Category Archives: New Adult

5 star reads, Contemporary Romance, Dark Romance, Erotic Sex Scenes, New Adult, Review, SAFE, Young Adult

All Saints High Series – L. J. Shen

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All Saints High Series
L. J. Shen

The All Saints High books are about the kids of the people in Shen’s Sinners of Saint series. I found them when I was looking for dark high school romances. I haven’t read the parent’s series but went ahead with these. It’s a mood thing. These all had crazy amounts of reviews, mostly 5 star, and are tip top ranked on Amazon. All of these books are written in 1st person present tense with chapters from the two main characters. They each have a couple of chapters from the parents of one of the main characters, which I loved.

Pretty Reckless (Book 1)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I’m so glad the first book was as good as all the reviews and rankings said it would be. It’s actually SAFE, which I was surprised by, but it’s true. And the editing was amazing. I found so few errors in this! 4 since I always say. What a pleasure to read. In all these books, the bitchy banter is very amusing, there is a lot of great humor, and the sex scenes are hot.

When I was about 12 and started keeping a diary, my mom told me I shouldn’t write anything down that I didn’t want my grandmother reading in a newspaper. This is what code that can only make sense to you is for if you can’t stop yourself. I think everyone should pass on this wisdom to their children!

Favorite Quotes:

Daria: The only way I could protect myself from the fire was by creating a bigger blaze. If they thought I was untouchable, they’d fear me instead of taunt me. If they thought the hard-nosed principal had my back—or had me on my back, for that matter—I would not be messed with. So I nurtured the rumors, made them grow, gave them wings, and let them fly, like butterflies from a Mason jar.

Penn: I need to make sure that Daria is a hobby, not an addiction. Adolescent hearts are trash and as loyal as a starving stray cat. They’ll take anything. Even scraps. I don’t want to feed my rusty tin heart junk. And Daria, she stomped on it hard enough for me to know she’s not even a greasy burger. She’s a Pop-Tarts covered in cyanide.

Daria: High school is an aquarium full of sharks. People are always broiling with the need to burst free. Only the strong survive.

Penn: A perceptive little thing, she is. I don’t think people give Daria the credit she deserves. She could’ve found Bin Laden in a week had she been given enough Red Bull and good internet service.

Broken Knight (Book 2)

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I was hating this for a long time. I mean it’s beautifully written, but it is one hell of a tearjerker! It reminded me of Present Perfect by Alison Bailey, which kept knocking me over the head with tragic events. I read that in December 2013 (I keep a spreadsheet) and still remember it for screaming, “Enough already!” Broken Knight wasn’t that level of angsty and got better, happier, as it went on.

I have to give it only 4 stars because I don’t want to go through that (read it) again. Thankfully, there are very necessary moments of laugh out loud humor in this book. It needs the comic relief. The humor got me through it. This one is definitely not SAFE. We have to suffer through sex scenes with Other People. At least they are short snippets and not detailed.

This is the first book I have read in a very long time that I didn’t find any errors in!

Favorite Quotes:

Knight:
Footsteps thudded in the hall, and I stretched in the large bed, nudging the woman sleeping on my chest to wake up. “Your husband’s back. Pretty sure he won’t be so happy to see a stud like me in his bed.”
Mom looked up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She swatted my chest, then coughed. “Hide. I wouldn’t mess with him.”

“We always thought we were going to have girls, Rosie and me.”
I couldn’t help but smirk, mainly because all they had were boys. And we were about the most testosterone-filled creatures in the history of mankind. Sometimes I wondered if I had blood or jizz in my veins.
Mom looked down, flattening her palm over my linen and brushing it absentmindedly. Bad idea. This shit is ninety-nine percent spunk, one percent fabric.

Angry God (Book 3)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

After Broken Knight, I had to take break and read some other books, afraid of another tearjerker. But Angry God was back to what I loved in the first book. I’m glad I came back because this was fantastic.

This one isn’t SAFE because we have to endure Vaughn getting blowjobs from Other Women. But I knew this going in from the previous books. He wasn’t in a relationship with Lenora at the time. What really bothered me was the casual way all the teens thought about this. I wanted to scream that you can catch STDs from oral sex too.

Favorite Quotes:

Vaughn:

Empedolces emerged from the rosebushes, strutting his ass like a Kardashian in my direction. I’d named my blind black cat after the Greek philosopher who discovered the world was a sphere. This cat, like the philosopher, thought himself to be God. He had a fierce sense of entitlement and demanded to be stroked at least an hour a day—a wish that, for a reason beyond my grasp, my sorry ass granted him.
It was by far the most human thing I ever did, being pussy-whipped by a literal pussy. Emp brushed past my dirty boot. I picked him up, rubbing the spot behind his ear. He purred like a tractor.

I came buckets. I hadn’t come often before my arrangement with Good Girl, and never this much. I’m talking enough to fill a milk carton. I had to Google that shit to see that it was normal.

I pushed the door open, hoping to find her working or reading or converting to a religion where she could only have sex with people named Vaughn Spencer.

5 star reads, Contemporary Romance, Dark Romance, Erotic Sex Scenes, New Adult, Review

Corrupt (Devil’s Night Book 1) – Penelope Douglas

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Corrupt
Devil’s Night Book 1
Penelope Douglas

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Hot dark romance, new adult (college and a little older) with flashbacks to teenage years

Three years ago, Erika “Rika”, did something bad and sent Michael’s three best friends to jail. Now they are out, and the four men want payback. Rika has left the safety of her relationship with Michael’s younger brother and their small town and transferred to a new college in the city where Michael lives. This puts her exactly where the four men want her, in their grasp.

We don’t find out what happened until well into the book. I enjoyed the way it was given to us in flashback chapters along the way. In the beginning, I was chaffing at not knowing. What can I say? I’m a wait and binge watch girl. But at the end, I can say the book was much better for not front-loading this information at the start.

Penelope Douglas is an excellent writer, keeping me up way too late because I can’t stop reading and must find out what happened. The story and pacing kept me gripped the entire way through. There was much drama and some welcome humor to relieve the tension.

The characters are complex, believable, and I liked them even when they didn’t like themselves. They are all flawed, but this is what makes them great. I loved how strong Rika is. I was thrilled that she saved herself several times, not needing a man to do it for her, or at least she did a lot of damage before help arrived.

The sex scenes were hot and very well written. Their little kinks made things more interesting. There was nothing repetitive or boring here.

I do have a couple of complaints. 1. The guys are all promiscuous. They don’t make women pay or feel shameful, so at least they aren’t manwhores. Thankfully, we don’t have to read any sex scenes with other women. 2. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say a major apology is missing. Someone should have had to grovel and didn’t do so at all.

I must caution some readers. This is a dark romance. It does not contain actual rape, but rape is threatened several times by different characters. There is sexual molestation and harassment, including unwanted touching and kissing, again by different characters. Anyone with these types of triggers should stay away.

This is a sexually graphic novel. It contains many sex scenes. There is one menage scene. It felt right for the story, not gratuitous, dirty, or shameful. I actually thought it was the hottest sex scene in the book.

I give this five stars because I would read it again. I’m definitely reading the rest of the series.

Now for the grammar:

1st person past tense with chapters from both Ericka and Michael.

“Grinded” and “thrusted” are not a words. The past tense of grind is ground. It’s thrust in the present and past.

12 other errors: spelling, quotation marks, and italics problems. Two minor problems with continuity.

Favorite Quotes:

Rika speaking to her mom:

“We could re-watch Thor again. I know you like his hammer.”

“I’ll see what Noah’s up to tonight, but if I need bail money or I come home pregnant, you only have yourself to blame.”

Michael:

Rika was a lot like I was a few years ago. Confused, caged, and corruptible. The most valuable lesson anyone learns in life should be learned as early as possible. That you don’t have to live in the reality someone else had invented. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Ever.

Redefine normal. None of us know the full measure of our power until we start pushing our boundaries and pressing our luck, and the more we do, the less we care what others think. The freedom feels too good.

Rika:

There was no one to help me. There was no one to help me but me. You’re not a victim, his words came back, and I’m not your savior. I turned around, looking back at the house and seeing the lights inside slowly come on. They were in there. And once… I was one of them. Once, I ran with them, kept up with them, and stood next to them. I wasn’t their victim, and I had their attention. I’d learned how to fight. This was on me, and while I wouldn’t make it easy for them, I wouldn’t run. I would never run. I was built for this.

Michael:

“…I respectfully request that, when you come home, you do me before your homework…”

2 star reads, Erotic Sex Scenes, New Adult, Review

Boys of Brayshaw High, Trouble at Brayshaw High, and Reign of Brayshaw – Meagan Brandy

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Boys of Brayshaw High
Trouble at Brayshaw High
Reign of Brayshaw
Meagan Brandy

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Guilty pleasure like a soap opera or CW teen series

This is a guilty pleasure, like a soap opera or CW teen series. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I read it.

Raven is taken away from her prostitute mother and sent to a small group home in another town where she attends Brayshaw High. This school and town are ruled by three non-biological brothers. The beginning is a hate to love story, but that’s over quickly. Actually not much of it takes place inside the high school.

It becomes very difficult to suspend disbelief. It has some unique twists, so it isn’t cliché, but it gets ridiculously unbelievable. Secret identities, parentage, babies, and marriages. Comas, arranged marriages, mafia-like old families running the world behind the scenes, 16-year-olds having backstories fit for 30-year-olds. It’s insane but enjoyable, a guilty /pleasure/. All three of these books are very long, but it was well paced and kept me reading to the end. I did read all three of them.

I liked some things about the characters and hated other things. Overall, Raven is a strong female character and some secondary females are strong too.

This is really one long book, split into three parts. The first two have major cliffhangers. It would properly be labeled as Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Lots of foul language and violence. First person present tense from alternating main characters. Many graphic sex scenes. References to rape and child molestation, but none on camera.

Many reviewers have complained about an overabundance of lip licking. I absolutely agree. It’s crazy overkill. Fortunately, this was addressed in the second two books and only happens rarely there. In part one, Raven thinks about how hot the three guys are far too much.

There is a lot of promiscuity in this novel, but it seems to be consensual. Public and group sex acts. Unprotected sex occurs with a rejected offer to use a condom. There is no discussion of birth control or sexual history. It seems neither is worried about pregnancies or STDs, which is stupidly irresponsible.

Grammar: The comma situation is gruesome with routinely missing commas where they belong and extra commas where they don’t belong. Double punctuation marks like ?! are used. This comes from email and messaging but is not correct English. Beyond that, there were: BOBH: 5, TABH: 4, ROB: 6 including wrong words, extra words, missing words, missing or extra quotation and punctuation marks.

I’d give this three stars but the grammar problems knocked my enjoyment down a star.

Favorite quotes:

From Boys of Brayshay High: “Can’t help it.” I throw my hand forward, weakly squeezing the packed muscles of his biceps. “You try sitting a foot from a beast in the flesh with crazy eyes and a dirty smirk and let’s see if your thong stays dry.”

From Trouble at Brayshaw High: “Nuh-uh, child,” Maybell reprimands and moves forward with a first aid kit. “Don’t be lookin’ at them like that. They did right, calling me. You look as bad as you did when you found out the green Power Ranger was leaving the show.”

4 star reads, Contemporary Romance, Erotic Sex Scenes, New Adult, Review, SAFE

Trucker (The Good Guys) – Jamie Schlosser

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Trucker
(The Good Guys)
Jamie Schlosser

Rating: 4 out of 5.

So cute!

Travis picks Angel up when she starts to hitchhike across the country.

This was so frigging cute. It’s a light-hearted, feel-good read. I loved that both the leads are virgins. Travis’ horror date stories were hilarious. I laughed out loud several times while reading this.

The only thing I didn’t like was the OW drama. It was just another woman that wanted Travis, mean girl stuff, no touching at all between H and OW. Very cliche, but at least it was over quickly!

Angel was naive and far too trusting, but she’s very young (17/18). It’s nice to see that life hadn’t beaten that out of her already.

This is written in alternating 1st. I only found a few grammar mistakes in the whole book, just extra words. HEA.

Great quick read that I needed between heavier stuff!

5 star reads, Clean Romance, Contemporary Romance, New Adult, Review

The Sound – Sarah Alderson

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The Sound
Sarah Alderson

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Awesome, gripping, couldn’t stop reading to go to bed.

Blurb:

A British nanny looking for a low-key summer finds buried secrets, murderous attention, and unexpected romance when she visits the Nantucket Sound in this heart-pounding novel.

The Nantucket Sound is a beachfront playground for the privileged and elite, where the sunny days are filled with scenic bike rides, backyard picnics, and bonfire parties.

But all Ren Kingston—a visiting Brit still reeling from heartbreak—really wants is a quiet summer as a nanny for one of Nantucket’s wealthy families. Getting acquainted with handsome Jeremy and his young group of trust fund, private school kids was not part of the plan. Neither was befriending the local bad boy whose reputation is more dangerous than charming.

After a dead body is found next to The Sound’s postcard-perfect view, Ren starts to wonder where the real threat lies. Because it’s becoming clear that her newfound “friends” are much more than they seem. They’re hiding secrets. Secrets that Ren wants no part of.

But once The Sound has you in its current, it won’t want to let you go…

This is a complete story in one book. No cliffhanger!

It’s clean but has some steamy kisses.

I really loved it. It grabbed me from the start and I couldn’t stop. I read it all in one sitting, staying up all night to finish it. It was gripping and had me on the edge of my seat but it wasn’t depressing at all, which I love. I didn’t see the twists coming. I was thrilled that Jessie stopped Ren from having regrets – you’ll see what I mean. I was very satisfied with the ending. Overall, I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it.