GRR Reviews Always Will by Claire Kingsley

Selene is doing great professionally, but not so well personally, as she keeps finding and dating losers... But she's kinda addicted to "bad boys" who leave her frustrated. When a man from her past is the new owner of the company, she's at a quandary what to do next... // Ronan plays to win, after a personal tragedy changed his view on life. He was shocked to find the woman who haunted his dreams is now one of his employees. He must have her... but can he keep her?

Eh... I'm not too sure about this one. Ronan just doesn't feel that sympathetic at the beginning. It wasn't until we learned about WHY he's that way that he became a bit more likable. I'm going to borrow a term from screenwriting... The main character seems to be lacking a "save the cat" moment, to prove he's not beyond redemption. 3.5/5

GRR Reviews Something So Perfect by Natasha Madison

Matthew made too many mistakes as a hockey bad boy and was cut from the team at 23. When a different team wanted to give him another chance, he'll accept any terms, because he wanted to be back on the ice... Even accept a chaperone that will keep him out of trouble. He didn't expect the chaperone to be team owner's daughter, Karrie... //  Karrie was glad her father finally gave her a job... just not babysitting a washed-up hockey jock. And while Matthew is insanely hot and knew it too, he also drove her up the wall with his sweet-craziness. But as long as he's playing great and not ruining his image... it's okay, even if she ended up in his bed, right? But do they have a future together?

While dialog is good, somehow Matthew just feels a bit too... crazy? But the description is apt... it's sweet-kinda-crazy. 4.5/5

GRR Review Beauty and the Baller: Bad Boy Sports R by Abbi Hemp

Beauty and the Baller try to spin a romance between mortal enemies, news reporter Heather, and the pro footballer Austin, that tries to draw from the story of Beauty and the Beast as inspiration, but it didn't quite work.

WARNING: SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW

Reporter Heather tries to get a scoop on the pro footballer Austin who always wear a half-mask after his car accident. When he complained to the TV station, she was fired by her douchebag boss. She decided to call him and give him a piece of her mind, and he mistook her for an escort he called in and let her in, and she intrigued him as she is beautiful. They decided to meet, and he got her a job at a non-profit he sponsored apart from his life as a pro-footballer. They meet and date and fell in love and bang each other quite a bit. Coach believes he was not performing up to his potential and tell him to cut off the relationship, and when they were caught banging in the non-profit office by a paparazzi's blurry pix she was let go as well. So what do they do? He quits pro football, and starts off as a business owner, She joined him. The end (with a bit of epilogue that they married, he got his face fixed, and they have beautiful kids).

The threat to their love was never fully articulated other than pretty nebulous external threats from the coach and such.

She told him, between the love-making, that he never needed the mask, and that's basically the only really dramatic stuff.

She was fired by no less than TWO douchebag bosses, and he quit after being lied to by the coach and to make an impossible choice: Heather, or his career. Is that really any darkest hour? And where did the idea that he'd be a business owner come from after being a footballer?

A decent book up to mid-point, but the rest of the book went downhill fast.

Category: contemporary // bad boy

Primary Plot: reporter fell for the bad boy football linebacker who wears a mask...

Tropes: enemies to lovers, sports, reporter,

Overall Rating:  3/5

GRR Review: Sold to the Hitman by Alexis Abbott

Sold to the Hitman is a "mafia bad boy romance" that's best described as a fairy tale, where an ultra-conservative religious girl that was home-schooled, never dated, never had sex, never been to the city... i.e. a total "babe in the woods" in every sense, was suddenly tossed onto a human trafficking auction, bought by a Bratva hitman (to save her) to be his wife (mainly to save her from a worse fate), and she could only fall in love with her provider and protector.

The book fell into the trope of "Siberian iceman assassin". The actual killings are not bad, if a bit inspired by the game Hitman. The romance and sex are pretty good, but the hothouse flower girl's innocence was played up too much, IMHO, and the ending a bit rushed as if one big hit and "it's all over". Good effort, but didn't quite feel satisfying at the end. Add to the rather shallow and trope characters, there's really not much to this romance.

Category: Bad Boy

Primary Plot:  The Most Innocent Girl Bought by a Ruthless Assassin to be his bride

Overall Rating:  2/5

GRR Review: His Hostage by Willow Winters

His Hostage is, to put it simply utter crap. The characters are a total joke and none of the decisions makes any sense.

Elle bailed out her mother time after time even sacrificing her own scholarship, her savings, and her grades. Elle was about to drop out of school altogether when she discovered her mother had lapsed yet AGAIN. She decided to do ONE single discretion... Make out with an insanely hot guy in a bar. Next thing she knew she woke up in that hot guy's bed... But why are the hot guy's relatives looking at her funny? Why does she felt as if she did or knew something she shouldn't have? Why is the hot guy holding her hostage? Does he want to love her or kill her?

WARNING: Remainder of this review is full of spoilers.

Elle is a TOTAL doormat and this never changed. She's a total doormat just cleaning up after her mother's mess. Vince, aka "hot guy" is actually the Valetti family underboss,  and was nice to her. They ended up in bed, then Elle witnessed something she shouldn't have. Vince gave her a roofie which may or may not have messed with her memory, but then Vince was smitten (after ONE f***) Vince decided the only way to keep Elle safe is to keep her permanently... by impregnating her (WTF!?!?) which means he had to tie her up and bed her repeatedly and keep her around. This makes f***ing no sense!  Oh, and this somehow turned her on so much she became a "rope s***" that she begs for more bondage play. WTF?!!?!?!

Category: Bad Boy / Dark Romance

Primary Plot: Innocent girl fell for a hot guy, then his folks all looked at her funny... did she do something wrong and saw something she shouldn't have?

Overall Rating:  1/5

GRR Review: Joy and Anger by Jennifer Blake

Joy and Anger is an interesting suspense / mystery / romance set in the bayous of Louisiana.

Julie Bullard is a director making a movie about people of the swamps of Louisiana, and she needs the help of the legendary Cajun Rey Tabary, aka "The Swamp Rat". Julie needed a consultant to ensure the authenticity of her movie, and Rey normally would want nothing to do with some pampered Hollywood types but a sudden influx of drugs into his swamp made him want to get close to the crew to find out who may be the link. Julie noticed the various accidents on set and suspect Rey was involved, even as they deny their attraction to each other. When there's a death nearby, trust became an issue...

Both characters and the exotic locations were described to good effect, and the plot is quite competent with blended tropes of secret identity, doubt about the other person's true purpose, the exotic blend of unknown danger vs. handsome attraction. My main problem was the pacing and the title and cover. Pacing was a bit on the slow side, and the title and cover had NOTHING to do wit the novel.

Category: Contemporary / Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot:  Director making a movie about the swamp people of Louisiana meets legendary swamp captain who suspects that the director or her crew may be a part of smuggling operation into his swamp...

Overall Rating:  4/5

GRR Review: Bait by Colleen Charles

Bait by Colleen Charles is a contemporary "billionaire" romance that pivoted into a "fake love to real romance" story.

Charlene "Charlie" de Monaco, a new hire corporate lawyer, joined the firm to do real estate projects that will benefit the poor in the city, but her first job was to clean up Nolan Bank's reputation, such as claims of paternity and such. Then Nolan tried to bluff a rival group and got in something so big not even Charlie can get him out of it... Except for one last gambit...  Nolan announced Charlie as his fiancee in order to salvage the big real estate deal he's managed to blow up. But Charlie cannot deny that Nolan was nothing like the guy described in the tabloids, and she was falling for him...

By cutting the book into 3 portions, the author managed to put in a conclusion for all three parts, and cliffhanger in two, which is sort of annoying but nothing major because there are all three parts in this collection (unlike if I had to buy them separately).

There is one major problem, in that the evil folks in this book seem to be just... evil for no reason other than they can. It's just a "flat" evil. It was just... pathetic evil. And it's almost as if Charlie enjoy like being a doormat... and occasionally just flee. That's why I can only rate this series average. Nolan, at least, came across as both calculating and kind.

Category: Contemporary / Bad Boy

Primary Plot:  Lawyer with job of cleaning up billionaire bad boy's mess found he's not that bad after all, was forced into fake engagement to save his deal, falls for him for real

Tropes: protector, hot for boss, commitment-phobe, fake engagement

Overall Rating:  3/5

GRR Review: Weightless by Kandi Steiner

Weightless by Kandi Steiner managed to mix several issues together to make a delectable tale of two people fighting through their inner demons and still managed to wrap up all the plotlines by the book's end.

Natalie always had body image and self-esteem issues, being a size 14 as a high school senior. After her BF dumped her for a size 4, Natalie's mom sent her to the country club's personal trainer, Rhodes. Rhodes is the bad boy about town, often get into trouble with the law, grew up with foster families, and his twin sister Lana disappeared 3 years ago under strange circumstances. He liked to cook, but his training business often meant that he had to provide "extra perks" to the ladies at the country club for supplemental income, so he was surprised to find that Natalie really just wanted to train and lose weight, and slowly they fall for each other, as Natalie shed pounds and gain self-respect. However, Natalie's mom is losing her step-dad Dale, and everyone in town is trying to warn Natalie off Rhodes, including her ex-BF. When a new clue pointed at Lana may still be alive, the secret that the town had kept may destroy more people than these two lovers.

The suspense did not kick in until almost half-way into the book. Most of the first half is how Natalie's confidence and body image changed to fit her new physical form, even as Rhodes attempted to define his relationship with Natalie. The remaining were deftly manipulated to introduce a couple characters to attempt to wrap up of the problems. There were a couple characters that only appeared in a few places and discarded (the driver/butler), while others were introduced way too late. (Officer Martino) though the plot resolution was quite good. Definitely above average for romance with a little suspense at the end.

Category: Contemporary / Bad Boy / Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot: Woman who needed to lose weight fell for the bad boy fitness trainer, whose sister disappeared three years ago... but may still be alive...

Overall Rating:  4/5

GRR Review: One Night SEAL by B B Hamel

One Night SEAL by B B Hamel is a generic "bad boy" romantic suspense where the protagonist can be any alpha guy with some fighting experience. Making him a SEAL is just a fetish. With that said, the story is actually not too bad. The bonus story is also similarly "generic alpha labeled a SEAL".

Travis, navy SEAL went home to find his brother when he found three men taking Hayley out of a bar, intending to collect her family debt out of her body. He rescued her only to he had incurred the wrath of the "Dixie Mafia". Travis, who had navigated these gangs before, had to find a rival gang and work them against each other, if they are to survive, and have some sexy times together as well. 

As I said, while the romantic suspense is quite good, the MMC could have been ANY generic alpha bad boy.  There's nothing here that defined him as a SEAL.

The bonus story is about a young woman from rich family fell for her stepbrother who's a SEAL. Again, the guy could have been any generic alpha bad boy.

While I find the general plot okay, the "SEAL trope" cause a bit of rating drop for me.

Category: Romantic Suspense

Primary Plot: Bad boy rescued girl from Dixie Mafia, now must help a different gang take care of the problem to survive and love

Overall Rating: 3/5

GRR Review: Sparrow by L J Shen

Sparrow by L J Shen that started off as a bit of a mystery about a girl who's acting much like doormat with no control over her life. If you can get past the initial shock of such unfair treatment, you will find a deeper mystery to be solved by book's end. But first, a recap...

Sparrow Raynes, daughter of a low-level Irish mobster, and Troy Brennan, son of the ex-mob head are about to be married. Troy is known locally as "The Fixer" and Sparrow was... nobody. Sparrow was uprooted from her normal life, and given 10 days to marry Troy Brennan, no reason given. As Sparrow learned to adjust to her new life, she slowly learned the reason why Troy is the way he is (trying to avenge death of his mob head father), and may even have grown to love the man who keeps her caged. But Troy's enemies are out there, and they will try to destroy him, even if they have to go through Sparrow to do it.

The characters are complex, and both FMC and MMC have undergone transitions and changed, as they have indeed fallen for each other despite their attempt to pretend the marriage under strange circumstances were just a marriage of convenience. You will learn why he married her later, and they have secrets that may yet destroy their relationship. The pieces were revealed piece by piece like a mystery, as their relationship slowly shifted. It is a beautiful tale, though somewhat slow. But I believe you will be rewarded by the rich tapestry of obligations and wants and how they managed to navigate them together.

Category: Contemporary / Bad Boy

Primary Plot: a young woman was suddenly married to up and coming mobster and slowly learned why she was chosen and came to love him...

NOTE: Some violence

Overall Rating: 4/5

GRR Review: SEAL'd Perfection Complete Series

SEAL'd Perfection by K B Winters is a hard series to rate for me. On one hand, I appreciate the care into building a "bad boy" character Jace who has a past, has a present, and is debating about the future. I appreciate the conflicted woman Kat who wanted to fall back in love but can't take the risk or did not dare to. On the other hand, Jace just doesn't feel like a military or ex-military guy, and the military details in Book 4 are completely implausible, which basically ruined it as a "military" romance.

Jace Winslow is an ex-navy SEAL who became a tattoo artist. His bad boy image got him a reality TV show Inked by Jace and for a while he was lost in the limelight of Hollywood, until one day he cleaned up and moved out to a small quiet town, but kept his show and his tattoo parlor.  Kat Ryan divorced two years ago after a bitter contest and now just wanted to make the best living possible for her son Jax... which means work as a waitress in the diner... right across the street from Jace's new tattoo parlor. When Jace walked through the diner door, her concentration was shot, and she seriously questioned about what she really wanted in life... and everything else... But does Jace feel the same? 

The first three volumes in the series are fine, as basically Jace and Kat slowly circled each other, gained each other's trust, while dealing with some other issues.  I can even understand the fictional background, even though it does strain my belief. Generally, ex-SEALs do NOT seek publicity, being used to secrecy for so long. Having an ex-SEAL get his own reality TV show is rather... uh, let's just say, fictional.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

YES SPOILERS DARN IT!

It is with book 4, when Jace was recalled to service, that I have problems with. The technical and military details were all wrong. Basically, while Jace was "training recruits", he got handed an order to deploy for a special mission. That's not how SEAL reserve teams works. SEAL does have two reserve teams for ex active duty members, and they do train, but they don't train recruits. There is a special cadre for that. The only way for them to go active is the whole team gets activated for however long the deployment is, and it's six months to a year or however long it should be, not for one mission, not for one guy.

Then instead of spending a couple weeks of intensive training to get back into shape and catch up on paperwork and qualifications, Jace and crew were immediately shipped off to some unnamed carrier out in the middle of nowhere and ordered to wait. There was supposed to be a comm blackout, but his sergeant apparently can break it without permission from the captain (!), by allowing Jace's buddy to call home to check on his wife, and the buddy lent the phone to Jace, who then called up Kat, and they had basically phone sex AND Facetime where Kat did a remote strip-tease. This is so off-the-charts improbable it downright ruined the entire series for me. If the carrier was on comm blackout to maintain secrecy, why is the phone allowed? How are they even getting a connection anyway, much less enough bandwidth to do Facetime, on a carrier under comms blackout?!

The military action was tolerable, as was Jace getting his purple heart, merely tolerable. The tactics used just feel wrong. But that could be because I'm a guy.

Book 5 deals with Jace's return to stateside and his injuries changed him, and he and Kat basically had to start over, almost. That I had no problem with.

To put it altogether, Jace and Kat do make a cute couple, but the military details were quite off the mark to be utterly ridiculous. If you take out the military bits, you'd still have a good romance. So the military bits aren't really needed.

Category: Military / Bad Boy

Primary Plot: Tattoo-artist ex-SEAL Jace woos small-town waitress Kat and her young son, is there a future between these two?

NOTE: Major problems with military and technical accuracy

Overall rating: 2/5

GRR Review: Shameless by Hayley Hunter

Shameless by Hayley Hunter was described as a "stepbrother discipline romance", but it is really a "coming of age" story for a young woman finding herself. Unfortunately, the stepbrother character is really empty.

Catelyn graduated college but had to move back to her hometown due to lack of jobs and moved in with her step brother Turner, and so far the only job prospects were local grocery store (where she worked when she's 16!) or even smaller places. And in a small town there is no privacy anywhere... anything that was done immediately enters the rumor mill and is known around town. Catelyn slowly falls for her stepbrother Turner and decided to try modeling for a women run spank kink website which pays quite well, only to find that Turner is quite skilled in spanking. Catelyn found out she's actually quite turned on... And Turner is quite happy to oblige. When evil nosy cousins found her secret modeling gig and spread it all over town, Catelyn had enough and decided to fight fire with fire...

Shameless is a very fitting title as by the end, Catelyn is no longer ashamed of her desire for kink AND for her stepbrother. She'll not deal with such by hiding anymore. So she is, literally, shameless, but not in the "flaunting" way, but the empowering way. Catelyn started out is a young lady barely moving through life. One day she found her kink... and also found her stepbrother irresistible. Thus the kink and edgy label. As the book progressed and she learned more about herself and seek out what she wanted. She is nicely defined with complex needs, not only for self-worth, but also for her kinks, and they evolved nicely throughout the book. Going through life dealing with multiple extended families and both friendly and evil acquaintances and cousins is also quite interesting. There's a big catfight that was truly the highlight of the book.

My main problem with the novel is with Turner, the MMC. The mysterious big stepbrother was never fully defined, nor did he ever explain where did his taste for delivering spanks came from. It just seems awfully convenient. Later in the book he got very protective and decked another guy at a dance club which is how Catelyn found that they really... really... want to go to bed together.

All in all, due to lack of development on Turner, I can't give this book a top rating. Out of 5, I can give this book 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Category: Contemporary / Bad Boy

Primary Plot: Young woman found she had a hankering for spanking kink... and her stepbrother's talent of the same

NOTE: BDSM - spanking

Overall Rating: 4/5

GRR Review: Putting Up a Fight by Samantha Westlake

Putting Up a Fight by Samantha Westlake is a contemporary "bad boy" romance that unfortunately, featured a bad boy that's not that bad, and the "meek" girl who is NOT meek, despite the genre. The plot is predictable, though the fight scenes are quite good.

Cain is the reigning fighter in the underground fighting arena ran by 'the master', and he sees no way out. He took a loan from a loanshark for the family emergency and he really had no way of paying it back, until he met Lucy. Lucy was feeling the results of a disastrous first date when her first date not only took her to a fight, but jumped into the arena himself and promptly got flattened by Cain. When Lucy wanted to leave and her date got rough, Cain intervened and sent the guy packing. Lucy was so grateful, she gave her number to Cain, and setup a date. That date ended with a confrontation between Lucy's psycho ex and Cain, who promptly dispatched the ex as well. Lucy was so smitten, she devised a plan to free Cain from the Master forever... a do-or-die fight for Cain's freedom.

Cain is NOT a bad boy. He's completely meek outside of the ring until he engaged caveman mode to protect the women, such as Lucy. Lucy is the real star of the novel, doing everything, setting up dates, going on dates, including befriending and seducing Cain, and eventually, freeing him.  I find Lucy's ability to figure out who "the Master" is a bit too quickly, and the bargain reached too easily. There really is no reason for the Master to accept the bargain.

Category: Bad boy

Primary Plot: Girl with psycho ex was rescued by cage fighter; she vowed to free him from his obligation for their HEA

Rating: 3/5