I am killing my reading goal for this year already! As of January 17th, I had read 9 books in total. My Goodreads goal is 20.
2 books were annual re-reads for me. Which means 7 new books. I leaned into series reads from Samantha Whiskey and Emily Rath and read 1 stand-alone by Kat Singleton.
These reads were Billionaire, and some also had sports themes, which we will get into.
Because there were so many this month, I’m going to do a quick and dirty version of what I liked and what was a miss for me.
The spice level on most of these is piping hot.
Let’s get into it.
Since most of these were series reads were going to bunch them up. And I’m only going to list the highlights and the meh parts because it would take forever to read through.
Jerliee Kaye
Book 1- All the Wrong Reasons: Justin & Adrienne.
Basically he falls first for the girl next door, except she has a long distance, shitty boyfriend who she ends up cheating on- with Justin (normally I don’t condone cheating but in this story- I didn’t mind it.) There is a huge plot twist that I never saw coming and I loved it! It’s probably what draws me back to the book.
Justin is the perfect non-boyfriend. Adrienne and him spend 4 months together behind everyones back including her best friends who are obsessed with ‘Justin Adams the celebrity/billionaire’. She does try to come clean to them, but they laugh at her. Rightfully so. I mean it would be hard to believe.
The meh to this book is again the break up. But the plot twist that comes after. Jesus. It’s like 2 books in one. Really. And it’s the 2nd half of the book that is super interesting.
Book 2- All The Wrong Places- Jin & Julianne
Julianne (Ian) & Jin met 7 years ago while she was on a trip to Paris. They fake name eachother to protect their real identity as they both come from wealth and she is only there temporarily. They had a magical 2 weeks and fell in love, but she left out of fear of her family’s revenge if she stayed. Except after she returned home she learned she was pregnant. Unable to track him down, she was disowned by her family for breaking the engagement and ruining their reputations.
Seven years later fate brought them back together but neither of them was who they expected and their families were tangled together, complicating things. Jin wants revenge on her for abandoning him and crushing his heart, until he realizes that he is still very much in love with her and he needs to win her over again. (I loved Jin) I think he was my first book boyfriend. The only thing I don’t love in this book is Julianne’s stubbornness which went on for far to long.
The books can be read out of order, which is how I read them in the first place back in 2021! I have read them several times and I re-read them every Jan. These books are by far imperfect, but I like them anyways. The female leads in both books drive me a bit nuts definitely more in the second one as I probably screamed at the book several times.
Emily Rath
The One Night- Novella & prequel to Pucking Around
I loved this book! It’s a novella so I read it in under 2 hours and then immediately downloaded Pucking Around.
Jake is our NHL hockey star who meets a beautiful stranger (Rachel) in a hotel bar. She refuses to exchange names, knowing it won’t go past the night. They spend an incredible night together and when he wakes she gone.
This book had all the spice, a great storyline and I loved Jake!
Pucking Around
Okay I have a lot to say about this book. First let me start of that this is multi-POV, why choose romance that is a love square. 1 girl, 3 guys. It’s also MM, MF, MMF, MMMF. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I don’t want to give anything away.
Jake- NHL defensemen
Caleb- Jakes best friend and the teams equipment manager.
Ilmari- The goalie.
How do they all come together (no pun intended) Rachel who loves with her who heart and wants more action from each of them. The storyline has mini-stories inside that all connect and how they got away with some things was way over the top. However this book had some laugh out loud moments and who doesn’t love that.
The one thing I say, It’s far to long. By chaper 85 I was like okay, I’m kind of over the sex, give me more of how’s it’s going to wrap up. I like the storyline for the most part but being a massive Jake lover I was a little disappointed. I felt like he was somewhat forgotten about or cast aside towards the end of the book.
My fave quote ever:
Wear my jersey, you better be ready to wear my ring and my last name
Jake
Samantha Whiskey
These are books 2-5 in the series (Book 1, Asher was read last year). You can read them out of order. They have a common poker night theme which brings the whole cast together throughout the series which I love. It helps you connect to the past books and see where they are at with their lives.
Weston- Friends to lovers. What is not to like. This would be my second fave in the series. I loved Brynn. The storyline was great and I loved how protective Weston was for her even the little things like working late because she was.
My only meh was the ‘break up’ like it seemed weird for being best friends above all else she didn’t believe him or wouldn’t hear him out. I found that a bit off considering the history. If they didn’t have their backstory it would have been more believable.
Ethan-Fake dating, but it turns out it was his newly appointed life coach, Alex. I loved the meet cute and how they started before she found out she was hired by his team. Their whole relationship was incredible and I kept expecting it to blow up in their faces as they crossed the work/professional relationship balance but it didn’t and it made for a better storyline. I liked the ending and how they didn’t really have a break up!
Crossland– This one was my favourite. I loved the story line, the fake dating turned into real dating between Crossland and Aspen. Although let’s face it they were into each other from the start! Also I loved her back story. It really made a difference to the plot. Although they fell together I would say, it was just a great all around story and the spice level was perfect.
Gareth- I wanted so bad to read this book. It is alluded to throughout the whole series making you want to know their story and in the end it fell so flat for me.
Throughout the book series Serenity and Gareth have this unspoken bond and her father is the big in the Irish mafia and treats her like disposable garbage and when she turns up at Gareth’s hotel with one of his favour chips he has no choice but to agree to whatever she asks him for. But what she asks for is to lose her virginity so she can’t be married off to some horrible, older creep.
Since Gareth has a similar upbringing and background the only way he knows he can truly protect her is to marry her. Her father won’t want to start a war with his family.
I did love that he was so protective of her which is what you want in this marriage of convenience, mobster-ish, good girl-bad guy romance, but I found there was a lack in the relationship building. They spoke of time spent together but didn’t see it as much as I wanted. I love that he helped her heal and ‘freed’ her from the life she had but I wanted more growly protectiveness from him. There wasn’t anything spoke about her past or how she grew up. And coming from Crosslands book where they really deep dove into the ‘ugly’ stuff I found this story needed a bit more of it to really bond them.
Also the only flaw I caught was at the end of book 5 they said Gareth was the first to have a kid, but in book 2 (Ethan and Alex) the epilogue jumps 2 years forward and they have a daughter.
Kat Singleton
Black Ties & White Lies
Tropes: Billionaire, brothers ex, he falls first, fake dating.
Beck is our billionaire and Margo was his brothers girlfriend that he met the previous summer at the family beach house. He was instantly attracted to her, but couldn’t do anything about it because she was with his brother, who had been cheating on her.
A year later Margo is single and still on Becks mind enough that he thinks that she would be the best fake girlfriend turned fiance, when he ends up in hot water for his playboys ways. The plan is simple enough, he hires her to be his assistant then their relationship would grow “organically” to the outside world and since they had already met it would seem logical.
Except the attraction is undeniable and the lines between blurred and fake smear.
Likes: The spice was great. Beck was awesome. He had that dominant-dirty-talker thing down pat. The plot twist was great!
Dislikes: this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I didn’t like Margo. She was far too childish to be with a CEO billionaire. I get she wanted to be stubborn and her own person without being told what to do, but how she does it or that she can’t seem to distinguish work from home drove me nuts.
As with all of my book recommendations- take it with a grain of salt because my taste won’t necessarily be yours.
But if you like what you read or have similar reading taste then follow along and sign up for my monthly book recommendations and soon to come author insider info.
Madyn Rose 
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