Reviewer: Rowena
Made for You (The Best Mistake, #2) by Lauren Layne
Series: The Best Mistake #2
Also in this series: Only with You (The Best Mistake, #1)
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, Forever Yours
Publication Date: October 28th 2014
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 320
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Series Rating:

When the Wrong Guy is Oh-So-Right

Will Thatcher is exactly the type of sexy playboy good girls like Brynn have always avoided. And yet there was still something about him she just couldn't resist. When Will moved across the country three years ago, Brynn vowed it was time to put him behind her. She never thought Will might have other plans . . .

Back in town, Will intends to get what he's always wanted-gorgeous, unforgettable Brynn. For years, he tormented the untouchable ice princess in a desperate bid for her attention. Now he has a new plan, and he'll do anything to rewrite their stormy past. This time, he's out to show Brynn that the imperfect man might be the best mistake of her life . . .

Made for You is the second book in Lauren Layne’s The Best Mistake series and it’s another winner. This book follows Sophie’s perfect sister Brynn as she falls in love with Sophie’s best friend, Will.

Brynn and Will have hated each other since high school and yet because Brynn’s parents have adopted Will into their family because he’s best friends with Brynn’s sister, Brynn has never been free of him. They bicker with each other every chance they get and Brynn’s hostility is coming from a place of embarrassment. Will is the guy that hung her bra up on the flagpole because he got his feelings hurt when she turned him down for a date. Brynn was bullied in middle school and used the opportunity of a new school to reinvent herself so that she can escape the Dumpy Dalton nickname.

But Will transferred and didn’t know Brynn’s history with bullies. He first sees her and she’s hot. He’s very interested in her and when she kicks him in the nuts, they circle each other while bickering about everything under the sun. He’s everything she has no interest in (a guy who can’t commit to one woman) and she’s the ice queen that rubs him the wrong way.

Everyone that knows them, know that they do not get along but all of that goes to the curb when Brynn shows up on Will’s porch with a proposition that Will can’t deny. After their night of passion, Brynn wants to go back to the way things were and she tells Will that they made a mistake and because Will has been secretly in love with Brynn all these years…he takes off. It must be nice to just up and sell your house and move clear across the country without any kind of plan. That’s something only rich guys like Will can pull but holy cow, he must have been big-time hurt to be rejected and then do something as drastic as a move to Boston (from Seattle).

But when he comes back and is determined to win Brynn over, my heart went into overdrive for him. The romance between Will and Brynn wasn’t easy to get through because they frustrated me at every turn. I wanted Will to be more forthcoming about his feelings and I wanted to smack Brynn upside her head and tell her to wake up and smell what’s right in front of you. She overthought every single thing and it was frustrated at times because goodness, get it together already but alls well that ends well because when they finally get everything out in the open and their truths are revealed, I cheered out loud because what a scene that was.

I wanted Will for myself and I just adored the hell out of him. He won me over in Sophie’s book with how fiercely loyal he was to her but it was in this book that I fell in love with him. Lauren Layne sure knows how to write the big reveal scene because when Will smacks Brynn in the face with his declaration, he squeezed my heart right out of my chest. It was so good.

I totally see why Will is Lauren Layne’s favorite hero. He was all that and a big bag of chips. And a coke, too. The way that he harbored all of those feelings for all of that time just completely melted me and I could not wait for Brynn to figure it out and make an honest man out of Will. All of her casual fling business with Will needed to go and when she finally wakes up and starts living her life without plans and without her lists, I was glad.

These two made a great couple and the chemistry between them was hot and it was strong. This is a book that I definitely recommend.

Grade: 4.25 out of 5

Reviewer: Rowena
Only with You (The Best Mistake, #1) by Lauren Layne
Series: The Best Mistake #1
Also in this series: Made for You (The Best Mistake, #2)
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, Forever Yours
Publication Date: July 29th 2014
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 369
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

Love is the Biggest Gamble of All . . .

Cocktail waitress Sophie Dalton doesn't exactly have a life plan. She's perfectly happy being everyone's favorite party girl. But when a Las Vegas bachelorette party goes awry and an uptight businessman mistakes Sophie for a prostitute . . . well, Sophie wonders if it's time to reevaluate her priorities. Swearing off her thigh-high boots for good, Sophie slinks back home with damaged pride-and a jackpot of a hangover.

Yet what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there. On a trip to Seattle to open a new office, Grayson Wyatt meets his latest employee-who turns out to be the same woman he recently called a hooker. Wealthy and gorgeous, Gray is a man used to getting what he wants. And it doesn't take long to figure out that smart, sassy, sexy Sophie is everything he's been looking for. As their late nights at the office turn into hot morning-afters, they realize their Vegas misunderstanding may lead to the real thing . . .

I picked this series up because in one of her Lauren Layne’s newsletter, she mentions the hero in the second book of this series is her favorite hero (that she wrote) so of course I had to pick both books up so that I can meet this William Thatcher and boy am I glad that I did. This series was great!

Sophie Dalton is a waitress who known in her family as the flighty one. She’s never really settled into a career path and compared to her perfect sister, she needs to get her life together. That fact is smacked into her face when she in Vegas for her cousin’s bachelorette party and gets stuck in an elevator with a guy who mistakes her as a prostitute. The guy is perfectly put together and he’s a rude jerk who acts like he’s too good to make small talk with her so when they get out of the elevator, she’s glad to never see him again.

Grayson Wyatt spends his days saving hotels from ruin and making money. He works and works and works and goes home and works some more. He’s a loner by nature and he’s never really felt comfortable around others so he’s awkward and that fact is driven home when he gets stuck in an elevator with a gorgeous woman who is dressed like a prostitute and he behaves like an ass. Since he’s not all that interested in making things better, he walks away from the experience figuring he’ll never see her again. Only when he moves to Seattle and the first person he makes friends with is his elevator companions sister, things get really interesting.

The last person Sophie expected to see at Sunday dinner was the jerk from the elevator and she’s not at all happy that the hot elevator guy is dating her sister. She may not have wanted him for herself but she didn’t him for her sister. She’s not happy that he’s back in her world and if the glare he’s shooting her way is any indication, he’s not happy either. But one family dinner can’t be all that hard to get through, can it?

Well, that family dinner got Sophie a job working with Gray every day of the work week and they went from not wanting to see each other again to seeing each other every single day. The sparks fly every time they’re within spitting distance of each other and it was such fun getting to know these two.

Gray was a bit hard to like in the beginning because his attitude was so off-putting but I’m glad that I stuck around because boy does he change from beginning to end. He doesn’t have everything together and he’s so damn lonely and he doesn’t know why he keeps saying the wrong things and seeing him finally get his shit together and tell Sophie that she’s his was freaking fantastic. I just adored him to pieces and I completely bought his feelings for Sophie and her feelings for him.

Sophie was such a fun heroine. She was a good person who didn’t have her life together but she wanted to figure things out for herself. She didn’t have the highest self-esteem, something that her family contributed in but she was smart and she was strong and I really liked seeing her come into her own.

Lauren Layne writes sexual tension really well and it showed in this book. The romance between Gray and Sophie was at times frustrating but no less fun because these characters were funny and they were normal and real. I know plenty of Gray’s and Sophie’s and even Brynn’s and Will’s in my real life so I really connected with their characters here.

All in all, this was a fun story that I zipped right through and it’s another winner for me from Lauren Layne. She writes the good stuff, what can I say? I definitely recommend.

Grade: 4 out of 5