Tag: Tuxbury Publishing LLC

Joint Review: Overnight Sensation by Sarina Bowen

Posted March 13, 2019 by Rowena in Reviews | 5 Comments

Joint Review: Overnight Sensation by Sarina BowenReviewer: Holly & Rowena
Overnight Sensation by Sarina Bowen
Series: Brooklyn Bruisers #5
Also in this series: Rookie Move, Rookie Move, Hard Hitter, Rookie Move, Hard Hitter , Pipe Dreams, Pipe Dreams, Pipe Dreams, Brooklynaire, Rookie Move, Superfan , Superfan
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: January 22, 2019
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating First
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 341
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Holly's 2019 GoodReads Challenge, Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Everyone knows the girl is off limits. But it's so good to be bad.


There's this girl...

Heidi and I have been trading hungry looks all year, and everything she does makes me smile. But I don't do girlfriends, and I certainly can't get involved with the league commissioner's daughter. I need shots on goal, not a hookup and a widely misunderstood paparazzi photo. Can I resist her, though? The way she teases me should be a game penalty for interference with my libido. 


There's this guy...

Jason wants me, but he won't admit it. That man looks at me the way a hockey player eyes the lunch buffet after practice--and I love it. But when victory is finally within my grasp, I blow it and humiliate myself. Even then I can't even avoid him--as the team intern, I'm in constant view of his hard body and cocky smile. I need another chance. Jason Castro is about to learn the true meaning of an overnight sensation.

Jason Castro is known as a playboy off the ice, and he’s content with that. He isn’t interested in getting heavy with someone. He and Heidi, the new intern, have been circling each other for months. He knows she wants him, but he’s held back until now. He finally decides to go for it and she ends up too drunk for anything to happen. Then he finds out she’s the commissioner’s daughter, and that makes her 100% off limits. If only she’d get the memo.

Heidi is tired of living under her father’s thumb. She wants to experience life. When she says she’s not going back to Bryn Mawr to finish her degree, her father declares she has to spend 10 weeks doing every job in the organization – from cleaning toilets and selling hotdogs, to cleaning the ice and working security. In the meantime, she knows she can’t live at home and see his smug face every day, so she rents an apartment in Brooklyn. When that falls through, she ends up staying with Castro and his roommate.

Holly: I have to be honest, I spent the first few chapters of this book super pissed at Heidi’s dad. So much that I almost stopped reading it. I liked her enough that I continued, though, and I’m glad I did. I ended up really loving her and I enjoyed the romance.

Rowena: Yeah, I was pissed at Heidi’s Dad and his high handedness. He was super annoying and I was a bit disappointed in Becca for not clapping back even though I know that she had her hands tied. I just wanted her to not care about any of that and do it anyway.

Holly: I didn’t understand her dad at all. I mean, I guess I understood him, but I didn’t like the way he acted or the way their issues were resolved (or not resolved, as the case may be). I agree about Becca. I expected something totally different from her in that situation, or maybe from Nate. It was weird.

Rowena: Heidi was the bomb. She was my absolute favorite part of this book. She just kept right on rolling with the punches her father delivered and she was better for all of it. It would have been completely understandable if she snapped but she was strong and she was solid and she had such a great attitude through it all. I loved seeing her grow into the person she was in the end and I really loved seeing how she wore Jason down. Gah, I can’t say enough good things about her.

Holly: Heidi was so wonderful. I loved how she kept her head up and tackled everything life threw at her. She was great.

Rowena: Jason was another great hero from this series and I really enjoyed getting to know him, seeing him fall in love with Heidi and work through the issues that were holding him back from really living his life with Heidi. I thought all of that was handled well. Sarina Bowen really rocked my socks with this one.

Holly: I liked Jason, too. I liked learning about him and his issues and seeing him work through things so he could be with Heidi.

I’m still disappointed with the way things ended with her family, though.

Rowena: Same. That was the only downer in the entire book. Well, that and the stuff with Lissa’s Mom and Jason. So, was it just determined that he would continue to send her money every time she called him in tears, was he ever going to talk to her and get her to understand that he wasn’t her personal bank? Or was it just determined that because he did that stuff for Lissa, that’s just how it was going to end? As far as Heidi’s father was concerned, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the resolution to all of that madness. Sure, I loved that Heidi was the better person in it all but I would have been so much happier if she got to really serve her Dad with the set down that he deserved and I wanted to see him more remorseful for all that he put Heidi through.

Holly: That’s the thing, it was never discussed. How will he handle that? Is he going to just keep on with that forever? It made no sense that it was brought up at all if there wasn’t going to be a resolution.

I definitely wanted to see Heidi give him a set down, or at least have him acknowledge her accomplishments.

Rowena: So I read that Silas’ book is next…do you think his heroine is going to be the singer? And do you think we’ll get a book for Bayer? I low key want to read his story, too.

Holly: I do think it’ll be with the singer. I can’t wait to see what happens with that. I want a book for Bayer, too. My heart hurt for him.

Although I was frustrated with Heidi’s family and Lissa’s mom, overall I really enjoyed the story. Heidi was wonderful, and I really liked their romance. I’m giving this 4 out of 5.

Rowena: Yeah, those two things were the only things that I struggled with but I really enjoyed everything else. I loved the romance between Jason and Heidi. I loved both Jason and Heidi on their own and I loved them together. I loved seeing all of the Brooklyn Bruisers again and the friendship between Silas and Jason. I also really loved what Heidi planned for Silas’ birthday and how everyone on the team was in, even though it was the very last thing that they all wanted to do. There was much that I loved about this book but I couldn’t get over Heidi’s daddy being a jerk and Lissa’s Mom being a mooch so this one wasn’t getting a 5 from me, close though. Sarina Bowen did her thing with this one.

I give this one a 4.5 out of 5.

Final Grades

Holly: 4 out of 5
Rowena: 4.5 out of 5

Brooklyn Bruisers

four-stars

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Sunday Spotlight: Fireworks by Sarina Bowen

Posted November 11, 2018 by Rowena in Features, Giveaways | 5 Comments

Sunday Spotlight is a feature we began in 2016. This year we’re spotlighting our favorite books, old and new. We’ll be raving about the books we love and being total fangirls. You’ve been warned. 🙂

Sunday Spotlight

Sarina Bowen is releasing another True North book and if you’ve been paying attention to the blog lately, you will have noticed that we’re all reading her stuff and Casee, well, she’s reading this series for the first time. We’re all big fans of Sarina Bowen and this series in particular so we’re all stoked for Benito’s book. We’re even more excited to share some before it releases this coming Tuesday goodness with you guys. Check it out.

Sunday Spotlight: Fireworks by Sarina BowenFireworks (True North #6) by Sarina Bowen
Series: True North #6
Also in this series: Bittersweet, Steadfast, Steadfast, Bittersweet, Keepsake, Bountiful, Speakeasy, Bittersweet, Steadfast, Fireworks, Keepsake, Bountiful, Fireworks, Heartland , Heartland
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: November 13, 2018
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 343
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: four-stars

Skye Copeland is on paid leave from her broadcasting job after accidentally drawing a pecker on the traffic map.

Let that sink in. Like it’s her fault the traffic pattern that day created a perfect schlong?

Skye isn’t laughing. She needs this job. And that’s the only reason she’s agreed to chase down a story in her least favorite place—that hell on earth known as Vermont.

A quick trip. In and out. Much like - never mind. Skye can sneak into the town that once tried to break her, get the story and get back into the good graces of her producer. Easy peasy.

Except things go sideways even as she sets foot over the county line. Her step-sister is on the run from a violent drug dealer. And the cop on the case is none other than Benito Rossi, the man who broke her teenage heart.

His dark brown eyes still tear her apart. And even as she steels herself to finally tell him off after twelve years, the old fireworks are still there.

Things are about to go boom.

Order the Book:

AMAZON || BARNES AND NOBLE || KOBO

Excerpt

While the bartender makes change, I scan the crowd, trying to reconcile this scene with my life in Colebury. This place is full of happy, prosperous people enjoying craft brews and good company. Except for the flannel shirts and technical fabrics, I could almost be in New York—but on a weeknight, when the crowds aren’t crushing. This bar is really pretty cool.

No, it isn’t, I remind myself. Vermont is a horrible place. I take a sip of my cider, and then notice how good it is—earthy and interesting, sweet and bitter and musky.

It’s really too bad that I hate Vermont because this cider is flipping amazing.

These are my scattered thoughts as a second man appears behind the bar in my peripheral vision. He must have come through a back door somehow. I feel tingles on my scalp, because he’s watching me.

Slowly, I turn to face him. And holy shishkebab. Six-foot-three inches of my high school heartbreak is staring intently at me.

All my blood stops circulating. There stands the man who basically ripped the beating organ right out of my chest and stomped it with a motorcycle boot. I need to look away, but I almost can’t. My heart is pounding wildly inside my chest, and I feel the onset of a fight-or-flight response coming on.

Flight is sounding like a good option.

Yet, because I’m a big idiot, I keep on staring. And he looks good. When did his shoulders get so wide? His eyes are just as beautiful as they always were, so dark and brooding.

From the nose down, he’s not the same, though. He isn’t the clean-shaven high school senior who once kissed me. This version of Benito has a scruffy beard. And his hair is a little too long.

It does nothing to dim his attractiveness, though. On the contrary, the mountain-man look suits him.

This is information that I never needed, by the way. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that he grew up as hot or hotter than he was at eighteen.

Back then, my whole world orbited around this man. Even now I feel my world tilt subtly in his direction. He has his own gravitational pull. And he looks…devastated. For a split second I see hurt in his eyes when he looks at me. And then I blink and it’s gone. His face is impassive.

But he’s still staring at me.

Trying for casual, I lift the cider glass to my lips and take another sip. I study him.

“Skylar.”

At the sound of his sexy rumble, my hand wobbles, and I actually spill a drop of cider on my wrist. Smooth, Skye.

He ducks under the bar, which puts him right beside me. I get a whiff of him, and it wrecks me all over again. Leather and pine needles. “Come over here and talk to me,” he says in a soft voice that brings out goosebumps all over my body. Then he takes my wrist in one large hand and leads me across the room.

Everything is happening too fast. His hand is wide and warm, and my brain is all swimmy. If only I could go meditate for a half hour somewhere, to clear my head. But who am I kidding? A prepaid week at a yoga spa wouldn’t be enough to restore my equilibrium right now.

Benito nudges me toward a booth, where I sit down hastily, tucking my duffel bag against the wall and setting my drink on the table. I’m breathing too quickly as Benito shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it onto the opposing seat.

I have no choice but to look up. The first thing I see when I lift my chin is his black T-shirt. It hugs an impressive set of abs. I lift my gaze slowly, taking in a chest far more sculpted than even my fantasies and a muscular arm propped on the table.

Wow. He must have spent the last twelve years at the gym.

Then, when it can be avoided no longer, I look up into his face. And there it is—the cognac-colored gaze that had always regarded me softly. When we were friends, I looked into those big eyes a thousand times, and they never let me down.

Until the night when they did.

True North

Giveaway Alert

We’re giving one lucky winner their choice of one of our Sunday Spotlight books. Use the Gleam widget below to enter for one of this month’s features.

Sunday Spotlight: November 2018

Are you as excited for this release as we are? Let us know how excited you are and what other books you’re looking forward to this year!

About the Author

About Sarina Bowen

Sarina Bowen is the RITA® Award winning author of over two dozen contemporary and LGTB romance novels. She most recently hit the USA Today bestseller's list in February, with Brooklynaire. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Sarina holds a BA in economics from Yale University.

Sarina Bowen is a New Englander whose Vermont ancestors cut timber and farmed the north country since the 1760s. Sarina is grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing and wi-fi during the intervening 250 years. On a few wooded acres, she lives with her husband, two boys, and an ungodly amount of ski and hockey gear.

Sarina's books are published in a dozen languages on four continents. In 2016, The Romance Writers of America honored HIM by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy with a RITA award for Best Contemporary Romance, Mid-Length.

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