Heated Rivals- Katee Robert

 Here we go, my first book review! Today's review: Heated Rivals by Katee Robert, book 2 in the O'Malley series, previously published as The Wedding Pact.

Let me start by saying Katee Robert is my absolute favorite author. She's genuinely the best romance author I've ever read, and I love her work! Neon Gods was my favorite thus far, but that's not the topic of this post. I can write one on Neon Gods if you'd like!

All that being said, this book wasn't my favorite. Dark Succession, the book before this one was, in my opinion, better. Don't get me wrong, there was still a LOT of spice. I let my friend read a spicy section and they were blushing really hard and told me they weren't expecting it to be so graphic! While this book can be read as a standalone, the prequel helps set up the story a little bit more and explains some of the characters that were mentioned. For example, Teague and Callie and their wedding are mentioned in this book, but to truly understand why that's necessary you probably should read Dark Succession.

Personally, this book took me a bit of time to read, and I almost didn't finish it. Partly because I've been super busy with classes, but also because the beginning of the book didn't quite catch my interest immediately. I was super excited for this read because the last book was so good. This one was a bit of a slow-builder, which isn't inherently bad, but it felt slower than the first book.

Carrigan O'Malley is a very well-written character. She's a strong female main character who won't take any shit, and I love that for her. She initially really annoyed me because she would go out so often and she was so hard-headed, but I do appreciate her thirst for freedom. I grew to love her and feel bad for her feeling so trapped. In the end, I was definitely rooting for her. She's a character that has so many emotions to feel and not enough space or time to feel them, and sometimes I really relate to that.

James Halloran. What a man. I definitely don't bat for that team, but I can appreciate a good male main character. He's strong and comes from a not-so-good family, but he wants to do better, and I respect that. The poor guy has gone through so much, and at times the book was definitely a tear-jerker. He's the kind of guy that can pull at your heartstrings on one page and make you blush on the next.

I will say the steamy scenes in this book were definitely spicy. The explicitness of it had me clutching my proverbial pearls. The whole "use your words" sort of idea was HOT. Every time James called Carrigan "lovely", you KNEW some shit was gonna go down. It got very hot, very fast. I was reading this book during class and let me tell you, that was not the best idea sometimes. Jesus. I had to fan myself down! The spicy scenes weren't necessarily many, but what they lacked in quantity was definitely made up in quality. The enemies-to-lovers trope worked out really well in this book, and the end made it worth it.

The overall plot of the book was easy enough to understand. Aside from the slow-build, it was easy to get. The major plot twist really didn't come until later in the book, and it wasn't major, but it was enough to make me gasp and pause for a second. I don't want to give anything away, but there was absolutely a big betrayal from someone. It was almost expected though, because Carrigan (and frankly everyone) didn't really trust him to begin with, but it was still shocking.

At times, the story felt a little confusing, at least in terms of who's point of view we were watching. The book isn't in first-person point of view, but it does switch between the characters' lives. There were a few points where it wasn't exactly clear, but those times were when James and Carrigan were together, so it didn't really matter, but it detracted from the overall feel because of the slight confusion.

I think overall I'd give this book a solid 7/10. I'd read it again for sure, but it isn't my favorite book of Robert's that I've ever read.

That's all I have for you today! See ya for the next one!