Nell Stark

I think Stark did a wonderful job of depicting the balance between the public life someone like Sasha must lead with the private life that is more authentic to her. It was interesting to see her fall in love despite herself and how Kerry was able to help her become her most authentic self. However, for as much time was devoted to Sasha's private thoughts on Kerry's muscles or her dashing figure, her relationship with her family doesn't feel as fleshed out. Similarly, Kerry is smart and loves show more football, but outside of passionate feelings for Sasha we don't really get to know her very well. Considering everything the two went through to get their happy ending it doesn't feel like events were properly wrapped up and it felt like they probably needed to talk through things more in order for me to believe they could ride off into the sunset. show less

That was a ton of poker for one book. Yikes. But, for the most part I thought the poker scenes fit really well into the greater narrative. They never pulled me out of the story, and I think that I even learned a bit about poker during the book too (I hate to admit that while I find it lots of fun to watch people play poker, I'm like one of the people in the book who can never seem to remember what hand beats what other hand... well, other than simple stuff like four of a kind beats three of show more a kind which beats two of a kind).

The book was about Nova, an amazing online poker player and online poker champion who had most of her assets frozen. Her sponsors, Royal Flush, say they'll keep her on, but only if she wins a bracelet (beats everyone else and wins it all) at one of the Championships at the World Series of Poker. Most of the story takes place in Las Vegas before and during that event, and most of it is at Valhalla, the casino where the tournament is being held in the story.

It's also the casino where Vesper, the other main character in the story, works. She's a casino host with quite a past. A past that she thinks she's put behind her, and finds that maybe she hasn't.

I was a little surprised by some parts of the novel, but on the whole it wasn't a super surprising plot. I was intrigued by one of the plots concerning Vesper though.

Still, although the plot was just okay, the characters were what got me thoroughly hooked on the book. The main characters, Nova and Vesper were very interesting, but more importantly so were the secondary and minor characters. Two of my favorite characters were a couple of the guys. First there was TJ. The son of a high roller at the casino, I didn't start the book liking him, but the character grew on me in a very organic way. Then there was Jeremy. He's a good friend to Vesper and also works at Valhalla. Although we got some of his back story I wanted to know so much more. He was my favorite character in the novel for sure.

I really, really liked this novel. It was a fun read and a fun ride.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. show less

The story wasn't bad. And I really liked all the stuff that was in there about Formula 1, as well as the stuff that took place on the track as well. It was great. What I really didn't like was the tone of the story. I very much didn't like the tone.

It's the story of Alix, a Princess of Monaco, who is also starting a charity to help Ugandan women. And Thalia, who is a Formula One driver who wants to be the first women to win a Formula One race (and be the first one to do so). They meet at the show more wedding of an English Princess (from a previous book in the sorta series), and her wife. And from there their relationship goes back and forth as the F1 season progresses around the world. The question is, will the perfectly perfect Alix lower herself to Thalia's level so they can have a proper relationship?

Yes. That last sentence was pure sarcasm. That's how I felt about most of this book. Oddly offended for being human, and like only my sarcasm could save my reading of it. So, for most of the book that makes me a disgusting sub-human being. Like Thalia I'm not perfect in every way. Oh, also according to the characters apparently if you work hard at your job and want to get to the top echelons of it you're a selfish jerkwad. Good to know.

Now, I know that those opinions in the book are the opinions of the characters, not the author necessarily, but here was my problem with the opinons in the book. They never changed. If there had been movement in the narrative it would have been interesting. But Thalia was wrong, wrong, wrong all the time and Alix was right, right, right. Thalia was always the one who had to apologize, and that was true from the first word to the last. And she was sometimes apologizing for what, having emotions? Being human? It was a totally one sided relationship and narrative and honestly Thalia deserved better than Alix.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. show less

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

I picked up this book for the princess who crossdresses to pretend to be her twin brother in order to bring him privacy, and the f/f romance was the cherry on top. In a way, I got what I came for: I really enjoyed the scenes where Viola had to navigate talking to his brother's friends and trying to find out what happened without revealing who she was.

Unfortunately, that's about the only part of the show more book I enjoyed. I wasn't really invested in the love interest, and frankly, the romance arc of the book was so similar to the last three contemporary f/f romances I read that I actually had to check if I've read something by this author before (the answer is no). This made the conflicts and the resolution predictable and not very fascinating.

I also found it jarring that Duke, a random journalist who has never before seen either of the twins up close and (as she admits) barely did her research, immediately had suspicions about Viola impersonating Sebastian at the very first speech. Sure, she starts looking for more clues before she can be certain, but given that not even Sebastian's friends (who knew about his addiction and health) were suspicious so fast, it just didn't feel believable to me. show less