Complex friends-to-lovers romance

This story spans a couple professional football seasons as Mike and Tori's slow-burn romance develops as an extension of her work for him as his PR rep. Their working relationship soon involves her having to pose as his girlfriend for the publicity boost, which of course gradually grows into a real relationship.

As a standalone romance, this book covers their initial meeting all the way to their HEA. However, it apparently builds on the events of the earlier four-book series that charts Rob and Evie's romance in which Mike is a close friend of Evie's and has had his life greatly shaped by those prior events. I wish that the author had taken the time to have Mike explain his history with Rob, Evie, and Alex to Tori on page, rather than just have her acknowledge that he did explain it all to her at some point. Not having read the previous books, this approach leaves holes of indeterminate size in our understanding of Mike's motivations.

Still, the focus is on Mike and Tori, and their romance is sweet, steamy, tender, and heartwarming. I loved how they built a solid foundation of trust right from the beginning, and how that allowed them to feel safe in revealing more and more of their secret selves to each other. They have a terrific HEA that also gives hints into a future book focusing on Alex's relationship with Amira.

If you've already read the first four books, I've no doubt you'll be right at home with this one and will not want to miss Mike's well-deserved HEA. If you're new to the series, be prepared to not quite understand his relationship with his high school friends, but be assured that that history doesn't really get in the way of his moving forward with Tori. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

ok, I am going to agree with Nina T, I got to chapter 9, about 17% and I am done. I can't finish this.  IT says it is a standalone, that is not true. The prologue makes not sense. I don't understand why a fight between Mike and Alex makes his teammates think he is gay? friends fight. we have one scene where Mike goes to Tori's apartment and they are talking about his image, then she s going home with him for a family wedding?  Why? if that is to confusing enough, then she is drunk and throwing up, I assume they are in a hotel? then she stands up and starts taking her clothes off?!?!?!  yeah, no just no

I picked this book for three  reasons : I can’t resist to sport romance and it was described as a stand-alone no need to read other books in the serie and is a fake marriage relationship one 
Even though the writing stile is good i had to suffer with timeline and side characters stories. Backgrounds I did not understood 
I should have read eve and rob story first 
The prologue did not fit/macht the story 
There is indeed good material here with a more accurate d’editing this can be a nice book 
Not as it is now 
2 stars for potential

just reviewed Holding by Kata Čuić. #Holding #NetGalley 
[NetGalley URL]

Ugh, another DNF. @ 17 %.

The book starts with a prologue that left me consufed. I had no idea whose POV it was and what it was about. It felt like being thrown into the scenery so I can only guess it has something to do with previous books.
I was willing to let it slide but unfortunately, the next couple chapters weren't any good. It felt like something was missing, like I should be reading the previous books even though this is a standalone. I didn't know what was going all, all was told and not shown.
For example, one moment they are having a normal conversation, the next she was being told (the conversation was brief so we don't get a glimpse of what was really going on) to go with the hero when he was going home. In the next chapter she was already drunk and stripping completely in front of him and I had no idea what was going on. None.
There were so many twists and turns, each chapter felt like being on a carousel and suddenly falling down in the middle of the unknown and doing what you can to figure out where you were. Seriously, the background of every scene was lacking. I like some mystery but if I don't know where the scene starts and why are the characters acting as they are, I have no choice but to put the book aside. I can't read it anymore and wondering each chapter what was going on. I can't.

I received this ARC for an honest review.
The characters, Tori and Mike, are both very likable characters. Tori is the youngest daughter with five older brothers and a father, who is in the Navy. Tori wants to experience life outside of her families protective circle. Mike is a new pro football player trying to play football and take care of his family. When Mike gets in an altercation with another football player, who is also a childhood friend, the football team hires Tori to be Mike's babysitter. 
This book was promoted as part of a series, but it was also said that it could be read as a standalone. This is the fifth book in the Moving The Chains series. While you can read it as a standalone, I would no recommend it. There are elements of the previous books that are important to the characters, mainly Mike's, story line. There is history from previous books that would be important to know. If I had read the first four books in the series before this book I feel that I would have given it a higher star rating.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advance reader copy of this book;  I very much appreciate the opportunity to read it!

I'm struggling with how to rate this book as there were some things I really liked and others that were confusing & bothersome.     I very much enjoyed the characters and their dialog.    However, the plot line and the reason for the fake romance seemed manufactured and the timeline was difficult to follow as it jumped around quite a bit.      Also,  this book is billed as part of a series but can be read as a standalone, but I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd read others in the series.

I received an ARC copy of this book from the author and netgalley.

This book is my first by this author. It is a series and a standalone though in some parts of the book it is hard to follow because they are characters from the prior book and their stories are intwined.  

Though I was confused at some points the author does a great job of weaving the story of Mike and Tori.  They are really great characters and I enjoyed the dialogue between them.  The writing is great which is really what kept me in this story! The premise of this book is about Mike and Tori. Mike has had a hard time in the press and Tori is hired to pretty much babysit and help boost his image, though she initially tells him she’s his new PR rep. They work on boosting his image and through that they get to know each other and form a friendship. They eventually decide to fake a relationship together in hopes of bettering his image and helping her career. 

Overall this was a good read I just wish I had a little more background or had read the other books prior to reading this. I feel it would easier to follow of I had.  I will read more from this author in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley for a arc copy for a honest review.    

This is my first book by Kata Čuić now I have to go back and read the rest of the series a 4 star read ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Happy Reading 

Lisa

I love a good romance novel once in a while.    So when I had to chance to receive this as an ARC I jumped.  I was totally in the mood to escape.   

However, I had some issues with this book.   It was supposed to be a standalone even though it was part of a series.  But I felt like I was missing something and needed to read the previous books.  It referred to people as if we should know who they were.      

The other issue I had was that it didn't make sense.  I can think of better reasons to fake a romance.  And I could swallow it, but then the reason for the breakup, then suddenly it didn't matter.. I was confused.  And it felt like a good bit of manufactured angst, which I really hate. 

All that being said, I kept reading it - I was somehow drawn in.   I liked the characters and the supporting friends.   I am confused as to how to rate this, so I will give it 3 stars,  Some things I really liked and some things I hated about it.  

I do want to thank the author the publisher and #netgalley for the ARC - this did not impact my review.

Quick moving, steamy and exciting.  Kata has a great style.of writing that makes you want to keep turning pages

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Thank you to the author for providing me this arc via Netgalley!
This book confused me so much. It took me a while to decide how much to rate this, but I've decided to settle on 2.5 stars.
There were things I liked about this like the characters, which made this an enjoyable read, overall. 
I did have some problems with it tho. The premiss of the book didn't make sense (there were less confusing and more realistic way of doing a fake relationship sports romance); the fact that this was advertised as part of a series, but readable as a standalone was a problem as well, because it didn't provide enough context of the events of the past books, which turned the plot hard to follow at times; and finally the passing of time wasn't explicit as well - there were times where I didn't know if a year or a week had passed. 
I will probably be reading Alex's book tho.