Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
So, weโre back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s topic is a Halloween Freebie!
Blind Side (Red Zone Rivals #2)
Pub Date: 15 June 2022
Genre: Contemporary (Sports) Romance
Panda Rating:
(4 pandas)
The hottest college football safety in the nation just asked me to be his fake girlfriend.
And I just asked him to take my virginity.
Clay Johnson has the abs of Adonis and the deadly smirk of the devil, himself. Thereโs hardly a day heโs not headline material during football season, and never a day he isnโt a bullseye target for every girl on campus.
He used to be the easiest of all the players for me to wrangle as the Public Relations Coordinator, but after a nasty breakup with his high school sweetheart, heโs a mess.
And a complete pain in my ass.
We meet to discuss his behavior and review media relations standards. But when he witnesses how I fall to pieces in front of my guitar-toting crush, his wheels start turning. And he cooks up this absurd plan.
He helps me get noticed.
I help him make his ex jealous.
All by pretending to be in a relationship.
What he doesnโt realize is that this bookworm is a virgin, and far from versed in seducing a musician. So, to sweeten the deal, I convince him to help me โ not just to get my crushโs attention, but to knock his socks off once I have it.
But the more I come unraveled at the hands of Clay Johnson, the more trouble I have discerning whatโs fake and whatโs undoubtedly real โ particularly, the way my heart flutters every time that breathtaking man touches me.
We set the rules. We put the safeguards in place.
But they say rules are meant to be broken.
They probably should have added that hearts are, too.
Blind Side is a fake dating college sports romance with “lessons” and opposites attract. It is a complete stand-alone.
TL;DR: This had the fake-dating and popular jock/bookish virginal nerd tropes with a good bit of angst and a whole lot of funny, swoony and steamy moments in between! This was my first book by Kandi Steiner and I’m glad to say that I really enjoyed it! Blind Side was simply a good-time read and with how much I enjoyed it, I’m looking forward to checking out more by this author.
I really liked Giana and Clay together and I loved how their relationship evolved from something surface-level to something deeper and much more romantic. It’s so great when couples develop a strong friendship and the level of openness and trust that forms between these two made their romance that much stronger. There was a genuineness to their interactions that made this romance feel a lot more realistic!
Giana was an absolute sweetheart and a romance-loving bookworm. She’s shy and doesn’t see herself as anything special coming from a family of overachieving siblings but I loved how she grew confident in herself as the book progresses. She is an ‘innocent/virginal’ FMC but I don’t feel like she comes off as “not-like-other-girls” and actually, it was great to see her actually open up sexually (also thanks to romance novels)! I loved Clay and my heart went out to him in his situation. He’s a typical jock in many ways but he also has a people-pleasing side and would do anything to help the people he cares about even if it means putting himself last. It took him a while to get to a place where he’d put himself first and it did generate a fair bit of angst but it didn’t get overly dragged out and I loved the support he got from his friends and teammates to get him there. That grand gesture at the end was so swoontastic and honestly, sickeningly sweet and I loved it! ๐ Their chemistry was off-the-charts and the steamy moments were fire-hot thanks to Clay reading Giana’s romance novels and taking notes on what she likes! ๐๐ฅ
Overall, this was a really fun sports romance though it did have a few more serious moments dealing with a toxic parental relationship and a bit of romantic angst at the end. Giana and Clay were really great characters who more than deserved their HEA and I’m already really looking forward to the next book in the series.
Have you read Blind Side or is it on your TBR?
Special thanks to Grace Fell at Spark Point Studio and Balzer + Bray for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!
Rust in the Root
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pub Date: 20 September 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Panda Rating:
(4 pandas)
The author of the visionary New York Times bestseller Dread Nation returns with another spellbinding historical fantasy set at the crossroads of race and power in America.
It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America dividedโbetween those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technologyโotherwise known as Mechomancyโnot the traditional mystical arts.
Laura disagrees. A talented young mage from Pennsylvania, Laura hopped a portal to New York City on her seventeenth birthday with hopes of earning her mageโs license and becoming something more than a rootworker.
But six months later, sheโs got little to show for it other than an empty pocket and broken dreams. With nowhere else to turn, Laura applies for a job with the Bureau of the Arcaneโs Conservation Corps, a branch of the US government dedicated to repairing the Dynamism so that Mechomancy can thrive. There she meets the Skylark, a powerful mage with a mysterious past, who reluctantly takes Laura on as an apprentice.
As theyโre sent off on their first mission together into the heart of the countryโs oldest and most mysterious Blight, they discover the work of mages not encountered since the darkest period in Americaโs past, when Black mages were killed for their powerโwork that could threaten Lauraโs and the Skylarkโs lives, and everything theyโve worked for.
Racism, use of racial slurs, slavery (historical), genocide (historical), violent death (on-page)
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:
Hello, hello friends! I’m so excited to be back with another #UltimateBlogTour with @TheWriteReads gang for The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair by Natasha Hastings. Don’t forget to check out all the other bloggers participating in this tour: here or click on the banner below! ๐
Special thanks to HarperCollins for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
So, weโre back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s topic is actually Topย Ten Favorite Wordsย (This isnโt so much bookish, but I thought it would be fun to share words we love! These could be words that are fun to say, sound funny, mean something great, or make you smile when you read/hear them.)
Hello friends, Iโm back today with another month’s edition for The Birthstone Book Covers series created by one of my favourites, Leslie. She created this at the start of 2022 and was born out of her curiosity about birthstone colours and it’s a fun way to show different book covers/titles corresponding to that month’s birthstone.
Hi, hello, friends! I’m back with another tag today and it’s the 20 Questions Book Tag that the wonderful Kerri @ KerriMcBookNerd tagged me in back in June (oop!). If you haven’t already, go check out Kerri’s blog! She writes wonderful posts and is such a supportive friend in the community. ๐ Thanks for the tag, lovely!
I tried to find the OG creator of this tag but kept running into dead ends, so if you do know who it is, please let me know and I’ll link to them. On that note, let’s get to the tag!
dinipandareads 