Review: Nailed by Jennifer Laurens

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Nailed
Author: Jennifer Laurens
Genre: Young Adult

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

One girl. Two guys. Who says three’s a crowd? When Mandy takes an unusual summer job-in construction-she has to prove she’s just one of the guys. But she gets more than she bargains for being the only girl on the job. The mixture of hot guys, sunscreen, raw wood and testosterone proves to be an elixir she can’t protect her heart from. Brooding Boston and flirty AJ find themselves looking at Mandy as more than just a girl who holds a hammer. Mandy soon finds herself not only lost in a whirlwind of a male-dominated world, but also the center of an inadvertently “constructed” love triangle. Mandy must choose between two guys who want her heart. But what’s a girl to do when she wants them both?

MY THOUGHTS

Usually I am a big fan of author Jennifer Laurens.  I had been wanting to read this one for a while now and never really got around to it.  When it was offered up free on Amazon for the Kindle, I snatched it up and it got shuffled in my list.  Finally, I was sorting through them and came across it and decided to dive in.

I am a sucker for a love triangle.  I guess this would be considered New Adult in the genre realm now as Mandy is 19, just out of high school and working with her brother.  All of the main characters are around the same age except for A.J. who happens to be 27.  Mandy finds herself falling for A.J. and Charlie, AKA Boston, while having to work on a house building project headed by her brother Marc.

First, that cover I think is the reason I forgot about it.  It just doesn’t scream ‘read me’, although I did notice on Amazon that the print version has a different cover.  Second, A.J reminded me of a creepy guy who preys on young girls.  He calls Mandy ‘baby doll’ almost every time he addresses her and is constantly giving her a full teeth smile.  Then we have Larry, the fourth guy in the crew, who is basically a man slut. He is a player to the extreme level.  Marc, Mandy’s brother, should never be in charge of anything because he can’t even keep his mind out of the gutter while his sister is standing right there.  Then we have Charlie, who Mandy nicknames Boston. I never could really grow to like him.  He came across stuck up and standoffish.  Lastly we have Mandy.  She was just as boring and dull as Boston so I could see the appeal of the author using them together as part of the triangle.  She was indecisive, snobby, and has no clue whatsoever. After all those characters we have a best friend for Mandy who is basically just there to buy his romance books in the bookstore and to fill page time.

Definitely not one of the authors better books and one I would not read again.

MY RATING

       
I did not like this book at all!

Review: The Stranger by Kyra Davis

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The Stranger, Just One Night Part One
Author: Kyra Davis
Genre: Erotica/Romance
ISBN: 9781476711102
Review E-Book Copy provided by NetGalley

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Kasie knows who she’s supposed to be. But one passionate night with a mysterious stranger will teach her who she wants to be. 

You should sleep with a stranger, her best friend whispers in her ear as they take to Vegas for one last pre-wedding fling. Despite her best intentions, when Kasie Fitzgerald enters the casino and sees him, a man whose tailored clothes belied a powerful, even dangerous, presence, she loses herself to the moment. Maybe it’s the dress, much shorter than she’d ever normally wear, or the Scotch, but something makes her give herself over to him more completely than she’s ever done with a man before.


It was supposed to be just one night. But right as she’s thinking she wants more, he shows up in her office with an agenda. As the billionaire CEO of a company that’s engaged her PR firm, his demands just became her reality…and he desires so much more than just some attention in the boardroom.

MY THOUGHTS

I am having problems writing this review not because of the writing from the author, but from a major plot point that irks me.  Why are the last few books I have read about one person cheating on another? I don’t like this happening in real life and I certainly don’t like it in my books.

Kasie is engaged to a man named Dave.  While Dave is orderly and not quite passionate in the bedroom area, he is stable and compatible.  When her friend suggests they go to Vegas, she also tells Kasie to have fling with a stranger.  I didn’t find her friend to be to supportive and frankly a lousy friend for suggesting this.

Kasie meets Mr. Robert Dade at the Blackjack table.  They make a wager and Kasie loses.  She now must pay up by having a drink with him at the bar.  Things progress from the bar to his room and leads to a wild and passionate filled escapade.  After the deed is done, Kasie takes off and leaves him alone.

Upon returning to her regular life, she falls back into the role of nice and sweet.  She is not wild and doesn’t like people getting the wrong idea about her.  Mr. Dade contacts her company and requests Kasie to work on his file.  When they meet to discuss the plans of the work she will do, Robert throws out how they are going to be doing it again.  He teases her through the meeting and she leaves.  When she shows up early for a regular meeting with his company, they do the naughty again in his office. She tells him this is the last time. She has just been out shopping for engagement rings with Dave.

This is where I couldn’t read any further.  While the writing wasn’t bad and the author did pretty well with the building of the story, I just couldn’t continue reading about the affairs.  Kasie had plenty of chances to break it off with Dave, but she never says a word to him.  To me, cheating is wrong and I just didn’t like reading about someone doing this.

If a reader doesn’t mind escaping into the fantasy world for a bit that involves cheating, then by all means give this book a try.  The writing is good and the characters are just okay, but this is one story I just didn’t love.

MY RATING

       
I did not like this book at all!
DNF

Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

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Beautiful Bastard
Series: Beautiful Bastard #1
Author: Christina Lauren
Source: ARC E-Book from Publisher
Genre: Adult Erotica
ISBN: 9781476730103

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

An ambitious intern. A perfectionist executive. And a whole lot of name calling. Discover the story that garnered more than two million reads online.

Whip-smart, hardworking, and on her way to an MBA, Chloe Mills has only one problem: her boss, Bennett Ryan. He’s exacting, blunt, inconsiderate—and completely irresistible. A Beautiful Bastard.

Bennett has returned to Chicago from France to take a vital role in his family’s massive media business. He never expected that the assistant who’d been helping him from abroad was the gorgeous, innocently provocative—completely infuriating—creature he now has to see every day. Despite the rumors, he’s never been one for a workplace hookup. But Chloe’s so tempting he’s willing to bend the rules—or outright smash them—if it means he can have her. All over the office.

As their appetites for one another increase to a breaking point, Bennett and Chloe must decide exactly what they’re willing to lose in order to win each other. Originally only available online as The Office by tby789—and garnering over two million reads on fan fiction sites—Beautiful Bastard has been extensively updated for re-release.

MY THOUGHTS

Seriously? Come on.  What the hell did I just read?  I hate to say this, but I think I just lost 3 hours of my life reading this and I want them back.  I feel a migraine and it started from Chapter One and I don’t know how to make it quit.

First let me tell you what I think of the characters.  Chloe is just a plain witch.  I couldn’t stand her, her attitude, her mouth and anything that came out of it.  Bennett appeared to be the asshat that the author wanted to portray and even had the attitude to pull it off, but he seemed to have a better grip on emotions and such to rate just a wee bit higher on the scale than Chloe.

Now for the plot. Was there one?  I am still wondering since I am having to purge my brain from all the sex scenes in this book.  I admit, I like to read my smut, but enough already!  It seemed like these two characters had sex every few pages.  I am sure the plot was in between those times, but I must have missed it.

Why is Bennett such a beautiful bastard?  Well, he is described as a smoking hot boss, but the bastard part was never really clear for me.  Why did they not get along?  Still scratching my head on this one too.  It wasn’t explained very well, but again maybe the overload of sex in this book covered it up.

The dialogue and pace of this book?  Let me just stop shaking my head at this one for a moment.  I guess the pace was okay but the dialogue was seriously messed up.  I think I might have even laughed when I wasn’t suppose to.

If I had to read about one more pair of fancy panties getting ripped I might just explode.  Every freaking time?  You would think she would just quit wearing panties and save some money.

I admit, I was one of the readers dying to read and review this book early.  I jumped for joy and hid from the family for hours just to get the chance to do this.  Then I came out of my hiding place and begged my family to forgive me.

MY RATING

       
I did not like this book at all!
(pre-order)
* I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review *

The Suburban Strange by Nathan Kotecki

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The Suburban Strange
Author: Nathan Kotecki
Genre: Young Adult
Source: Amazon Vine
ISBN: 9780547729961

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)

Shy Celia Balaustine is new to Suburban High, but a mysterious group of sophomores called the Rosary has befriended her. Friends aside, Celia soon discovers something is not quite right at Suburban. Girls at the school begin having near-fatal accidents on the eve of their sixteenth birthdays. Who is causing the accidents, and why? As Celia’s own birthday approaches, she is inexorably drawn into an underground conflict between good and evil—the Kind and the Unkind—that bubbles beneath Suburban High. Plentiful references to music and art—along with the intriguing underworld mythology—make this supernatural series debut a page-turner.

MY THOUGHTS

90210? Gossip Girl? Melrose Place?  These are just some of things that came to my mind while wondering about this book.  Was it going to have the drama of 90210? Was it going to have the clique’s of Gossip Girl?  Was it going to be suspenseful and dangerous like Melrose Place?  Or was it going to be something that I grew bored with halfway through like I did with each of those shows?

Well, I can honestly say that the shows had more appeal than this book to me.  Too blunt and harsh? Well, I am sorry but I can’t lie either.  This book had the makings for something great.  We had the new girl with discovering the mysterious group of girls at Suburban High.  I can see the potential in this book just with the summary.  The first few chapters were pretty good and kept me interested.  Then about halfway — or even slightly before that — it just started to get boring and unappealing.  This could have been my reading taste at the time, but after finishing this book I still find myself even remembering the main details of the book.  It just wasn’t impressionable and one I found wondering about afterwards.

MY RATING

       
I did not like this book at all!

Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard

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Gabriel’s Inferno
Series: Gabriel’s Inferno #1
Author: Sylvain Reynard
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Source: Publisher
Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 9780425265963

SUMMARY
(From Goodreads)


Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well-respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.

An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love, and redemption, Gabriel’s Inferno is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man’s escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible—forgiveness and love.

MY THOUGHTS

Before I start my review on this book, I want to add some info that I discovered about this book.  You may have heard it already but I am going to add it for the simple fact that there could be others who don’t know since I didn’t.  Sylvain Reynard is a pen name.  While I am not sure who the true author is — and there has been speculation from everyone — I did find out that this book was originally titled The University of Edward Masen by Sebastian Robichaud.  Yes everyone, this is another book based on Twilight Fan Fiction.

While I don’t mind reading Twilight fan fiction,  I do want to state that Gabriel’s Inferno didn’t seem to have the echo’s of Twilight to me.  While some intense readers might be able to spot the similarities,  I didn’t know about it being based on the Fan Fiction so I didn’t find many as I was reading.

I have to wonder though why this book has so many high ratings.  While the book wasn’t  horrible, there were definitely some problems with it in this readers mind.  Instead of going through a full review of this book, I am going to just point out what did and didn’t work for me.  Other readers are more than likely going to disagree with my opinion — since this is a popular book at this time — but I am going to put it out there anyway.

— Julia Mitchell has to be the most naive and weakest heroine I have ever read about.  She first meets Gabriel at a young, impressionable age and he has just been in a fist fight with his family.  He is drunk and she willingly goes walking with him and puts her complete trust in him.  Plus he is 10 years older than her. Yes readers, she is under age.  She immediately falls madly in love with him and never forgets him.

— When they do meet up again — after Julia decides to become a student in his class where he is a Dante Specialist — he doesn’t recognize her and is, well, a class A jerk to her.  He doesn’t improve much until later on in the book. Way later on.

— I think I know more about Dante’s Inferno now than I ever did before.  This book is full of references to this book and passages are in almost every chapter.  I for one, had no desire to read Dante’s Inferno before, and I definitely have no desire to read about it now.

— Once Gabriel finally figures out who Julia is — his alcohol induced fantasy angel of Beatrice — he suddenly turns into Mr. Nice Guy.  Not just nice, but overly sweet and nauseating.  If I had to read how he wanted to worship his innocent and inexperienced Julia/Beatrice much more, I think I would have ripped the book apart.

Now those things mentioned above are the main reasons I found this book lacking.  I won’t get into the details of how disappointing the reasons were in why Gabriel and Julia were the way they were, but I will say that it wasn’t some big shocking secret that should cause what it did. I have read worse in other novels and it was far more believable. I also felt like I was reading a textbook because of the SAT like words that were thrown in with each page.  I think I used my dictionary more reading this book than I did in high school.

With all that being said, you are probably wondering if I would read the second book.  Well, yes I would. Why you might ask? For the simple fact that the story still needs to play out.  We have read about their long journey to acceptance, forgiveness and finally some smexy time.  I need to read the next one to hopefully read some angst, conflict and even more smexy time.  I am hoping that the author has left the best for the next book because this book definitely didn’t live up to the expectations that I was hoping for.

MY RATING

       
I did not like this book at all!
*I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review*