ARC Review: Up In Smoke by Tessa Bailey

I am a huge fan of Tessa Bailey's and I have had her on auto-buy since I first discovered her. She always has the best dirty-talking alpha heroes and I cannot get enough of them. I will admit though that I struggled a bit with Up In Smoke. I knew a little about Connor, having met him previously in her books, and I wasn't too sure what to make of him. While I did like some things about him, this story wasn't exactly what I had been expecting. 

Given little to no option, Connor Bannon and Erin O'Dea end up on the same team working undercover in Chicago in order to avoid being locked up. Their team is a modern day mod-squad, with each team member having some kind of specialty and being forced to work together when they prefer to work alone. Connor is a former Navy SEAL and Erin is an arsonist, and the sparks between them are instant. But where Connor needs control in his relationships, Erin is unable to give when it comes to relationships. She doesn't let anyone close, and she always has her escape planned. But when they continue to grow closer while working together, they realize that the connection between them is worth taking a chance on.

Connor is everything I have come to expect from a Tessa Bailey hero. He is sexy and alpha, and super possessive of his woman. He would do absolutely anything to protect her, and he is an amazing dirty-talker. However with all that being said, he didn't really feel any different than her other heroes to me. There was nothing that really stood out about him, and it just seemed as though he was pretty much a mix of her other heroes, and I was hoping for a bit more about him to be unique. Erin was easy to like from the start, and I loved her personality. Like Tessa's other heroines she is feisty and fun, and is able to dish it out as well as take it. I loved seeing her witty remarks, and how she didn't easily give in to others. While I did feel like Connor and Erin had chemistry, (and how could they not with them being written by Tessa?) I also felt like everything was super rushed with them. This was definitely a case of insta-everything, and unfortunately that just didn't work for me. 

I thought that this one started off very interesting, and there was a lot of potential here with Erin's issues. That was something I had never seen Tessa deal with before, and I really think that was something that could have made this one a great story. To me though, things turned around far too quickly to be believable when it came to how fast Erin was able to overcome those issues. I felt like even though she was attracted to Connor and wanted things to be different that it would have taken longer for her to come around. The instant changes for these two along with the issues I had with Connor left me wanting more and being a little disappointed with this one. Don't get me wrong it still packed the heat and steam that I have come to know and expect from Tessa, but I felt the story suffered a little bit here and it wasn't my favorite of hers. I did like the team though, and I loved the feel of that group as a whole. There is such an interesting dynamic with all these criminals turned undercover teammates , and I liked them a lot. I will definitely read more from Tessa Bailey in the future, even though this one wasn't my favorite. There is no one who writes a better dirty-talking alpha than her, and I think this one was just a miss for me personally.

**ARC Provided by Publisher**

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Surf, Sand & Books Event with D.R. Graham

D.R. Graham is the author of Young Adult and New Adult novels for HarperCollins and Entangled Publishing. She worked as a social worker with at-risk youth before becoming a therapist in private practice. The clients she works with are children and teenagers, and her novels deal with issues relevant to young and new adults in love, transition, or crisis. She is also an award winning columnist for the Richmond News. She currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband.

D.R. Graham's novels are edgy and reflect the emotional rawness of the young adult psyche. The novels contain coarse language and mature subject matter. They are intended for mature young and new adult readers.

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ARC Review: Healed By Love by Melissa Foster

Healed by Love is my first Melissa Foster book. By way of background, this is apparently the first book in the Bradens of Peaceful Harbor series which will feature Nate and his siblings. This is a ‘little sister of my best friend’ romance with some emotional depth that makes it a decent read.

My super fast rewind of the story is that Nate is a soldier suffering from some major guilt (totally unjustified but since when does guilt have to be realistic?) over the loss of his best friend, Rick. For reasons explained in the book, he thinks he was the cause of Rick’s death. Rick left behind his younger sister, mother and siblings. Jewel, the sister and our heroine, has been home spending most of her time taking care of her mother and her siblings. When not being the most selfless person ever, she remembers that she is intensely attracted to her brother’s best friend Nate. The story progresses as Nate alternates between denying his feelings for Jewel to fighting his feelings for Jewel to claiming Jewel as his own. If you’ve ever read one of these books you can pretty much guess how it goes from there.

Overall, this was a decent addition to the little sister romance sub-genre. I liked Nate because he had emotional layers and some complexity. His feelings about his time overseas and what happened to Rick made him my favorite flavor of tortured alpha male. Similarly, his feelings for Jewel were intense and despite his denial, the passion in his inner thoughts was leaping off the pages right from the beginning of this story. I like Jewel slightly less than Nate. It’s weird because I get that the author was trying to portray her as a strong caretaker who stepped in when her family needed her but something about her came across as…silly? Even at the very beginning of the book when Jewel gets hurt it just seems like well what the hell? You couldn’t find a better way to spend your free night? Really ma’am? And I know I’m a cold hearted b!tch but I didn’t entirely get Jewel taking care of her family. My lack of understanding can’t ALL be attributed to my lack of warmth. At some point it seemed like Jewel’s family just didn’t need her anymore and she was caring for them only to avoid actually living her life. I guess that gave her character some complexity so perhaps I should be more respectful of that part of the plot.

As for the relationship between Nate and Jewel, I can only describe it as emotional. Because Nate was so tortured by guilt and Jewel by loss, the both need healing. What I really like about this book is that the author does an outstanding job of depicting how two people who are broken in different ways can heal one another. If you like a lot of emotional intensity and occasionally enjoy a good cry, this is the book for you. It’s a hopeful story that leaves you with good feelings. (p.s., nothing to see here when it comes to the sex but get your mind out of the gutter. This book is about healing and love. Not everything is about sex…..ok, I could barely write that without laughing but seriously, you need a little emotional feel good in your life too).

**ARC provided by Tasty Book Tours**

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ARC Review: Relinquish by M.N. Forgy

Relinquish is my first book by M.N. Forgy, but I was drawn in right away with it's cover and blurb. This one sounded really interesting and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I have to say that I was a bit torn with this one, and I was left not really sure how I felt. While I did like some things and I kept reading to see what would happen, this one also was not what I had been expecting and I had some issues with it. 

When Charlie turns eighteen she can't wait to get away from her foster home. She hasn't had an easy life, and anything will be better than staying where she is. Her and Jayden, another of the foster kids, head to Las Vegas to make a life for themselves. Needing to make money, they find themselves turning to the streets to do whatever it takes in order to have a roof over their heads and food in their fridge. When Charlie meets a handsome stranger named Landon, they are instantly drawn together. Though Landon tries to save her, things don't work out as planned when Charlie's past begins to catch up with her.

I don't want to say too much about this story or the characters so as not to give everything away. There was a bit of a twist to the story, a predictable one if I am being honest, so I don't want to give any of that away. What I will say is that I had a lot of issues with Charlie's character. I honestly could not get over some of her stupidity. Charlie was 18, but she had lived a tough life and I would have thought that that would have given her a little more maturity that it seemed to have. Some of her decisions were beyond ridiculous, and I just had a tough time ever really connecting with her because of it. She shouldn't have taken Jayden with her, I couldn't get over how she was with Chasen right away and how quickly things became physical for her and Landon right after what had happened to her. It just seemed to sort of go downhill from there. I will admit that because that all happened at the start of this story, I almost gave up on this one. But I was curious and wanted to see what would happen. Landon had his moments for me, and for most of the story I didn't know whether to like him or hate him. 

While it was clear that Landon and Charlie felt drawn to one another, I never really understood their relationship. Landon was hot and cold, and it was a constant switch in personality with him. I never knew which one was the real him, and I could understand that Charlie would be confused by that. I didn't get why she kept allowing him to treat her like that and how she could give in to him so easily. Because of the issues with the characters and the way this book started, I found it tough to really get into this story. I wanted to see what would happen, but I just wish that some things had been done differently. Overall, this one was a bit of a disappointment for me and yet I did finish because I was interested enough to want to keep reading. I think that this one had a lot of potential and there were some really good parts, but it just fell a little flat for me personally.

**ARC Provided by TRSOR Promotions**

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ARC Review: Zack by Sawyer Bennett

First, even though this book is part of a series it's a standalone. You can start reading right here. I haven't read any of the other books in the series (but I now own them and I intend to read them) and I had no problem reading this one.

Zack is the quintessential A-Hole book boyfriend and I honestly loved every minute of it. Zack recently lost his long time girlfriend and the mother of his son and is in need of a nanny. Enter Kate. Kate is a struggling student who has a gift with children, an ill fitting wardrobe and an enormous capacity to deal with a-holeishness. Kate becomes Zack's nanny and even though he is initially too grief stricken and obtuse to see through her too big clothes and nerdy exterior, he eventually realizes there is much more to Kate than meets the eye. A relationship develops between the two but it's fraught with the emotional devastation left behind by the loss of Zack's ex and Zack's guilt.

Throughout the book Kate is the heroine who is strong in her own right but also has to be patient enough to rebuild the man she wants. The thing that I like about this book is Kate's quirkiness and relentless hopefulness. Even though she puts up with a lot of Zack's BS, she doesn't appear weak for it. Instead the author is able to depict Kate as strong enough to put her own feelings to the side to help Zack heal.

I also love that Zack tries to fight his feelings for Kate. There is nothing more exhilarating than watching a man lose his battle to be numb. In the end Zack isn't really an a-hole, he's just a man who needs love. Aren't they all? Well, a good 82% anyway, but I digress. Oh did I mention the sex scenes are HOT? Well they are and that is just frosting on this very appealing cake.

I strongly recommend that you read this book.

**ARC provided by Publisher**

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