mignon mykel { reviews }: review || READY OR NOT { blog tour }

Friday, December 5, 2014

review || READY OR NOT { blog tour }

Ready or Not by J.L. Berg

Publisher: JL Berg, LLC (12/2/2014)

Series: Ready Series, book 4
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: InkSlinger
Buy it from amazon | iTunes | kobo | bn || goodreads

My Rating: ★★★★1/2

Born into wealth and privilege, free-spirited Liv Quinn left it all behind when she realized there was more to life than living off of trust funds and barely skating by. Since then, she’s worked and fought for everything she’s earned and never looked back at the world or the family she left behind.

Jackson Reid is starting over with a new job in a brand new city. A single father to his son Noah, he hopes the change will help strengthen the bond that has seemed to suffer since puberty reared its ugly head. What he hadn’t planned on was Liv—his exotic next-door neighbor who drives him insane with her wild, new age lifestyle, but still manages to leave him aching for more.

As challenges arise and feelings intensify, will these neighbors be able to look past their differences and find a middle ground? When love comes knocking, will they be ready, or not?

about J.L. Berg || J.L. Berg is the USA Today bestselling author of the Ready Series. She is a California native living in the beautiful state of historic Virginia. Married to her high school sweetheart, they have two beautiful girls that drive them batty on a daily basis. When she's not writing, you will find her with her nose stuck in a romance novel, in a yoga studio or devouring anything chocolate. J.L. Berg is represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, LLC.

connect with J.L. Berg || website | twitter | facebook | goodreads

I absolutely loved this story!

Liv and Jackson's relationship is fun right from the get-go. Well... not right from the get-go, because at first, it's a doctor-patient type scenario. But eventually, it's fun.

Liv's neighbor-lady has passed away; now someone else is moving into her house. And while Liv can appreciate that man's fine backside from the window...

...the fact that the movers made a mess of the flower bed she and Etta planted means game-on.

The battle starts by Liv stomping over to his house to complain about the flowers.

So Jackson does the only thing a ~~juvenile boy~~ man would do...

... he gets more of that blasted red, chemical-laden mulch she so detests, and a mix of hodge podge flowers to landscape his yard.

Their battles go back and forth; one does something to purposely piss the other off, the other retaliates, and so on and so forth.

...and just when you think they'll have a truce (see: Jackson visiting Etta's grave, finding Liv there, and realizing that while he's been away, Liv has been there; she planted flowers for his grandparents and brought flowers with her everytime she visited the stones)... well, something happens and the games start up again.

Can I be honest?

The games don't end.

...they go ALL the way to the end. And this makes me happy.

It keeps their relationship young. I can only hope that after the pages of the book, they continue to playfully one-up one another -- even managing to get young Noah into the mix (such as when Liv teaches the youngster how to TP a house... his own house, at that; and when Jackson gets his son to help him fill Liv's house with 843 balloons).

Speaking of pages after the book... I'm kind of sad that it's not likely there will be 'after the book' -- all the friends are married off now! Liv was the last one!! I do hope that we can peak back into this group; while I hadn't read any of the others in the READY series, seeing all the girls with their significant others, and everyone's interactions, made me want to pick up from book one and start over. So I probably will..

Not right now, but in time... :)

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a quick note from { mignon } ...

I AM NO LONGER ACTIVE IN REVIEWING

The last two years has been incredibly rewarding, giving me the opportunity to pick up new-to-me authors, as well as new-to-the-world authors. I have enjoyed supporting publishing houses as well as the indie author, and in doing so, I learned a lot about the marketing aspect of writing a book and selling it as a self-published author.

I have re-focused my journey to more writing-minded. I still read and review! But not nearly at the rate I was; three books a day has turned to three books a month.

I will no longer be accepting individual review requests (unless it's specifically author-to-author, then it will be highly considered).

I will definitely be posting reviews for commitments I have already made, though.

Thank you for understanding, & thank you to all those I have worked with over the last year plus!

~ Mignon

http://mignonmykel.com

GOODREADS updates

Dirty Saint: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Vesper Vaughn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book almost failed to get my attention. Why?

The hero.

He is the exact public person I despise. You know the type -- all biblical with publicized praying and verses all over his public persona. Great. Good for you. Bet you're not like that behind closed doors...

Which is exactly what Esther thinks of him.

Saint and Esther attend the same super religious college. Esther is on the fast track to becoming a nun, and no I do not kid, and Saint, given name Francis, can do just about whatever he wants, because he is the star athlete and the school knows he has connections. What in the world can these two have in common? The actions of their parents.

But where Saint does what his father says, usually, because his father is pushing him toward a pro-football careers, Esther follows her parents (father) because if she didn't... Her life would literally be a living hell.

I really enjoyed these two, once we started to get to know Saint a little bit better. My only drawback with the book would be the last half goes by in super-fast time. While it helped to keep the story moving, I would have liked to see more of that time drawn out so the feelings and emotions of our two characters felt more genuine and real -- rather than simply a two month courting that their lives demanded.

I'm giving the book the full 5 stars because it came out of left-field for me. It was a book that I didn't expect to like, but the author wove it in a way that I fell hard for our characters both as individuals and as a couple. I liked watching Esther grow and find her voice in life, just as I liked watching playboy, always for the chase Saint, settle down and find a person to be terribly protective over. I loved him most in the last two chapters.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

Everything by Erin Noelle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here's something you may know about me if you've followed my reviews -- I'm an epilogue reader. I will almost always read the epilogue first. Call me a spoilsport or no fun, or whatever but that's how I've been reading books for years. It's no wonder that when I write books, I tend to have the epilogue all figured out before I even start with "Once upon a time...".

That said... I read this epilogue and while I liked it, I just couldn't get past the ages of our characters. Couldn't do it. So I read the beginning. Still... If anything, the age of our characters was even more pronounced. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read this. You see, I have an issue with "Happily ever after" and the hardly-twenty crowd, let alone an eighteen year old.

But that's my hang-up.

Another thing you may know about me? I will sometimes read a book in what I call a inside-out fashion. I jump all over the place until I find a snippet of story that absolutely grips me. And people -- there are a few of those parts in Everything. So because I found those gripping parts, I put my faith in Erin Noelle, and I started from page one -- and I gave Everett and Belle a chance.

And I'm so glad I did.

Everett and his twin sister have been making music forever -- literally. They're the children of a rockstar; music has always been their life. When their father's group decides to get back together (dad always said he'd go back when the twins were done with school), Mason tells the label -- if you take me, you're taking my kids: thus, giving Everett and Ashlynn the opportunity to take their music to a larger level than they have before.

Along the way, with a local gig, Everett meets Belle -- and so begins their story.

This is a story about growing up. This is a story about following your heart -- be it for a person or a career, or even both. It is about learning to trust the person you are giving your heart to, and about taking the ever-looming jump into unknown feelings. When you put your life, your wants, your desires in someone else's hands, the world opens up -- and it certainly does for Everett and Belle.

The part I most appreciated was that the author made Everett true to his age and situation. Belle was too, yes, but it was Everett and his new lifestyle that had me wanting to see true characterization for. He's a guy; he's a musician; he's new to love. He makes mistakes. And for those mistakes, I truly got on board with this story.

Everett and his Tinker Bell were incredibly cute. I liked that there's a decent time jump at the end, further allowing -- you guessed it -- growth of our characters. I'm excited to watch more of them when (if?) Ashlynn's story comes out.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

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Friday, December 5, 2014

review || READY OR NOT { blog tour }

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