Tag: jolie vines

new release

✍🏻 I am a DAY LATE … but definitely not too late for you to grab Jolie Vines’s newest book, Take Her From You! Do NOT miss this next book in her McRae Bodyguards series. ✍🏻

professorromance

It’s live! Valentine is finally here.

I’m so thrilled to announce the launch of Take Her from You (McRae Bodyguards, #3) by Jolie Vines.

🔥

A single mom in hiding and the bodyguard roommate she can’t resist

Mia

Hiding out in the Scottish Highlands, I’ve fled my old life. I need a home for my little daughter, a job, and the eyeful of my roommate naked in the shower has me thinking

I might need a hot Scottish boyfriend, too.

But the gorgeous bodyguard only offers fun nights between the sheets. While he’s preoccupied worshipping my thick thighs and claiming he doesn’t want commitment, I’m meant to be busy on the dating scene.

For longterm, he’s telling me to look elsewhere, but what if it’s him I fall for?

Valentine

My new roomie is a wet dream come true. With her kind personality and curves for days, I can’t keep my mind off her. A welcome distraction from the broken relationship with my brother and the ex-fiancée who won’t leave me alone.

Except Mia’s looking for more than I can offer. I had my fingers burned by love and won’t ever go there again.

Only when people come looking for her do I realise just how easily she could be taken from me.

—

Take Her from You features a plus-sized single mom, her Scottish roommate with golden retriever energy, and an intimate toy she creates using him as a template.

This swoony, friends-to-everything, steamy read is a standalone in the McRae Bodyguards series and set in the gorgeous Scottish Highlands.

Join Mia and Valentine’s adventure in love today!

🔥

In Kindle Unlimited and beautiful paperback with black and white chapter art of the Scottish Highlands.

https://mybook.to/TakeHerfromYou

new release, Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s Review: Jolie Vines’s Save Her from Me, book 2 of the McRae Bodyguards series ✍🏻

professorromance

Overall Grade: B

Tropes: bodyguard MMC; close proximity; romantic suspense; brother’s best friend; band of brothers; found family

Jolie Vines’s Save Her from Me provides another exciting story in her McRae Bodyguards series. Jackson, her bodyguard MMC, and Ariel, the FMC with a streak of moxie and independence, create a combustible romance from its very first chapter. Vines has deftly and consciously progressed in her capacity to write an erotic story. In her journey as a romance writer, she has developed a distinct writing voice: creating reticent heroes who fall deeply for their heroines at almost first glance and heroines who find themselves under the protection and love of their partner. 

What I loved:

*The chemistry and reticent connection between Ariel and Jackson. This provides the energy of Vines’s romance.

*the connections between current and past characters in the world of the McRaes. Getting peeks of former McRae heroes and heroines reminds us of this intricately woven universe that Vines has carefully crafted. This is one of the many reasons Vines’s star has risen in romancelandia.

*the forward motion of this narrative. There is a resolution to the issue of Ariel’s father and the shadow who threatens her for most of the story.

What I thought could use a bit more work:

*There was an inconsistency in Jackson and Ariel’s progression at times. One minute, there appeared to be a path forward which becomes erased by the overthinking of the other one. 

*The resolution to the story felt rushed. It seemed like an easy resolution that could have been meted out sooner. Ariel held the power all along, meaning she could have resolved her confinement sooner. Granted, we would not have been gifted Jackson and Ariel’s story, but this underscores the quick remedy to the issue of her father.

Jolie Vines continues to wow her readers crafting romances in a beloved world. This newest series offers reticent MMCs who can’t help but fall hard for their FMCs. Her Save Her from Me ties together a swoony romance, a community of people who fight for each other, and an edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense into one. I have been honored to read her since almost the beginning, and she continues to grab my attention with her storytelling.

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 ✍🏻

professorromance

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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Review

✍🏻 Professor Romance’s 4.5 ⭐️ Review: Jolie Vines’s Burn, the final book of her Dark Island Scots series ✍🏻

professorromance

Overall Grade: 4.5 ⭐️

Jolie Vines’s epic conclusion of her Dark Island Scots series, Burn, is like riding a way at the Mavericks: adrenaline-inducing and extreme. In fact, the entirety of this series has been a departure from her earlier books. She still calls on her brand: heroes who fall maddeningly in love with their heroines on sight, even heroes who would be more aptly considered anti-heroes, and heroines whose character qualities bloom under this love. The story is the driving force of a book such as Burn, and Vines offers a bonfire of an ending. Throughout the series, she has focused on the same common themes: the depravity of human trafficking and the corruption of the political system. Interestingly, it doesn’t matter whether you are a reader in the US or one in Vines’s native England; these themes feel global in the manner in which she presents them. Even though they are presented as a community evil in Scotland, it’s felt in any country. The foundation of the books in her Dark Island Scots series does two things: 1) it entices the reader into the entirety of the series because you must read the first book to the last one to find its conclusion, and 2) it drives the reader forward more than character development. Honestly, her characters don’t change much throughout the series. Instead, their situations change. That’s the meat on the bone of this series. It keeps you engaged and is a wise authorial choice for Vines. 

There is an ultimate intrigue in a story such as Burn: what is considered heroic? It’s one of my favorite questions for a dark romance because a character such as Jamieson is complicated as he commits murder and engages in arson. How can a character such as he be absolved of these crimes? Well, the answer is simple: in the same way that Batman does. When it’s done in the name of justice or to right a wrong, it makes it easier for the reader to accept, and Vines writes this truth well in Burn. 

Just as Vines does with the first three books of her Dark Island Scots series, there is plenty of spice to entice, but, for me, the draw for a book such as Burn is the plotline and its intricacies. Thankfully, she gifts us the perfect ending to a series wrought with turmoil and injustice. In the end, the bad guys get what is coming to them. And it’s exactly as it should be: a huge wipeout of justice.

In love and romance,

Professor A