Tag: book blogger

new release, Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Kandi Steiner’s Learn Your Lesson, book 3 of her Kings of the Ice series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: A

Tropes: single dad; teacher/nanny; forced proximity; hockey romance; band of brothers; forbidden; grump/sunshine; age gap; opposites attract; spicy lessons

Two weeks out and Kandi Steiner’s Daddy P still sits with me. Learn Your Lesson, book 3 of her Kings of the Ice series, is my favorite. Why? Well, for a number of reasons.

  1. Kandi Steiner’s writing voice has evolved. I’d like to think it has more to do with her personal life, but the angst of A Love Letter to Whiskey seems a thing of the past. Is there angst in Learn Your Lesson? Why yes there is! However, this isn’t “steal-your-soul-angst”; Steiner recognizes that people are fraught and it affects relationships. Every relationship has ups and downs, and as Will allows himself to love and be loved, he and Chloe must struggle through his battle. This is organic to Learn Your Lesson, and one of the reasons I adore their journey.
  2. Add a kid, and I’m in. Create an unique relationship between the kid, in this case, Ava and Chloe, and the emotional gravitas is built. Ava is everything you love in romance: precocious, adorable, and also fraught like her daddy. Like Chloe and Will, she also undertakes a character journey. While it isn’t the most important journey of the story, Steiner uses it to build Chloe’s character as the true hero of Learn Your Lesson.
  3. Steiner’s craftsmanship of Chloe is my favorite. She is a woman battling the matriarchal rule of her childhood and finding herself. She’s insightful, joyful, and independent. Her tenacity to bring joy into Will and Ava’s life is one of the draws to this story. She knows herself and her wants, and she goes after it. She’s the type of female character romance readers are drawn to.
  4. The band of brothers of the hockey team adds layers to the story. For one, it allows us to revisit the characters of the series’ first two books, but it evolves the characters who have stories to come. Steiner entices and invests us deeper into her series by bringing the old while mixing it with the future. I cannot wait for Aleks’s story based on how much more Steiner gifts us about him in this story.

I’m invested. Daddy P (Will) currently owns my heart in this series. What’s not to love about a recovering grump who falls hard for his sunshiney nanny? Everything!

In love and romance,


Professor A

new release, Review, Smartypants Romance

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Lissa Sharpe’s Nun Too Soon, book 1 of the Bad Habit Book Club, a Smartypants Romance story ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: A-/B+

Tropes: forced proximity; romantic suspense: former nun, librarian, virgin FMC; bounty hunter MMC

Lissa Sharpe’s Nun Too Soon, book 1 of the new Bad Habit Book Club series under the Smartypants Romance universe, was a delightful read. I was worried that the former nun, virgin librarian FMC, Helen, would be too virginal. However, Sharpe has crafted her in such a way that she’s compelling. She’s a moonlighting romance writer who simply wants to experience all that $ex entails; she’s not intentionally forgoing it based on her past occupation. Instead, it’s just an inconvenience. Sharpe is smart in adding an MMC with all the experience but a reticence for relationships. This creates romantic tension between Thad, Sharpe’s MMC, and Helen, driving the story forward. 

Honestly, I couldn’t put Nun Too Soon down. As the second release of the Spring season, I was excited to read this new-to-me author, but also a story that grabbed my attention. I’m excited for the stories in this new series because there is such great potential with characters who are former nuns and priests finding love after that experience. It’s creative and a win for the Smartypants Romance world.

In love and romance,

Professor A

new release

✍🏻 J. Saman’s Undeniably Convenient is unputdownable. I HATED to leave Katy and Bennett to adult. It’s out NOW, so grab it today! ✍🏻

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Undeniably Convenient by J. Saman is now live! 

From USA Today bestselling author J. Saman comes a sizzling-hot billionaire, second chance, boss/employee romance about a broody doctor and his feisty resident who both want a baby but nothing to do with love.

Have a baby with my new boss? Not exactly what I had in mind when I decided I wanted to try to get pregnant.

But that’s exactly the situation I find myself in with Dr. Bennett Lawson.

The ridiculously gorgeous, broody billionaire I kissed years ago is asking to have a baby with me.

We both have our reasons for wanting this and with our ugly pasts, it’s an undeniably convenient arrangement.

No love. No relationship. Strictly business.

Now I’m living with him and pretending every searing touch, whispered word, and moaned breath is all in the name of our contract and nothing more.

Even as it becomes harder to keep our hands to ourselves and our feelings separate.

But when that stick shines with two pink lines, we both know what we’ve grown addicted to has to stop.

Except what happens when everything starts to fall apart and what we promised would never happen becomes the one thing we can no longer live without?

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

https://geni.us/9h73D

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3OBUEdy

Meet J. Saman

J. Saman is a USA Today and Amazon top 40 bestselling author who writes sassy, swoony, and scorching contemporary romances. She is addicted to Diet Coke, sour candy, and indie rock. She swears way too much (especially after a glass of wine) and has a penchant for sarcasm (or so her husband and children like to tell her).

J. is an admitted lover of second chance romances, enemies to lovers, and the perfect amount of angst. She is best known for writing funny and emotional romances filled with smart, strong women, and sexy alphas who have a softer side—especially for their women.

Connect with J. Saman

Website: http://jsamanbooks.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14923699.J_Saman

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/J.-Saman/author/B01FOIUR46

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jsamanbooks

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jsamansradtasticreaders

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/jsamanbooks

Twitter: http://twitter.com/jsamanbooks

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jsamanbooks

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/j-saman

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jsamanbooks/

Verve: https://ververomance.com/app/jsamanbooks

Review, Smartypants Romance

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Aly Stiles’s Stage Smart ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: C

Y’all…I didn’t get it. If you’ve read my reviews, you know I give high scores on my books because 1) I’m careful who I read. Once I find an author I love, I keep reading them. There’s a reason for loving them. And 2) I view books as an author’s baby so I don’t get pleasure in completely trashing a book for the sake of clout or whatever. I guess there’s a third reason: it has to have fatal flaws with characterization or story/plot progression that I can’t get over to give it a low rating. 

But I struggled for the first time in the Smartypants Romance universe. I hate writing this review because I want to be fair, but Aly Stiles lost me with Stage Smart. I read Street Smart, Play Smart, and Look Smart, and I enjoyed those stories, but I think she tried too hard for the silly that she failed to fully develop the chemistry between Larinda and Val in a way that is believable. I will recognize that Aly Stiles is an insta-attraction/insta-relationship author. Through her other “smart” books, this wasn’t as pronounced as Stage Smart because I spent much of this book questioning Val and Larinda’s relationship. Even as a forbidden/secret relationship romance, I kept asking “why.” 

I’m also over Chad Smith and Sandeke Telecom/Reedweather Media’s ineptitude. It’s time to move away from it or shade it in a different color because I wanted to love Stage Smart, but I just couldn’t.

In love and romance,

Professor A

Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Louise Bay’s Dr. Single Dad

professorromance

Overall Grade: B

Tropes: single dad; nanny; cinnamon roll hero; grump/sunshine; forced proximity; insta-attraction; slow burn; forbidden

Louise Bay’s The Doctor Series, which follows various family members as they chase dreams and the women they love, culminates in Dr. Single Dad. This book is one of my favorites of the series because Bay has drawn her characters, Dax and Eira, into likable characters who you cannot help but cheer on and celebrate. For me, this is the strength of this story: Dax and Eira, along with Dax’s family, are engaging characters. The struggles of this story are the development of Dax and Eira’s chemistry and subsequent relationship. Yes, this is a slow burn, but it isn’t the type of slow burn that tortures its reader. Once Bay has brought Dax and Eira together, she allows them to accept their attraction. However, the challenge of this story is the unevenness of Dax’s rendering. At the start, Bay has crafted Dax to be driven and career-focused. However, he comes across as almost a spectrum character with few feelings. Yes, Eira, as his nanny, draws those feelings out of him, but it’s a quick flip of the switch, and he’s an entirely different character in one moment. This seemed too sudden, making it difficult to believe their story arc. I would have liked to see Eira melt his personality in smaller measures while continuing to build their attraction, and Bay had the space to do this. Even more, she made an interesting choice, granted an ethical one for her characters, but I felt it broke up the forward motion of her plot. I thought the plot jumped the shark a bit. 

All of that to say, that, overall, I enjoyed reading Dr. Single Dad. Eira’s capacity for humanizing Dax and their eventual happily ever after with the background of Dax’s family make for an engaging read.

In love and romance,


Professor A

Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Reviews: Pippa Grant’s Until It Was Love

professorromance

Overall Grade: A

Tropes: enemies to lovers; hate to love; brother’s teammate; sports romance; soulmates; grumpy/sunshine; fake dating

Pippa Grant and her ilk (Penny Reid, for example) have this innate ability to both make you giggle and tear up in equal measure. A cornerstone of Grant’s romance is incorporating animals that either bring her MMCs and FMCs together or wreak havoc in an adorable way throughout her stories. You pick it up and think, “this will be light reading” only to be hit with the power and emotion of the overall message. In her newest book, Until It Was Love, Pippa Grant charms us immediately with the enemies to lovers’ banter of her characters, Goldie and Fletcher. Even though we aren’t present at their meet-cute, a time from their past that was less about falling in love and more about falling into hate…at least for Goldie, Grant begins their present with a meet-cute that entails Fletcher fainting after he donates blood and falling on top of Goldie, as she tries to save him from hurting himself from the fall. This, of course, follows her internal dialogue about his unfortunate mustache, a foible that mars his face. Only these actions can be found in a story from a writer such as Grant who entices her readers with some silliness, only to hit her readers over the head with a helping of spice (she’s more of a 3 chili pepper writer) and an emotional torrent. Honestly, it makes for a compelling read because you’re never quite sure if you will laugh at the ridiculousness of her characters’ behavior or cry at their heartbreak. 

All of this is wrapped up in Until It Was Love. I couldn’t put this book down, and I loved the adventures of Goldie and Fletcher. Goldie hates Fletcher, realizes she misunderstood him, uses him to fake date as a means to frustrate her brother, shows us the pain of her past, becomes enamored with Fletcher, struggles with the challenge of leaving town while falling in love with him, and learns to love her life in the small town of her youth.  Fletcher must learn to love and trust himself again, and Grant writes his pain in ways that make you commiserate with him. Pippa Grant owned me with this book, and she reminded me why I adore her stories. There is just something deeper under the surface of stories. 

If you want to be entertained, engaged, and enticed, Pippa Grant’s Until It Was Love is EXACTLY the story you need right now.

In love and romance,

Professor A

new release

✍🏻 Bad boy MMC + the independent FMC with moxie who brings him to his knees? Yes, please! Run and grab Rebecca Jenshak’s Burnout TODAY especially if you love banter, spice, and all things hate to love romance! ✍🏻

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Burnout by Rebecca Jenshak is now live! 

He’s the hot, tattooed bad boy that I traded insults with…and now he wants my help?

Knox Holland is in a jam. After an incredible first year on the pro motocross circuit, he should be on top of the world. Instead, his bad reputation has landed him without a team. He’s untouchable and desperate to turn it around.

Which is how he ends up at my gym asking me to train him. As a college gymnast with two Olympic medals to my name, I know a thing or two about the pressure to succeed. Last season I choked and then injured myself before I could show the world that I’m not a twenty-year-old has-been.

Focused on the future, I can’t afford to get distracted. But I recognize the desperation in Knox’s eyes, and I can’t say no to him, either.

It should have been an easy task, but nothing about Knox is easy. One minute we’re arguing, and the next I’m enjoying his shirtless handstands a little too much.

Falling for him would be a mistake…

Burnout is a sports romance with a cocky bad boy, spice, banter, and a happily ever after.

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

https://geni.us/BurnoutAmzn

Audio: https://geni.us/BurnoutAudio

Duet Narration by: Erin Mallon & Teddy Hamilton

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3TptYiI

Meet Rebecca


Rebecca Jenshak is a USA Today bestselling author of new adult and sports romance. She writes sexy, feel-good stories with lots of swoon-worthy moments.

Rebecca lives in Arizona. When she isn’t writing, you can find her cheering on local sports teams, hanging out with friends and family, or curled up with a good book.

Sign up for her newsletter to be notified of new releases: https://rebeccajenshak.com/newsletter/

Connect with Rebecca

Website: https://www.rebeccajenshak.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16681160.Rebecca_Jenshak

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rebecca-Jenshak/e/B074F258NP/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccajenshak

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1523746940998401

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebeccajenshak

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/rebeccajenshak

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rebeccajenshak

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/rebecca-jenshak

Cover Reveal

✍🏻 When both the man version and the special edition/discrete version are equally gorgeous…Check out the cover for Adriana Locke’s Pulse, coming on May 13th! ✍🏻

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Adriana Locke has revealed the gorgeous covers for Pulse!

Releasing: May 13, 2024

 Cover Design: Kari March Designs

Photographer: Michelle Lancaster

USA Today bestselling author Adriana Locke delivers a spicy, age gap, grumpy sunshine, workplace romance in the first book in the brand new Landry Security series. 

Troy Castelli acts like it’s my fault that we’re cooped up together in a room with one bed overlooking the ocean. I didn’t ask for a stalker to break into my house and then send me a threatening email detailing my demise. And I sure as heck didn’t request that my boss send Troy and his uber elite bodyguard skills to accompany me out of town—although I’m not mad about it. 

A paid tropical vacation with a grumpy, gray-eyed bad boy in a suit isn’t exactly a burden. 

But it is a giant test of my willpower. 

Troy’s alpha protector tendencies drive me wild. His arrogant smirk gets under my skin. But it’s his not-so-innocent touches, heated looks and touch-her-and-die vibes that are the final strike that ignite our explosive chemistry.  

The longer we’re together, the more his broody exterior slips, and I get a glimpse of the real man beneath the sculpted muscles. I’m determined not only to unearth his mysterious past but also to make him realize what we have is more than just a fling in paradise.


That is, unless my stalker gets me first.

Pre-order your copy today!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3J5HamV

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/PulseAL

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3vIBdJD

Meet Adriana


USA Today and Amazon Charts Bestselling author, Adriana Locke, writes contemporary romances about the two things she knows best—big families and small towns. Her stories are about ordinary people finding extraordinary love with the perfect combination of heart, heat, and humor.

She loves connecting with readers, fall weather, football, reading alpha heroes, everything pumpkin, and pretending to garden.

Hailing from a tiny town in the Midwest, Adriana spends her free time with her high school sweetheart (who she married over twenty years ago) and their four sons (who truly are her best work). Her kitchen may be a perpetual disaster, and if all else fails, there is always pizza.

Connect with Adriana 

Website: www.adrianalocke.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8379774.Adriana_Locke

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Adriana-Locke/author/B00NPBY8FE/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoradrianalocke

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/booksbyadrianalocke

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authoradrianalocke

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/authoralocke

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adrianalockewrites 

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/adriana-locke

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/authoradrianalo

Other: https://www.youtube.com/adrianalocke

Verve: https://ververomance.com/app/adrianalocke

new release

✍🏻 Oh, Daddy P, you have stolen my heart and the top spot of my favorite Kings of the Ice book boyfriends. Kandi Steiner’s Learn Your Lesson is HERE, and it’s equal parts electric, emotional, and engaging. Chloe, Will, and Ava will steal your heart. ✍🏻

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Learn Your Lesson by Kandi Steiner is now live! 

My mother only wanted me to learn one lesson growing up…

Men are trash.

Her father left her, and then my father left us. Being raised by her and my grandmother, I was surrounded by the reminder to be independent and guard my heart. 

After my one and only experience with a boy in college fell flatter than a pancake, I realized they were right — and I was content to live the life of a twenty-six-year-old cat lady.

Until Will Perry blew my quiet world to smithereens.

Starting goalie for the Tampa Bay Ospreys and the kind of hot that scrambles your brain, all I was ever supposed to be to him was his daughter’s kindergarten teacher. Then, in a twist of events, his temporary nanny.

But temporary turns to permanent, and when I move into his pool house, everything changes.

He’s impossibly grumpy and focused on only two things: hockey, and taking care of his daughter. I’m only focused on using this new income to pay back my student loans. 

But in that house, I feel his heated gaze beneath that permanent scowl, the way it lingers and warms my skin. And though I know my mother would lose her mind if she knew, my dreams have become midnight fantasies about my long-haired, muscle-lined mystery of a boss.

When the tension becomes too much, we break, and we make a deal. 

He still needs a nanny. I still need a paycheck and for my matriarchy to not disown me. But Will agrees to teach me everything I’ve always wanted to learn, and I’m all too eager to be his student.

I can do this. I’m a grown woman. I can explore my sexuality with the hottest goalie on earth and still remain one-hundred percent professional. And I can definitely do it all without catching feelings. 

I have to.

Otherwise, I’ll end up heartbroken in my mother’s arms while she shakes her head and asks me if I’ll ever learn my lesson.

  

Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

https://geni.us/learnyourlesson

Audio Narrated by: Hannah Chiclana & Max Lindsey

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3UG4U8i

Meet Kandi


Kandi Steiner is a #1 Amazon Bestselling Author and whiskey connoisseur living in Tennessee. Best known for writing “emotional rollercoaster” stories, she loves bringing flawed characters to life and writing about real, raw romance — in all its forms. No two Kandi Steiner books are the same, and if you’re a lover of angsty, emotional, and inspirational reads, she’s your gal.

An alumna of the University of Central Florida, Kandi graduated with a double major in Creative Writing and Advertising/PR with a minor in Women’s Studies. Her love for writing started at the ripe age of 10, and in 6th grade, she wrote and edited her own newspaper and distributed to her classmates. Eventually, the principal caught on and the newspaper was quickly halted, though Kandi tried fighting for her “freedom of press.”

She took particular interest in writing romance after college, as she has always been a die hard hopeless romantic, and likes to highlight all the challenges of love as well as the triumphs.

When Kandi isn’t writing, you can find her reading books of all kinds, planning her next adventure, or pole dancing (yes, you read that right). She enjoys live music, traveling, hiking, yoga, playing with her fur babies and soaking up the sweetness of life.

Connect with Kandi

Website:  www.kandisteiner.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7319216.Kandi_Steiner

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kandi-Steiner/e/B00JDJOINE 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KandiSteiner/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kandilandks/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kandisteiner/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KandiSteiner

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kandi-steiner

Verve: https://ververomance.com/app/kandisteiner

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorkandisteiner

Pinterest: pinterest.com/authorkandisteiner
Kandi Steiner may be coming to a city near you! Check out her “events” tab to see all the signings she’s attending in the near future: www.kandisteiner.com/events

new release

✍🏻 Max Monroe’s newest book is finally here! What I Should’ve Said is a heart-buster of a story! Don’t MISS this one from our favorite rom-com writing pair! ✍🏻

professorromance

 
 
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃’𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐢𝐬 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐖 + 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐈𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃! 
★Ebook: https://geni.us/WISS_ebook 
★Paperback: https://geni.us/WISS_paperback 
★Audio: Coming Soon (To be released in May, date TBD soon. Narrated by Sebastian York and CJ Bloom) 
 

WHAT IS WISS ALL ABOUT? 
👰Runaway Bride 
🔥Enemies to Lovers 
❤️Grumpy-Broody Alpha + Chatty Sunshine 
🥵“I don’t like this woman but I’ll kill anyone who hurts her” vibes 
🏡Smalltown Charm 
🫢Dark Secrets 
🥹EMOTIONAL, pull-at-your-heartstrings, you’ll-think-about-this-book-for-days.