Pilot and the Puck-Up by Pippa Grant– I actually read this a few weeks ago but I forgot about it. It’s been a hectic month, what can I say. Grant can be a little much for me with her meta take on romance and just general over the topness, but I really enjoyed this book. Joey, the heroine was a sarcastic and smart heroine, one of my favorite kinds. Zeus is a not so dumb hockey player. He is instantly smitten with her. I loved the way their relationship builds. Zeus loves Joey for her strengths and never feels threatened by her independence. I love when this happens. Grant pubs her books very quickly and I have struggled with keeping up. I was glad I took the time to read this.
Luna and the Lie by Mariana Zapata– The Wall of Winnipeg and Me remains one of my favorite romances, especially slow burn romance. But Zapata has had some problematic elements in her books and I have struggled with some of her stories. I am sad to report this is one I struggled with. I made it through the first 20% and barely got in to the meat of the story.
Luna, the heroine is 26 and works in an auto body shop. EVERYONE loves her. Well I think there was an exception or two. She came off as very one dimensional to me. She’s the caretakers for her three younger sisters. She has zero back bone. One of her co-workers treats her poorly and she won’t report him to the boos. She makes a big mistake at work and her boss/hero of the book, Ripley, yells at her. It’s inappropriate, but Luna lets it slide and instead asks him what is wrong. It was too much for me. I had to DNF it.
I referred to Zapata as Kristen Ashley light in our Smexy Book chat and I stand by that comparison. They have a similar writing style- too much emphasis on things that don’t matter, there are lots of redundancies in the writing that could probably be tightened up with a strong editor and of course both write the broody, growly alphahole hero. At least Ashley gives us on page sex to look forward to. I’ve seen lots of 5 star reviews for this, so maybe I didn’t like it because I’m a grumpy reader.
I am currently reading The Accidental Beauty Queen by Teri Wilson. It is cute, but the heroine is kind of judgy against pageant queens and it is starting to get old and irritating. I know it is supposed to be part of her character development, but it needs to stop sooner rather than later for me to not completely hate her.
LOVE Pippa Grant. My favorite of hers is probably Rockaway Bride.
The Pilot and the Puckup is my favorite but Rockaway Bride is a close second. It’s such a fun impromtu adventure book.
I’m with you on Luna and the Lie – I found it really hard to read. I did make it through and Luna finally does stand up to Rip, but by that time I was pretty tired of them both. I gave it 2,5 stars for being loooooooong and ultimately not very satisfying. (I don’t mind long books as long as they’re fun!)
I don’t mind long books either but I was getting zero enjoyment from it. I got one of my Twitter friends to give me a synopsis after I gave up :)
I adored Luna and the Lie. I am pretty much done with Kristen Ashley at this point. I struggled with your comparison. Give me mediocre written sex rather than terminal two word sentences, Alpha heroes that can only call their significant others “babe” or “my woman” and heroines who come across as idiots that continually repeat the last word of the hero as a question. Luna may have been a dishrag but at least she wasn’t one dimensional. To each their own yeah?