Review: Going Down Easy

Carly Phillips is back with a new series, Billionaire Bad Boys. The first, Going Down Easy, was pretty much exactly what I expected. Damaged boy meets damaged girl and sparks fly. While it was quite predictable and not the best romance I've read, I was drawn in and am interested to find out what happens to the rest of the billionaire boys.

Here's the synopsis:

Meet Kaden Barnes.
Alpha-licious in the most unexpected ways, Kaden Barnes always gets what he wants.
Enigmatic and exacting, he's unable to keep an assistant for long. Until Lexie Parker arrives. She's no-nonsense, efficient and all business… She’s also hot as sin and soon starring in Kaden's dirtiest fantasies.
When their passion for each other reaches a boiling point, Kaden may think he’s calling the shots, but for this billionaire bad boy, going down easy has never felt so good.

Both Lexie and Kaden are fighting battles with mental illness. One directly, the other indirectly. I appreciated that Phillips didn't shy away from mental health but didn't try to take too much of a stand, if you will. She presented it as a natural thing that many people deal with and worked it fairly seamlessly into the storyline. I say fairly because I kind of got frustrated with Kendall, Lexie's twin sister who hasn't quite figured out how to accept what she needs to change so her mental illness does not take over her life (and therefore the lives of her family members). Kaden has a few issues of his own but I didn't find that Lexie was presented as his savior.

Lexie was a smart, sassy heroine. I was really hoping Kendall would get her act together because I could see how much her mental illness was negatively impacting Lexie's life. Lexie was such a genuinely good person that she couldn't help but drop everything when her twin needed her. How can you not root for a woman like that?

As with most romances, there were instances that were just a bit too coincidental (I couldn't quite understand how Lexie's dad could have pulled strings to have Lexie work for Kaden) but I found I could easily roll with the issues and enjoy the overall story.

Carly Phillips is definitely an author to turn to if you want a smart and sexy romance. Going Down Easy did go down easy (I couldn't help it!) and was a really easy, quick read. The first in the Billionaire Bad Boys series is a great one to toss in your bag for some weekend beach or cottage reading.

Buy Going Down Easy
Amazon Kindle
B&N Nook
Kobo
iBooks
Google Play

About the Author

After a successful fifteen-year career with various New York publishing houses, and over 40 sexy contemporary romance novels published, N.Y. Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Carly Phillips is now an Indie author who writes to her own expectations and that of her readers. She continues the tradition of hot men and strong women and plans to publish many more sizzling stories. Carly lives in Purchase, NY with her family, two nearly adult daughters and two crazy dogs who star on her Facebook Fan Page and website. She’s a writer, a knitter of sorts, a wife, and a mom. In addition, she’s a Twitter and Internet junkie and is always around to interact with her readers. You can find out more about Carly at www.carlyphillips.com.

Website

Newsletter

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon

*A copy of this novel was provided by Rockstar PR in exchange for a review for a blog tour. All opinions are honest and my own.*

Blog Tour: Dare to Take

I love a good, steamy, enjoyable romance every once and awhile. Actually, who am I kidding? I enjoy them as often as I can in between some of the other books I have to review. Because I've read two of Carly Phillips' Dare to Love books before, I knew I wanted to read Dare to Take, the latest (and possibly last...but don't quote me on that) in the series. It was exactly what I was looking for and I devoured it in one day.

Here's the synopsis:

A one-night stand.
A secret.
A mistake they tried to forget.
 On leave from the army, Tyler Dare is just looking for a little fun, but his sister's best friend is off limits. Yet unable to deny how sexy and alluring she is, he finds it all too easy to succumb to a night of passion and heat that ends the next morning in the worst way possible.
 There are just some guys you don't touch-- even someone as innocent and inexperienced as Ella Shaw knows that. But when her best friend's brother is up for grabs and willing, she can't resist. After all, she's wanted him for years...
 Now, Ella is stranded on a tropical island with a hurricane bearing down, and only Tyler can save her. It's his chance to make amends for the past and show the woman he's never forgotten that he's coming after her...in more ways than one.

I really liked Ella. She's a smart, strong woman who's fiercely independent and an amazing friend. That independence comes from a less than ideal childhood and is actually one of Ella's flaws. It's hard for her to accept help and accept the fact that some people, like Avery, her best friend, and Tyler, Avery's brother, want to help her and think the world of her. For most of the novel Ella is unable to let her issues go and that causes huge problems with Tyler, who wants nothing more than to make sure Ella is taken care of. The issues Ella had to work through made so much sense based on her past and, even though it was annoying when they created roadblocks in her relationship with Tyler, it was still easy to love her and hope for a picture perfect Happily Ever After.

Ella and Tyler had crazy chemistry and I loved reading and waiting for them to finally get together (again). It wasn't just chemistry between the sheets, either. (Though those scenes were definitely enjoyable.) Once the two started to put aside and work through their issues, you could tell they had a solid foundation for a relationship - which is probably why they both quickly realized that whatever they were doing was more than "just sex". 

The one thing I find awkward about companion series like this one are the sheer number of names and characters tossed around. Because Dare to Take is so late in the series, everyone else is already coupled up and having babies, adding even more names into the mix! There was also this odd character whose full name was mentioned and Ella had one conversation with and we never hear from again. As far as I could tell, the only reason Jillian Novak is brought into the story is because Ella needed someone who wasn't Avery to vent to about Tyler. I did wonder if she was a character in another of Phillips' novels. (A quick Google search returns nothing but it could be the character was named after Jill Shalvis and Brenda Novak - two other romance authors.) I also wasn't a huge fan of how the next series was introduced. It seemed to forced to have Kade show up in the epilogue the way he did. But maybe I'm just being super nitpicky and thinking too much about these things.

Dare to Take wasn't my favourite out of all the Carly Phillips novels I've read. Maybe it's because everything between Ella and Tyler seemed too easy or that the problems that came up were just based on stubbornness and not communicating. I can handle that in some romance novels but something about this one didn't quite work for me. I did enjoy reading it though, I promise. I didn't want to put it down and I think a big part of that is because it's a second chance romance - one of my favourite kinds of romance novel! I don't like to think of this as the final Dare to Love book so I might actually backtrack and start reading some of the earlier ones I missed!

*A copy of this novel was provided by Rockstar PR & Literary Agency for the purpose of a blog tour. All opinions are honest and my own.*