REVIEW: A Wild Card Kiss by Lauren Blakely
5 SMOOCHES!
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SYNOPSIS:
A sexy standalone second chance romance between a single dad athlete and the woman who got away!
Things that suck on my wedding day — walking in on my groom kissing another woman twenty minutes before the ceremony.
Things that suck worse? The woman he’s kissing is my mom.
I head straight for the bowling alley bar down the street and ask for a double. And in walks a deliciously charming local football hero — Harlan Taylor.
Yes, I’ll take another drink in the form of a one-night stand with this hunk of a man. In the morning, he asks if I want to get together again. More rebound nookie? Yes please!
But then I learn his football team just hired my yoga studio to teach downward facing dog to their star player, making my O-delivering hottie officially off limits.
Trouble is, the more time I spend working with the sexy single dad who dotes on his daughter, the more I’m feeling all the things far too soon.
There’s no way this can end well, but tell that to my runaway heart…
A Wild Card Kiss is a sexy, flirty sports romance featuring a charming, pie-baking, single dad who’s never forgotten the red-hot kiss he planted on the feisty, sassy blonde one night years ago and a jilted bride heroine determined to move on from heartbreak. This story contains sexy times that can cure getting-left-at-the-altar blues, and heart-tugging swoony romance that’ll melt the most jaded hearts.
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REVIEW:
Lauren Blakely hit the ground running with the first book in the scorching hot new Happy Endings series. Full disclosure, as a long-time reader of Blakely’s, I’ve been waiting for Harlan’s story for years, and it was worth every day of that wait! I listened to the audio, and Zachary Webber and Erin Mallon were perfection. Blakely is truly adept at blending tropes I love into these wonderful romantic comedies or contemporary romances. Part single dad romance, part forbidden romance, this story had a bit of a fated feel and a whole lot of right person, wrong time magic to it. There is a free prequel to this book, A Wild Card Night, which sets the stage of how the hero and heroine meet. I highly recommend reading it first, it really sets the stage for the wild attraction that Katie and Harlan share.
This couple had that kind of sparks-flying instant chemistry that gets my heart racing. But in keeping with Katie’s bad luck in love, timing wasn’t on their side. In a truly vexing turn of events, it seems that Katie and Harlan would be victims of bad timing for quite a while, coming in and out of each other’s lives at precisely the wrong time. That is until fate finally got fed up, and put them together once again while calling for an audible on the field from good old proximity.
I loved Katie, but man, was she done dirty in the love department. She was such a strong, resilient and driven heroine. I loved how she didn’t wallow in the wrongs done to her. She dusted herself off and kept going—landing a seriously sexy hot-shot pro-football player in the process. Harlan, a successful and popular NFL player, was so charming, charismatic and unbelievably handsome. A hands-on, actively involved single father, I absolutely loved his healthy and supportive co-parenting relationship with his daughter’s mother. He clearly adored his daughter, and their adventures in baking made him all the more endearing.
Typically Lauren Blakely’s romances aren’t overly angsty or dramatic. They have just enough of that kind of emotion to keep you hooked without running the reader—I mean the characters—through the wringer. Start-to-finish, Blakely’s romances are always a joy to read. These are the kinds of stories that I eagerly and happily anticipate, the ones that make me happier the more I read. A Wild Card Kiss was a flirty, fiery, feel-good romance that kept me swooning and smiling the whole way through. Mallon and Webber gave stellar performances, perfectly capturing these characters’ personalities and bringing them to life in my ears. I practically inhaled Katie and Harlan’s romance, listening to it nearly straight through and only pausing to recharge my Air Pods. I’m so excited about this series! Lauren introduced several characters whose stories I’m really looking forward to reading! Five smooches from me for A Wild Card Kiss by Lauren Blakely!
~Danielle Palumbo
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