The Unwanted Assistant by Evangeline Kelly

 Ivy is from California & she caught her boyfriend cheating on her. Ivy has always had low self-esteem because she thinks she's to big. It doesn't help that the girl he cheated with was a toothpick with blonde hair. The way the girl who was supposed to be her friend broke up for this guy via email is even worse. Talk about a guy with no backbone, responsibility, or morals. Her best friend convinces her to move to Alabama & share an apartment while they go to college. Ivy immediately starts looking for a job but she doesn't have much job experience or schooling. Finding a job is a lot harder than she thought. And the ones she does don't pay enough. Until she comes across an ad for an assistant for a rich guy. And the pay is almost to good to be true. Too bad the guy is a grieving bitter young man. 

Sawyer  has had a very rough life. His little brother has muscular dystrophy & uses a wheelchair. Because of this Sawyer is bullied for trying to protect him. On top of that he reaches an age where he wants to get out & be active. His brother looks up to him & Sawyer keeps blowing off spending time with him in favor of playing basketball with friends. He's lucky his brother is forgiving. The family is on their way somewhere when a drunk driver hits them. Sawyer survives but his face is badly burned on one side. After the he sees himself Sawyer gets very depressed & becomes a hermit. Sawyer blames himself for the accident even though it's totally illogical. So Sawyer has a family friend run the company that was given to him by a rich man without an heir. Hayden is the only friend Sawyer keeps except for the staff that help run the estate. Sawyer only leaves the house to go to church. And he wears a hoodie while sitting in a balcony by himself. Hayden forces Sawyer to resign as the CEO of the company if Sawyer doesn't hire a companion. Hayden is worried about him & frankly he is stretched too thin. His wife is upset because she never sees him between work & spending time with Sawyer. 

Ivy has no idea what this job has in store for her. There were no list of duties on the ad. When she asks at the Interview both men were vague. She gets ready to leave & they offer her the job. In fact to sweeten the deal they offer her more money. Hayden made a deal with Sawyer that he give this a try for two months before he could fire her. It takes some doing but eventually Ivy gets Sawyer to be her friend. However, they both fell in love with each other before they admitted to being friends. When they finally admit they have feelings for each other Sawyer gets scared & fires her. Because he loves her he thinks he's doing the right thing by letting find someone worthy of her kindness. Someone who will not be ashamed to go out with her. Both Ivy & Sawyer have no idea how to communicate their feelings well. And their insecurities & worry of what others think of them rule their lives. 

Sawyer really messes up & practically looses her. But with God's help & his friends advice he decides to stop hiding & join the living again. Although now Ivy is so hurt & confused that she wants nothing to do with him. She is happy that he is going out in public but she has put up walls so she doesn't get hurt by a man again. Now she is the one afraid. Ironic, huh?

Marry Me For Real Cowboy by Valerie Corner

 Adam left home after graduation. He became a very star studded rodeo star. He had quite the collection of trophies in his case at home. His dad died of cancer before he was a teenager. His parents were deeply in love. However, raising three boys on a big ranch while being a teacher & trying to pay for medical bills. Of course, the house still had a mortgage too. When she remarried they blended two families. Adam had 5 brothers & 2 sisters when everything was said & done. Unfortunately, he didn't like his stepfather very much. He respected him but in Adam's eyes he didn't love his mother. It was no wonder Adam took off as soon as he could. Adam's family was raised in a Christian church & his stepfather wasn't a believer but he took his kids to church & basically used it as free babysitting while he went out for breakfast with his guy friends. Adam had rededicated his life to Christ after fame & some bad relationships had convicted himself & his best friends. 

Riley comes from a mysterious background. She too is a believer with parents who have a weird relationship dynamic. They argue like crazy yet stay together. Her parents are politicians who are all about parties & putting on an act for the outside world. It's no wonder her sister & her have a history of horrible relationships to show that they learned from their parents relationship. Riley is fleeing an engagement from a horrible man who was using her for her father. She hitchhiked from Texas to Montana trying to see if she could stay with her sister. Only the last guy she caught a ride with expected something in return & wasn't taking no for an answer. If she hadn't run into Adam & begged him to pretend to be her girlfriend she wouldn't have gotten rid of him. 

Adam was on his way home to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. He had Riley eat dinner with him. Then the decided it would help him get his mom & dad's property back from his stepfather if he had a fake fiancee. He struck up a deal with Riley and then they went home. For Riley it was great a place to lay low, room & board, on top of a lump sum from Adam and a big diamond ring. The rest of the story is them trying to lie to everyone without getting caught. And the whole time they are doing all this for selfish reasons. Neither one of them had thought to pray about what they were doing or look at it from God's eyes. Shoot even looking at it from someone else's eyes would have helped. But what happens when one of them starts to have feelings for the other?

The Swoon List: The Love List series by Ellie Hall

 Best friends in a private school their senior year Declan & Maggie had a fun time with pranks. They decided early on not to talk about their pasts. Both had skeletons in their closets they didn't want anyone knowing about. Maggie grew up a rich kid who was a child star on a tv show. Yet her parents used her for the money she provided them. She didn't get any of it. They took the money & created a media company that made money by setting people up & making them rich. They even set their own daughter up & posted the results. I was horrified reading what they did to her for a surprise birthday party. They didn't deserve her. The fact that she turned out so good is from the various nannies she had. That and she had found God. 

Declan is from Ireland. He loves pulling pranks and making people laugh. Declan had a rough life! He never knew his father. His mother died when he was 16. He often times went to bed hungry. He ran with other street kids. He and his friends were known for stealing & other crimes. That all changed when he got to know his Aunt Maureen. She took him in & taught him about God. Taught him how to be a gentleman. Got him into MMA somewhere he could channel his anger at what his past was. Then she brought him to America and showed him football. He was hooked. And he was very good at it. He was so good he got picked up by an NFL team. I purposely haven't told you all his past because it would ruin the story.

After high school these two kept in touch. It got harder the more famous h.e he'd and to see each other. They always texted though. That never stopped. Declan would invite her to stuff and then never show up eventually. If anyone understood that it was Maggie. Declan just never knew it. As with all football games they always had to prank the new guys. One  such prank goes horribly wrong. And it involved the 4 star players of the team. To top it off there were a lot of people from the team management/ownership that were present. There was no way this wasn't going to have serious consequences! But a reform school on an island abroad? 

Maggie kept finding herself with bad press. Then she'd have to move & start over. Personally I think that was a bit much until the fountain incident. And when you learn how horrible her family is. She quit her job as Cinderella at a theme park & has no idea what to do next. When a friend mentions that her cousin needs help at a reform school. You see where this is going right? Yep, she gets assigned to her best friend. Who not knowing it's her gets shot by water guns when she goes to meet her "student". On top of that there are some serious rules they both have to follow or more than their jobs will be lost. Declan teammates are not allowed to do anything with a woman while there or they will all be kicked off the team. Unless the guys get married. Farthest thing on those playboys minds. Naturally Declan tries to get Maggie to just let him skate through everything. However, if Maggie can't get through a month with Declan as a best friend she has no job to return to.

Retying the Knot: The Fab Forties book 1 by Liwen Y. Ho

 Talk about an intricate plot to line up so the jokes hit right. This is my favorite romcom in awhile! They met in med school when they literally ran into each other. And were practically inseparable afterwards. Studying together, giving each other haircuts etc. She had a very clingy ex-boyfriend. You will love Peter's nickname for him! Anyway short version, Peter had an inheritance he would lose after his dad died. If he didn't get married in three months afterwards. Being a good best friend Piper agrees to marry Peter, so he doesn't have to marry a stranger, for her med school bills. Here's where it gets interesting on their honeymoon night one kiss leads to a pregnancy. He stays long enough to get her through it then moves to China. Did I mention his.mom is a really conniving woman? Oops, I thought I had. She gets Piper to doubt herself & convinces her to let her raise the baby. And that is the last time she sees Peter. 

Fast forward to when Mimi, their daughter, is fifteen. Peter convinces Piper to see Mimi while his mom is in China. Their daughter's therapist says Mimi needs to see her. She comes for a week. Only his mom comes home early after spraining her ankle. And it spirals as Peter injured himself & can't go get her. He doesn't tell Piper until the night before. I forgot to mention Piper is engaged. To the ex-boyfriend. Yet they keep getting put into compromising positions. And their poor daughter keeps thinking they are getting back together. 

I hate to ruin an ending so I won't! This book is hilarious! Such a laugh out loud read. Full of twist after funny twist.

Perilous Healing by Jessica Ashley

 Silas is mentally tortured because he has to listen to his fellow Navy Seals die at the hands of a vile & ruthless man. The torture he ensures sounds unbearable. I think I would be begging for death myself. And as a Christian that's not easy to say. Until one day a stranger comes & lets him out. He tells him how to get out of the building & leaves. On his way out he hears a woman screaming. Being the good guy that he is he can't leave her there. Together they spend a month being pursued before they are rescued. Bianca happens to be a military doctor, without her he wouldn't have made it out. She had to constantly sew up seven long gashes he had that kept reopening. They fell in love while fleeing. However, that changed the minute Silas found out that her father was the one who had killed his Seal brothers. Which is completely irrational because you can't blame someone for who their parents are. He spent time in another state in a secluded cabin trying to get over her. He had a bunch of anger inside him from losing people he loved. And to top it all off he lost his twin sister & brother in law while he was in another state. His sister had a daughter he had never met. His sister had made him her guardian. He was going to sign his rights away without even meeting her. I wanted to reach through the book to slap him! As luck would have it she was there & he saw her crying in a playpen. He knew it was her immediately because they looked so much alike they could be father/daughter. Bianca never got over the heartache of loosing Silas. She helped a security firm find a missing friend of hers. And later took the firm up on their offer up on a permanent job. It just happened to be the same small town Silas decided to settle with his niece. And he worked for the same security firm. He was not happy she was there. He was trying to forget her & move on with his life. Bianca never gave up on the possibility of getting back together with him. She had looked into where he was after a few years. Needless to say growing up with a crime boss for a father she had a lot of baggage. And after her father murdered her mother she ran away. She changed her name & joined the military to get as far away from her fathers reach as possible. Yet her uncle tracked her down & kidnapped her from an Army base to save her dad's life. She purposely decided to let him die in the end because the world would be a better place. Now she thought she was as much a monster as he was. The security firm they worked for, was made up of mostly Christian ex military men & women. Bianca became intrigued by how everyone found so much joy and comfort from the Bible that she secretly started reading it. However, it was just a bunch of words on a page to her. Until she talked to the pastor of the local church. It was after that that she was able to believe in God. And a huge weight was lifted from her. Of course, this is when her uncle finds her. He kidnaps her & Silas & takes them to an undisclosed location. When they get there they are told why. And because I hate to ruin an ending you will have to read the book to find out.

Fae Reckoning by Lucia Ashta

Fae Reckoning by Lucía Ashta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The sick witch finally got what she deserved!

This book has so many twists & turns you won't know where you are going & what the queens endgame is. I loved when Rush & El reunited. I found myself craving more scenes between Rush & El to solidify their union. Plus Rush is so hot. They always have a way of making the scene comical yet steamy which is a gift you don't get with other couples. The queen has so many back up plans to make sure that the darkness always won. When they finally find out how to kill her the darkness chooses a new host I guess you could say. I'm so glad he didn't end up running things. He practically worshipped the ground where the queen stepped. I believe he would have been just as miserable. He watched all the despicable things the the queen had done. He new every secret she used to become so powerful. I just can't imagine him forcing any woman into his bedroom because of threats to their family members. Just like the queen used to do. I still can't get the what she made Rush do! I don't get how they both don't need therapy for that. It haunts me & I wasn't even there. And the end of the book is no exception. It literally had me on the edge of my seat & laughing out loud. Although I expected the surprise to be that she was finally pregnant after the jump ahead in time. It was discouraging to hear everyone else had at least one child. I would have loved updates on more of the characters instead of barely mentioning or not at all. 

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Golden Star (Star Touched book 1) by Michelle Madow

I absolutely love this book. And I have a lot of questions so I will definitely be reading this next book. Sapphire is a beautiful eighteen year old bartender who somehow knows exactly what kind of drink you need. She just somehow knows how to make all these drinks without memorizing them. She has lived in Maine in a small town all her life. She wants nothing more than to get out of the town & go to a bigger city. This is going to sound like the beginning of a joke but it's not! A stranger walks into the bar he's got gray eyes and dark hair & he's really hot. They flirt a bit until her recently dumped ex shows up. Begging her to go with him to the meteor shower that some classmates are going to at a park & they can talk. She didn't want to talk because she knew she wasn't going to change her mind. But she really had been looking forward to going to the meteor shower so she caved & said yes. When she turns back to where the stranger was sitting he was gone. She didn't even get his name. It takes an hour to get there. They sit in a clearing in a forest. Most of her friends are talking & missing the meteor shower. Sapphire is forced to stay with her ex when her best friend bails on her. The guy gets down on one knee & pours his heart out unfortunately, he's missing the reason she  broke up with him in the first place. The major problem being she wants to leave town asap. And he is content to work a while marry her & have a family. When she tells him no he asks her to repeat it. Turns out their friends were engaged, getting married, & starting a family. He thought if worked for them it's the logical next step because they had been together throughout high school. Apparently this guy couldn't take no for an answer. She broke up with him so many times over the last few months. She was tired of him & wanted to move on. In fact she didn't even cry or feel anyway about it. And  her ex was so mad he left her there. She knew better than to be around him when he was that mad. To top it off Sapphire couldn't get cell phone reception to call her bestie to come get her. She follows the trail  her ex took to get to the parking lot. However, this trail was different it led to a bright silver tree & a ethereal looking woman. She was pushed from behind by something. She basically going through brambles