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review 2015-05-11 16:28
Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me.
Overruled (The Legal Briefs Series) - Emma Chase

I have no one to blame for this but myself. I hated Emma Chase's Tangled (see my rage-review here), and so I just should have known that whatever Chase is selling, I don't want to buy. However, being a criminal lawyer myself, I'm kind of a sucker for romances involving prosecutors/defense attorneys (although, note to self, I rarely actually like these books as I find the legal plots rarely ring true), so I stupidly decided to check out this new series. Reading the blurb should have been all it took to warn me that this book would not be for me: Defense attorney Stanton Shaw takes his big city, Latina f*ckbuddy back home to Hicksville, Mississippi, to try to break up the wedding of his high school sweetheart.

 

As I should have expected, stereotypes abound.

 

Also as I should have anticipated (because Drew of Tangled was such a douchenozzle, and because the blurb basically tells us that Stanton brings his hoochie mama with him on a mission to win back his baby mama), the "hero" of Overruled was a total jackhole. What isn't clear from the blurb is that Jenny, the high school sweetheart, is not Stanton's ex -- he got her knocked up in high school, and they agreed that he would go to college and support his family, and that while they're apart they can have an "open" relationship. This has gone on for ten years, with Stanton catting around like a manwhore with anyone he likes, and paying only occasional booty calls on Jenny. This works fine for him, until Jenny falls in love with someone else, which Stanton gets all butthurt and betrayed about.

 

I didn't mind Jenny, but Sofia (the hoochie mama) was kind of a doormat. Like Stanton, she's supposed to be this brilliant lawyer, except that we never see her doing any actual lawyering. She spends the whole book talking about how she knows men because she's got three brothers, and she knows men don't like commitment or clingy women, so she's not going to make any demands on Stanton. That's all well and good, but have a little self-respect, please! No woman with any self-esteem or sanity would willingly accompany the guy they're sleeping with to help him win back someone else. Sofia keeps setting limits--I'll go with you, but no sex. Okay, once we get to Mississippi, no sex. Okay, absolutely no sex while we're staying with your parents--and then ignoring those limits, so she just came across as weak and ineffectual.

 

Stanton eventually sees the error of his ways and tries to make things right with both Jenny and Sofia, and readers who enjoy a good redemption story may be satisfied here. As for me, I solemnly vow: NO MORE EMMA CHASE FOR ME!

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review 2014-07-16 01:52
Review - Hard Hats and Doormats by Laura Chapman
Hard Hats and Doormats - Laura Chapman


Hard Hats and Doormats
by Laura Chapman
Genre: Romance
Release Date: December 9, 2013
 
 



Lexi Burke has always been a stickler for following rules and procedures. As a human resources manager for a leading Gulf Coast chemical company, it’s her job to make sure everyone else falls in line, too. 

But after losing out on a big promotion–-because her boss sees her as too much of a yes-woman––Lexi adopts a new policy of following her heart instead of the fine print. And her heart knows what it wants: Jason Beaumont, a workplace crush who is off limits based on her previous protocol. 

While navigating a new romance and interoffice politics, Lexi must find the confidence to stand on her own or face a lifetime of following someone else’s orders. 

Who says nice girls have to finish last?

 


 
 


 

I just loved this story. Having worked in the corporate world, it was easy to identify with Lexi and the predicament she finds herself in – the one where she wakes up one day to find out all the hard work she has done has not gotten her the promotion she deserves, and, as a matter of fact, all that hard work has done for her is it has kept her chained to her office and limited her ability to live life.

When Lexi finally realizes that all of her rule-following and hard work come with a price she is no longer willing to pay, she commits to herself to start having fun and living…starting with figuring out a way to land her the man she has been crushing on since she started working for the company…Jason Beaumont.

Jason Beaumont has worked his way up the company, and has had his eye on Lexi since the first time he met her, but has held back since her role in HR and her rule-following has made her seem off-limits. When he can no longer help himself, he starts to spend more time with Lexi…and when a night mixed with too many margaritas for Lexi has him confessing his feeling, there is no turning back!
This was a fun read and I enjoyed watching Lexi’s take charge of her professional and personal life. It was refreshing watching someone as young as Lexi understand the value of hard work, but also recognize when she was being treated like a “doormat”. It was interesting watching her struggle with trying to find the balance between being a push-over at work and going the extra mile because it truly added value. On the relationship front, it was easy to believe she would just submit to Jason since she had been crushing on him for two years, so it was also wonderful to see her take a stand with him when issues came up in their relationship.

I loved the supporting characters in this book as well. From Jason’s uncle Bo and his mother, to Lexi’s two best friends, as well as all the work friends that are featured during many karaoke nights – which I loved – they all add additional depth and color to this story. And I really enjoyed the role technology and social media played in the story, from the tweets at the start of each chapter, to watching the love affair that Lexi had with her phone…yep, seriously, she loved her phone so much she even named it “Harriet” and had conversations with it – LOL!

All in all, this was a great read – not your traditional love story, but more of a coming of age story in the workplace that happens to include a romance!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for an honest review.






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review 2014-02-27 13:37
Don't Bother.
Blushing Violet - Ann Mayburn

I must've picked this up as a freebie or cheapie somewhere along the line, I don't remember: it was in the long, long list of stuff I hadn't yet read on my Kindle, so I gave it a shot. My advice: skip it. 

 

It's not even worth a full review, but here are the two main reasons I hated this book:

 

1. The heroine, Violet, is a total doormat. When I looked this book up, I see the blurb comes right out and says she has "almost nonexistent self-esteem," so evidentally I was warned. I should've known better: I need a heroine to have some backbone. 

 

2. The heroes are lying douchenozzles, because that's what every doormat heroine needs, right? They are friends, and each wants to date her. Rather than tell her about thier relationship, they agree to each date her, not tell her about the other, and then let her choose. (Again, the blurb warns about all this. I swear, if I'd read the blurb ahead of time, I wouldn't have downloaded this book, free or not -- maybe I'm one-clicking in my sleep or something.) But of course she likes both of them, so they blindfold her and do her together (introducing the second guy as a friend of the first guy, but not telling her that second guy is THE second guy that she's dating). She freaks out, runs away (somehow STILL not noticing that Second Guy is her Second Guy, making her TSTL), and the next time she gets together with first guy, he has the fucking audacity to lecture her about the need for total honesty in a BDSM relationship! WTeverlovingF?! Of course, when the jig is up, she's pissed, they're sorry, but she's such a doormat she takes them back and agrees to be their sub dishonestly every after. 

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review 2013-10-25 11:46
I may be TSTL seeing as I keep on making bad decisions... but then I do enjoy ranting
Adam’s Boys - Anna Clifton

I ruined a perfectly good reading streak by picking this book up. I suppose I should have known that I couldn’t get lucky for so long (since my luck is absolute shit) but I hoped that I would be wrong.

 

Let me start with the namesake of the book, Adam. HE IS SO SLOW. Forget everything else he did. He knows how Abbie got pregnant because their mutual friend Justin told him. Some dude came around for 3 weeks, got Abbie pregnant and went back to London. Which was exactly what he did. How many men does he think slept with her and went BACK to London like he did and around the same time he did! It was just baffling seeing that he was all nice to Henry never suspecting that the kid was his own. How stupid does someone have to be to not get that? And he didn’t find out using his own wit, oh no, Abbie had to tell him, even with the fact that they kind of hung out quite a bit before she told him. And when she told him, he lost it and got all high and mighty on her about keeping his son away from him.

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