Seventeen-year-old Abby Turner’s summer isn’t going the way she’d planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn’t been able to manage her mother’s growing issues with anxiety. And now she’s been rejected from an art show because her work “has no heart.” So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings Abby isn’t going to take any chances.

Which is where the list comes in.

Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list she’ll become the kind of artist she’s always dreamed of being. But as the deadline approaches, Abby realizes that getting through the list isn’t as straightforward as it seems… and that maybe—just maybe—she can’t change her art if she isn’t first willing to change herself.

Review:

Love, Life and the List is a book about self-discovery and transformation. It’s a cute book that’s going to steal your breath away and warm your heart. The story is funny, quirky, charming and all kinds of romantic, perfect if you’re looking for a warm summer read in this cold days.  

I freed my mouth and laughed, even though the “just friends” part was not by choice. I had, in fact, professed my love to Cooper Wells exactly one year ago that very month. It had been more than obvious by his reaction that the feelings were not reciprocated. So I had to play it off like some joke. Some joke he had been more than willing to go along with. And I let him, because I didn’t want to lose him as a friend. He was the best friend in the world.

Abby was a pleasant surprise as a protagonist. I liked her sarcasm and how she was quick on her feet when she needed to give a smartass answer or even a funny one. I laughed a lot thanks to her. I also though it was well built her relationship with her grandfather. They bickered the whole book, but you could feel the love. I liked how her art was described and the whole creative process she went through, and it was a learning experience for me seeing her overcome her fears because of that list. I might just make one for myself because it really helped her and her art.

Cooper was a big teddy bear, I admit. He was introduced as this playful guy with a constant smile on his face, that was clueless about how Abby felt about him. NOT. He was a little snake in a hot guy’s body. Because he played with Abby’s feelings the whole book. But he manages to redeem himself in the end and I forgave him, but just because he’s cute and he cried.

And as the illegal sky rockets lit up the sky with their loud bangs of color, I noticed Cooper looking at me. He averted his gaze. Maybe things could change.

The couple itself was super cute. They were best friends up until the last ten pages of the book and I should totally be mad at that. But I’m not. It worked. We got to know them as friends first and see how they interact with each other and THEN we saw them as a couple. But I must admit, for a couple of seconds I was afraid they weren’t going to make it. But they did, and they have a happy ending. Don’t worry people!

The only thing I expected more out of this book is the secondary characters. Even though the main story is not about them, the secondary characters make or break a book. I have to highlight her Grandfather though, because he was a terrific character. I felt like I read about people that were supposed to be important but only showed up for two pages at the end. Cooper’s parents also didn’t really like Abby and it was explained why, but it didn’t convince me at all because that specific subject was almost never addressed or dealt with. It was brushed under the carpet. I would also have liked to read more about Abby’s dad and even her mom and Elliot. All of this, in my opinion could have been addressed with more detail because it’s important things that matter to the protagonists but are missing.

But overall, it was a simple yet sweet book that takes you back to your first crush and your first heartbreak. It’s cute and quirky and oh so adorable. The characters are well written and well thought out. Kasie West wrote a delightful book. 

4/5 Stars

Dru was ready to walk down the aisle, but when she found her soon to be husband with another woman, she decided it was time for a change. Therefore, she hoped in a plane and hauled herself to Alaska. There, she meets captivating Badd Brother called Sebastian. One thing leads to another and they both start falling for each other. Then, add to the mix another seven volatile brothers that are coming into town, and you got the recipe for disaster.

Badd Motherf*cker with that title alone I expected a hot-as-sin book. Instead I got a cute, funny book that was super-fast paced and easy to read, but really unrealistic. The whole story spanned out in a really short time frame. And in that time frame we had a lot going on. The leading couple fell in love, Dru figured out the meaning to her life and we were introduced to 8 different brothers. All with different personalities and all intense as hell. All of this in a relatively small book. I felt like it should have had more time to dig into the stories and into the main characters.

A badass female is just what I like in a book and I didn’t dislike Dru at all, but I felt like she didn’t have the strength that the author tried to portray. For such a badass girl, she spent half the book crying. I get that she was cheated on but have some respect for yourself girl. For a girl that could kick a guy twice her size, I expected more. Overall, I liked her, and she was fun to read about, but she wasn’t a complex character at all.

I don’t really know what to say about Sebastian. He has that alpha male vibe going on, with the tattoos and the hard personality, which I always appreciate. He was a good main character but with more realness he could have been even better. I mean, who the heck offers a stranger, after being insulted by her, bed and breakfast? Seriously, he should have kicked her out. It was unreal for me, but he was still funny and went all caveman at times. 

I liked that the author introduced the eight brothers in very distinct parts of the book, otherwise I would not have told them apart as well as I did. I also appreciated that we could clearly see all the different personalities in all of them. That’s bonus points!

Overall the book was good. It’s a lightweight book to read if you’re in need of some quick romance that is too good to be true or If you like eight Alpha males all stuck in a tiny house together. The important thing is that I had fun and I laughed whilst reading this. I liked it. And I will be reading the next one. 

3.5/5

Kindle Edition, 130 pages

Published June 25th 2017 by Evernight Publishing

Damian Denton lost the mother of his child because he could never love her. That guilt won’t go away, and he can feel it eating away at his soul no matter what he does. His only hope is to find someone deadly enough to kill him. 

Mia Banks doesn’t want to ask Ivan, the father of her child, for help, but she has no choice. If she wants to survive, she will have to beg him. But when a man crashes into Ivan’s office, her life changes forever. 

The moment Damian sees the beautiful Mia, he knows without a doubt that she belongs to him. Taking Mia and her son away, Damian is determined to do everything different. He’s not going to scare Mia with who he is or who his family is. 

Review:

Keep her from harm is really lacking interest in plot compared to the other books. I started reading the book about two hours a go and I’ve already finished it, but I found myself really bored at times. I like when a book is precise and has the necessary information without going overboard but this story lacked details. It really needed some more pages or even chapters, so It wouldn’t feel so rushed.

The Denton legacy series have a strong background story that could be elongated and explained much better that it is. It has everything to be a great book but the rushed feeling you get in the end is far from good. And in my case not even the secondary characters could have save it for me. 

Also, the main character was far from interesting. I was looking forward to reading about Damien, but he just got boring really fast and did absolutely nothing related to the mafia, asides from a few fights. And Mia is the stereotype of a woman that has a hurtful past and suddenly has a prince charming that gives her everything… And she still believes he just wants to be friends and accepts it. It’s just too cliché and predicable. Everything about these two was. And that makes me sad because I was really liking Damien.  

No matter what anyone said, he had killed Betty. This curse, being able to know which woman was yours, had killed her because no matter how much he stared at her, his feelings hadn’t changed. The instant he had stared at Mia, he’d known. Everything had faded away, and all that remained was her, with her beautiful blonde hair, which cascaded all around her in ringlets, shocking blue eyes that held an ocean of pain, and also something fierce. She was a fighter.

I would rate this a weak Mafia book. It has almost no action scenes and the Mob business is not explored properly. I liked the previous books and they surely were far better than this one. Let’s hope that the next one can make up for the lost points.