Neutral Zone by Teagan Hunter

Release Date // Datum izdaje:  May 18, 2023

Genre // Žanr: Sports Romance, Contemporary Romance

Buy here // Kupi tukaj: Amazon

Blurb:

To my fans, I’m known as Ivan Fitzgerald.
To my teammates, I’m just Fitz.
And to the girl I’ve been talking to online, I’m ShootsAndScores.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the woman on the other side of the screen is completely out of my league. Why wouldn’t she be? Sure, I’m a professional hockey player, but that doesn’t mean anything when I’m shy and awkward in the most basic social situations and she’s a fiery vixen who oozes sex appeal.

No matter how badly I want her, I can’t have her. Because the woman I love watching so much? The one I might be slowly falling for?

She’s not just some stranger on the internet. It’s Rosie, the woman who serves me coffee and donuts every morning.

And she has no clue it’s me.

My thoughts:

I was very interested In Fitz after reading the blurb. He was always being this kind guy so to know he has a naughty side… well, I had to read his book 🙂

Fitz started watching Rosie by complete accident but when he realized it’s the girl who sells him donuts he is hooked. He is shy so he never planned to reveal his secret.

Rosie and Fitz start talking and she started to like Fitz in person and online which makes a mess out of her feelings.

Rosie and Fitz are perfect for each other and complete each other. He likes to watch and she likes to be watched.

For me, reading another book in the Carolina Comets series was great but Neutral Zone kind of lost me somewhere in the middle. I was very into hearing their story at the beginning, then it was just okay and when I approached the ending I started to get interested again. Also, there’s this one moment in a book where I felt like it had some meaning but it was brushed aside as nothing so I don’t know why it was even there.

(She went in a costume to a party and there was a man in a corner who watched her intensely but then vanished when she looked back again. It wasn’t Fitz, apparently.)

4 stars.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

ARC was provided via Valentine PR in exchange for an honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Game Changer by Piper Lawson

Release Date // Datum izdaje:  April 25, 2023

Genre // Žanr: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance

Buy here // Kupi tukaj: Amazon

Blurb:

After being dumped and losing my job the same week, the last thing my broken heart needs is a rebound.

I’m escaping across the country to help my perfect sister plan her dream wedding, and to prove to both of us everything is under control.

But a combination of tequila and turbulence on the flight there lead to word-vomiting all my troubles to the huge and handsome stranger in the first-class seat next to mine.

Only his whispered dirty diversions keep me sane until landing.

Despite the spark of attraction, we go our separate ways.

Or so I thought.

Turns out the tall, muscular, tattooed tower of a man from the plane is the star player on my future brother-in-law’s pro basketball team.

Clay is the last person I should gravitate toward. They’re called “players” for a reason.

Grumpy and cynical, he carries a weight on his shoulders I can’t possibly fathom.

He’s also the only one who knows my secrets and gets my heart racing.

The more we’re thrust together, the stronger the chemistry between us becomes.

Hooking up with the all-star athlete isn’t the way to get my life on track…but it could just be the game changer we’ve both been searching for.

My thoughts:

The funny thing is I don’t remember much because I read it two weeks ago. I do remember that they met on a plane and she doesn’t know who he is. She is not a fan of flying and he talks her through. She also admits some fears.

Anyway, he leaves after the plane lands and then she finds out he’s a star basketball player.

I don’t remember much then about their relationship. I know they didn’t sleep together and that he didn’t like her brother-in-law. Said brother-in-law also gave him an ultimatum at the end and Clay leaves her. The book ends on a cliffhanger.

The weird thing I never understood through the book is if she likes her own sister or not. I felt like she hates her at some point but in other moments felt like they are okay but are just distanced.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll read a second book because like I said, I already don’t remember much now, two weeks after, so I’ll probably completely forget what happened by the time book two comes out.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

ARC was provided via Valentine PR in exchange for an honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Third Baseman by Lulu Moore

Release Date // Datum izdaje: March 29, 2023

Genre // Žanr: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance

Buy here // Kupi tukaj: Amazon

Blurb:

My name is Jupiter Reeves, and I am a fraud.
It’s not that what’s written about me isn’t true.
I am the greatest third baseman of my generation, possibly ever.
I am surly and unapproachable.
I do have a constant scowl, with an armour of tattoos.
And to the outside world, I play my role as the bad boy of baseball like I was born to do it.
But when the doors are closed and you boil it down, I’m nothing more than a man who lost his heart too young, with no prospect of getting it back… especially as I still have no idea where its current owner is.
That was until I was offered an opportunity I couldn’t refuse:
Leave the Los Angeles Dodgers – where I’ve played my entire career – and join The New York Lions in exchange for tracking down the one woman who’s consumed me since the day I first saw her fourteen years ago.
Job done.
Now we’re under the same roof once again; except Marnie Matthews wants nothing to do with me, or my heart.
So along with winning the Commissioner’s Trophy, I have the added challenge of winning back the only woman I’ve ever loved before the season ends, and convince her to stay in New York with me.
I might have been stupid enough to lose her once, but I’m definitely not going to do it again.
Marnie Matthews is about to become the biggest achievement of my life.

My thoughts:

I liked it but I also felt like something was missing and I can’t explain what.

Marnie was married before – it felt like this was used as fluff since not much is mentioned about it. Did he love that man? Or did she simply marry him to stop loving Jupiter? She did admit she divorced because she realized she still loved Jupiter but still… I would love to hear more about it than just being briefly mentioned.

Jupiter was involved with OW even though he apparently loved and pinned for his childhood sweetheart for 14 years which just doesn’t make sense. Why did he want her in the team he didn’t particularly like if they were together eons back and he loved for her so deeply yet still slept with other women? It doesn’t make sense at all. It was cute he had tattoos that reminded him of her though but like I said, why did he sleep with other women if he couldn’t get her out of his mind?

I also didn’t really understand why she left NASA, her dream job since childhood for the baseball team. I also didn’t completely understand how could she help with her profession since she was an astrophysicist or something and baseball is… well, baseball.

The book had chapters from their time together where they were in high school. I had a love/hate relationship with those chapters. Liked them to see how cute they were together back then, disliked them for interrupting the flow of the story in the present.

3 stars.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

ARC was provided via Valentine PR in exchange for an honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Fantasies of My Best Friend’s Dad by Lavender Skye

Release Date // Datum izdaje: March 14, 2023

Genre // Žanr: Contemporary Romance

Buy here // Kupi tukaj: Amazon

Blurb:

When Emmy’s best friend ditches her for a whirlwind romance in Paris, she’s left to explore the hills of Tuscany with the last person she ever expected – Lyla’s enigmatic and devilishly handsome father Nathan. Trapped in a cozy cabin during a snowstorm, Emmy discovers that Nathan is more than just a billionaire banker, but a man with a past…and a burning desire for her.

As the snow melts and their time in the cabin comes to an end, Nathan and Emmy must decide if their fiery passion is just a temporary fling or if it’s the start of a steamy love affair that will last a lifetime.

My thoughts:

This was a very fast-paced book. I did expect more smut since this is an age gap and forbidden novella. Once they sleep together, everything is more or less faded into the background. The whole ”what would my friend think” is just not shown on the page, it’s quickly solved in a sentence or two, and there’s no major scene where they confront her.

I liked it, I read it quickly but this wouldn’t be my go-to book/novella to reread.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

ARC was provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Dear Grumpy Boss by Julia Wolf

Release Date // Datum izdaje:  March 9, 2023

Genre // Žanr: Contemporary Romance, sodobni roman

Buy here // Kupi tukaj: Amazon

Blurb:

I’ve spent the better part of the last few years successfully avoiding my brother’s best friend, Weston Aldrich.

As CEO of Andes Inc, the infuriatingly handsome and incessantly grumpy Weston also happens to be my new boss.

It shouldn’t have been hard to continue avoiding him. After all, he’s on the executive floor and I’m one of many copywriters.

Weston has his own ideas about how things should go between us. He’s in my emails, leaving notes on my desk, and as if that’s not enough, he arranges for me to accompany him on a business trip.

That leads to stolen touches, frenzied kisses, and the undeniable need to work each other out of our systems. That always works, right?

Except now that I know what it feels like to have Weston Aldrich appreciate every inch of my abundant curves, avoiding him is impossible.

But he’s my brother’s best friend.
And a workaholic.
We have to stop.
And we will.
Soon.
Just…not yet.

My thoughts:

Elise was in a relationship where she felt comfortable being herself when some stranger informed her there was a GIF of her being in a bikini going around between his boyfriend and his friends (in a chat group). Apparently, this stranger saw it and recognise her when she saw her in a meeting.

Elise is furious and decides to leave him by literally ghosting him. She doesn’t tell him where she goes, she deletes all traces of herself being in this relationship and even her coworkers helping her by pretending she didn’t exist to throw off the disgusting boyfriend. Elise’s brother Elliot puts her on the first plane and ships her to him.

I did not see why she went to such extreme measures to leave this relationship but okay.

Weston has known Elise all his life. Elise gets employed at his firm. Elise has some past with Weston’s brother so she is not happy to see Miles there and anonymous messages on her computer. She later finds out who is the real culprit in the office.

Anyway, slowly Weston and Elise start to get to know each other, feelings develop and they start a relationship but without Elliot knowing. I loved their steamy scenes but I know what would happen at the end.

Weston is a workaholic and he always has put his company first. Elise at first understood that but when push came to a shove she didn’t understand anymore. Of course, the blame is on both sides.

I think she never told him why she left the previous relationship while Weston was a lot more forthcoming.

Overall, I liked the book but it was 3.5 stars for me.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

ARC was provided via Valentine PR in exchange for an honest review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.