Narrator: Lucy Rivers

Review: Moonlighter by Sarina Bowen

Posted July 10, 2023 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Moonlighter by Sarina BowenReviewer: Holly
Moonlighter by Sarina Bowen
Narrator: Jason Clarke, Lucy Rivers
Series: The Company #1
Also in this series: Moonlighter, Loverboy
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: October 19, 2019
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 330
Length: 10 hours and 44 minutes
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

Only in my family could a professional hockey player earning seven million dollars a year be considered a slacker.
I'm at the height of my athletic career. Yet my arrogant brother is always trying to recruit me into the family business: a global security company so secretive that I don't even know its name. Pass, thanks. I don't need a summer job.
But the jerk ambushes me with a damsel in distress. That damsel is Alex, the competitive, sassy girl I knew when we were kids. Now she's a drop-dead gorgeous woman in deep trouble. So guess who's on a flight to Hawaii?
It's going to be a long week in paradise. My job is keeping Alex safe, while her job is torturing me with her tiny bikinis. Or maybe we're torturing each other. It's all snark and flirting until the threat against Alex gets serious. And this jock must become her major league protector.
Moonlighter is a stand-alone novel. No cliff-hangers, no prior experience necessary. Contains: hackers, hockey players, and a hotel room with only one bed.

I purchased the ebook with the audio add-on so I could switch between reading and listening. I enjoyed the narrators, but I spent more time reading than listening. I didn’t read this book when it was first released because I wasn’t interested in the premise. I also mistakenly thought this was a New Adult romance, and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me that a 20-something hockey player would be a great bodyguard. It ended up being better than I anticipated. Both characters are in their 30s and I liked the way things progressed between them.

I did not care for the suspense element. There were so many eye-rolling moments. I also didn’t love that it ended on a quasi-cliffhanger (the big baddie was left unresolved and – I assume – will be addressed in the next book).

I thought the romance, the storyline with Alex’s love-life troubles and Eric’s career issues were well done and they kept me reading, but I personally think the book would have been much better without the additional suspense element.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Company

three-half-stars


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Review: Tin Queen by Devney Perry

Posted October 18, 2021 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Tin Queen by Devney PerryReviewer: Casee
Tin Queen by Devney Perry
Narrator: Lucy Rivers, Jason Clarke
Series: Tin Gypsy #6
Also in this series: Gypsy King
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: August 31, 2021
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 351
Length: 9 hours and 9 minutes
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

No promises. No expectations. No names. That’s what Emmett Stone agreed to with the woman who caught his eye two months ago. After years of drama following the end of his motorcycle club, a no-strings fling with a mystery woman is exactly what he needs. Except as they find themselves together more and more, it’s impossible for him to keep his feelings at bay. She’s clever and sassy. She’s gracious and kind. She loves riding on the back of his bike every Saturday afternoon and lazing in his bed every Sunday morning. She’s the perfect woman.
Except she’s Nova Talbot, the daughter of his archenemy—the man who murdered his father.
Her identity will cost her the man who’s captured her heart unless she can convince Emmett her feelings are true.
Before he learns the reason she proposed their fling in the first place.

Tin Queen is the sixth and final book in Devney Perry’s Tin Gypsy series. This book brings the Tin Gypsies full circle and they have to decide if they want to hold onto the past or look forward to the future.

The thing that Nova Talbot wants most in life is for her father to be proud of her. She has done everything he’s ever asked for her. Now she’s volunteering to avenge her brother. Her plan is easy. She’s going to get her way into Emmett Stone’s bed, then she’s going to ruin him. That doesn’t go according to plan. What Nova thought about keeping her feelings separate from her body, it all went up in smoke the night she was first in Emmett’s bed. Emmett is nothing like she thought he would be. Nova knows he is special but that is not going sway her from her plan.

Emmett has never met anyone like her. What started out as a no-names, no-talking fling ended up turning into a need that couldn’t be denied. When he wasn’t with her, he thought about her. When he was with her, he had never felt as content. Emmett knows that they still have to worry about the Warriors, the rival club they were at war with. Still, he finds himself reluctant to run plates and dig into her life. That ends up being a mistake in a big way.

Nova’s internal struggle was real and very raw. Her father had always been her hero. She’d known that he wasn’t innocent; that he killed people even. But that didn’t change her undying devotion and loyalty to him. All Nova has wanted since her brother was killed by a Tin Gypsy was revenge. She wanted to put them all in jail. She thought she could and would do anything to do so, but that changes each day as she gets to really know Emmett.

When it all hits the fan it is horrible. A nightmare. Both Emmett and Nova have to decide if it’s worth it to face to the future or if they should say goodbye. Emmett damn near broke my heart when he said this.

“I can’t do this.”

I truly felt the devastation coming off the pages. It was heartbreaking and it was horrible. Their love was tangible, but neither of them know if they could let go of the past; let go of the family they both lost. When they did come together in the end? It was also desperate. But it was desperation to love, desperation to hope. It was just beautiful.

I’m really happy about how this series ended. Although I would rather have an open ended Tin Gypsy series, I respect Devney Perry for knowing when it’s time to end it. That doesn’t happen much anymore these days.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Tin Gypsy

four-half-stars


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