The Hero and the Hacktivist by Pippa Grant

This book is... crazy. Just nuts. And yet... still sort of fun. The craziness palled after a little bit but it was still a good Grant book.

Rhett Elliot is the brother of a previous heroine in the Girl Band series. He is just looking for someone to hook up with for a night at his sister's wedding. Eloise Jayne (probably her name... well, maybe) is the only single bridesmaid and she seems like she might be down to... well. So they find a room and complete the deed. At least, she does. But then Parker (the sister/friend) comes in before Rhett can really get off. From there, it seems like their relationship should be over. It was a one night stand.

But Rhett is sort of hooked. He is used to chaos, as a Navy SEAL. But his team ran into a problem (that is sort of described but not really) and it seems like the life he loved is no longer attainable. Eloise, however, seems to create her own chaos. 

Eloise isn't as interested in a relationship but she could use the help of a SEAL. She is a hacker-activist (hactivist) who is going after an MLM marketer who is bilking women out of millions of dollars. But the marketer is fighting back and Rhett might be the only person who can help. 

Three stars

This book came out November 9th, 2018

Girl Band #4

Follows Rockaway Bride

Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle Unlimited October 2024, January 2026

Beauty and the Beefcake by Pippa Grant

We've met Ares Berger in previous books in the series. He's tall. He's a brute. He doesn't talk very much. Nor do we see him talk a lot in this book. But Felicity Murphy talks enough for both of them. She's a talented ventriloquist and incredibly smart but (according to her parents) hasn't quite figured out what she wants to do with her life. Many Master's Degrees but she hasn't found a job. Partly because she hasn't found her niche but mostly because her life goal is to work for the Thrusters, the team her brother Nick and Ares both play for. Well, usually. Right now Ares is out with a severely sprained ankle. So Nick volunteers their grandmother's house as a place for him to recuperate knowing that, not only is Felicity studying to be a physical therapist thus being valuable to Ares, but she could use some muscle to protect her from a stalker-ish ex-boyfriend.
Not as good as other books in the series; Ares is fun and Felicity is fine but why the focus on the men that she attracts. So much attention paid to that. Still crazy pants on the Grant level but the fun just isn't quite there

Three and a half stars

Copper Valley Thrusters #3

Follows Royally Pucked

Followed by Charming as Puck

This book came out May 17th, 2018

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle Unlimited ebook October 2024, as Audible book December 2025

The Pilot & the Puck-Up by Pippa Grant

This book is... I'm having trouble describing it. It's the best kind of bat crap crazy. Zeus Berger is one of the famous Berger twins who tear up the hockey rink. We meet him as he enters a club wearing a tight skirt, high heels, and a girdle. I think it's because there's a bet? But it may just be that he wants to shock all of the people who are trying to show off how much money they've donated before participating in a golf tournament the next day. And Zeus, wearing heels, clocks in at over seven feet so he is a sight to behold. When he is dared to pick up a woman, his friends point out Joey Diamonte.

Introducing herself as Fireball, Joey is at this fundraiser under duress. She's not normally the front person for her zero gravity company, she's the pilot. But Peach has to be at her grandmother's surgery so Joey is at this incredibly boring charity event, trying to drum up an investor who will help take her company to the next level. And she thinks Chase Jett might be that man; but his friend Zeus keeps distracting her. The man is HOT.

The shenanigans in this book start from the opening page and just continue from there including ordering pizza in to the fundraiser, golfing with cans, and more. If you need something to read that is bananapants but still somehow makes you care about the character, this is your book.

Four stars

The Copper Valley Thrusters #1

This book came out February 16th, 2018

Followed by Royally Pucked

Ebook borrowed from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread from Kindle Unlimited October 2024, as Audible book December 2025

Rockaway Bride by Pippa Grant

What do you do when your manager runs away with all your money? This on top of the fact that your father's health is failing, your band's tour got canceled due to low sales, and one of your bandmates is missing? Well, getting drunk and stealing his fiancee probably isn't a good idea. But that's what Dax Gallagher does. 

Willow Honeycutt lives a pretty normal life as a preschool teacher in New York. Okay, yes, her step-father is the king of a small country but she herself is perfectly normal. She does play in an all-girl boy band cover band but perfectly normal. So when she decides to run away from her wedding the night before it happens, then finds out that her fiance actually dumped her first, she has sort of an existential breakdown. Kidnapped? Eh, not really. Willow is smarter than Dax and a better fighter than Dax so she soon becomes the brains of the operation, dragging him along on her bucket list trip around Europe. 

This book is crazy sauce. Absolutely crazy sauce. In the best kind of way. Believable? No. Enjoyable? Highly. I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Three and a half stars

Girl Band #3

This book came out June 29th, 2018

Follows Stud in the Stacks

Followed by The Hero and the Hacktivist

Royals #2

Follows Royally Pucked

Followed by A Royally Inconvenient Marriage

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle Unlimited book October 2024, Audible December 2025

Stud in the Stacks by Pippa Grant

Parker Elliott needs a boyfriend so she bids on Tarzan at a bachelor auction. She doesn't win him but she convinces him to pretend to be her boyfriend at her 20-year high school reunion. Her boss is pushing her to go so that they can land her former husband (and isn't THAT a story) as a client. Too bad she accidentally closets herself in a men's room with Tarzan. And that's before she realizes she actually used to babysit him.

Knox Moretti loves two things - romance novels and his job as a librarian. He even writes a blog as Mr. Romance. And it's that blog that gets him in trouble at work (although his boss wants him gone anyway...). So he'll take Parker on as his fake fiancee (much more stable than dating) and maybe they can help each other. 

There were parts that I found more cringe-worthy than funny but overall a fast-fun-and-fluffy book.

Three and a half stars

Follows Mister McHottie

Followed by Rockaway Bride

This book came out January 5th, 2018

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as ebook from Kindle Unlimited September 2024, from Audible December 2025

Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs

Leah and Bran's relationship has been touched on in past books but the origins of it have remained murky. It is cleared up a little bit in this story when Leah's past comes to haunt her present. 

The book opens with Leah, Rachel, Sage, and Anna on a girls' outing some time before the beginning of the last book. They are having some drinks (although alcohol doesn't affect werewolves) when Sage gets Leah to open up a little bit about how the two became mated. And even just this section proves Briggs' mastery of timelines as she deftly bobs and weaves between the past and present of two overlapping series.

This new story sends Charles and Anna along with the berserker, Tag, to the California mountains where a whole town has disappeared. They were there one week after being checked on by the Forest Service and then... gone. An old evil has popped up again and is joining forces with a group that has had past interactions with both the Alpha and the Omega as well as the Columbia pack.

I wish we had seen a little bit more with Bran and Leah. After the big set up of learning more about her past, we don't see a lot of them. Of course, the series does focus more on Anna and Charles so that makes some sense.

Four stars

Follows Burn Bright

Gifted an ebook on Kindle

This book came out March 16th, 2021

Opinions are my own

Spring by Janis McCurry and Lynn Mapp

I hadn't read any of The Matchmaker Chronicles before but the premise always sounded like a good one and I thought the cover of this was really cute. Even though this is book four, I didn't feel lost about characters even without an info dump. I was even a little disappointed that it seemed like this was the end of the series.

Matchmakers Maggie and Rina are flummoxed. They've been asked to help Christie find a husband... but not for love. Instead, she wants to get her hands on shares of a medical supply company that her uncle is threatening to sell off but she wants to keep it in the family (as well as make sure that their employees still have a job).

The man she's decided to match herself with is one of Rina's sons who needs the money to develop a gaming theater which sounds REALLY cool. 

Both Christie and Aaron were very mature and I really wish that there had been a little more conversation between the two of them but were some other stories competing for page space. Maggie has her own B plot with a man named Joe who is a world traveler but seems to be settling down. It was nice to see. There was also a side plot of a waitress meeting a wealthy man who is hiding who he is that would have been nice as its own book.

Three stars

This book came out March 18th, 2021

Follows Winter

ARC kindly provided by Mapp & McCurry LLC and NetGalley

Opinions are my own