Romance book review quickies

Anyone want a quickie? Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. Jeez. I'm talking about quick book reviews, y'all! (Full disclosure: My mind would've gone into the gutter, too. :)  Anyhoo, I don't have much time these days for full book reviews, so here are a few super-short reviews for stuff I've read in the past couple of weeks:

Nerdgasm by Kimberly Reese

My review: I really wanted to love this one. I mean, we're talking about a student teacher (college level), nice guy hero (a real cinnamon roll) with a stutter falling for one of the students in his class? I'm all in! But I didn't notice this was a novella before I picked it up. Novellas, in my experience, aren't typically long enough to make romances super believable. (That's not always the case, of course. But it does hold true more often than not...for me, anyway.) That was the case here, I'm afraid. Theo is practically perfect in every way, Addison is your typical ray of sunshine, cheerleader type, and the conflict between them is...well, it's non-existent. This was basically the story of two really nice people meeting and falling in love--at lightning speed. I don't mind low-angst (I prefer it, actually), but this is a NO angst read. It was decent, just a little boring, I guess. And, this is an aside, but there's a scene where Theo, a virgin, asks his boss (the professor he's assisting) for advice on how to, um, pleasure a woman orally. Ahem. And, I shit you not, the advice involves a demonstration on an orange. I've never read anything that made me cringe so hard at the sheer awkwardness of it all. Yikes! That scene alone lost the book 2 stars. *shudders* But, I mean, at the end of the day, it wasn't an awful read. If you're in the mood for a quick, no angst read about a real sweetheart of a hero, this one's something to consider. Just skip ahead when the orange comes out, yeah? You'll thank me later.       

The Cursed God by Skye Wilson 

My review: This book is a Hades/Persephone retelling where Hades turned out to be a crap husband (shocking, right?), and in an effort to stick it to him, Demeter and Zeus take Persephone away from him, force Hades to search for her, then, when he finds her, he has to fall in love with her (and vice versa)...as a human. And for added hijinks, Persephone has been given a new identity (like supernatural WITSEC) and has no idea she's the Goddess of Spring. It's a super cool concept, and I was really enjoying  reading how Hades dealing with being human and learning how to feel stuff , and then BAM--cliffhanger. This book ends on a horrific cliffhanger that cost it a full star in my review. And book 2 doesn't come out until September! Gah! I was so annoyed. I HATE it when romances end on a cliffhanger and I don't at least get a heads-up about it from the author at the end of the blurb. Boo!!!!!  

Filthy Beast by Liza Street

My review: The lead in for this book on Amazon says: "Do you have a misbehaving, violent, or otherwise problematic shapeshifter in your pack? Send them to the Junkyard, dumping ground and magical holding pen for unwanted shifters."  That line alone was enough to sell me on the book. I wasn't disappointed, either. It was a cool concept! Lena is a cougar shifter who gets sent to the junkyard for refusing to mate with the a-hole who killed her sister, and Carter is a bear shifter who was sent to the junkyard because...well, I don't know really. He's grumpy, for sure. But once they meet, a fairly lively fated mates story follows. It's a good, fast read. 4 stars all day long. (Not a ton of world building or intricate plotting, though. That's a plus for me, but if you're into that sort of thing, you'll want to look elsewhere. This is a character driven story.)

​What about y'all? Read anything great (or terrible) lately? Let's discuss! 

---