It’s hard to pinpoint book ratings sometimes. If you leave reviews or ratings you know what I mean. How do you sum up your thoughts about a book in 5 stars or less?
Well…in 2017 I decided for 2018 I would be a little more discerning when it came to my stars. A 5* book really had to have me by the tail, so to speak. I needed to have some sort of massive emotion in order to mark it as a 5. I’ve read 200 books this year. Out of those 200 only three (3) received 5 star ratings. Here they are with Goodreads links, buy links (click the photo) and my review for each one.
Feel free to leave a comment, if you read this post, and tell me what you thought about these books – if you read them. If you haven’t read if you’d like to.

I’m Harlow Grace, the newest, hottest face of Hollywood sex appeal, the woman every man wants and every woman wants to be… and I’m running away. I need an escape. I need to get away from the pressure, find somewhere I won’t be hounded at every step—an impossible thing to ask when I’m on billboards everywhere, from LA to Laos, Japan to Jakarta, Sydney to Siberia. So, I buy a yacht and hide out in the most obscure, remote, and unexpected place I can think of: Ketchikan, Alaska.
Instead of a peaceful vacation, however, what I find in Ketchikan is trouble. The kind of trouble that’s six-plus feet of nerdy hotness I can’t resist. I mean, who could? He’s a genius with no idea how attractive he is, an enigma of contradictions: awkward yet confident, fascinating and flirtatious, yet aloof and evasive of physical touch.
He’s utterly and deliciously sexy in every way—and oh, so innocent.
* * *
I can recite all of The Iliad and The Odyssey in the original Greek. I can do advanced mathematics in my head and memorize entire books with ease. By the time I graduated high school I had been scouted by several international soccer teams and recruited by think tanks, the NSA, and the CIA.
All of which is totally useless when a woman like Harlow Grace is standing in front of me, trying to talk to me, flirting with me, touching me. She’s Helen of Troy—a woman with a face that could launch a thousand ships, a woman wars are fought over.
It turns out she’s not just beautiful—she’s famous. A Hollywood sex symbol. A superstar known all over the world…
And yet somehow she’s interested in me?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38657446-badd-boy
Stephanie’s 5* Review: I received a copy of this book from the author. |

Irresistible attraction. Unimaginable danger.
I knew from the moment Noah Williamson walked into the diner that he was haunted—deeply haunted—but I couldn’t resist the lure of him. He was gorgeous and fascinating and mysterious, and like a delicate moth to a brilliant blue flame, I was drawn to him. Drawn to his fire.
But if I’d known about his job, about what happened to his wife, I’d have run the other way. Before I got caught up in the red-hot blaze of his life. Before everything in my world got burned to the ground.
It’s too late to run now. I hesitated and that was it. I fell. I fell for him before I knew there was danger in loving him.
Noah once told me that this is the way we burn—together or not at all. At the time, I didn’t know what that meant.
Now I do.
Stephanie’s 5* Review; OMG does Michelle know how to write a thriller. This book… MUST READ for those of you who love books with a twist and a HEA. |

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones returns with the second book in her electrifying series featuring Lilah Love, an FBI profiler who doesn’t fight her dark side—she embraces it.
It’s Lilah Love’s job to inhabit a killer’s mind. The unapologetically tough FBI profiler is very comfortable there. But her latest case is making her head spin. It’s a string of brutal assassinations carried out across the country, each tied to a mysterious tattoo. Body by body, she’s followed the clues all the way back to her hometown. And every step of the way, the killer has been following her.
Here, beneath the glamour of the privileged Hamptons community, is a secret long buried but never forgotten. It’s bigger than Lilah. It’s powerful enough to escape the reach of the FBI. And it’s more personal than anyone can imagine. Because it’s hiding in Lilah’s own past. To fight it, she’s forced to turn to her lethally tempting ex, Kane Mendez. He’s an expert at bringing out Lilah’s darkest impulses. If she plans to survive, she’s going to need them.
Stephanie’s 5* Review: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. |
I read The Way We Burn after having it recommended to me. I actually emailed her back and said are you sure I’m going to like this after reading about 20%….she was right. Awesome read