Let me make this clear right here, right now: I, Halley Dawson, do not care that Preston Wright is kissing other women.
Not a lick. Not at all. Nuh-uh-freakin’-uh.
I do care that he’s doing it six feet away from me behind a gaudy velvet curtain—making him my competition in this year’s kissing contest.
Why do I care, you ask? Because I’ve had an unfortunate crush on the insufferable idiot since I was sixteen years old, but I also know it’s never going to happen.
He’s the Creek Falls bachelor to die for, and I’m the Creek Falls racoon lady who puts peanut butter sandwiches out for them every night.
I’m not going to let him break my four-year-long reign—no matter how many times he breaks the rules and slides the curtain across to do the one thing he’s not allowed to:
Kiss me.
| Title: | Kiss Me Not |
| Author: | Emma Hart |
| Series: | Kiss Me Series (Book 1) |
| Pages: | 181 |
| Genre(s): | Contemporary Romantic Comedy |
| Trope(s): | Best Friend’s Brother / Sister’s Best Friend Friends to Lovers |
| Point of View: | |
| Location: | US |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 27th August, 2019 |
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Funny, quirky and adorable
Emma Hart is one of my go-to authors for a book you want to dive right into and live right there in the world she creates. There’s something so comforting and joyful about the stories she creates. And her characters are both hilarious (and more often than not sarcastic and sassy) but at the same time real enough to truly relate to and love. While I would say this book is more gentle than others I have read of hers, this is still an Emma Hart classic and will delight her fans and new readers alike.
This is the first book in the new Kiss Me series which will focus on the three best friends of Halley (like the comet), Reagan and Ava. Reagan’s book comes next (and by the end of this book you’ll be as eager for that one as I am) but Halley’s own story is wrapped up nicely in this book.
Halley is such an interesting character. She’s the sassy, smart-mouthed, argumentative librarian type who with her matching red glasses and lipstick, gave me the impression of something of a 50s bombshell. Not that she sees herself that way. And that’s why I ultimately liked her. She’s a bit quirky (but aren’t we all?) but I enjoyed the fact that she wasn’t as confident as she presented. It made for a relatable and likeable heroine. Even if she sometimes needed to tone down the competitive nature! But that’s probably because I got the cringe as I too am ridiculously competitive.
“…will delight her fans and new readers alike.”
Preston was a laid back, cool as a cucumber kinda guy and while he’s maybe not my ideal man – he made the perfect hero for Halley, balancing out her quirky weirdness with, well, probably some weirdness of his own.
I love the best friend’s brother trope and I wasn’t disappointed. As I mentioned earlier, this was more of a gentle, slow-burn kind of romance with only kissing being done until the second to last chapter (which really was a first epilogue before the real one). It’s testament to Ms Hart’s writing that I still gave this book 5-stars because everyone knows I love my sexy shenanigans in a novel – the more the better! But Ms Hart’s writing is so fresh and interesting that you just get stuck into the story and the pages keep turning. There’s plenty of laugh out loud moments, quips, banter and enough salty language to make my inner sailor very happy.
This whole book was a great start to the series for me. I can’t wait to read Reagan’s (Kiss Me Tonight) and Ava’s story’s (Kiss Me Again). But for this particular story, it was a fun, quirky and interesting story that made me smile. I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I did. 5 stars.
Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels and has been translated into several different languages.
She is a mother, wife, lover of wine, Pink Goddess, and valiant rescuer of wild baby hedgehogs.
Emma prides herself on her realistic, snarky smut, with comebacks that would make a PMS-ing teenage girl proud.
Yes, really. She’s that sarcastic.
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Kiss Me Series:
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Review: Kiss Me Again by Emma Hart - Jo Reads Romance
21 September 2021 at 1:23 pm[…] Me Again is the third (and final?) book in the Kiss Me series (after Kiss Me Not and Kiss Me Tonight) featuring a trio of best friends and their journey to happily ever after. (I […]