Court of Command wasn’t what I had expected. After the Omegaverse aliens, a post-apocalyptic angelic world? Nope. Did it work for me? A little. I wasn’t all in, I wanted to be, but I wasn’t.
Julia is an anomaly and not in a good way. She remembers everything of before. Those marked by Lucifer have these memories–technically dispatching Julia to hell is the go-to, but her soul has touched another’s, and he’s not ready to let her go yet. Archangel Michael doesn’t want Lucifer to win his mate.
Title: The Flame Must Burn (Forbidden #1) Author: Beena Khan Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Romance Release Date:22 September 2020
Summary:
The hottest summer brings the first flames of love. Love is dangerous. It collides with culture, and culture is defied with rebellion.
She promised herself to me. Ryder is the small town’s local college boy. It’s summertime, and he’s at the beach when he sees a young, college girl. Their eyes lock together. Intrigued by her, he wants to approach her but she quickly disappears. Disappointed he returns home, but he sees her the next day in his summer class.
Good girls don’t fall in love. They only obey. From a traditional Middle Eastern family, Cyrah is a young foreign-exchange student. She’s studying abroad in a summer program of the small-town. Intimidated by her beauty, Ryder begins writing love letters to her. She is flattered but tries to steer clear from him. But then an incident happens that draws these two star-crossed lovers together. Slowly, she begins breaking all the rules and reciprocates the same feelings. But summer doesn’t last forever though, and Cyrah has to leave.
Title: I Promise You (#4) Author: Ilsa Madden-Mills Genre: New Adult, College Sports Romance Release Date: 12 October 2020
Summary:
Will this quarterback score the girl or make the biggest fumble of his life?
I Promise You, an all-new unforgettable, new adult, sports romance from Wall Street Journal bestselling author Ilsa Madden-Mills is available now!
Dillon McQueen: Babe. I promise. You want me.
Serena Jensen: Um, who are you?
There’s a legend at Waylon University: the first girl you kiss freshman year at the bonfire party is the one you’ll never forget. She’ll crawl under your skin and never leave. She’ll spark a passion so fierce you’ll burn the world down to possess her.
You might even put a ring on it.
As in all things with fate, timing is everything. That kiss can go horribly wrong. She might run in the opposite direction. And boy, did Serena run.
Dillon is Waylon’s hotshot quarterback with something to prove. All he wants is to graduate and make it to the NFL. What he doesn’t need is to finally meet the mystery girl he kissed at the bonfire freshman year. Isn’t it enough that she’s haunted his dreams for more than a thousand nights?
Fate laughs in his face when he runs into the quirky girl at the Piggly Wiggly. Surrounded by his entourage, he’s got all the Oreos in his cart; she gets revenge by buying every six-pack of his favorite beer.
Obviously, that legend is a curse. She’s not his type and hates him. Worst of all, how can she not remember him when she left a Serena-shaped hole in his heart for the past three years?
So why can’t he stop trying to win her?
Will this quarterback score the girl or make the biggest fumble of his life?
Title: Demon Born (Hellfire Academy #1) Author: C.L. Coffey Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, My rating: 4 of 5 stars
OMG, and by that, I mean Oh. My. Gabriel. I love when authors blaspheme and make the divine sexy and delicious. Good job C.L. Coffey, you sinner.
Kennedy is plucking her way through every goodness-challenged day. Phoenix is only the last stop in a long line of cities she and her mom have lived in, on the run from her mom’s monster plagued schizo-mind. It’s hot there, she has two jobs, and people suck.
But wait, there is more, a guy with a sword has just shown up. He has sexy green eyes and a psychotic need to off her. The dude attacked her on her way home, and she got hit by a car—a rough day at the office.
Title: No Good (Dayton High #2) Author: Stevie J. Cole & LP Lovell Genre: Enemies to Lovers Romance Release Date:15 October 2020
Summary:
He was the reprobate king of Dayton high. I was the bitter princess cast out of my kingdom. And we were at war.
It started off with a lie, and a one-night stand gone terribly wrong. Although I knew nothing good would come from my encounter with Bellamy West, the small town’s gorgeous bad boy, I didn’t expect him to throw jet fuel onto the already flaming wreckage of my life. Then step back with a sexy smirk on his face to watch me burn.
And burn I did…
He got me fired.
I got him arrested.
We were enemies until we weren’t. Until one touch went too far, and I found myself craving each dirty word. Every filthy promise.
Bellamy West was no good, and I wanted to be bad.
Screw falling for Prince Charming, I wrote my love story with the villain.
Oh, man, I don’t know where to start here. This book’s plot is a solid bully romance, and their chemistry is rather good. However, this story’s beginning is a bit of a duck’s butt of weirdness in how it portrays “push and pull.” As a matter of fact, early Cole Travis comes across as a petty pre-pubescent rather than a sexy rock-god.
Monica has had a crappy experience with a crappy excuse for a human being. She’s scarred but trying to heal, and her new school has her latest crappy experience–a new bully. Just in time for the last crappy-excuse for a human to become a memory, another one is on her radar, but this one is hot, and she’s fascinated. Cole Travis is everywhere, and if she’s not looking at him, he’s looking at her.
Has an off-limits (not precisely off-limits) brother (not exactly brother) ever been hotter than Hazel Kelly’s Beta Brother, Logan Jones? I’m positive you will give Zoey Petersen a pass for lusting over her adopted brother when you hear the things this naughty dirty talker says to her.
Hazel Kelly’s muse must have been working overtime because this novel is spicy. Logan and Zoey have been stewing over each other since first sight. A broken boy with a lot of baggage has little hope for a Happily Ever After, but the Petersens offer him a place in the family of foster and adopted misfits. He can’t stop self-destructing long enough to think he will ever be worthy of the girl who shines with an innocence that is utterly foreign to him, his foster sister. He makes the worst out of his new situation by going for the option of her best friend, Piper. And two kids desperate to tune out their reality make hell for each other while Zoey watches to her heartbreak.
A plot like this can go two ways: taboo relationships within a family story like these are either spicy and compelling or awkward enough to make you squick.
I know the reason stepbrother romances have taken off despite the forbidden fruit angle is that broken stepbrothers for fixer sisters warm the hearts of many pervy readers. (Hello! It’s not an insult, I’m a pervy reader, and this is a shout out to my people).
Title: A Loser’s Revenge Author: Tammi Lynn Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Reverse Harem My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
What is the worst betrayal? Some would say its betraying yourself, but for Barretta, it was having the three people she loved most at age thirteen hold her down, in front of the entire school, and humiliate her after telling her they loved her. That betrayal changed her whole life, and she was never the same after that. She left a week later and started over, started planning revenge.
Nine years later, it’s time to pay-up, and she’s loosey-goosey got plans to make them hurt so she can have closure and indeed start a new chapter. She’s enrolled in their college, knows their classes, has a key to their house, and knows where they will be.
Sounds creepy, and it is, but Barry/Bibi rationalizes a lot, and you start cheering for her success. Stockholm syndrome in book-form. By the time she starts falling for her bullies, and they for her, you are so confused about who you want to be mad at–and angry for–the story gets a little bogged down.
Axel is always a wiener; you won’t be rooting for him ever.
