I gave it 4 stars b/c I love Nicole Jacquelyn's writing
583121
This was a different look at the MC life with Nicole Jacquelyn's characters.  It starts in the past & spans decades.  I gave it 4 stars b/c I love Nicole Jacquelyn's writing, but this was probably my least favorite of this series.  It was just slow in places & that frustrated me.
4772186
So, my friend told me about this book and i loved it. I'm depressed but i loved it. I need a Cade in my life. It's perfect, he's 4 years older than her, so he's mature, he's got a past but he doesn't let that dictate him or his future and most of all he helps her see that she's worth it. He calls her Rae of Sunshine, a nickname i'll never have, and it's perfect cause he has a tattoo of a sun! IT"S FATE. Overall its a little piece of the happy ending many of us wish we had. <3
4816334
I liked it--- I think its a good start to a new YA/Adult saga. And I like the paranormal universe the author created here. Granted its nothing entirely new (with mind readers, psychics, vampires, etcs) but its still enjoyable and not the same dystopian stuff I see all the time. But I can't say the plot and characters did much for me. I mean, the characters are interesting enough ... but, I feel there is something lacking. Violet is a nice/sweet girl but I had a hard time connecting with her most of the time. Dane was cool and kinda cute sometimes, but his coldness/secrecy and general strangness was a little annoying at times. And by strangeness, I mean that he rarely ever communicated verbally what he was wanted, what he was feeling, what he was planning, etcs. He was always just so ... aloof. Most of the time I like a mystery bad boy but it just wasn't working for me here. The book was also lacking in the romance department. Dane and Violet didn't even kiss until almost the end of the book. But despite all of that, I did like the book. I liked the friendship between Dane/Violet and I thought his grandma was cool too. Maybe I'll like this story more after I reread it again. And I do plan to read the sequel. I'm definitely interested in what happens next and in reading things from Dane's POV this time around.
4256835
Despite this book being EXTRA, EXTRA long with not much happening for like 3/4 of it, I found myself oddly drawn to it, which is a total surprise to me. It's probably a testament to Black's writing that she kept me interested and curious for so long. It wasn't until probably 45-50% of the way that I partially tempted to stop reading, but I continued because I was invested enough to see how it would all end and play out. Luckily, it paid off for the most part at the end. I really liked that twist and there's one amazingly brutal scene before that where I was pretty enraptured with the book.

Jude, oh, Jude. Man, I hated this girl so many times. I just couldn't get on board with her views of Fairie and the Folk. I guess, personally, I would've been more like Vivienne, defiant and unsatisfied with the life they were living. I get making the best of your circumstances, but when she had thoughts of not only being like them, of being better, I just couldn't. Don't even get me started on her weak sister and the drama there. In the end, she did manage a sliver of respect from me, and she does have the potential to become a strong heroine, but for now, I indifferent to her.

I'll say that this wasn't the "epic" story I was hoping for going in, it's still not bad. I definitely curious and liked it enough that I'll check out the next book. Keep in mind that romance is secondary to the actual plot of the story. It's honestly barely there and the way it was weaved into the story made me wish it wasn't present at all. It felt more of like an afterthought and wasn't necessary to me.
1833768
I knew I loved this author's writing after having read her other series, the Fringe. That was a really amazing story!! It probably set my standards too high for this one, because I don't think this book compared in terms of quality.

The two issues I had were with some of the concepts that we just had to accept:

1. The main character takes quite a hefty amount of physical damage, yet the wounds seem to heal faster than what's realistically possible. I don't want to spoil much, but I had a hard time believing that she could accomplish certain tasks with such a fresh batch of life-threatening, extensive injuries. Not to mention she does all of these things while carrying a 40lb dog. Why wouldn't one of the physically fit dudes carry the pup? Please don't describe their shining, rippling muscles and then have them watch this girl struggle unnecessarily. Adrenaline couldn't even explain some of the ways she managed. Hopefully his won't spoil what should be predicted anyway, but I cringed a little during the slightly intimate scene, because all I could picture was her split lip, bloody back and black eyes. Really took away from the charm of the moment.

2. The twist about what's going on with the world outside of the prison. I think it's plausible, but I also think that people in the camp would have known about it. They said that the last batch of fresh inmates was a year prior, so news should have been known at that point. It's impossible to believe that what had happened would have taken place over the course of just one year.

Now that I've done a crap job of explaining why this is still a 4 star book for me, I'll say why it was actually amazing.

Regardless of the fact that this story wants us to suspend reality, most of the book had a smoothly humanistic feel. The series of events flowed together to keep the reader fully engaged. The dialogue was believable, and the character relationships were dynamic.

One of the most important concepts for me is character development. This author does a great job of providing a main character that made me genuinely interested in getting to know her and care for her well being. It speaks a lot to me when I'm bothered by certain plot pieces, but still feel so drawn to the book out of interest in wanting to know what happens to this character.

I usually hate instant romance amongst two strangers, but I think that the relationship between the main characters was believable. They've both been deprived of even seeing the opposit sex for years, and they can identify each other's spirits by the way in which they behave.

Despite the aspects that bothered me, I would recommend this book, because for some reason I'm so hooked to the series of events and I'm desperate to continue.
2172659
3.5-4 stars

This was a pretty good story. I really liked Max and Payton and enjoyed seeing them become a couple. I've read the first 2 books in the series and I really like this author's writing. I didn't notice the editing errors in this book that I've found in the earlier books in the series.

Payton is a nurse and a spirited and sweet woman. A while back she was attacked and beaten badly and since has PTSD and has been fighting with her fear in order to go on living. Her last boyfriend didn't treat her very well and was there when she was attacked but left her behind to save himself. Payton is friends with and works with Cheyenne (heroine from book #1) and through her, Payton meets Max, who she's attracted to but also scars the crap out of her.

Max is a mechanic at Free and brother to Ember (heroine from book #2). In addition to working on motorcycles, he and his co-workers also work to help women and children in trouble that the police can't help. Max doesn't do relationships and is a ladies man but when he meets Payton things change.

Payton and Max have a tumultuous start to their relationship starting with mis-understandings (based mostly on assumptions). In public they spare and fight with each other but once Max finds out about Payton's attack things change in private. Payton still has issues left over from her attack and she's been hanging on but once her and Max become friends, Max tries to help her with her fears and nightmares. Unfortunately, due to a dire situation, Max gets recalled to duty to handle a special situation. Payton goes to see Max before he leaves and Max claims her as his, saying that when he gets back they'll be together. I loved how protective and sweet Max was to Payton. He even gets her a protection/guard dog to keep her safe while he's gone. His assignment is completed surprisingly quick but there are some residual issues that they have to deal with later. When Max comes home things don't go smoothly and there's some drama but Max and Payton are reunited and get their budding relationship back on track.

Once Max gets back, he and Payton pretty much move in together for various reasons and they get closer really fast. Since they were friends for quite a while before they actually started actually "dating" each other, it doesn't take long for their attraction and friendship to make things get serious quick. While they're working through their relationship danger makes itself known. A threat is surrounding Max and Payton and the danger leaks out to those around them as there are multiple attempts on their lives. Unfortunately, once they figure out who it is, they have problems finding the culprit and it takes a while to deal with the issue. Life goes on as they deal with the danger and I enjoyed seeing Max and Payton's relationship mature. They make a great couple and I loved the interplay between them. Things are rough but eventually (after some very tense times) things get worked out and Max and Payton can finally have their HEA without attempts on their lives interrupting it constantly. ;)

This was a very enjoyable story. I really liked Max and Payton and loved rooting for them to get their HEA. The romance plot was well done and did great at conveying the emotions and feelings. The action plot was good but I will admit there were a few times when I felt like things weren't explained well enough. Overall I got the plot but a better explanation of how certain key things would have helped. Regardless of that, overall I did enjoy the story and will continue to read future books in the series. I think the shining stars of these books are the characters, who are fun and interesting and it's easy to get sucked in to their lives. I'd recommend this book. :D
480864
I really enjoy the writing in this book, but there were some things that drove me nuts. The authors story telling flows well and immerses you into the scenery and setting with ease. That being said, I wasn't even aware that this was connected to her other book Taste whatsoever until I was about 40% through. Its never mentioned anywhere and unfortunately, that left me with more questions than answers because I felt Id missed reading a book in between that book and this one. Did I? I read Taste and still feel that Im still not sure, but it feels like theres a huge chunk of story missing about Luka and the other band members of Vicious, like about Phoenix & Demetri, who were the MCs in Taste. Like, a HUGE chunk. I was left scratching my head and hunting to see if I left out a book from this series. I get that it is its own series, but so many things were left hanging, I was utterly kind of lost, besides the fact that they were connected. I didn't like that. Though I really liked this story, it kind of ruined it for me.

Talking about the story, I loved the main character, photographer Dakota. She was a strong willed photographer who apparently is beautiful in every way, though her missing eye gives her a lot of insecurities. She gets the job to live with Vicious for a month and photograph them for her final Introspective project. She gets a lot more out of this than she ever expected. She also holds a lot of secrets, which seems to be a characteristic of all the band members, so she fits right in. Its never explained how she came about her eye patch and scars in this book, but her dreams give us a tiny peek into her vague  past, a past never explained in the entire book. Still, I wish thered been more information about her instead of being left hanging the entire book for nothing.

Luka and his cousins Demetri and Dray were just hot and perfect in every way. I loved Drays character the most because he was the least obvious rock star of the trio. He loved his mad scientist ways and seemed to be the smartest out of the three. I wished there had been more about him. Heck, Id prefer if Dakota had ended up with Dray, but thats just me. Luka came off as a spoiled rotten, brat rock star and threw tantrums with the best of him. Very stereo typed broken star. Made me want to slap him at times, and yet, sometimes he seemed pretty cool and patient. How he went from hot to cold so fast left me with my mouth hanging and thrown for a curve ball.

Last of all, if you hate cliffhangers, this might bite you in the arse. Serious one here of the worst kind leaving nothing resolved except one thing about Luka. I usually don't mind some cliffhangers, but this one I was seriously left steaming raging mad that it made me feel that the hours Id spent reading it were wasted. Not many books get a rise out of me, and this one did, I almost flung the kindle across the room with that ending. So disappointed that I have to wait for the next book now because there were almost no answers. Youre just dropped holding the ends of all these threads and no ending. And this was no short read either, it was so very long and somewhat repetitive, I was left utterly flabbergasted, but the writing is that good you probably won't mind reading such a long story. Oh, and what happened with the entire theme of Taste being about Zhamvys? You won't find a lick of it here, which I wanted to see oh so very badly.

If you love books about insanely rich Rock stars with a tortured Goth flavor and a nice long read to burn some hours away, then this ones for you.

I was given an ARC of this book from the author for an honest review.
1905428
Not.completely my thing as. I prefer m/m but on all i really liked this story and the chemistry between both characters . I will  be reading more from this author :)
279355
Well played, Nicole Reed. But I'll deal. Also, this is more of a 3.5 for me.

Okay, having some personal experience dealing with one of the issues dealt with in this book, it really got to me. I could feel how hard it was for Jay to face the consequences of her attempted suicide, not just when it comes to her putting her life back together, but when it comes to people that surround her, too. I have to applaud the author for the way she deals with it.

The story basically continues a couple of months after Ruining Me finishes. Jay is alive, but not really, she is healing, but is still tormented by what happened. I liked how she dealt with it, though. There are these little revelations along the way that make her realize the choices we make are all ours and nobody else's. You can choose to live, and then you do. Jay is a strong girl, I've said this already in my review for the first book, and some may think that she was a bit too whiny in this, but I didn't think so. Yes, I rolled my eyes every time she fought back tears, but that's just my knee-jerk reaction, I don't like weepers. I understood her. And it was great seeing her grow, not just in terms of dealing with her past, but also just plain growing up.

What I didn't like was how she was leading one of the boys on with her indecisiveness. I think there was never really a choice, you know? The author heavily hints at who will be endgame.
I know I'm supposed to be all Team Jay, but I was Team Jay from the beginning. She's the protagonist of the book. Of course I cared who she ends up with, if that makes me shallow, that's what I am. But anyways.

The writing is so much better than in the first book, too. More focused, and the book is definitely better edited. There's great chemistry between the characters, I loved the addition of Eli and Jay's dad. Her mum I didn't like so much, for whatever reasons, she was just overbearing and again I understand it, but I just didn't like her. Loved the little twist in the end, that was cool. Didn't like the very end, but that's just one of my book pet-peeves and I can't blame Nicole Reed for writing it, and I know people will love it.
There are a couple of graphic sex scenes, for those who care.

A fair bit of this book is a recap of the first. I was bored and skimmed these parts. Then when things start happening, it reminds you of what happened earlier in the book. Hence the lower rating.

It's a great sequel to the first book, all the loose ends tie up nicely and the story is well and done in the end. I loved Jay's journey from the broken girl in the first book to a strong young woman in the second and I'd take it all over again.
4149007
***3.5 Okay Stars!!!***

There's always something about doing something you know you're not supposed to but does it anyway that makes you feel good and high. Right? Evan and Masie's forbidden love story.

I think I am in the minority who won't be gushing and raving about this book. I'm sorry. I have no problem with the story or the characters or even the writing. Okay, maybe slightly with the writing. But it just didn't hold my attention and my emotions like I expected it to.

I am going to be honest and say that I have the bars set on high before reading this. It kept on appearing on my feed and everyone just seemed to love it. So I said, "well okay, the story is something I would want to read and the 5-star rating and raving reviews help too". It didn't work for me.

I can't say 100% what it is that didn't hold my complete focus while reading this but part of it was because sometimes it was too "cinematic" for my taste. I have no problem with that, in fact, I thought it was pretty cool, but there were parts where it seemed too much already. I did appreciate the ending. It was very well-written, that part, I can visualize it happening on the big screen. It was touching and lovely.

Evan and Maise, individually and together, were great. I loved their personality, their characters, how Leah Raeder wrote them and their story was rather outstanding. There was no annoying and unnecessary drama. They had problems and issues and they solved it fast and communicate about it (e.g. like them being together).

Cutting it down in parts, I essentially loved it. The theme, the story, the characters, but the book entirely, altogether, as one, not so much.

So, after a week of sitting on it, I'm keeping this short and say maybe this is a case of "it's not you, it's me".
2350569
I enjoyed it mostly. It was pretty edgy, which is fair because I think Gabrielle is. I wouldn't have wanted it to be different because it is her memoir. Sometimes I just felt like I was really in to it and something would distract me and pull me out. I enjoyed hearing Gabrielle's story.
4254203
I adore Lisa Kleypas's writing and she is hands down my favorite author.  That said, I was expecting more.

I'm intrigued by her jump into contemporary novels.  I'm curious as to why some choices were made.  I, personally, am not a fan of anything written in the first person unless it's a memoir and I'm rather baffled by why both of her contemporary novels have been written in the first person.  I don't read many contemporaries, so perhaps it's simply part of that landscape.  I'm also really interested in the different mechanisms used to create the story's framework when moving from historicals to contemporaries.  In historicals, you have rigid societal structures to present roadblocks to the characters at every turn and in the contemporaries, it's interesting to see how those roadblocks are constructed.  In this story, it was with domestic violence.

I adored Hardy Cates in Sugar Daddy and I was eager to see his book.  But this isn't his book, it's Haven's.  And I'm not really complaining about that.  I adore that Kleypas really fleshes out her heroines.  I love that she makes them into these gloriously three dimensional characters.  I just wish there had been more of Hardy in this book.  The bits we do get of him are lovely.  In particular, I adored the sections that dealt with his emotional baggage.  I just wish we'd seen more.

The subject matter of this book was a bit difficult for me to stomach, but that's actually praise for Kleypas's writing.  I think she tackled the subject of domestic violence very, very well.  I think she made Haven's journey very realistic and while I was incredibly frustrated with the things that happened to her, I think Kleypas made a very strong argument for how it is that strong, smart women can find themselves in these situations and how difficult it can be for them to leave.

I enjoyed the inclusions of Haven's therapy sessions, but I did feel that a bit too much of the story time was spent explaining the emotional and mental dynamics of abuse and abuse victims.  And really, I feel sort of horrible complaining about that.  Because domestic abuse is certainly a serious topic that deserves to be handled respectfully.  And I believe Kleypas did handle it exceptionally well.  But it was a bit too realistic for me.  I found myself skimming the abuse sections because they were so painful to read.

The sections with Hardy and Haven were hot and believable at the same time.  And though this book didn't have as many one liners as Sugar Daddy, there were several times I found myself laughing aloud at the snappy dialog.

All in all, it's a good read.  Especially if you're a fan of Kleypas.  But I did feel that there was a bit of a tradeoff and that some of the enjoyability of the story was sacrificed to make it more realistic.  It's still worth the money, even in hard back.  Just FYI.
1515353
As soon as I started reading this book, I was absolutely hooked! I loved the writing and the story building. Unfortunately, once I got more into it, I got really bored. I hate to say that because I really enjoyed the beginning so much! I was forcing myself to keep reading after almost quitting multiple times in the hopes of it getting better. I just don't think that overall it was my cup of tea because the story is not bad at all. It even has a happy ending. I think some of the problems came because I really loved the real Anna from the beginning. However once she was "gone", I kept anticipating her "return" and it never really happened. I was expecting more of a "winning her love" kind of story, but it was basically handed to him. While I won't be continuing this series, I will look into the author's other works, because like I said, I really like her writing. This story just wasn't for me unfortunately.
1858956
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love Nicole Stewart's writing. It took me a little time to warm up to Allison in this book; however, I appreciate the "journey " that Nicole took with this character. She went from a lonely existence to a risk taker who experiences a menage for the first time. Loved the opportunity to check in with Meghan, Bryce, Eric, and Tristan from VFT: Colorado. Like all of Nicole's writing, I very much recommend this book. You will love Nicole's story telling.
3682191
Nicole is one of my favorite MC series writers. I loved all her stories and can't wait for more.
4426511
At the beginning I loved Parker and Maddy. But then came the other two, Lee and Jacqueline.
I didn't understand why Maddy let this carry on myself, as I don't think I would be happy if I was in that situation. But then she went and met Lee in Hawaii.....Yeah. That made things a little complicated.
I LOVED the story overall and it's beautifully written.

I only down rated it a star because it was quite repetitive when it didn't need to be.

I definitely would recommend this to everyone, especially if you're looking for a YA light read :)
1234904
This book is also part of the Feehan Christmas Stories, the second book, but I decided not to put that in the title because I don't like having my titles that long.

Now it wasn't quite the mystery that After the Music was but it was way more supernatural, of course it is the second book of the Drake Sisters so its expected to be quite different.

Even though its a rather short book it does run a little long for me and I just want to smack some sense into Kate every once in a while.

The mystery here isn't as deep as the other Christmas Stories in this little series but a mystery nonetheless, I just didn't get a chill down my spine. I really love the poem at the beginning and I also love the fact that parts of it start off the chapters so that the reader kind of knows whats going to happen. Maybe thats why the mystery isn't as deep as the other mysteries.

Not one of my favorites of the Drake sisters but still a good one. The writing hooks me when it introduces Matt and I just love the awkwardness, its too cute and Im still loving the fact that the stories are introduced with the love interests, it really helps to build a connection with the men before the readers get to the sister.

Theres really no mystery as to who will be Hannah and Elles love interest, although Elles isn't nearly as obvious as Hannahs.

The pace just seemed a little slow to me, the chapters taking a little longer than they needed to be. I still really enjoy the Drake sisters getting together and the hard time they give Jonas, although they really need to pay more attention to Hannah.

This is a sweet, yet creepy tale that would be a nice read around Christmas time