Author: Elle Casey
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Goodreads Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17973653-shine-not-burn
Hosted by: Love Between the Sheets
BOOK DESCRIPTION
IT HAPPENED IN VEGAS.
I can't be held responsible. Things that happen there are supposed to stay there, right? Right? Yeeeah. Not so much.
Andie's just days away from tying the knot, but there's just ooooone little glitch. Apparently, she's already married. Or someone with her name is married to a guy out in Oregon of all places, and the courthouse won't issue her a marriage license until it's all cleared up. Tripping her way through cow pies and country songs to meet up with a man who gets around places on horseback is her very last idea of how to have a good time, but if she's going to get married, make partner at the firm, and have two point five kids before she's thirty-five, she needs to get to the bottom of this snafu and fix it quick ... before her fiance finds out and everything she's been working toward goes up in flames.
MY REVIEW:
Shine Not Burn by Elle CaseyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Shine Not Burn – Sweet Home Alabama meets The Hangover. Stand alone. No cliffhanger & HEA! Spoiler-free review. 5 cowboy sized stars.
*ARC kindly provided by the author in exchange for a fair and honest review*
I can’t believe it took me this long to read Shine Not Burn by Elle Casey. I wanted to read this book since it came out in July...but got side tracked. Luckily, I signed on to review SNB for a blog tour so I carved out the time to read it. This book was abso-effing-lutley perfect!
Andie has a life plan of making partner at her law firm, getting married and have 2.5 kids by the time she hits 35. Going away for a weekend of fun in Las Vegas shouldn’t interfere…right? Wrong. Just after arriving in Vegas her boyfriend Luke (known as Puke) breaks up with her via text message. She has a new plan…go out and have fun! Andie is double fisting cocktails like they are going out of style. While walking through a casino she spots the hottest guy she has ever seen. He has knock out ice blue eyes and wearing a sexy cowboy hat. As she makes her way over to where he is playing blackjack she trips and spills her drink on him. One thing leads to another and lady luck is on their side. They hook up and get married in an alcohol infused haze. Through a series of crazy circumstances they can’t get in touch the next day. Fast forward a few years later… Andie is sticking to her life plan. She is engaged to be married to some uber douche named Bradley. While applying for a wedding license she discovers that she was already hitched (it really wasn’t a dream). Yikes! She tracks down Mack. Giddy up, life just got very interesting in Baker City, Oregon.
I loved this book. It was a perfect mix of fun, steam, angst and romance. I have to say Andie’s internal dialogue was off the hook funny. I wasn’t into cowboys before Mack. Sign me up to go work on ranch with him ;) My only criticism of this amazing book is the cover does not do Mack justice. I would be happy to audition male models for a new cover…just sayin.
This review appears on www.kindlecrack.net, www.facebook.com/Kindlecrack, Goodreads, Amazon and Twitter.
BUY LINKS for Shine Not Burn:
Amazon US: http://amzn.com/B00DCCRA38
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DCCRA38
Barnes & Noble: http://tinyurl.com/c9usttz
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/caafmuo
Paperback: http://amzn.com/1939455073
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Website: www.ElleCasey.com
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ellecaseytheauthor
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ellecasey
Goodreads: www.Goodreads.com/ellecasey
Wattpad: www.Wattpad.com/ellecasey
EXCERPT
I decided to rescue my poor tipsy friend before she got too much dizzier trying to figure out what Candice was talking about. “Craps is a game, sweetie. Gambling. Where you throw the dice across the table and that guy has that hockey stick he uses to push and pull chips around? Like on TV where the guy’s on a roll making a bunch of money and everyone’s standing around cheering for him while he throws the dice?”
Seconds ticked by and then a virtual lightbulb went on over Kelly’s head. “Ooooohhh, you mean the gaaaame craps. That makes waaaay more sense. It’s true … you never say crap unless you’re around people you want to impress and then you say that word instead of saying shit.”
“No, I don’t,” said Candice, looking miffed or maybe a little embarrassed.
“Yes, you do,” said Kelly, completely oblivious to Candice’s mood change. “Okay, let’s play this crap thing. This crappy crapper craps game.” She giggled.
Candice rolled her eyes. “Do I want to get her another drink, Andie?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Yes, because it’s her bachelorette party and yes we want her to get good and hungover later so she never forgets this trip and how much fun it is to be single … and no, because I hate it when people barf. It makes me barf when I see it. And if she drinks too much more…”
“…she’s gonna barf,” Candice finished for me.
“Exactly.”
“Waitress!” yelled Candice, running after a barmaid with a tray.
Kelly and I watched her go. “What’s she doing?” Kelly asked.
“Getting us drunk.”
“Aren’t we already drunk?” she asked, scratching her head.
I smoothed down the hair that was sticking up as a result of her confusion. “You are and I’m nearly there. But this is your party, little sis, so you must drink until you fall over or until you kiss a stranger.”
Kelly looked at me in horror. “I did not come to Las Vegas to cheat on Matty!”
“Then you better start drinking,” I said, handing her one of the cocktails Candice brought over.
“How’d you get these so fast?” I asked her, looking down into the glass, wondering if I was drinking something she found next to a slot machine.
“What can I say? Cleavage works.” Candice raised her glass high. “Here’s to winning big tonight and possibly getting laid in Vegas!”
“Here’s to getting married!” said Kelly, raising her glass.
“Here’s to getting getting married and laid in Vegas!” I said, clinking all of their glasses and downing my drink in one, giant, three-swallow gulp session.
Candice looked at Kelly. “Do you think she knows what she just did?”
“Nope.” Kelly giggled, sipping on her straw.
“Shut up, buttheads. You know what I meant.” As if I’d drink to getting married in Vegas. Shuh, right. That totally didn’t fit into my lifeplan or my personality.
As soon as I finished my drink and put the glass down on a nearby shelf, we locked arms and walked into the casino area of the hotel. Having my girlfriends on either arm made walking in Kelly’s ferocious heels way easier, so I was all for it, even though it made quite the barrier for people trying to get by. Whenever anyone scowled at us, I smiled big and said, “She’s getting married. To a mortician. This is her going away party,” and they’d turn their frowns upside down. It was like Vegas magic or something. It was impossible to be cranky here.
As we left the restaurants and lobby behind, we entered a darker area of the huge facility. The casino. Bells were dinging all over the place, lights of every single color of the rainbow were flashing and blinking, and thousands of people milled around. There were slot machines in groups with small passageways between them to get by and chairs filled with butts. People were dropping quarters like there was no tomorrow, pulling one-armed bandits as fast as the money clanged into place.
A group of tables were across the aisle from the slot machine section, all of them with green felt on top. The very first thing I noticed when we walked in that direction was a cowboy hat. And it had the most beautiful man I had ever seen sitting right under it.
“Oh. My. Good. Ness,” I said, caught in some kind of tractor beam, unable to look away. My foot lifted up, trying to walk that direction, but Candice held me back.
“I don’t feel so good,” said Kelly, pulling away from me. I let her go without a thought.
“Oh, shit.” Candice let go of me too, leaving me to wobble a little on my own. “Come on, Kelly, come with me. I don’t want you to barf on their nice carpet. Please don’t yack. I hate it when you yack, you’re so loud about it.”
My brain barely registered what they were saying. I only had eyes for the god sitting on the stool just twenty feet away from me. Jeans, dress shirt, cowboy hat, five o’clock shadow beard, muscles visible just below his rolled up cuffs, bronzed like he spent most of the day outside. “Be still my heart,” I said, talking to no one, to the wind, to the goddess of love who I was pretty sure had just shot an arrow into my chest cavity. I reached up and touched my hair, hoping it was perfect.
“Stay here while I take care of her,” ordered Candice, her voice getting fainter as she got farther away. “I don’t want you watching her and getting sick too or my whole night will be ruined.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said absently, walking towards the card table so I could get a closer look at the cowboy who’d taken my breath away and sent my brain on a vacation to Mars.
A cocktail waitress walked up to me when I was almost there and offered me a drink that someone had paid for but never picked up. I nodded and drank half of it down before I got to the table, hoping it was an offering from the gods, concocted specifically for the purpose of giving me the courage I’d need to say hello to this mystery man. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a magazine ad for Levis or a Bowflex or something.
I was nearly to his spot at the table when the toe of my borrowed heel caught something on the carpet and sent me flying forward. I watched in horror as my hand went out to help find my balance, sending the contents of my glass out in a stream right at the man who’d stepped out of my lustiest of dreams.
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