Thrill Ride

Evan and Cassie's journey pulled me in! As these two are brought into each other's lives, I couldn't wait to see how everything would play out for them.

Thrill Ride by J. D. Carothers ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cassie, a lawyer by profession and a cook by heart, unexpectedly gets chosen as an alternative for the Chief Guest Cook Competition of the Grand Athena's Trendz restaurant. While on that luxurious stay in Las Vegas, she gets entangled in the murders of three chefs by becoming a prime suspect for the murder of one of the chefs. Evan, a royal prince of a European island, has come to Grand Athena to escape from his family commitments for a while and lay low from the media. He decides that he'd stay away from women but isn't able to when his eyes fall on Cassie. Sean, the owner of Grand Athena, has some mysteries to solve after the deaths of the chefs working in his hotel and finding some suspicious expenses and losses in his company's accounts.

The story plot is engaging and interesting. I seriously didn't expect some twists like Evan being an actual prince and Cynthia being the mastermind behind the deaths. The characters were nicely justified as the novel is written in triple POVs- Cassie's, Evan's and Sean's.

The usage of double inverted commas (") in the many parts of the story was improper. But I guess this isn't the final edition. However, the story was good and I'd love to read more about Sean and Lowri's story.

One of the best books of 2022 so far!
Thrill Ride is a perfect title for this book, it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout trying to guess who was orchestrating things and why.
I loved the blend of romance and mystery as it kept things fast paced yet fun and endearing.
I loved the varied points of view and thought J.D Carothers did a great job and I hope to read more from her in the future.

I highly recommend.

As a debut novel, the author does a great job, particularly with character development and plot detail. I loved the foodie aspect of this book and how believable Cassie is as an untrained cook. The dialogue and romantic scenes could use some work. I think it would have been better to have kept the romance completely closed-door rather than use cringey decriptions, e.g. her channel of ecstasy.
The mystery is good. Las Vegas is a great setting because of how zany and modern the place is.
The side characters have well-drawn-out backgrounds. I'd love to see Sean get his own book. I'm also intrigued by Evan's brother and how he's going to manage his upcoming nuptials. There's definitely scope for more books with these characters so I'll be following this author to get new release updates.

Well this was a fun little book with a couple of twists.
I do like my romance books to involve a little more romance but you know what I didn’t actually mind too much.
I actually enjoyed the murder mystery aspect. I think the characters could use a little more refinement, but again it didn’t really take away away anything from my enjoyment.
My main problem with this book was it made my belly rumble lol

Cassie, struggling as a 30 year old corporate lawyer, is living an overworked lifestyle, working for an ungrateful boss, while being the low person in the company. However, she is too busy working and not able to pursue her true passion.......cooking. Growing up, her parents being lawyers always working and never taking time off, no vacation, that is all she has ever known. Fast forward to when she sees an opportunity that allows her to potentially pursue her dream and ultimately change her entire tradgetory in life she will not only accomplish this but she also meets and falls head over heels in love with royalty himself, Evan, who sweeps her off her feet. Tragedy strikes twice......Is Cassie really innocent? Will she stop at anything to be able to achieve her dream at any cost? Time will only tell. This novel is a great story of grit, loyalty, honest, even love will prevail at the end. People are not always who you think they are......

This is Cassie and Evan's story. Cassie is an attorney and feels overworked but it is what her parents wanted her to do so she just went with it but what Cassie really loves and wants to do is cooking so when her best friend suggests that Cassie enters a cooking competition in Las Vegas she decides to take a break from work and go and see what happens. Evan is helping his best friend with a cooking competition that is being held at Grand Athena and tries to keep a low profile of possible but what he didn't expect is to be drawn to Cassie and unable to keep his eyes of her but Even has secrets that can't be revealed but the chemistry between them is so strong and then things start to become complicated as the competition heats up. There are twists and turns along the way that have you turning the pages to see what would happen next and I can't wait to read more book's by this author in the future.

I Voluntarily Reviewed a Copy of This Book.

ARC Review
Book: Thrill Ride
Author: J.D. Carothers
Rating: 3,5

Tropes:
- rich guy, poor girl
- swoony
- inst-love
- suspense romance
- hidden identity
- cooking competition

Positive thoughts:
I enjoyed the story, it ws a page turner for me. I love a good cooking competition and I enjoyed that aspect of it. Plus a murder and setups in between, yes! It kept the story interesting and fun to read.
I loved to read about all the food, super interesting.
I loved the ending, both how the competition ended and how it turned out for Cassie and Evan.

Negative thoughts:
I thought the writing was a bit immature, especially the dialogues, it definitely needs refinement.
I didn't feel the inst-love, I was hoping to see a bit more interaction between Cassie and Evan before be made that daring more. I didn't see them interact enough to come to that kiss, it needed more to believe the attraction they had.

Over all:
Apart from the poor writing, I looked passed it and I was able to enjoy the story. I never got bored, it was a page turner for me.

Story summery:
Cassie is living her live the way she thinks her parents want it. Although they have died, she is determined to be a lawyer to keep her promise to them. But her dream is to be a cook, so she enrols herself in a cooking competition after she is feeling completely burnt out from her work.
The competition is in a luxurious hotel in Vegas and there she meets Evan. Although she is the backup contestant, she needs to stick around just in case one of the four competing fall out. And surely one of the competitors dies and she is thrown into the competition, she is up against three professional cooks. As the competition runs, strange things happen and she becomes a murder suspect. While she is trying to do her best in the competition, she also tries to clean her name by doing some investigating herself. And she also has the help of Evan, who she is falling for but she doesn’t know much about him.
Evan has a secret and he takes his time in revealing his true identity to Cassie. He helps her find the truth about the murder and supports her in her dream.
All well ends well, the murder is solved, Cassie lives her dream, and she ends up forgiving Evan for keeping such a secret from her.

A big thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the eARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this book. This books was a breathe of fresh air for me. Okay, well totally not realistic but still different and fun. I could just go with the flow. So fun, and has suspense as well. Loved Cassie and Evan-great chemistry. 3.5 stars

Wow this book was great. I loved being able to escape into this up and down romance and I would do anything to see this made into a movie.

I really enjoyed this book it is a detective mystery and a romance book in one, with some helpful cookery tips thrown in. Evan and Cassie get to know each other during this cookery competition.

❤️❤️❤️❤️
💋💋

Good read that’s kept my attention throughout, it’s got some great characters and one or two I found hard to like , but that’s a personal thing I suppose.

I’ve not read this author before and that was great, I love new to me authors, gives me a chance to see other styles of writing and appreciate them.
I would read more from this one,
If given the chance

I received an Arc copy of this book and chose to post this review

Sent from my iPhone

I was skeptical to read the novel at first but I am happy that I finally read it. I absolutely loved the novel.
All my favourite things like cooking, grand luxurious hôtels stay, mystery, the royal prince and the royal love story.
All of it packed together made the novel just perfect.
I was thrilled by the ending. Would definitely recommend to read this once..!!!

This is a good book. The two main characters are Cassie and Evan. Cassie is an attorney and want a be chef. Evan is a secret prince. They meet in Las Vegas Cassie is competing in a cook off and Evan is friends with the owner of the hotel. There has been a murder one of the chefs participating in the cook off. There is an instant attraction with Cassie and Evan. They help the police to find the killer. They fall in love.

Good book! I'm haven't really been into romance books lately just mystery thrillers but this book had a bit of both! It had suspense, intrigue, action, murder, mystery, romance and a great who done it! The storyline was very interesting and had me glued to my Kindle! I will definitely recommend reading this book! It was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

This book is part insta-love and part who done it. J.D. Carothers wrote Thrill Ride as her debut novel and I'm pretty impressed. Are there things that I think need improving, yes. Are there areas that could be stronger, yes. But overall, I really enjoyed this book. Cassie, a lawyer by trade decides to enter a cooking competition on a whim. When she is chosen as the alternate, she is flown to Las Vegas to watch the competition unfold. Putting her career on hold for her love of cooking, she takes the risk - and winds up being a person of interest when multiple chefs in connection with the competition wind up dead. Then there's Evan - a royal prince from Europe who's hiding out under an assumed identity. He and Cassie fall in love IMMEDIATELY and there seems to be no turning back for either of them. I enjoyed the romance, though I wish there was a little more development there and less insta-love. The mystery was also an interesting story line woven throughout. This was a fun read, and I'll be looking for more stories by J.D. Carothers in the future.

Thrill Ride by JD Carothers was a very well written book. I loved the flow of the book and the characters. I would defiantly look for more books by this author