Release Tour - Safe Bet by Monica Murphy

Title: Safe Bet (The Rules #4)

Author: Monica Murphy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: January 10, 2017

Source: ARC from Publicist

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / iBooks

Sydney Walker’s new job is perfect. As the live-in nanny to the most famous quarterback in the NFL and his beautiful wife, she couldn’t have it any better. Their kids are adorable. Her bosses are more than generous. Plus, there are hot football players at the house all the time. Life can’t get much better than this. 

Until her life turns into an absolute nightmare .The media is abuzz with rumors that she and her boss Drew Callahan are having a torrid affair. Everyone knows the truth—except the public. So Drew’s wife Fable comes up with the perfect idea.

She creates a fake relationship between Sydney and one of the rookie players on Drew’s team. Wade Knox is forever indebted to Drew and Fable and readily agrees to the set up. Pretending to be in a romantic relationship with the hot nanny for a week—how hard can it be?

Crazy how it only takes one week for two people to fall head over heals in love…

(This mash-up new adult romance features characters from both the One Week Girlfriend series and The Rules series.)

Unlike some, I didn't start reading Monica Murphy's books until her Rules series was partially underway. I'd seen her name floating around, but had never picked up any of her books. But once I started on that series I was hooked. So much so that I decided to go back and read some of her older books while I was waiting for the third book in the series to release. That's how I started reading the One Week Girlfriend series. And I got just as hooked on that series as I did on The Rules. So those two series coming together in Safe Bet? I was all over that.

And guys? Safe Bet was awesome. It was the first book I read in 2017 and it was an absolutely fantastic way to kick off the year. This story was just good old fashioned fun with zero angst. Don't get me wrong, I love my angsty characters and my angsty stories, but sometimes it's just nice to read a story where everything works out and everyone comes out happy with no new scars, physical or otherwise. I loved reading Sydney and Wade's story and the way it threw back to threw back to One Week Girlfriend, what with the fake relationship that turns into something real. I mean, that trope is a fun one for a reason and personally I love seeing two people realize that what they thought was just pretend is actually a whole lot more real than they think it is. Obviously I knew right from the start that Sydney and Wade would end up in a real relationship (it's a romance, so duh), but that didn't stop me from really loving getting to watch it all happen.

The other part of this story I loved? Getting a lot of Drew and Fable again. I loved getting to read their original stories in One Week Girlfriend and Second Chance Boyfriend, and then getting glimpses of them again in Four Years Later (which I finally read right before reading Safe Bet). It was awesome to see that they were still together and that they were still the same people, just grown up. And it was also awesome to get to see some of the other characters from both the One Week Girlfriend series and the Rules series. And I loved that because I'm that person who always wants to check in on characters, just to make sure that they're still happy and together and okay. I'm just curious like that (or nosy, I guess, depending on how you look at it).

If you've read either Monica Murphy's One Week Girlfriend series or her Rules series (or both!) then you'll want to check out Safe Bet, It's a fun story that lets you peak in on characters you love all while giving you a new angst-free romance that's sure to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. 

Slow Play by Monica Murphy

Title: Slow Play (The Rules #3)

Author: Monica Murphy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: October 13, 2015

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

Newly broke girl Alexandria Asher just wants to live a normal life. After her parents are sent to prison on embezzlement charges, she enrolls in college under her mother’s maiden name and tries her best to pretend she’s someone else.

Tristan Prescott is everything Alex is trying to avoid. A seemingly egotistical, lazy, rich jerk, she dumps her beer on his head when he comes on to her one night at a party. This only spurs Tristan into action. He loves nothing more than a challenge And the beautiful Alex is exactly the type of challenge that intrigues him.

Despite her reluctance, Alex finds herself quickly involved with Tristan. Underneath that playboy exterior is a good guy, a sweet and sexy guy who she is undoubtedly falling for. What they both don’t realize is the actions of Alex’s parents the reason for so much tragedy in Tristan’s family. And when Tristan discovers who Alex and her family really is, can he forgive and forget?

In the past few months, Monica Murphy has quickly become an auto-buy author for me. I’ve loved everything of hers that I’ve read and I’m always excited to read more. So it should come as no surprise that I dropped everything to read Slow Play on the day it came out. And I don’t regret that decision one bit.

After everything that happened with her parents, all Alexandria Asher wants is to go to college and have a normal life. But going from having everything to almost nothing is hard. But she’s doing it. And it would be going fine if it weren’t for Tristan Prescott, the campus manwhore and egotistical asshole. Alex doesn’t want anything to do with Tristan, but Tristan seems determined to get to Alex. Tristan enjoys the challenge of trying to get Alexandria into his bed. Girls don’t say no to him and her constant rejections just spur him on. Neither one of them was looking for a relationship. But the more they try to resist the attraction between them, the more they feel drawn together. But they post have things in their pasts they don’t want to talk about. When they finally bring it all into the open, Alex and Tristan realize they have a lot more in common than they ever thought. And that might just be what tears them apart. 

I am forever thankful for the Locker Room Facebook group (if you love sports romance, CHECK IT OUT) because it has allowed me to discover so many awesome authors and books. And that includes Monica Murphy. Before joining that group, I hadn’t really heard of her or her books. Which makes me very sad because, of the ones I’ve read, I’ve come to love her books and her writing. I mean, I devoured the first two books in The Rules series. I was really excited at the prospect of reading Slow Play, the final book in the series. From the moment I woke up on the day it released, I pretty much did nothing but read Slow Play until there was nothing left to read. And being finished made me sad because guys, I loved this book SO MUCH. Based on what I knew of Tristan, one of the two main characters, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this story. But I really shouldn’t have worried because it was the perfect story for him and Alex and I loved it. And if you like slow burn romance, than you absolutely NEED to pick up Slow Play. I mean, the title kind of suggests it, this is totally a slow burn romance. There is no love lost between Alex and Tristan when they first meet, and I loved seeing their relationship build and grow. It made my heart happy and I just didn’t want it to end.

From what I had seen of Tristan in the first two books, which admittedly wasn’t really all that much, I didn’t think much of him. In fact, I kinda wondered how I was going to be able to read an entire book about him and see him as a worthy love interest. I mean, the guy is basically an asshole and he knows it. But then I started reading Slow Play and it didn’t take long for me to start falling for Tristan. This guy, no matter how big of an asshole he could be, pretty much stole my heart. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through the book and I wanted him to have all the good things. And that included having Alex in his life. Because Alex was perfect for Tristan. She wasn’t afraid to call him out on his bullshit and I was often amused whenever she did so. Beyond being perfect for Tristan, I loved Alex. I loved how strong she was, because it certainly takes a lot of strength to get through what she went through. And I just wanted her to be happy. Preferably with Tristan because they were so freaking perfect together. Also, it should be said that Shep, Jade, Gabe and Lucy are all in this story and I only love them that much more because of it.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Monica Murphy’s Slow Play. this was a story with characters I didn’t think I could love, but I completely fell for them. And you can bet that I look forward to reading whatever Monica Murphy writes next...and go back to read what I missed out on before discovering her.

In the Dark by Monica Murphy

Title: In the Dark (The Rules #2)
Author: Monica Murphy
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: August 25, 2015
Source: ARC from WordSmith Publicity
Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

Stuck spending the summer with his screwed up family, Gabriel Walker is bored out of his mind and looking for adventure. And he seems to find it with the hot girl who lives next door. The attraction between them is instant. Electric. Soon they’re spending every stolen minute together. Talk about the perfect summer fling…

Lucy isn’t what she seems. She doesn’t live next door—she’s the girl who’s been hired to house sit for the summer while the family goes on a worldwide vacation. If Gabe wants to believe she’s a spoiled rich girl looking for some fun, she can go along with that. After the summer, she’ll never see him again.

They don’t count on running into each other at college. Now Lucy must keep up the prettiness of being a rich girl—and it’s exhausting. She knows she’s falling in love with Gave and she’s scared he feels the same. Will he still care about he discovers the truth?

Earlier this summer, I loved reading the first book in Monica Murphy’s The Rules series. It was fun, it was flirty and had some awesome banter. And the second book in this series, In the Dark, was just as good as the first.

The last thing Gabriel Walker wanted to do the summer before his last year of college was be stuck in a house with his parents. Gabe was counting down the days until the end of summer, but when he noticed the hot girl staying at the house next door, things started looking up. Lucy scored a great summer job: house sitting a house on the beach and spending her days reading by the pool. When Gabe, the hot guy staying next door, comes around and assumes he’s just a spoiled rich girl, Lucy goes along with it. After all, once summer is over it’s not like she’s going to see Gabe again. At least, that’s what should have happened. When they run into each other at school, Gabe and Lucy will have to come to terms with the fact that maybe what they had wasn’t just a summer fling after all.

When I read Monica Murphy’s Fair Game earlier this summer, I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. I mean, I knew going in that there was a very strong likelihood that I would enjoy the story. It’s New Adult and it’s romance, basically it had my name written all over it. But I quickly fell in love with what I was reading and by the time I finished, I was more than looking forward to reading more. So I was totally excited about In the Dark. And it absolutely didn’t disappoint me. Much like with the first book, I loved that this story was more than just a fluffy and flirty romance. Sure, the romance was fun and I loved every minute of it. But there were also deeper elements to the story, especially with the romance that only made me love it that much more. It’s all hard to explain without diving too much into the details and spoiling things, but just no that with In the Dark you’re getting more than just a fun romance. And I loved the way the romance happened. How it felt like it happened all at once, and then it happened all over again. Have I mentioned that the romance in In the Dark was great? In case it wasn’t obvious let me say it again, the romance and the relationship between Gabe and Lucy was fantastic and I loved it.

I can’t even begin to explain how much I loved Gabe and Lucy. I had gotten glimpses of Gabe in the first book and I’ll be honest and say that he didn’t exactly make a great first impression. But at the same time I had had the same thoughts about Shep and that turned out for the best. And the same thing happened with Gabe. As much as I didn’t think much of him in the first book, from the moment I started reading In the Dark, I really liked him. Sure, there were times when I questioned why he was doing certain things but that didn’t mean I didn’t like him. And I loved Lucy as well. Granted I didn’t always agree with her lying about her family and her background, but at the same time I could understand why she was doing it. Outside of that, I loved Lucy. And it should go without saying that I loved Lucy and Gabe together. I loved their summer relationship, and I loved their relationship once they were together at school. And when unexpected things happened, they were there for each other. Well for the most part, but it worked out in the end and that’s all that really mattered. So moral of the story, I loved Gabe and Lucy.

In case it wasn’t super obvious by now, I absolutely loved Monica Murphy’s In the Dark. This is the kind of book that you start reading and don’t want to put down until you’re finished. Though I’ll be sad to see the end of the Rules series, I still can’t wait to read Tristan’s story in Slow Play.

Fair Game by Monica Murphy

Title: Fair Game (The Rules #1)

Author: Monica Murphy

Publisher: Self-Published

Release Date: May 12, 2015

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Indigo

Bad enough Jade Frost’s boyfriend drags her to a boring poker game. Even worse that he actually threw her into the betting pot during an intense round…and lost. Talk about the perfect excuse for Jade to make him her ex-boyfriend.

Now she supposedly belongs to the ultra rich, extremely gorgeous Shep Prescott. He could have anything he wants yet he seems to be in hot pursuit of her. No matter how rude, how snarky, how impossible she acts, it doesn’t stop him. More like her horrible behavior seems to make him want her more.

When she finds herself starting to fall for him, Jade’s confused. There’s more to Shep than the carefree rich charmer he portrays. Now way could he want a serious relationship with her…or could he?

So far 2015 has been a fantastic year for New Adult reads for me, especially when it comes to self-published New Adult. Having let go of a lot of my prejudices against self-published books has allowed me to find a whole lot of new stories to love. And that includes Monica Murphy’s Fair Game.

Jade didn’t want to go to the poker game that night. But her boyfriend dragged her and so she went. At least her best friend is there so she has someone to complain to. But then the night takes a turn for the worse when her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend decides to bet her when he runs out of money. And he loses. And it that wasn’t bad enough, the person she now “belong” to is Shep Prescott, the most gorgeous guy on campus…who also happens to be a complete asshole. But no matter how much Jade tries to get rid of him, Shep just keeps coming back, determined to win her over. And Shep’s persistence is working. Much to her surprise, Jade finds herself starting to fall for Shep and that confuses her more than anything else.

Until not so long ago, I was full of prejudice when it came to self-published books. I had had bad experiences with them in the past and it had made me write off pretty much any and all self-published books. But in the last year or so, I started getting over those prejudices, reading books by authors I knew or that were recommended to me by people whose opinions I trust. And that allows me to discover all these new stories that I love, especially New Adult ones. So that was my long-winded way of saying that I’m glad I got over my hang-ups with self-published books because otherwise I never would have read Monica Murphy’s Fair Game and that would have been a shame. Despite being a little thrown by the premise at first—I mean, a girl gets put up as a bet in a high stakes poker game, which is not exactly okay—I found myself getting all caught up in this story. The way Jade being offered up as a bet in the poker game was handled is what first sold me on the story when I was reading. From the moment it happens, it’s made clear that this is far from an okay thing to do and Jade is going to do everything she can to fight it. Which leads to rest of the story which was all kinds of fun. I loved the slow development of the romance between Jade and Shep, and how that relatively slow build led to some of the best banter I have read in a while. Needless to say, I loved reading Fair Game.

I loved Jade. Right from the start, it was almost like I developed a girl crush on her. The way she chewed out both her (ex-)boyfriend and Shep when they throw her in the betting pot during their poker game. She would just not take any crap from either of them. I loved how independent she was and how much she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. But I also loved who she was when she was with Shep, if only for the awesome banter thing these two had going. So many times, I wanted to laugh out loud when I reading the back and forth between the two of them. It was just great. And Shep, was so not who I thought he was going to be. The synopsis for the book makes it sound like he’s going to be one way, but that’s not who he was at all. There was so much more to him than I initially thought there was going to be. And, much like Jade ended up being, I was pretty much powerless against him. He totally charmed me and I fell for him a little (okay, a lot) while I was reading. 

I absolutely loved Monica Murphy’s Fair Game. This was a fun story with romance that hit all the right notes for this reader. I can’t wait to read more in this world in In the Dark.