Simply the Best Chicago Stars #10 By Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Take one hard-driving sports agent…

Throw in a failed chocolatier…

And her superstar football player brother…

Add a quirky pink and purple food truck…

Then, to really screw things up, mix in a very unfortunate murder.

Brett Rivers is the hottest sports agent in the business—fast and furious, swift and deadly. Failure? Not an option.

Rory Garrett is—let’s be honest—a disaster. She has a big heart, an empty bank account, a passion for making exquisite chocolate, and a huge inferiority complex from living in the shadow of Brett’s most important client, her football legend brother.

Brett and Rory should never have met, and they absolutely, positively should never have had to deal with the consequences of one stupid, drunken night…one disastrous lie…one career in jeopardy…one missing football player…and a very dead body.

It’s going to get messy…and dangerous…and heartbreaking…and sexy. To Rory, Brett represents skewed values and a devious mind. To Brett, Rory is forbidden fruit, off limits, do not disturb, and no entry—definitely no entry.

A woman who has succeeded at nothing and a man who’s succeeded at everything confront the challenge of their lives as they struggle with themselves and each other. When it comes to love—what price are any of us willing to pay to be simply the best?

Simply the Best was so much fun to read. And the fact that SEP combines her epic sense of humor with a whodunit made this book 10x better. The banter is some of the best. The entire time I am laughing my butt off, I was trying to figure out who the killer was, and I must admit that I never once guessed. Because who I thought it was, was completely way off. This whole book was an absolute joy to read, filled with lovely characters and silly moments and so much heart. I loved it!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

And as always Happy Reading!!

All Rhodes Lead Here Mariana Zapata

 

Aurora De La Torre, or Ora to her friends, knows moving back to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, a place that was once home and is now full of bittersweet memories of her late mother, isn’t going to be easy. Starting your whole life over probably isn’t supposed to be.

But after breaking up with her longtime, famous musician boyfriend, hiding out in a small town in the mountains might be the perfect remedy for a broken heart. And checking out her landlord who lives across the driveway just might cure it, too.

Only Tobias Rhodes didn’t rent out the apartment to her, rather it was his teenage son, Amos. Fiercely protective of his family and distrusting of strangers, gruff and grumpy Rhodes initially keeps little miss sunshine Ora at a distance. But over days and weeks, long hikes and fireside chats, Aurora breaks down his walls and soon an unbreakable friendship blossoms into a once-in-a-lifetime love.

I have been a fan of Mariana Zapata for more than a couple of years and to see her books getting the praise and adoration that she deserve is amazing. This book is a favorite of mine and I love the new cover. It always great to see a woman who had the ground rip out from under her come back and reclaim what is hers. Mariana always has amazing male characters and Tobias is just.... I have no words that could describe his amazingness. Thank you to Mariana and Avon for allowing me to read this gem again. 

And as always Happy Reading!!!

Girls with Bad Reputations (The Lillys, #2) by Xio Axelrod (Goodreads Author)

 

All her life, Kayla heard the same Don't be so loud. Don't act so wild. Don't take up so much space. Now she's the beating heart of an up-and-coming rock band…and the whole world is going to know her name. Once upon a time, the pressure to be the perfect daughter nearly broke Kayla Whitman. Desperate to find an outlet away from her controlling mother, she picked up a pair of drumsticks, forever altering the rhythm of her life. Since then, she's been determined to make her own way, finding her home with her bandmates even as she fights to keep her past and her present firmly separate. Things were simple enough when the Lillys were playing local gigs at dive bars, but now they're on their first official tour―and all Kayla can see are warning signs. Desperate to escape the worry churning inside her, Kayla finds solace in quiet tour bus driver Ty Baldwin…and discovers in him a kindred spirit like no one she's ever met before. Their connection is immediate and intense, but when increasing scrutiny from the press threatens to destroy Ty's newfound peace and Kayla's carefully guarded secrets, Kayla's forced to make an impossible pursue her dream and risk destroying everyone around her? Or give in and lose the chance of ever becoming the person she's always known she could be.

  This book! I enjoyed this immensely. I first fell in love with Axelrod’s work through “The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes”. When I saw this and read the description; a female main character that is a rockstar drummer I was like “yes, please!” I enjoyed the sweet romance, but my favorite is experiencing Kayla’s journey of coming into her power. She, like most woman, doesn’t realize the key role she plays and often refers to herself as “just the drummer”. Through it all you just want her to know her worth and succeed at whatever she puts her mind to. 

i hope you enjoy it too.

And as always Happy Reading!!

Set for Life Andrew Ewell

 

A creative writing professor at a third-tier college in upstate New York is on his way home from a summer fellowship in France, where he’s spent the last three months loafing around Bordeaux, tasting the many varieties of French wine at his disposal, and doing just about anything but actually working on his long overdue novel. A stopover in Brooklyn to see his and his wife’s closest friends—John, a jaded poet-turned-lawyer with a dubious moral compass, and Sophie, a once-promising fiction writer with a complicated past and a mysterious allure—causes further trouble when he and Sophie wind up sleeping together while John is out serenading Brooklyn coeds with poems instead of preparing legal briefs.

But instead of succumbing to his failures as a teacher, writer, and husband, an odd freedom begins to bubble up. Could a love affair be the answer he’s been searching for? Could it offer the escape he needs from the department chair, Chet Bland, who’s been breathing down his neck? Relief from the gossip of colleagues and generational tension with students? Respite from embarrassment over his wife, Debra Crawford, and her meteoric rise as a novelist? His escapades might even make the perfect raw material for an absolutely devastating novel, which would earn him tenure, wealth, and celebrity—everything he needs to be set for life. If only he could be the one to write it.

Well, I don’t know what I just put myself thru. The writing was good, but this book is like being in constant alcoholic fog. There are no likeable characters. There’s just nothing to really grab or keep your attention. This took me a bit to read. And I’m a little upset that I wasn’t so much time on it. For this author’s first debut book it was definitely a “out of left field” read. So I hope you have better luck with enjoying this then I did.

And as always Happy Reading!