Review: Forever Black (Forever Black #1) by Sandi Lynn

Goodreads blurb:

When Ellery moved to New York with her boyfriend, she thought they’d live happily ever after in their small New York apartment. She never thought he’d pack his bags and leave because he “needed space.” With her newfound single status and fear of being alone, Ellery buries herself in her artwork and paintings until one night she helps a mysterious intoxicated stranger get home safely. Little did she know the mysterious stranger is none other than CEO and millionaire Connor Black. After finding Ellery in his kitchen the next morning and assuming she broke his #1 rule about sleepovers, he becomes intrigued, not only by her stubbornness and defiance, but by her kindness.

Connor Black, emotionally dead and damaged, that stemmed from a personal tragedy, made a vow to never love or fall in love with a woman, until Ellery Lane walked into his life by accident. After she opens up and shows him her world, Connor starts to feel emotions and feelings he never knew existed. Despite the rumors and warnings regarding Connor Black and his use and misuse of women, Ellery finds herself being drawn into his world.

Ellery knows they can never be together because she is harboring a deep secret that could destroy Connor emotionally forever.

Join Connor and Ellery as they embark on a journey of courage, love and strength. Will it be enough to save them?

Forever Black is the first book by Sandi Lynn. She had a fantastic start!

The story of Elle and Connor was never supposed to be easy but Sandi went even further and put in the way of both of them a problem that could not be solved, even with all the money in the world. A problem that we can’t avoid, run away from or simply ignore. A problem that can keep them apart forever.

Elle and Connor meet in the simplest way possible, she is in the right place at the right time. When I think about destiny I think about the fact that a simple action that you do every day someday when you least expect it can make you meet the love of your life and there you were thinking that nothing especial was going to happen because every day you did the same thing.

“Elle that is not a good idea, you don’t know whom you’re dealing with here.”
I put my hand up “I know what I’m doing, and he needs help.”

Elle already felt more pain in her life than someone with her age was supposed to, but that didn’t make her sad or selfish, quite the opposite. She works, paints and still makes time to help other people. After her boyfriend of four years left her she focused on painting. Elle is used to her life never being good for a long period of time and her worst nightmare just decided to let her know that he is still there to torment her.

Connor is rich, sexy, a manwhore and has a reputation of being cruel. He likes his life how it is now, he doesn't want to be emotionally involved with anyone. Loves is definitely not on his plans, at least until Elle enters his life and messes with all his plans.

“Listen buddy, I don’t know what you think happened last night, but you didn't fuck me; I would never give you the pleasure; trust me.”

Elle helps Connor when he can’t take care of himself, and the next morning he doesn't remember anything and asks himself what that stranger was doing in his kitchen. What started with just helping another person becomes something much stronger. They became friends and Connor never had a friend that was a girl.

“Give me some time; this friendship thing is new to me. You need to understand that I've never been just friends with a woman before.”

Elle shows him many things that are completely new to him, simple things like eating a pizza without a fork and knife or how is amazing to eat an ice cream, things that he never did or didn't do since he was a kid. She shows him that is possible to help without expecting something in return and she doesn't treat him differently just because he is a billionaire. With her he is simply Connor not the big CEO Connor Black.

“How long has it been since you ate ice cream?” I asked.
He looked at me puzzled, “I don't know. I guess since I was a kid.”
“Are you kidding me, you haven't had ice cream since you were a kid?”
“No, is that a problem?”
“No, I'm just surprised.”

Elle and Connor give in to the passion, but Elle knows that it is wrong because her intentions never were to hurt Connor, she just wanted to enjoy being in love because she thought that that would never happen.

They complete each other, but they never stop to disagree with each other. They are so stubborn that dealing with them is a challenge.

“Because at some point you have to realize that some people can stay in your heart but not in your life and this is my way of keeping you in my heart.”

They both are keeping secrets, Connor's is the first to be revealed. His secret is not a easy thing to talk about but he trusts her and tells her. Elle wants to tell him her secret but she is waiting for the right time because she knows that when she tells him everything will change but unfortunately someone comes first and tells her secret.

“I could never understand my purpose in this world. I have had nothing but pain and loss my whole life. But now I know why god saved me the first time. It was so I could find you.”

Connor doesn't react well to her secret and I just wanted to tell “She needs you you idiot! Don’t fucking judge her!”. Just like Elle thought, things between them change but now she has something that she didn't have before. Someone that makes her want to live.

Her journey is not easy and when that starts to affect the people she loves she can’t stand it. She decides to try one last thing before she can really be with the love of her life.

“Infinity is forever, and that is what you are to me, you are my forever Mr. Black.”

There is so much to say about this book, if I was to write really everything that I want to say this would have a bunch of spoilers or better yet I would tell the whole book! I was on a rollercoaster of emotions. This book made me question so many things. I have so many questions in my head that I really don’t have a answer for, and I hope that I will never have because that would mean that I was in a similar situation as Elle.

The last pages of the book were the most hard to read, I just wanted to know what was going to happen, there was so much suspense that when the epilogue finally came I could finally breathe properly again. I cried, I laughed and I was angry at everything!

I will definitely read the next books of the series because this is one of my favorite books. And I will be looking for more books by Sandi. Really really recommend reading Forever Black, it has great characters and an amazing story.

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Review: Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Goodreads blurb:

Caroline Reynolds has a fantastic new apartment in San Francisco, a KitchenAid mixer, and no O (and we’re not talking Oprah here, folks). She has a flourishing design career, an office overlooking the bay, a killer zucchini bread recipe, and no O. She has Clive (the best cat ever), great friends, a great rack, and no O.

Adding insult to O-less, since her move, she has an oversexed neighbor with the loudest late-night wallbanging she’s ever heard. Each moan, spank, and–was that a meow?–punctuates the fact that not only is she losing sleep, she still has, yep, you guessed it, no O.

Enter Simon Parker. (No, really, Simon, please enter.) When the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. Their late-night hallway encounter has, well, mixed results. Ahem. With walls this thin, the tension’s gonna be thick…

In her third novel, Alice Clayton returns to dish her trademark mix of silly and steamy. Banter, barbs, and strutting pussycats, plus the sexiest apple pie ever made, are dunked in a hot tub and set against the gorgeous San Francisco skyline in this hot and hilarious tale of exasperation at first sight.

The most funny book I ever read!

Caroline has a successful career, is beautiful, confident and has a fantastic new apartment. To complete all that her best friends just gave her a kitchenaid stand mixer, what is a very important thing to her. But she is missing something, she is missing the O.

In her first night in her new apartment she is stunned to wake up to weird noises.

“OH, GOD.”
Thump.
“Oh, God.”
Thump thump.
What the…
“Oh, God, that's so good!”

But do you think that this is just one night? Oh, no! The Wallbanger, how Caroline calls him, has many night of this thump thump until she can’t bear hearing them again and goes knock on his door.

Simon is charming, sexy, confident. I loved him! He is that type of character that makes you want to fall on your knees in front of him. He is a photographer and travels a lot, so a serious relationship is not in his plans at least until Caroline appears on his door in a pink baby doll nightie.

“That’s Wallbanger?” Sophia screeched.
“Wait a minute, that’s Pink Nightie Girl?” Neil laughed, and Mimi and Ryan snorted.

I loved that this book was about two people who were successful and not the poor girl with the billionaire guy. They both have their careers, they routines and they like to spend time with each other. They start with hating each other to being good friends. They have fun together, like to be around each other, like to talk with each other. It’s so nice to see their friendship, little things that they do that make the other so happy. How they mess with each other. Is the type of friendship that everyone would like to have. To feel so comfortable around another person that you can truly be yourself. But there is also the attraction that they feel for each other, and at times it gets to the point that they can’t simply ignore it. Simon doesn't want to do anything that can change their friendship, he doesn't want to make things weird, he really likes Caroline and if he lets himself do something about the attraction things may never be the same again.

The book is in Caroline's POV but there is also text messages between Caroline, Simon and their friends what was really nice. One thing that was really funny was at a point where you could read what Caroline, Simon and two of their friends were thinking. It was the most funny thing that I ever read.

The book was hilarious, really easy to read because you get to the point where you don’t want to get up because you don’t want to stop reading even if you have to go to the bathroom really bad. It was well written and the characters were simply fantastic.

If you want a break from cliches, want a book without drama everywhere and want to have some fun, you should definitely read this book.

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Review: A Veil of Glass and Rain by Petra F. Bagnardi

Goodreads blurb:

Brina and Eagan meet for the first time when she's nine and he's fourteen. They like each other from the very beginning, although their bond isn't immediate, but it grows over the years. What links them is the fact that their parents are photographers and are extremely devoted to their work and to each other; so much so that both Brina and Eagan have to learn how to take care of themselves from a very young age. Despite their differences, age, gender, nationality, Brina is Italian and Eagan is American, they find comfort in their growing friendship.
Then Brina becomes a teenager, and her feelings for her friend start changing and deepening. New desires stir within her. As soon as Brina realizes how those feelings complicate her friendship with Eagan, she runs away from him.
A few years later, Brina is twenty and Eagan is twenty-five, they find one another once again. Brina is studying cinema in Rome and she's also trying to become a musician. Eagan begins to work as an architect in the same city. Eagan wants to be a part of Brina's life anew. Brina, however, is still in love with him; she finds it difficult to act merely as a friend and she keeps pulling away.

Set in the beautiful Rome, this is a sensual and romantic story of friendship and love.


(Recommended for ages 17+, due to sexual content and language)

This is a story about love, loss, grief and forgiveness.

I love love stories between best friends, because most of the times, sooner or later best friends end up falling in love for each other. Most of the times that gets really complicated because if you tell about your feelings to the other person you are risking losing not just your best friend but the person that you are in love with. But if the other person feels that way toward you too, is totally worth the risk.

Brina and Eagan met when she was nine and he was fourteen, since then they are best friends. Their parents are always busy with their work, and they became each other family. Brina never lived for a long time in the same place, she doesn't have more family, it’s just her and her parents and sometimes she feels lonely.

Years later, Eagan goes to college in New York and they spend their summer vacations together but what was an simple friendship is now surrounded by drama. Eagan does things that Brina doesn't agree with and when she tells him how she feels about the things that he is doing, he hurts her.

“When my mum called and told me you were sick, I got so, so scared, kitty-cat." He nuzzled my neck. “Then, when I saw that you weren't just sick, you were crushed, I wanted to kick myself.”

Even with all the problems in their friendship they are still friends, he supports her music, takes care of her when she is sick and one day Brina kisses Eagan and sees that she has other kind of feelings for him and in her mind the best thing to do is run away. She leaves and goes to Rome to study cinema and she and Eagan barely talk to each other anymore.

After a tragedy Eagan decides to go to Rome because he want’s to rekindle his friendship with Brina, but things are not so easy as they seem. It hurts Brina when she isn't around him but it hurts even more when she is. She loves him but she just doesn't want to ruin their friendship by telling him about her feelings.

“I can't even feel my own tears. Damn it, Eagan! I'm a mess without you, and I'm a mess with you. I don't know what to do.”

After many failed attempts to rekindle their friendship, she decides to tell him and for her surprise he feels the same way. They decide to stay together but the drama that surrounds them doesn't go away and that ends up breaking them apart again. She asks him for six weeks to think about their relationship and he accepts.

They are both miserable but neither one of them wants to make the first move, Brina because she thinks that she is not good for him and Eagan because he wants to give her the space that she asked for. But a friend convinces Eagan to go to Brina and when they reunite again everything is how is supposed to be and they get their happy ending.

“Take control of the situation. Be an alpha guy. Instead of—Hell, I don't know which letter of the Greek alphabet you're now, but it's not a good one."

I liked the end, and really liked that the epilogue had how they were 18 months, 3 years and 5 years after they happy ending. Overall I liked the book, it was well written and the characters were well developed. The one negative point for me was the flashbacks because it was a little confusing, sometimes I didn't really know when it was the present and when it was in the past.

I recommend reading the book, it was a good read.


*Copy of the book provided by the author*

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