caffeinatedcrystal's reviews
256 reviews

REIN ME IN was my first Kayla Grosse story, but it won't be my last.

Hottie ✨️and polite✨️ cowboys and plus size country girls. Sign me UP. What is it about cowboys?

And while I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Blake and Gavin's love story, both of these characters were navigating their own grief *over separate losses* and it made the story so much better.

Blake comes back home to her family's ranch five years after the death of her brother Reed. She is not handling it well.

Gavin is trying to save his family's ranch from his dead dad's mismanagement & the lingering drought. He is doing it alone, trying to protect his family, but he is drowning.

Blake and Gavin have a meet-ridiculous at the local bar that features TORNADO, the mechanical bull.

👀 👀 👀

I loved Blake and Gavin. I loved their journey and how ALL- IN Gavin was. HE ABSOLUTELY FELL FIRST. So hard. An absolute simp for Blake and her smokin' hot bod.

I'm looking forward to reading book two, Kade's story, but I think I'll save it for a rainy day.

If you're into M/F stories, this was a great one 💕 especially if you love love stories that have SOME spicy scenes. But only a couple. Gavin can get it LOL, what a man.

Oblivious is book three in the IOU series. It's my favorite kind of story, childhood best friends to lovers. 

Noah and August are the founding partners at Weston & Ramirez. They've been best friends since they were nine, and they have been dating without actually dating their entire lives and completely oblivious to it. 

This was a quick story but such a good one. I love the mutual pining. I love the ✨️being scared to ruin the friendship✨️ I love the codependency and the bond. I love how they are each other's person, their family. 

The push and pull, the feelings, the being scared - it all felt so valid and real. They were terrified of losing each other. 

I loved seeing the other couples from the series at the law firm. I read these books out of order, so it's even MORE fun because I know who ends up with who. 

Noah and August had cute nicknames for each other. They had a rich history and a brilliant future. Their pranks and dares were adorable, and I just so very much enjoyed their love story. 

Leslie McAdam is a trusted author for me. Her books always deliver the goods. 💛

DELICIOUS was a novella, and it was adorable.

Ben and Mason kissed in high school, and then Ben moved away. Ten years later, they meet again in Paris in a patisserie class. They both love to travel and just happened to be in the same place at the same time

They are each other's ✨️one that got away✨️

I loved this. So cute and squishy.

The SA & terror from the Capo was just too much for me. 

I just wasn't vibing with Grant, the doctor. He felt almost like a predator, and not in a fun predator/prey kind of way. 

5⭐️ for pure enjoyment because this is absolutely my vibe. DADDY'S CABIN BOY was a novella set on a kink cruise ship called Cruisin' for a Bruisin'. Love that for us.

Ricky, a boy with bad daddy experiences, desperately needs a job and lies to get the job as a service sub on the cruise ship. But he's not a service sub. He's a boy, and he has no idea what he's doing. And it's all HIGH KEY stressful for him.

Gabe is besties with Master Mal, the cruise director. He's basically bullied to go on the cruise and dip his toes back onto the k!nk community.

Ricky is assigned to Gabe, and it becomes very clear very quickly that Ricky and Gave are exactly what the other needs - they just need to communicate it.

Which they do. It was great. What follows is a Daddy in his element and a size queen boy getting pampered & praised and everything else he needs.

This was a C-U-T-E story with way less spice than you'd think. But it was so cute, and THEY were so cute and awkward it totally worked.

Like I said, 5⭐️ because I enjoyed Gabe and Ricky and their awkwardness so much.

Have you ever heard of cute aggression? Because to me, Owen is cute aggression personified. Or as Everest calls him, an overthinking grumpy gremlin.

I LOVED Pumped! I also just really love Linden Bell. I am so sad that the Mars Fitness series is over. I highly recommend EVERY book in her catalog. You don't have to read them in order. They stand great on their own.

Owen and Everest are opposites, and co-brothers-in-law? Their siblings are married to each other. If you love a story with ✨️a fine line between love and hate✨️, that's Everest and Owen. They're oil and water and so into each other and also simultaneously into hating each other. 

When tragedy strikes and they are tasked with co-parenting their niece, we are looking at a forced proximity situation.

These two were absolutely ridiculous. I was also FIRMLY reminded why I never want(ed) kids.

It was heartbreaking watching Owen and Everest navigate grief, upheaval, becoming "new" parents, AND also manage to fall in love. It was just so much, and they were doing the best they could.

The spicy scenes were 🔥🔥🔥 and matched up well with each mmc's character and personality. Owen wrestling with his feelings and Everest running from his own was also right on track, too.

Overall? I loved this one. These two struggled on and persevered through the worst thing that can happen, and they ended up falling in love. I was so here for it.

PUMPED is available now directly on Linden's website and goes LIVE on the 'zon February 23rd.

Meh. I downloaded A GENTLE SPRINT as a freebie looking for a taste of the author's writing style, and I really wasn't moved either way. I didn't dnf the story because it was only 53 pages, and I just wanted to knock it out. But it didn't really WOW me, you know?

This is ABO dynamic, and Todd is an alpha, and Avery is an omega. They meet at the park next to Avery's house.

Avery is just coming off a relationship with a cheater & Todd is walking around with a way-too-young omega.

So Avery doesn't know who Jamie is to Todd & assumes Todd is just like his ex. But both Todd and Avery are super compatible, and they eventually, after going slow, give into the temptation.

In ABO stories, there are, more often than not, male omegas who can get pregnant. Guess what happens?

I felt like I was dropped in the middle of the story and I found I did not care about the town of Firefly.

After reading and loving, Letters to Satan, I KNEW I'd enjoy QUIVER. Eilsel is back with a novella featuring THE Cupid & a human.

Azrael isn't a great cherub. He doesn't have a lot of friends, and he doesn't fit in. On a dare, he applies to the CUPID lottery and wins! Now he is interim Cupid, in charge of love & soul mates.

On his quest as the Cupid, he meets the very human Beau. They have a meet-ridiculous (think meet-cute but ridiculous) and an instant connection.

You'll enjoy this if you love your novellas to be a little far-fetched and cute. AND dirty, too. There is a significant amount of c*m play in this story, so be prepared for that. I went in unaware, and when the story got frisky, I was like "👀😳👀, that just happened."

Beau and Azrael are feral for each other. The story itself is entertaining and fun & the spicy scenes are 💦 🔥💦 -> that is the first time I've ever used that emoji, but it's fitting for those two and what they get up to.

QUIVER is available now, on Kindle unlimited!