Tag: book blogger

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new release

✍🏻 Jewel E. Ann’s Because of Her is the ending you needed to her Jack and Jill series. This book will make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Run and grab it for your weekend reading NOW. ✍🏻

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Because of Her by Jewel E. Ann is now live! 

“If sin weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t be so tempting.”

I was an accomplished music professor.

Happily single. 

Perfectly content.

Now, I’m unemployed.

Pining for a dark, brooding guy named Jack who lives in a garage with a piano.

And I’m plotting to seduce a married man because his daughter is responsible for my nephew committing suicide.

I don’t know why teenage girls are so mean. 

I don’t know why rich men cheat on their wives. 

And I don’t know why Jack has serial killer vibes, even though he leaves me speechless every time he speaks.

All I know for sure is that I feel safe in a stranger’s arms and understood by someone I don’t understand.

“You should be a little scared of everyone because humans are unpredictable.” 

How far will I go for revenge? More than that …

How far will he go to save me? 


*This book contains material involving sexual assault and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

https://books2read.com/u/m2EEER

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

Meet Jewel E. Ann

Jewel is a Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author with a quirky sense of humor. When she’s not saving the planet one tree at a time, you can find her role modeling questionable behavior to her three boys, binge-watching Netflix with her husband, and writing mind-bending romance. 

Connect with Jewel

Website: https://www.jeweleann.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7505427.Jewel_E_Ann

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jewel-E-Ann/e/B00IJYHDIG/

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

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/485996228236493

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JewelE_Ann

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jewel-e-ann

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

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

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new release

✍🏻 Ilsa Madden-Mills’s Christmas Cupid is a perfect first offering for the Christmas novella season. Forced proximity ☑ Hate to love ☑️ Heat and Spice and everything nice (or naughty) ☑️ ✍🏻

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Christmas Cupid by Ilsa Madden-Mills is now live!

From #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Ilsa Madden-Mills comes a brand new enemies to lovers holiday novella (40,000 words) about finding love in unexpected places.

Dear Sneaky Santa, 

I’d like to have a word about your sense of humor. Was it really necessary to stick me, a professional hockey player nursing an injury and avoiding the media, in an isolated cabin with a bratty, boot-designing princess who seems to have made it her mission to despise me? I mean, come on, what did I ever do to you?

And let’s talk about our first encounter. Was it your intention for her to barge in on me while I was enjoying a soak in the tub? It wasn’t exactly my finest moment, and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate the view of my massive body floundering around as I tried to grab a towel.

Now, I’m stuck with her, thanks to a mutual acquaintance, in the middle of a snow blizzard, navigating through bear attacks, sketchy neighbors, and whole lot of tension. I had plans, Santa, plans to escape to Cabo and forget about the world, not to be trapped with a woman who thinks I’m unworthy of her time just because she can’t stand hockey players.
Oh, and speaking of our delightful Iris, she’s stingier with her food than Scrooge was with his pennies! I’m not asking for a feast, but a guy’s got to eat! And could you possibly turn her yippy dog into a reindeer or something? It would certainly add to the Christmas spirit and save my eardrums.

I’m trying to rediscover the meaning of Christmas, and you throw me into this chaos? Is this some kind of test, or are you just having a jolly laugh up there in the North Pole?

So here’s my Christmas wish, Santa: sprinkle a bit of your magic and either get me out of here or be a Cupid and ignite a fiery, undeniable passion between us, because right now, this scenario is frostier than a snowman.

Slapshotting Through the Snow, Kyler Blanchette

Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

https://amzn.to/3F6i9WW

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/46ILq5H

Meet Ilsa Madden-Mills


#1 Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills pens angsty new adult and contemporary romances.

A former high school English teacher and librarian, she adores all things Pride and Prejudice, and of course, Mr. Darcy is her ultimate hero.

She’s addicted to frothy coffee beverages, cheesy magnets, and any book featuring unicorns and sword-wielding females. Feel free to stalk her online.

Connect with Ilsa

Website | www.ilsamaddenmills.com

Goodreads | http://bit.ly/2EESfM9

Amazon | http://amzn.to/2nY2pxT

Facebook | www.facebook.com/authorilsamaddenmills

Facebook Group | https://bit.ly/44pq5Nc

Instagram | www.instagram.com/ilsamaddenmills

TikTok | www.tiktok.com/@ilsamaddenmills

Bookbub | http://bit.ly/2GaR6cn

Newsletter | www.ilsamaddenmills.com/contact

Text Updates | Text ROMANCE to (877) 207-0713

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Kristen Ashley’s Too Good To Be True ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: A

Tropes: murder mystery; romantic suspense; forced proximity

Kristen Ashley’s To Good To Be True is the book form of her Kindle Vella story from earlier in the year. And, as it won’t come as a shock, it was everything you’d expect from Kristen Ashley.  While she calls it her “murder mystery,” the vibe of this book is decidedly Ghosts & Reincarnation Series-esque. 

It’s situated in an old English country home/mansion.

There are “ghost” vibes.

The FMC has dreams that make it seem she’s been reincarnated.

KA has filled it with spookish vibes.

I couldn’t put it down because it read like the books of that popular series. It is also filled with all of our favorite Kristen Ashley elements: an FMC such as a Daphne who feels like she could be a bestie; she knows herself, she loves herself, and she doesn’t suffer fools; an MMC in Ian who is all playboyish, but only has eyes for his heroine; he falls deeply in love with her before he even knows it’s happening; ancillary characters who act as wizened guides, but also others who add the drama to the story (I mean, her main characters need foils, right?); and a twisty, turney story that keeps you glued to the pages. Oh, and don’t forget, there is a four-star heat level between her main characters. Kristen Ashley’s romance characteristics are threaded through the pages of To Good To Be True, and she doesn’t have an obvious suspect in her story. If you think hard enough, you can figure it out, but it isn’t obvious, so she keeps you engaged. This is all that is wonderful with this book, but that isn’t all of it. The true gems of any KA romance/murder mystery/whatnot lie in its depths. 

To Good To Be True, like many of her recent stories, highlights important societal ails. In this book, she allows Ian, a 1%er to make better choices with his family’s estate so they can be better civic leaders. She focuses on the archaic notions of the genteel, showcasing their modern-day futility. But what I loved the most, what I found the most compelling about this story, is the truth about the past. That our past has been spoken/written through the patriarchy. Yet, women have their stories too, and they are as important, if not more important at times. She highlights/underscores/double-underlines this truth in such a beautiful maternal way. This is where Kristen Ashley is her most genius: when she shows you who she really is as a human being among other human beings.

I don’t know how she does it, honestly. How she consistently grabs my attention and holds me in the thrall of her pages, but she does it over and over again. While she has granted the label of “murder mystery” to To Good To Be True, it’s definitely much more than that, and you won’t want to put it down.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Saffron A. Kent’s You Beautiful Thing, You ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: B

Tropes: forbidden; enemy’s little sister; best friend’s brother; opposites attract; small-town; soccer; breeding kink

I read early reviews of Saffron A. Kent’s You Beautiful Thing, You to get a sense of what early readers have said. Goodreads is such a fraught place, however. Many of her early readers love Tempest and Ledger, the main characters of this newest story. We’ve met them before in other St. Mary’s Rebels stories, and SAK piqued our curiosity about this couple, in particular. But the toxic side of Goodreads exists in the reviews for You Beautiful Thing, You too. There were a handful of reviews who DNF’d it for the things that make SAK’s romances purely her, and that troubles this reviewer.

Saffron A. Kent has a particular voice, a particular version of romance. There is intent in her authorial choices: fraught hero, almost an anti-hero; nubile FMC who seems both naive yet mature in equal measure; a fated love that transcends time and space; and an almost stream-of-consciousness narration that, oftentimes, weighs down her story. If you’re not adept at recognizing her stylistic choices, you will reduce her storytelling to particular scenes that seem farfetched and absurd, but that’s also SAK’s intent. She writes romance strewn with smut, and it’s titillating. Even more, SAK has created a niche for herself in romancelandia, and she deserves that spot. You Beautiful Thing, You underscores the ineptitude of the people closest to you to truly understand what makes you, you. This message is powerful for people who feel unseen and unheard. This is Ledger’s plight, and Tempest, his forever love, understands him better than his own family. She sees him and understands him in ways that they don’t realize until she champions him.  In her moments of helping his family realize the truths of Ledger, you fall madly in love with her character. In return, Ledger is her protection, her safe place. She grew up in a home with horrible parents, and her older brother, Reed, was her former protector. However, Reed’s life is now wrapped up in Callie and their child, so Tempest is alone except for Ledger as her protector.

There is much back and forth between Ledger and Tempest as they deny a future as a couple. As they negotiate that tension, SAK loses readers because they don’t understand the gravity of SAK’s story for Ledger and Tempest. How can Ledger love Tempest when Ledger has never learned to accept and love himself? It would be foolhardy to have him profess his undying love for her. Instead, he must struggle and strain between actions that show his love and the words to match it. I appreciated that Tempest and Ledger have a largely physical relationship with a want to create their own family before they can voice their unending love for each other. Their story must take up much of the 464 pages of this book because they have to dig through years of traumatic sludge, and SAK gives them that space. 

Beyond the foundation of their emotional journeys, Saffron A. Kent’s You Beautiful Thing, You is pure, unadulterated smut. It’s dreamy and decadently dirty. To get caught up in the appropriateness of their eroticism is to miss the point. It’s possible to craft both an angsty romance and a smutty one too. It’s what romancelandia allows. And that’s why I’ll continue to read Saffron A. Kent because she can be both things: scintillating and spicy in equal measure.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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new release

✍🏻 Tempest and her Angry Thorn are HERE. Saffron A. Kent’s You Beautiful Thing, You is LIVE…and it will steal all your time. ✍🏻

professorromance

💋 ℍ𝕆𝕋 ℕ𝔼𝕎 ℝ𝔼𝕃𝔼𝔸𝕊𝔼 💋

YOU BEAUTIFUL THING, YOU by USA Today bestselling author Saffron A. Kent is LIVE! Don’t miss this all new angsty, enemies to lovers, forbidden romance!!! 

#Oneclick today!

➜ https://www.thesaffronkent.com/frontpage_ancora/you-beautiful-thing-you

FREE in Kindle Unlimited

 BLURB

Nineteen-year-old Tempest Jackson wants a baby.

No, her biological clock isn’t ticking, but she’s desperate for unconditional love. Rejected by all except her brother and soon to be married off by her father for financial gain, she aches for someone to hold close and call hers.

Enter Ledger Thorne. Soccer god, devastatingly handsome and her brother’s rival.

Once upon a time they had a thing. A beautiful thing. But while Tempest thought she was madly in love, Ledger was only using her for petty revenge.

So Tempest has a plan: seduce the sexy jerk who broke her heart, use him to get pregnant and then leave him in the dust like he left her, to marry a stranger.

Only the problem with making babies is that it doesn’t feel like revenge. It feels a lot like that thing they used to have: Hot and stormy, and intense and intimate.

But Tempest isn’t a fool. She’ll stick to the plan.

Because wasn’t it Ledger who turned their beautiful thing into something ugly?

Now it’s her turn…

NOTE: This is a STANDALONE set in the world of Bardstown, a St. Mary’s Rebels spin-off.

 Add to Goodreads ➜ https://bit.ly/YBTY-Gr

💋Order NSFW art from her website store: https://www.thesaffronkent.com/product-category/art-prints

💋Order the SE ‘Vintage’ cover:

https://www.thesaffronkent.com/product-category/se-special

ABOUT THE SAFFRON: 

Saffron A. Kent is a USA Today Bestselling Author of Contemporary and New Adult romance. 

She has an MFA in Creative Writing and she lives in New York City with her nerdy and supportive husband.

CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR

Website | Facebook | Readers Group | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub  | TikTok | Newsletter 

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Kandi Steiner’s Watch Your Mouth, book 2 of the Kings of The Ice series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: A-/B+

Tropes: best friend’s little sister; teammate’s little sister; brother’s best friend; professional hockey romance; forbidden relationship; road trip romance

“And I knew even if we were about to set fire to the world we lived in now, I would gladly live in the ashes if it meant I got to be with him. We surrendered everything. We laid our old lives to rest, knowing there would be hardship and pain ahead of us. We jumped headfirst into the risk, hand in hand, willing to forsake it all in the name of each other. There was no walking away this time. There was no end to this summer.”

Among her words, Kandi Steiner wins your heart. She beguiles you with the type of romance that feels ageless, and her newest offering, Watch Your Mouth, is one of the many romances that have found a permanent space in my heart. Jaxson Brittain and Grace Tanev are everything you love about romance: attraction for days and a need for each other that transcends time and space. Each moment of this story was emotionally palpable. One minute, you find yourself laughing at Grace’s attempts (and successes) to add light to Jaxson’s safe, darkened world. The next minute, your panties are damp, and your glasses are fogging from their eroticism. Each step of the book pulls you deeper into their adventures, and Steiner doesn’t miss a step with the only exception being the forbidden trope. 

I try to avoid critiquing a book on its tropes because there are definite characteristics of tropes that seem required to the genre. However, I want to speak to Steiner’s handling of Jaxson and Grace’s coupling. I get it. Really, I get it: teammate code, bro code, girl code…it’s all wrapped up in integrity and trust. But I really, really want to read stories where the younger sister or best friend can feel drawn to each other, and it doesn’t end up being forbidden. Jaxson and Grace have bigger issues to handle without having to handle the need for her brother’s approval: his need to set boundaries with an abusive father and her need to accept her choices for the future as well as help her family recognize her value as more than her brother’s younger sister. I usually inhale Steiner’s stories, but I found myself taking breaks from this story because I grew tired of Jaxson and Grace’s internal struggles about a future together, Once they recognized their depth of feelings for the other, the story took off for me. I understand that a story has a requirement for tension. Steiner prides herself in the crafting of angst in her stories, but I think angst could have been wrought in other ways that upended the staid challenge of an older brother’s or teammate’s approval. In 2023, I think we can move beyond that.

All of that said, I still love Watch Your Mouth. I love how Jaxson and Grace complete each other; I love how Grace challenges Jaxson’s boundaries so he can rewrite his own; I love how Jaxson loves Grace from the depths of himself; I love the found family of the Ospreys and the promise of future stories for Daddy P and Coach McCabe. And I love the spice and drama of Jaxson and Grace’s story. Once they found their power in each other, Watch Your Mouth was like a slap shot to the net, and it managed to be another huge score in Kandi Steiner’s Kings of the Ice series.

In love and romance,


Professor A

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new release

✍🏻 Jaxson Brittain and Grace Tanev are HERE! These two will break your heart and stitch it back up! Run and grab Kandi Steiner’s Watch Your Mouth right now! ✍🏻

professorromance

Watch Your Mouth by Kandi Steiner is now live! 

My brother’s teammates know not to touch me—but that doesn’t stop me from daring Jaxson Brittain to be the first to break the rule.

After one steamy night in Austin, I’m all too aware of the hot, broody defenseman with icy blue eyes and ink sprawling his muscular arms. He was the one my brother assigned to keep me safe—and I had far too much fun tempting him to be the one to put me in danger.

It was just one night of tip-toeing the line, of teasing and flirting and messing around knowing nothing would ever come of it.

But when the universe throws me back into his lap two weeks later and we end up on a secret road trip together, all bets are off.

I can’t help but touch him. I can’t help but pray for him to touch me. And I can’t resist the temptation to test him at every turn.

Jaxson is smart and doesn’t have a death wish. So, like a gentleman, he keeps his hands to himself… the jerk.

But the closer we get on the road and the farther we get from reality, the less those warning signs from my brother seem to deter him.

When we started this road trip, we set a boundary. We promised to keep all arms and legs safely in the friend zone.

Now, miles and miles away from all the reasons we shouldn’t, all I can hear is my heart thumping out the resounding reason we should.

And the way those heated blue eyes watch me, I know I’m not the only one.

___________________________________________

TROPES:

🩵 Pro Hockey Romance
🩵 Teammate’s Little Sister/Brother’s Best Friend
🩵 Road Trip
🩵 Forced Proximity
🩵 One Bed
🩵 Age Gap
🩵 Opposites Attract
🩵 Forbidden
___________________________________________

Watch Your Mouth is book two in the Kings of the Ice series: a series of interconnected standalones following a team of professional hockey players and the women who bring them to their knees. They do not need to be read in order, but you will gain glimpses of future characters/couples in each book.

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/45oZZeq

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

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/45qMMBW

Meet Kandi


Kandi Steiner is an Amazon Top 5 bestselling author and whiskey connoisseur living in Tampa, FL. 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. She started writing back in the 4th grade after reading the first Harry Potter installment. 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, 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

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✍🏻Professor Romance’s Review: Tijan’s Pine River ✍🏻

professorromance

Overall Grade: B-

Tropes: small town dark romance; hate to love; cousin’s best friend MMC; MMA MMC; found family; new adult romance

If you’ve read Tijan’s Fallen Crest series, her newest story, Pine River, will feel similar. With two main characters who begin the book disliking each other while also overwhelmingly attracted to each other, Scout and Ramsey feel similar to her main couple, Sam and Mason, of her popular Fallen Crest series. The draw of Pine River is its engrossing story. Chapter after chapter of Scout and Ramsey spurning each other while struggling with combustible chemistry draws you into this new universe from Tijan. 

I love ‘hate to love’ and messy romance. It makes for an exciting story, and Tijan has definitely crafted this messiness well into Pine River. She had me enticed when this story existed as her newsletter story. While I was excited about this book, I was sad when she stopped publishing it in her newsletter because the push and pull of Scout and Ramsey’s chemistry drew me in. 

Here’s my issue with Pine River. It’s a disjointed read. Even though she’s done a revision of those newsletter chapters, there were times when, from chapter to chapter or paragraph to paragraph, I struggled with the flow of her storytelling and the construction of her characters’ journeys. In fact, I read some of the earlier reviews for this book because I wondered if anyone else felt the fractures in her development. Alas, I might be the only early reader who feels this way. 

Did I appreciate Ramsey and Scout’s journey? Yes. The power of the found family trope in Pine River is the best part of this story beyond her main characters’ attraction to each other. The traumas that Ramsey and Scout carry from their pasts are healed in their union but ALSO through their relationships with the ancillary characters of this story. Much as she did with her Fallen Crest series, I’m certain that Tijan has unlocked a new space in which to draw other stories. When you finish this book, that almost feels like a promise from Tijan. 

While I like the way that Tijan has crafted Ramsey and Scout in Pine River, for all intents and purposes, they aren’t Mason and Sam. Their romance, however, will entice and beguile you because Tijan has found a way to bring so much story to her readers that you can’t help but read it through to the final page.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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new release

✍🏻 If you’re a Tijan’s Fallen Crest series fan, you will WANT to read her Pine River. This book has all the feels of that series and more. Scout and Ramsay are pure fire! ✍🏻

professorromance

Pine River by Tijan is now live! 

​​Pine River was supposed to be a new start for me.

And it was, especially attending school with my three overprotective cousins, who were the triplets at the top of the social hierarchy.
Except they weren’t alone there, and the first day when I came to school, I saw him.

Scout Raiden.
Tall. Lean. Tattooed. Mesmerizing.
He was a golden god with dark and piercing eyes—looking like he wanted to eat me up.

The feeling was mutual, and that was a problem.
It was lust-want-must have-loathing-hate all at once. I was affected.
And I couldn’t have that. No way.
Not after what I’d just left in Cedra Valley.

I didn’t care how much money his uncle had.
I didn’t care that it seemed every girl wanted him.
I didn’t care about his reputation as an up-and-coming fighter.
Or the promise of how those hands would make me feel.

What I did care about was staying as far away from Scout as possible.
Because the promise of his presence, the heat that was going to turn the light back on in my world wasn’t a promise at all.
It was a threat.

I wasn’t going to survive Scout Raiden.

  Download today or read FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon US: https://bit.ly/3Fp6nam

Amazon UK: https://bit.ly/3Md4bGR

Amazon CA: https://bit.ly/3Q44t3P

Amazon AU: https://bit.ly/3tGd6ds

Audible: https://bit.ly/46PI1lK

Narrated by: Savannah Peachwood & Teddy Hamilton

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

Meet Tijan

Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing after college and once she started, she was hooked. She’s written multi-bestsellers including the Fallen Crest series, Ryan’s Bed, Enemies and others.
​She is currently writing many new books and series with an English Cocker she adores.

Connect with Tijan

Website: http://www.tijansbooks.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4851199.Tijan

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tijan/e/B00DJG52QE

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

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/tijansreadergroup

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tijansbooks

TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@tijan_author

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tijan

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Laney Hatcher’s Love Matched, a Smartypants Romance ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: A

Tropes: opposites attract; fish out of water; standalone in an interconnected series; regency romance; slow burn


The brilliance of Laney Hatcher’s storytelling in the Smartypants World shouldn’t be missed. Here’s the situation: imagine taking a beloved series (Knitting in the City series) from the illustrious Penny Reid and reimagining it into the world of Regency romance. This isn’t an easy task as the women of Penny Reid’s original series read against type for that world. Yet, after Hatcher’s first two books for Smartypants, Neanderthal Seeks Duchess and Well-Acquainted, she does it with such aplomb that it’s quite astounding to the dedicated Penny Reid reader. Now, the newest story, Love Matched, poses another challenge. In the story that Love Matched re-tells, Love Hacked, the MMC is a genius hacker. How does one take a decidedly 21st-century occupation and infuse some element of it into a Regency romance? If you’re Laney Hatcher, seemingly easy. You should know that Penny Reid’s Sandra and Alex are my second favorite couple in her Knitting in the City series, so I was reading Love Matched with a critical, yet intrigued eye. How do you craft an MMC and FMC such as Sandra and Alex into 19th-century characters? Even more, when I read Penny Reid’s Love Hacked, there was a desolation to Alex’s story, a struggle to unwind himself from an outer claim on him. This bind is the tension of their story, as over and over again, Sandra must fight for their coupleship with the odds stacked against them. 

And Laney Hatcher rises to the challenge of these issues in her story, Love Matched. Even in Regency England, Sandra is headstrong, independent, and brave. Her pursuit of Alexander is the catalyst for significant change in his life, and she believes in him and their capacity for a future, just as the character in Penny Reid’s book does. Additionally, Hatcher composes Alexander with the same solitariness as Reid’s character. This is important because the Alex of Penny Reid’s book cloaks himself in that solitariness as protection. Hatcher’s ability to draw Alexander in the same, but different manner than Reid’s character doesn’t read like a copy, but rather an iteration, a complex, fully rendered reimagining. And I find this fascinating and exciting. 

Laney Hatcher’s Love Matched is my favorite of her Smartypants Romance stories thus far. Partly, I love an FMC who knows her mind and challenges social mores to ensure her eternal happiness, and I adore an MMC who challenges her but also accepts her on her own terms. The community we love and adore in Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series is still a cornerstone of Laney Hatcher’s reconceptualization of this beloved group of women. It continues to buoy the stories. Now, I’m ready for Hatcher’s next book in the series, as it should feature my favoritest of favorites in the Penny Reid world, Fiona and Greg. What will a ninja look like in Regency England? One can only imagine it.

In love and romance,


Professor A