book #2
• check out our  Review  for book #3
• check out our  Review  for book #4
• 
check out our  Review  for book #5

• check out our  Review  for book #6

★★★★★
5 Stars

An emotional friends to lovers romance full of risky secrets and late-night lessons in seduction.

Dylan is my best friend, and the only person in my life who understands me. He doesn’t mind my social awkwardness or my weird history. The only glitch? He doesn’t know that I’ve been hopelessly, desperately in love with him since the first day we picked apples together in his family’s orchard.

But I know better than to confess.

Now that we’re both in college together, I’m seeing a new side of him. College Dylan drinks and has a lot of sex. None of it with me. Until the night I foolishly ask him to tutor me in more than algebraand he actually says yes.

But the cool morning light shows me how badly I’ve endangered our friendship. And I don’t know if anything will be the same again.





Dylan Shipley. We all remember him from his siblings' stories!
And Chastity - we remember her too. Two years ago - with only 19 - she escaped the same cult that the Shipley's neighbors Leah & Isaac escaped from some years before.
Now both Dylan and Chastity are away at college.
Chastity has kinda been in love with Dylan forever. But Dylan is not one for relationships. He's twenty and away at college - and he wants to live like that too. Girls, booze, pot.
Chastity is his best friend and his new business partner too. And she's incredibly pretty. But what would she want with a player like him. Plus they're both still way too young for something serious! Right?

What will happen to Chastity & Dylan?
Will there be a Happily Ever After?
READ THE BOOK TO FIND OUT!
 


 ________________________




Chastity & Dylan!
This book was just as beautiful and adorable and funny and sweet and sexy and heartbreaking and farmish and Vermontish as the other books in this amazing series!
I adored Dylan and Chastity.
The poor girl missed out on so much growing up in that horrible cult!
And she wants allll the things now. Chocolate. Netflix. Sex. Dylan.
And poor Dylan wants all that too - but he wasn't thinking about a serious relationship with his best friend from back home. He's too young and she's his best friend. His family would kill him!
Adorable!



I loved this book. I loved alll the people - the Shipley's and the neighbors and Dylan's roommate Rickie! I so need to read his book next please!
(Did anyone else get massive Win from the Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben vibes from Rickie??)
I never want this series to end!

What more can I say. I just love this series. I loved this 7th story. And I need these books to be on Netflix asap! PLEASE!

If I had to find something I didn't love? The cover. That guy is way too muscly for my tastes! And that face does not fit the body. Dylan is muscly, yes, and yes, he is only 20, but this face looks like that of a 14 year old little boy and the young Schwarzenegger body plus that face is just too much in my opinion. I don't like it at allll! Most of the covers in this series look like these books are shapeshifter vampire romances!
BUT - I ADORE this series! I love the books, the characters, the stories. Just not the covers. I really love the different colors for each book, but most of the people on it and the dark woods - not my thing! But that's just my personal opinion - don't mind my weird taste - most readers will either love the covers or they just don't care about book covers at all!


HEARTLAND was such an adorable & beautiful & funny & sexy & collegy & vermonty & farmy & goaty love story!
I adored every little thing about it!

Run to your nearest amazon for your own Dylan - he'll be sold out in no time!!! 





ARC received for an honest review.

Like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally... yes, yes ,YES we are back in Vermont and the Shipley family.

Little Dylan Shipley is all grown up, and boy oh boy has he grown up!

Chastity is finally living life after escaping the cult, and I loved being along with her as she is finally living her life.  And that living includes wanting Dylan - oh, so bad!

I had a love hate relationship with Dylan in this story.  I loved how he cared for Chastity, I loved how he looked out for her, however I hated how he made her feel a lot of the time.  He might not have wanted to act like a d!ck to her, but he did do it and it hurt my heart along with Chastity's.

It was wonderful to get back to the Shipley farm and all the people who now live and work there.

And oh my, did I freaking LOVE Dylan's roommate.  I am hoping that his is the next story in the series.

I did find that Heartland was a lot more emotional to me than the previous books in the series.  I found myself reading through tears a couple of times as things happened

I never want this series to end, and I can' wait for more.




♥ EXCERPT ♥

“So why were you having a bad day, anyway?” Ellie asks. “Man trouble?”
“Not exactly. It’s more like a lack of man trouble. I kissed my hot algebra tutor. And I wasn’t supposed to.”
Her big eyes widen. “Which hot algebra tutor? You never said.”
“He doesn’t work at the lab,” I say hastily. “He’s a friend. And he wants to stay that way.”
“Oh.” She looks deflated. “That is a bummer.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.” She makes a face. “It would be nice, though. This year is kind of lonely. My roommate is a total bitch.”
“Oh, I have one of those, too.”
“Yeah?” Ellie’s eyes brighten. “Does yours steal your clothes and then lie about it?”
“Um, no. She wouldn’t want any of my things. We have singles, anyway. Just a common bathroom.”
“Lucky! She must be easier to stand, then.”
“You’d think.” I take a gulp of mint tea.
“My roommate took my brand-new scarf. With the tags still on! And when I called her out on it, she tried to gaslight me.”
“Gaslight?” I feel my cheeks flush like they sometimes do when I don’t understand the idioms that people use.
“You don’t know Gaslight? It’s a movie from the forties.”
“Ingrid Bergman,” says Dylan’s voice. “We haven’t got around to the classics yet.”
I startle, sloshing my tea over my hand. And when I look up, Dylan is right there. Clear brown eyes. Tousled hair. Tight, muscular body that’s clothed in a nice sweater and ripped jeans. A handsome face that I finally kissed.
Pain slices through me. Because I’m never going to get over him. There will never be a day when I look at Dylan and don’t wish for more.
“Can I talk to you for a quick second?” he asks, taking the mug and grabbing a napkin off the table. He wipes the tea off my hand.
“Now is not a good time,” I say quickly. Because I don’t want to cry in the coffee shop in front of my only new friend.
Dylan actually rolls his eyes. “Fifteen seconds, Chass. Give a man a break.”
“I’d talk to you.” Ellie raises her hand like a school girl. “Pick me.”
And that’s just what I need—another girl in my life who’s swooning for Dylan. Because that always turns out well.
“Fine. Fifteen seconds.” I jump to my feet. Let’s get this over with.
Dylan takes my arm and tows me gently over toward the bulletin board, where nobody is currently reading the flyers for meditation circles and ski equipment sales.
“Look, I’m sorry,” is his opener. “You're avoiding me. Not that I blame you. I'm sorry things got so out of control.”
“Which things?” I ask warily. Because I don’t want an apology for fooling around with me.
“Pick one!” Dylan raises his hands. “All the things. I shouldn’t have been so inappropriate.”
“But…” I know Dylan was in a serious state of drunken depression when he kissed me. It’s not like I was expecting to hear those kisses made him as happy as they made me. But would it kill him to be a little less patronizing? “Dylan, I’m not twelve years old. It was just a kiss or two. I don’t think I’ll need a full course of therapy to recover.”
He blinks. “Okay. Good?”
“So did you really need to drag me over here to apologize a third time? Did you apologize to all the girls you kissed during Spin the Bottle in seventh grade?”
I heard about Spin the Bottle and Seven Minutes in Heaven only last year, by eavesdropping on Debbie and her buddies at another bonfire. I’d been transfixed by their tales of who’d kissed whom over the years and how often.
At thirteen, Spin the Bottle would have sounded like heaven to me. Seven minutes in a closet with a boy? I would have lobbied for eight. I was always the most inappropriate girl in the bunch.
Yet somehow Dylan sees me as some kind of innocent child.
“No. Good point.” He crosses his delicious arms and smiles at me. “You are in a feisty mood today.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“No.” He shakes his handsome head. “Not at all. Are we going to hug it out?” He opens his big arms wide.
Oh boy. I can’t resist stepping into them. And when he pulls me in, I experience the familiar hormone rush that always happens when I’m close to him. Rapid heartbeat? Check. Goosebumps? Check. My nose lands against his flannel shirt.
My mouth is mere inches from his, of course. But this time he has no interest in kissing me. It takes all my willpower to give him a squeeze and then step back.
“Be well, Chass. I’ll leave you to your tutoring session, even if you’re basically cheating on me right now. But we’re still making caramels this weekend, right? I told Griffin we could use six gallons of goat’s milk. Don’t make a liar out of me.”
“I won’t,” I say quickly. I might be slightly irritated at him, but it will blow over. My capacity to forgive him for not loving me back is basically infinite. “We’ll leave right after Friday classes?”
“You got it. And this is for you. Share it with your friend.” He pulls something out of his pocket. “More market research.”
He puts a little box in my hand and then walks away.
As always, it takes me a second to get over my hormone rush. I stand there blinking for a long moment until I realize Ellie is grinning at me from the sofa. So I go back over to her and sit down.
“Wow…” she says, stealing a glance at Dylan’s retreating backside. “Is that hot hunk of Vermont male your algebra tutor?”
“Yes.” My voice is gravel.
“And your future ex-boyfriend?”
“Nope. I’ll never get that chance. He's my best friend, but...” There's no tidy explanation.
“But you want more. I would if it were me.”
I nod, miserable.


LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR
  



🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎 The True North Series 🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎🍏🍎


BOOK #1


BOOK #2


BOOK #3


Book #4




Book #5




Book #6

   



The Accidentals - YA 
   



US - M/M Hockey Romance with Elle Kennedy


Good Boy



Hockey #6

  

Moonlighter - Hockey Spin-Off
  




Sarina Bowen writes steamy, angsty Contemporary Romance and New Adult fiction from the wilds of Vermont.

She is the author of The Ivy Years, an award-winning series set amid the hockey team at an elite Connecticut college.

Waiting for more Ivy Years? You can read more about upcoming volumes in the four book series at http://www.sarinabowen.com/theivyyears

Also, the Gravity series.

Sarina enjoys skiing, espresso drinks and the occasional margarita. She lives with her family, eight chickens and more ski gear and hockey equipment than seems necessary.

To be kept abreast of new releases, please feel free to sign up for the mailing list at http://www.sarinabowen.com/contact.

Or visit the her Facebook page, or tweet her @sarinabowen.