cluckieduck's reviews
289 reviews

Well this was delightful, and I think Vince & Crossbody are my new favourite couple, or are at least tied with Seb & Larkin!

Full disclosure - Goliaths is my least favourite series of Lily's that I've read. While they are, for the most part, enjoyable, and I can tell that Lily must be having such a blast writing them, the type of humour prevalent in this series isn't really my jam. I was a little underwhelmed with the last entry, Cheap Heat, in particular my buy-in on the relationship between Dan & Rafe. I also thought the side characters got too much page time and detracted from the overall flow of the story.

Well, the course has corrected for me with this one! First of all, I found this very worthy of the enemies-to-lovers tag. It's hard to do well and either comes off as either rivals-to-lovers or secretly pining masquerading as hate. No, these two truly hate each other, which leads to some very delicious hate-sex throughout the first half of the book.

Side note: is this the earliest Lily has ever incorporated sexy time?!?! Because holy hot stuff, I think it's within the first 5% of the book that they have their first hate-sex encounter and it just keeps climbing in frequency and intensity. It's seriously 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 this one.

I'd been reduced to nothing but a hole for him to fuck. A cumdump. I'd never felt so satisfied in my life.

"You're my little slut, aren't you?"
"Yes," I breathe, lust thrumming through my veins from hearing him call me that. I loved it. I still wasn't entirely sure why I loved it so much - being called a slut, a whore, a cumdump - but it made me almost frantic with need.

Once they moved from hate towards friendship (thanks Corey ;) ) I felt they were a well-matched couple (yay childhood trauma) and the respect they developed for one another was apparent. They also spend A LOT of time together, but I felt there could have been a bit more substance to their time. It was a bit repetitive and I can't pull any distinctive instances of personality growth (Crossbody also sometimes reminded me of another pale, pretty, prickly MC of hers)...just that it's all okie dokie by the end.

Even though new wrestlers were introduced, I'm glad we didn't get bogged down with stories involving them. They were just perfect side characters. Some lovely Holt-isms thrown in, I'm obsessed with Kit and all their quirkiness that keeps popping up (this time mostly snack-related!), and I very much enjoyed the side story with a certain pervy incubus, who it seems we'll be seeing much more of very shortly.

"So I guess...uhh..."My voice was shaking with nerves and something else - something more intense, but exhilarating. "We're not just fucking anymore."
"No." He smiled wide. "We are not just fucking anymore."

I received a free copy of this book from the author and am leaving this review voluntarily. 

More Roman Please!

This was way too short for my liking - the Kate Daniels world is epic, and this little slice of one of my favourite side characters just wasn’t enough. Action-packed, funny, and emotional, getting a glimpse into Roman’s life was highly entertaining & enjoyable.

 Oof. This is a beautiful book, but I can't say I enjoyed it. In fact, I don't think it's written for you to enjoy; it's a harsh, brutal reality of a life in an isolated community that many people are sheltered from knowing, and whether that's good or bad, I'm not one to say.

Tanya Tagaq has such a way with her prose. The juxtaposition of lyrical, poetic flow and crass, vulgar descriptions is really engaging. This was a quick book to read, but the subject matter is far from easy. It is rife with triggering content masked beneath mythical stories that make you question if what you really read just happened, but not wanting to go back and double-check. Some things are better left uncovered.

Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged. 

Well, it wasn’t the mpreg that didn’t work for me, it was the terrible writing. 

The editing in this was rough. Usually I can overlook these in self-pubs, but there were so many egregious spelling and grammatical errors that it took me out of the story each time they popped up.  

And for erotica - I gotta be honest, this  wasn’t very erotic. More so cringy than hot, making me worry for Emerson’s prolapsed (cuz that’s how it’s read!!) asshole every time it was brought up!

Hmm…not sure how I feel about this one. Definitely chaotic AF. Don’t get me wrong - there were cute bits, and funny bits, and sweet bits, but something just didn’t totally click for me. 

Dan’s a lovely himbo and Rafe a grumpy anxiety-king with the most overactive, spiralling imagination, but I don’t know if I buy their relationship like I have from other couples in Lily’s past works. Also, the story just kind of…ended rather abruptly. While the epilogue was entertaining, I wish more time was focussed on how their relationship had developed. 

I really hope that’s the last we get of F&B. Their sub-plot bordered on too much in this one as it was, and I don’t care if I ever see them again.

I am excited after the teaser for book 4 - a true enemies to lovers with some hardcore animosity!

A smidge better than book one, but not by much. Was the dialogue still clunky? Yes. Did time jumps still abound? Yes. Was Callan still a total dick? Totally.

Everyone is just so...immature? Naïve? I don't know how to describe it outside of being just pretty simple. Again, it's bully-lite in that the antics are that of someone in elementary school. Don't get me wrong, I was amused by the pink glitter bombs which is enough bullying for my tastes, but someone coming into this series looking for a typical dark academy bully story...this isn't it.
 
While it's a fairly steamy series, it's a slow burn to the harem and I'd prefer more multiple-partner scenes, or at least a little more variation between her interactions with the four MMCs because they're all starting to blending together.

 a delightful follow up to Gary of a Hundred Days!

And dare I say, i enjoyed this one even more. Gary, ever so endearing in his naïveté and Magnus, the stalwart and ever-patient protector.

This one really upped the sex from book 1, and since it’s all new to Gary, I thought it was handled delicately and not too rushed (especially being a novella), but found there was also enough time spent on a wee bit of character growth to not just make it one smutty love-fest. I loved seeing Gary come into his own and Magnus…what’s not to love about Magnus. He is just perfect and absolutely smitten with Gary.

The little bit of plot didn’t come off as “thrown in”, and it made for some good interactions with side characters.

It’s an easy breeze of a book, good to get one out of a slump, or for those in need of something low-angst and fluffy as a palate cleanser. 

 the bones of a good story are there, but it’s just ok

While I like the overall storyline and idea of Seraphim Academy, the tone comes across as very juvenile - the dialogue is clunky and the plot jumps over the place.

It’s trying to be a bully romance but it’s bully-lite (which tbh was to my benefit because I don’t enjoy bully romance 😅) with some spray painted threats, torn notebooks, and some vandalism.

But really, there’s not a lot of detail in the story and it lacks for that. I did enjoy it enough to continue with the series - I’m invested to see how Olivia gets back at the Princes and what is going on with Jonah, so hope it improves! 

Holy hot for teacher Lily, what a great second entry to this fun series!

This really was just perfectly sweet and adorable. Larkin & Seb are two delightful little love-muffins. While I enjoyed Impromptu Match, my major complaints were that it bordered on too much sex and was towing the line of being too juvenile in its humour. While this one does have a lot (like, A LOT a lot) sex and Lark is on the young side, I felt it was toned down and fit in this book better.

I also liked that the cast of wrestlers didn't feature as much in this one either - we were able to just focus on the main couple and really got to see their bond solidify. Though, I did enjoy getting to see a different side of Holt - his fondness for Lark was lovely, and he actually gave good advice ;)

Holt snorted an exasperated laugh and reached across the bar to pat my arm. "Oh, Lark."
"What?" Heat flooded my cheeks.
"I'd just forgotten how clueless we can all be at your age."

Seeing Lark come into his own, supported by Seb's patience and unrequited love, was delightful. All in all, a lovely, sweet addition to this lighthearted series. Sometimes you just need to get away from the angst!

I received a free copy of this book from the author and am leaving this review voluntarily.

Underwhelming and cliched GFY romance. 

I’ve really enjoyed the previous 2 KA books (Honeymoon for One & Kidnapped by the Pirate), so was looking forward to another highly rated story but boy did this not work for me. 

So cringey and off-putting unfortunately, and don’t even get me started on the caricature that is Troy’s Phillipina mother. The survival scenes were interesting but became much too repetitive. I enjoyed their developing friendship and sexual tension, but once it became romantic the GFY trope went a bit too heavy handed and wasn’t very believable. Maybe, possibly this would have worked better as a novella because there was certainly a lot of filler that just dragged the story down.