Tag: first in a series

Review: Operation Meet Cute ( Operation HEA #1) by KM Neuhold

Rating: 5 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

If you’re looking for something sweet, light hearted, filled with laughter and love, then grab up Operation Meet Cute, the first book in KM Neuhold’s new Operation HEA series.

Adorable Harlow , his parents ugly divorce haunting him, decides the way to HEA and his true love is through a movie “meet cute” moment. And he’s been busy staging his own for years….to no avail.

Teddy, his neighbor upstairs, has been watching Harlow’s search go unrewarded for 4 years, the same amount of time Teddy has been Harlow’s best friend. Only his heart wants more.

This best friends to lovers story is funny, engaging, full of great lines and captivating characters. Alternative POV work beautifully to move both the storylines and romance forward.

By the time we’ve reached the ending, both the couple and reader are satisfied and ready for the next step.

Which is arriving in December.

I can’t wait.

What a winner and a truly wonderful read.

Operation HEA series:

Operation Meet Cute #1

Operation Meet the Parents #2- coming in December

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58027717-operation-meet-cute

Review: Passions of a Papillon (Fuzzy Love #1) by Tara Lain

Rating: 5 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Tara Lain’s stories always leave me with warm, happy feelings. I certainly adore the characters she introduces her readers to in her books and series. And her storylines are well plotted and end satisfactory.

So it was with real anticipation that I started her Fuzzy Love series . The central character being a Papillon, huge bat earned tiny ball of high intelligence and energy. Yep, I’m all in immediately as I love books with animals as main or largely secondary characters.

Can I say right now I absolutely love Bat? That’s Batshit Crazy, the Queen of the Universe, yes, she’s amazing.

The rest of the universe and main couple, Em, the vet and the defense attorney, Finn Morgenstern, are so engaging and heartwarming that they not only deserve Bat but clearly each other and a HEA.

This story is full of suspense, action, character growth, romance, and dog on criminal adventures. It’s fast paced and so much fun.

I was fully involved with everyone and their relationships, and their HEA.

That includes the delightful glimpses we get of the people in the next books who inhabit Em’s sitting room .

I’m absolutely recommending this book and the series. The cover is on point. Look at that dog! The coloring exactly and the attitude! Pure sass! And the butterfly ears the breed is named for. Love it.

So grab up one or all 3 and get reading.

Fuzzy Love series.

🏆Passions of a Papillon

https://www.goodreads.com/series/292832-fuzzy-love

🏆Prancing of a Papillon

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54375499-prancing-of-a-papillon

🏆Perils of a Papillon

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58447165-perils-of-a-papillon?from_search=true&from_srp=beKY1UPLYv&qid=1

Reviewers And Dog Lover/owners note: Like tv series and movies, a book can make a breed so irresistible that it makes people want one for themselves, without exactly checking out if that breed is right for you and your lifestyle.

Tara Lain does a responsible job here in noting aspects of the Papillon breed that make it not for everyone. They are highly energetic and intelligent. They are territorial, and yes bark…..a lot. Alarm barking, hey look what’s passing by, what’s that sound barking. It’s part of the breed and she had her characters mention that repeatedly, albeit fondly and sometimes with exasperation.

They do outstanding as agility dogs because they need an outlet for that intelligence and energy. Don’t confuse this breed with that of a lap dog. Uh no. 😂

Want to explore more ? YouTube Papillon in agility and Papillon dog facts. They are a fantastic breed….for the right people.

Treble Maker (Perfect Harmony #1) by Annabeth Albert

Rating: 4 🌈🌈🌈🌈

I adore this author and eagerly grab up each new offering as she releases it. Doesn’t matter what trope or character type, I’ll know that the author’s engaging style, her well layered characters and terrific plot will have me deeply entertained and throughly meshed with whatever universe and romance she’s created.

So it was with real interest that I saw a chance to read Albert’s very first story and series. I wanted to see what her first book and couple looks like and how much I could learn about the beginnings of a author I admire.

Here we have the story of a tv singing competition, a cobbled-together singing group and the two wildly different young men in it who go on to romance and hopefully a HEA . One flamboyant, desperately competitive and definitely out gay. The other quiet, from a conservative religious family that accepts he’s homosexual but only within a strict set of guidelines. And away from home for the first time.

That’s the barest story framework. Then Albert works a lovely sort of magic.

All the elements I expect from Annabeth Albert now in her series I can see here. Not fully . Not yet but the rough, lovely start of the complex, flawed people who we will meet in all the stories and series to come.

The messy personal dynamics? Check. The personal growth and self revelation? Check. Here the epiphany and hard choices seem to arrive and resolve themselves too quickly for all the history that both the men have and the sea changes each has to undergo.

But it’s her first book. So yes I get it. All that is a new author, one who’s works will , one after another, settle, show growth themselves, a strength and depth that here glimmers as promise.

Is this still a very sweet and lovely story to read. Absolutely. A must is the list of songs from the author at the end. Don’t miss them or any of the videos she listed. They enrich the story and will make you smile.

So a definite yes. I’m recommending it and will finish the series.

I need to know how it ends. So will you

Perfect Harmony series;

Treble Maker

Love Me Tenor

All Note Long

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6477494.Annabeth_Albert

Winter Cowboy (Whisper Ridge,Wyoming #1) by R.J.Scott

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Winter Cowboy, the first story in a new series by RJ Scott, has a full and varied narrative plot/theme list.

As the first book in the series, it’s required (and does) set in place the history and universe for Whisper Ridge and it’s foundation characters.

We start with Micah Lennox and his sister, Rachel, and her children. The Lennox ranch. The town and its people. Daniel, now the town’s doctor, along with Micah and Daniel’s deeply troubled past. A past that includes a traumatic accident, prison, death, and more.

That’s the past. Turns there’s the present with much for multiple characters to deal with on a daily basis. We see elements of PTSD, past evidence of domestic violence, child battery (never seen but referred to), cults, and murder. The aftermath all that takes on a person, no matter the age. As well as everyone, including Daniel’s family, dealing still with the ramifications of that car accident years ago that shattered lives.

I haven’t even mentioned therapy (thankfully and responsibly the author shows the importance of getting help for all involved).

And we haven’t we begun to talk romance yet. We can talk lovers reunited, enemies to lovers, second chance at love? All fav tropes of mine. Yep. All here. Even hurt/comfort. A bit of that too.

Yes, Winter Cowboy carries a full load but in the very capable hands of RJ Scott it all melds together in a cohesive and moving story.

If I had a wish , it would be that Daniel and Micah had more time as a reconciled couple in the story, well yes maybe more than a bit more. I really wanted to get more a feel of them as a couple as we spent so much time on the deep traumatized past that kept them apart and broke up their lives. It was brutal constantly revisiting that accident while no one had really moved on. When they finally forgave themselves and each other the story was almost over. And I wanted more of them new and exploring what it meant to have a “us” again.

There is a “bridge” chapter/prequel after the end of Winter Cowboy that leads us into Summer Drifter, book 2 , in the Whisper Ridge, Wyoming series.

After reading it, I can see we will be getting deeper into the past events mentioned in Winter Cowboy. Hopefully we will see Micah and Daniel too at the next stage in their relationship.

I’m now looking forward to the next in the series and more of the Lennox Ranch and the tantalizing glimpse I saw of one of the main characters.

Read Winter Cowboy, Daniel and Micah and all the friends and family that’s making Lennox Ranch home!

It’s a wonderful story.

Series: Whisper Ridge, Wyoming

Winter Cowboy

Summer Drifter

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38770040

A Husband for Hartwell (The Lords of Bucknall Club #1) by Lisa Henry and JA Rock

Rating: 5 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

I started this series with the second book , A Case for Christmas, which was Lord Christmas Gale’s rocky path to love. So my introduction here to that complicated character through his friend’s perspective was a welcome one.

I actually enjoyed the backwards path I took. I knew of course the ending and some of the vaguest details ( that of Gales involvement) but of the depth of the plot and the emotional journey both Hartwell and Warry must take before they get their HEA, as well as Warry’s sister, that is rolled out here in a high-spirited and heartwarming tale.

What a rollicking romance it is. Lusty, entertaining, full of moments of sheer anticipation and angst. Plus those elements of humor I’ve come to expect from Henry and Rock. Just a outstanding combination.

Warry is just the right mix of naïveté, selflessness, and honor while still retaining a normal lusty feeling towards sex. Hartwell is a picture of confusion. Family duty conflicting with new or renewed feelings towards the younger Warry, and the troubling prospects of a loveless marriage with Warry’s sister.

It’s all beautifully laid out before us and we are engaged in the characters as the maneuver themselves through and over all the obstacles in their paths to true love and happiness.

I enjoyed everything about this couple and universe. Especially a new viewpoint on Lord Gales. Fascinating.

Now to wait for the release of book 3 in August. It can’t come soon enough. Consider me heavily in love with this series.

Series – The Lords of Bucknall Club

A Husband for Hartwell #1

A Case for Christmas #2

A Rival for Rivingdon #3 – out in August

https://www.goodreads.com/series/316197-the-lords-of-bucknall-club

See the Goodreads link above for buying options.

Red Heir (Adventures in Aguillon #1) by Lisa Henry and Sarah Honey

Rating: 5 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

So many things I could quote to use as examples of just what a brilliant comedy romance Red Heir is if Amazon didn’t forbid the use of certain words. Ah well.

Ok I’ll just say it here. Fuckery stool. 🙈🤣🤣 nope can’t go further. My sides are still too sore.

That just means you’ll get the pleasure of reading first hand the sentences and passages that had me in tears! Tears! Holding my stomach, outright guffawing from almost the very beginning of the story.

And once the laughter came it never stopped. The amazing characters, the outstanding plot that’s so full of the oh so well crafted lines that it will have you spewing out whatever you so cluelessly thought to munch on or drink while reading this tale ( big note to you all, don’t eat or drink anything…just saying….you are warned). Also grab a box of tissues if you’re a snotty laugher.

Really it’s as if a great bar joke came to life and suddenly it’s THE tale you always wanted to read full of characters you always wanted to meet (well maybe not Scott ) and it’s perfection!

A elf, a dwarf, a prince, a pickpocket, a orc, a human, and a dragon walk into a bar…. Nope scratch the bar…. But the rest? Priceless adventures and hmmm the encyclopedic mention of sex positions fantastical.

So incredibly well written I’m still laughing at lines as I write this ( and realize I’m going to go back and read it immediately again), the characters so beautifully fleshed out that I can see them all so clearly before me, funny, engaging, sometimes fragile but always full of the unexpected.

And while I was contemplating the ending (which is fabulous) the authors give us the gift of a second book coming in the series. Be still my heart. What a glorious journey awaits.

How I wish I could run around shouting, read this book! Because it, the characters and the authors deserves it.

Btw? My sides still hurt. Well done, Red Heir! I haven’t laughed that hard and long in ages. Love, love this book

Series:

Red Heir (Adventures in Aguillon #1

Elf Defense

Socially Orcward

https://www.goodreads.com/series/299397-adventures-in-aguillon

See the Goodreads links above for all the buying options

Would that it would contain a link to a travel service that would transport me into this universe directly!

Review: Bite Me (Kitchen Gods #1) by Beth Bolden

Rating: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈 5

Grab a great Chardonnay and a chocolate sweet of your choice before you settle in to read the delightful romance of pastry chef Miles and producer Evan.

Honestly, these stories of Beth Bolden’s just make you want to grab for a wine glass and a bite of something sinful to go along with her heartwarming romances such as Bite Me, Miles and Evan’s tumultuous road to HEA.

As with all of this series books, you get the entire circle of characters from the series included in the storyline as well as the main characters, their backgrounds, and current dynamics.

In this case, it’s the development of the online cooking show Pastry by Miles,with all the elements it takes to develop a successful show. Between that and the rough and tumble romance, Bite Me is a hugely entertaining story with a great couple at its center and recipes to make one drool.

I loved the ending and the epilogue sets up Wyatt for his story and romance while giving Miles and Evan a terrific ending for theirs.

Bite Me is a another winner is a series I can’t stop reading. Love this!

https://www.goodreads.com/series/224661-kitchen-gods

Go above for the complete series ~ all recommended

The Rivalry (The Riptide) Kindle Editionby Beth Bolden

LGBTQ2+ Sports Romance

Rating: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Romance amongst the men of the LA Riptide Football team! How sexy, endearing, and just outright wonderful it is.

The first in a series, The Rivalry is typical Beth Bolden. Beautifully written, characters of charm and depth, and a story with many layers that grip you from start to finish.

It’s also typical in that along with a love story that engages your heart, the author explores more serious issues of child abuse, parental alcoholism and child abandonment. That’s for starters. But it’s never with a heavy narrative hand but as elements that are revealed through one man’s struggles to achieve happiness and love.

Realistic, painful, and eventually so rewarding to watch as Heath battles through both his emotional and physical trauma. And Sam , there with his own path to tread, needing support in his own battle with insecurity and new position and team.

What a story! What men and couple!

You find yourself cheering, laughing, and crying a bit for both men as they fight their way towards their happy ending. And what a delightful one it is. I could spend books upon books with the Riptide men.

Consider this a fantastic starting point and one I highly recommend.

Books In This Series (2 Books)- both highly recommended

The Rivalry

Rough Contact

by Beth Bolden

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsThe Rivalry by Beth Bolden – Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com › showWeb resultsRough Contact by Beth Bolden – Goodreads

Review: Top Shelf (Boston Rebels #1) by RJ Scott and VL Locey

Rating: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Top Shelf (Boston Rebels #1) by RJ Scott and VL Locey is the first book is a new hockey romance series by two of my must read authors

Long and eagerly awaited, as is any new LGBTQ2+ hockey romance tale, Top Shelf more than delivers

As you all know hockey is my jam! And Rainbow 🌈 hockey love stories? Well, be still my heart 💜! There are many excellent authors in this genre and the writers RJ Scott and VL Locey are at the top of my list among them.

Why? Because like the others, they are passionate about the sport of hockey, it’s players and teams. They know the sport and it’s translates into excellence in fast, accurate action on ice scenes that gets the reader going and engaged with the team and it’s season while still threading through the storylines, full of romance, rocky paths and heartwarming emotions.

That’s all presented here as we meet a team in need of rebuilding. That’s a highly volatile situation for all involved. It means saying goodbye to older players not yet ready to go and learning to accept new younger players stepping into holes in teams not ready for them to be filled.

Add in several players admission of LGBTQ2+ identification when one player comes officially out? And for everyone the team becomes a new uncertain future for all, especially management.

This is the universe we are meeting throughout this story. Various players, a team and people in transition

First it’s the tight friendship, on and off the ice, of Xander and Eli. Brothers in all but name and Railers, they’ve had a third tagging along most of their lives. Mason, Eli’s younger brother

Mason, never much interested in hockey past the fact that Eli and his forever crush Xander played, is now grown. And determined to make Xander see him in a new light.

Xander has recently come out after hiding his sexuality. Here the authors excelled at showing Xander’s confusion and fragility over how exactly he becomes a truth he’s never allowed himself to have or be. He’s raw, more than a little depressed, and no one is picking up on his uncertain emotional state.

The team’s turmoil is adding stress all around to major players and again the elements and reactions feel so realistic. Our own emotions fall readily into the storylines filling out before us. We not only want more of these teammates histories but we need to know

That’s on top of Xander and Mason’s romance which has its own tensions with Mason’s new business (that remains unresolved in my mind) and Xander’s future

I honestly thought the realism here, all the various issues raised as well as the feeling that the relationship needs more work and communication was wonderful. After all, it’s new. Both men have so many new elements to deal with as well as making their relationship work that leaving this a HFN, a work in progress to return to makes sense

It’s great and leaves me wanting to bribe the authors for much much more. Not just the next couple in the series which is coming in Back Check- see below.

So yes, I loved my story, the new series, and team

So yes, I loved my story, the new series and team.

Top Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56990636-top-shelf

Back Check:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57875135-back-check

Review: Top Shelf (Boston Rebels #1) by RJ Scott and VL Locey

Rating: 🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

Top Shelf (Boston Rebels #1) by RJ Scott and VL Locey is the first book is a new hockey romance series by two of my must read authors

Long and eagerly awaited, as is any new LGBTQ2+ hockey romance tale, Top Shelf more than delivers

As you all know hockey is my jam! And Rainbow 🌈 hockey love stories? Well, be still my heart 💜! There are many excellent authors in this genre and the writers RJ Scott and VL Locey are at the top of my list among them

Why? Because like the others, they are passionate about the sport of hockey, it’s players and teams. They know the sport and it’s translates into excellence in fast, accurate action on ice scenes that gets the reader going and engaged with the team and it’s season while still threading through the storylines, full of romance, rocky paths and heartwarming emotions.

That’s all presented here as we meet a team in need of rebuilding. That’s a highly volatile situation for all involved. It means saying goodbye to older players not yet ready to go and learning to accept new younger players stepping into holes in teams not ready for them to be filled.

Add in several players admission of LGBTQ2+ identification when one player comes officially out? And for everyone the team becomes a new uncertain future for all, especially management

This is the universe we are meeting throughout this story. Various players, a team and people in transition

First it’s the tight friendship, on and off the ice, of Xander and Eli. Brothers in all but name and Railers, they’ve had a third tagging along most of their lives. Mason, Eli’s younger brother

Mason, never much interested in hockey past the fact that Eli and his forever crush Xander played, is now grown. And determined to make Xander see him in a new light.

Xander has recently come out after hiding his sexuality. Here the authors excelled at showing Xander’s confusion and fragility over how exactly he becomes a truth he’s never allowed himself to have or be. He’s raw, more than a little depressed, and no one is picking up on his uncertain emotional state.

The team’s turmoil is adding stress all around to major players and again the elements and reactions feel so realistic. Our own emotions fall readily into the storylines filling out before us. We not only want more of these teammates histories but we need to know

That’s on top of Xander and Mason’s romance which has its own tensions with Mason’s new business (that remains unresolved in my mind) and Xander’s future

I honestly thought the realism here, all the various issues raised as well as the feeling that the relationship needs more work and communication was wonderful. After all, it’s new. Both men have so many new elements to deal with as well as making their relationship work that leaving this a HFN, a work in progress to return to makes sense

It’s great and leaves me wanting to bribe the authors for much much more. Not just the next couple in the series which is coming in Back Check- see below.

So yes, I loved my story, the new series, and team

Bring it On! Highly recommended!

Top Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56990636-top-shelf

Back Check:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57875135-back-check