Tuesday, October 20, 2015

How Forever Feels by Laura Drewry







How Forever Feels by Laura Drewry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have to say, I really love this series Friends First by Laura Drewry. How Forever Feels is the fourth installment in the series and possible the last (keeping my fingers crossed that Griffin Carr gets his own book). I’m so glad I stumbled on to Plain Jayne, which is the first book in the series because it introduced me to a new series with four very strong, independent women, Jayne( Plain Jayne), Regan (Prima Donna), Ellie(Accidentally in Love) and Maya(How Forever Feels).

How Forever Feels is about Maya McKay and Jack Rhodes. It’s been two years since Maya caught her husband cheating on her, now he is her ex-husband and two years since she saw his best friend Jack. Jack is back into taking care of some business when he runs into Maya, his best friend/brother’s ex-wife and the woman he has been fighting his feels for years. As Maya and Jack spend more time together feelings start to grow and things get more complicated. Jack’s strong loyalty to his best friend Will and Maya’s hesitation to trust another man again could be the two things that hold them both back from having the one thing they both want, each other.

As I said before, I loved this book and I love this series. It’s got everything I enjoy in a story, romance, humor, strong leading ladies, animals and steam. Plus this series has something a lot of books don’t, great quotes at the beginning for every chapter. Every chapter in How Forever Feels started out with a quote from the TV show Friends. I was a big fan of the show growing up, so I was excited to see what the next quote was going to be. I definitely will be doing a re-watch of the series now.



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Blurb

From USA Today bestselling author Laura Drewry comes a warm and witty new Friends First novel—perfect for readers of Jill Shalvis and Susan Mallery. How Forever Feels is a sweet tale about the one that got away . . . and the one that came back.
Maya McKay’s heart is as big as Jack Rhodes’s shoulders are broad. Their chemistry is out of control, but it could never work between them because Jack is more than just best friends with her cheating ex-husband—they’re like brothers. Maya, the sensitive, practical florist, has given up on love and is ready to settle for like. But now that Jack’s around again, he’s stirring up old feelings—and turning Maya’s fantasies into irresistible reality.
Jack blew his chance with Maya years ago when he stepped aside for his best friend, Will, and he’s still kicking himself about it. Maya was promised forever once before, and she got burned. But when Jack realizes that second chances aren’t going to fall out of the sky, he seizes the moment—and the woman he’s always loved—to show her how forever truly feels.


Excerpt 3
Jack lifted his hands. “Hold on. In his defense, I think they were off at that point but were still . . . Anyway, when I saw Maya and her friend come in, I figured there was no way someone like her could possibly be single, so I kept waiting for some guy to show up. No one did, and I couldn’t just leave her sitting there, looking all kinds of pathetic in her grass skirt and plastic lei . . .” Laughing, he dodged the elbow Maya jabbed at him. “So I grabbed a couple drinks and headed over.”
“Oh.” Jayne’s soft sigh floated across the table, followed immediately by Regan’s snort.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” she asked. “Maya picked Dickhead over you?”
“What?” Maya sputtered as she shook her head. “No!”
“I think you did,” Ellie said. “Sure sounds that way.”
“That’s not what he meant. Jack wasn’t hitting on me, he was—”
“Maya.”
“What?” Her tongue froze the second her gaze locked on Jack’s. “You were?”
His warm hazel eyes wide, Jack shrugged slightly and laughed over the rim of his bottle. “There’s only two reasons a guy buys a girl a drink, Snip: He’s either trying to pick her up or he’s trying to apologize.”
“Which one’s this?” Ellie asked, but both Maya and Jack ignored her.
“Oh my God, Jack.” Slapping her hands over her face, Maya couldn’t believe her cheeks could burn that hot and not burst into flames. “Then why did you wave Will over and introduce me to him?”
“I didn’t wave him over; I was trying to wave him off, but then you had to go and smile at him, and that was it. Big goofy dude like me didn’t stand a chance, so I took my sorry self and my stupid piña colada back to the limbo pole.”
“Wow.” Regan couldn’t seem to stop shaking her head. “Just when I thought Dickhead couldn’t be any more of a dickhead.”
It was all Maya could do to look at Jack now, and when she did, it was through a mortified wince.
“Don’t worry about it, Snip. It all seems to have worked out in the long run, right?” His quick wink and teasing grin made her laugh.
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Worked out great.”
“So.” Ellie sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “He steals your girl and you stay friends with him? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“She wasn’t exactly my girl.” Jack chuckled. “I think we’d been talking for . . . what . . . like ten minutes?”
Maya nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Leaning her elbows on the table, hands folded, Regan sighed dramatically. “Please tell us you’re not still friends with him.”
“Uh . . .” Jack tipped his head toward Maya and pretended to whisper. “Any chance I can lie my way out of this?”
“Doubt it. Ellie’s like a bloodhound about things like that.”
“Great.” Sitting straight up again, he inhaled deeply and nodded. “Then the answer to that would be ‘Yes, Will and I are still friends.’””
Shaking her head slowly, Ellie huffed out a long sigh.
“Jack, Jack, Jack,” she said. “That’s too bad.”
“We hate Dickhead,” Jayne said.
“Really?” He smirked. “I never would’ve guessed.”
Regan, Ellie, and Jayne nodded in unison, each one doing a horrible job of keeping a straight face as Regan explained what was what.
“Staying friends with him means we’re going to have to hate you on principle, which is too bad, because you seem like a nice guy and I, for one, had such high hopes for you. Sorry.”
“No, of course. Completely understandable.” Always a good sport, he bobbed his head in solemn agreement. “But before you have me lynched, would it do my case any good if I was to . . . I don’t know, just spitballin’ here . . . maybe pick up the tab tonight?”
“Don’t listen to Regan.” Unable to hold her grin back any longer, Ellie gave Regan a gentle shove and leaned closer to Jack. “I knew I was going to like you, Jack. Now let’s see what we can do about racking up that tab a little while you tell us all your secrets.”
She flagged Shelley for another round.
A flash of panic skittered across his eyes as he lifted his bottle; it was a look Maya had seen before, the same one he got whenever anyone wanted to make him the focus of the conversation.
“Well, that shouldn’t take long,” he finally said. “Snip’ll tell you how boring I am.”
“Why do you call her ‘Snip’?”
Maya sighed over a smile. “Because he thinks I’m like a snippet of a full-grown person.”
“Well, come on,” he teased. “You’re what, four foot nothing—you’re like a hobbit.”
“I’m five two!” Maya sat up as straight as she could when everyone else at the table raised their eyebrows at her. “I am so!”
Still blowing her off, they all sat back a little so Shelley could clear the empty glasses and replace their empty peanut bowl.
“And Jack isn’t even a little bit boring,” Maya said. “He has degrees in both creative writing and media arts and he designs videogames.”
Halfway through what she was saying, Jack leaned back, looked behind her, around her, and then under the table.
“What are you looking for?”
“Pom-poms.” With an exaggerated eye roll, he turned back to the others. “I don’t design the games, I just write parts of the scripts for some of them; the rest of the team makes the games work.”
“Just?” Jayne asked. “I’d guess the script is equally as important as everything else about the game.”
“Thank you, Jayne.” Maya stared pointedly at Jack as she spoke, as if that would somehow finally help to get it through his head. “I’ve tried telling him that about a hundred times.”
Buy Links:  Amazon | B & N | iTunes | Kobo
Author Info
USA Today Bestselling author, Laura Drewry had been scribbling things for years before she decided to seriously sit down and write. After spending eight years in the Canadian north, Laura now lives back home in southwestern British Columbia with her husband, three sons, a turtle named Sheldon, and an extremely energetic German shepherd. She loves old tattered books, good movies, country music, and the New York Yankees.

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Friday, October 2, 2015








Irresistibly Yours by Lauren Layne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Irresistibly Your is the first in a new series by Lauren Layne called Oxford, it’s a spin-off series to her Sex, Love & Stiletto series. I really enjoyed this Irresistibly Yours. I am a fan of the Sex, Love & Stiletto series, so when I heard she was coming out with a spin-off series about the men’s magazine that had a minor roll in the other series, I was excited!

Irresistibly Yours centers around playboy Cole Sharpe, who we met in the Sex, Love & Stiletto series and tomboy Penelope Pope. Penelope is nothing like what Cole is usually attracted too, but yet he can’t help being drawn to her. Penelope and Cole are up for the same sports editor job at Oxford magazine which will force them to spend more time together.

One thing I really liked about this book was Penelope. She wasn’t like most girls in books; she’s a tomboy who loves sports and all the yummy food that goes along with attending a sporting events. She also was insecure and yet she didn’t hide those insecurities, which I thought was a nice change. It was nice to see the main girl not have it all together, it made her feel more real.

Irresistibly Yours was a fun fast read that I really enjoyed!



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Excerpt 2

But before Cole could make the call on whether or not to die curious about that damn notebook or risk rejection by Tiny Brunette, his best friend and co-worker was holding a fresh beer in front of his face.
“You look like you need it,” Lincoln Mathis said, sipping the foam off his own beer.
“How would you know?” Cole said. “You’ve been chatting up Jonas Leroy’s wife for the better part of four innings.”
“Had to,” Lincoln said with a little shrug. “She was bored. Her husband’s completely preoccupied with whatever’s going on with that ball down there.”
“As he should be at a baseball game,” Cole said pointedly.
Cole didn’t know why he bothered. His friend was already back on his cellphone, not the least bit interested in the game.
Lincoln Mathis looked like the type of man who should enjoy sports: tall, athletic, well muscled from their early-morning gym sessions. Carelessly styled black hair and friendly blue eyes that screamed guy’s guy just as loudly as they did ladies’ man.
But, much to Cole’s dismay, he’d never been able to get his friend to invest more than a passing interest in sports—any sport. Lincoln was always happy to tag along to a game when booze and women were involved, but ask him who he thought this year’s MVP would be, and he’d say Babe Ruth without the smallest hint of irony.
Still, tonight, Cole couldn’t exactly lecture Lincoln for not paying attention when he himself was having a hell of a time keeping track of the score.
Once more, his eyes found Tiny Brunette, who was . . . yep. Writing in her notebook.
“Hey, Sharpe. Do you know where they keep a fire extinguisher in here?” Lincoln asked, looking around the luxury suite of Yankee Stadium.
Cole tore his gaze away from the woman and her damn notebook. “What for?”
“If you stare at that girl any harder, she’s going to burst into flames,” Lincoln said, jerking his chin at Tiny Brunette.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Don’t insult our bromance,” Lincoln said cheerfully.
“Keep running your mouth and we won’t have a bromance.” Cole forced himself not to look at the woman again.
“Hey, if you’ve got a crush on the wee lass, you can tell me,” Lincoln said, taking another sip of beer.
“I don’t have a crush. And wee lass? Really? You’re Scottish now?”
“Sometimes. Chicks dig the brogue. You should try it on your girl over there.”
“She’s not my girl. She’s just . . .” Interesting, Cole finished silently.
“Good,” Lincoln said, clapping him on the shoulder. “So you won’t mind that she left.”
Cole’s eyes flew to the seat where the woman was sitting, annoyed to see that his friend was right. She was gone.
“It’s just as well,” Lincoln said. “We have bigger things to focus on. Say, like how we’re going to annihilate the bastard who’s out for your job.”
“It’s not my job,” Cole said, carefully keeping the tinge of bitterness out of his tone.
“Not yet,” Lincoln said. “But it will be. Taking your competition out of the picture is the only reason I’m at this barbarian event.”
“Remind me never to take you to a hockey game,” Cole muttered.
Still, he appreciated his friend’s loyalty. And Lincoln was right. Tonight wasn’t about petite female baseball fans and their damn notebooks.
Tonight was about Cole’s professional future.

The key to that future? Oxford magazine.


Blurb

Meet the men of Oxford magazine! In the first captivating spin-off of Lauren Layne’s Sex, Love & Stiletto series, a not-so-friendly battle of the sexes turns into a scorching office romance.

Hotshot sports editor Cole Sharpe has been freelancing for Oxford for years, so when he hears about a staff position opening up, he figures he’s got the inside track. Then his boss drops a bombshell: Cole has competition. Female competition, in the form of a fresh-faced tomboy who can hang with the dudes—and write circles around them, too. Cole usually likes his women flirty and curvy, but he takes a special interest in his skinny, sassy rival, if only to keep an eye on her. And soon, he can’t take his eyes off her.

Penelope Pope knows all too well that she comes off as just one of the guys. Since she’s learned that wanting more usually leads to disappointment, Penelope’s resigned to sitting on the sidelines when it comes to love. So why does Cole make her want to get back in the game? The man is as arrogant as he is handsome. He probably sees her as nothing more than a barrier to his dream job. But when an unexpected kiss turns into a night of irresistible passion, Penelope has to figure out whether they’re just fooling around—or starting something real.


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