What a fantastic start to the Happy Endings series. Stripped is so good. Robyn is a delightful hot mess. I giggled a few times when it came to her. You feel for Robyn as she is trying to figure out why she is such a hot mess of late. When a happy accident lands Fallon (Zac) into Robyn's life you can't help but feel those sparks start to fly. Fallon is an amazing guy. He is stripping not just for the money but to help his family out. Once you get to know a little about his past you will love him. He is a sweet heart. As these two navigate the through a relationship of sorts you root them on and hot they can both over come their insecurities. Fallon and Robyn are hot together and I love the give and take. I loved this book. I was sucked in from the start and can't wait for more.

That was fun!

Stripped is the perfect romcom to read in an afternoon on the beach, maybe with a cocktail nearby.

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Don't expect too much, besides laughing, giggling and a little bit of drooling, while imagining the hero to be Magic Mike.

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There's no actual drama, so the story is pink and fluffy. Both main characters have amazing banter and chemistry and the heroine is just a beautiful hot mess. I don't know what else to tell you about it, besides the fact that I really enjoyed it, I felt good reading it and i would definitely recommend it, when you need a light read. :)

<i>"ARC provided through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review."</i>

This book was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Robyn and Zac were great characters and had me laughing and falling in love with them. This was a magic mike romance where you got to see characters falling all over one another in love while coming to terms with themselves. Looking forward to more.

My boring life took a turn for the better when I picked up my laundry and found they had given me someone else’s order. But I couldn’t figure out who it belonged to, considering I had a sparkly red/white/and blue thong. My name is Robyn Flores and I’m running late for work again, when a gorgeous hunk knocks on my door with my bag of laundry. Except for a few of his items that I used to mop up the coffee I spilled all over the kitchen floor, we exchange bags. Zac Fallon is so gorgeous, I’m left speechless. When he asks me out, I stupidly decline. What was I thinking. However, I do rectify that when I get home that evening and invite him to my place for pizza. The chemistry that we are feeling is sizzling and I can see that it’s mutual.
Attending the bachelorette party of my best friend Lily, starts out with your usual games, but then all hell breaks loose. That’s when the male strippers show up and who is front and center, Zac Fallon. Now I know why he had that sparkly thong in his laundry! What starts out as a fling turns into so much more. But how can this work when his show is only in New York for a couple of months.
Reading this book, I felt like i was channeling Channing Tatum in Magic Mike. Fabulous read and so much fun.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was worried it would be over the top and silly, but it was funny and real. The characters and their problems were relatable. This was definitely a fun read, but still filled with real emotion. A great read!

I never thought I would be using adjectives such as delightful and charming to describe a book about male strippers, but those are words, which really fit this book.

Who?

• Robyn - An elementary school teacher, who until this point, was always super focused, organized, and practical, but was now kind of adrift.

• Fallon - Robyn's new neighbor and member of Mayham City, a male exotic dance troupe, who desired "more" and wanted to be seen as more than a stripper.

What?

Zac and Robyn become acquainted via a laundry mixup and a star spangled thong. Sparks fly, and the two decide to embark on an exclusive "fling" for the summer, but when the time comes to say "goodbye", will they be able to walk away?

Why?

This book was so much fun! Castile really knows how to strike that balance between sexy and sweet, and I adored every single second of it.

The book opens with Robyn on a hectic morning, and I knew I immediately wanted to be her friend. I think I laughed almost non-stop for the entire first chapter. Robyn was smart and funny and I felt like there was a lot more going on than we were aware of. I so enjoyed getting to know her better and also getting to see her find her happy.

Fallon, Fallon, Fallon. He was just perfection. He was this big, buff guy, who took off his clothes for a living, but there was so much more to him than how he looked or what he did. He was my favorite type of hero - super sweet and thoughtful with a heart of solid gold. I had absolutely no problem cheering for him throughout this book.

Fallon and Robyn were amazing together. The chemistry was off the charts, but it wasn't all white-hot-sexy-times, there were a lot of really tender and sweet moments too, and I definitely had heart eyes while watching these two fall in love.

I enjoyed the rom-com feel, the bromance, the great female friendship, meeting the family -- there were just so many wonderful elements, which contributed to my enjoyment of this book. I am extremely excited that we get Aiden's story next. He was a standout, and I am itching to know more about him.

Overall
A strong start to a series I want to read more of. The humor, the romance, and the characters all captured my attention, and I will eagerly await book 2.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. And it had a lot of great qualities. Some of the banter was really fun, and there was some good-ish female friendship stuff, but a lot of it for me got bogged down by poor characterizations and the focus was not on the parts that I was interested most in.

Zac Fallon is a male stripper, touring with a group of guys. He’s starting to feel a bit at loose ends. He’s older than the other guys (except for the manager who no longer strips? Maybe?) and now he feels like maybe he wants to settle down. He is definitely interested in the hottie that lives on the floor directly above him.

Robyn Flores is an elementary school teacher but is pretty much a mess of a human right now. We are told that she used to be 100% put together, but she and her best friend have apparently swapped places since Lily got engaged. What I wanted to know was WHY Robyn was such a mess. How did the change happen? Was it gradual? And why didn’t she end up in therapy for her obvious depression? I kept waiting for SOMEONE to point it out to her (“Maybe you’re depressed? How about therapy!”) but no one ever did. Ok, so Fallon pointed it out once, but she dismissed it and never returned to it. Throughout the whole book, Robyn moans and laments that she is a terrible friend to Lily, but hey – Lily isn’t such a great friend either. She is ignoring the fact that her best friend is obviously losing it. She’s covering for her lateness at work instead of trying to help. She complains that Robyn won’t talk to her, instead of insisting her friend tell her what’s going on. Depressed people don’t volunteer that they are depressed.

Okay, so that whole aspect really bothered me. And don’t get me started on the Evil Principal Platypus. (No, that’s not his real name. His real name is Lukas Papadopoulos. But they do call him that.) He seems all fine and good, until he shows up at a restaurant with an underage girl and appears to be getting her drunk and then hits on Robyn when their respective dates go to the bathrooms. But this is sort of glossed over. Someone who preys on underage girls should not be the principal of an elementary school.

I haven’t even really gotten into the actual romance, which was… fine. They had some sort of sexy times, although it seemed clunky and inorganic to me, but that may have been that I was just thinking about Principal Pedophile and The Depression That Shall Not Be Named. I wanted more about the actual stripping business, too. More of the joy that Fallon was getting from it, not just the seedy underbelly of it. (Which, I know is part of it, but the author makes such a point that Fallon really loves it, but all we see are the flashy or gross aspects, not the parts that give him such satisfaction.)

I initially reviewed this as a 3 star book, but all these problems with it are making me demote it to 2. I could go on about the things that didn’t work for me, but overall, I summed up the main things already. (Two other things that rubbed me the wrong way quickly: the random subplot about the money being stolen from the coffers of the strip show was weird and not needed and the firing of Robyn as Maid of Honor and the replacing of the future SIL was also awful and kind of heartless.) I will say that the writing was good and there weren’t a lot of technical issues. It’s just the plot and the characterizations did NOT work for me, and there were some weird pacing issues.

I received an ARC of this book, through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Another new author for me, but I will continue to look for her works. The writing style was great. There were some grammatical or just wording errors, but likely will be corrected before the book actually is published.

The book is an HEA with both characters having their own baggage, but also both strong characters. There isn’t a romance book out there where there isn’t some amount of turmoil, but what I liked here is that the drama is caused by real life issues and not someone just being weak and sniveling or playing the “poor me” game.

The book doesn’t really have a slow part. It doesn’t start out with an intimate scene, more realistic than that, but the characters meet and develop quickly. They are deciding whether to pursue a relationship with each other while we are learning about the characters themselves, instead of books where there are several chapters of character building before getting to the story.

Very realistic build up of sexual tension, which I like, no insta-love or sex on the first date. They are attracted to each other, but are reasonable about the pace of the relatoinship. In addition the characters are both living their own lives, including friends, family, careers, everything in true life, but never getting so far away from the main characters that you have to get reacquainted before reading forward.

This was a fun, easy read, not too rushed, predictable or unrealistic. Intimate scenes were steamy, not erotica level, but also not skimmed over or repeats of one before. I recommend this read to anyone enjoying the middle of the road in hotness, romance novel!

Zac Fallon, has been stripping for 10 years and he has always loved everything about it. He loves making women smile, being in the spotlight, the camaraderie with the other guys in the show, the freedom to travel and the money. But he just doesn’t quite love it as much as before, something is missing in his life.

Robyn Flores had it all together once. She is the one who did everything right but ever since since her best friend, Lily, the wild one of their duo, got engaged and started settling down, her life has started falling apart. She is happy for Lily, maybe a bit jealous of how together and happy she seems, that she can’t bring herself to tell Lily about how much she struggling. Robyn can barely get to work on time, is coming dangerously close to losing her teaching job and has little clue of why she can’t bring herself to care.

This Magic Mike XXL-inspired romance by Zoey Castile (who writes YA as Zoraida Cordova) was a roller-coaster, part frantic romantic comedy, part angsty relationship drama. While there are lots of glitzy & sexy scenes what I loved were the quieter romantic moments that let me see why Fallon and Robyn were getting so wrapped up with each other so quickly. Castile captures the allure of someone who listens but might not be there to judge one’s bad choices the next day, especially as Robyn struggles to figure out what she wants to do, not what she thinks will please the people in her life.

“But he listens to every word and, somehow, the space between us on the couch disappears and we’re sitting side by side...”
-Robyn -- Stripped by Zoey Castile

I also I really like the frank moments late in the novel where Lily and Robyn finally face why their friendships is floundering and it was interesting to contrast the state of their relationship to that of Fallon’s with Ricky and Aiden.

“... they want the spectacle. I want someone who might see more in me.”
-Fallon -- Stripped by Zoey Castile

The ‘Magic Mike Life” that Fallon is living is losing its charm after 10 years. Hosting an apartment-full of women for an after-party, just feels like a chore rather than a perk. But is an adjustment to become someone’s boyfriend, even a temporary one. Castile does a good job presenting the double edged ness of Fallon’s career. While he has plenty of people who get it and support him simple small talk with Robyn friends and family feels like traps, intentionally or unintentionally. Fallon is ready for something new, for a change but outside of loving Robyn what that new thing was left too vague for my liking.

I got a little tripped up in the early chapters by several eyebrow-raising references related to Robyn’s teaching (how can any teacher avoid meeting their new principal for two months? Do they not have faculty meetings?) but if anything it showed how checked out Robyn was from her career and her life in general and her gigantic heavy work bag she lugs back and forth to work did make me feel seen. I also appreciated that she frequently considered filling out union incident reports because she was certainly entitled to have done so. The whole storyline with Lukas, her inappropriately fixated principal was an ode to trusting one's instincts when other people think someone is okay.

There is a lot to like in this romance and I am intrigued by a lot of supporting characters, particularly Ricky the lead choreographer and organizer of the crew that I will come back to the Happy Endings series again. If you are looking for Magic Mike XXL-inspired romance with a sweet hero, that doesn’t sugar coat the challenges, is full of emotionally messy people, set in a NYC that is as diverse as the real one and has just enough humor to balance the angst you should check it this out.

I honestly love this crazy funny story ! This rom com was like Magic Mike meeting Bridesmaids! And I loved every second of it. Robyn Flores and Zac Fallon kept me on my toes from page one. They had great chemistry and banter. I love when couples are fun and cute. The drama was low, and when there was drama, it was light and comical.

This was a great book. I can't wait to read more from Zoey Castile!!

Stripped was such a fun read! Robyn was a fifth grade teacher who was trying to live life the "right" way. Everything went from falling perfectly in place for her to nothing going well. Then Robyn meets her new neighbor, Fallon. There's an attraction and instant connection between them that feels more right than anything else going on in Robyn's life. All of that is threatened when Robyn discovers Fallon is a male stripper.

I really liked this book. It made me think about how people judge those who work as strippers. To go even further, it made me think about how we judge people who "have it all". I try not to judge people, but this book made me think hard about it. People have different reasons for their lives and career choices, and I thought this book did a great job spotlighting it. It was also a very sweet love story with some great humor thrown in at the right times. Definitely worth reading!

Sure, this is a little lighter reading than I anticipated but this is the first I’ve read from her. Don't want to spoil the story but I’d have to say that was awesome! These two have a bit of a love-hate thing going on. up to do

I loved Robyn’s inner voice she cracked me. The banter between the two made the book. Some angst, lots of emotion and humor and of course heat.

Id read from this author again. I received this ARC for a honest review.

Honestly, this book made me want to watch Magic Mike XXL.

STRIPPED is a flirty and light adult contemporary romance that may be unrealistic at times, but a fun read overall. I really liked Fallon, the hero who is a stripper and enjoys his job, but I was disappointed with the heroine Robyn. They’re both flawed characters and make mistakes, but their character growth stays true as they learn from those mistakes. There are really fun side characters that I can’t wait to read more about, and really cute/funny antics going on. But throughout it all, I could never get past the initial iffy feelings I had.

So I guess I should start with Robyn. She used to be the high-achieving student, but kind of finds herself lost in life at this point. She’s an elementary school teacher, but clearly she has no passion for it due to how late she is for class. She’s just… stuck. And this happens to so many people, which I appreciate the book delving into. But quite honestly, I think she was too much at times. I’m the type of person who advocates for being selfish from time to time, and realizing that self love it the best kind of love there is, but Robyn’s actions bordered on irresponsible and rude. The way she treated her friend who was getting married was honestly super mean, and the resolution to that conflict in my opinion was too easy on her part. I value friendships a LOT (even more than romantic relationships for the most part), so seeing her behavior towards Lily was quite heartbreaking for me. The fact that she’s late at work at an elementary school also made me disgruntled. There are children waiting for you to teach, and you make them WAIT? That’s so… that’s so irresponsible. She gets away scotch free for this behavior.

Fallon was easier to like, as he has a pretty full and open heart. He had a sad and neglectful childhood, but he sets out to take his own course in life despite those hardships. Fallon’s a hard worker and really has a passion for stripping and making women happy in general. I think he and Robyn made a sweet and complementary couple. There’s insta-attraction on both side (Robyn’s side was a bit more obnoxious as she would think about him while ignoring her girl friend), and they both give into those attractions. From there a relationship starts despite the stigma against Fallon’s line of work. There’s pretty low angst and drama going on, putting more emphasis on character antics and relationships being created and broken. In general, STRIPPED is a fun contemporary romance that I would still recommend fans of the genre to give a try. Bear with Robyn for the first half of the book, and I promise her actions DO get better as she starts thinking more before doing. I will definitely be looking out for the next book in this series!

“Robyn Flores, when we met, we were both a little bit broken. I think something in the universe was driving us together. Working to get us to that moment.”

Thank you Kensington Books and Netgalley for the review copy!

Trigger/Content Warnings: thoughts of death, depression

Funny and steamy romance. I actually had a hard time liking the heroine - Robyn - at first, while Zac was likeable straight away. This did change more to the end of the book as she changed her view on things. Of course Zac (or Fallon) has a job that is frowned upon by certain people, but he was proud of his job, just like his friends. Good for him!

I normally would not read books about strippers and such, but lately I have changed my mind and I really enjoyed this story. There were a couple of secondary characters just waiting for their own book.

This was cute and fun. Hello all you sexy male strippers. I really liked Zac. It was so cute that he was nervous to ask out Robyn and you could tell that he was excited to be around her. Robyn has had a rough couple of months on the hot mess express and Zac is just the guy to help her out. There were a couple of parts that had me chuckling. It’s an enjoyed afternoon story while humming It’s Raining Men.

Couldn't put this book down. loved the characters and the story. will definitely look up others books by this author.

Stripped was a fun and sexy story that draws you in from the beginning. I absolutely loved Robyn and Zac together. What a wonderful book.

I am so glad I requested a copy of this book from NetGalley! What a fun, sweet and sexy read that moves at a good pace and has all the elements of a contemporary romantic comedy one could want -- a sexy male stripper who falls for an elementary teacher--great secondary characters; just enough angst to make it interesting and an excellent slow burn romance between a couple that are very likeable, charming & self-deprecating, if not maybe just a little bit broken. "Zac" Fallon is swoony, sweet and sexy and together with Robyn they make the perfect match. I can't wait to see who will be featured in the next book in this series!

Robyn a primary school teacher has lost her sense of direction through feeling depressed, being late for work, apathetic and not even wanting to date. She's maid of honour for her best friends wedding but is well behind on all the planning involved.
When she goes through her delivered laundry she realises there must have been a mix up when she finds a star spangled sequinned thong, the owner Zac, of said thong realises the mix up and comes to claim his laundry. They next meet at a hen party where Zac is performing as a stripper with his male troupe, although smitten Zac thinks Robyn will never go for him due to his job and Robyn thinks a man so hot wouldn't look twice at her.
So starts a lovely romance, a good storyline with some funny moments, hot encounters and a good cast of characters. An entertaining and enjoyable read.
My thanks to net galley and publisher for opportunity to review this book.

The Good, The Bad, and Everything In Between

The Good
-Latinx author and heroine. Zoey Castile was born in Ecuador, raised in Queens, and I adore that she’s worked her corner of New York into her story. Robyn is Latinx, and it’s woven seamlessly into her character’s history without big neon . Yes, I love the diverse cast of characters, that NYC vibe and how it all works to make a very interesting backdrop to this romance.
-Magic Mike meets Bridesmaids? I’m in. Robyn’s struggles, in particular her depression, has led to an estrangement from her best friend Lily and it was giving me strong, strong Kristen Wiig/Maya Rudolph’s friendship from Bridesmaids vibes. While I would have loved to see more of them together (more on that later), their friendship felt genuine and I especially liked that they still had each other’s backs when it really mattered.
- Fallon’s a sweet hero. I have pretty straightforward tastes. If you give me great Firsts and a hero who is ALL IN for his heroine, I’m usually a very happy romance reader. He’s adorable, ripped for days and hot for his woman. Yeah, I loved him.

The Bad(ish)
-Pacing. I would have loved to have seen more time spent building up their relationship, especially in the beginning. Their meet-cute really did set up a good foundation, and I loved that time was spent by both characters in scenes outside the relationship. However, the way their relationship developed stutter-stopped, with the transition between every step just a bit off. The subplots involving his job and hers were appreciated, though they weren’t developed beyond the necessary and the ending was rushed.

Everything in Between
-Bonus points for the chapter title names. Made me want to go out and listen to them all on a playlist.
-I want more. I liked the supporting characters, or at least what I saw of them. Aiden is a standout and I completely understand why he’s getting his own HEA and I’m ready and waiting, because he is tasty.


The Bottom Line
I really liked Robyn and Fallon’s romance. The Bridesmaids meets Magic Mike with vibe was entertaining and made me close my kindle with a smile. That’s all I can ask for. I’d recommend for rom com fans, and I’m looking forward to the next one.