Tag: insta-attraction

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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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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Jewel E. Ann’s Right Guy, Wrong Word ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: rom-com; insta-attraction; second chance romance

I’m fairly certain this review will be a word salad of incomprehensibility as I try to bring my thoughts to the page. Jewel E. Ann’s Right Guy, Wrong Word has acted as a conduit to so many thoughts that trying to find the words to express them in any meaningful way feels overwhelming. So let me start where it feels necessary to begin.

I read a few early reviews of Right Guy, Wrong Word, and there was a common thread between a few of them regarding, Anna, Jewel’s heroine. Several of them spoke of their annoyance with her, especially at the beginning. And I see their point, but…BUT they missed it. Anna is seemingly annoying because she becomes frustrated with Eric’s perception of her favorite book. She feels strongly about this book, and Eric’s response feels flippant. And it’s not really about the book anyways (I mean, it kind of is, but it isn’t). The first quarter of Jewel’s book is about being “seen”. If Eric can’t like the one thing that Anna loves, how can he fully accept the depths of her spirit? It’s one of the things that makes me cry in the world: the need to feel seen and understood. Where Anna might be read as frivolous in her responses to Eric’s words, the depth of that frivolity is the want to be truly understood and accepted. So it’s important that readers don’t get caught up in Anna…it’s not about the book; it’s about acceptance. 

As the book progresses, the love affair has twists and turns to whet your romance thirst. Jewel is always deft in her balance of spice and seriousness, and it’s all here. She calls this a rom-com. And it is, but it also has a depth to it that had my brain pinging with thoughts. Eric and Anna have an easy banter that develops their chemistry. My one struggle with Anna and Eric’s story was their “why” at the beginning. Eric was immediately enamored with her at a level that didn’t feel commensurate with the progression of their story. I believe this might have also coincided with his later POV entry into the story. However, Jewel eventually remedies my curiosity about this insta-attraction when she develops a depth of feeling between the two over the latter portion of the story. 

But here’s the thing I really want to get to with regards to Right Guy, Wrong Word…I believe this story is really about storytelling. I’m probably, absolutely going out on a ledge with this review to say that I feel Jewel exposes herself as a storyteller in this book. There is a metastory in this book: this is a book about the book. There is something in this about romance, about how the reality of the real world never really owns up to the fantasy of the romantic world and the disappointment in that lack of perfect love. There is a HUGE message about the perfect love of romance versus the imperfect love which makes us the most human and the most loveable. And the romance feels like a response to the way that readers respond to books. Is it possible that Eric’s response to Anna’s favorite book is Jewel’s examination of how people view her books or her peers’ books? She also highlights the futility of words to truly capture one’s feelings. I told you “word salad of incomprehensibility” with a side of a Master’s degree in English which leads me to overthink just about everything I read. 

Jewel E Ann’s Right Guy, Wrong Word is funny and witty and sad and compelling. It woke up my brain from a summer slumber, and it allowed me to escape from reality for a day. It sparked my thinking about AI and writing and the soul that will surely be missing from it because this book is an apt reminder of a person’s capacity to make us feel feelings and think thoughts. Her story highlights the reality that we are all perfect in our imperfections, and stories offer us that reminder.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Meghan Quinn’s The Way I Hate Him ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: small town romance; enemies to lovers; forced proximity; insta-attraction; rockstar romance; grump/sunshine; workplace romance; cinnamon roll hero 

“She’s peace, but she’s anarchy. She’s a challenge, but she’s effortless. She’s simple…yet complicated. And I like all of it. I’ve become accustomed to her presence.”

Meghan Quinn is a puzzle. Her pieces come together into a complex work of art, yet her surface seems as simple as a 100-piece puzzle. As you delve into her stories, you find quickly that there is always more than what meets the eye. The Way I Hate Him is an emotional juggernaut that I didn’t expect. It begins light but evolves its depth into a story that will make you cry with joy and a side of pain. I couldn’t put it down.

Quinn’s main characters, Hayes and Hattie, are a paradox. At the outset, you’ll find yourself entranced with their fun banter and overwhelming chemistry. These two run hot for each other, and the fun of this book is the way they fight their attraction. Their oppositional forces make you smile and laugh. This is everything you enjoy about Quinn’s romance.

For me, though, it’s the latter portion of the story where Hattie’s sunshine becomes the foil to Hayes’s grump, exposing his soft underbelly. It’s there where the romance morphs from hot lust and fireworks to something more significant. Quinn walks us through themes of grief and familial trauma. She humanizes Hayes, creating vulnerability in him that matches the feelings of grief in Hattie. In that moment, I shed a few tears for their hurts, but Quinn deftly weaves her story into a space of healing, culling her main characters’ happy ending into something with depth. The ending does not go the way of its beginning, and Quinn leaves her readers sated by Hattie and Hayes’s happy ending. 

Finally, the ancillary characters of The Way I Hate Him add layers to this roller coaster of a romance. I fell in love with Hattie’s siblings, Ryland and Aubree, her best friend, Maggie, and Ryland and Hayes’s friend, Abel. Hayes’s grandmother adds humor to the story, but she acts as Hayes’s wizened guide. And the piece de resistance is Hattie’s relationship with her sister, Cassidy. It’s one of the most special portions of Quinn’s book. 


Meghan Quinn’s The Way I Hate Him stole my heart. It was one of my favorite reads to end the month of July and begin August. If you love enemies to lovers with witty banter and spicy fun, grab this one FAST! It’s a great beginning to, what I hope, is a new series. There are too many exciting characters whom I want their stories.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Devney Perry’s The Dandelion Diary, a 1001 Dark Nights romance ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: single dad; insta-attraction; teacher/parent; interconnected story

I am certain that Devney Perry’s Maysen Jar series is my sentimental favorite of her book list. The delicate gravity of her stories in The Birthday List and Letters to Molly socks you solidly in the stomach, and you can’t help but fall in love with her characters and their stories. That she, a couple of years later, gifts us with the delicious nibble of The Dandelion Diary, a 1001 Dark Nights novella, is a treasure to behold. Its perfection lies in its simplicity and its poignancy. The Dandelion Diary is an apt reminder of why I love this series so much. 

What is there to love about this nugget of a romance?

  • A protective single dad who adores his daughter. Perry hasn’t drawn her hero, Jeff, with too much complexity. He is a simple man living his life to love and care for his daughter. As you read, you can’t help but fall in love with him as he calls her “dandelion” and he treats her respectfully and fairly in all things. In the shadow of his complicated and tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife, he ensures his daughter is able to love her mother while being a respectful co-parent. Quite frankly, Jeff is a dream hero in all his rugged handsomeness.
  • Like Jeff’s characterization, Perry doesn’t craft Della to be anything more than Jeff’s soulmate. Through her journey, Perry wants her readers to think about the idea of being loved and treasured. Those truths have been missing in her life, at least until she meets Jeff. When she meets him, they complete each other, filling Della’s need to be adored and adding layers to Jeff’s complicated life. 
  • I love the easiness of Jeff and Della’s relationship in the shadow of its forbidden element. Perry creates the perfect tension between its forbidden nature and their responsibility to “do the right thing.” Perry doesn’t overwhelm her readers with the angst of this balance, rather she moves the story along by having her characters take responsibility for their actions.
  • As she does so well in all of her stories, Devney Perry ends The Dandelion Diary with a future brighter than first believed possible. There is beauty in the future lives of her characters, and she adds a touch of surprise as the finality to her romance.

The Dandelion Diary is quintessential Devney Perry. It’s a perfect addendum to her beautiful Maysen Jar series, gifting a little peek back into this world that we adore.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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new release

✍🏻 Melanie Harlow’s Runaway Love is LIVE! This book is part-Runaway Bride part-Sound of Music part-perfection! I couldn’t put this book down! ✍🏻

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Runaway Love by Melanie Harlow is now live!

Yes, I’m a single dad who needs a nanny for the summer.

But hire the stranded runaway bride who shows up on my doorstep in a wedding gown with no references, no skills, and no experience?

No one is that desperate.

Except within twenty-four hours, down-on-her-luck Veronica Sutton manages to charm my kids, my family, and half the population of Cherry Tree Harbor into believing she’s perfect for the job.

And for me.

It’s not that I can’t see the appeal-those baby blue eyes? The endless legs? That mouth made for trouble? But I’ve got enough on my plate, raising two kids on my own and keeping the family business alive. I don’t have the time or the inclination to fall for an outspoken city girl.

So I should have kept my hands to myself.

Holding her in my arms was a big mistake. Even worse? Spending the night together. She ignites a possessive fire in me that I’m finding hard to snuff out.


But the most unforgivable? Growing attached to the sound of her laugh, the scent of her skin, and the way her body wraps around mine in the dark.

At the end of the summer, she’ll be gone.
And if I’m not careful, she might run away with my heart.

Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://bit.ly/4069HPP

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

Audible: https://bit.ly/3LpSivU

Narrated by: Sebastian York & Sophie Daniels

 

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3ZUcdJy

 

 

Meet Melanie


USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author Melanie Harlow writes sweet, sexy, feel-good romance. She likes her martinis dry, her heels high, and her history with the naughty bits left in. If she’s not writing or reading, she’s probably at Orangetheory or watching Schitt’s Creek again. She lifts her glass to readers from her home near Detroit, MI, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and pet rabbit.

Connect with Melanie

Website: www.melanieharlow.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7095467.Melanie_Harlow

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Melanie-Harlow/e/B00DXOYC1S

Facebook: harlow.pub/ap

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/351191341756563

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

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

Bookbub: harlow.pub/bb

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: L.B. Dunbar’s Parentmoon ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: single parents; forced proximity/one bed; over 40 romance; tropical destination; insta-attraction; opposites attract; mother of the groom/father of the bride

It’s guaranteed that L.B. Dunbar is quickly cornering the market on all things over 40 romance. Her latest tome, Parentmoon, reminds us that parents can have fun too in the shadow of their children’s love. The story begins on a luxury island, where Dunbar’s FMC has agreed to take her son’s honeymoon after he and his fiancee call off their wedding. When the bride’s father comes to the island, she finds out quickly that she’s staying in his island retreat. Even though the MOG believes the FOB doesn’t like her, we find, over the course of the story, that isn’t true. What happens over the course of a 10-day island retreat is sun, spice, and sentimental promises. 

What did I love?

  • Dallas, the MMC of Parentmoon, is a force. He pushes the FMC, Keli, to embrace her sensuality and make choices for herself. While he can be frustrating at times as he doesn’t easily reveal that he hopes for Keli to be his end game, he seeks to let her know how much he admires her. As a single mom, Keli has accepted the dregs of her former marriage and lived her life to raise her son. Dallas admires her strength and tenacity, and he uses their time on the island to woo her. Nothing is more swoony than a hero who wants more than the heroine imagines.
  • Keli is an “every woman.” As you read her story, Dunbar has drawn her in such a way that readers see themselves through her experience. Just as Dallas holds back his feelings, so does Keli. And this builds the tension of the story as Dallas and Keli both share their adoration but also hold back due to their geographical distance. Dunbar chooses to enact the resolution through Keli’s character because she has the furthest to go in falling in love with Dallas. Dunbar knows that Keli’s agency is important.
  • The fun of an island setting provides the perfect backdrop for Keli and Dallas’s fierce attraction. Dunbar has inundated her story with the effects of that attraction. It’s sensual and spicy in all the best ways. I love that Keli and Dallas are over 40 and physicality is as necessary to their relationship as a character in their 20s. It allows for an older readership to find themselves in her stories.

I enjoyed L.B. Dunbar’s Parentmoon. If I had any criticism, it would be repetitiveness. This is a tendency in this book as Keli vacillates with revealing her feelings for Dallas. She recognizes her “back and forth” with him, and it becomes redundant midway through the story. However, Dallas’s sweetness at the story’s end rescues the reader from losing interest. As far as I’m concerned, Dunbar can continue to write romances for the over-40 set.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 5 ⭐️ Review: Kristen Ashley’s The Girl in the Woods, book 2 of her Misted Pines series ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: romantic thriller; small town romance; insta-attraction; divorced FMC and MMC; over 40 MMC

This review will begin in a strange way. Kristen Ashley gifted me a beautiful gift box complete with a paperback copy of The Girl in the Woods. I adore my therapist, and she and I share a love for KA, so I gave her the paperback. She read the book before me and shared some initial insights. For one, The Girl in the Woods hosts the POV of the MMC, something that is different for KA. It isn’t as though we never receive the story through the POV of her male characters, but it’s fairly rare. However, TGITW is predominately (Cin’s POV shows up in the last chapter) from the perspective of Rus (Zachariah Lazarus). For my therapist, it made the storytelling strange. However, I loved KA’s insistence on presenting this story through the scope of Rus’s voice. That’s intentional in that it infuses a feminist perspective through a male’s voice. It gifts readers with a man who is intentional in his acceptance and admiration for women in power. To a certain degree, the typical roles of a KA story have been flipped. To be fair, Rus is still decidedly masculine and virile, just as her other MMCs have been. However, Cin takes up the alpha space of the story. She’s intelligent, emotionally insightful, and she knows herself. She’s a great mother and a better boss. She acknowledges her agency and can go toe to toe with any man in the story. And they know it. Because she knows herself, she challenges Rus to be a better version of himself. For example, she points to the error in his thinking about his past marriage. She connects him to a new version, one grounded in a better truth. Even though this book comes through the POV of Rus, it is distinctly pro-woman and very much Kristen Ashley. The Girl in the Woods illustrates KA’s capacity for telling compelling stories that diverge from her usual. 

What captured me beyond the pro-woman perspective, though, is the thriller storyline. KA’s stories are hefty; they are a complete meal with an appetizer, main course, and decadent dessert. It’s usual for her stories to hit 400 to 500 pages. This one, for example, is 432 pages of pure engaging entertainment. I couldn’t put it down, and it was mostly due to the way that KA paced her thriller. There are early revelations of the culprits of crime, but the big fish of her story is a late-in-the-story reveal that turns your head. I wouldn’t say it was ultra-surprising, but it was a bit of a shock. For me, The Girl in the Woods was pure titillation. 

Lastly, I also loved the friendships developed over the course of the book. Since this is the second book in KA’s Misted Pines series, everyone from book 1, The Girl in the Mist, is present, and KA treats us to their future selves. The bromance between Rus, Sheriff Moran, and Cade Bohannan feels as essential as Cin’s relationship with her daughter. These characters add depth to Rus’s story and showcase his growing need for a place in Misted Pines.

I hope we return to Kristen Ashley’s fictionally messed up small town in the future. I absolutely need stories for several of the characters from The Girl in the Woods (I see you Jase, Jesse, Moran, Kleo…), but I will always trust KA’s muse to lead us to the right stories. Much like the whispering ghost of the epic movie, Field of Dreams, “if [she] builds it [I] will come.”

In love and romance,

Professor A

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Meghan Quinn’s Royally Not Ready ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Tropes: grump/sunshine, opposites attract, instant attraction, orphan, some found family, return to hometown, surprise royalty

“Life changes constantly, and if you live in the past, you’re going to miss it.”

There is decadence in the physicality of Meghan Quinn’s newest romance, Royally Not Ready. Quinn flexes her chemistry-building muscle by drawing out and adding fuel to the fire of her two main characters, Lilly and Keller. This is Quinn at her best as she takes two opposites, crafting a precarious situation and an inferno of attraction between her main characters. She moves Lilly and Keller from disdain to ardor in the space of her story, investing her readers in their journey from almost the first page. The back and forth between these two is a delight, the mechanism that breathes light into a tense situation. She mixes in some suspense and intrigue along with a sweet reconciliation of a family broken apart. Royally Not Ready is quite the romance stew. 

Keller and Lilly are two sides of the same coin. They must endeavor to undertake change. For Lilly, she must learn to become royal when she was raised as an American with no knowledge of her mother’s country. And Keller must learn to leave behind the rules of his youth to become the man that Lilly needs at her side. Their exchanges at the beginning, when they are seated in opposition to each other, provide the comedic relief of the book. As they draw closer to connecting emotionally, they reach the zenith of their individual journeys almost simultaneously, drawing them closer together. Lilly reaches her character maturation before Keller, adding some emotional tension to the story. For me, their journeys were my favorite parts of the book.

My other favorite part is Lilly’s connection with her grandparents and, by extension, her mother’s country. The compassion and connection between them add another layer of emotion to Royally Not Ready. That isn’t promised early in the story, so Quinn’s ability to create trepidation in their meeting draws you into the moment’s emotion. In fact, each carefully curated moment of this book is magnetic, causing the book to be a fast read.

For me, Meghan Quinn’s Royally Not Ready is the read of the week. It has everything: humor, spice, and everything in between. It simply makes you want to read more Megan Quinn stories.

In love and romance

Professor A

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4 ⭐️ Review: J. Kenner’s Charmed By You, a Stark Security novella ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, romantic suspense, alpha hero, bodyguard, instalove

J. Kenner’s Charmed By You returns us easily to Damien Stark’s Security series world. With cameos from Damien and Ryan, Charmed By Love marries the world of Hollywood with the world of the Stark Security series. As it follows Simon Barré protecting the starlet, Francesca Muratti, from a stalker, the sparks fly from their initial meeting. This chemistry makes the story intriguing: “will they/won’t they consummate their attraction.”  Once the suspense portion of the story hits, it’s a quick downhill from there, devolving into a happy ending for Frannie and Simon.

Charmed By You has all the components of the other Stark Security series novellas: intrigue, insta-attraction, and the chemistry of opposites. I will say that I was hoping for a bit more story development, but alas, this is a novella. If you’re looking for a quick read in the world of Damien Stark, then you won’t want to miss Charmed By You.

In love and romance,

Professor A

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✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 3.5 ⭐️ Review: Allie Everhart’s If I Could ✍🏻

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Overall Grade: 3.5 ⭐️

Each month, I’ve decided to read a new author to me. Based on her cover’s subtle, beautiful design and her blurb that teases but gives nothing away, I chose Allie Everhart for her book, If I Could. With the promise of angst, I dived into this new book. Everhart’s story is good, utilizing a treasure trove of tropes” small-town romance, a bit of suspense, opposites attract, and a little hate-to-love with attraction at first. Was I hoping for a bit more from it? Yes. Was it as angsty as I believed? No. 

Her main characters, Kyle and Sage, are likable. Even in the beginning when Kyle attempts to put Sage off with his grumpy demeanor, you want to know his story. Everhart crafts Sage in a way that we can know her; we easily earn her backstory. However, Everhart utilizes Kyle to create the suspense of her story. We don’t learn much of his background until almost 80 percent. This has two repercussions: 1) there is an inconsistency in Kyle’s characterization. For me, this created problems partly because Kyle’s changes in mood were immediate.  It causes a whiplash effect throughout much of the book. Secondly, it slows the pacing of the book down. The actual action of the story comes much later. This means Kyle and Sage’s story spins in a circle for much of the book. This was frustrating as a reader, and I found myself easily pulled from Kyle and Sage’s romance.

The ancillary characters of the story, Hank, Nina, and Josh, bring levity to Sage and Kyle’s journey. I’d love to see a book for Nina and Josh. In fact, I think they’d have more chemistry than Sage and Kyle. Because, ultimately, that is what was missing for me. The investment in feeling didn’t occur until almost the end of the book. Even then, Kyle and Sage are sweet, but they didn’t impress themselves upon me.

Will I read more from Allie Everhart based on If I Could? If it’s the right book. Maybe another cover and blurb will capture my attention, but I was expecting a bit more from this book than I received. Did I like Kyle and Sage? Yes. Did their story steal my breath and tap into my emotions? Not really. 

In love and romance,

Professor A