GUILTY PLEASURE BY JESSICA PRINCE

1/20/2021

Jessica Prince ramps up the angst in this enemies-to-lovers, small town, second chance romance! I adore her books and recommend every single one of them!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: January 11, 2021
Genre: Enemies-to-Lovers. Second Chance Romance.
Series: The Redemption series #4 (can stand alone)
Pages: 358 pages
Format: eBook. Source: Author (thank you!).

The only thing worse than living in a town where everyone hates you is having to work for the man who broke your heart.

Redemption, Tennessee held nothing but painful memories that Lark Ashton had no desire to rehash. After the only man she’s ever loved crush her soul and spirit, and all her friends turned their backs on her, she swore to herself she’d never go back. But when her aunt calls, asking a favor she can’t possibly refuse, Lark finds herself public enemy number one . . . again.

Clay Morrison has spent seven years trying to convince himself he’s no longer in love with Lark Ashton. But when the woman he thinks betrayed him and his family returns, she brings with her a whole slew of feelings he’s worked hard to ignore. Now he can’t get the bane of his existence out of his head.

She’s in desperate need of a job. He can’t resist the chance to have her at his mercy.

And they’re both about to discover what happens when the most intense passion they've ever felt is with a person they hate.

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READ MY BOOK REVIEW

My Rating: 4 stars
Genre Enemies to Lovers | Second Chance | Small Town Romance

I love getting lost in a Jessica Prince story. Her books are like coming home after a long vacation away- soothing, comforting, and they make you feel content. While none of this applied to Guilty Pleasure (I’ll explain below) I still devoured this angsty read. I guess it doesn’t matter whether she writes sweet alpha heroes, or heroes that are downright mean! I still end up falling for them one way or another. Oh boy, it took me SO LONG to even remotely like Clay in this book, but eventually I did. I recommend readers continue on even if they can’t stand some of the characters in the beginning.

I’ll start off explaining that this is an 𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗘𝗦-𝗧𝗢-𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦, 𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 with a TON OF ANGST. When I say enemies, I mean MORTAL enemies and it comes from miscommunication and disbelief. Lark and Clay had a past when they were kids and had an epic kind of long no one thought could ever break. Ha, well it did and down came their relationship and everything in Larks life. So, she leaves town for 7 years until she has to come back to care for her aunt who is ill. Now Lark KNOWS its going to be hard because of the way she left, and all the crap left behind, but she needs to do it because her aunt is her only family. But the move back isn’t an easy one and she has to continue facing the demons she left behind (or really, what she was chased away from). One of those demons being her former lover, Clay.

OMG Clay is such a JERK. I hated him so much though this story and I honestly couldn’t understand WHY Lark held a torch for him for so many years. I’m telling you, this book nearly turned into a bully romance because of HIS actions and those of the people within the town. I get that small towns are filled with gossip but how these people could have held so much hatred for so many years BECAUSE of something they were WRONG about in the end really blows my mind. All of this (including the back and forth with Clay) is what made the angst bubble and burst in this one. It honestly took me so long to even try and want to understand him and their relationship, but I read on and did end up finding a little bit of “like” for him. Sorry, I never fully loved him at all.

The big secret that led to all the harassment and mistreatment was quite silly if you ask me, and I feel like the way people reacted to Lark was out of line regardless of whether it was true or not (which it wasn’t) and it’s this that made me rate Guilty Pleasure Lower than I normally would a Jessica Prince story. I liked this book. Don’t get me wrong, I did. But I never could fall in love with it because of how horrible people were.

If you enjoy a ton of angst in your novels give this one a try. Jessica Prince is an insanely talented author and I always recommend her novels.