ARC Review and Teasers: Nobody But You By Jill Shalvis

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of Nobody But You from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. As always, all views expressed here are my own. 

Book Blurb

SOMETIMES YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN . . .
After an overseas mission goes wrong, Army Special Forces officer Jacob Kincaid knows where he must go to make things right: back home to the tiny town of Cedar Ridge, Colorado. All he needs to scrub away his painful past is fresh mountain air, a lakeside cabin, and quiet solitude. But what he discovers is a gorgeous woman living on a boat at his dock.

Sophie Marren has nowhere else to go. She's broke, intermittently seasick, and fighting a serious attraction to the brooding, dishy, I'm-too-sexy-for-myself guy who's now claiming her dock. Something about Jacob's dark intensity makes her want to tease-and tempt-him beyond measure. Neither one wants to give any ground . . . until they realize the only true home they have is with each other.

Book Review

If you haven’t read Jill’s newest Cedar Ridge series, featuring the fabulously sexy Kincaid brothers, you need to. The series has been a bit of a departure from her usual series format in that there are plot points that feature across the entire series, and it makes for seriously compelling reading. The series also features drop-dead-sexy, capable and badass brothers who live wildly and love deeply and sassy, strong and amazing women you’ll want to be best friends with. 

Nobody But You features the mysterious and broody, long-lost Kincaid brother, Jacob. And guys, you are gonna want a piece of this guy. He’s one of the most tantalising characters Jill has released on the world in a long while and it’s freaking awesome. Arguably more awesome is his heroine, Sophie. She’s a whole lot lost but a whole lot sassy and snarky. They’re an explosive couple and their chemistry is undeniably electric. 

Nobody But You is smoking hot and a whole lot naughtier than the first two books in the series, but it’s just as sweet. Just like the first two books, you see a whole lot of the families of each characters and you get a whole lot of really amazing character interaction and development. The dialogue is fantastic and Jill has managed to create some of the most moving and intense scenes. The plot is wonderful and Nobody But You ties up many of the loose ends from the first two books. It has some emotionally intense and bittersweet moments but it’s funny, clever, erotic and achingly sweet. It’s a wild ride from start to finish, and it’s a brilliant ride. 

But, and this is a big but, there’s one big thing about this book that I HATED. In Second Chance Summer we were teased with the idea of the youngest Kincaid, Kenna and Aidan’s best friend Mitch. That plot line is followed through in Nobody But You, and you find a little more about Kenna as well, just enough to be intrigued. And by a little, I mean a little. Mitch and Kenna’s story spans the book and it’s done in less than a paragraph. And it’s hugely disappointing. Kenna is by far the most interesting Kincaid. She has an epic backstory that we’ve only been teased with, she’s intriguing and broken and lost but funny and fierce. And Mitch was adorable, a total tease in the sexiest of ways and all appearances suggested he was a good man…and the series ends without them getting their own book? Hell, I’d settle for a novella! These characters are unique and interesting and we were teased with their story across three books. They deserve their own story and it was a massive disappointment only to get the barest of hints of what sounded like an epic and sexy romance. 

Having said that, overall I loved this book and I’d recommend it to all and sundry. It’s an amazing read and it has all of the hallmarks of a fantastic Jill Shalvis read. 

Nobody But You releases in eBook and print formats from everywhere you can by books on the 29^th of March. You can find more information at Jill Shalvis’ Website, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads page. 

Upcoming Awesomeness!

The Book Den has been on hiatus since July while I was studying overseas and recovering from surgery. It will return next week with my Most Anticipated Books of 2016, plus reviews of Jill Shalvis' upcoming release, and reviews of books by Suzanne Wright, Kristen Ashley and Elle Kennedy. We also have a very special review of two species creations by Bad-Dragon.com. 

Pop by and join in the fun next week! And if you have any books you'd like to suggest for review or any authors you'd like to highlight for Author Spotlight Week, leave a comment here or contact me at thebookden@hotmail.com

Release Blitz: Taste Me by Various Authors

Full Disclosure: I received an ARC of Taste Me from Flirty Subs PR Services and Karla Doyle. As always, all opinions here are my own. 

Book Blurb

122,000-WORDS OF DARK ROMANCE AND DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS!

TASTE ME is a collection of twenty-seven sexy scenes from the hottest releases of 2015, both newly released and coming soon. This all-star lineup of bestselling authors includes... 

Tijan, Alessandra Torre, Lauren Blakely, Skye Warren, CD Reiss, Anna Zaires & Dima Zales, Red Phoenix, Cherise Sinclair, Kendall Ryan, Chelle Bliss, TK Leigh, Toni Aleo, Sam Crescent, Jenika Snow, Julia Sykes, Nina Levine, Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott, Ainsley Booth, Katy Regnery, Shari Slade & Amber Lin, Shoshanna Evers, Pam Godwin, Carolyn Crane, Molly Joseph, Ella Sheridan, Karla Doyle, and Brooke Cumberland 

Download TASTE ME now for a sneak peek of Hold Me, the highly anticipated third book in the dark romance Twist Me series from Anna Zaires. Push your boundaries with a twisty scene from Tight by Alessandre Torre, one of the blockbuster books of the year. Sink your teeth into an alpha rocker bad boy in the not-yet-released Second Chance with a Rock Star from Shari Slade and Amber Lin.

Note: This compilation is intended as a FREE preview of this year’s hot releases to help readers find their next scorching read.

Book Review

I first heard about Taste Me about a month ago and I completely fell in love with the idea. Sexy excerpts from some of the world’s top romance and erotica authors all in one book…and not just little snippets but full excerpts that you can really sink your teeth into, how amazing is that? And it’s free!!

So, here’s why I think Taste Me is revolutionary and all kinds of amazing: 

I’m a full time student and a research assistant. I’m busy. I love to read and I LOVE romance books, but I don’t always have time to search for new authors and to hunt down excerpts to see if I’ll like their writing style. Especially since many authors post the same excerpt everywhere or they post quite small snippets that don’t really give you a genuine example of their writing. Taste Me saves me all that time of hunting down new authors AND gives me an entire naughty scene, sometimes even a few chapters, of each authors work. I think Taste Me is also a really excellent resource for new-to-romance readers. They can browse through a ton of different authors and genres to find styles that might work for them. 

Secondly, one of the things I see fairly consistently in negative romance/erotica book reviews is a complaint that the sex scenes are inappropriate, uncomfortable and unrealistic. So even if they like the rest of the book, they’re turned off because of something that appears in a sex scene, which ruins the whole book for them. What is so fantastic about Taste Me is that it gives you the opportunity to really see what each book is going to be like. You’ll see the writing style, the sex scenes (and there are a broad range of genres represented here, so you’ll get some BDSM, some sweet romance, some sexy erotica) and you’ll get a decent look at the characters and some hints about the plot, so you’ll know whether you want to spend your time reading the book or not, which saves a whole lot of potential disappointment. 

And in addition to all that, Taste Me has introduced me to some authors I’ve never heard of or have never had the chance to read. And that’s brilliant! 

So, let’s tackle the negatives first (and believe me, there aren’t many, in fact there’s only one). I’m really disappointed that Cherise Sinclair’s contribution was for Master of Freedom. It was released just over a month ago and I read it on release day, so reading the excerpt wasn’t exciting and fresh and I actually felt a little bit cheated. Cherise has a book coming out in a couple of months, which is hotly anticipated, so I was really disappointed that an excerpt from Servicing the Target wasn’t included in the book. Having said that, Master of Freedom is an absolutely terrific book and if you haven’t read it, or any of Cherise’s work, I think you’ll really enjoy the excerpt. 

My favourite excerpt was Stealing Home by Karla Doyle. It’s erotic, it’s intriguing, it’s sassy and a little snarky and it’s unbelievably hot. It’s also surprisingly sweet for being so damn erotic. It gave enough details about the characters to make me completely intrigued to know more about them and it ended on a note that left me dying to find out where the story goes from there. I love Karla’s work and I’m really excited to see what she does with Stealing Home. 

I was really excited to read the rest of the excerpts as I hadn’t read anything by any of other authors before. There were a couple that just didn’t work for me for a variety of reasons. There were a couple that I really enjoyed and I’ll definitely be picking up those books when they’re released. 

Overall, Taste Me is brilliant. I loved having a chance to read excerpts from a bunch of different authors and genres, and I loved that they were all naughty! I have a bunch of new authors I’m going to read more of and a couple to recommend to friends (because even though they didn’t work for me, I know they’ll work for others). It’s free, it’s delightful and it’ll give you the opportunity to check out some of the most wonderful authors in Romance and Erotica writing today. I can’t recommend it enough! 

Taste Me is available today and you can pick it up from Amazon.