Day: July 8, 2015

Guest Review: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid by Suzanne Enoch

Posted July 8, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid by Suzanne EnochReviewer: Tracy
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid (Scandalous Highlanders, #3) by Suzanne Enoch
Series: Scandalous Highlanders #3
Also in this series: Rogue with a Brogue (Scandalous Highlanders, #2), Some Like it Scot (Scandalous Highlanders, #4)
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Publication Date: March 3rd 2015
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

She used to be mad about him.
In Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid by New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Enoch, high-spirited Rowena MacLawry has come to the Highlands after a spectacularly successful debut Season in London, and has made it painfully clear that she's outgrown her girlhood obsession with Lachlan MacTier. That's just fine with him, as he never had any intention of marrying the lass anyway! Yet how can he ignore the fact that the once rough and tumble Winnie has become a very fashionable-and incredibly desirable-young woman...And now he's got it bad...Brawny, rugged Lachlan is nothing like the aristocratic English gentlemen who pursued Winnie-with a passion-in London. Three months away was more than enough to show her a world infinitely more glamorous than the untamed Scottish Highlands-and her beloved childhood crush. But now that she's decided to find a prospective husband with a bit more polish, could Lachlan finally appreciate her charms? And is it remotely possible to ignore the wild attraction she feels for him?
"One of my very favorite authors." -Julia Quinn

Three months ago Rowena, who had just turned 18, ran away from home. She ran to London because she wanted to be a lady and be proper and do all the wonderful things she’d never gotten to do by roaming the highland hills. She was also determined to forget about Lachlan MacTier, part of her clan and intimate friend of the family, who she’d had a crush on since she could figure out what a crush was. He was always very kind and patient with her but he never let her get the idea that he wanted her back. He saw her as a sister and that was it. She got frustrated with her unrequited love and decided that almost any other guy but Lachlan would do.

Now that she’s spent a few months in London she knows that that’s the kind of life she wants for herself. She returns home for her brother Ranulf’s wedding but brings more than a few friends and admirers from Mayfair with her.

Ranulf knows that Rowena has been after Lachlan for years and wants to know for certain, from both of them, that they don’t want the other. They each firmly state that they do not want to be together. Except…then Lachlan has a change of heart. He’d always loved her but he starts seeing her as a woman rather than a young girl and pest. He starts to fall in love with her and decides he’s going to marry her. He has a time of it convincing Rowena but he finally get the job done. The problem? Rowena’s brother has already consented to allow another man to marry her and he will not be changing his mind.

There were so many things that I liked about this book. I loved the MacLawry family. Despite the fact that Ranulf and Rowena weren’t on the same page about her marriage I could still see the love they had for each other, along with their brothers Arran and Bear. This family could have been so permanently messed up because of their father’s murder and mother’s subsequent suicide but Ranulf really kept them together and did a fabulous job of making them pretty great human beings.

Now Rowena is what I would typically called the spoiled baby of the family. Not only that but she was a girl so she was humored and cosseted and that did her no favors. Of course being raised by the male species she was also quite good at being a rough and tumble highlands lass. I did think that she took her desire to be a “lady” a bit too far but I was happy that Lachlan could finally make her see how wonderful her home was even if that didn’t include all the fancy stuff that London had to offer.

Lachlan was…an idiot. Oh not throughout the entire book but I must say that the fact that it took him so damned long to see Rowena as a woman was not a point in his favor. I had to admire him, however, as once he did figure himself and his feelings out he was pretty darned aggressive in his determination to not let her marry another man. I really did like his character, despite his idiocy. lol

Another thing I really liked about this story was the highland games that they included. Having all the MacLawry clan as well as all of a ton of other clans gathered for the wedding and putting on the games was a really cool addition to the book.

So far I’ve really liked this series and I can’t wait to see what Enoch has in store for us with Bear’s romance.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Scandalous Highlanders

four-stars


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Review: Most Likely to Succeed by Jennifer Echols

Posted July 8, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 1 Comment

most likely to succeed
Rowena’s review of Most Likely to Succeed (Superlatives #3) by Jennifer Echols.

In this sexy conclusion to The Superlatives trilogy from Endless Summer author Jennifer Echols, Sawyer and Kaye might just be perfect for each other—if only they could admit it.

As vice president of Student Council, Kaye knows the importance of keeping order. Not only in school, but in her personal life. Which is why she and her boyfriend, Aidan, already have their lives mapped out: attend Columbia University together, pursue banking careers, and eventually get married. Everything Kaye has accomplished in high school—student government, cheerleading, stellar grades—has been in preparation for that future.

To his entire class, Sawyer is an irreverent bad boy. His antics on the field as school mascot and his love of partying have earned him total slacker status. But while he and Kaye appear to be opposites on every level, fate—and their friends—keep conspiring to throw them together. Perhaps the seniors see the simmering attraction Kaye and Sawyer are unwilling to acknowledge to themselves…

As the year unfolds, Kaye begins to realize her ideal life is not what she thought. And Sawyer decides it’s finally time to let down the facade and show everyone who he really is. Is a relationship between them most likely to succeed—or will it be their favorite mistake?

Book 3 in the Superlatives series and it was a book that I was looking forward to reading because we were finally getting Sawyer’s book. Sawyer was the class screw up when we first meet him but over the course of the series, you see him change his ways. He goes from smoking pot, partying and going through girls every weekend to getting his shit together. I loved Sawyer. I thought he was the very best part of this book. Even when he was being a bonehead, I loved him.

Kaye on the other hand drove me crazy for a good portion of the book. Every time she would push and pull and play with Sawyer’s emotions, I wanted to smack her. But in the end, she gets it together and I ended up liking her. She wasn’t my favorite girl of the bunch but I could see why Sawyer liked her. I also understood why Kaye thought and acted the way that she did. I don’t know how she lived to be 17 without killing her mother. Her Mom was such a bitch.

My main gripes with the story were Aidan and Kaye’s Mom. Every time Sawyer had to pay for Aidan’s jealousy and his stupidity, I wanted to kick Aidan in the nuts. Every time Kaye talked down to and about Sawyer, I wanted to claw her eyes out. She’s a grown ass adult and the way she treated others made me want to smack the shit out of her. She thoroughly pissed me off over and over again. Her actions and the way she treated her daughter and Sawyer also made me mad at Kaye’s Dad. He’s supposed to be cool parent but you don’t let your wife talk to your kids like that. You don’t let your daughter go through that kind of shit. That’s not tough love. That’s bullshit. In the end, where the Mom apologizes and makes nice, I still wanted to beat the every loving shit out of her.

Aidan was no better. He was such a weak character. So focused on getting to the top that he didn’t care who he trampled on and hurt to get there. The way that he treated Kaye and the shit he put Sawyer through made me hate him so much that there was no prayer of redemption for him. Fuck him. I was so glad when Kaye finally put him out of her life for good. She deserved so much more than he ever gave her and I was so freaking happy when she left Aidan behind for good and jumped on the Sawyer train.

Getting to know Sawyer more throughout this story made me love him even more than I did in the previous books. My heart hurt for him and I wanted to hug him close and take care of him, I liked him so much. Every time that Kaye would make him happy, only to hurt him made me think that maybe he deserved better than her but then seeing Kaye come around, I changed my mind. Kaye was Sawyer’s person. She was the one that he wanted in his corner and I liked seeing Kaye come to the realization that Sawyer was her person too. When they finally decide to get their shit together and just be together, I loved seeing the lengths that they went to, to be together. To be happy. I loved that they didn’t care about what anyone thought (including Kaye’s parents). They liked each other and they were going to be there for each other through thick and thin.

Jennifer Echols did a great job of pulling every emotion out of me with this book. There were times when I laughed, times when I teared up and then times when I was so rip roaring pissed off that I wanted to throw this book but it wasn’t a boring book. There were a few times that I thought I was going to DNF this one but I’m glad that I stuck with it. I enjoyed seeing the couples from previous books and I thought Echols handled their addition to the story well. They weren’t completely corny and lovey dovey, and I appreciated that. Nothing drives me crazier than recurring characters that are couples that come back and are nauseating in their love for each other. That wasn’t the case with Brody, Harper, Will and Tia. I loved that even though they loved Kaye, they were still there for Sawyer.

The romance between Kaye and Sawyer was cute and enjoyable. I was happy with the way that this book ended but I’m not going to lie, it was a bumpy road getting there.

Grade: 3 out of 5

This book is available from Simon Pulse. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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