L. H. Cosway

Oh I loved it ! Fantastic characters, full of depth and charm. This was a love story that mad my heart hum with happiness. There were some dark painful moments but this wonderful author pulled them out and stood them up for better days ahead.
Shay Riordan and Maggie Lydon traveled on the bus everyday never speaking. Each noticing the other, neither going beyond stares till something happened. Shay is a quiet man, he lost his voice as a child, this left him feeling unexpected by society. Maggie lost her mother and father and grew up in an unloving relative's home. They both feel like outcasts, and people are not kind.
When they finally start communicating and exploring each other it's a slow hot fire building. The side characters bring so much into the story and I adored them all. His father most of all. Gods he's a dream ! The twists that come along are WOW worthy and I'm sure will lead to another great read :D
Don't miss this book, or this author if you like happy romantic stories with really good people.… (more)

I really, really liked this book. Like almost loved it. I would have awarded 5 stars except for the language around sex work/ers. Romance writers consistently fall short when it comes to writing about sex work/ers and they need to do better. The premise of this story is that the MMC had a (inaccurate) story leak to the tabloids about his sexual preferences. This resulted in him loosing his position in his charity work. The issue I have is that sex workers were the ones to speak to the media about this although it should be widely understood that sw'ers want to keep their jobs so THEY DO NOT GO TO MEDIA AND NAME NAMES. It's not a thing. This makes an already vulnerable population look even worse than the media portrays them. Also, the MMC did not use services provided by sw'ers anyway so it just doubled down on this idea that sw'ers are the real enemy.

Then, the MMC has a lot of big long boilerplate response to porn and sw - how it is degrading etc etc. And like I think the book was trying to make his character someone who has hang-ups about power exchange since he was constantly worried about using his position as a famous rugby player to get women. BUT it wasn't really clear that is the issue. The FMC does kind of shut him down on his anti-porn position by mentioning that you can buy directly from people if you are worried about ethics involved and that not everyone that makes it feels exploited. So that I really appreciate but I still feel that the MMC's words about sw were given more weight.

Anyway - the hero has a voyeur kink and a lot of the build-up with the heroine was extremely steamy and I enjoyed it very much.… (more)

reading for the second time. I still love this one!!!

Definition:
Hooker is one of the positions in rugby league football. Usually wearing jersey number 9, the hooker is one of the team's forwards. During scrums the hooker plays in the front row, and the position's name comes from their role of 'hooking' or 'raking' the ball back with the foot.

Ronan Fitzpatrick is known as the best hooker in the world of rugby. He has been force to take a break from playing, after getting into a bloody fight with one of his teammates and putting the other guy in the hospital. The reason for the fight was that Ronan discovered that his mate was sleeping with his long-time girlfriend. Feeling fed-up with everything in his life, Ronan decides to escape to New York City for a while; he's looking to spend his days at the gym training and perhaps having a few one night stands with no strings attached, because the last thing he needs is to get his heart crushed by another woman. His plans are very clear until he meets a beautiful hermit...

Annie Catrel is the most successful media expert executive in New York city, she works for Davidson & Croft Media and on her own time she's also anonymously running a popular celebrity blog. Annie has a great internet persona, well known and celebrated by the public and her online friends but in real life she's shy and socially awkward. Nobody knows she is the person behind The New York's finest blog and since her boss allows her to do most of her job from home, the Annie of real life doesn't really have any friends and seldom interacts with other people. Annie runs into Ronan at a famous restaurant but even though she doesn't really know who is, she can tell his famous. She is turned on by his sexy appearance and appalled by what he is wearing, so she snaps a picture of him and features a funny article about him on her blog; little did she know that the next day she was going to be put in charge into a media campaign to help turn Ronan from bad boy, to golden boy, to advance his career and make him more known in the US. The moment Ronan meets Annie he's mesmerize by her, he can see through her baggy clothes and her anxiety, so he embarks on a mission to get into her pants but after he sees her eating a chocolate eclair the man is a goner, and his as well as Annie's worlds will become completely upside down...

I am not going to say more because this is one of those stories that will completely surprise you and the least you know the best it will be. I can only promise that this book is not just another boy meets girl, romantic story where opposites attract. You will fall in love with both characters deeply and will also laugh, blush and swoon a lot and often. I loved the back stories of both characters; I could totally relate to Annie's insecurities and unattractive snort laugh and Ronan's character was intense about everything he would do and say, I experienced him with every fiber of my being. There were so many layers to this story and as you read you find yourself craving more and more.… (more)