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Audiobook releases 14 February, narrated by Connor Crais and Mackenzie Cartwright, featuring Dane Anderson

 

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Blurb

EDDIE: Cancel your dinky little roomette on the train. I’m booking us two of the big bedroom suites. 

BIRDIE: I’ll cancel it AFTER you’ve booked the other sleeper rooms. And reimburse you.

EDDIE: Don’t worry about it. Just cancel your tickets. I got this. Round trip. I’m on the Amtrak website right now.

BIRDIE: You don’t have to leave NYC when I do! You’ll hardly be able to spend any time with your Instagram girlfriend that you’ve never met!

EDDIE: It’s fine. She’ll be fine with it. Cancel your tickets.

BIRDIE: You aren’t going to stop texting me until I’ve canceled them, are you?

EDDIE: Damn right I’m not. Just do it. You can thank me later.

***

EDDIE: Um. Did you cancel your tickets?

BIRDIE: Yes, Edward. I canceled them.

EDDIE: Okay, because it turns out they only had one Family Bedroom from LA to Chicago. But the good news is I booked it for us. It’s the biggest room they had. The bad news is I booked it for us. And it’s the only sleeper room they have left now.

EDDIE: In related news, there was also only one room left from Chicago to New York. 

EDDIE: Hands up if you’re excited! *man raising hand emoji*

BIRDIE: I am so mad at you right now.

***

BIRDIE: I’ve compiled a list of ground rules re shared train bedroom. Check your email, please read carefully, and refer to it again on the ninth of February. Thank you.

EDDIE: *nerd face emoji* Received. I have some notes. 

 

 

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Review

4 stars

This is a fun, flirty and super sexy friends-to-lovers romance. It’s a standalone, but follows on from A Very Bossy Christmas (the heroes of the two books are brothers), and Eddie and Birdie’s story is a delight to read.

Eddie Cannavale is an actor on a hit TV show, and though he’s a bit of a man-child, he’s a very down to earth guy, and is still best friends with a girl he met in college, Birdie. Though they live apart for a lot of the year, they are still a big part of each other’s lives, and when quiet, nerdy Birdie books herself a cross-country train trip to be in New York for Valentine’s day, Eddie switches up his own plans to accompany her. They end up sharing a very small cabin for their three-day journey, and their friendship is put to the test like never before.

This book is so much fun. There’s a fantastic undercurrent of lusty attraction between Eddie and Birdie before they even stop foot on the train, and it’s something they’ve joked about but never actually sat and considered, let alone acted on. But a pre-train drunken voicemail, followed up by a nip-slip/accidental boner incident has cranked the sexual tension up a few notches, and it’s so funny watching them try to deal with it. And then Eddie decides to throw down.

“Are you going to go out with Rupert?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think you should.”
She stops rubbing my hands. “Why not?”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Why not?”
Okay, new plan.
“Because he can’t make you feel good the way I can.”
“He can’t make me angry and confused either.”
“You’re only angry and confused because you’re resisting it.”
“Resisting what?”
“Me.”

The sense of anticipation between these two is awesome. We know it’s coming, we can see they’ve both been fighting it, it’s just that Eddie has given up trying to hide it, and now he’s going all out to convince Birdie to take the chance with him.

I don’t know if I was falling for her slowly, day by day, or if it all started when I met her and then got suspended for years by sheer force of will or denial. But I just fell so hard and fast for Birdie Beckett in the past half hour. I am dizzy with love for her.

There is flirting and innuendo, steamy looks and a touch or two… the girl never stood a chance.

I stroke the length of him over his sweatpants. How are you not the cockiest man on earth, Eddie Cannavale? Oh my God! This is a magnificent male sexual organ. I’m so proud of him.

They don’t only cross the line, they steamroll right over it, and it’s hot, sexy, and still so much fun, a true representation of their closeness and everything that they are to each other.

“You want me to be the best version of me. But you’re the one who brings out the best of me. It was never her or anyone else. It was always just a matter of time before I realized how I felt about you.”

I love this relationship. Eddie and Birdie are so close, and apart from their secret feelings for each other, they share everything. They have the same ridiculous sense of humour, their text messages are hilarious, and I love how open they are. And all of that remains very much a part of who they are, even as their relationship changes.

“I think I fell in love with you at first sight … It just took me six years to realize it.

There is some minor drama – it’s a big shift for them after all, and there are fears that come along with that, but for the most part this is an angst-free, fun and heartfelt love story that had me laughing, swooning and fanning myself, and I finished it with a big grin on my face.

“I want to fall asleep with you, dream with you, and wake up with you in my arms. Whenever possible. And before we fall asleep, I want to do absolutely filthy things to you. Filthy, beautiful things. In a loving way. But really fucking filthy.”

Eddie’s family feature in the story. We get to see his brother, Declan (from the first book), and his rowdy cousins seem to have some romantic troubles of their own going on. I’m hoping we get to see more of them in future books.

So much fun, and just what I needed. 4 stars.

 

A Very Holiday series

 

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About the Author

Before writing steamy romantic comedy novels, Kayley Loring got a BFA in creative writing from a Canadian university and had a fifteen-year career as a screenwriter in Los Angeles (under a different name). She mostly wrote PG-13 family comedies that studios would pay her lots of money for and then never make into movies. In 2017 she decided to move to the Pacific Northwest and write about all the fun stuff that she wasn’t allowed to write about in those PG-13 scripts. Now she’s breathing cleaner air and writing dirtier words. It’s an adjustment she’s happily getting used to.

 

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