Blog Tour: One Sexy Mistake by Sarah Ballance

One Sexy Mistake

Author: Sarah Ballance
Publisher:Lovestruck
Series: The Chase Brothers #5 (Novella)
Genre: NA
Release Date: Nov 28th, 2016

Summary:
Olivia Patton’s life just imploded. One night with sexy hacker Grady Donovan seems like the perfect, ego-soothing plan—until an epic snowstorm shuts down the city and thwarts her morning-after escape. Now the only walk-of-shame she'll be taking is right back to Grady's door.

Forced to actually talk, Grady and Olivia realize they can't stand each other. Forget another round in the bedroom—if it wasn't his apartment, she'd shove Grady outside to freeze. But with all the blistering sexual tension flying around, a second night with the hacker might be exactly what she needs...if they don't kill each other first.

Each book in the Chase Brothers series is a standalone, full-length story that can be enjoyed out of order.

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Series Order:

Book #1 Five Things I Love About You
Book #2 For Seven Nights Only
Book #3 The Three Week Arrangement
Book #4 The 48 Hour Hook Up

Book #5 One Sexy Mistake

About The Author:

Sarah and her husband of what he calls “many long, long years” live on the mid-Atlantic coast with their six young children, all of whom are perfectly adorable when they’re asleep. She never dreamed of becoming an author, but as a homeschooling mom, she often jokes she writes fiction because if she wants anyone to listen to her, she has to make them up. As it turns out, her characters aren’t much better than the kids, but nevertheless, you’ll find her writing sexy contemporary romance for Entangled Publishing until they throw her out.


To learn more, visit http://sarahballance.com

Review:

First up, I have never read anything by Ballance. To be honest, I kinda just liked the cover, and that's why I ended up reading the blurb... which sounded, well, super cute.
Which is why I ended up reading this. I know that this is book 5 in the series, but it does work as a standalone. And after reading it, I will rectify my oversight soon enough.

I was hoping for cute and fluffy with a splash of geek. And o boy did I get that and some.
It's very cute, super swoony and quite smoldering actually.
I think I am in a romance mood atm, so that helps I guess. *looks at her reading list of late*; yep I clearly am.

The plot is quite fun, though other than the coincidences that stagger up quite high by the end of it, it feature a lot of classic cute & fluffy favorites. It's a mash of a lot of well known and well loved rom-coms really. It is however cleverly done, which makes this a rather swoony and fuzzy read rather than a string of cliches.
It's quite insta, well actually very insta, considering this spans mostly over two days. But for some reason I just didn't mind at all. Again cleverly done, but also well written. So I only realised these things, after I sat down to write a review.
My only little bit of meh moment was the epilogue for some reason. Which is why this is 3.5 Stars rather than really 4.
The character building is what drives this, in my opinion. I adored Grady from the get go. I love his inventiveness, his straightforwardness, his aversion for romance, I get his commitment issues- but to be honest the reason he gave for them.. not so sure how I felt for it. I mean can't a person just have commitment issues? Without some traumatic experience?
Same goes for Olivia. A clever, sweet and self-professed romance junkie , who is at the same time feisty and strong.


A light, very enjoyable cute & fluffy with a hotlilicous geek that makes even a romance-gesture-grinch like me all swoony

Rating: 

Excerpt:

Olivia’s heart skipped a beat, then seemed to flail down a flight of stairs. Or ten. She so did not do hookups. She usually didn’t have the nerve for something this random.
Worse, she was failing at it.
Her entire purpose was to cut loose and do something wild. Classic delayed response to a bad breakup, following the most vanilla sex life had by anyone ever. A response with merit.
So why the hell was she hitting up a computer geek?
Because he was stupid-hot, for one. But her ex wasn’t bad to look at, and that hadn’t gotten her anywhere but missionary. Nope, had to be more. She just wished she knew what, because beyond the somewhat geek-mussed hair and seriously intense gray eyes, she wasn’t sure what made this guy stand out. Or what had made her go for it. But he did, and she had, and her fingertips hovered over the keyboard, daring a response.
Even her fingertips wanted sex.
Wild sex.
She glanced back at her roommate, who was not-so-subtly glaring at a magazine. An upside-down magazine.
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t that crazy,” Olivia said. “I mean, there are entire apps dedicated to this kind of thing, so just think of me as jumping on the bandwagon.” She hoped she sounded convincing. She needed to convince herself.
“I think you’re rebounding a little hard,” Emily said warily. “Lots of people break up without resorting to this.”
“It’s been a couple of months,” Olivia told her, ignoring the part Emily had left unspoken. Olivia had taken it hard. Way too hard to start vetting potential relationships again. She’d lost her job, and her ex had blindsided her by dumping her the next day.
She was a software developer and had put together a killer program, which had been on its way to being some of her best work. But someone within her company had pushed it live without her go-ahead, at which point a test hacker had destroyed it. It hadn’t been ready for that kind of scrutiny. She’d known that, and that’s why she hadn’t released it herself.
But someone had.
Consequently, her unfinished program had left gaping holes in online security for the entire company, which the freelance tester who went by the pseudonym Han Dono had so kindly discovered. Bam, no job.
She’d felt an unreasonable amount of rage toward Han Dono, whoever he or she was. Until, twenty-four hours later, she’d suddenly found herself single. Apparently her state of disgrace hadn’t sat well with her career ladder-climbing ex, but she didn’t care about his excuse. Just that he was gone.
And good riddance.
After two months of few decent leads on the job front and zero physical contact with the opposite sex, unless gropers on the subway counted, she was in desperate need of a pick-me-up. She only wanted one thing from this hookup, and it definitely wasn’t to be reminded of being blindsided and dumped. With utter sobriety, she told her blatantly dubious roommate, “I’d like some sex, please.”
Emily stared, expressionless. “Well, don’t look at me.”
“I wasn’t.” Olivia flipped the computer around and showed off Grady’s picture. “Seriously, can you blame me?”
Emily studied the image a beat longer than necessary, a hint of wary appreciation evident. “That’s probably not even him.”
Olivia shrugged, not feeling the nonchalance. Because this was just a tad crazy, and she was so overdue a moment of insanity. “If it’s not, I don’t go in his apartment.”
“And if he drags you in before you have a chance to compare him to his photo?” Emily shook her head, worry etching her face. “At least check him out when he gives you his address. I don’t want to have to call your parents and tell them you’ve been hacked to death and eaten by some maniac.”
Olivia sighed. She’d love to be eaten by some maniac, but in the alive, sexy way. Of the has-this-address-been-involved-in-any-recent-homicides news search, she said, “That I can do. You might want to turn that magazine right side up.”
Emily frowned and tossed it on the counter instead. “Why would you pick a computer guy? You were dumped by one. Your program was exposed by one, male or female. And you lost your job because of one. I think you need to reconsider the company you keep.”
When the company looked like Grady? Olivia thought not. “This guy’s day job is a technicality because I’m planning to hit it and quit it. He’s hot. And even if he’s lousy in bed, I still get sex. And if it’s crappy sex, it’ll be that much easier to retreat back into my drought. This is an all-win situation.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Because those exist.”
Olivia laughed, then turned her attention back to the computer before she lost her nerve. Give me your address, she wrote. I’m in, too.

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