Finally..The Sin and Tonic Boxset - 4 awesome stories by Athena Wright available with one conveniently click!!! I read them separately and would have loved to be able to read them all in one sitting. They are that fun. My review for all four stories is below.
Kiss + Tell: Can a book be lighthearted and serious at the same time? The 1st book in the Kiss and Tell series, Sin and Tonic, has everything. It's a fun easy read with a "hero" you love to love and a "bad" guy you love to hate. Misunderstandings, regrets, blackmail, renovations, old injuries, and past ghosts are just a few of the things Quinn and Connor, our characters, need to face. I also love the references and tie in to old places (hello grungy bar) and characters (more Walt please ) from past books. I spent half the book sympathizing with Quinn and her workplace issues and the other half screaming at her to get her priorities straight. Poor Connor, the things he has to deal with. Sorry to be vague, but I hate giving spoilers-read the story and you won't be sorry. I loved it and so will you! Sin and Tonic has an absolutely deliciously satisfying HEA-if you can survive the back and forth, hair pulling tension.
Fun + Games: In this story we meet Mason, hottie bar manager and super trivia geek, restless wanderer Bree. They are the perfect match but both allow their past to influence their growing relationship (or friends-with-benefits relationship as they call it:) Fun and Games, Sin & Tonic Book 2, is a fun read because the reader knows the source of all the angst and drama in their lives. It's super fun to know a secret that the characters don't. And although this one was a little sad for me (Bree lost a fiance) the book itself was upbeat and positive. Mason and Bree were off-the-charts combustible, and once they aired and solved their issues, true love prevailed. Getting a peek at some "old" characters was a plus. Great writing, fun characters (obscure trivia facts, Disney movie maniacs & dog lovers rejoice)-another overall worth-it read!
Crash + Burn: Where to start? This book is a fun rollercoaster of should I, can I , I want to, but can I really risk it? In other words, a sometimes humorous -if hair pulling- soap opera ride. We meet two friends, Grant and Liz, who work together in a bar that is slowly losing business due to a competitor (owned by Walt-a beloved character in the Hard Rock book series by Athena Wright). But this time we follow a story in the life of two ordinary, non-rock star people. Fear not though, just as much angst exists for these "normal" people as is for the rock stars:) Liz has loved Grant for what seems like forever and is locked in a dilemma of whether to take the plunge and tell him. She's scared that he might not feel the same but keeps facing events that actually seem to justify her not telling him. I'm not going to give more details because I don't want to spoil the fun. (But I will never look at photo shoots the same way...hee..hee..heee) Just know that there are lots of emotions: frustrating "I wanna B-slap " both of them times , hilarious smirky instances, dramatic career related conflicts, romantic "hot" interludes, head shaking "grow up" moments, and the awesome fist pumping meet old friends snippets. Athena Wright throws the whole book of emotions at us. I'll leave with a quote by Liz that sums up the emotional rollercoaster of the book: " I'd dreamed about it happening so many times. I'd envisioned this moment over and over again...It was everything I could have hoped for. It was everything I'd ever wanted. And yet..."
Hot + Bothered: This book by Athena Wright is like a fairytale to me. It's funny, well written and deals with real issues in an interesting way. I love the whole world and characters created in the Sin and Tonic series! It's a fairytale (to me) because I don't relate in any way to the characters in the book (this isn't a knock on the story, just my experiences). The heroine, Alice, is portrayed as totally incapable of doing anything due to being from a privileged family (think unable to boil water, wash dishes, never worked, etc). The situation reads a little bit unrealistic in her total lack of any life skills or survival instincts. The book opens with her sitting at a bar in her wedding dress and getting drunk. In enters our hot hero bartender, Evan, who saves the day and helps her when her credit cards are declined. He is almost too good to be true. In her own words she is like : "..a girl born a princess who has been forced to leave home and was now stuck doing manual labor..." (poor baby-right?) Hot and Bothered basically is our heroine's "coming of age" story with some hunky insta-love, family drama, and personal angst thrown in. The story is overall a fun screenshot in the Sin & Tonic world I love. Two lines from Alice and Evan describe the basic theme of the story: "They gave me anything I ever wanted."..."But they didn't give you what you needed."