Indie Archives - The Litertarian

The Perfect Putt is a sweet small-town sports romance with no spice, and lots of drama! Picture the flavor of a Sarah Adams romance (a la The Cheat Sheet), geared a little closer to a younger (or more innocent) reader audience.

The Perfect Putt Annah Conwell Book Cover, Golfer kissing girl with red hair

Ellie Heart takes a job as the assistant to a professional golfer in order to accelerate her savings to open up her own florist business one day. She hates golf, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for Miles, who has had terrible luck keeping an assistant for long. They always get obsessed with him, and the last thing he wants is to have a serious relationship that might lead to marriage. His parents ugly divorce was enough to solidify that decision for him. But as he and Ellie get to know one another, it feels different.

This novel felt very much like a high school drama. The characters are older, but they acted quite innocently. The emotions were elevated to the point almost of exaggeration, and were certainly accelerated, making this very much insta-love territory. It wasn’t necessarily the short time component that made it feel fast, but the lack of context for the depth of feeling they were both experiencing. Some of it did feel a little silly, but it also has a certain kind of charm.

The fact that Ellie & Miles were technically employer/employee didn’t seem to add any boundary to the romance. I don’t remember it being mentioned at all as a hurdle to overcome between them, which seemed a little strange.

Overall though, The Perfect Putt felt very uplifting and positive.

Miles, in particular, has a very strong friend group. He is distant from his broken family, so it’s great that he has that support system behind him. He likes to be friends with everyone who surrounds him, which is how he starts to let Ellie in.

Ellie is just trying to stay focused on her dream of opening her own little shop in her favorite place: Coastal Cove, an idyllic small-town setting. Her widowed sister Naomi lives there with her young son and Ellie is sticking around to help her. I would expect one of the next novels in the series to center around Naomi!

The narration was done very well. Both voice actors did a great job with the material and gave life to the characters.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for sending the audiobook arc in exchange for my honest review of this title.

Details

Title:: The Perfect Putt (More Than A Game Book #2)
Author:: Annah Conwell
Genre:: Sweet Sports Romance
Publisher:: Indie
Length:: 269 pages
Audio Length:: 6h 42m
Audiobook Narrator:: Sybil Johnson & Dillon Sickels
Audiobook Publisher:: Dreamscape Media
Published:: August 27th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 3-Stars
Spice Level:: 0.5 (kissing, alludes to sex)

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If you liked this book, check out…

The Cheat Sheet/The Rule Book | Sarah Adams
My (not so) Perfect Life | Sophie Kinsella

King of Wrath by Ana Huang is a possessive, spicy, filthy rich, romance with a tint of darkness that keeps tension wound tight all the way through. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a dark romance, but it feels like it should.

One night at family dinner, Vivian Lau’s parents surprise her with an arranged marriage. While she’d known since she was a teenager to expect it, she was taken by surprise. Not only the deal itself, but the identity of her husband-to-be: Dante Russo, the most eligible billionaire bachelor in New York. Dante was forced into the match, but as soon as he is able to, he plans to end the engagement and go on his merry way, married to his job, exactly the way he likes it. Vivan thinks he’s an ass, but is willing to give him a chance – she is determined to marry him no matter what to please her family. Dante closes himself off emotionally because he knows it’s not forever and doesn’t want to be cruel. But while they keep up the appearance of a happy engagement for high-class society, lines begin to blur.

The romance between Vivian and Dante is hot and cold. Vulnerability is not a language either of them speak. It creates a lot of tension and causes the moments they do fall together all the more intense for it. Vivian is a very strong woman who relies on no one. Though she’s an heiress, she works as an event planner and takes her work very seriously. I enjoyed her personality, but more importantly, I think she is a good match for a man like Dante, who never hears the word no from anyone else.

Dante is slow to let go of his original goals and assumptions. He is a very driven man -incredibly focused – and executes on his objectives to accomplish his goals. When he makes a decision, it’s because he’s considered all the facts and he doesn’t go back to wonder if it was the right one. His engagement with Vivian seems to be the first time he has to reevaluate his original stance, and he struggles with it for a long time.

I picked this book up for the cover. I was expecting it to be some kind of romantasy (right? Look at it!). And, I guess if you consider the billionaire nature of the characters and the high-class world they live in, you might as well consider that shit fantasy. LOL. But it’s not, really. My expectations were subverted a little bit there, however, I’m glad I read it. It’s about as far on the dark romance scale as I think I’m comfortable going, but I was impressed with how well the characters were matched up, and I was really sucked into a lot of the drama. Once I started reading, I thought it might be far sexier than it ended up being. There’s about as much sex as any other spicy book out there anymore.

If you’re looking to spice up your romance reading away from bubble-gum romantic comedies to something more serious and dramatic, this might be a good tangent to explore. It’s also the start of a series, which is a plus in our binge culture (though I’m not sure yet if I’ll personally be continuing the series). If you like a possessive, decisive, rich, all around alpha male lead, you’ll want to pick this one up for sure.

Details

Title:: King of Wrath (Kings of Sin #1)
Author:: Ana Huang
Genre:: Romance
Publisher:: Bloom Books
Length:: 407 pages
Audio Length:: 12h 5m
Audiobook Narrator:: Jacob Morgan & Emily Woo Zeller
Audiobook Publisher:: Boba Press
Published:: October 18th, 2022
The Litertarian Rating:: 4-Stars
Spice Level:: 4 (open door, explicit language)