Tag: grump/sunshine

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new release

✍🏻 We are back in Calamity, Montana with Devney Perry’s The Brood. This is delicious grump/sunshine, forced proximity and the perfect read this week. ✍🏻

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The Brood by Devney Perry is now live! 

A small town, forced proximity, age gap romance from Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, Devney Perry.

The last thing Wilder Abbott needs is a houseguest. Solitude has been his stoic companion for nearly a decade. He prefers to brood over his mistakes in seclusion. Besides, he gets enough social interaction as a high school science teacher in Calamity, Montana.

But when his oldest friend calls, begging for a favor, Wilder begrudgingly agrees. For the next two months, he’ll give up his guest room to his friend’s little sister.

Iris Monroe isn’t the girl Wilder remembers. Gone is the shy, quiet mouse ten years his junior who always had her nose in a book. Grown-up Iris talks too much and asks too many questions, especially about his past. And her bright smile and clear blue eyes are hard to ignore.

Two months. He just has to survive two months. Except Iris is as nosy as she is beautiful. And his secrets prove hard to hide when she’s living under his roof.

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://bit.ly/46vWzrg

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

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

Meet Devney 

Devney Perry is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of over forty romance novels. After working in the technology industry for a decade, she abandoned conference calls and project schedules to pursue her passion for writing. She was born and raised in Montana and now lives in Washington with her husband and two sons. 

Connect with Devney

Website: www.devneyperry.com

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2kncXnb

Amazon: https://geni.us/nAXkP

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

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324585607979213/

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Bookbub: http://bit.ly/2v1Hr7t

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

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new release, Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Louise Bay’s Dr. CEO, another romance in The Doctors series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: billionaire MMC; grump/sunshine; small town romance; one night stand; hate to love; found family; opposites attract

Have you ever been afraid of change? Have you needed the promise of stability to keep you going? If you’ve answered “yes” to either question, then you recognize the plight of Louise Bay’s FMC in her newest book, Dr. CEO, the next book in her The Doctors series. Kate has lived at Crompton Estate for a large portion of her life. It’s the place where she is happy and secure after a childhood of insecurity at the hands of her mother. When Vincent, Bay’s MMC, shows up, that security is threatened by his purchasing of the estate. All she knows changes, but most importantly, she falls for the guy changing Crompton Estate which adds a complication. Vincent and Kate’s story highlights the power of the mind influenced by trauma. For Vincent, it’s an absentee father; for Kate, it’s a mother who lived a fluid life before her early death. Bay creates an instant attraction, one-night stand scenario to grow Kate and Vincent’s attraction. She then complicates it with his playboy, transitory ways and her need to stay at Crompton Estate. As each of them is challenged by the other, they transcend hate-to-love vibes and grump/sunshine and fall for each other, even though Vincent fails to acknowledge it. 

It’s the falling action of Dr. CEO where Bay lost me a bit. Vincent’s resolution to his absence from Kate feels rushed. The inconsistency in character doesn’t feel organic to the story, and I struggled with the ending. Even more, there were times when I didn’t believe Kate and Vincent’s chemistry. There is attraction between them, but there is something missing from their romantic journey. 

Thankfully, Vincent and Kate find their happy ending, and it adds another happy couple to the Doctors series. I believe there is one story to go for each of the family members to find their HEAs. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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new release, Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Winter Renshaw’s Hate Mail, book 1 of Papercuts ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: arranged marriage; hate to love; side of romantic suspense; grump/sunshine

Winter Renshaw’s gold lies in the way she crafts her MMCs. There is a common thread to them: alpha in nature, closed off, and stubborn. It takes the tenacity of the FMC to blow through their tremendous emotional walls. Over and over again, Renshaw makes us fall in love with this character construction, no matter the plot points. This is also the case in her newest story, Hate Mail. Slade and Campbell’s parents are life-long friends who decide early in their children’s lives to arrange a marriage, effectively joining their powerful families. Their parents also encourage them early on to become pen pals, and it becomes clear from the start that the two don’t want what their parents have decided. 

The first half of Renshaw’s Hate Mail is compelling. Slade is Renshaw’s typical hero, and while Campbell hopes to forgo the arranged marriage, she strives to understand and connect with Slade, who makes that task almost impossible. This first half, their strife and Campbell’s pain, is where the angst of her story resides and where she pulls her reader into Hate Notes. 

Unfortunately, the second half falls apart a bit. For one, Slade spends two-thirds of the story pushing Campbell away, and he makes a sudden 180 with very little provocation. His acceptance of Campbell comes too easily given the strife of the first portion of Renshaw’s book. It feels like “a miss” of sorts. Secondly, there are two situations that arise for Slade in the story, one resolves too easily and the second feels thrown into the story. Had I read a draft of Hate Mail, I would recommend removing the second and developing the emotional turmoil of the first so we can better empathize with Slade. 

The ending for Slade and Campbell in Hate Mail is sweet, and they earn their happy ending. It’s the latter third of this book that simply needed a bit more work, save for the epilogues.

In love and romance,


Professor A

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Lexi Blake’s Start Us Up, book 1 of the Park Avenue Promise series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: band of sisters; standalone in an interconnected series; intelligent STEM heroine; golden retriever hero; rom-com; workplace romance; close proximity; grump/sunshine; starting over; office romance; found family; returning to hometown; insta-attraction

Lexi Blake’s Start Us Up reminds readers of her versatility as a romance writer. She pivots so easily from rom-com to romantic suspense to MFM to paranormal/fantasy romance to women’s fiction that she makes it look easy for her readers. Start Us Up shows the spark she has for writing as she details the journey of Ivy Jensen, her two best friends, Anika and Harper, and her hero, Heath Marino. There is much to like about this new story: a band of sisters/close friends which drives this new series, the Park Avenue Promise series; Heath’s general easiness with Ivy, who is strong and independent, but struggling with the imposition of failure; a found family that is diverse and progressively feminist; and a sweet story sprinkled with the angst of failure and parental strife. I love that Lexi Blake’s Start Us Up highlights women who are decided and tenacious in their career-chase, but messy in their lives. She has written main female characters who are likable and provoking, and she partners them with characters who hold the wisdom of age and the insight of having lived entangled lives. These make the romance intriguing and loveable. 

My biggest issue, however, lies with the believability of Heath and Ivy’s romance. Two issues complicate their chemistry: the one-person POV (Ivy’s) and the instant attraction. Coupling these together makes it difficult to “buy” how quickly Heath reads Ivy and endures her temperament so they can become romantic. If we had his POV, it would be more easier to accept them. If we had a dual POV with the instant attraction, again, it would be more acceptable for their pairing. My difficulty in believing their easy coupling is my reason for a 4-star review. 

Beyond that, I will absolutely be ready for Anika’s story, coming next in the series. If the synopsis at the end is any indication, I predict some exciting things for Anika and her besties in future stories. 

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Jolie Vines’s Touch Her and Die, book 1 of her new McRae Bodyguards series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: bodyguard romance; grump/sunshine; forced proximity; forbidden-esque; found family; band of brothers; romantic suspense

Jolie Vines’s newest story, Touch Her and Die, harkens back to her earlier Wild Scots and Wild Mountain Scots series. Having spent the last year gobbling her darker romance series, Dark Island Scots, it was refreshing to jump into Touch Her and Die, the first book of her newest series, McRae Bodyguards, because it reminds us what Vines does well: craft heroes who fall hard and deep for their heroines and heroines whose emotional intelligence brings out the best in their heroes. This story takes us into the world crafted by Gourdain, the second eldest brother of Vines’s popular Marry the Scots series (see Hero – one of my favorite of her stories in that series). Vines’s hero is Ben, a character who has shown up in prior stories as a background character, and she makes him shine in this one. Throughout Touch Her and Die, Ben must work through the trauma of his past and the unresolved feelings he has for his birth mom. These issues hinder his ability to have a meaningful relationship with the story’s heroine, Daisy.  Vines deftly creates grump/sunshine personas for her main characters which allow for a balanced story.

While Ben works to avoid his attraction and instant chemistry with Daisy, Daisy’s journey involves finding her own space in the world. Escaping a mafia-esque family to pursue cleaning houses, Daisy must continue to make choices that are best for her. Even more, Vines’s adding in her love for helping people clean their homes to create order ingratiates her to readers. Daisy reminded me of the character in the movie, Maid, in that she recognized the power of bringing order into people’s lives that felt disordered. It’s impossible not to love Daisy’s character in this story. 

Another broader stroke I enjoyed in Touch Her and Die is the inclusion of the McRaes into this series. While they played small parts in the Dark Island Scots series, it was tertiary at best. In this book, we are reminded of how much we love Gourdain McRae and the greater McRae family. Connecting us back to the original characters whom Vines made us love breathes a touch of nostalgia into her story.

As a total addendum, I loved the small graphics at the start of each chapter. I know it’s a minor detail, but it shows the care that Vines takes with all aspects of her story.

If I had ONE criticism, it would be the inclusion of Ariel’s point of view in this book. It detracts from Ben and Daisy’s journey, especially at its beginning. I understand it to be set up for Ariel’s story, but it does nothing more than distract the reader.

I’m excited about the future McRae Bodyguard romances. If Touch Her and Die is any indication, I predict another successful series.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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new release

✍🏻 The next book of Smartypants Romance’s current season is LIVE. Run and grab Amanda Pennington’s Smart Move, book 7 of the Work for It series. ✍🏻

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Smart Move, an all-new grumpy sunshine sweet romance by Amanda Pennington, is LIVE in Kindle Unlimited!

Ivy Lunden is Team Keep Things Casual…

I am Toby Azumah’s opposite in every way. I’m a pessimist; he’s an optimist. I’m into art; he’s into sports. Still, I’m highly entertained by our flirtationship. 

When he finally talks me into a date, everything goes wrong. Chaos descends on my orderly life when my mother falls and needs nearly round-the-clock care. Add in my nosy neighbor, and my peace of mind has been turned inside out.

When Toby, Mr. Best-Case Scenario himself, offers to help, I’m skeptical. A relationship with him would only make things more chaotic, right? Or maybe Toby is the real deal, and giving him a chance is a smart move after all.

Toby Azumah is Team Happily Ever After…

I’ve wanted to take the mysterious, beautiful Ivy Lunden to dinner ever since we met, and I’m confident she just needs a little time to warm up to the idea of us. But nothing goes according to my daydreams. 

Despite a no-show date, some flirty texts, and the fierce ways she protects herself and her mom, I see through the chaos and smoke to the real Ivy. The Ivy she rarely shows to the world. 

How can I convince her I’m making the smart move and playing for keeps?

‘Smart Move’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #7 in the Work For It series, Educated Romance World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Grab your copy TODAY!

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3XPjatd

Amazon UK: https://bit.ly/41hroxh

Amazon CA: https://bit.ly/3Kt3wAN

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Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3SSMCOb

About Amanda Pennington

Amanda Pennington lives outside Louisville, Kentucky with her husband in their fixer-upper house. When she’s not writing, Amanda loves traveling, running, and reading anything within reach. More information is available at www.amandacpennington.com.

Find Amanda online

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3qwJ3jT

Twitter: https://bit.ly/36KYzkX

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

Website: https://amandacpennington.com 

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Pinterest: https://bit.ly/36nMgeA

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new release

✍🏻 Kizmet. One word infused beautifully into the pages of Karla Sorensen’s One and Only. If you love opposites attract, fake relationship, sport, and single dad romance, you will ADORE Greer and Beckett. ✍🏻

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ONE AND ONLY

Karla Sorensen

Release Date: May 16

AVAILABLE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED

You are cordially invited to my fake wedding.

Marrying Beckett Coleman is the best idea I’ve had in years. I can grant my sick dad’s wish to walk one of his daughters down the aisle, and Beckett has my help solving a custody situation with his daughter. Our plan is to spend a year together, then part ways. Easy, especially since I’m not his type, and he’s not mine either.

He’s too quiet and too serious. And while he’s distractingly gorgeous, he’s also my brother’s teammate. Beckett is fake husband material, not the real deal. I just have to remember that.

Until I move in with him. Get to know him. Share a bed with him. Turns out, the line between fake and real isn’t just blurry, it’s almost impossible to uphold when he looks at me the way he does.

This marriage is a whole lot more complicated than we bargained for. We’re threatening to destroy everything we’ve built, something neither of us can risk.

Marrying Beckett might’ve been the best idea in years. But falling in love with him would be the worst.

Grab Your Copy!

Meet Karla Sorensen:

Karla Sorensen is an Amazon top 20 bestselling author who refuses to read or write anything without a happily ever after. When she’s not devouring historical romance or avoiding the laundry, you can find her watching football (British AND American), HGTV or listening to Enneagram podcasts so she can psychoanalyze everyone in her life, in no particular order of importance. With a degree in Advertising and Public Relations from Grand Valley State University, she made her living in senior healthcare prior to writing full-time. Karla lives in Michigan with her husband, two boys and a big, shaggy rescue dog named Bear.

Keep up with Karla Sorensen and subscribe to her newsletter: http://www.karlasorensen.com/newsletter

To learn more about Karla Sorensen & her books, visit here!

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: runaway bride; single dad; dad of twins; forced proximity; grump/sunshine; opposites attract

“It’s me choosing you —- just you. As you are.”

Thus far, in the month of May, Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love is my favorite romance book. This is part Runaway Bride, Sound of Music, and Notting Hill. Two tropes that instantly grab my attention are found in this book: single dad and grump/sunshine. And Austin, Harlow’s MMC, is drawn as deliciously hot, but a grumpyumpleton to his core. Harlow balances his curmudgeon nature with two precocious twins and a family who humbles him daily. Her FMC, Veronica aka Roni, challenges him, through her sunny disposition, to recognize his self-sacrifice and consider choosing his dreams. Conversely, Austin helps Roni recognize the importance of expecting people to love her on her terms. As they work through their separate issues, Harlow infuses spice and humor, sweetness and challenge to engage her readers’ feelings, and the combination of these things causes the reader to gobble the book. At least, I did. Austin and Roni excited me, and I didn’t realize that I’d been missing the draw of reading until I fell into Austin ad Roni’s story. I felt indignant for Roni’s betrayal, cheered Austin’s sister when she decided to invite Roni to be a nanny for Austin’s children, grew annoyed with Austin’s instant judgment of Roni, became elated when Roni showed her beautiful soul, was titillated by Austin and Roni’s chemistry, and grew emotional as both Austin and Roni recognized that he needed to choose himself and his dreams and she needed to be chosen period. 

Grab Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love if you need something to read that feeds your soul. This book will make you laugh, become misty-eyed, and fog your glasses all in one pass. This book is a total homerun.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review, Uncategorized

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Tia Louise’s A Little Taste ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: grump/sunshine; single dad; small-town romance; age-gap; family feuds; romantic suspense; insta-attraction

Tia Louise’s A Little Taste has some of the magic highlighted in its pages. I’ll be honest. I liked Louise’s last series, Hamiltown Heat, but I didn’t love it. It was missing the levity you find in A Little Taste. There is something charming about Aiden, her MMC in this newest book, and Britt, the erstwhile FMC who steals his heart. I find the grump/sunshine or grumpy single dad tropes to be fairly charming, as a character such as Britt easily wins Aiden’s stubborn heart. And, honestly, it happens quickly in this book, a marker of Louise’s romances. 

In fact, it’s one of the aspects of Tia Louise’s books of which I’m not a fan. I prefer stories that require a bit more physical restraint initially, but Louise loves raising her steam level quickly. And boy, does she do it with Aiden and Britt. From apartment hallways to trucks to bedrooms to any available surface, Tia Louise’s requisite spice level doesn’t disappoint. 

Steam-level aside, A Little Taste charms its readers through a small-town feud between the town’s mystics and the town’s legal arm. It engages with a story couched in romantic suspense, as Britt finds herself embroiled in the secrets of her father’s death. Overarching all of this is the chemistry between Aiden and Britt, and the sweet ways Britt loves Aiden’s son giving him reasons to fall hard for her. 

I found myself entertained and titillated in equal measure with Tia Louise’s newest offering, A Little Taste. I’m very excited about the next book in the series because I loved Britt and Aiden’s story.   

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: Adriana Locke’s More Than I Could ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes; single dad with teen daughter; one month nanny; forced proximity; grump/sunshine; small-town romance

I’ve decided that there is one thing that will make my heart sing: a grump/sunshine small-town romance written by Adriana Locke. Now, I’d LOVE for her to stop writing compelling family stories because, as a reader, I want them all, a story for each new character that inhabits the pages of her books. But…but she is but one author and it takes time…time that I often hate to pass awaiting the next story in a new series of intriguing characters. This is More Than I Could, Adriana Locke’s newest story. 

Think grumpy single dad trying to parent a witty, intelligent, but complicated young woman. Add in a willful, sunshiney, intelligent, beautiful woman from the big city of Los Angeles who comes to small-town Peachwood Falls, Indiana to act as a nanny for the grumpy single dad’s thirteen-year-old daughter. From the moment they meet, Chase and Megan are combustible. Whether it’s Megan challenging Chase’s hard-headed ways or gruff communication, or it’s Chase trying but failing to stay away from Megan, they simply cannot help their attraction to each other.

Unfortunately, Megan’s situation is temporary, so Chase and Megan have to navigate their attraction while avoiding becoming serious. Best laid plans, right? This is the magic of More Than I Could. That fraught space along with Chase’s grumpiness in contrast to Megan’s spiritedness engage the reader. You don’t want to put this story down because (1) you love the characters – Megan, Chase, his brothers, the town folks and (2) you know that Locke will serve up a huge helping of a romancelandia happy ending. Which she does with aplomb. 

In her acknowledgments, Locke had hoped to craft and release a story that would allow an escape from the nastiness of the world. And she does this well in More Than I Could. It’s a story that eases along with moments of triumph for its characters that keep you suspended all the way to the sweet and spicy final page. If you’re looking for a feel-good romance with a minor side of tension, you’ll want to read Adriana Locke’s More Than I Could.

In love and romance,

Professor A