Tag: M. Leighton

Guest Review: Tough Enough by M. Leighton

Posted November 17, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: Tough Enough by M. LeightonReviewer: Tracy
Tough Enough by M. Leighton
Series: Tall Dark and Dangerous #2
Publisher: Berkley, Penguin
Publication Date: November 3, 2015
Format: eARC
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

There was a time when I had everything–a wonderful family, a bright future. Love. But all that was taken away in a single night, torn from me like flesh from bone. Since then, I’ve hidden away in my second-choice job as a makeup artist. But I prefer it that way, actually. I’m comfortable in the shadows, where no one can see my scars.

Kiefer Rogan literally took my breath away the moment I met him. MMA champion-turned-actor, notorious playboy, charming to a fault—he’s everything I vowed to avoid.

But he just wouldn’t stop until I opened up and let him in. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to resist him. Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. Because I, of all people, know that everyone has secrets. Scars. And that they’re usually ugly and painful and destructive to the people we love most.

I just never guessed that they could be deadly, too.

Katie is a make-up artist at a studio in the small town of Enchantment, Georgia. She likes what she does and is quite happy to just do her job, come home and watch The Walking Dead, and watch her narcoleptic cat sleep. That’s her life and she enjoys it until Kiefer Rogan comes strolling through the door. He is an MMA fighter who is filming at the studio she works at. She does his make-up every day and every day he surprises her with coffee and a new treat. He is smitten from the first time he sees her but Katie is a tough nut to crack and he’s not sure he can get through to her.

Rogan had a rough time growing up but now he can take care of himself. He also takes care of his brother who was paralyzed from the waist down in Afghanistan. He knows he shouldn’t start anything with Katie because he’ll eventually stop shooting and go back to Texas but he can’t help himself. When he finds out about the secret that keeps Katie to herself he doesn’t care – that is until he finds out who was behind it all and that that person is now trying to ruin both his and Katie’s lives once again.

This was a sweet story that I really enjoyed. I loved Katie and her quiet personality. From what we as readers understand she’s quite different than who she used to be 5 years prior when her life changed dramatically. I didn’t get to know that Katie but the one in this story won my heart. Some might look at her as a shrinking violet but I saw a woman who was determined to live life on her terms and I loved that. She was smitten with Rogan from minute one but knew she shouldn’t get involved with him. He kept pecking at her resolve, however, and she finally gave in. What she found was a love to last but unfortunately most love stories have their issues and this was no different. The issues in this story, and how Rogan and Katie’s lives intersected without even knowing about it, was a bit far-fetched but it worked.

Rogan was a great guy and I loved that he was so taken with Katie from the get go. He didn’t try to hide his feelings and I loved that. Though his brother didn’t treat him well he still took time and energy to take care of him and yeah, he had his moments with bad thoughts he still persevered.

The villains in this story were true villains and I was happy that they got what they deserved in the end. It happened really quickly and off page which I didn’t care for but I guess it got the job done in the end so it was all good.

Overall I found the book to be sweet with a bit of a dark element that made it that much more interesting. I didn’t read book 1 so was slight lost when Rogan was talking about his past and his buddies and their problems but it didn’t affect the book all that much so was still good.

Rating: 4 out of 5

four-stars

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Review: There’s Wild, Then There’s You by M. Leighton

Posted June 1, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: There’s Wild, Then There’s You by M. LeightonReviewer: Tracy
There's Wild, Then There's You by M. Leighton
Series: The Wild Ones #3
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: June 3rd 2014
Genres: New Adult
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

He’s someone she can’t trust…

She’s someone he thinks he knows…

Violet Wilson is a wallflower. Shy, serious, and accident-prone, she’s got a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The night she’s forced to pose with her friend might just be the worst time of all—that’s when she meets Jet Blevins. She knows better than to get involved with someone like him, but he touches her in ways she never expected, never wanted before.

On the outside, Jet is a typical rocker, an arrogant lead guitarist who unapologetically lives a wild lifestyle. But on the inside, he’s battling demons and using the stage to escape the troubles of his past and the addictions of his present. Until the night he sees Violet standing at the back of the room. She brings his life into focus. She knows his secrets. She’s the girl he can’t forget, and the one thing he craves more than his addiction.

But can they ever hope to have a future when their very foundation is nothing but lies?

Violet helps people.  It’s what she does and it makes her happy to do so. She even became a Social Worker so that she could help people. Unfortunately she’s so busy helping others that she really doesn’t have a life of her own.  On this night she is at a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting.  She’s meeting her best friend, Tia, who has cheated on her fiance Dennis no less than 6 times.  Tia loves Dennis but she can’t seem to help herself when it comes to random pick ups.  Dennis has requested that she attend these meetings but she refuses to do it without Violet’s support.  When the meeting begins, however, Tia is nowhere in sight.  Everyone at the meeting stands up to introduce themselves and declare themselves a sex addict.  Soon it comes to Violet and rather than saying nothing she stands up and declares herself a sex addict.  Wow.
Also attending the meeting is Jet.  Jet is completely taken with Violet, even more so after she kind of blows him off.  Jet keeps running into Violet and looks forward to seeing her at the SAA meetings.  At one of the meetings Jet hears that Violet has been “in control” for three years (remember, she’s supposed to be a sex addict) and asks her to become his sponsor.  Violet wants to help, even though she’s not really a sex addict, so agrees to be Jet’s sponsor.
As Jet and Violet spend more time together the sexual tension between the two is off the charts.  Violet feels horrible for lying to Jet about being a sex addict but she fears pushing him over the edge if she confesses.  Jet loves spending time with Violet and she actually makes him a better person.  If Violet knew all of Jet’s secrets, however, she wouldn’t like him at all.
I started off this book with the thought: why the hell didn’t Violet wait for Tia outside of the actual meeting???  Of course then we wouldn’t have a story, now would we? 🙂  I really liked Violet in this story but she was scared of living and it made me sad for her.  She was so determined to not make the same mistakes as her family members that she cut herself off from living.  When Jet came around she allowed herself to feel and to start living and that scared her as well.  I did think she was walked on a bit by her family but she was so happy to help that she didn’t even see it.
Jet was a bad boy band member who had great ambition as a professional song writer.  He’s in a band and has girls falling all over him – and he enjoys that.  When he meets Violet he starts to change and I liked seeing that change.  He seemed to be a nicer person and he was quite tender with Violet.  Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot other than that to recommend him, imho.  I liked him but I didn’t feel after all was said and done that there was a whole lot of substance to his character.
Overall, despite my issues with Jet, I think it was a really good story. Tender, sexy, hot and just a sweet romance.
Rating: 4 out of 5
four-stars

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What I Read Last Week

Posted May 27, 2014 by Tracy in Features | 2 Comments

Hey guys!  Hope you’re having a nice Monday.  For those of you in the US…Happy Memorial Day.

Nothing much has been happening around here lately so I guess I’ll just get down to what I read last week:

I started the week with The Witch of Clan Sinclair by Karen Ranney.  This story is about Mairi Sinclair who lives in Edinburgh and runs her deceased father’s printing press.  She is getting more involved in women’s rights and this ends up butting heads with the Provost of Edinburgh.  The pair squabble but they can’t deny their attraction to each other.  This was a really great story and I very much enjoyed both Mairi and Logan’s characters.  4 out of 5

Next was Don’t Blackmail the Vampire by Tiffany Allee.  Rachel is trying everything to get her sister away from her loser of a fiance and Charles is trying to figure out if the loser fiance, Brent, is making threatening phone calls to his sister-in-law.  Rachel finds out that Charles is a vampire and attempts to blackmail her into help her with her sister.  The story is cute and fun.  I’ll post a review later this week.  3.5 out of 5

The Reiver by Jackie Barbosa is a short story about a Laird who captures a reiver on his land and throws him in the dungeon.  Then he figures out he’s a she and ends up falling in love with her.  Too bad he doesn’t anything about her. It’s a pretty fast story as it’s so short but it was cute.  3 out of 5

Blind Faith by Rebecca Zanetti is Nate’s story in the Sin Brothers series.  He’s still looking for the codes to deactivate the kill switches and tries using his connection with his old love to get them.  He doesn’t realize that’s he’s never stopped loving her and that poses a problem when he’s trying to stay objective.  A good book – I’ll post my review later this week.  4 out of 5

There’s Wild, Then There’s You by M. Leighton is the story of Violet who meets Jet at a Sex addicts anonymous meeting and neither can get the other out of their minds.  The problem is that Violet stood up and said she was a SA but she’s not.  She hates deceiving him but she likes him so much and is afraid to lose him.  I’ll post my review of this one soon. 4 out of 5

Last for the week was Planning for Love by Christi Barth.  This is a cute story that involves wedding planner Ivy who ends up falling for Bennett.  Ivy is a head in the clouds, everything’s rainbows and butterflies type of girl and Bennett is an anti-romance, cynical, the glass is half empty kind of guy.  They make a strange pair but Ivy is determined to make Bennett fall in love with her.  It’s cute but a little slow in the middle.  It wrapped up with a nice bow at the end which was a little disconcerting as I just didn’t see Ben changing his mind about love.  shrugs 3 out of 5

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
crickets

Happy Reading!

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Guest Review: Down to You by M. Leighton

Posted April 1, 2013 by Ames in Reviews | 0 Comments

Ames’ review of Down To You by M. Leighton.

One girl. Twin brothers. An uncommon triangle.

When college student Olivia Townsend returned home to help her father run his business, she never imagined a complication like Cash and Nash Davenport—twin brothers different in so many ways but with one thing in common: an uncontrollable desire for Olivia.

Cash is dangerous, sexy, and bad to the bone—a man whose kisses make Olivia forget she is playing with fire. Nash is successful, reliable and intensely passionate—and already taken. But all it takes is one soft stroke to make Olivia forget he belongs to someone else.

However, Olivia is in for a surprise. These boys have a secret that should make her run away as far and as fast as she can. If only it wasn’t too late. A sensual game between three players has begun, and it’s about to spin deliriously out of control.

I was intrigued by the blurb and looked forward to reading it.  But I was disappointed.

Olivia first meets Cash when she mistakes him for a stripper.  Whoops.  He’s super hot and ends up being the owner of the club she’s visiting with her friends.  She’s a bit miffed that he led her on the way he did, but when she goes home that night, she can’t stop thinking about him.

When she first meets Nash, she thinks he’s Cash and gives him crap about the night before.  Then her roommate, who is also her cousin and Nash’s girlfriend, sets her straight.  Nash is Cash’s twin – she’s getting mad at the wrong brother.

Both men are intrigued by Olivia and thus begins the story of a girl who has a history with bad boys and wants so badly for the good guy to be the right guy, except he’s taken.  By her cousin.

Olivia is one of those girls that has guys fawning all over her and she has no reason why.  I have read countless heroines like this recently and it made me annoyed with this book.  Can I read a contemporary romance where the heroine knows she’s hot stuff but not conceited about it?  So yes, Olivia is not stick-thin like her cousin and there’s something about her that gets Cash and Nash all worked up.

Olivia annoyed me.  And this is why I’m disappointed in the book.  She judges Cash from the get-go.  She assumes he’s a bad boy because he owns a club and had a bit of fun at her expense.  But he’s a successful businessman and he’s straight up about what he wants.  And then she thinks Nash is a good guy because he’s  going to be a lawyer, went to university.  BUT Nash is dating her cousin and meanwhile he’s super flirty with her…so that kind of makes him NOT a good guy because he definitely crosses a line with Olivia.  I was mad at her for judging Cash when he’s the most honest one out of the bunch (that’s saying a lot when you realize there’s a twist).

And that’s the other thing, I saw the twist coming a mile away.  I am not saying anything about it, but I kind of guessed it before I opened the book up.  And I didn’t even care about the cliffhanger.  There just wasn’t enough here to grab and hold my attention.  Plus it wasn’t that hot.  Meh.

I’m giving Down to You 2.5 out of 5.

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here in e-format.

You can read more from ~ames~ at Bookish Ames.

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What I Read Last Week

Posted March 4, 2013 by Tracy in Features | 3 Comments

Well it’s another day in the neighborhood! I don’t know about you but I do not look forward to Monday mornings. lol They are a pain in my ass in many ways and of course it’s always hard to get back to work after having a couple of days off. 

My week was pretty boring until Saturday when my oldest daughter and I drove out and spent the day with Holly and Princess Bowie. We had a great time talking books and of course my daughter loved playing with Bowie (who is just incredibly stinking adorable!!). The day went too fast and it just never seems like enough whenever I visit, but it was a ton of fun.

Anyway, on to what I read:

I started off the week with Blacque/Bleu by Belinda McBride. The story is about a werewolf and vampire who fall in love but can’t be together. Both men know that they can’t stay together but they long for each other. It was really good and I very much liked the story. You can read my review here. 4.25 out of 5

Next up was the second story in the Arcada series, Silver/Steel by Belinda McBride. This one was completely different but just as good as book 1. In this story there’s Travis who is a were and he has his self-esteem issues and then there’s a Fae, Dylan, who at first uses Travis but then falls in love. You can read my full review here. 4.25 out of 5   

My next book was The Geek Girl and The Scandalous Earl by Gina Lamm. This story is about Jamie who is from 2012 but gets sucked into a time portal and ends up in 1816. She is in an Earl’s house and was deliberately brought there by a witch who saw that she was the Earl’s soul mate. The story is about Jamie trying to adjust to 1816, deciding if she wants to head to her time and the Earl dealing with not only his feelings for Jamie but also his duty and a vindictive ex-mistress. The book was pretty darned funny I enjoyed reading it. I did think the Earl went a little nutty near the end but it all turned out well. 3.75 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey was a complete surprise for me. The story is about a pre-med student who is in town on Spring Break because she couldn’t afford to go with her friends to the Caribbean. She decides she’ll make her own fun, which is completely not something she would normally do, and ends up picking up a guy in a bar and taking him home. Josh knows Ellen because he’s pre-med as well but Ellen doesn’t recognize him. She thinks that he’s from out of town visiting during break and he doesn’t correct her. Ellen and Josh both do some growing during their week-long relationship and their lives change when they both go for what they want. It was really good and definitely worth the read. 4 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

 Down To You by M. Leighton is a story of a girl, Olivia, who finds herself falling for two men who happen to be twins – Nash and Cash. She loves Cash’s bad boy persona and attitude but she loves the gentler and more stable man Nash is. Nash is dating Olivia’s cousin though so that puts a damper on things, but not completely. The story was told in alternating 1st person pov’s and that was a bit much at first but once I got into the story it was good. It had a twist at the end that, while I had figured it out several chapters prior, was still a bit of a surprise. Not completely believable but it worked for this story and I enjoyed it a lot. 4 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

Last for the week was The Song Remains the Same by Allison Winn Scotch. This is the story of Nell who is one of two survivors of a plane crash that killed over 150 people. When she wakes she doesn’t remember a thing and has to rely on her family and friends to tell her who she is and what he life is like. Unfortunately her family is completely dysfunctional and Nell ends up finding out that things she’s been told just aren’t true. The book is about Nell’s journey but the journey wasn’t exactly a riveting one. The book dragged for most of the middle of the story and in the end wasn’t all that great in the end. A great premise that just wasn’t completely realized, imho, and ended up as a just ok read. 2 out of 5 (read for The Book Binge)

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week: 
The Autumn Bride by Anne Gracie

Happy Reading!

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