About
Hot, hilarious, feel-good romance from the USA Today Bestselling author of Magnificent Bastard.
I was her first love, and I’m going to be her last…
On paper, I’ve got it all—good looks, good friends, a killer business, and gorgeous women throwing themselves at me from every corner of the globe. But I still can’t get one woman out of my f*cking head.
Her. Adeline Klein, the sexiest little smart ass in wire-rimmed glasses and a polka-dot bikini to ever bring a man to his knees.
God, she was something….
But I’m pretty sure she hates me. I’ve tried to track her down, but it’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. Then one day there she is—stranded on the side of the road, waiting for rescue, like Fate has arranged for me to be her knight in shining armor all over again.
Only she would clearly prefer to kick me in the balls. Or the face. Or maybe the balls and the face simultaneously. But do I let that keep me from making her come on the slopes or dampen the fire that flares between us every time we touch?
No way. Because some things—like sweet, wounded women with hearts of gold and souls of pure platinum—are worth fighting for.
Meant For You is a steamy Standalone second chance romance with a swoony HEA.
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Review
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. But it didn’t quite work for me. I’ve read a few of Valente’s previous work and loved those, but this one didn’t click with me as I hoped it would.
Valente does a solid job with her writing and manages to keep things flowing very smoothly. I couldn’t connect with the characters and story, itself. There were some moments that seemed so odd to have.
Like many, I’m a fan of second chance romances, when two fall so deeply in love and something happens, flash forward to a few years later. I love learning what happens in that time apart, the pain they have to work through to get back to each other again. If anything, I appreciate the journey.
Addie and Nate first meet when their teenagers on a summer of freedom and fun. Both with obligations and catering to their parents wants and needs, they keep their relationship a secret from them. Addie is so young and innocent at sixteen, while Nate is soon to head off to college. Well, they both are, Addie is an extremely smart girl who skipped a couple of grades.
Once it gets closer to the end of summer, their love for each other is evident, but things happen and they parted ways on not so great of terms.
Now it’s present time and fate brings them back together. A lot of questions need to be answered and so many other things need to be said between Addie and Nate.
I guess in some stories we see this a lot now when something happens in their teenage years that dictate how their adult life ends up. I felt for Addie a little, she endured so much at such a young age that Nate couldn’t quite amount to. But once we see adult Addie, girlllllll, you have to stand up for yourself a bit more. Can’t be a doormat, girly. Nate, well I wish he tried harder to find her.
Some of my favorite moments were the texting scenes, they’re quite hilarious and the connection these characters had are kind of crazy.
I’m still a fan of Valente’s work, but this one didn’t quite hit it out of the ballpark for me.
**ARC provided for honest review**
Excerpt
Seconds later, I land flat on my back with an oof that’s echoed by the sled as it slaps down a few feet away and shivers across the snow to spin in a lazy circle near a very large rock. I’m staring at the rock, thinking about how much worse things would be right now if I’d fallen on it instead of the snow, and silently thanking the gods of sledding that I’m alive, when I hear a male voice shout—
“Fuck! Shit! Shit!”
—from somewhere overhead.
A moment later a steerable sled shoots off the ledge, soaring over my head to ram into a tree, splintering to pieces.
I flinch and cough, the breath rushing back into my lungs. I’m trying to roll over, figuring I’d better get up before my luck runs out and someone lands on top of me, when Nate’s head pops up above the snow bank. “Adeline! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
My eyes narrow. “You.”
“Stay there, I’ll be right down,” he says, clearly not realizing that he’s the last person I want to see while I’m lying in the snow in a defeated heap.
“I don’t need help,” I call out, but I don’t try to get up again. I’ve already embarrassed myself enough in front of Nate. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me wallow around in a snowdrift like an artic walrus.
In what feels like no time, he’s found his way down to the scene of my humiliation and fallen to his knees beside me. “Just lie still.” The concern on his face as he tugs off his gloves is almost funny. Too bad I’m not in the mood to laugh anymore. “I have first aid training. Not a lot, but enough to see if anything’s broken. Can you tell me where it hurts?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I insist, still making no move to rise. “I’m fine. You can leave.”
He scowls, and his eyes flash the way they do when he’s angry. Or turned on. Or maybe angrily turned on, though I’ve never personally seen him in that state. “You just sledded off a goddamned ledge, Adeline,” he says, voice rough. “And you’re not moving.”
“I don’t feel like moving,” I say stubbornly. “I’m enjoying a rest in the snow. So go away, Nate. Go, go, go away, and don’t come back another day.”
His breath rushes out. “That’s mature.”
“Yeah? Well, screw mature,” I say, the heat in my tone surprising me. “I did mature. I did all the mature while you were off hitting keg parties. I don’t have to do mature right now, and I don’t have to talk to you. So go away!”
Nate’s jaw clenches and I’m pretty sure he’s about to lose his temper in a fashion unlike anything I’ve seen from him before.
Instead he leans in, wrapping his hands around my wrists, pinning them to the snow. “I’m not going away,” he whispers inches from my lips, making my pulse spike. “Not until you let me get through to you, one way or another.”
“If you kiss me, I’m going to bite you,” I warn, heart racing.
“Fine by me. I like it when you bite.” And then he kisses me. He kisses me hard and deep and my stupid body lights up like a California brush fire.
My nerve endings ignite, and fireworks launch behind my closed eyes, and I moan into his mouth like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to my lips. And he is, the bastard. He tastes so good, so incredibly good, like the first drink of water after hours spent boiling in the summer heat—fresh and clean and explosively delicious.
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Author Bio
U.S.A. Today Bestselling author Lili Valente has slept under the stars in Greece, eaten dinner at midnight with French men who couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths on their food, and walked alone through Munich’s red light district after dark and lived to tell the tale.
These days you can find her writing in a tent beside the sea, drinking coconut water and thinking delightfully dirty thoughts.
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