BOOK BLITZ & BOOK REVIEW for "Deserving It (Stolen Moments, #3)" by Angela Quarles

*****(5) out of 5 stars!

Deserving It
(Stolen Moments, #3)

by Angela Quarles

Publication Date: February 8, 2018 
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romantic Comedy

Content advisory: Adult language, explicit sex

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play
Add to your To Be Read list: Goodreads

SYNOPSIS:

Stranded by a hurricane. Check. Hotel secured. Check. Hot guy to share it with. Check. No, wait. Not him!

A tough girl with an awkward flirt-game, Claire has long ago given up on catching the eye of Irish hottie Conor and she refuses to change. If he doesn’t like her as is, then screw him.

A loner workaholic too busy to notice, Conor isn’t looking to nail the next chick–even one as hot as Claire–just his next bonus-earning presentation.

But when a hurricane strands them in Atlanta and they’re forced to shack up in the same hotel room for several days, things tend to get…exposed.

DESERVING IT is a steamy, standalone romantic comedy from RITA Winning and USA Today bestselling author Angela Quarles with a happy-ever-after and no cheating or cliffhangers.

REVIEW

This third book in the Stolen Moments series was just as delightful as the first two!  I wasn’t quite looking forward to this book as I was the last two in the series (Earning It and Risking It), because the main characters here were two of my less favorite to appear prior to this: Claire and Connor.  Unlike Pepper & Luke and Jane & Aiden, these two seemed a little more abrasive.  Claire is kind of pushy and “prickly” in the prior volumes; while Connor’s “no nonsense” attitude and Irish accent were a bit off-putting to me.  But they both proved to be totally darling characters!

 Once again, this tale was told in alternating perspective, from his point of view and then hers, alternating by chapter.  I usually don’t like this method of storytelling, because I tend to find it rather confusing.  But the author clearly labelled their individual sections, as well as very easily gave each of the characters their own distinctive voice.  And it was nice to learn how each of them was thinking and feeling about the events that were unfolding.

The story dealt a lot with the individual insecurities and personal baggage of Claire and Connor.  This one, much more than the others, also involved quite a bit of family drama for them to wade through.  It made them both seem like much more complex characters than otherwise would have been the case. 

There was quite a bit less action in this tale due to the limitations of its creation, i.e. basically being stranded in a hotel room during a hurricane.  Just about every scene in the story was entertaining though, even when they are involved in such mundane things as doing their laundry and heating up frozen pizza.  The strip-poker scene was amazing, and the other love scenes nearly equally as hot.

Since this story is about the captains of the hurling team and the female equivalent camogie, I was quite worried that there would be an awful lot of sports situations and lingo this time around.  In fact, however, there was even less reference to the games than in the prior editions.  Something that pleased me as a non-sports fan.

I definitely recommend this great read, and the others in the series as well.  I am totally bummed that this the last book in the series!  I wish the author were continuing it with ALL the members of the hurling team, just so that I could live a few moments longer in this delightful world she has created. 

I received a free eBook version of this title from the Author and from NetGalley,

and have willingly provided an honest review.

Excerpt:

I need a moment, because when he suggested poker, the words, make it strip poker, nearly popped out of my mouth.

I’m not horrified by that impulse. That’s not what’s making me pause.

What’s making me pause is the fact that I… well, paused. That’s not me. At least that’s not the me I strove so hard to become.

I’m the tough girl. One who expresses her wishes.

I wash my hands and dry them, taking my frustration out on the poor white towel. The flashlight on my phone is pointed straight up, as it rests on the counter, but it’s enough to see.

The thing is, if it was anyone other than Conor, I’d have said it just to get a reaction out of a male friend. And if it led somewhere, well, it depended on the guy, but I wouldn’t say no if it was all in good fun.

So why the damn pause? Some tough girl I am. My interactions with guys are always on my terms, and if they don’t like it, they can walk.

I yank open the door and smack into a large, hard, male body. “Ooof.”

Conor must have heard the door opening because he’s facing my direction. Which means all of my front is intimately pressed against all of his.

Oh, um, wow. His free hand settles on my hip, a warm, firm grip. “Chill the beans now there. Didn’t mean for you to take a hopper.”

God, I love all his expressions. A delicious, demanding heat coils through me, startling me of breath. I stand there stiff, as if contact with this hunk of Irish masculinity has inexplicably flash frozen me.

If I was a chick with a fully paid subscription to the flirt manual, I’d know what to do. Some coy word. Some signal that I’m interested.

Wait.

I don’t want him to know. He can’t know. If he learns, and rejects me, I might be tempted to change.

That springs me away from him, all right. And… smack. My head hits the door jamb, and I bow forward.

He takes a step so that my head is now pressing to his chest — oh God, his chest — and he cradles my head, rubbing the sore spot. “Jaysus. That had to hurt.”

“It does.” The gentle touch of his warm hands, his fingers carefully sifting through my hair and massaging my scalp, is starting to ease the sting. Man, that feels good.

Which allows me to open my eyes from their screwed-tight position. And notice.

Is that… Is that a bulge in his jeans?

“It does hurt,” I repeat for some inane reason as that swirling heat from a moment ago narrows into a blazing arrow of need straight to my core.

“Is this helping, yeah?” he asks, his voice low and near my ear, as his fingers continue working their magic on the sting.

“Yes,” I breathe as I watch him grow harder.

Seeing his reaction? Knowing there’s a better chance I won’t be shot down… changes things. And I’ve wanted him for so long it’s getting ridiculous at this point. I mean, I should just go with it, right? I have to believe that my walls are strong enough that I won’t change into a dang doormat.

And because I am that tough girl, I lift my head. “Now. About that poker. Care to make it strip poker?”

See my reviews for the other two books in the "Stolen Moments" series:

Earning It (featuring Pepper & Luke)

AND

Risking It (featuring Jane & Aiden)

About Angela Quarles

An avid reader herself, Angela Quarles writes books she’d like to read–laugh-out-loud, smart romances that suck you into her worlds and won’t let you go until you reach The End. She is a RWA RITA® award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary, time travel, and steampunk romance. Library Journal named her steampunk, Steam Me Up, Rawley, Best Self-Published Romance of 2015 and Must Love Chainmail won the 2016 RITA® Award in the paranormal category, the first indie to win in that category. Angela loves history, folklore, and family history and combined it with her active imagination to write stories of romance and adventure.

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BOOK REVIEW for "Risking It (Stolen Moments, #2)" by Angela Quarles

*****(5) out of 5 stars! 

Cover Design: Sara Eirew

Photographer: Wander Aguiar

Model: Steven Dehler

Release Date: November 2, 2017

SYNOPSIS

500-mile road trip! Mission? Get over the guy you kinda-sorta hooked up with. Problem? He's your new road-trip companion.

To Play…
So, yeah. Here’s me heading out on this stupid soul-searching road trip to get over The Turd, and here he is leaning against my car, all easy charm, batting his ridiculously long eyelashes, and asking for a ride. Explaining why he can't come along would be admitting my struggle to purge him from my thoughts. The universe is laughing at me. I can't fall for a short-term playboy. But tell that to my body, which up and goes hey there as soon as his pheromones get within sniffing distance.

Or Not to Play…
My reputation as a player isn’t just smoke and mirrors. I play the field. Constantly. No strings sex? Perfect. But ever since a certain shy book nerd slipped under my skin, I haven't wanted anyone but her. The kicker? She blew me off the next morning. Now that I'm stranded and she's my only ride, maybe I can find out why our awesome night together turned into her ghosting me.

REVIEW

As the second book in the Stolen Moments series, I did not expect this book to live up to the standards of the first one.  But it was just as real, sexy and fun as the original!

This book was even more realistic, at least to me, in that the female protagonist is a librarian and all-around book nerd.  The male protagonist is a bar owner, as well as a member of the hurling team that we originally met in the first book of the series, Earning It (featuring Luke & Pepper).  In fact, the start of Jane and Aiden’s adventure is indirectly mentioned there, which makes it all the more fun to see their story develop.

The characters were very down-to-earth and believable, uncertain about themselves and their burgeoning relationship, yet willing to take a chance – a little at a time – on love and happiness.  The sex scenes were definitely spicy, without being too extreme.  The verbal and intellectual connections between the two of them was fascinating and fun to watch, and their internal dialogues were priceless. 

Again, the story is told in dual viewpoint, alternating between Jane & Aiden.  I’m not a huge fan of this perspective, but it worked out well here.  The characters were very distinctive, especially due to the excessive amount of swear words used by Aiden, compared to their more moderate use by Jane.

Although the backdrop of this tale and the series in general is the interactions of members of a hurling team, there were not excessive sections devoted to actual game play of the sport, really even less than in the first volume.  Which was a relief to me since I’m not a big sports fan in general.

This is absolutely a book that I recommend!  And I can’t wait to read additional volumes in the series!  It was quite fun to see other characters from the prior book make appearances in this story, and I look forward to seeing these characters again in future tomes.

I received a free eBook version of this title from Foreword PR & Marketing 

as part of their release day blitz, and from NetGalley,
and have willingly provided an honest review.

Add to your To Be Read list on Goodreads!

EXCERPT

She appears through the break in the trees, the weathered wooden sides of the Boat-in-the-Moat restaurant behind her. And she’s sporting the biggest grin.

Shit.

That grin is doing some voodoo in my gut. Yeah, this trip is looking more and more like one of my more epic mistakes. Instead of shedding her from my system by being on a boring road trip with her, she’s only verifying my initial impression of her.

Maybe I’m coming down with something. Tampa. I can get off in Tampa. If her car starts, I’ll ask.

When she nears, she thumbs behind her. “There’s a sign above the bathroom doors that says, ‘Rooms To Go.’ ”

“Forget Da Vinci of Debris, that guy was the King of Corny Jokes.”

“Right? The whole time during the tour I kept wanting to go—”

She mimes hitting a drum kit, and I provide the sound effects. “Ba-dum-tissshhh.”

She’s still got that grin on her face, and it’s definitely the grin affecting me, not a cold. It’s as if I’m seeing all of her, unfettered. I fall in step with her as we head back to the car. I pass her a small paper bag. “Got ya something.”

She opens the bag and pulls out the postcard I bought at the gift shop.

“For your journal,” I say, since she seems lost on why she needs a postcard.

“Thank you.” And just like that, she appears to curl into herself again.

Weird.

But she sticks it into the back of her journal. And as we walk side by side to the parking lot, a heavy weight descends on me. I finally identify the feeling: dread. The cause? That her car will start fine. That I’ll leave her alone and then the car breaks down. That I’ll leave and…miss her.

I pull in a deep breath. “So where next, Don Quixote?” Decision made, something shifts inside that makes things feel right.

“Up north to Lake Wales, to something called Spook Hill, and then on to…” Here she turns her head away, and I can’t hear the rest.

“To where?”

She walks around to the driver’s side of the car and arches that little dark brow. “To the Potty Chair.”

Breath explodes from me. “A potty chair? What’s weird about a potty chair, except for someone thinking it’d make a great tourist spot?” We’ve only been to one spot, yeah, but this is Claire who devised this trip. The theme’s clear: weird.

“It’s twenty-four feet tall,” she says with no inflection.

After dropping that nugget, she steps into her car. We parked in the shade, so the inside’s not as hot as it could be, but thankfully, she starts the car and cranks the A/C.

“Okay. That is weird,” I concede as relief floods me that I decided to continue on this crazy trip whether her car started or not.

We move to buckle up, and our hands brush. We both tense. Me, because for some reason, a jolt of—okay. Fuck this. It wasn’t a jolt of desire. No way. It was…surprise.

That’s all it was.

She tensed, because…memory of our sexually charged standoff outside her door last night comes crashing back.

From the corner of my eye, I see she’s looking at me too. A softness in her eyes scrambles my brain. Her gaze drops to my lips, and, Jesus fuck, mine drops to hers. Again admiring the asymmetry.

It’s as if she’s rocking a lip mullet, but, you know, sexy. Unlike a mullet. Business up top, with its conservative lines, and party on the bottom, with its plump, kissable…

I pull away on a sharp inhale as I realize we’d both drifted a shade closer.

That was close. Too close. Get your head screwed on right, Aiden. I fiddle with the air vents, getting the ones on my side angled just right. Yeah, a little more to the right. And up. There we go. Perfect. Yep.

“I’ve got a new rule,” I say, trying to make my voice all normal.

She clears her throat and clamps her cell into her dashboard holster. “What’s that?” Her voice is slightly higher-pitched than usual.

“Claire wants to encourage you to be spontaneous, right?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe.” I risk eye contact now that I’m back in control of myself. “Part of what made this visit so awesome was because we neglected to Google it. We had no idea what to expect. Normally, we don’t have that luxury.”

She looks away briefly from typing in the next destination address into her cell and pins me with her serious gaze. “What do you mean?”

“If you or I were planning this trip, we’d have done the research and picked these spots, and so we’d already know what we are in for.”

She nods and resumes typing into her cell.

I prop my arm on the seat and turn to her. “My new proposed rule is that we don’t look up info, other than directions, for each site.”

Her bottom lip moves across her top one, as if she’s tasting the option. My dick chubs up a little at the sight.

“Do I have a second?”

She smiles. “Second.”

I sit forward and stretch out my legs. “So moved.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but you love it.” Then I realize what I said, and I cover it by giving a mock innocent whistle and looking out the front window.

“Aiden?”

I look back at her. “Yes?”

She looks a bit shy, and I’m worried what the hell she’s going to risk saying. “Thanks for the postcard.”­­

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About the Author

Angela is a USA Today bestselling author. Her debut novel MUST LOVE BREECHES swept many unpublished romance contests, including the Grand Prize winner of Windy City's Four Seasons contest in 2012. Angela loves history, folklore, and family history, and has been a hobby historian for twenty+ years. She decided to take her love of history and her active imagination and write stories of love and adventure for others to enjoy. When writing, she's either at her desk in the finished attic of an historic home in beautiful and quirky Mobile, AL, or at her fave spot at the local Starbucks. When she isn't writing, she's either working at the local indie bookstore or enjoying the usual stuff like gardening, reading, hanging out, eating, drinking, chasing squirrels out of the walls, and creating the occasional knitted scarf.

Connect with Angela

Website: http://bit.ly/2wwWa5S

Newsletter Sign Up: http://bit.ly/2wjVGEI

Facebook Author Page: http://bit.ly/2xFWeVK

Facebook Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2fcMbjv

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Twitter: http://bit.ly/2wjIGix

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BOOK REVIEW for "Earning It (Stolen Moments, #1)" by Angela Quarles

*****(5) out of 5 stars!

SYNOPSIS:

One blind date. One case of mistaken identity. One Navy SEAL faced with his high school crush. What could go wrong?

To Score...
Holy cow, my blind date is rawr-hot. Everything in me aches to explore more with this man, but I can't. I've got too much on the line professionally, with me starting at my new medical practice on shaky ground. But I can't deny that I want the sex. A fling is perfect. Bonus--I will prove my idiot ex-boyfriend wrong. I'm not cold.

Or Not to Score...
Once she mistakes me for her blind date, my plan is clear. Be this Rick the Lawyer she thinks I am. And for the space of this coffee date, talk to the only woman who's ever made me feel any spark outside of combat. Best case scenario, I get to be outside my skin--free to be whatever the hell I want. Worst case--she recognizes me as we chat. She'll be pissed, call me an asshole, but it won't be anything she hasn't called me in the past, so... Win/Win?

REVIEW:

I absolutely loved this book!  I was in a drought for a while, having a hard time finding books that I really liked; but lately I have had a plethora of excellent books to read, and this volume is definitely among them! 

Not being a sports fan, I had serious reservations about reading it, since it appeared to be mostly about hurling – a sport I hadn’t even heard of before this book.  Luckily, I read an excerpt somewhere of a scene between Luke and Pepper that just totally sucked me in. 

The characters were fresh, believable, insecure, open to change, natural, adorable.  The sex scenes were HOT, without being excessive.  The interaction and verbal exchanges between the characters – especially between Pepper and Luke, but with the peripheral players as well – was quite entertaining, as were their internal dialogues. 

This story is told in dual perspective, alternating between Pepper and Luke.  I don’t usually like this style, but the author did an excellent job of differentiating the characters, making sure you could tell from the tone and content which character you were hearing from.  It certainly worked well for the narrative. 

Even the sections of explanation about the sport of hurling weren't too long or boring, and were simplistic enough that I could (almost) make sense of the game. 

Definitely a book that I recommend!  I understand that additional volumes in the series will also be stand-alone stories, but will be centered on different couples among Luke’s fellow hurling team members.  I can hardly wait to read them and return to this delightful world. 

I received a free eBook copy of this novel from NetGalley, 

and have willingly provided an honest review.

COVER REVEAL for "Risking It (Stolen Moments, #2)" by Angela Quarles

Risking It (Stolen Moments, #2)
by Angela Quarles
Cover Design: Sara Eirew
Photographer: Wander Aguiar
Model: Steven Dehler
Release Date: November 2, 2017

Synopsis:

500-mile road trip! Mission? Get over the guy you kinda-sorta hooked up with. Problem? He's your new road-trip companion.

To Play…

So, yeah. Here’s me heading out on this stupid soul-searching road trip to get over The Turd, and here he is leaning against my car, all easy charm, batting his ridiculously long eyelashes, and asking for a ride. Explaining why he can't come along would be admitting my struggle to purge him from my thoughts. The universe is laughing at me. I can't fall for a short-term playboy. But tell that to my body, which up and goes hey there as soon as his pheromones get within sniffing distance.

Or Not to Play…

My reputation as a player isn’t just smoke and mirrors. I play the field. Constantly. No strings sex? Perfect. But ever since a certain shy book nerd slipped under my skin, I haven't wanted anyone but her. The kicker? She blew me off the next morning. Now that I'm stranded and she's my only ride, maybe I can find out why our awesome night together turned into her ghosting me.

Add to Goodreads!

Buy Links:

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Giveaway

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About the Author:

Angela is a USA Today bestselling author. Her debut novel MUST LOVE BREECHES swept many unpublished romance contests, including the Grand Prize winner of Windy City's Four Seasons contest in 2012. Angela loves history, folklore, and family history, and has been a hobby historian for twenty+ years. She decided to take her love of history and her active imagination and write stories of love and adventure for others to enjoy. When writing, she's either at her desk in the finished attic of an historic home in beautiful and quirky Mobile, AL, or at her fave spot at the local Starbucks. When she isn't writing, she's either working at the local indie bookstore or enjoying the usual stuff like gardening, reading, hanging out, eating, drinking, chasing squirrels out of the walls, and creating the occasional knitted scarf.

Connect with Angela:

Website: http://bit.ly/2wwWa5S
Newsletter Sign Up: http://bit.ly/2wjVGEI
Facebook Author Page: http://bit.ly/2xFWeVK
Facebook Reader Group: http://bit.ly/2fcMbjv
Goodreads Author Page: http://bit.ly/2wjHzzn
Twitter: http://bit.ly/2wjIGix
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2xpUAqg
Amazon Author Page: http://amzn.to/2h7BMWV
BookBub Author Page: http://bit.ly/2f2Lhm4