ARC Review: Hot Summer Nights by Jaci Burton, Carly Phillips, Jessica Clare and Erin McCarthy

“This story will definitely leave you wanting the first book in the Hope series!” ~Under the Covers

Hope Smolders by Jaci Burton 4.5 stars

I can already tell.  This will be another favorite series of mine!  I love small town romance, and all the town gossip that comes with it.  Yes, everyone wants to be in your business.  I actually LOVED this story.  Not only is the perfect introduction to the series by giving us what could be considered side characters, but it’s also a second chance at love for Jane.  And she deserved it!  Jane Kline is basically a single mother.  Her husband walked out on her and basically skipped town.  This was after quite some time of him doing drugs and ruining their marriage.  She’s left with her kid, a lot of bills and just low self esteem.  But then she runs into Will, who used to be her husbands’ partner (yeah, a man in uniform!), and the sparks fly almost immediately!

Will and Jane have a lot of chemistry.  But in such a short story, Ms. Burton was able to not only make me believe in their sexual chemistry and attraction, but in their connection as a couple and how they could work going forward.

Will has enjoyed his life as a player but when he sees what he could have with Jane, and the fact that he already cared about her kid, it just made it all work so much better!

This story will definitely leave you wanting the first book in the Hope series!

Perfect Stranger by Carly Phillips 4.5 Stars

Another story that was a complete winner from Carly Phillips and the town of Serendipity!  This one is about Alexa.  She’s Cara’s friend, the doctor.  The one who lives and breathes work.  One night of letting go and dancing leads her to meet sexy football star, Luke.  He’s in town visiting his friend and team mate.  But the attraction is instant and in a big way.

I loved how Luke was able to draw out Alexa from her work mentality, which was not even something she was enjoying up to now.  And Alexa was a refreshing woman for Luke because she didn’t even know she was a football start.  Not at all like all the women that are always hanging on to him trying to get with the football start instead of Luke the man.  This story happens around the time of PERFECT FIT.

Another favorite of mine in this anthology and it just leaves me anxious to get to read PERFECT FLING!

The Legend of Jane by Jessica Clare 3 stars

Here I confess that I haven’t read the Bluebonnet series.  I’m sure if I had I would have an idea about these two characters.   I personally wasn’t too crazy about Luanne aka Jane.  I found her a bit immature in her reasoning of why she was doing the things she did.  See she basically runs a blog where she does videos of crazy stunts.  She’s successful at it and popular because of it.  And her crazy stunts are sometimes illegal.  And that lands her in the Sheriff’s radar.  Hank is 100% straight laced, good guy.  He’s a gentleman, he does everything by the book, he never pushes the envelope.  I enjoyed the fact that he liked Luanne’s craziness because she was everything he wasn’t.  However, I think unless she changes some of her ways, there’s going to be friction in that HFN.

Ice Princess by Erin McCarthy 3.5 stars

This was another cute story!  It reminded me of SNOW BOUND by Larissa Ione a bit.  Chelsea is in her 30s and she’s single.  Her friends and her go away on a ski vacation, except they are all couples.  Being the single girl on vacation is a bit depressing.  That’s until she meets the hunky ski instructor.  What they thought would be a vacation fling ends up being a deeper connection.

This has Ms. McCarthy’s signature sweet and cute style.  I can’t say it was as memorable for me as the first two stories, but I enjoyed it.

*ARC provided by author

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