Review: No Breaking My Heart by Kate Angell

Disclaimer: I've received No Sunshine When She's Gone as an eARC from Netgalley

No Breaking My Heart by Kate Angell
published by Kensington in July 2016

Relationship Status: Complicated

Professional baseball player Halo Todd doesn't like failure, but he can never turn down a challenge. Especially when there's a pretty woman involved. How else would he end up dressed as a rooster, helping a complete stranger compete on a wacky game show? Even when they're eliminated after the first round, Halo isn't about to lose the girl…

Alyn is stunned when gorgeous, generous Halo whisks her off for a dream vacation to the beach--she's been let down by friends and even family so many times, she's lost count. Later, he offers to lend a hand getting her vintage shop up and running. But his constant--and ridiculous--purchases are the last thing she needs. How can she convince the stubborn man that she doesn't need his help--not when all she wants is his heart…

Genre: Contemporary romance
Series: Barefoot William, Book #5

The Story: The blurb of No Breaking My Heart makes the book sounds a lot more breezy than the story is ^_^; It got the main details right... Just before leaving for spring training, Halo Todd, professional baseball player for the Richmond Rogues, is accosted and roped in by Alyn Jayne, a complete stranger, to participate in a game show. Alyn's dream is to open an antique/vintage shop and after her potential business partner bailed on her, cleaning out their bank account at the same time, she figures out the prize money from the game show is her best bet. What it leaves out is that yes, Halo is intrigued by Alyn and wants to spend more time with her... so he whisks her along with her younger brother - Halo's guest for spring training, mother and injured pug to Barefoot William where spring training is taking place. Halo can feel the chemistry between them and in order to spend more time with Alyn, comes up with an arrangement: she'll pretend to be his girlfriend/fiancée for the season and he'll be a silent partner in her business.

The secondary romance in the book involves Halo's best friend and teammate, Landon Kane. Landon is tired of playing the field: partying and hooking up doesn't interest him anymore. In fact, he's looking for a significant relationship... and seems to have found the perfect woman in Eden Cates, photographer and owner of the Old Tyme Portraits.

My Opinion: Ever since Ms Angell started writing the Barefoot William series, these books have become my go-to beach reads. I simply love the beach town and atmosphere Ms Angell has created. It's so vivid that sometimes, I can almost smell the sea and sunscreen LOL. Every year, I look forward to going back to Barefoot William and this year was no exception... unfortunately, I did not enjoy No Breaking My Heart as much as I hoped :(

I think the biggest issue I had with No Breaking My Heart is that Ms Angell reverted back to the multiple couples book. This is usually my biggest complaint with her books; however, I thought we were done with it after No One Like You featured only one couple. So it was kind of disappointing to find out we were getting Landon and Eden's romance as well in No Breaking My Heart. Disappointing because I actually liked Landon and Eden's chemistry better and felt their relationship didn't get the focus it deserved. I felt Landon and Eden's romance was more honest and straightforward. It was nice to see two people knowing that they wanted more and going for it. While there was more sexual tension between Halo and Alyn, their romance was too complicated. Why couldn't Halo just tell Alyn he was interested in her and wanted to date her? Instead, he had to invent excuses and came up with the deal and Alyn never really knew where she stood with him. Their relationship was over-complicated for nothing... and that's unfortunate because there was a lot of good elements. First, the way they met was just hilarious. Definitively something Ms Angell could have built on. Also, I loved Halo's interactions with Alyn's younger brother and her injured pug. When a man acts the way Halo did, it's just swoon-worthy. Also, Halo and Alyn had the perfect backdrop for an awesome romance - Barefoot William. Every element was there for a great romance... so I'm really bummed that Ms Angell went the fake engagement/business deal route.

Otherwise, the rest of the book was fun and fluffy. As usual, the setting was perfect for a beach read :) I loved the activities and promotional events depicted in the novel. The characters were a bit one-dimensional, but still quite lovable. I particularly liked Alyn's younger brother, Danny, and her pug, Quiggley.

My Grade: C+. All in all, not a bad read... but not as good as I expected either.

Another 30 Day Blog Challenge!

Hello everyone :)

So coming back from vacation, I thought I'd have so many things to share with you all... and I do. However, it seems that my blogging mojo has deserted me again. Sigh. Even sadder, it seems I'm not the only one - Ames too :( In a bid to find our blogging mojo, we're turning to the 30 Day Blog Challenge again. Last time, Ames was the host... so it's only fair I'm hosting this time :) Any other takers?

Basically, we just want to get back into the routine of blogging by posting something everyday. It can be short, long, book-related or not. It can be a picture, a video, a thought. As long as a post goes up :)

So for the next month, you can expect to hear about books, Chinese dramas and Rio Olympics from me!! Stay tuned!

30 Days Blog Challenge - Complete!!

Woohooo!! I made it!! With this post, I complete my 30 Days Blog Challenge!! Yay me!!

Okay, so I missed one day, but that's acceptable. 30 days of blogging out of 31... for someone who's been having such a hard time, it's awesome! :) Big thank you to Ames for the challenge!! Also, thanks to everyone who participated to the challenge, visited and left comments :) You made a difference!

I'm pretty happy because out of the 30 posts, I have 7 reviews and 11 books related posts. So more than half were about books :) Which is pretty much what I wanted! Now that the challenge is over, I know I'm not going to be blogging daily. It was really hard to come up with relevant topic everyday ^_^; However, for sure, I found my groove and will do it more regularly! :) I'm really excited about it and I think that's what I was missing for so long... That little spark of excitement :)

On that note, I'm leaving you with some nice pictures... In the past month, I was able to blog about another of my hobbies, Chinese dramas :) In one of the post, I mentioned one of my favorite Chinese actor, Yuan Hong. Well, he got married last week-end!! Check out some of the pictures!! 

They make such a pretty couple! His wife is also an actress; however, I'm unfamiliar with her. They were a pretty low-key couple. I heard they were dating... at the beginning of this year IIRC. Can't believe they already got married :)

Loved Yuan Hong's groomsmen!! So handsome... and Hu Ge was one of them! One Chinese tradition is for the groom to go and pick up the bride. Usually, the bridesmaids and bride's good friends will block the groom's passage in order to evaluate his worth through some challenges :P Groomsmen usually help the groom out... It was fun to see Yuan Hong's groomsmen come prepared with bags and equipment. They look like agents on a mission LOL.

In the end, they did succeed in getting the bride! :) Congrats to the couple!!

30 Day Blog Challenge

Pffff, pffff.

That's the sound of me blowing away the cobwebs on my blog ^_^; Obviously, my resolution to figure a balance between curling and blogging didn't work out as I wished. Although I have to say this year, curling was really all-consuming... but more on that later :)

The bright side is I've been reading, especially now that the curling season is over... and I've been debating for a few weeks whether to give the blog another go. I really dislike dropping off the side of the earth and then, making a comeback. Just how many comebacks can one make? This time around, I really considered calling it quits... but this blog and the community were such a huge part of my life once upon a time, that I'm not ready to turn my back completely yet. So let's try one more time!

So I was talking with Ames earlier this week and she wishes to blog more consistently as well. She's come up with a challenge for herself: 30 Day Blog Challenge. So I'm going to jump in with her. I think perhaps a way to have me blog more consistently, even throughout the curling season, is perhaps changing the direction of this blog. I've never been shy to blog about my life, but I always tried to keep it very book-related... but perhaps do half-half now? Anyway, I guess I'll figure it out! Especially if I'm to blog everyday now :)

So here we go for the next 30 days! Well technically, 31 days in May! And I'll up the ante and try to throw in a review and another book-related post a week :)