Mister Romance (Masters of Love #1) by Leisa Raven | Review

Mister Romance (Masters of Love #1) by Leisa Raven
Publisher: Self Published
Publication Date: April 30, 2017
Genre: New Adult, Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 317
Source: eARC from Author
Find on Goodreads

Goodreads Description

As his alter-ego Mister Romance, Max is a drop-dead gorgeous escort who makes romantic fantasies come to life. No sex, just swoon-worthy dates to die for, and the cream of New York's socialites can't get enough.  Whether they want a dominating billionaire, bad boy with a heart of gold, hot geek, sexy biker, or best friend who loves them from afar, Max can make it all happen, but he's careful to keep his real identity a secret. 

Enter investigative journalist Eden Tate. Having caught wind of the urban legend of Mister Romance from a lovestruck client, Eden is determined to publish a scathing expose on Max and his ability to swindle lonely society women out of their fortunes. 

Desperate to protect his anonymity and his clients, Max challenges Eden to give him three dates. If she doesn't fall in love with him, she can run her story with his blessing. If she succumbs to his charms, the story dies. 

Cynical Eden has no doubt she can resist his fake romance personas, but when the real Max admits he’s falling for her, she has to decide if the professional liar is telling the truth, or if the passionate man with the mysterious past is just one more character designed to con her out of her career-making story. 

My Thoughts

I wanted to put this up a few days ago but I was having a really hard time pulling all my thoughts together into a coherent review. When this book opens up we start getting to know one of our main characters. Eden is 25 and stuck in a job she hates. We quickly learn that she doesn't believe in romantic love and is set to spend the rest of her life single and only using men for her physical needs. After hearing about Mister Romance, Eden is determined to write an article exposing how this man is scamming New York's elites in order to advance her career.

Max, or Mister Romance, wants to make sure his business stays private. In order to do this he challenges Eden to go on three dates with him. If by the end of that time she felt the same as before he would allow her to publish her story. However, if Eden falls in love with him by the end of that time she has to drop the story. Of course because Eden doesn't believe in romance/love she agrees thinking she will soon be publishing her story.

I didn't always agree with Eden and how she chose to live her life but I found her to be such a relatable character. I'm personally a hopeless romantic (in disguise) but I shared Eden's skepticism about Max's business. From the moment Max physically entered the story I knew I would be in love. What starts as an attempt to get a reporter to drop the story about his business quickly changes to altering Eden's opinion of romance and love. The more Eden opens up and learns about his actions and the motives behind them, I started believing and accepting what Max was doing.

Another thing I loved about this story that wasn't really the main focus was the relationship between Eden and her family. There were a good number of parts that made me laugh throughout this book and the majority of them happened with her sister (Asha) and her grandmother (Nanabeth). Even though Eden doesn't believe in romantic love it's clear that she loves her family and will do everything she can for them. I do wish we learned a bit more about Eden and Asha's parents because I still had some questions when it came to them.

Mister Romance was one of those books that immediately grabbed my attention and didn't let go until I read the last word. This is the first book in a series (I'm really hoping it's a companion series) and I hope we get to see these characters again in the future. Leisa has quickly become an author that I'll read whatever she publishes! This is once all romance lovers need to read!

Hour 16 | Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

So...it's almost hour 16 of the readathon. My plan to sit and read all day didn't work out the way I wanted it to. From the time I woke up until now I have been interrupted for one reason or another and reading in between everything when I could. I'm still on the book I started with (Mister Romance by Leisa Rayven) but if nothing else I'm pretty sure I will finish it before the readathon is over. I'm going to continue to read until I get too sleepy to stay up.

Hour 2 | Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

It's officially hour 2 of the readathon! I woke up about 20 minutes into the first hour and after showering and putting clothes in the washer I haven't started reading yet. I've put water on for tea and I'm going to be eating frozen mangos (my breakfast) while I start my reading. I'm going to be starting with Mister Romance by Leisa Rayven.

Hour 1 Mini Challenge

Opening Survey

1. What fine part of the world are you reading from today? I'm reading from Texas in the US.

2. Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? I'm most looking forward to finishing Mister Romance. Almost half way through the book and I'm in love with it! I can't wait to see where the story goes.

3. Which snack are you most looking forward to? Honestly, I'm not prepared and I don't have snacks prepared. I have some things around the house but I don't know how much snacking I'll be doing.

4. Tell us a little something about yourself! I've always suck when it comes to these things! I have been a reader for as long as I can remember. I'm willing to try almost any genre. Although I try to suppress it sometimes, I'm a hopeless romantic. 

5. If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? This is my first official time taking part in this readathon. I'm looking to see how much I can get read when I set aside so much time for reading.

Alright I spent way more time of this than I planned. I'm off to go start reading!

Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon Introduction | April 2017

Wow! So I wasn't expecting to do this but I decided to officially participate in this round of Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon. I have attempted this readathon before but I'm pretty sure this is the first official time. Usually I'm doing a lot on Saturdays but for this weekend I'm going to try to spend my entire day reading.

If you watched the TBR video you will see the books I want to read. I know I want to finish at least two of theses books but I'm not going to restrict myself to only the ones I talked about since I am a huge mood reader. I will be doing updates here so make sure you guys check back to see how I'm doing and cheer me on if you're interested.

Alright I think that covers everything for now. I will be back in my first update. Wish me luck!

Dream Bookish Panel

Have you ever thought about who would be on your dream bookish panel? Eventbrite has inspired me to do just that. I've briefly though about it before but for this I decided to throw all constraints out the window.

I had a lot of different authors that I would want to see on a panel speaking about a variety of different things. I quickly realized that I didn't have enough people to put in all the smaller panels I would have wanted. However when I started trying to put authors together they didn't all fit into different categories. Since this is my dream panel I decided to just go all out!

Location

As for locations, I would love to have panels all over the world to give me more incentive to travel. Of course that would be if I could get an all expense paid trip to wherever the panel is taking place. Since that's very unlikely I would love if the panels were in Dallas, Texas or closer if possible because that's still about an hour away. 

Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Paranormal/Sci-Fi

This would be one big panel of some of my favorite genres because I couldn't leave out authors or genres. A lot of these authors can fit into multiple categories so I figured why not just go for it.

Topics

• I would love for the authors to talk about research they've done for their works. 
• This includes talking about any favorite place to go for source material, and deciding what to pick out from research and use to fit their story.
• I would also like to hear about their character development process, how to make romance work between characters in their setting, and how to make sure characters fit/are believable in the world they're living in.

Authors

• Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Neal Shusterman
• Sarah J. Maas
• Rick Riordan
• Chloe Neil
• Amie Kaufman
• Jay Kristoff

Contemporary

I have a soft spot in my heart for contemporary, so I couldn't leave out this genre when thinking about dream panels. This is just another random mix of authors covering different types of contemporary.

Topics

• I would love to hear about the inspiration for characters and the process of developing characters
• How do you make sure your story stays engaging?
• What is your process of writing real world events in a fictional setting?
• I would also like to hear about how to write a believable romance without making it too cheesy.

Authors

• Nicola Yoon
• Angie Thomas
• Leisa Raven
• Elle Kennedy
• Becky Albertalli
• Adam Silvera

If you can't tell I'm a writer. I would love to hear all these authors speak in panels while also getting useful advice for my own work. If you could choose your dream bookish panel who would be on it? What would they talk about? Thanks Eventbrite for this amazing idea! If you are looking for a resource to plan and track online registrations or search for conferences near you, check out Eventbrite.

Case of the Rereads

I know I have disappeared from this blog before but I'm not sure if it's ever been this long. It might not have even been that long but I feel like it has been forever since I have even typed in the link to blog. I don't think I have talked to anyone personally who has read my blog but I figured I would make a post talking about why I stopped posting completely and where I would like to go from here.

Towards the end of November I got some not so great news. From that point until basically last weekend I wasn't in the best living situation. In order to try to make myself feel better about the situation and not being able to film videos as much I put effort into trying to get out blog post. It helped a little but then I started working more and I need something to help me relax and think about other things. I think that's part of why I read so much in January.

After reading so much in January I was feeling a little burnt out on reading so I stepped back from reading and decided to watch Netflix and play the Sims until I felt like reading again. After half a month of not having the urge to read, I decided to pick up the couple books I had started at the very beginning of February. We are almost through March now and I still haven't finished any of those books that I started at the beginning of February. I only finished 3 books in February, they were all audiobooks and two of them were rereads.

Since my family and I are once again in our own place, I finally have all of my books from storage. While unpacking my books I decided to try reread one of my favorites which pretty much led to me writing this post. Hopefully revisiting a favorite will get me back in the mood to read because I have been feeling completely unmotivated.

* * * * *

So after getting all of that out, let's talk about the series/books I would like to reread this year.

1. Lux series - Jennifer L. Armentrout: This is the series I decided to start with. I wanted to reread this series last year but I never got around to it. I actually started reading yesterday and it has held my interest so far. I'm looking forward to getting back to it once I'm done with this post.

2. Vampire Academy series - Richelle Mead
3. Blue Bloods series - Melissa de la Cruz
4. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
5. Off-Campus series - Elle Kennedy
6. Starcrossed sereis - Leisa Rayven
7. Blood of Eden series - Julie Kagawa
8. The Duff - Kody Keplinger
9. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

That's everything I can think of right now that I would like to read right now. If you guys have any suggestions of books I might really enjoy or might help me get back into the reading please let me know! My usual go to is New Adult!

January Wrap Up

Can you believe it? I can't! This wrap up is actually going up on time. January was a really productive month when it came to reading. I read more than I usually average in a month. I think I may have burnt myself out because I haven't felt like reading during the last week and a half of the month. With all that said, let's get into the wrap up.

New to My Shelves

Books I Read

Some Girls Bite (4 stars) | Twisted Palace (3.5 stars) | Friday Night Bites (4 stars)

Illuminae (5 stars) | Gemina (5 stars) | The Inflatable Woman (1 star)

The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil (3.5 stars) | Dating an Alien Pop Star (3 stars) | Said the Shotgun to the Head (5 stars)

Music

I've never talked about music on my blog before but I figured why not try something new. Usually I'm listening to an instrumental playlist on spotify because that's what I listen to while I'm reading but this month I rediscovered Banks. I recently found out she released her second album The Altar and I'm obsessed! I have been listening to it almost nonstop (I'm even listening as I type up this post) since I found out about it. There are 2 or 3 songs that I don't really care for but I love everything else!

Coming in February

Hopefully February is another good reading month. I wanted to mention a readathon I would like to participate in during this month. TBR Takedown 5.0 is happening February 6th-12th  and there are 5 challenges that go along with it. I'm really looking forward to this readathon!

Currently Reading