CBR 18 Bingo: Repair and Success
Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons Book 2) by Christina Lauren
3 stars
I’m woman enough to admit that I’m completely obsessed with his forearms. They’re roped, thick, every single muscle defined. I want to see him haul a big net onto the deck of his ship. God, he would make majestic fisherman porn.
― Christina Lauren, Dirty Rowdy Thing
Book two of the Wild Seasons series picks up shortly after the end of book one, in which Mia and Ansel reunite and begin a long-distance marriage while Ansel wraps up his work in Paris and prepares to relocate to San Diego.
“Fearless” Harlow is happy for Mia, but feels alienated and further isolates herself from her best friends when she learns of her mother’s cancer diagnosis. She doesn’t want to burden her best friends with her stress, especially when Mia is starting grad school and Lola’s graphic novel is gaining followers and being optioned for a film.
To distract herself, Harlow thinks all she needs is a hookup, but her one night in Las Vegas with her 12-hour-husband Finn made all other subsequent hookups disappointing. Finn is arrogant and gets under her skin. Plus, he lives in Alaska.
Both Finn and Harlow are surprised when they run into one another outside of a Starbucks in San Diego. Finn is in town for some mysterious business deal. Harlow knows that hooking up with Finn again is a bad idea, but he’s just the distraction she needs. Unbeknownst to her, Finn needs a distraction as well. His family fishing business is hemorrhaging money and the quickest way to get enough cash to fix their busted boats is to sign up for a reality TV show with the Adventure Channel. Finn, his brothers, and their father are to be the new faces of the channel’s version of Deadliest Catch. Finn has no desire to make the deal, but his brothers are game and Finn really doesn’t want to be the one responsible for killing the family business.
In true Harlow and Finn fashion, why talk about your problems when you can f*** about them instead? It doesn’t hurt that Finn wants to feel like he has control over something and Harlow likes to be shown what to do.
I liked this well enough, but it wasn’t my preferred flavor of smut. I was much more invested in what the two resident nerds, Oliver and Lola, got up to in book three.
CW: Cancer diagnosis and treatment.
CBR18 Bingo: Repair – Finn went to San Diego to get the money for boat repairs.
Dark, Wild Night (Wild Seasons Book 3) by Christina Lauren
4 stars
A movie,” Oliver repeats, and when I look back at him, I see him watching me with his mysterious, warm blue eyes. He licks his lips and I have to look away. Oliver is both my former husband and my current crush, but it will forever remain unrequited: our marriage was never really a marriage. It was that-thing-we-did-in-Vegas.”
― Christina Lauren, Dark Wild Night
With their friends married to each other, Oliver and Lola are feeling the pressure. They were the only couple that did not consummate their marriage. Instead, they spent their wedding night walking down the strip, sobering up, and talking until the sun rose. Lola gently propositioned Oliver, but he politely refused. Lola took that as a rejection and decided that she’d still like to be his friend. Oliver was already smitten and didn’t want to risk missing out on something real with Lola for a one-night-stand.
Once Oliver moves to San Diego, he and Lola become fast friends. Everyone can see that they are crushing on each other, but Lola thinks Oliver is not into her. Oliver finally confesses he wants her. Lola wants him but does not trust anyone to stay. To her, it is safer to ignore her feelings than to lose her heart to someone. Miscommunication ensues, hearts get broken and mended, and the nerdy girl gets the nerdy but super-buff Clark Kent.
To me, Oliver and Lola make the most sense. To start with, they have the same common interests: comics and graphic novels. Second of all, they are entrepreneurs: Oliver with his store and Lola with her novels. They both understand how difficult the entertainment industry is and do not take anything for granted. Being a female author in a male-dominated industry, Lola believes she has to work twice as hard to prove she deserves to be there. Oliver sympathizes with her, but is not in the same position. He wants to support her, but most of his support can only happen when she is not working non-stop on her latest deadline.
The yearning and awkward lusting between these two hot nerds is top-notch. While this book wasn’t as steamy as the first two, it made up for it with a more satisfying story between the two MCs.
CBR18 Bingo: Success – Lola is dealing with the pressure of success and the need to work twice as hard to hang onto it and to overcome serious imposter syndrome.
