BOSSED

BOSSED                                                           SLOANE HOWELL

He’s the boss. But she’s ready to take charge.

In this provocative and sexy* office romance, a cheeky new hire tempts a hotshot sports agent to mix business with pleasure.

Jenny: Job interviews are a bitch under the best of circumstances, but when your potential boss is the world’s biggest prick, that’s when you should simply walk away. It’s just that I need this job so badly—and I’m mesmerized by Ethan Mason’s piercing gaze. Men like him aren’t supposed to exist in real life. But under the tailored suits and GQ looks, Ethan simmers with barely restrained ambition. And no matter how hard I work to fight the attraction, I’m going to get burned.

Ethan: You don’t become a top agent without learning how to close a deal. I always get what—or who—I want, by staying cool and in command. Then Jenny Jackson walks into my office with her lush curves and “screw you” attitude and blows away my intentions of keeping things professional. All I can think about is exploring the perfect body hidden beneath those conservative clothes or shutting her saucy mouth with one hot kiss. Jenny’s worth breaking the rules over—if I can convince her to break the rules for me.

*By sexy, we mean sexy. Like, 18+ sexy. 

MY REVIEW:

     Wow, what a fallout funny story of two tell it like it is crude mouth professionals.

     She is twenty-five-year-old Jenny Jackson (JJ) born and raised in Texas.  Texas girl all the way, by a single daddy.  You see her mom had left them when she was young but her daddy did a good job giving her a great life.  It was her dad Brian, her and her best friend Kelsey.

     She didn’t stand too much of a chance of being anything other than a tomboy with her daddy.  You see he loved all things baseball and so they had season tickets to the Texas Pro games.  She was a numbers kid so RBI’s, OPI’s, and all the rest of the letters of the alphabet she was your gal.  What little girl stuff she got was from girly friend Kelsey.  But the best way to describe she kind of girl was rocker chick with an hourglass shape and a mouth of a sailor.  JJ’s mouth wasn’t as bad but Hmmm pretty bad.  But they bonded in kindergarten when Kelsey gave JJ her pink crayon when hers broke.

     JJ, for the most part, she was pretty vanilla but she could talk a good game and usually, no one dared to challenged her.  Then, a year ago her life changed.  She couldn’t finish getting the course she was so close to graduating to get her CPA because they found out her dad has cancer.  So, she’s moved home to care for him and is applying now after a year of no work.  She needs help for the medical bills are taking them under.

     She got a call back on the same day she applied.  So, today is the morning of the interview.  Now she, her dad, and Kelsey live about a half hour outside of the city so she doesn’t go into the city much.  So now she was having a time of it getting her barring’s.  She needs to find Ethan Mason Sports Agency that is owned by said person.  But she needs coffee first.  She goes to cross the street but she is half asleep and crosses with looking and almost gets hit by a taxi.  She gets across and almost to the coffee cart and sees some little ones playing in the park with their daddy’s.  She remembers when her daddy did that with her.

     She stops cold.  When someone plows into her dropping her bag with her paperwork to the ground.  She says, “Please excuse me.”  As she bends down.

     When she looks up it’s a guy mid to late twenties who glares at her with his warm brown colored eyes, holding a phone to his ear, he’s sexy enough for GQ, his lips have a devilish smile with a slight curl at the end like a predator.  His brows are pinched together and he scoffed, “You're Excused.”

     She knew she was at fault but it was his attitude of being a cocky ass and the way he spoke to her that pissed her off.  When she stands full height, hands on her hips, and glares at him back saying, “Excuse Me?”

     He freezes.  Let’s just say things get out of hand from her when he even becomes more condescending and using ASL to try to communicate.  The banter does not get better it just stops due to time crunch.  But add injury to insult when she gets to her interview and finds out Ethan Mason Park Man is who is interviewing her.

     This is fast-paced, funny, and sad too in some places.  The characters are engaging and well thought out.  I give this: 5 stars.  Provided by netgalley.com.  Follow us at

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HIS FAMILY OF CONVENIENCE (The Medina Legacy #1)

HIS FAMILY OF CONVENIENCE                    AMY AYERS

Senna Callas’s one-night stand with her alpha asshole boss, Marco Medina, was supposed to mark the end of her internship and their ridiculous attraction. After being unreachable and ignoring Senna for a year, Marco sweeps back into the country and summons her to his office, revealing he knows her secret…the secret created during their explosive night together.

Marco is determined to be there for the son he’s just discovered he has, but when it comes to being with Senna, his choices aren’t his own. His meddling family expects him, the firstborn son, to follow through with the arranged marriage set up when he was a child. And Senna has no plans on being his mistress and still resents how her attempts to contact Marco were ignored. The only thing going right between them is the attraction that burns no matter the complicated situation they’re in.

Marco would do anything to protect his family, anything except deciding between the legacy he was born into and the young family he’s just found…

MY REVIEW:

     This was a lot more fun than what I was expecting.  I thought okay alpha male gets what he wants, end of story.  Well, not so fast…

     Senna Callas is an intern that had worked at Medina Enterprises.  She was rough around the edges but a fast learner and brought a lot to the table.  A person who could think out of the box and be taught too.

     The more Marco Medina the CEO of the company worked with her the more he wanted to get to know her and want her.  He tried to tell himself for a long time it was for professional reasons.  Especially, since he has a no dating employees rule.  But, as time went on he found himself setting private meetings with her.  His feelings became stronger for her.

     Then, the next thing was business lunches, brushes up against her and heads together for long project chats.  But it wasn’t until the graduation party when he singled her out and to take her up to his rooftop suite.  Where they made love all night.  When morning came, she was long gone.  It was all too much for her she needed to think.  He wanted to go after her but he needed to shower and start work.  He was disappointed.

After changing and going down to his office his world tilted forever.

     Marco’s father suffered a stroke.  He and his sibling flew home to Barcelona to be with the family.  Oh yes, Brynn was with them on the private jet.  Who’s Brynn?  She’s his fiancé at the office she’s just known as Medina Enterprises communications liaison. 

     You see it turns out when she and Marco were infants it was decided that they would be married.  Doesn’t matter if they love one another or want to be with one another it’s only business.  A woman on the side was an agreed upon understanding.

     Yet, now over a year later, Marco is back in Miami and he is demanding an appearance with Senna and her secret that he just found out about.  Which Senna is pissed about since she tried texting, calling, emailing, and even tried even showing up at the office to talk about but was turned away.  So, no secret about it.  If there was no response it was on his part and she was the injured party no him.  He is the deadbeat, not her.

     See how these two make it out alive without wanting to kill one another.  How do you get a heart to stop loving someone your pissed at?  I give this book 5 stars.  Provided by netgalley.com.  Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com.

OCEANSIDE MARINE (Kendalls #4)

OCEANSIDE MARINE                                    JENNIFER ANN

Fresh out of the Marine Corps, Braden Kendall has settled into a comfortable routine in SoCal with his 3-legged dog and a handful of good friends. Despite being undeniably handsome and perceived as a lady’s man, he’s lonely and tired of meaningless hookups. 

After becoming pregnant in her teens, Katie Walker dedicated her life to raising her two sons, putting any romantic notions aside until they flew the nest. Now that she’s on her own and free to date, she struggles with putting her needs first.

Though Katie and Braden aren’t related by blood, their families are intertwined by marriage, making a relationship seem forbidden. Katie always found the cocky Marine attractive, but their considerable age difference made him off limits. Little does she know, Braden has been crushing on her for years and can’t get enough of her quirky personality. When they meet up in Vegas for a family celebration, Braden tries to convince her that their age different and families don’t matter. Will Katie be able to push aside her insecurities and survive the scrutiny of those closest to her in order to have a future with Braden, or will their relationship be over before it has a chance to begin?

MY REVIEW:

     What a fun different spin on how we fill an act toward age differences of couples.  The gap was about ten years and it was the guy who was younger this time.

     The two had known each other for a while.  In fact, their families were pretty entwined by marriage over the years.  Katie Walker had gotten pregnant at fifteen.  Then again by the same baby daddy, who had stepped up at the time, again at seventeen.  He was trying to right by her and help out.

     With their son Connor he thought he could manage but when she got pregnant with Allen (of course that happened all by herself.)  He lost it and walked out on them.  She became a single mother at seventeen.  If it hadn’t been for her Rockstar brother, Charlie, and her parents, she would have been in a world of hurt.  Jason is a dead-beat dad and she did her best to be both to her boys.  Never feeling like she measured up as either one or both.

     Yet, she never dated, hardly ever went out with friends, and she worked hard to provide what she could.  Which she actually did really well.  Her brother married into the Kendall family which is huge.  Talented and beautifully sexy people.  One always seemed to catch her eye all the time.  He was Braden Kendall an ex-Marine.  He was the youngest brother of her best friend Evelyn, who is married to her brother.

      Sharlo and Evelyn used to be roommates when Evelyn moved to NY from Minnesota.  Sharlo is with James one of the twins and oldest brothers to Evelyn and Braden.  The other twin is Hunter who has not found a partner yet either.  But Katie just knew she could look at Braden and nothing else all day long but he was too young for her.  The funny thing is they were each other’s fantasy.  They were lusting after each other.  When they were around each other they were sparring partners.  You know foreplay.  They just loved to bicker.

     Braden said he loved the way she was such a tiny little thing but with a spitfire personality.  She would always put him in his place.  When he finally makes his move, she is so caught off guard she scolds him as if he were her child.  He was pissed and told her that he was no child that in fact, he was an ex-Marine and all man.

     See how these two try to figure out and maneuver a relationship they are not sure can happen or survive.  Or at least one of them thinks that way.  See who supports them and who doesn’t and why.  Funny with comedies of errors.  I give this: 5 stars.  Provided netgalley.com.

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PHYSIS (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #4)

PHYSIS                                                          MICHELLE IRWIN

Finding a new normal is never as easy as it seems.

Phoebe Reede has suffered unimaginable tortures at the hands of her captors. Now home and safe, she can’t let go of the things that happened to her. No amount of therapy or coaxing by her parents can draw her from her shell.

How can she learn to live again, when everything she loved about herself is gone?

**Due to strong language and sexual content not intended for anyone under the age of 18. Some books in this series contain content, including sexual assault and violence, that may trigger emotional distress in some readers.**


MY REVIEW:

     How do you live through the most awful painful, ugly, and ten thousand times that description event?  Especially, when before that yes you live through heartache but never this.  Never this horror.  A horror of horrors a woman should never experience by the hands of another.  At least and especially not by choice.  To each their own by for Phoebe Reede who had been kidnapped and tortured, it was not her choice.

     Now the simple act of human touch we all take for granted makes her skin crawl and is a trigger for excruciating pain.  A one loving, outgoing girl can now only believe it would have been better to die at the hands of her one-time friend.

     Now it was a matter of fighting her way through the much and seeing if there was anything left of that sassy, ball busting, risk taking race car driver she used to be and reforming into a much wiser street smarts edgier woman who one day could like herself, forgive herself and move on.

     This book is not for lightweights this is a graphically detailed account of trauma this character has gone through at the hands of three monsters.  But like an onion, it is peeled back in short bits in order took not over tax the reader I’m sure.  Yet, true to what a trauma victim would go through.

     Can Phoebe and Beau Miller find their way back to one another?  Does he hold the key to help her find her way out of the hell she finds herself pulled under?  Or does she have to scratch her way out on her own if he goes back to America?  Angel, I still don’t trust her.  I give this book 5 stars.  This book was provided by the author for an honest review.

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BEASTLY (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story, #3)

BEASTLY                                                        MICHELLE IRWIN

Not all things are exactly as they appear.

Beau Miller thought his happily ever after had returned in the form of the girl with the seafoam eyes. He never expected the second heartbreak at her hand. 

When her father, Declan Reede, turns up with murder in his eyes, Beau discovers that the break-up might not have been what it seemed. He must solve the mystery if he’s to find his girl. 

How can he and Declan rescue their princess when she’s been taken by someone with beastly intentions? And will they make it in time?


MY REVIEW:

     This book picks up where book two left off.  The thing I liked about it the characters themselves give a great update as to what happened prior giving you the crash course without losing any drama from the current place now.

     This story keeps you going and thinking but not in the actual romance and tension of sexual need is missing.  But the intrigue

And the mystery is so it is a new kind of trade off to figure out who could have forced Phoebe’s disappearance.  Because she is not a girl who is easy to talk into anything.  So, it had to be done against her will.  At 50% of the book, I already had four suspects.

     So, when ready, see if you really think Beau Miller could be the one.  There are a few obvious ones but there is one who no one could be noticing.  I couldn’t wait to see if I was right. 

     I was right but the ending was not what I was expecting.  Although the book was not exactly the romance I was hoping for the suspense was a new and different type of reading for me from this writer to be reading and it was interesting.

     You do get to see the dynamics of relationships Beau has with people around him.  How he handles himself under stress.  Which by the way his somewhat better than Declan’s yet I’m not sure.

     I am not too sure where Angel and Phoebe will end up in the end of the book series.  I have my questions about Angel. I give this book 4 stars.  Provided by author for an honest review. 

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LOVE ON TAP

LOVE ON TAP                                               MEG BENJAMIN

Wyatt Montgomery knows a barrel of legendary Zoria imperial stout will help his Denver gastropub stay on top. The only problem is the brewery that made it is no longer in business. When Wyatt hears the brewmaster has only one barrel left, he won’t stop until it’s his. He doesn’t consider what this mythical barrel might cost him. And he certainly doesn’t anticipate his reaction to the heart-stoppingly beautiful brewmaster he needs to convince to sell him the beer.

When Wyatt rushes into Bec Dempsey’s small-town cooperative offering to buy the last barrel of her precious Zoria, she’s thrown for a loop. She’s been burned by city-slickers before, and she’ll be damned if she’ll let it happen again. But when things start heating up between them, Bec decides to make Wyatt a counteroffer. One she hopes he won’t refuse. 


MY REVIEW:

     This was an interesting story about beers.  And those that make it.  But really, it’s about a betrayal of not only a friend to Bec Dempsey but a friend of her brothers and someone she was dating and her lover.  You see Bec was one of three owners of Antero Brewing.

     There was herself, her brother, Liam, and Colin a trust fund baby.  They were doing good on their way and had just produced a beer generating a lot of buzzes the Zoria, the golden ticket they thought.

     When all of a sudden, Colin pays off the property and half of all the bills and walks away.  Saying nothing.  Leaving close friends in the community holding the bag on some purchases he had made for making more beer.  So, by the time Bec figured out he wasn’t coming back she had a lot of people mad at her then.

     In Denver, at his ‘gastropub’, Quaff, Wyatt Montgomery was going through his own mini crisis.  A new place had gone in down the road along the same lines pulling his customers.  Which of course making him nervous.

     His bartenders said not to worry that place is just a fad and not a good one they will be back.  But he did beer drinkers was his bread and butter.  He was wondering what he could do to bring them back when a customer told him about a myth of a beer called Zoria.  That he had heard of and in fact had tasted just once.  The brewery went under but there might be one barrel left over.  So, if he wanted a coup that would be it.  He asked where he could start he said “Antero.”

     So, Wyatt was off to Antero to find an owner and comes upon someone who knows an owner.  He speaks with her and will let’s just say, “Let the games begin.”

     It wasn’t a fast-paced book at all.  More like slow and lazy but fun and interesting.  The dynamics of the characters and their treats are worth it.  I give this: 4 stars.  Provided by netgalley.com.  Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com.

Shout Out: An Author’s Place: Sharon Kleve Author of: KISS ME see excerpt

Shout Out:

An Author’s Place

Sharon Kleve

Author of:

Kiss Me- A Sage McGuire Romance – Book 2

Quirky, Private Investigator, Sage McGuire is up to her ears in trouble again in KISS ME.

Sage has left the security of her old job, as an executive assistant to a moron, and jumped feet-first into opening McGuire Investigations. If only her boyfriend, Sergeant Carter Morgan’s big gun and cop's intuition could save Sage from being grazed by a bullet to the temple, and another trip to the emergency room when she steals back her best friend’s uncle’s pooch, Mimi, from a psychotic loan shark in her very first case.

Carter's scary and conniving ex-girlfriend, FBI Special Agent Mia Williams, is back in town and full of trouble. Mia is determined to rekindle her relationship with Carter and she is used to getting what she wants—no matter what the cost.

Will Sage and Carter succeed in keeping each other out of trouble while falling head-over-heels in love?

“If you keep breathing on my neck like that, we’ll never get to dinner. And then I won’t have the strength to show you how much I missed you.” His chest moved up and down as his breathing increased.

“We’re not going anywhere. The bulge in your leather pants is making me drool.” I moved my hand over the tight leather.

He stopped my hand from exploring. “I’m not going to be able to get myself out of these if you keep that up.” He picked me up, flipped me over his shoulder, walked down the hall to his bedroom and tossed me on the bed. He looked at the bulge in his pants. “Now, what do you plan to do about this?”

I slowly ran my tongue along my lips. “You just wait and see.” I still had a few skills he hadn’t seen yet. We dozed for a short time. Then I woke when Carter stroked my back.

“I found another self-defense course that would be perfect for you.” He tickled my ear when he spoke.

“Okay. I promised I’d give another one a try,” I grumbled.

“It’ll make me feel a lot better.” His breathing increased. “I know something else that will make both of us very happy.” 

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Sharon Kleve was born and raised in Washington and currently, lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her husband.

Sharon is a multi-published author of contemporary romance. She loves romance. She loves reading romance, living romance, and especially loves writing about romance. She gets no greater feeling than watching her characters come alive in each other's arms. Most of all, she loves giving her characters the happily ever after they deserve—with a few bumps and bruises along the way.

One of her favorite things to do is pick up a new book and sink into the story, immersing herself in the emotions between the characters. She hopes to inspire her readers the same way her favorite authors have inspired her.

When not writing, she can usually be found either curled up in her recliner with her cat and a good book, or in the kitchen baking sourdough bread or bagels.