Review: A Wild Card Kiss by Lauren Blakely (Happy Endings #1)


Note: An advance reader copy (ARC) was provided by the author.

A Wild Card Kiss is the first full-length novel in Lauren Blakely's Happy Endings series, the first release being the novella My Single-versary, which can be read independently of this new book. This is Harlan Taylor and Katie Madigan's story, and it's a second-chance romance of sorts mixed with a sports romance feel. Harlan is twenty-nine and Katie twenty-eight when they meet as plus-ones for their respective best friends during a wedding. The attraction is instant and they share a mind-blowing kiss that has them eager for a proper first date. That is, until a life-changing opportunity has Katie moving from San Francisco to Los Angeles and leaving both of them wondering what could have been but moving on nonetheless. Nearly eight years later, he's a single dad and football star and she's the empress of yoga. She walked away from him once; he won't let go that easily this time around.

Harlan and Katie's story initially begins in the free prequel novella, A Wild Card Night, but that's included in the full-length novel, so no worries if you haven't read that yet. If you have, you can totally skip it and jump right in to A Wild Card Kiss. It's difficult not to be charmed by the story that plays out between Harlan and Katie, and I appreciated that these two didn't spend the over seven years they hadn't seen each other, pining away and being all woeful. They lived good lives while apart, and I liked that they used both their hearts and their heads when making decisions after they'd reunited. I loved the supporting characters, although Katie's mother, and I use the term loosely, could give Joan Crawford a run for her money. The bits and pieces from a couple of those support characters has me eager for their upcoming books as well. A Wild Card Kiss was a 4.5-starred start to the long weekend.

Release Date: 25 February 2022

Date Read: 23 February 2022

Learn more about Lauren Blakely.

Purchase A Wild Card Kiss on Amazon | Apple Books | B&N | Kobo.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Release Blitz: Saved by Hazel James

Image
Saved (Battles #2) by Hazel James Release Date: June 21, 2018 About Saved Leilani Moretti Life is out to get me.  Humvee accident that took my right hand? Strike one.  Cancer three years later that stole my breasts and hair? Strike two.  An overbearing mother who seems to think I’m twelve, not twenty-seven?  Yeah, I’m out of there.  I thought moving to Oklahoma would give me a fresh start. I hoped life would finally cut me some damn slack. But between the inept people at the VA hospital and a boss who’s hell-bent on fixing me, I just want to be left alone. Haven’t I been through enough already? Clay Prescott Joining the Army and deploying to Afghanistan? Hard. Kicking an alcohol addiction and starting a business combining fitness and mental health? Harder. Worth it? Hell yes.  Battles, my gym, has been so successful that I hired a new employee—a veteran herself—to help me open a second location. And that’s when it all goes to hell. Everything
Read on...

Release Blitz: Blue Skies by Marie Sinclair

Image
Blue Skies (Blue Skies #1) by Marie Sinclair Release Date: October 11, 2023 About Blue Skies Greg loves his job as a flight attendant. If only his love life could make him as happy, he’d be all set. Asexual and HIV-positive, Greg has had a series of untrustworthy boyfriends who saw him as a challenge or told him they could accept his sexuality and status. Until they couldn’t. Still reeling from his latest breakup, Greg’s romantic heart beats a little faster when he meets Holden at a club, even though his brain whispers caution. For Holden, relationships are something he can’t afford. He’s been in the closet his entire adult life because it could cost him his job if anyone finds out he’s gay. At forty-eight, hook-ups, one night stands, and quickies in a bathroom are as good as it gets for him. It’s all he’s looking for when he goes to Neon. Instead, he finds Greg. Drawn to each other from the start, the two experience a bit of a bumpy take-off. But then Holden ends up on Greg
Read on...

Review: The Room Mate by Kendall Ryan (Roommates #1)

Image
Note: This ARC was provided by the author via InkSlinger PR in exchange for an honest review. I do believe I've found myself a new book boyfriend to drool, erm, swoon over in Cannon Roth, male main character in bestselling author Kendall Ryan's Roommates series starter, The Room Mate . This had a familiar romance trope--falling-for-your-best-friend's-sibling--and yet I didn't find it boring or tiresome in any way. This has both heart and heat as well as lighthearted humor along with a bit of heart-tugging angst and it's headlined by a couple of main characters that I was totally smitten with from the moment Paige got a pretty good idea of just how much her best friend's younger brother Cannon had grown up from the nerdy boy who followed them around like a puppy when they were kids. Bonus points for Paige being older and for the four-legged, furball named Enchilada.  When twenty-eight-year-old Paige took the call from her best friend asking if her yo
Read on...