Reviewer: Tracy With a Twist by Staci Hart
Series: Bad Habits #1
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: July 16, 2015
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Love is somewhere near the bottom of Lily Thomas’ list of life goals, right next to competitive eating and underwater cave diving. She’s spent six years pirouetting and pliéing her way up the ranks of the New York Ballet with her eye on the prize and love in the back seat. But now that Blane Baker -- Lily’s long time crush -- is finally single, she’ll throw her rules out the window without thinking twice.
Reality with Blane isn’t as epic as the fantasy she imagined, and the truth sends her spinning straight into the arms of the man she never knew she’d always wanted.
West Williams has been friends with Lily since the day she moved into their building and he saved her armoire from a swift, sudden death by staircase. Their friendship has always been easy, the boundaries clearly defined. With neither of them willing to risk their relationship, they’ve drifted happily through the years as companions, never considering more.
That is, until they do. And that realization changes everything.
Tracy’s review of With a Twist (Bad Habits #1) by Staci Hart.
Lily is a ballerina with the New York City Ballet. She has had a crush on one guy, Blane Baker, since she was fifteen year old (she’s now 22) and all of a sudden he’s paying attention to her and more! She’s thrilled that he’s finally noticed her as he’s been with the same bitchy girlfriend for forever. The problem starts when he actually sleeps with her. Only, it’s not exactly sleeping with her – it’s just playing a quick game of hide the sausage for Blane, in a rehearsal studio, with absolutely NO foreplay. She can’t believe that someone that hot can be that bad at sex but she believes that it was just a quirky first time thing. Only…it happens again. She’s pretty sure that what she thought was great isn’t so fabulous as he acts like an ass sometimes as well. She’s determined to give him a third attempt at redeeming himself when they head to a club with all of her friends.
West is Lily’s best friend. Lily and moved into an apartment and West ended up helping her get her furniture up the stairs. He was dating someone at the time so he was off limits even if she thought he was incredibly hot. Now West is free but they’ve become best friends and that’s good enough for both of them. That is until West discovers that he’s in love with Lily and wants her for himself NOW. The problem is that she’s still interested in Blane and he needs to wait to tell her he loves her. When he does it doesn’t exactly go as planned and the big revelation might actually push them apart rather than closer together.
What a fun book. I really enjoyed almost every part of this story. West and Lily were perfect for each other as both friends and lovers. I very much enjoyed reading about their journey and all of its ups and downs.
The book mainly focuses on Lily and West’s characters but there’s also a good portion of the story that relates to their friends as well. We met Patrick, West’s roommate, who is an artist and in love with Lily’s bartender roommate, Rose. They used to date but Patrick blew it and now they just smolder in silence. Then we have Maggie who is West’s sister who just moved to NYC after she found her fiancé screwing her best friend and maid of honor an hour before she was supposed to get married to the jerk. She’s trying to get over Jimmy so doesn’t want to date but there’s something going on with someone but it’s not revealed who it is. Added to the mix is Cooper who is a friend of all and a billionaire’s son who, from what I can tell, has no other job than to be a playboy. He hangs with Lily’s model sister, Astrid, as fake boyfriend/girlfriend for the paparazzi. It’s a strange and complicated bunch but all together they made a fantastic group. I thought the author did a great job of conveying how much they cared for each other as friends and I know that’s not always easy to pull off.
Overall the story had some great elements – friendship, love, romance and lots of laughter – and they all came together to make a very good book.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
This title is self-published. You can buy it here in e-format.
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