Cue Swooning: OPAL BOOK TRAILER REVEAL.

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love. 

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.

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USA TODAY Bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout, lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you've heard about her state aren't true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell, Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult romance under the name J. Lynn.

Find Jennifer on: Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Blog

Government Sanctioned Rape.

Ugh. The "R" word.

It's tricky business writing about rights and government control. And it can go well or it can go wrong. Like, really, really, wrong. Like, "What the hell were you thinking?!" wrong.

But, when done right, it can be an interesting premise, yeah?

So. The end of the world has come and gone. Maybe it ended with a bang. Maybe with a whimper. Or perhaps a sneeze. In fact, a sneeze is usually a good way to go, if we're going with government control of your reproduction rights, a virus seems to be the favored way to wipe out humanity. Maybe it's a virus that kills of newborns. Maybe it's one that only affects females. Whatever the virus does, it's usually present and for society to continue, the government has to step in and lay down the law.

THE LAW OF YOUR UTERUS.

And here, here is where things get tricky.

You Annoy Me < Take Your Pants Off.

Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was effervescent.

It was chemistry and sparks and heat and it was everything I want in a contemporary romance, because it went that one step further and surprised me with the depth of emotion without having to lean on any dramatic miscommunication trope. This is simply the story of two people falling for each other in such a real, lovely and electric way. Two people who've been tolerating the other because of the person they have in common, but it only takes that one misstep, that one caught look, that one push to send them over the edge.

And, wow. This is how you write chemistry. This is why when two actors have it they only need the other to turn a conversation into something you can't look away from. It's not just two hot leads looking at each other and deciding to bang it out. It's the way the words turn that look into tangible sparks. That kiss into a punch to your solar plexus.

"Not so long ago you despised me," she said. "You could barely stand to look at me."
“And now I can’t keep my hands off you or get you out of my head. Which one of those reactions is the more accurate reflection of my true feelings, do you think, Violet? Let me give you a clue here, even though we’re arguing, even though I’m almost one hundred percent certain that you’re about to walk out on me, I have a hard-on with your name on it. That’s how much I can barely stand to look at you.”

It would have been SO EASY to make them one-dimensional. To make him the nerdy beta hero she wakes up and the girl he calms down. But he's someone who built himself up from the Hackney and she's been tossed aside by her family.

This isn't just Flighty Girl meets Stuffy Guy.

He's been with her best friend for years, and she's been on the wings noticing the stupid things about him, yanking his chain while he looks at her with annoyance unable to get the smell of her perfume out of his clothes even though he barely brushed past her. 

“Good afternoon, how can I—” She stopped in her tracks, words momentarily escaping her. Martin didn’t speak, either. He simply stood there watching her, his dark gaze intent and hot. She felt an answering heat spring to life inside her, even as she gathered her will to send him packing. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” They were both lying. She hadn’t needed to ask why he was there, and they both knew what he wanted.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said weakly. So much for sending him packing.
“Tell me how to make it stop, then.” He took a step toward her. 

You almost need to take a breath it's such a fantastic execution of this set up. They go years not even realizing that all the animosity is because they're so hot for the other, and then he gets dumped and she tries to do something nice, but he barks and she spits and it's fireworks. They're unraveling the other, and it's lovely and hot and just so, so good and it turns into a solid romance and a relationship you can't look away from, rooting for the happily ever after with a stupid smile.

Nerd Girl Chats: Nerd Girls & Election Years.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if two slightly inappropriate, somewhat crazy, extremely nerdy, book sluts were to step in and moderate a presidential debate? Of course you have. Who hasn't, right? 

...Oh. Most sane people, you say? Huh.

Well, in case you, like N and I, have wondered this, we're here to put that curiosity to rest. BEHOLD. A POLITICAL NERD GIRL CHAT. Featuring all the tough questions N and I would ask our current President and President Hopeful, like dragon control and marriage between a zombie and a woman.

And, really, when we say President & President Hopeful, we really just mean President Hopeful. 

 GOVERNOR ROMNEY, YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAINING TO DO!

Smoking Cigarettes & Sex in Trucks: Why I Love Southern Romances.

There's just something about the south. Being that both of us are southern girls we understand the bonafide difference of life below the Mason Dixon line. Whether it's the Tennessee mountains, Florida swamps, Louisiana bayous or South Carolina low country, there's just a different heat to a good romance story that gets its bones and pace from this sticky humidity. It's a dirty blues riff in a smoky honky tonk. It's a glass of sweet tea sweating on a front porch. It's a fan moving too slow, while hands go a little faster.

You see what I'm saying, right?

I cut my teeth on the trashy paperback romance. Not the bodice ripper historical, but The Sandra Brown. Where take no shit women come up against fiery dudes from Texas. Where we're hunting for oil and people are getting murdered and dumped in swamps and women are letting their hair loose and the curses fly and someone's got a rifle in their truck because shit is about to go down. It's good and it always builds to one hell of a climax.

So which books make you want to turn up The Black Keys, put your boots up on the dash and fall hard for the kind of man who wears jeans the way the good lord meant him to?

Here are some of my favorite cowboys:

I fell in love with a Cajun.

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.






Right now, Nina and I are reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, something we've talked about doing since before we even started Paper Boyfriends. In fact, The Night Circus was going to be our first collaborated review, most likely on our personal blogs and Goodreads and then Paper Boyfriends was born and now we're finally getting around to the book that sparked it all. In an effort to not get too far ahead of Nina while we read, I stopped myself halfway through and decided to start reading another book on my to-read list while I waited for her to catch up. (I'm a ridiculously fast reader who survives on little sleep. We joke that Nina is the old woman in this relationship, who goes to bed at 9pm and is up with the chickens, while I'm the frat boy, up all night partying and still awake the next morning. I digress.)

ENTER: POISON PRINCESS.

Have I ever talked about my deep and burning love for Post-Apocalyptic novels? Because it's there and it's A Thing. I love watching the world fall apart. I love when things get a little Lord of the Flies and when unlikely couples, people who would have never looked twice at each other before, end up together. I like seeing communities form and bands of people coming together to fight or to live or just to have human companionship. I love learning to navigate broken worlds and establishing new normals and I love watching characters rise up to become survivors.

I love guys like Jackson Deveaux. 

Nerd Girl Chats: Angelfall Edition.

Have you heard of Angelfall by Susan Ee?
Please. Stop everything.
Hold the phone and pump the brakes, because everything everyone is saying about this book IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND REAL AND MY EMOTIONS ARE EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW.

So. Talking it out between Pen-rye-n & me was obviously necessary. We go through the whole book, with appropriate fangirling and end of the world worrying over body hair, so be warned of spoilers for those of you who don't know the pure AWESOME happening here, and if you do? Jump in, get your downy wings dirty because the world has ended and things are gonna get bananas BUT THERE IS A QUEST.

And smokin' hot shirtless angels. And girls who pack knives in their boots. And moms who are off the rails.
Yeah, I know. It's sooo good.

Willow: Also, ANGELFALL. How is this happening?

Pen-rye-n: RIGHT. OMG. How bloody amazing was it? Scale of 1 to ALL THE FANGIRLING?

Willow: ALL OF THE FANGIRLING. PUT THEM IN A JAR, SHAKE THEM, THEN SPREAD THEM OVER MY BODY.
  ....okay, wait.