NA / Coming of Age
*The book contains adult content and is appropriate for ages 17+*
This means, the characters like to swear – or as we say in the south, cuss. While there is no strong sexual content, the story does imply the act itself. You have been warned 😉
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The Casted Series
SynopsisNew York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack follows up her trio of hits—Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It—with this thrilling first novel in an explosive series bursting with the Texas flavor, edge, and steamy romance of Friday Night Lights.
In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.
Dallas Cole loathes football. That’s what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past.
But life doesn’t always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again.
Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It’s obliterated.
Dallas doesn’t know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn’t know that Dallas is his new coach’s daughter.
And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.
5 out of 5 stars
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“In Texas, two things are cherished above all else – football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.”
Can I just start by saying – HOLY CRAP! This has got to be my favourite Cora book! (I love the Losing It series but this is something else!) I cant even begin to tell you how much I need this book in paperback RIGHT NOW! There is just something about All Lined Up that had me hooked from the very first page to the last and even after this book was all I could think about. Dallas and Carson were and still are embedded into my mind and I seriously need more of these two. I need them in book two and I need to know where they are and how they are and Cora, can we just please have another book or novella about these two? Pretty please with a hot guy on top?
I love football (Sorry, I mean the English Football) but Cora has written the football scenes perfectly for us lot whom have no idea about American Football – like me. She actually made me wish I had grown up in America, going to all these football matches and pep rallies because we do NOTHING like that over here, which is pretty sad and I am going off topic right now. But yes, if you are like me and you earn for that American college lifestyle, Cora makes you feel like you are a part of it, and I could see everything in my mind when she was describing so I pretty much felt like I was there. And of course, with Cora being a Football coaches daughter, she, of course, was going to put her all into this book, let us know her perceptive of growing up as the coaches daughter through Dallas and the hardship of kind of being second best to football.
All Lined Up is captivating, I hung onto every page. Cora has written a fantastic and sexy and steamy college romance novel, with little bits of drama embedded in-between and of course, gossip and football along the way. You will be fanning yourself, swooning, shouting at the characters but most of all, you will fall in love them and the story and hate it when you get to the last sentence because you never want the book to end.
Dallas has always felt she was second best to her dad. Football, then her. It also doesnt help that she is the Coaches daughter and that leads to players using her to get closer to her father but she’s had enough. Her ex was an asshole so she tells herself she is never going to date a footballer player again.
But one crazy night and she meets Carson – a football player who has just transferred to Rusk University. He has no idea that she is the Coaches daughter, but he doesnt care. From the moment they meet, something changes for both of them but Dallas cant be more than friends with Carson and Carson needs to focus on his football if he ever wants to be in the starting line-up.
No matter how much they try to deny the attraction, neither can walk away. But what happens when they both find out who the other is?
I really enjoyed knowing Dallas. She is a dancer, she tries to stay in the shadows and she is the Coaches’ daughter. Plus she loathes football and knows she is second best to it. But she just gets on with it and pretends she doesnt care, but you know deep down she does.
The first meeting with Carlton changes her. In a good and bad way because hes a football player and she doesnt date them anymore but he kind of pulls her from her shell – she feels at ease with him, like everything will be okay. But when she finds out he’s a football player, she just cant go there again. Thus beginning the back and forth between her feelings for him. You really wanted her to say ‘fuck it’ and go with him but I understood her reasoning, guys use her to get close to her dad or get on the team and she doesnt want that again. Not after her dickhead ex-boyfriend but something switches and she cant stay away from Carlton, no matter how hard she wants to. She just keeps going to him, like a magnet.
I understood her need to stay under the radar, to try and not let people know she is the Coaches’ daughter and to pave her own future without her father stopping her. Being under his eye, knowing everything you do – to some extent – would really annoy and infuriated me. Especially to be scared to let loose because you know someone on the team will tell him about your fiascos. But I loved how she become stronger, she laid everything out, she bared her soul and it was really therapeutic for me to watch her do that. For her to say ‘this is what I want and I am going to do it’. I was really proud of her.
I adore Carlton so much. He is pretty dang sweet and funny and you know after that first meeting Dallas has entered and stayed in his mind. But he cant let a girl into his life, he has to concentrate on making the starting team because he wants to be something, wants to help his family. I admired his hard work, his need to be something and he put his everything into his football training and his school work proving that he really wants this. To give something back to his family after everything they face up for him. The only thing I wish we knew more of was Carlton’s family, but other than that I was content in knowing him.
You could see how affected his was around Dallas, how his head was in turmoil over her. He wanted her but he couldn’t too, he had to focus. So being friends was what it was all about. But you knew that the attraction was too much. My heart pain for both Dallas and Carlton over certain scenes and you knew they were both hurting, both stubborn in that they wouldn’t text or call one another but yano, when they get over the shitstorm, the love comes after and Carlton was definitely swoon-worthy. You knew he loved Dallas a hell of a lot and the ending for them was just beautiful. I cant wait to see how these two progress because when you have characters like these two, you know they are in it for the long haul!
I loved the chemistry between Dallas and Carlton, even right from the beginning you see it, feel it and you vow for them to get together; they are absolutely amazing together and every time they were pulled inside their heads, every time they were just friends you wanted to shake them and tell them that they had too much chemistry, too much attraction to stay away, that they had to be together, they needed to be together because they were perfect. I knew they were both scared, they both had things going on but in the end they just gyrated towards one another, let each other in and I just sighed so hard when they finally got their acts together. There are ‘steamy’ scenes, but it just makes their connection all the more real and everything they went though was worth fighting for.
If there is one book you pick up today, let it be All Lined Up. You won’t regret falling in love with Dallas and Carlton!
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Cora Carmack Bio:Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She’s done a multitude of things in her life– boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.
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Continue reading “RE-LAUNCH: Second Chance Hero – Rebecca Sherwin”
Synopsis
Amanda Nathan just lost everything – her first real boyfriend to her lifelong best friend, her half of their shared apartment in St. Louis and her first post-grad job as a receptionist. Forced back under her parents’ roof in Merit, Missouri, the gossipy town she’d spent her life trying to escape, Amanda has but one saving grace – being an anonymous moderator on HDU, the Internet’s largest celebrity gossip community. Unemployed and alone, Amanda relishes in the one thing she has control over – Hollywood gossip. Now, her idea of fun is getting lost in the glamorous lives of others and posting nasty rumors about her former bestie’s favorite actor, Liam Brody, a playboy notorious for dumping his model girlfriends on a monthly basis.
So who would’ve thought that Liam Brody would be Amanda’s answer to escaping Merit? When the controversial womanizer needs an image boost to land a new role, he turns to none other than HDU for some good press. As it turns out, Liam is as eager to shed his playboy image as Amanda is desperate to move out of Merit. The solution to both problems? Fake a romance in which Hollywood’s biggest playboy falls for an unknown, sweet and shockingly plain Jane.
With the help of Ian, a fellow HDU moderator and self-developed expert on stardom, Amanda packs her bags for her new life in New York, where the overnight fame and glamour of being a celebrity girlfriend awaits. But Amanda soon discovers that their little ploy is a lot more emotionally complicated than she imagined. And while she finds that life works a thousand times better in her Hollywood circle, so does manipulation.
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My Review
22 year old Amanda is back living with her parents after her childhood best friend and roommate did the one thing that no best friend should ever do – steal your boyfriend. With no job, no boyfriend and a gossiping town who completely adores her best friend Megan, she finds solace in her ‘job’ moderating the celebrity blog HDU and spouting how much she dislikes Hollywood’s heartthrob Liam Brody due to his womanizing ways.
But one day she receives an email from Liam who needs a favour from her. He really wants a part in a film that seems close to his heart but Amanda’s hate posts about him using and dumping models will have the opposite affect and so – as it was her sarcastic idea – Liam asks her to be the ‘normal’ girl to date for publicity and this kick-starts something in Amanda who agrees, seeing as she needs to get away from her small Missouri town and New York is just the key.
Thus, this starts the beginning of their ‘relationship’ and with Amanda being quite literally thrown to the wolves, the both of them are slowly seemingly becoming more but as everything unravels and drama comes a-knocking, what will happen to the couple who were pretending?
I love reading books like this – the normal girl who dates the big Hollywood star but with a twist. I loved Tina Reber’s Love series and I’ve already fallen in love with book 1 of HDU! I’m now impatiently awaiting book two to find out the next part of Amanda and Liam’s story and how they are going to deal with everything from malicious ‘friends’ to the celeb blogosphere. I must admit, I am prone to lurking about Celebrity sites to get my fix about their lives – Perez Hilton being one of them, and I think that was part of what also attracted me to this book. Romance, Hollywood, normal girls and blogs – yes please!
Amanda has literally lost everything. He best friend stole her boyfriend, kicked her out of their flat, she hasn’t a job and moving back with your parents is every young adult’s nightmare (I should know). Her town is a gossip site and she’s been holed up in her room away from the attention of why she is back. The only ‘friend’ she has is her fellow blogger ‘FilmFreak’ whom have been speaking for years but have never met…until know when they both talk about how depressing their lives are.
Showing Ian aka FilmFreak the video Liam sent her, he persuades her to be the girlfriend thus throwing both of them into the public eye and making them ‘famous for being famous.’ Enter Liam coming to her hometown, being shown off to her family and friends then flying her and Ian back to New York with him to begin their journey as a ‘couple.’
Amanda is witty, sarcastic, and a bit naive but she is incredibly loyal to those she loves, standing up for what she believes is right especially being thrown into the public with no idea how to react – she did exceptionally well. But she really did deserve to have a bit of luck come her way after a disastrous couple of months, and I was happy that despite having no idea what she wanted in life, she got Liam and a perfect job along the way.
I fell in love with Liam from the word go / when he emailed Amanda. His sarcasm shone through on his email and I was highly amused by what he said to her that after that I was hooked and waiting to read more emails from him. Needing a normal girl to boost his publicity, Amanda seems the perfect choice and although he’s very head strong and the first meeting seems very uncomfortable between them, they did actually fall into the whole relationship with ease, with friendly banter, kisses, hold handing and slowly changing their perceptions of each other. I just loved watching the relationship change at every corner.
Liam proved that he wasn’t a womanizer, that he just liked woman but he stayed faithful to Amanda throughout their contracted time and over the time, you could see that he had grown and was becoming a changed man thanks to having Amanda in his life. He could be jealous at times when they were out, especially when fellow actor and heartthrob Dylan was around, whom I did like but I wish he stayed away from Amanda (Even though he had been her crush for years). He truly cared about her and only wanted the best for her, that’s why when the contract ended, he let her go, even though it obviously pained him to do so. It proved that something had changed in both of them and it was real between them now, it just couldn’t happen…no yet anyway.
I loved the banter between Liam and Amanda. From the first email right up until the end of the book you could see how much they grew together and although it was all ‘pretend’ it started to certainly not feel that way – for both of them down the line. Although they both started off on the wrong foot with each other, which is why the banter had me laughing so hard, they eventually began to know each other and the more time they spent together, it was like they truly were a couple, especially the way they would act in public with each other, for all to see.
I was disheartened when the contract ran its course. I wanted them to renew it, but I knew what Liam was doing. He wanted Amanda to spread her wings and be everything she should be in the Big Apple, just everything turned to pot in her life after he left to film to movie. I was sat wishing that she didn’t let him leave and that he would come back before the book finished – which I am super happy he did, because that ending was perfect and left us ready for the next chapter in their lives.
There were a few scenes that I adored but I have to say the one that I loved the most was when they were in the restaurant, slightly tipsy and the waitress was trying to get Liam’s attention and Amanda was telling him he could look as she wouldn’t be going away until he did and he said he didn’t want to look and you could really see that those two just had eyes for each other and their feelings were starting to change. I LOVED THAT PART!!
The secondary characters were refreshing and their storylines kept me hooked as well. It seems to be hard to find great friends in the Hollywood world and Casey was no exception. Liam tells Amanda that she’s bad news, but Amanda – who had no female friends – wants to believe differently. I liked their relationship at the start but then Casey started to become the person Liam warned Amanda about. I can’t wait to see what happens with these two in the next book!
Ian was a great friend but his life took a turn for the worst throughout most of the book. I felt so sorry for him that he was spiralling down, and fast. As much as everyone was telling Amanda to not help him, she’s too loyal and I’m just glad she got to him before he really did do something stupid and made him get the help is needed. I can’t wait to see how he is in book two and if he’s straightened his life out.
And finally Megan. She was just an attention seeker who was so very jealous of Amanda and her life. What she did and continued to do to Amanda was disgraceful and I was so happy and glad that Amanda stood up to her in the end because that bitch deserved a slap – although she didn’t receive one.
HDU is the first book I have read by India Lee and her writing style certainly drew me in, so much so, I could not put the book down. The plot flowed; the writing was witty and brought a burst of life to the story. I especially loved all the blog posts and articles throughout the book.
The only thing I will say is that I wish there was more Liam and Amanda because scenes with those two were so funny and cute to read and vision them both together. I hope there are more in the second installment.
I definitely recommend this book if you love celebrity blogs, Hollywood heartthrobs pretending to date normal girls, perceptions of others being changed, drama and romance. I, for one, loved this book and will definitely be re-reading it very soon.
Synopsis
From the author that gave you the Sunday Times top 10 selling title, Fairytale of New York, join our heroine Romilly as she discovers how far she will go to find the man of her dreams. What would you do to find the one that got away? As the singer in a wedding band, Romily Parker has seen her fair share of happy endings, even though her own love life isn’t quite as simple. On the last Saturday before Christmas, (shortly after disastrously declaring her love for best friend Charlie), Romily has a brief encounter with a handsome stranger whose heart-stopping kiss changes everything. Determined to find him again, Romily embarks on a yearlong quest, helped (and sometimes hindered) by enthusiastic Uncle Dudley, cake-making Auntie Mags and flamboyant Wren. Will she find the man of her dreams? Or could true love be closer than she thinks? The ONLY book that you’ll want to curl up with this winter — perfect for fans of Jill Mansell and Sophie Kinsella.
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My Review
I really enjoyed reading this book. I fell in love with all the characters, apart from the few who mocked and didn’t support Romily in her quest such as her parents who didn’t see the point in trying to find this guy.
As you can see from the synopsis, Romily has a brief moment with a guy before christmas, after professing her love for her friend who turned her down, but this guy is called away before anything can happen – she didnt even get his name! So she’s made it her mission to spend a year looking for him and if she hasn’t, then at least she tried.
The wedding band she is in with her friends, are all supportive with this quest, doing whatever they can to help her along the way, including the guy – Charlie, who she professed her love to, although he wasn’t happy about it.
Uncle Dudley and aunt Mags were amazing, I’d love them as relatives – so supportive unlike her parents and were so encouraging in her quest to find this guy. Cant praise this book enough as I’ve never read something like this before
It about having that brief moment’s kiss a stranger who turns your world upside down. Makes you feel things. But then he has to run off before you get his name, or learn anything about him. But he’s all you can think about because you knew, in that moment; you both felt the same way, despite it only being a kiss.
I loved the journey and focus that Romilly had for trying to find her knight in shining armour and the guy who blew her away with just one kiss. She gives herself a year to find him and if she doesn’t find him, she’ll get over her quest and get on with her life. She has support all over the place, from her friends, to her aunt and uncle, even a massive follow on her blog for her search of him.
I loved how much determination she had because the guy changed up her feelings.
It’s such a perfect and beautiful fairytale of a book and when i think about it, it makes me smile how she finally ended up with the guy who felt exactly the same way as she did.
She yes, this is the book that makes me happy and makes me think that (although its fiction) if that happened to me, that I’d have the support and determination Romilly had to find her perfect guy despite not knowing a single thing about him, but wanting to find out who he was and if he felt the sparks she did too.
I did have a few different endings in my head but none of them were the correct ending which I’m quite glad as I guess all the time and most are right. I loved how charlie decided he had feelings for her, which was kind of inevitable as that what guys are like but I’m glad it ended how it did between then and she finally got the guy who had been feeling the same way (I’m not telling you which one).
Definitely give this book a go!!
Z. Elizabeth 