GRR Reviews His Vow by Lilian Monroe

Zane is a CIA agent, undercover with the Russian mob, trying to nail a US Senator for smuggling arms. It just happens that Senator Nathan Blanchet had destroyed his family fifteen years ago. And Zane was about to get his revenge when he found that Senator's daughter Sadie, the girl he had kissed once, is now all grown up, and a pawn in Senator's power games. He must protect her... at the risk of his duty... and his honor.

Sorry, but this CIA agent is a joke. Let's not even worry about CIA on FBI's turf (arms smuggling and treason is FBI's territory, not CIA) or *possi commitatus* act... The fact that Zane's handler actually called him by his REAL name over the phone instead of cover name is just BAD OP-SEC AND STUPID. Zane saved Sadie from being trampled at a concert and actually revealed his identity to her was stupid, but almost believable. For her to be in his class (his cover was international law professor) was okay (with his cover name). But his decision to REVEAL TO HER that he's a CIA agent is just outright STUPID. And how can CIA not know about his past with the Blanchetts? And age problem. He's a professor already, and he once kissed this girl? How old are they again?  And that's where I stopped reading this piece of crap.

This is basically some amateur writing some generic hero and tried to cast him as a CIA agent WITHOUT proper research or editing. There are way too many holes in the plot it's worse than Swiss cheese. It's total crap. 1/5

GRR Reviews Wired (Vol 1 of 3) by Evelyn Adams

Claire English is an electrical contractor running the company her father started when he was no longer able to. She knew there are those misogynists that don't believe a woman can be just as competent. But with her house flip projects, sabotage on the primary job site, and her father's care bill all coming due, she needed a miracle... She got Luke Masters. Luke Masters is a billionaire that made his way up from simple construction jobs to a mogul, and he's as handsome as sin. Women flock to him, so he's delighted to find Claire, someone who challenged him. But who is sabotaging his project, and who painted threats on one of Claire's flip houses?

The book ends on a cliffhanger, and Luke came out to be really really flat with no powers other than he can be handyman despite being rich, and he's rich. Meh.

Category: Contemporary / Different worlds / Billionaire

Primary Plot: Woman busy as contractor providing for her family meets rich construction mogul (who came from blue-collar backgrounds, and is very handsome)

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Love Disrupted (Ardent Billionaire) by Shyla Starr

Love DIsrupted is really 1/3rd of a book, and we're left on a huge cliffhanger. Characters are shallow and trope.

NOTE: Cliffhanger automatically gets -1

Deidre was a black girl working multiple jobs to support her family. Her only indulgence was to sing one night a week at a jazz club. Her life changed one night when a white guy named Parker approached her. He was friendly but slightly evasive. After a drink or two led to a date, she found out he's heir to a software empire, and he wanted her. But when one of Deidre's extra jobs came back to haunt her, Parker broke off their relationship...

And we're left there, lots of stuff unresolved on a cliffhanger. I'm not too sure I want to read more. Diedre is an obviously poor girl with heart of gold, and Parker is the typical white savior billionaire, who obviously decided Deidre's "other job" made her a golddigger despite he's the one that approached her Trope as heck, I said. Trope as heck.

Category: Contemporary / Interracial / Billionaire

Primary Plot: Busy black woman who moonlights as jazz singer was wooed by rich white guy, but one of her other jobs made him broke it off

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Fallacy (Apprehensive Series Book 1) by K.A. Berg

I hate it when the author failed to think through their plot and left a HUGE f***ing hole to drive a space shuttle through...

Quinn's life had been railroaded by her father, a financial mogul in one of the biggest venture cap companies. She didn't really even want to be in this business initially and had the VP position dangled in front of her for months... years, but she can never do something right. She encountered Alex, a physical trainer in the NFL, who's actually sweet and did not want more than she can give. What was supposed to be a one-night-stand turned into two years. But when threatened by her father that she's "slacking", Quinn ran, just as Alex got a great offer... thousands of miles away. Two years later, Alex is now head trainer of a premier NFL team, and Quinn STILL hasn't made VP. Now her father, after losing several bets on startups (often due to NOT following Quinn's advice), intends to force Quinn to marry a rival's single son to "unite" the two empires... And he'll do ANYTHING to force Quinn, including blackball her so she'll never work in this town again by manufacturing evidence of embezzlement against her...

At this point, I stopped reading. Evil father's reason for doing this is "to secure my legacy". But you can't threaten the only piece on the board. Blackballing her and/or putting her in prison will destroy that legacy. It made NO SENSE. Yet she falls for the gambit and starts to plot with the other family's son, who's supposed to be a platonic friend (who also do one-night-stands only, kinda like a male version of her) to plan a marriage of convenience, merge the company, then force her father out, when she should be yelling "F*** YOU. Go ahead, do your worst. It's YOUR legacy you're f***ing with. Remember, anything happens to me reflects on you!"

I'm sure the rest of the book is Alex going back to the city, and trying to win Quinn back, only to find her engaged. But sorry, this is supposed to be a woman who handle huge venture cap funds, yet she can't even do a cost/benefit analysis... Tsk, tsk.

The cliffhanger leading to two additional volumes did not help at all.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Woman found a guy who doesn't want her for sex or money, but her controlling father forced her to abandon him...

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews The Billionaire's Bet #1: A Seductive Deal by Clarissa Wild

Julie Valentine needs a muse to write her steamy novels, and breaking up with her loser BF didn't help. Going to a casino didn't help either, but did get her to know billionaire Dominic Fury. And he's dreamily handsome. But when he put up 15000 for one night with her... the catch is there may be some pain involved... And she needed the money... She decided to take it, just to see where it leads...

For this 40 page short, this is basically first few chapters of a whole novel, and the failure to understand BDSM is quite apparent. This reads like someone wants to emulate Fifty Shades, and only managed to emulate the words, with no understanding of what's BDSM. All you get from the novel is she's so turned on she'll let him do anything, no negotiation, total trust with a stranger, and you have NO IDEA what made him OR her that way. The names are practically screaming "lame archetypes". All in all, total disappointment. And there are more volumes of this... (bleep).

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Lame Fifty-Shades Wannabe Teaser Volume, Shallow Characters, No Understanding of Kink

Overall Rating:1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews Cole: A Romantic Thriller by Giulia Lagomarsino

Alex survived a nightmare when her parents were murdered by a psychopath serial killer, and she was almost a victim as well. She lived off the grid, jumping from job to job city to city, with no set schedule, even though a man was convicted and sentenced to prison. However, an encounter in a highway rest stop brought her back into the nightmare. Held prisoner for months and tortured, she managed to escape one day and ran into Cole, ex-marine scout-sniper discharged with PTSD. Cole rescued Alex. Cole, and his police friend knew they have a survivor and need her for clues to catch this depraved beast, while Cole needs to protect her... However, the killer's game had barely begun...

Amateur horror movie jump-scare with impossible situations. Somehow, the serial killer knew her movement well enough so he'd be hiding in the specific rest stop just as her bladder is about to burst. Yeah, right. After she got away and rescued by Cole, psycho then managed to sneak into Cole's house, despite security system, and dropped spiders, snakes, and bugs in her room, so it crawled all over her. What's this, Poltergeist? This guy is f***ing supernatural. What a joke.

Category: Contemporary / Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot: Woman got away from psycho that killed her family, found man who can save her... maybe

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Seal's Professor by Piper Sullivan

SEAL's professor failed to follow reality, and had the bodyguard failed SEVERAL times at his job. Overall, it's just a STUPID novel.

Delaney Watson is a modern day genius that can rival Einstein, and is teaching at Stanford at a young age of 25, while doing important research that can revolutionize power generation as we know it. Her genius also made her a target for espionage... and sabotage. Enter Bennett Atlas, navy SEAL (active) assigned as her TA (teaching assistant), undercover, of course. He's model gorgeous, big, charming, and protective. And she fell for him, hard. He can protect her from harm, but can he protect his own heart?

Right off the bat, the fiction departed from reality in a major way. SEAL, esp. active duty SEALs, CANNOT be deployed within the continental US, even for undercover assignments. SEALs are not cops or spies. They are SOLDIERS (or sailors, as they insist) That's against the navy's equivalent of the *Posse Comitatus* act. For that matter, Atlas is a LOUSY bodyguard. Not only he left Laney got manhandled at the dance club, he failed to detect the saboteurs trying to burn them out of her home (too busy bonking her hours before). And in the end, he resigned from the SEALs to marry her. Whop-pee-dee. Happy, yes. STUPID? Absolutely.

The version I originally downloaded was over 1000 pages. I'm glad to see in the current version, the "bonus content" had been nuked, leaving a 135 page "short novel". But really, there are much better SEAL romances out there.

Category: Contemporary / Romantic suspense

Primary Plot: Undercover SEAL assigned to genius lady professor have to protect her from harm and she fell for him...

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews The Rancher's Brave Bride by Faith Crawford

NOTE: This book has been removed from Amazon (probably due to page-stuffing). Here is the Goodreads link.

The Rancher's Brave Bride is an extremely BORING mail-order bride story, and it's also very short at only 50 pages. The additional pages were filled by dubious "bonus content".

Theresa Doe was an orphan raised by Sisters of Holy Mercy. She was sent out as a mail order bride to a widower out West. Henry Forth is a quiet rancher in Colorado. He needs a wife, a lady of the house, and mother to his 3-year-old son. Can Theresa successfully make the transition?

BORING AS HECK. A 57-page story where basically Theresa goes from frightened girl accepting her fate and fear what if her husband rejects her, then to "oh please come back to me" fearful wife when Forth was drafted for a posse to hunt down some bandits. And really, that's it. What's so "brave" about this? Add about 400+ pages of "bonus material" doesn't make the story any better.

Category: Historical Western

Primary Plot: Orphan mail-order bride must marry a rancher widower w/ 3-year old son, but will he accept her? Can she love him?

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below.

GRR Reviews ADELINE - The Strong-willed Bride for Her Lonely Farmer by Faye Sonja

Adeline tried to set up a smart bride giving her groom an unexpected solution, but it seems the author forgot historical research.

In the year 1870, Adeline had to leave New York when her father died in debt and the debtor Lex Baxter, intended to take one of the sisters as payment. Adeline managed to stall the evil man for six months of mourning and answered a mail order bride ad... All the way out in Goldrush, California... // James Blair suffered some poor heartbreak, and is about to be forced off his land if he cannot get a good crop going. Finding a wife was supposed to help him free up more time in the fields, not about love... but Adeline may have some solutions to James' problem, however unconventional they are if James will just stop being stubborn... Or was it Adeline being unreasonable by insisting on hiring the Chinamen to help work the fields?

The story doesn't make sense on multiple levels. The bad guy was willing to wait "six months", really? Also, 90-99% of Chinamen that came over are male, no wives or children at all. Any research would have shown that. Yet the plot was local bad men, hoping to drive the Chinamen away, kidnapped their women and children. That made absolutely no sense at all in itself either.

Category: Historical Western

Primary Plot: Mail-order bride tries to help her husband by proposing some unconventional solutions to save his farm and her family

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Cocky Captain by Kelly Moore

Cocky Captain is supposedly a military fiction, but the characters are more immature than teenagers, and reality seems to have been left in orbit.

Kenna is flying to Germany to meet her boyfriend in the US military. Her seatmate, Declan, also turned out to be military... Declan is even more handsome than her BF, and even accidental touch sends tingles up her arm. When she found out Captain Declan was her BF's superior, and her BF had been cheating on her, she hooked up with Declan instead...

This fantasy military base apparently has no security. Not only her BF was able to hook up with another military girl, Kenna was able to "sneak" into Declan's office and hide under his desk to surprise him with a naughty nurse uniform cosplay... while he's ON DUTY. WTF. The insta-lust to love thing didn't quite work either. Kenna's mind is just full of sex. I can't even call this "military fiction". It could be set in a UPS warehouse and the plot would be the same.

Category: Military

Primary Plot: Woman hooks up with hot captain, her BF's superior, after she found her BF cheated on her

Overall Rating: 1/5

NOTE: Tropes are now in the "Labels" below. 

GRR Reviews Major Cole by dirty brandi

"Major Cole" is an anthology of random short stories of horrible quality that justs wastes storage on your Kindle.

There is only one tiny bit about the eponymous "Major Cole", who was basically doing romance version of Rambo, so unrealistic it can't be military fiction at all. Add to that 1100+ pages of additional unrelated stuff and you get 1200+ pages of crap.

This is just something used to game Amazon Kindle Unlimited program with mostly junk content.

Oh, and the author profile pix is from a stockphoto site. I'm not kidding. This is the purported author photo:

Guess what I found on a free stock photo website? Tsk, tsk.

Category: Military fiction (I use the term loosely)

Primary Plot:  N/A, anthology of crap

Tropes: woman in peril / protector

Overall Rating:  1/5  (I can't give zeroes)

GRR Reviews Her Empath (Zodiac Cyborgs) by Mina Carter

Her Empath started rather interesting, but by the end, nothing came together to form a coherent plotline. What you end up with is some separate action scenes and love scenes in a sci-fi setting that never coalesced. Add that to bad term usage, and horrible title, and it's basically a word salad scifi romance.

General Lyssa Ryland is half human, half alien, and all hard. She takes no guff from anyone, not even the admiralty. She had risen through the ranks by merit alone. She commands one of the most powerful ships in the navy, with a loyal crew, and is friends with some of the largest mercenary clans in the galaxy. She yields to no one... except maybe one... JJ is one of fleet's open secrets... He's an empath, with the ability to change a person's personality given enough time and access. He had been tasked by the Admiralty to bring General Ryland back in line, for the fleet feared she'll go rogue if she's disciplined in any way. Before going on duty, JJ had a one-night stand on the base... Only to find next day, when he reported onboard, that the woman he bedded the night before was none other than General Ryland herself. But when they went on a mission and was ambushed by killer cyborgs, they kept each other alive. Lyssa knew that JJ is not a normal liaison, and is probably the empath sent by the fleet to subdue her, and JJ knew that Lyssa is not just a woman, but a warrior. Can JJ convince Lyssa that they can be good together, even if he had to leave the fleet?

Sorry, this universe made ZERO sense. If she had this much power, just send in a fleet and take out the whole ship, or assassinate her. The author also failed to understand the word EMPATH. Empath means capable of "empathy", which means empathic, i.e. share emotions. To change someone's mind requires telepathic manipulations, not empathic. Also, would the fleet allow one of their empaths to "resign"? And why would a general, a GROUND commander, command a powerful starship? It was clear the author has NO understanding of the military and randomly mixes terminologies. What's worse, why is the series called "zodiac cyborgs", where there's no mention of the zodiac, nor any cyborg in the story?!  The plotline made no sense, and neither did the attraction. The universe made no sense. This novel is just nonsense.

Category: Science Fiction

Primary Plot: Is the new liaison to the starship out to wipe general's mind... or to love her?

Tropes: fling to a thing, enemies to lovers, military

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Reviews Enemy Inside (The Captive Series Book 1) by Penelope Marshall

Enemy Inside started off with an intriguing premise, and a creepy but weird triangle that was slowly developing. But the way ending was handled made NOT A LICK OF SENSE.

Kenzie St. Claire had the perfect life, lots of money, doting parents... Until her parents failed to come home... They were found slain in the park, no suspects. She became afraid of the outside, and became a recluse, except for occasional voyeuring with her binoculars against her neighbors, including the hot NFL QB Ty next door. When what seems to be a stalker appeared outside, she hired a bodyguard... Zander Smith, ex-SEAL, thought he'd rather be doing executive protection, not protecting a girl who's too scared to go outside. When Ty came calling, wanting to date her, AND her bodyguard Zander took an interest to her, Kenzie thought she's in paradise, with two men hot for her, but when she witnessed Ty stuffing a body into his car trunk... is she crazy? Or was the enemy closer than she realized?

SPOILER AHEAD

I NEED TO EXPLAIN THE ENDING

At the end, the author pulled "but it's all a dream" gambit. The timeline was walked back. She had basically imagined the next several years where she lived alone. There was no ex-SEAL bodyguard (who seems to have forgotten how to fight any way). And wait, Zander turned out to be a doctor, except... how did an ex-SEAL get a medical degree? Then the author compounded the error by having the Navy recall Zander to service, except he's discharged again after only 2 months?!? Did the author actually do any research? A re-up is for two YEARS!!!!!

Adding together the stupid ending, and the liberty taken with the facts, this book really made not a lick of sense. It feels the author had written herself into a corner and had to rely on this stupid cliche to get herself out or had to turn in a book on a deadline and her editor fell asleep at her job and forgot to hire a fact-checker.

Category: Romantic suspense

Primary Plot: Reclusive women whose parents were killed hired a bodyguard who fell for her, while her hunky neighbor also vied for her, then she thought she saw her neighbor stuff a body into trunk of a car...

Tropes: stalker, bodyguard, orphan, protector, woman in peril, SEAL

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Reviews Safe Haven (The Protectors Book 1) by Leeanna Morgan

Safe Haven had an interesting premise, but committed a mortal sin: writing a story about a strong protector... who didn't do much protecting! We were teased, over and over about danger, but no actual protecting, and this wasn't the author's FIRST book doing this!

Tank does bodyguard duty for Fletcher Security. Where the boss orders, he goes. His latest assignment takes him to guard Hayley Elliot, and her elderly mother, who has Alzheimer's. But both are special. Hayley's sister has discovered a drug that may alleviate Alzheimer's symptoms, and Hayley's mom is a test subject... and it worked. Now people are after them both for something that could be worth billions. Tank can protect Hayley and her mother, but he had a secret he had been hiding for years, and it can destroy his own family. Can they afford to fall in love?

This is supposed to be a "strong protector" novel... yet other than jumping at minor threats ("I'll check the door"), the MMC did virtually no protecting, other than be a driver! All the characters came across as really lame. There was a lot of background, but none that really explain WHY they act the way they do. Problems just resolve themselves without the main characters doing something about them.


Category: Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot: Bodyguard have to move a woman and her mother around, and they could be worth billions to some people... and fell for the woman

Tropes: different worlds, bodyguard, family secrets

Overall Rating: 1/5

GRR Reviews Single Dad SEAL by Charlize Starr

Single Dad SEAL is a crappy book, because the author failed basic research, and this was obvious in the first few chapters of the book. As GuyReivewsRomance, I find it as my duty to warn you away from such garbage.

1) There is no "colonel" in the SEALs or in the Navy. Yet the main character was called colonel many times (including by his CO) and it wasn't a joke. It seems the author can't be bothered to search wikipedia for SEAL ranks!

2) Navy doesn't assign "lavatory duty" because navy doesn't call a bathroom lavatory. Navy call it a "head". Again, basic research FAIL!

Clearly, the author wrote up some random bits of military romance and did a mass search and replace, tried to cast it as a SEAL romance, without an editor and fact checker. The rest of the book may be sweet, but you can't write a mlitary romance without getting the military details right (or at least "not wrong"). This one was ALL WRONG.

Throwing in a ton of bonus content (this is 600 pages, which means it's at least 4/5  "bonus crap") doesn't make the (bleep) smell any better.


Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: SEAL offered up a room in his house to his commander's daughter, who's a virgin...

Tropes: SEAL, virgin, bad boy, evil stepparent

Overall Rating:  1/5  (major fact abuse)

GRR Reviews Judith (Rose Creek Ranch Mail Order Brid by Ann Laurel

Judith is a historical Western mail-order bride story that has a heavy-handed Christian message that seems to teach women are weak doormats and only their husbands (even for mail order brides) can protect them. There was really no struggle per se except faith.

Judith was the daughter of a coal miner, and her parents wanted a better life for her, so they married her off to Colorado by pretending to be her and corresponded with a man in Colorado, and married her off as a mail-order bride. She went willingly, but there was no love to her husband. After months there, she didn't quite fit in, didn't find Christ, and was homesick, so she ran off toward home. On the way back, her train was robbed, and she along with another girl traveling alone, was taken off the train by robbers and forced to work in a lawless town as a saloon girl. She begged for mercy from God and deliverance from her ordeal, until one day, her husband along with US marshals came to town and rescued her. She learned her lessons and decided to stay married to her husband, who forgave her. The end.

Clean, yes. Christian, yes. Entertaining... NO! There really was no plot. Things just keep happening to the poor girl, and the ONLY decision she made was to run home and look at how that turned out. So basically the theme was "don't make any decisions for oneself", right? ARGH!

Category: Historical Western / Christian

Primary Plot: Mail order bride hates her new home, ran off for home, got kidnapped by a gang who robbed the train

Tropes: mail order bride, kidnapping, runaway bride

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Reviews Military Romance: Into the Crossfire by Kathleen Hope

NOTE: This book's ASIN number has changed from its original B01MZHHNG5 and thus this review has been edited and published under the new number.

Into the Crossfire marketed itself as "military romance" (heck, it's even on the cover and in the title!) but the author clearly has NO concept of military other than some Hollywood movies, resulting in a patently absurd scenario that simply makes absolutely no sense.

Caleb's SEAL team was to recon a drug lord's compound when they witness a rival gang's attack on the compound. A woman and a young girl were caught in the middle. The order was to observe only, but the lieutenant in command of the SEAL team made an insane decision to expose himself and try to rescue the young girl, and was almost blown up by a mine. Seriously wounded, he was stuffed into the trunk of woman's car and driven off the property and cared for, and as he recovered, he realized he's in the home of the drug baron he's was recon'ing, even as he learned of the woman and the girl (not mother/daughter by blood) and fallen for the woman...

The problems are quite numerous, and thus, SPOILER AHEAD

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!

1) The lieutenant reminded his men to not engage, but chose to expose himself to MAYBE save a kid? Which he didn't even succeed? WTF?

2) The rest of the team just allowed their leader to be stuffed into a possibly hostile woman's car trunk?

3) Nobody at the firefight noticed anything? They just conveniently killed each other?

4) She never noticed the guy he stuffed into the trunk was wearing digicam, MOLLE harnesses, helmet, and other stuff that a SEAL would wear, instead of simpler weapons carried by the gangs?

5) How does a little woman manage to stuff a big SEAL wearing full combat kit into a car trunk any way?!?!?!!

And this is JUST the beginning of the book! This absurd setup is just to get the SEAL leader alone so he can romance the drug baron's woman! The rest of the book SPOILER!!!!!! had him playing hide and seek in drug baron's garage! it's absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!!!!

This is NOT the first book that the author has with fact-checking issues and creating patently impossible or implausible premises.

Category: Military / Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot: SEAL leader violated his own orders, failed at his objective, and left behind by his team to romance drug baron's woman? WTF?!

Tropes: SEAL, different worlds, woman in peril, protector, evil ex

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Reviews PRIVATE: A Military Romance Novel by Leila Haven

The author had already demonstrated her complete LACK of any knowledge of the military in her first book HOSTILE: A Military Romance Novel (Military Men Book 1) (which got a 1 star rating from me) and her second book is no exception. IGNORE any and all "military" bits in this novel, because a good amount of which seem to have been gathered from watch TV shows and movies rather than actual military knowledge. And if you ignore everything that's military, what's left is basically a taboo "I want to bonk my hot but unobtainable boss" romance

To make it short, a woman, Sasha, was deployed as a new member of Corporal Rafter's fireteam. (Wait! There are no women in combat yet?!) and Rafter was determined to wash her out and sent her home because "woman doesn't belong here", and he rationalized it's for her own good. Unfortunately, Sasha is from a military family, does PT with all her brothers, and is a thoroughly proficient soldier... except for her crush on Rafter...

The military details are a complete joke. The insurgents run around not carrying weapons, then behave like thugs (holding American soldier hostage with a knife to the throat? Really?) rather than martyrs. Don't Americans carry alternate weapons like knives? These insurgents act more like street thugs in the 'hood, and were dispatched in a similar fashion (Sasha shot them in the head before they can cut Rafter's throat). ARGH!

I quit reading about 1/3 in. It's a TOTAL travesty and an INSULT to see our military being fetishized like this.

Category: Military

Primary Plot: New female member joined corporal's fireteam in Middle East. She's hot for him, but he's determined to wash her out and send her home to protect her...

Tropes: hot for boss

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Reviews Filthy SEAL by Kara Hart

Filthy SEAL is not worth your reading time, since the scenario presented clearly in no way conforms to any semblance of reality, and it's clear in only the first 10% of the novel.

Just to recap the teaser, rookie SEAL, just before his first deployment, found himself in Maui with other SEALs, decided they are too boring after downing SEVEN beers (and just opened an eight), decided he hates orders, walked out, took sips from his flask, then tried to pick up a babe at the beach bar... at night by sending her and himself a shot. Both drank it, and she left. Later he found her near the beach, taking a long swim, so long he thought she's in trouble, so despite all the alcohol in his system, he swam out after her, and was surprised when she tagged him in the water instead. They came back to shore, and he somehow convinced her to have mad passionate sex in a secluded spot... w/o protection. Then he left, of course. And she got pregnant. However, she's star in a reality TV series, and she's NOT supposed to have sex, much less get pregnant...

At this point I stopped reading. A rookie SEAL telling himself "I hate orders", not respecting fellow SEALs who are senior to him, drinks like nine shots of alcohol AND STILL swims at NIGHT, was SURPRISED by a civvie in the water (he's a navy SEAL!), and had sex bareback. This is NOT a SEAL. This is a total JOKE of a character. This is just someone trying to take advantage of the SEAL trope, and is an INSULT to our Navy SEALs.

Having "bonus content" tacked on to the end of the book is even more of an insult. Shoveling garbage with more garbage is still garbage.

Category: Military

Primary Plot: SEAL seduuces TV reality show star on a beach, leaves her pregnant...  (and I stopped reading)

Tropes: SEAL, accidental pregnancy, bad boy

Overall Rating:  1/5 (I don't give zero's)

GRR Reviews Worth the Scandal (Worth It Book 1) by Karen Erickson

Worth the Scandal is NOT worth your reading time, because the FMC is a silent suffering doormat, and the MMC is a vindictive creep. There is no romance except during the seduction.

Alex Worth wanted his secretary Tessa Crawford, who's innocent, shy, efficient, and voluptuous, so he concocts this excuse that she needed to go with him for this European trip where he proceeds to seduce her and have hot sex with her. Back home, when he learned that the company had been penetrated by corporate espionage and evidence seem to point at Tessa, he kicked her to the curb without giving her a chance to explain (and incidentally, leaving her PREGNANT, but he didn't know). By the time he realized his mistake, Tessa had disappeared...

SPOILERS AHEAD

1) So basically you have a lecherous boss who wants to bonk his pretty and innocent secretary. That's CREEPY, not romantic!

2) Once he got her into bed, he kicked her to the curb without making absolutely sure! And she just went ahead and disappeared like a silent suffering doormat!

3) He's a billionaire! If he can't find her he surely didn't try very hard!

4) Once he found her, TOTALLY by accident, he STILL tried to boss her around instead of trying to make amends!

5) And she lets him!

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Vindictive creep CEO seduced his naive voluptuous secretary then kicked her to the curb (pregnant); NOT ROMANTIC!

Tropes: secret baby, pregnancy, hot for boss, different worlds

Overall Rating:  1/5  (I don't give 0's)