I really enjoyed this book! Super sexy second-chance romance. I love a hero who fights for the woman he wants!

Once upon a time she was a runaway bride - after the wedding took place. Now, her long lost husband shows up, wanting to reclaim his wife. Hannah has run from him before, but what will she do now? Grant wants the chance to see what could be between the two of them. He wants a woman who isn't only interested in his bank account, and Hannah doesn't even know who he really is. Grant hopes to make this work before Hannah runs again.

Grant and Hannah were likable characters with good chemistry. Their story was sweet, and I enjoyed watching their relationship as it grew. The storyline kept me interested, and I thought the book was quick and easy to read. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

It actually pains me to have to write a bad review on this book as I have devoured and loved all of this authors previous books. Sadly, this one just did not latch on with me. I could not get into the relationship between Grant and Hannah as much as I wanted to. Not to say that this was a bad book it just didn't pack the same punch that I have come to know and love from Ryan. I really enjoyed the way the story started and the initial interactions between Grant and Hannah (especially the very first time they come across one another again). I was sure that I was in for some great romance but for some reason it just fizzled out kind of quick for me and I got tired of hearing Hannah go on and on and on and on and on and on about her bar and immenent ownership. The end just kind of came together in a predictable way and I was left just kind of disappointed. On the positive there was several cute and funny moments and of course great love scenes as we have come to know and expect out of Ryan. Still a loyal fan!

They married on a whim, and then she disappeared from his life. Now he’s determined to find her and convince her to make their marriage work . . .

It’s all happening for Hannah Hastings. After ten years of slinging drinks, she’s about to go from bartender to bar owner. But before she can sign her name to the deed, a blast from her not-so-distant past comes blowing into her hometown of Yachats, Oregon. It’s Grant Laythem, the man it seems she can’t resist. And he’s come looking for his runaway bride . . .

Set to inherit a multi-million-dollar company, Grant is used to women wanting to get him into bed—and get into his bank account. But not Hannah. Bedded, wedded, and abandoned after a passionate two-week fling, he never even had the chance to tell her who he really was. All he knows is that she wanted him, no strings attached. And now that he’s had a taste of something real, he’s not about to let it slip away.

Can Grant convince her to give their marriage a shot? Or will Hannah continue to run from the only love she’s ever known?



* * * * *



PLAYING WITH DANGER is another series set in small town America which I have found that I really enjoy. I couldn't imagine living in a small town but it is really nice and soothing to read about people that all know each other. While each book focuses on main couple, the reader is given the opportunity to check back on the other characters that they have met.



Hannah and Grant know that they love each other but their lives are so different that they are not sure if they can meet in the middle. Grant manages to exact a promise from Hannah that they will take two weeks to see if they can find a way to make their marriage work. Of course neither is exactly honest with the other while they are 'playing house'.


I rather enjoyed PLAYING WITH DANGER for both the characters and the town itself. This book does a fine job of standing on its own merits but if you would enjoy spending more time with the town and its denizens then be sure to read the first book in this series Playing with Trouble also.


*** I received this book at no charge from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed within are my own.

I wasn’t a big fan of this story, from the very being Hannah’s character just put me off and it made reading the rest kind of a chore. That being said this author writes very well, and I would read one of her stories again I just couldn’t warm to Hannah

This book was good, but I just expected a bit more of a fight from Hannah.

After spending 2 weeks on the cruise ship that brought them together, Hannah and Grant impulsively elope on their last day together. But when the boat docks the following morning, Hannah's real life wouldn't stop calling her from Oregon; so she left her new husband. Grant lived in NY, Hannah lived in a small town in Oregon, they were from completely different worlds and Grant never told his wife who he REALLY was.

Six months later, Grant shows up in his wife's world trying to win her back. But how can two people fall back in love when they don't know a thing about one another?

He promises her after two weeks of time spent together, he would leave and they could get divorced if Hannah's feelings for him don't change. But he kept his biggest secret from her and in the end, he expected her to leave everything behind and just follow him back to NY. When Hannah finds out the truth from a friend, she isn't just mad; she feels betrayed.

Can this couple make it, despite the odds?

Playing with Danger's title is misleading (there's nothing dangerous about this story), but it is certainly steamy, so perhaps the title is referring to danger in terms of sex. Hannah and Grant got married 6 months ago at the spur of the moment while enjoying a tropical cruise. But, when Grant woke up at the end of the cruise his wife had left him and it's taken 6 months for him to get things settled after his father's passing and for Grant to find her. So now he's in Yachats, OR, her small hometown, with a plea for her to give him two weeks to prove to her that they should stay married.

But, there are obstacles in the path of these two, in the form of Grant's secrets and Hannah's insistence that the two of them are too different to make a marriage work. So, instead of really getting to know each other and figuring their marriage out, they indulge in lots of steamy sex, usually with food accessories! and all that does is make me think that Hannah's right and that they shouldn't stay married.

I didn't find anything outstanding about Playing with Danger. It's not horrible or terribly written or anything, it's just not particularly interesting. Neither Hannah nor Grant is that deep or extraordinary. She's closed in on herself, and pretty rude a lot of the time, and he's self-absorbed, thinking she should just leave her life in Oregon and move to New York with him at the drop of a hat. I wanted to really like them and this story, but the only thing of interest turned out to be all their steamy sex scenes. But, those sex scenes were actually too plentiful and masked the fact that neither of them communicated very well with each other, nor did they have a very strong emotional connection.

So, little of substance, not particularly interesting characters and a shallow emotional connection, but lots of sexy times. If that's your thing, then by all means, dive into Playing with Danger. However, if you are looking for a deeply romantic, really engaging, well-drawn love story, I suggest you look elsewhere.

just an ok read. Hannah was my problem, didn't like her at all runaway brides don't do it for me.. Grant was a sweetheart

Received a free advance reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

I really enjoyed this book! The characters were relatable, it was steamy, suspenseful, comical, and towards the end swoonworthy. Highly recommend reading this book..or anything by Joya Ryan to be honest! She's becoming one of my new favorite authors.

Hannah was tending bar at Goonies. Her tension headaches were getting worse now starting in her neck. Hannah was the main bartender in this place. This was Hannah’s town where she had been born and still lived and soon this would be her bar.. Hannah was the only female bartender in her small town. Hannah had been raised by her alcoholic father who was a fisherman but he spent more time in jail then being her father. Hannah relied on no one. Hannah’s boss was looking to sell the bar and Hannah was ready to buy it and she could finally have something for herself. Outright and owned by her. She had been bartending for ten years. She just had to get the owner Mr. Bangs on board who had already said he would give her the first opportunity to buy the bar and with Hannah’s entire life savings she felt she could convince the bank to give her a small business loan for the rest. She just needed the details from Mr. Bangs . He just didn’t show up at all or do much of anything when it came to the bar. He very rarely had.Very rarely had Hannah felt pretty. Hannah had risen above her upbring enough to gain most people;s respect in her small town. Then the phone rang and it was Gabe who was the sheriff of the town and he told Hannah he had her father and he was in the drunk tank sleeping it off. Hannah had gone to grade school with. Hannah had always went running to clean up her dad's messes but she couldn’t leave the bar and she told Gabe she would pick him up after she closed the bar. Her father was the only family Hannah had and she didn’t want him to die or hurt others. Her mother had died when Hannah was five. There had always been a sadness around her father. As Hannah was bent over to get a bottle of Jack she heard a man say he was looking for someone. Hannah replied good luck with your search then Hannah heard him say he was looking for his wife and he realized it was him the man who had ever gotten close enough to make her feel like more than trash, the one man tried to forget over the last six months. The one man who had got her to say I do- Grant Latham and then he said “ Hello Mrs. Layhem” . Hannah had taken her first vacation and went on a two week Caribbean cruise where the last night Hannah had married Grant. Hannah had snuck out snuck off in the middle of the night and went back home. Hannah ahd stole Grants heart married him, and then broke his heart and left. Grant had intended to go after Hannah but then Grant got word his father had died and left his company to Grand and the task of of keeping it out of his gold digger mother’s hands. So Grant had to immediately go back to New York. Hannah asked how Grant had found her. Grant’s life was very different from Hannah's life He had been the sole heir to a billion dollar empire know he was in control of it. He has been trying to run that billion dollar empire while he was grieving over his father’s death. His father had been everything to Grant whereas Hannah’s father wasn’t. But Grant wanted his wife back and he wanted Hannah to come to New York with him. Grant blackmails Hannah into giving him a chance to show her their marriage can work.
I liked this book. It was a quick and fun read. I liked that we did get Hannah’s and GRant’s backstory done in flashes which I don’t usually like but this was done just so that it wasn’t to bad. I didn’t really like that Grant came and expected Hannah to give up everything she knew to follow him back to new York after all she had only known him for that two weeks and either way that was her whole life and where she had been born where she had wanted to but her business and what she knew. I did like that Grant didn’t give up on Hannah and actually wanted to give the marriage a chance and when he could he finally found her. I love how Grant interacted with Hannah’s friends. I found there was some repetition in this book but it still held my interest. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of the book and I recommend.

Title: Playing with Danger
Series: Desire Bay Book #2
Stand Alone Title: yes
Author: Joya Ryan
Genre: Romance
Blurb: They married on a whim, and then she disappeared from his life. Now he’s determined to find her and convince her to make their marriage work . . .
It’s all happening for Hannah Hastings. After ten years of slinging drinks, she’s about to go from bartender to bar owner. But before she can sign her name to the deed, a blast from her not-so-distant past comes blowing into her hometown of Yachats, Oregon. It’s Grant Laythem, the man it seems she can’t resist. And he’s come looking for his runaway bride . . .
Set to inherit a multi-million-dollar company, Grant is used to women wanting to get him into bed—and get into his bank account. But not Hannah. Bedded, wedded, and abandoned after a passionate two-week fling, he never even had the chance to tell her who he really was. All he knows is that she wanted him, no strings attached. And now that he’s had a taste of something real, he’s not about to let it slip away.
Can Grant convince her to give their marriage a shot? Or will Hannah continue to run from the only love she’s ever known?
Thoughts: The book starts out pretty good, but found myself quickly losing patience with the heroine. Hannah spends so much time living in a fantasy world where she can deny any and everything that has happened. To the point where it starts feeling delusional to me and it damages my enjoyment of the story. I tend to like Joya Ryan, but this one just fell flat for me.
Rating: B-/C+

Hannah is running the bar and never expects to see the man she married again. After all it happened very quickly on a cruise and she ran when it was done. She wasn't even sure he knew any of her information.
Grant has to find his wife he came back from the cruise and had a mess going on. Months later he finally finds her, and hopes she will stay with him.
I liked that the book went from past to future so we knew everything that was going on. It was a fun read


** I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

Dang book got me again. Playing with Danger is the second in the series and is Hannah's story. She is away on a cruise and ends up married but at the end of it her husband disappears. She returns home and is ready to be owner of her bar.

I have to say they made her seem mean in this book But I have to say hello she's closed off not malicious. After six months, her husband makes his way to her and well he's playing for keeps this time and isn't above blackmailing Hannah to get what he wants....Her.

I liked it. Very quick read, fast paced and it was very enjoyable.

This was a fantastic second chance romance.Hannah and Grant meet on a cruise where they have a really hot two-week affair and end up tying the knot.When the ship docks Hannah runs and due to a family emergency Grant cant chase her.
Hannah is trying to buy the bar she works at when Grant shows up after six months apart, shes thinking Annulment but he wants happy ever after.I just loved Grant he is just so sweet and wants her in New York with him, can he convince her.
This was such a good book it was so well written and flowed really well you cannot help but like these two.A fantastic addition to the series.

Playing With Danger is an okay read, but I wouldn't really recommend it. It couldn't hold my interest. I had to keep putting it down and going back to the story to even finish it.

The small town feel and settings were described well.

The biggest problem I had with this story was that there wasn't a lot of dialogue. There was a lot of sex, but not a lot of communicating. It makes it seem like the connect between Hannah and Grant is purely physical. The most communication took place was when they were with other people in town, but not with each other.

I would have loved to see more communication and more of a connect between Grant and Hannah. The lack of it left me feeling disappointed.

Hannah's personality is certainly an independent, strong, and determined woman. I really liked her wit. Grant is determined to have Hannah and is protective of her.

Overall, the lack of communication and dialogue made the story dull.

3 – "Give me two weeks…" Stars!

The second book in the Desire Bay series gives us Goonies bar owner Hannah Hastings story. We met Hannah in the first book as she was BFF to Laura Baughman, what you don’t know is that she married a man she hardly knows whilst on a two week Caribbean cruise.

It was a match made in hell… and the best thing to ever happen to him.

Grant Laythem, the man she married, and then disappeared on at the end of the cruise arrives in Yachats, Oregon six months later with only one plan, to make his wayward wife fall in love with him again so he can take her back to New York with him.

"What are you afraid of...?"

I honestly think the author missed a trick with this one, because for me the story got lost in all of the sex they were having. Bearing in mind it isn’t until the very latter stages that they both actually start to make the effort to get to know more than their erogenous zones about each other, I wanted more of everything else that was going on in the background to be bought to the forefront.

"I trusted you, and you kept secrets."

Yes, as a reader you know you aren’t really in for a deep and meaningful story line when its based around a couple that spend two weeks boffing on a cruise ship, and then decide to get married on a post-sex-marathon whim, but the bones were there for Playing with Danger to be more than it ended up being.

This is definitely a does what is says on the tin kind of read. I am just not sure the balance of ingredients really worked as well as they could have on this occasion.

What you get here, my fellow romance book loving friends, is a quick, at times very graphically smexy read featuring a main couple that tied the marital knot impulsively after meeting on a two week tropical cruise. The storyline picks up six months later with Grant, the handsome/rich/determined hero, in hot pursuit of Hannah ready to hand over his heart, if she’ll only give him a chance to prove he truly is husband material. You see, Hannah is the only woman he’s ever met that sees beneath his surface and truly gets who he is. Problem is she up and left him high and dry when the ship docked, and it has taken him this long just to track her down.

I’m not sure where the title comes from, folks, because there wasn’t any physical danger, so don’t be thinking this is a nail biting, cloak and dagger type read. It is mostly relationship angst with lots of explicit steamy scenes, at times in public places and involving food, with Grant getting to know his girl in her small town home setting.

If you like to see a romantic at heart, good guy pursue and get his woman back, you’ll likely enjoy this book. But, again, brace yourself for the steaminess at times steals the show. However, you do get to know this couple as the not so secret big secret is revealed, and more than one grand gesture is made that puts the money where the mouth is and their hearts on the line, as well.

Title: Playing with Danger, Series: Desire Bay (Book 2), Author: Joya Ryan, Pages: 187, stand-alone but part of a series, new to me author, VERY steamy, second chance romance, small town backdrop, rich hero, romance safe, celibate during separation, not a very in-depth plot, sassy/feisty heroine, impulsive marriage.

Book 1 - Playing with Trouble (Laura & Jake), 3/21/17, Pages: 208
Book 2 - Playing with Danger (Hannah & Grant, 10/10/17, Pages: 187

(I received a free advanced reader copy provided via NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. No type of compensation was given to this reviewer. There is no relationship/affiliation between the reviewer and the author/publisher/NetGalley.)

I have never read this author before and this is book 2 in the series. That said I never felt lost and I really enjoyed this runaway bride storyline. We meet Hannah at first and my heart kinda broke for her. She has an alcoholic father and she has been taking care of him for YEARS. She has one dream and that is to own the bar she works in. She knows she is trapped in taking care of her father and he treats her horribly.

I LOVED Grant, he is sorta a poor rich boy and Hannah has no clue until he lands up in front of her at her bar. It has taken him six months to be able to run after his runaway bride and well I loved these two together. I also loved the sex scenes they are beyond HOT.

This was a great story about facing life and seeing that sometimes love doesnt cure and fix everything but it also helps to have someone on your side. Hannah has never had someone have her back and I loved that Grant is there for her and vice versa.

Grant and Hannah were married while on a two week cruise. When it ends, Hannah returns to her small town in Oregon and Grant returns to New York. However, Grant has no intention of allowing his wife to run. He hunts her down and proceeds to blackmail her into giving them a chance.

I enjoyed this quick read. The characters each struggle with their own family issues while learning to trust one another. Hannah was a tough heroine who was actually considered mean by many of the locals although I didn’t really see that in her. She’s certainly got a hard shell around her but never a malicious intent to anything she does. Grant was a great hero with his determination to find, claim and keep her. He’s never had close friends and he finds them in the small town where he finds Hannah.

This was a nice story that one could use between lengthier reads and especially if looking for something on the lighter side.

This is an honest review of an advanced copy provided by NetGalley and Montlake Romance.

Dual POV
Safe
No apparent triggers

Grant and Hannah come from different worlds, but have similar issues. Meeting and falling in love on a cruise ship when you live across the country from each other can pose a few problems, along with secrets that they don’t want to share.

Great read and great characters.