Quick read. A PNR romance with a little gothic horror rolled in. I didn't quite buy the 'paranormal physics' (ok I just totally made that up but it is the concept I am going with) that made the ending possible, but I guess you kinda roll with it cuz, well, PNR

I have hugely mixed feelings about the boom of the New Adult Genre. 

I fell in love when I was 19 and married before 24. We are still married and still in love.  I was blessed to find my best friend and partner during college. I was nuts. He was nuts. We work. We are still nuts but we are and are not the same people.  Young couples face challenges. All couples face challenges. They are differnt challenges than couples who meet when they are older face neither more or less difficult just differnt. 

I like that love stories are being told about this time period of falling in love--New Adult.  I think all phases of life and love should be told. 

I dislike the false angst (there is enough real angst) and strange need to have someone be an underground fighter or a billioniare. I don't like serials and cliffhangers. I really hate one book written for the heroine's point of view and then the story retold in another book from the hero's point of view.  I find 1st person point of view sufficating at times. I also hate Gifs and lovers of New Adult Romance adore writing reviews with Gifs and emojis. 

The whole Dear Author scandal with idea that somehow Jane Little/Jen Fredricks helped the genre dominate left a bad taste in my mouth.  And yet I read on lol in New Adult. 

I have read many a bad New Adult book that I DNF. Many. However, like any subgenre of Romances with the bad there is the good and the very very good.

Here are my favorite New Adult Romances. 

1. Sheltered by Charlotte Stein 5 Stars

Evie has lived her entire life under her abusive father’s thumb. He controls everything. Where she goes to college, who she sees, what she does. But when she meets Van—a punk who shows her how different life could be—she realizes how much she’s been missing.Van offers her excitement, protection, love…and most of all, sex—even if he’s at first reluctant to give her all the things she’s been craving. She wants to explore this new world of arousal and desire, but Van is only too aware of how fragile she is, how innocent…And how much is at stake, when their love is forbidden.

2. Deeper by Robin York 5 Stars 

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.
 
West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.
 
They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.
 
When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.

3. Geek with the Cat Tattoo by Theresa Weir 4 Stars 

Beauty and the geek… 

Shy music geek Emerson Foshay breaks into a cold sweat and is rendered speechless whenever Lola Brown, the girl of his dreams, steps into his guitar shop. But once a stray cat named Sam follows him home, everything changes and Emerson becomes the coolest guy in town. 

4. Wait for You by J. Lynn

Some things are worth waiting for . . . 

Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at that fateful Halloween party five years ago—an event that forever changed her life. What she never planned on was capturing the attention of the one guy who could shatter the precarious future she's building for herself.

Some things are worth experiencing . . . 

Cameron Hamilton is six feet, three inches of swoon-worthy hotness, com-plete with a pair of striking blue eyes and a remarkable ability to make Avery want things she believed had been irrevocably stolen from her. Getting involved with him is dangerous. Yet ignoring the simmering tension that sparks between them—and brings out a side of her she never knew existed—is impossible.

Some things shouldn't be kept quiet . . . 

But when Avery starts receiving threatening e-mails and phone calls, she's forced to face a past she wants to keep buried and acknowledge that someone is refusing to allow her to let go of that night when everything changed. If the devastating truth comes out, will she resurface with one less scar? And will Cam be there to help her?

And some things are worth fighting for . . .

5. Imperfect Chemistry by Mary Frame 4 Stars Free Right Now! 

Lucy London puts the word genius to shame. Having obtained her PhD in microbiology by the age of twenty, she's amassed a wealth of knowledge, but one subject still eludes her—people. The pendulum of passions experienced by those around her both confuses and intrigues her, so when she’s offered a grant to study emotion as a pathogen, she jumps on the opportunity. 

When her attempts to come up with an actual experiment quickly drop from lackluster to nonexistent, she’s given a choice: figure out how to conduct a groundbreaking study on passion, or lose both the grant and her position at the university. Put on leave until she can crack the perfect proposal, she finds there’s only one way she can study emotions: by experiencing them herself. 

Enter Jensen Walker, Lucy's neighbor and the one person on the planet she finds strangely and maddeningly appealing. Jensen's life is the stuff of campus legend, messy, emotional, complicated—in short, the perfect starting point for Lucy's study. When her tenaciousness wears him down and he consents to help her, sparks fly. To her surprise, Lucy finds herself battling with her own emotions, as foreign as they are intense. With the clock ticking on her deadline, Lucy must decide what's more important: analyzing her passions...or giving in to them?

6. All for You by Laura Florand 4 Stars 

Some crushes aren’t meant to be. 

When her older brother’s best friend left to join the Foreign Legion, eighteen-year-old Célie moved on to make a life for herself as a Paris chocolatier. Now, five years later, the last thing she needs is another man to mess up her happiness. 

Let alone the same man. 

But five years in the Foreign Legion is a long time for a man to grow up, and a long time to be away from the woman he loves. 

Especially when he did it all for her. 

Half strangers, more than friends, and maybe, if Joss Castel has his way, a second chance…

7. Trade Me by Courtney Milan 4 Stars 

Tina Chen just wants a degree and a job, so her parents never have to worry about making rent again. She has no time for Blake Reynolds, the sexy billionaire who stands to inherit Cyclone Systems. But when he makes an offhand comment about what it means to be poor, she loses her cool and tells him he couldn’t last a month living her life. 

To her shock, Blake offers her a trade: She’ll get his income, his house, his car. In exchange, he’ll work her hours and send money home to her family. No expectations; no future obligations. 

But before long, they’re trading not just lives, but secrets, kisses, and heated nights together. No expectations might break Tina’s heart...but Blake’s secrets could ruin her life. 

8. Elements of Chemistry: Parts 1-3 by Penny Reid 4 Stars 

ATTRACTION (45k words) 
One week. 
Private beach. 
Invisible girl. 
Jerk-faced bully. 
What’s the worst that could happen? 
Kaitlyn Parker has no problem being the invisible girl, which is why she finds herself hiding in various cabinets and closets all over her college campus. Despite her best efforts, she can’t escape the notice of Martin Sandeke—bad boy, jerkface bully, and the universe’s hottest, wealthiest, and most unobtainable bachelor—who also happens to be Kaitlyn’s chemistry lab partner. 
Kaitlyn might be the only girl who isn’t interested in exploiting his stunning rower’s build, chiseled features, and family's billionaire fortune. Kaitlyn wants Martin for his brain, specifically to tabulate findings of trace elements in surface water. 
When Kaitlyn saves Martin from a nefarious plot, Martin uses the opportunity to push Kaitlyn out of her comfort zone: spring break, one week, house parties, bathing suits, and suntan lotion. Can she overcome her aversion to being noticed? Will he be able grow beyond his self-centered nature? Or, despite their obvious chemistry, will Martin be the one to drive Kaitlyn into the science cabinet of obscurity for good? 

HEAT (63k words) 
Four days left. 
Private beach (…and boat). 
Not so invisible girl. 
And maybe less of a jerk-faced bully than originally thought. 
What’s the worst (or the best) that could happen? 
Kaitlyn is finding life outside of the science cabinet of obscurity to be quite illuminating …and so are her pants. 
When things heat up between Kaitlyn Parker and Martin—previously known as the jerk-faced bully—Sandeke, she places her trust in the one person she never thought capable of earning it, let alone keeping it safe. Fortunately or unfortunately for Kaitlyn, where she gives her trust she can’t help but also give her heart. 
But how will the world beyond the sanctuary of their newfound connection react to their relationship? Soon senators, chinless billionaires, and elements beyond Martin and Kaitlyn’s control want to weigh in on the young couple’s future. 
Navigating the chaotic inferno of new love might be more than Kaitlyn bargained for, and much, much more than her trust—or her heart—can handle. 

CAPTURE 
One week. 
Manhattan apartment. 
Super-hot ex-boyfriend. 
…What’s the worst that could happen? 
It’s been nine months since Kaitlyn Parker has seen or heard from Martin Sandeke—nine months and five stages of matter. She’s lived through the worst of first-love heartbreak, and is most certainly stronger (and less likely to hide in science cabinets) than ever before. 
But now Martin is back. And he wants to be friends. But he’s sending mixed signals to the Bunsen burner in Kaitlyn’s pants. 
Will Martin re-capture Kaitlyn’s heart? Can Kaitlyn and Martin ever be just friends? Or, despite an abundance of chemistry, are some bonds just too unstable to endure?

9. @Last by Billy London

Courtney is the good girl waiting for childhood crush Christopher to realise she’s the one for him. Unfortunately for Courtney, her sweetheart is a tosser. Anyone with eyesight could tell her, if only she’d listen. Christopher jaunts off to South Africa to apparently teach English to underprivileged children, but who knows what he's up to? While he’s there, Courtney catches the eye of one Ryan Klark, another teacher who attempts to educate her on the folly of her love. Instead, Courtney is the one who teaches Ryan more than a few things, and the friendship they strike up through cheeky emails, phone calls and letters from Paris is deeper and stronger than anything Courtney has experienced before. Before she knows it, their lighthearted correspondence turns into something romantic, then rather dirty, then more necessary than air. When Ryan comes back to London, Courtney is ready to enjoy all the perks of being with a person who likes you back! Only they both forgot who Ryan was in South Africa with. It doesn't matter, because Ryan's perfect. Right?

10. The Deal by Elle Kennedy

annah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she's carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush's attention, she'll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice...even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.

...and it's going to be oh so good

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he's worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he's all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn't take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn't going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

Have recs for me? Disagree? Agree?  Let me know!

Vote on my Goodreads list: Best of the New Adult Romance Genre. 

Anyone else a fan of the movie Green Card with Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell? 

I loved that movie.  In case you A: Were not born or B Some how missed it in 1990 here is the plot according to IMDb 

George Faure is a Frenchman who has been offered a job in the U.S. But in order to get the job he must obtain a work permit - green card, and the easiest way is to marry an American. Bronte Parrish is a New Yorker who is a keen horticulturist and just found the perfect flat with its own greenhouse. Unfortunately the flat is for married couples only. A marriage of convenience seems the ideal solution to both problems. To convince the immigration officers they are married for love, they must move in with each other. As the mismatched couple attempt to cope with life together, they start to fall in love.

I love Marriage of Convenience plots!  I adore the couple time and the you must deal with each other.

For a Contemporary Romance what could be a more realisic reason for this kind of marriage that citizen status.  I do wish they had less "we are going to get found out" drama.

Here are some fun Green Card Romances with immigration needs for all kinds of reasons.

My lists are never in any particular order. Enjoy!  

1. An Engagement in Seattle by Debbie Macomber

Aleksandr Berinksi is a Russian biochemist in the U.S. on a visa that is about to expire. Marriage will allow him to stay—marriage to Julia Conrad. If Julia's going to save her Seattle-based company, she needs him as much as he needs her. There's a Groom Wanted in Julia's life. And not just any groom!

2. Rio Grande Wedding by Ruth Wind

One kiss stole her heart. So when Molly Sheffield realized Alejandro Sosa needed a green-card bride, it seemed only natural for her to stand by his side….

But the pretty widow could not predict the feelings she would have for her new husband. After opening her heart to Alejandro, Molly knew she was meant to spend forever with this man. But she and Alejandro had only so many passionate nights, so many warm and loving days, before they said goodbye.

Or before they fell hopelessly in love…

3. Wanted: Outback Wife by Ally Blake

hen Jodie Simpson met her long-lost sister, Louise Valentine, she didn't realize the biggest adventure of her life was about to begin. With her visa about to expire, and desperate to stay in Australia, Jodie has a plan…she'll marry for convenience!

Jodie is offering a one-year marriage, with no strings attached. So why does sexy cattle rancher Heath Jameson, who is almost certainly looking for a long-term wife, want to marry her? Heath seems so sure—and so handsome—that Jodie takes the plunge. Only to fall for a convenient husband who seems to be running from the ghosts of his past…

4. An Inconvenient Wife by Katy Madison

Brandi Yeats wants gold—Olympic gold, but she needs a new ice dancing partner. One man is available, but he's totally wrong for her, and he's the wrong nationality. Marriage is the only way they can compete for the same team. So what's a girl to do when her dreams are on the line? What she won't do is have an affair with the broody, but far too attractive, Russian, even if he is her husband. 

Nikolai Petronof is willing to do anything to skate with a strong competitor like Brandi—even trap himself in a lie he can't get out of. Everyone warns him not to mix fire and ice, but he can't help himself. That is until he's caught in a hands-off marriage of convenience that is far too inconvenient...

5. Mail-Order Groom: by Cindy Flores Martinez

Lisa is about to marry the love of her life, but her world is shattered when she finds her fiancé, Jeff, in the arms of another woman. When he calls off the wedding, she's heartbroken. 

In a twist of fate, she meets Krzysztof Zielinski from Poland on Mail-Order-Grooms.Com. He needs to marry an American woman so that he can stay in America, and he’s willing to pay money for it. His reason for needing to stay is what tugs at Lisa’s heart and convinces her to say “I do” to him. After all, it’s going to be strictly a business deal. 

Lisa races to the altar with Krzysztof, but things become complicated when she finds herself falling for him, and he’s not planning to stay in America forever. Will her heart break all over again?

6. Kissing the Canvas by Billy London

Russian boxer, Pasha Markovitch, has everything in his corner, looks, potential for Olympic greatness, and speed of powerful fists professionals only dream of. There’s just one small issue. If he can’t find a solution to his current visa situation, he’ll be out of the UK and ducking and weaving with government standard silver bracelets on his wrists. The pressures of his father’s greed and the anxiety of a past that continues to knock him down, steadily wear on him until chance leads him to green fingered, sarcastic mouthed, Liliana Asare who offers the light of a reprieve. Coming to an arrangement of mutual exchange, they both get what they want. Pasha gets to stay in the country and Liliana gets the financing for her florist shop. The whole scenario is perfect enough to list. Woman willing to marry him so he doesn’t end up deported and she doesn’t end up losing her livelihood? Check. Avaricious father satisfied? Check. Falling in love with his fake wife? Wait, that’s not on the list…

7. Baily's Irish Dream / Czech Mate by Kate Thomas

She knew all the right moves...

Wendy Marek needs to see green -- as in money to finance her studies in fashion design in Paris. But to claim her inheritance she must marry. Visiting Czech Peter Havel also needs to see green -- as in green card! What will Wendy do with a Czech math genius with the body of an Olympic gold medalist? Well, marry him, of course. However, what will happen to this marriage of convenience when love enters the equation?

8. A Marriage of Convenience by Jewel Amethyst

After being left standing at the altar, Tamara needs someone to share the new home she can’t afford. Enter Kawbena Opoku, a gorgeous Ghanaian scientist in search of a green card, to fulfill Tamara’s needs—and the desires she didn’t know she had.

9. Marry Me, Cowboy by Lilian Darcy

Champion barrel-racer Tegan Ash has nothing left to go home to in her native Australia and every reason to stay in the USA. But her visa is about to expire, and her prospective groom has called off their green-card wedding. 

Jamie MacCreadie doesn’t actually want to marry a woman he can't stand, but his best friend and fellow rodeo rider Chet has just let her down and, somehow, he finds himself offering to do the deed instead. 

There’s no chance it could turn into the real thing, because they have nothing in common… do they?

10. Temporary Wife by Joan Kilby

Veronique Dutot and Burton O'Rourke—each has something the other needs.

Veronique is a talented chef, while Burton happens to need a chef for a new cooking show he's about to produce.

Veronique, on the other hand, needs her visa extended so she can live in Vancouver near her former mother-in-law.

Burton proposees and old-fashioned solution to their very modern problems. A temporary marriage. A marriage of convenience.

Veronique accepts—although there's nothing temporary or convenient about the way she's starting to feel.

So I need more for these. Perferably between working class people. Yeah. 

Whatcha got? Or if you don't have any which writer should we hound to creative more? lol

Vote for the best of the best on my Goodreads list: Green Card: Marriage of Convenience Romance. 

Awww.... I liked this so much.

This is a friends to lovers story.  But from page one you learn that Nick and Gina are in love with each other.  Nick a little moresoe than Gina at first.  I mean that guy is Drunk in Love, Dangerously In Love, Crazy In Love...(okay I'll stop with the Beyoncé).  But seriously...dude is turnt out!

When the opportunity comes for Nick to make his feelings known to Gina he does so.  She reciprocates.  This happens very, very early in the book. 

So the conflict isn't about them falling in love.  In fact, even though the they break the seal on sex and moves the relationship far away from the platonic, their bond of friendship is so strong that it remains as the foundation for their romantic relationship.  This was the thing about this book I think I loved the most.  Even amongst their romantic travails, Nick and Gina always felt like the best of mates.  Even their dialogue throughout the book, while peppered with words of love, still held that awesome tinge of friends who can say anything to each other, insult each other, give each other monumental shit...the only way best friends can.  They were ride or die for each other. 

Their romance doesn't imperil their friendship, instead their friendship is what solidifies their romance. 

The conflict then comes from Nick's job.  Although he and Gina had been friends for over ten years and have been (silently) in love for most of that time,  Gina has no clue that Nick is basically in a mob family.

So she has to reconcile her moralilty with her love and affection for this man. 

I love how the author allows Gina to work through that.  It could have been so easy to manufacture drama and misunderstandings, but no matter how awful things got, no matter what they said to each other sometimes in the height of anger and emotion, the fact of the matter is Gina never forgets what this man means to her.  So Gina always works her way back around and a lot of time she does it through some smart inner reasoning.

Hence my enjoyment of this book.  It didn't follow predictable paths.  There were so many times it made left turns, as it were, in the narrative.. things I just wasn't expecting. For instance, the character of Sofia was just such a left turn.  She is set up to be a certain type of character.  But then... she starts to talk and says things and I couldn't help but be delighted with her.  In another book her materialism and cynicism would probably have made her less than sympathetic, in this one it is simply a facet of her personality that actually makes her feel honest.  I loved Sofia.  And I loved the relationship she and Gina developed as the book went on.

Other things...

 - the dialogue was excellent.  I love British slang and it is all over this book.

 - It was funny in places.  Gina's 'voice' is particularly fun. 

 - Nick understands Gina's hair issues.  Over they years he has surreptitiously stocked his bathroom with her fave hair products as well as hot combs and straighteners for the times she's stayed over.  Come on!  This guy is Irreplaceable, Flawless (ok, more Beyoncé..sorry)

Madly enjoyed this one.

This book had potential to be better than it was. I like this author's voice, I really do. It is a bit irreverent and very smart. This book only had glimpses of that irreverence & smartness which is why I think this book could have done better.

The basic story is that Pasha Markovitch is a Russian boxer who lives in London. He needs sponsorship to go on to bigger and better things in the sport but his lack of British citizenship is preventing that.

Lily Asare has just had her life savings stolen by her boozing, gambling wastrel of a father. Without it she can't start her own business and she currently absolutely hates her current lech of a boss.

Pasha's father has a solution. Lily marries Pasha so he can become a citizen by marriage. And he'll pay Lily the money.

So this becomes a rather murky MOC story.

I rather liked Lily and Pasha together but I felt so many other elements of the story competed (too successfully, imo) with the romance. For one thing both Pasha and Lily each have a set of frightful parents. And their dysfunctional relationship with their respective parents take up some rather hefty real estate in the book.

I generally like messy relationships amongst characters in books. Feels more life-like. People don't behave like book characters do, so when I see book characters behaving like real people I like it. In this case it had the effect of coming off as rather disjointed and a little non-cohesive.

It may sound like I did not like this book. I did. I actually did whip right through it. But I think my rating and review in reflecting a comparison to other works the author has done and this book feels just a little not up to her normal standards