Review: Five Things I Love About You by Sarah Ballance
Five Things I Love About You
Book One
124 Pages
Release Date: 08/17/2015
Publisher: Entangled Publishing | Imprint: Lovestruck
Genre: Romance | Contemporary Romance | Series Romance
Series: Chase Brothers
Five things to love about NYC. But she only needs one…
California landscape artist Estelle Donovan hates big cities. Between the grime, the smell, all the drab concrete, and the suffocating summer heat, how can anyone breathe? Housesitting her brother’s New York apartment, complete with broken elevator and smoking air conditioner, is her kind of hell. It’s only for two weeks, though. What could possibly go wrong?
Dumping a jar of pickles on the hot girl at the grocery store wasn’t Crosby Chase’s finest hour, nor was getting bitten in the butt by the demonic cat on her fire escape. But he is going to change her mind about his beloved city, damn it. In fact, if they could just make it five minutes without falling into bed, he bets Estelle he can find five things she’ll love about New York.
Falling in love wasn’t part of his plan. And with an entire country between them, Crosby realizes he doesn’t need five reasons to make Estelle love New York.
He needs one big reason to make her stay…
*Arc provided by Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review *
First Impression: Excellent writing, with a captivating heroine I could empathize with and follow on a fun-filled story journey.
In Five Things I Love About You by Sarah Ballance, Californian Estelle Donovan has agreed to spend the next two weeks apartment-sitting for her brother in New York City, and everything that could go wrong with that does go wrong, which doesn’t exactly help her hatred of big cities. Estelle meets Crosby Chase during one of her something wrong moments, and as a lover of New York, Crosby is determined to show Estelle the beauty of his city.
I love fish out of water, trouble-magnet heroine stories. There’s just something so fun in reading a story about someone trying to learn how to live in a new place, even temporarily, and having all these things go wrong and yet, also finding a way to make it work and a reason to love it, too. That’s the premise behind this story and it made for such a fun, light-hearted, and sexy read.
Crosby is a great romance hero. Chivalrous, good-humored, quick-witted, and not afraid to meet or take up a challenge presented to him, even if it wasn’t quite meant as a challenge at the time. Estelle is a heroine I would totally, one-hundred percent befriend. I loved her, and her fun, flirty, witty sense of humor. I could totally understand why Crosby would be charmed by her, and why she would be charmed by Crosby. He’s a good-hearted nice guy with a lot of weight on his shoulders, and though Estelle is a distraction he doesn’t need right now, she’s actually quite perfect in her arrival in his life.
This is actually my first read by Sarah Balance, but I can safely say, it will not be my last. There is a natural, easy-going rhythm to her writing style, which I loved and appreciated because it made for a quick, fast-paced, fun, and sexy read. Five Things I Love About You is a great start to the Chase Brothers’ series. Highly recommend reading this one!
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). When not buried under piles of laundry, she may be found adrift in the Atlantic (preferably on a boat) or seeking that ever-elusive perfect writing spot where not even the kids can find her.
She loves creating unforgettable stories while putting her characters through an unkind amount of torture—a hobby that has nothing to do with living with six children. (Really.) Though she adores nail-biting mystery and edge-of-your-seat thrillers, Sarah writes in many genres including contemporary and ghostly paranormal romance. Her ever-growing roster of releases may be found on her website.
Looks saucy. I love it!
It is! Saucy, sexy, and fun. I really loved this one.
I think trouble-magnet heroines are so fun because we’ve all been there – those days when nothing goes right at all!
That is such a good point! I could definitely relate to that part of thebook, lol.